"Reptile Boy"

Takes place at some point after "Get it Done," but prior to "Dirty Girls."

Rated: PG

A/N: This story was begun at some point last year after the death of a TV personality that I and so many others loved. If isn't already clear who that is, it should be by story's end.

The California spring announced itself with persistent showers, and thus a thick mist clouded the well-manicured graveyard, chilling the frightened visitors to the bone.

Somewhere, a hawk-owl called out softly from the pine forest, as if it, too, feared to alarm the creature stirring at the edge of the trees.

Wide, flat feet helped the creature move quietly over the ground, its gleaming scales dripping condensation onto the pine needles. Four curling horns protruded from its square head, molded into a perfect and lethal bayonet. In size, the beast was only as large as a burro, but large claws protruding from the overlapping bronze scales of its feet only served to increase its menace.

The creature turned at a noise from the group of girls walking amongst the tombstones, oval golden eyes focusing on their frightened faces. Curling its lip to snort its pig-like nose at them, the creature inadvertently revealed the white gleam of large, strong teeth.

"It's a Stirwin demon. Big one," Spike commented to the group of Potentials, looking off toward the pines, where the demon in question had gone back to digging under a tree. "Isn't he a beauty?"

"I suppose that depends on whether you define beauty as scaly and horny," quipped Xander from his position, flanking the group of fifteen or so slayers-in-training. "Well, maybe horny," he finished in a quiet aside to himself.

"Look at the size of those horns," Buffy answered, coming forward to a position to face the girls. "Twenty years, at least. And one-two-three-four basal ones means he's a he. I think he's new in town." She leaned one hip up against a gravestone, assuming a casual pose, glancing back to check the demon's position. Clearly, it was ignoring them to the best of its ability, nosing its way into the earth and snuffling. "Probably following the rising stench of Hellmouth activity."

"My Watcher never mentioned Stirwin demons," Kennedy called out from the front of the group. "How do we kill them?"

"Is he digging up a dead body?" squealed the new girl from Florida. For the life of her, Buffy couldn't remember the girl's name. Rose? Violet? She had the vague feeling the girl was named after a flower. Being from Florida, could she be Flora? Spotting the cartoon alligator on the girl's shirt, Buffy decided to go with "Allie."

"No. Being a Stirwin demon, it doesn't like decaying meat. Prefers…tougher delicacies. And besides, he's not digging at a gravestone." From the corner of her eye, she saw Spike's mouth quirk, Xander look down with a small smile. Catching the confused look on Pilar's face, she quickly consulted the yellow handbook in her jacket pocket.

"El demonio esta un Stirwin demonio. El no come carne…decayendo?" Buffy prayed that she hadn't gotten this one wrong. "La punta de entrar," referring to the heart of a vampire, when said incorrectly, became "La puta de entrar." It took thirty more minutes of broken Spanish to convince Pilar not to flee the house, or call the cops in whatever broken English she could muster.

Pilar nodded in understanding, and Buffy sighed in relief and prayed to whatever deity was listening to not send her any Potentials that spoke a language unlisted in the local Barnes and Noble language section.

"He's kind of like an armadillo," said Amanda, a bit wistfully. "An armadillo with horns. Do we have to kill him?"

"So how do we kill it?" Rona took up Kennedy's line with a toss of her cornrows, the question of whether she heard Amanda debatable. "I'm all for something that's long distance. He looks like he smells."

Buffy smiled, and immediately she saw the more experienced of the group pull back a bit, expecting a nasty surprise.

"We're not going to kill him." A murmur rose in the group, but Buffy ignored it for the moment in favor of fulfilling her forgotten requirement. She consulted her dictionary. "Nosotros no matamos el Stirwin demonio." Close enough.

"Por que?" came the thin response.

"But it's a demon," said Rona. "Isn't that kind of, like, our purpose? As in, Slayers?"

Buffy shook her head with a smile. "Our purpose, as Slayers, is to preserve human life from vampires and other demon-related mischief." She began to pace a bit, with the affected casual walk she'd adopted. "Don't let it fool you, as a Slayer, your purpose is death. It's what we do. But we're not mindless killing machines. We don't kill without reason. And that reason is whether it will seek out and harm humans."

"The Stirwin demon," she continued, gesturing back at the olive-furred creature, "doesn't go after humans unless they're trying to go after it. Also, they don't speak, so we can't really ask it to come over and say hello. It's also…ovoviparous." Was that right?

"Well, yes, it's that, and it's also omnivorous," called out Spike, attempting to save face for her. "Feeds mostly on Grot-lak eggs and mushrooms. Given all the rain we've been having, I'd say this fella's looking for mushrooms."

"El demonio esta un vegetariano," supplied Xander. Not quite the truth, but it would suffice.

Buffy took off her jacket, draping it over a nearby tombstone. "Normally, we'd just let this fellow alone and go about our business, but I'd like you to see some of its defenses, and its camouflage, because some of the nasty, human-eating demons have the same thing. Xander, keep the girls back behind this row of tombstones, in case he charges. Spike?"

The vampire rolled his eyes, but shucked his duster all the same, tucking it under an arm with a long-suffering face. Together, they walked quietly over toward the graveyard's edge, doing their best to keep a casual, uninterested front. It didn't work. Long floppy ears pricking, the Stirwin demon didn't raise its head from the burrow, but did stop snuffling, golden eyes focused on them.

"What d'you say, I'll go for the head, you'll get the back?" Spike murmured. Buffy nodded, and they parted, Spike blocking the Stirwin demon's escape into the graveyard, while Buffy closed in from behind.

The creature began to snort, realizing what was about to happen. Too late, for at Spike's nod, Buffy pounced, wrapping both arms around the creature's hindquarters, dragging it down by the hips and getting a faceful of scales in the process. Apparently, bits of filth worked their way between the scales and rotted, so the incident was far from pleasant.

At the same time, Spike went for the demon's head, wrapping the duster around its eyes and getting a firm hold on its horns. Together, as the demon bucked and twisted, they tried to gently wrestle him to the wet earth.

"Hey, hey now. You're all right, you're all right!" Buffy tried to sooth the demon while it pawed helplessly in the air and writhed in a bid for freedom.

"Talkin' to me or the demon, luv?" Spike grunted from where he sat lightly on the withers of the beast, keeping one hand gripped on the demon's horns, the other keeping his duster closed over its eyes, trying to carefully immobilize it.

"Forgot they smelled like this," Buffy moaned, holding the demon's hind legs together to keep him from kicking, deflatedly realizing she was wearing the pair of kicky khakis she'd sworn not to get grass stains or demon guts on. "Been so long since I've come near any of them."

A few more thrashings, and the Stirwin beast lay still, defeated for the moment. Being careful to keep the pressure on the demon, Buffy shifted into a more comfortable position and motioned with a jerk of her head for Xander to lead the girls forward. Gingerly they did so, those in front clapping hands over pinched mouths and wrinkled noses.

"Oh, God, that reeks!" and assorted variations thereof echoed throughout the group.

"Keep your voices down, girls," Spike ordered, "We're trying to keep him as relaxed as possible. He's a wee bit grumpy."

As if to prove a point, the demon jerked its head up, sending one sharp antler up to slice open a long cut along Spike's jawline.

If the girls had been expecting some show of short vampire tempers, they didn't get one. Instead, a rippling laugh like machine-gun fire rolled out of Spike's throat.

"Isn't he a beauty? This one's got a sense of humor!" he gruffed, tightening his grip on the beast nonetheless and forcing its head to the ground, heedless of the blood starting to trace down his throat.

Buffy tried to regain control of the lesson, glancing around for a good victim. "Kennedy! Come over here and place your hand on his side."

Manicured brows rose in disgust. "No way! That thing smells like it's been dead for months."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Kennedy, fighting demons means that you get up, close, and personal with them. You can always wash up after patrol."

Grimacing, Kennedy came forward, waiting until Buffy and Spike had controlled the beast's renewed and twisting struggle before gingerly placing her hand on its scaly hide.

A moment passed.

"See? Nothing happened when Kennedy put her hand on it, because he feels threatened by the touch of another. Now, Kennedy, pull up a handful of grass and sprinkle that on him," Buffy instructed.

Grass clippings fell on the gleaming bronze scales of the Stirwin demon before disappearing, as the demon's scales faded into shades of variegated green and yellow. The bits of grass were definable only by their texture and depth, so complete was the transformation.

"He's like a big chameleon!" breathed Amanda.

"Exactly." Buffy smiled at her in teacher's triumph. "That's why they only venture out into mowed lawns like these when they see mushrooms or something else. They have to be in the cover of grass or woods to do something. Spike, if you could lift up a corner of your coat?"

Readjusting his grip carefully, Spike lifted the lapel covering the demon's neck with a crooked pinky. Underneath, the scales had the dark malevolent gleam of his leather duster.

"And that's all he'd better take with him," the vampire growled.

"If you guys don't mind holding him down, I think I've got a paisley shirt back home that I'd like to try..." Xander began, but subsided at the glare from Buffy as the demon twisted and bucked its legs, breather over.

"Demons can be anywhere, at anytime, and they're usually very well adapted to concealing themselves. It's nature's way," continued Buffy. "Moral of the story? Always be on the lookout. You never know exactly where a hotspot of activity might be."

"Thought we already took them to Willy's," Spike muttered, averting his eyes before Buffy could give him the same glare.

A nod from Buffy, and all the Potentials backed away, guarded by an ax-toting Xander. Hearing the retreat of the crowd, the Stirwin demon tensed under Buffy's grip, waiting a moment of opportunity or the killing blow.

"Count of three?" she murmured. Spike nodded, moving to keep his grip secure while tucking the duster's collar under his thumb.

As one, they released their grips and backed away, Spike whisking his duster away with all the flamboyance of a children's birthday party magician. The demon lay stunned for a fraction of a second before twisting its body in a struggle to get its feet underneath it, before snorting and rearing for the relative safety of the brush.

The group stood in a sort of reverential stillness, listening as the crashing through the wooded area grew fainter, then stopped altogether. Breaking the mood, Spike shook out his duster, sniffing at it and grimacing in disgust before probing the cut along his jaw.

Xander aimed a questioning glance at Buffy, who deflected it, shaking her head. Taking the measure of the group's mood in the sets of small shoulders and glossy pouting lips, he took control.

"History of the World Part I, troops!" he exclaimed, trying for enthusiasm. "Popcorn's on me if you recognize any of the actors besides Mel Brooks. Also, la pelicula muy...chistosa?...tiene...subtitulos, Pilar," he said with a glance toward the girl, who looked immensely relieved.

"Slaying school and real school? At night?" a petulant voice rose from the group.

"I think we have a Mel Brooks virgin!" Xander said, catching the shift in morale. Then - "Oh, wait! I didn't mean for that to be as creepy as it sounded!"

Buffy watched them go, oddly satisfied with the night's lesson, despite the lack of slayage on anyone's part. She turned to watch Spike shake out his duster, but his attention was fixed elsewhere, squinting at something in the distance. Every muscle in her tensed - how could they distract this threat and get the girls to safety?

"What is it?" she whispered, trying to get a better look at what he was staring at, hand reaching for the stake at her waist.

"Hm? Oh, no, no danger," he said hastily, seeing her face. "It's the reason that that demon was so close to the Hellmouth."

Buffy looked in the direction he pointed, and squinted. As carefully as a seal doing a trick, a Stirwin demon was nosing a speckled egg the size of a cantaloupe towards a smaller member of its species. Behind that one, several juveniles rolled in the grass before noticing it and bounding over, batting it between each other like romping kittens.

"There's a missus and sprogs to care for," Spike said quietly.

"I wish more demons were like that," Buffy exhaled, watching the adult beasts nuzzle.

"They are," Spike stated firmly, eyes squarely fixed on the Stirwin demons. "He's got his girl, got his kiddies, got his passion to protect them. Not so much about the soft squishiness as the animal instinct to love and protect." Abruptly he turned and started walking in the direction of the Summers house, carefully not looking back at her.

Buffy watched the little demon family before the ton of bricks hit her.

"Oh!"

She raced to catch up.