Monday, May 7th, Day 11
Spent all weekend drinking and fantasizing over a few more ways on how I killed Doc and save Buffy from having to jump off that tower. Honest to God I really didn't feel much of anything all weekend but now that Monday's here and believe me I know it's Monday because Giles came storming into my crypt this morning with two bloody frying pans. I was sprawled out on the floor on the crypt's lower level. Out cold from all that drinking.
But when he started banging those two pans together and yelling and shouting at me to get up and get moving…
Leave it to a librarian to know how to make a racket equivalent of sodden D-Day.
Quick recap.
Last time I saw him, or any of them, was at the burial. Now it was held that night and was only delayed by the amount of time it took for yours truly to get a suitable coffin. Obviously we couldn't wait long on the burial. For Dawn's sake no one outside our group and Angel's little fag gang in LA could know of Buffy's passing.
She died that morning and was buried that same night.
The coffin was my job – as all illegal jobs are.
Broke into one of Sunnydale's many funeral homes (it is a thriving business after all) and managed to steal a coffin that looked to be about her size – color and finish really weren't a top priority. Loaded it onto the Whelp's pickup and we rode out towards the woods behind Restfield Cemetery, my cemetery.
Even though they only chose the place so that I could keep a better eye on it for safety's sake it was still, to me, a very honorable gesture. That over the past year the group had come to trust me so much. A trust which I promise never to break because I knew that once upon a time they had trusted another vampire as well and even though I'm not him I can still take a gander as to just how hard it was for them to allow me that. And unlike him I'll be damned if I ever toss it aside and pack up my bags and leave.
They knew how much I had cared for her and that whatever I felt – FEEL – however misguided it is… it's real. So naturally they gave me my space and allowed me to grieve in my own manner but apparently not in my own time. As much as I would have loved to have broken into a liquor store later that night and get royally pissed good ole Rupes had other ideas.
"Get your undead arse up you bloody vampire!"
No really, his words exactly. This string of words, along with many of curses, and banging of pots and pans followed until I finally managed to get up and forcefully hold his hands back from anymore banging.
"What the hell do you want?"
"Dress yourself and take the sewers to my flat. From there we will continue this discussion."
With that he climbed back up the ladder and left. Mad as I was I knew Giles wouldn't be so abrupt and up front about a thing like this unless it was important. So I did as he asked and made my way there upon which I was even more surprised when he told me to go take a shower while he washed and dried my clothes.
Apparently I smelled like a "…cross between a pile of shetland manure and a rank piece of mango fruit."
Offended as I was I decided it was best not to argue and instead just do as was told. As I stood there in the shower thinking about what was going on it began to dawn on me that whatever Giles was up to he wasn't in it by himself. The group must have had some sort of meeting and decided that whatever was to happen I had a definite role to play.
Apparently the role didn't involve being drunk at the bottom of a hole and smelling like a dead corpse.
Bit redundant that.
After I got out of the shower I found a frilly pinkish robe thing awaiting me on a door hook with a little post it note reading "KEEP IT."
Apparently my taking showers and washing my clothes here were to be somewhat of a regular occurrence.
The robe was a bit on the short side and must've been left by one of those birds he had been seeing a might back but it worked and so I walked out and made my way to the kitchen. Having been Giles' "house guest" for a month had given me a good idea as to where everything was and wasn't too surprised when I found a bag of pigs blood waiting for me in the fridge.
"There's also some tea in the kettle," Giles said from the living room. "Once you fix yourself some breakfast please be good enough to join me out here will you."
"Right," I say and after fixing myself one mug of blood and another of tea, Earl Gray I note, I make my way over to the sitting chair adjacent to the couch where Giles was sitting and drifting through a paper.
"Don't suppose that holds the latest Manchester United scores does it?"
"I'm afraid not," Giles said.
"Then are those funny pictures spelling any laughs?"
"Hardly," Giles said and placed the paper down on the coffee table. After taking a sip of his tea he lowered his glasses and gave me a long look. "Well at least you don't smell like a corpse anymore."
"What?"
"Well a French corpse then."
"Whatever Rupes," I say and take a look at the section he was reading. The obituaries, not surprised, but I do take note of three specific deaths that he had circled in blue ink all three of which came from massive neck trauma.
"Even though she is gone the Hellmouth is still here and therefore evil is still here, present company excluded of course."
"Hey!"
"Well really Spike. If I had any notion that you would kill me right here, pain chip aside, do you think I would've invited you in, cleaned you up, and fed you breakfast?"
"You think I give a piss about the big picture? The fight between good and evil?"
"No I don't delude myself with such hopes that you William the Bloody Slayer of Slayers could ever overcome your base wants of violence, sex, and liquor to achieve something more greater and far more remarkable."
"I'm hurt."
"Buffy's dead."
I don't know if it was the way he said it with such utter simplicity as if it were as easy as saying what the day's weather would be or if it was because the sheer thought of her not being alive still stung like the impact of slug to the chest but either way it took all of my restraint, which isn't much mind you, to keep myself from leaping across the table and throttling him right then and there. As he said, pain chip aside, I really don't think I'd stop ripping his throat out until he was bone dry.
"And I know that isn't an easy thing to accept," Giles said as he continued. "And though I'm certain it isn't love your time of grieving is at its end as recent events clearly indicate," he said and gestured to the paper with the circled obituaries.
I pick up the paper to read it more closely and browse through the first two victims but stop on the third.
"Jessica Clarkson," I read, "age fourteen…"
"I believe she was in Dawn's class."
"Yea," I say as I toss the paper back down on the table as if it were suddenly alive. Alive and evil. A monstrosity that didn't care whose its victims were.
"Buffy reacted much like you when she first started reading these articles," Giles said and it was only then did I realize he had been watching for my reaction.
"Just a body," I manage to mutter out and quickly take in a deep gulp of the still steaming tea. Too hot I realize as it burns my throat. Could vamps combust from hot tea?
"Indeed," Giles said with more than a tone of curiosity in his voice. "But in any event Faith is in prison and without a slayer the hellmouth remains unguarded and an open haven for evil everywhere."
"What did the Majestic Poof have to say?"
"Willow went to LA to break the news. She got back late last night with Angel's words of condolences and offer of help should we need it which brings me to that very question. Do we?"
"Do we what?"
"Need his help?" Giles said and gave me a long dissecting look. I may wear my heart on my sleeve but there are times, during cards especially, when I can be pretty damn unreadable and so I put on my best poker face of indifference when in fact I was at a total loss of what to think or how to even feel.
If I was alive I'm pretty sure this sort of shock would be enough to seal my coffin.
I mean unless I was reading this wrong Giles here was giving me the chance to step up and be the, well lack for better terminology, new sheriff in town. Giving me the chance, before Angel, to be the guardian, to be the champ – the champion? Hah that's a riot! And I doubt that Giles would agree to even the other two titles. Then what? Buffy was gone and supposedly, me being evil and what not, that means that there's nothing else left for me here. Except there was. No matter how hard I may try to deny it I had made roots. Connections.
Dawn, for one, I care for just as much as I care for her sister. How could I possibly leave when her world has just gone through hell and for a large part still was? And it wasn't just for her either. For Buffy's memory I would stay and continue on the fight. Those two reasons were definite, concrete, unwavering and more than enough to keep me here but they weren't the only ones. There was something else. Small but whatever it is its still there. Growing too like a bloody infestation inside of me. The hell I'll ever admit to it though.
"I'll give you until sunset to decide," Giles said at last when it became apparent that it would take a bit for me to decide on what to do.
Except that it didn't and as he stood to leave I knew that whatever happened now, for better or worse, my life would forever be changed.
"Wait," I say and he does giving me a look of genuine wonder.
"How can I help?"
"Spike I can't make any monetary-"
"Bollocks! Don't give me that Giles we both know what I mean."
He nodded.
"Forgive me I had to make sure."
"Well yea. I'm in this. For real. Now what the hell do you need me to do?"
He just shook his head, took off his glasses, and gave them that trademark Giles cleaning with the ever present handkerchief.
"Remarkable."
End Entry
