The moon slips out from behind its cloud cover, illuminating the drool dripping from the vampire's mouth. Its funeral clothes are already torn from its struggle out of the coffin, dirt smearing its features, clogging its hair and eyebrows. Already warmed up from two others Buffy's attacks are skillfully precise, each punch exploding another puff of dirt into the air.
Two kicks, a backhand, and an uppercut dazzles it enough to stall its attack—fangs glinting wetly in the moonlight as it blinks in a daze—before it bursts into dust from the stake protruding from its thorax.
Ok. Buffy heaves out a satisfied sigh, stretching her back muscles out with an arch of her spine, as endorphins sparkle in her bloodstream. That felt good.
Good, solid workout. Giles' would be happy with that.
Despite the twinge of regret his absence brings, she savors the momentary feeling of victory.
Been a while since I felt like that after a slay. It wasn't such a chore this time.
The night air is crisp and pleasantly cool, and she takes a deep breath in. The scent of freshly dug earth doesn't bother her like it did nearly two weeks ago. Doesn't cloy and block her windpipe with its claggy scent. Instead, it mingles companionably with the smell of wet grass, a strangely peaceful perfume that accompanies the cemetery's reinstated silence.
Too silent, actually.
"Spike?" Buffy calls out, twirling the stake in her fingers. The grunts and huffs of a fight in motion no longer ripple the air, no sounds of him walking across the gravestones or on the gravel path either. She'd been too caught up in her own slay to register when those noises had stopped.
"Spike?" She tries again slightly louder. Nothing.
A sinking feeling seeps down her gullet. What if he lost? She'd never know, there'd be no… body or- there'd be no nothing and-
"Spike!" she shouts, turning to look in the other direction-
And nearly spins straight into him.
"Boo." He chuckles as she yelps in shock.
After a moment to rodeo her heartbeat back into a normal tempo, she thumps him hard on the arm, biting back the relief that his sudden appearance caused. "You scared the crap out of me, I thought you'd gotten yourself evaporated."
His eyebrows raise just a fraction. "Aw, look at you, heart all aflutter for my safety," he purrs, a tight-lipped smirk pulling his mouth wide. "Cute."
"Hey, nothing's fluttering," she grumbles, dusting off her sweater as though molecules of ex-vampire were clinging to it. "I just didn't know where you were. PS It's a cliche to be all silent stalker-y in a graveyard."
"I wasn't stalking," he says with a mock pout. "I was testing a theory."
"I dread to ask," she huffs as they fall into step together, leaving dewy tracks in the grass. "What theory?"
He shoots her a side glance, and she catches him studying her for a couple of seconds, a calculating look in his eyes. "You said you used to get… vampire tinglies?" he asks as she turns to look at him openly.
Buffy nods. "Yeah, at the back of my neck. Dusty Springfield back there set them off big time. I go all buzzy but not in a fun way."
He's quiet for a beat. She raises an eyebrow as if to prompt him and he cocks his head thoughtfully back at her. "But not with me?"
She stops. "Oh." She considers the lack of prickled-up hairs at the nape of her neck where nerve endings usually sirened out over the approach of anything with too many teeth and forehead bumps. "No… I guess not." She shrugs, walking out through the cemetery gates. "Maybe 'cause you're not a threat."
"Hey! I'm very threatening!"
"Pfft," Buffy chuckles, relishing the way it makes Spike's jaw clench, the way he pretends to be more offended than he is. "Maybe it's just because you're around so much now."
Spike smiles, touched at the implication he was expected to be there extensively. "Maybe."
They carry on in companionable silence until they reach the main street.
"You've got the book list, right?" Buffy asks as they head towards Giles' house, their steps perfectly matched to each other in a casual, unhurried gait.
"Yup."
"Giles didn't tell you what he wanted it for?"
"No, and I didn't probe. Got a bit of a sense that he didn't wanna talk about it. Whatever's going on it's probably a good thing it's on the other side of the planet."
Buffy hums in consideration, worrying her lip. She hadn't spoken to Willow in weeks, and though that thought gives her endless guilt, a small selfish part of her feels relieved that this time it was not her problem to fix. Giles can handle it. And handle it somewhere else, far away from her and Dawn.
At the front door of Giles' home, Buffy squats down on the balls of her feet, brushing aside the leaves of a potted plant to get to the hide-a-key lock panel.
"What's the code?" Spike asks nonchalantly, peering down at her as she thumbs the number in on the keypad.
"I'm not telling you that," Buffy smirks, glancing up at the clearly affronted look on his face.
"Why not?"
"Look, Buster, either I'm here with you, or you're not here at all."
"God you're uptight," he grumbles, leaning against the wall as she extracts the spare key. "Giles asked me to get the sodding books, Slayer. I don't need babysitting."
"Bitch all you like," she retorts as she gets the door open. "You've got sticky fingers and a very gray set of morals, especially when it comes to other people's property."
Spike opens his mouth to protest, then reevaluates her words and shrugs in agreement, before following her in.
"Ok, list-list-list," Buffy says, snapping her fingers. Spike slaps it into Buffy's palm with an eye roll as she smooths the wrinkles out of the paper.
She squints, struggling to read the elegant cursive written in watermelon-scented toxic-waste green.
Horis's Verba Mortis and Wakeman's Verba Vitae
Rituals and Summonings Part VIII - Oceanus-Osiris
Black Magicks; A Compendium.
Bright's Prophecies and Predictions; Common Text
"Cool, only four books-" she says cheerfully.
"Five," corrects Spike as he shrugs out of his duster, depositing it over the sofa. "Horis and Wakeman are separate volumes."
"Still: easy," Buffy nods, internally bouncing at the thought that they'd be in and out. Grab the books and go home. The TV guide had said there was a Peanuts marathon on and she's keen to catch it for a bit of light Spike mockery. The way he glares when she makes fun of him was becoming more than addictive. "Did he tell you where they were?" she asks.
Spike doesn't look up from the pile of books he's started rummaging through on Giles' desk. "No."
Buffy turns to look at him. "...But you do know where they are, right?"
"Nope," he mumbles back as he reads the spine of a crumbling volume, discards it, and picks up another.
Buffy blinks. "But you stayed here! For… ages!"
"Not as his archivist, luv." Spike smirks at her bewildered pout.
"But…" Buffy turns in place at the numerous shelves of books stacked several layers deep, the boxes on the floor and on the coffee table, and heaped on the desk.
On the stairs leading up to the bedrooms where there are certainly more books, and boxes of books, and shelves of books.
"...But…"
This is going to take forever! Forever and ever! And EVER!
"Oi, would you stop spinning, you look like a ballerina in a jewelry box," he says with a hand on her shoulder. "Quit slacking and pick a bloody heap, Slayer."
"But forever, it's going to take forever," Buffy groans, as she plonks herself down on the sofa, pulling the closest box towards her.
They order pizza, and search in relative silence for a while until-
"Ah-hah!" shouts Buffy, holding up a mangy black volume with silver embossment. "Black Magicks! First point to me!"
"It's not a competition," Spike mumbles around half a pizza slice from his end of the sofa, tucking his legs before she climbs across them.
"He said losing-ly," she grins and skips to put the book on the kitchen sidebar.
Spike snorts, and ever so slightly picks up the pace. They finish the living room and move on to the books littering the stairs, Spike working his way down as Buffy works her way up.
"Wakeman!" he calls triumphantly, tucking a vellum-bound book under his arm, "and Horis," he cracks a grin as he finds the second book underneath. He nearly dislodges a stack on his way down the stairs to deposit his finds on top of the first book.
"And Bright's!" Buffy calls almost immediately after, scrabbling off the stairs to add to the heap too. "Just gotta find the tie-breaker."
They hunt.
And hunt and hunt and hunt. Bedrooms and bathrooms and cupboards. Then under the sofa and in kitchen cabinets. Searching through every heap and bookcase and box twice.
Eventually Buffy flops down on the sofa with a huff, exhausted. "You think he really needs that last one?" she whines. "Like really needs it? Super necessary?"
"Dunno, I'm past caring," Spike grumbles as he stretches out at the other end of the sofa, crossing his legs in her lap. He rubs a knuckle into an eye socket. "I feel like I've got book dust lodged under my eyelids."
"We could come back with Tara tomorrow?" Buffy suggests hopefully, over keen to get away from the tedious scavenger hunt. "Gather reinforcements?"
Spike nods. "Good call," he grunts, sitting back up and lifting the pizza box to take it to the kitchen. "Oh, you pillock!" he laughs as Buffy pulls at a knot in her neck. He picks up a slim leather-bound volume with a flourish. "Rituals and Summonings! You put the bloody pizza box on top of it."
Buffy lets out a relieved sigh. "Oh thank God."
"I win," he crows, bouncing it off Buffy's skull on his way to collect the rest of the book pile.
Buffy snorts, rubbing the place the book had ricocheted off. "Shame I'm fresh out of stolen gel pens for your trophy," she says as she levers herself out of the sofa's sinkhole cushions.
"Well, I'm sure I can think of something else for my prize," Spike smirks as he shrugs his coat on, tucking the book pile under one arm.
And Buffy under the other.
"You're taking the books now?" Buffy asks, wincing slightly at the sight of Spike slugging down a blood pack from the fridge, left by Tara with a note taped to the plastic. Simply: Pig, bought Thursday.
"Know a demon that works for USPS. Gonna drop them round and get them sent first thing tomorrow," he mumbles between slurps. "Better than queuing at the Post Office, luv. Think interactions with soul-sucking hellholes should be an on-the-job occurrence only, yeah?"
Buffy snorts, and fishes out a cardboard box from the recycling that's big enough for the books to be cradled in a nest of bubble wrap.
Spike finishes the last of the blood and dumps the pack in the trash before hefting the box under his arm and departing through to the living room.
He stops briefly to thank Tara for the free meal before opening the front door.
"S-Spike-" Buffy stutters, catching him before he closes it behind him. "Um-" she roots in one of the drawers of the bureau until she finds what she's looking for. "Here," she hands out the spare key to him. He takes it, mouth slightly open as if speechless and she shrugs awkwardly. "It's just easier than you always climbing the tree."
"Sure," he says managing a bashful grin but the bewildered, all too overwhelmed look doesn't leave his eyes. He pockets the key and clears his throat. "Cheers."
The door shuts and Buffy rolls her eyes at how painfully awkward she'd managed to make that. She turns and freezes like a deer in the headlights under Tara's amused gaze.
"You gave him a key?" she asks with a slight eyebrow raise, barely there at all.
"Wha-I-maybe," Buffy says as she pulls her sleeves down over her hands. "He just- he'll be coming back and-"
"And you like him?" Tara smiles in an unusually knowing way, blowing on her cup of tea.
"Ok," Buffy says in a let-me-just-stop-you-right-there tone, "I do not 'like Spike' that's… that'd be-" Buffy gestures with loopy fingers to indicate batshit crazy.
"Fine." Tara finishes for her.
"What?"
"It'd be fine," Tara clarifies with a half-shrug. "He's sort of nice."
Buffy blinks, stunned. 'Spike' and 'nice' had been said intentionally in the same sentence. With a straight face. And what was even more bizarre… was that she was sort of in agreement.
"You think he's nice?" she queries, still bewildered by the statement.
"I said sort of," Tara smirks lightly as she takes a sip of her tea. "Are you two…?" she trails off suggestively.
"No!" Buffy protests, but finds herself swallowing down a lump in her throat.
"...But?" Tara prompts, sensing there's more than just a thinly veiled denial there. There's denial on top of that denial.
Buffy bites her lip and casts a glance at the front door. A weird sort of longing is pulling under her ribcage. It feels unbearably like a craving. Like wanting something she shouldn't. "Yeah," she clears her throat after how tight that word came out "But." She nods like that's the whole sentence. Her heart clenches protectively, waiting for the instantaneous barrage of "are you out of your mind!?" and "he's a monster!" and "no soul!"
But they don't come. Instead, Tara just smiles, softly—strangely pleased looking—as she turns back to her program about mountain lions.
