It's the end of the world, again. The symbol on the dead guy's body was an end of the world sign, as Giles ominously told the group. Why couldn't the world stay normal, little bits of demons here and there but otherwise boring old Sunnydale, no apocalypse.

Buffy had managed to see the demon whilst it was grabbing child bones, which was apparently part of an ancient ritual to end the world. It uses the blood of a man, the bones of a child, and something called The Word of Valios.

It was decided that Buffy would go to the local magic shop to find out any information on the word of Valios whilst Xander, Willow and Eris would look at the book archives at the museum…after Xander changed out of his anchovy smelling clothes.

Arriving at Xanders parent's house, they headed down to the basement just in time to see Spike trying to fall onto a stake with its point upright and pinned on a table, "what are you doing!?" Willow shouted in surprise right as Spike missed the stake and smashed the table into pieces.

"Blood rot, can't a person knock?" the vampire angrily muttered to himself as he stood up to hide his shame, which only made it worse as he spotted Eris at the back, trying not to laugh when she saw his clothing. How he wished he didn't miss the stake.

"What are you doing?" the witch repeated.

Xander looked at the remains of his table in anger, "you were trying to stake yourself."

"Shove off!" Spike snapped, "its no concern of yours."

"Is too. For one thing, that's my shirt you're about to dust."

"That would be a blessing."

"Shut it Eris, and for another, we've shared a lot here. You should have trusted me enough to do it for you."

Willow looked at Xander disapprovingly, "Xander."

"What? He wants to die. I wanna help him."

"Its ooky. We know him. We can't just let him poof himself," Willow snatched the stake from Xanders hands and held it to herself.

"Oh, but you can," Spike cut in, "you know I'd drain you drier than the Sahara if I had half a chance," he turned his attention to Eris who was standing behind the other two, "I know you want to, probably more than anyone in this room."

Eris looked unsettled, on one hand she would stake him in a heartbeat, but on the other the thought of doing that to someone who wanted it and couldn't fight back seemed wrong, "I don't want to give you the satisfaction," was all she said.

"That's a bunch of bull, you just don't want to kill someone who can't fight back," he spread his arms out, motioning to himself, "I mean look at me, I'm beyond pathetic. Stuck in this basement washing skivvies for a blighter I wouldn't have bothered to bite a few months ago."

"Hey!"

"I mean, am I even remotely scary anymore?" he asked the two women, ignoring Xander's offended shout, "tell me the truth."

The two ladies, now standing next to each other, didn't respond, just stared at him. Even when he tried to be scary, they remained calm, "Well, the shirt is kinda not very threatening. And the short pants-"

"You look like a virgin," Eris interrupted, which earned her a nasty glare from Spike.

"You know firsthand I ain't a virgin."

"Fine, you look like more of a dork than Xander, which is a feat in itself."

"Why am I getting insulted!" the dork said from the floor as he packed weapons into a small duffle bag. "This is stupid, look, we need to go, you break anything else while we're gone and you'll be sleeping in the garage, buster."

"Weird day when Xander is the intimidating one," Eris said with a shake of her head, almost pitying the poor vampire.

Willow spared a pitying look at the vampire, "we can't leave him here like this. We'll have to take him with us to the museum."

"Oh you go on. I won't do anything. I feel better now. Promise"

The group clearly saw through his lie, he would just try to dust himself again once they were gone, which even though they would be glad to be rid of him, the thought of him doing it himself rubbed them the wrong way. So instead, Xander wrapped his arm around the vampire's shoulder and pulled him along, "think of the happy. If we don't find what we're looking for, we're facing an apocalypse."

"Really? You're not just saying that?"

The museum was a dead end, and a waste of time for the group, "great. No Word of Valios." Willow said dejectedly as they all walked from the museum.

"Not even a syllable of Valios."

"Which means I'm one step closer to melting in a sea of molten hellfire, yea?" Spike asked Xander in a sarcastic, yet hopeful tone.

Willow frowned at the vampire, "you shouldn't talk like that. Yea, ok, so you can't kill anymore, but there's other fun things you can do. You'll adjust."

Spike stopped and turned to look at Willow with a raised brow, "adjust. And what, end up like the two of you? No, thank you."

"Here it goes," Xander chimed in, and in the best impression of Willow he could do, he said, "we just can't leave him here to stake himself. It's not right."

"I should think you would be glad to greet the end of days. I mean, neither one of you is making much of a go at it," the vampires looked to Willow before motioning to Xander, "you, kids your age are going off to university. You've made it as far as the basement," he then returned his attention back to Willow, "and Red here, you couldn't even keep dog boy happy, I mean, you can take the loser out of high school, but…"

"At least they're doing something with their lives," Eris snapped as she angrily got up in his face, "your entire existence has been nibbling on people for their blood, hell, your entire vampire life was trailing after Angel because he was the better vampire."

Spike glared back at her, rage simmering, "Angel is a ponce little weakling who had a hard on for a highschool girl, he's nothing."

"You know what, maybe I will stake you!"

"Do it!"

"Eris stop!" Willow shouted as she pulled the raven-haired woman back from the bleach blonde vampires, "he's trying to get us to dust him."

"Am not. I just don't want pity from geeks more useless than I am."

"We're not useless," Willow snapped, feeling offended by his words, "we, we help people. We fight the forces of evil."

"Buffy fights the forces of evil. You're her groupies. She'd do just as well without you. Better, I'd wager, since she wouldn't have to go about saving your hides all the time."

Now it was Xander's turn to be offended, "that is so not true. We're part of the team. She needs us."

"Does she? Really? I mean when was the last time either of you actually contributed to a fight that Buffy didn't defeat for you? Have either of you killed a vampire on your own, without help?" Eris raised her hand, "yes, I know you have, our first meeting was you killing a vampire. I'm talking about these two. They're just the same tenth-grade losers you've always been, and Buffy is too much of a softy to cut you lose."

Willow and Xander remained silent as the vampire walked away, not able to come up with a defence against his words and feeling great pain because of them. They felt that in a way, he was right. "Its not true and you know it, Buffy wouldn't be alive right now without both of your help."

"Thanks Eris," Willow said softly, but the words hadn't helped very much.

"I'll grab him and make sure he goes to Giles, meet you there," Eris waved to the two before running after Spike. Once she caught up, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop, "was that really necessary?"

"It was the truth; they hinder more than they help."

"I disagree, they've done a lot to help Buffy, even saving her life on countless occasions."

Spike scoffed and turned so he faced Eris completely, "and the number of times they have needed rescuing or have put Buffy in danger doubles the number of saves. You're not stupid, you know I'm right."

Eris huffed and placed her hands on her hips, "yes, I know, the numbers don't lie. But without them, I feel like Buffy would have given up by now. I wasn't there during her highschool years in Sunnydale, but I know that without them, she wouldn't be here right now."

"You are soft, just like her. Must run in the family," he sighed deeply and started walking again, "come on then, lets go head to the loser club, we have an apocalypse to enjoy."

"My god you are so depressing, we are not going to die!"