Whispers in a Dead Man's Ear, Part 2
It wasn’t all that rarely that he found the Slayer stalking through his neck of the headstones; once a week or so, she would convince herself that he was up to something dastardly, drop by, disabuse herself of the notion, and flounce away after taking a swipe or two at his manhood. It was a habit, bordering on becoming a tradition.
Therefore, it really didn’t rate as a surprise when he caught sight of her storming through the cemetery, righteous indignation trailing her in a cloud that he would swear he could tilt his head and visualize. Cheeks flushed, hand tightening on her stake until her knuckles shone a brighter shade of white than her sweater, hair bouncing off her shoulders and into her face; she was a vision, a study in fury, and he knew in an instant that his night wasn’t going to be the simple blood and telly affair that he’d planned.
It was just as well, really; given a choice between wallowing in his own self-pity or rubbing the Slayer’s nose in whatever insecurity he could suss out that night, he’d take the latter every time. The Initiative may’ve taken his fangs, but they hadn’t gotten all of his bite, and there was still no one quite like the little gnat of a Chosen One on which to use it.
“Well, well, look who’s back from the city, an’ looking the worse for the trip,” he drawled, stepping out of his crypt and onto the grass that surrounded it. For all that he liked baiting her, those little feet were lethal weapons when it came to his door, and with the soldiers still trooping about at will, he rather liked the protection. “What’s the matter? Angel not greet you by running towards you through a field of daisies?”
“I wasn’t there for that, Spike,” she spat angrily, casting what he was certain was a longing glance at the wood-covered entryway to his home while digging a viciously deep gouge in the ground beneath the impractically pointed heel of her boot. He was suddenly very glad for the Pavlovian training that had saved his door. “And how did you know where I was, anyway?”
Spike merely smirked at her, raising a brow. “Demons don’t reveal their sources when it comes to Slayer comings and goings; suffice it to say that we’ve got ourselves a network, an’ leave it at that.”
Buffy crossed her arms and leaned back against a marble statue. “Is that the same network that kicked your pale, scrawny butt into the alley behind Willy’s after they’d already beaten it purple? ‘Cause if it is, they’re developing a potentially fatal case of loose lips.” Her smile was gleefully malevolent.
“Don’t know what you’re on about,” he scoffed, even though he was certain he’d managed to give himself away with his startled fidgeting. Not for the first time, he resolved to track down every denizen of Willy’s from that night and stop only when he was scraping their gore from his boots.
“Tell me how you knew where I was, and I’ll tell you where I heard the tale of Spike’s headlong tumble into Willy’s dumpster,” she promised. “I might even know enough to point you at a butt to kick…”
“You’d facilitate violence in such a manner? Slayer, your Watcher would be appalled.” Spike took a step forward, grinning. “I, on the other hand, am very impressed. Was your boy that told me, when he stopped by to make sure Sunnydale was safe from my brand of horror on his way to deliver more boxed constipation to the good people of the fair Hellmouth. How peddlin’ that garbage doesn’t count as evil…” he finished, shrugging. “Now, your turn.”
“Heard it from a demon. Big nasty thing… there was a lot of snot. And claws.” Buffy shuddered. “Green and brown, cranky, and he seemed to think whaling on you in the bar was the highlight of his week, given how excited he was when he was telling his friend about it.”
Spike sighed dramatically. “Didn’t tell me you’d run into him on rounds,” he grumbled. “There anything left for me to kill?”
“Yep. I only killed his buddy; Big ‘n Gooey’s all yours for the smashing,” she chirped. “The gooier the smashing the better, if you please. He ruined my new pink jacket.”
“By all means, let my avenging of my stature in the demon world pale in comparison to the sanctity of Lady Buffy’s accoutrement.” Spike turned to leave, then spun on his heel, cackling gleefully. “Wait a bloody second here. Let him get away, did you? Aren’t you a touch on the young side to be losin’ your game?”
“I’ve still got my game,” she countered defensively. “Unlike some not-breathing-but-still-present people I know. And besides, it was hard to chase him down. I was all out of breath from the laughing at the thought of you smooching pavement.”
“Least something’s been near my lips as of late, even if it was rigid and unyielding. Oh, wait… you’ve got your soldier. Damned if you just don’t beat me on this, too.” He gave her a wicked leer. “And then there’s Tall, Browed, and Broody. Surely you didn’t walk away from your pillar of eternal metaphorical flame without a little parting gift.”
“Oh, I got something for the road, all right,” she grumbled under her breath.
“What’s that?” he asked, inclining his head towards her.
“I said, ‘Shut up, Spike,’” she answered, stalking away from him.
“Now, now, ‘s not right to lie, Buffy. Surely your mum taught you better. An’ I clearly heard you say you ‘got something for the road, all right.’” He took one long stride to two of her shorter, more furious steps, keeping pace easily. “Don’t need to be lookin’ over my shoulder for dear ol’ grandpapa, now do I?”
“That would be a no. And why would you care, anyway? Even if he was back, he wouldn’t be coming to you; I’m sure he’d be too busy trying to find Drusilla.” She stopped and whirled on him, eyes flashing fire.
“So what did he do to piss you off, then?” Spike asked casually, careful to mask his hurt. He knew all too well that letting an enemy know they’d scored a direct hit was never advisable.
“How do you know he pissed me off?”
Spike stared pointedly at her for a long moment, eyes shifting from her agitatedly tapping foot to the hand locked in a death grip on her stake to the face that was the picture of barely-restrained rage. “Couple of reasons,” he said finally. “For one, you should never play poker, because your bluff’s for shit. Come stormin’ round hell-bent for vamp dust, an’ it’s not hard to know someone’s thrown a spanner in your works. Particularly when it looks like you might’ve sat on it as well.”
“Clever. And the other reason?”
“Two options for the both of you in any given get-together, an’ if you didn’t wind up in each other’s laps, only one other kind of fireworks you two could generate.” At her blank stare, he went on, “’s like I told you, ‘you’ll fight, an’ you’ll shag, an’ you’ll hate each other ‘til it makes you quiver’?” More of the same blank stare, though it was quickly transformed into a mystified glare by Spike’s resonating growl. “God, why do I even bother with the lot of you? Share a little bit of insight, and it runs right over top of your heads. Bet if I’d stuck it in bottles of hair product, you both would’ve absorbed it nicely.”
“Are you trying to send me over the edge? Because, hello, have stake, will pokey,” Buffy reminded him, waving the pointed wood in his face.
“Oh, bugger off. If you were going to stake me, you’d’ve done it when you first came tromping up, rippin’ up the lawn. So go on, out with it; tell Spike what the big mean wanker had to say.”
Buffy glowered at him, putting her hands on her hips. “Fine. Whatever. As long as it’ll shut you up. He told me to get out of his city. There, happy?”
“Did he now?” Spike asked, sure that he was completely unsuccessful in twisting his gloating smirk into anything more innocuous than exactly what it was. “Seems only fair, given you sent him packin’ from here.”
“I did not!” Buffy answered, indignant, cheeks flushed. “He left for our own good. Avoiding temptation.”
“’s that right? Guess he’s just… noble that way. Course, avoidin’ temptation’s probably hard after centuries of givin’ right the hell into it.” Buffy’s frown simply prodded him on, and he splayed one hand over his heart. “It all sounds terribly romantic. Byronic, even.” He dug in his pocket for his cigarettes, tapping the pack against his hand. “No, wait… that would be moronic. Silly me, always confusin’ the movements.”
“I hate you,” she grumbled in answer, kicking at his foot.
Spike dodged easily, dancing back out of her path. “Why, Slayer. I’m touched you go to all the trouble.”
Buffy rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Please. Like you don’t hate me, too.”
“My, don’t we flatter ourselves,” Spike chuckled. “Look at you, all puffed up. As a matter of fact, I don’t. ’s too much effort. ‘s all I can do to find you annoying.”
“Uh huh. And these yearly side trips to Sunnydale are, what? Evidence of a fond and long-lasting devotion to the scenic potential of small-town USA?” Buffy’s arched brow clearly indicated that she considered herself the winner of their little competition. “Face it. You want me.”
“Dead. Key word, that,” Spike added. “An’ not that I feel like pokin’ holes in your tragically overinflated sense of self—except actually, yeah. That’d be nice, too. Consider me pokin’. Regardless, first time I came here was for the Hellmouth; you were just a sideshow to the curin’ Dru main attraction. An’ the third was for the Gem; had sod-all to do with you.” Spike leaned back against a headstone, assuming that arrogant, elegant sprawl to which his limbs seemed inured. “So you see, all signs to the contrary, you’re not the center of my world.”
Buffy eyed him skeptically. “Say I give you one and three as being about someone or something that was else. You have to give me two and four, though. No wiggling there. Those were full-on, out for blood, ‘drink you down and use your bones as toothpicks’ destination vacations that were all about me.”
“Well, yeah,” Spike admitted, mischievous grin in full effect. “Man gets bored, spoilin’ for a fight, wants to let off some steam; who better than an old enemy for it? Besides, you make the rage cathartic; no one can piss a bloke off faster than you. ‘s quite a skill.”
“Whatever,” she shot back, looking away.
“Brilliant argument, that. The hair toss really takes it over the rhetorical edge. Nothing more I can say in the face of such eloquence, so I think I’ll just toddle on off and drink myself into a depressive stupor, if it’s all the same.”
“No.” Buffy flushed as Spike looked at her quizzically. “You can’t just… leave. You might be up to something. An evil something. I think I should keep an eye on you.”
“Right. I might, what? Pick an errant rose from some old lady’s prize rose bush, ruin the Garden Club’s week? Or maybe I’ll step on some budding entomologist’s prize find an’ make him cry. Good job that you’re protecting the world from me.”
“Oh, you’re not bitter.”
Spike arched a brow. “Damn right I’m bitter. Try gettin’ knocked out and wakin’ up in some wonky white room in a lab, having everything you are stripped down to nothing and getting turned into some sort of governmental house pet that can only maim your own kind. Would make a saint bitter.”
“Well, it certainly doesn’t do anything to enhance your personality.”
“By all means, then, let me free you of the affliction of my presence, your highness.”
Buffy put her hand on his arm, stopping him. “Potential evil, remember? Where you go, I go.”
“And this has nothing at all to do with your ex pulling his ‘LA belongs to me’ trump card, paper cutting you with it, and sendin’ you back here to lick your wounds, right? And it especially has nothing to do with Sergeant Upright and the fact you probably want to work out any residual nasties before you go visit with him, yeah? Wouldn’t want him to see anything less than a picture-perfect little princess, would you now? So you come here, play Bait the Spike, an’ go on home all exorcised.”
“Shut up, Spike.”
“And again you wound me.”
“Enough of this; just do your worst. It’s not like you could really do anything anyway. God, were you always this infuriating? I’m sure I would have killed you if I’d known you were this… ugh.” She threw up her hands and took a few steps away from him, heading further into the cemetery grounds.
Spike chuckled as he called after her. “You would’ve tried, and you would have failed. Which you did, repeatedly.”
“So did you,” she reminded him, throwing him a pointed stare over her shoulder.
“Guess we’re at a stalemate, then, given my unfortunate condition and your ‘don’t kill the fangless puppies’ stance.”
This time she turned fully around, rolling her eyes dramatically. “If anybody could change my mind, Spike, believe me that it would be you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Block of wood, whittle whittle, stabby stabby, and you can brush me off your pant legs. An’ yet here I am in all my bad-as-I-can-be glory with nary a stab wound in sight. So let’s dispense with the threats an’ get on with whatever it is I have to do to get you to leave me be.”
“Arrrgh.” The sound Buffy made was as close to a growl as a human could get. “I was leaving. You’re the one who kept after me!” She stormed back towards him. “You don’t have to do anything. Is the concept of standing there and maybe even listening just lost on you? I don’t need you to say anything; I don’t even want you to. I didn’t even want you around. I just wanted to stomp around and stab things and grumble and then go home. And then I come across you heading out into the night—”
“Wasn’t heading anywhere. Was standing on the doorstep of my crypt and came out into the grass to keep you the hell away from my door.”
“You think I believe that?” she asked, not waiting for his answer before continuing her rant as if he hadn’t spoken. “I come across you gearing up to do who knows what and now I have to babysit the formerly evil and very very dead. So could you just do your corpse impression while I do what I came here to do?”
Spike put his hands up in surrender. “As you wish. Silent as the grave, coming up.”
“Thank you. Now come on.”
They strode through the cemetery, Buffy watchful, Spike sullen but shooting smug glares in her direction whenever he thought she might notice. He liked the way it kept her on edge, particularly when she flipped up the collar of her jacket; that little gesture put a good share of spring back into his step.
He watched apathetically as she took on a small cluster of fledglings who had all burst from the ground in the same spot; it seemed impossible to find anyone on the Hellmouth who knew how to arrange a decent awakening, and so he couldn’t really find it within himself to feel bad as he watched a half-dozen of his newly-risen brethren fulfill their dust-to-dust destiny a few centuries earlier than he figured they’d hoped. It did, however, make for amusingly brief fights when the newcomers demonstrated less skill than a basket of blind kittens in either fighting or escaping and were thus neatly arranged for supremely efficient deaths.
The arrival of the recently-departed’s sire through the dust of his creations, however, brought an opportunity to watch Buffy fight someone with more skill than a karate-belted kindergartener, and that was something Spike didn’t let escape. All too often, it had been him fighting her, something that had forced him to surrender his study of her technique in favor of planning combat strategy, his offense and defense and the occasional strategic withdrawal. But to watch her, really watch and appreciate her talent, was something rare and still new.
As was watching her get pummeled, which somehow seemed to be how the tide had turned. Two blows to the stomach, then one to the jaw; a kick was ducked, and her compensatory thrown punch was caught and used to spin her in against her opponent. The vampire snarled, baring his fangs as he fisted his hand in her hair, tugging her head to the side.
“He’s got your hair, Slayer. Might want to see to that.”
“Thanks,” she coughed out wryly as she doubled over, flipping her opponent off her back and onto the ground in front of her. His hold worked against him, forming a restraint of sorts on his arms that he couldn’t quite break before her stake descended into his chest.
“Well, that seemed bracing,” Spike observed.
Buffy gave him a disgusted look as she stood, gasping with the effort to regain her breath. “And thank you for the stellar no help there, by the way. So nice to have you along.”
“Thought I was the proverbial three monkeys on this little excursion; if I can’t do evil or speak evil, I sure as hell ain’t doin’ good. Besides, I just did my nails.” He gave her an unrepentant smile. “Squeaky wheel gets the grease, Slayer. All you had to do was say ‘help,’ and I would’ve—well, done exactly what I did, except with more pointing and laughing, an’ the committing of the whole scene to memory as a treasure. So feel free to ask for help in future, yeah?”
Buffy glowered at him. “I’ve dealt with enough squeaky wheels for a while, thanks. I don’t need to become one.”
“This wouldn’t be you talkin’ about chasin’ brunette Buffy to LA, now would it?”
The stormy look darkened another shade. “She’s so not brunette Buffy. She’s different. Much different. Skankier.” Buffy turned and hopped up onto a headstone, then jumped from there to the top of a mausoleum. “And squeakier,” she grumbled as an afterthought.
“Ahhh… now I get it,” he mused as he watched her climb, then leapt to the top of the mausoleum in a single vertical jump. He shrugged nonchalantly when her eyes widened questioningly at the move, then took a seat on the edge of the roof. “So you found her squeakin’ with your lambykins, then. Not surprised, though I do wonder if it’s all Slayers that have a dead meat fetish, or just the newer generations.”
“What? Ewww, Spike,” Buffy grimaced, sitting as well. “And no, there was no squeaking.”
“Groaning then? Grunting? Screaming, even?” he continued to taunt, enjoying the dawning look of horror on her face.
“Stop! Agh—no! It was nothing like that, not really,” she said, voice softening a bit. “It’s just… he sent me away.”
Spike gave her a sidelong glance. “Yeah, you said. Don’t see how it’s that big of a deal, really; not like you could shuffle off from here and stay anyway.”
She sighed deeply, pulling her knees up to her chest. “It’s not that. He sent me away, Spike. I get scolded like a puppy and sent back here, and she’s still there.” The last was barely a whisper, but Spike heard nonetheless.
“He just let her go?” The elevated brows spoke to his surprise.
“No, she’s in jail.” At his look, she shifted uncomfortably. “But still—“
“She’s there, you’re not. Got it. Makes sense,” he said casually.
“Glad it does to somebody.”
“What, you want a window into Angelus’ head?”
“Angel.”
“Whichever. Not always different, you know.” He raised his hands to ward off the attack that was clearly pending when she released her legs and turned angry eyes on him. “Regardless—that what you’re after?”
“It just doesn’t make sense.”
“To you. Perfectly logical to me,” Spike retorted. “As logical as such a thing can be, anyway. Fact of the matter is, I happen to know a thing or two about Angelus, an’ it doesn’t take much of a stretch to bring it around to Angel, too. Angelus, bastard that he was, was a bit of a patron saint of lost causes. Maybe because Darla pulled him out of the gutters that would’ve been his grave elsewise, I don’t know.” He paused, clearly thinking. “Anyway, Penn and me come from that, I think; he took us under his wing, taught us the ropes.”
“So you were a lost cause?” Buffy asked, mildly intrigued.
“Few could be more so,” he answered, giving her a rakish leer. “Anyway, yeah. Lost causes—Angelus had a thing for them. Liked makin’ something out of the ones he found, but liked creating them, too; that’s what he did with Dru. Broke her down bit by bit, until—”
“I know all about that,” Buffy interrupted. “What does any of this have to do with anything?”
“Are you being this obtuse on purpose, or did you really not pay attention to your evil twin when she was gadding about? If I had to guess, she’s his newest project.”
“Project,” she repeated flatly.
“Project. I’m willin’ to bet that, for him, every broken girl he can take in is one more chance to make up for Dru an’ a hundred others. Another chink in the soul’s wall of pain. From what little I heard about her, that Faith chit’s trouble enough to mean atonement for at least fifty, especially since it seems like he’s already got her payin’ for her sins.”
Buffy was silent, surveying the cemetery, expression carefully veiled. After a long, quiet moment, she asked, “And what, there are no lost causes in Sunnydale?”
Spike, for a reason he couldn’t quite fathom, bit back the retort that had sprung automatically to his lips; he turned towards her, noting the determination in the set of her jaw, the little upturn of her chin. He rolled his eyes at himself as he sighed inwardly and turned his face back towards the night. “If you’re talkin’ about yourself, pet, no. Afraid you don’t count, not hardly. He’s been gone what, months now? And you’re still standing—that’s proof enough that you’re too strong for his special brand of savior. You might need him, but not so badly that you’ll break without, an’ that’s the difference.”
He ignored what sounded suspiciously like a sniffle, rattling the contents of his duster pocket to cover any other noises from her.
“Being strong gets old,” she grumbled, loudly enough for him to hear over his noisemaking.
“That it does. Cross we bear, though. It’s not all bad, you know; what keeps us from greetin’ the sunrise or the,” he paused for a moment, then waved his hand dismissively, “whatever the big melodramatic human suicide gesture might be once they’ve moved on.”
“I guess,” she muttered, knees curling back into her chest and arms wrapping around them again. “Still sucks.”
“World’s a crap place, Slayer, an’ not all the nasties are physical. Price of livin’ with your heart on your sleeve is that somebody can come along and brush it right onto the ground at a moment’s notice. Believe I warned you that was risky, too, in that long and very insightful tirade you apparently saw fit to ignore.” He met her exasperated stare with one of his own, then lowered his voice almost infinitesimally. “Just cause they’re gone, doesn’t mean the love stops. On either end. You can love someone from half a world away,” Spike said quietly, drumming his heels against the stone behind them.
“Yeah, but… Wait. Are you comforting me?” Buffy asked, fixing him with a quizzical look.
“What? No,” Spike scoffed. “Not comforting anyone. Musing aloud, putting my thoughts together. You’re just hanging about, robbing a bloke of his peace of mind.”
“You’re still mooning over Dru.” The accusation was spoken bluntly.
He may have been found out, but he certainly wasn’t willing to let on. “What? No. It’s you who’s bemoaning the fate what befell you an’ your lovepuppy Angel.” He tapped another cigarette from the pack before offering it to her and chuckling as she made a face and waved it away.
“Right.” Silence reigned for a moment, and then she spoke again. “But just… say that we were talking about Drusilla, too, since I’m talking about Angel.”
“Which we’re not.”
“Obviously. But if we were, would it make us pathetic?” she mused. “The loving them from afar, wishing they were here thing?”
Spike took a deep breath before answering. “If we were talkin’ about how we felt—which we’re not—I think I’d prefer stalwart as a description, thanks ever so.” His disgusted sidelong glance in her direction was sufficient to convey what he thought of the ‘pathetic’ designation.
“I wouldn’t. Yuck,” she groused. “What kind of word is that, anyway?”
“Do you even go to the classes at that university of yours, or are you there for the firsthand spectator’s view of today’s hottest fashions? Because if that’s the case, I’m sure a handful of those bird-centric frippery glossies are probably better for your mum’s wallet.”
“I go to class,” Buffy shot back defensively. “I know lots of stuff.”
“Right.” He drawled, sounding far from convinced.
“I do.”
“Prove it. Who wrote, ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’?” When no answer came, he prodded further, “how about ‘my only love sprung from my only hate’? It’s the same answer for both.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed. “I’m not an English major.”
“Alright, then. You’re spending all your time with the amazing analytical soldier; explain Freud’s dream theory.” The look he gave her was a combination of mirth and mischief, glee dancing in his eyes as her face grew steadily stormier, more befuddled.
“Shut up!” Buffy muttered after a moment’s silence, shooting him a sidelong glare. “I’m only a freshman. Besides, I don’t see what any of this has to do with me not liking the word ‘stalwart’.”
“What would you prefer? ‘We that are true lovers’? That’s a Shakespeare bit like the others, on the off chance you’re payin’ attention to something that might prove educational.”
She kicked her foot out to the side, hitting his ankle and smirking when he yelped and reached down to rub the offended area. “I don’t care where it’s from, but yes, I like that much better.”
“Thought you might. You’re kind of a sap.”
“One of us knew all those quotes by heart,” Buffy said drolly. “It wasn’t me.”
Spike said nothing, merely exhaled a slow stream of smoke in her direction and beamed as she coughed and fanned.
“I guess it could be Harmony,” she said as waved away the wispy cloud.
“What are you on about?”
“Well, you’re clearly all mopey over somebody. Maybe it’s Harmony. She seems like the type who could inspire poetry.” A mischievous grin lit up her face.
“That would be limericks,” Spike rejoined, laughing despite himself at the thought of Harmony-inspired verse. “And I’m not mooning, any more than you are.”
“I’m not mooning. I’m just… venting,” she countered defensively.
“Exactly,” he answered, raising a brow.
“Fine,” she agreed, standing. “Nobody’s thinking about anybody else. We’re just getting it off our chests.” She picked her way back across the roof of the mausoleum, swinging down onto the gravestone and then jumping to the ground. “And Spike?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he answered, laughing at the startled jump she gave when he leapt, landing in the spot just next to her. “Not a word to anybody. Think I want it getting around that I mope with the Slayer over exes? Hell, I didn’t even want to do it this time around. Next step would be mixin’ up multicolored drinks an’ varnishing our nails together, an’ I’m already gettin’ my ass kicked in alleys over you quite enough.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“Likewise.”
Buffy sucked in her cheeks, not nearly quick enough to hide the hint of a smile, and turned away, retracing her steps back towards the cemetery gate.
“I still hate you,” Spike called after her, ignoring the amusement threatening his features, instead schooling them into Big Bad annoyance.
Buffy tossed him a backwards glance. “I can’t imagine it any other way,” she promised, disappearing around the corner.
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