TITLE: Changes
The sequel to Serious Moonlight, the sequel to The Heart's Filthy Lesson
OR: The "we owe royalties to Bowie by now" series
AUTHOR:  Mustangsally and RivkaT
*EMAIL: Mustangsally78@juno.com RivkaT@aol.com
*SUMMARY: Bet she's not your girlfriend, you couldn't make her happy…
SPOILER WARNING: The Body.  The bulk of Season 5  (i.e.  Crush, Intervention, 
the Gift) cheerfully ignored.
*RATING: NC-17 for violence & explicit sex acts.  Interested yet?
*DISCLAIMER:  The characters are not ours and we would appreciate not being 
sued.
NOTES: We do a lot of things, but writing music ain't one of them.  The reader 
who identifies the most Pet Shop Boys and Smiths references wins a cameo in our 
next story: Details at the end of the story.  No purchase required.  

DEDICATION: Chain-Boy come back!  All has been forgiven!


Changes 1/30

*I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet*


Saturday night was date night, even among the undead and the supernatural.  
Lovecraft's was crowded with couples of every description.  There were demons 
with demons, vampires with vampires, vampires with demons, an imp with a 
Chaos demon (not unlike a Chihuahua with a Great Dane), and a zombie with what 
may or may not have been a gargoyle.  Gender wasn't an issue, species wasn't an 
issue.  The only issue was mortals, since they had a bad tendency to squeal to the 
local authorities and that would have been the end of Lovecraft's, fine institution 
that it was.  There was one mortal there that night, a guy with two leather vamp 
chicks who was living the heavy metal fantasy of his life.  Not that it mattered.  
The guy couldn't have been labeled "Take Out" more clearly if he'd been jammed 
in an aluminum container with a clear plastic lid.  

So it was Saturday night, and the usual Lovecraft's clientele was either assured of 
some preternatural nookie or trying to find it - and what was Spike doing?  Sitting 
at the bar and trying very hard not to stare at the clock on the wall over the 
jukebox.  Half an hour to go, half an hour and he would be walking towards the 
cemetery.  He had an appointment that he was loath to break.

"Oh I just don't know where to begin/Though he says he'll wait forever/It's now or 
never/But she keeps him hanging on/The silly champion/She says she can't go 
home/Without a chaperone."

He was going to kill whoever had last programmed the jukebox.

"Another beer?" the lamia behind the bar asked.

"Yeah, that would be grand," he muttered and tried not to look at the clock again.

“And it's the damage that we do/And never know/It's the words that we don't 
say/That scare me so,” Elvis Costello continued to moan, “There's so many people 
to see/So many people you can check up on/And add to your collection/But they 
keep you hanging on/Until you're well hung/Your mouth is made up but your mind 
is undone.”

"So, you ain't been around much lately," the lamia said and pulled him another 
mug of the cheap domestic crap Lovecraft's had on tap.

"Been busy, doin' stuff, y'know," he said and accepted the fresh mug of weak, salty 
beer.

"What kind of stuff?"

"The usual, and a bit that isn't," he hedged and drank.

"I hear things, things that wouldn't be said if the sayer was sober.  Perks of the 
profession, you know," she said and leaned forward across the bar, giving Spike a 
good view of her slightly scaly cleavage.  "I hear that you're been hanging around 
with the Slayer.  Wouldn't be a healthy thing for the Slayer to know about this 
place, now would it?"

If there hadn't been a yard-long stake resting near the cash register next to the 
sawed-off shotgun, Spike might have been inclined not to take this too seriously.  
But under the circumstances, he threw up his hands in poorly-feigned innocence.

"Puh-lease, the only place where I can let my fangs hang out?  I don't think so.  "

"Just asking.  They say you've got a soft spot for the Slayer."

"I got a soft spot for the Playmate of the Month, an' you don't see me bringin' any 
bunnies in here now do you?"

"As long as we're clear."

"Clear as a Scientologist, babe."

“I don't want to hear it/'Cause I know what I've done.”

She nodded and started rubbing down the bar with a wet rag.  Inside Spike's skull a 
little nervousness came out, looked around the mess of his brain and then retreated 
to its designated closet.  As if the thought of breaking the sacred sanctity of 
Lovecraft's would ever cross his mind.  Although the idea of Buffy raising some 
hell among the sappy eye-making demons and whatnot was kind of appealing right 
then.  There was nothing quite as lonely as being alone when everyone else had 
thoughts of love or shagging.  He drank some more beer and didn't look at the 
clock again.  There was a good reason he didn't wear a wristwatch.  He could 
obsess about time as easily as he could obsess about everything else.  When he'd 
first read about the obsessive-compulsive personality a decade beforehand in a 
stolen copy of Newsweek, Spike had been surprised not to see his picture as an 
illustration.

Twenty-five minutes.

Spike was going to make this the longest beer in history.

Over in the back of the bar, something was laughing; happy laughter, not another 
being in pain laughter, and the sound ground against his nerves like sandpaper.  
The television over the bar was showing the tail end of the news, the filler.  Human 
interest stories, heroic animals, strange trivia, and, apparently, pretty blondes.

"Give us the sound, would you, luv?' he asked and waved a hand at the lamia.

Smirking, she pushed the remote buttons and the bar across the bottom of the 
screen increased in a cascade of green light.

"Local officials are insisting that the outbreak of teen violence has nothing to do 
with the recent performance of teen pop sensation Citalia," the voice announced in 
a pseudo-grave tone while the picture went back to the pretty blonde with dark blue 
eyes and a heroic bustline.   "Teen fans denied entrance into the pop star's concert 
in Los Angeles formed a mini-riot and overturned police cars."

To illustrate, the TV showed a cop cruiser burning merrily away like a backyard 
barbecue.  

"I'd pop a cop for her," the worse for wear vamp on the other side of Spike 
commented.  "Tasty morsel."

Spike didn't imagine for a moment that a vamp with eau du homeless was going to 
get within striking range of the teen beauty.  The news flashed over to a crowd of 
kids, prepubescent most of them, screaming and carrying on in the street.  A police 
cruiser rocked back and forth like a sailboat on a rough tide.

"That's nothin'.  I was at CBGB the night the Clash came to town.  These kids 
today know nothin' about causin' mayhem," Spike said and took a dismissive gulp 
of his beer.  "Still, I wouldn't throw her outta my bed for leavin' communion 
crumbs."

The old-looking vamp next to him snickered between yellowed teeth.

"She's a little old for me.  I like 'em young.  Sweet meat you get, when they haven't 
been messed with yet."

"Virgins are over-rated," Spike announced and elicited a dirty chuckle from the 
lamia at the bar.

"You know what they say – it's like a balloon, one good prick and it's gone 
forever."  Her grin grew even wider.  "Doesn't even have to be a good prick."

"Took out an entire troop of Girl Scouts last summer.  They was campin' at Big 
Bear Mountain.  Tasted like cookies," the dirty vamp offered.

"Chocolate mint or shortbread?" the lamia asked.

Pedophilia had never been Spike's scene, so he flashed the dirty vamp an ugly look 
and moved a few inches further down the bar.  The smell was as bad as the 
sentiment.  Being dead was no excuse for poor personal hygiene, or fucking 
children.  A vampire had to have at least a couple of rules.  Keeping clean was one 
of Spike's oldest, while not feeding off children was a recent development.  If the 
rules accumulated with age, given a hundred more years he'd be the same uptight 
prig as Angel.   He drank some more beer to wash the idea out of his mouth, and 
watched the hands on the clock move with geological slowness.

The dirty vamp was staring at him.  Spike stared at the television, which was now 
showing a beer commercial with half-naked women playing volleyball.  It was one 
of his favorites.

"Don't give me that, looking at me like I'm dogshit."

"I wasn't lookin' at you, mate, wouldn't waste my time,"

"Think you're better than me?"

"No, I know I'm better than you.  Now why don't you fuck off?" Spike asked in 
what he thought was a reasonable tone.

"No fighting," the lamia warned.

"Who's fightin'?" Spike asked as Dirty Vamp rushed at him, right into Spike's 
suddenly outstretched fist, managed to cold-cock himself and went down in a 
puddle of beer.  

The vamp swore and struggled when Spike planted a foot square in the middle of 
his rag-covered torso.

"You see," Spike told the vamp on the floor, "It's no bloody fun when you're dealin' 
wiv' somethin' younger an' weaker than yourself."

"Get staked!"  The vamp on the floor fang-faced and tried to snap at Spike's ankle.

"Listen, Sunshine, I been dead longer'n you were alive, an' it's generally not a real 
good idea to be fuckin' with the older ones, right?" Spike took another drink of beer 
and sighed.  "That's free advice.  Next time you're on a one-way ticket to the 
dustbin.  Follow?"

The vamp scrambled out from underneath Spike's now-lifted foot and stood, pale-
faced and smelly, glaring at Spike with yellow eyes.

"Fucking human toy," the dirty vamp sprayed saliva over most of the clean bar top 
as it lisped between its filthy fangs.

"Scuse me," Spike reached around the lamia, who was greedily watching the 
spectacle, and grabbed a bottle of cheap whiskey from the shelves behind.  "You 
don't deserve the good stuff."

Moving fast, Spike brought the bottle down on Dirty Vamp's head, giving it the 
closest thing it might have had to a bath since it had been turned.  The vamp 
blinked glass and booze at him, just in time to see Spike light a match from one of 
Lovecraft's free matchbooks.  The vamp made a merry yellow flame as it shrieked 
and batted at itself.  From the back of the room, Spike could hear a smattering of 
laughter, and a couple rounds of applause, which was quickly lost as the burning 
vamp ran for the door, trailing greasy black smoke and a foul smell.

"You got serious problems with your social skills," the lamia remarked.

"Nah, got serious problems with babyfuckers who don't wash," Spike said with the 
fervor of the born again and turned back to his beer.

The clock on the wall beckoned to him.

Fuck, five to twelve.  He was late.   Throwing a couple of bills down on the bar, he 
bolted for the door at a dead run.

Things change.  Two months before he wouldn't have been running through the 
nighttime streets of Sunnydale trying to beat the clock.  Two months before he was 
living and breathing on the ancient sands of Egypt while he and Buffy tried to beat 
an Egyptian vampire-goddess.  Now he was trying to beat a curfew.

"Sorry.  Sorry, got tied up," he blathered as he stumbled into the kitchen.

Buffy was already tricked out in her Slaygear, bag o'goodies over her shoulder and 
expensive little boots on her feet.  She was frowning at him.  That cute little line 
between her brows wasn't so cute all of a sudden.

"You're only ten minutes late, that's a new personal best for you," Buffy said and 
the frown turned into a lopsided little grin.

He realized she was teasing him, and it was still a new enough occurrence for 
Spike to be mildly surprised.

"Dawn's watching TV.  I told her she could stay up until one.  No later, if she tells 
you later she's lying."

"I heard that!" Dawn bellowed from the living room.

"I should be back at three," Buffy added as she moved towards the door.  
"Anything I should know about?"

"There's a vamp, didn't get his name, smells somethin' 'orrible, sportin' a somewhat 
charred overcoat.  You might want to get him, he won't be movin' terrible fast."

"I'll remember that," she said and raised an eyebrow.  "And you had something to 
do with it?"

"Me?  Don't fret, it'll be a quiet night.  Anythin' worth fightin' is out with their 
honeys."

She was halfway out the door before she stopped.  "Spike, if anything—"

"Like a crazy goddess with bad fashion sense shows up?  Yeah, I'll beep you.  
Happy huntin'."

He found Dawn sitting on the floor, watching TV and painting her toenails bilious 
green.  Flopping on the sofa, Spike put his feet on the coffee table.

"So what's on the agenda, Niblet?"

"You missed the Behind the Music special on Citalia."

"My heart bleeds.  What's so special about her anyway?  Just another record 
company wench, if you ask me.  Her and Britney an' Christina an' Mandy, they just 
grow 'em like tomatoes in Van Nuys or somethin'"

"And you know all their names because?" Dawn turned and gave him a superior 
look, flicking her hair back over her shoulder.  "Fascinated by skinny blondes 
much?"

"I *am* a skinny blond," he protested lamely, knowing that he didn't have any 
clothes that the Little Bad could blackmail out of him.  "An' a vampire's got to keep 
up w'the times or he goes all wiggy and Bram Stoker."

Leaping up from the floor, Dawn padded over to the sofa on her green-tipped feet.

"And you'd rather be out doing vampire things tonight instead of being here with 
me.  Babysitting," she frowned a very Buffy-like frown.

"Pure torture this is," he agreed.  "Now be a good little corpuscle and get Uncle 
Spike one of them blood bags out of the 'fridge."

**

Life, Buffy thought to herself, was pretty weird.  Even by her standards.  It took 
some pinching to believe that she was going out on patrol while Spike was Dawn-
sitting.  Not that she had a lot of choices in the matter.  No one but Spike had the 
slightest chance of standing up to Glory.  Besides, ever since her mother had died, 
Spike had been flitting in the background, watching Dawn, appearing after dark 
with groceries, changing the oil in the Jeep, and pretty much moving into the 
basement.  When had that happened? She still wasn't sure.  It seemed that one day 
there were Spike clothes hanging on a pole and the fold-out sofa was pulled out 
and made up.  If any of her friends knew, they hadn't said anything.  There had 
been no late-night forays into her bedroom, which was just as well.  She hadn't 
exactly been in the mood.  

And there had been Angel.  Dark and sweet and confusing.  Flirting with evil and 
evil was batting its eyelashes right back, according to Cordy, but he'd been the 
same big solid wall she remembered when he came to Sunnydale for the funeral.  
So many things had changed – she almost wished she could freeze herself in time 
like him.  Eternal guilt might be a fair trade for knowing what to *expect*.  

On the corner of Main and Church, Buffy smelled something nasty.  A dark shape 
was headed down Main, limping somewhat.  A definite eau du barbecue was 
wafting from it.  Her Slayer Sense pinged and she moved closer.

Buffy was in the mood for violence.  She'd been tired, depressed, and anticipating 
Glory around every corner.  Under the circumstances, killing bad things was more 
de-stressing than bubble bath.  At least Dawn wouldn't be demanding her turn.  
"Hey, stinky-pants!" she called out as she approached.

The vampire – there was no doubt in her mind that it was one – turned and glared 
at her, then fright-faced to give the glare more force.  "You're out too late, little 
girl," he snarled.  

She waved a hand in front of her face as if warding off the smell.  "Listen, did you 
even bathe *before* you were turned?  'Cause if you're worried about the whole 
running water thing, I can *assure* you –"  

The vamp lunged at her.  Guess he wasn't interested in proper hygiene.  Right foot 
in the stomach, sending him staggering back.  Left uppercut, right roundhouse.  
Twist and leap and turn; he's too tall to flip with an elbow around his neck, so 
another flurry of punches, kick and kick again, once more for good luck, okay 
twice more.  The vamp was on the ground, moaning and clutching at some body 
part she'd broken, and he was *totally* disappointing, had no play value 
whatsoever.  

Yawning, Buffy rummaged in her bag for a stake.  She didn't want to kneel on the 
dirty pavement in her pink silk shantung capri pants, so she just threw it 
downwards and stood back as Mr. Smelly exploded into equally smelly dust.

She was unhappy to find that she'd thrown the stake hard enough to blunt the tip on 
the underlying concrete.

Changes 2/30

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late," Buffy said and dropped her weapons bag on the kitchen 
table.

When there was no response, she dashed to the living room, afraid of what she 
would find.  Had Glory gotten in?  Was Spike dead-er and Dawn gone?  Was there 
a mass of blood all over the sofa and the carpet was there---

There was Spike sleeping on the sofa with his head thrown back, snoring softly, 
while Dawn had her head pillowed in his lap, snoring slightly more loudly.

There was an empty ice cream carton weeping condensation onto the coffee table 
with two spoons sticking out of it, an empty blood bag, an empty beer bottle, and 
cigarette butts in a saucer.  Buffy was going to have to kick his ass about smoking 
around Dawn.  The TV was tuned to the Sci Fi channel and Buffy recognized the 
weird curly-haired dude from Doctor Who.  It seemed that they had a good old 
time while Buffy was out keeping Sunnydale safe from the evil undead.  Now the 
evil undead was sleeping on her sofa.  She tiptoed over and poked Spike in the 
chest.

"Hey, lame babysitter, wake up," she hissed.

"No I didn't I—" Spike muttered and his eyes flicked open.

It was funny how she'd never realized how blue his eyes were before he kissed her 
that first time.  He focused in on her and blinked.

"Whoa.  How'd it go?"

"I found Stinky and dusted him."

"Good job that," he said in a vague way, "'s been quiet here.  Watched Bordello of 
Blood and the Bitty one here fagged out halfway through.  'Spect we should put her 
to bed."

"Hmmm." Buffy agreed and sat down on the coffee table, so they were knee to 
knee, Dawn snoring against Spike's leg.

"You have that look – like you're goin' to say somethin' that's gonna' make me feel 
really small," Spike said and ruined his sarcastic delivery by yawning.

"I realized that you've been underfoot ever since Mom died.  You're doing this, 
why?"

"If you're lookin' for some kinda confession, you're talkin' to the wrong vamp," he 
said, and yawned again.

"And selfless deeds are suddenly a Spike thing?"

"Actually, I'm gonna violate your sister in every way imaginable an' drain her dry."  
Spike rubbed his eyes and looked like he was choking back yet another yawn.  
"Especially since she keeps getting' heavier."

"I am not fat." Dawn opened one eye and looked up at them.

"Keep eatin' ice cream like that an'you will be."

"You two just practice this comedy routine when I'm not around, right?  Dawn, you 
need to go to bed."

"You're no fun anymore," Dawn complained and sat up, "You're all bossy and do-
this-or-else-woman."

"Go to bed or else you're grounded."

"See what I mean?" Dawn implored Spike.

"Know what they say about absolute power bein' absolutely corruptin'."

"Totally," Dawn agreed and began stomping up the stairs.

With a sigh, Slayer and vampire followed, just to make sure that the thirteen-year-
old went to bed and stayed there.

Dawn's door shut tightly behind, Buffy turned and considered Spike, as he was 
standing in the hallway with his hands in his jeans pockets looking like a coat rack.

"'Right then, just off to my kip," he muttered and made for the stairs.

"Spike," she said and he stopped and turned to face her.  "I can't believe that you're 
being helpful."

"Well, no good deed goes unpunished, right?" he said and smirked a Spikey smirk 
that somehow didn't quite make it to his eyes.

"Up for a little punishment?" Buffy asked, half shocked at the words as they fell 
from her mouth.

He didn't need an engraved invitation.  Spike's mouth was cold against hers tasting, 
bizarrely, like ice cream, and his fingers twined in her hair, making her chest hurt 
in the familiar way and the rest of her body buzz like a fluorescent light.  Her back 
was against the linen closet and his leg was between hers, pressing up into her 
crotch, where she was melting.  Tame Spike on the sofa with Dawn was not the 
Spike now devouring her mouth there in the upstairs hallway, his fingernails raking 
deliciously against her scalp and pressing her up against the door, drawing the 
breath out of her lungs.

"Nurmf," was all she could say and it mostly came from her nose.

Correctly translating her statement as "God that feels good, and don't you think we 
should move out of the hallway," Spike began to back towards Buffy's room, 
pulling her along with one arm around her waist and the other holding her head so 
they could shuffle like mutant Siamese Twins joined at the mouth.  Once the door 
was closed behind there was a flurry of fingers and fastenings, clothes dropping to 
the floor like old newspapers.  Shoes banged off walls, and Buffy forgot Dawn for 
a moment when Spike's cold hands clutched her breasts.  He turned his face to her 
throat and mumbled something she couldn't understand.  They spilled onto the bed, 
tangled together like clothes fresh from tumble dry.  "Now," she said.

"Bless you," he said sincerely and shoved into her.  

It had been long enough that it was almost uncomfortable, but that was lost under a 
wave of sensation, like champagne on New Year's running throughout her body, 
everywhere his hands touched.  "...  Missed you..." she thought she heard Spike say 
as her head thrashed from side to side, trying to process the nerve shocks running 
through her.

Spike's hand covered her mouth, and she realized that she'd been moaning, was still 
moaning into his cool dry palm.  His other hand continued to stroke and squeeze 
her breasts.  

Her orgasm was like plunging into an icy ocean, a shocking overwhelming feeling 
that washed away everything but the feeling of his skin on hers, and inside her.  
Strange how his flesh warmed from contact with hers, not to 98.5, but close enough 
for comfort.  She licked the skin on the palm of his hand, tasted ashes, tasted ice 
cream and her own skin.  Making a noise in his throat, he pulled the hand away 
from her mouth so he could brace himself on both hands, over her, the light picking 
out the sharp edges of muscle and bone on his body.  She hooked her ankles tighter 
around his narrow hips and pulled him closer until he was moving easily inside her 
soaking wet pussy, deep enough to make her catch her breath.  Shifting somewhat, 
he angled himself so he was pushing in deeper, and still managed to skin her clit on 
the downstroke.

There was another climax building inside her, thrumming like electricity under her 
belly, under her skin.  She passed her hands over the hard surfaces of his muscles, 
through the crunchy-soft parts of his hair, let him gnaw on her fingers.  She licked 
his ear, tried his earlobe, tasting shampoo and ashes.  He made a not-word sound in 
his throat when she ran her fingernails down his spine and over his ass.  Vampire 
skin, perfect, flawless vampire skin.  It was enough to make anybody think about 
changing teams.  

Buffy's sweat was making both of them slick and slippery.  Spike's head was tilted 
back now, silently howling at the invisible moon, and she could only reach his 
collarbone with her teeth.  She bit hard, wanting to see how long he'd stay marked, 
and he groaned and came with a sudden cool rush.

After a not unflattering pause during which Spike collapsed onto her, then lifted off 
enough to shake his head as if he were trying to wake himself, he crawled down 
her body and buried his face between her legs.  Because he wasn't human, Buffy 
didn't worry about crushing his head like a nutcracker.  She did throw her arms up 
to hang on to the white-painted metal bars of the headboard, to keep herself from 
levitating off of the bed.  Hearing Spike talk could be annoying, but the other 
things he could do with his mouth nearly compensated.  His tongue teased her clit 
while his fingers slid over her backside like silk ribbons, opening her, slipping 
inside of her.

It didn't matter that he couldn't breathe; she was doing enough for both of them, 
and still she couldn't get enough air.  She opened her eyes in the darkness and saw 
red and black spots as she came.

Afterwards, Spike lay stiffly beside her, like one of the Anne Rice vampires who 
turned back into a corpse during the day.  Sex With Spike: The Sequel had 
sandblasted Buffy's brain, and all she wanted to do was go to sleep.  With Spike 
making like rigor mortis next to her, that wasn't an option.  He was sulking or 
plotting something- neither alternative was good.  After a dozen or so minutes of 
uncomfortable stiffness alongside her, Buffy flounced onto her elbow.  Spike's eyes 
barely flicked over at her.

"What?" she asked, trying not to sound annoyed and not managing it in the least.

"What yourself."

"You, being all sulky guy.  If you tell me why you're sulking, maybe we can just 
fight and get it over with so I can get some sleep."

"I'm a fuckin' housewife, right?" he asked with controlled fury.  "I'll be makin' 
meatloaf an' wearin' pearls an' heels while I'm runnin' the Hoover.  William the 
Bloody of international infamy is helpin' a teenage nit-wit wiv' her homework an' 
takin' out the garbage."

"If you don't want to be here, if you don't want to help, fine.  This isn't cool 
vampire stuff, helping Dawn with her homework, taking out the garbage and all 
that other stuff that humans have to do."

Still making like a shop mannequin, Spike sighed like an annoyed cat – a big and 
dangerous cat.  Not a lion or a tiger, maybe a puma.  What he looked like, 
however, was an angry albino ferret.

"That's not it."

"Is this because we didn't – you know – before this?"

"'You know'? You can't even say it, can you?  Havin' sex, doin' the nasty, 
horizontal slamdance, shaggin', screwin', fornicatin', humpin' and bumpin'  – fuck-
ing.  'You know'?"

The air was burning her eyes.

"What the hell do you want, anyway?"

He might have said something under his breath, but Buffy didn't think she wanted 
him to repeat it, so she settled for rubbing her burning eyes and giving him a bleary 
glare.

"I want you to shut your yap an' go to sleep," he finally said and turned over in the 
bed, giving her a view of his back with an air of finality in every tense muscle.

"Fine," she snorted and burrowed down into the covers.

The problem with sleeping with vampires is that they always had cold feet and 
Spike seemed determined to brush her legs with his icy toes whenever possible.  
He also snored.  Not loud enough to be impressive, but loud enough and unfamiliar 
enough to set her teeth on edge.  It seemed that Buffy had barely closed her eyes 
when the clock radio went off.

“Don't believe in fear/Don't believe in faith/Don't believe in anything/That you 
can't break /You stupid girl/You stupid girl/All you had you wasted,” plaintive 
tones rolled through the slowly brightening room.

Oh fuck, she thought, I got no sleep at all.

But there was a meeting with the lawyer at eight and papers that had to be signed, 
so all she could do was crawl out of bed and shut off the alarm while Spike 
continued to sleep.


Changes 3/30


The lawyer thing dragged on longer than she could have thought possible.  Buffy 
signed papers, looked at other papers, choked back a million yawns, and listened to 
the woman talk.  By the time she was finally through, Buffy knew that between her 
mother's life insurance policy, what her father was still paying for child support for 
Dawn, and her mother's half-ownership of the gallery, there weren't food stamps in 
her future.  There also wasn't a whole Dolce and Gabbana wardrobe for each 
season, but it looked like they wouldn't have to sell the house until Dawn wanted to 
go to college.  Provided that Dad didn't decide that Dawn would be better off with 
him.  It was unclear to her whether the monks' spell extended to Dad.  If it did and 
he wanted her back, that was a problem in the making.  Buffy really couldn't leave 
Sunnydale unless she quit being the Slayer, and Dawn wouldn't be safe in LA with 
their father unless Buffy was there as well.  Of course, if Glory was over and done 
with, Dawn could go to Moscow if she wanted.  Given her recent attitude, Buffy 
might just drop-kick her there.

Not that Buffy blamed Dawn for being Miss Negativity 2001.  With the knowledge 
that Dawn was the Key, the death of their mother, and the lingering threat of Glory 
overshadowing everything, Buffy was pretty much in the Negative Zone herself.  
And what was bugging Spike, anyway?

It was after three by the time she dragged herself into the Magic Shop.  There were 
only a few customers evident, and Willow, Anya, and Xander were all hanging 
around the research table, trying not to look like they were goofing off.

"Hey Buff, what's with the suitage?" Xander asked.  "Hunting accountant vampires 
or something?"

"It's not a suit, it's a dress with a jacket, and it's very nice," Anya corrected her 
boyfriend.  "But I would have gotten it in peach." 

"Navy is more suit-y," Willow offered and took a heavy slug of Snapple.  "Very 
grownup and professionalish."

"I was at the lawyer's office today, sorting out stuff with Mom's estate."

A guilty look was passed around the table.

"You know why the vampire didn't bite the lawyer?" Xander asked.  "Professional 
courtesy."

"I thought it was a shark not biting a lawyer."

"I changed it, Will, to fit the occasion." Xander glanced over at Buffy.  "It wasn't 
very funny in version shark point one either."

"I'm sure it was plenty funny.  I'm just too beat to giggle.  I got, like, no sleep last 
night.   Between Dawn and Slayage, the old pony keg of busy was pretty much full.  
What is it with vampires blowing off personal hygiene basics lately?  I dusted 
another stinky one last night."

Taking off her jacket, Buffy dropped it on the table and rummaged around in Giles' 
mini-fridge for a Diet Coke.

Willow shrugged, "I don't know.  I don't remember vampires being really smelly 
before."

"Angel didn't smell bad and neither does Spike," Buffy said and sipped at the 
painfully, deliciously cold Coke.  "Kinda ashy, kinda beery, and kinda leathery, but 
not bad."

"TMI," Xander said and cleared his throat.  "I don't want to be that close to Dead 
Boy ever again.  Just to switch the subject really quickly and awkwardly, I got 
some pick-up work getting the University Auditorium ready for the Citalia concert 
this weekend.  I might even be able to get Dawn an autograph."

"That should make Dawn happy," Willow piped up.  "She's really into Citalia."

"At least she's out of her Hanson stage.  I still hear that mmmbop song when I'm 
having nightmares about being eaten alive by huge demons with teeth and 
tentacles." 

"I just have nightmares about Hanson," Xander confessed.  "All those teeth."

Buffy rolled her eyes.  "Dawn practically has Citalia wallpaper in her bedroom.  I 
actually got her tickets to the concert.  I think it might cheer her up."

"Who is this Citalia person anyway?  Is this some human thing that I'm supposed to 
know about and Xander conveniently forgot to tell me?" Anya asked.

"Citalia is a pop star.  Like Britney Spears or Christina whatshername.  Blonde 
fluffy hair, really skimpy outfits and all the little girls and boys seem to like her," 
Buffy explained.

Pulling her backpack out from underneath the table, Willow produced the latest 
issue of People magazine with Citalia on the cover.

"My mother has a subscription, for pop psychology research," Willow lied and 
pinked around the face.

"So that's her?" Anya asked, looking down at the slim blonde with her mane of 
ringlets and her outfit that seemed to be nothing more than spangles glued onto her 
body.  "She's hardly wearing any clothes."

"I think that's one of the reasons the little boys like her," Buffy said and smiled.

"And she sings?" Anya continued.

"In theory, I guess.  She's made millions of dollars in CD sales and concerts this 
year?" Willow wondered aloud.  "The songs aren't all that interesting.  Girl meets 
boy, girl falls in love with boy, and boy dumps girl for another girl.  Pretty basic 
and hetero-centric cliché, really."

"You mean that if Citalia bares her body and sings inane songs about love and 
betrayal, she makes millions of dollars?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it," Willow said with her usual lemon-twist wryness.

"Well," Anya said, "*I* could do that."

"Except for the part where you, you know, sing," Xander pointed out.

Anya smacked his arm, then caressed it in a way that made Buffy look elsewhere.  
"Silly, don't you know that part's all done in the studio?  And I can sing, too."  To 
prove it, she stood straight, took a deep breath that captured Xander's entire 
attention, and, eyes heavenward, began warbling.

After a moment, Willow nudged Buffy's elbow.  "Is that … Happy Birthday?"

"In the key of Q," Buffy stage-whispered back.

Just then Giles charged out of the storeroom, brandishing a truly wicked-looking 
cuirass with a chased silver handle.  "Back to Hell, you --!"

Anya stopped singing, and pouted.

Giles was still holding his weapon poised over his shoulder, like a batter waiting 
for a curveball.  "Gee, Giles," Buffy said, hoping to de-escalate the situation, "all 
you need is an eyepatch and a peg leg, and you'd be a nifty pirate."

With evident reluctance, Giles lowered the cuirass.  "What on earth were you 
doing?"

"I was *singing*."  

Everyone else looked away.

"And have you always been able to raise the dead with your voice?"  

"Actually –"

"I implore you not to tell me.  Aren't there any customers you can lecture on the 
benefits of capitalism?"  Giles took a seat and propped the weapon against the 
table.

Buffy bit her lower lip and tried not to grin as Anya stomped off to accost some 
customers.  Xander followed, with one last look towards Buffy, and Willow 
seemed engrossed in her latest spellbook, special-ordered through 
BookFinder.com.

"You look very – mature today," Giles noted.

"Lawyer stuff.  Estate stuff.  Boring."

"I would think that you would welcome a little boredom now and again."

"Boredom as in peaceful is good, boredom as in signing papers and looking at 
numbers is not good."

"No, I suppose it isn't.  Truth to be told, I find the bookkeeping aspect of the shop 
nothing short of stultifying.   I also can't discern why we always have an over-
abundance of dried chicken's feet.  I never order any, but there always seem to be 
more in the store-room."

"Maybe there's a multiplying chicken foot spell going on in there.  I'm having the 
same problem with laundry.  I think it's actually breeding in the hamper."

"Other than the laundry, how are you doing?" Giles asked in his delicately probing 
around the subject of death voice.

"I'm sad, Dawn's sad, it's sad." Buffy shrugged.  "Little parts of life go back to 
normal, but Mom's still dead."

The little parts of life included boinking one of the evil undead, but that was 
something that Giles was better off not knowing.

"I kinda need an adult opinion here," Buffy said and sat down at the table next to 
Giles.  "Dawn is really into Citalia and since Citalia is going to be in concert at the 
university, I got two tickets.  She's not going to want me to go with her.  She'd 
probably rather go with one of her friends.  Is thirteen old enough to go to a concert 
alone?"

"I don't know.  What kind of audience does this Citalia draw?"

"Nothing really scary, teenyboppers mostly, but there was a riot in LA at her last 
concert and I don't want Dawnie in a riot."

"I was going to Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Badfinger 
concerts when I was her age.  Of course my parents never knew."

"But you were all tough Ripper guy, which Dawn isn't."

"I think you just answered your own question."

"This responsible adult stuff really sucks."

"Yes, it does."

Changes 4/30

"I need a favor," Buffy asked, and the basement door slammed down behind her.

Spike looked up from the copy of Gormenghast he was reading and took in the 
sight of Buffy in a blue dress, looking slightly embarrassed.  His mouth went dry 
and he closed the book – he'd read it before, anyway.

"'Xpect it's not sexual either."

"Not exactly."

This was slightly interesting.

"And?"

"Dawn's favorite pop star is going to be giving a concert at the University this 
weekend.  I got a pair of tickets since it might cheer her up if she went.  She won't 
want me to go to chaperone, but she might not mind it so much if you do.  You 
know, you being all older than her and dead besides."

"Citalia? Is that the ungodly pop pap the Niblet's always playin' in her bedroom 
with the door shut?"

"But you're cool leather coat guy Spike and all her friends will be so impressed that 
you're taking her.  Might get her some social points or something.  What you really 
need to do is keep an eye out for Glory and make sure that Dawn doesn't do 
anything that I'll have to yell at her for."

Buffy batted her eyelashes at him, which was never a good sign.

"And you will be?"

"Outside, hiding.  Pretending that I'm not spying on her."

"So where's the sex bit come in?" he asked, suspicious.

"Accomplish this task and you will be suitably rewarded," she said and plopped 
down on the sofa next to him with another eyelash flutter.

"An' here I was thinkin' that you were pimpin' the Niblet out to me."

He could taste sugar on her lips over the waxy fruit of her lipstick.  It was a Buffy-
like taste, a little sweet and a little artificial over the human woman underneath.  
Her fingers stroked the front of his shirt as though it was made of silk rather than 
cotton.  So she was bribing him with sex to take her bloody little sister to a pop 
concert.  Actually, that was kind of cute.  But the way that she drove her tongue 
into his mouth was far from cute.  She was making the hairs on his arms stand at 
attention and salute along with his cock.

"So where would little sister be while we're snoggin' here an' now?" he asked, 
mumbling straight into her lips.

She slid her head around like a swan and her hot tongue touched his ear.

"She's at Willow and Tara's.  I kinda needed a night off," she said in a voice that 
was something like a purr.

"Night on, more like."

"Mmm," she agreed and her tongue began circling his ear, making him shiver.

Spike wasn't sure what material the dress was made of, but it had heated with her 
body and was thin enough that he could feel the hard points of her nipples when he 
closed his hands around her breasts.  Tightening her grip around his shoulders, she 
pressed up against him, arching her back and sighing.  His fingers found the zip at 
the back of her dress and tugged it down until he had skin against his hands.  With 
a quick wiggle, she was straddling his lap, her dress hiked up around her hips while 
she sucked his tongue into her mouth.  It was all he could do to put his hands on 
the warm, round globes of her ass and feel the heat of her skin against the coolness 
of his own undead hands.

No knickers? The girl had obviously had a plan before coming downstairs.  He 
couldn't help but smile.

Although he knew he had to be flattering himself, Spike liked to think that he was 
responsible for Buffy's acknowledgement of her erotic nature.  Hadn't she ridden 
him like a pony when they were both mortals in Egypt? Hadn't she blown him like 
a pro? Hadn't she tied him up with his own belt and cracked his ass on a couple of 
occasions?  Yeah, he was flattering himself, but if he didn't who would?  Her little 
hands were hot on his face, her hotter mouth danced across his face, stopping long 
enough to run her tongue over the whiter than white scar through his eyebrow – 
and for a second he could smell the incense in the temple.

Impatient, he pulled the dress up over her head until her flushed face and tousled 
hair was obliterated by the dark blue dress for a moment and then she emerged, 
more tousled and flushed than before, the blush extending down over her breasts.  
He tossed the dress aside and ran his hands over her skin where pink faded to 
creamy peach.

"No knickers, no brassiere? I'm startin' to think that you came down here to seduce 
me."

"Me? Seduce you?" she asked, pretending annoyance.

"A'course, you'd never do a thing like that, 'cos you're all uptight an'—"

She silenced him by biting his lips, not hard enough to break the skin, but hard 
enough to remind him that she could.  It only took Spike a moment to flip her over 
onto the sofa on her back while she gave a delighted whoop.  Her arms and legs 
were pale gold against the black of his clothes and the dark brown of the sofa and 
her nakedness next to his clothes was more decadent than usual.

"I'm not uptight," she gasped and spit hair out of her mouth.

Nuzzling her neck, he tasted her skin, right where the pulse throbbed underneath.  
A need to pierce and suck crashed into his mind, but she'd need more time for that.  
He struggled out of his t-shirt with near-desperation, then crashed down on her like 
a rockfall.  He could hear the breath rush out of her lungs and feel her rise against 
him, conforming herself to his body.  Fumbling with his jeans, he managed to push 
them down past his thighs, close enough for government work.

"Talk dirty to me," she whispered.

Spike smirked.  She must be feeling very adventurous indeed.  

He gave her a human-teeth nip on the stomach.  "Dirty how, luv?  Baby, you feel 
so good, I can't wait to get inside you," he crooned, and Buffy gasped.  Spike slid 
two long cool fingers inside her and stroked her in time with his words.  She was 
wetter than Seattle and twice as hot.  

"I'm not sure that's dirty enough."  He sucked at a nipple, hard enough to make her 
cry out.  "I'm goin' to fuck you through the floor," he realized he was growling 
now, and that was very good; he felt her muscles clench around his curving fingers.  
"I'm goin' to put my dick anywhere I want and you're goin' to beg me for it, 'cause 
you love to fuck me."  

Moaning, she tossed her head against the nubby fabric of the sofa, her hair sticking 
to the upholstery and fanning out around her head like a sunburst.  Spike reached 
with his free hand to tap her lightly on the cheek, not quite a slap but enough to 
make Buffy's eyes spring open.  "I said, you're goin' to beg me for it."

The befuddled lust on her face gave way to defiance.  "Think you can make me?"

"Oh, I know I can."  His fingers were still pumping inside her and he could tell 
from the way that she was gasping for breath there were only a few moments 
before she'd finally come.

"No you can't, you—"

"Yes, I can."

Buffy really should have known better than to play sex chicken with him, Spike 
thought to himself.  Allowing himself a satisfied smirk, he removed his fingers 
from her body, zipped up his pants and went to the other side of the basement, 
leaving her naked and stunned on the sofa.  Rummaging around in the pile of his 
things on the freezer, he found his pack of cigarettes and lit one, leaning against the 
humming deep freeze.

"Spike?" she asked, in a confused tone and half sat up on the sofa.

"Right here," he said and exhaled smoke.

"Come back," she said and it was almost a whine.

"Doesn't sound like beggin' to me, sweetness."

"That is so wrong," she hissed and flopped back into the cushions.

"I can stand here all night, and you can just stay there thinkin' about how good 
you'd feel if you was to just give in and ask for it."

"Oh you wonderful thing, you.  You're the Biggest of the Big Bads and you turn 
me into the nympho hose-beast that I really am," she said with the non-existent 
enthusiasm of someone reciting her telephone number.  

Spike didn't know if he should laugh or groan in pain.

"You can do better than that," he teased.

Raising herself up on her elbows, Buffy glared across the basement at him.

"Get your skinny, undead ass over here and fuck me."

This time, Spike did laugh, and did throw his cigarette onto the floor, crushing it 
out with the toe of his boot.  "You're got a gift for the erotic gab, my dear, ever 
think of switchin' to phone sex as a career?"

"Now!"

Kicking off his boots, Spike crossed back to the sofa and Buffy attacked the 
buttons of his fly like a crazy woman, peeling down his jeans in record time and 
pushing him back on the sofa.  Before he could protest, she had straddled his lap 
and guided his cock right into the hot depths of her until all he could do was hiss 
with delight.

"Now you beg," she instructed and started to move over him.

Slayer muscles were a wonderful thing, he thought as he buried his face between 
her breasts.  She was moving up and down on him with the ease of a cork on the 
water.  She thought she could make him beg?  Not that he could, since talking with 
one's mouth full of nipple wasn't terribly polite.  God, she could have killed him if 
he hadn't been dead already.

They rocked back and forth on the couch, her back flexing underneath his hands.  
He could feel every hard muscle of her, including the hot tight ones coiled around 
his cock.  It made the secret softness of her breasts even more appealing.  Buffy 
was setting the pace now; Spike was content to play recreational vehicle this time.  
He bit at her breasts with dull teeth and she shuddered, her head thrown back so far 
that he could feel her hair brush his hands even as they moved downwards.

She came with a strangled cry that reminded him of how she sounded when 
punched in the stomach.  He hadn't the patience to wait and followed right after.  
With Dawn out of the way at Willow's, there'd be many encores, he reminded 
himself just before the orgasm took over, exploding white and gold in his dazed 
vision, burning through his brain like a forest fire.

Buffy must have seen a hint of his reaction on his stupefied face.  "Tell me you 
wouldn't beg for that," she teased, her legs still clutching his hips and her hands 
braced on his shoulders.

"Baby, right now I'd grovel on me hands and knees on national television."  She 
twitched a little around him, and it was easy enough to say with her breasts still 
inches from his face.

"Yeah, I know what you-"

The sudden groan from the stairs made Buffy whip her head around, and Spike 
wriggled so that he could get a view past her body.

Anya.  And, standing a few steps above her, the likely source of the noise, that 
useless git Xander.

As among the three humans, it was a toss-up as to whose eyes were closer to 
popping from their sockets.  

"Do you *mind*?" Spike asked, since no one else seemed to remember that man is 
the only animal possessed of language.  "Publicize your sex life if you want, but 
some of us prefer a bit o' privacy, right?"  Buffy pulled a sheet from somewhere 
underneath them, and wrapped herself in it.  He could hear her grinding her teeth.

Xander made a sound like a punctured basketball.  Anya grabbed his arm.  "Yes, I 
think we should go have sex now."  Spike thought she meant it and wasn't just 
trying to minimize the embarrassment of the situation, since Anya could no more 
do that than she could pee standing up.  Probably she'd just been staring as a means 
to gather useful information.

"You … he…" Xander raised a shaking hand to point at them.  And then he was 
stumbling down past Anya, heedless of how she lost her balance for a moment and 
nearly plummeted down on top of him.  He reached the couch just as Buffy 
managed to pull away, the sheet wrapped around her.  

"Oh wrong.  This is totally and completely wrong!" Xander gasped.

"I thought vampires would be far more oral—" Anya added.

Xander's first swing was wild, as were his second and third.  Spike, standing now 
because there seemed to be no good alternative, grabbed him by the neck and held 
him off of the ground.  The boy's hands went to his neck, trying to pry Spike loose.  
He could hear Buffy moving beside him and he held out his free hand to stop her.  

"'S all right, I'll let him go.  I ain't killin' anyone while I'm naked." 

 Xander froze, shot a quick glance downward to Spike's crotch, did some mental 
calculations involving a ruler, then resolutely brought his eyes forward.  

 Spike smirked.  

"Though it's a good way to avoid ruinin' leather."  He let Xander drop; as the boy 
staggered back, he took the opportunity to grab his jeans and step into them.  Just 
in case killing became an option.

"Xander …" Buffy's voice was conciliatory.  Spike wanted to be angry, but the fact 
of the matter was he'd always known that he'd go over with her friends worse than 
bulimia.  There were no after-school specials to help youngsters cope with a friend 
shagging a vampire, he strongly suspected.

The sound of her voice was all Xander needed to turn and run, pushing past Anya, 
who shot Buffy a hurt look.  "Dawn slipped on an ice cube and broke something in 
her arm.  She's in the hospital," Anya rattled out like quarters from a Vegas slot 
machine, then rushed up the stairs after her lover.  


Changes 5/ 30


Buffy wrapped her arms more closely around herself.  Hospitals – she'd had more 
than enough hospital smell and sound, not to mention food, to last through her next 
few incarnations.  At least the last time she'd been waiting outside the emergency 
room she'd been wearing panties.  Dawn was still being evaluated, whatever that 
meant, and almost the whole hallway was filled with the gang.  Tara and Willow 
were looking guilty and stricken, holding hands and whispering between 
themselves, Anya was looking through a battered copy of the Economist, and 
Xander stood next to her emitting vibes bad enough to be sensed in Ohio.  Spike 
had been lounging against the wall picking at his nail polish before disappearing on 
a mysterious Spike errand.  With a physical pang not unlike a punch to the gut, 
Buffy missed her mother.  

The doctor, a young Asian man barely taller than Buffy herself, stepped out of the 
examination room and looked around the hallway.

"Family?" he asked, expressing a little doubt as to the motley collection of young 
people in the hallway.  He must have been looking for a grown-up.

"She's my sister," Buffy said and stepped forward.

Inside the exam room, Dawn was sitting up on the gurney with a line of fine 
stitches across her forehead, a deepening bruise on her chin, and a technician was 
wrapping wet purple plastic mesh around her arm.

"-And you're going to have a pretty purple cast.  The new casts are a lot more fun 
than plain old plaster of Paris," the technician said in the over-bright voice people 
reserve for dim children.

"It was an accident!" Dawn snapped as though Buffy had accused her of 
deliberately hurting herself.  "I was just goofing around and I fell!"

"The radius in her left arm is broken and she bashed her face up a little when she 
fell," the doctor explained, "Nothing serious or complicated, but I want to keep her 
overnight for observation.  With a head wound like that there's always a possibility 
of concussion.  And we want to have the staff orthopedist take a look at her arm in 
the morning."

"What happened?" Buffy asked and went over to hold her sister's good hand.

"We were making strawberry smoothies.  I dropped the ice cube tray on the floor 
and I slipped on one of the ice cubes," Dawn said from her tight white face.  "It 
isn't Willow or Tara's fault.  I just fell."

Buffy felt like there was an invisible garrote around her neck.  It was her fault that 
Dawn was hurt.  She shouldn't have sent her off to Willow and Tara's like that.  
Specifically, she shouldn't have sent Dawn off so she could have sex with Spike.  
Now Dawn was hurt because of her selfishness.  

"You're going to be fine," Buffy said and squeezed Dawn's hand.

"No I'm not, I'm going to have a scar on my head and I'm going to look like a 
zombie or something!  Jamie Byrne is never going to talk to me again because I'll 
be ugly."

"Dawnie, those are little tiny baby stitches and everybody know that makes the scar 
smaller.  And if it still shows, a little cover stick and no one will ever see it."

"Really?" Dawn hiccuped.

"I promise, and I do know scars."

Dawn snatched her good hand free from Buffy and wiped at her nose.

"This day has totally sucked.  Tracy was going to try to get tickets for the Citalia 
concert Friday night and they were sold out.  Now I've got a stupid broken arm and 
a queer purple cast."

The technician looked up from his wrapping job and sniffed.

"Well, I just happen to know that there are a couple of tickets with your name on 
them at the Box Office and Spike said that he wanted to take you.  Provided that 
the doctor says you can go."

"Spike wanted to take me?" Dawn's face lit up for a second, and then her eyes 
narrowed with suspicion.  "Do you think I'm that stupid?  He doesn't want to take 
me to a concert.  You, he'd take to Australia and back in full sunlight, crawling on 
broken glass and holy water.  You're making him do it."

"And I would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for you meddling kids 
and your stupid dog."

"Okay, I'll go with Spike to the concert," Dawn agreed in the most ungracious way 
possible.

"If you stay here and behave yourself tonight."

"I'm not a baby," Dawn said with teenaged contempt and jerked her hand away 
from Buffy's.

The momentary sisterly warmth was gone like a snowball in a blast furnace, melted 
with the heat of Dawn's hormone hell.  Buffy's toenails wanted to curl into her toes.  
That was the tone reserved for Moms.  She'd used it on her mom and she'd heard 
Dawn use it on her as well.  

"Dawn, you have to stay, the doctors want to keep an eye on you and want you to 
see the orthodontist tomorrow."

"Orthodontist! That's for teeth.  Orthopedist, that's bones.  God, you're so stupid," 
Dawn sneered.

That was the proverbial it.  Buffy's tear ducts flooded like a canyon in a sudden 
downpour and tears started to pour down her cheeks.  Dawn reddened and looked 
away.

"Get over yourself," Dawn said and twitched her mouth into an unpleasant 
sourness.  "You sit here and act all sorry but you're just glad that I won't be coming 
home tonight because you get to spend the whole night bumping fuzzies with your 
skanky new boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend." Buffy said and pushed the tears off her face, painfully 
aware of her pantyless state.

"You like 'undead fuck-toy' better?"

"Buffy?" Giles' calm and reasonable adult voice cut through the red haze that was 
beginning to surround Buffy.

"Giles," she said and stood up, catching a cold and embarrassing draft up her dress.  
"Did you just get here or—" 

Or did you just hear everything, she finished inside her head.  Not that there was 
any point in trying to keep the Spike thing quiet now that Xander and Anya knew 
and would probably put an ad in the Sunnydale Daily.

"Xander called.  I came as soon as I—" he looked over at Dawn who had had 
crossed her good arm over her chest and was glaring at him with the same 
adolescent hatred she had just been aiming at her sister.

"Enter parent-substitute, stage right," Dawn snarked.

Giles, wisely, ignored her.  Buffy tried to and wiped at her face.

"Dawn's got a broken arm, possible concussion, and serious attitude damage," 
Buffy summarized.  "She slipped and fell in the kitchen at Willow and Tara's, no 
big scary supernatural fallage, just a garden-variety accident."

"My attitude's damaged?  Like you're so great!"

Giles put gentle fingers around Buffy's upper arm and pulled towards the door.

"I think family tensions are running a little high right now.  I'll stay here with 
Dawn until the store opens and we'll get someone else to sit with her then."  He 
gave Buffy a meaningful look from behind his glasses.  "In case there's any sort of 
glorious activity."

"I don't think –" she started.

"Go home and get some rest.  An argument right now isn't going to do any good to 
either of you and it certainly won't do a bit of good for me.  Now go."

Even as she went out the door, Buffy could feel Dawn's eyes burning sister-poison 
into her back.  Had life been better before Dawn? She couldn't remember.  The 
monks had filled her head so full of Dawn-memories that it seemed that Dawn had 
always been around, snapping and growling like an angry puppy.

This night, which had started out so great, now officially sucked zombie dick for 
free.

**

Hospitals were strictly for humans.  Humans getting bits stitched back together, 
bits taken out, bits put in that hadn't been there before.  The unnatural and ugly 
smell of disinfectant over human blood just ruined the ambiance of pain and fear.  
Also, there was fuck all to do in the waiting area outside the emergency room.  
Giles had sent Willow and Tara home with instructions about herb tea the moment 
he arrived and Spike now had no one to talk to except for the obviously homeless 
guy in the corner who smelled worse than any week-old corpse.  Anya was flipping 
through copies of US News that dated back to the Ford administration and Xander 
was trying to stare holes through him.

This wasn't good.  That little incident in the basement now meant that there was 
what the movies called a "security breach" big enough to drive a motor coach 
through.  The chances of Xander and Anya keeping mum about him and Buffy 
doing two man push-ups on the sofa were none to fucking forget about it.  By the 
look on Xander's face the only way he was going to be happy with the outcome 
was if Spike was in the dustpan.  As though it was any of the boy's affair, as if 
Xander had any right to criticize since he'd banged a Slayer himself and a demon to 
boot.  

Spike slouched a little further into his chair and wanted a cigarette, and he wasn't 
as impressed by the no smoking signs as he was by the big orderly behind the 
reception desk who might or might not have troll somewhere in his lineage.  The 
bags of blood he'd liberated from storage would stay cool for a couple of hours in 
his duster pockets so there was no reason he shouldn't wait until the sun was just 
beginning to rise.  On the other hand, Buffy could come out at any moment and in 
all likelihood she would be in the beginning stages of a meltdown.  There wasn't 
any point for the two kids to be around for that, and they'd witnessed enough Buffy 
embarrassment for one night.

"Look, it's getting' on to half two.  You lot ought to bugger off home.  I'll hold the 
fort down."

Anya looked up from her magazine.  "That's a good idea.  Xander, let's go home 
and have sex."

"I'm not in the mood." Xander gave each word the same weight in lead before 
getting up out of his seat and stalking out of the room.

The boy didn't even give good stalk.

"Who peed in his Corn Chex?"

"Luv, it's 'pissed in his cornflakes,' right?" Spike said and waited a moment before 
following sulky floppy boy.

Spike found Xander in the men's room down the hall, with his zip undone, draining 
the old trouser-snake.  Moving vamp-quick in the tiled room, Spike grabbed 
Xander's favorite body part in a firmly threatening grip.  Xander let loose a squeak 
and developed the correct amount of fear and loathing appropriate for a man being 
grabbed by the dick in a public restroom.

"Now that I got your attention," Spike said and favored Xander with evil smile #4, 
"an' your pathetic little willie, we're gonna' discuss this like gentlemen."

All Xander could do was nod, his eyes so big that Spike could have seen his 
reflection in them if he'd had a reflection.

"You don't go bustin' in while somebody's shaggin', right? An' you don't get all 
righteous when it ain't none of your affair who an' what the Slayer's doin' when 
she's not on duty."

For a moment, Spike thought that Xander had quit breathing, but the lad finally 
drew a deep, shaky breath and barely nodded his head.

"You say or do anythin' that makes the shadow of a frown cross Her Blondness's 
face an' I'm goin' to make you wish your slag of a mum never bore you, got it? The 
girl's got enough trouble as it is wivout you causin' any more.  Are we clear, 
Carpenter-boy?"

Xander managed another nod, this one combined with a grimace that promised 
future reprisals.

"Soul or no soul, you're still mean to the core, Spike."

"An' you say it like it's a bad thing."

"I don't know what the hell you did to Buffy, but you're still a piece of undead shit, 
Dead Boy."

"I'm quakin' in my boots."

Since there was nothing else to say Spike let Xander loose and watched the boy zip 
and take himself out of the restroom at warp nine.  Then Spike washed his hands, 
twice.

When he got back to the waiting room, only the homeless guy was evident.  The 
human and the ex-demon had done a runner.  He settled himself back into the 
uncomfortable chair and waited.

Moments later, the interior door opened and Buffy tottered out.  He jumped out of 
his seat and had to remind himself to be cool rather than rushing over to her.  
Instead he made a quick saunter over to the shaking Slayer.

"How's the Niblet then? All the parts workin'?"

"She has a broken arm.  They're keeping her overnight to see the – ortho tricycline 
or something tomorrow.  She might have a concussion.  And she's so nasty, she's—
" Buffy took a deep breath and visibly steadied herself.  "She wanted to hurt my 
feelings and she did a good job of it.  Dawn hates me."

"She don't hate you, just don't like you too much right now.  Symptom of the age.  
Giles is sittin' wiv'her, right? You ready to toddle off home?"

Buffy looked around the waiting room, empty except for the homeless guy.

"Where'd everybody go?" she asked.

"Home.  So let's get a move on," he announced and gently tugged her arm in the 
direction of the exit.

Quiet Buffy was not a good thing, Spike knew.  It meant she was thinking 
unpleasant things.  Considering the fact that she was quiet from the emergency 
room exit to the entrance of her development on the other side of Sunnydale, she 
was thinking very unpleasant things.

"Dawn's hurt because of me."

"How's that?" he asked, sneaking a look at her in the DeSoto's dash lights.

Her pointy little face was set on grim.

"If I hadn't sent her to Willow and Tara's she wouldn't have fallen on the ice cube."

"She fell on a bloody ice cube, Slayer, she could've done that anywhere."

"I sent her there to get her out of the house to be alone with you.  I was being 
selfish and Dawn's hurt because of it."

"It's a stupid fucking accident, she could have fallen in the shower wiv'you in the 
next room an' me in Modesto.  Don't go floggin' yourself about it."

She didn't look convinced.


Changes 6/30


So tired.  So tired that even her hair was tired and her fingernails ached.  Throwing 
herself down on the edge of her bed, Buffy looked at her shoes, too exhausted to 
take them off.  Maybe slaying wasn't compatible with the suddenly Single 
Momlike routine.  There was probably a good reason Slayers didn't live far into 
their twenties, have families, run households, pay bills, and make sure that bratty 
teenage sisters didn't go to rock concerts.  She groaned and lay back on the bed, her 
arms splayed out like limp fish fins.

Buffy had fallen from buildings, been killed a couple of times, been staked by a 
ratty vamp, and survived high school, but Dawn had to break her arm slipping on 
an ice cube?  It was unreal.  Stupid accidents didn't happen in Buffy's world.  

Normal twenty year olds didn't sneak off to have sex with the evil undead while 
their sisters were breaking their arms in stupid accidents.

"Hey," the evil undead said and stuck his head through the doorway, "You all right, 
then?"

"I am a whole bunch of not all right," she admitted and looked at him upside-down 
from where she lay on the bed.  Buffy realized that she could see up his nose and 
noted that it wasn't an attractive angle.

"Can I come in?"

Buffy put her hands over her eyes.

"I'm too tired to fight, Spike.  Too tired for anything."

"'Xactly." 

"Don't leave."

"Wasn't goin' to."

A moment later he had shed his clothes and slithered between the sheets next to 
her, about as lecherously as Mr. Gordo, who watched from the bedside with his 
beady, piggy eyes, saying nothing.

**

She should have been asleep.  But no, she was lying there with Spike's arm across 
her midsection like a free weight while she watched the shadows from the tree 
branches flicker across the ceiling.  She rolled over on her side and slid out from 
under his arm.  He was almost snoring, but not loud enough to be the reason she 
was still feeling restless and itchy.  It could have been the guilt over Dawn, but she 
didn't want to think about that.

Maybe it was her Slayer-sense.  There was something that she should have been 
doing other than sleeping.  Something really nasty was prowling the streets of 
Sunnydale and she was missing it.  The sheets felt raspy against her skin and she 
punched the pillow into a better shape.  She couldn't quite see what was wrong 
with this picture.  Putting aside Mom being gone, Dawn in the hospital, Spike 
asleep next to her, and Glory hovering in town instead of staying properly in the 
heavens or hells or wherever gods hung out.  Groaning, she heaved herself out of 
bed and pulled on her ratty chenille bathrobe, hoping against hope that Dawn and 
Spike hadn't eaten all of the ice cream.

Downstairs, Buffy detoured through the living room to pick up the empty ice 
cream carton and the dirty spoons from the night before.  She padded into the 
kitchen, turned on the light and nearly dropped dead of shock.  The ice cream 
carton and the spoons fell to the tile floor with a clatter that sounded an awful lot 
like a swordfight.

Oh shit, she thought.

"You're going to wake everybody up," he said in a calm voice.

Angel.  Big and real as life there at the kitchen table, cleaning his fingernails with a 
small Swiss Army knife.

"Phones.  Phones are good, you could have used a phone and called to say 'hey, I'm 
in town and I'm coming over'.  You know, instead of just beaming down into my 
kitchen at like four in the morning," she babbled and picked up the spoons.

"And ruin the element of surprise?"

The downy hairs on the back of Buffy's neck stood up and thought about running 
away.  The rest of Buffy thought about running into the living room and getting 
Mr.  Pointy out of the chest.  She wasn't entirely sure if she was speaking to Angel 
or EvilTwin Angelus.  She couldn't see if he was wearing leather pants or not.  
Without being able to see the pants it was harder to tell the difference.

"So you just drove from LA to scare the shit out of me in my kitchen? Great, I need 
this right now." She crossed over to the sink to drop the spoons in soapy water and 
shoved the ice cream carton in the trash can underneath.  "Dawn fell and broke her 
arm, and now you have to show up.  This is turning into one funfest of a day."

While she was bent over at the trash can, Buffy snuck a look under the table.  
Black pants, naturally, but not leather.  That helped somewhat.

"I heard about Dawn.  I wanted to see how you were doing.  I was worried."

"Worried?" Buffy asked and came back around the table so she could stare down at 
him over arms now defensively crossed over her chest.  "My mother's dead and my 
broken-armed sister's an energy being who is being hunted by a very insane and 
dangerous goddess.  Why would you be worried?"

"Buffy, you're not a good liar."  He looked up at her for the first time.  His eyes 
were as dark as she remembered and still gave nothing away.  "I'm talking about 
how you've done a reversal of opinion about Spike."

The breath that Buffy sucked in burned her chest like woodsmoke.

"Newsflash, none of your business."

"I'm making it my business."  In a vamp-fast move he was out of the chair and 
staring down at her.  Buffy could smell the clove and sandalwood of him.  "You're 
upset right now and you aren't thinking clearly."

"Right, I'm a stupid girl who can't make her own decisions."  She stood up a little 
taller and glared the best that she could at him.  "You know what, my life is NONE 
of your fucking business.  You left and I went on slaying.  I went on with my life.  
You have no right to come back here now and tell me what I should or shouldn't be 
doing."

"You're mad because I left?"

"Hello?! My mother's dead and my sister's in the hospital.  Let's just stand here and 
talk about Spike, okay?  God, you know, you're not the most important creature in 
the world, Angel!"

Just to make matters worse, besides the fact that she was glaring into his 
collarbones, Buffy's eyes were starting to burn and she knew that she only had the 
slightest chance of getting through this without bawling her eyes out.

"All you could find was Spike?" he asked, his eyes and voice going all melted 
chocolate.

Oh no, she was helpless against the melted chocolate look and sound.  Too many 
nice things had happened when he'd had that going on.

However, insult beat out melted chocolate any day of the week.

"All I could find?" she echoed, her voice getting tight and thin with annoyance.  
"There are plenty of guys who want to go out with me.  There are guys who are 
drooling with the thought of going out with me."

"If it had to be a vampire, you could have been a little more selective."

"Oh, yeah, you ruined me for mortal men forever," she snorted.  "Get over 
yourself.  I've gone out with human guys too.  I had sex with human guys.  I went 
out with one for almost a year.  I'm not a fang-hag.  "

"Which is why you're sleeping with Spike?"

"Who's takin' my name in vain?"

Buffy wasn't entirely surprised to see Spike in the doorway with his shirt flapping 
open, his pants barely buttoned, with a stake in one hand.  Angel stiffened and 
stared at the other vampire who stiffened and stared back at him.  They eyed each 
other like two pit bulls meeting for the first time.  She couldn't actually hear 
growling, but it vibrated through her body regardless.  

"Well this is just a cluster fuck beyond all imaginin'," Spike sneered at Angel.

"Did you bite her?  Did you put her in thrall?" Angel demanded.

"No," Buffy said at about the same moment that Spike did.

"But that's kind of you, puttin' me up there wiv' the Masters.  You just can't bear 
the idea that she'd be takin' up wiv' me of her own free will, can you, Sunshine?"  
Spike aimed a smile at Angel and it wasn't one of his nicer ones.

"Spike, the last time I saw you, you had your friend Marcus sticking hot pokers 
through me.  I can't imagine anybody wanting to be with you of their own free 
will." 

"An' it just keeps me awake all day, thinkin' that I could have killed you then."

The testosterone in the room, or whatever vampires used in place of it, was 
approaching toxic levels.

"Lost your chance, not that you would have had the guts to—"

Spike laughed and flipped the stake through his fingers, twirling it like a tiny 
baton, fingers moving almost too fast for human eyes to see, while Angel hunched 
his shoulders as if preparing to spring.  Looking back and forth between the two 
men, Buffy wasn't sure if she should try to break up the argument before it 
degenerated into violence, or just go back upstairs and let them finish their macho 
posturing before she even tried to talk.  The kitchen-wrecking potential counseled 
in favor of intervention.

"Ya don't have the balls for anythin' anymore, Sunshine.  Gloomy, doomy, oh I got 
a soul an' it's put a powerful hurt on me.  'Course you never were anythin' other 
than a filthy, mucksavage Paddy wiv' delusions of grandeur."

Angel, obviously, had heard enough.  Whatever a muckpaddy was it had hit a sore 
point.  In a blur of movement, he was across the floor with his hands wrapped 
around Spike's neck.

"You won't die," Angel said in a very controlled voice, "but having a broken neck 
will really cramp your style."

"An' I can run this stake right into that bleedin' heart of yours."

True enough, Spike's hand was pressing the tip of the stake against Angel's chest.  
They could certainly do each other in at that point.  The only question was who 
was faster.  Buffy wasn't about to place any bets.

"Okay, knock it off, the both of you.  Hands off each other, I don't feel like 
vacuuming up vamp dust in the middle of the night," Buffy commanded in the 
sharp voice that usually worked with strange dogs and occasionally worked with 
Dawn.

Unwillingly, Angel let go of Spike and retreated over near the table.  Spike 
ostentatiously slid the stake into the waistband of his jeans.  Okay, that tone 
worked just fine with hormone-enraged vampires.  Buffy rubbed her hands over 
her face and looked from one to the other.  This was her idea of hell, four in the 
morning with an ex-boyfriend and a current not-boyfriend snarling at each other in 
her kitchen like Rottweilers on speed.  This wasn't something that Mom or Sex Ed 
had covered.  She was going to have to punt.

"Okay, now, we have a little situation here.  And it's going to have get worked out 
but until then, nobody's dusting, maiming, breaking, or otherwise damaging 
anybody else, got it?"

"She's so hot when she gets all bossy, isn't she?" Spike asked and caught the Look 
of Death for his pains.  "Tauntin', you didn't say anythin' about not tauntin'."

"No taunting either." Buffy took a deep breath.  "Angel, whoever told you about 
the Spike thing," she couldn't really say it, not when she couldn't admit it to herself, 
"forgot to tell you that a Keshonte demon gave Spike back his soul.  Which means 
that you really can't dust him because it would be bad.  And Spike, you can't dust 
Angel because I will be mad.  Have we got this?"

"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Spike muttered.  "Where's Lord Byron when 
he's needed?"

"Now I have got to get some sleep.  Unlike you guys I have to go out in the 
daylight and do things.  Like get Dawn out of the hospital."  She glared at the two 
men.  "You both better call a truce until sundown and I guess we'll take up where 
we left off tomorrow night – oh hell, I guess I mean tonight.  If.  I.  Feel.  Like.  It."

Looks were exchanged and Angel slid out the back door of the kitchen without a 
word.  Spike shook his head as if clearing something from the inside and looked 
back at her with a strangely blank face.

"You don't have to go," she said.

"I have to go home."

**

"I have to go home," he said and pulled his shirt back on.

"Silly, silly, silly, home is here," she said and sat up in the surf of linen and lace 
that made up the bed.  "You stay here now."  Her white body burned like a candle 
to his eyes, even though the lamps had long since guttered out.

"No, I must go home.  I have – obligations – I have to be at the publishing house at 
half eight."  He sat on the edge of the bed and began to lace his boots, but she 
wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her sharp little nails cut into him.

"You don't go home, you don't go to the publishing house, you're mine now and 
you don't leave me."  She sounded almost frightened, underneath the petulance that 
reminded him too much of his little sisters.

Trying to be reassuring, he pressed his forehead to hers and took himself into the 
far and dark reaches of her eyes.

"I'm going to come back, I'm not like that."

The door blew open and the big man thundered in.  He fell back against her, and 
she trembled as the large man with the wild hair closed in on them.

'You explained nowt to this Amadáin.  You don't go home, boy, you never get to 
go home to yer Aul Wan an' yer Aul Man, yer with us now.  You're one of us."

Certain that the stranger was a procurer and the frightened young woman was his 
doxy, all he could think about was the miserable little sum in his purse and prayed 
that it would be enough to make the big man go away.  

"I don't have much money, but you're welcome to the entire sum," he stammered 
and got to his feet, even though his legs were shaking.  "I've misunderstood the 
entire situation and I--"

"I ain't blaggardin' ya, boy.  You're as dead as the dog's dinner and deader still once 
you step out inta' th' mornin' light."

"I must leave," he tried again.

The big man's hand smashed down across his face, sending him flying against the 
wall.  Pain slashed through his brain.  On the bed, the girl began to wail, the 
bedclothes fallen down around her naked body and she commenced pulling her 
hands through her hair like Ophelia.

"You said I could keep him.  He was my present.  I made him to play with me.  
You never play nice, you never play with me."

"Ye couldn't have found anythin' better than this gack dosser? Taught you better 
than that, I did."

While the man railed at the sobbing, naked woman all he could do was rub the 
wetness from his face.

And taste the blood.


Changes 7/30


Spike tasted blood.

Damn, he'd bitten his lip when Angel had hit him.  It wasn't the first time, either.

The memories were banging in his head with the warmth and concern of a car 
crash.  Even as Spike walked across the pre-dawn streets of Sunnydale, his head 
was back in a London basement.  Another wonderful benefit of having a soul, 
apparently; he hadn't thought of all that in a century.  The granite faces of the 
headstones in the cemetery exhaled the cool night air.  He stopped and sat on the 
ground against his favorite tombstone, Sarah Smith, who had been buried before 
he'd returned from South America.  Sarah Smith who had lived to be eighty-five, 
beloved wife and mother.  Sarah Smith never had an unkind word for him, was 
solid and real against his back.  Good old Sarah.

Drawing his knees up to his chest, Spike fisted his hands and dug them into the 
cool sockets of his eyes.  There were things that he didn't want fighting their way 
out of the carefully constructed cages of nonchalance in his mind.  Unfortunately, 
they were presently holding some guards hostage and demanding to speak to the 
press.  

She'd wrapped him in her arms that night, her cool strong arms and taught him 
things that he could never have imagined.  She'd just forgotten to explain to him 
exactly the price she'd exacted.  Poor Drusilla, thinking with a brain full of holes as 
Battenburg lace.  She'd never given him a choice, never given him a chance.

Fuck, Spike thought to himself, pushing back into the present day – present 
morning -- just as the rosy-fingered Aurora was about to set him aflame with her 
touch.  He ambled for his crypt, and realized that he was shaking.  Damn the 
bastard anyway.  Damn the fucking bastard.  Hadn't spent enough time in Hell, 
hadn't stayed where he belonged.  Had to come back and well and truly fuck up the 
only thing that was making Spike's un-life worth living.

He felt the presence all along his veins and arteries, blood to blood.  Which was 
why he wasn't particularly surprised when the flying tackle sent him nose-first into 
the cool embrace of a stone Virgin Mary.   Hands at his collar, spinning him 
around.  Spike kicked, grabbed, and threw a punch into a midsection hard as the 
granite slab he found himself atop.

"You fuck, motherfucking, piece of shit, sonofabitch, fucking gobshite."

This was interesting; Spike had never seen another vampire red in the face before.  
It couldn't be a good thing.  He was bent backwards over an aboveground crypt, 
edge digging into the small of his back, while Angel's saliva sprayed as he shouted.

"You stay the FUCK away from her," Angel warned and game faced.

That wasn't a good sign either, Angel with his vamp up.

"See we been carin' and sharin' out in LaLa-land," Spike choked around Angel's 
hands.  "Don't be shy now."

"You just can't leave it alone, can you?"

Spike forced himself to laugh.

"The scourge of Europe is thrashin' me over a little blond bit a'skirt?  You oughta' 
be ashamed a'yourself."

It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say, Spike realized when Angel smashed 
him in the face with a fist, and blood started to run from broken skin.  The smell of 
his own blood sent the old blood lust like flames through his body, the burning 
outlining each and every vessel and capillary.  He felt his own face heat and 
change, the sharp fangs pinch at his lower lip.  Inches away from his face, Spike 
watched Angel's nostrils twitch at the same scent.

"Sanctimonious bastard," Spike swore and drove his knee into the other vampire's 
groin.

It didn't have the same effect it would have as on a human, but Angel's pain 
receptors worked well enough to send him staggering back a step, releasing Spike.  
Spike used the crypt as support and kicked Angel square in the face with both feet 
before rolling backwards over the crypt, putting it between him and the other man.  
There was blood on Angel's face and in his eye as he surged over the crypt, coat 
flapping out like Batman's cape.  Spike leapt over a tombstone, reaching to the 
back of his jeans for the stake he'd stuck there earlier.  Fuck, he must have lost it in 
the initial tackle.  

Vampire strength notwithstanding, Angel was a hell of a lot bigger than he was and 
sheer mass gave the other vampire an advantage that Spike wasn't about to let him 
use.  As long as he kept Angel far enough away and prevented him from crushing 
Spike against another crypt or the ground, he was going to keep his unlife intact.

"Why'd you do it?  You going to make her suffer?  Is that going to amuse you, 
Spike?" 

"Consider the possibility that I might be enjoyin' her company."

"You're joking.  You have nothing in common."

"Far as I can remember, we got plenty in common."  The bitterness in Spike's voice 
betrayed entirely too much of his feelings so he masked it with another forced 
laugh.  "An' you know all 'bout it, Sunshine."

"You fuck," Angel swore.

A roundhouse kick hit him in the throat and he tumbled backwards, smacking the 
side of his head against the sharp edge of a gravestone.  Momentarily dazed, he 
struggled to his feet and ducked behind an obelisk.  Yeah, Angel had longer arms 
and legs, he'd forgotten that.

"I've beaten the shit out of you before," Angel warned.

"'S why I'm avoidin' you," Spike gasped and rabbited around a mausoleum that 
slept four.

"Fuckin' coward."

"Don't fancy gettin' my ass kicked, thanks."

The sky was half-light in the east, making the sky opal with color.  They had about 
ten minutes before they were both reduced to barbecue leftovers.  He should have 
pointed this out but he figured that Angel already knew, and was entirely too 
fucked off to care.  He could hear Angel's footsteps crunching though the dry grass 
of the cemetery.

"You can't have her, y'know, seein' as how your soul's got a return-to-sender 
option," Spike called, and felt the hardness of his vamp face melt away, leaving 
only stiff soreness.  "There's no cause to keep her from what comfort she can get."

The footsteps stopped.  
 
"You've got no right to lay your filthy hands on her."

"An' that's somethin' you know more than a passin' bit about, Angelus."  It was an 
effort for sure, but Spike managed to keep his voice steady.

"I'm going to kill you."

"Waste a'time.  I'm already dead."

**

He was dead.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never 
die.

Heels of his hands dug into his eye sockets, he leaned against the wall.  The room 
was dark and cold, the stub of a candle the only light.  Every fiber in his being was 
shaking, and a thousand thoughts were battering like moths against a gaslight globe 
in his brain.  The woman, the woman who had – he couldn't even think the words – 
killed him and them made love to him, was Drusilla.  He could tell, now, that she 
was mad as a hatter.  And a vampire besides.  He'd read Le Fanu, he'd read 
Polidori's bastardized version of Byron's tale, and he'd even suffered through 
Varney.  He knew about vampires, just as he knew about Greece and the Cherokee.  
They told him that he now was a vampire, which was as strange as waking up a 
Greek or an Indian.  

Despite the oddness, it had the ring of truth.  There had been a change, something 
terribly different ever since he'd woken up in Drusilla's bed.  Of course he'd first 
thought that it had something to do with finally attaining carnal knowledge of a 
woman, but he may have been mistaken.  

He heard the locks and leapt to his feet, shoving his glasses back against his nose, 
trying to regain as much composure as he could.  Not exactly the best foot forward, 
not with crumpled trousers and shirt, his waistcoat, coat, braces and shoes having 
gone missing long before.

It was the large Irish man again, this time wearing a toothsome smile with nary a 
bit of warmth in it.  He was dragging a girl with him, a girl from the streets with 
the tattered gaudiness of a Whitechapel whore.  Her eyes were glassy, possibly 
with drink, and she looked from one man to the other with placid acceptance.  This 
wasn't new to her, he realized.

"So you're had time to ruminate on yer current condition, have you?"

Bloody yokel, Irish hinterland accent and all.

"It's hardly acceptable.  I must insist that you reverse it as quickly as possible."

"There's nowt to reverse it, boy," the Irishman said and laughed.  "Nowt but a stake 
through the heart, havin' yer head ripped from yer body or the sunlight blastin' you 
into dust."

"And I have to drink blood to continue this cursed existence?"

"Catch on fast, you do, that's good.  You'll not last long unless you feed.  I've made 
it easy for ye."  He shoved the girl forward.  "She'll not fight."

"No," he said and took a step back, finding his back to the wall.  "I won't."  He said 
the words, but something within him slavered.  He could see the veins crawling 
across the exposed parts of the girl's chest, moving with her every breath.

"Wise up ya gack ye," the Irishman said.  "You've done nowt but lie about and sigh 
since ye've been here, and now I'm tellin' you to feed or ye'll starve to a death more 
complete than ye have now."

"So be it."

"Is'allright love," the girl said and arranged a flirtatious smile on her face, worn 
thin with overuse.

She touched his face, her fingers strangely hot against his skin.  It should not have 
been the case.  This was terribly wrong.  But he could smell her, the warm smell of 
woman, the sweat on her body, the many men between her legs, and above all that, 
the rich wildness of her blood.  Drawn to the sweet perfume of living human, he 
stepped forward, gripped her shoulder, and felt his face burn again with the strange 
change.  The need to bury his now-sharp teeth in the soft skin of her throat was as 
desperate as the need for air itself.  He was choking inside the dead husk of his 
body, and she was the only thing that could save him.  He was salivating at the 
thought of how her blood would taste filling his mouth and his throat, how it would 
feel as her heart slowed and stopped as he drank the very life from her.

Over the girl's shoulder, the Irishman smirked.

"I can't do this," he said, releasing the girl's arm.  "I'd rather be dead."

"You are dead," the vampire said and ripped the girl away from him.

Sharp teeth, in the face of a devil, sundered the girl's tender neck.  He closed his 
eyes and heard the animal feeding, feeling the hunger gnaw at him like rats on a 
corpse.

Changes 8/30


The rat sniffed the Cheeto and recoiled, afraid of the plastic food.  Spike shrugged 
and stuffed the rat-rejected pseudo snack into his mouth and washed it down with 
some Guinness.  Most of the cans were empty, and Angel had begun building a 
Guinness can wall near the entrance to the crypt.

Fuck Angel, and the white horse he rode in on.

Burning Southern California sun outside, two cranky vampires inside, a truce that 
was as temporary as cheap hair dye.  It was like Waiting for Godot with PMS.  
Spike was getting tired of watching Angel, but he wanted to avoid a sudden dust 
conversion experience.  He sincerely hoped that Angel had drained whoever had 
cut his hair that way.  But there was no point in saying it, since he'd only get the 
old furrowed brow routine, and maybe an annoyed exhalation.

The cigarette butts on the floor were multiplying like rabbits.  Spike was chain-
smoking, not because he liked it but because Angel hated it.  There were still a few 
buttons that could be pushed after all this time.  Getting Angel from zero to 
apoplectic in less than sixty seconds had been one of his favorite pastimes for 
decades.  Spike considered the ash on the end of his smoke and watched the smoke 
drift up to the spider-covered vault above.  He sniffed, smelled yeasty richness that 
had nothing to do with blood.

"Enough Guinness in the 'fridge for you?"

"Never thought you'd be drinking the Black," Angel said in the mildest tone 
possible.

"Things change."

"So I see.  Leave her be, Spike."

"Fuck off."

Angel was sitting on top of the sepulcher's slab, one leg pulled up and bent, like a 
boy atop a stone wall, a glass of black lager in his hand, half empty.  It seemed so 
mortal, so normal, and so fucking banal to be talking about a girl like this.  She's 
mine, you keep away, she's mine, you keep away.  They were vampires; shouldn't 
they have been engaged in a slightly more elevated discourse?  

The sun moved overhead outside.

"So who told you, Xanderboy or Anya?" Spike asked.

Shrugging, Angel made progress into his pint of Guinness.  "Does it matter?  Let's 
just say my informant saw you and Buffy – together-"

"Makin' a short, blunt human pyramid, you mean?" Spike asked, amused by 
Angel's barely perceptible squirm.  "Which is how you twigged, right?"

"Twigged? I fucking branched."

"And all your buddies there in LA said 'No, Spike wouldn't hurt her' an' begged 
you not to go."

"I have instructions from Cordy and Wesley to kick your ass.  Gunn said I should 
bust a cap in it instead."

"Gunn? What's that?"

"You don't know him, but he hates you just the same."

"Reassurin', that.  My fame has spread far n'wide.  Expect that tellin' you I'd never 
kill her would ease your mind a bit."

"Snowballs, Hell, you know the rest." Angel looked down at his now empty pint 
glass.

A good host would have offered a guest a refill, but Angel could bloody well get 
up and get himself another lager if he wanted it.  The bastard had found it easily 
enough.  Instead, he settled a little more comfortably in his armchair and crossed 
his legs.  Getting the hint, Angel rose, went to the tiny refrigerator Spike had looted 
from a dorm room and got himself another Guinness.  Lighting another cigarette, 
Spike watched the other vampire cross the crypt.  Years of experience made 
reading Angel almost as easy as reading the signs on the LA freeway, and the 
blinking yellow bulbs were saying that Angel was tired and preoccupied.  If Spike 
was of a mind to, and he wasn't sure if he was or not, it wouldn't be a bad time to 
try making an Angel-kebob.  But things had finally been moving in the proper 
rhythm with Buffy before Dudley Do-Right showed.

Sometimes death just wasn't fair.

Spike dropped ash on the floor.  "You got a couple a' thoughts here, wastin' me 
bein' one of them an' the other bein' that Miss Slayer ain't puttin' you on the top of 
her hit parade if you do it."

Seeking the truth through the bottom of a glass of lager, Angel refused to look up 
at Spike.

"Maybe I'm willing to take that risk."  

"Maybe," Spike started and had to lubricate his throat with lager before he could go 
on, "maybe I know things about you that the Slayer doesn't want to know."

It was a threat, and a muscular one, even if the delivery could have been better.  
Across the crypt, Angel's eyes flickered gold in gameface.

"Have you told her anything?"

**

Nobody had told him anything.  But he knew.  He was weak.  Dying beyond dying.  
Time didn't happen in the dark room.  He could have been in there a week, a 
month, and a year.  His mother must have decided he was dead, or run off to exotic 
places.  If she'd the seen the state of her blue eyed boy she would have hung her 
head in shame.  He was filthy, he smelled like dirt and decay, and his clothes were 
torn and stained.  He was losing his mind.  Locked in a pitch black room where 
even his strangely enhanced vision did nothing to pierce the gloom, he huddled 
against the wall and recited anything he could remember to try to keep his mind 
from turning into porridge.

Like an unpleasant smell, the Irishman was back again, standing with the light 
from the corridor making an unholy halo around his mop of dark hair.  This time he 
had Drusilla with him, her wrist disappearing in his huge and ugly fist.  She was 
wide-eyed with fear.

"I hear Dru's been feedin' you on the sly," he said.

Mouthfuls of blood, stolen from her at her insistence.  "You can't hurt me, my 
darling," she'd whisper as he moved inside her, and it had seemed right and just to 
use his newfound fangs, taking back a fluid more vital than the one she wrenched 
from him.  Afterward, she would shake and moan in his arms, afraid of the things 
that weren't there in the dark.  Afraid of her Master.  Angelus.  She'd whispered the 
name as if it would invoke God's wrath to even think it.

He stood and looked at Angelus.  "Don't hurt her."

The vampire laughed.  "You think she wouldn't like that, boyo?  If you weren't too 
useless to live, you'd have a lot to learn."  The last word dripped off his Irish 
tongue, an extended and dreadful "larn," and William thought Angelus might be 
toying with him even with the horrendous accent.

He swallowed.  "You're going to kill me, then?"  Even now, a part of him screamed 
for life, or whatever one called this existence.

"You're no vampire." Angelus’ss voice dripped contempt like blood.  "You're a 
freak.  Dru's touched and it's made her blood bad."

"No!" Drusilla protested.  "He's just a chick, still in his egg.  You must crack it, my 
Angelus."

"You're talkin' crazy again, and it's beginnin' to bore me."

"The demon *is* inside him.  You feel it, don't you, William?"  He couldn't deny 
her anything, and nodded.  "You see?  He is waiting to be born.  The other children 
rip themselves from the womb, always already evil.  That's no fun at all.  There's 
nothing left to corrupt.  William is a present for you.  You must coax the demon 
out.  You must make him in your image."  Her eyes glittered like lightning-flashes 
reflected in deep water.

"You've seen this in a vision?"  Angelus sounded skeptical.  

"Drusilla, I don't want --"

With a wild cry she wrenched herself free of Angelus and came to throw her arms 
around him, tight as a tourniquet.  "He will be such a killer, Father.  What is begun 
must be finished."

Angelus sighed, a hollow sound that moved no breath.  "Drusilla, I always said 
you'd be interestin' to have around.  We'll try it your way.  For a while."

He stepped forward, into the room.

**

As soon as she figured that the night staff had been switched for the morning, 
Buffy called the hospital and found that Dawn was still sleeping and seemed to be 
doing well.  Which was good, since a truly concussed and dangerously wounded 
Dawn might have pushed her over the edge and she was not sure she could handle 
herself, edgewise.

Willow apparently had switched with Giles and now had Dawn-sitting duty which 
she had taken to with enthusiasm born of guilt.

"I can stay here as long as you need me to.  I- I really don't mind."

"I'll be over there in a little while.  I have some stuff here I have to sort out first."

In the light of current events, Buffy decided that her morning run should be down 
to the Magic Shop for some consultation with Giles.  It was past eight o'clock when 
she finished lacing up her sneakers and set out.  At least it was after the hour where 
all little vampires should be snug in their lairs.  She hoped that both vampires had 
made it through the tiny remainder of the night without killing each other.  If they 
killed each other it would de-complicate things somewhat, but she didn't want that 
on her head along with the rest of the guilt that she was accumulating like late fees 
on a tape from Blockbuster.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone had ratted her out to 
Angel.  The only person who she couldn't see calling Angel was Giles.  So it was 
to Giles she went.

"Hey," she said as the bells chimed on the door behind her.  

Giles was nowhere to be seen, but the portable stereo on the counter was playing 
something with guitar and a man whining off-key.  "Preacher was a talkin' there's a 
sermon he gave,/He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved,/You cannot 
depend on it to be your guide/When it's you who must keep it satisfied."

"Giles?"  A moment later, the Watcher emerged from the back room with a cup of 
tea in one hand and a very long and wickedly pointed knife in the other.

"I thought we cancelled training for the nonce," Giles wondered and let Buffy take 
the knife away from him.

"We did, I just dropped by for a chat, and a ride to the hospital if you can manage 
it." She took a few practice swipes with the blade.  "This is sweet.  Too bad it's 
inventory."

"It's yours if you want it."  

"It ain't easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat,/She gave her heart to the man/In the 
long black coat," the music continued and Buffy shook a cold thrill off her spine.

"Shouldn't need it.  Things are kind of decaf-land with the demons lately.  Cool 
music.  Is it the Wallflowers?"

"Not exactly.  It's Bob Dylan.  Jakob Dylan's father.  What did you want to talk 
about?" Giles perched on the stool behind the counter and arranged his face in 
listening mode.

"It's a personal kind of thing, not totally a Slayer thing, but there is kinda some 
overlap," she admitted and put the knife down on the counter, leaning with her 
elbows on the glass top.  "You know that thing I didn't want to talk about before?  I 
gotta talk about it now."

Abruptly, Giles was wearing his worried Dad frown, and Buffy's throat tightened.  
She wasn't sure how to explain any of it, and resented having her personal life turn 
into such a big issue.  

"It's embarrassing," she began and could feel the blood turn her face pinker than 
her morning run had.  "I kind of have, had, am having, like, a, you know, a thing 
with somebody."

Giles' face twisted for a moment, which wasn't quite the reaction she had imagined.

"I'm old and not cool, so would you be so kind as to explain exactly what kind of 
'thing' you're referring to."

"A thing.  A thing with somebody, a –" Buffy struggled for a moment and finally 
her mouth worked itself around the words, "– a sex thing.  I am having a sex thing 
with somebody.  A big Godzilla sex thing.  And there's like a real low approval 
rating.  Okay?"

As he always did when he was confused or stalling for time, Giles took off his 
glasses and examined the lenses for spots.  Buffy sighed.

"Buffy, you're a young woman with normal needs and desires," he said and Buffy 
couldn't help but roll her eyes at the bland politically correct speech, which was 
totally Giles.  "As long as you're responsible about it, no one really has a right to 
approve or disapprove." 

Since he was being all Cream of Wheat and mellow about it, Buffy lost her 
hesitation about upsetting her Watcher.  Actually, since he seemed to be reading 
from Oprah's invisible cue cards, Buffy decided that he really deserved to be 
shocked.

"With Spike," she said, in the voice of ultimate teenage disdain.

Mouth working without sound for a moment, Giles picked up the glasses he had 
dropped and shoved them onto his nose.

"Oh Buffy-" he began and sounded hope-free.

"Low approval rating, thy name is Spike," she said and pushed herself away from 
the counter.  "Let me just answer all your questions now.  No, I didn't plan any of 
it, it just happened.  No, I don't think it's part of some great Spike plan.  Since the 
Nazi demon thing.  No, he didn't bite me and put me in thrall.  I don't know if I'm 
happy about it, but I'm not un-happy either."

"Well, I can see you've been thinking about how your friends are going to react."

"But I wasn't at the time.  And at four this morning Angel shows up in my kitchen 
to read me the riot act.  I thought he and Spike were going to dust each other.  I 
sent them away.  It's possible they'll still be unsweepable tonight."

"It does seem that you have a bit of a problem."

"What am I supposed to do?" She threw her hands up in the air.  "I can't deal right 
now, Giles.  I've got enough to deal with between Dawn and all the lawyer stuff 
with mom's estate.  Dawn put a Lean Cuisine in the microwave for ten minutes.  
Now the microwave is coated with brown gunk and the whole house smells like 
burnt chicken Kiev.  I can't make her go to school, I can't make her go to bed, and 
she just sneers at me.  I sent her to Tara and Willow's for one night and she breaks 
her arm.  And then there's Glory out trying to kill Dawn and destroy the whole 
world.  I just can't deal."

Much to her embarrassment, Buffy could hear her voice crack and felt the tears 
start to run down her face.

"Buffy, you've been dealt a rather rough hand right now.  I understand that.  You 
know that everyone is going to do everything that they can to help you." Giles 
came around the counter and pulled Buffy to him so she could snuffle on his shirt, 
"All you have to do is ask.  And no one has the right to criticize who you decide 
you want to have a 'sex thing' with."

Despite herself, Buffy laughed and pulled back so she could wipe her face with the 
sleeve of her sweatshirt.

"I don't, however, really want to know what Godzilla sex is."

Buffy laughed again, and got the remainder of the tears off her face.

"I only told Willow.  About Spike I mean, not Godzilla sex.  Dawn knew, but she's 
managed to blackmail me for months about not telling the entire world.  Then 
yesterday Xander and Anya walked in --"

"And you thought I'd best hear it from you than the terrifyingly detailed report I 
would have received from Anya?  You have my eternal gratitude.  Now I'll just call 
Anya and have her get here early so I can take you to hospital."


Changes 9/30

"You're nobody in this town.  You're nobody in this crowd.  You're nobody till 
everybody in this town, thinks you're poison, got your number, knows it must be 
avoided.  You're nobody till everybody in this town thinks you're a bastard."

"Turn the radio off," Angel ordered, in something like his old voice.

"Fuck you," Spike suggested and bit back a yawn.

It had to be midday.  His eyes felt like poached eggs and every fiber in his being 
was screaming for sleep.  But he wasn't going to sleep, not while they were 
drinking their way through a case of Guinness, never quite drunk and never quite 
sober.  

"Turn the radio off and go to sleep," Angel added.

"The fuck I will.  Sleepin'? Helpless? While you're here? Pull the other one, old 
son, it's got bells on," Spike said and another yawn nearly cracked his jaw.

"When were you planning on outgrowing your asshole phase?"

"Let's see, it's 2001 and from 2001 to 1880 is a hundred and twenty one years.  So 
figure in 2122 I might feel like talkin' to you wivout breakin' your fuckin' neck."

"You know, I get a little fucking sick of everybody jamming everything I've ever 
done down my throat," Angel snapped and bolted up from the sepulcher.  "The 
Powers that Be, the Host, Wesley, Darla, an entire law firm, and any other two bit 
minor demon with a memory, so I don't need shit from you too."

"Satan wept."  Spike threw a lit cigarette in Angel's direction, the burning ember 
falling close enough for Angel to realize that Spike could have hit him with the 
cigarette had he wanted to.

Both men knew that vampires were flammable in the extreme.

"Hate me that much again?" Angel asked.

"Still."

Spike reached for another can.

"Fancy another drink?" he asked.

"Shove it up your ass," Angel barked.

All Spike could do was laugh and the sound was bitter as wormwood.

**

"So how long do I have to hang out here?" Dawn demanded.

"We have to wait for Doctor Schiffer to sign your release papers." Buffy sighed 
and looked through the pages of Teen People that she had brought for Dawn.  
Citalia sparkled through the cover story, which had a picture-to-word ratio of about 
one to one.  She looked like a size minus-one to Buffy's experienced eyes.

"I can still go, right?" Dawn asked.  "I *have* to go."

It was the first thing Dawn had been the least bit interested in since … since the 
funeral.  Buffy resolved that Dawn would go to the concert, with Spike protecting 
her from the smallest jostle.

"Yeah," Buffy said and tried not to look satisfied.  "But you stick with Spike.  I 
don't want you getting in any trouble."  Boy, did that sound weird.  Spike was not 
anti-trouble.  He was trouble's best buddy.  But he knew his choices for the concert 
were sex or death and she was ninety-nine percent sure which he'd choose.  Eighty 
percent.

Doctor Schiffer came in then and gave a long lecture about proper cast care and 
return visits.  It was the kind of thing Buffy was used to tuning out, and she had 
trouble focusing against her natural instincts.  

"Just one more thing," Dr.  Schiffer added, breaking Buffy out of her navel-gazing.  
"Since Dawn's a minor and you're her temporary guardian, Child Protective 
Services has been forwarded a copy of the Emergency Room Report.  It's standard 
procedure, really.  But expect a call from a social worker who will probably want 
to come out and talk to you about why Dawn was staying overnight at a friend's 
house while you were entertaining your boyfriend."

Dr.  Schiffer's comment smacked Buffy in the face with the warmth and caring of a 
long dead fish pickled in ichor.  Not only did Buffy's face burn, but every square 
inch of her skin flushed with embarrassment, including the soles of her feet.

"Oh shit," was all she could say when Dr. Schiffer finally blew out of the room on 
a cloud of rubbing alcohol and passe Ralph Lauren Polo.

"Well you were," Dawn snarked.  "Checking the bone-o-meter on Deadboy Slim.  
And everybody would be really happy to hear that you handed me off to lesbians."

"Dawnie, if you start telling people that your sister sent you to stay with lesbians so 
she could have sex with a vampire, you are going to end up with Dad and his new 
wife, an orphanage, or a funny farm.  Any of which have massive suckage 
potential," Buffy said in a hard tone that she usually reserved for non-humans.

Dawn could only stare at Buffy with her mouth slightly open, which made Buffy 
feel better and worse at the same time.

"Outside, car, now, move." Buffy snapped and grabbed Dawn's purple backpack, 
which contained the clothes she had arrived in the night before.

"No wheelchair? I want to ride out in a wheelchair."

"No time, go - go - go."

The new Gilesmobile was waiting for them.  Dawn glared at Buffy for opening the 
car door for her, and glared again when Buffy got in the back seat.

"Thanks for picking us up, Giles."

"Yeah," Dawn pitched in.  "'Cause Buffy doesn't want to fail the drivers' license 
test again, it looks like we'll be needing you for daytime transport until I'm 
licensed."

Giles' mouth thinned, but Buffy couldn't tell if Dawn was finally getting to him or 
if the "daytime" reference reminded him of Spike.  "Actually, I'd like to drop by the 
Magic Shop.  Willow talked to all your teachers and picked up your homework."  
And Giles wanted to speak to her, otherwise Dawn's homework would have been 
waiting, in the annoying way of homework, at home.

Dawn pouted all the way to the shop, and Buffy couldn't help but feel a little 
grateful.

Inside, Willow and Tara rushed over to coo and flutter over Dawn.  Even Dawn of 
Doom couldn't stay unmoved by the sugary goodness of dedicated Wiccans, and 
Buffy saw her smile, for the first time in a while, as Willow discovered that the 
cast was unsignable and began to think of charms to make everyone's signatures 
appear anyway.

Reassured, Buffy followed Giles into the back, where Xander and Anya were 
waiting.  They looked tired; Xander wouldn't meet her eyes.

"This better be about something I can stake, decapitate, or disembowel, 'cause I'm 
in no mood for complexity."

"Carnage is an ever-present possibility," Giles pointed out.

"I think this Citalia person is, like they say in the movies, up to no good," Xander 
gritted out, looking only at Giles.

Anya put a hand out to rub Xander's arm.  He twitched and then relaxed a bit.  
"Xander was working to set up the stage when he heard someone chanting – a man 
and a woman.  I was waiting on one of those uncomfortable seats and he got me.  
The chant was pretty general, just an invocation of further power, but I know how 
you like to keep up with magical doings in the area," she ended on a chipper note.

"So what you're saying is we've got another powerful question mark in town.  Just 
great."  

"I did get a number of useful ideas by examining the various harnesses for the 
performers," Anya continued, oblivious.

"An--," Xander cautioned, and she closed her mouth, which in itself suggested that 
Xander had gone to Willow for some sort of control spell.

"Okay, I'll check her out," Buffy decided.  "They're still setting up tonight?"

"Yeah," Xander said, looking at Buffy for the first time.  "Takes a while to convert 
an indoor football stadium into a concert hall.  Chairs at the goalposts, chairs at the 
forty-yard line, it's pretty much a chair army out there in strictly regimented rows.  
She's having a rehearsal tonight so everyone knows where to stand, jump and 
wiggle."

Buffy nodded, thinking of how she could get backstage and investigate for evil 
paraphernalia, assuming it was distinguishable from good paraphernalia.  Even 
Willow had a dried-up head on a stick.  

"So we'll be going now," Xander said, rising.  Giles had another one of his "I've got 
terrible gas pains but I'm quite all right, thank you" looks.

"Wait," Buffy ordered.  "I don't suppose either of you would know why there's two 
vampires with souls in Sunnydale, which may shortly be reduced to one."  

Both Anya and Xander put on not-me faces.  

"Anya?  I know you talk to Cordelia all the time, you both have such a respect for 
money and an utter absence of tact.  Did you happen to share any gossip with her 
after your little trip chez Summers?"

Anya shook her head.  "There was no time, we were at the hospital, and then there 
was an extensive fight, and the make-up sex was correspondingly elaborate –"

Plausible, but not completely convincing.  Buffy spied something in one of the 
boxes Giles was always saying needed to go down to the basement.  Reaching in, 
she pulled out a tattered stuffed rabbit that smelled like cloves and held it in front 
of her.

"This is Mister Bunny and Mister Bunny thinks you're keeping a secret."

"Buff, that's just mean!" Xander protested.

"So is telling people about my personal life.  So Anya, truth or Mister Bunny?"

The former demon turned flat white and began to back away.

"Mister Bunny wants to give you a kiss," Buffy added and shoved the stuffed 
animal closer.

Anya yelped and stumbled backwards.

"Oh shit, it was me, okay, I did it," Xander blurted.

"So, seeing Angel is supposed to remind me what true love is?  Or just that 
vampires and dating don't mix?"

Xander's eyes held only concern.  "I *know* you're in pain.  I'm just not sure that 
you should be making any – emotional – decisions right now." 

"Okay, I know this seems like Angel, the sequel, but the circumstances are really 
different, and Spike is being really helpful Glory-wise now and the rest of it isn't 
your business."

Xander snorted.  "Right, like Angel had absolutely no fucking impact on our lives 
whatsoever."  

"Would it make you feel any better if I told you I was just using him for sex?"

Giles blanched and Xander swallowed.  "That's just how it started with Xander and 
me!" Anya chirped.

Buffy felt a little blanchy herself, and crossed her arms over her chest for 
reassurance.  "So I'm guessing that's a negative.  I'm sorry that's how you feel, and 
I don't expect you to welcome him to the gang.  Just – let's try to work together 
until Glory is out of the way."

"Yeah, well, this threatening with bunnies thing is a new look for you.  Bet you 
wouldn't have done that before you started getting the old cold Spike injection."

"That's enough," Giles broke in.  "Could we please just concentrate on the matter at 
hand and not on personal lives, please?"

Buffy looked at her sneakers, and realized that the toes were badly scuffed and they 
needed to be washed.

"Right.  Now let's make plans for this evening," Giles suggested, which seemed 
like a much better idea, so they did.

"Willow and Tara are going to where Citalia is staying and set a magic-sensing 
spell, which should tell us if Citalia is dabbling in the black arts or what Xander 
heard is some type of vocal warmup.  I'll be here on call, Anya will stay with Dawn 
at the house, and I think Buffy has some vampires to deal with."

"She has to be at the Hilton," Anya offered.  "None of the other hotels in town have 
any kind of star rating.  Which isn't a good thing for the Magic Shop because we 
can't pull in any kind of high-dollar tourist traffic.  But if we got that website that I 
was talking about yesterday—"

"Now is really not the time to go into this, Anya."

"And when would be a good time?  I'm developing fine lines and wrinkles while 
opportunities just whiz by.  My breasts are sagging while I wait for a good time to 
talk about e-commerce!" Anya bitched while giving Buffy a dirty look.  "*And* –
people are threatening me with bunnies."

"Everyone is stressed, and the important thing is to keep calm and be reasonable."

"*Everyone* has stress?" Buffy interrupted.  "Pardon me!  If anybody wants to 
trade for a grief-crazed little sister with a broken arm who is having me 
investigated by Child Protective Services because I sent her to stay with lesbians 
overnight where she broke her arm because I was concurring with the undead 
which my alleged friend decided had to come to the attention of my former, also 
undead, boyfriend who is now very pissed off and tearing the arms off the undead 
guy I was constructing with, so no one will take the broken-armed sister to a 
concert and keep her safe from the psycho goddess from Hell and I have to make 
all the decisions now because my mother is dead.  Really, if anybody wants to 
trade their stress for mine, just sing out and we'll swap, like, right now," Buffy 
agreed from the depths of her ugly mood.

No one spoke.

"Really.  I didn't think so."

"I think you mean consorting with the undead," Giles offered.  "But we all 
understand that things are very, very difficult for you right now.  More so than for 
the rest of us.  Possibly we haven't been as supportive as we could under the 
circumstances." 

"And if we'd been more supportive you wouldn't have to be doing the wild thing 
with Spike, or threatening people with bunnies."

In an unusual move of self-preservation, Xander stepped between Buffy and Anya, 
obviously sensing the fact that Buffy was on the verge of giving Anya a makeover 
she'd never forget.

"We should take Dawn home now," Xander told Anya.

"Yes, and sit on her so she doesn't break anything else." Anya sniffed and looked 
over her shoulder at Buffy.  "Since Buffy has to separate her two pet vampires."

All Buffy could do was grind her teeth.


Changes 10/30


Angel had worked himself into a thorough brood after the Guinness ran out like the 
bloody typical Irishman he was.  Spike could feel the sun leaching from the sky, 
taking its own sweet time.  

Heathcliff-Angel was good for his safety, he thought, but not for his pole position, 
so to speak, in Buffy's life.  Angel didn't make fun of her and he'd protect Dawn 
with every cell of his undead being.  When all's said and done, she'd choose the 
dark and guilty hunk over the ineffectual and careless fop.  And who could blame 
her?

Spike shook his head.  Self-pity like that needed a drink to hold it up.  And Angel 
had put paid to the last of the shipment he'd stolen from the liquor store.  He 
needed a bar, and not the Bronze, and not Lovecraft's, which Angel might 
remember from Angelus days.

A human bar, then.  Maybe he'd take a patron or two for later, seeing as his 
adventure in goodness was about to end.

Rusholme's was dark enough that Spike could have gone in vamped and not even 
scared the bartender.  The patrons were isolated in their separate puddles of beer.  
The jukebox had "White Wedding" and he used all the quarters he'd stolen from 
the parking meters on the walk over.  His fellow drinkers were so miserable that 
they didn't even seem to notice the droning repetition, just the way he liked it.

Spike was drinking Scotch like it was arterial blood, huddled at the bar, when a 
man leaned on the bar beside him and motioned the bartender for a beer.  "Hey," he 
asked as he slid his money over, "why's the jukebox stuck?"  

The bartender grunted.  In a bar like Rusholme's, the bartenders were there to 
watch the cash register and water the drinks, not to monitor the patrons, let alone 
offer them a shoulder to cry on.

"You don't like it, mate, there's a liquor store just down the block."  If he worked 
up sufficient annoyance, Spike thought, he could maybe have a fight and then a 
feed.

"Hey, no problem," the man assured him, and something familiar in his voice made 
Spike scrutinize him as surreptitiously as a drunken vampire could.  This guy had 
been part of the 70s Bowery club scene in New York, Spike realized.  His face was 
softened with age and fat, but Spike recognized him.  Funny how the old punks all 
ran to fat and bloat.  Old rockers like Keith Richards and Stephen Tyler just kept 
getting skinnier and tighter.  Of course Spike had his doubts about Richards and 
Tyler being mortal anyway.

Beside him, the man was doing a little surveillance of his own.

The man – John?  George?  Ringo?  Spike couldn't remember – finally broke his 
stare to smile.  "You know, you remind me of—"

"Yeah, get that all the time," Spike grumbled and looked into his drink.  One 
bourbon, one scotch, and one beer, or at least that was the ratio he was keeping if 
not the numbers.

"Looks like you have a respect for long-past days of glory."

"No doubt.  So what's a man wiv' taste doin' in lovely downtown Sunnydale?"

The man chortled and waved for another beer.  "Selling another slice of my soul."

"Hope it's remunerative."

"Oh, yes."  The man took another long drink.  "I, my friend, am Citalia's manager." 

Spike almost choked on his Scotch.  The Powers that Be were determined to totally 
fuck up his head this week.  He covered and lit a smoke.

"'Zat so?" he asked.

"Oh yeah.  I tell her where to go, who to speak to, I dress her up and approve her 
dates, who are all, by the way, queerer'n a three-dollar bill.  I mean, do you think 
that a straight man would be in a *boy band*?  And that is music today.  If I wasn't 
paid so much fucking money I'd be disgusted with myself."

He saluted Spike with his glass and drained it.

"Fucking commercialism," he said and belched into the back of his hand.

"Yeah, accountants an' corporations ruin it all," Spike agreed.  "You know what we 
gotta do? Burn down the disco, hang the fucking DJ, because the music that they 
constantly play says nothing to me about my life."

The man was watching him with amazement.  "I wish I were still your age.  Back 
then I thought we could do it, you know, we could change the world through 
music.  Fuck the establishment, eat the rich."  Spike tried not to snigger.  Back 
then, this man had snorted more powder than there was in Aspen.  It was a miracle 
any of them could change their clothes, much less the world.  Although coked-up 
blood was a bit of a treat and Spike could almost taste the memory of it.

"Now I'm one of them.  But money doesn't suck, right?"

"Comes in useful," Spike agreed.

"Selling out's my cross to bear, buddy, what's yours?"

In a perfect world, Spike would have pointed out that bearing a cross was the best 
way for him to get branded, but it wasn't a perfect world, not even within spitting 
distance.

"Tearin' up the old guts wonderin' if my honey's gonna' pitch me out for an ol' 
love."

"Bummer.  Been there, done that.  But what's to worry?  Women are like toilets: 
when you need one bad enough, any one is beautiful."

"This one is special,"  Spike found himself admitting.

"Ouch!  Sounds like you've got a serious problem.  Bartender, another round for 
me and my friend here."

The bartender stopped his dilatory polishing of glasses and slopped some Scotch 
into glasses.  Spike lit a cigarette and hunched over the bar a little farther.  Great, 
he had the sympathetic and drunken ear of Citalia's manager.  The Slayer would 
want to know what was the what with Citalia before Little Bad could go to the 
concert and if the Slayer wasn't happy, he wasn't going to be happy.  

"So how'd you wind up wiv'the manager gig?"  Spike asked.

"Discovered the fucking cunt.  High school musical.  The ex-wife and the ex-kid 
wanted me at The Pirates of Penzance at Van Nuys High two years back.  The little 
bitch was singing the lead, fucking amazing voice.  Stage presence, too.  Me and 
half the dads in the place were sportin' wood by the end of Act One.  I talk her into 
cutting a demo, and since she was eighteen, no worries about parents.  I shopped 
the demo around at the record companies.  Tasty deal with Siren Records in LA."  

George or whatever his name was pulled a cigarette out of the pack that Spike had 
left on the bar and also helped himself to Spike's lighter.

"Tasty for her.  I get a miserable ten percent of everything after taxes and she owns 
the masters and is stuffing cash into Swiss banks after the first single comes out.  
I'm still paying alimony and child support out the ass.  Course if I didn't have three 
ex-wives and five ex-kids I might have some left for myself."

Spike almost laughed, since alimony and child support were absolute non-issues to 
vampires; vampires had no issue.

"But get this, the bitch is as frigid as an iceberg.  Never see her with a date that 
wasn't a fag set-up.  I’d swear she had to blow half the company to get the contract 
she did, Madonna doesn’t do better, but now the contract’s in black and white, 
none of her producers can lay a hand or a dick on her.  I'd think she was a dyke but 
I never see no women neither.  I think she doesn't actually have a snatch at all.  All 
that yummy chick stuff you see onstage and in the videos is as fake as her tits.  She 
got those in 2000."

Compare and contrast the Slayer, who looked pure as the Virgin Mary and could 
pull his brain out of his body by way of his cock, to Citalia who looked like she'd 
fucked the entire US Marine Corps – essay, please.  You have until half ten.  The 
voices from his university exams haunted him for a moment.  Women.  The eternal 
mystery wasn't good and evil, life after death, cold fusion, or the recipe for a really 
dry martini; it was why the Hell women did what they did.

"I didn't want to do this, didn't want to be a pimp for a pubescent whore."

Spike didn't point out that since the girl didn't put out she wasn't technically a 
whore.  Instead he just nodded and finished his drink.  "Gonna change the world 
wiv'music.  Bring down the 'stablishment."

"I had a band.  I sang, you know.  We were called Seizure.  Played at every fucking 
two-bit club in New York and LA.  Couldn't get a contract.  What the fuck is up 
with that?  Like the Ramones were better than us?"  He drew a deep breath and 
looked at Spike with boozy eyes.

"To Joey.  Man, you left us too soon," he said and raised his glass.

"To Joey," Spike agreed.

They emptied their glasses together.

The bartender brought another round and they drank it while the music continued 
from the jukebox.  Spike had lost count of how many shots of Scotch he'd downed 
and his considerable vampire tolerance was beginning to give way to a feeling that 
was on the corner of pleasantly buzzed and shitfaced.

"Hey little sister what have you done/Hey little sister who's the only one/Hey little 
sister who's your superman?" 

"You're a good guy," Georgeorwhatever said, "I appreciate you listening to me.  
Most people just want to hear about that fucking bitch."

Spike shrugged.

"I'm not a big fan," he admitted.

"Tell me about your 'honey'."  

"Th'most amazin' dolly-bird in th'world.  Got a body you'd kill for, and I done so 
more'n once.  More beautiful – so beautiful I can just stand there like a right 
wanker an'stare.  Take your breath away, man," Spike shook his head in 
amazement.  "I'm the luckiest bloke in the world when she smiles.  Not perfect, 
y'know?  Sometimes she's as smart as a sackful a'wet mice.  But sometimes, she – 
she leaves me in the dust."

Shaking his head with sympathy, the human waved at the bartender to refill their 
glasses.

"You got a terminal case."

"In more ways than y'can imagine, mate."

"To women," he held up his glass.  "Can't live with them, can't kill 'em."

Since Spike wasn't entirely sure he could take Buffy, he was willing to agree.  
"Cheers to that, mate."

He was officially soused.  It was a good thing.  He was the biggest of the Big Bads 
in this universe and could go back to he crypt and knock Angel's pouf-ass around 
until sunrise and then go back to Chez Summers and make the Slayer cry out his 
name as he boffed her into oblivion.

"My good man, bring more liquid refreshment!" the manager ordered. "I keep 
thinking, when this runs dry, I could start my own label, y'know?  Then I realize 
that we just paid $50,000 last week to get Citalia's remake of 'Because the Night' 
added to the radio playlist and I think I might as well buy a Beemer."

"Your girl's got that magic, though."

His gaze flickered to Spike's impassive face.  "Yeah," he drained his beer.  "Maybe 
too much magic."

"You mean that riot in LA?  I got a real kick out'a seein' those little pink glitter 
girls takin' down the cops."

"That was a mistake, she shouldn't have –"

Spike sensed another person, or something like a person, coming up behind them.  
Didn't smell quite human, but he couldn't identify the difference.  He swiveled on 
his stool as a heavy hand clamped down on his companion's shoulder.

"George.  She said no drinking," a voice that sounded like a trash compactor said.  
The speaker looked human, if you thought Arnold Schwarzenegger looked human.  
Like Ahnuld, he sounded as if he had to be taught each word phonetically.

"Aw, fuck!"  George, wisely, didn't try to get out of the Terminator's grip, which 
probably would have involved leaving his shoulder behind.  "All right, I'm 
coming."  With his free hand, he tugged out his wallet and tossed a few twenties on 
the counter.  "Next few are on me, my friend.  If you’re in LA, give me a call."

Spike took the business card and thought he could hear the goon's neck creak as it 
swiveled towards him.  "I know you," he said.

"Like I was tellin' your pal here, I get that a lot."  But Spike felt unease dance up 
his undead spine.

"Igor!  Let's go."  George, understandably, didn't want to be in Rusholme's now 
that drinking was no longer an option.  The mismatched pair shuffled to the door 
and out into the night.

"Barkeep!" Spike ordered.  "Another bottle o'whiskey to wash that taste out of me 
mouth."

**

"Drink whiskey, boy?"

He would have drunk lamp oil if it had satisfied the burning hunger in his stomach.

"No," he said.

"What ye drink, then?"

Sherry?  Wine?  Cider?  He wasn't going to admit to any of them.  The big 
Irishman was slouched on the narrow cot in the windowless room, fairly reeking of 
drink.  Of course, the Irish always were drunkards, everyone knew that.  Funny 
thing, there wasn't as much as a candle in the room and he could see the smug look 
on Angelus’s face.  The whore, dead or unconscious, was curled up in the other 
corner of the room like one of Drusilla’s many broken dolls.  The dolls, however, 
were better dressed.

"The women are shopping.  They pick a shop, kill the proprietress and take 
whatever they want.  Thrifty.  No bills that way.  Sometimes they bring an assistant 
back, for fittings."

The almost-empty bottle was wedged between Angelus’s thighs and he refused to 
look at it.

"You got a name, boy?"

"W-W-Will – William."

This drew Angelus off the cot, a smile of amazement briefly peeling the angry 
animal from his face.

"William?" he laughed softly to himself, the sound of a snake over silk.  "'Course 
she has the Sight so I'd not wonder about the appropriateness of your name."

All he could do was reach up to straighten the spectacles he no longer wore while 
the vampire, swaying with the drink, stalked across the small room.

"Well, William.  What's so special about you that would compel Drusilla to change 
you?  What's so important or impressive about you?"

"Nothing." 

"Name of a Saint.  Which William?  There were so many—" Angelus drank more 
and looked around the room as though there were answers written on the walls.

"St.  William of Rochester, the patron saint of adopted children.  That sounds about 
right, doesn't it?  Drusilla adopted you into our little family.  He went on 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his adopted son David who murdered him near 
Rochester, England.  When a mentally deranged woman found his body and cared 
for it, she was miraculously cured of her mental problems.  Reportedly miracles 
occurred at his grave, and it is said that he was canonized by Pope Alexander IV in 
1256," Angelus said with the tone of someone reciting from memory.

Then his head snapped around and he drilled a cold, hard pair of eyes into 
William's bones.

"Drusilla's mad, mayhap she thinks you will cure her."

Under other circumstances that didn't involve his being dead and turned into a 
vampire,