Return
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Please mail me and tell me what you think. Your opinion means a LOT! lnlypoet@yahoo.comA response to a challenge about how I think Spike will return to Sunnydale.
“And just when I thought my night couldn’t possibly get worse…” Buffy appraised her opponent, drinking in his shoddy appearance and tattered clothes. He looked like a homeless man who'd been beaten to a bloody pulp and left for death.
Spike stood his ground. “I’m not a happy man. I’d like to rip your head right off your damn shoulders and kick it around this alley.”
“Would you also yell ‘touchdown’?” The Slayer rolled her eyes and shook her pretty blond head. “Are you drunk again?”
“I’m going to do something to you, something real bad.” Spike hiccuped, swallowing deeply from his bottle of tequila and drew a hand across his mouth. “It’s all your fault.”
“It always is.” Buffy shrugged and slipped her stake into the waistband of her jeans. “Do you feel compelled to kidnap my friends again? If not, I’m going home.”
“Why’d you just put your stake away?” He was insulted. “You bitch! You think I don’t deserve a stake!?”
“That’s exactly what I think, pinhead.” She started past him and paused. “You’re too pathetic for me to slay. Sober up and try again later.”
Buffy was almost to the end of the alley when she heard him mumbling. She turned and gasped when she realized that he was crying. Exasperated, she walked back and stood before him. “What the hell has happened to you now?”
Spike slurred the words and slumped against the wall, sobbing. “She don’t want me no more. I done it all, Buffy. I told her I loved her. I gave her roses with thorns so long…poked them right into her back…I even sliced her up real good and acted like I didn’t care but she’s all gone. It’s all your fault.”
“Aww, you went demon lover and it still didn’t do any good?” She poked out her bottom lip dramatically. “How tragic.”
“If I hadn’t made that deal with you she would love me again.” He threw the bottle at Buffy and she caught it with lightning quick reflexes. His eyes widened. “Whoa, good move.”
“So I’ve been told.” She grinned a little. “And it isn’t my fault. You wanted Angel gone.”
“And look what it got me. Nothing.” He sobbed again.
“He’s gone.” Buffy offered. She hated seeing someone once so powerful reduced to nothingness. It made her feel like it could happen to her.
Spike looked up at her. “Gone? Dead?”
“No more than you. He left town.”
“Son of a bitch!” Spike banged his head back against the wall so hard Buffy thought he’d cracked it open. “I came back to town to torture the both of you.”
“It does nothing for me either. Me and Dru, we’re wacky that way.” Grinned the Slayer. “Is that it?”
“I also came back because I’m a marked man. Because I helped your arse the word on the street is I’m a turncoat. Crazy ass vampires left and right trying to kill me. They act like I’m Blade!”
Buffy giggled a little at the irony of that and sighed. “So you think killing me will earn you some redemption?”
“And make me feel all manly.” Spike sighed a little, recalling their first real fight. “You always have had spunk. It’s a shame I have to kill you.”
Buffy exploded with laughter. “It’s a shame you have to TRY to kill me. You never will.”
“I can still try.”
“You can die trying.”
Spike didn’t say anything for several minutes then finally whispered. “I could couldn’t I?”
“Duh? You vampire, me Slayer. I know you’ve killed two but let’s face it…you’ve never even been close to taking me out. On the other hand, I put you in a wheelchair and…”
“Shut up, bloody hell! You think I need to hear this? I’m already wrecked.”
“Yes. You need to hear it Spike. Like it or not, you’re at a brick wall. You can’t kill me because YOU can’t do it. You can’t be a vampire with little vampire friends because they all hate you and you have no one to go home to at night because your lover flew over the cuckoo’s nest and stayed there.” Buffy drew in a deep breath. “Do I need to go on?”
Spike shook his head and glared at her. “I’m not going to say anything here. I’m going to let the unspoken acknowledgment of utter wankery just kind of sit.”
“I’ll cry you a river while you sit there feeling sorry for yourself.” Buffy grinned and handed him the bottle again.
As she turned to leave, she groaned loudly. Several vampires were blocking the only exit out of the alleyway. “Damn! Are these friends of yours, Spike? Oh wait, I know this answer.”
Spike struggled to his feet beside her. “Do you have an extra stake?”
She raised an eyebrow at him and fished another stake out of her boot. “You want this stake?”
“It may help me out a little.”
“Then apologize for calling me a bitch.” Buffy stepped away and held the stake behind her back.
“Wha…” Spike glanced at her and back up the alley. “Damn it, Slayer. Give me a stake!”
“I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that you’re so mopey or the fact that you KNOW people are trying to kill you and yet…you’re unarmed. I thought you had more sense than that.” Buffy shook her head sadly. “You really are pathetic.”
“I can be just as pathetic with a stake…only I’d feel better about it.” Spike pointed up the alley. “Now is a good time.”
Disgusted with him, Buffy tossed him the stake just as one of the vampires reached to grab her. Within seconds she pulled out her other stake dusted two and was about to take on the third when Spike called out for help. Turning quickly, she rammed her stake into the back of the one who had him pinned, then spun quickly, throwing her stake into the chest of an oncoming vamp.
Spike watched her with his mouth agape. In less than two minutes, she had dusted four vampires who would have killed him. The other vampires, realizing just how good Buffy was, turned and ran. He watched her closely as she shook dust out of her hair, off her clothes and waved the air to clear it. It was almost mesmerizing to watch her. She was so into her game and she did it so well. You had to respect the Slayer.
“You aren’t like other Slayers.” He said finally. “You’re better.”
“Don’t talk to me. You didn’t apologize.” She didn’t bother looking at him, busying herself with tying her shoe.
“I apologize and I thank you.” Spike glanced skyward. “The sun will be up soon. Maybe I should just sit here and let it fry me.”
“This is a conversation I absolutely don’t want to have again. Did I tell you about the time that Angel tried to fry himself for Christmas? Oh never mind, I don’t want to go there.” She stood all the way up.
He stood as well and laid a hand on her arm. “Do tell me. But perhaps you can change the ending so that he dies slowly and horribly instead of leaving town.”
“Will that give you a happy?” Buffy asked.
“Only quite literally.” He shrugged.
Buffy stared off into the distance, still stinging from Angel’s departure. “It may give me a happy too.”
Grinning now, Spike followed her out of the alley. “You know, before you tell me, I should let you know that SunnyHELL is where I’ll be staying. I got no where else to go and at least here…I have you to annoy.”
Buffy groaned. “And I just thought my night couldn’t get worse.”
“Mine’s gotten better.” Spike chuckled. “You’re upset, that's always good for me... I’m going to hear about Angel being KILLED, you saved my ass back there, and I don't even mind that I’m sobering up now.”
“Got anything left in that bottle for me then?”
~End