Marriage of Convenience
Here is my contribution to plot_wout_porn. It's the only fic I've managed to complete this year and sadly is not nearly as plotty as seems appropriate. Well, there is plotting, but I'm not sure that's quite the same thing. :) Anyway, at least there's no porn. I hope you all enjoy and will strive to do better next year.
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: PG-13 at most
Setting: a short time after Something Blue in BtVS season 4, but as you will see, things have taken rather a different turn to how they did in canon. One of those fics where everyone seems to have gone insane at some point. It's also my first sustained attempt to write Willow. :trembles:
Beta: Beta'd by dwyld, to whom many thanks. Hope there are not too many mistakes with my American. Also, thanks to hello_spikey for the plot bunny.
Marriage of Convenience
“I win!”
"Aww!" Buffy's voice. "That's cheating!"
Spike's triumphal whoop had devolved into dirty sniggering. "Well, yeah. Cheating's kind of the point, love."
At the sound of that snigger, with which he was becoming depressingly more familiar every day, Giles winced and rolled his eyes ceilingwards. When he looked at his book again- a musty old tome, altogether too full of arcane symbols, which were rapidly giving him eyestrain - he found he'd lost his place.
Shutting the book with an angry thud, that sent clouds of dust spiralling into the air, he glared across the room, in time to see an outraged looking ginger kitten changing hands across the coffee table.
"I'm trying to work. Do you have to do that here?"
Spike’s smirk was no less infuriating just because a small bundle of ginger fluff was butting the underside of his chin with its head.
"Sorry, dad. Didn't mean to disturb your going senile."
Giles gritted his teeth. "I am not your dad!"
The smirk grew to almost Cheshire Cat proportions. "'Course you are, or as good as, what with givin' away the blushing bride an' all."
The kitten, meanwhile, had settled on Spike's lap and begun to purr.
Giles scowled at them both. "I was - thankfully - still blind on that occasion. I don't remember much about it."
"Blind?" Spike sneered. "Legless, more like."
"Yes, well," Giles muttered, teeth still clenched, "there are certain occasions on which being unconscious under the table is the best - indeed the only - rational course of action."
Spike's eyes glinted with sly amusement - and how on earth, Giles wondered, did he manage to make the act of stroking a kitten so bloody provoking?- "You'd know, I s'pose."
"Don't tease him, honey." Buffy swatted Spike hard on the arm, evincing a -to Giles - very satisfying yelp of pain. Annoyed at the disturbance, the kitten jumped to the floor and gazed up at Buffy resentfully.
Buffy leaned down to pet it. The silver scull ring on her left hand glittered in the lamplight. It was somewhat too big for her, only kept in place by her wedding ring, but apparently - so she'd informed Giles - it made a very effective knuckleduster.
He rather hoped she'd tested it out on Spike.
"Don't look at me like that, kitty," Buffy cooed. "I'm doing you a favour getting you away from the big, bad vampire." Her voice dropped to a confiding whisper. "He used to eat kittens. How gross is that?"
For answer, the kitten gave her a disbelieving look, raised one hind leg in the air and began to wash itself.
Meanwhile, Spike was rubbing his arm. "Sorry, love, couldn't help myself - an’anyway old Rupes there started it.”
Buffy wagged her finger at him. "Of course you could help yourself. We've been over and over this. What'd I say?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "Dunno. Some boring self-motivational crap, prob'ly. Doubt I was listenin'."
Buffy's mouth turned down at the corners. "You're being mean again."
"Well, like I keep saying, I am evil…" Spike began, but his voice trailed off. "Now that just isn't fair."
Buffy's lower lip was wobbling and her eyes seemed to have grown to twice their normal size. The kitten miaowed loudly, directing its own reproachful look Spike’s way.
"Oh, buggerit" Suddenly, Spike was on his knees at Buffy’s feet. He took her hand in his and carried it to his lips. "Forgive me, pet. I'm bad and evil and rude, an' I don't deserve you."
"You so don't." Buffy gave him a severe look. "Say sorry to Giles too."
A sort of shudder ran through Spike’s body, but he turned in Giles's direction. "Sorry, Rupert," he muttered, head down. "Was well out of order. Won't do it again."
Oh yes you will, Giles thought, gloomily.
Not for the first time, he wondered just when exactly it had been decided that his apartment become the regular venue for the pre-patrol kitten poker game. He couldn't recall having been consulted on the matter.
Buffy, meanwhile, was all smiles again. "Okay, honey, now that you two grumpy old men have made up, tell me what I said earlier. I know you can if you try."
Spike heaved a put-upon sigh and sing-songed in a schoolboy-reciting-a-lesson-by-rote fashion, "You said that if ever I felt the urge to be evil coming over me, I should remember our special day and what I promised."
"Very good." Buffy wagged her finger again, this time right under Spike's nose. "And what did we agree about promises?"
Spike raised a sardonic eyebrow. "We?" But at the return of Buffy's severe expression he looked hangdog. "Sorry, love. We agreed that we always keep them, no matter what, and no matter who to. Even white hats."
"That's right." Buffy beamed at him, as if he were indeed a dog that had finally - after months of disappointment for its owner- mastered a new trick. "Now that's settled, why don't we go patrol?"
Spike brightened up at once. "Yeah, yeah. Could do with snappin' a few necks."
He quailed at Buffy's sudden frown. "Demon necks, that is."
"S'okay, honey. I got that." Buffy collected the playing cards and put them away in their pack, then picked up the kitten and plumped it down in its basket in the corner, all the time fending off Spike's attempts to steal a kiss.
"There, kitty," she stage-whispered in the kitten's ear. "Was nasty old uncle Spike gonna eat you? Was he? Don't you worry. I won't let him."
Spike's response was to nuzzle in closer, growling, "You don't let me have any fun," though it looked to Giles like he was enjoying himself rather more than was decent.
Of course, all Buffy's interactions with Spike involved more kissing and cuddling than Giles considered necessary.
He had to look away when their meandering progress towards the front door came to a dead halt for yet another bout of the endless canoodling, but as he glanced sidelong at them, he had to admit that they made quite a handsome couple. Or they would have done, if Spike weren't an evil, unrepentant bloodsucking fiend who couldn't resist being rude to everyone.
"Don't wait up, Giles." Buffy blew Giles a daughterly kiss. Then she squeaked as one of Spike's roving hands did something behind her back that Giles would rather not even think about.
Giles forced himself to smile at her, because she couldn't help herself, poor girl. "I won't, and be careful."
He breathed a sigh of relief as the front door slammed shut behind them, accompanied by the sound of more wet, lip-smacking kisses than was conducive to his peace of mind.
For a moment or two, there was blessed silence, except for the kitten's soft purring. Then the front door opened again and Willow poked her head around it.
"Have they gone?"
Giles snatched his hand away from the whisky decanter. "Yes, thank goodness."
Willow sidled further into the room. "It's not that I don't wanna see Buffy, Giles. You get that, right?"
"Of course." Giles gave her a weary nod. "It's just that you would rather not see Spike. Quite understandable."
Willow hunched her shoulders. "Not even that. He's been okay, mostly - well, except with Angel. I still can't believe he asked him to be best man - it's just that whenever I see them being all couple-y, I still feel kinda guilty."
"Not your fault," Giles hurried to assure her, even though it was. "Who could have guessed that such a simple spell would be so complicated to break?"
Willow's face took on that carefully blank expression that Giles had begun to associate with guilty secrets. "Yeah, how about that, huh?"
"Ye-es." Giles gave her a quizzical look. "After all, when you cast the spell, all the parts of it worked at once. I began to lose my sight. Xander became an object of desire for all the demons in the vicinity and Spike proposed to Buffy and she said yes. It all happened in the space of five minutes. And yet…"
"And yet…" Willow echoed, uneasily.
Giles’s quizzical look metamorphosed into a hard stare. "And yet the spell has had to be broken in discrete parts. First, Xander recovered from his demon magnetism - except for Anya, it seems - then I got my sight back - thankfully after the wedding. Meantime, the third part of the spell still remains to be broken."
There was no doubt about it. Willow was looking very shifty now. "Yes, about that…"
"I suppose obtaining a divorce shouldn't be too difficult," Giles mused, one eye on her reactions. "After all, it's not as if Spike is a citizen. Or even alive. And does it count if your undoubtedly counterfeit ID states you're 130 years old? In fact, one wonders if the marriage is even legal. I know that rather charming fellow with all the skin folds said he was a properly appointed minister of religion - but what religion, that's the question?"
"And what about Clem and Buffy's mom, huh?" Willow cut in, with what struck Giles as rather excessive enthusiasm. "Talk about whirlwind romances!"
"Yes," Giles agreed, frowning- not that he could blame Joyce for wanting to get away from it all - "Very…speedy."
"They sent Buffy a postcard from Hawaii," Willow went on, almost babbling now. "Sounds like they're having a ball. Did you know that Hawaii houses about 12 percent of all the endangered plants and animals in the United States, and…"
"Willow," Giles said, firmly. "What aren't you telling me?"
Willow froze. Her eyes darted from left to right, as if looking for an escape route and not finding it. Then, she spoke all in a rush.
"The why-doesn't-she-just-go-marry-him part of the Do My Will spell? I've stopped trying to break it, Giles. I've decided it'll do more harm than good."
Giles felt his jaw drop. Slowly, he rose to his feet. "Er…what did you say?"
Willow grimaced. "I knew you were gonna say that. I said…"
“No, wait.” Giles's head was whirling. He put a hand on the desk to steady himself. Was his tired brain playing tricks on him? Maybe he’d fallen asleep without realising it?
He squinted at Willow, almost expecting to find himself alone in the room, but she was still very much there. He laughed uneasily. "Forgive me, Willow, but did you just say that you’ve stopped trying to break the spell? Because I hope you realise that such a course of action is…is…absurd, frankly. And wrong. Very, very wrong."
Willow's face had taken on a familiar, and troubling, stubborn look.
"I don't agree. Whom God hath joined - or whom Guernenthar the Ascended One has joined, as is more applicable here - let no man put asunder."
Giles stared at her, dumbstruck. She wasn’t joking. She really meant it. “What on earth has made you come to this conclusion? This very wrong conclusion?”
Willow smiled a placatory smile. “Lots of things - and just so you know, it’s not just me. I talked it over with Xander and Anya, and they agree with my decision. Well, Xander was sort of unsure at first, but Anya talked him around.”
Giles blinked. “You asked Anya? You asked Anya’s opinion and not mine?”
Willow shrugged apologetically. “I know it looks bad on the surface, Giles, but think about it. Buffy and Spike -they’ve been good for each other.”
"I…I beg your pardon?" Giles’s jaw, already somewhere in the region of his breastbone, seemed to sag even lower.
Willow's face had taken on a dreamy look.
"I mean, spell or no spell, they always have had chemistry, right? Spike's always wanted to kill Buffy way more than he's wanted to kill anyone else. Now he's in love with her way more than with anyone else, and I think he's a better person for it."
"Better…person?" Any moment now, Giles thought, he would shake off this funk of sheer, stunned disbelief and take charge of the situation. Any moment.
Willow, meanwhile, steamrollered on. "I mean, okay, so he snarked at Angel at the wedding, but then Angel was being super-broody even for him, which was kind of a downer at a wedding, and Buffy did make Spike call Angel and apologise -" She paused for breath, then went on - "But he's not killing any more - or only demons. What's more, he gave Buffy that oh, so cute kitten he was gonna eat and taught her how to cheat at poker so she can go save all the other kittens." She gave Giles a pleading look. "In fact, he's totally Buffy's bitch."
As if to endorse Willow's statement, the ginger kitten rolled over in its basket, showing its pale belly, and began to purr loudly.
Giles stared from Willow to the kitten and back again. Then, with what felt like a huge effort, he levered his jaw shut, fished in his pocket for his handkerchief, took off his glasses and began to polish them very thoroughly.
Willow's smile wavered.
"Giles? Say something."
Bugger discretion, Giles thought. Putting his glasses back on, he poured himself a scotch.
"What do you want me to say, Willow? That I approve of this insanity? I don't. In fact, if you're absolutely set on this course, I shall have to take matters into my own hands."
He downed the scotch in one fiery gulp. "Can I just say that I think you're being very selfish? If you've learned nothing else about magic yet, you must know how difficult it is to break spells of this type when you're not the caster."
Willow's eyes went huge. "Please don't, Giles. Just…just leave it alone, okay?"
Giles paused with his hand on the decanter.
"I really don't understand this. Why, Willow? And don't give me any more of that nonsense about the ameliorative effect of the spell on Spike's character. It's hard to see how he could be made any worse. Besides, it's Buffy we should be concerned about."
Willow's anxious expression cleared. "That's it, Giles. That's it exactly."
"That's what?" Giles fumed. "And don't interrupt me. I want to know what possible reason you could have to think that it's acceptable for Buffy to remain married to…to.."
"….an evil unrepentant, bloodsucking fiend?" Willow finished for him.
Giles blinked. "Yes. That. Explain yourself. Otherwise I shall be forced to conclude that everyone but me has gone mad."
"Oh, I have a good reason," Willow insisted. "The best, in fact. Buffy's happy, Giles. I've never seen her so happy."
Giles winced, remembering all the kissing and cuddling. It was certainly true that in all the years he'd known her, he'd never heard Buffy laugh so much. "Yes, but…"
"And we should all seize happiness where we find it," Willow went on. "Shouldn't we?"
"Erm…" Giles opened his mouth to reply, but found himself floundering. He rallied quickly. "Absolutely not. It's wrong. She's under a spell. They both are. They don't know what they're doing."
Willow was gazing up into the far corner of the room. "No-ot so sure about that."
Giles found he'd come to dread that look. "What do you mean?"
Willow's sneaker toed patterns on the rug. "See - I've been reading up on that spell, and it kind of has a shelf-life? Okay, so at first, when it's new, people are all helpless and, aargh! I'm under a spell! Save me!" She waved her arms around and stuck her tongue out, pantomiming being under a spell.
Giles supposed that despite this ridiculous charade, he should be grateful the children still thought him worth explaining things to at all. "Quite. Go on."
Willow's arms dropped to her sides. She was a little flushed - Giles hoped from embarrassment. "So - yeah. And then, after a while, if they don't like what's been wished on them, they get tired of it and the spell kind of breaks on its own? I mean, you're not blind any more - cuz who'd wanna be? But there must be some part of being a demon magnet that Xander likes" -she made a face - "because how else do you explain Anya?"
"Good question." Giles had to give her that.
"And-" Willow cleared her throat "-Buffy's still married to Spike."
Giles's knees appeared to have turned to indiarubber. Damn scotch! He sat down and stared at her.
"You mean, the spell hasn't broken because she likes it? She wants to be married to him?"
Willow nodded. "Yeah. Okay, probably there are times when she looks at him and goes, huh? But mostly….yeah."
"But…"Giles heard himself stutter, "What? How?" Somehow neither of these sounded like quite the right question, but he had no idea what was.
Willow shrugged. "Who knows? The attraction of opposites? I mean, she's a Slayer, he's a vampire. You can't get more opposite-y than that. Also, I think he has a big thing for strong women, and Buffy is…well, she's super-strong. And kind of bossy."
"But…but…" If this went on, Giles thought, the stutter would become permanent. "I don't understand. They have nothing to talk about - nothing whatsoever in common."
Willow was backing towards the door, and Giles realised she had only come by at all to drop this bombshell. "They both like hitting things?" she offered.
"There is that."
Giles felt blank now. Stunned almost. He felt the back of his skull cautiously, in case he'd been hit over the head again and forgotten about it. But there were no tender spots in evidence.
Willow had reached the front door. "So, you're okay with it?" she asked, in a plaintive voice. "At least, you're not gonna do anything about it? Are you?"
Giles stared at her. For a horrible moment, he found himself about to agree, but then common sense prevailed.
"What do you mean, am I going to do anything about it? Of course I am. This is ridiculous, Willow. Absurd. You're wrong about this. You have to be."
Willow blinked. "I am? How do you explain Anya, then?"
"I can't," Giles admitted. "But the rest of it…."
Willow's hand had been on the latch, but now it dropped back to her side.
"What are you trying to say, Giles?"
"Well…well," Giles floundered. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Buffy would never want to be married to Spike if she were in her right mind. You're just a beginner, Willow - a rank amateur. What do you know about magic? I don’t know why I’ve listened to this nonsense, but it stops now."
For a moment - just for a moment - Willow's eyes darkened and there was a distinct chill in the room. But then she clapped her hands to her mouth. "Of course!"
Somewhat rattled, Giles retreated to the decanter and poured himself another scotch.
"What do you mean - of course?"
Willow was back to smiling, and looking far more pleased with herself than the situation warranted in Giles's opinion. "I mean, I get it. You're still under the spell, Giles. You're still blind."
"That's ridiculous." Giles glared at her. "I can see you perfectly well."
Willow shook her head. "That's not the point. I mean, don't you think it's weird that you didn't get your sight back at all until after the wedding? You were all, it's terrible, it's awful, I don't wanna see it. Even Angel was less grouchy than you."
"Yes, well," Giles huffed, "I wasn't exactly thrilled about the whole thing, and can you blame me?"
Willow grimaced "Not really. It was hard work for me too. Having Drusilla as your fellow maid of honour is kind of like trying to wrangle a herd of cats. And that guy with the antlers she brought with her? Eww! Drippy!"
She held out her hand, palm-up. "But like I said, that's not the point. The point is, you didn't want to see the wedding, so you didn't. And you still don't want to see what's right in front of your face, so I'm gonna show you."
As she spoke, a tiny spark of light, which rapidly grew into a pulsating orb about the size of a fortune teller's crystal ball, appeared on her outspread palm - and inside the orb, things were moving -a leg swirling through a swift roundhouse kick, a flashing stake, an explosion of choking dust.
It was Buffy, Giles realised, in the act of slaying a vampire.
Giles looked from the vision in the orb to Willow's face and back again.
"Willow, that's…I mean…I didn't know you could do that."
"Impressive, huh?" Willow looked pleased. "This…uh, friend of mine has been helping me."
"Oh? Which friend would this be?"
"Oh, no one important." Willow sounded embarrassed suddenly. "Just someone I met at Wicca Group. Keep watching, Giles."
Giles returned his attention to the vision in the orb, but what he saw there made him jump to his feet in horror. "Watch out!" he shouted, as if he could somehow make Buffy hear him, but she remained blissfully unaware of the two big vampires creeping up behind her. Any moment and one of them would have her in a stranglehold, while the other…
Suddenly, there was a flurry of black leather and white hair and one of the monsters went down. Spike straddled the fallen form, his arm rose and fell, and a cloud of choking dust burst upwards into the air, while Buffy turned and engaged the other vampire, the struggle concluding in the same satisfying way.
Buffy was breathing hard, her face flushed and pretty. "Thanks for watching my back, honey."
Spike smirked at her. "Any time, love. Happy to watch your front too, just so you know - especially that bit," and he indicated Buffy’s chest, stuck out his tongue and leered.
"One track mind much!" But Buffy was laughing.
Giles sat down again, heavily. His heart was pounding fit to burst. That had been close, and maybe Buffy could have handled it and maybe…not. How strange that for some reason it had never even occurred to him that Spike's presence on these nightly patrols made Buffy a great deal safer.
From the rather smug expression on Willow's face, she'd gathered what he was thinking.
Somewhat irritated, though whether with Willow or himself, he wasn’t sure, Giles looked back at the orb to find Buffy and Spike now sitting balanced on neighbouring headstones. At their feet, twin piles of dust wafted away in the breeze.
Buffy looked sidelong at Spike, who was smoking a cigarette. She wrinkled her nose at the smell.
"This is weird. Don't you think this is weird?"
"Bloody weird," Spike agreed, peaceably. "You're a Slayer, I'm an evil, unrepentant bloodsucking fiend. We have bugger all in common."
He took a deep drag on his smoke, reached into his duster pocket and brought out a hipflask, which he passed to her. Buffy uncapped it, sniffed the contents, wrinkled her nose again, but took an experimental sip that quickly dissolved into coughing.
"Eww!"
"Come on, love," Spike urged her. "Give it some welly. You're not even trying."
Buffy made a face. "You shouldn't be encouraging me to drink. It's bad for me."
Spike smirked at her again. "Yeah, I know, but you’re cute when you’re tipsy. Besides, it's hard being not-evil all the time, and I already promised to patrol for you when you need to study, and to look up that bloke who knows that other bloke who knows that demon who can give me my soul back, even though I keep telling you that the last thing we need is another souled vampire poncin' about actin’ all tragic.”
Giles gave Willow a startled look. "Get his soul back? Does he really mean that?"
Willow shrugged and smiled. "Told you he was totally Buffy's bitch."
"You did indeed." Giles looked back into the orb, where Spike was offering Buffy the hipflask again, saying, "In the meantime, you gotta give me something."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Okay, if it’s so important to your big bad street cred to corrupt me, I'll keep practising, but not just now. Deal?"
Spike leaned towards her. "Deal. Seal it with a kiss?"
She pushed him away. "Eww! No, not till you brush your teeth."
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Buffy said, "Yep. Weird. And you're right. I don't think we do have a single thing in common."
"Except that we like killing demons." Spike stubbed his cigarette out on the headstone, stood up and stretched. "And that we both think I'm a handsome devil."
"Oh, you!" She punched him in the arm again and he winced.
"Oww!"
"Baby!"
"Bossyboots!"
"Am not!"
"Yeah, you are."
"Well, you like me bossing you around."
"Dunno what gave you that idea."
"Honey, you're kind of transparent."
"Sod that!"
"Are too."
Fingers entwined and arguing loudly, they made their way towards the cemetery exit, while the glowing orb sputtered and sparked like a dying fire, before collapsing in on itself and disappearing, taking them with it.
Willow's hand dropped to her side. "So, Giles, what do you think now?"
A small part of Giles that hadn't yet succumbed to the collective insanity asked him what on earth he thought he was doing. It was wrong. Very, very wrong. But the greater part of him countered with, there were times when wrong was right, or at least more pragmatic.
He sighed. Willow had put her finger on it all right. He’d been wilfully blind, and what sort of Watcher did that make him?
Clearing his throat, he said, "Presumably, if they get tired of this…er, arrangement, the spell will break by itself?"
Willow was half out the door already. "I guess so. I wouldn't hold your breath, though, Giles. Spike's a pretty single-minded guy and Buffy - well, she's just stubborn.” She grinned. “Hey, maybe they do have something in common after all?"
There was a pause, then, just as the door began to close, Giles called, "Just so you know, if he calls me 'dad' one more time, I shall stake him."
"Gotcha." The door slammed shut behind her.
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Rating: PG-13 at most
Setting: a short time after Something Blue in BtVS season 4, but as you will see, things have taken rather a different turn to how they did in canon. One of those fics where everyone seems to have gone insane at some point. It's also my first sustained attempt to write Willow. :trembles:
Beta: Beta'd by dwyld, to whom many thanks. Hope there are not too many mistakes with my American. Also, thanks to hello_spikey for the plot bunny.
Marriage of Convenience
“I win!”
"Aww!" Buffy's voice. "That's cheating!"
Spike's triumphal whoop had devolved into dirty sniggering. "Well, yeah. Cheating's kind of the point, love."
At the sound of that snigger, with which he was becoming depressingly more familiar every day, Giles winced and rolled his eyes ceilingwards. When he looked at his book again- a musty old tome, altogether too full of arcane symbols, which were rapidly giving him eyestrain - he found he'd lost his place.
Shutting the book with an angry thud, that sent clouds of dust spiralling into the air, he glared across the room, in time to see an outraged looking ginger kitten changing hands across the coffee table.
"I'm trying to work. Do you have to do that here?"
Spike’s smirk was no less infuriating just because a small bundle of ginger fluff was butting the underside of his chin with its head.
"Sorry, dad. Didn't mean to disturb your going senile."
Giles gritted his teeth. "I am not your dad!"
The smirk grew to almost Cheshire Cat proportions. "'Course you are, or as good as, what with givin' away the blushing bride an' all."
The kitten, meanwhile, had settled on Spike's lap and begun to purr.
Giles scowled at them both. "I was - thankfully - still blind on that occasion. I don't remember much about it."
"Blind?" Spike sneered. "Legless, more like."
"Yes, well," Giles muttered, teeth still clenched, "there are certain occasions on which being unconscious under the table is the best - indeed the only - rational course of action."
Spike's eyes glinted with sly amusement - and how on earth, Giles wondered, did he manage to make the act of stroking a kitten so bloody provoking?- "You'd know, I s'pose."
"Don't tease him, honey." Buffy swatted Spike hard on the arm, evincing a -to Giles - very satisfying yelp of pain. Annoyed at the disturbance, the kitten jumped to the floor and gazed up at Buffy resentfully.
Buffy leaned down to pet it. The silver scull ring on her left hand glittered in the lamplight. It was somewhat too big for her, only kept in place by her wedding ring, but apparently - so she'd informed Giles - it made a very effective knuckleduster.
He rather hoped she'd tested it out on Spike.
"Don't look at me like that, kitty," Buffy cooed. "I'm doing you a favour getting you away from the big, bad vampire." Her voice dropped to a confiding whisper. "He used to eat kittens. How gross is that?"
For answer, the kitten gave her a disbelieving look, raised one hind leg in the air and began to wash itself.
Meanwhile, Spike was rubbing his arm. "Sorry, love, couldn't help myself - an’anyway old Rupes there started it.”
Buffy wagged her finger at him. "Of course you could help yourself. We've been over and over this. What'd I say?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "Dunno. Some boring self-motivational crap, prob'ly. Doubt I was listenin'."
Buffy's mouth turned down at the corners. "You're being mean again."
"Well, like I keep saying, I am evil…" Spike began, but his voice trailed off. "Now that just isn't fair."
Buffy's lower lip was wobbling and her eyes seemed to have grown to twice their normal size. The kitten miaowed loudly, directing its own reproachful look Spike’s way.
"Oh, buggerit" Suddenly, Spike was on his knees at Buffy’s feet. He took her hand in his and carried it to his lips. "Forgive me, pet. I'm bad and evil and rude, an' I don't deserve you."
"You so don't." Buffy gave him a severe look. "Say sorry to Giles too."
A sort of shudder ran through Spike’s body, but he turned in Giles's direction. "Sorry, Rupert," he muttered, head down. "Was well out of order. Won't do it again."
Oh yes you will, Giles thought, gloomily.
Not for the first time, he wondered just when exactly it had been decided that his apartment become the regular venue for the pre-patrol kitten poker game. He couldn't recall having been consulted on the matter.
Buffy, meanwhile, was all smiles again. "Okay, honey, now that you two grumpy old men have made up, tell me what I said earlier. I know you can if you try."
Spike heaved a put-upon sigh and sing-songed in a schoolboy-reciting-a-lesson-by-rote fashion, "You said that if ever I felt the urge to be evil coming over me, I should remember our special day and what I promised."
"Very good." Buffy wagged her finger again, this time right under Spike's nose. "And what did we agree about promises?"
Spike raised a sardonic eyebrow. "We?" But at the return of Buffy's severe expression he looked hangdog. "Sorry, love. We agreed that we always keep them, no matter what, and no matter who to. Even white hats."
"That's right." Buffy beamed at him, as if he were indeed a dog that had finally - after months of disappointment for its owner- mastered a new trick. "Now that's settled, why don't we go patrol?"
Spike brightened up at once. "Yeah, yeah. Could do with snappin' a few necks."
He quailed at Buffy's sudden frown. "Demon necks, that is."
"S'okay, honey. I got that." Buffy collected the playing cards and put them away in their pack, then picked up the kitten and plumped it down in its basket in the corner, all the time fending off Spike's attempts to steal a kiss.
"There, kitty," she stage-whispered in the kitten's ear. "Was nasty old uncle Spike gonna eat you? Was he? Don't you worry. I won't let him."
Spike's response was to nuzzle in closer, growling, "You don't let me have any fun," though it looked to Giles like he was enjoying himself rather more than was decent.
Of course, all Buffy's interactions with Spike involved more kissing and cuddling than Giles considered necessary.
He had to look away when their meandering progress towards the front door came to a dead halt for yet another bout of the endless canoodling, but as he glanced sidelong at them, he had to admit that they made quite a handsome couple. Or they would have done, if Spike weren't an evil, unrepentant bloodsucking fiend who couldn't resist being rude to everyone.
"Don't wait up, Giles." Buffy blew Giles a daughterly kiss. Then she squeaked as one of Spike's roving hands did something behind her back that Giles would rather not even think about.
Giles forced himself to smile at her, because she couldn't help herself, poor girl. "I won't, and be careful."
He breathed a sigh of relief as the front door slammed shut behind them, accompanied by the sound of more wet, lip-smacking kisses than was conducive to his peace of mind.
For a moment or two, there was blessed silence, except for the kitten's soft purring. Then the front door opened again and Willow poked her head around it.
"Have they gone?"
Giles snatched his hand away from the whisky decanter. "Yes, thank goodness."
Willow sidled further into the room. "It's not that I don't wanna see Buffy, Giles. You get that, right?"
"Of course." Giles gave her a weary nod. "It's just that you would rather not see Spike. Quite understandable."
Willow hunched her shoulders. "Not even that. He's been okay, mostly - well, except with Angel. I still can't believe he asked him to be best man - it's just that whenever I see them being all couple-y, I still feel kinda guilty."
"Not your fault," Giles hurried to assure her, even though it was. "Who could have guessed that such a simple spell would be so complicated to break?"
Willow's face took on that carefully blank expression that Giles had begun to associate with guilty secrets. "Yeah, how about that, huh?"
"Ye-es." Giles gave her a quizzical look. "After all, when you cast the spell, all the parts of it worked at once. I began to lose my sight. Xander became an object of desire for all the demons in the vicinity and Spike proposed to Buffy and she said yes. It all happened in the space of five minutes. And yet…"
"And yet…" Willow echoed, uneasily.
Giles’s quizzical look metamorphosed into a hard stare. "And yet the spell has had to be broken in discrete parts. First, Xander recovered from his demon magnetism - except for Anya, it seems - then I got my sight back - thankfully after the wedding. Meantime, the third part of the spell still remains to be broken."
There was no doubt about it. Willow was looking very shifty now. "Yes, about that…"
"I suppose obtaining a divorce shouldn't be too difficult," Giles mused, one eye on her reactions. "After all, it's not as if Spike is a citizen. Or even alive. And does it count if your undoubtedly counterfeit ID states you're 130 years old? In fact, one wonders if the marriage is even legal. I know that rather charming fellow with all the skin folds said he was a properly appointed minister of religion - but what religion, that's the question?"
"And what about Clem and Buffy's mom, huh?" Willow cut in, with what struck Giles as rather excessive enthusiasm. "Talk about whirlwind romances!"
"Yes," Giles agreed, frowning- not that he could blame Joyce for wanting to get away from it all - "Very…speedy."
"They sent Buffy a postcard from Hawaii," Willow went on, almost babbling now. "Sounds like they're having a ball. Did you know that Hawaii houses about 12 percent of all the endangered plants and animals in the United States, and…"
"Willow," Giles said, firmly. "What aren't you telling me?"
Willow froze. Her eyes darted from left to right, as if looking for an escape route and not finding it. Then, she spoke all in a rush.
"The why-doesn't-she-just-go-marry-him part of the Do My Will spell? I've stopped trying to break it, Giles. I've decided it'll do more harm than good."
Giles felt his jaw drop. Slowly, he rose to his feet. "Er…what did you say?"
Willow grimaced. "I knew you were gonna say that. I said…"
“No, wait.” Giles's head was whirling. He put a hand on the desk to steady himself. Was his tired brain playing tricks on him? Maybe he’d fallen asleep without realising it?
He squinted at Willow, almost expecting to find himself alone in the room, but she was still very much there. He laughed uneasily. "Forgive me, Willow, but did you just say that you’ve stopped trying to break the spell? Because I hope you realise that such a course of action is…is…absurd, frankly. And wrong. Very, very wrong."
Willow's face had taken on a familiar, and troubling, stubborn look.
"I don't agree. Whom God hath joined - or whom Guernenthar the Ascended One has joined, as is more applicable here - let no man put asunder."
Giles stared at her, dumbstruck. She wasn’t joking. She really meant it. “What on earth has made you come to this conclusion? This very wrong conclusion?”
Willow smiled a placatory smile. “Lots of things - and just so you know, it’s not just me. I talked it over with Xander and Anya, and they agree with my decision. Well, Xander was sort of unsure at first, but Anya talked him around.”
Giles blinked. “You asked Anya? You asked Anya’s opinion and not mine?”
Willow shrugged apologetically. “I know it looks bad on the surface, Giles, but think about it. Buffy and Spike -they’ve been good for each other.”
"I…I beg your pardon?" Giles’s jaw, already somewhere in the region of his breastbone, seemed to sag even lower.
Willow's face had taken on a dreamy look.
"I mean, spell or no spell, they always have had chemistry, right? Spike's always wanted to kill Buffy way more than he's wanted to kill anyone else. Now he's in love with her way more than with anyone else, and I think he's a better person for it."
"Better…person?" Any moment now, Giles thought, he would shake off this funk of sheer, stunned disbelief and take charge of the situation. Any moment.
Willow, meanwhile, steamrollered on. "I mean, okay, so he snarked at Angel at the wedding, but then Angel was being super-broody even for him, which was kind of a downer at a wedding, and Buffy did make Spike call Angel and apologise -" She paused for breath, then went on - "But he's not killing any more - or only demons. What's more, he gave Buffy that oh, so cute kitten he was gonna eat and taught her how to cheat at poker so she can go save all the other kittens." She gave Giles a pleading look. "In fact, he's totally Buffy's bitch."
As if to endorse Willow's statement, the ginger kitten rolled over in its basket, showing its pale belly, and began to purr loudly.
Giles stared from Willow to the kitten and back again. Then, with what felt like a huge effort, he levered his jaw shut, fished in his pocket for his handkerchief, took off his glasses and began to polish them very thoroughly.
Willow's smile wavered.
"Giles? Say something."
Bugger discretion, Giles thought. Putting his glasses back on, he poured himself a scotch.
"What do you want me to say, Willow? That I approve of this insanity? I don't. In fact, if you're absolutely set on this course, I shall have to take matters into my own hands."
He downed the scotch in one fiery gulp. "Can I just say that I think you're being very selfish? If you've learned nothing else about magic yet, you must know how difficult it is to break spells of this type when you're not the caster."
Willow's eyes went huge. "Please don't, Giles. Just…just leave it alone, okay?"
Giles paused with his hand on the decanter.
"I really don't understand this. Why, Willow? And don't give me any more of that nonsense about the ameliorative effect of the spell on Spike's character. It's hard to see how he could be made any worse. Besides, it's Buffy we should be concerned about."
Willow's anxious expression cleared. "That's it, Giles. That's it exactly."
"That's what?" Giles fumed. "And don't interrupt me. I want to know what possible reason you could have to think that it's acceptable for Buffy to remain married to…to.."
"….an evil unrepentant, bloodsucking fiend?" Willow finished for him.
Giles blinked. "Yes. That. Explain yourself. Otherwise I shall be forced to conclude that everyone but me has gone mad."
"Oh, I have a good reason," Willow insisted. "The best, in fact. Buffy's happy, Giles. I've never seen her so happy."
Giles winced, remembering all the kissing and cuddling. It was certainly true that in all the years he'd known her, he'd never heard Buffy laugh so much. "Yes, but…"
"And we should all seize happiness where we find it," Willow went on. "Shouldn't we?"
"Erm…" Giles opened his mouth to reply, but found himself floundering. He rallied quickly. "Absolutely not. It's wrong. She's under a spell. They both are. They don't know what they're doing."
Willow was gazing up into the far corner of the room. "No-ot so sure about that."
Giles found he'd come to dread that look. "What do you mean?"
Willow's sneaker toed patterns on the rug. "See - I've been reading up on that spell, and it kind of has a shelf-life? Okay, so at first, when it's new, people are all helpless and, aargh! I'm under a spell! Save me!" She waved her arms around and stuck her tongue out, pantomiming being under a spell.
Giles supposed that despite this ridiculous charade, he should be grateful the children still thought him worth explaining things to at all. "Quite. Go on."
Willow's arms dropped to her sides. She was a little flushed - Giles hoped from embarrassment. "So - yeah. And then, after a while, if they don't like what's been wished on them, they get tired of it and the spell kind of breaks on its own? I mean, you're not blind any more - cuz who'd wanna be? But there must be some part of being a demon magnet that Xander likes" -she made a face - "because how else do you explain Anya?"
"Good question." Giles had to give her that.
"And-" Willow cleared her throat "-Buffy's still married to Spike."
Giles's knees appeared to have turned to indiarubber. Damn scotch! He sat down and stared at her.
"You mean, the spell hasn't broken because she likes it? She wants to be married to him?"
Willow nodded. "Yeah. Okay, probably there are times when she looks at him and goes, huh? But mostly….yeah."
"But…"Giles heard himself stutter, "What? How?" Somehow neither of these sounded like quite the right question, but he had no idea what was.
Willow shrugged. "Who knows? The attraction of opposites? I mean, she's a Slayer, he's a vampire. You can't get more opposite-y than that. Also, I think he has a big thing for strong women, and Buffy is…well, she's super-strong. And kind of bossy."
"But…but…" If this went on, Giles thought, the stutter would become permanent. "I don't understand. They have nothing to talk about - nothing whatsoever in common."
Willow was backing towards the door, and Giles realised she had only come by at all to drop this bombshell. "They both like hitting things?" she offered.
"There is that."
Giles felt blank now. Stunned almost. He felt the back of his skull cautiously, in case he'd been hit over the head again and forgotten about it. But there were no tender spots in evidence.
Willow had reached the front door. "So, you're okay with it?" she asked, in a plaintive voice. "At least, you're not gonna do anything about it? Are you?"
Giles stared at her. For a horrible moment, he found himself about to agree, but then common sense prevailed.
"What do you mean, am I going to do anything about it? Of course I am. This is ridiculous, Willow. Absurd. You're wrong about this. You have to be."
Willow blinked. "I am? How do you explain Anya, then?"
"I can't," Giles admitted. "But the rest of it…."
Willow's hand had been on the latch, but now it dropped back to her side.
"What are you trying to say, Giles?"
"Well…well," Giles floundered. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Buffy would never want to be married to Spike if she were in her right mind. You're just a beginner, Willow - a rank amateur. What do you know about magic? I don’t know why I’ve listened to this nonsense, but it stops now."
For a moment - just for a moment - Willow's eyes darkened and there was a distinct chill in the room. But then she clapped her hands to her mouth. "Of course!"
Somewhat rattled, Giles retreated to the decanter and poured himself another scotch.
"What do you mean - of course?"
Willow was back to smiling, and looking far more pleased with herself than the situation warranted in Giles's opinion. "I mean, I get it. You're still under the spell, Giles. You're still blind."
"That's ridiculous." Giles glared at her. "I can see you perfectly well."
Willow shook her head. "That's not the point. I mean, don't you think it's weird that you didn't get your sight back at all until after the wedding? You were all, it's terrible, it's awful, I don't wanna see it. Even Angel was less grouchy than you."
"Yes, well," Giles huffed, "I wasn't exactly thrilled about the whole thing, and can you blame me?"
Willow grimaced "Not really. It was hard work for me too. Having Drusilla as your fellow maid of honour is kind of like trying to wrangle a herd of cats. And that guy with the antlers she brought with her? Eww! Drippy!"
She held out her hand, palm-up. "But like I said, that's not the point. The point is, you didn't want to see the wedding, so you didn't. And you still don't want to see what's right in front of your face, so I'm gonna show you."
As she spoke, a tiny spark of light, which rapidly grew into a pulsating orb about the size of a fortune teller's crystal ball, appeared on her outspread palm - and inside the orb, things were moving -a leg swirling through a swift roundhouse kick, a flashing stake, an explosion of choking dust.
It was Buffy, Giles realised, in the act of slaying a vampire.
Giles looked from the vision in the orb to Willow's face and back again.
"Willow, that's…I mean…I didn't know you could do that."
"Impressive, huh?" Willow looked pleased. "This…uh, friend of mine has been helping me."
"Oh? Which friend would this be?"
"Oh, no one important." Willow sounded embarrassed suddenly. "Just someone I met at Wicca Group. Keep watching, Giles."
Giles returned his attention to the vision in the orb, but what he saw there made him jump to his feet in horror. "Watch out!" he shouted, as if he could somehow make Buffy hear him, but she remained blissfully unaware of the two big vampires creeping up behind her. Any moment and one of them would have her in a stranglehold, while the other…
Suddenly, there was a flurry of black leather and white hair and one of the monsters went down. Spike straddled the fallen form, his arm rose and fell, and a cloud of choking dust burst upwards into the air, while Buffy turned and engaged the other vampire, the struggle concluding in the same satisfying way.
Buffy was breathing hard, her face flushed and pretty. "Thanks for watching my back, honey."
Spike smirked at her. "Any time, love. Happy to watch your front too, just so you know - especially that bit," and he indicated Buffy’s chest, stuck out his tongue and leered.
"One track mind much!" But Buffy was laughing.
Giles sat down again, heavily. His heart was pounding fit to burst. That had been close, and maybe Buffy could have handled it and maybe…not. How strange that for some reason it had never even occurred to him that Spike's presence on these nightly patrols made Buffy a great deal safer.
From the rather smug expression on Willow's face, she'd gathered what he was thinking.
Somewhat irritated, though whether with Willow or himself, he wasn’t sure, Giles looked back at the orb to find Buffy and Spike now sitting balanced on neighbouring headstones. At their feet, twin piles of dust wafted away in the breeze.
Buffy looked sidelong at Spike, who was smoking a cigarette. She wrinkled her nose at the smell.
"This is weird. Don't you think this is weird?"
"Bloody weird," Spike agreed, peaceably. "You're a Slayer, I'm an evil, unrepentant bloodsucking fiend. We have bugger all in common."
He took a deep drag on his smoke, reached into his duster pocket and brought out a hipflask, which he passed to her. Buffy uncapped it, sniffed the contents, wrinkled her nose again, but took an experimental sip that quickly dissolved into coughing.
"Eww!"
"Come on, love," Spike urged her. "Give it some welly. You're not even trying."
Buffy made a face. "You shouldn't be encouraging me to drink. It's bad for me."
Spike smirked at her again. "Yeah, I know, but you’re cute when you’re tipsy. Besides, it's hard being not-evil all the time, and I already promised to patrol for you when you need to study, and to look up that bloke who knows that other bloke who knows that demon who can give me my soul back, even though I keep telling you that the last thing we need is another souled vampire poncin' about actin’ all tragic.”
Giles gave Willow a startled look. "Get his soul back? Does he really mean that?"
Willow shrugged and smiled. "Told you he was totally Buffy's bitch."
"You did indeed." Giles looked back into the orb, where Spike was offering Buffy the hipflask again, saying, "In the meantime, you gotta give me something."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Okay, if it’s so important to your big bad street cred to corrupt me, I'll keep practising, but not just now. Deal?"
Spike leaned towards her. "Deal. Seal it with a kiss?"
She pushed him away. "Eww! No, not till you brush your teeth."
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Buffy said, "Yep. Weird. And you're right. I don't think we do have a single thing in common."
"Except that we like killing demons." Spike stubbed his cigarette out on the headstone, stood up and stretched. "And that we both think I'm a handsome devil."
"Oh, you!" She punched him in the arm again and he winced.
"Oww!"
"Baby!"
"Bossyboots!"
"Am not!"
"Yeah, you are."
"Well, you like me bossing you around."
"Dunno what gave you that idea."
"Honey, you're kind of transparent."
"Sod that!"
"Are too."
Fingers entwined and arguing loudly, they made their way towards the cemetery exit, while the glowing orb sputtered and sparked like a dying fire, before collapsing in on itself and disappearing, taking them with it.
Willow's hand dropped to her side. "So, Giles, what do you think now?"
A small part of Giles that hadn't yet succumbed to the collective insanity asked him what on earth he thought he was doing. It was wrong. Very, very wrong. But the greater part of him countered with, there were times when wrong was right, or at least more pragmatic.
He sighed. Willow had put her finger on it all right. He’d been wilfully blind, and what sort of Watcher did that make him?
Clearing his throat, he said, "Presumably, if they get tired of this…er, arrangement, the spell will break by itself?"
Willow was half out the door already. "I guess so. I wouldn't hold your breath, though, Giles. Spike's a pretty single-minded guy and Buffy - well, she's just stubborn.” She grinned. “Hey, maybe they do have something in common after all?"
There was a pause, then, just as the door began to close, Giles called, "Just so you know, if he calls me 'dad' one more time, I shall stake him."
"Gotcha." The door slammed shut behind her.