FIC: Seraph (10/?)
Apr. 2nd, 2009 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupStory begins here. All parts may be found here.
A/N: Hiatus over! Thanks very much to my betas,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phoenixofborg and hello_spikey, for ironing out the kinks in this chapter! Also, thanks to phoenixofborg for the really cute pregnant Spikey fanart she surprised me with. Aw. :)
~~~~~~
His crypt wasn’t the same anymore. Oh, it was still his crypt, a bit more broken of late than when he’d moved in although a broom had tidied the worst of it. But now he stood looking at the cobwebs, and he wondered if the spiders were poisonous. He looked at the rust-flaked tangles of wrought iron -- were they supposed to be gates? -- and he thought about tetanus.
He couldn’t imagine bringing a baby here. Granted, his imagination with respect to babies had previously been restricted to interesting ways to drain them, memories that made him queasy now because he didn’t know what she would look like and so every baby he remembered ever eating looked like her.
Yet even when he could picture himself holding her, a soft faceless bundle, he couldn’t picture them here, amidst so much rough unheated stone. He couldn’t even keep her warm; he’d be no more than insulation to her. And though a part of him was certain he’d never let her out of his arms once she was in them, another part knew that sometime he’d have to go out for blood or enough dosh to get it, and what would he do with her then? Who’d he hand her off to when, sooner or later, a demony type wanted a fight and he had to give it to them? He’d want to give it to them; he doubted having her to take care of would be enough to calm the occasional battle urge.
To say, yeah, he was going to give the human sprog a chance at life, like he’d had once -- that, he could do. He was still a bit spooked by the being pregnant part of it, but he’d seen a lot of funny things in a hundred twenty years in the demon underground, and anyway it was only temporary.
But keeping her, raising her -- he hadn’t a buggering clue how to do that.
He couldn’t give her up. He’d deluded himself to ever think he might. But he knew bugger-all about what he was going to do with her instead.
He pushed himself up onto the sarcophagus and rubbed his belly gently, and she rewarded him with a soft kick. She’d been moving about more these last few days, and he wished he knew what that meant, if anything.
But that, at least, was a question he knew how to find the answer to.
He slid to his feet and had just pulled his duster on when the door squeaked open. He spun, his fangs an instant from dropping by the time he’d processed who it was.
He straightened. “Niblet.”
“Hi, Spike,” Dawn said, peering into the gloom beyond him. He wondered if she was looking at the cobwebs, too. Then he noticed a very familiar sort of white paper bag in her hand.
“You bring something?”
“Oh, yeah.” She held the bag out away from her like a French maid confronted with a stray ear.
He took it, confirmed that it did indeed contain one plastic canister of pigs’ blood. He shot her a skeptical eyebrow. “Wasting away, am I?”
She giggled. “Not so much.” She closed in and patted at his stomach -- to see that it was still there, presumably. “I just thought, in case you were getting low -- I didn’t want her to get hungry. Or, you know, you either.” She glanced up at him, her face watchful and ready to shut if he gave the slightest hint that she’d done the wrong thing.
Like he’d complain about free blood, even if his poker winnings -- or cheatings, rather -- two nights prior had been unusually profitable. “Thanks, pet.”
Instantly, the watchfulness was gone and she was grinning. Then she stepped back and finally looked him up and down. He braced for a comment on his scrounged sweatpants, about which the only good things that could be said were that they stretched and they were black. “Are-are you going somewhere?” she said instead, eyeing his duster.
“Got a demon I need to ask a question of,” he said, turning to put the blood beside the other canisters in his brand-new, only-mostly-used refrigerator.
“Can I come?”
He turned. “Demon, pet. Big evil monster thing?”
“Your doctor wasn’t an evil monster thing -- was he?”
“Well--” Now was not, he decided, the time to explain what Kurellis liked to soak their tentacles in. “You’ve seen one demon, you’ve seen ‘em all.”
“But I haven’t seen -- well, just him. Buffy won’t even let me look at pictures. And besides, I can’t go home yet because Mom will want to know why I left Janice’s so soon, and if I go to Janice’s she’ll want, you know, details.”
“Details.”
Flushed, she was peering intently at some of his very plentiful dust. “About me and my way older guy.”
“Your--” He stared. It must have been a matter of too much brooding, because he couldn’t help it -- he leaned back against the sarcophagus and laughed until his eyes watered. Finally, he managed, “Got a hot and heavy night planned, do we?”
Still red, she squinted at him, as though trying to decide whether or not she’d been insulted.
“Never mind, pet.” He went to the door and swung it open. “Coming?”
Once they were out on the street, Dawn said, “Buffy said you kind of had a wiggins a couple days ago.”
“She did, did she?” Stupid bint, couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “And that’s what I owe the pleasure to, isn’t it -- you checking up on me to see I’m all fine and proper.”
“I guess so.”
He wavered between two responses, settled on, “Vampire, love. Been managing a lot of years now.”
“But you weren’t chipped before. And you didn’t have a baby.”
“Yeah, well.” Then they were at Willy’s front door and he didn’t have to think about how to answer that. “Now you stick close to me and keep your mouth shut, got it? Don’t need the Slayer getting wind of you being here.”
“Got it,” she said, all seriousness.
“Right.” He pushed through the bead curtain and scanned the place for vengeful relations of any of his recent demon kills. There were none that he could tell. He nodded to Willy. “Letitia holding court tonight?”
“In the back.” Willy thumbed the direction. “Hey, you’re buying, right? Can’t have people wandering through without buying something.”
Spike dismissed this with a gesture. He was halfway across the room when he realized Dawn wasn’t with him. He glanced back to see her standing in the middle of the floor, staring at the pea-green vinyl booths and the ketchup walls and the sparkly garlands hung over the door and around the ceiling -- were those from last Yuletide, or the one before? -- and sneaking nervous sideways glances towards the bulbous-headed Granich demon at the bar.
“Niblet,” he said, and she startled and scurried over to him.
“Sorry.”
“Is a bit of a shock, first time, innit?” he said. “Man has a truly evil taste in obsolete kitsch. Quite admirable.”
She flashed him a bit of a grin at this, and with that vote of confidence he pushed open the second curtain of beads.
“Spike,” said Letitia, settling her plenteous length against the wall and regarding him with that particular warm expression that made a man feel both utterly desirable and an unexpected but potentially interesting species of tsetse fly. Two head-tassels turned in his direction. “What can I do for you?”
“That list you gave me before? Another something like that.”
“Oh,” she pouted, “You ask boring questions. Ask me something tasty.”
He snorted. “And what’d that cost me?”
“Oh, I don’t know, let me see -- your dearest poem, maybe?”
“Dearest poem?” Dawn whispered.
He ignored them both, searching the ceiling for just the phrasing he needed. “I need the name of a specialist in parasitic and symbiotic health.”
“And what have you got? Public gossip or private?”
“Public,” he said, marshalling his eyewitness, on-the-scene account of the Slayer’s final soldier-smashing exploits.
“I think I’d rather know what you need the information for. Or is she your symbiote?” She nodded to Dawn.
“Say again?”
She gave him a split-faced, froggish grin. “Your consort, of course. She’s a bit young, isn’t she? But I suppose you’ll break her into it.”
“Bloody hell!”
“But the correct term is ‘companion’ nowadays, isn’t it?”
“She’s not my bloody consort or symbiote or whatever else have you! She’s--” Blank, he glanced at Dawn.
“I’m a friend,” she said.
He searched her face, but he couldn’t find any flippancy there, nor sarcasm. She caught his stare. “What?”
He turned back to Letitia. “Right. Friend. And that’s private gossip.”
“Caught me,” she said, grinning unapologetically. “Just for that -- imagine Spike with a friend--” He rolled his eyes. “For that I’ll give you a name and referral to my own local P&S doctor -- if you’ll tell me what you need it for. With details.”
It wasn’t a bad deal, all things considered. Letitia’s word was the best there was, and he wouldn’t mind not having to leave town. Still. “It’s private.”
“Of course.”
“Private.”
She rolled her eyes, an expression that he was positive wasn’t native to Rodex demons. “You know I’m safe.”
“Right.” He shoved his hands in his duster pockets. Was this ever going to get any easier? “Niblet, you tell her.”
Eyes wide, “Tell her what?”
He huffed a sigh. “You know.”
“Oh!” She turned to Letitia. “Spike’s going to have a baby.”
A moment’s pause, and then, in that rich rolling voice that Spike fervently wished belonged to someone, well, at least bipedal, she said, “Re-eally.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be a girl.”
“A girl what? Vampire?” Letitia shot him a puzzled glance.
“No, you know, a girl person. Human, I mean.”
“Well, then,” Letitia said, practically cooing. “Why don’t you tell me all about it.”
And Dawn did, including details Spike couldn’t imagine Buffy sharing with her. He had the impression she’d been itching for a willing audience -- and Letitia was definitely willing. Every so often the demon would roll a glance towards his middle.
Finally he said, “That’s enough, Niblet. That’s got to be more than payment for one medical referral.”
“Absolutely,” Letitia said. She reached for her ever-present notepad, penned a number, and handed the paper to him. “I’ll tell them you’ll be calling. A pleasure doing business.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he said, tucking the paper in his pocket. He turned to go.
“Wait.” When he’d turned back, she said, “You know I don’t take sides in petty demon squabbles.”
“Um, yeah.” He wasn’t sure where she was going with this.
“But Dr. Mo’ullrnrl was a friend of mine.”
“Was...oh.”
“So I’m giving you this one for free. I assume it was you the vampires were after when they murdered him?”
“Had a run-in with some oddballs, yeah.”
“Are you familiar with them?”
He shrugged. “Cult, miracles, prophecies, the usual show?”
She gave a dismissive wave of her tassels. “They’re looking for a child born to two vampires.”
“Are they now?” He snorted. “Been looking a while, have they?”
“Yes, and in the meantime they infiltrate medical offices and records departments, looking for signs. I gather they found out about a vampire who was expecting and decided he was an offense to the cause.”
“Me.”
“Looks like.”
“Figures. Thanks for the head’s up.” He sighed. “Come on, Niblet. Time to see you home.”
Letitia called after him, “You just keep that little Spikette safe, you hear? Does she have a name yet?”
He threw a grin over his shoulder. “You’ll find it out next time you know something I need.”
“Spoilsport.”
He managed to usher Dawn to the door without incident, unless he counted the detour to the bar for a bottle of some kind of fizzy strawberry thing that he informed her smelled worse than a good half of the demon brews on tap. And then they were outside strolling through the warm May night with a chorus of crickets for a serenade.
After a few sips of her strawberry poison, Dawn said, “She looked kind of like Jabba the Hutt.”
“Yeah, but don’t ever, ever tell her that.”
“With a feather headdress. If he dumped grape Kool-aid all over himself.”
He snorted a laugh.
“So, what are you going to name her?”
“Hadn’t given it much thought yet. Just figured out a couple of days ago I was keeping her.”
She rolled her eyes moon-high. “Of course you’re keeping her.”
“Oh, you were already aware of this? Thanks for the mention.”
She gave him another of those looks that he figured must have been patented by a teenager somewhere back in the mists of time. Then, softly, “How many of those demons wanted to eat me?”
“What, at Willy’s?”
She nodded.
“They’d leave you alone, mostly, at least in public. Humans there too, you noticed.”
Another sip. “Yeah.”
“I mean, the Granich demons have a bit of a thing for eyeballs -- like the fluid inside, can’t really feature that one -- but that’s only during rutting season. And the Denabians -- they’re the frilly ones -- they’re mostly vegetarians now, religious thing, but one falls off the wagon now and again.” He gave her a hard look. “Not helping, am I?”
“There were vampires, too,” she said, barely audible.
“That there were,” he said.
She studied the rim of her bottle and said, “I want you to teach me how to fight.”
He stopped, gaped at her. “You. Want me to teach you. How to fight.”
“I know I’m little, but I’m growing! I’ve grown a half-inch since March.”
“Is that right.”
“Besides, Buffy’s not very big either.”
“Buffy is the Slayer.”
“But Sunnydale’s full of demons and it’s not like she can protect me all the time. What if those vampires who tried to kill you came here? I should be able to defend myself.”
“Yeah, and the one who should be teaching you this is the Slayer, who not only will not then stake me through the heart for engaging her sister in violent behavior, but has the added bonus of not getting a migraine every time you forget to block a punch.”
“Every time I... Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh.’”
“But Buffy won’t show me anything! And Mom just pats my shoulder and says,” -- Dawn lifted her eyebrows patronizingly--”‘Honey, Buffy knows more about demons than we do, and we should trust her judgment.’” She looked up to Spike as though this were the irrefutable final evidence in an unanswerable argument. When he just looked back at her, she huffed. “And anyway, Willow was almost my age when she started helping Buffy, and she wasn’t even a witch then.”
“Pretty sure she still had a couple of years on you.”
“Spi-i-ike,” she said, pulling at least a half dozen more syllables out of his name than he remembered putting in. “Please?”
Swimming in that wide-eyed blue pool of pleading, he had an idea. “You’d have to come to the crypt,” he said.
“Okay,” she said instantly.
“Figuring out how to get there’s up to you, you understand?”
“Okay,” she said again.
“And what to tell your mum if you come home all bloody.” Not that he expected her to, but she needed to know what she was getting into.
She shrugged, eyes bright and unconcerned. “I’ll think of something.”
“And you’re coming with me to see the sodding parasitic health doctor, right?” he said, almost before he’d thought of saying it and bare seconds before he regretted it. What’d he said before? He was a grown vamp?
She only shrugged again. “Yeah, okay. Hey, maybe you’ll get to see her! You know, with that machine thing.”
“Maybe,” he said, suddenly distracted by the idea. How much different would she look, now that he knew she belonged to him? Or possibly vice versa.
next part
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A/N: Hiatus over! Thanks very much to my betas,
phoenixofborg and hello_spikey, for ironing out the kinks in this chapter! Also, thanks to phoenixofborg for the really cute pregnant Spikey fanart she surprised me with. Aw. :)~~~~~~
His crypt wasn’t the same anymore. Oh, it was still his crypt, a bit more broken of late than when he’d moved in although a broom had tidied the worst of it. But now he stood looking at the cobwebs, and he wondered if the spiders were poisonous. He looked at the rust-flaked tangles of wrought iron -- were they supposed to be gates? -- and he thought about tetanus.
He couldn’t imagine bringing a baby here. Granted, his imagination with respect to babies had previously been restricted to interesting ways to drain them, memories that made him queasy now because he didn’t know what she would look like and so every baby he remembered ever eating looked like her.
Yet even when he could picture himself holding her, a soft faceless bundle, he couldn’t picture them here, amidst so much rough unheated stone. He couldn’t even keep her warm; he’d be no more than insulation to her. And though a part of him was certain he’d never let her out of his arms once she was in them, another part knew that sometime he’d have to go out for blood or enough dosh to get it, and what would he do with her then? Who’d he hand her off to when, sooner or later, a demony type wanted a fight and he had to give it to them? He’d want to give it to them; he doubted having her to take care of would be enough to calm the occasional battle urge.
To say, yeah, he was going to give the human sprog a chance at life, like he’d had once -- that, he could do. He was still a bit spooked by the being pregnant part of it, but he’d seen a lot of funny things in a hundred twenty years in the demon underground, and anyway it was only temporary.
But keeping her, raising her -- he hadn’t a buggering clue how to do that.
He couldn’t give her up. He’d deluded himself to ever think he might. But he knew bugger-all about what he was going to do with her instead.
He pushed himself up onto the sarcophagus and rubbed his belly gently, and she rewarded him with a soft kick. She’d been moving about more these last few days, and he wished he knew what that meant, if anything.
But that, at least, was a question he knew how to find the answer to.
He slid to his feet and had just pulled his duster on when the door squeaked open. He spun, his fangs an instant from dropping by the time he’d processed who it was.
He straightened. “Niblet.”
“Hi, Spike,” Dawn said, peering into the gloom beyond him. He wondered if she was looking at the cobwebs, too. Then he noticed a very familiar sort of white paper bag in her hand.
“You bring something?”
“Oh, yeah.” She held the bag out away from her like a French maid confronted with a stray ear.
He took it, confirmed that it did indeed contain one plastic canister of pigs’ blood. He shot her a skeptical eyebrow. “Wasting away, am I?”
She giggled. “Not so much.” She closed in and patted at his stomach -- to see that it was still there, presumably. “I just thought, in case you were getting low -- I didn’t want her to get hungry. Or, you know, you either.” She glanced up at him, her face watchful and ready to shut if he gave the slightest hint that she’d done the wrong thing.
Like he’d complain about free blood, even if his poker winnings -- or cheatings, rather -- two nights prior had been unusually profitable. “Thanks, pet.”
Instantly, the watchfulness was gone and she was grinning. Then she stepped back and finally looked him up and down. He braced for a comment on his scrounged sweatpants, about which the only good things that could be said were that they stretched and they were black. “Are-are you going somewhere?” she said instead, eyeing his duster.
“Got a demon I need to ask a question of,” he said, turning to put the blood beside the other canisters in his brand-new, only-mostly-used refrigerator.
“Can I come?”
He turned. “Demon, pet. Big evil monster thing?”
“Your doctor wasn’t an evil monster thing -- was he?”
“Well--” Now was not, he decided, the time to explain what Kurellis liked to soak their tentacles in. “You’ve seen one demon, you’ve seen ‘em all.”
“But I haven’t seen -- well, just him. Buffy won’t even let me look at pictures. And besides, I can’t go home yet because Mom will want to know why I left Janice’s so soon, and if I go to Janice’s she’ll want, you know, details.”
“Details.”
Flushed, she was peering intently at some of his very plentiful dust. “About me and my way older guy.”
“Your--” He stared. It must have been a matter of too much brooding, because he couldn’t help it -- he leaned back against the sarcophagus and laughed until his eyes watered. Finally, he managed, “Got a hot and heavy night planned, do we?”
Still red, she squinted at him, as though trying to decide whether or not she’d been insulted.
“Never mind, pet.” He went to the door and swung it open. “Coming?”
Once they were out on the street, Dawn said, “Buffy said you kind of had a wiggins a couple days ago.”
“She did, did she?” Stupid bint, couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “And that’s what I owe the pleasure to, isn’t it -- you checking up on me to see I’m all fine and proper.”
“I guess so.”
He wavered between two responses, settled on, “Vampire, love. Been managing a lot of years now.”
“But you weren’t chipped before. And you didn’t have a baby.”
“Yeah, well.” Then they were at Willy’s front door and he didn’t have to think about how to answer that. “Now you stick close to me and keep your mouth shut, got it? Don’t need the Slayer getting wind of you being here.”
“Got it,” she said, all seriousness.
“Right.” He pushed through the bead curtain and scanned the place for vengeful relations of any of his recent demon kills. There were none that he could tell. He nodded to Willy. “Letitia holding court tonight?”
“In the back.” Willy thumbed the direction. “Hey, you’re buying, right? Can’t have people wandering through without buying something.”
Spike dismissed this with a gesture. He was halfway across the room when he realized Dawn wasn’t with him. He glanced back to see her standing in the middle of the floor, staring at the pea-green vinyl booths and the ketchup walls and the sparkly garlands hung over the door and around the ceiling -- were those from last Yuletide, or the one before? -- and sneaking nervous sideways glances towards the bulbous-headed Granich demon at the bar.
“Niblet,” he said, and she startled and scurried over to him.
“Sorry.”
“Is a bit of a shock, first time, innit?” he said. “Man has a truly evil taste in obsolete kitsch. Quite admirable.”
She flashed him a bit of a grin at this, and with that vote of confidence he pushed open the second curtain of beads.
“Spike,” said Letitia, settling her plenteous length against the wall and regarding him with that particular warm expression that made a man feel both utterly desirable and an unexpected but potentially interesting species of tsetse fly. Two head-tassels turned in his direction. “What can I do for you?”
“That list you gave me before? Another something like that.”
“Oh,” she pouted, “You ask boring questions. Ask me something tasty.”
He snorted. “And what’d that cost me?”
“Oh, I don’t know, let me see -- your dearest poem, maybe?”
“Dearest poem?” Dawn whispered.
He ignored them both, searching the ceiling for just the phrasing he needed. “I need the name of a specialist in parasitic and symbiotic health.”
“And what have you got? Public gossip or private?”
“Public,” he said, marshalling his eyewitness, on-the-scene account of the Slayer’s final soldier-smashing exploits.
“I think I’d rather know what you need the information for. Or is she your symbiote?” She nodded to Dawn.
“Say again?”
She gave him a split-faced, froggish grin. “Your consort, of course. She’s a bit young, isn’t she? But I suppose you’ll break her into it.”
“Bloody hell!”
“But the correct term is ‘companion’ nowadays, isn’t it?”
“She’s not my bloody consort or symbiote or whatever else have you! She’s--” Blank, he glanced at Dawn.
“I’m a friend,” she said.
He searched her face, but he couldn’t find any flippancy there, nor sarcasm. She caught his stare. “What?”
He turned back to Letitia. “Right. Friend. And that’s private gossip.”
“Caught me,” she said, grinning unapologetically. “Just for that -- imagine Spike with a friend--” He rolled his eyes. “For that I’ll give you a name and referral to my own local P&S doctor -- if you’ll tell me what you need it for. With details.”
It wasn’t a bad deal, all things considered. Letitia’s word was the best there was, and he wouldn’t mind not having to leave town. Still. “It’s private.”
“Of course.”
“Private.”
She rolled her eyes, an expression that he was positive wasn’t native to Rodex demons. “You know I’m safe.”
“Right.” He shoved his hands in his duster pockets. Was this ever going to get any easier? “Niblet, you tell her.”
Eyes wide, “Tell her what?”
He huffed a sigh. “You know.”
“Oh!” She turned to Letitia. “Spike’s going to have a baby.”
A moment’s pause, and then, in that rich rolling voice that Spike fervently wished belonged to someone, well, at least bipedal, she said, “Re-eally.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be a girl.”
“A girl what? Vampire?” Letitia shot him a puzzled glance.
“No, you know, a girl person. Human, I mean.”
“Well, then,” Letitia said, practically cooing. “Why don’t you tell me all about it.”
And Dawn did, including details Spike couldn’t imagine Buffy sharing with her. He had the impression she’d been itching for a willing audience -- and Letitia was definitely willing. Every so often the demon would roll a glance towards his middle.
Finally he said, “That’s enough, Niblet. That’s got to be more than payment for one medical referral.”
“Absolutely,” Letitia said. She reached for her ever-present notepad, penned a number, and handed the paper to him. “I’ll tell them you’ll be calling. A pleasure doing business.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” he said, tucking the paper in his pocket. He turned to go.
“Wait.” When he’d turned back, she said, “You know I don’t take sides in petty demon squabbles.”
“Um, yeah.” He wasn’t sure where she was going with this.
“But Dr. Mo’ullrnrl was a friend of mine.”
“Was...oh.”
“So I’m giving you this one for free. I assume it was you the vampires were after when they murdered him?”
“Had a run-in with some oddballs, yeah.”
“Are you familiar with them?”
He shrugged. “Cult, miracles, prophecies, the usual show?”
She gave a dismissive wave of her tassels. “They’re looking for a child born to two vampires.”
“Are they now?” He snorted. “Been looking a while, have they?”
“Yes, and in the meantime they infiltrate medical offices and records departments, looking for signs. I gather they found out about a vampire who was expecting and decided he was an offense to the cause.”
“Me.”
“Looks like.”
“Figures. Thanks for the head’s up.” He sighed. “Come on, Niblet. Time to see you home.”
Letitia called after him, “You just keep that little Spikette safe, you hear? Does she have a name yet?”
He threw a grin over his shoulder. “You’ll find it out next time you know something I need.”
“Spoilsport.”
He managed to usher Dawn to the door without incident, unless he counted the detour to the bar for a bottle of some kind of fizzy strawberry thing that he informed her smelled worse than a good half of the demon brews on tap. And then they were outside strolling through the warm May night with a chorus of crickets for a serenade.
After a few sips of her strawberry poison, Dawn said, “She looked kind of like Jabba the Hutt.”
“Yeah, but don’t ever, ever tell her that.”
“With a feather headdress. If he dumped grape Kool-aid all over himself.”
He snorted a laugh.
“So, what are you going to name her?”
“Hadn’t given it much thought yet. Just figured out a couple of days ago I was keeping her.”
She rolled her eyes moon-high. “Of course you’re keeping her.”
“Oh, you were already aware of this? Thanks for the mention.”
She gave him another of those looks that he figured must have been patented by a teenager somewhere back in the mists of time. Then, softly, “How many of those demons wanted to eat me?”
“What, at Willy’s?”
She nodded.
“They’d leave you alone, mostly, at least in public. Humans there too, you noticed.”
Another sip. “Yeah.”
“I mean, the Granich demons have a bit of a thing for eyeballs -- like the fluid inside, can’t really feature that one -- but that’s only during rutting season. And the Denabians -- they’re the frilly ones -- they’re mostly vegetarians now, religious thing, but one falls off the wagon now and again.” He gave her a hard look. “Not helping, am I?”
“There were vampires, too,” she said, barely audible.
“That there were,” he said.
She studied the rim of her bottle and said, “I want you to teach me how to fight.”
He stopped, gaped at her. “You. Want me to teach you. How to fight.”
“I know I’m little, but I’m growing! I’ve grown a half-inch since March.”
“Is that right.”
“Besides, Buffy’s not very big either.”
“Buffy is the Slayer.”
“But Sunnydale’s full of demons and it’s not like she can protect me all the time. What if those vampires who tried to kill you came here? I should be able to defend myself.”
“Yeah, and the one who should be teaching you this is the Slayer, who not only will not then stake me through the heart for engaging her sister in violent behavior, but has the added bonus of not getting a migraine every time you forget to block a punch.”
“Every time I... Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh.’”
“But Buffy won’t show me anything! And Mom just pats my shoulder and says,” -- Dawn lifted her eyebrows patronizingly--”‘Honey, Buffy knows more about demons than we do, and we should trust her judgment.’” She looked up to Spike as though this were the irrefutable final evidence in an unanswerable argument. When he just looked back at her, she huffed. “And anyway, Willow was almost my age when she started helping Buffy, and she wasn’t even a witch then.”
“Pretty sure she still had a couple of years on you.”
“Spi-i-ike,” she said, pulling at least a half dozen more syllables out of his name than he remembered putting in. “Please?”
Swimming in that wide-eyed blue pool of pleading, he had an idea. “You’d have to come to the crypt,” he said.
“Okay,” she said instantly.
“Figuring out how to get there’s up to you, you understand?”
“Okay,” she said again.
“And what to tell your mum if you come home all bloody.” Not that he expected her to, but she needed to know what she was getting into.
She shrugged, eyes bright and unconcerned. “I’ll think of something.”
“And you’re coming with me to see the sodding parasitic health doctor, right?” he said, almost before he’d thought of saying it and bare seconds before he regretted it. What’d he said before? He was a grown vamp?
She only shrugged again. “Yeah, okay. Hey, maybe you’ll get to see her! You know, with that machine thing.”
“Maybe,” he said, suddenly distracted by the idea. How much different would she look, now that he knew she belonged to him? Or possibly vice versa.
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