FIC: Seraph (19/?)
Jul. 21st, 2009 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupStory begins here. All parts may be found here.
Muchas gracias to beta extraordinaire![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hello_spikey. Also, a fervent "Feel better!" to phoenixofborg.
A/N: So, this would be the completely Spike-free chapter of the Spikefic. Also, never mind about that 24 chapter estimate from last time - it's looking more like 27 at the moment.
~~~~~
“He’s evil!” Buffy said.
“Not really seeing the news in that flash,” Willow said, eyes on her laptop, which she’d situated on Tara’s artsy table/desk. As the images loaded she huffed at the screen, and Dawn, huddled at her shoulder, caught a glimpse of frills and maybe some lace. Eep.
Willow hit Backspace and clicked on the next search result.
Behind them, Buffy shifted positions on the futon. “He leaves these piles of cigarette butts next to the porch, which I am so not touching. And forget laundry. When Mom asks, sure, but do you think Big Bad ever gets around to washing my underwear?” She frowned. “Not that I really want him touching my underwear.”
“Uh, Buffy, are you sure that’s vampire-evil?” Willow asked. “It kinda sounds more like man-evil. You know, like how they always leave their drippy towels on the floor in the bathroom? Not that I’d know anything about that anymore,” she said, flashing a grin at Tara, who was peering over the other shoulder.
“He does that, too,” Buffy said morosely, picking at the crocheted coverlet.
The next website wasn’t any better: pink. Lots and lots of pink. And ruffles. “Why is all this maternity stuff so girly?” Willow asked, grumbling.
Long pause.
“O-okay, forget I said that,” she said.
“I can’t believe you guys are buying Spike clothes,” Buffy said.
“ ‘Cause clearly, he’s totally capable of finding his own not dumpster-y, not-black clothes that maybe sort of fit him,” Willow said. “Seriously, what he’s got now? Kind of on the capybara side of ratty.”
“And, oversized much?” Dawn added.
“W-wait, click down. There are some black ones.” Tara pointed at the screen.
“Besides,” Willow said to Buffy, “what’s the point of having a pregnant guy around if you can’t buy him maternity clothes?”
“ ‘Baby on Board’?” Dawn read skeptically. “Spike would totally never wear that. Anyway, they’re all girl-shaped. His shoulders won’t fit.”
“Maybe we should just get him some plain t-shirts,” Tara said.
“That’s no fun,” Dawn said.
“Ooh, but hey!” said Willow. “There could be screen printing.”
A long, admiring pause. In stereo chorus, “Ooooh.”
“What should we put on them?” Dawn said.
“Bet we can think of something.”
“Guys, I’m serious,” Buffy said. “I turn around, and Spike is always there. He takes up the whole couch, and he always gets there first, since it’s not like he ever leaves the house.”
“Mom likes him,” Dawn said.
“Yeah, and that’s another thing,” Buffy said. “Sometimes I come in from patrol and he’s in the kitchen, and I swear he is charming my mother.”
“Is it really that bad?” Willow asked, brows peaked in sympathy. “You could maybe ask Xander or Giles to put him up for a few days.”
“Are you kidding? Mom would kill me for turning him out.” Buffy blew her cheeks out. “Anyway, he’s not around all the time,” she added grudgingly. “He’s been sleeping us out of house and home lately.”
“Yeah, what kind of stupid vampire goes to bed at midnight?” Dawn said.
“Do you think he’s depressed?” Willow said. “Sleeping a lot is a sign of depression.”
“Spike depressed?” Buffy said. “Sappy and maudlin Spike, I’ve seen; fuming Spike, yeah. But depressed Spike?”
“I’ve seen depressed Spike,” Willow said. “But he, uh, he wasn’t asleep.”
“He says he’s bored, and we talk too much,” said Dawn. Not that she’d really wanted to talk to him all that much since his story about eating the hitchhiker. She watched TV with him sometimes, but that mostly just involved making fun of whatever was on the screen. Even then she felt his eyes on her now and then, and she had to pretend she didn’t notice until he quit looking.
He was waiting for a sign that they were still friends. Sitting on the couch with him ought to have been proof that they were, except of course it wasn’t, and she still hadn’t figured out what to say about that, or if she even wanted to say anything.
And she had no idea where helping get him clothes fit in. It was just that he needed them and she wanted to help, even if she never spoke to him again.
“He’s a vampire of many moods, I’ll give him that,” said Buffy.
“A little mood-swingy?” asked Willow.
“He’s an entire playground of swings. Are you sure this isn’t related to the baby-having?”
“Physically?” asked Willow. “Pretty sure. I think that might just be Spike.”
Buffy moaned.
“But he kind of has a lot of pressure on him right now. Maybe he’s a little stressed out?”
“Pressure?” Buffy exclaimed. “He’s sleeping in my basement and heating blood out of my refrigerator in my microwave. Then he lies on my couch and watches stupid soap operas on my TV. How is he stressed?”
“W-wouldn’t you be?” said Tara. She’d been so quiet for so long Dawn had almost forgotten she was there. “I mean, if you had to depend on other people for food and a place to live and everything?”
“And if you couldn’t leave the yard?” said Dawn despite herself. Just because she didn’t know how she felt about him didn’t mean she didn’t know what he was feeling. He spent way too much time on the back porch, cigarette between his fingers and his head tilted a little, like he was trying to hear all the places he couldn’t go.
“Plus there’s the having a baby part,” Willow added. “Kinda scary, even for the scary guy.”
“I know.” Buffy heaved a sigh. “See, this is why pregnant vampire as housemate equals bad.”
“Yes, Buffy,” said Willow. “That’s the object lesson of this story: never help a vampire in need.”
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Buffy said. “Pretty sure that’s a maxim in the Slayer Handbook.” Stretching, she rose and peered at the screen of Willow’s laptop. “Ooh, time to go. I have to change for the Riley-date tonight. Can you make sure Dawn gets home?”
“Sure,” Willow said. “One safe and speedy Dawn delivery, as soon as we’re done.”
“And, uh, don’t go too crazy with the clothes,” Buffy said. “After Spike gets them, I still have to live with him.”
Once she was gone, the girls talked t-shirt slogans. Willow pleaded for just one pink t-shirt mixed in with the black, and finally Tara, lip quirked, shook her head and joined the consensus. “I don’t think he’ll wear it,” she said.
“Not the point,” Willow said. “The point is the look on his face when he sees it.”
Designs chosen and money pooled, Willow made noises about walking Dawn home.
“Actually, can I, um, talk to you?” asked Dawn, glancing uncertainly at Tara. She liked Tara, and Spike seemed to like her, too, which meant she must be okay. But she didn’t really know her yet, and...
“Oh!” Tara said, catching her look. “I have to do some research for that biography in literature class. Find me at the library w-when you’re ready?” Pulling together a pile of papers, she shuffled out the door, knapsack over her shoulder.
“What’s up, Dawnie?” asked Willow.
Deep breath. “I need to know about a dead guy,” she said.
“Ooh, like maybe a job for Slayer and co?” Willow’s grin turned down. “Buffy’d be mad if I let you help research Scooby stuff.”
“It’s not Scooby stuff. I mean, he died a long time ago. I just want to know who he was. Like, his name and stuff.”
She wondered if she should have thought of a reason -- not the real one, obviously -- for why she was asking, but Willow just shrugged. “Cool. Research girl, that’s me! Whaddya know?”
Dawn gave her the details: the highway she figured Spike had taken back from L.A.; a guess at the date; the little she knew about the old stinky guy; and cause of death. Vampire.
“That might be kind of tough. I mean, hitchhiker dead by vampire? Have to be a lot of those out there.”
“Try? Please?”
“Let’s see. Newspapers, coroner’s reports...” Willow tapped at the keyboard, clicking through login windows and password requests as smoothly as if she were magicking them open. Dawn wondered if those things went together, magic and hacking -- although she didn’t think she was supposed to know that Willow was a hacker. Kind of like how she hadn’t known for a long time after meeting Tara that she and Willow were, like, together.
At least when Spike killed someone, he told her about it.
“Hey, maybe this is your guy,” Willow said. “Joseph Delaurent -- expired Washington state license, forty-three, cause of death was blood loss due to neck trauma. That’s official-speak for vampire.”
There was no way to be sure, Dawn realized. Willow was right; probably lots of graying hitchhikers had gotten eaten on route 101 that week. Maybe they even got their necks broken. She didn’t know enough to tell hers -- Spike’s -- from any of the others.
That made Joe as good as any, she supposed. “What else does it say about him? Can I see?”
Willow bit her lip, and then stood and gestured for Dawn to sit. When she’d settled into the red wicker chair, Willow said, “Just don’t log out, or else I’ll have to log back in. Oh, and don’t, you know, change any of the fields, ‘cause messing with official records is badness. Except when you have to, which sometimes I have to, because of the slaying and the demons, and--.”
“I won’t mess anything up!” Dawn adjusted the computer on her lap. “I just want to look.”
“Right! Just looking.” Willow strode resolutely across the room and then watched Dawn with her arms folded, lips pinched a bit with worry.
Whatever.
Joseph Delaurent: no known residence. Last employer Boeing, way up near Seattle, except that had been years ago. Only surviving relative was the sister in Tacoma who’d accepted the remains. Dawn wondered if she’d cried. When had she talked to her brother last? Why was he homeless, thumbing for rides from people that could be vampires, when he had family?
She didn’t need coroner’s pictures to tell her what the bite looked like in his neck -- it was about the same, she figured, as the one in her arm, all swollen around the torn, ragged holes the fangs made. Except maybe not swollen, since he was dead first. Anyway, she didn’t need to see.
Instead she looked at the grainy, fuzzy image from the driver’s license. He had a beard, but it wasn’t as long as she’d pictured. He was grinning. His teeth were all jammed together in front and one of the eye teeth was stained yellow.
He was just a guy.
She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped he’d be. There was a tiny bit of her that wanted him to be a child molester or someone who sold crack to kids, because then it’d be almost okay that he died. But that was stupid, because even if Joe deserved to die, she was sure lots of the people Spike had eaten didn’t deserve it.
Another tiny bit wanted Joe to be a hero fireman with a limp from the blaze he nearly died from and two kids he really loved a whole lot and was trying to get back to, the night Spike had roared up in that trashy old car and eaten him. That would be awful. Awful. She could think about those kids missing their dad until her stomach hurt, and then she could go down to the basement and tell Spike just how miserable he’d made them. When he said he didn’t care -- and he really wouldn’t, she was pretty sure -- then she could get mad and tell him she hated him and stomp back upstairs, and then never talk to him again.
She kind of still wanted to do that. Joseph had been a person, and now he was dead.
It didn’t really matter who he was. Knowing stuff about him didn’t change anything; Dawn still didn’t know what to say to Spike.
next part
Muchas gracias to beta extraordinaire
hello_spikey. Also, a fervent "Feel better!" to phoenixofborg.A/N: So, this would be the completely Spike-free chapter of the Spikefic. Also, never mind about that 24 chapter estimate from last time - it's looking more like 27 at the moment.
~~~~~
“He’s evil!” Buffy said.
“Not really seeing the news in that flash,” Willow said, eyes on her laptop, which she’d situated on Tara’s artsy table/desk. As the images loaded she huffed at the screen, and Dawn, huddled at her shoulder, caught a glimpse of frills and maybe some lace. Eep.
Willow hit Backspace and clicked on the next search result.
Behind them, Buffy shifted positions on the futon. “He leaves these piles of cigarette butts next to the porch, which I am so not touching. And forget laundry. When Mom asks, sure, but do you think Big Bad ever gets around to washing my underwear?” She frowned. “Not that I really want him touching my underwear.”
“Uh, Buffy, are you sure that’s vampire-evil?” Willow asked. “It kinda sounds more like man-evil. You know, like how they always leave their drippy towels on the floor in the bathroom? Not that I’d know anything about that anymore,” she said, flashing a grin at Tara, who was peering over the other shoulder.
“He does that, too,” Buffy said morosely, picking at the crocheted coverlet.
The next website wasn’t any better: pink. Lots and lots of pink. And ruffles. “Why is all this maternity stuff so girly?” Willow asked, grumbling.
Long pause.
“O-okay, forget I said that,” she said.
“I can’t believe you guys are buying Spike clothes,” Buffy said.
“ ‘Cause clearly, he’s totally capable of finding his own not dumpster-y, not-black clothes that maybe sort of fit him,” Willow said. “Seriously, what he’s got now? Kind of on the capybara side of ratty.”
“And, oversized much?” Dawn added.
“W-wait, click down. There are some black ones.” Tara pointed at the screen.
“Besides,” Willow said to Buffy, “what’s the point of having a pregnant guy around if you can’t buy him maternity clothes?”
“ ‘Baby on Board’?” Dawn read skeptically. “Spike would totally never wear that. Anyway, they’re all girl-shaped. His shoulders won’t fit.”
“Maybe we should just get him some plain t-shirts,” Tara said.
“That’s no fun,” Dawn said.
“Ooh, but hey!” said Willow. “There could be screen printing.”
A long, admiring pause. In stereo chorus, “Ooooh.”
“What should we put on them?” Dawn said.
“Bet we can think of something.”
“Guys, I’m serious,” Buffy said. “I turn around, and Spike is always there. He takes up the whole couch, and he always gets there first, since it’s not like he ever leaves the house.”
“Mom likes him,” Dawn said.
“Yeah, and that’s another thing,” Buffy said. “Sometimes I come in from patrol and he’s in the kitchen, and I swear he is charming my mother.”
“Is it really that bad?” Willow asked, brows peaked in sympathy. “You could maybe ask Xander or Giles to put him up for a few days.”
“Are you kidding? Mom would kill me for turning him out.” Buffy blew her cheeks out. “Anyway, he’s not around all the time,” she added grudgingly. “He’s been sleeping us out of house and home lately.”
“Yeah, what kind of stupid vampire goes to bed at midnight?” Dawn said.
“Do you think he’s depressed?” Willow said. “Sleeping a lot is a sign of depression.”
“Spike depressed?” Buffy said. “Sappy and maudlin Spike, I’ve seen; fuming Spike, yeah. But depressed Spike?”
“I’ve seen depressed Spike,” Willow said. “But he, uh, he wasn’t asleep.”
“He says he’s bored, and we talk too much,” said Dawn. Not that she’d really wanted to talk to him all that much since his story about eating the hitchhiker. She watched TV with him sometimes, but that mostly just involved making fun of whatever was on the screen. Even then she felt his eyes on her now and then, and she had to pretend she didn’t notice until he quit looking.
He was waiting for a sign that they were still friends. Sitting on the couch with him ought to have been proof that they were, except of course it wasn’t, and she still hadn’t figured out what to say about that, or if she even wanted to say anything.
And she had no idea where helping get him clothes fit in. It was just that he needed them and she wanted to help, even if she never spoke to him again.
“He’s a vampire of many moods, I’ll give him that,” said Buffy.
“A little mood-swingy?” asked Willow.
“He’s an entire playground of swings. Are you sure this isn’t related to the baby-having?”
“Physically?” asked Willow. “Pretty sure. I think that might just be Spike.”
Buffy moaned.
“But he kind of has a lot of pressure on him right now. Maybe he’s a little stressed out?”
“Pressure?” Buffy exclaimed. “He’s sleeping in my basement and heating blood out of my refrigerator in my microwave. Then he lies on my couch and watches stupid soap operas on my TV. How is he stressed?”
“W-wouldn’t you be?” said Tara. She’d been so quiet for so long Dawn had almost forgotten she was there. “I mean, if you had to depend on other people for food and a place to live and everything?”
“And if you couldn’t leave the yard?” said Dawn despite herself. Just because she didn’t know how she felt about him didn’t mean she didn’t know what he was feeling. He spent way too much time on the back porch, cigarette between his fingers and his head tilted a little, like he was trying to hear all the places he couldn’t go.
“Plus there’s the having a baby part,” Willow added. “Kinda scary, even for the scary guy.”
“I know.” Buffy heaved a sigh. “See, this is why pregnant vampire as housemate equals bad.”
“Yes, Buffy,” said Willow. “That’s the object lesson of this story: never help a vampire in need.”
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Buffy said. “Pretty sure that’s a maxim in the Slayer Handbook.” Stretching, she rose and peered at the screen of Willow’s laptop. “Ooh, time to go. I have to change for the Riley-date tonight. Can you make sure Dawn gets home?”
“Sure,” Willow said. “One safe and speedy Dawn delivery, as soon as we’re done.”
“And, uh, don’t go too crazy with the clothes,” Buffy said. “After Spike gets them, I still have to live with him.”
Once she was gone, the girls talked t-shirt slogans. Willow pleaded for just one pink t-shirt mixed in with the black, and finally Tara, lip quirked, shook her head and joined the consensus. “I don’t think he’ll wear it,” she said.
“Not the point,” Willow said. “The point is the look on his face when he sees it.”
Designs chosen and money pooled, Willow made noises about walking Dawn home.
“Actually, can I, um, talk to you?” asked Dawn, glancing uncertainly at Tara. She liked Tara, and Spike seemed to like her, too, which meant she must be okay. But she didn’t really know her yet, and...
“Oh!” Tara said, catching her look. “I have to do some research for that biography in literature class. Find me at the library w-when you’re ready?” Pulling together a pile of papers, she shuffled out the door, knapsack over her shoulder.
“What’s up, Dawnie?” asked Willow.
Deep breath. “I need to know about a dead guy,” she said.
“Ooh, like maybe a job for Slayer and co?” Willow’s grin turned down. “Buffy’d be mad if I let you help research Scooby stuff.”
“It’s not Scooby stuff. I mean, he died a long time ago. I just want to know who he was. Like, his name and stuff.”
She wondered if she should have thought of a reason -- not the real one, obviously -- for why she was asking, but Willow just shrugged. “Cool. Research girl, that’s me! Whaddya know?”
Dawn gave her the details: the highway she figured Spike had taken back from L.A.; a guess at the date; the little she knew about the old stinky guy; and cause of death. Vampire.
“That might be kind of tough. I mean, hitchhiker dead by vampire? Have to be a lot of those out there.”
“Try? Please?”
“Let’s see. Newspapers, coroner’s reports...” Willow tapped at the keyboard, clicking through login windows and password requests as smoothly as if she were magicking them open. Dawn wondered if those things went together, magic and hacking -- although she didn’t think she was supposed to know that Willow was a hacker. Kind of like how she hadn’t known for a long time after meeting Tara that she and Willow were, like, together.
At least when Spike killed someone, he told her about it.
“Hey, maybe this is your guy,” Willow said. “Joseph Delaurent -- expired Washington state license, forty-three, cause of death was blood loss due to neck trauma. That’s official-speak for vampire.”
There was no way to be sure, Dawn realized. Willow was right; probably lots of graying hitchhikers had gotten eaten on route 101 that week. Maybe they even got their necks broken. She didn’t know enough to tell hers -- Spike’s -- from any of the others.
That made Joe as good as any, she supposed. “What else does it say about him? Can I see?”
Willow bit her lip, and then stood and gestured for Dawn to sit. When she’d settled into the red wicker chair, Willow said, “Just don’t log out, or else I’ll have to log back in. Oh, and don’t, you know, change any of the fields, ‘cause messing with official records is badness. Except when you have to, which sometimes I have to, because of the slaying and the demons, and--.”
“I won’t mess anything up!” Dawn adjusted the computer on her lap. “I just want to look.”
“Right! Just looking.” Willow strode resolutely across the room and then watched Dawn with her arms folded, lips pinched a bit with worry.
Whatever.
Joseph Delaurent: no known residence. Last employer Boeing, way up near Seattle, except that had been years ago. Only surviving relative was the sister in Tacoma who’d accepted the remains. Dawn wondered if she’d cried. When had she talked to her brother last? Why was he homeless, thumbing for rides from people that could be vampires, when he had family?
She didn’t need coroner’s pictures to tell her what the bite looked like in his neck -- it was about the same, she figured, as the one in her arm, all swollen around the torn, ragged holes the fangs made. Except maybe not swollen, since he was dead first. Anyway, she didn’t need to see.
Instead she looked at the grainy, fuzzy image from the driver’s license. He had a beard, but it wasn’t as long as she’d pictured. He was grinning. His teeth were all jammed together in front and one of the eye teeth was stained yellow.
He was just a guy.
She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped he’d be. There was a tiny bit of her that wanted him to be a child molester or someone who sold crack to kids, because then it’d be almost okay that he died. But that was stupid, because even if Joe deserved to die, she was sure lots of the people Spike had eaten didn’t deserve it.
Another tiny bit wanted Joe to be a hero fireman with a limp from the blaze he nearly died from and two kids he really loved a whole lot and was trying to get back to, the night Spike had roared up in that trashy old car and eaten him. That would be awful. Awful. She could think about those kids missing their dad until her stomach hurt, and then she could go down to the basement and tell Spike just how miserable he’d made them. When he said he didn’t care -- and he really wouldn’t, she was pretty sure -- then she could get mad and tell him she hated him and stomp back upstairs, and then never talk to him again.
She kind of still wanted to do that. Joseph had been a person, and now he was dead.
It didn’t really matter who he was. Knowing stuff about him didn’t change anything; Dawn still didn’t know what to say to Spike.
next part
