Love In Vein: Book Two - Chapter 7

Buffy closed her eyes briefly as the strong light from the sun warmed her body through and relaxed her. She let herself drift away for a moment before she was rudely dragged back to the world by the noise of a passing car.

Opening her eyes, she frowned at the offending vehicle and then heaved a long sigh. All she had wanted was one day of relaxing in her house, but now the peaceful sense of quiet her morning had started with had shattered. She was hesitant to say the least about bringing Spike to Giles' apartment for a Scooby meeting.

In the time she had spent with Spike since claiming him, she knew that he didn't react well to her being around other men but seemed to be fine when she was with women. This morning she had witnessed just how affectionate he could be towards her when he didn't feel threatened by another male presence and she didn't want to lose that side of him--she wished that he could be like that always.

When they were around her mother, he was so tender and loving that she easily forgot about the more vicious side to him--the side that was going to come into play when they reached Giles' place. The sensitivity she had seen in him would be replaced by jealousy and his protective streak would make itself known.

As they turned the corner and walked down the street towards Giles' she risked a look at him and found his eyes on her. She pushed away all her preconceptions about him and hoped he'd act differently around Xander and Giles than he had around Angel. Part of her knew that he would, that it was Angel that provoked the strongest reaction in him, but she still feared that he would cause a crack in her relationships with them that she would be unable to repair.

She swallowed and searched for the strength to talk to him and break the silence between them. Looking up at the clear blue sky she smiled as it presented the answer that she was looking for.

"Thought you weren't going to come out in daylight?" Buffy asked hesitantly and saw him raise his eyes up to the heavens.

"Pleasure." He replied and lowered his eyes down to rest on hers. When he saw that she didn't understand he jammed his hands in his pockets and elaborated. "This is business. For business, I'm willing to spend a little time out in the harsh light of day…the time in LA, we were talking about spending time together in the sun for pleasure…"

"Oh." Buffy said and let her fingers toy with each other, the conversation she'd hoped her question would start, stopping dead.

Spike knit his brows slightly over her body language. She felt nervous and he would be a fool if he said that he didn't know why. She was worried about how he was going to act around her friends. Since going to LA, she'd been constantly trying to get the two parts of her life to mesh and she'd had little success. He could see that she'd realised he wasn't going to just fit in with little or no effort on both sides, and he had seen her attempting to make her friends accept him as hard as she was trying to make him behave himself around them.

But now she had a new challenge.

The boy, Xander--who hadn't been present in LA--would have undone some of her hard work while she was away from her friends. Last night he would have raised questions about her and her vampire that Willow and Giles would not have had answers to, and now Buffy would have to try harder to win them back again.

Spike didn't think Willow would be a problem. He'd watched her closely in LA and she seemed to have accepted that he made Buffy happy and therefore he was okay--so long as he didn't try and bite or bottle her.

The werewolf, Oz, didn't seem to be a problem either, but Spike knew that was because of his demonic status. However much Spike hated werewolves, he couldn't deny he was thankful for having another demon around.

Giles was the sceptic. Spike could see he was going to have to try too hard in order to receive the tiniest fraction of acceptance. So he'd decided last night that he wasn't going to try--if the Watcher wouldn't accept him for who he was then that was his problem.

The boy, Spike already hated. He was too close to Buffy for his liking and seemed to have a strange power of persuasion with the Scoobies that he knew was going to cause problems for the Slayer soon enough.

Spike followed Buffy down the stairs and into the courtyard of Giles' apartment. The sense of calm inside that the morning with Buffy had given him had disappeared and was replaced with a burning desire to let his demon side run riot.

Looking over at Buffy, he tensed his jaw and reminded himself that she would hate him if he wrecked her chances of winning her friends over to accepting him. He heaved a sigh of resignation and told himself he had to play nice for her sake.

It seemed to work.

If only for a second.

As the door opened and revealed Xander, he remained restrained even as his feelings of possessiveness towards Buffy spiralled out of control.

As Xander ushered Buffy inside and then, when her back was to him, gave Spike a sly grin that spoke volumes of dislike, his restraint snapped.

Buffy turned to see Xander looking innocent and Spike growling, his brows knit tightly and his eyes fixed on her friend.

"Spike?" Buffy stepped towards him and he let his frown disappear as his eyes came to rest on her.

Spike held his hand up to the barrier and gave her a look that told her to get rid of it before he lost his temper.

Xander edged closer to Buffy. Close enough that Spike felt threatened. He banged his fists against the barrier and snarled at him.

"What's the matter, evil undead?" Xander raised his brows and folded his arms. "Having a little problem?"

Buffy turned to Giles as he appeared from upstairs; she caught the concerned expression on his face and then turned to find Willow giving her the same look.

Her heart sank.

She looked at Spike where he still held his hand up to the barrier and noticed that he was staring at the small gap between her and Xander. She hadn't realised that Xander had managed to get so close to her. Looking at Spike, she could feel the anger and hurt over seeing her so close to a man he clearly saw as a threat and not being able to do anything about it. She stepped to the side and caught Spike's appreciative look.

"Let him in." She said with quiet determination as Giles reached her.

"Buffy…what you're asking me to do…" Giles trailed off as she turned on him with eyes full of anger and hurt.

"Let him in, or I'm leaving and never coming back here." She ground out from between clenched teeth and then tensed as Xander spoke from behind her.

"I don't think that's wise, Giles. He's a killer…what's to say he won't kill us all right now?" Xander stared at Spike and tried not to jump as he punched the barrier. "I mean, look at him…he's damage bound."

Spike snarled.

Buffy made a growling noise at Xander and was surprised at how good it made her feel.

"Let him in; he won't hurt you, Giles. You know he won't. He would have tried to kill you in LA…why would he wait until now?" Buffy furrowed her brows as she pleaded with him to listen to her.

"Maybe…" Xander started but found Willow standing beside him, her green eyes filled with disgust.

"Xander…shut up." She frowned at him and then turned on Giles. "Giles, he would have slaughtered us by now if he intended to. I believe he isn't going to. For a start, Buffy would kill him if he did anything to us…you know she would…"

Giles stared at them all as he suddenly felt overwhelmed with attention. He looked at each of their faces in turn, the twin frowns of Xander and Spike, and then the pleading looks of Willow and Buffy.

He caved.

"Let him in, please." Buffy watched him as his resolve melted.

"Yeah, let me in, dammit." Spike looked disgruntled and then sneered at Xander as Giles moved towards the door.

"I'm going to regret this…" Giles sighed and then looked Spike in the eye. "But we need you on our side and for that, I'm willing to trust Buffy's belief in you. Come in, Spike."

Buffy watched as a wide smile worked its way across Spike's face and he stepped through the open door.

"That's more like it…little hospitality." He gave a grateful look to Giles and then swung around to face Xander. "Friendly warning, mate…I'm not the kind of man you cross…think about it."

Spike patted Xander on the shoulder before walking around behind him and coming to stop next to Willow.

"Cheers, Red." He grinned at her and she blushed violently.

"Can we get on with this now?" Buffy moved her gaze to rest on the large stacks of books on the desk. "Because, really, I'd love to get this over with…"

Spike picked up a large book and ran his fingers down the spine before allowing it to fall open. He pursed his lips and frowned as he read the first few lines. "Sumerian…always a good place to start."

Buffy smiled as he sat down and leaned back in his chair, his feet swinging up to rest on the table as he arched his brows and read the book. She picked up the smallest book possible and sat down on the chair next to him as she started to flick through it. She knew that trying to get him to become a valued member of the gang was going to be as easy as fitting the square block into the round hole, but she felt like they'd made a fraction of progress today. It was just a matter of time before her friends started seeing the real vampire behind all the bravado.


As Buffy leaned on the table, Spike stared blankly at the book in front of him and reached out to sense her feelings. She had her arm bent behind her head like a pillow as she stretched out on the table and looked at her book. Her pen was constantly tapping on her notebook and she had sighed so many times that he'd lost count. He could feel how bored she was without having to try hard--it was coming off her in clear waves that made him feel bored too.

They had been sitting at the table for seven hours straight and had managed to work their way through a third of the books on it. He sighed and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stop the aching in his head. It had been a long time since he'd done such heavy reading and translating the Sumerian texts had drained him of all energies while frustrating him beyond belief.

He'd almost thrown one of the books at Giles when he'd discovered it had been written in a sub sect of Sumerian that was little known. Buffy had managed to stop him. When she'd sensed his intent she had taken the book off him and placed one written in English into it. He'd never felt so thankful to anyone--or so happy to see his native tongue--in all his existence.

Looking across the table to Willow, he noticed that even she was bored. He watched her idly flicking pages and heaving long sighs as she tried to read the words printed on them. If she was feeling anything like he was, then the black letters on the pages were swimming about in front of her eyes and making no sense.

Spike looked at Giles where he was sitting on the couch and reading intently.

He sighed.

Only Watchers could do this for hours with no breaks.

This was precisely the reason he had minions.

Spike grinned.

Minions.

Minions like the Scoobies.

Standing up he stretched and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Taking out one of the white sticks, he frowned as Buffy yawned and sighed out through her nose.

Buffy widened her eyes as she was yanked to her feet by strong hands and then smiled as she found Spike looking at her with concern.

"Time to go, love."

"Huh?" She let a frown wrinkle her nose and glanced around the room as everyone stared at her.

"I said time to go. If Watcher boy wants to be the first person to kill themselves by reading, then let him. You need some rest and I'm buggered if I'm spending any longer staring at a sodding book that doesn't have the slightest sniff of a mention about the First or this damn prophecy." Spike held her arm a little tighter and waited for his words to register with her.

"You're right." She said quietly.

"I am?" Spike tried not to sound too astounded by the fact she'd actually agreed with him for the first time.

"Yeah…" She looked around the room at Willow, Xander and Giles. "We'll resume this tomorrow. I need to get some relaxing time in…it's been weeks since I had time to unwind and I get the feeling I need to do as much of it as possible now, before all this kicks off."

As Spike released her arm, she moved around the table to Willow to ask her if she wanted them to walk her home.

Willow gasped. "What time is it?"

"Just gone seven." Buffy replied and frowned as her friend started to rush around gathering up her belongings and jamming them into her bag. "Something wrong?"

"No…" Willow turned to face her with wide eyes. "Oz's band are playing tonight, at eight…I was meant to be there early…"

Buffy smiled and looked over at Spike. "You look like the kinda guy who like's a little live music…"

Spike looked almost interested as he perched his unlit cigarette on his lips. "Where?"

"The Bronze?" Buffy moved slowly towards him and tilted her head back as she smiled up at him. She let her smile widen as his eyes locked on hers and he tilted his head, his arm encircling her waist.

"Always liked the place." He narrowed his eyes on hers as he remembered the time he'd seen her there, dancing with her friends and enticing him with each sway of her hips.

"Then we'll go…" Buffy looked into his eyes and her smile disappeared as she was overwhelmed by the desire echoing in them. She breathed in sharply as he tugged her closer to him and ran his tongue over his teeth. Realising what he was thinking about she smiled coyly. "…For old times sake."

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