A Trunk Full of Trouble

Disclaimers: I don't own any of the characters, it's all owned by Joss Wheldon and Mutant Enemy. I own nothing and don’t profit. Yada, Yada :)


Note: This story was inspired by the movie, Excess Baggage, a humorous romance. Problem was that the movie left me wondering what was he thinking, what was she thinking, what happened when the camera pulled away, AND most especially, what else could have happened. Ooohh, that’s the fun part. (Wink, wink)

Summary: A car thief that doesn’t believe in love is about to get stuck with a trunk full. This story is very AU, a world still with vampires and slayers, but does NOT follow BTVS canon. Buffy is a rebellious SIT, and Spike is his own man/vampire, not love’s bitch, but love is coming. ;)



Chapter 1 - The Trunk

“What the hell is going on?” Another bounce and another blow to her head. The day before, disguising her voice through an electronic filter, Buffy had called the Watcher’s Council, which was based in Sunnydale just north of Los Angeles, and had informed them in a male voice that Buffy Summers, had been kidnapped. She would be returned in exchange for $500,000. Because that sounded so much more impressive, she wanted to ask for a cool million, but she didn’t think one of numerous slayers-in-training would be considered worth that amount. But that was the problem. She was just one of the many other slayers-in-training. She had started receiving her powers later than usual slayers, and yes, her powers were still developing but slowly. As it was, she was just a below average trainee, but she had heart. Lots of it. And what she wanted most was for the head of the council, Rupert Giles, to notice her. She wanted to stand out and be noticed, which called for drastic actions. So she had made the call the day before, and today she called again to let them know where to find Buffy Summers after dropping off the money in a shopping mall next to a Victoria’s Secret store. That store should get Rupert’s attention if the money didn’t.

And then the plan took off on a life of its own. She made the last call, swiftly duct taped her feet and mouth and handcuffed her hands. That done, she got into the trunk of a red convertible BMW stolen from Giles and shut the lid. So far, a stupid plan but not a difficulty until she felt someone get into the car, start it up and drive off.

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“Spot on perfect. Today’s your day, mate. The exact type red BMW called for. The convertible part will just be a bit of tasty, chocolate icing on the cake. Precisely what was ordered from the buyer.” The man of average height with a lean, muscular build, light brown hair was dressed in a well cut charcoal suit, black driving gloves, and extremely dark sun glasses, a look designed to blend in but still look like he should be driving such an expensive car. He congratulated himself on his good luck. With the help of a electronic toys he had bought from a black-market electronics wizard, the car thief was in the car and starting the engine in under thirty seconds and another thirty seconds to drive around and around and then out of the parking garage. Free and clear.

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The driver headed for the old, run down, water front warehouse district. When he came to the building he was looking for, the front, a miserable excuse for a façade, slid out of the way to allow the BMW to enter and then slid closed again when he pushed his remote control. As he drove through a short, dark tunnel and came out into a garage, there were cars parked on either side, at least twelve cars total.

After parking in the middle of the open isle, he calmly climbed out of the car. Before two steps, he had pulled off his gloves revealing black nail polish, and by the third step he attacked his tie and yanked it off. Next, he reached up and pulled off the brown wig he was wearing to reveal short hair dyed a platinum blonde. Not a fool, he always wore a wig on a job since his normal hair was so memorable to any possible witness to the heist. Upon taking off the wig, he went from the run of the mill business man to Spike. The name explained a good deal of his real look. Many said it was a Billy Idol look, but he preferred the updated term goth since moving on from 1980s music to alternative rock. He walked through the office to a back room that he had converted into a bedroom and bath, rooms to change his clothes.

Besides his extreme look and being a professional car thief, Spike actually had another peculiar attribute. Not a disease really, more of a serious condition. He was a vampire, and if he had a choice, which he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be one of the fanged ones. In fact, to make his situation worse, he was kind of an outcast from his kind because he was a hybrid vamp.

In other words, he just wasn’t an ordinary vampire. Not even from the very first night. First off, his sire, Drusilla, had some serious bats in her belfry. Those bats were not only flying around the bell but were ringing it. Ding dong. Ding dong. The only reason she wasn’t in the loony bin was she would just eat all the other inmates. Spike had always believed that was why he was never a good and proper vampire. After the turning in 1880, Drusilla took him to a hotel and introduced him to his new family, a group of six vampires that traveled together all over Europe. The alpha vampire, that right bastard, taught him to hunt, taught him to kill, taught him to feed, and other blah, blah, blah vampire things. And William, Spike’s real name, stayed true to his h nat nature and wanted to please and be accepted by the group. They expected him to be vicious with blood rush ringing in his ears. One night on the hunt, a railroad spike was handy so he used it during the kill. He used it again and again and again. As a result, he became Spike. Not soft, polite, sensitive William, but hard, raucous, and viscous Spike. The first few years as a fledgling, Spike ran amok, always looking for a good fight.

It was eight years into his life as a vampire that Spike noticed that he preferred the fight to the feeding. In fact, he left more and more fights without biting and drinking away some person’s life. The farther ht frt from his turning, the more William’s personality started to blend with Spike’s. Gradually, Spike no longer even wanted to feed from humans at all. As an alternative, he would pick up a pint or two from a butcher and fulfill his thrust. All he could figure out was that when Drusilla had turned him, she had botched the job royally, leaving William still inside along with the demon. The pair of them, human and demon, eventually learned to exist together seamlessly so that now, not even Spike himself could tell them apart except on very rare occasions. Consequently, he was a vampire with a human soul. That simple, but…not really.

The other vampires could tell something was wrong and shunned him, making him feel like the dozy prat in a school yard that no one wanted to play with. He knew that this new unlife style of his would never be accepted by his family. No kidding. So he took off on his own, never traveling with vampires again. Since he was looking for a new unlife, he decided travel to the new world. So he found a boat sailing for America and stowed away. For the most part, he lived in the human world and around demons that don’t kill humans.

That’s where his little story eventually rambled through the years to grand theft auto, which had been his business for the last two decades. Now vampires may avoid him, but demons that were merchants were happy to deal with him, and he had a very important demon client, Hectoriz, that Spike had an order from a s a specific five cars due tomorrow, and the car he just parked in the garage was number five. Fini.

After taking a quick shower, he started to dress to go out for a little fun. He was meeting a couple of friends to hear a new retro-rock band playing at a mixed demon and human club. In fact, he may even indulge in a bottle of champagne to celebrate. His money man was due any minute and then he was going to see what beautiful ladies wanted to dance tonight. He never brought them home; he just didn’t, not wanting the complications, but he could certainly have fun for awhile.

He pulled on a skin tight black t-shirt, and then added a rich purple, silk button down which he buttoned up so that only a inch or two of his t-shirt was showing. Next he slid into soft, black leather pants and well worn boots. He didn’t have a mirror for the obvious reason, but he would wager that his outfit would do the trick with the sweat bits at the bar. Last was a faint amount of eye liner to set his eyes off, a throw back from the eighties, which did make him wish he could see in the mirror to make sure he got it right.

Throwing his black, leather duster over his arm, he headed back into the office area to wait. Wasting time, he went through the red, leather back pack that had been in the front seat of the car. The driver’s license read Buffy Summers and had a picture of a young blonde, who Spike figured would probably be pretty if she didn’t have such a frown and too much makeup. She looked like a raccoon. Oh bullocks, now he really did want a mirror to check his own liner as compared to the said animal.

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Since Spike had a radio always playing in the office, the first bang he heard was so faint it barely registered with him. But the series of three bangs definitely grabbed his attention and gave it a good shake. He hurried to the window overlooking the cars in the warehouse, even going so far as pressing his hands and even the tip of his nose against the pane, Spike waited to hear another sound. He didn’t have long to wait. The banging started up again and continued long enough for him to zero in on the BMW he had just snagged. In fact, the car was shifting and bouncing. “What the bleeding hell was is going on down there?”

Startled would be a King Kong sized understatement. Grabbing a tire iron on his way to the now rocking piece of German engineering, Spike cautiously walked around the car. Was it a demon or human or what? ‘Right, the trunk it is, mate. How bad could he or she be if they got stuck in a trunk.’ Taking a unneeded breath to prepare himself, he carefully, staying as far back as possible, sharply jerked the trunk open. What he saw in the trunk shocked him so much that he shut the trunk and flew backwards all under two seconds. In fact, he landed on his leather clad ass.

Standing back up and shaking himself like a wet poodle out of his shock, Spike ran through what he had just seen. Blonde girl. Check. Feet taped together. Check. Mouth taped. Check. Hands cuffed. Check.

Since the banging had not occurred again, he tried to convince himself that he hadn’t seen a girl in that car at all. He was just seeing things, hearing things. He cautiously stepped back up to the car, assumed a defensive stance just in case but moelaxelaxed than before, and opened the trunk again.

Nope. Not his imagination. One car, one girl. Oh, balls.

Spike just stared down at the girl, recognizing her as the owner of the purse he had been looking through. She was squirming around, obviously and vainly trying to get free, and he didn’t need to hear her words to know that she was pleading with him for help.

‘Ding, ding, ding. Dinner is served.’ Spike mentally slapped his inner demon for the offensihoughought as he slammed the lid back down.. Granted, he was hungry, but dinner wasn’t going to be her. It was just a bad joke by a cheeky demon.

After taking a deep unneeded breath, Spike took a moment to access the situation. Didn’t help. “Why me?” Spike mumbled. Not sure what to do, he left the girl in the trunk for the time being. After shrugging into his duster, Spike locked up the garage good and tight and headed across the street to the clean dinner that screamed low rent.

Before the door had even closed, the red-headed waitress with the 38D sized chest behind the counter called to him. “Hi, Spike. What can I get for you?”

“Hey, Glenda. Cup of coffee.” Spike answered by long time habit as he headed over to the pay phone on the wall. He had never had a land line phone installed into the garage because they were so easily traced. Hellooo. Stolen goods here. And call him old fashioned, well he was old, he had never bought a cell phone. He didn’t really want one because he liked his privacy and the only people that he wanted to call could be found at the bar where his friends met, The Welcome Mat, which was the same place he had been headed tonight. He walked up close to the man already on the phone to get his attention. “Hey, man, how long are you going to be on there?”

The phone hog held up three fingers. “Three minutes. Just three more minutes.”

Spike wanted to jerk the handset out of the git’s hand and shove him through the wall, but instead he walked over to the counter and sat down where Glenda had set his cup. Every time he could catch the caller’s eye he would tape on his watch, mouthed words at him like “please” or “get off,” or putting his hand up to his ear shaped like a phone and pantomimed handing up. As creative as his guestures were, none worked. Finally Spike called over, “Sir, sir? Look, I really love my wife, and she is in the hospital…” The quiver in his voice and the words he said was all it took. The prat told his friend that he had to go and relinquished to phone to Spike.

Spike didn’t even let the person wnswenswered the phone say hello. “Xander. It’s Spike… Where the hell are you. You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago. Yeah, I got it, but…Xander…Xander!...Shut your gob, would you already. We have a problem…Yeah, a big problem. Get you arse in gear and get over here now!” Spike hung up the phone. “Glenda, luv, I need that coffee to go.”

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TBC

Come on, come on, come on. Let me know what you think of this new one. Please.

Thanks, Dana