With a Little Help

Chapter 19: Visitors

******

Spike shook Buffy awake without ever taking his eyes off of the two small, blue demons that were slowly flying into the room, heading straight for Buffy’s bed.


Dawn recovered fast. “Geez, Buffy, you know the coolest demons.”

“Lucky me.”

As he continued to stare, it never crossed Spike’s mind to be scared by something so small that he could flush it down the toilet.

Rubbing her eyes, Buffy sat up quickly. “Spike, do you see them or have they given me way too many pain pills?”

“You mean, pet, the two blue fairies that just flew into the room and are now sitting on you legs?” Still keeping his eyes on the small pair of demons, he reached out to hold her hand. “Yes, pet, I see them, too.”

Reassured that she was in the right state mind, Buffy settled into slayer mode. “Ok, smurfs, state your business, or I’m knocking you both all the way to the Pacific Ocean.”

For once, Shel spoke up before Multok could. Her guilt drove her out of her shyness. “My name is Shel, and this is Multok. We’ve come to apologize. See, we were sent to help you two out.” She gestured to Buffy and Spike. “And we have been doing just that over the last couple of weeks.”

Spike was still suspicious. “Well ducks, what kind of help are we talking about?”

“Our assignment was to bring the two of you together.”

“Us together?” Buffy started thinking through all the possibilities from that astounding bomb shell. “What have you done?”

Multok took a couple of steps up Buffy’s leg. “We guided Buffy down in the sewers to spy. Got her attention on you, Spike. We made suggestions that made Spike’s dreams better. Got his attention on you, Buffy. I took out Spike’s chip so that he could fight Riley, but more importantly, so that he could earn your trust, Buffy. We helped you come up with the favors idea, and then we helped out when the favors were played out.” Multok paused a moment to let his words sink in. “But what we are here for now is to apologize for Buffy’s close call. After we helped you, Buffy, save Spike from the stream and then you two made with the smoochies (and let me add that you two have given Shel quite an education in that department), we thought everything was going to be alright, and Shell had seen enough, so we went to roach races. There was this little filly, Insecretariat, that I got an inside tip…”

“Multok!” Shel punched him lightly in the shoulder, thinking she couldn’t feel anymore embarrassed.

But Spike perked up. “I didn’t hear about that one. Was Sea-Bug-It running?”

Multok scratched his head as he answered. “I think he was running later on the card. Maybe race number ten. I was going to bet on Roachy Rodster in that race.

“What a nag. Name’s even dippy. No, Sea-Bug-It runs like his name sake, Seabiscuit. This roach has a longer stride and his trainer…

Buffy took a turn at remanding a male. “Spike! My legs. Unknown fairies. Stick to the damn subject.” Buffy may be mad, but Shel felt better since Multok was now keeping Spike company in the dog house.

Meanwhile, Spike and Multok looked at their respective girls and said in unison, “Women.”

Reluctantly leaving the conversation of the races, Multok came back to the subject. “We were derelict with our duty to watch over you while we are assigned here. We assumed you would go back to the crypt and make good use of the bed.” Spike liked this demon. Short, to the point and would have been right if it hadn’t been for the arrow. Multok continued. “So because we left, we weren’t there to help with the crossbow. But thankfully, here you are, Buffy, healing well.”

Buffy shrugged off his comment. “Ok. But I still don’t get what you are saying.”

“In return for our error and our apology, we offer to fill in the blanks about the demons you are hunting, how to kill them and help you kill them.”

Buffy wanted to put her hands on her hips but that just wasn’t possible in a hospital bed. She settled for staring daggers at the pair of fairies. “So ylrealready knew how ill ill these demons, and you are just now telling us?” Buffy didn’t know which made her more pissed. These two fairies following her and Spike around or that this whole demon problem could have been stopped at the beginning.

“The helping you hunt demons part was not in our job description. And you knowing about us is another rule broken. Besides, why should we have wanted to stop those demons? They were key in bringing the pair of you together. We didn’t want to stop them until you were firmly matched.”

Spike didn’t care about the demons running amuck. Spike cared about these demons which had been manipulating his unlife and the slayer’s life. “As I see it, matching the two of us was taking a big risk of losing a slayer.” At Buffy’s umph, Spike looked over at her. “You know I’m right, luv. After the chip was out, I could havlledlled you on several situations, easily in bed. Just lucky I find you too irresistible to kill.”

Buffy loved hearing those words coming out of his mouth and did a very un-slayer-like blush before glancing over at Dawn, who was grinning. Ok, time to redirect attention off herself. “So why? Why us? Why would the Powers That Be want two mortal enemies together?”


Bewildered at what he perceived as thick headedness, Multok just shook his head. “Simple. The Powers That Be gave the order that you needed to be together, and it actually was easier than I had expected. Regardless of how you felt about each other before, all the right chemistry was there waiting to spark. You just needed someone to strike the match. Why you two? Together you’re both stronger, harder to defeat than just one slayer and lengthens the slayer’s life. All things that the Powers That Be want.”

Spike’s head fell down onto the mattress of Buffy’s bed. “Could this night get any stranger?”

Dawn shrugged. “Sure. Arnold Schwarzenegger could skip in wearing a frilly hat, a tutu and smoking one of his ugh cigars.”

*****

Bright and early the next morning, all the Scoobies, along with Spike, Shel and Multok, met in Buffy’s hospital room. Multok filled in the blanks regarding the hungkin and eloquaw demons, and with his help, they made plans. A good plan, good organization, good location, strong arms and magic.

After a working lunch and then an hour more, the plan was ready with all the details worked out, except for pinning down the spells needed.

While Giles, Willow and Tara made a run for more books at the Magic Box, everyone else was on break. Dawn, Buffy, and Anya were all playing poker. Shel was perched on Dawn’s shoulder, helping her. Multok was also playing while conducting lessons. The other males made themselves scarce. Spike was on a blood run, and Xander had bowed out of the game a few minutes earlier, saying that he wanted to watch the girls have a poker cat fight.

When he thought no one was paying attention to him, Xander slipped out into the hall to wait. A few minutes later, he pushed away from the wall and moved to stop Spike before he could go into Buffy’s hospital room, which proved to be some what difficult since the vampire didn’t want to be stopped.

With his scared eyebrow cocked and shifting his weight from foot to foot, Spike stood impatiently and waited for Xander to speak. The vamp prayed that it wasn’t another apology. Enough of a good thing was definitely enough.

“Let me apologize again...” Xander began. Spike hoped the boy didn’t see him shudder. “…but let me also say that a months ago I would have enjoyed dusting your dead ass, so I’m still getting use to the fact that I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”

“Fair enough, but how come I think that’s not why you’re out here trying to make with some male bonding rot?”

Xander opted for the get-it-over-with approach. “I had…I had an accomplice in trying to kill ”
”

“Wasn’t expecting that little loopy-loop.” Spike paused and considered. “Anyone I might know?”

“Yeah, too well…” Xander glanced at the vampire and held his gaze. “But you can’t tell Anya.”

Spike’s grin was evil. ‘Nothing like good blackmail material.’

As they walked away down the hall, neither saw Shel poke her head out the door. She hadn’t heard what they were talking about, but Shel promptly told Dawn what she had seen. Dawn, in turn, told everyone else, which left everyone wondering what could make Spike and Xander not only talk to each other alone, but to leave together. The real question of the day was what shape they would be in upon their return, battered, bruised, truce intact, or enemies again???

*****

Taking the vampire’s special allergies into consideration, Spike and Xander approached the small, yellow house through the tunnels below the city. “So this is the love nest wittle Xander built to pway house with the sexy vampiwess.” Spike chuckled until he took a sharp, pointy elbow to the ribs. “Omff. Watch my bones, brick layer. Remember that ole Spike has his bite back. Just think, you could be my first breathing meal. Better yet, don’t think about it. My stomach is already starting to churn with the thought.”

The trap door opened up into the kitchen. Knowing that Harmony was expecting him sometime that day, Spike and Xander were cautious. Xander because he no long had his super human strength to keep Harmony at bay, and Spike to catch her by surprise. Not that he feared Harmony. Ha, ha, ha. Nah, he wanted to catch her with a “boo” just for the shits and giggles.

As predicted, Harmony was ready, willing and waiting for Xander, and the theme du jour was the circus. When Xander called out, she hopped her way into the living room wearing a hot pink leotard, sequined belt and wrist bands, and a short, matching pink cape.

She immediately grabbed Xander’s hand and started pulling him toward the bedroom, talking in a horrid Russian accent. “Welcome, welcome to the big top. I am Natasha. May I see your ticket?” She reached down and grabbed his crotch.

Xander squeeked before pulling away. He had come with no desire for Harmony to touch him ever again, not to mention he was afraid that he would start to get hard and Spike would notice. He already knew the vampire was enjoying his predicament enough as it was and would have no hesitancy ribbing him for the next decade. “Harmony, I’m not…”

“No ticket…yet. No problem. We will work on your…uh…ticket later.” Harmony licked her lips just thinking of what she had planned. “You still have a seat reserved close to the trapeze. We will…”

“HARMONY…”

“You don’t have to yell. And…like you are ruining the moment. What’s your deal?…ok…back in character…Natasha can make it all better. Let me show you my trapeze act, and then I can show you some tricks with the trained poodles.”

Spike’s evil grin had returned. ‘Poodles? This is getting more interesting by the minute.’ So far, Harmony had been so focused on Xander that even with her vampiric senses, she had yet to see or detect Spike, who was now clearly visible, leaning again the kitchen’s door jam, smirking. She didn’t even pay attention to Xander’s glances toward him. Not only was Harmony a dim bulb, but she cast a dull grey light.

“…but Harmony.”

“Xander Harris, you are ruining my performance, and I always wanted to work in a circus.” Harmony quickly lost her playfulness. “What’s your major malfunction?” Still holding his hand, she jerked him forward.

‘That’s my cue.’ Spike stepped into the room and announced his presence. “Harm, shut your gob and open your ears.”

Harmony dropped Xander’s hand and stepped away, preparing for a confrontation. If Spike was here with Xander, Xander had obviously spilled his guts. Pathetic human. But Harmony was confident she would find a way out. “Hi, Spikey, how have…”

Spike continued, “You’ve got two choices, you ditz. Get swept out the front door with the rest of the rest of the dirt, or you can run.”

Starting to get comfortable and confident, Xander added, “That means all the way out of town, off this continent for good.”

Harmony turned her attention back to Xander. “Shut up, Xander. You weren’t that good in bed anyway.”

“Not good? NOT GOOD? How about in the living room, the kitchen, the hall…”

“Ha! You have a little…”

“I do not. It did the job…”

Spike chuckled, loving all the dirt flying. “Ok, children. Back to business. Harmony, time to make a choice. Dust or Dash. I would count to ten, but I think that many numbers might confuse you, so let me count to three to help you think.”

“Spike, you son of a bitch. You think you are so great …”

This time Spike had a stake in his hand. “One, Two…”

“I don’t have to do what you…”

Dust floated down to the floor. “Three.”

As Spike and Xander brushed dust from their clothes, they shared a look before Spike spoke again. “So chief, before we stroll off, give us a peep at Na-taaa-sha’s trapeze.”

Standing in the middle of the bed room, Xander looked around. “Maybe I’ll take some of the toys here home that Anya doesn’t already have.”

Spike gave Xander an accessing look. His opinion of the whelp went up a notch. “Now you are thinking, mate. Harmony certainly won’t be popping back in tolectlect the’Sid’Sides, what the bint made up for her lack of brains with gusto.” Spike gave him a slap on the back that had Xander taking a step forward. “Come on, let’s go get a pint or two from Willy’s and find a shady place outside of the hospital so I can have a drink and a smoke.

*****

As they walked back through the tunnels to the hospital, Spike went ahead and smoked a cigarette and watched Xander. The boy walked on the balls of his feet, practically bouncing as if he literally had a weight lifted from his shoulders.

“So, Spike, we have a woman in common.”

After taking a long drag off his cigarette, Spike blew out the smoke slowly. “First, Harmony was a stupid bint. Second, don’t make me hurl all the good blood I drank before we left the hospital. Third, don’t ever remind me again, or I’ll put your nuts in Anya’s nut cracker.”

Xander just let the threat slide by. His good mood made him impervious.

Spike thought before making his next comment. “Wasn’t all that good was she?”

“Harmony had her moments, but I’ll chop your head off if you tell Anya.”

“How are you going to come after me if Anya already cut off your noggin and the wee boy in your knickers.”

They walked in silence for a bit more. With Xander, a.k.a the energizer bunny mouth, so quiet that every step he took made Spike more and more suspicious. “Go ahead, suss out whatever you are sussing.”

“She bit me.”

“And…?”

“More than once.”

“And this is a sussing issue because…?”

“Will anything happen to me?”

Spike blew out smoke and then appeared to be studying the red glow of the tip of the cigarette. “Have you had red meat lately?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Uh…Yeah.”

“Did you get a sunburn lately?” Spike knew he was reaching on that one, but it was an educated guess since Xander worked outdoors.

“Yeah. Why?”


“Oh, that could be a problem. Next you could start getting wrinkles on your forehead.” When Xander started feeling his forehead, Spike found it hard to keep a serious face. ‘The opportunity to rib the whelp was always too good to pass up.’

******

Spike and Xander finally made it back into the hospital room, and all went well until Anya looked Xander over closely and then started brushing him off. “Xander, that shirt was clean and now you have dust all over it. What did you and Spike do when you were gone? Burrow like rabbits?”

That got everyone in the room’s attention. Buffy caught on the quickest. Not the person the duo wanted to catch on first. “You two haven’t been doing some slaying on your own, have you?”

Spike groaned inwardly and outwardly gave a nonchalant shrug of one faintly dusty shoulder. “Just took care of some vampire business.”

“Since you are a vampire, ‘business’ could cover quite a bit of ground. Narrow it down for us and keep it PG-13. Dawn’s here.” Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “Actually this had better be PG-13 unedited, or you two guys have a great deal of explaining to do.”

Xander tried for the nonchalance of his co-conspirator, like jumping from the New York to Paris and only making it to Ellis Island. “We ran across another vamp, and she gave us some trouble.”

Spike flinched at the “she.” Jealous girlfriends were not needed in the current situation. Not in any situation that Anya and Buffy ever need to hear about, and the look on both Anya and Buffy’s faces left no doubt that they were not believing anything they heard so far.

Since Spike wasn’t helping him out, Xander continued. “Anya, we ran across Harmony, and she was very dirty.”

Both fell out laughing. The others in the room could only understand a word here and a word there. “Harmony.” “Circus.” “Surprise.” “Trapeze.” “Dirty.” Some were repeated such as the last word, which was always followed by the hardest laughs. Everyone else in the room stayed silent, unable to choose from several reasons to be shocked. Xander and Spike shared a laugh like long time comrades. Spike laughing to the point of tears. Xander was leaning on Spike to sttandtanding up. They must have staked Harmony.

Truth be told, no one wanted to say anything to stop the spectacle as the pair eventually ended up on the floor. Buffy just wished she had a camera so she could hang the picture in the Magic Box, embarrassing both of them. Master vampire? Huh, more like master of the silliness.

*******

That night, Sunday night, Buffy had nagged her surgeon and the staff enough that she was able to check out of the hospital and go home. With a mutual agreement left unsaid between the three, Spike went home with Buffy and Da Sin Since Dawn was carrying the few this’s and that’s from the hospital, she entered the house first. Buffy followed her inside and headed for the kitchen. “Spike, what do…?” When Buffy turned, she was surprised that he wasn’t in the kitchen with her. “Spiiikke, get your dead ass in here already,” she yelled while opening the refrigerator’s door. She pulled out an apple juice container. Still no Spike. She set the apple juice container on the center island and headed to the dining room then on in the living room. When she looked around, she still couldn’t find him in there. That only left upstairs. “Spike?”

“Out here, luv.”

She found him out on the porch, smoking a cigarette.

“Daffy bint, you’d think being a vampire slayer and all, you would know why I am still out here.”

“Hold daffy bint for later, and for now Huh?...What are you talking about? I left the door open.” Buffy stopped and tilted her head to the side. “Wait. Is this about the invite clause?”

“I’ll take your huh and raise you a duh.” Now this was really getting humiliating not to mention making him truly worry if she was going to invite him in. Wouldn’t that be funny? She had invited him in when they were mortal enemies. Granted they had teamed up to take Angelus out, but still enemies that would as soon kill each other. And now as lovers, she wouldn’t invite him in. Ha, fucking, ha. Joke’s on her. He would stay on the porch, howling at the moon all night long if he had to.

“Spike, I never had your invitation revoked.” She watched his mouth open, forming a word but no sound came out. “Looks like you were about to say, ‘Huh?’ So it’s my turn to say ‘duh.’ That’s settled. So food. Kitchen. Now.” Buffy on purpose left out any invitation. Let the proud vamp find out for himself. Besides, if she had Willow do a disinvite, tonight she would have invited him in before she had gone in herself. He should have known that.

“What a wanker. I should have trusted that the slayer would forget such a detail. And no disinvite! Unlife is good.” Spike let his grin lead him into the kitchen.

*****

“No, pet, I’m not leaving tonight. Not until you are right as rain.”

Buffy sounded exasperated “Would you give your over worked mouth a rest and listen? I didn’t say I wanted you to leave. I don’t. I just said that we are not sleeping together with her next door. You could …”

Just coming into the kitchen, “her” decided to jump into the ridiculous debate. “What? Are you two crazy? Don’t even tell me he is staying on the sofa. Don’t be dumb on top of crazy. Take advantage of mom not being back from her trip yet and sleep together. I’ll sleep in mom’s room so I won’t hear. Now who’s cooking dinner? Since I am the youngest, I vote for oldest.”

*****


TBC


A/N: This is it. This is the last time I ask so put up with me. Please if you have enjoyed my stories and haven’t voted yet, please don’t forget my stories in the Spuffy awards. Please read the brief rules and vote. I will be very grateful.

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Thanks for reading.
Dana