With a Little Help

Chapter 20: Race Ya!


*****
Operation Sucker was named by Xander using a couple of different uses of the word, “sucker,” such as the demon sucking on the host, namely him. He had been a sucker overall, and Harmony had been a sucker on him, that one he kept to himself after telling Spike to shut up. The operation required nightfall, not just for the Spike-go-sizzle factor but also to obscure the fact that a good portion of Sunnydale would suddenly be heading to one particular location. With Multok’s and Shel’s help, Willow and Tara were ready to send out magical invitations at dusk, invitations drawing the demons and their hosts to the field house at the Sunnydale High football stadium with its heater turned on high.

During the operation, Willow would continue sending out invitations covering different areas of town at different times to spread out the hosts arrivals. Buffy and Xander were to be stationed out front of the field house making sure all the possibly violent hosts made it inside. Giles and Spike would be inside watching over the hosts when Air Demon departed from the human gate. If a demon didn’t leave the host, the plan was for Spike to throw the host into one of the therapeutic spas meant for athletes. And Spike did promise Buffy, under slayer duress, that he would only hold the person under the hot water for a few seconds. That left three other Scoobies. Dawn and Anya were to watch over the demonless hosts that would be leaving and make sure they were all alright. Tara was with them casting a memory loss spell, masking the previous half hour from the hosts. A reminder that ignorance can be bliss.

The night before the so-called operation, Multok and Shel helped Willow, Tara and Giles with research and last minute ils.ils. Multok spent considerable time with the Sibbetr Volume of Conjuring while Shel helped Giles with a translation. And then as he and Shel were leaving, while no one was looking, Multok grabbed a few various ingredients from the shelves. However, Shel saw but just gave him a frown since she wasn’t sure what he was up to. This time.

Once the area around and in the field house was set up, Multok put the ingredients on the ground and said a few words from a foreign language. And poof, he had Xander’s, Spike’s, and even Giles’ instant, undivided attention. Even Willow and Tara took a second look. Three girls in string bikinis stood on either side of the entrance to the field house. Good thing they were conjured because no girl would be out in such a cool night with their lack of clothes. Of course the men considered the low temperature a bonus in that the girls’ nipples were hard.

Anya grabbed Xander’s arm before any serious drool damage could occur to his shirt. “Change of plans, guys. Xander is going to go INSIDE to help Spike. RIGHT NOW.” Anya opened the door.

“But Anh, I’m just looking…”

“Then look all you want to through this steel door.” Anya was mad but still hoped the door didn’t hit him as it slammed shut.

Buffy snapped her fingers in front of her watchers face. “Giles…GILES!” He glanced down briefly. “Yes, I am still here. I would appreciate it if you would help Dawn out back. That is if you and your glasses can keep off the clothes challenged girls that long.”

“Uh?” Giles was in fact still looking at the girls. “Huh?…Yes…I will be happy to help out back there.”

“Geez, pop your eyes back in, Giles.” Dawn really didn’t get what the big deal was. She grabbed hold of Giles’ sleeve preparing to head out, but paused. Buffy didn’t look like she was finished yet, and she wanted to watch.

Smack. “Ow.” Spike grabbed the back of the head at the base of his skull. He turned around to look at a fuming Buffy.

“Earth to boyfriend.” Buffy put her hands on her hips. “Ogle much?”

The girls were totally forgotten. “Boyfriend.” Buffy saying that was enough for him to forget any female, but the perky blonde that smacked him. “Right. Eyes only for you, luv.” But he wasn’t stupid enough to push his luck. After a quick kiss, he ins inside, getting out of the Buffy firing line as swiftly as possible. Not to mention, he was going inside to compare feminine dimensions and attributes with Xander in a safer atmosphere than outside. There was a saying referring to a man staring at a beautiful woman and his friends laughing because he wasold.old. The man’s reply was that, “I’m not dead yet.” Spike laughed as he passed through the door, “Well, I may be dead, but I’m still looking.”

Faster than the small demon could react, Buffy snagged Multok as he flew close to her.

With Shel on her shoulder, Dawn let go of Giles and raced to stand beside Buffy and plead. “Multok you idiot. Buffy, don’t hurt him.”

Buffy was furious. “Don’t you *dare* go all lone gunman during one of my…” It was very hard to stare someone down when they just passed through your hand. Not between her fingers, but through her hand.

Unhappy with Buffy’s action, Multok stopped and flew back so they were on the same eye level. “I work for the Powers That Be, not you.”

“My word, that was amazing.” Buffy was surprised that Giles saw something other than the big breasted brunette, but Giles was paying attention now. “I hand no idea you possessed such an ability as passing through solid objects. The journals are woefully sparse on details concerning your species.”

Not intentionally drawing Multok away from his slayer, Giles lead Multok around the side of the building before Buffy was forced to figure out a way to save face.

Over his shoulder, Multok tossed some more dust and two buff males with a capital “b” appeared. All protests from Buffy ended. The eye candy would help the night pass, wouldn’t

*****
The next day, the Scoobies were beginning to gather at the Summers’ home for a short meeting and then a long celebration party. Willow and Tara were on the living room sofa studying for an Art History II exam. Buffy was put tog together the makings for sandwiches while she enjoyed watching a vampire tutor a key.

“This is so lame.” Dawn sat down in a huff.

Spike tried to keep from smiling at the offended bundle of teenage hormones. “What is, Bit?”

“I have to memorize this stupid speech for English. Way off the stupid scale.”

“So what’s this horribly lame speech that your tosser of a teacher has inflicted upon you?”

Dawn slid her text book over to him. “Anthony’s speech by…uh…Shakespeare. That’s it.”

“From Julius Caesar?” Spike looked at her like she was standing on one leg while yodeling. “Missy, everyone should know that speech. It’s a classic.”

Buffy laughed. “I don’t have to know it. Ha.”

“Well, you’re both heathens.” Spike glared insincere daggers. “Ok, Niblett, let’s hear what you have down so far.”

After a long drawn out umph, Dawn began.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones”

Ah hah, she found a reason to stop. “Spike, what is ‘oft interred’?”

“It’s just like it sounds. Oft interred. Oft is often, and interred? You can make an educated guess. The speech is about a funeral, and interred means put to rest in a tomb or bury the body, which is a part of a funeral. Now keep going.”

“So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a…was a…I don’t know!”

Without looking down at the book, Spike continued in her place,

“…it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Brutus answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.”

It was Dawn’s turn to look at Spike like he was the one who was now yodeling on one leg. “Spike, how do you know this dumb old gibberish?”

‘Damn, busted big time. A right cock up.’ Spike thought. ‘Time for some damage control.’ Spike gave his best smirk. “See Bit, it’s my secret big bad weapon. I don’t tell anybody that doesn’t give me the secret phrase.”

That got her attention. Spike’s secrets had to be more interesting than Shakespeare. Leaning forward towards him, Dawn’s voice came out a secret-wanting-to-know whisper. “What’s the secret phrase?”

Spike leaned closer still and whispered in her ear. “Piss. Off.” The vampire tried to avoid Dawn’s swing at his shoulder, but she still made some contact.

Buffy would have hit him also had she been close enough. The only thing she could do at that distance was laugh. “I can’t believe you just told my sister to piss off.” To punctuate her words, she sent an oven mitt flying across the room, barely missing her target.

Trying to appear bored, Spike shrugged a shoulder. “I’m evil.knowknow I’m a pathetic excuse of evil being that I am with the slayer and all, but I’m still grhh all the same.”

“Oh, poor, pathetic, little vampire,” Buffy taunted, “wait until I tell everyone at Willy’s that you quote Shakespeare and tutor teenagers.”

Spike turned to face her. “Oh, no you won’t, Summers.” Spike’s words came out a threat.

A head of lettuce flew across the kitchen this time and glanced off the side of Spike’s face. “Oh, yes I wil…eeek.” Buffy only barely escaped Spike’s lung over the kitchen’s island at her. When he missed her and then darted around for her, he just ended up opposite of her again with the island between them. “So what else do you know, Spikey? Romeo, Romeo, where fore…”

Buffy dashed around the kitchen table with Spike on her heels. Laughing, Dawn plastered herself against the wall, trying to get out of theay. ay.

Spike growled. “Oh, slayer, at least I know the classics.”
Th
The bread for the sandwiches sailed across the kitchen this time, hitting Dawn on the chest. “Hey. No hitting bystanders.”

Now only quips flew back and forth as they ran. “That’s because you are a classic, Spike.”

“Little girl.”

“Old man.”

“Infant.”

“Ancient.”

They completed a couple of figure eights around the kitchen table and dining room table before heading into the living room. Willow and Tara pulled up their legs onto the sofa just before the pair streaked between the coffee table and sofa. They made one more pass around the dinning room table with Buffy still in the lead. When the pair headed back towards the living room, Buffy knocked a chair in his way, tangling him up long enough for her to dart out the front door into the sunshine.

When Spike made it to the door, she was out on the lawn laughing at him. He could feel Dawn at his back, looking over his shoulder, and he guessed that Willow’s and Tara’s noses were pressed to the window glass.

Eyes squinted, Spike did something he rarely, rarely ever did. He stopped and took a moment to consider his options. What he had were three girls as an audience while his lover that he wanted to catch was laughing at him out in the nice, sunny front yard. Just bloody dandy. What next? A quick dip in holy water?

Buffy could barely catch her breath from laughing to talk. “What’s…what’s wrong, Big…Bad. How’s the classics…going to help…you out here?”

Damn, he never was good at thinking things through before acting. Bugger it. “Here, I have a classic for you.”

“Oh, yeah, torch boy?”

“Yeah. I love you. That’s a classic. Now Miss Smarty Pants, see ya.”

Buffy froze, eyes wide, and watched the door slam shut.

She may have frozen outside, but inside the action was kicked into high gear. Spike was barking orders. “Nibblet, lock the back door.”

“Will d


“Tara, get the windows in the living room.”

“Working on them.”

“Willow, you get any of the others locked downstairs.”

“Got it.”

As he talked, he was locking the dining room windows. “I’m heading upstairs. Don’t come up unless you want to see fists flying or get an eye full. Hoping for the latter myself.”

By this time, Buffy had started screaming and beating on the door. “Spike. Spike!!” She held back on her strength, not wanting to explain to her mother that her boyfriend, namely Spike, told her that he loved her and that she freaked out and knocked down the front door trying to get at him. Wouldn’t that be a major parental freak fest?

She tried to lift the windows of the dining room, finding them locked she moved on to the kitchen door. “Dawn, you had better open this door. Right. Now.” But no Dawn. “This is not fair, you fanged fiend.”

*****

Dawn, Willow and Tara could easily tell where Buffy was outside by her shouts. Of course, they were threats with name calling thrown in, but her shouts consisted of four main phrases repeated over and over.

“This is not fair,” “you cheated,” “you promised,” and “you broke your promise!”

That last two really had all three women inside stumped. “What promise?”

*****

Contrto wto what the girls downstairs thought, Buffy wasn’t mad about losing the chase. She wasn’t mad that he broke his promise to not fall in love with her. Far from it. She was thrilled that he loved her. That was what she had been hoping for. She was furious that now he had said it, she couldn’t get to him. What kind of an I love you was that when she couldn’t even kiss him. So, she was going to kill him. Twist head off now, make love to him later.

Buffy checked all the windows and doors downstairs with no luck. She ranted as she climbed a tree to the second floor. “I love you. Can you believe it? I love you, he says, and then locked me out of my own house. Not just the doors but all of the windows.” After climbing upstairs and finding her window locked and then Dawn’s locked also, her blood boiled. This time, she was going to stake the infuriating vampire for sure.

Her luck finally showed back up when she found her mother’s window open. She slid it up, taking pride at how little noise she was making. She slid one leg inside then the next so that she ended up inside facing out the window. In a short second, she felt herself jerked further inside and thrown over an arrogant vampire’s shoulder.

“You cheated.” Buffy yelled as she thumped him on his back. “You promised, and now you have cheated.”

“And you’re surprised?” With disbelief evident in his voice, Spike headed for her bedroom, a room he had recognized with one look. Ya know, the one with an arsenal under the bed. “You should know that this big bad doesn’t play fair. No fun in that.”

“I hate you.” She could hear him chuckle which only made her madder.

“Tsk, tsk. Now cheating is one thing, but don’t add lying, slayer.”

Once in her room, Spike dropped her on her bed, and he pounced before she finished bouncing. Straddling her, he pulled her hands above her head and pinned them to the pillows using his own hands, their fingers inter-locked.

“I’m not lying. I hate…hate that you’re not just an ordinary vampire that I could stake.” She wrinkled her nose and closed her eyes to slits looking up at him. “But noooo…you had to be a one of a kind.”

“The one and only Spike, that’s me. Now stop squirming and listen, you silly bint.” When she stopped fighting him, he continued. “When I first came to Sunnydale, I hated you. The Slayer of Sunnydale and all that rot. For me, the hors d’oeuvre was frying the anointed one. The main course was to get Dru healed and then with a side of a third slayer. So it’s hard. Totally against my nature to love a slayer…” He leaned down and kissed her. Quick, an open meeting of their mouths. “…but I do. I love you, love you, love you…”

His sing song teasing voice drove her crazy, and trietried to throw him off with no success. “You promised to not bring love into this.”

“Actually, I thought I had, too. During last night as I held you while you slept, I thought about and cursed that promise clause of yours. Then I replayed over and over the first time we had sex. I had been knackered that day, so I had been asleep when you came to me. Then thinking of you under that sheet that day jogged my memory. See pet, we got distracted before I ever made that promise.” Spike leaned down and gave her another kiss with his tongue sweeping into her mouth.

“No, I was there. I asked you to keep this light, and you DID promise.” What the hell was she saying? When was the last time she was dropped on her head? She wanted Spike to love her, but he was being so irritating in his own Spikeish way.

“You daft bint, think back. You asked me to promise to not let love come into our relationship. And then before I ever could promise, we shagged for the first time.” Spike kissed his way from her collar bone to the curve of her neck. Delightful but not long enough in Buffy’s opinion. “But do you know what? Even back then I was glad because I knew I couldn’t promise to not love you. When you were with me, I already had that butterfly feeling fluttering in my stomach. I already suspected the arrow of that pesky cupid was coming. I knew I could love you. ”

In a whisper, Spike finished exp explanation next to her ear so that she could feel his breath caress her skin as his words caressed her heart. She was so wrapped up in his words and his meticulous nibbling along her neck that she didn’t notice that he had released her hands so he could cup her face in both of his own. He pulled back so he could see her face when he seriously opened his heart up to her, no closing it back again whether it would bleed or shine. “So Slayer, bugger that daft promise. I’m telling you that I love you.”

With a smile, she looked up into his face through teary eyes. He might not have promised, but it was time for her to break her own. “That stupid promise is out the window, Spike. I love you, too, blood breath.”

Running the tips of his fingers along her lips, he leaned in for another kiss. “Why don’t you taste my mouth instead of smelling my breath.” Before he could close the distance, Buffy raised up to meet him. The kiss started out as a low flame and quickly grew.

Still touching and kissing, as one they stood up and undressed each other. When she started to lie down first, Spike pulled her back. He lay down instead and guided her to straddle him. She tilted her head in a silent question. “Luv, this way while I move inside of your heat, I can see your beautiful face as you tell me you love me.”

She rode him at a leisurely pace, turned on by her ridiculous promise now thrown to the wind, and by the freedom to tell him that she loved him. She rode him because he felt so good sliding in and out of her. She road him because … well, because she could and didn’t care who knew it.

TBC