How To Date A Vampire

As the fire trucks pulled away and several body bags were loaded into the coroner’s van, Xander turned to Spike and spoke. “I so love Sunnydale.”

Spike shoved his hands in his pockets and eyed Xander suspiciously. “Yeah?”

“Totally! Death, mayhem, Hellmouth, apocalypses, demons, freakish occurrences; you gotta love it all. It’s like living in a TV show! Or a book! Or maybe some kind of slightly darker spin-off!”

Spike continued his suspicious stare. “And you like this because?”

“Because it keeps me on my toes. Sure, the whole dying thing sucks all the way to hell, but trying to save people? Way cool.”

Spike turned back to the carnage before them; three buildings on fire, a blood splattered road, a delirious man running about the street shouting something about feeding his wife and taking his pregnant cat to the hospital, cops, a couple of robbers that had shown up somewhere in the fray to clean out the local pharmacy of all its tampons.

“Don’t think this was particularly Hellmouthy, pet. Just another Sunnydale evening.”

“It’s still big with the freaky, though. I so can’t see something like this happening anywhere but in Sunny D.”

Spike watched as a large orange demon skipped down the street in a pink tutu and a cowboy hat. “Very true.”

“Damn right.”

“So, Speed or Hellraiser, pet?”

“Huh? Are you offering me drugs?!”

Spike rolled his eyes and motioned his head towards the theatre. “No, you daft git. What film do you want to watch? Speed or Hellraiser?”

“Oh! Um, which one starts first?”

“Hellraiser, I think. Starts in ten. You up for it?”

“Sure. I’m totally up for anything! Well, except for fishing. I won’t do that. I have an aversion to fishing rods. But Hellraiser I can do. Is it scary?” Xander examined the movie poster framed on the outside wall. “It looks scary. Although, I kinda like all the pins. They should call this guy Pinhead!”

“They do.”

“Oh. See? I could so write a movie. And direct it. And produce it. Although I don’t really know what a producer does. But whatever he does, I could definitely do it.”

Spike leant against the theatre wall and smiled as Xander carried on babbling like a mental patient. Ahhh, there was nothing like a major incident to settle the old nerves.

“…and I never understood about that whole thing with all the balls. Whatdyacallit? Oh, yeah, sport…”

Well, Xander definitely seemed to have lost all his nerves. Or at least he’d forgotten about them, what with all the excitement of burning flesh and rioting.

“…I mean, football? The ball isn’t even shaped like a foot! And rugby? You English people have some strange sports.”

“Don’t look at me, mate. I always thought Rugby was a place.”

“Really? That’s a weird name for a place. But then again, so is Washington. What, they do a ton of washing there? I just don’t get it! You wanna go in? You want popcorn? Do you think popcorn floats? It must do.”

Spike, overcome with a sudden sense of bravery that he knew he needed to use before it slid away, smiled again and slipped his arm around Xander’s shoulders. “Tell you what, we’ll buy an extra coke and test it, yeah?”

Xander pushed down the urge to shout, “You’re the best!” and instead slipped his own arm around Spike’s waist. “Great.” Ohmygodwow. I have my arms around Spike. Well, one of them. I can’t really use both arms, ‘cos we’re walking now and that might look weird. I guess we could say that we’re Tangoing.

Crikey. He’s all warm. I likes it. I likes it very much. God, I wish I could touch his backside. That would be heaven in the shape of an arse. Not sure he’d go for it yet, though. Maybe I’ll try it later; see how it pans out.

Spike settled for a brief squeeze to Xander’s shoulders before he led him to the ticket booth and paid for their tickets with his free arm. Once inside they headed straight for the concession stand, where they bought two jumbo cokes, and one regular coke to experiment with, and one giant-super-Godzilla-sized bucket of popcorn to share.

“So, in the great scheme of things, relatively speaking, they’re showing some pretty good movies,” Xander observed. “Old movies, yeah, but so much better than Driving Miss Daisy. I gotta admit, that old woman scares me.”

“They must be under new management.”

“They’re always under new management,” Xander said after a long slurp of Coke. “It’s what happens when the old management keep dying. Except, every time someone died the place got handed down to another family member. I guess they ran out of family members and someone else got it.”

Yeah, this date is taking a turn for the good, Spike thought. Nerves gone. Conversation flowing. All they had to do now was go take their seats and watch the film. Simple. Easy as pie. Easy peasy, lemon sqeezy.

As they passed through the doors to Screen One and Xander mentioned something about giant squids and the potential dangers of hammocks, Spike started to panic again.

Where should they sit? Would the back row be too presumptuous? And when the hell did he start using the word presumptuous? Ah, no, he hadn’t actually used it. He’d only thought it. So it didn’t count.

Would they hold hands? Would he be able to put his arm around Xander again? Okay, he’d just this minute done that. But should he do it again? What if Xander didn’t want to? What if he took offence at being cuddled in a movie theatre?

Damn, what if they’d chosen the wrong film? What if Xander hated Hellraiser? What if it was too scary? Then what? Did Xander even like horror films?

Oh my god, what if the popcorn was all rubbery?!

“Um, back row?” Xander asked, jolting Spike from his horrific thoughts.

“Is it rubbery?!” Spike asked, panic making his voice somewhat shrill.

“Huh? Is the back row rubbery? I dunno. I guess I could check…”

“No! The popcorn! Christ, Xan, is it rubbery?!”

Xander popped some in his mouth. “Nope. Warm and soft and kinda spongy. Just like it should be. So, back row?”

Spike resisted the urge to clutch at his heart in relief and instead nodded and headed for the back row, growling at another couple when it looked like they were going to seat themselves in the same place.

Right. So far, so good. They both wanted the back row and the popcorn was not at all rubbery. All that was left to worry about was whether it would float and whether or not the film was any good.

Oh, and there was also the trauma of whether to hold hands, cuddle, or rest hands on the other person’s knee. Damn, it was quite a decision.

Bugger it. I am not gonna sit here and debate this all the way through the damn film. I’m going to make my mind up…now.

TBC…