Doing the Right Thing

Title : Doing the Right Thing
Author : Nightmelody
Feedback : nightmelody@hotmail.com
Spoilers : Post Chosen, Ats season 5
Pairing : Spuffy
Rating : Nc17
Summary : On different continents, Spike and Buffy both begin behaving oddly. Their friends intervene.
DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. This is fan fiction, for pleasure, not profit. Just playing with an idea.



Chapter One


“I can’t believe it. I’m the president of a huge corporation, and I’m the one they call to haul your drunken ass home.” Angel shoved a very drunk Spike into his car.

“Wal...wallwet... wallet.” Spike explained. “Card.”

“Great. Now, where do you live?”

Spike thought about it and then giggled. “Don’ memmer. Remmemer.”

Angel ended up calling Fred, who found the address. Spike had not taken an apartment at one of the apartment complexes subsidized by Wolfram and Hart. Instead he had a small house in an older, well kept neighborhood. The windows had decorative awnings to keep out bright light, and there were shade trees and climbing ivy. It looked like an English cottage. There were even flowers in the front yard.

“You live here?” Maybe in a garage around back? The drive way was covered by a carport, with a garage at the back.

“Mine,” said Spike. “Ineres rates low.5.9 pershent.”

“You have a mortgage?” He dragged Spike out of the car and found his keys, which made gig giggle again.

“Employee cred union,” Spike took a few steps and reeled. “And i...dim..fication. Goo cre...dit.” Angel caught him.

Once inside Spike melted into a recliner that faced a wall sized TV. A couch and computer area filled the small living room, and shiny wooden blinds covered all the windows.

“Wanna beer?”

Angel felt like having a drink.

Spike’s fridge held several varieties of beer, blood packs, dips and salsa. Angel pulled two import beers out and returned to the living room where Spike was flipping channels.

“Why do you do this?” Angel asked, flopping down on the couch.. “Get drunk on your ass twice a week?”

Spike’s partying ways were often a matter of gossip at the office. Sometimes he dragged co workers with him, which really affected their efficiency. Wes had reeled into work one morning, still drunk.

Spike didn’t answer for a while, continuing his channel flipping.

“Nights ‘m drunk, no dreams. Nesh... nex night, juss couple dreams. Other nights... too many dreams.”

Angel still had nightmares now and then. “Nightmares?”

“Worshe.” The expression on his face was pure misery.

“Worse than nightmares?”

“Buffy dreams. Touching Buffy. Being with Buffy. Make me wanna go to her.”

Spike suddenly looked very small, lying in his huge recliner. He chugged his beer and passed out.

Angel sat for a long time, thinking about what Spike had said, about dreaming about her every night. It had been nearly a year, since the battle with the First, and he still dreamed about her every night.

Angel hadn’t dreamed about her in years, except when he’d been full of that demon hallucinogen.

“Guess I’ll put you to bed.” He hauled Spike to his bedroom, comfortably decorated in Navy blue and red. The windows had blinds, and dark blue drapes.

Next to his bed was a framed picture of Buffy, one Angel recognized as being from one of the files Wolfram and Hart had on the Slayer. He must have found the file and down loaded it.

Spikes eyes fluttered open as his head hit the pillow, and he grabbed the picture.

“Buffy!” He said in a conversational tone. “Luv. Mished you. But I waz a good vampire. Din’t try ta find you. Din’t bite. Gave that little blond hooker wwot looks a lil like you fify bucks. Din’t do her, of course. . . hope your day wazz . . . happy.”

He continued to babble on, becoming more and more incoherent. Angel left, making sure the front door was locked.


He got to his apartment but couldn’t sleep, so he wandered around W&H for awhile.

Fred was still at her computer.

“Hi, Angel. Did you get Spike home all right?”

“Yeah. When did he buy a house, anyway?”

“Closed on it last month. I planted some flowers for a housewarming gift. He mows his lawn with a push mower so he won’t wake the neighbors at night. He really likes his yard. He’s growing his own burba weed.”

Angel sat down, feeling disoriented. Spike, living like a human? And liking it?

And the whole Buffy thing. Shouldn’t he be getting over her, a little?

“Does Spike seem to be getting worse? With the drinking stuff.”

Fred paused keyboarding. “Now that you mention it, he does seem to be drinking a lot more. Well, he always drank a lot, but it took such a lot for him to get drunk, and I know he goes out every Wednesday, because it’s lingerie night at that one club the guys go to, and then on Fridays he always invites me and Harmony out for happy hour and dinner, and after we leave he closes down the bar, and on Saturdays he watches his soaps and drinks at home,” She paused for a breath. “So, yeah, I guess he is drinking more than he did a couple months ago.”

“Does he ever talk about Buffy? When you’re out drinking.”

“Nope. But there was this one time when a little blond walked by, wearing a leather skirt and a halter top. He about fell out of his chair. He went home right after that.” She wrinkled her nose. “Harmony said it was a Buffy blast.”

Angel wandered away from her office and tried to sleep. Harmony seemed to be one of Spike’s drinking partners. Maybe she could tell him something so he could get this off his mind.

He decided to just show up at her apartment. She lived in a W&H complex not far from the office.

“Boss!” She looked at him in astonishment. She had been doing her nails, hot pink. It matched the delectable nightgown and robe set she was wearing. “Is something wrong?”

Delectable? Angel gave himself a mental shake.

“No, no. I just couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to ask you something. But I can leave if this is a bad time.”

“Oh, it’s fine. I don’t go to bed early on Friday or Saturday nights, anyway.” She ushered him in. He sat on her chintz, floral, frilly sofa. She was watching some girly movie, which she stopped.

“Well, I wanted to ask you something about Spike. You and Spike are pretty good friends, right?”

“Yes. It was a little rocky at first, cuz of the breakup and all, but we’re friends now. I even met my boyfriend through him. Axel is a shape shifter. He’s totally hot.”

“Oh. Is he here?”

“No, he works every Friday and Saturday night in Vegas. He’s a white tiger in a live animal act.”

Angel noticed a scratch on her inner thigh. All righty, then.

“So, what about Spike?” Harmony began rubbing some type of floral scented cream onto her hands.

“Um, does he seem to be getting worse about the whole Buffy thing? I picked him up tonight and took him home. He was pretty pitiful.”

“Well, now that you mention it, he does seem pretty . . . tied to her. I mean, he could have just about any woman at Wolfram and Hart, but he’s not dating anyone. Plus, when girls come onto him when we’re out–which happens so often it’s annoying, I’m glad we’re not still dating, cuz I’d be so tempted to snap a few necks-- he always turns them down. Heard him tell one he was ‘taken’.”

Angel sat back, thinking.

“Angel, do you know if he ever did a claim on Buffy? And could she have, um, claimed him back? I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but that’s kinda what it seems like.”

“There’s no way. I saw her right before the battle, and right after. I would have recognized his bite. And if it had happened, Buffy’d be acting strange, too. I haven’t heard anything to indicate that anything is wrong with her.”

*****

Across the ocean, in London, Dawn hit the speed dial to Willow’s cell phone.

“It happened again!” She screeched.

Willow winced and held the phone away from her ear. “Dawnie?”

“We were at a restaurant. One of the waiters had bleached hair and kinda looked like Spike if you squint. Buffy flirted with him. At eleven at night, she took off on a bogus patrol, wearing the shortest skirt she owns and knee high boots. She’s still gone and it’s four in the morning!”

“Okay, I’ll be there in twenty minutes or so.”

“This time, we confront her. When did she turn into such a ho? And I’m pretty sure she’s not using rubbers because of the whole vampire fantasy thing. I DO NOT WANT TO BE AN AUNT!” Dawn was in her screeching register again.

“I’ll end up doing all the babysitting for free, because I don’t have super dooper powers.”

Willow could just see her pouty face.

“Okay, we’ll confront her. An . . . An intervention.”

With a sigh, Willow went to awake up Kennedy, her ears ringing painfully.

Buffy slipped in at seven in the morning to find Willow, Kennedy and Dawn all asleep in the living room. She had a pretty good idea why they were waiting up. She slipped to her room and locked her door. The yelling could wait until she had showered and slept a little.

In the bath room she stripped and examined the damage. Yup, her whole throat was a mass of hickies.

And that, unfortunately, had been the best part of the encounter. She’d have to use the shower massage to finish the job.

Spike had never left the job unfinished. In fact, he ‘finished’ the job for her at least twice every time. Sometimes more.

She used the shower massage until she found relief and then stood under the spray, crying, til the water began to cool. She climbed into bed and hugged a pillow. What was wrong with her, anyway? She’d had sex with four Spike look-a-likes in as many weeks. Totally unfulfilling sex, too.

At least this current fake Spike had used a rubber. Maybe she would find one that could get her off, sometime.

Maybe she would dream about him.

*****

A few days later, Fred walked in to Angel’s office with a bewildered look on her face.

“Fred, what’s up?” Angel asked.

“I just got the weirdest phone call from Willow Rosenberg. She wants to make a robot, similar to the Buffybot they had for a while. Apparently she saved her research on it online so she was able to retrieve it after Sunnydale got cratered. She sent me her plans to see if I could help.”

Fred dropped a file folder onto his desk. “She wants to build a Spikebot, for Buffy. It seems Buffy’s been. . . um. . . seeing men with bleached hair.”

Angel just looked at her in a blank way.

“Um, Buffy? She’s apparently missing Spike, a lot? So she’s been finding substitute bleached out pretty boys? Angel! Do you understand?”

“Yeah, Fred, yeah. I get it. So it seems like there may have been a claim made, right before Spike died.”

“And now Spike is alive again. . .”

“Yeah. So the claim is functioning.” Angel slammed his hands on his desk in frustration. “But she was here in LA, that same night. I would have noticed his claim.”

“Angel, I know this is hard for you. But we have to do the right thing.”

“Right thing.” He nodded numbly. “ All right then. Uh, give me a couple minutes and then I’ll call Willow.”

“Kay. And I’ll do some research on claims. Maybe something about vampire/human claims? I’ll see what I can turn up.” She left.

“Yeah, maybe it can be magickly erased.” Angel hesitated for a moment, then dialed.

“General Sorcery Department.” a chipper voice said.