Chapter Text
Bright spears of sunline make a hazard of the impounded vehicle lot, but Spike manages to find a bit of shade here and there as he sticks close to Buffy’s heels. The madwoman who showed up at his crypt, baby sis in tow, and said those magic words: I need your help.
So here he is in a blistering southern California afternoon trying not to burn to a crisp.
Dawn glances over her shoulder at him. Her big eyes are even bigger than usual and there’s a furrow of worry between her brows. Why she’s looking to him, he can’t quite figure. Maybe it was the whole got tortured to protect her angle. Or maybe she’s looking at him to see if big sis hasn’t really gone around the bend, what with her pulling a runner.
And that was something he never thought he’d ever see. One Buffy Summers running.
He tilts his head sharply to the side, and the niblet seems to get it. She turns back to her sister. “So, I really hope this isn’t new car shopping because…”
“Not shopping,” Buffy says, her voice tight as wire and just as ready to cut. He can’t help how his eyes cut to her just then, how he notices all the little things. The tension in her shoulders and the brittle, almost birdlike way she moves her head. On a swivel. Like prey.
Shit. They need to get a car, get it fast, and get out.
Spike manages a hop and a jump to get around other beam of sunlight and then he sees it. A Porsche. Sleek and with a damn fine engine. Those Germans, they do know how to make a car. Seems know. He risks a glance at the odo and it doesn’t even have twenty thousand miles on it. And the transmission was automatic.
“Buffy.” He keeps his voice low, even. She whips around at the sound of it. He wraps a knuckle on the window. “Reckon this’ll get us out of town fast as anything. Faster.”
Her eyes cut to it, and for a second he watches her play it out in her mind. Then she jerks her head in a sharp no. “I told you, we get everyone out.”
He should sigh, shrug, and say whatever the lady wants, and let her have her way. Only one problem. Her way is going to get someone killed. Probably her. And the very thought makes all the different parts of him want to growl and tear things apart. So, for once in his sodding stupid life, unlike, whatever, he tries to hold his ground.
“Slayer, you’ve got a choice here. You may not like it, and it’s going to leave a bad taste in your mouth, but here it is: trying to get everyone out is only going to slow you down. And slow equals capture. Simple math. But fast? Fast and lean gives you and the little bit a chance. And this,” he points at the sleek engineering delight, “will do the job.”
“No.” She says it like a reflex, but there’s no force behind it. A punch she doesn’t believe in. Little sis wraps her arms around herself, making herself smaller. Spike wants to shake both of them. Pick them both up, or knock them out, something, throw them in the car and drive. Drive until the fuel runs out and he has to siphon more.
Bloody chip won’t have it, though, so he has to get through to the Slayer that she has to make a choice: her sister and maybe the whole sodding world, or her friends.
But then, it turns out he doesn’t have to. “Buffy, what if,” Dawn’s voice trails off. There are tears in her eyes. “No, you’re right. I’m not worth it. Glory will hurt them all, like she hurt.” Big blue eyes flick over to him again, and he can’t bring himself to look back at her. He would do it again, if he had to. There’s a shuddering breath, and Dawn whispers a small, childish, “I’m just so scared.”
And as fast as that, Buffy’s resolve breaks.
He watches it happen, watches as her eyes go distant and the gears turn over in her head. Those monks, they did a bloody bang up job on Dawn, because all it took was the Slayer knowing that her kid sister was scared, and he watches as she tosses everything and everyone else out the window. Her chin juts out and there’s only the faint scent of salt from her, but no tears. Oh no, no tears.
“Spike.” That’s it. Just his name, and in it is all the tacit permission he needs.
“On it.” Good thing that the Sunnydale impound lot is about as well guarded as the local blood bank supply. But then, the little happy meals on legs have better things to do than get eaten for a bunch of cars that no one can get out. The box with the keys is locked, but he twists that off easy enough. Keys in hand, he’s back and with a push of a button, the car is unlocked and theirs.
Not much space in the boot. Dawn and Buffy both throw in their duffels. He doesn’t have anything, just the clothes he was standing about in and his duster. Then the girls get to work tin-foiling the windows and leaving him a strip for seeing out of. Then Buffy hands him a pair of welding goggles he is now damned curious as to why she has in the first place.
Some Slayers used to make their own weapons, and the image of her at an anvil is doing things to him that he really doesn’t have time for.
“Get as far as you can, and then we tell them the plan’s changed,” she tells him. He can hear the choked anger and regret in her voice. Reassurance dies on his tongue when she raises her eyes to his, though. Steely eyed determination, thy name is Buffy Summers, he thinks. Green has given way to grey, and if his blood wasn’t up, he might find it a bit sad. “Till then, you drive like hell. Got it?”
He can’t help the grin that curves his mouth and the way his whole body rocks forward, because here at last, finally, God finally, he’s something he can bloody well do. No more sitting about and nancing and pining. No more the strains of old agony. Here is action and drive and something.
“I’m your man,” he tosses off before sliding into the driver’s seat. The ignition purrs to life, and he fixes the goggles to his face. “Ready, ladies?”
“Dawn, buckle up,” Buffy admonishes. That gets a barking, sharp laugh out of him. Buffy tosses a glare his way, and that only makes his lips twist into a smirk.
“Click-clack, front and back,” he sing-songs as he puts the car into drive.
“What?” Buffy says, but then she’s thrown back against her seat as he peels out. Now, if only he’d thought to bring his tapes along. Man needs the right music for fleeing a hell god.
***
Three hours out of Sunnydale, headed east and away from the setting sun, they stop. Spike drove… well, Spike drove. Fast. Very, very fast. On an intellectual level, she knows cars could and did go that fast. On racetracks.
Around her, the car did that ting-ting thing, cooling down. He didn’t overhead the car, did he? No, no, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do anything to put Dawn in danger. Weirdly. No, now is not the time to analyze Spike or his motivations. Don’t look a gift vampire in the mouth, except the last time she’d had that thought, Angel turned out to be a mixed bag of sweet and bitter, but not nearly good as bittersweet chocolate chips.
Chocolate chips never killed anyone after they made you happy.
She frowns and tries to get her thoughts in some kind of order. First, get out of the car. So she does, and looks around. They are way beyond Sunnydale. Spike and Dawn are in the gas station shop, loading up on supplies. Buffy just wishes her legs would stop being jelly. She’s not weak, just… she doesn’t know what she is.
No, that’s not true. She’s running. Running hard and fast and leaving behind her friends who had become her family all to save a girl who hadn’t been her sister this time last year. But she’s her sister now. She watches Dawn through the store window, a smile on her face in spite of the apocalyptic terror that should be making her numb. Smiling because Spike is saying something to her and picking up more candy. Like a reverse Halloween, the monster giving the normal person a treat.
Okay, Buffy, she tells herself. Time to put her friends out of their misery. She digs around for some change and dials the Magic Shop before she runs away from doing that, too. They deserve… so much more than her as a friend, a leader. She just abandoned them. And why? Because Spike pointed out a fast car and because… because Dawn was scared.
Scared and crying and wanting Buffy to protect her.
“Hello? Buffy, please, Buffy is it you?” Giles’s voice breaks into her whirling crazy.
She blinks, her lashes feeling heavy, and she can only nod before she finds her voice. “Yes.”
“Thank God,” he breathes. Down the phone line, she can just see it. “What happened? Were not able to procure a vehicle? I can help, I am certain that…”
“I had to change plans,” she says, feeling almost distant from herself. “Bringing everyone, it would have slowed me down, but you have to get out. Everyone. Get a plane, drive, just get out.”
There’s a long, long pause. The sun will set soon. They can take off the tin foil and Spike can drive all night. Just drive and drive and drive. Endlessly. Maybe if they hit the Atlantic they could—
“... makes sense, for us to scatter. However, it would be advisable to have a meeting point. We must regroup.” The back of her brain provides her with the memory of the Initiative. Regroup, central points of contact, a place from which to launch a new offensive.
“I’ll call you,” she says, giving no kind of answer. It all feels so distant already. Sunnydale, her friends. She’s untethered, unmoored. The one reason she has to run and fight and live is in a rest stop gas station buying her own weight in sugar.
“Wait a moment, Buffy, I don’t have—”
Her finger holds down the switchhook. There’s a dial tone where Giles’s voice once was. Her hand hangs up the receiver and she feels like she’s floating as she enters the store.
“I think we got all the food groups.” Spike’s accent is a now-familiar burr, bouncing over words that are too banal for what she’s just done. “Sugar, salt, and—”
“Buffy,” Dawn says, breaking into the litany. Her sister’s face lights up as she holds forth her spoils. Spike, though. She catches sight of his face, and she can watch as he literally swallows whatever he was about to say. But he wouldn’t be Spike if he didn’t catch her eye and smirk. Just a little.
Her eye roll is automatic, but he sees it, and now he’s smiling. He’s smiling, and her feet feel like they’re on the ground again. It’s just so weird because why the hell is Spike being Spike—weird, inappropriate, and above all annoying—the thing that brings her back down to earth? Probably the sheer gravitational force of how irritating he is. It gives her the drive to put back a few of the snacks.
“No one needs that many sour candies,” she says, “and I’m pretty sure no one wants to be driving a car that smells like vomit.”
“That was like, years ago!” Dawn protests. “And besides, it…” she trails off, and all three of them know what she was about to say. About to, and doesn’t. “Besides, I know how to pace myself so, there.” She sticks her tongue out, and it’s everything Buffy has to not put every last candy away. Just to put her Big Sister foot down.
“Let’s just pay for these and go,” Buffy says, glancing around at the store. There’s only a few locals of whatever town this is.
“Sure that’s a good idea?” Spike asks, voice low. “We have limited funds here.”
“Robbing places attracts attention,” she points out.
He sighs. “I suppose.” Then his face scrunches up, like he’s thinking through something, but then he shakes it off. “I’ll pay for this, just get in the car and we’ll get out of here. Come on, Niblet, give over.”
Dawn spills her goods into his arms, and Buffy watches as he picks up another gummy candy pack and slips it in his coat. She bites her lip and waits for him to return to the car. They get in and drive off. The sun is just starting to set. The reflected light still makes him wince and avoid the review mirror.
Spike fiddles with the radio, flicking between static and snatches of music that make him mutter while Dawn paws through the crinkling plastic of their so-called food supplies. She knows she needs to eat, but just right now, she can’t stomach candy. And thinking of eating, she wonders how the hell they’re going to keep Spike fed. The chip means he can’t feed off of people, but he could become a liability, and—God, she wishes she could just stop.
The world blurs by, a little less breakneck than before. There’s purple-black at the edges of the land, and she thinks it could be beautiful if she had a spare thought for pretty things.
He stops fiddling with the radio and switches it off with a grunt of disgust. “Pop shite.”
“Uh, some of us like Backstreet Boys, okay?” Dawn says witheringly.
“And some of us have taste, little bit,” Spike drawls. There’s no venom there, none that Buffy can hear.
“Your music is all just angry screaming and people playing bad on purpose,” Dawn counters between bites of the stolen sour candy. Buffy shifts in her seat. Clearly they’d been spending more time together than she’d realized, if Dawn had opinions on Spike’s music. Great, her little sister had been palling around with a soulless undead monster who… had risked everything for her. For them both.
“That’s the point. Punk is angry, punk is rebellion. Not teenybop bull. It’s got no guts or blood in it.”
“Gross. Music doesn’t need guts in it. That’s nasty. It should have cute boys.”
Buffy listens with half an ear to the argument. It sounds like one they’ve been having for a while. Well worn and familiar. It peters out, and eventually, Dawn slumps against the back seat. The sun is well down, and the road passes by in pulses of headlights and signs. In between that, though, it’s all dark. Dark and dark, endless stretching on and on.
“She’s out.” Spike’s voice is a bare whisper, just on the edge of her hearing. Buffy glances back to see Dawn’s head resting against the door, her breathing deep and even. Peaceful. Peaceful and innocent and hers.
It’s like her whole chest is cracking apart. Like someone is driving an iron bar straight into her breast bone. Her throat is too tight and her vision is getting watery and—
“Hey, hey now.” Spike’s right hand is on her shoulder, just shy of too hard. She grabs it like a lifeline with one hand while the other clamps over her mouth. “You did it.” His voice is low in her ears, low and there with an endless litany. “You did it, you got her out. We’re out, alright? We’re out, and she’s alright. She’s going to be alright. You both are, okay?”
She tears her gaze away from Dawn before she loses it entirely, and then she’s looking at Spike. Spike who is glancing between her and the road, the lines of his face limed by the dashboard lights, his expression somehow, impossibly, both intent and earnest. She lets go of his hand to wipe the tears away and sniffles only a little.
He lets go of her shoulder, both hands back on the wheel. His thumbs drum a quiet tattoo. His hand was cold—vampire, he’s always cold—but she appreciated the weight of it.
It’s a minute or two before she can trust herself to speak. There’s a whole lot behind her lips, a litany of failure, a riot of questions, but in their striving to be voiced, they jam up her throat. She swallows heavily. The sky is a swath of starry darkness. The car hums over the road.
She clears her throat. Again, quietly. “You’re good to drive, right?”
“All night,” he answers, easy and simple as someone else might promise something so much less. His eyes flicker from one mirror to the next before touching on her, light as a bird. “Could do one thing for me, though.”
“What?” She can’t help the wariness that laces her tones. Putting his unlife on the line he might be, but this is still Spike. He’s generally full of weird and off-putting requests.
“Find us a bit of music, yeah? But I swear, if you put on a boy band, I will stake myself. Like your sis well enough, Slayer, but her taste in music is real evil. Manufactured pop gobshite,” he rants, or, well, pretends to rant. Maybe half rant?
“Well, now I’m just tempted.” She grins as she fiddles with the knobs, keeping the volume low. The stations skip around between static.
“Big talk for a woman who needs a wheelman,” he counters dryly.
“Yeah, but even I know this is an automatic,” she points out, tapping the gear shift that’s handily put in D. D for drive. “I could get to a rest stop at least. Probably. Anyway, I’m surprised you didn’t go for stick. I’d assume it’d make you feel all manly.”
The smile that curves his face is way, way too delighted for what’s going on around them. His eyes practically dance, and he does that thing with his mouth, that little weird tongue flick that she kind of found distracting a time or two. “Don’t need that to feel manly, luv.”
“Pervert,” she accuses.
“Tease,” he throws back.
The radio knob twists in her fingers and it lands on a classic rock station. Quiet strains of some rock song floats through the speakers. Spike drums in time to the music and bobs his head. “Ta for that,” he says, and his eyes are fixed on the road ahead. “Best get some sleep, Slayer. I’ll wake you up when we get to a stopping place.”
“Or if something goes wrong,” she reminds him.
He raises one dark brow at her. “No, thought I’d just let it be a fun surprise. Yes,” he says before she can protest. “If something goes wrong, I’ll wake you. But for now? Do yourself a kindness and sleep.”
There’s a weird softness to his voice. The edges of his usual harsh accent rounded off. Not quite Giles fancy-English, but something, well. Softer. Spike and softness aren’t supposed to go together. Him of the kill you and everyone you love, and more recently the kill my sire to prove my love to you. And the sex bot.
Major wiggins.
But now, now she curls up in the front seat of a stolen Porsche, her sister in the back seat, and she trusts Spike enough to close her eyes.
***
The hours pass by in a steady rhythm. Thank God or the Devil both, whoever came up with late night, no talk, no BS, no ad-laden radio. Though, unlike his own road trips in the DeSoto or any other vehicle, he’s not listening to spine rattling rollicking punk fit enough to burst a human’s ear drums. Too much temptation to drum loudly and scream along. Instead, the classic rock station pumps out a steady slew of decent if not his favorite songs.
He has to change stations twice, but he finds something similar every time. Keeps him alert as the night thrums by. When he checks the mirrors, he looks back to see Dawn totally limp and laying across the back seat. Not a mystical Key at all. Instead, she’s all gangly, coltish limbs, surrounded by the remnants of beef jerky and sour gummies.
Looking at her, he feels something. Not quite sure what. Pride, maybe. She’s alive and kicking because he did what he does best: didn’t break. Keeps going. Knocked down, but getting back up. Too bloody stubborn to go out easy, him. Well, she can count on him to keep doing that. In for a penny, after all.
When his gaze lands on Buffy, he’s consistently surprised to not find himself looking into a pair of suspicious green eyes. Instead, every time, her eyes are closed and she’s even drooling a little bit. Well and truly exhausted. Out. Down for the count. So tired that she’s sleeping in the presence of someone who, a year ago would have gleefully killed her. Or tried to find a way to do so, chip be damned. Because this year, with her back against the wall, and when she cast about for someone to go on the run with, the first person she came to was him. Not the Watcher, not the Welp or the Witch. Him.
He can’t read into it. He won’t. He’s the nearest tame monster. He knows that. Knows it in his bones.
But for all that, she trusts him with the most precious thing in the world.
It makes his chest squeeze painfully, knowing that. He won’t ever have her love, but right now, in this moment, he has her trust. He’ll take what he can get.
So he drives into the night, whisper-singing along when he knows the words, tapping along when he doesn’t. Morning will come soon enough.
***
Her eyes are sticky. Her eyes are sticky and her neck feels horrifyingly stiff. Buffy winces as the world comes back into focus. Or as much focus as it can when she has no idea where they are. Somewhere in the middle of Arizona, she let herself sleep. Wincing, she straightens as much as she can in her seat.
“Good timing.” Spike’s familiar voice comes from somewhere to her left. She blinks and wishes she hadn’t. He didn’t find a way to glue her lashes together while she was out, did he? No, probably not. Not exactly his style. Whatever it was these days. “Little sis is still out cold, but the sun’s going to be up soon.”
Outside the windows, the sky is a pink-tinged grey across the suburban highway landscape. She knew this would be part of the deal, having to hole up during the day. It’s going to drive her crazy sitting still, but if he went poof then there went the only driver.
He might’ve picked an automatic, but that didn’t mean she really wanted to try to get this death trap anywhere.
“Where are we?” Her mouth feels cottony and dry and there’s a hole in her middle. Fear or hunger or both, she can’t tell. It probably doesn’t matter.
“Just past Albuquerque,” he says, and the word sounds so completely ridiculous in his mouth that she just stares at him dumbly. Blinking. Dumb and blinking. Oh yeah, big time Chosen One action there, blinking at Spike like she can barely form coherent thought.
“That’s in New Mexico,” she supplies inanely.
“Unless they moved it,” he retorts.
She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. Maybe there’s a reset button in there. If she just pushes hard enough, it’ll make her brain work.
She didn’t think they’d get this far.
“Well, we did.”
She must have said that out loud. Did she say that out loud?
“You’re still talking out loud. Can’t say I’m surprised that the Slayer isn’t much of a morning person.”
“Not even before late night graveyard strolls were part of my routine,” she sighs.
“Don’t mind mornings, in principle. Keep night and afternoon from bumping into each other.”
“Think of the problems that would cause.”
His eyes dart to her and the corner of his mouth curves up. Her mouth curves in a mirror to his, which is funny if she thinks about it. No reflection for him, but it makes her think about how people can be mirrors for each other. Something in one of her classes. Psychology? She hopes not, since Walsh was a nut. Literature, maybe? She can’t remember, and it really is way too early for her to be trying to think of classes. Classes she had to quit entirely.
“Ugh, Buffy and mornings should be unmixy things, but you’re right. Let’s find a motel. See any likely candidates?” She sits up, pulling the seat belt across her a bit better and scans the billboards and road signs as they roll by.
“Figured you would want to stay on the edge of things. Easier to get out of town, if you’re already halfway there.” His voice is a quiet burr, and it’s weird. Spike is, in her experience, loud. Loud and taking up space with his coat and super annoying traits and general Spikeness, but sometimes. Sometimes he’s really, really quiet. Like right now, when she needs the quiet.
It’s just the hum of the car on the road and the faint strains of music on the radio.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” she allows, and does her best to think about how he’s thinking along the same lines as she is.
“Then there’s something up ahead.” One pale finger points and there’s a turn off for the Motel 6. She nods and sinks back against her seat, but not before risking a glance back at Dawn. She’s going to have to wake her up soon, and then figure out how to pass the day away.
And where to go next.
The click of the turn signal is a heavy, steady tock in the quiet of the car. They pull off the highway, but only barely. In the motel parking lot, Spike gets out, his eyes fixed east with an expression of annoyance. It almost makes her laugh. A vampire not afraid of the sun but annoyed. Like it’s just a mild inconvenience that he would be a pile of ash.
There’s just not much left in her to laugh right now.
Unclicking her belt, she unfolds herself from the seat with a muffled groan. Bodies, even Slayer bodies, are not meant to be curled up in a car seat for a whole night.
“Right, then, just one question,” he says as he comes around the back of the car and pops the trunk before pocketing the keys.
“What’s that?” she asks. She’s stalling waking up Dawn, but really, if she’s going to do anything, she needs to stretch. Vital that she stretches. She knuckles her back and the leather of her own jacket creaks.
“How many rooms we getting?”
Buffy’s eyes squeeze shut, and she’s really, really wishing she’d thought about this all a lot more.
***
Spike watches as Buffy’s face goes through at least seven different minute expressions, all the way from chargrin to resignation. It’s a damn study in her features, and he ordinarily wouldn’t mind trying to suss them all out. But, well, that sun is rising pretty damned fast.
“Two rooms, then,” he says quickly. “Will stretch things a bit, but—”
“Just get the one,” she interrupts. Her eyes are fixed on a point in the middle distance. Certainly not much in the way of local scenery to be that interesting. It’s all desert scrub and highway sprawl wasteland.
She’s riveting though. Arresting—no, do not start, he chides himself. Don’t start trying to find the perfect word because there is no perfect word and, Spike my boy, there’s a hell god no doubt tearing apart anything she can get her hands on for the girl in the backseat of that shiny car you stole. Better things to do.
“Right. Can do that.” He ducks his chin and strides to the office. It’s like the office of every roadside motel he’s been through, right down to the scent of stale donuts, burnt coffee, and despair. Killing the owners of these places always did feel like a bit of a mercy. Now, though, he taps the little bell. It makes a dull, sad tonk instead of a ding. All the same it brings around a tired looking bloke of some kind of south of the border.
“Can I help you… sir.” The pause makes it a sentence not a question. Spike doesn’t much care.
“Need a room for the day. Two beds.” He holds up two fingers, just to make sure he’s being understood here. The poor bastard looks tired enough to be dead on his feet as it is.
“Very good, sir.” The words are rote, and Spike sufferers through the ritual of paying for a motel room. The key has a huge diamond key fob hanging off it with a chipped white numeral 9 blazed on it.
Dawn slumps on the hood of the car, arms crossed over her chest and a sullen look on her face. Ah, of all the things to miss, waking up the teenage mystical energy being was one he was fine with. “I just want to crash on a real bed,” she whines.
“First, bags, then bed. If you need it.” There’s more life, more bounce, in Buffy’s voice when she talks to her sister.
“Car sleep isn’t the same as real sleep,” Dawn argues. Then she catches sight of him, and the girl who wasn’t a girl last year perks up. “Please say you got a room.”
He holds up the key, the garish plastic fob swinging free. “Ask and ye shall receive.”
“Thank God.” Her voice is a weird mix of whine and groan, and as much as he likes the girl—and isn’t that a surprise, he likes the girl for who she is, a bit of spitfire and insight and determination, and Christ, those monks did make the girl out of Buffy, but she’s also Dawn. The girl watched him with big eyes after he’d struck a deal to bring down Angelus, who had cocoa with him and Joyce on the night he’d drunkenly stumbled back into Sunnydale. Or at least she did in his manufactured memories. But then, that whole thing never got under his skin like it did with everyone else.
Memory can be more real than real, he knows.
“Go on,” he says, tossing her the key. She catches it. Key for a key, his brain supplies, and he really needs to get some blood and some rest if his thoughts are starting to loop like that. Can’t afford to be off his game. Not now.
Suddenly, like she’s got boundless energy, she bounds up the stairs with all the grace of an elephant. Not quite entirely Buffy.
“You just got her out of hauling stuff duty.” He turns at Buffy’s words, but there’s no anger or heat in her voice. Just a little soft something that he can’t quite suss. Then she tosses a duffel at him. It clinks.
“Weapons for me? Slayer, I’m touched,” he quips and tosses it over his shoulder.
“What can I say, I like to get something for all my enemies-turned-getaway-drivers. Just didn’t think a Christmas card would really cut it this year, you know?”
“Think I can live with that.”
And there, hiding in the corner of her mouth is a smile. God, what he’d keep doing to get her to grin. Even now. Maybe especially now.
“Come on, let’s get in and figure out next steps.” She takes the stairs with a good deal less tromping than her sister, and he follows. The door is left ajar. After he and Buffy are inside, he shuts it. The curtains are already drawn. Dawn is sitting cross-legged on the bed nearest the windows going through some pamphlets. The rest of the room isn’t anything to write anywhere about. Shades of orange and brown, like the worst part of the 70s—the non-punk rock part—came here to roost. The laminate is peeling, and the bathroom looks awful by even his standards.
The TV probably doesn’t even get reception.
At least there’s a chair. He shrugs out of his duster and tosses it on the TV stand before pulling the chair into the darkest corner of the room.
“Spike, what are you doing?” Buffy’s question interrupts his progress. He looks at her with a wry raised eyebrow.
“Thought you needed a getaway driver, not a pile of ashes. I’m moving the chair to sleep, obviously.” It doesn’t make sense, but his hackles are up. Does she expect him to keep watch during the day, too? He can’t do that, even full on human blood, no vampire can be awake endlessly. Their bodies and demons do need rest, even if it isn’t as much as a human needs rest.
Then her expression softens. She gestures at the bed nearer the bathroom. Further away from the window. “You can have that one. Dawn and I can share, right?”
“Oh! Yeah, no problem. I mean, you have cold feet and kick sometimes, but like, I guess we could share.” Dawn rolls her eyes, clearly more annoyed at the prospect of sharing covers with her sister than anything else. Buffy can’t help but smile, smile to see her sister being so normal.
“Says the girl who is all elbows,” she retorts. The sisters bicker, and Spike sinks onto the bed that’s been declared his. Not a stray ray of sunshine to be seen on the covers.
He toes off his boots, stuff his socks inside them, and stretches out. Buffy and Dawn are both contemplating pamphlets, talking about getting some supplies while the world is still quiet. They decide to check out the supermarket not far away—within walking distance at least. Dawn waits on the landing while Buffy lingers to lock up, and Spike risks something.
“Slayer?”
She’s standing in the doorway. The rose-gold of the rising sun outlines her, and he swallows heavily. No, no, no, don’t think it, he scolds himself.
“Thanks,” he manages, gesturing at the bed. She shrugs and looks away, like she’s been caught out at something.
“Get some rest, Spike. We’ll be back with… supplies.” His brows rise up in astonishment, but before he can press, she’s closed the door with a snick and the lock is thrown behind her.
He stares past the popcorn ceiling, trying like anything to tamp down the warm feeling that’s rising in his chest. It could crack him apart. It could flay him from the inside out, her kindness. More than a punch to his nose, more than her disdain, more than her hate, kindness from her hand would be like a brand in his flesh. It would scald him down to bones.
And right now, if that happens, then she and the little bit are in that much more trouble. He has to stay Spike. Do and be what she needs him to be: a fighter.
It’s not the time to be anything else.
***
Safeway is like Ralph’s. The same red-and-beige interior design, the same too bright lights, and the same discount deals.
It hadn’t really been on her radar, how much food cost. Not before Mom—Buffy puts the apple down before she crushes it. Because if she crushes it, she’d feel compelled to pay for it, and they don’t exactly have the cash to pay for food that she’s destroyed.
“So, fruit and stuff?” Dawn holds a little basket, swinging it in her hands like they’re going for a normal grocery shop. Not a road-trip-escaping-death shop.
She supposes that the basics are the same, though.
“Yeah, fruit and things that will keep. Carrots, um.” She racks her brain. Road trips weren’t really a thing when she’d been small. Dad was always going on trips, and Mom had been busy, and Dawn—she really had to stop thinking about how Dawn wasn’t really in those memories. Because she was. She is in Buffy’s memories and her heart and her blood. It doesn’t matter how Dawn became a part of her life. She swallows and tries to think.
“Tortillas travel well, and some of those shelf stable lunch packs, I think,” she rattles off. Dawn follows her, and they buy a few fresh things. Yogurt for eating today and some cheese. Dawn reaches for the peanut butter, but Buffy puts it back. “Love the PB as much as anyone, but you are not using one of my knives to make sandwiches.”
Dawn puts it back in the basket with a look of such teenage disdain that Buffy can’t help the glare pulling her eyebrows together. “Then we get disposable knives, duh. Probably some plates, too. And spoons, or how else were you going to eat the yogurt?”
There’s a sullen, irritated part of her that wishes that she’d thought of that. That she’d remembered that disposable plates and cutlery were a thing. That she sometimes didn’t feel so dumb when little things slipped her mind. Or that things didn’t slip her mind at all. That would be way better. But she’s slip-of-mind Buffy, and probably not much can be done about it now.
“You’re right,” she says instead, forcing down that part of her that gets annoyed at her own brain. And there’s a reward: Dawn smiles. Though Buffy could do without the preening. They pick up the disposable stuff, and then Dawn dashes back down the aisle coming back with a plastic-wrapped packet of black t-shirts.
“He’s going to need more than blood, right?” Dawn is watching her from under her lashes, like she’s waiting for Buffy to toss the clothes away. “I just noticed that he didn’t have a bag, so like, that one shirt probably won’t be enough. Or his socks, or his—anyway, I figured t-shirts at least right? Then we can let him lose in a Target for whatever else he needs. Because I know he doesn’t sweat, but like, eventually stuff does smell, and that would be bad.”
“You know, did not think I’d ever buy Spike t-shirts, but you’re not wrong,” Buffy allows. The t-shirts stay.
“Hope they fit.”
“Medium is probably good enough. Guys are lucky that way. No weird voodoo women’s sizing for them.”
“Tell me about it. Like, we’re the same pants size, but—”
“I wear them better,” Buffy taunts before she can stop herself. Dawn rolls her eyes. Then there’s the big, weird purchase. This Safeway has a meat counter, but it’s early. Only one person is there, and he’s at the back slicing meat apart with some really wicked looking machines.
All the time she was with Angel, she never thought too much about how he got his blood. Found out about the whole deal with the butcher shops in town, and it made sense. Town like Sunnydale, butchers are probably the most untouchable people around. Good job security. And life security.
Then there was the time Spike was in Giles’s tub. She never bought the blood. Giles did that. But here she is, about to get blood for Spike. She has a fleeting thought that Angel always tried to keep her distant from that part of himself. Always tried to hide it. Spike, though. Well, no soul. Of course he doesn’t feel guilty about it. The chip is the only reason he isn’t his usual kill ‘em all and drain ‘em dry self.
Only, a chip wouldn’t make him endure torture. A chip wouldn’t make him go on the run.
Too many uncomfortable thoughts, and she’s just standing there. “Excuse me,” she calls. The butcher turns and nods. The universal signal of wait a minute. She rocks back on her heels. The meat on display looks pretty fresh and all the usual cuts from named parts of the animal.
“What can I get for you ladies?” The butcher is wiping his hands on a cloth, and he seems like an ordinary kind of person. Medium height and build, black hair kept under a hair net, and his face is round and polite.
“Um, I don’t suppose you have any extra… blood?” Her voice squiggles up on the word, just shy of a squeak.
“Oh yeah, sure,” he says easily. “What’re you making with it?”
“Making?” Her nose scrunches—people don’t eat blood do they. But then she remembers something on PBS, some British thing talking about. “Um, black pudding?”
“Right, you’ll want pig’s blood, then.” And just like that, he’s off to the back room. Buffy exchanges a glance with Dawn, their eyes wide and eyebrows halfway up their foreheads. They get over their combined surprise before the butcher comes back and hands over a container of sloshing, vicious blood.
“Here you go,” he says with a grin. “Good to see the young folks keeping the old country traditions alive. My grandmother loved kidneys, herself.”
“Yeah, that’s us, keeping the old traditions alive,” Dawn enthuses.
“Big on the traditions, us,” Buffy adds, nodding. “Um, how much?”
“Don’t worry about it. Tell them at check out I gave it to you. We’d just throw it out anyway.” Buffy manages a quiet thanks, and like the butcher promised, the checkout girl lets the blood go without ringing it up.
Her head is on a swivel as they leave the store, looking for those nasty little demon helpers that Glory has, but she sees exactly what’s there. Endless highway and scrub and a whole lot of nothing. It’s not a long walk back to the motel. That’s good, because after over sixteen hours of no food, she’s starting to wish she’d managed to choke down something before passing out last night. That yogurt is sounding better by the second. Had to keep up her strength. If she didn’t, then all this would be for nothing.
She just didn’t know how long she could hold it together. But she had to. For Dawn. She had to keep going, even when there’d be nothing left.
***
The click of the deadbolt jolts him out of his doze. He starts upright, only to see the girls coming back laden down with plastic bags. And somewhere in there is some blood. His nose twitches at it and his stomach tightens.
“No trouble at the store, and all’s quiet here, I assume,” Buffy says. The plastic bags crinkle as she sets them down next to the TV. He turned it on and found some mindless game shows. Better listening to something, even drivel, than sitting in silence.
“As the grave,” he drawls. She snorts, not exactly amused, but with that dry unamusement that he kind of likes to get out of her anyway.
Then Dawn is holding something out for him, and he takes it without looking closely at what she’s handing him. Could really use that blood. But then she says, “Got you these. It’s not much, and we’ll need to get you some other stuff, but I saw them and figured you’d need them. Buffy agreed.”
He looks down at a pack of black t-shirts. Dawn thought to get him shirts, and big sis hadn’t objected. More, she’d had to approve, to spend the dosh on him.
It’s small and meaningless, really. So what if he walked out of his crypt with the clothes on his back and the smokes in his duster? It wasn’t like they were supposed to think about him like that. He was here as a driver and guard dog at best. A sacrificable distraction at worst.
The little bit got him shirts.
“Thanks, Niblet,” he says. He’s not choked up. Bloody stupid thing to be choked up about. They’re just bleeding shirts. He tilts his head and quirks an eyebrow at Buffy. “Can’t have me going around shirtless, huh? Too much of a distraction.”
Buffy’s lip curls, and then she shoves the carton of blood in his face. “Pig’s blood for a pig.”
“Ta, love.” He pushes his voice into bright and chipper. The tone he knows annoys her. Then there it is, that fire in her eyes. He knows that he shouldn’t push her. That she’s hanging by a thread, this woman. Mum dead, friends behind her, and always doing her best impression of Atlas.
But when she’s angry at him, she’s not thinking about any of that.
So, because he can’t help himself—can’t help but push sometimes when it brings out her fire, when it pushes the worry in her away, when it’s so damned fun—he says, “What? No mug? Was partial to the Kiss the Librarian one myself.”
“I’ll add it to the list for Target. Oh! Should get you a thermos, actually. Better for travel,” Dawn says as she pulls a journal and a glitter pen out of her duffel. Spike carefully uncaps the plastic container of his breakfast and takes a sip.
“You’re a treasure, Niblet,” he says, and Buffy throws up her hands.
“Great, just great, my sister is making a shopping list for a vampire. This is fine, totally fine,” she mutters to herself while she gets out a yogurt. Viciously, she tears off the lid and eats it angrily. Never thought he’d be jealous of a spoon, but watching her eat, he is. “Not like we’re on the run, oh no. There’s always time for shopping.” Her litany continues, and he pays it half an ear while he drinks his own sustenance.
Another thing he can’t help: noticing that Buffy barely eats. She manages the yogurt, but can’t quite make it halfway through an apple. Even Dawn eats more than that. He can’t do much about that now, but later. After sunset. There’s a long, sunny day until that point. So. He has to wait. Never been good at waiting, but no other option for it. He finishes the blood and tosses the container in the bin.
“Leave the telly on. Need something to kip to.” Then he lays back and tries to shut out everything else. This is going to be a long haul, he knows. Even if Buffy doesn’t yet. Well, he’s done this before. Nothing new for him here. Not the first time he’s looked after someone. Especially someone who doesn’t want looking after.
Probably won’t survive the attempt, though. Still, he can’t help but want to try. It’s pathetic and insane, but there it is. There he is. He flings an arm over his eyes to shut out the ambient light that sneaks in underneath the curtains. If he’s going to be pathetic and insane, he might as well be rested for it.