Ch-ch-changes - Part Four
NOTES AND SUMMARY: Giles&Spike-centric AU, end of Season 6, following from my "Going Underground" story. Our heroes, back in Sunnydale, must face a couple of Toller demons sent to open the Hellmouth. (Yes, again.) This longish entry features several different kinds of smack-down (a bit violent, I'm afraid, although still PG-13).
In the night sky, a luminescent glow lit from behind the gathering clouds-- no, wait, that was redundant. Doubly redundant. Spike, smoking a cigarette in front of the Summers house, huffed. Apparently he had learned bugger-all about expression in 120 years. Couldn't he just say the moon lit the storm-clouds from behind? Or, better, that it was going to be a bloody horrible night, what with Hellmouth-opening demons who could conjure thunderclaps which left a bloke with a day-long headache? And it was time to collect his colleagues and get on with it.
He crushed the cigarette under his boot, went up the porch steps, and knocked at the door: manners maketh vampire and all that. Dawn opened it, unsmiling. Well, it was worth a go-- he bowed his head respectfully. "Good evening, Miss Summers."
She glared at him. "I hear you have a headache, Spike."
"Yes, still a bit of one."
"Good." Politeness not effective, then. She gestured him inside anyway.
He managed to stop her a few steps from the door. "Little Bit--" and he deployed his most ingratiating look-- "I know you're angry. Lots to be angry about, right. But... are you always going to think of me just as 'Beast'?"
"You saw that, huh?" She flicked her eyes up and down, in an uncanny Bitty Buffy moment. He felt measured, and not measuring up. Then in a moment of grace she smiled. "No. I won't. Just don't leave or hurt my sister again." She threw her arms around him and squeezed tightly. "Of course, if you want to write my history paper for me, it'd be easier to forgive you."
He hugged her back, but said, "Now that's just filthy evil, Bit. 'Sides, I'd be the one who'd get blamed."
"Ahem." He looked up; Buffy herself stood on the bottom step of the staircase, eye-to-eye. "Hi, Spike." A tentative greeting, to be sure, but he'd certainly take it over yesterday's ice-queen or a fist in the eye. He grinned. She sort of-- quivered, which was strange, then turned and took the stairs at a run. Over her shoulder she called, "I just have to get my new broadsword. Giles is already here. I'll be back down in a minute."
My love departs, and I am hers, and bloody hell stop the sodding poetry before you actually start saying it aloud, Spike thought. He looked toward the living room and saw Giles by the bookcase, arms folded, mouth tight. Spike walked in; yes, there was Xander bloating on the sofa. Enough to make a vamp dead chuffed-- he wasn't too late for the carnage.
"Oh look. Evil undead. Haven't caused enough heartache recently, Spike? Come around to hurt more people?" Xander snorted.
"Hullo, Spike. Now I may begin." Giles took off his glasses and ceremoniously handed them to Spike. Then he turned. "Shall we talk of heartache, Xander? All right. What does one say to a fool who leaves his bride at the altar, forcing her to explain what she herself doesn't understand to their guests? A fool who further apparently feels that she must remain celibate until he gives her permission to move on?"
"Hey!" Xander's jaw set. "You don't have the right to--"
"You don't want to talk to me of rights, boy." Spike rarely saw this side of Giles: concentrated, scalpel-insight and clenched fist. He quite enjoyed it, actually, when it wasn't directed at him. Giles moved to the bigger and younger man, then hauled him to his feet. Slowly, every word chipped out, he said, "You have your reasons for behaving as you do. I won't judge those reasons."
"Yes, Giles, but--"
"Still, I will judge your actions, for they have hurt those I care about." Giles's eyes and voice were polar-ice, deep yet jagged. "You broke Anya's heart. You did not take responsibility. You shifted blame to others in an effort to evade your own guilt. You continue to assign blame to others, not yourself." Xander's eyes darkened, and Giles took hold of his shirt and twisted it painfully. At Xander's yelp, he said with finality, "Anya is not yours any more, Xander. You've lost her. And you've lost my respect."
He dropped Xander back onto the couch. Then he turned to Spike. "Are you ready? We've got work to do." Spike nodded and handed back the glasses.
Xander got to his feet. He was shaking, but holding it together. Barely. "Wait a second, wait a second. I know I shouldn't... I mean, you don't understand... but... but why are you taking her side? Worse, HIS? He's not one of us."
"'Us'?" Giles said. "Things have changed, people have changed, and you haven't even noticed. Open your eyes, boy. Before it kills someone else." And he walked out of the room.
Xander sank down as if gut-shot. Dawn bit her lip, then went to take his hand. Oh that's right, she also knew what it was like to get Gilesed, Spike thought.
The man himself was furiously polishing his glasses, porchlight flashing off the lenses, when Spike caught up to him outside. A cough, then: "Dad, I want to be just like you when I grow up."
Giles put his glasses back on, every movement sharp. Temper was a hell of a thing to leash once let go, Spike knew. "Not disappointed? Promised you I'd actually thrash him."
"Mate, he'd far rather you'd have hit him and have done. That cold-packed evisceration? It'll stay with him, as I know to my sorrow." Giles raised his brows in unspoken question--
But with a crack that sounded like doom, the power went out.
***
The red-white demon removed his hands from the exploded transformer. He stretched, growing an inch or two as he moved, his skin charging with colour. "Good. Very good."
The white-red demon lifted his hands from the collapsing corpses of the two power-company workers who had been on duty. The bodies fell in on themselves, and the demon drew a finger through the dry remains. He licked it and considered.
The red-white demon watched him. "How's that, then? Done?"
"Yeah. Ready as can be."
***
"But we're not supposed to drive to an apocalypse! It's just not right." Bloody hell on toast, how the love of all his lives could whine, Spike thought, then mentally reminded himself that he'd always liked the high-maintenance ones. His golden girl sat up front with him but leaned back over the seat to complain to Giles. After all, it had been the old fellow's idea.
The Watcher wasn't listening. He alternated between checking through the painfully limited weapons (rubber-tipped wooden cudgel for the electricity-loving Toller, the swords for the thirsty-draining one) and looking up at the DeSoto's roof. He was apparently waiting for something. Or someone.
Then Anya apparated in the seat next to Giles. Ah-ha. "Am I late? I thought we weren't going until midnight, but I don't have a watch any more. It just confuses me when I'm jumping around time and space."
"No, dear, we left early. Signs indicated that the Tollers weren't going to wait."
Buffy spun around to face forward, and Spike shot her a sidelong glance. "What's wrong? Beyond the trendy modern custom of automobile use, naturally offensive to all Buffy Summers traditions."
"Nothing's wrong." She folded her arms and looked straight ahead at the painted windshield. Yeah, nothing's wrong, and I'm the sodding Prince of Denmark, he thought. Even got the customary suits of solemn black. He sighed.
Giles was explaining to Anya the rather clever battle-strategy they had devised over tea, and in the rearview mirror Spike glimpsed her gazing up at Rupert with undisguised admiration. Someone was going to get very lucky tonight if he didn't bollocks it up. That is, if they made it through the next hour or so. He squinted out at the rapidly greening night sky, not a comforting vision, and then caught Buffy staring at him.
What the hell. Was there a smudge on his face? Had his hair suddenly poofed up? "Buffy, what in the name of all that's red in tooth and claw are you lookin' at?"
"Do you remember what I said to you today?"
"Every bloody word ever spoken. But it'd help if you'd narrow it down a touch."
She dropped her eyes, then said softly, " You are not allowed to dust. Just remember that."
"Buffy. Love. Oh damn--"
They were at the ruins of the school. And two unfamiliar demons were stalking toward the entrance. Spike put his Doc down on the accelerator and through the floor; the car jumped the curb, went over the lawn, headed for the Tollers. The demons dived out of the way, separating as Giles had planned.
Spike fought the car to a stop, and Buffy, Giles, and Anya leapt out. He followed and caught the cudgel Giles threw back to him: his opponent would be the fizzy-shocking one, whichever that was. Anya would tell him.
She raised her hands high, as if to sense the air around the Tollers. She breathed in once, again, then shouted, "The red-white one!"
Damned imprecision, especially in near-dark-- "Anya, they're both sodding red and white!"
"Red skin and white marks, you stupid vampire!" Much clearer, he thought, and he swung the rubber-tipped wood at the creature's stomach. There was a satisfying thwack, then a hiss as the wood heated.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Buffy take on the other Toller, her sword flashing as she moved forward. Giles took a defensive posture: his job was to make sure the demons didn't manage to come together, which Anya had assured them was the moment of bad. Then Spike couldn't watch anything else, because his Toller charged. He batted it away. It kept coming.
He managed a number of hits, most flush against the demon's body but a couple of good shots to the head, before he slipped in the dirt. The Toller lunged forward and put his hand on Spike's shoulder; the touch burned, then exploded in a cascade of sparks through every nerve ending. "Oh God, oh God," he breathed, nearly blind with pain, then he erupted with a roar. Let the Beast loose, he managed to think.
He smashed the cudgel into the Toller's head once, twice, three times. It staggered back, howling, then started toward him again. And Giles, suddenly warding off an attack from the other demon, was in the way. Bloody hell.
As gently as he could, Spike cudgeled Giles out of the path of danger. The Watcher coughed, then went down hard. Spike turned on his opponent. He sent a flurry of hard blows against the demon's head, snapping it back repeatedly. The Toller fell to its knees, then grabbed the cudgel on its next pass and snapped it with a hiss. Double bloody hell.
From behind him came a horrific scream, and Spike whirled around. Buffy had impaled the other Toller-- hence the shriek-- then she front-flipped, got Giles's fallen weapon, and sliced its head cleanly from its body.
Spike's opponent cried aloud at the loss. And from the green-tinted stormy sky, the clouds boiled and a cyclone dropped down.
"Back, and hold on to each other!" Giles, growling, was supported by Anya. Buffy latched on Spike's hand and they sprinted back to the others. The four gathered and stood, locked together.
The energy storm, more focused than Willow's, passed lightly over them and swirled around the Tollers. With a wind-howl, the tornado dipped, took the bodies, then disappeared up into the clouds. The clouds themselves evaporated into nothingness.
The crescent moon glowed in its cloak of inky black.
Buffy leaned into Spike's side, nuzzling a little. "Good job, partner." She looked up at him, smiling, then stopped. Swallowed hard, as if tasting a nasty thought. "I-I-I didn't see... Spike, did your chip go off when you hit Giles?"
"No, why would it have done?" came Giles's voice. "Since he lost the chip when he acquired the soul. Sorry, sorry, tosser, I of course meant your 'conscience'... What?"
"Giles, shut it--" But Spike was too late. Buffy's hazel eyes had gone huge. Her hands had fastened hard on his duster lapels, and she was trembling with fury.
Oh balls. He'd forgotten to tell her.