Every Day I Write the Book - Part Two
DISCLAIMER: The title does belong to Elvis Costello; I checked.
NOTES AND SUMMARY: To recap: Spike and Buffy are arriving at Heathrow, Giles is supposed to pick them up, and Wesley is using ice-cream to deal with Dawn, Xander, and Willow. Stuff happens."Love, I can't believe you're still angry," he said as patiently as he could, considering she'd been whinging for ten minutes straight. He pushed their empty luggage trolley a little faster.
"I'm the Slayer. I'm a woman in control." She looked at him, ready for him to muck it up by commenting, but he bit the inside of his cheek to keep back the almost irresistible "control freak, more like" come-back. The taste of blood reminded him he hadn't had breakfast; he hoped Giles had provided a little something at the house, maybe with a dash of curry-- Then Buffy smacked him in the arm, and he snapped back to attention. "Listen to me, Spike! It's not right for you to act like the big man, take the passports, then charm the woman in the Immigration thingy. And you dared to shush me! It's positively, um, patriarchal oppression!"
He spun the trolley, getting a prime spot by the conveyor belt. 'Course the baggage wasn't here yet. He checked the number on the display one more time-- yeah, right flight-- and then, only then said, "Buffy, I beg of you. Stop half-listening to Willow's rubbish, it drives me bloody mad. Just think. Between you and me, who's been through Passport Control more?"
"Oh, as if you ever actually went through the entry process. You just ate all the border personnel staff-type people. For like a hundred years," she grouched. For good measure she threw a narrow-eyed stare at a hapless tourist moving too close to them; the man blanched and skittered away.
"Well, that's not wholly true, love." Mostly true, he acknowledged, but he didn't want to think about the evil he'd done. Twisted his gut. Onward: "Remember, I went through the official channels just a couple months ago with Giles. I knew that you were going to say 'business' when the bird asked us why we were in England, but that just gets them all questioning and such. Besides, we're not conductin' business in the way they mean. So I interrupted-- which was rude, I'm a bad, rude man-- but I wanted to make this simple."
She glared at him. "Uh-huh. Are you 'handling' me, like I'm some kind of problem or something? 'Cause that's totally annoying." The loud buzz and flashing baggage-arriving light saved him from answering. He pulled her next to him, and they stood side by side.
As the first of what seemed like a thousand identical black bags clunked by, her hand stole into his. Without looking at her he lifted it to his lips. "See, you ARE handling me. Jerk." But she stepped in front of him, hooking the fingers of her other hand into his belt loops and dragging their bodies even closer, cool skin to warm, barely separated by cotton, silk and leather. She rested her head on his shoulder.
The baggage went by. The huge hall echoed with voices, thuds, footsteps. And Spike felt happy to be here, in England, with the woman he loved.
After a thoroughly satisfactory snuggle, Buffy stepped away and turned to inspect the conveyor. It only took a minute for her to collect her bag (a bizarrely purple, giant object, which he knew for a fact contained four pairs of black boots. Which was insane, right?). She hefted the monstrosity with ease, smiling at a goggle- eyed businessman before throwing it casually onto the trolley. "Ooh, show off some more, it makes me all tingly," he whispered in her ear.
She grinned at him. And then fell into him, as a burly creature in a trench-coat reached toward her.
Spike started to move, but his super-heroine was already kicking and gone. She slid past a family of squabbling Germans, leapt over two encumbered trolleys, then spun the creature around. Bloody hell, a Craz demon-- he shouted, "Back, love! It wants your hair!"
The creature-- humanoid except for the jagged purple eyebrows, lips, and clawed, extended forefingers-- reached in again. Buffy ducked, pressed up into a handstand, then drove the heel of her boot into the Craz's face. It staggered back.
Spike wheeled the trolley around and maneuvered it through the obstacle course of bags and stupid humans. Running behind it, he pushed it as hard as he could. The Craz couldn't escape; Spike trapped it between the trolley and the wall. In hot pursuit, Buffy ran into Spike's back. Their weight rammed the cart forward, and the Craz shrieked, collapsed, and dissolved. Only a filthy trench-coat, discoloured with a few purple blotches, remained.
Spike and Buffy stared at the coat, then turned around. Most of the harried tourists and business travelers in the hall hadn't paid attention to the disturbance, but three or four were looking at them curiously. Buffy gave a friendly wave, and they all hastily went about their business. She smiled-- "Don't you love citizen apathy?"-- then looked at their cart and squeaked. "Oh. My. God. That thing got a purple spot on my bag."
"Love, your bag IS purple. I don't know how you can possibly tell that there's anything on it."
"My bag is aubergine, you stupid man. Vampire. Guy." She surveyed the 'spot', which Spike still couldn't see, and shuddered. "We should go find Giles. We have to tell him that someone is trying to steal my hair. And then we have to make sure he and Anya have demon-spot remover."
She started to walk toward the Customs exit. Spike stared at her in disbelief. After a few steps, she turned back and put her hand on her hips. "Well? What's the problem?"
He couldn't help but splutter. "We haven't collected MY suitcase yet!"
"Good grief, Spike, you're such a whiner." She walked back to the baggage carousel and inspected it for a moment, then yanked his battered carpetbag off the belt and tossed it to him. He managed to snag it, then cradled it close. He had all his Elvis Costello CDs in there, it'd be a bugger to replace them.
When he looked up, she was smiling affectionately. "Come on, big guy, get your other sun-protection. Giles will be waiting for us."
***
It was now raining hard, an all-day event rare for this part of the summer. Certainly made daytime pick-up of flammable vampires a bit easier, Giles mused.
He finished his take-away cup of tea and over-armed it into the nearest trash container. Then he looked at his watch. Where were those two? Passport Control nightmares flashed in his mind: Spike in custody because of lack of heartbeat, Buffy in custody because she objected to Spike's being in custody, Buffy insulting the officers with her failure to understand British procedure, Spike insulting the officers because he DID. The tea began to churn a bit in his stomach.
A group of chatting Japanese tourists blocked his view of the Customs exit, then he saw his guests. Laughter blasted out of him, and he couldn't stop. Really, it was too funny. He fell onto a railing and howled.
Buffy got there first, eyes wide. "Giles! Giles, are you all right? Are you hysterical?"
Trolley in tow, Spike walked up, and... and he looked like a complete prat. The mummy-wrapping was gone, but on top of a (new?) black leather jacket and the usual T-shirt and jeans, Spike sported a black leather Man-With-No-Name hat. As Giles choked on his mirth, Spike grimaced. "He's laughing at my sun-protection, Buffy. Pay the wanker no mind."
"Where-- where's the poncho and cigar?" Giles wheezed, then went off again. God, he wished he'd seen people's reactions to Spike Eastwood at LAX. And he wished he wasn't laughing so hard, or he'd whistle the theme to 'The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly'.
Spike thumped him unnecessarily hard on the back. "All right, old man, I get it looks ridiculous. Give over."
Giles exhaled, then managed to stand. He leaned over to give Buffy a hug and a "Welcome to England, dear," then shook Spike's hand. "Sorry, mate, welcome. But you do look like a--"
"Fool, yeah. Your laughing fit gave me a clue."
"Again, sorry. It's raining, though, and I'll collect the car and bring it round; you probably don't need the, er, thing." He resolutely fought a return of his hysterics.
Spike whipped off the hat and stuffed it in his flight bag. "Thank heaven for English weather. Now, do you want to hear the bad news first, or should we save it for heavy traffic?" Giles sighed; disaster was so predictable. He motioned to go ahead, and Spike continued, "Buffy got attacked by a Craz demon in the baggage reclaim. She managed to keep him away from her golden locks, and we dissolved the creature, but--"
"Looks like I'm a target again," Buffy finished.
Hell. This fit some of the rumours the Council had been picking up; still, time enough for discussion later. He smiled reassuringly. "We'll manage. We always do."
***
"So you don't know how you managed the portal-opening, the theory? Even though you've done it several times?" Willow had been quizzing Wesley for a couple of hours, through the walk to the ice-cream shop, hot fudge sundaes all around, and the walk back to the Summers house (with a brief intermission to stake a vamp by the cinema). Really, Spike should have put something about Willow in the damn binder.
She was extremely irritating, and he wanted her to go home instead of lingering out here on the porch. "I know enough, Willow. I know that even attempting to research anything like this on the Hellmouth is an invitation to gloom, doom, and an all-round frightful time." He tried to invest his tone with the authority he'd had once. Before he ruined everything.
And after all, hadn't Willow herself almost ruined everything? Invoking a magick storm, for heaven's sake, it wasn't done. Unless she was further into the dark forces than anyone had guessed...
"Xander, stop it!" Dawn said, from the walk behind him, and he turned. Harris and Dawn were glaring at each other. "Spike isn't bad any more!"
Xander snarled, "That's what he wants you to think. But he's still a vampire, still a demon. They can turn just like that."
Wesley moved down the steps, intent on breaking up the fight. At the door Willow said, "I have to use the bathroom, 'kay? Don't anybody hurt each other while I'm gone." The door slammed--
But he had to leap forward, his hands grasping her arms, to prevent Dawn from punching Xander in the eye. "Dawn, stop! What are you doing?"
Xander shouted, "You just don't get it, Dawnie! You can ask Wesley here. Angelus turned on you, right? One moment happy, next moment ripping people apart. Isn't that what happened to you, why you don't work for him any more?"
"No." Wesley's word fell into the night,and he listened to it hit. Stone on his heart. "I failed him."
Dawn stopped struggling. "Wesley? Are you okay?" Xander mutely stared at him. Oh hell, his sight was blurry. Look, the failure was almost crying, Father would be so proud, he thought savagely.
"Fine, sorry." He cleared his throat and let Dawn go. She clung to his side, looking at him more sympathetically than she had since he'd arrived. He said to Xander, "Not just demons can destroy. Do wrong. And there are both demons and humans who need forgiveness, just as there are both demons and humans who can never have it."
The three stood in silence. Wesley could hear the street-lamp buzz. It seemed cold for August, didn't it.
Willow bounced out of the house, the door slamming behind her. "Okay! Dawnie, Wesley, thanks for a tasty high-fat outing, fun for all. Xander, let's go home-- hey. Is everything all right?"
***
"The ritual will be right if we can gather what we need," Lord Ternis muttered, as he watched yet another demon minion walk down the barely lit, tiled hall. "How difficult could it be? The first ingredient might be a rare herb, but it can be collected from the Chelsea Physic Garden. We're lucky there."
Water dripped on tile, footsteps echoed, before a voice from the shadows said, "Should be simple enough. What about the second element?"
"I've sent a very reliable servant to Heathrow; he should be able to collect the hair of a Slayer, since the Watcher-fools have seen fit to bring her here to London."
"And then you just need the blood of a Watcher and a hand taken from a vampire of the Line of Aurelius, correct? That's what the tablet specified?" The voice held a note of deep, twisted enjoyment.
Lord Ternis snorted, a breath of malice. "I'm not so sure the last will be quite so easy to obtain. The Line has almost died out, its members scattered and far away."
"Oh, you need better information, Ternis," the voice said. And Quentin Travers stepped out into the lamplight. "One's just arrived, as it happens. With the Slayer."
***
"It's a bloody Land-Rover, you posh bastard." Spike had said this at least fifteen times on the drive from Heathrow, and Giles had started to recite it with him, in time to the beat of the windshield wipers. Finally Spike had quieted, looking through the rain-washed, tinted windows at passing suburbs and cityscape.From the back seat came Buffy's gentle, feminine snores; so much for her claim that Slayers wouldn't be susceptible to jetlag. Softly, the latest Elvis Costello CD played on the car stereo, mingling with the muffled traffic noise.
Giles felt quite alarmingly happy, even with the incipient crisis.
Turning onto his street, he pulled into the parking spot in front of his and Anya's house. Spike's mouth had dropped open, and Rupert smiled to himself. Yes, his friend would understand the significance of his new life.
"Giles. Giles. You live on Cheyne Walk. This house is-- and the Thames right there-- and-- and-- oh bloody hell, Rupert, you posh bastard."
"Welcome to my home, you little twerp."