(Wicked and) Lazy - Part One

 

DISCLAIMER: The title comes from a song by X-Press 2, featuring the vocal stylings of David Byrne, late of the Talking Heads.
NOTES AND SUMMARY: In reading the previous adventure, you might have noticed that Spike and Buffy stay in London longer than the actual three days described in 'Every Day I Write the Book'. This interlude happens between Part Nine (post-declarations of love, Spike hired as Buffy's Watcher) and the epilogue: just a simple London double-date with Giles&Anya and Spike&Buffy.
DEDICATED with best wishes to Lesley and Jon, in honour of a wonderful bottle of Pinot Grigio and good talk in this very wine-bar.

Buffy entwined her fingers more closely with Spike's as the two of them got out of the taxi. Her eyes wide, she looked around at the lights, the surging humanity, the glitter and the trash. "What's this street again?"

"The Strand, love." The black cab screeched off, and Spike grinned as he looked around. "I knew we backed the right horse. Rupes and Anyanka must have got left behind in the last turn, looks like."

"It wasn't a race, Spike." She frowned up at him.

"'Course it wasn't." He leaned down to kiss her ear, then said, "We took two cabs so I wouldn't be subjected to the horrible smacking sounds of Giles and Anya in love. Let 'em snog their way down Pall Mall if they like, without turning my delicate stomach."

Buffy turned to fit into his arms, nuzzling inside his new and even more gorgeous suit jacket (the first being tossed in the trash after its immersion in the Thames). She patted his-- well, she'd call it his 'back', because her mother had not raised her to fondle her man's ass in public-- and said, "Were you trying to save yourself from their kissy noises or to get in a little smacking of your own?"

His eyebrows shot up in affront. "I want some bleedin' credit for good conduct here! Didn't lay a finger on you, even when we shot round the corner near Buck House at an unsafe rate of speed and you toppled into my lap!"

"I'm a good boy, I am," she mocked in a terrible attempt at a Cockney accent. He groaned. Ho, she thought, he should have known better than to take her to *My Fair Lady* last night, much as she'd loved it. She'd been mangling lines ever since; it was just too funny and English, that whole 'change your accent, change who you are'. Like that would ever cross the mind of any reasonable person.

However, it was still disturbing how rapidly he and Giles were becoming like each other, and the change went beyond the accent-- stop. She now could admit to Spike as well as herself that she loved him, but Summers denial was still very much a valid operating mode. There would be absolutely no linking of the two Watchers in her life. That way loomed years of therapy, or madness and Greek tragedy. Possibly with masks.

So she patted his-- back-- again, then looked around. "Where are we going?"

"Well, the first item of our night out is a visit to a wonderful little wine-bar," came a male voice from behind them. Buffy peeked around Spike's shoulder and saw Giles and Anya strolling up, arm in arm.

"Yes, my friends in the City brought me here first! It's very popular, even if it doesn't conform to modern marketing methods. Or decorating," Anya continued. "And the alcohol is very good, enough for the choosiest demon."

"Um, might I remind you all-- beer bad?"

Spike deftly changed positions so he could protect her from the traffic, which was coming from the wrong direction of course, then pulled her across the street. As they went, he said, "Love, did you actually hear Giles? Wine. Bar. It's not about the lager. 'Sides, I'll get you some fizzy water if you like."

"She never listened to me, Spike," Giles said as he and Anya caught up to them. "And she'll never listen to you, now that you're her Watcher."

"Please, mate. Bein' her Watcher just means she can tune me out in even more ways than usual."

Buffy half-heard them, but she was trying not to gawk. Moving past a set of steps going to the Charing Cross Underground, they headed down a narrow yet crowded cobblestone street. In the lamp-lit dark the four of them brushed past an elegant couple, then a group of giggling teens, then a couple of night-people she couldn't begin to describe (other than she'd never seen leather, um, folded in quite that way or in that place). She could pick out the street's end at another Underground station, a bridge rising just beyond it.

And she really couldn't figure out if the smell of food, booze, garbage and people was nasty or not. She felt completely out of her sphere.

"Back to Earth, Slayer," Spike said, and she snapped to attention. Her lover was bathed in a wash of light from a street-lamp, his hair glowing white. She couldn't stop her hands from clutching at him, the one safe focus in a universe whirling around her. Which made no sense, because he was still Spike. He grinned at her. "Now come on, love."

With that gentlemanly air he got sometimes and with pleasure she could actually feel, he escorted her down a steep set of steps into an-- alley with grass? A few tables filled with distinctly non-Sunnydale types were scattered around. Hand in hand, Giles and Anya waited at what Buffy supposed would pass for a door in this strange place.

"In or out?" Giles asked.

Buffy couldn't help herself. "Does it seem of the odd to anyone else? That we're going out together in London? That it's like we're everyday or something?" Of course she wanted them to be normal, didn't she, but this didn't feel like it.

Giles, Anya, and Spike all looked at each other blankly, as if she'd not only been speaking a foreign language but doing it wrong. She flashed back to a moment in the Bronze when she had been in high school: trying to speak French to Willow but saying something about cows, Xander asking them to dance. That night had been familiar, comfortable. This double-date in Bizarro London was weird and--

Now Buffy thought about it, she'd met Spike for the very first time that night, after the Scoobies had started dancing. That creepy moment in the alley had begun their much more unnerving and adult dance, which she never would have predicted to change to a twirl of love and joy and trust. Well, trust most of the time, except when he was out with Giles. So she smiled at him. "In."

She sort of regretted it when they plunged into, well okay, a cave. The earthen, smoke-smudged interior was lit by not enough electric bulbs in the front room and dripping candles on the tables everywhere. No, not tables: wine-barrels. A variety of well-dressed people chattered, grouped and re-grouped, fought toward the bar. It was loud.

It was so not the Bronze.

Giles said above the din, "Anya, Buffy, why don't you find a table in the back? Spike and I will get the drinks."

Anya reached up and kissed him, then said something about "yes" and "Pinny Grig-something." Apparently Slayer-skills did not involve lip-reading. Spike smiled into Buffy's eyes, then followed Giles around a wall. The crowd seemed to swell, pushing her; she leaped forward and grabbed Anya's arm, so as not to be left behind.

Rolling her eyes a bit-- how dare she, Buffy thought, that's my thing-- Anya led them into a darker room, one without benefit of electric light at all. The room was full; suddenly, however, a group of four bolted from a table near the front. Anya pounced on the open seating.

After they settled, Buffy looked at Anya. "Did you do that? A magick or spell or something demon-y?"

"Me?" Anya looked far too innocent, and Buffy decided not to push it. In the interests of normality and good double-date etiquette, of course.

The two sat there. For a minute. In silence. Buffy looked around at some of the other patrons in the back room, but she couldn't clearly see them in the dark. She could hear the clinks of glasses, shouts of laughter, hums of other conversations. Their table, however, was an island of not-talking.

"So," Anya said over-brightly, "are those the new shoes you bought at L.K. Bennett? Really flattering."

Thank God for their list of discussion topics, Buffy thought. "Yes, they are! And I'm so happy you found these little sandals on the sale rack. It was time I tried something new."

***

"Buffy's doing wonderfully with this new experience, considering she must be, er, wigging," Giles said over his shoulder to Spike, then he leaned over the bar. "Bottle of Pinot Grigio, bottle of Merlot. Four glasses."

"And some fizzy water," Spike added loudly. When Giles raised his eyebrows, Spike shrugged. "Give her an option, old man, she doesn't have to drink it if she finds the juice of the grape to her liking. Besides, I don't care to see the Slayer with a hang-over. You know bloody well who'd do the real suffering."

"An excellent point." Giles paid for the drinks, and he and Spike divided the spoils between them. Then they pushed their way back into the crowd.

Spike inhaled the smoke and liquor fumes and earthy scents-- God, it was good to be out in a proper bar for once. Moreover, he was with his friends and his girl, who loved him. He still couldn't believe it really, but she'd said it, he'd heard it, and she couldn't take the memory away from him-- nor the river water which he would swear was still lodged somewhere in his middle ear.

Giles elbowed his way into the back room, and Spike followed. Anya and Buffy had found a prize table, with a view of the whole place save the bar area. Plunking down the bottle of white and his Queen's glass of water, Spike leaned over and kissed the back of Buffy's neck. She jumped.

"Lost the ability to sense my presence, love? I'm hurt," he murmured in her ear, then took his seat next to her.

She smiled sweetly and placed her hand on his leg. Then she clutched, hard. He bent over, biting back his instinctive yelp. "Oh, Spike honey, I always know where you are. You can't escape me."

"Ah, that's my love," he gritted out. She had a hell of a grip, his Buffy. He sighed, then shook out a fag from the pack he'd tucked into his suit jacket.

Rupes tore himself away from the difficult task of pouring wine while still gazing into Anya's eyes, just long enough to say, "Here, tosser, give us a ciggie too."

Spike started to get another one, but his hand slipped at the twin female shrieks of "Giles!"

Anya crossed her arms and glared. "You will not be smoking, Rupert."

"Yes. It's evil. And it's icky," Buffy added.

Spike snorted. "Oh, thanks ever so."

"Well, it is, honey," she said. "But I know I'd have to pry the cigarettes out of your dust before I'd get you to stop, soul or no soul."

"Charming image, love." Spike realized that Giles still held out his hand. "You really want a fag, old man?"

"Yes, I do." Spike threw one over, and Giles stole the lighter for himself. After he took a drag, he said to Anya, "Darling, it's a wine bar. It'd be un-English if I didn't have a little smoke to accompany my drink."

"Bloody well right. Rule Britannia," Spike said, then shut his mouth when two sets of laser-beams pinned him to his chair. Let Dad find his own way out, then.

"Rupie, no. You're mortal, and those things cut time off your already- too-short life. I will not lose any time with you." Anya's voice was implacable and not a little vengeance-toned.

Giles leaned closer and brushed her hair away from her face. "I'll only have one, darling, promise. You won't even miss the seven minutes it'll take off."

Anya's lip trembled, and Spike saw Rupert waver-- then Buffy jumped in with "You're setting me a bad example, Giles."

Spike had to stifle a grin: oh, that was an ill-judged tactic, love, he thought. Rupert took a long, deliberate drag, then blew the smoke out in a pretty stream. "You're a grown-up now, Buffy, and you can learn the horrible truth. Underneath my staid exterior I am a wicked, lazy man who likes a cig and a drink every now and again." To punctuate his remark, he sipped at his glass of Merlot.

"And I want to be just like him. Except for the staid, tweed-wearing, generally wrong part," Spike said. He raised his own glass for Giles's ceremonial clink. "Good health, mate."

Buffy poured herself a glass of white wine and tossed back a healthy mouthful-- on which she choked. Spike rubbed her back soothingly, while she struggled for composure. "See, Giles, this is what you made me do." Then she turned on Spike. "I blame you anyway. He was never like this until you two became best pals."

"Oi!" It was so typically unfair. Blame the vamp, conscience or no.

"Do you promise just one, Rupie?" Anya asked. When Giles not only nodded but took her hand and rested it on his thigh, she expelled a heavy breath. "Oh, all right."

Spike looked at his companions and saw that everyone had calmed down. Of course Queen Buffy always felt better once she could assign the guilt to him; she was drinking her fizzy water (ah-hah!) as placid as you please. Anyanka cuddled up to Giles, each sipping her or his own wine between kisses (and, in Rupert's case, pulls on his one precious cigarette). He could turn to his own wine in peace. Mmmm.

Giles said, "So, Spike, what do you think of the Merlot?"

He sipped again, just to be sure. "I do like a fragrant, rich St.-Emilion, Rupes. Good bottle here."

Buffy scooted her chair closer. "You sound as if you know what you're talking about, honey."

"What, I can't have layers?"

"Well it's scary. More than when you were trying to kill me on a regular basis. 'Cause, hello, like that could ever happen." She abandoned her chair for his lap, and his arms went around her waist. Ah, here was true fragrance and richness. She reached out, then took a sip of his wine. "You know, that's not totally horrible."

"You have a bright future as a sommelier, love."

"Whatever, Spike." Buffy leaned back, her hair caressing his shoulder. He breathed in, enjoying the moment. Nothing could make this better.

Then she stiffened in his arms. "Spike." Her voice was soft, pitched just for his ears. "Do you see that group, just inside the other room?"

He looked. Bloody hell, his Slayer had been working on her sensing skills. There stood a trio of male vampires, making clear moves on three unsuspecting human women. Looked like the old seduction-then-draining game.

"Come on, baby. We should get to work," Buffy said, patting his hand.

Okay, he'd been wrong. His night indeed could get better.

 

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