Part One
It wasn’t often that she’d had Slayer dreams about fighting giant wererabbits. Well, never before really, but even stranger was watching Spike getting completely thrashed by them. They used their suddenly feral paws to rip him apart, and Buffy was left going ‘huh?’ as they eyed her hungrily. With a strange jerk of her body, she escaped back to reality, leaving Spike beaten and…well, beaten.
But it wasn’t like wererabbits were real, and giant ones Buffy was willing to bet were even more sparse in the grand scheme of life and fluffy bunnies. She’d have to ask Anya one day, when she thought about it. Which could likely be never again.
Buffy yawned as she slowly opened her eyes to the darkness of her bedroom. A frustrated check of the alarm clock elicited a gargled moan as she realised she’d only been in bed for an hour. The recent absence lately of the dreaded slayer dreams had been blissfully welcomed without argument, but apparently, they were back now and Buffy felt like she could scream. Even if they never usually were high in the sense-making, at least they weren’t usually totally off-the-wall-ridiculous. And they never featured Spike in any way, shape or form; there weren’t enough ways to express how of the good that fact had been.
Why in the world would Spike be featuring in her dreams? At least the part about him getting beat up was somewhat accurate, and it was a comforting thought. At least some dire situation like a fake engagement wasn’t on the horizon. Spike’s ass being whooped by feral looking rabbits on steroids was something even the Slayer could appreciate. So, the Power’s That Refused To Be Accurate were giving her flashy warnings that in the near future, Spike was going to come out on the not-so-top of a brush with scary rabbits. She so didn’t care.
Although, come to think about it, she was more than a little irritated that thoughts of Spike and his relevance to her dream-life was depriving her of many zzz’s.
Buffy sat up and glared at her pillow, where she saw a smirking peroxided pest that she infinitely preferred to see battered and bleeding, and was suddenly inspired to wallop her pillow to an inch of its feathery stuffing. She would get some sleep tonight if it killed her, and if the Power’s saw fit to ruin it with another freaky dream, Spike was going to pay. Laying her suddenly heavy head on the fluffy goodness, Buffy closed her eyes and was snoring within minutes.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Every so often, Xander Harris dragged his girlfriend out into the chilly Hellmouthy air and helped Buffy on patrol. It was dangerous, foolhardy and stupid—three things Anya hadn’t stopped repeating to him since he’d forced her to start accompanying him—and yet he hardly cared. Being beside Buffy while she decapitated people they’d gone to school with, old teachers and even strangers, held all the appeal of a Big Dipper at the carnival. Especially when he considered that most vamps she slayed used to be people that, he imagined, had slighted him in their life; that was, if they’d ever met him
It made him feel alive to see Buffy dust so much of the dead. Undead. Whatever. He only wished she wasn’t particular about who she bestowed the pleasure. If she gave him the word, he’d make personally sure that Spike found his own personal highway to Hell and didn’t stop zooming till he reached the end.
It seemed darker than usual as they walked toward the first cemetery. Buffy had warned him that she had something to take care of and wouldn’t be able to patrol with them—going so far as to suggest they stay in and…do what Anya liked to do when they stayed in. But Xander had scoffed, roared his manliness while beating his chest all bruisy, and then took Anya’s arm like they were going out on a date. Which on the mouth of Hell, so wasn’t far from the main point.
He’d had high hopes for the night—even with the lack of Buffy’s presence. He was feeling good and sprightly right up until they’d walked through the gates and saw the first vampire of the night, and suddenly, he just knew his night was gonna suck. It didn’t even matter that the bizarre came along with the most annoying vamp ever.
Still, the view had him stopping abruptly and his belly rumbling hungrily—which really wasn’t that appropriate in the presence of the enemy.
Spike was standing beside the most ginormous carrot Xander had ever seen. His mouth was hanging open, his eyes disbelieving and his finger pointing at the thing as soon as he recognised his company.
“It’s a bloody giant carrot,” he said, gaping in shock.
“Way to state the obvious, Fang Face.” Xander contemplated the really overgrown vegetable and dismissed the possibility that Spike had planted it as some kind of joke. And he really hadn’t been intending to go with a pun that lame.
Still, that was one heck of a carrot.
“How d’you think it got here? Any giant gardeners you know out there, Spike? Someone with some magic vege beans that tell too many mixed up whacked out demon fairytales about salads?” Xander was smugly patting himself on the back for that one, his satisfied smile only slipping when Spike turned incredulous eyes on him.
“What are you talking about, you berk? It’s a bleeding carrot—growing in some pretty fertile soil if you take into account all the decomposition and the like.” He ignored the suddenly green faces looking at him in horrified fascination. “You better tell the Slayer ‘bout this. Girl's lettin’ vegetables get out of control right in her backyard. 'S not right." He glared at them for good measure, shoved his hands in his pockets and spun on his heel, striding away with more purpose than a useless vamp had any right to.
It was only after Spike had left that Xander wondered at Anya’s uncharacteristic silence through the whole exchange. Once upon a time, she would have had the craziest things to say about something as peculiar as a giant carrot in the middle of a busy graveyard, but it seemed that his patient lessons on acclimatising to the Hellmouth were taking effect. Progress that impressive should be rewarded, and seeing as how Buffy wasn’t planning to show anyway, Xander decided they should ditch potentially nasty and violent demons and go hang out at the Bronze instead.
“Hey Ahn, feel like shaking that booty? I’ll make it worth your while,” he hinted coyly as he took the first of many coercive steps away from the giant carrot.
Anya looked at the massive orange overgrowth and shuddered before quickly chasing after Xander. “Orgasms?” she asked hopefully, already mapping out a thousand ways she could force Xander to make her forget the hideous sight. Giant carrots looked like the perfect munchy for giant rabbits and that was a thought far too terrifying for her to deal with when she was all hyper and far from relaxed. Sex would do it. Sex could get her into that zone where such things didn’t scare her witless.
Xander was left staring as Anya blurred past him. Huh! She must really hate patrol.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Absolutely nothing had gone right since Buffy had dragged Dawn out of his crypt earlier in the night. He’d been feeling kind of wanted—liked—with the Bit sitting and hanging on his every word. She made him feel like something, helped him regain a little bit of his bruised and battered ego by letting him recall the glory days of his past with his lady love.
His previous lady love. Couldn’t exactly call Dru that now, could he? Not when the bint had gone to all the trouble of replacing him with the stickiest, slimiest bugger he’d ever had the misfortune to meet. He’d never been able to understand why they got the name of chaos demon. He thought the nit’s ancestors must have been pretty pretentious if they thought the dripping slime from their antlers was gonna be the big thing in chaos. Not that he hadn’t achieve it in one of the longest, most successful relationships in the history of demons. Wanker showed up and Spike was booted out on his ass. At least he wasn’t dust, even if oftentimes he’d craved an end to it all.
But not now.
Now he had Buffy to think about. The most frustrating bitch he’d ever clashed with was the one thing his heart wanted most to touch. Was bloody inconvenient, but her family was all right. Pretty decent—well, fantastic really. He loved Joyce—could never get enough of her hot chocolate and wished he had that on tap nightly. And the littler Summers was proving to be a right nice little treat, too. Not that he’d ever consider eating her. She was too much fun, had balls the size of the sun for him to even consider offing her whenever he wasn’t a useless gummy vampire again.
Still, the Slayer had snatched up the kid and he’d headed off for his nightly wander and he was fast coming to the conclusion that the night was bloody strange. And what was Harris and his bird doing out when it wouldn’t take more than a witless vamp to end them for good? Heh! That possibility brought a smile to his lips. It almost immediately turned into a frown the second he realised if the git was dead, the so would be his financial backer.
“Balls!” Gritting his jaw, Spike continued on his aimless trek. The night was relatively young, the Slayer was otherwise preoccupied…he was a vampire without aim or a sodding clue. He wasn’t welcome anywhere he could be bothered to go and that alone could really wear on a bloke’s confidence. At least he could still defend himself at Willie’s and shut up any bastard that dared question the validity of his presence, but when the Slayer and her chums got mean, it was all he could do to bite his tongue—not that he even managed that fast enough sometimes.
So it was that he was feeling a might bit touchy and more than a little depressed when Buffy seemed to accidentally step into his path. She had her arm raised, her fist gripping her stake like any good slayer should and her downswing all sorts of dead on accurate if he’d had a lovely big target painted over his chest. He just couldn’t summon up the will to care.
She looked suddenly nervous and her thrusting arm slowly dropped.
“Don’t let me stop you, Slayer. Seems like something’s got you all worked up and you need to put a bloke down.” His lips weren’t in the usual taunting, over-confident smirk. He was too tired to smirk, truth be known, and too heartsick to exist. He felt like he’d rather just be put out of his misery than pass through another lifetime knowing he’d fallen for the wrong woman.
“I, um, thought you were a different vampire.” She tried, unsuccessfully, to repress the blush that spread across her cheeks at seeing Spike. Dawn’s most recent revelations—while Buffy hardly considered them even slightly accurate—embarrassed her and she couldn’t get the images of her engagement to him and their many heated lip locks out of her mind. It made her tummy twirl in objection, made her feel twisted in knots and want to run away hard and fast so that the sight of him would stop throwing her off.
“Why are you acting all bad moody for anyway? It’s not my fault you feel you have to take your little expeditions where I patrol. With a stake.” She couldn’t help feeling resentful. She had all sorts of bad blowing up in her face lately and any kind of complication from Spike’s strange corner of the world could very well contribute to her fast track to the funny farm.
Spike’s eyes flashed, honing in on that little bit of something he seemingly needed to feel alive each night. “That’s right, Slayer. I forgot you owned the night. Silly me for not getting up like all good citizens and go for a blazing walk in the sunlight. Tell you what, I promise I’ll give it a shot, but only if you’re standing by with a hose and a blanket to beat out the flames.” He glared at her, his ire a damn good disguise for how horny he got from trading barbs with her.
“How ‘bout we try it now? You do the standing still and I’ll just beat you to death.” Buffy smiled sweet and false as she stood, arms crossed and her foot tapping delicately.
Spike looked her up and down and sneered. “I doubt you’ve got what it takes. In fact, I doubt you’ve got it in you to take on that bloody enormous carrot jutting out of the earth at Restfield. And it’s a vegetable.” Spike snickered, suddenly getting his own joke. “Get it? You wanted a victim that couldn’t move. Maybe that one’ll be more your speed.”
And before Buffy could think of a come back, Spike was ambling off, hands in duster pockets and his lips pursed around a jaunty tune. Took a truly gifted demon to make good use of the bizarre to make the Slayer feel yay high.
Buffy watched his back as he disappeared into the night, dismay making her grouchy. She wondered if she could test just how far she could throw a stake and watch it hit its mark, and then felt slightly guilty about the fact that Spike always seemed to be on the worst side of a beating and here she was contemplating making him dust. Not that his insane crush on her—if Dawn wasn’t fabricating the terrifying prospect all out of proportion—wasn’t an automatic ticket to Deathsville in her book. And after that comment that she needed things to be inanimate and statuesque so she could actually take them out, she should pummel him rotten.
With an irritated sense of thwarted achievement, Buffy spun on her fashionable yet cheap and breakable heel, “crap!”, bent down to retrieve it and check the vicinity for peroxided perverts, and headed for home.
“Giant werebunnies are too good for you, Spike.” She took five awkward steps and stopped. “And he mentioned carrots. Is he tapped into my dreams now?” Buffy paused in her thoughts and her walk, then shook her head. “No way. He’s just terrifyingly coincidental.”
She worked on banishing Spike and his strange musings all the way home. Reaching the porch and opening the front door, it never once occurred to her that she had succeeded in ridding her thoughts of him.
Spike simply didn’t matter anymore tonight.
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!