Ring. Ring.

He stirred, slowly blinked the sleep out of his eyes to find his arm wrapped around a warm wriggling body.

Ring. Riiiing.

An insistent finger poked his sternum. The mumbled complaint was barely audible but the sentiment behind it was hard to miss. Turn the bloody phone off or you’ll get slapped upside the head. Well, perhaps without the ‘bloody’ part but he liked to think he was rubbing off on her.

He fumbled behind his back to put a stop to the obnoxious sound and dismissed the call before it could resume its hollering. The phone dropped on the nightstand again, his clumsy hand knocking something onto the floor. He couldn’t be bothered to turn around and find out what.

“Ugh,” sounded right beside him and to his displeasure, she slid out of the bed, his arm dropping to the still warm sheets from where it had been curled around her waist.

“Where ‘re you going?” He rolled onto his back, eyes tracking her every move as she rose to her feet and stretched. He wondered if he’d ever get tired of seeing her naked. When she turned to face him with sleepy eyes and the tiniest hint of a smile, he knew he wouldn’t. Not even if they were old and wrinkly because he was one kinky, insatiable bastard.

“Your phone woke me up.”

“So? Come here.” He bit his lip and patted the empty space beside him. “‘S not like we have to go back to sleep, seeing as we’re both up and,” he glanced down at himself with a suggestive leer, “up.”

She arched her eyebrow, a nymph with early morning sunlight whispering through her hair and spilling over her curves. And he should really stop waxing poetic in his own bloody head, especially when she was saying something and looking at him as if expecting some kind of answer.

“What was that?”

Words were traded for a cheeky grin as she knelt on the mattress and prowled over to his still form in one smooth, tantalising motion. Her lips tickled the shell of his ear when she said, “I’d love to… But I have to go.”

“Go?” he repeated, eyes fluttering shut when her fingertips skittered down his chest and abdomen before disappearing beneath the sheet to give him a quick squeeze.

“Yup.” She let go and scurried out of his reach with an impish smile. “Last day of school, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Don’t see why you need to go to the human factory anyway,” he replied, feeling sour and dejected, adding on an extra pout to persuade her tender sensibilities. “I’m horny.”

She laughed and went over to the dresser in search of fresh knickers. If she chose the red lacy ones, that would be it. He’d pounce on her quicker than a cheetah on a three-legged gazelle. “You’re always horny.”

“Well… stop being so beautiful!” It gave his ego a boost to see her blush, even after all this time. Yeah, he still had it. With his fingers laced behind his neck, he let the sheet slip just a little bit lower. Just to give her a quick preview, mind.

“That’s not going to work,” she said, fully aware of his dirty tactics, eyeing the edge of the sheet with a hungry gaze, teeth worrying her bottom lip. “Well… maybe I could be a little bit late. Just a bit.”

Check and mate. And now that he’d cast the bait it was time to reel her in. Discarding the sheet, he rose, stalking over to where she was leaning against the dresser, staring as if she’d never seen him naked before.

“Could save you a bit of time if we shower together. Let me loosen up all those… knots.” Fingertips skimmed the length of her collarbone, her shoulder and then down, knuckles grazing the side of her breast before rubbing the sensitive underside. “I could give you a quick massage in all the right places.”

“Uh huh.” Eyelids at half-mast, she braced herself against his chest with unsteady hands.

Spike leaned in for the kill, cheek brushing against hers, hands traveling over the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, fingers spanning over her backside to press her flush against him from chest to knees. “I’ll lather you up real nice until you’re all slippery and… wet.”

“Okay,” she gave in with a sharp intake of breath, eyes dazed, skin burning and shivering beneath his palms.

She ended up being over an hour late.

*******

The phone wouldn’t stop ringing, buzzing angrily away on the coffee table near his bare feet. It was all he could do to stay seated and not smash the bloody thing against the wall. As he picked it up and stared at the unknown caller ID on the screen for the seventh time that day, he wondered whether it was the official prank-a-demon-hunter day and someone had forgotten to clue him in.

Bloody Yellow Pages. He should have known better.

With a muscle merrily ticking away in his cheek and menace in his voice, Spike accepted the call and barked, “What!”

Silence.

Spike growled. If they didn’t speak in the next three seconds he would—

“Umm… a-are you… are you really… you know,” sounded a voice so squeaky he had trouble recognizing the caller’s gender or age.

“Am I what? Someone who’s going to tear your head off and drink from your brain stem if you’re yanking my chain? Want to find out?”

“No!” A cough. “I mean, I have this… I thought you might be able to help.”

“I don’t do birthday parties,” he said because it wouldn’t be the first time someone thought having a ‘demon hunter’ at a party would be a marvelous replacement for a piñata.

“What?” Now that the caller seemed to have calmed down a touch, Spike thought the voice sounded male. Young though. And definitely puzzled.

“Never mind.” He shifted his phone to his other ear and leaned back against the cushions. “So what’s this problem you got, assuming you have one.”

A beat.

“There’s a monster in my closet.”

“Right,” Spike replied dryly. “And what? Does it steal your shirts? Chew on your dirty socks? Wear your sodding crotchless tights?”

“I think I got the wrong number,” said a somewhat subdued voice that made Spike instantly feel like the bottom of a well-worn shoe that just landed in dog shit. “Sorry to have bother—”

This time two years ago he wouldn’t have given a rat’s arse. How things change, eh? “Oh, come on, mate, I was just teasing you. Describe the nasty and I’ll see what I can do about it.”

The caller sighed, a relieved whisper of a sound. “Really? You think you can help me?”

“Sure. Now tell me what it looked like.”

“Good. Good. It’s… umm… I’ve never really seen it that well… kinda terrified to open the wardrobe lately. But it bit my hand the last time and I had to get stitches. It hid in the shadows, but… it had red eyes. And it almost felt like touching a snake,” he said, voice carrying a disturbed edge that told Spike he wasn’t making it up. “I told my mom a dog bit me.”

“Good call.” Spike pushed himself off the couch and headed upstairs to throw some kit on, seeing as he was only wearing unbuttoned jeans and nothing else. “How old are you anyway? Because I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. It’s a paid job.”

“I don’t care what the rate is, just please come. I have the money. I swear.”

The earnest tone made Spike roll his eyes. “Right. Text me your address and I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

*******

Of all days, this had to be laundry day. Of bloody course. Not a single black tee or a decent over-shirt in the house that didn’t smell as though it had been dragged through a pile of dirty socks. So now he was wearing a gag gift Buffy had given him for Christmas just to have a laugh at his expense, a flowery Hawaiian monstrosity of a fashion disaster that made him look like a member of a ukulele band. But what was a bloke to do? It was either that or go around half-naked since Buffy’s atrocious flannel shirts that could fit him were tossed in the laundry basket as well.

Resigned to looking like a right twat, he parked his car in front of a modest house in the suburbs on the outskirts of LA, killed the engine, slid out and locked the car. Discretion was the part of his job he didn’t much care for and so he marched straight to the front door and rang the doorbell. The kid’s mom was supposed to be at work anyway so it was unlikely he’d be chased down the driveway by an angry bird with a broom. Didn’t see any nosy neighbours lurking about either, thank God.

The door opened, a slightly scrawny kid peering up at him with eyes far too big for his face, the top of his head just about reaching Spike’s shoulders. He looked to be about thirteen, with a mass of curls that reminded Spike of his former self with an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. He also looked as if he hadn’t slept properly in days.

“The closet monster kid?” Spike asked without preamble, one eyebrow quirking up inquisitively.

“Yes. Come in, please.” He stepped away from the door and stuck his hand out. “I’m Will.”

Well, he’d be buggered. Fate had a funny way of throwing his past right back in his face.

“Spike.” He shook the kid’s hand and let it drop. The expected commentary on his name never came. Nor one on his awful shirt. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

“My room is upstairs.” Will pointed towards the staircase and eyed the duffel bag slung over Spike’s shoulder as they started to head upstairs. “Do you have weapons in there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Spike smirked, heaved the bag higher with an audible clank of metal scraping against metal.

“Are you… like a superhero?”

Spike almost stumbled on the last step but swiftly regained his composure. “Do superheroes get paid?”

“No,” Will said after a moment’s hesitation.

“There you go then.”

“But you help people. You’re like a Jedi! Kinda.” Big, round green eyes were fixed on his face and he couldn’t help but think they were a bit like Buffy’s. Sod it all to hell.

“A Star Wars fan, are you?” They entered the room and sure enough, the walls were pretty much covered with vintage Star Wars posters and various figurines littered all the surfaces like tiny soldiers. “Guess you are.”

“You don’t think I’m lame, do you?” Will asked, wringing his hands together, one of them bandaged up. “Everyone at school does.”

The strangest urge not to be a berk overcame him all of a sudden. Must have been something in the water earlier. “Nah. I like sci-fi too and I’m cool, aren’t I?” Well, that and soaps, but he’d be damned before he admitted that.

“You’re wearing a shirt covered in giant flowers.”

“It’s laundry day!” Maybe he should have gone half naked.

“It’s cool. I’m not big on fashion anyway,” Will said with a quick smile. “I can barely match my socks.”

“Just buy them all black,” Spike advised.

“So, do you really like sci-fi?” Will looked at him as if he was some prancing Prince Charming instead of a shifty demon hunter from the Yellow Pages.

“Sure.” He dropped the bag to the floor and knelt down to pull out a trusty old dagger. “I assume this is the closet?”

He hooked his thumb in the direction of the big closet built into the wall with plastic wrap stretching in front of it to cover the carpet.

“Yes. I… thought the wrap would be good. If it got messy.”

“Smart thinking.”

Will’s cheeks flushed at the praise, eyes dropping to the plastic-wrapped floor.

“How old are you anyway?” Spike asked as he signaled him to step back.

“Fifteen.”

Spike regarded the room around him as he stood up. “Fifteen and no half-naked chicks on your walls? Are you sure the closet monster isn’t your sexuality?”

Will blushed so much Spike worried for a while that his head would explode. With a shrug, he unlocked the doors and let it creak open.

“I like… I like boys.” Will’s admission made Spike’s attention stray away from the closet, one frozen limb suspended inside the closet.

Bad move.

Sharp canines tore into his palm and he yelped in surprise as the bite sent screeching pain racing up his nerve endings. He wavered on his feet and crashed headlong into the closet, the demon dangling off his arm like an angry Chihuahua, only three times as big. It was hard to see, especially when the struggle caused some clothes to slip off their hangers and drop over his head. The demon’s skull covered in scales was the size of a small cantaloupe, with its jaws spread obscenely wide and an array of sharp, prickly teeth Spike wasn’t currently very fond of. “Fuck! Fucking—”

He managed to bat the shirts away from his face, yank the wriggling demon out of the closet and pin it to the floor, but the thing was feisty and coiled around his forearm with clawed limbs. It felt like plunging his arm in the bucket filled with piranhas and he’d never had much love for fish. The dagger swished through the air, penetrated the skull and was buried in the demon’s head with a bone crunching impact and a high-pitched squeal. Blood splattered on his face in a high arc as the demon writhed in its death throes before finally falling limp in his grasp.

Carefully, slowly, Spike pried open its jaws and withdrew the fangs from his hand. It hurt like a bitch. But it was one of the easier jobs, if a little messy. “Sorry about the… uh… the closet joke,” he said finally, breathing hard.

Will shrugged though he didn’t meet his eyes. “You should wrap that up.”

Spike looked at his hand, flexing it involuntarily. Blood flowed. “Yeah, suppose I should. Got any first aid around?”

Will’s eyes flitted to the corpse, his cheeks sallow. “Y-yes. I’ll… bring it.” But it took him a few seconds to stir into motion. He was back soon though, dropping to his knees next to Spike while he poured alcohol from his hidden flask to disinfect the wound.

“What was it? The thing?”

Spike’s eyes watered as vodka sluiced over raw nerves but he bit down and took it like a man. “A closet monster,” he said, grinning a little through the stabbing pain.

Will fumbled with the gauze, trying to wrap it around Spike’s wrist while one of his own hands was halfway functional. “Well, yes. But… never mind. It doesn’t have a family, does it?”

“Fairly sure there isn’t. No signs of a nest,” Spike said, watching the progress of the boy’s slightly trembling fingers. “Tighten it a bit… yeah, just like that.”

“Thanks, you know. For coming over.”

Maybe he shouldn’t feel so pleased, so proud of himself to have helped, but he did. “Welcome.”

He had no idea why he was still sitting there. Why he wasn’t just taking the kid’s hard earned dosh and scampering off. It wasn’t as though he needed help, as though he’d bleed to death by the time he arrived home. For some reason he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave the kid alone in the empty house with a dead demon in his bedroom.

The gauze was secure but Will’s fingers stilled at his wrist for a second before withdrawing, face troubled as though he had a lot on his mind but couldn’t get his lips to form the words. Then, “Does it get better? When you get older?”

He had a feeling they were no longer talking shop. “Does what get better?”

“Everything.” Will didn’t meet his eyes, choosing to busy himself with tucking everything back into the first aid kit.

“Is it bad now?” Spike leaned his elbows on his knees, sitting casually but his eyes were intent. “That everything you’re talking about.”

A reluctant shrug. “Not every day. Just sometimes… Some guys say stuff to me.”

“Like?” What did he even care?

“Like calling me a fa-” Will’s lips pressed into a thin line. “They call me names. They say I’m… sick.”

“You’re not sick,” Spike said, eyes burning into his, voice strangely soft. For some reason, he felt protective and angry and his mind was filled with images of the kids at the foster home who had made a sport out of making his life a living hell. More so that it had already been at that point. “What does it matter who you fancy? Doesn’t make you worse than them, doesn’t make you a lesser person, does it? If you like blokes, then good for you. Tell them to stick it. They’re not worth your time.”

Will shrugged, picking at the invisible lint on his pants. “I didn’t even tell anyone. They just… knew.”

“So, let them. You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s their problem, not yours.” He felt like a bloody guidance counselor. “If they’re being wankers, punch them in the face. That should shut them up nicely.” Now, that was much better. Much more like him.

“I can hardly do sports without falling on my face,” Will said skeptically. “I doubt I’d get a punch in before they did.”

“’S not that hard. I could teach you.” Wait. What? Why had he just said that? And now the kid was looking at him as though he’d hung the moon and it just made his insides twist. “For money, of course.”

“Really?”

Spike shrugged, shifted uncomfortably in his spot. The corpse was beginning to stink. “World doesn’t suddenly become roses and kittens when you get out of school. It’s full of idiots who don’t know how to mind their own business. Never a bad thing to know how to protect yourself.”

“Well, that’s not very reassuring.”

“Sorry. Just saying how it is.” Something about the dismayed expression on the boy’s face made him soften. He might as well turn into a bloody mini marshmallow already. “There are good ones though. People who make all the bad worth it.” One glance towards the corpse told him they should probably get rid of it before it stank up the entire house. It was foul. “Come on, enough of the depressing talk. Let’s get this mess sorted out.”

Spike sprung to his feet and enfolded the dead demon in the plastic wrap. He didn’t even mention that clean up cost extra. Going soft, all right.

The demon ended up in the trunk of his car and now Spike was slinging the bag full of weapons over his shoulder and walking down the stairs. When he stilled in the doorway of the front door and turned around Will almost knocked the breath out of his lungs with the force of his hug.

“Thanks.” He let go with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry.”

“’S fine.”

“So how much… for the job?”

It seemed wrong to take money from him. For the first time ever, Spike felt guilty for charging. “Leave it.”

“What?” Will frowned. “No, I want to pay. I said I would.”

“No, reall—”

“Let me pay you. Please. I don’t want your pity and I don’t want to feel like I owe you.” His eyes were earnest and unwavering, jaw set in stubborn determination.

“Fine,” Spike said with a sigh and told him a price that was half of what he usually charged. A compromise for his nagging conscience.

Money exchanged hands and he tucked the roll into the front pocket of his jeans. “You want the lessons, call me and we’ll figure something out.”

Will smiled, a real smile that made his cheeks dimple. “I will. Thank you.”

“Take care,” Spike said as he turned on his heel, feeling disoriented and more than a little pathetic for feeling as though he wanted to be the kid’s friend.

*******

The minute Buffy walked into the house, he was there, face buried in her neck, hushed voice caressing her ear. “I missed you.”

She laughed, a warm, almost breathless sound that lit him up from the inside. Pathetic didn’t even begin to cover it. He was kind of all right with that.

“Missed you too. Classes were such a bore.” She kissed him, light and soft. “How was your day?”

“Worked a job just outside LA. Then came home and watched crap TV.”

“Ooh, exciting.” She took his hand and tugged him into the living room where they fell down on the couch with her tucked into his side. She fit next to him as though his body had been carved to match hers perfectly. “Meet anyone interesting? It wasn’t a blonde bimbo again, was it? Because there’s plenty of those in LA.”

“Nah, just a fifteen year old boy. Reminded me of myself when I was his age. A bit. Was even called Will.”

“Really?” Buffy stroked lazy circles on his thigh, a knowing grin on her face. “Did you totally spaz out?”

“I would never—” he started indignantly then deflated like a burst balloon. “I only charged him half the price and got rid of the body for free.”

“You’re a softie.”

He wouldn’t tell her he hadn’t wanted to charge at all. “Am not.” He huffed and searched under a throw pillow at his side for the remote.

“You are, just a teensy tiny bit. I think it’s sweet.”

Spike rolled his eyes and surfed the channels at an alarming speed. Passions was on in a few. “You know how to make me feel all manly.”

She bit his shoulder, hand moving higher and higher. “I do, don’t I?”

Ah, bingo. “Passions is on!”

A snort. “You’re a weirdo.”

After a moment, “Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

He looked over at her, smiled and said, “Love you too. Now shush, Timmy’s down the bloody well.”

THE END