Tango
Part TwoThe corner mart was open 24 hours. In a row. Which was a good thing because Buffy only remembered to shop around 2:30 am, after she had dusted the last vamp and put Mr. Pointy to bed. She was totally not used to being the breadwinner…or buyer…or whatever…for the family. As she prowled the empty aisles with her basket, she thought about how her Mom had made it all look so easy. Joyce Summers, her daughter was coming to understand, had been something of a wonder with the working and the child rearing and the dinner creating.
“Pasta!” Buffy said, perkily, as she picking up a box of noodles. “Pasta makes for a nutritious dinner.”
She turned the package over and frowned at the instructions on the back.“It seems simple enough,” she remarked, to nobody in particular.
But cooking was a deceptive art. And the Slayer had learned through bitter experience that unlike Aikido, Swordsmanship, Remote Viewing or even French Braids, it was one she was not going to master.
“Nothing ventured, nothing stuck to the pot,” she quipped and with a fatalistic little shrug popped some ziti and a jar of ready-made sauce into the basket on her arm.
“Salad, breadsticks and a nice peach sorbet and I’m done,” Buffy said, pausing to ponder, still thinking out loud, “Unless we need cereal…or milk...or juice,” she sighed, “and once again, with the reminder to self about making a list.”
Trying to visualize the cupboards at home, Buffy stared, absentmindedly, up the aisle toward frozen foods. It took a moment to register something very odd in her line of sight. There was a black clad, blue-eyed, vampire with a lit cigarette smoldering in his right hand a few feet away from her. He was leaning nonchalantly against the aisle shelves, watching Buffy with a sort of creepy intensity. Which, when she came to think about it, was fairly normal. It was the shopping cart beside him that was odd.
“Spike?” the Slayer exclaimed, not believing her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
In answer, the blonde vampire held up his left hand displaying a six-pack of dark ale, definitely not domestic.
“You’re buying beer at the Quick-Mart?” Buffy asked, in surprise. “Since when?”
“Since the beer fairy stopped delivering,” Spike responded. Pushing away from the shelving, he set his beer burden in the bottom of his cart, took a long drag off his cigarette and started toward her leaving his buggy behind. “I called him a poof one night last week and he just sodded off.”
“I meant more like…since when are you actually buying things,” Buffy clarified, definitely not amused by his wit. “Paying with the money as opposed to say…I don’t know…STEALING?”
“This is the only bleeding place open at this hour,” Spike explained, his tone infuriatingly reasonable. “How many times you think I can rob it before someone catches on? Then we make with the recriminations and the blood-shed and the searing head pain.”
“How many times have you robbed it already?” Buffy asked, pointedly.
“Three or four,” Spike shrugged, not really remembering. “Why?” he added slyly, deliberately misunderstanding her. “You want us to knock the place over, now? A sort of, Bonnie and Clyde, grab and dash thing?” He leaned in close to examine the contents of her basket before continuing, “’Cause if that’s what you’re planning we need to get the breadsticks first…a nice Chianti…maybe a little cheese.”
Buffy closed her eyes and counted to ten but when she looked again Spike was still there. She decided to pretend he wasn’t. She stepped around him and started for the dairy case, certain now it was milk she needed. Spike fell into step beside her not taking the hint.
“Idin this nice?” he sighed. “Very domestic. They say it’s the secret of a healthy relationship…doing the little things together. Call it Quality Ti…”
“Bugger off!” Buffy snarled, whipping around on him.
Spike fell back a step from the unexpected assault and then what the Slayer had just said hit him. It hit Buffy at the same time. She turned a lovely shade of red.
“I-I m-mean…Go Away,” she stammered, blushing right down to her toes.
“Oh, I understood you the first time, Pet,” the vampire assured, grinning wolfishly. “English is my native tongue, you know.”
“And I could so easily make it Sign Language,” the Slayer growled, using one hand to mime the ripping out of Spike’s native tongue. Fed up with him, she moved in, menacingly.
“Alright, alright, don’t get all lathered up,” Spike said in a tone guaranteed to make Buffy wince. “You need a little personal space, that’s always an option.”
“Matter of fact,” he added, with a snap of his fingers, “I believe it’s another secret of the healthy relationship. I was watching the Mars and Venus thing again yesterday, Lifetimes' got the reruns,” Buffy bristled and he quickly amended, “Only ‘cause I couldn’t sleep, and…anyway…that Moonlighting bint was going on about how…”
Buffy turned on her heel and walked away from him. Spike watched her move off, tilting his head slightly, thoroughly enjoying the view. He had a self-satisfied little grin on his face. He waited until Buffy reached the end of the aisle before calling after her in an echoing voice.
“Mind you remember Dawn likes the real Romano cheese…none of that powdered Parmesan crap.”
Turning the corner, Buffy stared down one of the bag boys as he gaped at her. She was about to get on with her shopping when she suddenly realized she should make sure Spike made like Elvis and left the building. She hurried to the produce section, ducked down behind a mountain of watermelons and targeted his basket in the security mirror over the cash registers.
Buffy watched, in fascination, as items disappeared from the shelves and reappeared in Spike’s shopping cart. After a very brief time, the cart headed for checkout. She watched the weird exchange of money between vampire and clerk. Once the cash was totally out of Spike’s hands it became reflective again. His groceries, also, reflected nicely on the conveyer belt but as soon as he picked up his paper sack it was gone.
A minute later, the store’s electronic doors seemed to whisper open and closed of their own accord. Peering around her cover of watermelons, Buffy watched Spike fade into the darkness of the parking lot. His coat, faintly visible to the last, glittering and swishing as it picked up the overhead lights, finally flickered from view. With a small sigh, Buffy straightened up and took a step back. Something brushed lightly against the bare skin of her shoulder.
Something very like a warm hand. Nerves already at the twanging point, the Slayer yelped and spun around.
The most attractive man Buffy had ever seen was standing just inches away from her. He was a brunette. His tightly curled hair was cut short and he had a high, intellectual forehead. His mouth was finely chiseled, his nose was straight and his cheekbones were pronounced. His eyes, however, were easily his most striking feature. They were blue under dark upswept brows, but as Buffy looked into them they seemed to shift shade from Caribbean to sea foam to cobalt and finally back to Caribbean again.
Unfortunately, Buffy didn’t have as much time as she needed to study the man’s chameleon like eyes before fate stepped between them. Fate took the formof the Slayer’s forgotten grocery basket. It crashed into the lowest watermelon in the precariously stacked fruit peak, destabilizing it. As the melons rumbled into motion, the masculine vision stepped out of the line of fire. Buffy, still at ground zero, did an impressive series of pirouettes and flips to avoid the cascading fruit. She almost succeeded in adverting disaster and then she slipped in a puddle of juice and went down. Within seconds, Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer Extraordinaire, was buried alive under an avalanche of succulence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Willow,” Buffy shouted in breathless excitement, as she practically skipped into the Magic Box the next morning. “You’ll never guess what happened.”
“Are you saying that because you think I’m a very bad guesser?” Willow asked, placing her book face down on the research table. “Because the turtle incident in 9th grade was not a good example. You can't go around expecting…”
“It’s because no one would ever guess, Wills,” Buffy interrupted, with a huge grin. But she sobered slightly as she added, “And you should just let go of the turtle incident. Okay?”
“It haunts me,” Willow admitted. “I still have the flashbacks. I can see that little face peeking out of its shell…mocking me…”
“I met the most wonderful man,” the Slayer announced, effectively cutting off the Wiccan woman’s painful reminiscence. Buffy gestured broadly as she corrected herself, “Okay, first I knocked over a load of watermelons and then I made a complete ass out of myself trying to avoid the onslaught of juiciness but then…I met the most wonderful man.”“You mean like a MAN man?” Willow asked, sitting forward on her seat in eager interest. “Like a dating type man? Like ‘I am here to pick up Buffy for a fabulous evening out’ kind of man?”
“Yes, that is exactly the kind of man that I mean,” Buffy acknowledged and then she continued in a giddy overly feminine voice. “A svelte, brilliant and, I am willing to bet, terribly poetic man, who asked me out for coffee. His name is Roscoe Valenti.”
“Cool,” Willow breathed out, her eyes sparkling with vicarious excitement. “And did you? The coffee I mean? Or rather…will you? You said ‘yes’ right?”
“I did,” Buffy sighed, plopping into a chair and staring dreamily into space as she related the story, “We drove to L.A. and watched the sunrise from our spot on the beach, sitting on the hood of his black Jaguar.” She paused, for the dramatic effect of the car before going on, “We ate fine pastries and drank Jamaican Blue Mountain blend and talked about deep meaningful things for hours and hours.”
“Los Angeles?” Willow peeped, frowning in concern. “Buffy? With a total stranger? Just like that? In the middle of the night?”
“I know,” Buffy grinned, totally thrilled with her own daring. “Isn’t it wild? I don’t know what came over me. There was just something about him I instantly trusted.”
“Well…” Willow considered this unhealthy behavior, still holding back the support, “…some demons or even powerful warlocks can cast a glamour over you. Make you feel all safe and secure. It probably is okay because…well…look…you are home and nothing happened. But you should be more careful, Buffy. This IS the Hellmouth.”
“Yeah,” Buffy smirked, rolling her eyes, “and I AM the Slayer. I checked him out for the fangs and the Hell-Smell, Will. He was totally clean.”
“But he could have been a plain old human serial killer,” Willow insisted, pantomiming a Psycho-style knifing. “With the slicing and the dicing and the leaving of your body in a ditch.”
“Again, SLAYER!” Buffy reminded, tapping her chest. She was growing impatient with her friend’s lack of enthusiasm. “Also, I am fine, healthy, unharmed, elated, overjoyed, spinning around with the blissful happy.”
“And, of course,” Willow said, with the small, prim smile of false cheer, “I'm happy, too. Happy for your happy! So, tell me more…tell me everything. What does he do for a living?”
“Nothing,” Buffy replied, watching Willow’s frown return. “He’s retired.”
“Uhm, Buffy?” the Wiccan woman began, her frown morphing into a scowl. “Just how old is this Roscoe guy?”
“Oh, I don’t know about 75 or 80, I guess,” Buffy shrugged. She let Willow steam for a beat and then burst out laughing at her friend’s dismayed expression.
“Buffy, don't do that,” Willow yelped, slapping at the blond woman to make her stop teasing.
“He’s 26, Will,” Buffy reassured, gently. “But he invented some kind of Silicon Valley gizmo and then sold the company for about a half a gazillion dollars. So now he lives the life of leisure, traveling and such. Did I mention the Jag?”
“Y-y-yes, you did mention,” Willow said hesitantly not sure what to think about all of this un-Buffy-like giddiness. “And I am still glad that you’re happy and…well…safe…and everything…and that your date went well. But next time maybe you shouldn’t just go off to Los Angeles with a strange man in the middle of the night. You know, just cause some people might worry.”
“There won’t be a next time, Willow,” Buffy said, gleefully. She stood up and took a quick spin with her arms spread wide, exclaiming, “Because this is it! He’s the one! I knew it the moment I saw him. Did I mention he is such a hottie? What amazing cheekbones and those eyes. And there was like this instant connection between us. Boom! I think we’re soulmates or something.”
“'Soulmates--?'” Willow squeaked, in shock. “B-but Buffy you just met him last night. It was only one date. Not even a date…coffee and Danish. Isn’t it a little soon to be…”
“Willow, I love how you worry and fret,” Buffy interrupted, planting a kiss on her startled friend’s brow. “But there really is absolutely no need for you to be concerned. You’ll see…Roscoe Valenti is the perfect man.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“He’s the 'perfect man,'” Willow air quoted, filling in Xander the next afternoon at the Magic Box, “That’s what she said. That was her exact adjective…'perfect!'”
“Willow is a little concerned about Buffy’s new boyfriend,” Tara explained, to the Construction Foreman.
“Hence the group gathering?” Xander guessed.
“We haven’t gone out together in a long time,” Willow reminded, earnestly.
“And…and so…so what if it gives us a chance to check him out?”
“Honey,” Tara cautioned, nodding her head toward the training room where the Slayer was dressing, "this is Buffy's decision."
“Hey, who can say? Maybe he is perfect,” Xander remarked, placing his lunch box and hardhat on the research table. He gestured expansively in response to Willow's harsh snort, “I mean for Buffy. Maybe she sensed something in him. You know, like love at first sight.”
“Only guys believe in love at first site,” Willow said, rolling her eyes. “That’s a total myth…just like the ‘Perfect Man’.”
“And you are not saying this because you are currently pro-Fem, right?” Xander asked.
“Xander is perfect,” Anya chirped, popping up from behind the sales counter, with a small jar of weevils in her hand.
“See? It's all in the eye of the beholder,” Xander reposted, before sweeping Anya into his arms for a hello kiss. The ex-demon managed to return the embrace and still keep tight hold of her merchandise.
“Well, maybe…” Willow hedged. “But don’t you think this…sudden Buffy obsession is…well…a little bit…strange?”
“Strange how?” Xander inquired, coming out of the smooch but still cuddling Anya close. He used his free hand to divide the room into two halves as he asked, “Strange, as in Buffy REALLY likes some guy she just met? Or strange as in we should be expecting him to eat out our eyeballs?”
“To-may-toe, To-mah-toe,” Willow sighed, leaning into Tara. The blond Wiccan placed a small consoling kiss on her lover’s brow.
There was a rumble of extreme horsepower outside the Magic Box and Roscoe Valenti’s Black Jaguar slid to a stop on the far side of the street.
“Okay, show time,” Tara said, fiercely. She gave her lover a tiny shake, as she cautioned, “Everyone try to remember, this is very important to Buffy. Even if we don’t like him let’s all try to be supportive.”
The assorted Scoobies nodded their assent as Buffy’s beau stepped out of his parked car. Through the display windows at the front of the shop the assembled friends got their first good look at him. There was a collective gasp from all four of Buffy’s pals.
“Oh, it can't be,” Tara exclaimed, rubbing a hand over her eyes and squinting as she asked, “Is it just me or does he look exactly like…?”
“Spike,” Xander yelped, stepping forward to glare as the man loped across the street.
“That is Spike,” Willow confirmed, pressing close to the window.
“Well, his hair's different,” Anya said, cocking her head to one side, considering, “and he’s out in the sunlight, so he can't be a vampire. But he definitely looks like Spike.”
“Is he here?” Buffy asked, arriving from the back room, fussing with her hair and adjusting her outfit. "How do I look?"
Luckily, the question was rhetorical. Nobody glanced in the Slayer's direction. The bells over the shop door gave a festive tinkle as Valenti entered and Buffy, eyes sparkling, rushed up to kiss his elegantly carved mouth. He turned his head at the last second so the soft brush of her lips landed on his sculpted cheek and offered her a chaste embrace. The Slayer drew back, frowning briefly, before recovering her equilibrium.
“Everyone,” she announced, turning to her buds with a somewhat dulled smile. “I would like you to meet someone very special…”
“I think we’ve already met, Buff,” Xander growled, stepping in, aggressively.
Willow moved hastily to Xander's side and laid a restraining hand on his arm. She shook her head at him and pointed at the mirror to Buffy's left. Both the Slayer and her date were reflected in the glass. Buffy was looking dreamily up at her new beau as he held her hand to his heart. She was oblivious to the Xander/Willow exchange.
“This is Roscoe Valenti,” the Slayer purred. Obviously, drifting in her own little world, she waved vaguely at the Scoobies, “Roscoe these are my very best friends.”
“I-I-I’m Tara,” the blond witch stuttered. Stepping away from Willow and holding out her hand, she regained a bit of her composure, adding, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Valenti.”
“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” Valenti replied. He released Buffy and gripped Tara’s hand, gently, leaning toward her as he whispered, "Please, call me Rocko.”
“Rocko,” Tara breathed out in a dazed way. Totally ignoring Willow’s betrayed glare, she massaged the hand Valenti had held as if it was bringing her intense pleasure to recall his touch.
“I’m Willow Rosenberg,” Willow asserted, edging between her lover and this strangely hypnotic male.
“Willow?” Rocko said in a tone of mildly pleased surprise. “Buffy has told me so much about you. I am honored.”
Willow was bristling angrily as the man reached for her hand but as his fingers closed around her own she felt the tension bleed out of her body. All of the suspicion and hostility drained from her mind. Rocko smiled at her in a way that seemed to ask for her understanding and support. His palm was warm, his touch soothing. Willow knew, instinctively, no harm would ever come to Buffy as long as Roscoe Valenti was there to protect her. She sighed, staring up into his sea blue eyes. He really was the perfect man.
“And this is Xander,” Buffy said, indicating the carpenter, who was watching Willow with a puzzled frown on his face.
“Xander,” Rocko affirmed, giving Xander’s hand a quick manly shake.
“And I’m his fiancée,” Anya inserted, taking Xander’s arm possessively. The beautiful man turned his Caribbean Blue gaze on the ex-demon and smiled but made no attempt to touch her.
"Anya?” he inquired, lifting one brow. “The former Vengeance Demon?”
“Uhckh?” Xander choked, ratcheting back up to hostile suspicion in a flat second. “THE WHAT?”
“Oh, I told Rocko all about our little demon hunting group last night,” Buffy admitted with a tiny shrug, adding, “I don’t want to have any secrets from him.”
“Buffy is a very forthright person,” Rocko assured the people who had known her the best and longest. He pulled the Slayer into a one-armed embrace, as he said, “It's one of the things I admire most about her.”
“What exactly did you tell him?” Xander asked, shooting the Slayer a panicky glance, “I mean, besides the Demon stuff? And you understand," he said, turning to Rocko, "this isn’t something WE,” he gestured in a tight circle to include the gathered Scoobies, “generally talk about outside the group?”
"Oh, it's okay, Xander," Buffy said, shaking her head at her friend's reaction. "Rocko is one of us now."
"What did she tell you?" Xander insisted.
"Let me think,” the perfect man said, making a show of recalling. “I know Buffy is the Chosen One, the Slayer, and that makes her really strong and quick. And there's a Watcher of sorts…"
"Giles," Xander murmured, heartily wishing the older man was here. "He's in San Diego for the weekend."
"I know Tara and Willow are powerful witches," Rocko continued, "and Willow was instrumental in defeating a Hellgod…uhm…now what was her name?”
“Glory, sweetie,” Buffy prompted and was rewarded with a dazzling smile from Roscoe’s full lipped mouth.
“Ah, yes,” Valenti nodded, patting the Slayer's hand, indulgently. “Glory, of course. How could I forget?”
“And y-y-you’re not su-surprised or anything?” Tara asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “I mean usually there are questions. I know I had lots of questions.”
“We talked it all out,” Buffy reassured, before favoring Rocko with another one of those melting looks. “I told him all about my life and he told me all about his.”
“Did you tell him about the dying?” Anya asked, brightly.
“Dying?” Rocko returned, looking down at the Slayer in confusion. “What about dying?”
“Buffy’s dying,” Anya replied, airily. “You know first she was dead and then she wasn't. There was a sword and blood and Willow got sparkly. It was all very exciting. Everyone had a part to play.”
“We didn’t get into that,” Buffy hissed, narrowing her eyes at Xander’s fiancée.
Without understanding quite why, the Slayer had carefully omitted any reference to her own death and resurrection when telling Rocko her life story. She had also left out any mention of Spike. She waved one hand now dismissing the subject.
“And besides there isn’t really that much to tell…dead…back…that about sums it up,” Buffy shrugged, pulling away from the billionaire. “So are we going out tonight or what?”
“Ooh, there’s a DJ at the Bronze,” Anya said. “Which means they will play music that I hear on the radio and can therefore sing along with rather than a strange band with music that I have never heard before.”
“The Bronze sounds great,” Buffy agreed, in a satiny tone of voice, as Rocko trailed a hand down her exposed back. “A little dinner and a lot of dancing makes for a happy Buffy.”
“We will go then,” Roscoe Valenti asserted, with a small tight smile as he absentmindedly stroked the Slayer’s bare skin. “But first I insist on buying everyone dinner. Chez Louise? And while we dine perhaps I can persuade one of you to tell me a few more of Buffy’s secrets. I admit I am fascinated. I didn’t realize she was quite so enigmatic.”
Breaking their contact, the Slayer frowned, lifting a hand to her brow and blinking, as if under the influence of some powerful drug. She glanced at her date, and felt the briefest frisson of fear. For a flickering second, Rocko Valenti looked remarkably familiar and then he looked horrifyingly wrong. Buffy tried to focus on the subliminal change but her date dropped an arm around her shoulder and her glimmer of suspicion passed into hazy memory.