Rating: PG-13 some strong language, but nothing you can’t handle

Disclaimer: It was a fine early morning in Savannah. Joss and I were sitting out on the jetty, enjoying a nice glass of ice tea, I decked out in my brand new dress and he in a beautiful white linen suit. He turned to me, taking the cigar out of his pretty, little mouth. "Desire, my sweet lump of cheese grits, please tell me you haven’t started another one of those fan fictions of yours." I rolled my eyes at him. I love my Jossie bear, honestly I do, but he can be as patronizing as a peach in the summertime. "Yes, you bearded old coot, I did start another fiction. I just can’t stop the writing bug." He sighed loudly. "You didn’t forget to tell your readers that you don’t own the characters did you?" "Of course not, sugar, collard green lumps. I always tell my readers that BtVS and all of its wonderful characters belong to you. You created them, you make money from them, not me." He leaned over and kissed me, sighing happily as he looked out over the water. "Well said, my little KFC Original not Extra Crispy two piece and a biscuit plate…hold the fucking phone Desire!" Joss glared at me, throwing down his cigar, climbing to his feet. "You’re trying to do a Southern parody and this is the best you can do?! You *are* Southern for Christ sakes! ‘As patronizing as a peach in the summertime’…that makes no sense, you dumb bitch!"

Author’s Note: Just call me a glutton for punishment ;D. Despite the fact I’m currently toiling away on 2 fics of my own and co-authoring ‘Bonnie and Clyde Spuffy Style’, with the wonderful Slickminted, this idea popped into my head and wouldn’t leave. I just had to get it out, so I bring you this first chapter, and a promise that I will try and update as much as I can. Of course an update all depends on if you like it…and if you like it, then by all means let me know ;D.

I originally rated this fic an R just for the language, but I figured having the ‘adult’ rating just for words a lot of use daily, was stupid. So, here on ff.net the fic will be a PG-13, but over at Spuffy Archives, it’ll stay an R and with good reason ;D.

Oh, and the title, borrowed from a wonderful Hugh Grant movie *sigh* isn’t he dreamy? ;D

***********************************

Cad, bastard, son-of-a-bitch, dickhead, asshole…

All names I’ve become quite accustomed to being called throughout my twenty-six years on this sodding planet. Some would actually say I’ve based my entire lively hood on those names, made good off of being the shallow, self-centered bastard people expected me to be.

I wasn’t born this way, not by any means, this was molded and shaped. My supreme smugness was the byproduct of several misadventures with the opposite sex since about the age of fourteen. Yes, before I let women completely fuck me up, I was a sensitive, sweet sort of bloke. You know the kind who wept openly and wrote poem after sappy poem about the girl he fancied. That, was, me then in a bloody nutshell.

I can remember the death of ‘sweet William Giles’ as clear as day. The exact time was six o’clock p.m., the exact date was February 14th, and the exact place my school’s gymnasium during a two- hour torture fest also known as an eighth grade social. It was a well known fact at that time that I was madly in love with Cecily Holmes, a rich, popular, glorious creature who was as far out of my league as one could get. Cecily was the epitome of unattainable and that of course only served to make me want her more.

Night after night, I toiled away on my utterly horrific poetry, trying to find exactly the right words to tell her how she made me feel, making myself even more lovesick in the process. The sheep she surrounded herself with couldn’t begin to see the greatness that encompassed her; Cecily was beautiful, smart, and funny, with a touch of mystery, a delicate, rare flower. The rest of our schoolmates were vulgarians, they weren’t like she and I…

Naturally with all of this bullshit swimming around in my brain, I cooked up the perfect plan to make my obvious love for her known. I crafted what I believed to be an amazing piece of prose that even Yeats himself would have leapt out of his grave to praise me for and I was going to hand deliver it to Cecily at the Valentines Social. Surely she would look up at me after reading it with tears in her eyes and throw herself into my arms….

Yes, sadly this is how delusional I had become.

So there I was, decked out in my navy blue turtleneck and brown corduroys, huddled against the wall with all of the other ponces who were as scared shitless as I was about asking a girl to dance. I spent the better part of that night on the wall, clutching my precious poem tightly as I watched all of the other blokes around me have the time of their lives. I’m not sure where it came from, maybe there was an odd message of encouragement hidden in the booming music of C&C Music Factory, but suddenly I was filled with the courage to make my dream happen. I quickly left behind my fellow sad sacks on the wall, and stalked over to the large group of popular kids which my Cecily stood directly in the middle of.

I’ve heard tales of people in an extreme state of panic, blacking out, I figure that’s exactly what happened to me the second my odious poem was ripped from my hands.

Everything else that happened after that occurred in brief, painful flashes; the music suddenly stopping as that stupid git Riley Finn began reading the words I had taken so long to craft, that I had actually managed to rhyme (including ‘effulgent’ and ‘bulge in it, as sad as that is). The sound of gut busting laughter that emitted from my schoolmates, and lastly, the sight of Cecily, my Cecily running out of the door in an attempt to escape the embarrassment.

Of course, me being the glutton for punishment that I am, I followed her, hoping to divulge my feelings in the right way. She let me ramble on and on with my hands shoved in my pockets, and my head down before finally stopping me cold…

"You’re beneath me, William."

At that exact moment my entire, fragile, little fourteen –year old, world was shattered. The entrancing beauty I thought I had loved so dearly transformed into a snotty ice princess right before my eyes. Why hadn’t I seen it? She was just like the others, only concerned with her precious reputation and sod all else, including other people’s feelings.

Yep, ‘sweet William Giles’ was gone, time of death 6:00 p.m., status DOA

The next four years of my life were spent honing a decidedly bitter and jaded way of looking at the world, women in particular and striking out against all authority. This was done by dying my hair a brilliant white blonde, practically living in an old pair of my brother Wes’ combat boots, and nicking my father’s old leather duster, making it my own.

But, at eighteen I found the one woman who shared my punk rock sensibility, she understood where I was coming from, played by her own rules, she was the one…

Or so I thought.

Drusilla Edwards was a dark beauty who breezed her way into the Fish Tank, a fairly seedy North London nightclub, that I happened to frequent (all apart of my ‘rebel’ persona). From the second she walked in, she owned that room I had never seen anything like her. A vision clad in black from head to toe, a wicked vision, and she looked directly at me.

If I had known Dru would have spent the next three years slowly sucking out my soul, I would have turned away the second we made eye contact, instead of sending her my trademark smirk.

Three years of flowers and puppies kind of love, bookend by the endless rounds of fighting and shagging other people on her part. I loved Dru with all of my being she was my black beauty, the very thing I lived for. And the day I came home to our flat only to find her in mid romp with our neighbor, I quietly stuffed a few of my clothes into a duffel bag and walked out without saying a word. After all, it would have been rude to disturb her.

I hopped a plane for good ole sunny California where my long absent father, Rupert resided in Sunnydale. I swore off women for good, sure they smelt nice and of course there was the wonderfulness that is sex, but they weren’t worth the trouble. I was the confirmed bachelor, the man’s man. I finished college at UC Sunnydale, immersed myself into my career as a writer, partied with my friends, fought like a rabid dog with my old man, evolved into the successful, selfish shell I am today, and I did it all without a woman to slow me down by tearing out my heart.

I had achieved my mission statement so naturally the next step was to destroy it all in one fell swoop, and I did exactly that the morning a baseball crashed through my front window.

TBC…

*****************************

Generally, I like to start my mornings off with three things: a good piss, a couple of smokes, and a nice cup of black coffee…

I was in the middle of the Today Show (as strange as it sounds, Katie Couric is perfect for ‘walking the dog’ to) and finishing off my cuppa when it happened. The rather loud sound of glass breaking just to the right of me accompanied by the sight of my mug being knocked to the floor by a baseball.

The moment I moved into my home on Revello, I quickly gained ‘scary old bastard’ status among the neighborhood youth. I guess it was just assumed that I could be capable of standing on my front porch all day, screaming at those little buggers to keep off my lawn. The idea that one of those drooling, snot monkeys had the balls to go anywhere near my place, let alone damage property, managed to impress me and piss me off all at the same time.

I climbed to my feet, grabbing the ball and quickly headed for the door, eager to meet the brave little Bit, who had put the ball through my window, maybe shake their hand before wringing their tiny neck. The second I opened it, I was met with a pair of wide green eyes, which were nearly hidden under a mess of chocolate brown hair.

"Mister, I’m really sorry, it was an accident…HEY!"

Now, some might say it’s inappropriate and just in poor taste to pick up a child by the collar of their jacket, but unlike those blighters, I don’t go for that touchy-feely crap, a direct statement such as this gets your point across just as nicely.

I carried the thrashing kid by one hand off of my porch, ignoring his pleas for me to put him down, and watched his poncey little friend take off running full speed down the street, ball glove in tow, before I turned to my ‘hostage’.

"Point." I said gruffly, giving him essentially the same look old Rupes use to give me when I had done something incredibly stupid. He sighed loudly and made a half-hearted gesture towards the house across the street. As evidence of how bloody in-touch I am with the goings on in my neighborhood, I hadn’t even noticed someone had moved into that place.

Without another word I marched my bundle over there, carefully balancing the baseball in one hand and him in the other.

"Knock."

He let out another sigh and gave me an eye roll, but obeyed my order, bringing up a hand to bang on the door.

For the second time that morning, I was met with a pair of wide green eyes, only instead of blatant fear like the first pair had held, these were burning with shock and anger. Also, these came attached to a beautiful little blonde number…hey, it may be early, but you can’t fault a guy for looking.

"Do either one of these belong to you?" I held out both the ball and the boy, just to add a little dramatics to my presentation.

She cocked her head to the side, crossing her arms over her chest. "Put him down."

I obliged, naturally, I’m not completely horrid you know, and tried bloody hard to stifle my laugh as the kid practically ran to her side.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"Who do I think I am?" I scoffed. "I’m just a bloke trying to enjoy his morning routine, which gets very bloody hard to do when you’ve been killed by a baseball!"

"It was an accident." The boy spoke up in such a meek voice, that I actually felt kinda bad for the way I had behaved. "Adam overthrew the ball and…"

I ignored the small twinge of guilt that had reared up, and refocused my attention back on the fiery blonde in front of me. There something about the way she glared at me, this may sound masochistic, but it was intense I never wanted to leave it. I just wanted to stand there all sodding day, fighting fire with fire…

"It would do you good to make sure your little brother and his friends don’t play so close to other’s property."

She broke the deadly stare we seemed to be locked into, turning to the boy at her side. "Honey, why don’t run upstairs and wash up, breakfast is ready."

"Okay, mom."

Mum? Mum?!

Before I had time to process what I’d just heard her attention was back on me again and the stare was deadly as ever.

"I’ll pay for the window." She said, slowly taking a step forward. There must have been only an inch between us now, and the way her tiny fists were clenching and unclenching were making me nervous. "But if you ever put your hands on my son again, I’ll rip your arms off and beat you over the head with them."

Manhood’s a funny thing. In my lifetime, I’ve faced numbers of wankers who were bigger than me, practically towered over me they did, and there wasn’t an ounce of fear in my body. But this girl, a sodding blonde for Christ sakes, had managed to instill genuine fear in me. Of course I bloody well didn’t show that on the outside, what kind of poofter do you think I am?

The corners of her mouth turned up into a vicious smirk as she gave me a quick once over, her eyes lingering for a bit on my lower half.

"I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you were doing." She grinned, turning back inside the house. "Let me know how much you want for that window, I’ll write you a check."

With a little snicker and another peek at my bottoms, she slammed the door in my face.

A smile slowly fixed itself on my lips, I couldn’t help it. She had so obviously been checking me out, that it made me want to laugh, I mean, it’s not every day a woman blatantly stares at your goods like that.

In my small moment of ego-induced reverie, I gave myself a once over, noting I had left my robe unbuttoned, among other things…

"Bloody hell!" I roared, quickly shutting it, and stalked angrily back towards my side of the street.

Can’t say William Giles doesn’t make a memorable first impression.

*********************************

"Katie Couric?"

I nodded solemnly, taking a sip of my latte.

"Katie Couric."

Xander gave me a nod of his own, a sign of complete male solidarity. Xander Harris has been like the annoying, not-nearly-as-good looking, American brother I’ve never wanted, but somehow ended up with. We’ve been best friends of sorts since we met on the first day of our freshman year at UC Sunnydale. I could always count on him to be there with a cold beer, ready to talk about anything pointless and therefore guy-like. How essential Katie Couric is to the male morning routine, included in our discussions.

"What’s this about Katie Couric?" Cordelia asked, flopping down into the seat next to him.

"Oh, Will was just telling me about his run in with the new neighbors earlier." Harris grinned, stuffing the rest of his muffin into his mouth like a pig.

Cordy raised an eyebrow at me. "Your new neighbor is Katie Couric?"

Xander laughed. "No, Katie Couric is who Will master….Ow!"

Let’s just say, a strong boot to his kneecap prevented Harris from finishing that sentence. Like I said before, we’re best friends ‘of sorts’, the fact he can’t keep his bleeding mouth shut when it needs to be is what keeps the ‘of sorts’ in that equation.

"Hey guys, what I miss?"

I was so busy laughing at the three shades of red Xander’s face was turning that I didn’t even notice when Willow plopped down in the chair next to me. Oh, I guess I should make the introductions. This is, for lack of a better and more grown up word, my clique. I met Willow Rosenberg not long after I met Xander, actually, they were like a package deal. Willow’s all round sweet personality and her adorable red hair meant that there was an instant attraction, and we did date for a short period of time before she dumped me (typical) for a girl in her Psych 101, Tara (not-so typical). Unlike all of my other disasters, Red and I parted on good terms and somehow remained great friends. Xander, Willow, and I were like the three Musketeers, that is, until Xander made the conscious decision to become Cordelia Chase’s lap dog, then our threesome became a foursome.

"Nothing much." Cordy grinned. "Will apparently got into it with his new neighbors and jerks off to Katie Couric in the morning."

I shot Xander a look, before glaring at the smug girl across from me. "Could you say that a little louder please?"

"You’re still talking about Neighbor Girl?!" Willow rolled her eyes at me, taking a sip of her coffee. "You’ve been blathering on about that all morning."

"I do not blather! Occasionally I run on, sometimes I yammer, but never, *ever*, Red, do I blather."

"I missed the story." Cordy piped up. "What’s this about Neighbor Girl?"

I slumped down in my chair, I could feel the sullen little boy look creeping over my face. Here we go…

"I was very nearly killed by a sodding baseball this morning!" I grumbled, tearing off a piece of my bagel.

"Yeah, so Will thought it would be a good idea to carry the poor kid by his collar back across the street." Xander chuckled.

"What?" I said, feeling like a total bastard off of Cordelia’s look. "Nearly killed, remember? Did any part of that register with you?!"

"Oh, please tell me Neighbor Girl kicked your ass." Cordy glared at me. Two death glares in one day, I think I’ve set a new record.

"You seem to forget about the me coming close to death part, Cordy. It’s not every morning where balls go whizzing by your face…." I paused, smirking at her. "Well, for you it is, but for the rest of us…"

"Asshole."

"Proud of it." I grinned. "But it’s just what I bloody needed, you know? More damn kids running about like screaming banshees…"

"You said it wrong." Willow playfully hit me in the arm. "You’re supposed to shake your fist in the air when you use the phrase ‘damn kids’."

Those are my friends for you. Every one of them a sodding comedian…

TBC…

****************************

Even in my days of horrible poetry, writing was an essential part of me. ‘Sweet William’ may have died a fiery death but his passion for writing developed to astronomical and obsessive proportions. I buried the mediocre sonnets and took up good old-fashioned storytelling, something I proved to be rather good at.

The journals I kept from my early teens until about twenty-one were a gold mine. My bitter ramblings over my many, heartbreaks were exactly the fuel my muse needed and quickly manifested itself into Loves Bitch. The top of the New York Bestsellers list for twenty-two weeks, promotional spots on Regis and Kelly, every morning radio talk show in the bleeding country, and even a spot on Oprah’s Book Club.

Suddenly, every single viper from Los Angeles to New York wanted to date me and, every farmer’s, daughter in the, Midwest, wanted to take me under their wing and show me that a good woman actually exists…

That was two years ago.

I ignored all of the letters from desperate women across the globe (especially the ones that included underwear and/or bodily fluids), ignored the questions on whether I would ever get married or commit to someone ever again. In short, I shut the world out.

The asinine questions stopped, no more letters came, and before I knew it, two years had passed, and I was expected to produce another masterpiece. For months I’d been sitting in front of a blank Word document screen on my laptop and tonight was no exception.

When you’ve already pissed and moaned to the world and had them eat up, then you couldn’t present them with the same old dog and pony show. If I presented them with another opus on my dysfunctional love life, then my entire writing career would have been the equivalent to Britney Spears’ albums: trite, pointless, and formulaic.

There was absolutely nothing left to inspire me.

I felt a primal scream coming on, something full of piss and vinegar and frustration, and something damn manly. But the faint sound of a knock on my front door squashed it, along with the urge I had to hurl my computer against the wall.

"Hi."

For the second time today, that clumsy, little bugger from across the street had graced my doorstep. He gave me a small, nervous smile, shuffling his feet.

"Did you break something else?" I smirked, folding my arms over my chest. "Cause I can start running you a tab if need be…"

"No, I didn’t break anything else." He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "I thought instead of getting my mom to pay that maybe I could work to pay for the window. I could do odd jobs and stuff…"

Now, the benefits of having a friend who does construction include getting free work done when you need it. Xander had already offered to replace the window no charge, but I couldn’t look this gift horse in the mouth. Here was someone who actually wanted to do the tedious chores I could be bothered with, and there were no pesky child labor laws to get in the way.

I smiled at the boy. "Alright, Bit, you’ve got yourself a deal."

He visibly relaxed, a wide grin spreading across his face as he pushed pass me and into the house, rambling on as he did so. "Cool! Please don’t tell my mom about this, she doesn’t know, and she’d probably freak if she knew I was in a stranger’s house, especially a stranger she called a ‘Bleached Bonehead’."

‘Bleached Bonehead’?! Why that skinny, stupid bint…

"Jeez mister, you’re house is really dirty, and what is that smell? Do you have a cat, cause it kinda smells like my old cat’s litter box when I’d forget to change it…"

I brought a hand to my head in an attempt to stifle the enormous headache I could feel on the horizon. What have I done? What have I done?! I shut the door, lingering there for a moment to bang my head against it.

"My name’s Liam by the way, what’s yours?"

"Bloody hell…" I grumbled, turning to face him. I really hadn’t taken the time that morning to study his features, he really was the spitting image of his mum. The same green eyes with tiny brown flecks, making them nearly hazel, the same distinctive nose…

Really, the only noticeable physical differences between them (aside from the obvious) were his lips, which were a bit thinner than her full and pouty ones, and of course there was the hair. Liam’s was a dark, chocolate brown (as I’ve said before), while his mum had these shimmering gold tresses, most likely the product of a bottle, but it fit her perfectly…

"It’s William."

Liam made a face, letting out a tiny snort. "William…"

"There’s nothing wrong with William. It’s a good, solid name. Liam on the other hand, is a poofter name."

He frowned. "It’s my dad’s name."

"Is your dad dead?" I asked, flopping down on the couch.

He gave me a look before finally shaking his head. "No."

"Good, so there’s nothing that’ll make me feel bad about saying this again; Liam’s a poofter name. I doubt I’ll be the only bloke to tell you that."

He shoved his hands into his pockets, pacing around amidst my rubbish for a while before he spoke again, breaking the silence that had built between us.

"You got a nickname?" Liam shrugged. "William’s too formal."

"Not really." I sighed, trying to focus on the telly. It was bleeding miracle his mum wasn’t completely bald and crazy, just one night with this kid and his endless questions and I was ready to tear my hair out.

"Can I give you one?"

"Knock yourself out, Sparky."

Before I knew it, Liam was in my face, eye to eye. He studied me closely as if I was something under a fucking microscope. He raised an eyebrow, grinning.

"Spike."

"Spike?!" Of all the ridiculous… "Where in the bloody hell did you…"

He laughed, reaching out and grabbed a handful of my hair. "You’ve got spiky hair. How do you get it so blonde? My mom dyes her hair too, but I’ve never seen it that blonde. It’s kind of unnatural looking…"

I frowned and removed his hand from my hair. "Don’t you have something to do around here, Liam?" I sighed heavily. "I mean, that window’s not gonna pay for itself…"

He smiled, nodding. "Right, I forgot. What do you want me to do first, Spike?"

"You said something about a bad kitty litter smell, find it and douse it with holy water or something." I sighed again, waving him off.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?!

TBC…

Chapter 6: My Lover, My Liver

Author’s Note: Part of the conversation Buffy and Spike have in this chapter is taken from the wonderful Indie movie ‘Tadpole’. I liked it and the flick a lot, so I thought I’d borrow. Sadly, the genius that is ‘My love, my liver’ doesn’t belong to me.

tbc...