Title: The Assistant, part 45
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: R
Summary: Spike helps out sortof.
Spoilers: season 4
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
Buffy sat on Willow’s bed and stared at the witch and her vampire companion.
“Are you nuts?” she asked conversationally before leaping off the bed in agitation. “Willow, he’s an evil vampire. I am a vampire slayer. You do the math.”
“But the Initiative did something to him! They took away his ability to bite people. He’s, well, neutered.”
“Oi!” Spike protested her word choice vigorously.
Buffy tapped the end of her stake against her palm. He subsided without further comment. She returned her attention to the redhead.
“Trust the Initiative to seriously screw up the occasion! You kill vamps, you don’t try to paper train ‘em.”
Willow was agitated. She wasn’t sure why this was so important to her, but it was, nevertheless. “Well, who knows how many other vamps they did? This could be significant. I don’t think you should just stake him before we figure out what’s going on.”
Buffy sighed and fingered her stake lovingly. “OK, we’ll all go back to my place and talk to Giles and those Initiative guys, see if they know anything. Giles will know what to do, at any rate.”
Willow nodded thankfully. The last half hour had been one of the most delicate negotiating sessions she had ever been involved in. She wasn’t sure why, but there was something about the blond vampire that wouldn’t let her just kill him in cold blood. “Good idea.”
Buffy looked at Spike carefully. “One false step and you’re gonna be dust, do I make myself clear?”
He looked at her resentfully. He still wanted to rip her throat out and drink her blood, but he was going to have to settle for biding his time for now. It wasn’t something he was good at.
“I understand, Slayer.”
They trooped out of the dorm room and walked the distance between campus and the house. Buffy made Spike wait on the porch while she explained to her husband why she had brought home a stray vampire.
“What! Are you out of your mind?” Giles roared. “You’re a vampire slayer. He’s a vampire! Stake him now!”
Buffy shrugged and grabbed her stake while Willow began frantically talking and holding her friend’s arm to prevent her from killing the annoying creature.
“Giles, we need to study this! What if it’s important?” Willow practically shrieked.
“We can find out later, when those military prats come back,” the former Librarian countered.
“We might be able to use him, somehow,” Willow yelped as Giles picked up a stake.
It gave him pause. “How?”
“I don’t know, some sort of spy maybe? He’s a monster; they wouldn’t expect one of their own to turn on them,” Willow speculated.
“I’m no traitor!” the blond vampire yelled in through the door.
“Then you’re history,” Buffy explained calmly as she stood up, stake in hand.
“But I could be,” Spike said hurriedly. He could do anything to buy himself some time.
Watcher and Slayer exchanged glances.
Giles sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to study this phenomenon. You may come in, Spike.”
The vampire gingerly stepped into the house and looked around. “Nice place, this. Looks like you landed on your feet, Slayer.”
“Can I stake him if he sasses me, Giles?” Buffy pleaded.
“I don’t see why not,” Giles said indulgently, giving her a fond look before turning to the leather-coated monster. “One false step and Buffy shall have new potting soil for the window box. I trust I am making myself clear?”
“Aye.” Spike sat down in a chair, relaxing. “Got any blood, then?”
After Buffy returned from a reluctant run down to the local slaughterhouse for a couple gallons of pig blood, they all sat down in the living room and discussed what the implications of having the vampire around might be.
Giles was mentally composing a journal entry devoted to this strange phenomenon. “And you can’t harm any human?”
“Well, to be fair, I only tried with Red.”
The former Librarian stood. “Try to attack me.”
Spike, never one to turn away a potential bit of mayhem, obliged. He stood, swung a left hook at the Watcher’s chin and then fell backward with a scream, clutching his now pounding skull.
Giles nodded. “Interesting.”
The vampire felt rage rush over him like a wave of red mist. He snarled and lunged again, only to be driven to his knees by the shaft of agony that transfixed him. As with Willow, persistent attacks seemed to worsen the severity of the pain. He crawled limply back to his chair and sat with his head cradled in his hands. This was one of the most awful things that had ever happened to him, living or undead. He thought of the implications. No more hunting, no more violence; he would be forced to subsist on pig’s blood for the rest of eternity. It was unbearable. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the stake laying on the coffee table. Before any of them could stop him, he swept it up and drove it toward his heart.
He had closed his eyes so as not to have to watch the end come, but jerked them open again when he felt a grip of steel on his wrist halt his progress.
Buffy had grabbed him automatically and wondered why she bothered. He was just another vampire. She had staked hundreds, maybe thousands of his kind over the years, but some inner harbinger told her that the smart-mouthed creature of the night was a valuable asset. Looking at him with a face stripped of any emotion she pushed him back into his seat.
“While I have no objection to you becoming dust, you don’t get to go till I say so, got it?”
He sneered at her. “What are you going to do about it, blondie, stake me?”
“No, I thought I’d settle for beating the snot right out of you. I mean, really, where’s the down side? You can’t fight back and I get my very own evil punching bag.”
“I thought you were all ‘fighting the good fight’, forces of right, and Mary Poppins. Doesn’t seem right that a Slayer should get to beat up a poor, helpless vampire.”
They both looked at Giles waiting for his deciding vote. He had been contemplating his shoes and looked up at the weight of their combined gazes. “What?”
“Is it OK if I pummel Spike or is it wrong because he’s helpless?”
He looked bewildered for a moment. Buffy came up with such interesting questions, it was no wonder he loved her so. “Oh, um, I would suppose that it’s well within your job description to pummel him, should the occasion arise.”
“Like if he sasses me?” She looked eager.
“Well, yes. I should think that would be ample reason.” He nodded and went back to contemplating his footwear.
Buffy and the vampire exchanged not entirely unsympathetic looks at the man’s obvious preoccupation before returning to their verbal sniping.
Giles let their bickering roll off his mind until it was a soothing waterfall of white noise. He was thinking about the possibilities of a vampire ally to help them stalk and bring down Adam. Obviously, the monster couldn’t be trusted, but he could be utilized, if Giles could simply think of the best leverage. As if in a dream, he heard the vampire whining about his future existence and the means thereof for sustaining himself. He looked up.
“I have a bit of an idea about that, if you’re interested.”
The vampire and the Slayer whipped their heads around to stare at him. He flushed, a bit self-conscious.
“Oi, then. What’s your idea?”
“We need an operative to help us in our latest action against the Initiative. We have reason to suppose that a human/demon hybrid created by the military is up to no good in Sunnydale. Too many creatures have disappeared from the streets for this to be a natural phenomenon. I suspect he may be recruiting. As a vampire, you should have no trouble infiltrating his base and finding out his future plans vis-à-vis the Hellmouth.”
Spike shrugged. “Maybe. I did notice that the streets seemed kind of deserted. But what’s in it for me? I can’t help the White Hats out of the goodness of my heart.”
Buffy snorted but said nothing at a look from her husband.
“You have no way of supporting yourself. I suppose you could become the minion of some other vampire—to be fed off scraps if you will, but if you agree to work for us, I would be willing to give you some financial remuneration. You would be able to buy your blood at Willy’s.”
A lengthy negotiation process ensued till both were satisfied with their bargain. Giles looked at the vampire one last time. “I needn’t warn you that betrayal means your instant demise, I hope?”
“I’m not stupid, you know. Not some bloody fledgling fresh from my grave.”
Giles nodded. “See that you don’t forget it.”