Wend Their Ways Together: Chapter Seventeen

[jesterladyfic]

A week later, Spike was striding along through one of Sunnydale’s many cemeteries, black duster flapping behind him. He was on his way home from a trip to the Amara crypt getting more income for him and his bride.

Thinking of Buffy, he almost didn’t sense the blow in time, but spinning to the side at the last second, Spike was able to catch the arm that had been nearly rammed into his head and twist his opponent around to knee him in the stomach. Twisting the other person was one of Spike’s favorite moves and had won him his first Slayer. Bringing both hands down in a fist on the vampire’s back, Spike heard bones crunching. Picking up the limp form, Spike tossed it against a tree branch and watched it dissolve into dust.

“Impressive,” said a deep, methodical voice from out of the shadows. “Your skills were not exaggerated.” Spike watched in apprehension as Adam stepped into view.

“Yeah well, live long enough you pick up a few things. Nice to see ya, yeah? Cheers.” Spike started to walk away.

“Hostile 17, I have a proposition for you.” Spike stopped.

“I heard what you’ve been doing, count me out. I don’t want to be all nicety-nice with those maggots you’ve been dealing with.” Adam smiled, an odd look with his combined facial components.

“This is not a recruitment proposition.”

“All right, it’s been awhile for me, so I’ll bite. What is it then?”

“A chance to win back your freedom. I know you are forced into dependence on your mortal enemies because of the chip embedded in your head. I am offering you the opportunity to be free of that impediment.” Spike swallowed, his throat suddenly drier.

“And what would I have to do to ensure this happy little chipectomy?”

“Simply tell the one called the Slayer everything I want you to. I know she trusts you.” Spike sputtered in unbelief.

“What, that’s all? Not try to take her out or join your little band of groupies? I’m waiting for the catch.”

“The catch is that you cannot help but accept my offer. Your very nature cries out for it. I know the stifled energies you possess; I can feel them from here. It pains and burns at you; the helplessness, the lack of control. You feel stifled, violated and vengeful. This will offer you back the very reason you live your life, this will allow you to feed, to hunt, to not be a lackey or puppet.”

Spike stared at the huge demon equivalent of a hot dog. Too many parts, all unsavory, but making a whole that seemed enticing until you found out what it was. It was true, everything Adam had said. To have the chip out; it seemed like somebody had made a vast clerical error and Spike was in heaven. To no longer be hampered by the fear the Initiative could just snatch him and he would be helpless to stop them. To be able to feed, to taste rich, hot, life-giving human blood pouring into him; he was almost salivating. But he had made his choice.

“Give me a while to think over it, yeah?” The demon nodded.

“I will meet you here tomorrow at this time. I know what you will answer. Think about it, the question. What is your nature?” With that, Adam walked off into the night. Spike swallowed and continued home, brow furrowed, thinking hard.

Spike entered the apartment silently, but Buffy heard him anyway.

“I’m in here, Spike.” He entered their tiny bedroom where she was flopped on the bed, doing her homework.

“How’d the foraging go? We still rich beyond compare?”

“Oodles of wealth just waiting for you to spend it,” he reassured her.

“You should’ve let me come with you. It’s not safe out there alone. Besides,”
she pouted, sticking out her lower lip. “No fair having secret quests for money without me.” Ordinarily, Spike would’ve taken full advantage of that lip, stalking her with a predator’s grace and a seductive tongue curl only he seemed to know how to do, but Spike had other things on his mind.

“Lip-tease,” he said, almost absently, moving to lie beside her on the bed, hanging his duster on a chair along the way. Buffy turned on her side to face him.

“You seem all down. Anything happen on your merry trip through the graveyard?”

“Yeah, actually. I need to talk to you, to ask you…” he detailed the entire conversation with Adam, not leaving anything out. Spike concluded, “I don’t want to join Mr. Mix n’ Match’s evil empire, but I do want this bleeding chip out of my brain. Everything he said that I felt was true. He just didn’t know all the reasons why they were. I can’t stand being defenseless, Buffy. I know you can take care of everybody, but what if you weren’t there some night while I’m out with Glinda or the Geek Squad and they get taken? What do I do? Spit on the Commandos? Obscene gesture? Not hardly effective, love. I want to go undercover and find out what our oversized, patched together friend is up to. And get my chip out at the party as a special treat for being a good boy. But I want your agreement.” Spike stopped talking and gave her time to think. Buffy traced circles on the bedspread for awhile before asking,

“He doesn’t know you’re with me for real, right? He thinks you’re dependent on me cause of the chip.”

“Yeah. Must think I’m bloody desperate. Not like our marriage was a private thing. Whole underworld must’ve been chatting about it.”

“Ok,” she said. Spike stared at her, nonplussed. He’d expected to at least have to talk her into it.

“You mean that? You don’t care I’ll be able to harm humans again?”

“Well, I’m going on the assumption you won’t unless you have to. Plus, I need a decent sparring partner.” She smiled at him, exhibiting her trust in her eyes as well as the long way she had come since their marriage.

“Decent? I could kick your pansy behind, Slayer.” Spike smirked at her, showing his teeth.

“We’ll have to try and see later,” she said, her tone conjuring up images in his mind that had more than just sparring in them. “First, you get to be undercover man and find Adam’s fatal flaw.”

“All right then. But I want the whole gang of yours head’s up on this one. Don’t want them going all stake happy after our cheery little reunion.”

“Sounds like a plan. But later, okay? I want you all to myself just now.” Buffy wrapped her arms around him and offered her lips, which this time Spike took immediate
advantage of.



***

A silent group was gathered at Giles’ as Spike related his adventures from the night before.

“First trial, mates,” he told them. “Still wanna be friends?”

“Of-of course we do, Spike,” Giles said, faintly. “I was just surprised you,
well, that you asked us at all.”

“Team effort, innit? I’m honest, you’re honest; it’s a whole big honest thing. I want this thing out of my noggin, but I want the approval of those I care about. And by the way, this whole sharing thing; creeping the demon out to no extent. Start heaving blood and buffalo wings in a minute.”

“Thanks for the imagery, honey,” Buffy said dryly.

“Can we just let the pesky corpse go do what he wants so he’ll leave and I won’t have to listen anymore?” Xander looked truly green around the edges at Spike’s mention of the ingredients of his diet.

“Right on. Approval from the enemy. Unlife’s looking up,” Spike jeered. Giles sighed.

“Fine, Spike. We’ve been over this before; if we didn’t trust you before, there’s no point in starting now. You’ve the group’s tacit permission to carry out your request and report back when it’s completed.” Giles then turned and poured himself a drink, rubbing his temples and wishing he were a grocer as he did.

“Cheers then.” Spike kissed Buffy and winked before heading out to meet Adam.

***

When Spike got to the rendezvous point, he found Adam already there.

“Hostile 17, have you reached your decision?”

“First off, stop calling me that. The name’s Spike. I’m not a lab rat you can
experiment on with your new found fascination with what makes life tick. Just a bloke with a chip shoved in his skill, which you’re gonna pull out of there as soon as I have some answers. By the way, love the Commando look, and hey, do you look slimmer? Been working out? Getting rid of some of those less than savory bits they stuck in you?”

“I grow tired of your meandering. What is it you wish to know?”

“What I wish to know is what you want me to do. Is there an entrance exam to active evil school? I hope not, cause I’ve been out of play so I’m not sure how I’d do and I didn’t really study, so.”

“Your assignment will be as I stated before. A simply delivery process. Provide me information on the status of the Slayer, deliver information to her I will give you and make sure she is where I want her at all times.”

“Want me to distract her?” Spike asked, slowly licking his lips. “That I’m real good at.” Adam just stared at him. Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll be a part of your little band of two bit villains. Do I gotta sign something?”

“This is as I have planned,” was Adam’s answer. “Follow me.”

Spike shrugged and fell in pace with Adam. They walked to a cave on the outskirts of town by the campus. Inside was a bank of monitors where Adam apparently kept tabs on what was up in Sunnydale.

“Nice place,” Spike said, looking around at all the rock and general cave-ness of it all. “Decorate it yourself?” Adam ignored Spike, going to the computers and pulling several discs out of the pile.

“You are to make sure the Slayer gets these.” Spike took them and stuck them in his duster’s pocket.

“Sure thing. So, can we get this over with? Bit knackered.”

“I will remove the chip after we have finished other business and I am satisfied of your intentions.” Spike threw a quick glance at Adam and knew immediately that Adam would never really do it anyway, unless Spike forced him. So, squaring his shoulders and sticking his thumbs in his belt loops, Spike prepared to bluster.

“Look, Captain Kibbles n’ Bits; it’s now or never. I don’t get it out, I leave and you find yourself an actual flunky.” Adam looked at him with level, calm eyes.

“I could kill you where you stand.” Spike laughed.

“Yeah, probably. But you need me. And I’m a demon of my word. I’ll do everything I said I would. But I want payment up front cause I don’t trust you.” The two demons stared at each other, neither blinking. Without looking away, Adam replied,

“Very well. I agree to your prerequisite. I believe your nature will bear out your impatience. Lie down.” Spike lay down on a low table in the center of the cave.

“Mind the hairline; I don’t fancy fussing with a comb-over once I’m back to my killing ways and make sure you wash your hands first.” Adam injected a syringe into Spike’s head and started to incise the skin with his long fingernails.

Hours later, Adam straightened from his work of stitching and showed the relieved Spike a small bit of plastic held between the two prongs of a pair of tweezers. Spike took it from him and dropped it to the floor, grinding it to dust beneath his boot.

“Thanks, Doc. I’ll be seeing ya. Gotta get these to the little wife.” With a casual wave, Spike swaggered out of the cave and across the campus toward home.

He was overjoyed when the Initiative squad attacked him.

Spike sensed their presence before they could shoot him as before; the blood flowing in their veins was almost a warning siren.

Kicking the guns out of the first two soldier’s hands, Spike spun around and knocked more guns out of reach into the bushes. Now it was unarmed combat, Spike against five Initiative soldiers who circled around him.

Grinning madly at them, Spike stood tense and ready.

Whirling into action, he blocked a punch and used his attacker to take another. Spike flipped Soldier One around into a tree, knocking him out. Dropping to the ground as Number Two swung at him, he used his bent knee to flip Number Three over onto his back and punched him unconscious. As Spike was rising, Two and Four came at him simultaneously. Ducking, Spike let them deck each other while sweeping his leg out in a circle to trip both of them. Then balancing on his hands, his left leg flew up in a direct hit on Number Five who had been sneaking up on him. Number Two was down, but Four was back up at him again. Using his right palm face up, Spike blocked a punch with his other arm, and then thrust his palm upward, breaking the man’s nose. Spinning around to face Number 5, Spike grabbed the arm swung at him and twisting it over his head, got behind the man in perfect biting position. Thrusting down the black turtleneck, Spike bit and drank deep. He took only enough to incapacitate the man and dropped him, savoring the taste of the blood.

Spike stood for a moment, reining in his thoughts. So he could use his demon side to not kill, just bind. Huzzah for him. Finally, some blood that didn’t make him want to throw it all back up again. And the fighting, true not so good as fighting demons, but these men were trained more than most and he’d still dropped them without a single hit on himself.

“Now that’s bloody more like it,” Spike said to himself and continued on his way home, his body thrumming with the excitement of the fight.

Still, he entered the door more nervously than he had the previous night. Buffy was in the kitchen, rummaging around in the cupboards.

“Hey, you. All signed up to be evil?” She greeted him with a kiss.

“Recruited and chipless,” he told her. Buffy lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

“So soon? Wow, aren’t you the lucky little boy. Did you go hit Xander for the
fun of it?”

“No, but good idea, be back soon.” And Spike turned to leave. She laughed and
pulled him back to her.

“Do you think you could give me the details of what happened before you head off
to prove yourself against my friends?”

“Oh, right.” He pulled out the discs and handed them to her. “For you, a little present from the enemy.”

“What are they?”

“No idea. Just told me to make sure you got them and to get you where he wanted you to go.”

“Which is where?”

“He didn’t tell me. We’ll go over it later, perhaps.”

“Well, I’ll get Willow to look at these tomorrow. In the meantime, want to try to
hit me to see if he really removed it?”

“Already tested, love. A bunch of soldiers jumped me on my way home. Pulverized them.”

“They’re not dead, are they? They are sort of our allies.” Buffy was concerned that Spike might have gotten carried away after his long incarceration.

“All breathing and accounted for.” Spike took a deep, unnecessary breath and continued,” I did bite one, though.” Buffy whirled to look at him more closely.

“You did what!”

“I drank from the last one. I had him from behind; it was either that or break
his neck. This way, he’ll live.” Buffy couldn’t believe her ears. It was happening again.

“Spike, you promised me.”

“I didn’t kill him. I only stopped him from killing me.” She shook her head, backing away from him.

“Eating people is not self-defense.”

“I didn’t eat him, I tasted him. I only did it to test myself. Now I know I can
resist.” Buffy looked at Spike closely.

“He really is alive? You won’t do it again?” Spike nodded and decided he might as well bite the bullet now instead of later.

“He’s alive. But I want to talk to you about that last bit. It’s stupid to not use all my abilities, Buffy. I won’t kill anyone by eating them. But if, in a fight, I can stop someone by biting them, then I will.” He looked at her, pleading with his eyes.
“Come on, love. It’s just like you using only your right arm and not your left.” She stared out the window for a minute. Then tightened her lips and slowly nodded.

“I won’t stop you. But only when necessary and try to find another way. No killing.”

“You got it, Slayer.” Spike turned and walked into the bedroom. Buffy followed him.

“Upset with me, Spike?”

“No, I just don’t want you getting any funny ideas with the spatula.” Buffy looked down at the wooden spatula clenched in her hand and laughed. For some reason that struck her as funny and she just collapsed on the bed laughing. Spike watched her, bemused.

“Care to let a fella in on the joke, love?”

“Nothing is funny, that’s what so funny.” She laughed some more. He joined Buffy on the bed and stroked her hair while she convulsed with laughter. She finally quieted some and he kissed the back of her neck, sliding his hand around to her stomach, immediately sobering her up.

“Evil vampire, taking advantage of me. I’m gonna pound you tomorrow.”

“Why wait? I’m ready now?” he teased her. She tensed and then flipped him onto his back.

“You asked for it, Spike.” He grinned in anticipation.