A Cold Night and Colder Company, BtVS, #7 by Nebula

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

Title: A Cold Night and Colder Company
Fandom: BtVS - Spike and Buffy
Prompt: #7 - The Early Bird Catches Pneumonia
Warnings: Season 5; Spike's crushing on Buffy, but she has no clue.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A cold cemetery, an annoying Spike, and unmoving grass equal a long night.

Wordcount: 2216

This is my longest story yet for the prompt, but I'm still under the 7000 words for it.

This isn't really Spuffy. This is very straight to canon, moreso than I usually do, so...yeah. No Spuffy really at all. If you squint hard and tilt your head... Also, this has a bit of a comedic touch to it, because yeah. Look at the prompt and tell me how it's not going to have some humor in the story somewhere. ~_^

Concrit is, as always, loved and adored, and a huge thanks to everyone who's helped me with the writing so far! *hands everyone chocolate*

“Why did I have to be the one out here?” Buffy muttered, giving the grassy ground in front of her a pout. “Why not the others? Why not Giles, since he seems to know oh so much about this?”

“Quit whinin',” a low voice said from the crypt across from her. “You're not the only one out here, you know.”

“Only one that matters,” she said disdainfully, giving him a look. Spike merely snorted, but thankfully stayed silent.

She had no idea why he'd offered to help. She could've been home right now with her mom and watching a movie of some kind, and he could've been home drinking or watching his stupid soap opera or whatever the hell it was Spike did on his free time. She wasn't really sure.

Instead, she was here, with Spike, in a cemetery, watching grass grow. What they were actually waiting for was the grass. Or really, what was underneath the grass. According to a prophecy Giles had read about, a powerful demon had been buried here centuries before, and on the eve of his five hundreth anniversary of having been buried, he got to come out. It was Buffy's job to take him apart so he could get buried again, this time permanently. Apparently, the idiots who had done it the first time hadn't done it right, and so they'd written up the prophecy instead as a 'warning'.

Buffy personally thought it was just because they were too lazy to have done it right themselves.

“You know, I told Giles that he needs to get one of those daily planners for the year, except have all the prophecies marked in for the days they're going to go off,” she said. “It'd make my life a lot easier if I could plan ahead for these things.”

“Miss a date with Captain Cardboard?” Spike asked, his lips spreading into a slow smirk.

“No, but it doesn't matter, because A, I didn't have a say in the matter concerning tonight, and two, whether I had a date or not, it's none of your business,” Buffy snapped. Truth be told, she was sort of glad she'd had the night off from Riley. He'd been too obsessive lately, wanting to spend every moment with her, wanting to cuddle all the time, hold her and keep her feeling trapped for the first time since they'd started dating.

Spike didn't need to know that, though. Spike didn't need to know anything.

“Mixed terms much?” Spike said, raising his eyebrow at her. He had his back against a crypt, with his legs resting on top of a nearby headstone, letting him lean lazily against the crypt's stone wall. He was the perfect picture of insolence and boredom, but it wasn't the bored sort of boredom. He had a more 'cool' sort of boredom, as if he was just sitting around because he wanted to.

“You know, you're starting to sound like the very people you profess to hating so much,” Buffy said, grinning.

“You lot are a bad influence,” was his reply. “You wanna talk about someone soundin' off? You should hear yourself. You butcher the language, you do. Makes me sad to share English with you.”

Buffy narrowed her gaze, and he chuckled low in his throat, pulling out a cigarette from his duster. The side tips of his leather jacket hung down, gently brushing against the blades of grass beneath him. How he managed to look so cool doing absolutely nothing, she had no idea.

She turned back to her grass watching and pouted again for good measure. She reached out with her stake, one of the many weapons she'd brought along for the evening, and poked the ground. “Rise already, dammit,” she muttered. “I wanna go home. It's cold out here.”

“You know, patience really isn't your virtue, pet,” Spike drawled, cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Shut up, Spike,” was her immediate response. “You're lucky you're already dead. You're as cold as you're going to be. The rest of us like being warm and staying warm.”

Spike slowly turned his head to gaze at her, slowly pulling the cigarette from his lips. “Oh, I like bein' warm, luv,” he said, his voice a throaty whisper, “and I can definitely keep myself and someone else warm when I want to. For someone's that cold to the touch, I could make you warm up real fast...”

Buffy scrunched up her nose. “You're a pig, Spike,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. She really wished he'd stop doing things like that. They were gross and obscene and wrong, and they weren't funny. She didn't know why he even said them.

Plus, he'd give her this look when he said them. Not the usual look she'd been so used to seeing in his eyes when he said things like that, which was usually a mixture of amusement and cockiness, and that was so the wrong word to put with the situation. But he never meant what he said; he mainly just said it because he knew it pissed her off.

Now, though...he had this look in his eyes that spoke of a hunger that wasn't for her blood. His eyes would dart to her lips, then up to her eyes, and he would watch her, as if he could see inside of her. He looked too sincere with his words when he gave her that look.

She didn't like that look. Especially since she'd started having slight problems with Riley, which in turn made her start considering a future without him and with someone else.

That someone else would never be Spike, obviously. But the look in his eyes...it unnerved her.

“Yeah, but you love it,” he told her, and she brought herself back from her thoughts to the current situation: the cold cemetery, the annoying Spike, and the unmoving grass.

It was going to be a long night.

“There's not a single part of you that I love, Spike,” she said, glaring at him. “Of course, I do enjoy punching parts of you, so would that count?” She turned back to the grass again, getting frustrated with the entire way her night was going. “Come on already! Rise up and try to kick my ass, so I can kick yours and go home!”

“Patience is really not your strong suit, luv,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Don't call me 'luv',” she snapped, feeling irritable and on edge now. She wanted to go home and be curled up with her blankets, not sitting out here where her toes were starting to feel numb. There was an ache throughout her body, a constant chill that made her hairs rise and goosebumps appear on her skin.

She really wanted to go home. Couldn't this thing rise already?

“When did your Watcher say it would rise?” Spike asked, his voice not sounding patronizing or condescending, but actually calm and soft. Good. She couldn't handle any other tone right now.

“Around two,” she mumbled, stifling a yawn. A sleepy, cold Slayer was a Slayer that got herself killed, and she tried to stay awake. She was going to wake up with the sniffles tomorrow, she knew that much. She felt as if she'd start shivering and not stop. “We've been here for over an hour already.”

“Well, the early bird catches the worm,” Spike said, shrugging and leaning back once more.

“No, the early bird catches pneumonia,” Buffy muttered. Spike glanced at her again, probably about to say something about her mixing metaphors, but the grass finally moved, and finally started lifting and making a mound.

“About damn time,” she snapped, stepping over towards it. Spike quickly slid from his position and came around to join her, putting out his cigarette as he did so. “You certainly took long enough! What, had a few problems digging through a few centuries of dirt? Aren't you supposed to be an 'all powerful demon'?” she said, completing the image with air quotes. “You're not looking too impressive there, buddy.”

“Really think you should be antagonizin' it, luv?” he asked, frowning slightly.

“Stop calling me 'luv'!” she said in exasperation as the mound parted and a black arm came out. It shimmered and bent in odd angles, and slowly it pulled the rest of itself out.

It was a giant ant. A huge, giant ant. This was what they'd buried?

No, they hadn't been too lazy to do it right. The people that had written the prophecy had decided to have a laugh at the person who was going to have to finish the job they hadn't done. They'd probably been ancient frat boys, sitting around in prissy fur sweaters and hair slicked back with animal fat and laughing over a mug of mead, and she was mixing time frames and metaphors in one night, but she didn't care, because this was ridiculous!

“This is bloody ridiculous,” Spike said, sounding extremely disappointed. “I figured I'd have me a good tussle and then keep its head for a trophy of sorts.”

“All together now: eww,” Buffy said, scrunching up her face again.

“This isn't worth boastin' about,” he continued, ignoring her magnificently. “It's a bloody ant. Yeah, all right, the biggest I've seen, but it's still an ant. That's a bit too pathetic for me to bother with.”

Buffy didn't want to agree with him, but he was right. This was beyond pathetic. Sure, the ant probably would've stood taller than her, and its eyes could look level into hers, but size didn't really matter. She'd sprayed enough of these stupid things the other day when they'd found their way into the kitchen.

Buffy narrowed her gaze, before she pulled out the axe she'd brought along. Spike wisely stepped away, and she swung it around once before swinging it towards the ant. “I...can't...believe...I...waited...all...night...for...this!” Buffy yelled, punctuating each word with a solid stroke. The ant's shriek was high pitched enough to make someone cover their ears, but she was beyond caring. She was cold and tired and she'd had to deal with Spike all night.

All morning. Most of the morning. Whatever. The only thing that mattered was taking this stupid thing out so she could go home already.

With one final stroke, she wrenched its head from its body. “There,” she said, panting slightly. “You can still have your trophy if you...”

She gasped as she was tackled to the ground, and she could feel cool fingers through her jacket, and they were making her cold again. She wrenched herself from Spike's grasp and wiggled away from him. “Why do you want to be dust so badly?” she hissed. “Keep your hands off me!”

“When you cleaved the damn head off, acid started pourin' out of its neck,” he said, glaring at her. “You could've gotten burned bad, Slayer, if I hadn't just saved your neck.”

Buffy glanced over and saw green ooze flowing from the neck wound. As it dripped onto the grass, she saw the blades crinkle and die, leaving a patch of brown, burnt ground behind.

“A simple 'look out' would've sufficed,” she said, refusing to apologize or thank him. She'd felt him pressing into her, covering her with himself, his hands wrapped around her arms, his chin resting on her shoulder. He'd been completely on her, every part of him on her, and she should've felt smothered like she did with Riley.

She hadn't, though. And that was why she'd moved away so quickly.

Spike rolled his eyes and offered his hand to help her up. Buffy rose on her own, and he pulled his hand away, giving her a look. “Guess the early bird can head on home now,” he said, walking over to the head and considering it for a moment.

“Yeah, and then the early bird will sleep in late after this nonsense,” Buffy said, giving the ant corpse one last glare. She was tempted to kick it, but then she might bring more of the acid out, and give Spike another opportunity to grab her and hold her close.

“Good night, Spike,” she said, heading home. She wondered what movie she'd missed. She'd have to step inside quietly, for fear of waking her mom and Dawn up. They were probably already both tucked into their warm beds, exactly where she wanted to be.

Tomorrow, she'd subtly start pulling herself away from Riley, hoping he'd take the hint and stop coddling her to death. She'd tell Giles the demon was dead so he could bury it, and they could get back to dealing with Glory.

As for any thoughts on Spike, there were no thoughts on Spike. His looks may have unnerved her, and he might have liked touching her, but they were just things Spike did at the moment. They certainly weren't permanent; it was just some sort of phase or notion he'd gotten himself caught up in, some weird sort of daydream more than likely. It wasn't as if Spike really would want those types of things if she asked him up front about it.

Spike didn't like her like that. He'd get over it. She'd give it another month or so before he found something or someone else to focus on.

< --- >



I didn't really have a strong look-through on this one, on account of having to start school tomorrow and dealing with visiting family, so there's probably tons of mistakes in this one. My apologies, everyone; if I didn't post today, though, I wouldn't be able to post until it was too late.

~Nebula

Comments

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

LOL, I do too! Nebula's all about the sleeping when she gets the chance. ~_^

Thank you sweetie; glad you enjoyed the bantering. I had fun with this prompt, after my muse got past the 'wtf?'-ness. Hee!

Good point; sort of forgot a plot point there. And good idea with the addition; I'll make sure to add that in when I get home from school.

Thanks hun,

~Nebula

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

Yup, every night. I head to bed around ten, ten thirty, and I'm up at 6, 6 thirty, so...~_^

I could see Xander doing it more so than Buffy probably, but I sort of figured everyone would see that, because it's so Xander. *grins* I decided to try another person that could easily muck up the language, and so I went with Buffy.

I'm sort of hoping someone will try Spike or Giles, the proper English men, or even Angel. ^_^ And go you with the posting of it tomorrow! I was afraid this one wouldn't be until later this week, but so far, so good.

~Nebula

P.S. I added in that suggestion, and I think it does run way more smoothly. Thank you darlin'!

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

Hee, no wonder then! We're both keeping the same time. ^_^

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!! Bwahahahahaahaha! That was so priceless and so perfect. I lurves it! *pets your muse* Good muse...

~Nebula

Don't worry sweetie, I don't, and I wouldn't want you to feel that way about my suggestions either. The way you wrote it though was absolutely perfect, and so subtle that I saw it working perfectly. I really truly do appreciate the help you and mandylancast have given me; I can always count on you two to keep me straight and true on plot points and characterizations.

No need for paranoia; you're fine sweetie. ^_^