A Load Of...
By Ruby
Title: A Load Of. . . 1/1 (13th in the
"Plagued--Why Us?" series)
Author: Ruby
E-mail: [email protected]
Rating: R (I guess.)
Disclaimer: Joss owns all.
Summary: The gang finds themselves in more crap than they ever dreamed possible.
Archive: My usual haunts.
Feedback: Yes, please!
Dedication: For Saber, who sent a suggestion completely unlike any other I have
ever read before.
Willow stared across the picnic table at
her friends, waiting with a mixture of impatience and nervousness for their
reactions to her
explanation of how she and Spike had ended up together. Buffy was carefully
studying her shoes as if they had suddenly and
mysteriously appeared on her feet. Xander was looking at some point beyond the
redhead's shoulder, lost in the mental images of
exploding clowns, and Giles was busily cleaning his glasses for, if Willow had
counted correctly, the ninth time. Spike slid a little closer
to her, pressing his thigh firmly against hers and winding his arm low around
her waist where it was shielded by the table from the
others' view. He felt her body relax a little against his and nuzzled her hair
with his cheek.
"So, no one has anything to say?" Willow asked. "I guess Spike and I should probably just go, then."
"No, Will," Buffy shook her head. "We definitely have something to say. Lots of somethings to say, in fact."
"I'm thinking maybe we should go someplace
a little less--outdoors--than this before we discuss the merits, or lack thereof,
of Willow
and Spike," Xander suggested, peering around him into the darkness.
Willow shook her head, "You've been spending
too much time with Giles again, haven't you? Anyway, we are not going back to
Giles'
stuffy old library to be cornered by all of you. This is neutral territory.
And as for the merits of Spike and me--"
"Willow, let me handle this," Spike interrupted.
She looked at him skeptically, "Spike, I don't think--"
"It isn't you they have a problem with,
pet. It's me," he cut her off and looked across the table at the others. "What
exactly _is_ your
problem with me seeing Willow? I mean, you obviously have something against
me."
"Something against--" Buffy blew out an exasperated breath. "How about the fact you're a vicious, cruel, evil, blood-sucking monster?"
"Yeah, but besides that, what's the problem?"
The sparkle of laughter in his eyes was
not lost on the slayer, and she found her anger growing in direct proportion
to his derisive
attitude.
"What other reasons do we need?" she asked between clenched teeth.
"I've been helping you slay evil nasties for months. Surely, you know you can trust me by now," he blinked innocently.
"I wouldn't trust you if you were chained to a tree surrounded by crosses and holy water in broad daylight!" Buffy snarled.
Spike turned to look at his redhead and said with feigned sadness, "I don't think they trust me, baby."
Willow giggled and nudged her elbow against his ribs, "Would you stop it?"
"This is not a colossal joke!" Xander blurted
out. "Willow, you're spending your time with a soulless vampire. You do realize
what he
could do to you, don't you?"
"Oh, yeah," she breathed dreamily. "But I give as good as I get."
"I'll attest to that," Spike nodded enthusiastically.
"She literally tackled me to the bedroom floor and fucked the soul right out
of me
last night. And even after I begged her to stop, she continued to ravage me
mercilessly."
Willow snorted and dropped her hand to his thigh, "When the hell have you ever begged me to--"
Giles groaned softly and thumped his fist against the table, "Could we be serious for a moment, please?"
"I'm always serious where Willow is concerned," Spike remarked.
"You are not!" Willow argued, grinning widely.
"Well, usually," he said and stared down into her amused green eyes. "Okay, sometimes."
Willow laughed out loud and caressed his cheek with a cupped hand.
"You're in love with him," Buffy stated flatly.
Willow waved her hand at the statement, "I told you before. We're in--"
"Deep like, I remember," the slayer nodded.
"Sweetheart, 'deep like' does _not_ pound the soul out of a vampire," Spike teased his lover. "Admit it; you love me."
"You first!" she countered.
He grinned and brushed his lips over her cheek, "We're in 'deep like.'"
"Uh huh," Buffy responded sarcastically and glared at the vampire. "Well, we aren't--not with you."
"Which, when you think about it for just a second, makes absolutely no difference whatsoever," he replied casually.
"Give me thirty minutes alone with Willow, and I'll change her mind," Buffy dared him.
"Give _me_ thirty minutes alone with Willow, and I'll change it right back," he answered.
"Enough!" Giles shouted. "This is a pointless waste of time since it's evident to me that Willow's mind is made up."
"You got that right," she nodded.
"Then the rest of us will just have to deal with it, won't we?" the watcher replied.
After several minutes of heavy silence, Willow ventured to ask, "So, is that it?"
"That's it," Giles responded.
"Good, because there's something else I want to ask you about."
Willow went on to describe the strange
situations she and Spike had suffered through over the past several months.
The vampire
occasionally interrupted to add enough slightly off-color details to make the
slayer and Xander squirm entertainingly.
"So, Giles, what do you think? All these things can't be coincidence, can they? Is someone after us, do you think?" Willow asked.
"I don't think these things are being directed
solely at the two of you," he answered. "We knew about the demon in the cemetery,
although Buffy had gone before the snakes appeared. And I was the one who sent
her out to kill those crows."
"But all the rest of the things that have been happening--"
"We've had our own, different, encounters, equally as strange," he informed her.
Buffy nodded, "Some of them have been directed at just me, others have included Xander and Giles."
"Well, what's behind them?" Willow asked.
"We've been researching almost every night
for the past three months, but we haven't come up with any likely explanations,"
the
watcher told her.
"Of course, we _might_ have, if we'd have had your help," Xander shot at his friend.
"Hey! Don't try laying a guilt complex in my lap!" she objected. "We've been dealing with our own problems."
"Then maybe you should pry yourself loose
from his fanged form and help us! Like Xander said, we might have put a stop
to all this if
you'd been around to help," Buffy argued.
Spike's lips quirked into a grin, "Yeah, but then I wouldn't have had the honor of licking icing off of Willow's--"
Willow clapped a hand over Spike's mouth and then quickly drew it away as he began to nibble her palm.
"We're heading back to Giles' to do some
more research," Buffy continued, ignoring the vampire. "Why don't you come with
us? Maybe
if we all work at it, we'll come up with an answer."
The redhead looked up at Spike, and he
nodded his agreement. They stood to leave the park, the vampire pulling back
on Willow's arm
to walk several paces behind the others.
Xander stepped off the curb to cross the
street, and Buffy reached out and grabbed his elbow, pulling him back onto the
sidewalk as a
big, orange dump truck rolled past. He looked back over his shoulder at her,
his eyes wide with surprise.
"That came out of nowhere!" he exclaimed.
She nodded as two more construction vehicles drove by, "That must be the crew that's working on that new shopping strip."
"At ten o'clock at night?" Willow asked from behind them. "Seems kind of late to me."
"All clear, now," Xander announced as the street cleared of traffic.
He stepped out into the roadway again,
and Buffy screamed out his name as the sound of a horn and squealing breaks
echoed off the
surrounding buildings. She and Giles raced out into the road to make a mad grab
for the young man. Spike tightened his grip on Willow's
hand and pulled her farther back off the sidewalk and onto the grass as a heavy
flat-bed truck slammed on its brakes and skidded
sideways in the street, narrowly missing Buffy, Xander, and Giles.
Three porta-potties which were strapped
onto the back of the truck hurtled off of it and slammed down onto the pavement,
spewing
their contents out over the street. Xander slipped and fell on his ass in the
refuse. Buffy reached down to help him up, lost her footing,
and landed beside him. Her legs tangled around Giles' ankles, and the watcher
found himself covered in excrement as he, too, hit the
pavement.
The vampire and the witch doubled over
in laughter as they watched the mishap occur from their vantage point on the
other side of the
sidewalk. Buffy managed to stand up and tried to shake some of the mess from
her shirt sleeves.
Her sodden arms hung limply at her sides,
and she wrinkled her nose at the nauseating stench as she glared over at Spike
and Willow,
"Stop that damned laughing, and help us out of this--"
"Shit!" Willow supplied the missing word, her small body shaking with laughter.
"Sorry, slayer," Spike snickered. "You got yourselves into this crap. Get yourselves out."
Buffy growled angrily, and Spike laughed
and looked down at Willow, "Well, pet, I think your friends' plans for researching
have gone
right down the loo. Shall we go find some way to entertain ourselves, or would
you rather hunt down a couple of buckets and a scraper?"
Willow giggled and looked apologetically over at the unfortunate trio, "I'm sorry, guys."
"Willow!" Buffy shouted at her retreating form. "Get back here!"
"Sorry!" she called back over her shoulder
and blew them a kiss as she wrapped her arm around Spike to walk with him back
across the
park.
**********