The Case For Buffy: Spike at
the Crossroads
(carefully written according to the rules generously given in “The Internet Guide on How to Write Good”, http://www.earth1.net/~amonroe/writgood.html)
“Oh, hell,is that you, Slayer?” protested the vampire and burst into a cloud of dust.
“It’s no use, Spike!” Buffy wept angrily, wiping off her stake and stowing it in her sleeve. Damn vamp had nearly caught her offguard. “Even if I did love you, which I don’t, not in a million years, don’t even think about it, can’t happen, nuh-uh, no way, never ever, I could NEVER have sex with an evil undead thing!” She stomped her foot, elegantly shod in the latest Ferragamo combat stompyboots. She’d pay Dawn’s education trust fund back, she told herself with a twinge of guilt. But it’s okay, I’m the Slayer, I NEED stompyboots. I’d already worn the old ones three times!
“Sure of that, are we, Slayer?” Spike lounged elegantly up beside her. “Never ever?”
“Absolutely I’m sure!” Spike began to stroll towards his crypt, Buffy keeping pace with him, gesturing as she spoke. He opened the door for her as she entered, still talking. “What would my friends say? They’d never forgive me. I’m supposed to be the Vampire SLAYER, not the vampire-”
“Here, let me help you with that, luv (sic),” said Spike, sliding her butter-soft Italian leather jacket from her shoulders and laying it on the chair beside her. Neiman Marcus had had a sale, it was really too good a bargain NOT to buy it. It was scuffed already, she noticed sadly, only the second time she’d worn it. How was a Slayer to stay in clothes? Good thing the sale was still on. Maybe she could put off the mortgage another month. Spike began rubbing her shoulders.
“I mean, I can’t just forget everything I was taught!” she added, relaxing into the chair and leaning into his comforting hands. She thought of her friends. Willow, the whiny poor-me princess of pity-parties who was blaming every problem in her life on her suddenly-discovered magic addiction, spent all her time “recovering”, like it would kill her to wash a dish once in awhile, might bring on that old addiction again if she ever lifted a finger around the place. But of course her heart was still broken over her breakup with the sensible and beautiful Tara, earth mother to us all, funny none of us noticed all that wisdom that back when she was just Willow’s stammering geek friend with the weirdo family, we were doing her a favour to take her in, but she’d hate it if Buffy...and Xander of course, poor puffy henpecked Xander, child of a dysfunctional alcoholic family with poor self-esteem who latched onto the first steady girlfriend he could find even if she was a demon, but there’s got to be some reason he’s inhaling the pork rinds these days, probably the stress of living with a vengeance demon, though we aren’t supposed to believe that she’s a demon because of course she has a soul, but he even hated Angel back when he had a soul, he’d hate Spike even more, and then there’s poor little Dawnie I should pay more attention to her (reflex thought, she never thought of “Dawnie” without the rest of the phrase springing automatically to mind, poor-little-Dawnie-I-should-pay-more-attention-to-her had turned into Buffy’s secret name for her), she’s got that big crush on Spike and she’d hate it if big sister were boinking him and think of the bad example I’d be setting, evil demon doing my sister, wo-wo... “Here pet (sic), do something with this would you?” said Spike, distracting her, and she turned her head and absentmindedly gave her attention to the proffered object...and then there’s Giles, the strangely isolated watcher whose girlfriend got killed the last time I got involved with a vampire and... “Fancy a shag (sic) luv (sic)?” said Spike, a little breathless, and she slid into position under him...poor Giles, he’s dedicated his whole adult life to protecting me, teaching me, product of a cold and hypercritical father who trained him to believe that caring for the Slayer was his all, tweed-wearing multilingual genius who never really had a choice in his life, forced to be a Watcher the way I was destined to be a Slayer, it would simply kill him if I ever started having sex with an evil undead thing - suddenly she yodelled in three-part harmony (the talents of the Slayer are multifarious and strange) as Spike shouted above her, “Bloody hell (sic), Slayer! That was brilliant (sic)!”
He rolled off her and pulled a cigarette from behind his ear. “Fancy a fag (sic), luv (sic)?” he asked, lighting it.
“Spike! You KNOW I don’t smoke,” she said indignantly, buttoning her lavender dupioni silk shirt. Damn, a thread was pulling from the cuff. She couldn’t believe she was going to have to replace it TOO. And the cash from the SUV sale was almost gone. “What would my friends say? They would NEVER understand if - “ she began pulling on her boots. There was mud on one heel. DAMN. She couldn’t BELIEVE it. She went through stompyboots like there was no tomorrow.
“Don’t worry about them luv (sic),” Spike said, helping her on with her coat.
“Huh? But they’re my boots!” she said. “I need them!”
“Your friends,” he sighed. “Don’t worry about them.”
“Of course you’d say that,” she said indignantly. “It’s not like you have any.”
“Neither do you,” he said. “Hadn’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
He took another drag from his fag (sic) and crushed it under his boot. “Tout le monde était écrasé par un camion”, he said matter-of-factly.
“Huh?”