January 2002.

Bubbly gut, and floppy — limp — compromised axe are definite research party material. So guess we'll be doing that. Tomorrow. Or whenever.

Buffy recapped her shiny pen, one of the many she'd nabbed from the bank after they denied her a loan for the second time (even though she had a job!) She closed the new notebook and put it onto the step next to her axe. Gave the axe handle a cursory pat just to assure herself it was maintaining a nice solid state, then quickly wiped her hand on her jeans. Solid but slimy.

It was going on two in the morning, and the air was what Xander would call, in his terribly mature way, nipply. She drew her coat tighter around her, knowing she really ought to go inside, but then she'd only end up staring at dishes that needed washing, or Dawn's shoes that needed picking up, or the stack of bills on the dining room table. Out here, the dim light of the porch bulb illuminated nothing more dire than the chipped and flaking paint on the steps.

Hey. She could do something about that! Scraping and painting might be fun, maybe even something she could afford to do, enjoy doing. Satisfying. Bring a sense of accomplishment and job well done Ç unlike slaying or the hundred looming financial sinkholes associated with the care and feeding of house and sibling. She dug a nail under a flake and peeled back a long strip of blue. It was so satisfying in fact. that she went to peel up another. This time she got a splinter for her trouble. "Stupid house," she muttered before pulling the sliver out with her teeth. Saliva, blood, and, bleah Ç slime Ç mingled on her tongue for a moment, summing up her life in the perfect gross cocktail. The Bloody Slimeball. Rich, tanned people would order it in chic restaurants. But it was missing something, wasn't it? The top note of bitters. Her own little undead drink umbrella.

Ah. There he was.

The cigarette smoke would have given him away even if the hairs rising on the back of her neck hadn't. She sighed. "You gonna lurk in the shrubbery all night?"

Spike stepped into the circle of porch light, looking faintly embarrassed. "Well, figured a nice shrubbery ought to do the trick."

She looked at him blankly. "Do the trick for what?" He was in the midst of rolling his eyes and snorting dismissively when she said, "Oh. Shrubbery. The Knights who say 'Nee.'" At his expression, she pressed her lips together tight, trying not to laugh. Chagrin was such a different look for him. "So. Is shrubbery some kind of British slang for sex?"

He pinched out the cigarette with his fingertips and flicked it into said shrubbery. "Something like, yeah. Bit surprised you caught the reference at all, though."

"I've actually seen Holy Grail you know. More than once. Never thought it was that funny."

"Yeah, that's a real shocker, that is." He took his usual seat on the porch step, left of her and just far enough away not to crowd her, as if it were still October and he was still her sounding board and not her favorite means of escape.

She allowed it by ignoring it. "You English think you have some kind of corner on the comedy market. But half the time I can't understand what anyone's saying in your so called 'comedies.'"

"Holster the fingerquotes, little missy. Happen to know that Harris is quite the fan of Monty Python, can quote verbatim at the drop of a— what? What'd I say now?"

"It all becomes clear. What you guys were doing in his parents basement."

"Weren't doing anything. Look, he had a lot of videos. I was bored."

"But this proves that you watched videos at the same time. Together."

"I had no choice! Was tied to bloody barcalounger!" She huffed a laugh of pure derision. Like he couldn't have untied himself . "Just so happens Harris has very ... not ... horrible taste in films. Better'n you."

"I'll be sure to tell him you said so."

"Don't you dare."

They both knew she wouldn't of course. Because that would mean admitting she'd been chatting with Spike. Ignore the elephant in the backyard. There is no elephant. You are getting very sleepy.

He began a hand pat search for cigarettes, eyes casting about for something, anything else, that would serve as distraction. Ignored the axe in favor of the more intriguing notebook. "What's this then?"

She grabbed it before he could, clutching it to her chest. "Nothing."

He waggled his brows in his best Dastardly Dick fashion. "Ooh, Slayer. Keeping a diary now, are we?"

"You're not in it."

"Liar." But his tone was only mildly chiding. He didn't push the issue.

"It's—it's my Slayer's log."

"Gonna have a voice over with the Stardate and all?"

"Wow. You're really outing yourself with the pop culture references tonight."

"Been watching a lot of telly. A lot. Of late."

They both knew why that was, too. "Spike ... "

"Don't fret yourself, Buffy. Not here for the nostalgie de la boue."

Her sophomore year of French in high school was an embarrassing blur, but she caught the gist about longing and dirt. "Why are you here, Spike?"

His mouth snapped a grin like a rubber band. "Out for a walk, bitch."

"Uh huh." Time to become terribly interested in astronomy. "Oh look. Is that the Big Dipper?"

"Er, no, darling. Because it's winter. Can't see the Big Dipper, not in this half of the world, any rate. Not even in sunny Southern California."

"It was just a lame attempt to change the subject."

"I know."

With a flick of his thumb, the silver lighter flared up, and she thought suddenly of how butane fire smelled a little of lightning. His features, caught in that momentary flare, also reminding her of lightning. Terrible and beautiful, like Shiva.

"You should leave," she said. But there was nothing in her voice that insisted on it, so he didn't even make a token effort to move. A second later she was waving the cigarette smoke out of her face. "And you shouldn't call me darling."

"You did catch the note of condescension in my voice, didn't you?"

"Did I ever." She leaned back, elbows and forearms resting on the top step, notebook resting on the button of her coat. Still looking at the night sky. "Do you think our lives are already mapped out?" she asked. "That when I get to the last page of this diary, that'll be the end of me?"

"What? Why would you-?" The look on his face was not the look she wanted to see at that moment. It was the same look Dawn and the others got whenever she started talking like this. But unlike them, he realized the true effect it had on her. "You spend too much time worrying prophecies and dreams, luv," he said gently. He held out his right hand, palm up, letting the faint lamp light throw shadows over it. "Look. See those lines there. Says that I marry my heart's true love, have five kids and live to dandle grandchildren on my knee. S'all a load of bullshit—"

She held up her hand to shush him, all her senses cocked. "You hear that?"

He frowned. "Yeah, it's— Jesus. What in hell are those?"

"I was hoping you'd know," she said, rising fluidly. The notebook hit the porch with a soft thump as she scooped up the axe, and jumped lightly from the steps to the grass.

Spike got to his feet with less urgency, like the long stretch of a cat. "Never seen anything like 'em—"

There were three of them. The rest of the Teletubbies set. "I killed one over on Alta Vista. It did something icky-nasty to my axe."

He spared a glance for the axe in question. "Something sexual?"

"Gutter? Meet Spike's mind. No. Made it all—" Buffy huffed another sigh. Irritation this time. And a deeply furrowed brow. "Doesn't matter."

"Looks to be downright virginal at the moment," he said. Two at the gate. One near the rose bushes. "Say, I've got an idea. Be jolly if you whacked one of 'em with it about now."

"Well, see that's the problem ... " She bounced on the balls of her feet. All they had was the axe, and the axe had suffered from erectile dysfunction last time. "Maybe we could use a shrubbery?"

"Uh. Maybe."

The two at the gate linked paws. Scaly antennae waved and twisted, and she stumbled a little, suddenly nauseous, off balance. From out of their lamprey mouths came sounds like words stuttered through static on the radio.

"What are they saying? Timmer. Timmy? Did you kill little Timmy, Slayer?"

"Yes. Timmy won't be coming home tonight."

There was painful pressure in her ears, then a pop like a sudden shift in altitude, and at the same time the light on the porch gave a soft little pop. Everywhere, in the whole neighborhood, things were popping. And weirder and worse, the gate between the demons and her backyard melted into the lawn. "Oh shit," she murmured.

A black and white blur came flying past her head, knocking the demon near the rose bushes into them. Spike was very much like a cat that way—from indolent, self-indulgent repose to swift and violent action, sometimes with absolutely no transition between states.

"Watch out!" she warned. "They're huggers!"

From the corner of her eye she saw his arm pull back. The sickly squelching of it landing, and his squeak of horrified dismay let her know what he had punched into.

"Also, you should watch out for the bubbly gut."

"Fucking hell!"

But after that, Buffy was far too busy trying to avoid death-by-hugging herself. She was ducking and dodging for all she was worth, desperately searching for something other than her arm or the axe to hit it with. A glimpse Ç Spike spin-kicking the other one, his arms looking as solid and muscle-y as ever, reassured her. She tried to get a blow into the stomach of hers. This time the demons had some brains though, and her axe landed on a blocking arm. Growling with frustration, she dropped to the ground, pulling and flipping the demon over her, using the embedded axe as leverage. Before it could recover, she was over it, punching into its belly and then falling forward as it imploded. Glancing up, she saw Spike land a front kick in the other's stomach and it too was gone, splattering across the steps.

"Do you have to bring your work home with you?" he asked, falling back with a thump against the wood. Two doors down, a dog belatedly started barking. Buffy groaned and leaned on her axe to push herself up off her knees. She walked over slowly to the porch and inspected the damage. One bruise coming up nicely on Spike's forehead, several large scuffs in the lawn, flattened rose bush, axe still hard, nick in the edge and ...

"Oh great! It slimed my diary. Now I'm going to have to start all over again."

"Yeah," he said. Too softly. And then there was kissing, groping, and they were moving again, swift, repose into action without any transition. She couldn't breathe, didn't care. His hands gripped her shoulders tight, walking her backwards somewhere, somehow, though her eyes were closed and all her senses were pounding, in heart and mouth and between her legs, shaky legs, so when the backs of her knees met the edge of the bench in the yard, she tumbled over it gratefully, hands twisted in leather, pulling, pulling him down with her, pulling him in again.