First Stanza - [Action & Voice]

[deadpoet]

[Action, Locked to Willow]
[A few moments before Spike arrived, he and Illyria had just escaped most of the main action and a great big bloody dragon come out of nowhere. He'd lost track of Angel and Gunn. Wesley was dead. So now it was just the two of them. Until Spike suddenly came to the surface of the river, cursing as he suddenly started burning and then swimming back underwater again until he could hide under the shade of the bridge. A bloody tiny bridge. And here he was with only a pair of white pants, now failing to hide much of anything, as he ended up STUCK in this tiny shadow. There was a book in the sunlight that was just out of reach. As the day passed on, it continued to get further away from him as the sun shifted the shadows further and further away.

What bollocks.

He decided he'd just wait until the first person came across the bridge and get their attention. That ought to do it.]

[Action/Voice, Open To All]

[Well, Willow took him 'home'. And he rather decided he liked it. Of course, a vamp can't make himself good and comfy without the proper accouterments. So after taking a nice long shower in House Seven, perusing the kitchen, and no doubt making his new housies terrible uncomfortable, he makes his way out as soon as it's evening. In his New Feather pants at first, because what else was there? But his first stop is the clothing store and he's soon back into slimming back. And then it's off to pick out a fancy weapon, get some blood at Good Spirits, find some smokes, recollect his lighter, and then snoop around town because he knows a certain old flame is around here. Not you, Buffy.

Around midnight, he hits up the journal after finally recollecting it from beside the bridge.]

This is a nice little village you lot have here. Very cozy. Has a certain quality to it, you might say. Very Shyamalan-type setting. Too cheerful. Downright unsettling, if you ask me.

Anyway, who do I talk to for the big plan? I've done my sitting around already. Relaxing, sure. Not too fond of the wings. Too ironic for my taste. But I'm ready to go and find the wankers who locked us up in here and do something about it. Champion of the people, right here. Just point me in the right direction.

Comments

[herotypical]

"...Shut up. By normal definitions? You're way more than long lived. Some people can't even expect to see their thirtieth."

Really. Complaining about longevity in front of a Slayer.

[deadpoet]

"Well I'm an exceptional vampire, aren't I? Most vampires don't last their first year. Especially in Sunnydale."

[herotypical]

"...Was that a compliment?"

Yes -- it had been. Or at least it had been a very flattering fact. And she very well knew so.

[deadpoet]

"More for myself."

And for her. But he was cross with her. Couldn't be giving her compliments now, could he?

[herotypical]

She won't bring up the fact that in his last days in Sunnydale, he managed to sire more than he probably sired during his whole unlike. A vampire could be so productive when he wasn't being picky.

"That was quite the fell swoop." At the memory, her palm burned. Watching fire creep over his body hadn't been the most pleasant experience -- but damn her if it wasn't triumphant. "Y'know, you in Sunnydale's ninth hour."

Aha. And now they'd finally found their way there. The sacrifice. The heroism. The walnut at the centre of so much of this tension.

[deadpoet]

He nearly objected that he meant something else about having managed to live so long. But heroic sacrifice. That wasn't so shabby either.

"I always did want to make a classy exit. Seemed more fitting to take a great bloody hellmouth with me and than to end up a pile of dust."

[herotypical]

She never got to say it to him, back home. She'd said it to him here -- a couple of times. But every rerun meant she had to say it again.

And -- amazingly -- it did get easier to admit with repetition. Or perhaps she was finally growing graceful in her late twenties.

"...Thanks. For that. Maybe you didn't know what you were getting into when you put it on but -- thanks."

[deadpoet]

That managed to soften him up, considerably. All the fighting aside, it was nice to be thanked. No one else had. The closest he'd gotten, in all of that, was Fred recognizing what he'd done and seeing hope for him. But not a single person had thanked him for it.

"Right. Well. I'd do it again. Though I'd prefer not to."

[herotypical]

Buffy would never be able to fully recapture the intense gratitude she'd felt on the lip of that crater -- staring out at the devastation that had once been her home and had often been her hell. Oh, how she'd smiled. And oh, how undeniably proud she'd sounded when she announced to everyone that Spike had been their particular saviour. Proud and happy. Perhaps it wasn't the romantic love that she'd passed off to him in the moments before he'd burned up, but it was something. Heartfelt and sincere and somewhere beyond the realm of romance.

Whatever it was, it made him part of the club. Self-sacrificers Anonymous. It wasn't a bond to be taken lightly, especially not with her own life and the lives of her sister and her friends riding upon what Spike had accomplished. In a very real way, she owed him everything.

Still -- that didn't make him any more bearable or her any less disconnected. Spike would have his singular glimpse of sincere affection and then she would go back to being what she always was: the Slayer.

"You're not allowed. Can't abide anyone beating me on the death score. We're tied, now. Deal with it."

[deadpoet]

For now, it was enough. He was able to lean back again, finally, and release some of the tension forming from their bickering. Really, it's what he missed the most. Being on good terms with her. Even if he remained entirely unhappy about the fact they couldn't be together now. He'd just have to deal with that. Give it time.

There was quite the parallel there. She'd been killed by the Master. He'd been sired by the progeny of the same vampire. And they both sacrificed everything, but all for the sake of one person. It was poetic.

"Well, I don't much care for dying, so even if it is. But now that you're being grateful like, seems now's a good time to tell you I ran across the other Slayer."

[herotypical]

...Fabu.

"And just how well did that not go?"

Faith? Not a welcome-mat kinda gal.

[deadpoet]

"Pretty sure I was winning." At the very least it was a draw. He did a lot better than in the graveyard, anyway. "But it was sorted."

[herotypical]

"...Fists flew?"

God. For once, she could almost feel a kind of envy for Faith bubbling up to the surface. The quote-unquote bad Slayer got to get her violent rocks off whenever she so pleased. Meanwhile, Buffy was struggling on a semi-weekly basis just to keep her own more aggressive urges in check. Because although she didn't want to throw a punch at Spike, she sorta wanted to want to.

[deadpoet]

"Among other things. Bit of a misunderstanding. Seems no one thought to mention to her about the whole soul thing."

And Spike was an idiot and just assumed she went evil again.

[herotypical]

"Of course. Gee, I'm so sorry. I knew I forgot to dish out that detail when me and her were giggling and gossiping over our cafe mochas and chocolate-stuffed croissants."

It was complicated enough just to discuss neutral topics with Faith Lehane. "She hasn't yet come around to the whole Buffy's not out to murderize her truth yet. Kinda hard to clear your name when I can't even clear my own."

Obviously, it put a strain on her to be viewed so barbarously -- even if Faith was the one doing the viewing. There was little Buffy liked less than being figured as a killer.

[deadpoet]

Words could not likely convey how much Spike had managed to not help with Faith and her perception.

"Bloody good timing of the Malnosso then, plucking her out of prison. Would it have killed them to wait a bit?"

[herotypical]

"They didn't do the plucking. They're just as plucked as the rest of us," she said with no ambiguity over whether she also has a particularly similar sounding word in mind.

Frequently, Buffy lost her patience when trying to explain this fact to the newbies -- that whatever drew them here was not the Organization but something else. Something she couldn't pretend to understand. But she showed more patience with Spike because she knew how clever he was.

Or, perhaps, because she know how stupid he could also be.

"Faith's timing is awkward but not the worst that I've seen. The last time Will was here? Pre-veins. Add a brief cameo from Warren the Wonder Psycho into the village and...

My feet literally hurt from walking over so many figurative eggshells."

[deadpoet]

"Did he get himself killed again?" He'd have liked to see that. He never much liked the kid. Even when it was just ordering a robot from him.

Possibly because the robot got out and Spike got his chops busted over it. But he had more tangible reasons for not liking Warren too. He did rather like Tara, after all. She was a decent sort.

"So if they're as plucked as we are, then why the bloody hell are we in here?"

[herotypical]

"My impression is that it's a little like first come and first serve. We had the misfortune to get sucked into this sinkhole of a dimension after their precious Shift experiments were set up..."

She didn't so much as touch that question about Warren. He, too, had been in possession of a tricky time-point. Still yet innocent enough not to get himself punished. But Jack had taken a vow...

[deadpoet]

"So they get here first, get to call the shots. That's fan-soddin'-tastic, it is."

But not surprising in the least. Seniority was a great way of putting other people through hell. It was like high school, if he knew anything about high school beyond what he saw on TV.

[herotypical]

"...Welcome to life -- err, unlife -- in Luceti. Where very little is fair and, occasionally, the points matter."

[deadpoet]

"Yes, well thank you for the introduction, Miss Carey." He liked the British version better. "So anything else I ought to know before I get myself in a fight?"

[herotypical]

"...If it's someone who really deserves it?

Go for the wings."

It was advice more for any potential drafts or missions rather than something to be used in the village. Still -- useful words.

[deadpoet]

He recalled Drusilla's reaction last night when he went for the wings.

"Right. The wings. I'll remember that."

[herotypical]

Buffy would want to hear as much about that as Spike'd likely want to hear about work-roughened pirate fingers getting all friendly in her feathers.

"Lose'em and you die. Lose one and you nearly die. Lose some feathers? And it's like a flu from hell. At least, that's what it's like for me. But it means a blade's useful to have on hand if you need to clip an enemy on short notice."