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Title: Dead Man and Taxes
Author: Miss Murchison
Rating: Barely R
Disclaimer: All characters are the
property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. Only the lame plots
and dialogue herein are mine.
Setting:
An AU world where Spike is in love with Joyce, not Buffy, Dawn doesn't
exist (I have an explanation for all this, if I ever get around to
writing it). Set some time after my previous Spike/Joyce stories,
which start with A
Glorious Morning Have I Seen.
Notes: Joyce
wants to do her 1040. Spike wants to do Joyce. Written on
tax day (April 15, 2005). Keswindhover
provided the inspiration and the beta.
"Nothing's certain except death and taxes," said a voice on the
television.
Joyce snorted in annoyance. "Turn that off," she snapped. "Or at least
change the channel."
"Bloody tax season," said Spike, hitting the remote.
"I don't see why you care." Joyce glared at the papers spread out on
the desk in front of her. "You don't pay taxes."
"Yeah, I'm lucky that way."
She turned to glare at the vampire lying at his ease, supine and
sprawled on her couch, unmoving except for the hand working the remote.
"You don't have an income either."
He gave her the soulful, falsely innocent look that never failed to
melt her anger, although any illusions that it was the slightest bit
genuine had died long ago. “I am like the lilies of the field. I toil
not, neither do I spin . . "
"Spike, if you can't be helpful, the least you can do is get your
lily-white butt out of here while I work."
He sat up, his expression wounded now. "See, love, this is why I hate
tax season. Look what it does to you. You should be lying on your soft
bed upstairs, while I whisper sweet nothings in your ears and shag you
senseless, not brooding over a pile of nasty forms and snarking at me.
Why are you, anyway? Wasn't the witch going to go on one of her magic
laptop rides and do it all for you?"
"She was, but something came up. She had to help Buffy, I think."
"I think the whole lot of those Scoobies are above themselves, thinking
they're all grown up just because they've got jobs and their own flats.
And that goes for the Slayer too."
For once, Joyce didn't jump indignantly to Buffy's defense. Her
shoulders slumped. "And I can't even claim her as a dependent any more
now that she's decided to take a year off from college to concentrate
on her slaying."
Spike gave a derisive laugh. "Concentrate on her new boyfriend Ken now
that she's dumped G.I. Joe, you mean. Why you let that happen . . . "
Joyce roused to the familiar argument. "I don't have any control over
who Buffy dates!"
"Yeah, and I think I'll go for a nice jog at noon tomorrow. Independent
your little girl is not, love, and I'm not just talking about her
maudlin sex life. Hardly a day passes by that she's not borrowing
something from you or asking for a handout."
"Well, it's hard for her to keep a steady job. But employers and the
IRS don't understand about slayer duties."
"Then you should ask the IRS to pay for her designer rags, all those
layers of makeup, and enough stakes each year to deforest Brazil. And
food. Not much food, though. Think she'll get over that scrawny phase
of hers soon?"
With determination, Joyce turned back to the files and forms. "I can't
argue about Buffy now." She heard him draw a breath to say something
else and added, "Or anything else."
Spike got up and went into the kitchen as Joyce checked the list of
valid dependents one more time. It was no good. Buffy didn't qualify.
And nowhere was there a listing for "horny vampires who eat you out of
house and home."
But what was this a bit further down? "If your spouse is a non-resident
alien . . . " Well, they weren't married, and Spike was a demon, not an
alien, but he did maintain a separate residence in his old crypt. So,
technically, he was a non-resident, at least for some of the daylight
hours . . .
" . . . your spouse must have either an SSN or an ITIN. . . " Hardly.
Joyce let go of that foolish fantasy and moved on to her list of
itemized deductions. Was she missing any valid claims?
The word "crypt" leapt out of her from the page. But, no. "Your
contribution to this type of organization is not deductible if it can
be used for the care of a specific lot or mausoleum crypt." So
redecorating Spike's lair after it had been bombed in that little
unpleasantness last year didn't count. Interesting how he never
mentioned that when he was complaining about Buffy spending all her
money.
Joyce was just going to have to leave Spike off her return entirely.
Unfortunately, he was impinging on her senses in other ways.
"What are you burning?" she demanded in annoyance. "It had better not
be the house."
"Sausages!" His cry was indignant. "And they're not burnt. Just. . .
crisp."
She bent her head over the paragraph she'd already read a half-dozen
times. "Generally, a qualified rollover is a tax-free distribution of
cash or other assets from one retirement plan that is contributed to
another plan within 60 days of receiving the distribution. Use lines
16a and 16b to report a qualified rollover, including a direct
rollover, from one qualified employer's plan to another or to an IRA or
SEP."
It still made no sense. In the past few years, Joyce had seen death
conquered over and over; she had conquered it herself, on her own
behalf and on her child's. But taxes . . .
She tried again. " . . . a qualified rollover . . ."
The smell of burnt meat came
closer, and a crispy sausage impaled on a fork was waved under her
nose. She breathed in the appetizing scents of roast pig and the
cologne she'd bought Spike for Valentine's Day, but pushed away both
the fork and the hand that held it.
"No snacking until I'm done," she
said firmly.
But now a strong hand was massaging her neck even more firmly,
releasing some of the tension locked in her muscles. She leaned back,
and Spike set his snack down on top of her W-2s so that he could use
both hands to work up and down her spine, making her feel as if her
back had turned as mushy and soft as her brain felt. Soon, he had moved
on to her 36Cs.
"Rollover . . . " she murmured, "direct rollover."
"If you like," Spike whispered in her ear. "Say the word and I'll roll
you over directly."
With an immense effort of will, Joyce sat up straight and removed the
fingers that had worked their way down the front of her blouse. "No! I
only have a couple of hours to finish all this. Take your damned
sausage and get away from me!"
Growling with annoyance, Spike returned to the couch with his plate,
stabbing the sausage viciously with his fork. For a few minutes, Joyce
was able to concentrate.
But Spike’s next tactic was he most terrifying one yet. He decided to
help. He picked up a thick publication, sat down on the floor next to
her, and began reading. Fortunately, for the first few minutes of this
exercise, he was wholly preoccupied with the bizarre minutiae of the
tax code.
"'Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be
included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or
Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.'" He
stared at her in disbelief. “You mean they not only want to know just
how much you made selling crack, they want to know if you’re part of a
gang or if you freelance? And I thought Angelus was a control freak."
Joyce moaned. "It doesn't matter, I don't have any illegal income.
Spike, please let me concentrate. I have to make sure I've listed all
the withdrawals I made from this account."
"What's this, then?" He picked up another form. "Pet, this says you can
get an automatic extension. Just fill out this one paper, I'll race to
the post office with it, and you can spend the rest of the night
listing my withdrawals—and my deposits."
No, Spike!" She snatched the paper from his hand. "Even if I file an
extension, I have to pay all the tax I owe now, which means I have to
figure out how much tax I owe, which means I have to fill out all these
forms, which means I might as well file tonight."
He blinked. "Then why does the sodding IRS offer extensions?"
"I don't know. It's just another way to torture us."
"Arseholes."
She had no time to waste agreeing, so she went back to ignoring him.
Spike hated tax day. Or tax evening, as it had become. Soon to be tax
midnight. He flicked through all the tv channels yet one more time,
glanced over at the desk, and fidgeted. Joyce wouldn't stop him if he
said he was going to go out and knock some demon heads together or even
get pissed at Willy's, but he couldn't make himself suggest any solo
expeditions. He could sense her anxiety and stress, and he had no
intention of leaving her alone and distressed. Besides, he had a
massive hard-on, and the scent of fear was as arousing to his demon
side as his concern for Joyce was to his still-human half.
The clock on the cable box said she had precious little chance of
meeting her deadline, and it wasn't as if this were an apocalypse or
the European final were playing. She needed to relax, tv was all
infomercials and bad horror films, and he was horny. He might not
understand adjusted gross income, but he could do that much math.
Fifteen minutes and three abortive ploys later, he felt her start to
give in. "Mmm," she said, reaching back a hand to caress his cheek as
his tongue explored her left ear. "All right. I'll take a break. Just
let me step upstairs for a moment. . . "
It was a reasonable request, but Spike had learned not to underestimate
his Joyce. So when she returned, smelling of a touch of perfume she
didn't need to arouse him and wearing a long, filmy dressing gown he'd
gotten her, he didn't let himself be distracted by her tits and her
come-hither smile.
"No, you don't, love," he said, stepping back and raising his hands in
protest when she tried to slip the handcuffs on his wrist. "I'm not
about to be trussed up while you run yourself into the ground on this
paper race of yours."
Joyce's hand, still holding the cuffs, dropped to her side, and she
looked away. Her lips quivered, and a single tear slipped down her
cheek. “I’m sorry, Spike. I shouldn't have tried to trick you. So
foolish of me, I should have known I couldn't. But I'm just so tired of
this, and everything, and these stupid forms are making my head pound
so . . .”
She leaned into him, her shoulders shaking, her head dropping to his
chest. His arms were around her immediately, meaning to offer her
support, but he staggered as she slipped away unexpectedly. He reached
out for her, fearing she was falling to the floor in a faint.
Worried and completely off-guard, it took him a second to realize she'd
just snapped one cuff around his left wrist and the other to the leg of
a complex modern sculpture made of bits and pieces of plumbers' pipe
and other hardware.
"Well, this won't hold me—" Spike reached out for the statue with his
other hand, but stopped in horror as he realized what it was.
“Careful!" said Joyce needlessly. "Unless you want to spend the rest of
the evening prying off Slimy's suction cups.” She stood up calmly and
went back to her desk.
"Bugger this!” He realized she’d bound him to the statue that she’d
brought home from the gallery with immense pride the week before, after
she’d trapped a demon inside it. Not a particularly dangerous demon, to
be sure, but a bloody smelly and messy one. Worse, it had developed an
inexplicable fondness for Spike, and there was no way to kill the
thing, only to trap it. If that statue broke, the nasty little wanker
would be tracking him down and sending stinking, sticky tentacles his
way before he could say, “Jack Daniels.”
He'd meant to find a safer place for the thing. And his Joyce had meant
to get her taxes done before tonight. A fine pair of procrastinators
they were.
Spike continued to swear under his breath as he turned his attention to
the cuffs. He thought he could bend them easily without harming the
statue, but as soon as he tried, he realized that they weren’t Joyce’s
play gear. These were the real police handcuffs she’d scrounged in some
warehouse after one of Giles’ playmates had run off to eat babies or
some such thing—Spike could never quite get to the bottom of that
story, for some reason. Joyce only took these out for special
occasions.
Tax day, apparently, was a special occasion.
It took him twenty minutes to free himself, since he had to use just
his fingers to break the chain that linked the cuffs together to do it.
He left the other cuff attached to the statue and stalked down to the
basement with only a fulminating look in Joyce's direction. Much to his
annoyance, she didn't even notice his passing. She seemed to have
melted into some kind of Zen state where all she could see were
Schedule-Cs and 1099s.
He was still brooding resentfully on his recent captivity and her
complete disregard for his dignity when the hacksaw he was wielding bit
through the cuff still attached to his wrist. As the metal fell free to
the floor, Joyce let out a wild yell that resounded loudly even at this
distance. She was screaming almost as if . . .
Still carrying the saw, Spike raced up the stairs at vamp speed.
As he returned to the Sunnydale Post Office, Dave Chapultepec hummed a
little tune in a language that had been spoken in the place now known
as California long before either Spanish or English was heard anywhere
on the North American continent. He drove around to the back of the
building and parked the official U.S. Postal Service truck, now empty
of the bags full of recently postmarked tax returns that he had
delivered to the main office station twenty miles away.
He liked tax time. It meant plenty of overtime pay, and he’d had his
eye on an iPod ever since he’d found out a couple of Tlalac demons had
started podcasting their “Edge of the Storm” alternative thunder rock
program. No one could beat the Trueno Twins at finding new
relámpago bands. Of course, since they were 50-foot tall
stone statues, pretty much no one could beat the Trueno Twins, period.
Not even that Thor blitzkrieg jazz dude, who was their most serious
rival when it came to fusions.
Dave locked up the truck and the large gates that protected the big lot
behind the office, either from theft or from the citizenry who might
swipe those plum downtown spaces when then carriers were out with their
trucks. Or, in this town, to keep out any stray monsters looking for a
good place to lurk.
Dave had applied for the job in Sunnydale when it was posted, in spite
of the warnings of his coworkers. He wanted the promotion, the
government was paying a relocation fee, and he was pretty sure he could
cope with the unusual demands of the night shift in Sunnydale. After
all, he was descended from a grasshopper demon on his father’s side,
and his mother’s family had been skilled in brujería for
centuries.
He picked up a plastic carrier and began to stroll around the building,
intending to empty the boxes in front one last time before heading
inside to sort mail until it was time to open. The mailboxes would be
half-full with more tax forms, dropped off over the past few hours by
the usual pendejos who hadn’t managed to meet the midnight
deadline. More would swarm around the counter inside when it was day,
begging and pleading for the magical postmark that would save them an
IRS fine. Dave, big and not easily ruffled, always found that April 16
brought a pretty good show; he enjoyed the extravagant excuses.
Last year, his favorite had been a bitch who insisted she had
unexpectedly gone into labor on April 15, even though her baby looked
about a year old. When he’d pointed that out, she’d said she was an
Ocampa demon and they aged rapidly. Yeah, like he’d never watched
Star Trek. Any species mentioned on that show was guaranteed not to
be real. For some real demon refs, you had to watch Farscape or
Bab 5. Dave had asked if the baby’s name was Kes and the
woman, or whatever she really was, had stormed off in a huff, leaving
her tax return lying on the counter with insufficient postage.
But now it was still dark outside, and the smell of auto exhaust wasn't
as prominent as during the day, exposing the underlying scents of
blooming plants and a faint whiff of demons hiding in the shadows. Much
nicer than the noise, glare, and carbon monoxide that was Sunnydale by
sunlight.
Dave found he liked living in Sunnydale as much as he liked tax time,
and not just because of the combat bonus that the Postal Service
quietly paid to anyone willing to stick out this unpopular and
frequently fatal assignment. He got a little buzz from being this close
to a hellmouth, and while he had no intention of turning evil—he knew
his abuelita would fry him into little cinders if he stepped
too far out of line—he couldn’t deny the extra power charge was kind of
a blast. His vertical jump had never been better, which was helpful
both in pick-up basketball games and whenever he needed to escape some
larger demon or impending disaster.
The night was cool and silky black, and it should have been still. But
Dave’s nose twitched as he approached a huge, ancient black car, its
fenders dented and its windows smeared with some nasty-looking black
substance. He remembered seeing it parked on this same side-street when
he'd left for the main office station, but then he hadn't gotten close
enough to sense the inhabitants.
It wasn't all that unusual for a car to pull up, drop off a last-minute
return, and pull around the corner to park. Most of the time, it wasn't
anything to worry about, although once a guy had blown his brains out
and they hadn't realized it until the next morning, when the corpse had
gotten really ripe.
Whatever was in this car wasn't reeking of purification, but Dave
wasn't sure it was fully alive either. As he came level with the trunk,
the rear window was rolled down suddenly, and some chulo with
eyes like his tía’s turquoise necklace and peroxided
hair stuck out his head, glaring suspiciously. The dude stank of hair
gel, demonic power, and something disquietingly human.
Well, Dave was pretty much Heinz 57 Sauce himself, so half-breeds
didn’t bother him. He took another deep breath, still assessing the
situation. There was another scent coming from the car, that of very,
very aroused female human. It was a smell he was fond of himself, but
he had no intention of interrupting. He smiled apologetically. "Didn't
mean to interrupt your party. Just on my way to work, man."
"Is he dangerous?" asked a female voice. There was movement behind the chulo,
and Dave caught a glimpse of smooth skin and full breasts. He looked
away, not wanting to upset the half-breed.
Fortunately, the blond dude was calm. "It's all right," he said over
his shoulder in a reassuring tone. "He's harmless."
"Are you sure?" There was more movement, and a single eye peered out
from a veil of tangled curls before ducking away again as its owner
squeaked, "But he’s a postal worker!"
"Nah, don’t worry, pet. Under that he’s just a demon, really. He’s all
right, far as I can tell." The filthy window started to roll back up.
Dave was about to turn away and leave them to it, but he was restrained
by his curiosity. “How big is it?" he asked.
The eyes reappeared, scowling and glinting yellowly now above the line
of blackened glass. "None of your business, mate!”
Dave laughed uneasily as he took a step back. He bounced a little on
his toes, getting ready to jump away if it became necessary to flee. "I
meant, the refund!" he said hastily. "Must be a good one. I've never
seen anyone else stay parked this long after dropping off the return."
"Uh, I never asked," said the dude in surprise.
"Thousands," cooed a dreamy voice from deep in the back seat, followed
by a throaty laugh. "Federal and State." A slender hand reached
up and tugged at the blond creature's shoulder, dragging him back down
into the depths.
Dave turned away, grinning as he listened to the giggles and gasps that
emerged from the still-open window. Yeah, there was a lot to be said
for tax time.
There
is now one more story in this series:
Romantic
Dinner
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