Title:  Pillow Talk

Author:  Miss Murchison

Rating:  Moving up to R for language. I'll have a better reason soon.

Disclaimer:  All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.  Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Notes:  A Spuffy story that starts in early Season 6 before deviating from canon.   A slight change in circumstances, a different decision or two, and you wind up with very different results.

Thanks: To Keswindhover and revdorothyl for the beta.

The story begins here.

Chapter 18

After all the stomach-wrenching dramas of the day, it was good to remember that there was one thing that always satisfied a Slayer's appetite. Buffy jumped on the hood of a car that was parked between her and two female vampires who had just caught up with a lumbering teenager. Their victim would have had a better chance of escape if he'd dropped the Big Gulp and bag of Twizzlers he was holding, but he seemed hardly aware that he was in danger.

Buffy's feet barely touched the car's hood before she sprang off again, landing just behind the vamps and yanking them away from the kid in one smooth movement. Before they could recover, she'd tandem staked them.

Yeah, the rush from killing demons was back, and there was nothing like it to fill that horrible emptiness inside.

She heard Spike give a whoop that sounded a lot like agreement with her feelings. He was halfway down the block, in the process of breaking up a small tailgate party by slamming a vamp's head into a keg of beer that someone had set up in the bed of a pickup. Spike ducked away from the resulting fountain of foam and gave the vamp a kick in the butt that drove him keg-first into the side of a black van.

The keg's owners complained for a minute and then wandered off. Spike had already turned his attention to another vamp who was trying to sneak up behind him, apparently with the intention of yanking his head off. Spike threw that one over his shoulder and staked him as he landed on the sidewalk.

Buffy saw three more vampires turn the corner and head towards Spike. She shouted a warning as she ran to help him take out the newcomers. By the time she got there, he was fighting one of them and the other two were looking as if they weren't pleased at running into a fight when they'd anticipated snack-time.

Buffy wasn't in a mood to let them slink off, so she grabbed one by the arm and swung the stake in her free hand, taking him out immediately. That left one for her and one for Spike.

The four combatants paused for a moment, as if by mutual agreement. Buffy took stock of the other team. Neither was built like Rambo, but she wasn't deceived by that. Their stance said that these two had some fighting experience. The taller one with the long blonde hair was mouthy, snarling and spitting out obscenities. "Fucking Slayer. Fucking crazy vampire that plays for the wrong fucking side." The shorter, darker one just snarled.

"You take Jay; I'll take Silent Bob." Spike spoke without taking his eyes off the vamps.

"Who?" Buffy aimed a tornado kick for blondie's head.

"That's something else on our agenda after we get this little row sorted." Spike's kick hit the other one in an even more sensitive area. "A crash course in classic films."

Buffy was about to snark right back at him, but as she dodged a blow aimed at her gut and slammed her fist into a shoulder, she remembered how nice it had been last night, sitting in his crypt and watching that old movie. Even before the cheesecake.

The vamp she was fighting didn't shut up even as she was pummeling him with her fists. "The whole fucking town—ow! Was supposed to be full of fucking humans—fuck, that hurts! Too busy stuffing their fucking faces to fucking fight back."

"Sorry. There really is no such thing as a free lunch." Buffy's next punch knocked him to the ground. "Oh, excuse me. I think that should be a fucking free lunch. And here’s your bill." She drove a stake into his chest and sat back on her heels. "Now, there was a vamp who should have been reading the 'Expand your vocabulary' column."

She turned in time to see the vamp wearing the keg come staggering back, bumping into Spike by mere luck and knocking his hand aside just before he drove his stake into his silent opponent's heart.

Before she could go to his rescue, kegger vamp staggered around some more, barreling into Buffy and knocking her through the open door of a Chinese restaurant. She landed on her back, but he kept going, planting a foot in her stomach as he went by.

Buffy gasped to get air back in her lungs, struggling up on her elbows until she could see through the doorway. Spike was lying face down on the asphalt and his adversary was reaching for the stake he'd dropped on the street.

Buffy finally leapt to her feet, looked around in vain for her own stake, grabbed a handful of chopsticks from a nearby table, and dove back into the battle. Wasting no time on finesse, she drove the sticks into the vamp's back as Spike managed to roll away from him.

"Ta," he said as she reached a hand down to help him up. Together, they looked up and down the street. A small crowd had gathered, eating various foodstuffs and drinking from an assortment of cans and bottles as they watched Buffy and Spike with mild curiosity.

"Anyone here a vamp?" Buffy asked, wondering for the millionth time why she, of all Slayers, had been denied an appropriate Spidey sense for the undead.

"Just me and him." Spike gestured.

Buffy looked back at the Chinese restaurant, where the kegged vamp had landed upside down, with his oversized headgear wedged in a corner. He was bent over, his top half firmly on the floor while his legs scrabbled for purchase and kept slipping on the cheap tiles. His arms were useless because Spike had somehow managed to jam his skinny shoulders well into the now very battered keg.

Together Buffy and Spike marched inside, passing several people gathered around the handful of tables eating crab rangoon and bowls of rice, watching with their eyes wide but no sign of panic.

Spike pulled the keg a few inches away from the wall, ducking to avoid kicks from the waving legs.

"One, two…" said Buffy.

On the count of "three," they each grabbed a leg and yanked, kicking the keg aside in an attempt to avoid being splattered by the inevitable flood of amber liquid. As it ebbed, the top half of one very beery vamp was revealed. He squirmed in their grip, spitting out foam as he stared at Spike.

"Damn," he said in a surprised voice. "You're the one who stuck me in here. Not funny, man!"

"Sorry you don't like the joke." Buffy put her chopstick to work again. "But, then you were the butt."

"Drummed right out of existence," commented Spike.

"Wow," said a man with a handful of eggrolls. "You, like, made him disappear with that little bitty stick."

"It's not how big it is, it's where you put it." Buffy started to brush off her sweat pants, realized that in addition to vamp dust, her calves and sneakers were soaked in beer, and gave up.

"Yeah," said a woman to the egg roll guy. "I've been telling you that for years."

Spike was standing on one foot, inspecting the damage to his disgusting old Doc Martins. Buffy laughed at his expression. "You've gotten blood and guts and cemetery dirt all over those horrible boots. What's a little beer?"

An indignant finger pointed to the keg. "That was Bud Light! An insult to good footgear, that is!"

"Want a fortune cookie?" asked one of the humans, handing each of them one of the pale, twisted lumps.

Signaling his awareness of the absurdity of the situation to Buffy with one raised eyebrow, Spike took his, cracked it open and read. "Your best clothes are not always suitable for evening wear."

"Spike, we don't have time— What?" Buffy leaned over his shoulder.

"That's what it says." He passed over the slip of paper.

She stared at it. "You know, this is the problem with fortune cookies these days. I remember, when I was a kid, they were actual fortunes. You know, "You'll meet a handsome stranger, money is coming your way, you'll go to Disneyland someday. But nowadays, they're nothing but weird advice." She shook one damp leg. "Admittedly, strangely appropriate advice in this case. But—"

Someone screamed out on the street.

"Sorry, love. No time for your lecture about how the younger generation of fortune-cookie writers just doesn't keep up the great literary traditions." Spike was out the door.

Buffy shoved her cookie in the pocket of her sweat pants and followed him as fast as she could without knocking over a woman carrying a plate full of sesame chicken.

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