All About Spike - Spike Covered in Chocolate by Valerie X

Spike Covered in Chocolate
By Valerie X

Sequel to Spike Shirtless and Bleeding

Part Four: Energy

Spike was woken by a frantic pounding on the door. He rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. One o’clock. He’d only been asleep for five hours. The buggers at the door would have to wait.

But as soon as he closed his eyes the pounding became louder. “Bloody hell,” he muttered as he rolled out of bed.

He shuffled across the living room and to the apartment door, thinking that if he was faced with a girl scout selling cookies, it would take great restraint on his part to not eat her.

When he opened the door and saw the two witches, he immediately took a step back, changed into this vamp face, and hissed at them.

Willow and Tara barely responded to his animalistic reaction. Their faces were long, and their eyes blank. They reminded Spike of the people he’d eaten after World War II. Even the victorious Allies seemed unenthused that the war was won: they were just relieved it was over. For years he could just pick them off as they walked around, dazed. He smiled at the memory, and then turned his attention back to his visitors.

“What?” Spike said. “Did you come here to turn me into a horny toad or are you just gonna stand there?”

“Jonathan’s dead,” Willow said flatly.

Spike’s face changed back to its human form. “It wasn’t me.”

“It was the Enoispep,” Tara said. “Also, you’re naked.”

“I am?” Spike looked down at his body, and realized that in his exhaustion he had forgotten to pull on pants when he had gotten out of bed. “So I am.” He shrugged and sat down on the couch. “Don’t suppose either of you birds might be tempted...?”

Willow and Tara ignored the naked vampire as they walked inside the apartment and closed the door behind them. “I put a shield around his house,” Willow said. “And I would know if something got past it. Nothing did.”

“Maybe the bugger killed himself,” Spike said. “He seems the type.”

“A girl stayed with him last night,” Tara told him.

“He doesn’t seem the type for that,” Spike muttered.

“We think it was the Enoispep,” Willow continued. “It changed form into a woman so that it could get close enough to Jonathan to touch him and kill him. We think...we think she seduced him.”

Tara blushed. “When we found him, he was naked.”

Spike shuddered. “Thanks for the visual.”

“Here’s another weird thing,” Tara said. “When spells are cast, they leave a trace signature. We checked Jonathan’s house, but a spell hadn’t been cast there, other than our shield. So this demon isn’t using magic to change its appearance.”

“So magic won’t be able to reveal the demon,” Spike concluded.

Willow shook her head. “The only way we’ll be able to find the demon is to see it try to hurt someone.”

“Even then,” Tara added. “We don’t know how to kill it.”

“But we have a plan.” Willow said.

Before she could begin, she was interrupted by the telephone ringing. Spike grabbed the cordless phone from where it lay on the couch and answered it with a gruff: “Yeah, what?”

“Mr. Summers?” the voice on the other end of the line said.

Spike’s body suddenly felt colder than usual. William Summers was the name he’d used on his fake ID, to get custody of --

“Dawn.” he said into the phone. “Dawn, is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” the woman on the phone said. “But there was an incident in school. A friend of hers was killed.”

“I’ll be right there,” Spike said. He slammed down the phone and turned to two witches, explaining the situation as he put on his jacket. “She’s fine,” he said, and their troubled faces relaxed. “But her friend was killed. I have to go get her.”

“Spike --” Willow began.

“I have to go get her!” he shouted as he rushed out the door.

A moment later he shamefacedly walked back inside the apartment and into his bedroom, where he put on a pair of pants and a dusty black t-shirt.

*

“I’m fine!” Dawn said, a little louder than she should have. All eyes in the guidance counselors’ office were on her briefly, looking to see what she was shouting about. “I’m fine,” she repeated softly. “Can I just go to English now? I’ve got an assignment due.”

The elderly guidance counselor shook her head. “I just spoke with your cousin. He’s coming to pick you up.”

“But I don’t want to go home!” Dawn whined, attracting unwanted attention once again. The guidance counselor walked out of the room without even acknowledging Dawn.

Dawn sighed and leaned back in her chair. So Mandy was dead. Big deal. Lots of people were dead. It didn’t mean she had to miss English.

“Hey Dawn.”

Dawn looked up and the scowl was immediately wiped off her face. She smiled widely at the baby-faced teenage boy that looked down at her.

“Hi Steve.”

“Hi,” Steve said softly. Dawn was always taken in most by his eyes. They were a dusty blue, and it reminded Dawn of when she was a little kid and her dad would take her to the beach. It was a special thing they did together each summer, at least one trip to the beach without the rest of the family. One year it had stormed during their outing, and they stood in the doorway of a store on the boardwalk, her dad holding her in his arms, watching the ocean beat against the sand. Steve’s eyes looked like the ocean during that storm. She was sure that no one on Earth had eyes like that, except Steve.

Steve looked down at his shoes, as if unsure how to continue. “I was just...” He looked back at Dawn, and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of those eyes. “I was just wondering if you were okay. I mean, I’m sure you’re sick of people making a big deal...”

“No, I’m not,” Dawn said quickly. “Well, I am but...I’m really just sick of the guidance counselors.”

“I know,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “Once a teacher heard me say that I hated my life, and they interrogated me for like, three days.”

Dawn chuckled. “I know. They’re all thinking I’m gonna go nuts over what happened today. I mean, it bothers me, yeah. Mandy was my friend. But it’s not major trauma or anything. I’ve seen dead bodies before.” I even live with one, Dawn thought.

“Oh, yeah,” Steve said, his smile fading. “Your sister, right?”

“Yeah,” Dawn said softly.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up --”

“No, it’s okay,” Dawn said quickly. “I don’t mind talking about it.”

“I heard it was some freak accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Dawn said, her voice taking on an edge she didn’t intend. “She saved my life. She saved everyone. She’s a hero.”

“I - I’m sorry,” Steve said. He took a step backwards, edging towards the door. “I didn’t mean to --”

“No!” Dawn stood up. “I’m sorry. That was totally rude.”

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Steve said, casting his eyes down again.

“It’s okay, really,” Dawn told him. She held out her hand and gently brushed her fingers against his arm. At first she thought the touch was too soft for him to notice, but he responded immediately, his eyes brightening with a tiny smile as they met hers.

It occurred to her that she could kiss him. Right then, right in the guidance counselor’s office, in front of everyone. Kids in her school kissed in the hallway all the time, and no one even noticed. And Steve probably wanted to kiss her too. He came here to check up on her; he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t like her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by something with supernatural strength grabbing her arm.

“Dawn! Are you okay?” Spike crushed his body against hers in an awkward hug.

“Ow!” Dawn try to pull out of his grip, but he was too strong. “Get off of me!” She wriggled downward, sliding out of his arms. When she was free, she expressed her distaste with a weak slap to his chest.

“Bloody hell, girl,” he responded. “What’s your problem?” Then he noticed the little pansy-ass bugger standing in front of them.

“Hi,” he said. “You must be Dawn’s cousin. I’m Steve.” He held his hand out.

A low growl came from deep within Spike’s throat.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Dawn said, putting her body between them. “He has mental problems. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Steve said, as Dawn ushered Spike out the door.

When they were out in the hallway, Dawn hurried ahead of Spike, towards the school’s main entrance.

“Christ, Nibblet. Where you running off to?”

Dawn spun around, exposing a gentle face twisted with anger. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” she shouted.

Spike stopped walking, momentarily shocked by her explosion. “Take a bloody Midol! What’s wrong with you?”

“You were hugging and growling in front of the guy I like!”

“Is that what this is about?” Spike chuckled. “That pansy Backstreet Boy? He’s a wanker. And lucky I didn’t gouge his eyes out when he looked at you.”

Dawn put her hands to her head in frustration. “Why do you have to be such a jerk?”

“Why do you have to be such a moody little bint?” Spike snapped. “At least I have an excuse. I’m a demon.”

“Yeah, I think I realized that when I saw you kill my sister,” Dawn said, her voice bitter and her eyes wet.

Spike opened his mouth to reply, but then quickly shut it. It was the first time Dawn had mentioned what had happened last summer. Buffy had come back from the dead, resurrected and driven insane by the First Evil, intent on killing all of her friends, and especially Dawn. When Spike battled Buffy to the death it had nearly torn him apart. The only thing that had kept him alive was the thought of Dawn, who now stood just inside the school entrance, her lower lip trembling with the effort it took to hold back her sobs.

“Dawn...” Spike didn’t know what he could say that might comfort her, but he knew he had to say something. He took a step towards her. “Dawn, let’s go home.”

“No,” Dawn said softly, the single syllable catching in her throat.

Spike held out his hand. “Dawn --”

“No!” Dawn shrieked. She scurried backwards, through the entranceway and onto the front steps of the school. Her large eyes narrowed to shield themselves from the midday sun, spilling glistening tears down her cheeks.

Spike remained in the shade of the building, watching her. Though he was cognizant of each strand of her hair, highlighted red and blond by the sun, the daytime light didn’t scare him. He knew he was strong enough to dash outside, grab her, and drag her indoors without getting too badly burned. For a moment he almost did. But the look in her eyes -- those huge eyes that had been haunting him since the first time he saw them, six years ago -- froze him to where he stood. He could see it in her eyes.

She hated him.

When he’d first met her, hiding under a desk in Sunnydale High School during Parent-Teacher night, he’d spared her life because of those eyes. The next time he saw her was in the Summers home, crouched on the top of the stairs, her eyes seemingly bigger than the rest of her eleven year-old body. He’d looked past Buffy as they argued about Angel, met her eyes, and smiled. Dawn had smiled back. What Spike had seen as an unconscious gesture, Buffy took as a threat, and she ranted on about how much she’d kill him if he ever came near her family again.

But Spike had been near Dawn many times since then, and he’d put his life on the line more than once. He’d gotten an apartment, killed his own kind to hock their valuables, left behind every trace of what he’d once been, and focused all his energy on taking care of her. Hell, he even learned to cook. And yet, she hated him.

He loved her, and she hated him. It was becoming the recurring theme of his life.

“Come back inside,” Spike said. “I’ll fix this.”

“How?” Dawn challenged.

When Spike couldn’t reply, she exhaled irritably. “Stay away from me,” she said. She turned, ran down the steps, and disappeared around the corner of the building.

*

“The old bait and switch,” Willow explained. “Except not so much ‘bait’ as ‘willing victim’.”

“And not so much ‘switch’,” Tara added. “As ‘hydrochloric acid’.”

From where they were sitting at the table in the Magic Shop, Xander and Anya exchanged puzzled looks. Anya smiled up at Tara. “Did you get your brain sucked again?”

“It’s our plan for defeating the Enoispep demon,” Willow continued. “We hang around town, posing as lonely people, and wait to see if someone approaches us. If they touch us, and it burns, like Jonathan said this demon does, we attack.”

“But since we don’t know how to kill an Enoispep demon,” Tara said. “We use these.” She gestured to four glass bottles filled with a substance that looked like water.

“Hydrochloric acid?” Xander asked.

Willow nodded. “It’ll hurt anything, demon or not. We’ll split out, comb the town, and then meet back here. Then we need to look into what happened at Dawn’s school today.”

“What happened at Dawn’s school today?” Anya asked.

“A friend of hers was killed and stuffed in a locker,” Willow explained.

“Why does that sound familiar?” Xander wondered.

“So we’ll check out the school and examine the body at the morgue,” Willow continued.

“That’s right,” Xander said. “We live in Sunnydale. We spend our evenings in morgues.”

“Let‘s get started,” Willow said. “Xander, you take the east side of town. Anya, the west.” They stood up and collected their bottles from Willow. “Tara will go north, and I’ll go south.” As Willow held a bottle out to Tara, her hand began to shake.

“Willow, what is it?” Tara put her arm around her.

Willow closed her eyes. “Spike. Something’s wrong. It’s Dawn.”

“Is Dawn okay?” Xander asked.

Willow swallowed hard and nodded. “She ran away from him. She’s angry. Spike, what’s going on?” She seemed to be listening to him, and then she winced.

“What’s he doing?” Tara asked.

Willow opened her eyes. “Swearing and punching a wall. He won’t be able to help us.”

“So has this been changed from a demon-search to a Dawn-search?” Xander suggested.

“We can do both,” Willow said as she headed to the door. “Let’s go. We’ll meet back here in two hours.”

*

When the blood coming from his hands reached his elbows, Spike stopped punching the wall.

He had managed to get from the high school to the tunnels beneath it before the full weight of the situation came down on him, causing what was now a formidable hole in the brick wall of the tunnel. It would probably cause the wall to collapse sometime in the next few days. He looked up and listened to the noises coming from aboveground. It sounded like cars. His brief act of destruction could cause the street could cave in, possibly while cars were driving over it. People could die.

The thought made Spike feel a little better.

The loss of blood, however, did little to improve his mood. He would have to feed sometime soon.

The idea of finding some random vampire to kill and drain made his stomach churn. He was tired of feeding off demons. Their blood was stale and dirty. It was like a human craving milk being presented with a glass of swamp water.

He remembered the girl he drank from the night before. She was delicious. He’d only gotten a small amount of her blood, but it had been like chocolate to a starving man.

Of course, he could always have more. Nothing was stopping him. He’d been without a behavior-modification chip for nearly a year. The only thing that had kept him from feeding off humans was having to care for Dawn. And in a strange way, out of respect for Buffy.

But Buffy was dead. And Dawn was gone.

And Spike was hungry.

*

Willow sat at a table in the Bronze, trying to look like a victim and look for Dawn at the same time. After a half hour of listening to some horrible band play and watching a horde of young, happy-looking people dance, oblivious to its suckiness, she’d had enough. She stood up to leave, and abruptly crashed into a woman.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Willow said.

The woman tossed Willow a dark look. “Watch it,” she snapped.

“I said I was sorry!” Willow shouted over the din of the music. Then she noticed something familiar about the girl’s dark hair and sad lips. “Hey, do I know you?”

Laurie looked over the redhead’s clothes, a tacky assortment of vintage-store junk. “I don’t think so,” she said, making it clear from her tone that their conversation was over.

She pushed through the crowd impatiently to get to the door. It was still early in the evening, but it had already been a terrible night. Jill had set her up on a blind date with a guy who she swore was hot, but who turned out to be a 19 year-old geek. It had taken her an hour to get rid of him. Now all she wanted to do was go home and take a shower. It was obviously impossible to meet a hot, single guy in Sunnydale. They all ended up either gay, taken, or dying a mysterious death.

She pushed herself against the door and was greeted by the cool night air. It felt good after being surrounded by sweaty losers and cigarette smoke. She ran her fingers through her tangly hair. She felt disgusting.

Until she saw a man standing opposite the entrance to the Bronze, leaning against a wall and looking too gorgeous to be real.

He was tall, six-foot-four at least, and built like a football player, with huge shoulders and arms. His hair was dark and soft-looking, and his skin begged to be touched. As she stared at him, he noticed her and smiled.

“Excuse me,” he said, and his voice was a deep and sexy as his eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Um...I...” Laurie cleared her throat and tried to remain focused. “I don’t have a watch, but last time I checked it was around six.”

“Thanks,” the man said. “Don’t tell me you’re going home this early.”

“Oh! No, no, not at all.” Laurie said. She smiled widely and batted her dark eyelashes. “It was just getting so stuffy in there. I was going to take a walk around the block.”

“Mind if I join you?” the man asked.

Laurie stifled a squeal. “I’d love it.”

*

Spike smelled the girl before he saw her.

He could tell from her scent that she wasn’t an ordinary girl. She was stronger than most. She had triumphed over a great loss at some point in her life. But recently she had been isolated and alone. She was walking by herself now, drowning her sorrows in an ice cream cone, her life seeming strange and alien to her.

Spike’s tongue slipped out between his teeth as he smiled. She would be easy pickings.

He walked up behind her. If she could hear his footsteps, she didn’t let on. She continued her slow pace through the dark side street, absent-mindedly licking her ice cream, until Spike’s powerful arm grabbed her around her chest and swiftly brought her young neck up to his mouth.

But instead of screaming, like Spike had been hoping she would, the girl only shouted, “Abduco!”

In an instant Spike was flat on his back on the concrete, with a bleeding wound at the back of his head and chocolate ice cream down his shirt.

The girl stood over him, her arms folded across her chest, glaring down at the injured vampire. “I am so sick of all the vampires around here!” she shouted.

Spike look up at her dazed for a moment, and unsure of what she had just done to him. “What the -- Argh!“ he growled with realization. “Bloody hell! I’m sick of all you sodding witches!”

“I hate this town,” the girl whined. “I should have just stayed a rat.”

By the time Spike had managed to pull himself up into a sitting position, the witch had stormed off. He took his shirt off and tried to use it to wipe the ice cream from his chest, but quickly gave up.

He tossed his shirt aside and sat there, motionless, thinking about what had just happened. A girl - his victim - had beat him, humiliated him, and left him in a heap of blood and dairy. He was hungry, he was cold, he was sticky, and he was alone.

Just when I figured I hit rock bottom, Spike thought, ends up the bottom wasn’t rock so much as six feet of mud for me to sink through. Bollocks.

“What does bollocks mean?” he heard. “I’ve always wondered that.”

Spike looked around, noticed that no one was there, and groaned. “You don’t want to know, Red.”

“Hey,” the voice in his head responded. “I’m not 17 anymore, you know.”

Spike chuckled sadly, almost silently. “And I’m not a 120 anymore. So what are you up to, witch?”

“Not much,” Willow said.

“No quality time with the Scoobies?”

“Nope.”

“So where are you?” Spike asked.

“Right here.”

Spike turned her head to see Willow rounding the corner and heading towards him. He briefly considered running away. If she had been listening in to his brain for a while, she probably knew he’d tried to kill someone. But he was too tired and hurt to move. He’d had enough of moving. From now on, he decided, he would alternate all his time between sleeping and drinking large quantities of alcohol.

“So....” Willow said when she walked up to his prone form. She hugged her fuzzy jacket close and took in a deep breath of the chilly air. “Nice night, huh?”

Spike put his hand to the back of his head to check the damage. When he looked at it, it was bright red. “Yeah. Just great.”

“Yep,” Willow said. She smiled down at Spike cheerfully. “So, are we killing humans now?”

Spike raised one eyebrow at her. “If I say yes, will you do some nasty little spell on me? Put my privates on the inside of my body or some such rot?”

“Hey,” Willow said, her distinctive pout quelling Spike’s fear. “Some people like their privates on the inside.” Her look softened and she held her hand out. “Come on, I’m meeting everyone else at the Magic Shop.”

Spike tilted his head down and looked up at Willow doubtfully. “Red, I just got my ass kicked by a mortal girl. For the second time in as many days. I don’t much feel like being around others, unless you’ll allow me to eat them without turning me into a goat.”

“Come on,” Willow said, smiling. “If you’re good, I’ll buy you some goat’s blood.”

Spike pushed himself up off the ground. “Just stake me now.”

*

Normally, Laurie wasn’t the type of girl to put out on the first date. But this guy was worth it.

They had walked around Sunnydale for an hour, talking about anything and everything. And first Laurie thought she was being too chatty, but he was just such a good listener and a patient man, not to mention that body. When they arrived at her dorm, she invited him in.

Before long they were on her bed, kissing and clawing at each other’s clothes.

“I don’t usually do this sort of thing,” Laurie said breathlessly.

“Really?” the man said. His bare chest pressed against hers as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. “I do it all the time.”

Before Laurie had a chance to ask him what he meant by that, his mouth covered hers. But instead of feeling good, it hurt. It burned. She tried to pull away, but the burning was quickly spreading over her chest and arms. Wherever his body touched hers, it sent a scortching pain through her, draining her strength, catching her breath, and making her vision go dark.

*

Spike sat at the table in the Magic Shop, smoking a cigarette and looking bored.

“We should check the Bronze,” Xander suggested. “It’s still the cool hang-out for all the high school kids, right?”

Willow shook her head. “I was just there, and I didn’t see her.”

“The Espresso Pump?” Xander added.

“That was my area,” Tara told him. “No luck.”

“Not at the movie theater, the school, or the hospital,” Anya said.

“And I checked all the graveyards,” Xander said. “No demon and no Dawn.”

A worried look clouded Willow’s face. “What if Dawn ran away, like, really away?” she said. “We didn’t check the bus station, the airport, the train station, or the docks.”

“For such a small town,” Xander said. “Sunnydale sure has a lot of ways to get out of it.”

Willow looked to Spike. “We should go check those places.”

Spike tossed his cigarette to the floor absentmindedly. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered.

“Nice legal guardian you are,” Xander snapped.

“She doesn’t want to be found by me,” Spike argued. “So you and the rest of the wanking patrol can go on your merry way. I’ll hunt the demon.”

“Fine,” Willow said. “We’ll split up and check all the transporty places, and you patrol.”

Spike sighed. “You haven’t even told me anything about this sodding demon.”

“I told you all we know,” Willow said defensively. She picked up a book off the stack in the center of the table and opened it. “There’s only a paragraph here on the Enoispep demon. See? ‘Little is known about the Enoispep, since sightings of the creature are rare. An Enoispep is a demon who was once mortal, raised from the dead, who sustains its life by feeding off the lives of others. This demon can destroy anything mortal or demonic with an extended touch.’”

“Like a vampire,” Anya said. “Only...you know...not.”

Spike stood up so quickly that his chair was knocked over. The others watched as he towered over them, glowering.

“Have I told you lot lately how incredibly stupid you are?”

Xander shook his head. “It’s been a few months, at least.”

“What are you talking about?” Willow said.

Spike pointed at the open book in her hands. “A demon, like a vampire, that feeds on people, right?”

“I...I guess so,” Willow said. “Yeah, it says that’s how it sustains its life.”

“But it doesn’t drink blood,” Spike explained. “So how is it feeding without...literally...feeding?”

“Energy,” Anya said. “It’s killing them by sucking out their energy.”

Spike folded his arms across his chest. “And who do we know who’s made out of thousand year-old living energy?”

“Oh my God,” Willow whispered. “Dawn.”

Spike strode across the Magic Shop, his duster billowing out behind him. Wordlessly, the others fell into step behind him.

“Split up,” Spike commanded. “Look everywhere. No one comes back here, no one goes home, no one stops until she’s found.”

*

Dawn stood in the alley next to the building that housed her and Spike’s apartment. She had been waiting there for at least an hour. She was sure that he’d stop by once the sun set, to see if she had come home. Not that she had any intention of going home ever again. She just couldn’t help but wonder how worried he’d be.

From the dark and deserted appearance of the apartment above her, she figured he wasn’t worried at all.

So now she had to figure out what to do next. If she went to one of her friends’ houses, or to Xander’s or Willow’s, eventually Spike would find her. So she couldn’t do that.

She leaned her head against the cool brick and closed her eyes. Maybe he wouldn’t find her, even at Willow’s. Maybe he would just let her stay there. It’s not like he cared what happened to her.

“Dawn?”

She opened her eyes and took a step backwards, ready to run. But when she saw who it was, she only smiled.

“Hi Steve.”

“Hi.” His dusty blue eyes reflected the moon behind her. She felt herself relaxed by his easy smile. He gestured up at the darkened apartment. “I was just going to see if you were okay. You ran out of school today pretty fast.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Dawn said. “Actually...maybe not so much fine. I kind of don’t want to go home.”

“I get what you’re saying,” Steve said, nodding slightly. “My parents are so nuts; I hate going home too.” He threw a glance back to the street behind him. “Hey, you wanna go somewhere with me?”

Dawn’s smile stretched so far her jaw started to hurt. He was asking her out! The boy she’d had a crush on all year was actually asking her out! “Yeah,” she said, trying to sound less excited than she actually was. “I’d like that.”

When Steve held out his hand to her, Dawn thought she might faint. She’d never walked around holding hands with a cute boy before. The worst day of her life was starting to turn into the best.

She took Steve’s hand in hers.

It was warm.

Continued in Part Five: No One Will Ever Love You