Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fan Fiction ❯ Old Friends ❯ Movie Time ( Chapter 3 )

I still don't own BTVS or the characters.

AN: And that last chapter was basically a lot of nothing, but I think something may actually happen in this one. Also I fixed up the last chapter, added some stuff, so you might want to go back and re-read.

 

Chapter # 3: Movie Time

Time went on, misunderstandings were cleared up, Xander found a job at Blockbuster, Spike was eventually able to land a job at the local grocery store, and, for a few weeks, life settled back into a routine. Spike slowly developing a life parallel to the others, paths never crossing apart from the Sunday gatherings his uncle forced him to attend, apparently in an attempt to “civilize” him.

Then, one Friday down the line, Xander was dragging himself to the grocery store for a food run, it being his turn to host a Movie Night with the girls and the 7-11 type stores just didn't have the same bulk bags of junk as grocery stores. He was using the collection of money gathered from the group as a whole of course. Barely able to afford rent, Xander wasn't going to be treating anyone to a snack-fest anytime soon.

And it was as he was wandering through the aisles, in search of chips, candy, soda, popcorn, or whatever else caught his eye, that Xander caught sight of a familiar form kneeling on the ground and he pushed his cart over to say hi.

“Hey.” Slouching over his cart, Xander waited for acknowledgment.

“Yes, can I `elp—?” Turning away from his stocking of the shelves to look up at the speaker, Spike's polite customer service face dropped and he turned away again, “Oh, it's jus' you.”

“Oh, now that's just rude,” Xander straightened from his slouch to take on a stance of mock offense, “Here I am, a valued customer of this fine establishment, coming to you after a hard day's work to throw my own hard-earned cash in your hands, not asking for much in return, just a small taste of the many beautiful life-giving foodstuffs so nicely displayed on these shelves—

“Look, mate, I've got better things t' do than listen t' yer blabberin' all night,” Spike interrupted, standing up and going through the practically reflexive action of brushing dust from his pants. Xander tried not to snicker at the uniform, knowing that he'd worn much, much, worse himself. Plus Xander figured that Spike would look stupid wearing any type of uniform that didn't include him also involve serving alcohol and standing behind the bar to a club far more risqué than the Bronze. “Is this actually goin' somewhere?” Spike continued, looking up at him irritably.

Xander relaxed back into his more normal stance, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Nah, not really. What's up? You weren't at the G-man's last Sunday and I need my weekly dose of manly posturing.”

Spike shrugged, turning back to his work. “Nuthin' y' didn' hear abou' th' week before.”

Xander looked disappointed. “Aw, c'mon, nothing? As in nothing nothing?”

“Not unless yer wantin' t' hear all `bout some o' these git's shopping choices. You Yanks will eat some bloody disgusting shit.”

“And here I was,” Xander sighed, “all ready and raring to hear fun stories of crazy-dirty monkey sex and drunken acts of stupid. What were you doing then that you couldn't come?”

“Not like I actually missed anythin' important,” Spike mumbled, reaching down to pick up the now empty box on the floor, “An' I've been busy.”

Which was a good enough reason, Xander guessed, and he decided to move on to asking his real question.

“Are you busy tonight?”

“Might be,” Spike answered, placing the empty box on top of his other empty boxes already on the forklift. “Why?”

Xander shrugged and leaned against his cart again. “Doing this sort of movie night thing with Buffy and Wills. It's a tradition we have. Rent a bunch of random movies and get into a mockage flow. Thought you'd maybe want to come, if only for a free chance at all the mocking and sneering you can fit into a single night.”

A snort. “Go down t' that little kiddy club any night o' th' week, an' I can do that on my own. Don't need help by hangin' `round you lot.”

“True,” Xander allowed, “But this is a chance at mockage, movies, and junk food up the whazoo without having to pay a cent.”

“Yeah?” At this, Spike started to look a little more interested, “Y' gonna `ave any beer there, too?”

Xander shook his head. “Don't drink. Not old enough to buy either. But tell you what, you come, and I'll give you a few bucks to get your own,” Xander looked over to see how this proposal was being taken. He felt weird with doing the whole bribery thing, but it had been so long since he'd had any type of real guy friends and Xander thought that he and Spike could maybe work out. They already had something in common, with the shit jobs and no college. All he needed to do was bring him into the group more. “Wha'dya say?”

Spike looked noncommittal and none too excited about the prospect. “I'll think about it.”

Xander grinned.

 

 

“Okay, then, how bout this one?” Buffy held up an older vampire flick and looked innocent. The two of them were at Blockbuster, the night slow enough that Xander could pretend that hanging out with a friend was actual work. And, hey, they were picking out movies, so technically he wasn't even lying.

He raised a brow at the choice. “Other than the fact that we've seen that one like a hundred times?”

She lowered the DVD, getting defensive. “And, what, seeing it one more time will make you explode?”

“Explode, no; bleed from the eyes, yes.”

She ignored him. “And besides, we haven't even seen this one for, like, months.”

“Really?” Xander asked, frowning a bit as he thought back on all their more recent movie nights, “I could've sworn . . . ,” he gave up, shaking his head, “We watch way too many vamp-movies; they're all starting to look the same to me.”

“And I'm being all nice and letting you invite Spike to watch movies with us,” Buffy persisted, “I deserve a present.”

“Aw, come on, Buff. It's just being nice. I mean, the guy's G-man's nephew and new in town. He doesn't really know anyone yet.” But Xander was visibly wearing down. “Besides, he's really not that bad a guy.” At least, Xander didn't think he was.

“Then we should definitely get this one.” Buffy decided to try a slightly different tactic. “Spike looks like the kind of guy to like stuff like this and he might not have seen it yet.”

Xander sighed and accepted the loss gracefully. “True.” He held out a hand for the DVD. “But in the future, when you finally get help for this strange little vampire obsession of yours, you can't say I never tried to stop you.”

“Whatever, Xan,” Buffy rolled her eyes and turned back to the shelves, “What else do we want?”

Turning back to the shelves himself, Xander scanned the shelves seriously. Finally he nodded. “We should definitely look on the older shelves.”

“Which row?”

Hearing one of his co-workers calling his name, he was needed at the counter, Xander shrugged. “I'll leave that up to you. Duty calls,” he said, waving the DVD case still in his hand, “I'll keep this at the desk.”

Acknowledging his departure with a little wave, Buffy decided to start out in the Romance section. That would teach him to leave her alone while they were choosing the movies.

And it was while as she was poking through the miscellaneous cheesy and overly sappy romances, trying to find the worst one she could find, that she noticed, out of the corner of her eyes, the grade-A hottie browsing through the buy-used table. As casually as she could, Buffy put down the movie she held and began to slowly wander in his direction for a better look.

She just wanted to change aisles, that was all. Nothing suspicious here. And if she just happened to remember that her little sister's birthday was coming up, and that maybe Dawn wanted a DVD, then the little trip to the buy-used table was perfectly natural. She didn't notice the hot guy at all. Even if the hot guy was really seriously hot from this angle. And, oh, look, there's the movie Dawn wanted, right next to him, imagine that.

Buffy leaned over to grab a DVD at random, brushing against the guy's arm in the process. Straightening, Buffy pretended to notice the guy's presence for the first time and tried to give him her best smile. “Oh. Hi!”

`Oh. Hi?' God, she was lame.

But the guy's eyes, really pretty eyes she noticed, were a bit amused and there was something of smile on his lips. “Hi.”

 

 

“And so then he's all `Interesting choice,' and I look down and see that the movie I grabbed is this old and, like, super gross movie about little Martians coming to invade us all or something and I try to play it off, you know? But I'm so embarrassed—I mean, could I have been more lame?—and of course he notices, but he's all nice about it and is all `Not what you wanted?' and then starts to help me choose.”

It was later that night and Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Spike were all over at Xander's crap apartment watching movies and chowing down on junk food. Anya was on a date, and Tara had, unfortunately, needed to go to a late-night study-group for a class she took without Willow.

Sitting on the floor and leaning against Xander's couch, Buffy smiled and clutched her pillow closer. “It was great,”

Willow mirrored her excited smile, looking over at Buffy from where she lay on a big pillow brought from her dorm. “You're gonna see him again, right?”

“Yeah. He said he's gonna call me sometime this week.”

At this, Spike gave a derisive snort, taking another swing of his Jack Daniels. “Right”

Buffy turned to glare up at where he slouched on the couch and defended her newest guy, “He'll call.”

Spike ignored her easily. Unless he could mock it, he'd been mostly ignoring everything she said since he'd arrived.

“So what's his name?” Willow asked, bringing Buffy back on topic, “You never said.”

And Buffy's smile returned. “It's Angel.”

At this, Spike lowered his drink at this and turned to listen to the conversation more closely. It couldn't be. It would be impossible. But how many blokes could there possibly be in the world who would actually admit to the name Angel in public?

“And I still can't believe that,” Xander shook his head, “It has to be a fake. I mean, what kind of a name is Angel?”

And now Buffy was frowning at Xander for the insult against a hopeful-honey. “A good one.”

“Maybe it's a nickname?” Willow suggested.

“Well, let's hope so,” Xander said, frowning, “Can you even imagine what would happen to a kid named Angel on the playground?”

Having to know, Spike broke in, “What's his last name?”

Buffy turned to look at him again, a little confused by the sudden interest. “I dunno. Not like I hand out questionnaires to every guy I meet. Why?”

“No reason.” Spike shrugged and went back to ignoring her again. Probably a false alarm. Had to be.

“So then you can't check up on this guy's story?” Xander asked, tossing another M&M into his mouth, “How do you know that he's not gonna use that number to stalk you or something? Angel might not be his name at all.” Spike, hearing this, had to give Xander a disgusted look at the paranoia. Xander ignored him easily.

“Pfft, you're way too paranoid,” Buffy said, waving off the question, “He's not gonna stalk me. He was way too nice.”

Xander raised his brow. “And stalkers can't be nice?”

“He's not some crazy stalker-guy, okay?” Buffy said insistently.

And Xander backed off, putting his hands up in surrender. “Okay, fine, the guy's a model citizen, whatever.”

“Maybe we should just watch the movie?” Willow suggested.

“Yes,” Spike agreed maybe a touch too loudly, exasperated, “Let's all listen t' Red there, yeah? It's wot we're `ere for after all, innit? Watchin' movies?” Breaking off to take a swing of JD, he muttered to himself, “Haven't shut yer yaps once since y' got `ere.”

“You didn't have to come, you know,” Buffy frowned up at him, wishing him gone, “None of us are actually forcing you to stay.”

“True.” Spike acknowledged this with a nod then looked a bit confused and asked no one in particular, “Why am I still `ere?”

Xander leaned back into his place on the couch and looked over at him with a smirk. “Not paying for stuff is a powerful temptation, remember?”

A grimace, “Oh yeah”