Chance Encounter

She heard arguing coming from down the street and she sighed again. She had seen this couple for the past week now, arguing as they made their way back to the local motel from who knows where. They were roughly about 10 years older than her; the man was obviously an American, but his girlfriend was British. Every time Buffy had seen them they were arguing. This time it seemed to be about something called the Junior Gazette. It was a newspaper or some such that the woman was the editor of. Apparently she had been working too hard (so her boyfriend thought anyway), and the staff ganged up on her and forced her to take a vacation. Her boyfriend—named Spike, incidentally—had a cousin who lived in the area and was getting married; so they decided to attend the wedding, thinking that it would make a good holiday.

Buffy had warned them, the first couple of times she encountered them, that it wasn’t safe to wander the streets of Sunnydale at night. Of course, not being able to explain what you’re warning them against, and being about a decade younger, meant that they did not take her seriously. In fact, the woman when so far as to patronisingly state that if it was so dangerous, a young woman like Buffy should not be out either; especially not on her own. Buffy gave up the argument at this point, and let the tourists be.

The Slayer was all set to just pass them with just a cordial nod when a figure approached the couple from the shadows behind them. It was everybody’s favourite bleached blond vampire William the Bloody, aka Spike. “Hasn’t anybody warned you that it’s dangerous to walk the streets of this town at night?”

The couple jumped. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to lurk in the shadows and jump out at innocent people?” the woman asked in a scathing tone when she recovered. It seemed to Buffy that she was trying to compensate for looking weak.

Spike (the vampire) shrugged. “Not really,” he drawled, letting the couple hear his accent. “Just thought I’d extend a warning for a couple from the old country.”

The other Spike nodded toward Buffy. “She warned us a couple of times.”

“And we didn’t see the need to take the advice of some blond who doesn’t even take her own advice, any more than we would take the advice of some Billy Idol wannabe.”

“Oh don’t worry about Buffy. She can take care of herself. And she knows what she was talking about,” the vampire put his arm around the Slayer, only to have her step out from under it.

The other woman gave them a disbelieving look. “Like anyone would take advice from someone with a stupid name like ‘Buffy’.”

“She can’t help what her name is, Lynda,” the other Spike said.

Buffy, meanwhile, rolled her green eyes. “Fine, ignore me. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you if something happens.”

“What could possibly happen in a sleepy town like this?” The woman’s (Lynda’s) tone grew scathing again.

“You’d be surprised what could happen in this town, pet.”

“Don’t call me ‘pet’!”

Spike (the human one) grabbed her arm to lead her away. “Don’t insult the nice couple who were just being nice, Lynda. Thank you for warning us, we’d best be on our way.” And he led the protesting Lynda away, ignoring her entreaties to stay and use her ‘really cutting remarks’ on the others.

Spike (the vampire) was amused to learn that the other man’s name was Spike as well. He said as such to Buffy, who was far less amused. “I doubt whether he got the nickname the way you did, Spike,” was all she said as she went back to her patrolling. Spike had to concede the point. It was highly unlikely the other Spike had gone around shoving railroad spikes into people’s heads to earn his nickname.

Meanwhile walking in the other direction, Lynda Day was so busy ranting at Spike Thomson that she completely missed the fact that the ‘Billy Idol wannabe’ was also called ‘Spike’. Her Spike, on the other hand, had immediately noticed, and took the opportunity to break into Lynda’s ranting to point it out.