Bloodier Side of Sears 
by Kay 

“Judy!” Judy ignores me and keeps on folding the shirt in front of her. 
“Judy,” I hiss, a little louder. 

Finally, she looks over at me. “What?” 

“Check out those guys.” I point at the pair that just wandered into the 
women’s department in Sears. The taller guy has dark hair and broad 
shoulders, and blond one is sex on a stick with blue eyes. 

Judy laughs at me. “Which one do you want?” 

“How about both?” I’m looking forward to folding shirts and watching the 
hotties until they figure out they're in the wrong place and beat a retreat. 

Too bad the woman by the fitting room has other ideas. I hear the alarm 
sound and am walking over when a woman carrying two armloads of clothes 
begins to snap her finger at me. 

“Girl? Hey! How am I supposed to get into a fitting room?” She glares at 
me belligerently. 

“I’ve got a key, ma’am,” I say, pulling it out of my pocket. I quickly open 
the door. “Go on ahead and take all those in.” I don’t want to argue with 
her about the six-item limit. “If there’s anything you don’t want, go ahead 
and leave them on the rack right outside.” 

She pushes past me without bothering to reply. “Can you do something about 
that alarm? It’s irritating.” 

Try listening to it for eight hours straight, lady... “I’m sorry, ma’am. 
It’s a security precaution and I can’t do anything about it.” 

The door slams in my face and I leave. I pass the two hotties on my way 
out. 

The dark-haired man raises an eyebrow. “Did that woman really just snap at 
you?” 

I nod ruefully, pausing for a moment to do some close-up appreciating of the 
two of them. “It happens.” 

“That sucks.” 

Yeah, it does, but I try to keep down the complaining about my job in front 
of customers. I’ve only got ten days till I’m out of here, anyway. I smile 
a little, then reluctantly get back to work, mostly picking up after 
customers who’ve trashed the department. 

I end up under a round rack, picking up clothes that some little kid has 
stockpiled within it. As I gather up the clothes, I realize that I can hear 
voices. I give in to the urge to play fort and peer out from between two 
shirts, wondering who is out there. 

It’s the two hotties! I hold my breath and settle down for some ogling, at 
least until Judy figures out where I am and drags me out. 

The blond man has the dark one back up against the wall in an out of the way 
corner. “C’mon, Xan,” he says, tracing a finger up the other man’s arm. “I 
need you.” He’s got an accent! 

“Spike, I have a rule about sex in public. You know that!” Xan shakes his 
head and his tongue sweeps out across his lower lip. 

“Xan...” Spike’s plea is a rough purr. Before Xan can refuse again, Spike 
captures his mouth in a hard kiss. My mouth drops open as I watch them 
devour each other, hands wandering freely as they press closer and closer. 

Finally, Xan pushes Spike away. I hope that the blond’s whimper of 
disappointment covers my own. Xan glares at Spike. “Damn it,” he mutters, 
reaching down and adjusting himself in his jeans. “Let’s get out of here so 
you can fuck me through the mattress.” 

“Can’t, pet.” Spike’s expression is gleefully evil. “We’ve got to buy Red 
a present.” 

Swearing under his breath, Xan walks away with Spike on his heels. 

I wait until they’re gone before crawling out from under the rack. I feel a 
little dazed: that kiss keeps replaying in my mind’s eye again and again. 
Those two together...mmm. I force myself back to work. I put away the 
clothes I’ve found, then head over to the fitting room to check it out. 
Every room I check is empty, so I lock the doors. I knock on the door to 
the room I put the rude woman in. No one answers, so I unlock it and head 
inside. The interior looks like a warzone: clothes are inside out and 
strewn all over, mostly on the floor. The hangers are tangled up in the 
clothes, worsening the mess. I take a deep breath to try to curb my 
irritation and start to pick it all up. As I stagger out of the fitting 
room, my arms so full of clothes I can barely see over them all, I pass by 
the two hotties. 

Xan stares at the clothes. “Did the snapping woman do all that?” 

I nod, hoping I’m not blushing as I look at them. 

Xan frowned. “That sucks!” He looks over at Spike. “I hate that. People 
used to pull shit like that on me all the time at my jobs. Like the fact 
that I work shitty hours and get paid in peanuts wasn’t enough, they’d do 
stuff like this to make it all harder.” 

Spike growls. He actually growls! He face seems to ripple and for a moment 
his eyes are yellow instead of blue. 

I catch my breath. Not only have I lived in Sunnydale for most of my life, 
I work at Sears. Sears feels an awful lot like hell, so not all of the 
customers are human. The demons seem to feel at home here. Spike looks 
like a vampire. 

“No one picks on my nummy,” he mutters. I think. Nummy? 

“There’s nothing you can do,” Xan says. “Chip, remember?” 

“Anyone who leaves a mess like that is obviously more animal than human.” 
Spike disappears with Xan following him. 

Completely confused, I walk back to the register to start trying to separate 
the tangled mess of clothes. It takes a while and I become absorbed in the 
task. A noise catches my attention and I look up to find Spike and Xander 
back in the department. I notice something. “You’ve, ah, got a bit of...” 
Blood. It has to be blood. I point to the corner of my mouth. 

A pink tongue creeps out of Spike’s mouth and laps up the spot. He raises 
his eyebrow. 

“You got it,” I tell him. Holy shit. He just killed that woman. I think 
about it for a moment, then shrug it off. She *had* been a bitch. I figure 
that now I owe them. “You need some help finding anything?” 

“Yes!” Xan says gratefully. “I need to get a present for a friend.” 

I ask him her size and preferred colors. “K. I’m going to look around for 
something that she might like. Meanwhile...” I pull out the key to the 
main door to the fitting room and lay it down on the counter. “This is the 
key to the external door of the fitting room. No one’s in there. We 
usually close it down this time of night.” I don’t say anymore, just walk 
away. I glance back over my shoulder in time to see Spike snatch up the key 
and grab Xan’s arm. He drags the other man over to the fitting room and 
slams the door. As I hear the lock slam home, I head over to an area where 
I think I saw some shirts that will work. 

Coincidentally, it’s the one part of the store that one can hear in the 
fitting room. If I can’t watch, I’m damn sure going to listen! As I begin 
to search through the racks, I hear a pair of thumps and a muffled whimper. 

Let the show begin.

END