TITLE: C.O.D

AUTHOR: Mint Witch

PAIRING: B/S, kinda but not really. Okay, not at all. Just Spike.

RATING: PG-13 for language

SPOILERS: Through S6

DISCLAIMER: Do I look like a paunchy guy with male pattern baldness? No. Okay. Let’s all move on.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a kind of a pro-pro-prologue to the Buffy Kink series. Chris asked me some pointed questions about Spike’s summer while beta-ing this series, and it got me thinking. This one is therefore a little Prezzie for
Canada, beta extraordinaire.

DISTRIBUTION: I’m not only easy, I’m free. Just ask. And fanfiction.net.

FEEDBACK: Give it to me baby, uh huh uh huh! Mintwitch@yahoo.com

*

“You do realize that you are insane and unnatural, right?” The voice sounds familiar, but for some reason the face is just a blurry white patch. I summon my supernatural powers of evil (now slightly diluted) to produce a witty yet scathing retort.

“Brrg.”

The bitch is laughing at me. Me! William the Bloody alias Spike alias one quarter of the Scourge of Europe alias that handsome fiend who plays a mean guitar, if I do say so myself.

“Brthg!”

Quit trying to talk, you’re all crispy and shit. Kelly’s fetching some hemo; we’ll fix you up and then you can explain why I just paid $429.17 for you. Which you will be paying back, by the way.”

Whimper. Fade to black.

The next few nights are more or less a montage of poodles and pain. Let’s just skip it. Although, it does bring up interesting questions about New Yorkers.

*

“Oi!
Lemme out! I can hear your heart beatin’ out there! Lemme the fuck out!” Christ, it’s like being back in my coffin. Humans think elevators give you a complex: try wakin’ up in a nice cosy grave on for size. Still have nightmares about it.

“Yo, Sondra, your vamp is awake!” Hey, there was someone out there. I was lying about the heart-beat thing. Can’t hear shit in here.

What’s that scraping on the lid? I don’t believe it, the bitch had me locked in! After all the times I didn’t snap her neck or eat her employees, you’d think there’d be some trust there, but no! Women: they’re all the same.

Light! Yeah, baby, that’s the stuff. Move towards the light, Spike, my boy—FUCK!

“Hey! Back off a little with the crosses, give a vamp some space!” What was I thinking? I could have gone anywhere, and I thought oooooh, the Big Apple. Hm, now who do I know in
Manhattan? Sometimes I am a git, not that you’ll catch me admitting it, of course.

“You owe me $429.17, six poodles and a
Chihuahua.”

No friggin’ way! “You did not feed me a
Chihuahua!” That’s just… humiliating.

“It was the best I could do on short notice.” Sondra shrugs, clearly not concerned about my rep. “You want something better, don’t show up for dinner without calling first.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a nickel for the pay phone- in the middle of darkest fucking
Africa!”

“Which reminds me: you owe me-- ” The woman’s like a dog with a bone!

“I’ll get it to you, alright? But I can’t do that from inside this damn box, so back off already.” Yeah, that’s it luv, give a bloke some space to move around, get his land legs back. Hot damn, that feels good. Grrrrr… “How long I been in that thing, anyway?”

“Three days here, and the packing slip says you shipped four days before that, so call it a week.”

Bastards. “You should ask for your money back; they guaranteed three day delivery.” Fastest ship in the shipping business, my ass.

“I tried that already. Apparently, they only guarantee to and from licensed ship centers. From a sand dune to a salon doesn’t qualify. Then I tried to claim that you’d been damaged in transit, but you hadn’t filled out the insurance portion of the waybill.”

Wankers.” Bloody bureaucrats, they’re all the same.

“So, tell me Spike: why did I pay $429.17 to accept delivery of your dead ass self, hmm?”

Is she completely off her nut? I just spent weeks in darkest fucking
Africa! What does she think? “For Christ’s sake woman, are you daft? I need my roots done.” Why else would anyone go to a salon?

She looks carefully at me for a moment and nods. “And you could use a facial, you’re still looking a little crispy there. Midori might also be able to do something about those nails: what have you been doing with your hands? Hmmm… I think I can fit you in on...”