Spuffy: What You're Waiting For -- Chapter One

TITLE: What You’re Waiting For
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Buffy Summers is a jaded writer. Spike Giles is her editor. When Buffy is summoned home for a family affair in the midst of her latest novel, she drags New York back home with her to little ol’ Sunnydale. Her two worlds are going to collide. And nothing will ever be the same.


CHAPTER 1 –

Buffy Summers yawned, re-crossing her legs in the plush leather chair on which she perched. Wishing she would have brought a magazine, she took to glancing about the room, searching for some aspect that she hadn’t noticed before. The rectangular office she sat in was more than familiar. She could map it out in her head – a wooden door led into the deep red toned room, an appropriate color for its dramatic owner. Its décor was minimal. A fireplace was built into the wall behind her. Swanky was an appropriate term. Only in New York.

Across from her, behind his mahogany desk sat her editor, William “Spike” Giles, both elbows on the smooth top as he hunched over her latest manuscript, thin frames perched on his nose.

Buffy fidgeted her hands in her lap. No matter how many chapters of her writing he read, and he had read every word she had written since she arrived in the Big Apple four years ago, she was still nervous for his opinion.

Sensing movement out of the corner of her eye, her gaze shot to the man in front of her. When he did nothing but turn the page and continue reading, failing to acknowledge her annoyance, she sighed deeply.

Why she subjected herself to this torture time and time again, she didn’t know. A sadist when it came to her writing, Buffy always chose to hang around his office while he poured over her writings. She wouldn’t let him go home to read it, like he did so many of his other clients. She wanted him to read her stuff right then and now and give her instant responses. She had tried leaving her manuscript with him overnight once, but she was so nerve wracked that she couldn’t sleep. Would he spill something on it? Or would someone steal it while he was at the gym? What if he read it and forgot to tell her some important aspect of his review the next time he saw her? He would have read numerous transcripts by then and would have forgotten the whole ambiance of the piece!

Ten minutes later, Buffy held her breath, straightening her spine, and waited for his final verdict.

He looked up at her.

“Your last sentence doesn’t make any sense.”

Making a noise of indignation, Buffy stood defiantly, coming to lean over behind him, reading the sentence he was pointing to. “Yes it does,” she said finally.

Spike shook his head, “It’s grammatically incorrect in so many ways it makes my head spin.”

“I’m experimenting with language,” she defended haughtily. “Who was Shakespeare if not a daring wordsmith?”

He shot her a look, “You’re hardly the Bard. And the fact that you would stoop so low as to use my idol against me does nothing but show your desperation.”

“Well other than the last sentence . . . which we’re keeping,” she added determinedly at his look he gave her over his glasses, moving back around the desk, “what do you think?”

He sighed, pushing the chair out from under him and standing up, “Yet another brilliant manifesto on how all men are pigs who take pride in nothing but sowing our wild oats and lying to you fairer sex.”

“Really?” She squealed, “Brilliant?” she asked, ignoring the rest of his unenthusiastic tirade.

“I’m sure you’ll sell millions, yet again, to the bitter women of the world,” he waved his hand toward the large window to his right, gesturing to the potential buyers that walked the streets ten floors below them, his voice lacking in excitement.

He walked around the perimeter of his desk, gathering up piles of papers and sliding them into his briefcase, Buffy hot on his heels and making her way to follow him out the door.

“So when you say ‘brilliant,’ is that more brilliant than my last book? Or is it a different kind of brilliant, because I think this one has a much different tone. Do you think I may loose some people or am I only in a situation to gain?”

“Summers,” he interrupted, “you are the only writer that I edit who I am also friends with outside work. You are the only one I have given my home address and phone number to. Please don’t make me regret it.” He made his way around the group of people exiting the elevator, entering and pressing the down button. Buffy came to a rest next to him.

“I’m dedicated,” she commented.

“You’re neurotic,” he answered as the doors closed.

Leaving the building, they waited for the light, crossing the congested New York street, Spike in his dark grey Armani suit, coffee in hand, and Buffy hurrying along beside him as much as she could in her sensible brown skirt, suit top, and heels.

“It’s Friday, Summers, why don’t you take some time off and relax? That’s what I plan to do.” They safely navigated the zigzagging taxis and reached the sidewalk. Spike spun in front of her, “Come out with me tonight,” he requested smoothly.

But not smooth enough, as Buffy easily dodged his statement with ease, “I’m afraid your idea of relaxation – a/k/a whoring your way around New York . . .”

“How many years have I known you, Summers?” he interrupted.

“Four and you’ve been trying to get into my pants for three of them,” she countered coolly. “I’m sorry, Spike, but it’s just not my idea of a good time.” She moved to go around him, but he blocked her path.

“I’ll show you enough good times to fill two of those books of yours,” he stated cockily, giving her a promisingly heated look that, for a split second, had her thinking twice. But years of practice had her brushing off the notion as ludicrous within seconds.

She looked at him, astounded by his persistence, “Where does this misguided optimism of yours come from?”

“Who was it?” he challenged, ignoring her question.

She shook her head in confusion, “Who was who?” She continued her way down the street.

“The man who ruined you for the rest of us,” he said, following her.

“For the rest of you?” she balked, “Like I’m some kind of buffet?”

Truthfully, there hadn’t been that many given the chance to ‘ruin her’. But those who had had been doosies. Firstly, there had been Angel. Who, to make a long and very melodramatic story short, left her after they graduated because he knew ‘it was best for her’. For about five seconds, there had been Parker, who had come closest to breaking her spirit. And then there was Riley, who had had the misguided notion that men were to protect women. When he discovered that Buffy was strong and independent enough to take care of herself and didn’t need to rely on him in any way, he bolted to places unknown. All these men and, as some New York shrinks would suggest, her father, left her with a jaded (and some would say bitter) outlook on romance. But the common factor of all of them? She had been perfectly content until they had decided it was over.

“Well you just wait for my next chapter,” she warned Spike. “It has to do with my friend Willow’s first love. First, she catches him in bed with another woman. Actually, it was the floor, but anyway, he up and leaves her without so much as saying goodbye and . . .”

The ringing of her cell phone interrupted her.

“Hello?” she answered brightly, only for her voice to drop into an annoyed anger, “Oh, hi. She’s what!? When? No, I absolutely cannot. This is unacceptable.” There was a pause as the person on the other line stated their case. “You know what? Fine.” She slammed the phone shut.

“Arch nemesis?” Spike questioned nodding to her phone, noting her hostile tone.

“Mother,” she answered in a huff. “I have to go home for my sister’s wedding in two weeks and this is the kind of warning I get.”

“Shotgun wedding?” he questioned the abruptness of the nuptials.

“No, we all had a pretty good idea this was coming. Since they met two years ago they’ve been joined at the hip.” Spike detected a hint of snarl in her voice.

“You don’t sound very happy for her.”

“They’re twenty -- much too young to be getting married.”

Spike shrugged, “They found each other and want to start their life together sooner rather than later. What’s so wrong with that?”

“They can’t even legally drink to their own toast,” Buffy merely grumbled in response.

“Well, good,” Spike remarked, “You can get some well-needed relaxation and fax me those chapters by the end of the week.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped, “I can’t do that!” She shook her head, “No, way.” She whipped out her cell, “I’ll just call my mother back and tell her I can’t make it. There’s just no way . . .”

Seeing she was serious, Spike grabbed the phone out of her reaching fingers, “You will do no such thing. You are going to your sister’s wedding,” he told her sternly. “You’re just going to have to suck it up about those chapters of yours because I will not be there to hold your hand.” She didn’t pitch the fit he thought she would, and instead cocked her head to look at him strangely. “What?”

“I have a proposition.”

TBC

Spuffy: Someday, Much More Chapter One

TITLE: Someday, Much More
RATING: PG-13 (may be a hard R in places, I'll warn when it is)
SUMMARY: Spike Giles’s brother, Angel, skips town, leaving him with a little girl and a big responsibility. Forced to give up his big-city L.A. life, he meets a small-town girl who could be his saving grace.

A/N: Even though this story is based on Kevin Hill and the movie Big Daddy, I’ve never seen the show and I’ve only watched the movie once, so I’m thinking this is going to be extremely loosely based. I got the idea from reading a description of the plot of the UPN show Kevin Hill, thought I’ve never seen the show. Therefore any similarities are extremely coincidental.


CHAPTER 1 --

“Bloody hell, ow!” Spike Giles sidestepped a pile of laundry lying randomly on the floor, narrowly missing breaking his neck, as he jumped out of the shower, towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist and loose blonde curls dripping as he dove for the phone as it rang for the fourth time.

“Hello,” he answered, taking a smaller towel and rubbing it against his head.

“William Giles?” the matronly woman on the other end gave him a moment to deny it. When he didn’t, she continued. “This is Marianne Stewart, from Child Services.”

“Yeah?” he answered perplexed, trying to wrap his head around why in the world Child Services would be calling him. He mentally Rolodexed the women he’d slept with over the years and any chance one of his many couplings could have resulted in pregnancy. He couldn’t come up with a single time he hadn’t taken the utmost precaution.

“You are the brother of Liam O’Connor am I correct?” the woman asked, the name thankfully jerking him out of his previous line of thinking.

“Stepbrother,” Spike answered automatically. “My father married his mother, but yeah, we’re related,” he finished, separating himself from the other boy who was unwillingly joined within the same family when Rupert Giles married Jenny Calendar twenty years ago. By making this distinction, Spike deflected any blame that could be thrown at him for his stepbrother’s actions – a defense mechanism he picked up in boyhood but habitually kept, even though it might have made more sense had Spike not been the one getting in trouble all the time, hence the apt nicknames.

“It appears Mr. O’Connor has left the immediate area indefinitely,” commented the woman on the phone.

“Appears? Where’d he go?” Spike’s brow furrowed, not really concerned with Angel’s whereabouts, but taken aback that he hadn’t heard about it through his father. Though the move didn’t exactly surprise him; a martyr when it came to his work, his older stepbrother abruptly moving for the sake of some legal case he was overseeing would hardly shock anyone.

But what this had to do with Child Services was beyond him. If Angel and his on again and off again girlfriend, Darla, were having disputes over their kid again, why were they calling him? Why should they drag him into their ongoing drama? If he remembered correctly, Angel had requested Spike NOT be called as a character witness in their last custody battle.

“I’m afraid no one knows Mr. O’Connor’s whereabouts.” The woman paused. “But we do have the issue of the child involved, a Lisa O’Connor.” She hesitated before the name, pronouncing it clinically, like she was checking the name off a paper in front of her, lest she confuse it with the hundreds of other children she dealt with on a daily basis.

“My niece,” Spike answered, getting the feeling like this was a one-sided conversation and he was the uninformed, being blindly led by the woman’s questions.

“You would not by any chance know where the birth mother is?”

“Darla?” Spike shook his head, “No. In the past two years I’ve only seen Angel a handful of times. I’ve seen the mother and the kid less than that.”

“Angel?” the woman questioned.

“A nickname,” he answered. “But what does this have to do with me?” He ran his fingers through his drenched hair, checking the clock on his apartment’s living room wall. He was going to be late for his date with that brunette he met at Lorne’s last week.

“Well, Mr. Giles, as the parents of the child were not married and Mr. O’Connor had full custody this changes some things. The mother could not be contacted and you are named next of kin for Liam O’Connor. The child is now in your custody.”

“What?” he sputtered. His mind went to the baby that he’d seen a couple of years ago at his father and stepmother’s house in England. He had a hard time picturing her face it was so long ago. All he remembered is that the kid had puked on him, not leaving him with a favorable impression of his brother’s brat. He was still trying to wrap his mind around Angel considering him worthy enough to take care of his kid should something happen by naming him next of kin.

Now apparently something had happened.

“Wait, isn’t Lisa with him?” Spike asked, wanting clarification. Granted, from what Spike had heard from his father, Angel may not win any parent of the year awards, but certainly if he up and moved he would have taken his three year old daughter with him.

“No. Lisa was left at our facility late last night.” The woman continued to talk, but Spike heard none of it. This couldn’t be real. Those next of kin things are never taken seriously are they? You only use ’em when you die and you don’t want your money squandered away by an alcoholic uncle. The lady’s voice broke into his thoughts, “You have some decisions to make Mr. Giles. Shall we keep her here with us or . . .”

“No!” he shouted into the phone, shaking his head. “No,” he repeated more calmly, “I’ll . . . I’ll be right there.”

Two hours later, after getting lost a multitude of times, fiddling with his navigation system, finding the Child Services building, and filling out mountains upon mountains of paperwork, Spike felt lucky he had remembered to put on pants. Now he stood face to . . . knee with his niece.

Ms. Stewart was more than eager to see them off, practically throwing them out of her office as her next appointment came rushing in.

The little girl looked up at him expectantly. She hadn’t said a word through the entire ordeal. Her dark brown hair hung loosely about her, almost reaching her waist, the sides were pulled back in a miniature clip with a butterfly on it, which matched her purple jumper with a corresponding insect. She clutched a Raggedy Ann doll to her chest.

Spike tilted his head to his niece standing three feet from the ground:

“Well, kid, now what?”

TBC