Spike identity for RPG s

She should be back from school any minute. She's had gym today – I'm a freakin' soccer dad! Except for the part where I should pick her up from school, and I can't 'cause the sun's up. But I know her schedule better than she does herself. I hate it when she has gym 'cause she gets to shower before she gets home and I can't sniff her right. Can't smell anyone else on her. She's at that age where she's getting ready to do more than just hold hands with boys. I know that they sure as hell are ready for more. I know by smell all the boys who have ever touched her. I saw how they look at her when she walks away. The porch reeks of their arousal after she kisses them goodbye on the doorstep.

I chop off vegetables with too much gusto. I imagine chopping off their groping little fingers, their eager little dicks. But I can't do that, can I? Not with the sodding chip in my head. Not with a little girl who looks up to me like I'm a god. Yet, I know that if they ever touch her, if they ever defile her, if they... I'm gonna take the blinding pain and snap their necks.

I glance at the clock again. She's running late. It's only minutes, it's still daylight, but I cannot help the worry. Despite the bile in my throat at the thought of her snogging some dorky high school boy, I fuckin' hope that's the worst that can happen to her.

She's an hour late.

I zap through the TV channels while her meal is growing cold in the kitchen. I'm fighting the urge to pick up the phone. But who can I call? The whelp? He'd only take it as proof I'm not fit to be her guardian. I could call Tara, but she has classes. I know I can't call Willow. Red's beginning to give me the willies. And no one gives me the willies anymore.

I feel like exhaling when I hear her key in the door.

She's sauntering in, an hour and a half later than I expected her. I'm not showing her that I'm relieved to see her with arms and legs still attached. I want to go to my room to get some shut eye before I go patrolling tonight. Can't do that now. Have to give her a lesson first. We live on a Hellmouth and she should know better than keep me waiting.

I take her bag taking the opportunity to smell her as best I can without letting her know I do it. I throw it on the couch carelessly. She opens her mouth to say something. I can feel it in my bones that it's going to be something nice and carefree. I raise my eyebrow, and she closes her mouth.

"Food's cold," I say, sounding like a needy housewife even to myself.

No, maybe the growl in my voice says more than the words. It should say that I'm pissed off. It should sound even to her ditzy teenage ears like she should know better than to keep me waiting without as much as a phone call.

I'm going to my room wondering if she can read my anger in the set of my shoulders. I shake my head. At least she's not smelling of boys, or sex. Ice cream. She was smelling of vanilla and strawberry ice cream.

Continued here...

How did I get myself in the same damn situation again? I was minding my own business, found meself a nice tropical island, with fruits so fucking juicy and sweet that I could go for days at a time without blood. With nice, friendly people, good folk who don't stake master vampires. With beautiful women, with skin like the finest milk chocolate, all of them hot blooded and great lays. And I left all that behind as soon as she called me.

I stomp on the cigarette stub like it's my own stupidity. Slayer just called yesterday like I was the bloody whelp, who lived three houses away. Oh, she was polite enough, but the short of it was that I ran to her like a dog to its master's heel.

Love's bitch. I was so fuckin' right!

She called me on the fuckin' phone! I dragged my sorry corpse out of that death alley the poof led us into. I got my shit together. Yeah, right, as together as a fucked up vampire with a bastard of a soul can be. And did she do anything to find me? To help me? To comfort me? I would've even taken a mercy shag from her. Like I always did. But no. She didn't give a rat's arse about me then. And now she calls me on the phone. Like she's ordering a pizza.

I light another fag. I'm twenty feet from her house, no time to enjoy it all the way, but I needed another one. Haven't seen her in almost three years. Wonder what's it gonna be like.

I can see her house. My steps are slowing down. I've been dying to see her for months, why the fuck am I slowing down?!

The front door jerks open making my heart give this unholy, undead lurch in my chest. The girl runnin' out the door 's not her. It's the chit. My heart sinks back like a stone. The door slams shut behind her, like another barrier falling between me and the Slayer.

The Nibblet's real upset. She storms by me, passing only inches from the tree behind which I stopped. She doesn't sense the presence of a vampire so close? Where does this girl think she lives? Disneyland?

She's speeding away. I look at the house, look at the girl's figure striding away. But then she stops. She's just sitting on a bench at the end of the street, head cradled in her hands. I look back at the house. I can almost smell the Slayer. I'm in the middle. I take another drag, let the smoke out slowly. I take the first step toward the house when some screwed up fatherly instinct or something turns me around like a puppet on a string. I can't leave her there. Her body's screaming "vampire candy".

I make sure she doesn't sense me coming. I wanna scare her back to her senses. She's delaying my long awaited reunion with the Slayer. I'm right standing behind her, so close that she should be able to sense my presence. I put my hands on her shoulders, gripping hard when she tries to pull away. I'm not letting her stand up, or run, or turn around. She's beginning to shiver. I can't let her see that I'm enjoying her fear. I'm here to be her guardian again. So, I speak. My voice sounds lower, more gravelly than I intended. How long has it been since I didn't say anything?

"You should be more careful, Bit. Any number of beasties around after dark."

Continued here...