brat_inslayage | Summers Basement, A Couple of Days Later, Late March 2003 (Tuesday Fandom Time)

So as it turned out, the chip that had been implanted in Spike's brain to keep him from hurting humans was gone. That had happened during the night Kennedy had spent trying to get to the bottom of Willow's non-Fandom-related gender-swapping problem, and explained some of why Buffy had been so worried about him that day. Also the collapsing, though Kennedy had been preoccupied at the time. There hadn't been a big announcement about it or anything, though, and that was the part some of the girls-- and the Scoobies, for that matter, if she was interpreting correctly-- had a problem with. It had all come out one night on patrol in an explosion of slangy British-ness, when Spike hit Giles by accident and comedic confusion ensued.

Then last night had been Buffy's date with the Sunnydale High principal, who was a totally hot young guy with an earring if Dawn and Amanda were to be believed, and as it turned out everyone who'd been betting on whether he was a demon had been wrong. (Rona was vocally sorry about that; she'd been hoping for a nice cut of actual money, since Kennedy had declared she'd literally pay up if he really was one.) No demon there. Just a guy who fought demons because oh, yeah, his mother was a Slayer who'd been killed in the line of duty.

That part put a damper on the betting when the girls found out about it; all of Buffy's speeches about how any one of them could be the next Slayer dovetailed with that revelation in a not so fun way.

But Datefest 2003, as Anya grumpily dubbed it, wasn't so demon-free. Xander, whose unmistakable romantic bickery tension with Anya was the subject of as much gossipy speculation from the Potentials as whatever vibe Buffy and Spike had (and Kennedy and Willow were fair game too), had ended up on a date with some girl he'd met at the hardware store, which had led to him being strung up over the giant evil manhole cover of doom over the Hellmouth in the school basement, stabbed in the side and bleeding onto said manhole cover. Or the Seal of Danthalzar. Whatever. Anya hadn't been wrong, as it turned out; Xander's date had been a demon after all, and as interested in getting on the First's good side as half the demon populace of the town. (That was an interesting tidbit, actually.)

It was in line with everything Xander had told Kennedy about his previous romantic history. All things considered, it did paint a pretty ominous picture of dating on the Hellmouth but she figured if she hadn't been scared off by now she wasn't going to be.

Anyway. Xander was home and patched up, Anya was being all huffy and told-you-so, Giles had lectured all of them about their social lives in the face of the apocalypse. It had been a pretty eventful few days.

Somehow hanging out with Spike had become an occasional thing after training sessions, when there was gear to put away and no one quite as obsessive about it as she was, though Kennedy hadn't had the chance since before the whole deal with his chip acting up.

"So," she remarked as she wiped down a pair of boxing gloves. "Off the high tech leash, huh?"

Spike	Spike glanced over from where he was trying to roll one of the exercise mats tightly enough to stand, surprised she'd asked. "That's what the men said," he said, and fumbled to hold the mat closed. "Not sure I'm meant to be spreading it around."
Kennedy	"Giles was kinda pissed about it," Kennedy allowed, moving over to help with the mat. "Sorry I missed out on everything that went down there."
Spike	Spike snorted. "Yeah, I don't care so much what Watcher thinks," he said, in a way that was mostly bravado. "Just don't want to be a distraction to the kiddies." He glanced over to Kennedy. "Yourself only somewhat included. Looked like you and Will had other things to worry about, anyhow."
Kennedy	"Yeah..." Kennedy half-grinned for a moment, almost showing a hint of schmoopiness, then retreated back behind her own tough-girl front. "Was one crisis at a time getting too routine or something? Guess people who go around and stick chips into vampires' heads don't really care about making sure there's a convenient shelf-life label on the things, but man."
Spike	Spike quirked a grin at her and went over to sit on one of the mats he should have been folding. "Cute," he said. "Expecting timing here not to be a bloody cosmic joke. Could have been worse, chip could have gone wonky in the middle of a battle."
Kennedy	"Okay, granted, that would be super inconvenient." Kennedy leaned against the vault horse and crossed her arms. "And for the record I'm totally not worried about the chip being gone."
Spike	"Is that so?" Spike sounded amused. "So I'm passing for a white hat these days. I can't complain. Well -- not more than I do anyhow."
Kennedy	She probably should have been more worried, but Kennedy had made up her mind he was one of the good guys, and he'd snuck into the 'people she trusted' tier on the strength of that. She had a lot of friends and acquaintances that Constance had disapproved of; what was one more to add to the list? "Complaining every now and then isn't a bad thing. Gotta spice things up somehow," offered the girl who practically made an art of it. "What happened, anyway? Like, how'd you end up getting it out?"
Spike	"Honestly? It started feeling like it was trying to break my head open from the inside, and the slayer made a call to her ex," Spike said, and waved a hand. "Not the poof. Army boy. He sorted it out."
Kennedy	"Keeping track of everyone's dating life around here is a headache. Wonder if there's an app for that?" Kennedy remarked, half to herself and mostly rhetorically. "Though hi, convenient. If disturbing in the sense of this being what the army's up to. Didn't realize they were into fang control." Though it kind of made sense if she thought about it, in the continued theme of what lurked beneath the surface of everything in their world.
Spike	"... app?" Spike wondered, because it was 2003. And also because technology and 125-year-old vampires were rarely BFFs. He shrugged. "They have a whole separate things that go bump in the night unit -- or did have." Spike wasn't entirely up on the current status of the Initiative. "Kidnap us, chip us, make us play nicely. You're talking to the former Hostile 17."
Kennedy	Kennedy blinked at him for a second. "Uh. Sorta future tech thing, don't ask." God help everyone if she ever let Willow get a hold of that iPhone. "Hostile 17, really? Wow, Jean Valjean much?" she asked incredulously. (Yes, she read books that weren't mystery novels. French lit seemed like a thing that would impress girls.) "That's... kinda messed up. Theoretically useful, but messed up."
Spike	"Should've asked to be Hostile 24601, but the bloody brain surgery made it a little hard to think," Spike said, and nodded indignantly. "It was a complete violation of unhuman rights. I wrote to my congressman about it, didn't get a response." He was ... possibly being less than sincere. Also ignoring the century and more of torture and murder that had preceded the chip. Well, until his conscience got to him, anyhow. "It probably was," he added, grudgingly, "useful."
Kennedy	"You've read-- wait, you've been around since that book was pretty new," Kennedy interjected, laughing. "Cool. And now here you are, all chip-free. Must feel pretty good, huh?"
Spike	"Bit terrifying, too," Spike said. "I want to hit Andrew as much as anybody, and I have to trust this, this soul to tell me not to. Makes you feel all shiny and new."
Kennedy	"I generally tell myself it's not worth the week and a half of whining afterward," Kennedy said dryly. "So far it's worked pretty well." She allowed herself a brief grin, then sobered. "Get what you mean, though. I'm not exactly the poster girl for self-control. Usually, when it comes down to common sense versus what I really wanna do? Guess which one wins. So I get that."
Spike	"Not sure that's true," Spike mused. "Have you grabbed Red and snogged her senseless yet?" What? He had to watch Kennedy making cow eyes at the witch, same as everyone else in the house did. It was distraction from his own failure to work things out with Buffy again -- not that he deserved the second chance.
Kennedy	"See, this is where the 'usually' comes in." Kennedy drew herself up and mock-glared at him. "Old me, who used to get kicked out of schools for getting into fights and getting caught after curfew with the headmaster's kid? So would've, long before now, which by the way means I already have. How do you think that whole Warren mess started? But the fact that you had to ask..." She waved a hand. "It was complicated, okay? And not saying reining myself in was easy or anything, but I learned how. Which is to say, it's a bitch of a lesson but it's not impossible." With a significant look at him, she added, "For anyone, I think, if I pulled it off." A bit arrogant, that, from a teenager to a vampire with a century and change on her, but well... Kennedy.
Spike	Spike managed three slow claps. "Congratulations. So things are good now? Warren mess aside." Not that he'd been paying that much attention to that bit of it, what with his brain trying to explode.
Kennedy	Well, Kennedy hadn't exactly spared too much concern for his exploding brain at the time, either, so they were even. "Think so, yeah. Getting there, anyway," she allowed, a bit reluctant about conceding caution. Then, in a teasing tone, "What, who designated you the peanut gallery?"
Spike	Spike shrugged guiltily. "Not like I have anything better to pass my time with -- at least, when my brain's not trying to kill me. Does it bother you, people noticing?" He didn't much care, but it seemed polite to ask.
Kennedy	Well, there'd been the thing with Dawn, but even if it did bother her, it wasn't like you could buy privacy in this house anyway. (If you could, she'd have done it by now.) "Shyeah, not even." Kennedy rolled her eyes, then shot a smirk at him. "Does it bother you every time the girls want to know if making out with vampires is a prerequisite to staking 'em, 'cause that's what it sure looks like in training?"
Spike	"Hey! Buffy and I," Spike said, so mock-affronted he actually remembered the woman in question had a proper name, "are not making out." He couldn't quite hide his smirk. "We're just ... demonstrating proper form for you padawans." Xander and Andrew had rubbed off on him, apparently.
Kennedy	Kennedy stared at him for several seconds, tried to imagine the look on Master Skywalker's face (it was her reaction to any Space Battles reference the guys around here made), and dissolved into a thoroughly unsophisticated bout of snorting laughter. "Oh, so that's what we're calling it these days?"
Spike	"There's nothing going on between us!" Spike protested again. But it wasn't long before he got the giggles too. They were contagious. "Slayer should start a bloody soap opera about her love life," he said, when he was done. "Might be better than Passions."
Kennedy	Hopefully Andrew wasn't listening in on this. He didn't need to get those ideas. "...oh, tell me you don't watch that," Kennedy said between snickers. "Besides, you give me crap, I get to give it right back. That's the rule, 'cause I say so, and also 'cause it's totally obvious with you two."
Spike	"She's moved on," Spike said, not realizing his word choice admitted something had happened. "She's headed toward her white picket fence with that ... principal with the earrings." Which meant it was high time for Spike to experience non-Sunnydale parts of the world. But Buffy had told him, I'm not ready for you not to be here. Whatever that meant to her, to him it meant he couldn't go. "Anyhow," he added, collecting himself, "never said you couldn't give me crap."
Kennedy	Having had a recent brush with the boatload of not-fun that moving on could be, Kennedy gave him a sympathetic look. "You busting in on her date with Principal McHottie didn't end up that messy, huh?" What that said about Robin Wood she had no idea, but it could be kind of impressive.
Spike	Spike winced at the word choice. Literally speaking... "Boy's got a gift," he said lightly. "Not bad at fighting demons, and didn't stick a stake in me along the way. Buffy should be grateful." He paused, and would have lit a cigarette if he had one. "You heard his mum was a slayer, yeah? Hardly ever hear about that."
Kennedy	"Pretty sure that's a first as far as I've heard," Kennedy agreed, then smiled faintly for a moment. "Maybe my alternate-universe future kids that Fandom dropped on me those couple of times, but that's just me guessing, so who knows?" She chewed on her lower lip. "Probably not so fun for you, though. Being here all... in the same house and everything."
Spike	It took a second for Spike to follow her mental leap there, and he smiled when he did -- though there was something sad in his eyes. "I get to see her every day this way," he said quietly. "Like having just a little bit of the sun in my life." One never exactly got over being a poet, even an awful one.
Kennedy	And now Kennedy actually felt bad for being smug a few minutes ago. "That's kind of beautiful," she remarked, equally quiet-- and just disconcerted enough by the moment to push away from the vault horse and gather up a few more sparring pads. "What you just said. And her being that big a deal to you, too." No one ever said she had stellar literary taste.
Spike	Spike looked embarrassed at how much of himself he'd shown, and he pushed himself to his feet and started noisily pairing boxing gloves to put away. "Right. Well. Just another girl in the end, isn't she? I'll go find somebody else, get a nice crypt under a tree somewhere, be happy as clams."
Kennedy	"Just another girl, my ass," Kennedy scoffed mildly over her shoulder as she stacked up pads in the corner. "I do kinda notice how you look at her." When, exactly, had she gotten to the point where she didn't even bat an eye at the idea of the Slayer hooking up with a vampire? Probably a long time ago, but she wasn't counting.
Spike	"I can look at a lot of girls exactly like that!," Spike said, and gave Kennedy a hey-baby look just to make his point. (And never mind that he'd loved exactly two people in his very long life.) "Anyhow, remember the part where she's sworn to kill me? Kind of gets in the way of your happily ever after."
Kennedy	"Whoa, eyes off, pal," Kennedy shot back, playfully flipping a boxing glove at him. (Hey, if he was putting them away anyway...) "That's kinda disturbing." It was. But also kind of funny. "And why should it get in the way, anyway? Seems like we break every other rule around here."
Spike	Spike caught the glove and looked smug about it, and for a moment it might seem as if he wasn't going to answer. "Bad things happened when we were together," he said firmly. "Long story. Not a part of our lives it'd be good for either of us to go back to -- especially with the First mucking everything up."
Kennedy	"Point." Whatever Kennedy got out of that statement, it was enough for her to decide she wasn't going to push the subject. "But I'm reserving the right to kind of root for you a little bit." She apparently had a little bit of a hopeless romantic streak herself. Wait, was that a surprise?
Spike	"Thanks." Spike gave her a tiny smile. "I'm never gonna turn that down." He still sort of rooted for himself and Buffy, in some vague never-never land where he'd earned her.
Kennedy	"Well, hey. I don't do pom-poms--" something about that line felt vaguely familiar and made her smile-- "but count me in your corner on that." Kennedy experimentally eyed the stack she'd made and decided it would hold up, barring an earthquake. Or rampaging fifteen-year-olds on caffeine. "Also on occasionally freaking the girls out, 'cause it's kind of funny still..." What? It was good for training. Kept them on their toes.