"You shouldn't be here, Spike," Buffy said, wagging her finger. "You have writing to do, mister."
"I'd rather be drinking." Spike punctuated his sentence by swallowing the rest of what was in his glass.
Moments later, the hefty publican was making his way over to the booth. "Another ale, Spike?"
"Oh yeah."
"Anything for your bird?"
Spike's gaze whipped between Buffy and the publican before he asked in a harsh whisper, "You can see her?"
The publican's eyebrow arched. "'Course I can. She's sittin' right there. You sure you need another drink, mate?"
"No, as a matter of fact, he doesn't," Buffy said as she slid out of the booth, completely missing the look on the publican's face when he saw her very outdated clothes. She grabbed Spike's hand and pulled him, making him stumble to get to his feet. "Come on, we need to get you home so you can write."
"Put those on my tab!" Spike yelled over his shoulder as Buffy dragged him out of the pub. She was amazingly strong for someone so tiny, and Spike knew he'd have no chance of getting free. Instead, he was forced to let himself be pulled down the streets of London by a very small blonde woman in a chiton and an elaborately beaded hairstyle. 'Cause that wouldn't make more than a few heads turn…
When they got to the door of his flat, Buffy continued to pull him, and Spike screwed his eyes shut, preparing to smack face first into the door. Instead, he opened his eyes after a moment to find them now standing inside of his flat. "How did you do that?"
"Doors are a waste of time," Buffy replied with a shrug. She stretched out her arms, paper suddenly appearing in one hand and pen in the other. "Now write."
Spike sighed. From the look of things, he wasn't getting out of this anytime soon. And the publican had seen Buffy, too, which could only mean one of two things—his hallucinating was even worse than he thought, or he had a genuine muse following him around.
He wasn't sure which thought disturbed him more.
Spike took a seat on his couch, situating himself with paper in hand. He touched the tip of his pen to the plain white sheet, willing the words to come. Maybe he had to really believe in muses for it to work, like in a fairy tale or some such.
Or not. Because the block was still there. All he really wanted to do was take a nap.
"You know, pet, I think I might be able to write better if I took a bit of a rest, yeah? Cleared my head."
Buffy chewed on her bottom lip for a moment as she thought that over, and Spike couldn't help but notice how adorable she was when she did that. "Okay, you can rest," Buffy told him. "But when you wake up, I want you writing."
"Deal," Spike replied, though he didn't know if he'd be able to keep his end of the bargain.
"Would you like me to sing softly to you while you drift off to sleep?" Buffy asked.
"Uh, no, I'll pass on that. I'd rather you stay right out here, let me get a little peace." As an afterthought, he picked up the remote control and set it in her hand. "Here. Amuse yourself by seeing what's on the telly."
Buffy stared down at the strange box Spike had given her, a frown forming on her face. "What's a 'telly?'" she wondered aloud as she heard Spike's bedroom door shut.
When Spike woke later, he could hear the hum of the television and immediately remembered Buffy. It appeared that he still had an unwanted, mythological houseguest. Just what he'd always wished for…
Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of the bed and put his jeans back on. He was tempted to try escaping out of his window, but he had an idea that Buffy would find him. She certainly hadn't had any problems tracking him down at the pub. He was right and truly buggered, no two ways about it.
He walked out into the living room, and stifled a chuckle at the sight of Buffy a mere inches away from the television screen, a look of rapt fascination on her face. "Enjoying the show, pet?" he asked.
Buffy looked over towards him quickly. She held up the remote control, then announced, "Spike! This tiny box, it makes people show up in this bigger box!" With a frown, she added, "I don't think they're real people, though. When I tapped on the bigger box, they didn't look at me."
"They're just images, luv. Pictures that move. You haven't been around here much lately, have you?"
"Not since the late 1800's," Buffy admitted with a sigh. "I was on file room duty."
Spike's eyebrow arched. That was a long time to be stuck in a bloody file room… "They let you out now, though?"
"Yes, to help you. Which is why you need to write." Buffy scrambled to her feet and got the paper and pen Spike had left on the couch earlier. "You've had your nap now, so write."
"I'll get on it soon, you tiny slave driver," Spike replied as he pushed away the paper she was thrusting at him. "Let me eat something first."
She lowered her arms, paper and pen still in hand as they hung at her sides, and pouted. It was the most adorable thing Spike had ever seen, and he had half a mind to forget about the food and do whatever she wanted to appease her. He'd never seen a bottom lip jut out quite that perfectly before.
But then his stomach rumbled, and he knew he'd have no chance of getting over his block without something to eat. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure he'd actually eaten anything the day before either. "After supper. I'll sit down and really try to write then, I promise. Is that all right, cutie?"
She immediately perked up at that, and as endearing as her pout was, Spike found that he was happy to put a smile back on her face again. He walked past her and into the kitchen, and Buffy soon followed, perching herself on his counter as Spike dug around his refrigerator for something edible.
He found a carton of Chinese take-away he could remember getting well enough that he didn't think eating it would kill him. One of these days he really had to stop wallowing in self pity long enough to actually buy some food… "Do you eat, pet?" Spike asked as he shut the fridge door and began to dig around his silverware drawer for a clean fork.
"I do require sustenance, although I can go longer periods without it than humans," Buffy replied, her legs lightly swinging.
Spike took a bite of the lo mein, then swallowed. "Yeah? What sort of things do you eat then?"
"Manna, bread and honey, sweet nectar," Buffy replied.
"Figures. I don't have any of that stuff, but I might have something close enough." Spike set his food on the counter Buffy wasn't currently occupying, and opened his freezer. "Here," he said to her as he handed her a container. "Oh, and you'll need this." He reached back into his silverware drawer and pulled out a spoon.
"It's cold," Buffy said as she took the container and the spoon from him.
"It's supposed to be. It's ice cream, pet. Chocolate with caramel and marshmallow swirls. Try it."
Buffy looked wary, but she opened the ice cream and took a spoonful anyway. Her eyes widened as she first put it in her mouth, but then they closed as she made a low moan of pleasure. "Wow, this is even better than manna. And to think I'd worried about being sent back to England after the horrible food I was forced to endure the last time!"
Spike smiled at her. "We do have some stuff around here that's edible."
"This ice cream is the most wonderful thing I've ever tasted!" Buffy said. "Was it made by pixies?"
He would've laughed at her question had she not looked so serious when she asked it. "Actually, pet, it's made by a couple of blokes named Ben and Jerry."
"Well, this Ben and Jerry are truly inspired. This is wonderful."
She turned her attention back to the ice cream, and Spike hoped that feeding a muse ice cream wasn't anything like giving water to a Gremlin. Although there was the sugar rush factor, and Buffy was already hyper enough on her own…
But she was so endearing right now, and she clearly enjoyed it as much as she claimed, so Spike couldn't take it away from her. He'd keep his freezer stocked with the bleedin' stuff if it made the chit happy.
Spike watched her as he leaned against the wall and ate. As annoying as she'd been since she'd shown up in his bedroom the night before, it seemed impossible not be charmed by her as well. She was beautiful, with her long, golden blonde hair and bright green eyes, but he supposed that much was to be expected from a muse. He didn't wager it would be easy to get inspired by some wart-covered hag with scraggly teeth and a hooknose. But there was something beyond her outward appearance that Spike found utterly captivating. She was bossy and stubborn—not to mention scarily strong—but at the same time there was something about her that made him want to smile.
Perhaps that was just a quality all muses possessed. He'd never met another muse, so he couldn't rightly call it as a purely Buffy characteristic.
Hell, for all he knew, they were all exact duplicates of each other.
"Pet?"
Buffy looked up from her ice cream, and Spike noticed she'd somehow managed not to get a bit of it on her. Impressive, really. "Yes? And why do you keep calling me this 'pet?' I've told you my name?"
"It's a nickname, is all," Spike replied. "Does it bother you?"
Buffy shook her head. "No. I like it, actually. I just wanted to know why."
"Well, that's why." Spike cleared his throat. "How many of you muses are there? Nine?"
"Oh no, there's many more than nine. Do you have any idea how overworked we'd be if there were only nine? There's billions of people in the world, Spike, and so many of them need a little inspiration now and then. Nine…" She laughed at the number as if it were the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "None of us would ever sleep!"
"So there's a whole flock of you lot then. They all like you?"
"No, I'm not like any of them." Suddenly, Buffy looked very sad.
"Why the frown?" Spike asked her.
"Well, it's just…" Buffy lowered her eyes. "The other muses are all better than me."
"Oh come now, pet, that can't be true. You're a regular delight, you are. Honestly, the best muse I've ever seen."
Buffy's bright smile was back again. "You really mean that, Spike? You like me?"
Spike's answering grin was teasing. "You aren't without your charms."
"So you won't be sending me back and asking for a replacement then?"
Her question made him frown. He could do that? And more importantly, had someone done that to Buffy before? He'd never been accused of being the nicest of men, but he didn't think he was an absolute monster either, and he couldn't imagine sending away sweet, guileless little Buffy in such a way. She was a bit of an annoying chit at times, sure, but she was also so eager to please that it made the other stuff easier to overlook.
He would, however, have to speak to her about fixing his Sex Pistols record…
"No, pet. I won't be sending you back."
"Oh, thank you, Spike! I'll work very hard to inspire you, I promise!"
"I'm sure you will." Spike set his now empty take-away carton beside the sink. "Come on now, luv. Let's see if we can get any blood from this turnip, yeah?"
Buffy's brow wrinkled. "What's a turnip? And why do we want to make it bleed?"
"I meant…" Spike stopped, wondering if it would be more trouble than it was worth to try to explain figurative language to Buffy. "Let's just go see if we can get me writing, all right?"
Buffy put down the ice cream container, and Spike raised his eyebrow to see that there was not a drop left in it. It looked as if she had washed it. And she was still completely clean…
"You'll write something today, I'm sure of it!" Buffy exclaimed. She grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the kitchen, and Spike was helpless to do anything but follow.
I'm sorry I had to take a week off from posting. I had a death in my family.
To address any concerns, I know Buffy isn't following the characteristics of an actual Greek muse. She's not one of the nine muses—as she made clear in this chapter—nor is she meant to mirror them. The concept of a muse for the purposes of this story is of my own creation, with the characteristics ones I've decided on to best fit how I want my fic to go.
Please review!