(Like sands through the hourglass) ...
 

DAYS OF OUR UNLIVES
 

I check the next room.

No sign of him.

I turn the next corridor, peek around the corner nervously, scan my eyes quickly around my current location. Nope. He isn't here either.

I've got to get out of here.

I've seen a lot of terrible things in my many years. I've lived through earthquakes and plagues. I've seen the degradation of poverty when Europe was gripped by war, the filth of Manhattan as the century neared its end. I've lived in sewers and on Hellmouths. I've witnessed- and caused- carnage and chaos that you can't even imagine. And, of course, there was that five-hundred-year stint in Hell.

But this is the most terrifying place I've ever been.

The mall.

I'm in the mall. I can't believe that I'm in the mall. The honest-to-God, retail-store, fake-palm-trees, penny-filled-fountains *mall.* This is insane. I'm nearly two hundred and forty-seven years old and I'm spending my evening in a shopping
mall. I *know* this is a sign of the apocalypse.

I *hope* this is a sign of the apocalypse. 'Cause if the world ends, I won't have to stay here one moment longer.

I haven't been in a mall in a very long time. While they were being invented and springing up all over America like rapidly multiplying protozoa, I was busy wandering around the country with an industrial-strength guilt complex. Buffy used to beg me to go to accompany her on her many shopping expeditions, but that was a side of humanity that I was loathe to explore. I have better things to do with eternity than accompany a seventeen-year-old female on her perpetual quest for shoes. I mean, yeah, I loved her. But love will only drive you so far. In fact, the last time I set foot in a mall, I was an evil, soulless vampire trying to kill hapless shoppers with a big blue guy.

A big blue guy that *he* had raised.

This is all *his* fault.

I told him to meet me in the food court in half an hour. But, really, did I honestly think it would be that simple? He doesn't know where the food court is. To Spike, the entire *world's* his food court. The only things he knows around here are the tobacco shop, leather goods, the record store...

Of course. The record store. He'll need CDs.

For that *fucking* stereo.

I would like to say that the new stereo system was the first thing that I noticed when I dashed down the stairs into my apartment, startled by the loud crash of steel against wood. I *should* have noticed it first, six feet of buttons and controls and speakers and digital programming towering against the wall like some maddened technological gargoyle. But what I noticed was my cherished record player, lying in splinters on the floor as Spike massacred it with my favorite battle axe..

I stopped short at the foot of the stairs, unable to speak or move. He glanced up from his toil and gave me that look. The one that I would normally, on anyone else, call a guilty look. But not him. There was no guilt in his expression whatsoever. No remorse there, no shame. The look of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, pure and simple.

"Hello, pet," he said easily.

"What," I said slowly, carefully, "the *hell* are you doing to my record player?"

He straightened up and twirled the battle axe with one expert hand. "Destroying this ancient piece of shit so effectively that you can never attempt to play it again."

The boy doesn't mince words.

I curled one hand around the bannister, fighting for control. I could feel Angelus inside me and he was begging to be let out to play.

"Did it ever occur to you," I continued in the same monotone,

((take his fucking head off))

"that your smashing my personal belongings

((insolent little shit))

might upset me a bit?"

He gave me that familiar crooked grin. "Peaches, you know perfectly well that I'd never destroy anything of yours that still had some practical use."

It was a lie, and we both knew it. Spike's been doing his own special brand of spring cleaning ever since he got here. It started with every shirt of which I owned more than one particular color. Got five black silk shirts? Throw four out. "A bloke doesn't need more than one black silk shirt, Angel. Come to think of it, a bloke doesn't need more than one shirt."

"But that poor piece of crap," he continued, gesturing to the shattered mess on the floor, "passed its 'last legs' stage decades ago. I mean, your poor choice of music aside, mate, the thing sounded awful. It was all scratchy. And it skipped." He raised the axe one last time and brought it down on the ravaged record player with a triumphant blow. "So I bought a stereo."

"I *had* a stereo."

"That's not a stereo, ducks, it's a prototype for phonographs. Jesus Christ, where were you when they invented the eight-track, the cassette deck, the CD player, the MP3? Don't worry, you're gonna love the way this baby sounds. Digital tuner, surround-sound, programmable ten-disc changer. It's time someone introduced you to the wonders of modern technology."

The bannister was beginning to splinter underneath my grip, but I was afraid if I let go I might rip his head off. "Modern technology." I nodded in the direction of the monstrosity lining the wall. "You mean that monolith that's lurking where my bookshelf is supposed to be?"

He went into the bedroom and pulled open the drawer where he keeps his meager belongings. I didn't offer the drawer, mind you; he just kind of commandeered it on arrival. "I shoved the bookshelf in the closet," he said offhandedly. "We can figure out where to put it later."

I stared in despair at the large, incredibly ugly machine now taking up half of my living room. "Spike," I said with the air of one who has resigned himself to the situation, "is this some sort of penis envy thing?"

He glanced up with a wry smile. "No, mate, that's your gig." He riffled briefly through the contents of the drawer, then stood up with a sense of purpose. "We gotta go."

Something occurred to me suddenly and I felt gripped with horror down to the very depths of my soul. "Spike," I said in alarm, "how did you pay for this... this... machine?"

He looked up at me with the most innocent expression imaginable. "With your credit card." He grabbed his duster off the chair, where I have told him a million times not to leave it, and headed towards the door. "Come on, ducks, we've gotta go."

"Go?" I sputtered, my head reeling. "Go... where?"

He pulled on the coat and grabbed my car keys. "To the mall."

So here I am at the mall. You know, in the split second between the moment I regained my soul and the moment that my ex-girlfriend ran me through with magical sword and sent me to Hell, a lot of things rushed though my mind. But I distinctly remember thinking "one thing's for certain. I'm never going to the *mall* again."

I can't believe I let him talk me into this.

I find him in the nearest record store, a set of headphones firmly perched on his bleached head, prancing around like a child and singing loudly. "American baseball bat," he howls. "Demolish the discotheque. And how many blows must fall on his neck 'till he lays in the schoolyard bludgeoned to death?"

I cringe. I'm not sure what's worse: the lyrics or Spike's off-key singing. He spots me across the store and gives me an idiotic grin. "Oi, Peaches," he shouts over the racket that only he can hear, waving a CD cheerfully at me. "Buy me this."

I suppress a groan. I know perfectly well why he headed straight for the record store. His last girlfriend, it appears, torched all his belongings. The few remaining CDs that had made it out of the factory when Giles set it ablaze soon suffered the wrath of a woman scorned. And now he's got a huge hulking stereo system and nothing to play in it.

I shake my head. He lowers the headphones and stares at me in amazement. "Why not?"

"You've got money."

I admit to giving Spike an... allowance of sorts. I hoped that if he had money to call his own he'd learn to spend it responsibly and stop taking mine. I was wrong.

Truth be told, I had it coming. The boy was a professional pickpocket before I turned him.

He gestures to the huge pile of CDs clutched in his other hand. "Not enough."

"Then you'll have to go without," I reply calmly, turning away. He must be insane if he thinks I'm going to purchase that crap to be played in my home.. But while I'm here, I'd might as well see what the classical section has to offer... since my records are now useless.

Idiot Childe.

*~*~*~*~*

Stupid ponce.

I watch in despair as he heads straight for that soddin' elevator music. You know, I am *trying* to help him here. Introduce him to modern life. Make him leave the house once in a while. And all he ever does is bitch.

He begins to peruse a pile of $2 classical discs. You know, he's become a good deal more economical since I moved in. I think I'm draining his assets somewhat.

He lifts his head just enough to glance at me with dark eyes. I pick up the CD I want him to buy me and wave it at him suggestively. He shakes his head and looks down at the cheap CD bin again. But I *saw* it. I saw that little smile he does, that amused half-smirk. It flits across his face so fast you can barely catch it before it's gone, but I saw it nonetheless.

He likes to pretend that he's pissed off at me but, truth is, it's all an act. He loves it, the attention, the torments, the gentle teasing. The poor pillock lets me get away with murder. And he loves every moment of it..

Well, maybe not *every* moment. When he came down the stairs earlier today and saw what I had done to his record player... I don't think he was loving *that* moment.

I pick up my pile of purchases and make my way over to where he's standing. "Peaches, the last time this shit was popular, you were wearing breeches and hair ribbons."

"And even back then I had better fashion sense than you did." He nods at the discs I'm holding. "What about you? What sort of tuneless crap do you plan on blasting on that monstrosity you purchased with *my* credit card?" I hand him the discs and he flips through them quickly. "The Sex Pistols, of course. Dropkick... Murphys? What a stupid name. N.. no....Noffix?"

"NOFX, Angel. No. F. X."

"The Ramones. The Misfits. And Less Than Jake. Who's Jake?"

I roll my eyes and snatch my CDs back. "You're hopeless, you know." I stalk away, heading towards the section where they keep the decent music. "Hurry up, let's go."

*~*~*~*~*

I'm flipping through a pile of Beethoven's piano sonatas when he comes up behind me, snatches the discs out of my hands, and shoves the one he wants in their place. "C'mon, mate."

I sigh and gaze at the album's cover, which features a black-and-white sketch of an unkempt boy with a bizarre hairstyle, crouched on a doorstep. "What the hell is this?" I growl.

He gives me that grin again. I *hate* that grin because it always makes me want to grin back and that would only encourage him.

"Rancid," he says cheerfully.

I stare at the CD distastefully. "You've got that right."

"You've already got CDs." I nod in the direction of the bag he's holding.

"Yeah, but now I'm out of money and I want this one, too."

"Tough."

"It's really great," he says, pouting. He's got pouting down to a fine art. The cheeks go in, the lips go out, the eyelashes flutter. I glance away, knowing that if I continue to stare at him I'm gonna cave.

"I'm sure."

"You'll love it."

"Something that you listen to? I highly doubt it."

"C'mon, love..."

I blink in surprise. He so rarely calls me that. Unless he wants something.

"No."

He reaches up with one hand and begins to trail his fingers slowly up and
down my arm. "Please?"

I sigh, my determination rapidly dissipating as he twists his fingers around mine. "Spike... we talked about this..."

And suddenly his body is *much* closer to mine than normally would be deemed appropriate in such a public setting and he thrusts his hips towards me, grinding his crotch against mine. "Please, Angel?"

I feel my breath catch in my throat. Silly, really, considering the fact that I don't breathe. Just barely shielded from the sight of the employees and the other shoppers by his long leather duster, I feel one of his hands, those delectable, talented, slim-fingered hands close around the bulge in the front of my pants. "Whaddaya say, ducks?" he purrs, his tongue darting out briefly to caress my ear.

I pull my wallet out with trembling fingers and hand it to him wordlessly. He smiles widely, pulls away from me, and goes prancing to the sales counter like a child with a new toy.

I try to adjust my trousers as inconspicuously as possible and walk past the counter, where he stands, paying for that trash with *my* hard-earned money. I lean towards him as I brush past, teasing his ear with a whispered breath. "You owe me one," I murmur.

He twists around and dazzles me with a positively wicked grin. "I hope so."

***
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