*****

Dear Diary,

Well, it's been a week since Spike's internal meltdown and subsequent freakage over hot cocoa with mini-marshmallows. After I helped put the broken pieces of Spike's emotions back together, I made a promise to you Diary. Well...to you and *myself*.

A promise to get to *know* Spike. Really know him.

So for this past week I have been watching him. Just observing. And I've noticed lots of things. Things that were there all along, but had never stood out in my mind. Never really caught my attention long enough to stick in my memory.

Which is sort of weird in a way, because it's all in the details. And I *do* know details about Spike that no one else in the Scooby Gang knows. However, until this past week, those details revolved around only two things. Fighting. And drinking.

Because that's the only time I ever paid any attention.

I know all the little signs and signals that mean Spike is winning a fight, losing a fight, enjoying a fight, or simply enraged beyond true thought. And he doesn't have to say a word for me to hear all of this. I can recognize the way his eyes shimmer golden when the bloodlust in high and I know that he presses his lips tightly together when his anger is cold and cruel.

He walks with a slight crouch and with all of his heightened senses scanning the surrounding area when we hunt and I will never be able to misunderstand that slight pause and brief grin of fierce unholy joy that signals he has finally found our prey. Nor could I ever miss the tightening of his shoulder muscles or the clenching of his jaw as he steps unconsciously closer to me whenever we run across some belligerent humans. Humans he is defenseless against.

I can tell when he is drinking just to pass out by the way his seemingly endless stream of sarcasm and nasty barbs suddenly stop only to be replaced by an intense and angry silence. Just as I know when the drinking is only a way to loosen stiff muscles and relax...a way to try to make his life feel normal once again.

These things I picked up easily and quickly. They aren't personal. I saw these signals continuously repeated over the last month we've been hunting together and to be honest, learning to read Spike's body language on the hunt was a necessity to success and survival.

But over the past week I've learned new stuff. Different stuff. Normal everyday people stuff. Stuff that I would have never even considered to associate with the 'Big Bad'. Before.

For instance, Spike is practically obsessive-compulsive about brushing his teeth. I know, you're wondering how I could have missed something like that with him living here, right? Well. It never occurred to me to find out why he spent so much time in the bathroom before last weekend. I simply didn't care as long as he didn't mess it up and it was free when *I* needed it.

This week I made an effort to find out. And I did. He goes in there and brushes his teeth. In full gameface.

Yeah. I know. It *is* funny in a way. But it's true nonetheless. When he first wakes up he heads straight for the kitchen and heats up some blood for himself to eat. Then...he brushes his teeth. No biggie. Right? Just good oral hygiene, I know. But that's not the end of it.

He brushes those fangs of his a minimum of four times a night...with a maximum count so far of eight. He even carries a travel toothbrush and a mini tube of toothpaste in one of his duster pockets. I don't really know why he does it, although I'm half tempted to ask. I haven't though because I'm afraid I'll get a Drusilla-type of answer.

Another of Spike's little quirks in that he's a closet Lego freak.

Who would have guessed, right? Not me, that's for sure. I think he was trying to keep it from me. You know, a guilty pleasure type of secret. And it would have worked if I hadn't started to actually pay attention.

See, Spike uses the hall closet to store his stuff. The one in my bedroom is big enough that I can fit all of my jackets and things in there, so that gives Spike more room, however, I do use *some* of the space in the hall closet. Specifically, the floor. I keep my tool chest in there. After work, I stick it there and then grab it before I leave again in the morning. The rest of the shelves hold Spike's stuff. His clothes, his boots, various boxes and books and whatnot.

So, Spike was out getting some more beer from the liquor store and some blood from the butchers when I got a call from Giles. A group of students from the new and improved Sunnydale High stopped by to visit Dawn and two of the boys got into a shoving match over who liked her best. The result was two split lips, one black eye, a gushing and enchanted young teen, a pissed off and overly protective Slayer, a handful of singed eyebrows from a Ripper inspired spur-of-the-moment spell...and a broken display case.

I promised I'd grab my tools and head over to fix the mess. While standing there with the door open, I noticed a large giftbox on one of the higher shelves. No. I *wasn't* snooping in Spike's things. Honest. It was just that the box was half hanging off the shelf and looked like it was ready to fall. I was *going* to just push it back into place, grab my tools and go. Really. But, I just wanted *one* little peek.

So, I pulled it down, lifted the lid...and gasped in delighted shock. It was full of Legos.

Some of them were already put together to create various things. A car. A helicopter. A boat of some sort. There were little Lego Men and a bunch of those fancy special shaped pieces you get from the filler sets. It was amazing. Almost as nice a set of Lego's as mine, actually. And it had been a while since I had taken them out and played with them. Since before Anya had died.

So, with a smile, I put them away and went off to fix Giles' display case, promised Buffy I would pull the 'big brother' act on those two boys who had caused such havoc over Dawn and give them the 'don't mess with my kid sister' version of the shovel lecture. When I asked why Buffy didn't do it, she said that she thought it would make a bigger impression if the boys got it from a guy. Which made sense...if you didn't know that Buffy could kick my ass in a heartbeat.

When I got home Spike was there. Feeling good after scaring two kids that reminded me strongly of the bullies that had picked on me all throughout my own High School career, I didn't even hesitate to act. I went into my room, grabbed the large canvas bag that contained almost two decades worth of devoted fanaticism and headed back out to the living room. Upending the bad on the floor, brightly colored Legos spilling everywhere, I merely turned a smiling face at Spike, told him to go grab *his* Legos and come back and 'play'.

We built a *huge* space station that night. Two nights later we built the rocket ships to go with it. It was lots of fun. We bonded.

And today? Today I learned something about Spike that no one else on the planet knows. Well...maybe Dru, but even then I'm not sure.

Spike is afraid of electric vacuum cleaners.

What was that Diary? How did I find out this interesting...and yeah, hilarious bit of information about my undead best friend and roommate? It's simple...and all his own fault.

Spike smokes. Constantly. He's a classic chain smoker and as such, he tends to fill up the few ashtrays we have really fast. He also never remembers to empty them. Today, the bleached one managed to knock an overflowing ashtray off of the coffee table and onto the floor. Ash and cigarette butts went everywhere.

Now, I have one of those fifty's style push brooms with the spinning bristle brush and the two collection bins. It works great on the larger stuff. Lint balls, dust bunnies, clumps of dirt...and incidentally, cigarette butts. However, it didn't pick up the fine ash at all. It just spread it a bit.

I bought it instead of an electric 'suction' one because it was twenty dollars as opposed to a hundred and twenty dollars. Besides, I knew that it would be fine for the day to day cleanup and if I ever *did* need an electric one, I could always borrow Buffy's. No biggie.

So I did. Borrow Buffy's electric vacuum cleaner, that is. To pick up the ash.

I awkwardly manhandled it into the apartment, plugged it in, moved the coffee table and couch out of the way...then turned it on. In a blurring rush of bleached blonde hair, glowing golden eyes and snarling fangs, my undead roommate rushed out of the bathroom with foamy toothpaste dripping down his chin to make him appear to be a rabid vampire.

Apparently, the noise of the vacuum starting up had startled him badly and he came running to see what type of demon had broken into our apartment and was ripping me into little quivering chunks. However, when he saw that I was standing there and simply vacuuming the floor, he reacted in a way that made me simultaneously want to comfort him...and laugh my ass off.

Spike, William the Bloody, one-fourth of the Scourge of Europe, shrieked like a girl, back-peddled against the wall with a look of stark terror on his face and *whimpered* at me to "make it go away".

Now, I know I can be extremely cruel when it comes to demons...but there are two that have the power to turn my insides to mush when they are scared of stupid harmless things. One of them is dead now...but that didn't stop me from getting all protective. It was just like watching Anya, an inhumanly cruel and viscous Vengeance Demon, fall to pieces over fuzzy stuffed toy bunny-rabbits.

So, I did the only thing I could do. I turned the silly thing off, unplugged it and pushed it out into the apartment complex's hallway. Then, I turned back to Spike, wrapped him in a comforting hug and led him gently back into the bathroom, squeezed fresh toothpaste onto his dripping toothbrush and told him to finish cleaning his teeth, that it would make him feel better.

Spike didn't threaten to hurt me if I told the gang about what had happened. And that's okay...I'm not going to tell them anyway. Just you Diary. Because, even though I *know* that the gang would love that little fact, they'd also use it to tease and humiliate him...and you won't.

What can I say? He's my best friend and best friend's protect each other. Not just from demons and bad guys...they also protect each other's dignity.

So mum's the word on the scary vacuum cleaner. Okay?

Alexander L. Harris

END