Disclaimer: Inspired by much reading of the fantasy fics on Spuffyarchive.com. Yes, I'm jumping on the Fantasy Bandwagon! Basically, I'm taking one of my favorite books and combining it with one of my favorite things (well Spuffy, if not "BtVS" in general) to revel in the twisted, twisted fruits that result. When I say "loosely" based on the novel "High Fidelity", I mean I did everything except steal direct dialogue and description. Because that would be bad, very, very bad. Nick Hornby is British. He'd probably send me to the pillory if he found out or something. So I'm saying it right now. I stole, err, I mean "borrowed" all plot ideas and characters from Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" and Mutant Enemy.

Summary: William "Spike" Giles is a down-and-out record storeowner with a commitment problem. Fed up, the love of his life Buffy Summers, has just left him. Follow his manic self-explorative journey that follows as he attempts to win her back.

Rating: R to be safe. For mild references to adult situations and language.

Feedback: Hells yeah I want it. You like the story, you want it to continue, you leave a review. It's that simple.

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Chapter 1: Lessons

In all my muddled, sometimes uncertain existence, I have learned a number of ever-constant lessons:

*Do not fix something if it's not broken.

*The temptation to fix the aforementioned something that remains unbroken is derived from the masculine fixation for tools and menial construction projects and is often overwhelmingly powerful. Do not give into it.

*If you are a worthless shit like me, and have already given into it, accept your fate as a worthless, shitty prat.

A tad bitter, you say? Well let me tell you, twenty-five years is sufficient proof of the tenets that I have mentioned, bitter or not. In all my years subversively striking out against education, I cannot deny these lessons rewarded to me after the years of pain, humiliation and chagrin experienced.

If you haven't guessed already, the "something" I have been referring to is my clever code name for "relationships". Yes, I know I seem like the all-typical male with my domineering hardware metaphors for commitment phobia, and therein lies the problem. I am the typical male. I do have commitment phobia. I can think of no greater curse.

You think that by knowing what I know, I would have sod the whole relationship thing every time it came round the bend. But again, when it comes to that, it's all male: just brawns and brainless animal instinct. Still, it's getting to a point where I'm starting to give into my intellect. Women + maintained contact of a committed nature = Bad. Very bad.

Don't even try and call me a misogynist. I have a deep-rooted fountain of love for the female persuasion. In fact, it is so replete and large that it overflows and becomes too hard to contain within one relationship. As soon as I am bound to one woman, I immediately have my sights set on another. Yes, I know I'm a sick, depraved tool. I am well aware.

The thing is, I didn't get like this on my own. I had a little help along the way to start me down this bitter path. Women are the ones I have wronged, and they are the same ones who have wronged me. They started it. I could have been Mr. Faithful if it wasn't for them. They have continued to make my life a living hell and subconsciously, it's been war of some kind ever since.

Take my top list of all-time greatest and most heart-wrenching breakups. These are the ones who have really nailed it for me. They have made it apparent why I am the way I am. They have shamed me to point where there is nothing to do but utter a rallying cry against the whole lot of womankind.

1. Cecily Hallows- Junior High School. Typical first time, schoolboy crush. She was, in my fourteen-year-old and unpracticed eyes, exquisite. A member of the so-called "in-crowd", she was everything a first crush was supposed to be: unattainable, distant, mysterious, beautiful. Yet by some grace of God, she was not so unattainable, or so I thought the night of Harmony Kendall's party. It was the usual pre-pubescent affair. Awkward snogging, bad music, a variety of snack foods. I was sitting alone in a beanbag chair when Cecily looked at me from across the room and did the one thing that made my world stop. She smiled and crooked her finger at me. I happily and hastily obliged her. The rest of the night was spent kissing and groping in such an inexperienced manner that it makes me blush just to think of it.

Anyway, I figured this made Cecily and me an item. I was euphoric the day after at school. I paid utterly no attention in class (which was not so unusual) and devoted all time to writing her profuse, sentimental and horrible poetry (which was unusual). The whole day was leading up to lunch hour, the moment I would seek her out and proclaim my love for all to see.

So I did. Like the stupid git I was, I got down on one knee and read her this abominable poem in which I actually rhymed "effulgent" and "bulge't". Needless to say, it did not go over well. She was disgusted, as was the rest of the cafeteria, and she uttered the one thing that made my heart seize together painfully.

"You're beneath me, William."

For a second I didn't get it. I thought it was a terribly obvious thing to say since I was down on one knee, prostrate before her. But she couldn't leave it off there. She had to repeat it viciously and vindictively, as if to show the rest of the school that that night at Harmony's had meant nothing. I can see now that it was probably a mass social-faux pas for her to even lower herself to a snog with me. After all, what was I? Just a punk kid who had garnered the name "Spike" for his eccentric, bleach-blond hairstyle. But at the time, it was crushing, beyond crushing. It dashed my innocent hopes of flowers and puppies and walking-in-the-park kind of love in one fatal second. I honestly thought I loved the girl, and as a result of her rebuke, I fell into a headlong depression that still seems to influence me to this day in its surliness. Now I can't even remember what the girl looks like, or why I even liked her. It was the glamour of the first kiss and the first heartbreak that did me in. It is something I've never fully recovered from.

2. Darla Jacobs- Sophomore Year, High School. The problem with Cecily was her icy, untouchable persona. She was like Mount Everest in her cold, unmountable reservation. I needed someone from the other extreme. I needed someone bouncy and alive and very mountable. Word went round the boys' locker room that Darla Jacobs was more than willfully mountable, so I decided to make my move. It wasn't a hard seduction. My Cecily episode had not deterred me so much that girls found me completely undesirable. I had the whole purposeful "bad-boy" aura going for me. I had the wheels (a beaten, but "rugged" motorcycle I had inherited from my cousin and fixed up), I had the long leather coat (filched from my father's old wardrobe----I shall never dare ask what it was doing there), and most importantly, I had the punk-ass swagger and curled upper lip. I had successfully deceived all into thinking I was hot shit.

Anyway, Darla didn't need much in the way of seducing; she was extremely "responsive" if you know what I mean. She was a touchy-feely creature and the contrast between her and Cecily was like night and day. She practically attacked me the first time I introduced myself and I was more than grateful. We got along splendidly from the start. We were both looking for companionship, so we weren't exactly picky. I guess she was easy that way.

But, as I later found out and to my dismay, not in other ways. She was a catty and confusing girl, that one. One minute she'd be whispering dirty, heavenly things to me in a hushed, thick voice as we fell over onto her bed, the next, she'd be fighting my hands as they made the elusive trek up her legs, edging towards her skivvies. It's not like I pushed her. I just thought it was something we mutually wanted. She seemed to indicate that she wanted it and I knew I did. So why all this difficulty? Why all these games that left me bubbling under the surface like a champagne bottle about to pop?

It's not really fair to her, I suppose. I'm painting her to be a silly pseudo-slut-prude, but in actuality, she was really a nice girl. She was just insecure and lonely and yielding, as is usually the case with girls of her ilk, but at the time, I really didn't care how nice she was. All I could see was a case of flagrant misrepresentation that was not leading to the desired goal of a nice shag.

So I broke it off. It may sound callous, but what do you expect from a horny teenager who saw all girls as walking, faceless purveyors of the ever-wonderful breast? I didn't think I was out of line when I dumped her. I thought it was clear that we were only having some fun that would inevitably lead to nowhere. But she obviously didn't. She cried when it ended and told me she "really liked" me, but it was too late. I had moved to another girl who wasn't so misrepresentative, lucky for my loins, and Darla was left to be passed on to the next unfulfilled gent. I didn't think of it much until that day in history when Football Player Larry lumbered into class and grunted triumphantly, "Hey Spike! Yeah Spike! You pussy! That Darla chick you've been buttering up to the last two months? I popped her cherry last night!"

My cheeks stung red at the vulgar remark, but I remained aloof. "What are you talking about, beefstick?"

"Went on one date with her. Got into her pants when you couldn't even venture past third base." He laughed snidely. "She told me."

It was humiliating. Darla had chosen this thick waste of space over me? I had been rejected by Darla the same way I had been rejected by Cecily. Even with a different type of girl, I still got the same shitty deal.

3. Drusilla Kensington- Freshmen Year of College. This one was it. The Big Kahuna. The one that cemented my non-commitment tendencies forever. If it weren't for Dru, who's to say I wouldn't today be a happily married man with a gaggle of fat babies and diaper coupons?

I met Dru at UC Sunnydale my freshmen year of college. She immediately struck me as exotic, enigmatic, sweet and gorgeous in a withering Victorian kind of way. I fell hard for her quixotic mannerisms and tastes. Even her eccentric choice of study impressed and appealed to me: Feminist Gothic Literature.

She had a way of talking in extraordinary, lilting accents that made her unbelievably glamorous, making languid, sweeping movements of her body at the same time. She would put on little skits with herself and say what appeared to be abstruse, deep comments. Most of all, she was well liked amongst our group, especially by the males. It never ceased to torture me.

I was taken with her, as if under some spell. The desire to keep her for myself was almost compulsive. Fury raged within me every time I saw her flirt with another man. I felt the desire to crack open the skull of any other guy she smiled lasciviously at. I clung to her solicitously whenever another man walked into the room. I was always too consumed by enormous madness to recognize that they only looked at her because she looked first, licking her lips the whole while. I was too blind with what I thought was love to see how flaky, needy and flighty she was. I was too concerned with the possibility of loosing her.

Which is why I finally did. After giving me a go about my possessive habits, Dru immediately took up with a real son-of-a-bitch named Liam Angel. I mean, come on. The chuffer was named Angel. If that didn't turn her off, what would? He was everything I was or at least tried to be, but with more confidence. He was dark, he was broody, he was handsome, he was deep. Oh, and he was a real prick, too.

I couldn't let it go. I practically stalked Dru and her boy-toy for a couple of ugly months. I would hover outside their apartment in the middle of the night. I would make random, repeated phone calls for hours on end and hang up after anyone said hello. I sent her roses and gifts nearly every day. It ended finally when Angel threatened to call the police.

By that time, I was too embroiled in frenzied depression to care about much else, so hence, my academic life suffered. I flunked out of all my classes and lost the desire to complete my degree in English Literature, much to the squealing consternation of my parents. So I did what any reckless and self-professed suicidal failure would do: I borrowed a couple thousand dollars from my father and opened a record store. At the time, it made perfect sense.

Six years later, I am the same impulsive nineteen year old I was then; the same one who fucked himself over by risking economic security to open a second-hand record store (which everyone knows, isn't exactly the most sound venture in today's MTV, bubble-gum pop society) just because he couldn't tell his girlfriend to piss off.

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After Dru left me, I was broken and considerably anti-women for a good long while. Then Buffy happened.

You'll notice that I haven't included her in the list of all-time greatest break-ups, though she has only left me this morning. That's because the situation is still new, my feelings still hazy and unclear, as if I'm still in that state of shock. Or maybe I'm just can't get fired up about shit like this anymore.

But before I tell you the end, let me tell you the beginning.

So by what was to be my junior year of college, I had dropped out of school and was the sulky owner of a record shop. In the mean time, to cover additional bills, I DJ-ayed at a club in Sunnydale called the Bronze. It was nothing big, just an occasional gig that I enjoyed despite the sickening sight of smarmy males and females playing out the mating game every night. Though girls would usually gravitate towards me, lingering by the stage and turntables, I ignored them, not because I didn't appreciate them in general as fine-looking human beings, but mostly because I was scared that one of the harlots would trap me again and leave me once more. I didn't even fancy a mindless fuck, which should tell you how far-gone I was.

I don't know why I was never scared of Buffy. She's one of those amazingly stunning girls that just look intimidating. She's all long legs and blonde hair and golden skin and in short, very, very Hollywood. Yet she never gave off an icy impression.

In fact, the first impression she gave off was bitchy. One night while dj-aying, I was getting a drink from the bar and she had been climbing out of a barstool when we collided into each other. She gave me a thorough reprimanding when I doused her clothes in Scotch and I was too gloomy to be polite. So we yelled and bitched and screamed at each other for awhile, and eventually I stomped off stormily, glad to be rid of her. Yet the whole night, my mind kept turning to her, despite the reminders I made to myself about not getting involved with anyone. I struggled hard to concentrate on anything else, but that all went out the window when she finally came up to the stage by the end of the evening to apologize.

"I've just been touchy, lately," she admitted with a shrug. "Bad breakup, heartbreak galore . . . I'm kind of burned out and I've been taking it out on random strangers."

Needless to say, I could more than relate. For the next three hours, I talked her ear off about my similar predicament and she sympathized immediately. I told her about Dru, she told me about her ex, a real asshole named Parker. And it's not like we spent the whole night in commiseration. I found out a lot about her. I found out how witty and funny she was and how she was studying Art History at UC Sunnydale and how her parents had divorced when she was younger and how she thought that affected her adult relationships. As we continued talking and laughing, I forgot all promises I made about distancing myself from women and went home with her. We had a mind-blowing night of sex and we've been together ever since.

Past tense. I keep forgetting to refer to that in the past tense. We were together.

It's just . . . she's always been there. With me. I didn't count on the day she wouldn't be. Maybe I took it for granted how easy it was with her. It wasn't like any of my other relationships where I had to be constantly aware of every single detail to make sure I didn't fuck anything up. Buffy and I simply fit and flowed with ease. We fought like mad, made up, then shagged like bunnies. I could see no glitch in the system.

But she apparently did. Which is why she marched out of our apartment last night after a long and bitter argument about the status of our relationship. She said it was going nowhere. I saw nothing wrong with that. So she left.

You might think that this doesn't sound like I truly have the tendency to fix the unbroken. After all, if I did, I would have fought for it before things deteriorated in the first place. But apparently I did that, in my own churlish way. Last night, Buffy told me half-spitefully that I had fixed the relationship when it wasn't broken and because of that, she had fix it up now that it was. Funny how I am oblivious to any of these actions and circumstances until they blow up in my face. Bloody fucking hell. You think I would have learned by now. You think I would learn my lesson.

TBC…………I don't know if I'll continue the fic, but if enough of you guys like it, I probably will. It's a big departure for the usual stuff I write, but it was great fun all the same. And don't worry if you think that the story will lack as much dialogue as this chapter did. I was just setting the stage for a (hopefully) continued story. Please leave a line if you think it's worth continuing!