Spike was laid in his bunk on the tour bus, his right arm behind his head as he stared up at the sickly, green, carpeted interior on the ceiling above him. It was hot and stuffy and claustrophobic at the best of times, never mind now. The curtains at either side of the bed were drawn, but in his haste the curtain on the window side hadn’t fully reached all the way and he could still see out of it. It was chucking it down with rain and the sky was grey.
He’d been in England long enough he thought; long enough to know he wanted to go home. It really was amazing here, there was almost nothing like it, the country, the people, the gigs, the girls who came at the start of the night with bored looks on their faces, who by the end were left swooning and humming the songs they’d heard. There was almost nothing like it. But he wanted to go home.
He wanted to talk to her, like he’d said he would. To be honest when he’d first written that letter he highly doubted they would actually speak when he got back; he hoped, but he wasn’t fully sure, and he’d wanted to talk about something completely different. He’d wanted to talk about what happened, clear the air and show her he’d changed, and more importantly make her believe him, so that he could be in her life without messing it up. Now he just wanted to tell her the truth, that he wanted to be with her. Now he wanted desperately to hear what she thought, thought about him, about them. Anything really. He just wanted to see her, and hear her voice. And it would kill him if she didn’t want to see him, but he was trying to prepare himself for that possibility as well.
He’d thought a lot about what he wanted to say to her, and a lot more since he’d been lying here just now.
The girl he was holding with his free arm sighed, and he felt her breath blow out cool and steady against his chest. In her sleep she snuggled closer to him. He made no move to return the action, but he didn’t stop holding her. She wasn’t right, but she was all he had. He didn’t want to be alone, and it wasn’t her fault he didn’t want to be with her, so he wasn’t going to kick her out.
They were moving on and he wouldn’t have to see her again, and she knew that when she came back here with him, so why out right reject her? After all she was nice enough…just not...Buffy.
She was like all the other girls on the tour, even though there hadn’t been many. A couple at most, and usually because the guys would egg him on to do it. They were nice girls, and they were keeping him occupied. He didn’t think he was using them, because they all came to his bed knowing they wouldn’t see him again. If anything it was the other way around, he knew most of them came just to say they’d shagged a guy in a band, even if he wasn’t famous and probably never would be. But that made it sound sleazy and meaningless, and it wasn’t exactly that either. At first he’d longed for one of them to be more meaningful, to feel something more than he had with her, and he really tried. Sometimes it came close, but never close enough. There was that word again, enough.
All the time he’d been on tour he’d been thinking about her. That she was the only one who was enough. He thought about how much he still loved her after all this time apart, and how that feeling only got stronger and more powerful no matter what he did. At first he’d wanted it to go away, to make things easier on both of them, and once he got here he thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try to do just that. That’s why at first he’d tried to feel something with these girls, and tried to tell himself over and over that he didn’t love her.
When that didn’t work he’d think of the reasons they couldn’t be together. But all he could think was that most of those obstacles had been overcome.
Spike knew he had issues, and in the weeks leading up to his tour he’d been seeing a counsellor about his anger. He needed to change, he also needed to deal with the things he’d been scared of, and he knew he needed to do that before he saw Buffy again. But he was getting help, and not only that, he was facing up to his career failings, and fixing them. He’d done something with his life, finally he was who he wanted to be, and when he discovered that he knew one other thing, he knew she was the one person he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. Finally finding himself he could truly trust in his feelings, he knew himself, he knew he wasn’t confused. As he lay there thinking this he knew he could never again doubt his feelings. Maybe he and Buffy couldn’t or wouldn’t be together, but he would never again deny that he loved her, he couldn’t do that now.
He also hoped that his letter had forced her to realise she needed to do something with her life too. He really hoped she had, but if she had maybe she’d realised she didn’t love him the way she thought. Even though Spike had found himself and was now sure in his feelings, he couldn’t assume she felt the same.
And that wasn’t the biggest problem. In the eyes of their family, their friends, the people they loved, they were brother and sister…They were committing incest. They’d have to live a lie, or risk becoming outcasts. He thought that maybe just being with her would be enough, that he didn’t need other people, but could he ask the same of her? Could he ask her to risk her whole life…for him? He was afraid, afraid of not being able to have a life with the woman he loved. He’d tried a life without her and no matter what he tried to do, no one else was ever enough. They never would be.
Lying here right now with this girl he knew that.
There was another month of the tour, but this would be the last girl he ever brought back.
Maybe he couldn’t be with Buffy, but he wouldn’t ever settle for less. It was her or no one, forever.
Another thing he knew was he wouldn’t ever know any of the answers to his questions, wouldn’t be able to stop his mind from going over and over these things, until he saw her again.
And he couldn’t see her until the tour was over.
He turned to the window again and watched the rain. He was stuck here, he was stuck with this.