Chapter V: So I didn't
"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires."
-Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Finally Spike stopped talking. Buffy had had her eyes clenched shut during this last monologue trying to force him out of her head, not wanting to hear another word… but he kept on talking as though he didn't notice her. Now he looked right at her.
"I don't want to hurt you." He whispered in a trembling voice – maybe shaken by the memory of Buffy's death. This struck her as so odd that she didn't even notice she had stopped pulling against her chains. "If there was some other way—"
"I will never love you, Spike." She spat out with every bit of venom she had ever had for him.
Spike closed his eyes, and since her own had adjusted some time ago to the darkness, she could see and read the expression in his face plainly. She'd seen it there before so many times. Every time she called him a thing. Every time she gave him a shred of hope with her body, only to rip it away with her words. It was pain.
She'd only told him she loved him once, and she did love him in the moment she said it – but only in the moment she said it. She had always had a place for him in her heart, had always cared about him… but any love she felt for him had been out of trust and respect. She had only been in love with him for the second his hand burned in to hers. Then the moment was gone, then he was gone, and it was gone.
God, she'd be so happy, though - to know he was alive. She hadn't sought him out; she didn't know how, but when she did finally see him she was older and surer than ever that her feelings for him were not what he wanted them to be. She knew he had been searching her words and her actions for something – anything - to prove that she was in love with him. She could give him nothing but her friendship, and it hurt to know she was hurting him. Again. She had only seen him a handful of times since that first time, but he had never seemed upset. He never seemed crazy or hell bent. He seemed to have accepted it. Given up.
She had been so surprised to see him earlier… tonight? Was even tonight anymore? Or was it yesterday? Or was it today? God, she was slipping.
But she had been surprised. She'd settled in Ireland for the time being, and as far she knew, Spike was supposed to be on the other side of the world. She had just dusted a particularly violent vampire that had gotten her off her feet more than once, and so was already feeling dazed when she turned around to see Spike standing in front of her.
"Spike?" She had asked, a little startled… but then couldn't help the smile that followed.
"Hello, Buffy." He said, smiling just a little himself.
"Ireland?" She asked, cocking her head back a little. Spike looked around briefly before settling his eyes back on her.
"I could ask you the same."
"Well, you know." Buffy shrugged. "Matches my eyes."
Spike smiled a little wider, but said nothing.
"Spike, My God…" Buffy tried to continue, but didn't have any words.
"Maybe a little of both tonight, love."
The night was cold and dark, and something was wrong. Her instinct told her to take a step back.
"Wh—"
In one fluid motion he moved. Her back was against his chest, and he pulled her head back to reveal her neck. She couldn't scream, she didn't know what was going on… and she didn't have time to figure it out, because then the teeth came. The pain came. The darkness came.
She'd didn't go on patrol much anymore, and even less by herself, but how could she have known that this was going to happen? Even if she had had time to raise her stake and try to kill him, she didn't know if she even would have. She had always had a feeling, deep down, that he would make her pay for trusting him… and now, with the taste of his blood in her mouth, she was going to pay with her life.
"I don't need you to love me." Spike said after a long time, bringing Buffy back to the here and now, and then opened his eyes again. "I just… need you."
"Not this way." She said. "I'd rather be dead than be what you are."
"You wont always feel that way. You'll be—"
"Dead. Spike, you're talking about killing me."
"Never." He said firmly, sounding as though just the thought hurt him. "I'm making you eternal."
"I don't want that."
"I'm well passed caring about what you want." Spike's forehead knit in a confused frown. "Where have you been?"
"Then you don't love me." She said angrily. "This isn't love. This is obsession."
Spike laughed, quite without mirth.
"I love you obsessively."
"Whatever you make with me… it wont be me." Buffy said - her voice filled with the strain of holding back tears of exhaustion and terror. "You know that better than anyone."
"I can't live without you."
"You don't live at-"
"I exist, Buffy." He said, taking her forcefully by the waist and pulling her to him – his forehead touching hers, blue eyes locking with green. She yelped in surprise, but had no more strength to fight him. "A man knows what he can't take, and I know what your death did to me. It tore out my insides and left them out to burn. I'd rather have you a vampire than not at all."
Buffy had latched on to one thing he had said as she stared back in to the blue eyes that were somehow still so familiar.
"You. Are. Not. A. Man." She spent time on each word as though she were trying to stake him through the heart with them. Judging by the hurt registering in his eyes, maybe she hit her mark.
That was when he kissed her. She hadn't even noticed his hand had wrapped its way around the back of her neck so that she couldn't pull away.
"Mmph!" She protested in to his lips. His kiss was desperate and hard, and she vaguely realized that tears, slow and cold, were falling from his face and on to her cheeks. Something inside her recognized this – this almost tragic play for her affection. She didn't want to be back there. That was the worst time in her life, and he was making her relive it.
He pulled away from her mouth, and his hands found their way to either side of her face, forcing her to keep looking at him.
"I love you." He rasped out despairingly, and for the first time in a very long time, Buffy flashed back to the night in her bathroom. The night Spike was able to get her to the ground and keep her there for a horrifying amount of time… the night Spike left to get his soul back. It was the only time she had ever seen that look of crazed anguish in his eyes. Her heart froze at the thought. "I never wanted to hurt you. God help me, Buffy…"
He let her go… let her go? More like threw her face away from his, and then turned away from her.
"God, I thought it'd be easier this way." He said more to himself than to her, looking up in what appeared to be frustration. Buffy looked down, a terrible thought hitting her so suddenly and without mercy that she nearly lost her breath.
The only night she'd seen that look on his face. The night he left to get back his…
"Soul." Buffy whispered to herself. Spike inclined his body in her direction, looking at her, but saying nothing. She looked up at him, but he was far enough away in the darkness now that she couldn't see his face.
"Is that it?" She asked quietly.
Spike made no move to approach her again.
"Come now, Slayer…" He responded almost on a whisper, the dim torch light on some far off wall, making the tear tracks down his cheeks shimmer. "You've known all along."
Buffy swallowed painfully with a vague shake of her head.
"Why?"
"Why does a man do what he mustn't?" He answered, repeating words he said to her an eternity ago. A twisted parody of a disturbing memory. " Everything for you."
That night you came back… it'd started out mucked up as it was. Well, it'd actually started out like any other night, but gradually became more and more mucked as it wore on. I don't remember much of it now that I think about it, as the reappearance of you kind of casts a shadow on the memory of everything that happened before it.
The only other thing that stands out is that was the night I realized I did love Dawn. It was the first time I really had to protect her since… since I'd failed at protecting her. But it wasn't the demons attacking, or the fear of her getting hurt that caused the epiphany. It happened just before any of that. I'd been sitting in the armchair, the tele was on but I wasn't really watching it. I was more or less musing on the pathetic pile of ash my current life situation was, and then I looked behind me to see that Dawn had fallen asleep on the couch. And I loved her… simple as that. It was a small moment, nothing grand about it, but it still hurt. I only know one way to love, and it's the deep and painful kind. In that moment I knew I'd never be free.
After that, everything happened fast. The Hellions showed up almost the next second, and things took their course in such a way that I never really got the chance to ruminate on yet another of my newfound pains in the chest.
I think that's important though. I did love her, and I think it's important. I didn't have a soul then, and there was nothing dirty or wrong about what I felt for her. I wanted her to stay clean and innocent, and I didn't want any part of what was inside me to be able to touch her. I didn't want any of this to touch her. I didn't need a soul to feel that.
I just needed a heart.
I do remember being scared. I was more scared than I had been in a long time. Dawn had been right next to me one second, and gone the next. God, she was alone. With those biker demons having their fill of Sunnydale it wasn't a matter of if she'd get hurt, it was a matter of finding her first. So I followed her scent. I followed her scent for 2 sodding hours…
And where did it lead me, but right back home?
I mean your home.
I was so angry with her, but so relieved that she was okay – much the same, I think, as a father would have felt in a similar situation. I didn't know whether to hug her or to kill her, so I opted for something in the middle of the two, which was threatening to kill her.
Then the Buffy bot was coming down the stairs, which Dawn seemed to care about extra much for some reason. I was about to wave it off and continue my angry rant, but two things occurred to me suddenly and simultaneously. One, The robot had actually been in such a spectacular array that even Willow's horses and men couldn't put it back together, and two… Even if she could have, she couldn't have given the robot a smell or a heartbeat.
All I could do was stare.
You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and I've seen some damn beautiful things. You were a vision in white, come to soothe my shattered heart. It was like meeting you for the first time, like love at first sight, like falling in love for the first time. It was like feeling the sun again. It was sweeter than blood, and more profound than death. You were all I ever asked for and all I ever wanted, and there you were. I felt like I was being forgiven for being a monster.
If I had known what was coming, I'd have staked myself then and there… And the last thing I would have seen would have been your face. The last thing I would have felt was… alive.
I think we might have even had a moment. It might have been my grief-addled brain trying to place some kind of significance on a blank stare, but you let me lead you away to take care of you. You let me hold you by the hands and talk to you like a man. One hundred and forty-seven days, Buffy. Days spent wanting nothing more than to do just what we were doing for those short seconds. I just wanted to hold you, to stare at you. To take care of you.
Then they showed up. Your buggering, idiot friends who couldn't help you anymore than you wanted them to. I had to leave, Buffy. Not that you cared, not that it mattered to you, but I couldn't stay there with them. I went outside, tried to go home – but I couldn't. My legs wouldn't carry me farther than the front lawn. I went queasy and had to lean up against the tree for support. A plethora of sudden thoughts and emotions rendered me momentarily incapacitated, and I gave in to them.
Why hadn't they told me? Why hadn't those sods let me in? Was my searing love for you not enough for them to think I might have been interested to know? Did they think I'd be angry; try to stop them somehow? No, I'd have given them a limb for the cause if they'd needed it. I'd have been right there, cheering them on – bloody pompoms in hand if it helped. They knew I loved you. They knew…
And it hit me. Standing there in the cold, my back against your tree, tears running down my face, I understood. I told as much to your boy when he found me there and asked me if I was going to pick up where I left off, creeping around in the shadows after you. I slammed him against the tree, gaining a nice little headache for it, and told him I knew, maybe better than him, why I was shut out. Willow, damn her, knew that the spell could go wrong; that you could go wrong. They couldn't love you wrong. They couldn't have you being wrong. The witch had been prepared for it. Something in her had hardened over the months you were gone, and whatever it was it would have made her take it back if you weren't the right kind of Buffy. She would have taken it all back, you with it.
But me? I could love you no matter what you were. I was other than right myself, and you being wrong made no difference to me one way or the other. If I had known and something had gone bad, if she had had to send you back… What I said to Xander was, I wouldn't have let her.
What I meant was, and make no mistake about it, I would have killed her.
At first everything seemed to work out just fine for me. I had made some kind of noble decision to stay away. You didn't need me around, and I couldn't help you. I knew it. I tried to give you what I thought would be the only thing you could have wanted from me – my not being there.
But you came to me.
You came to me. Remember that, Buffy? That's important. I tried to stay away, maybe even tried to get away. I don't know why I was so surprised to see you in my crypt that first time you showed up. Every time I tried to pull away, you pulled me back in. You shouldn't have done it. Made it worse on both of us in the long run, but I guess you couldn't have known that. And maybe you didn't even care at the time. I know I didn't. What did I care? As long as I had you for a little while?
I told you I saved you every night. I wanted you to know that I never stopped thinking about you, that everything I did was for you… having you there again, so close to me, close enough to reach out and run my hand across your face, you didn't know what it did to me. I couldn't even tell you. But you? You just sat there across from me with that here-but-not-really-here stare. I, being what I am, couldn't make myself mind it. I know your pals did, and that's why you came to me. I wouldn't realize that until some time later, and at the time, all I could be was painfully happy.
"What did you do?" You asked finally, quietly. I looked at you, confused for a moment – wondering if you wanted me to go in to detail about how exactly I saved you every night, and I would have… but I saw that your eyes were resting on my hand, and understood what you meant. I looked down at it, too. Did you really care? Probably not. You just wanted to change the subject.
"Wall got a little out of order." I said, and then looked back at you. "Put it properly back in its place."
You blinked, still looking at my hand.
"You punched a wall." It was either a statement or a disinterested question, but I wasn't sure which.
"Time was I would have broken a neck instead, but…" I shrugged.
"You haven't changed much." You said, again in a very detached sort of way.
I let out a small bit of air, something like a laugh.
"One could argue."
You finally lifted your eyes back up to mine.
"One could." You said, and I really wasn't sure what you meant. I said nothing in response. We settled in to silence, and you didn't seem to mind it – or the way I kept my eyes firmly locked on your face. You didn't tell me to stop, so I didn't.
Starting then and there, I guess, was the recurring theme of our relationship.
I blame myself.
"Why do you live in a crypt?" You asked once with a look of distaste, sitting across from me on the cold stone ground in the candlelight – pile of cards in your hands. It'd been a month since you were back, and the initial shock had worn off. You seemed more like yourself and, since you didn't have to hide anything from me, I was the only one who got the real Buffy in those days. I had it so good back then, and was too blind to really see it. I didn't know that was as good as I was ever going to have it.
I looked around.
"Something about death and darkness, I suppose." I answered, and then looked back at you, over my own pile of cards. "And the rent's cheap."
"Ah," you responded, seeming amused. "Cheap is a word I'm becoming all too friendly with."
"Still dealing with the financial strife?"
"Progress is a thing unknown to me." You paused, dropping your cards to your lap. "And why should it be my strife? I've been dead. Shouldn't that give me, like, immunity to strife? Shouldn't my friends have made sure to paint my life in a neutral strifeless color before bringing me back to it?"
"What color might that have been, Pet?"
"Yellow, I think."
"And what color is it now?"
There was a scream outside, somewhere nearby.
You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath. When you opened them again, they were blank. You stood up, and walked to the door of the crypt and stopped only for a moment to answer my question.
"Red."
And then you were gone.
It may have been you who always came to me, but I let you because I loved you. I was like a painkiller to you. Addicting in the numbness I offered. I should have seen it for what it was sooner, but by the time I did there was nothing left of me that could say no to you. I said stay away; for your own good you needed to stay away. For my good, too. But you were drowning, and I was the anchor that kept pulling you down, however unwittingly. I didn't want to be that; I just wanted to love you. I couldn't push you away to save my life.
When you kissed me, my world shattered and all I knew was you. Your warmth, your lips, your tongue. You took everything I had and made it yours. My heart bled, and my body burned, and I knew I'd never be whole again without you.
That kiss is what killed me.
Then the music stopped, and you pulled your warmth away.
The separation hurt, and I immediately tried to pull you back. I had to get it back, whatever it was you'd just given me, but you jerked away from my touch. I didn't know what was going on, I only knew that I was suddenly in an uncomfortable and very unwelcome amount of pain, and that you were looking at me like I'd just kicked your puppy. I couldn't take it, not after you'd just given me everything I'd ever wanted. You couldn't just rip it away like that. I'd known cruelty, but none of it was anything compared to what I felt just then. I made another attempt to touch you, and again you moved back – further this time. Why did you just stare at me like that?
"Buffy." I said, it sounded almost like a plea to my own ears.
You very slowly and deliberately wiped your hand across your mouth, a look of disgust in your eyes, then turned and ran.
I watched you for a moment, then fell to my knees, then to my forearms – cradling my head in my hands. Men have died from that kind of pain…
I would know.
Dawn stood at the entrance of my crypt, still draped in her queenly blue silk as I climbed the ladder from below. She'd come just in time to miss a right cute little fit. No more breakables downstairs, as they were now, in fact, broken. I laughed underneath my breath, shaking my head as I stepped up on to the floor.
"What is it with you Summers women?" I said, sliding on to a stone tomb. "Is intruding on someone's personal space genetic?"
"You knew, didn't you?" She asked, her face as set as stone. I tilted my head a little, appraising her and her meaning.
"Don't take it personal, fun-size. She told me because she never cared what I thought."
"How could you not tell us?"
I laughed.
"Oh, that's adorable!" I said, jumping down and making my way to the fridge. I needed blood. This was too much for one night. I opened the door and pulled out a bag. Slamming the door shut, I turned back around to face Dawn who hadn't moved at all. "How could I not tell you?" I bit the top of the bag and sucked.
Dawn flinched and looked away.
Right. I was a still a vampire. Everyone seemed to always forget that.
"When you lot have been so bloody forthcoming with me!" I growled.
I finished the bag off and threw it to the ground. She looked back at me.
"I didn't know they were trying to bring Buffy back." She said, jaw clenched and eyes bright with tears.
I pulled my lips back in a knowing leer.
"But if you did, love… would you have told me?" I asked, taking slow and angry steps closer to her.
"No." She said firmly. I stopped in my tracks. "Because I would have tried to stop them." Her voice cracked just a little, and I shook my head in confusion. Nothing in me could comprehend why she would have wanted to do that.
"Is that right?" I asked.
"None of you bother telling me anything." She said angrily. " You all think of me as 'fun-size' Dawnie who can't handle life. No one tells me if I'm the key, or if my sister is coming back, or if my sister was in heaven. I always have to find out some other way, and it's always worse. I'm old enough to know that… and I'm old enough to know that bringing Buffy back wasn't right. I could have told you all that, but you all are too selfish to see past whatever is hurting you. And now she's here and she hurts, and she hates us."
Somewhere along the line, she had become near hysterical and she was out and out weeping now, holding herself around the stomach.
My anger dissipated in wake of her pain, and I closed the remaining distance between the two of us. I took her by the shoulders.
"Niblet." I said, and then thought better of it. "Dawn."
She looked at me, tears running fast down her face.
"She's having a bit of rough go at it right now, I'll give you that." I said. "But if there's anyone she doesn't hate, it's you."
As for the rest of us…
Then there was a spiral. A domino effect of every block you'd tried to set in to place, every wall you tried to build between us. You were crumbling on the inside and as much as I hated that and as much as I didn't want that for you, it worked for me. I knew that, and never denied it to myself. You knew it, too.
The night Giles left, I sought you out at the Bronze after you'd run away from me earlier. I could feel your sadness pulsating through the air in waves. I could smell the pool of hot tears behind your eyes. I could hear your heart constricting. Once, I would have closed my eyes and absorbed those sensations with a smile.
How things do change.
I found you sitting alone at the bar. You turned to look at me, and I smiled hesitantly… Your old pal Spike. The one you could talk to when you couldn't talk to anyone else. The one you came to when…
You turned away from me – effectively turning me away.
It was over. The role I had had in your life was gone, and you weren't going to give it back. The kiss had changed everything.
Fine, I thought. I always hated you anyway.
I walked away in some direction or another, just wanting to get the hell out of there. I wanted to get back to my crypt and drink bags and bags of blood until it ran from my eyes. Blood and gin. Maybe then, when I was fat, bloated, and drunk with blood and alcohol you lot would leave me alone.
I just wanted to be left the bloody hell alone.
I'd made it about as far as underneath the iron stairs when a small hand on my shoulder turned me around. The hand, as it turned out, had a mouth attached to it – and that mouth had made its way to mine.
And it was back. Everything you'd taken from me before, you were giving back. The warmth, the ecstasy. I had no dignity, only love for you. I couldn't turn away when you were offering yourself to me. I couldn't stop, and you didn't tell me to.
So I didn't.