Buffy felt her jaw lock in a permanent ‘Huh?’
Did Dawn really just tell her that Spike was in love with her?
Every coherent thought and all knowledge of how to conduct further thought processes vacated her mind as she stood stunned in place. Flashing images of five minutes ago reminded her that she wasn’t a vegetable, and instead of letting her usual disgust and dislike banish all Spike focus from her mind, she contemplated.
It was dark when she had finally decided to resort to using Spike as her very own bloodhound. She hadn’t really been concerned that Glory had found her Key; just thought that Dawn had done another runner like the other night when they found her at the hospital. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that the teen might have taken it upon herself to befriend Spike. Though if she took the time, she supposed she could understand why Dawn might feel drawn to him. She had just found out a shocking reality about herself in Spike’s presence and maybe she felt that she was now on the fringe of the group like Spike was. Neither of them human. Or at least not entirely so.
Anyway, find Dawn she had. Sitting cross-legged on Spike’s sarcophagus and listening to scary bedtime stories from the resident monster.
But it was almost cute to see the self-conscious way he had jumped forward to apologise for keeping Dawn there so long; he actually seemed concerned that Joyce and Buffy might have been worried. Then when she had challenged him making him continue his bloodthirsty story he had seemed nervous, perhaps even insecure in the conclusion.
Gave the little girl to a good family, my foot! Buffy almost smiled, but controlled it when she saw Dawn studying her intently.
There was no doubt about it. Spike had seemed gentle, sweet even playful yet with such a load of alarmingly sensual appeal that Buffy now felt the jolt all the way to her pinky toes. An icy shiver brought out the goosebumps on her skin and she allowed herself to give in to the urgent need for denial. Denial in response. But the facts suddenly had gained a clarity that felt a little sickly. Oh God…the nerves, the sweet and gentle way he spoke to her, reassuring her of Dawn’s safety…maybe Dawn was right. Maybe Spike did think he was in love with her. Think. It wasn’t as though vampires really could love. Demons just couldn’t.
Buffy cringed. Without word or sound, she tugged on Dawn’s arm and they meandered, dangerously unfocused, through the cemetery toward Revello Drive.
The cringe was secretly followed up with an inner grin of smugness.
Someone liked her.
Admittedly, the fact that it was an evil, murdering ‘someone’ that liked her was a little disturbing, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and it was kind of flattering. If she completely dismissed the existence of ridges and fangs, and forgot about the thousands of people he must have slaughtered over the last century and the demented ho bag he’d been devoted to for the same period, then she had a veritable little hottie after her. Who wouldn’t be flattered? In fact, if she herself were a vampire, she’d be panting like a horny teenager for him. In that incarnation he had tons to offer. The kisses they had shared during Willow’s spell were enough to suggest that much to her.
Sure, he was completely different from the guys she had traditionally gone for. He wasn’t big, broad and tall. She didn’t have to strain her neck to talk to him or look into his face. She didn’t feel overwhelmed by his size just by standing near him. And his bleached-white hair didn’t bring back every heartbreaking memory of Angel by association, and the times she had spent immersing herself in him.
In fact, unlike Parker and Riley, there was nothing aesthetic at all about Spike that could remind her of Angel. Only his ancestry could do that, and really, who ever bothered to think of that? Spike hated Angel, and Angel abhorred Spike. Thoughts of the two concurrently was not encouraged. But thinking about the differences just made Buffy call forward the realities.
He was slight of build, though remarkably compact. Strong in that special supernatural way. Blonde beyond the bottle, he looked hot in leather, and possessed the sexiest swagger she had ever seen. The way he fought was amazing like watching art created. Not that she would ever admit to him that she had ever noticed anything positive or a little captivating about him. He had traits that she had never found in another, ones that made her jealous of Drusilla for having them be totally hers his devotion, and care, and undying love. The stupid bat just proved beyond doubt her insanity for dumping him.
Buffy even knew without testing that Spike would be there for her in a fix, even probably without cash…actually, now that she thought about it, he hadn’t asked for any money the other night when they went looking frantically for Dawn. Maybe the asking for money was just a convenient way to mask his satisfaction in helping, as well as giving him a way to finance his existence. Great, even Spike gets paid to help. Unlike her, who still had to rely on an allowance from her mother.
A gush of motherly concern hit them when they entered the house and Buffy felt relieved to have something new to take her mind off her sudden fixation. It would be wrong to even consider that Spike was in love with her.
After allowing Dawn to be swept along for dinner, Buffy decided that the best thing to do would be to ignore it and, even better, him and hope the whole subject got buried by some Big Bad flavour of the month. Not that they needed another one because they so had more than they could cope with in Glory.
Buffy looked across the table at Dawn and it brought the conversation round to her.
“So Buffy, Dawn tells me that you found her at Spike’s?” Joyce was smiling in relief, her daughter found and in no danger, even though she was sharing crypt space with an evil vampire.
Buffy was incredulous.
“Spike was telling her about his murderous past, in gory detail, too, I think. He tried to pretend it was all flowers and puppy dog tales. Innocent my ass.” As she whispered the last sentence under her breath, Buffy continued cutting her food into miniscule proportions, feeling suddenly uncomfortable about the topic of conversation. She looked down at her plate, praying to God that they would move on and leave her out of the talk. The mere mention of Spike made her tummy feel all warm, and that alone made her want to dive out of the room and throw up.
“Spike has been so helpful lately. Maybe we should invite him over for dinner?” Joyce looked at her daughters expectantly and received a high wattage smile from Dawn and a concerned frown from Buffy.
“He’s a vampire, Mom. What would you serve him? Borsht made with blood?”
Her horrified attempts at levity went ignored by Joyce’s humoured giggle.
“I guess I could try that. But Spike does eat food, Buffy. At the very least I know he eats marshmallows in his hot chocolate, and I’d be willing to bet that he would eat other things.”
“Oh, oh…he likes those onion flower things at the Bronze. And spicy Buffalo wings.” Dawn was eager to share Spike’s culinary favourites in encouragement of his inclusion at their dinner.
“See? Perfect. Next time you see him, Buffy, ask him over. Now girls, I’m feeling a little tired. Would you mind clearing the table and cleaning up? I think I might go to bed.”
Buffy looked up, worry shoving her out of her imposed horror-filled image of sharing a table with a vamped out Spike, slurping up spoonfuls of coagulated blood.
“Of course. You go to bed. We’ll take care of everything.”
She watched in concern as Joyce slowly ascended the staircase. The clatter of plates being cleared from the table reminded Buffy of her duty to help, and she became involved in the nightly process of family chores, muttering darkly about bleached vampires that finagled their way into people’s houses where they didn’t belong.
Her earlier excursion out to locate Dawn, and then her exploration of Spike’s possible amorous feelings left her thoroughly exhausted not to mention wigged and so instead of patrolling she decided to head up for an early night in bed. She felt overwhelmingly glad that she had moved back home as she trudged up the stairs and allowed her body to succumb to the weariness that emotional turmoil can produce.
Climbing into her bed after a quick wash and teeth brush, she closed her eyes and willed out all images of consciousness. As she slipped further into sleep, one image stuck. The nervous smile of a fiendish vampire.
Oh Brother.
His figure was cast in dark allure; the roughened bark of the Summers’ tree his coveted hiding spot. The burning tip of his cigarette floated in the air like a spastic drunken firefly, so dark was the night despite the lights lining the street. Watching had become a habit over the past months and he could never surrender to sleep without this nightly vigil. For a moment as it started he always hated her for his weakness.
As her bedroom light announced her retreat to bed, it was all he could do not to climb her tree and perch outside the window, getting the birdseye view of what form of perfection cast those shadows to roam the night. He closed his eyes and imagined holding her image in his inner eye to taunt and eviscerate himself, making his loneliness sink within like the blade of a short sword. He felt the cut, the gutting and the resultant gushing of his blood. His vitality slipping away a little more each night that he had to accept that she would never return his love.
He had known earlier, when the Nibblet had spilled his secret, that Buffy’s stunned silence put the ring of death on any declaration he might have had in the offing. It would take a man with more stones than he possessed to push that one out for her view and consideration.
The light went out and he hung his head in a sudden lapse into self-pity. Why did he always fall for women who could never be there for him the way he wanted to be for them? All his life he had been the romantic fool, falling for strength beyond him. Well, perhaps not so much in Dru, though he knew it was there at her core. But in their way all three had made fun of him. Emasculated him. None of them had allowed him to find his potential and help him grow.
Over a hundred years with Drusilla had certainly taught him a lot; the perfect kill, the perfect Master, the perfect lover. She had taught him to be a wet nurse for her, his emotional and romantic self always succumbing to her petty will, but within the gentle devotion she had inspired in him, Dru had uncovered a core of steel that William never had a clue he could garner. His death may have brought him finally to life, but it was she who had taught him to live. Admittedly Spike had to watch his step around Angelus and Darla, but for those first few years she was his protector, his guide until he could establish his place and defend it with determined hate.
The street was silent now, and he knew that it was hopeless to hang around longer. He set off at a slow walk, making his way almost unwillingly to the nearest demon bar that would let him drink in peace. Usually unable to find it, he decided he may as well just settle for Willy’s. Within a short walk Spike had made it to the alley that housed Willy’s fine establishment.
No words, just lewd gestures had Willy hastily departing with a sealed bottle of scotch and a shot glass. Feeling uncomfortable with his back to the room, Spike turned and located a free booth toward the back and made his way to it.
He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the evening so far had offered a strange sense of looming in the shadows that he had been trying to make sense of all night. An unsteady expectation had him on alert, and though he nursed the numbing liquid from the bottle, he was not eager for it to take him over for the night. As much as he wanted to pass out and stop thinking of Buffy’s intolerant face when she found Dawn in his crypt, he knew that he was bound to only dream fantasies of her instead. And he could do that just as well awake and on his toes. The night definitely was excreting an insidious power that set his teeth on edge. Passing a swift eye over the room, he found nothing to alarm him so turned again to his empty glass.
What should he do?
If he knew the Slayer and he was pretty partial to the belief that he did then she would reply to the Bit’s startling little statement with fierce denial. She would pretend that she never even heard it, and really as far as she knew he didn’t know that Dawn had opened her big mouth on the subject. He ought to crack Dawn’s skull for putting him in the shit like that. So much for thinking she was a friend.
He was back to thinking about what he should do about it. As hopeless as he thought the situation, he was still man enough to want to push it, to make her consider him; look at him as a possiblity at least. Look at him with a little lust just once before she planted her fashionable boot in his balls.
Then again, maybe it was just time to cut his losses and just get the hell out of town. As much as the idea galled him, he could go to Angel, try helping his lot of hopeless. Might at least keep him in blood and smokes, and in time maybe he’d find himself someone who could like him for himself and give Spike hope that he was a little bit loveable.
He felt himself teetering on the brink of something. As the alcohol slowly bled into his system he felt a decision on the tip of his tongue and the hurt started to seep into his heart. He didn’t want to leave; wasn’t sure he could get through a day without seeing her. The shrivelling of his dick every time one of her sarcastic gibes hit home was really a kind of sadistic reassurance, a sign that she thought of him at least in some capacity. He smiled at the imagery, and barked a laugh. She may as well cause everything to shrivel as he was more undead without her than he was when he originally hit this crap town.
On that morbid note Spike hauled his arse out of the seat and staggered on only slightly unsteady feet to the door. He was a little amazed that no one had tried to challenge his right to walk the streets tonight. No demon relative seeking vengeance on the turncoat vampire.
He set out on the path that would take him the longest to get home, completely unprepared to settle in for the night. He heard a train whistle blow in the darkness of the night and felt a strange shiver brush over his skin. Confused he lifted his eyes and looked around, sensing something off but not able to tell definitively what it was.
For a moment he thought he could feel a Sire’s pull, but shook his head knowing that Angel was tucked up nice and safe in his LA bed. And Dru, well, she would be tucked up in some demons bed for sure. That was the way she wanted it now. As gutted as her decision had left him when it happened, he had accepted the pain now and gone beyond it.
Other things caused him pain now. The chip. There was bleedin’ pain if ever there was one! The Slayer. His topsy-turvy existence by her say so was enough to make him want to go on a rampage and cut all the sanctimonious Scoobies off at the knees. But he wouldn’t. Because she loved them.
“Bloody hell, I’m pathetic.”
His pace had stopped to a short stumble forward every minute or so. For some reason he felt a real reluctance to go home, almost like he sensed that this would be his last night in his own bed, and not in a good way.
Some little thing tripped his instincts and his demon growled a warning. Before he could complete his vampiric statement, though, Buffy was in his path.
“H-Hi. Um, watcha doin’?”
He looked at her in shock, his senses slow but eventually he caught on to her speaking to him with a human greeting.
“Er, nothin’?” He phrased it as a question, sure that she would point out that he was indeed doing something and of course it was no bloody good, but she was silent.
Her skin suddenly tinged a subtle shade of pink and he looked at her in wonder.
“Little late for patrol, luv. Gonna be sun-up soon.” His voice was soft, almost affectionate, but her sudden focus on him had him catching the slip, and he visibly hardened his heart to her. His mind was blank as he clawed through it for a topic of conversation, but once again a sense of foreboding gripped him and he took another look around.
“Couldn’t sleep.” She had her head tilted seductively to the side and he had a sudden need to bite his lip hard in the hope of changing the direction of his dirty mind from the constriction of his pants.
“Right then. Let’s get you home now. No baddies left out tonight. All good Slayers should be home and in bed at this time of night.”
He was fascinated by the gulp of her throat when he mentioned bed and his cock began to throb. His confused reaction to her was either through seduction or embarrassment, but this weird tingle he felt announcing danger had him grabbing her elbow and directing her back toward Revello. With an urgency he knew to be correct, he dismissed her behaviour in favour of getting her home and safe.
Even if it meant that he would be that much closer to his own home.
He sighed in defeat but allowed himself to relish the buzzing tingle in his fingers from cupping the bare skin of her elbow, before letting go and curling his reluctant fingers in a fist. It was just to capture her warmth, as well as to restrain himself from grabbing her, shoving her up against a wall and attempting to shag her blind.
Darkness was lightening behind his back as he left her grudgingly alone at her front door. Not a word had been spoken the whole walk back, and though for them the lack of insults was odd, the quiet had been comforting. He hadn’t a clue what she was thinking, and he felt that in itself was a first. But he found himself trying to block out his observation. If she was about to mount a harsh argument as to why they were wrong for each other, then he could wait.
With one final wistful look, he turned and followed the well-known trail to home and prayed that he could sleep without craving the touch of his Slayer. He just wanted to get some dreamless sleep. Bloody hell did he need some rest. The Slayer had him tied up in knots and he felt his sanity slipping through the resultant exhaustion his many fantasies and dreams were causing him.
He bypassed the fridge, the telly and his armchair, choosing to flop down on the hard lid of the sarcophagus and wondered when it was exactly that he decided to settle for such primitive conditions. He’d always had a comfy bed, lived in reasonable style. Why had he done nothing about setting up a decent place to sleep? Downstairs would have been perfect. A chill brought back his earlier conviction that he might be finally at an end for this place, and he was suddenly consumed by panic. Spike hoped it wasn’t his death; just a move to nicer accommodations.
Deciding that he was too tired to worry about it, he surrendered finally to sleep, and mercifully dreamt of nothing.
A/N...gahhh finally I get this out....now tell me what you think? Much different to Taste of Juliet so I'm feeling all insecure!