Eighth, Make Love and Not War
I’m lost.
I’m completely and utterly lost in Spike.
Here I am with Spike in the Magic Box. . . in my training room, no less, and my warm lips moving against his cool ones in time to the steady rhythm of my heart. For the first time, I don’t feel the hasty urgency of needing to fix everything right away. . . of having to fill the hollow pit of my stomach with the heat of passion.
There’s an answer to the desperation I’ve been feeling since I returned to life. . . there’s a reason for the nightmares and the disconnection and the wildly shifting emotions.
For the first time, our hands aren’t moving everywhere across the landscape of our bodies in a haphazard endeavor to remove clothing and press flesh to flesh. Instead, Spike’s hands remain steady against my back and right hip, and my hands are around his unmoving waist.
All our energy is focused on the gentle glide of lip on lip, tongue over tongue until I’m left gasping.
He pulls back just enough to let me catch my breath. “I’m here, pet. I’m here.”
His eyes are as clear as the ocean around one of those tropical islands that I’ve only ever seen in pictures. I can’t help myself. “Thank you.” The words come out in a whisper.
His lips part as if he’s about to reply.
But I never hear Spike’s response.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen training done quite like this,” an irritated voice says from across my sparring room.
Anya’s caught us.
I jerk back from Spike, my hands fluttering in the search for a place to light other than Spike’s body. Spike is equally shocked and probably upset by my behavior, but he protects me anyway.
Grasping my hips, he lifts me and sets me gently on my feet. “Buffy was hurt.”
Anya frowns and shifts the rather large book she’s holding in her arms. “How? In lip lock?”
I clear my throat. Can’t stand when people talk about me in front of me. Seems a lot of people have been doing that lately. “We went patrolling, and there were. . . was. . .” How to explain that one measly vampire got the best of me?
“There was an ambush,” Spike finishes.
We glance at each other, and his right shoulder gives a little shrug. I continue, “And Spike helped me.”
“And Buffy was hurt,” Spike repeats in an awkward fashion.
“R-iii-ght.” Anya narrows her eyes.
Even as Xander’s fiancé is staring Spike and me down, I have the urge to step back into his arms. After all, aside from Dawn, he has been the only one truly there for me since I came back. . . here.
Spike hops off the exercise mats and steps away from me. . . farther away from me than is required, and now I know he’s bothered by my reaction to Anya’s entrance. “It’s true,” he says, and I’m reminded that he’s a terrible liar. That’s one thing I usually appreciate about Spike quite a lot, but today, not so much.
“Say, what are you doing here so late? It has to be what. . . one in the morning or later?” I note.
Anya looks uncomfortable and suddenly seems to be studying the wall. “Nothing.”
“Yeah. What’s with the book?” Spike asks, advancing on the ex-demon.
Her eyes shift to the right as she slams the open volume shut. The pages emit a small puff of dust. “Nothing at all.”
Anya’s not such a great liar herself.
“Well,” I say, bending over to slip on my heels. “If you’re doing nothing. Spike and I were doing nothing, too.”
Confusion transforms into understanding in the blink of an eye. “Okay,” she agrees with haste. “I saw nothing. . . no way, no how.” And then, she scurries out of the training room and into the front of the store.
I follow her to the door. “Us either!”
Shutting the door firmly, I turn back. “Well, that was a close. . .”
Spike is gone, and the back door is still moving from the motion of his exit.
Bewildered, I scramble after him, filing Anya’s behavior away for another day.
I have too much else to worry about. . .
. . . like a cranky. . . well, hurt vampire.
* * *
Arms swinging, Spike hurries around the corner. He’s using the extra height he has on me to outdistance me. Skipping a bit on my good leg to avoid putting too much weight on my injured knee, I attempt to catch up.
“Hey!” I shout.
He keeps going.
“Wait up.” Tufts of my new shorter haircut blow across my eyes, and I unsuccessfully blow the strands out of the way.
No response.
Finally, at the entrance to the movie theater, my leg starts throbbing.
“I can’t keep up. My knee.” I grab his hand in attempt to slow him down.
At my touch, he abruptly stops, arms still moving. As if my hand’s made of acid, he yanks his hand away.
“What’s wrong with you?” I demand. “Why are you acting this way?”
“No reason,” he growls.
I try to hold his eyes with my own but fail. Annoyance boils in my stomach. My emotions can’t take much more of the emotional-roller-coaster thing tonight. “Yes. It’s something. What?” I can’t stop the bitchy tone from coloring my voice, and for the first time, I’m not happy that I’m aiming it at Spike.
He starts to leave again, but I grasp his upper arm with my right hand and whirl him around despite the pain still groaning through my body. I really need to go to bed.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I command, emphasizing each syllable.
The muscle in his cheek twitches as if he’s gritting his teeth, and he keeps his eyes lowered.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” The longer he’s not being responsive with me, the more my inner self is quivering in fear. I don’t know what I’ll do if he decides to go away right now. I’m the one who’s supposed to be avoiding him. . . not the other way around.
“I’m tired, Buffy,” he says so quietly that I almost can’t hear him.
My gaze is intent on him. My voice lowers to match his, “Tired of what?”
“This game. . . this charade.”
My heart sinks; I hate this space between us. “What game?” I know very well what game.
“Hiding what’s going on between you and me.”
“We’re doing it for Dawn. . . so she doesn’t have to go away. It’ll just be a little longer, and you can go back to your crypt and doing your. . . vampire things.”
That’s not what he means, of course.
And he gives me that look that says he knows the words I just uttered are total bullshit.
“You mean what we just told Anya? That’s just to keep her and Xander off our backs. We really don’t need more people knowing until the situation with social services is resolved. Then. . .”
“Then, it’ll go back to being the way it was before. . . instead of partially hiding this. . .” he gestures back and forth with two fingers, “. . . it’ll go back to complete denial of any connection between us.”
Right. Well, that’s right, right? Really. Sleep is needed. “Yeah,” I murmur as a half-statement, half-question.
He closes his eyes at my confirmation, and he slumps against a half-torn movie poster. “Don’t know if I can keep doing this, Slayer.”
His words cut me like a knife.
And before I can think, I launch myself into his arms and hug his ribs tightly. “Please.”
He hugs back but without much enthusiasm. “After this. . . after I help with Dawn, I’m not going to do this anymore. I’ll still help out, but I’m not going to let you keep on. . .”
“You said you’d be here for me. . . help me with the hallucinations and nightmares.” I hate the whine in my voice, but my insides are consumed with genuine panic.
Could his bizarre push and pull with me be related to the push and pull I’m doing with him?
“Yeah. I’ll be there, but not this way. If you need more support than just listening, you’ll need to see a shrink or something, pet.” He sounds defeated.
I’m dizzy at the thought of losing the cushion of his presence. “W-what if I consider letting the others know. . . after the social services thing is over with? I can’t promise miracles, but I can try.” I pause and then add, “I-I just can’t handle another emotional upheaval right now on top of. . . everything.”
His arms pull me closer, and a mix of desire and relief floods over me.
His voice is still soft as he speaks against the top of my head. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Buffy. But do know that there’s only so much one. . . vampire can take.”
He’s highlighted his demon for me. . . his lack of soul.
I make a feeble attempt to remind myself that I can’t let myself get too close to a soulless demon. . . not again.
And yet. . . here we are.
After a long embrace, I slowly push away and look up at him. Now his clear blue eyes focus on me instead of elsewhere. I can’t read them.
I stroke his cheek with the back of my hand. My words tell him that for now, we’re together, “Let’s go home.”
* * *
Willow is sleeping on the front porch swing wrapped in a blanket she’s pulled from the closet. A little piece of paper is propped on the front of the cloth, and from the sidewalk, I imagine what it probably says:
“Please do not disturb.”
“Redhead at rest.”
“Witch a’waitin’.”
“Kiss me. I’m yours. . . . but only if you’re Tara.”
Spike squeezes my hand. We’ve been holding hands since my house came into view from the street corner. Gotta at least look the part of girlfriend and boyfriend. His hand is cold and heavy against my palm, and I’m reminded that our connection is still far from sturdy despite his outward placidity.
“What are you talking about, pet?”
Oops. Hadn’t realized I’d said that stuff out loud. “Nothin’,” I say with a levity I’ve sworn to use around Spike. . . for now.
Besides, I sometimes get these pockets of time when I feel okay about being alive, and they mostly happen when my brain is too tired to form a coherent thought.
“Talking to yourself. Never a good sign of sanity,” he teases. Apparently, he’s decided to play along, too. I have to admit that I feel better, and for some reason, shoots of desire streak across my belly along the inner length of my thighs.
I giggle. “Nope. Not sane. Buffy is not and never was sane.” I let go of his hand and dance ahead of him in a little circle. The pain in my body is much less, but I can’t tell if it’s because I’m so worn out. “Certifiably insane. . . that’s me.”
“Going all Dru on me, then?”
“Yep.” God, I’m drunk with exhaustion. I skip up the front steps and teeter back and forth a little as I face Spike. I spread my arms. “Hee! I’m drunk.”
“Or something,” he says as he catches up with me.
“Or tired,” I amend. “The bed sounds good about now.”
Spike leans around me in attempt to check on Willow. “Let’s see what Red has to say first.”
“I’d rather. . .”
I take him by the shoulders and kiss him hard on the lips. I have to know if he’s going anywhere just yet. He hesitates at first. . . just long enough for my heart to skip a beat, and then, he kisses me back, matching my ardor with his own. I relax into the kiss with relief.
As I pause to catch my breath, he asks, “Shouldn’t we?” He gestures at the sleeping Willow.
I put my finger to my lips and shake my head no. Tilting my head toward the front door, I give him a little grin, hooking the same finger in the waist of his jeans and giving them a tug.
He groans as my skin contacts his. “Wanna give the cameras a show, love?”
The corner of my mouth quirks up, and he takes that as consent.
Within seconds the door is open, closed, and locked, and he’s leading me toward the kitchen.
As he flicks on the light switch, I ask, “Here?”
He spares me a brief glance, and I see the merriment in his eyes. “No, that won’t do. Dawn might catch us. But. . .” he flings open the refrigerator door, “thirsty.”
“Oh.” I’m amused. Guess he hasn’t had any blood all day.
Spike stops touching me long enough to rummage around in the back of the appliance. He locates the empty milk carton of blood he’s hidden behind a container of moldy cheese, spins open the lid, and drinks with such swiftness and neatness that he’s done before I realize.
He licks his lips, replaces the carton, and rinses his mouth with water from the sink. “Done.”
Before I can say anything in response, he seizes my hips and presses them into his own so that I quiver with longing. “Want me, love?”
“Yes,” I breathe as I feel just how much he wants me.
He bends to whisper in my ear, “We’ve talked about a lot of stuff tonight. Before we do this, I just want you to know that I haven’t forgotten it.”
I nod; at this moment, I don’t care. I just want him to never stop touching me.
“Truce?”
I nod again.
“Great.”
With that, he lifts me in his arms, and being of weary mind and body, I let him carry me up the stairs. . . even though I can most definitely take care of myself.
He takes the stairs two at a time, pausing to kiss me every so often. His lips are firm, and I relish the slight tang of coppery blood that remains on his breath. I’m impatient with hunger and flushed with desire as we enter my bedroom. He hurriedly turns on the lamp beside my bed, and cool air rushes between us.
As if surprised by the change in temperature, he stops short.
His eyes lock with mine, and a blaze of passion sparks between us. I squirm and climb out of his arms, kicking off my high heels and peeling off my blouse at the same time. I’m grateful to be on even ground again, but my knee objects, and I perch on the edge of my bed for a moment until the pain subsides.
I watch him. I can’t help myself.
Spike slides his shirt over his head, and in a single movement, he slings the cloth over the end of the camera in my bedroom, effectively shielding us from those-who-are-watching. Then, he’s upon me, gliding his hands on either side of me and leaning me back against the pillows. In a familiar dance, he slips off my panties and skirt and unlatches my bra, and I unbutton his jeans and peel away his jeans, freeing him of constraint.
“Now. Please,” I beg as he knocks our clothing to the floor.
As he presses into me, he murmurs, “They don’t get to see more than I do.”
Before I let myself get completely lost again, I finish with the same words I uttered earlier, “Thank you, Spike.”
Things between Spike and I aren’t perfect. . . aren’t as tender as before we were caught by Anya, but they are definitely different. For the first time, I have hope that I’ll be okay.
The white flag is raised.
Everything and everyone else can wait until tomorrow.
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