“Damn, damn, damn.” Buffy flounced through the door into Angel’s agency and felt very annoyed chocolate brown eyes burn into her.
‘Would you care to explain that little scene from earlier?” He sounded a little strained, as if he’d squeezed the words through barely parted lips.
Even though she hadn’t lived them, four years of resentment of his disappearing acts and lack of being there when he was needed burned her to her very fingertips. She had too much info, too many memories of Spike being there, being on the edge of there, of just being. And Angel thought he had the right to go quizzing her now about her decisions in regards to Spike? She was the Slayer, she didn’t have to answer to anyone, especially to some Neanderthal vampire who thought he could use his soul as a convenient excuse to hurt her over and over again.
“Let me see.” She held her finger against her lips and looked for all the world like she was contemplating what to tell him. “I’m thinking no.”
His face turned thunderous as he spun back and forth from Cordelia’s know-it-all smirk and Giles’s nonchalant shrug. “What do you mean, no?”
Buffy just smiled sadly as she made her way over to her first love. It was funny how only a week ago the pain of losing him from her life was so severe that she thought she would never survive it. Then just one whacky dream—admittedly one that lasted for days—had completely turned her around. Seeing what her life would have been like if she had continued on this way, mourning and moping over losing Angel then determined to achieve an unnatural state of normal just like he had left her to do. Having that normal life with Riley, her PA—just seemed completely ludicrous to her now. The promise of Spike and his love should be wigging her way out. Should have her with a stake with his name carved into it, hunting him down and making him dust before he put his filthy hands on her.
But.
Those hands were a lot more delicious than she might have ever known if she hadn’t taken that chance to check him out over a coffee. That one afternoon in the park had taught her more than the reality of that dream. It had shown her that every single tingle that the dream had inspired when Spike-centred had been real. Had been wonderful. It taught her that helping him to be good, allowing herself to see the good in him, see the love in him, could do nothing but make her happy.
She’d fallen for the wrong vampire. And though distance hadn’t wrought her newly gained maturity in respect to the issue, hindsight and foresight had met in a slow slide of comfort that she just accepted what she now knew and allowed it to shape her heart all over again.
There was no point philosophizing about it now. She knew too much, and Angel was much better suited to where he now was, and with whom he was with.
She gave Angel a hard hug. A friend hug; nothing sensual, nothing longing to confuse or add to the angst. She pulled back way before he could try to prolong the contact.
“Spike won’t bother you for awhile so don’t worry about it. He’s our problem. I”ll deal with him.” She finished off with a grin that showed how much she was actually looking forward to dealing with that particular problem. “By the time you see Spike again, he’ll be no threat to anyone.”
Angel stared at her as incredulity left him speechless. His jaw worked hard at the clenching until he finally came up with words that he could get past his teeth. “And what about that ring he poked me full of holes for? How come you didn’t give it to me?”
“What world are you living in? Do you think it would actually be a good idea to give Angelus a ring that would make him invincible? I doubt you’d be as stupid as Spike and allow it to be taken from you so easily.”
He had the grace to look abashed, but he mixed it well with his brooding efforts. “Angelus is gone, Buffy. I’m unlikely to go and repeat those mistakes again.”
His words had the opposite effect. Buffy saw ‘mistake’ and saw red, or luckily for her, peroxide. She was finally thinking straight and making some good decisions.
“No way with the guiltage. There is no guarantee that Angelus won’t find his way back in to the world and I can’t take the risk. I’ll take care of the ring’s existence, too.” She turned to her watcher with an arched brow and he found his way tiredly to his feet. “Oh,” she added as something else came to her mind. “If you go fighting any Mohra demons, be sure that you don’t touch its blood if you don’t want to be turned human. And just in case you were wondering, if you were human or remained all vamped, we just couldn’t work. Together we just aren’t right. I’m really sorry if you thought that maybe one day, but—” Buffy left off pointedly looking at Cordelia and giving her the most genuine smile she’d ever attempted on the girl. “So, we’re free to love other people. Good luck, Angel.”
With an overwhelming sense of freedom, Buffy led Giles out of the office and back to his car. She cringed looking at the drab-coloured car, but saw it rightly as her way back to Spike and climbed eagerly in. Even if the trip would take an hour longer than a normal car.
Free. No more Angel with ties on her heart. No more wishing and hoping that the one day with Angel would make it round to her before her destiny took her away from the world. Though apparently that wasn’t so much of the permanent even when it did happen.
No, she was completely available. And Spike didn’t know what was going to hit him.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The Desoto was a black blur as Spike pressed his boot harder on the accelerator and he shot out of LA. No matter how many times he’d turned the wheel to head away from Sunnydale, he still ended up on the road back to the hell pit. It wasn’t what he’d planned. Ten minutes away from the Slayer and he was making new plans on how to kill her; when to do it and how much satisfaction seeing her drained corpse would give him. But he needed time to recover, to rejuvenate, and so needed to get as far from the bloody chit as he could.
Which is how he ended up speeding back towards the place that saw more misery for him than success. Back to the home of the Slayer—to either kill her, or become more confused. He could go to her watcher and find out what the hell she was about. Scare the idiot into making her behave like a Slayer was meant to.
It was really beginning to piss him off that the images of her death—an event that he became more and more creative with in his head—kept shifting to ones of passion. Ones where his naked body got more than satisfied by being shagged to death by her.
He couldn’t deny that he was attracted to her. She was beautiful in that nauseatingly goody-two shoes way. But he couldn’t give in to thinking of her that way. Just because she had completely gone off her nut, it wasn’t his problem. But if she offered herself up to him again, maybe he shouldn’t be so fast to knock her back. Could be a new tag to tack onto his evil Big Bad reputation. Killed two Slayer’s before thoroughly fucking another. Oh yeah, that would get him far in the demon world. But only if he killed her after the mind-blowing shag he suspected might be the result of letting down his guard. No, it was better to just kill her straight off. Twist her scrawny neck like he did the last Slayer, leaving no blood to drive his impulses into overdrive and possibly making a really bad mistake.
He slammed the brakes on about a metre over the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign, wishing he could do the same to other welcoming parties. If he could just mow the chit down his problems would be solved. He let his car rumble through the town and pulled slowly to a stop out front of the campus, hoping for a surreptitious glance at the Slayer in action. He did like to watch her fight.
There were too many walking about for him to find her, and he was willing to bet she’d be out in a cemetery somewhere. Didn’t matter. Even amongst all this appetizing fare, he could find her. Could sniff her out from a barrel of Slayers, so in tune with her he was. And that was courtesy of nothing but the many fights they’d had against each other. Had not a jot to do with the fact that she’d about branded him with her scorching heat and her tongue.
He parked the car and then found himself blending into the dark, creeping through evil in search of the one that had his purpose all twisted about.
And there she was, patrolling with one of her little friends, leaving the redhead exposed for all and sundry evil to take her down and feast upon her throat. Though Spike could admit it’d be a short meal before the Slayer had the idiot all dusty over her shiny boots.
Then he could hear her talking and it about sent him up the nearest tree.
“Buffy, you can’t trust him. I know you say you saw how it’s all going to go but those events had a sequence and he’s just not in the right place yet. You could get yourself killed.”
“Spike is not going to kill me, Will. If he was going to then he would have done it last night when he had his fangs in my throat.”
Despite his horror about how confident she was in believing she’d be completely safe at the end of his teeth, he couldn’t help grin and revel in the shudder that made the redhead’s whole body weak.
“I can’t believe you didn’t fight him off.”
Buffy sighed. She seemed more than a little sad. “I can’t believe he took off without any explanations. I mean, the kissage was just getting to the major wow part, and then he what? Can’t bear to know why I’m pursuing him that way, so he takes off as if his coat was on fire?”
Spike looked down a quick burst of paranoia just to check that she was making that one up.
“But Buffy, I mean, Spike? Are you really sure? Maybe the Power’s were telling you to dust him before he has so much impact on your life. Maybe having him around for the next so many years is actually a bad thing.”
Spike stood completely statue-like, shocked by the conversation and its implications. He wanted to run far far away so he never had to see the little blonde and any of these interfering Scoobies ever again. But another part of him held him still, wouldn’t let him move until he heard exactly what she had to say about him, about why she was doing this and not dusting him like Red and he both suspected she should be.
“Will’s, if you could see the way he loves. If you could see how loyal he is, how he cares and how he believes. He might be evil, but he has a heart that doesn’t deserve to dust.”
He was in shock, and holding himself fiercely back so he wouldn’t embarrass himself and tackle her outright and kiss her into an early grave. In just two sentences she got him, summed him up in a way he had wanted other women in his life to and then love him in return. Okay, she’d switched it all around on him again and he was all topsy-turvy, didn’t know his arse from his elbow and it was all because of a tiny blonde rocket. He was doomed.
“Okay, so he’s a deep feeler. I get that, ‘cause hey, devoted to Drusilla for much longer than she deserved. But that isn’t you, Buffy. Just because he may fall for you, doesn’t mean that you have to feel the same way.”
Despite being almost comatose at that little pearl of information, Spike stayed dumbstruck listening for her reasoning. Why the bloody hell did she decide to go for him? Was it just to drive him out of his mind? Because no one could deny that she loved the Poof first and foremost.
“You’re right.”
Spike felt a growl rise in his chest as she became the next in his line of women to hurt and deny him. So he watched as she flopped onto the grass and readied herself for her tale. She pet the grass beside her and Willow looked warily around before she lowered herself beside her friend.
“Willow, before the Power’s made me dream and see all of that stuff that’s going to happen to us, Angel was my life. I mean, there were you guys and the slaying, and my mom and school, but Angel shadowed everything. I made every decision based on what he wanted for me. I wasted so many years trying to be normal, to have normal just because that’s why he left, but deep in my heart I believed we would be back together. For years I hurt people that loved me because he changed the way my heart worked. He made me blind to the truth. I don’t think I can explain this in a way you will understand but the way that Spike loves is so completely selfless, so devoted. Angel is incapable of loving me that way. And before you go and think that I’ve given up Angel for Spike only because I can’t ever have Angel, I do fall for him. It’s too late when I finally admit it. I waste so much time denying him, Willow. It makes no one happy. I don’t have the feelings yet, but they aren’t that far away. I want him, Willow. It’s as simple as that.”
And Spike felt weak in the knees for the first time in his unlife. Before he could hear more, could be completely bloody neutered and rendered useless, he disappeared. He needed time to think and work out what in the hell she was talking about.
He’d confront her another day. Hopefully one where he’d claimed his balls back.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Just trying to catch up with all of this. Hope you are all enjoying and I hope to have more soon. Thank you all so much for your support. Big hugs from me to you.