Angel insisted on helping her, despite her protestations and assurances that she was thoroughly capable of lugging her things back to Spike’s. He told her that no one should have to ‘lug’ and therefore would help her.
It’d been a couple hours since Spike had left her to see Alicia, and Buffy was praying he was received well. She hoped Sam didn’t badger him too much and just accepted his spontaneous visit for what it was – at that moment—and let him spend some time with his daughter. Later, as Spike made more of a plan – and maybe it was just hopeful thinking on her part that there would be a plan – Sam, she hoped, would be accepting and understanding. The last thing Spike needed from her, especially now, was discouragement. That might make him turn tail and give up.
Buffy just hoped that she wasn’t hoping for more than Spike was ready to give at the moment. She hoped that this turnaround he wanted to do, stuck. She didn’t want it to be done just out of some guilt he felt the need to squelch for a week or two before he was back to his old ways. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved, but mostly, not fair to Alicia.
When she was unpacked – again—she had nothing to do but wait for Spike to return home. If he was out, she didn’t want to bother him by ‘checking up’ and seeing if he was indeed out with Alicia, though it was killing her to know. She supposed she could call Sam to find out, but knew that one simple question would snowball into several questions that were not her place to answer.
She decided to make herself a little dinner and watch some TV while she waited for Spike to return. Hopefully, he’d come back feeling renewed.
The phone ringing jarred Buffy awake. She blinked several times before reaching over onto the coffee table and hauling her cell phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
“B-Buffy?” came a man’s voice over the phone.
“Hi, this is Rick. You know a Spike?”
She sat up, concern filling her, “Yeah, I do, what’s going on?”
“You might want to come and get him. I can’t let him leave like this.”
Buffy shut her eyes. Well, that gave her, her answer. Things had not gone well at all. “Your bar, you say?”
“Yes. It’s called Rick’s.”
She rolled her eyes, “And how long has he been there for, Rick?”
“Oh, maybe three or four hours now. I took his keys and told he had to give me a phone number or I’d call the cops to escort him home.”
Jesus. He had to be falling down drunk.
“Rick, can you just give me the address and I’ll be right over? Me and a taxi. Just don’t let him go anywhere.”
“I won’t. He’s nearly passed out anyway.”
Sighing heavily, she jotted down the address and called the ever faithful cab company. Her heart was breaking. Had it gone that bad? And what kind of trouble – aside from being drunk – had Spike gotten himself into?
Bursting through “Rick’s” she spied Spike at the bar, his forehead down on the bar, a forgotten shot of something in his hand. He was muttering to himself and every once in a while shouting.
Coming over, she placed a hand on his shoulder and he rolled his head to the side to see her standing there.
“Buffy! My Buffy!” he exclaimed and nearly fell off his stool to sloppily gather her in his arms.
He reeked of smoke and hard liquor combined with beer, and her instinct was to wrinkle her nose in disgust and keep him at arms length. So, she went with that instinct. Which, he did not take kindly to, since he then growled at her. He reached for her again, and she batted him away. “You reek of booze, Spike!”
He pouted, “My girl doesn’t want me.”
That was a loaded statement if she ever heard one. Ignoring that, she thanked Rick for calling – thankfully in his inebriated state, Spike had the presence of mind to remember her number. Taking him by the arm, she helped him walk steady, as steady as he could anyway, out the door and to the cab.
Once inside, he was slobbering his affection on her and she batted him away, once again, annoyed. “Spike! Back up off me.”
He looked at her, wounded, truly wounded. “You hate me too?”
Yeah, this was going to be fun. Reasoning with a drunk guy.
“Yes, I hate you so much I came to get you. I hate you so much I went back to the penthouse,” she said sarcastically, reaching across his lap to buckle him in.
He wove his fingers in her hair, and urged her up to face him. He gazed at her intently and her breath caught at the look on his face. Desire? Love? Both, maybe? She wasn’t sure, only that she’d never seen that look before.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Did you know that? Did you know that I love you, Buffy? I bet you didn’t know because I didn’t even know. I mean it, Buffy, I —“
She pulled back, taking his hands out of her hair. You have to be realistic here, Buffy, she told herself. “Mean that to the toothbrush when we get home, okay?” she said lightly and sat back, buckling herself in.
He looked away from her, staring out the dirty window, a light drizzle beginning to spew from the skies, and she felt at a loss as to what to do. There was no way she could have a rational discussion with him like this. Impossible.
“Spike?” she began carefully.
“Mmm?”
“Did you see Alicia?”
He nodded, still staring out the window. “She didn’t want me.”
“Did she say that?”
“She was going out with Ryan,” he said, disgusted.
“Did you talk to Sam?”
“She told me I had to call first in the future.”
Buffy sighed, she’d been afraid that would happen.
“I’m nothing but a bad, rude man, aren’t I?” he whispered, his voice cracking with emotion.
“No, Spike –“
“I am,” he said sorrowfully, sounding much like a lost little boy.
Unbuckling her belt, she slid over to him and wrapped her arms around him. He moved swiftly to engulf her in his arms, burying his face in her neck and she felt his tears wet her neck. She sat there with him, stroking his hair, running her fingers through his curls and whispering soothing words of comfort until they reached his penthouse. And he clung to her, clung to her as if she was his port in a storm and, she realized, she might just be that.
He was quiet, not sullen, not sorrowful, but quiet and withdrawn by the time they’d reached ‘home’. He seemed in control of his faculties better, but did not want her out of his sight for very long it seemed. It dawned on her, as she handed him his toothbrush complete with cinnamon toothpaste, he wanted to be taken care of. He wanted to be tended to. Not just wanted; he needed it. No one cared about him this way; mostly they cared what they could get from him. The brutal truth was that it went the other way too: He only cared what he got from them, but not this kind of care. Not the giving up of himself to another; not the giving up of pretenses that he was a fully capable man that didn’t have times of vulnerability. He probably didn’t realize it, but she didn’t care, and she was probably wrong for reading into the actions of a drunk man, but she didn’t care about that either. She only knew that he needed her and she would stay by him for as long as he did, and hell, long after as well.
Her heart was in serious danger. She was plummeting fast, and while she was his life preserver for the moment, she had to selfishly wonder who was going to be her lifesaver.
Was it wrong, she pondered, to feel such a rush of affection for him while he was so vulnerable? Was it because he was vulnerable and therefore open to her; raw, exposed, needful? Was it her own selfish need to be needed that spurred and drove her own feelings? Were her feelings for him real, or was it all due to her drive to ‘fix’ and ‘repair’? She’d been friends with him for over a year, and she knew in the back of her mind that Spike somehow needed to be ‘fixed’, and that resonated with what she liked to call her ‘Wounded Bird Syndrome’. The desire to fix that which was broken, or rather, those that were broken.
Would he hate her if he knew that? Could she be accused of not accepting him as he was? His lifestyle was part of him, however, it’d been part of who he was since she’d known him, but, but, that was part of him, not who he was. Not the complete package. She saw beyond his confident swagger and leers, saw beyond his sexual exploits and conquests, saw beyond his acting career and his successes, and saw the man. And this vulnerability he was showing was the man exposed – open, cut, bleeding and raw. This, she felt, was beyond drunkenness.
“Buffy?” he called out in the dark to her when he was firmly ensconced in his bed, darkness covering them like a blanket.
She paused on her way to the door and turned. “Yeah?”
“Will you . . . stay? With me?”
“I am staying, Spike. In the guest room –“
“No, in here with me. Please.”
She said nothing, trying to ignore the desperation in his voice, the near begging quality to it.
“Please, Buffy. I need you.”
She hesitated still, feeling that word would come back to haunt her, and soon. When she heard him start his plea again, she agreed quickly saying, “Okay, I will.”
Crawling into bed beside him, he started to turn to gather her in his arms and she stopped him. “Stay there,” she whispered and instead wrapped her arms around him from behind, pressing her body up against his back.
“Thank you,” he whispered, clutching her hand and kissing her fingertips.
“You’re welcome.”