[Reviews - 107]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 2699 times

- Text Size +




She must have a death wish!

There was no other way to explain the vampire she found in her bed when Buffy woke up the next morning. She remembered feeling beyond miserable after that stupid sob fest movie and had welcomed him almost with open arms into her tacky apartment. The rest had been pure insanity. She had a perfectly good floor he could have bunked down on—wasn’t like he needed the comforts of a pillow and blankets. No, she must have been willing to die and that’s why she’d been so agreeable as to let him steal half her narrow sleeping space.

At least she still had her clothes on. Some perverted little pixie whispering in her ear had her stealthily sneaking up the sheet to check his clothing status, and she didn’t know whether to sigh in relief or sob in disappointment that his jeans were still completely where she’d last seen them. Though she was free to drool over his chest and those tight, hard, mouth-watering abs.

If she wasn’t suicidal, she might have done just that.

Buffy stumbled weakly from her bed, her head spinning over this new bizarre reality. She would have laughed herself silly for the weirdness that was her life if she totally wasn’t ready to face a waking vampire this early in the day. Keeping silent and keeping him asleep was very much of the good.

Despite the lock on the bathroom door, Buffy was very nervous about stripping her body and standing naked under the stream of water that dribbled through the pipes. It wasn’t like Spike had shown any real interest in her since he’d met her again at the diner. The few short moments of touching had been intense, but in a darkened theatre, where such expressions of interest were the norm—if not the expectation—he’d been almost disappointingly lacking with the amorous.

She pouted. Then got angry at the pouting. What was she? Some slayer slut that wanted to dive into another abusive, screwed up vampire relationship that had the potential of being much, much worse? All simply to aid the forgetting of her worst moment in life?

The ensuing tears over that particular topic were never a surprise. She let them fall: great silent drops of grief that she felt would never let her get on with the living. Buffy knew she was hiding here—that the crummy job that barely covered her rent and a small amount of food wasn’t a life-long decision of the best kind, but she’d always been the one to deal with the bad, and just this once it was so heinous that she just couldn’t face it anymore. Let someone else kill their lover—she really couldn’t care anymore.

The shower, with its inadequate force behind the almost chilly needles of water, was the place she ruminated best. Many times she’d thought about her mom, Giles and her friends—God, Angel had been the hot topic for months now—but it was never the place she could get any relief from the pain. The loneliness was eating out her soul, and now Buffy had the embodiment of that very sentiment lying dead in repose on her bed.

He still hadn’t told her why he’d sought her out; hadn’t taken the trouble to reveal if her days were numbered or if he’d flipped on the whole vampire thing and was making her his new best friend. It kind of felt like it, with the talking and the eating and the movies. Not to mention the stepping in at his frown at the approaching sun and providing him a place to bunk down.

Why hadn’t it occurred to her last night to wonder where Drusilla was?

God, for all Buffy knew, she could well be about to dress for lunch—with her as the main meal!

Feeling fresh and more emotionally prepared to face the challenge waiting for her in her bed, Buffy crept out of the bathroom and came face-to-face with a fully dressed, completely slick looking Spike almost jumping with excitement about something.

“Moon’s out,” he informed conversationally and Buffy repressed the urge to point out that yes, she did have eyes—and an alarm clock. It was her shift, and though tonight she wasn’t actually meant to work, she really wasn’t stupid enough to tell Spike that.

Well, no need really. Not when he held her schedule in his hand and treated her to that sappy enthusiastic grin that seemed totally peculiar on his face.

“Hey! What are you doing with that?”

He looked at the offending piece of paper with his own brand of cocky confusion, then dismissed it in the blink of an eye as his body almost seized with the repressed need to be active.

“Wanted to see if you’d be up for a bit of rough and tumble.” His expectant look sent lava howling through her veins.

Okay, despite her earlier completely sick lamentation of the lack of movie smoochies, she so wasn’t going there. “That better not mean what I think it means.” She felt the urge to growl, but tamped it down in case it did something to Spike’s demon and he jumped her in impulsive lustiness that he’d later claim to be unable to control.

His look of amusement was immediately irritating and intriguing.

“What do you think it meant, pet?” And he seemed to slink closer so that she was breathing into the interesting looking pale skin of his throat, her back finding that the bathroom door was actually vertical and made of reasonably solid wood.

Buffy felt breathless suddenly, like Spike was sapping her breath from just being close to her—from being inside her space and not making her do anything but shake.

“Th-that you want to fight to the d-death?” she almost whimpered and realised how bad that would be if it were true. Spike had been fun to be around, even if his hyperactivity was a bit overwhelming first thing in the night.

“Oh, I want to fight, Goldilocks. But bad guys. Bring on the bleeding monsters of the night and let’s go save the world, yeah?”

God, had his voice always been so husky and liquid sex? She almost felt like diving back under the showerhead, and then what he’d actually said caught up to her hormones and Buffy’s mouth fell open.

“Huh? You wanna wha? Did Dru hit you over the head and give you brain damage or something?” She raised her fist to knock on his skull, but as soon as his slicked back hair met the flesh of her fingers, she shuddered and bumped back into the door.

He was doing the head tilt and Buffy suddenly knew—guilty runaway and grieving girlfriend or not—she was in serious trouble.

“Dru didn’t see the good behind my truce with you. Tossed me out on my ear, she did. She’s shacked up with a chaos demon. You ever seen one of those things?” He barely waited for the uncertain shake of her head. “They’re all slime and antlers. They’re disgusting.” And he shuddered, whether because of the remembered slimy badness or at losing Dru, Buffy had no idea, but now she was thoroughly wigged.

“That’s so—” She was really about to offer her sympathies, her hand was raised to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder and everything, until she realised what she was doing. “God, Spike! That’s so pathetic. What do you see in a skanky ho like her anyway?”

At the impulsive baring of fangs and the snarl on lips barely a kiss away from her face, Buffy wondered what it was exactly that prompted her to goad a master vampire about the supposed love of his life when she had no stake in handy distance. She was about to squeeze her eyes closed and give in to the inevitable when with a little embarrassed cough, Spike shook off the demon and stepped back apologetically.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Guess I’m still in protector mode. None of that now, let’s go fight some demons. It’ll be fun.” His grin was infectious and Buffy marvelled at how innocent and misleadingly safe he seemed. Like he could be a little boy excited that Santa was on the way. Like he was a boyfriend eager to go and do happy things if it got his girl to stop moping about the dead love of her life.

She wanted to do that. In some dark place in her mind, the need to mope over Angel had long passed. She’d even started questioning the love and wondering how real it could be when it was twisted for so long. It hadn’t taken a scholar to observe her mom and how the strings of love became untied the second her father abused the privilege, and all he’d done was fool around. Angel had done that and more. While he’d found some other woman to take her place, he’d tormented her with murder and physical abuse. No matter how much she told herself that Angel was not Angelus, they both wore the same face and she knew enough amateur psychology to know it would be almost impossible to be able to see anything but Angelus in the sweet face of the vampire that had loved her first.

It was time to let go, and with Spike’s irritating persistence, she could see her spirits being salvaged right before her eyes. She still wasn’t so much with the understanding and that was bugging her.

“Spike, what are you doing here? And specifically? Here, in my room. And why am I still alive? I know nobody yanked your fangs out, so what gives?” Only when Spike seemed transfixed by her lips did she realise she was pouting and Buffy very slowly tried to lose it—with no effect on the vampire’s fascination.

“Needed a place to sleep. Not gonna kill you, so stop thinking like that.” And then his concentration broke and he was staring at Buffy in concern. “You didn’t think that, did you? It’s not why you invited me in, I hope? You’re too young to have a death wish.”

Buffy blushed guiltily and jumped as Spike growled, slamming a hand onto the door on either side of her face.

“Now you listen to me, Slayer. I may not know what went down with your sweetie bear at the end, but whatever it was it wasn’t worth you doing this to yourself. The world needs you, luv. Not goin’ to go all poetic and tell you what you mean to every git that knows you, but you’re being silly.”

He was ignoring her tears, though an ache seemed to be starting around his heart at her tiny sniffles of misery.

“I killed him, Spike. He got his soul back but Acathla was already open. I had to send him to Hell.” She fought the sobs that wanted to break her throat open with the violence of her regret and grief, so sick and tired of crying over something that had never been her fault. Not even the need to give it reign with someone whom she knew—someone who could understand what she was actually talking about—was enough to give her release. She’d spoken to no one since she’d left—not shared the most devastating event in her life with anyone until Spike ended up so oddly back in her life. And now he was glaring menacingly at her and Buffy felt an urgent need to gulp down fear, her tears forgotten.

“You know what,” he growled in almost spitting impatience. “You did a good thing. So what if your honey got his balls back on the big moment? He wasn’t blameless, Slayer. Wanker had a hundred years to learn about the noose around his neck. Was all sorts of wrong to go for you in the first place. But you did a GOOD thing. You saved this godforsaken miserable world and I, for one, am bloody grateful for it. Now get your ass into gear and let’s go kill things.”

He didn’t move, still had her positioned against the bathroom door, her mouth hanging open in shock and admiration, and Buffy, not for the not the first time, considered what it would be like if he put all this fiery manhood to good use. But he still hadn’t answered her question.

Knowing she’d almost believe anything right now, she breathed, mesmerised, and asked again. “Why are you here?”

He grinned, his lips soft and shiny in the dim light of her apartment, and then he leaned forward and so gently caressed hers with a kiss. He pulled back too fast, leaving Buffy tingling and almost brain-dead with shock and yearning.

“I came because I want a regular gig. Buffy, I want to save the world.”





You must login (register) to review.