Her hands curled into fists as she awaited his response to her open ended insult. She didn’t feel she needed to elaborate any further on why she was angry; after their heart to heart the other night, he should have some idea. Maybe that was the point; he was trying to prove to himself that he was still, a big bad evil vampire, and not the Slayer’s sidekick.
*Slow down Miss Jumps-to-Conclusions, maybe he has a good excuse*
She waited…
And waited….
Still waiting…
“Sorry.”
“That’s it?” Her patience was gone, and the half-crazy, emotional Buffy burst out before she could tie her down. “You’ve been gone SIX DAYS Spike! You just up and disappeared, I thought something had happened to you! You were supposed to be watching Jonathan and…whatever his name is.”
“Tucker’s brother?”
“Goddamnit Spike!” she shouted in frustration. “It doesn’t matter! Willow almost got them no thanks to you!”
“Well considering you’re standing here, and not out chasing down Red I assume everything turned out peachy then?” His voice was devoid of any emotion and his eyes the same.
Cold.
She shivered. “If you call Willow skinning Warren alive ‘peachy’ then sure.”
That didn’t even get a rise out of him; he just stood there with a detached look on his face.
“What happened to you Spike?” her voice was dripping with exhaustion.
He just shrugged and turned away from her. “Had a bit of a run in with Red; took a few days to get my wits back is all.”
The comment triggered the alarm in her brain. It was as if he was trying make her angry enough to focus on his actions, and not on him. That affirmation was all it took to diffuse her irritation with him. Which in truth was more worry than anything else, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
She approached him quietly, and laid a tentative hand on his back. A jolt shook is body, and he jerked away from her touch.
“Spike…?”
“Just go Slayer; go back to your warm house, and to the Scoobies. I don’t need you here.”
His missed the flicker of anguish that molded itself to her features.
*He doesn’t want you here*
“No.”
His game face was all it took for her to acknowledge he really was trying to hide something.
“Get out of my bloody crypt woman!” he roared taking two aggressive steps toward her.
She didn’t back down, but straightened and approached him without hesitancy. “You don’t mean that, so you’re going to have to make me ’Big Bad’.”
“I said GO!” he roared again, but grabbed his head and keeled over letting out a queer whine. The sound made her stomach flip, and she backed away.
“”M’ not going to do it,” he turned and looked to his right as if he was talking to someone. “She doesn’t want that, not real, not real…” he was mumbling incoherently.
“Spike?”
He didn’t respond to her voice, and kept talking to the invisible “thing” that was apparently whispering in his ear.
“Oh screw this,” she grumbled and took a few steps forward grabbing by the shoulders and shaking him.
“SNAP OUT OF IT!”
He did.
Sinking to his knees he looked miserably up at her and what clutched at her gut was the unshed tears glistening in his eyes.
“Buffy…”
She moved to him, dropping to her knees in front of him. She wrapped her arms around him comfortingly, and he nuzzled her neck. He quivering; his body shaking and her heart started to race wildly.
“Spike what’s going on, what’s wrong?”
“It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
“What are you trying to hide Spike? Why were you pretending to ok? What happened?” her voice sounded desperate. She was at wits end, and he was terrifying her.
“I dreamed of killing you,” he whispered with a shudder. “I dreamed of you letting me kill you, you asking for me to kill you.”
All the years they had fought, or “danced” neither had ever succeeded. Eventually she had come to the consensus that the desire wasn’t really in it. They’d never killed each other because they hadn’t wanted to. After all this time with him, she had stopped thinking of him as her enemy, as a vampire. His words shook her to the core; he still had the desire to see her dead. The demon inside him craved blood, her blood and always would.
“I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your... ending? Angel—he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time.”
He pulled away and held his face inches from hers. She could see the pain in his eyes. “She put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.”
*No*
She fell back away from him, and his pain became her pain. The horror that must have been evident in her face made him start, and he wrapped his arms around himself.
“Is it that bad? It must be burning the skin, its eating the inside away.” He began to shake his head furiously. “Didn’t ask for it, but now its here. Spike is bad, and she looks at it and knows. She can see me now.”
He wasn’t talking to her anymore, he was arguing with himself. Tears began to run down her cheeks leaving salty wet trails. Willow had done this to him, cursed him, thrust his soul back into his body. For what? Amusement at the time; he must have been in her way. He had been doing the job she’d asked him to do, and this was the result. His soul.
He looked at her. “It's what you wanted, right?” His head twisted to glare accusingly upwards. “It's what you wanted, right? And—and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I— and him... and it... the other, the thing beneath—beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go... go to hell.”
“Oh God…” she let out a whimper and pressed her hands to her face. "I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.”
“Didn’t want you to know, but you see it don’t you? All the things…the bad…you can see right? You knew before, but now…I can feel it too.” He looked down at the floor. “Can’t love me now, can’t live now.”
“Why didn’t you come to me? Oh Spike why didn’t you tell me?”
“Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers…can’t love weak. Must be strong. Needed to be right again, no spark. Had to wait. Thought it would go away, thought I could hide, could pretend. But you saw through me.”
“It’ll be ok,” she sobbed, “we’ll fix this, Willow…”
His head snapped up, and he fixed his gaze solidly on her. “Is this what you want? Loved Angel with the spark, love Spike too?”
His gibberish was breaking her heart. He’d tried to be strong, to pretend he was fine. She’d cause him to fall apart, and his soul was eating him away, and he still only thought of her.
“I want what you want; I want there to be no more pain Spike. I want you to come back to me.”
He gazed at her with sorrowful eyes. “Never be the same again.”
She crawled to him on hands and knees, and took him in her arms again. His body sagged against her, and she held him while he began to sob.
“We’ll make it right, I promise Spike.”
“Can’t be right, m’ still here, still thinking, still feeling. Don’t want to feel Buffy.” He lifted his tear stained face to hers. “Don’t leave me here, gained the spark, can’t lose the girl.”
“I’ll never leave you.” She vowed, her voice shaking with emotion. “I promise, I’ll never leave you behind.”
A/N:Dialogue taken from S7 "Beneath You".
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for the delay; have been juggling updating this and writng for all the holiday ficathons.
As usual all errors are mine. :D
Make sure to go check out BtVS Holiday Fics. Right now it is 99% Spuffy :D I know I keep pimping it on here, but I love would see to more people post their stories!
As usual all errors are mine. :D
Make sure to go check out BtVS Holiday Fics. Right now it is 99% Spuffy :D I know I keep pimping it on here, but I love would see to more people post their stories!