You never can win
it's the state I'm in
This danger thrills and my conflict kills
They say follow your heart
follow it through
But how can you
when you're split in two?
And you'll never know
You'll never know
'Face to Face' - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Chapter Twelve
“Cold feet, luv?” Spike questioned, as she snuggled into him. Whatever fears she may have had on the outside, didn’t exist when they were here, in the Grove, the place that was only theirs.
“What are we doing?” she asked quietly, her hands playing nervously with the hem of his shirt.
“By the looks of it, I would say we were cuddling, pet,” he laughed, avoiding the actual meaning of her question. He couldn’t pinpoint if it was a form of rejection or just a simple evaluation based question. She thought about things like that too much. He would have to teach her how to just relax and let her emotions guide her.
She shook her head. “With the kissing and stuff,” she said. “Not that I didn’t like it, ya know, it was definitely of the good, it’s just. . .”
He pushed her hair back behind her ears. “That we just met,” he finished for her. “Only we both know that’s not really so.”
She nodded, almost guiltily. “I know. It’s just, well, you’re a vampire. Not that’s a bad thing or anything,” she added hastily when she saw him about to protest. “But Giles doesn’t know that and neither do my friends, and they may not like it.”
“Does that really matter, Buffy?” Spike questioned with a raised brow. He saw no reason to care what her friends opinion of him was. What mattered was Buffy and the fact that she even returned a fraction of his own feelings. They had known each other well over a year now, they knew things about each other, that no one else had any business knowing. Her friends, her Watcher, they would never understand the connection that was shared between them, how strong it was. And they had no business knowing.
No one was ever going to get in the way of that. Spike certainly wasn’t going to allow it.
“Well no,” she admitted, her head ducked so he couldn’t possibly see the emotions playing across her face. “But you are a vampire, and you do have vampire type habits, and. . .”
And there they were. The root of the problem. Petty fears of things taught to her about the nature of vampires. She had a thing or two to learn still. “Is this your round about way of asking if I’m killing anyone, pet?”
“Now don’t get mad,” she said defensively. How was he not supposed to get mad at that? She didn’t trust him. “But I can’t just sit back and let you kill people. I just . . . can’t,” she finished lamely. “I’m sorry. My watcher, my friends, well Xander mostly, are going to have problems enough with this. They aren’t going to be too happy if I’m just turning a blind eye while you go out and kill half the population of Sunnydale.”
Don’t forget Buffy, who was the one who really had a problem with it. Spike decided not to call her on it, though. “Did you miss the part last fall when I told ya I couldn’t kill anymore, the thought alone made me heave,” he said, his voice raised slightly with anger. He thought she trusted him, he thought she knew what he had given up for her. Even, if at first it had felt like he had no choice in the matter.
“Oh, you meant that?”
“Yeah, I meant that,” he retorted.
“You were just so annoyed every time you mentioned it. . .”
“That you figured the moment I figured a way to overcome it, I’d go back out killing the human population again,” he finished for her. “Well, I didn’t. And if I do, I’m not going to. So you can stop worrying your little head about it.”
“Don’t be mad,” she pleaded with him.
“I’m not mad,” he muttered. Just a bit though. The energy in the Grove allowed it so he could keep his cool. Where he normally would have exploded in a fit of rage, here it allowed him to keep his head and stay focused. Buffy knew that. And Spike knew she was using it to her advantage. “I thought you trusted me. I thought you knew what I had given up for you.”
“I don’t understand why,” she admitted, pushing herself into a seating position, and taking his hands in hers after he mimicked her movement. “It doesn’t make sense. Then, you weren’t doing it for me, it was something else that was forcing you do it, and . .. “
“I accepted it,” he said firmly, his eyes portraying the truth of his words. He was going to make sure she would see that he had no regrets. That there would be no regrets. Whatever this connection between them, whatever it turned out to be, he wouldn’t look back on it with negative thoughts. No matter how foul animal blood was. “Somewhere between those first few weeks and now I accepted it. I accepted what we have. I realized that I want what we have.”
“I’m confused.”
He pulled her to his chest in a tight hug. “I won’t say I’m not. But you’re going to have to trust me, trust what I feel for you.”
“I trust you.” she said, looking into his eyes as she did so. And at her words he felt the remains of his anger fade away. “I do.”
***
Buffy was in such a good mood that she decided to do her homework the next morning. As in willingly, no need for force, she had made the decision to do so herself. On a Saturday. People would be so proud.
Her talk with Spike last night really made things better, put things in perspective. Perhaps she still didn’t understand the connection they shared but Spike didn’t resent it, and that made things all the better.
Okay. So maybe such a decision was used, in part, to get her mom off her back a little. Ya know, if she saw her only daughter actually taking up some form of responsibility. Off her back provided some more leg room to sneak out slaying or to see a certain vampire
She was obviously a genius.
“Homework?” Her mother questioned. Buffy could hear the pleasant surprise in her voice.
“Yup,” she replied, popping the ‘p.’
“What did you do?” Her hands were on her hips, and she was looking at Buffy with a glare that clearly said if she didn’t answer with the honest truth, she was bound to suffer the consequences.
“Mom,” whined Buffy. She didn’t often show it, but she hated that her mother always had to expect the worst from her.
“Well. . .”
“Nothing,” replied Buffy. Well, probably something. Sneaking out to see a guy over a hundred years older than her was something. Her mother would no doubt approve, as in not. She had that look on her face that clearly said something was bothering her though, and didn’t know quite how to broach the subject.
Pity for her. Did she mention how much she hated that her mother didn’t trust her. She had to think positively though. The sooner they talked, the sooner she got out of her hair, which meant the sooner she could get this pile of work done and go sneak out to see a certain someone. “What’s up, mom?”
“Hmmmm, oh nothing,” said Joyce, glancing at an assignment sheet laying on the table. After a few tense moments in which Buffy grew uncomfortable with the close proximity to her mother figure, she finally straightened as if gaining some form of courage. “We need to talk.”
Buffy sat back, trying to think of what she might have possibly done this time that could exclude sneaking out late at night. “Oh?”
“I feel as if I don’t know you anymore.”
That was it. Oh, what a relief. They had this conversation at least once a month. Her mother attempted to reconnect with her in an afternoon at the mall, bribing her only daughter with stylish shirts, while talking about her progress at school. And then everything went back to normal, Buffy avoided her mom while she continued to think her daughter was juvenile delinquent.
It wasn’t a bad deal. And yet this one attempt to reconnect seemed different than the other times she had brought it up.
“You’re not suicidal are you?”
Buffy’s eyes widened. What could have possibly given her that idea.
“Mother!”
Joyce raised her hands in defeat. “Well, what do you expect me to think? Every night I find myself scrubbing blood out of your clothes. You always come home bruised. The lack of effort in your school work. And then those few weeks where you did nothing but sleep, a classic sign of depression. I can’t help but think you’re crying out for help.”
“I have no plans to kill myself.” Get killed by vampires maybe. Do it herself? No way.
“Are you in a gang then?”
“Do you think that little of me?” snapped the Slayer. It angered her that her mother could even think such a thing about her.
“I don’t know what to think, Buffy. I’m trying to figure it out.”
Buffy slammed her math book shut, suddenly angry. It wasn’t her fault that her parents didn’t believe her when she told them she was the Slayer. She tried. They failed. End of story.
“You wouldn’t believe me?”
She could see her mother roll her eyes, and that was the end of it for Buffy. She stomped towards her room. Buffy could hear her mother following her. “You’re not starting that again are you?”
“That? That, mom, is my destiny. I didn’t start it, it started me,” she spat, knowing she was making any sense but she didn’t care. She started pulling out drawers of crosses and stakes, dumping them on the floor in an effort to prove her point. Books on vampires and the supernatural taken from under bed, spread at her mother’s feet.
There was no going back now.
Joyce stared at the items, mouth gaping, as she attempted to process what her daughter was showing her. “You can’t honestly believe that. . .”
“I’m the Slayer mom, get over it. That’s not going to change, so either believe me or go on pretending that I’m some big disappointment terrorizing the neighborhood for drug money. But don’t come yelling to me when your trying to reconnect and it’s not working anymore.”
She didn’t respond, and instead she opened one of the books at her feet, flipping through the pages, wincing at the pictures. “So Vampires?”
Buffy sank onto the bed and nodded. Maybe they were getting somewhere.
[Reviews - 143]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 1482 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Lyrics: Face to Face by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Thanks to my beta basilio_the_cat for the edit, and also mucho thanks to everyone that takes the time to review still. Also, I just wanted to mention that I head back up to school today, where we are rapidly nearing the end of the semester. The bad news is that for the next three weeks I’m going to be uber busy with homework, final projects and studying for final exams. And I’m really not sure how much time I’m going to have to update. I’m not saying that there won’t be one, I’m just not exactly sure when or if I’ll get the chance. So if you don’t hear from in a while, that’s why. The good news is after that’s over, I get an entire month off. You gotta love college breaks. Thanks for understanding.