Today is Halloween. My favorite holiday. If I wanted to be all deep and shit I could say it’s because it’s the one day out of the year that I get to be someone other than me. But really, I just like the scary movies, the palpable excited energy in the air, and that feel that anything is possible. So, maybe it is possible that I could be anyone but Buffy Summers, and not for just one day.
I was looking up stuff online today for shits and giggles and came across this site that talked about a dumb supper. It has pagan roots from what I read, and it’s making dinner as usual and placing out an empty plate for the person you want to remember (or your ancestor’s) that’s passed and not talking through the entire meal.
Then I looked into some Wiccan websites and found that Halloween is the time when the veil between the worlds – this one and the spirit world—is the thinnest and that it’s the best time for communicating with loved ones that have passed. It’s also the Witch’s New Year. Maybe I could make it my new year as well?
I wonder if Spike would be averse to the idea of a dumb supper. I’m not even sure if I like the idea just yet. Maybe he could talk me into it if he liked the idea.
In the spirit of Halloween and in the spirit of feeling anything except the melancholy that seemed to be following her or, hell, was draped over the house like a tent at the circus, Buffy decided to go out and go shopping for some candy for trick-or-treaters and some decorations. Spike insisted they had decorations already, but also in the spirit of The Witches New Year, Buffy wanted new ones.
Spike decided to go with her so she wouldn’t have to take public transportation.
“Sides, getting out of the house could do me some good,” he said as they slid in is car.
She figured it could do them both some good. Just being outside in the driveway lifted her spirits. Check that out…the sun!
“It’s good to see you out,” Spike told her thoughtfully as he followed her down the candy aisle at the grocery store.
She looked over her shoulder at him and placed a bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups in the carriage he was pushing. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve been moping all around the house for the past week. It’s good to see you out. You have a slight spring in your step.”
She shrugged. Why was it when someone else pointed out the obvious, she didn’t want to admit it? Or rather, someone else being Spike? “Well, you haven’t been much better.”
“I know,” he agreed on a sigh.
“And what’s with the hair? Have you showered lately?”
He glared at her. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Haven’t felt like it,” he shrugged.
“You’re depressed.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Honey, I’ve been depressed most of my life. But I still shower. Not showering would just make me feel even more depressed.”
“To each his own I guess.”
“I guess.”
Veering down another aisle, Spike started placing things in: pasta, sauce, gravy.
“I –I can’t help,” Buffy said softly.
“What?” he asked, stopping to look at her beside him.
“I can’t help with the paying of the groceries. I can get the candy and that’s it.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do.”
“I can’t have you starving.”
“I’m…” God, this was hard, “Sorry.” Please don’t make me say it again, please!
He smiled softly. “It’s okay, Buffy. And hey, if you want, you can help me down at the gallery to make some money for now until you find a job of your own.”
She wasn’t used to kindness like this. She was used to fending for herself; she was used to the bare basics of surviving. Hank hadn’t been much help to her in times of need, and pride had kept her from contacting Joyce. She couldn’t very well let her know she was wrong, that she’d failed. It was bad enough that Hank held it over her. She’d failed him. She’d failed her family. She was a failure.
“S-sure,” she stammered, ducking her head. An idea formed. “Be right back.”
Spike watched her jog off and wondered where the hell she was going. When she met up with him again in a different aisle she had a beaming smile on her face, the likes of which he had never seen on her before save for the pictures Joyce had of her around the house. She really was quite beautiful. Breathtaking, even.
She held up a bottle of shampoo.
“I got that too,” she chirped and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
They bonded over music. Queen had come on, “Under Pressure” to be exact, in the car and Spike had thumbed the beat on the steering wheel, and when he glanced over, he found Buffy mouthing the words. He opted to not call attention to it and instead smiled and enjoyed the song, feeling suddenly not so alone. Buffy and he weren’t exactly friends but they had something between them, some sort of weird bond. Grief; he supposed that was it. Grief had bonded them.
When he looked over at her again, he found tears streaming down her cheeks. “Buffy?”
“I’m all right,” she said hastily.
“What is it? Tell me, please?”
“Just the line in the song…it got to me.”
“What line?”
“’It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about, watching some good friends scream, ‘Let me out’.”
“What was it about that--?”
“The ‘let me out’. I know how that feels.”
“Spike, really, you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.”
“I don’t need to dress up!”
“I think you do. Take a break, Buffy. Be someone else for tonight. For that matter, so will I.”
If he only knew…
Half an hour later, Buffy came up with a Wonder Woman costume and Spike had a pair of fangs.
“You know what would be an even better costume for you?” Buffy asked, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Spike watched fascinated by what was soon to be the second smile of the day. “What?” he asked, feeling a smile start to form.
“Clean Spike: A freshly showered Spike – and it only costs what’s in your bathroom.”
Spike rolled his eyes, but smiled nonetheless. “I got the point there, luv.”
This time, she even laughed and he felt like a God. Even if it was at his expense that she was laughing, it still felt good to hear. A lift to the dreariness that surrounded them, the anger, the hurt…the everything.
A day out was just what they needed.
While Spike paid for her costume and his fangs, Buffy placed a hand on his arm and his eyes zeroed in on it, his arm absorbing the warmth of her skin, his skin feeling the softness of hers. Touch. It felt like forever since he’d been touched.
“Spike.”
He looked up at her, met her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
“Y-you’re welcome.”
Averting her eyes she grabbed their bags and headed toward the car.
When they got home, Spike took a shower.
Chapter Six
Spike stared at the empty plate at the dining room table. “What is that for?” he finally asked.
“It’s called a dumb supper.”
“A what?”
“A dumb supper. It’s a way to remember Mom.”
His eyes widened. “You want to do that?”
Buffy frowned and placed the dish of English muffin pizzas on the table. So inelegant. So not Mom. “I do,” and she placed two pizzas on “her” plate.
Spike stared at it. “Where did you read about it?”
“On a Wiccan website.”
“Oh.”
She sighed, “It’s stupid, you’re right.” And she started to clean up the plate. Spike jumped up and grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“No, luv, it’s not stupid. I just…it surprised me that’s all.”
“Coming from me, you mean?”
“Why do you always assume that I think the worst of you?”
“Cause you do, don’t you? I’m the one that hurt your wife by not talking to her. I’m the one that wouldn’t come to the wedding, I’m the one that took off to the other side of the country to be away from her, and from you…Why wouldn’t you think the worst of me? I’ve seen the hatred in your eyes.”
He shook his head, releasing her. “You’re wrong, Buffy. I don’t hate you.”
“Just dislike me strongly?”
He shook his head again. “No, I don’t. You goad me into things. Or at least, you try. Why? Why do you do that?”
That question knocked her for a loop, he could tell. She faltered, her eyes dropping to the floor, her head shaking, her hand placing the plate back down. “I…I don’t know.”
“I think you do know,” and he started to reach for her, to touch her and make her look at him, but he stopped himself. Why, he didn’t know.
“Can we eat now?”
She sounded so defeated and so scared that Spike felt the fight leave him. Baby steps with Buffy, he was learning. And really, he should have known this. With all that he’d seen of Joyce trying to deal with her, Buffy never took well to demands on her being made. He remembered quite a few times when Joyce would be frustrated with her for Buffy retreating from her and she’d mutter, “Just like her goddamn father.” It was possibly the only time Joyce swore; when she was talking about Buffy or Hank.
He stared at Buffy, seeing her again, in a new light. How horrible it must be to be like the man that you love, but hate at the same time. Or did Buffy hate him yet? Did she still harbor some belief deep down that Hank would still love her and take care of her as any good father would? Or had she abandoned those thoughts? Had she really not only lost one parent, but two?
“Yeah, we can eat now,” he acquiesced.
The night had been a success all in all, Buffy noted as she and Spike sat side by side on the porch swing, watching the little trick-or-treaters hit the last few houses on their way home.
Buffy smirked down at the forgotten fangs and empty candy wrappers between them. “I liked your fangs,” she told him.
He grinned, “I liked them too until they got in the way of eating.”
Buffy giggled. “I also like the black on black ensemble you got going there.”
“Well,” Spike mused, “I find black is not only slimming but when you have a lot of black clothes, you don’t need to worry about separating them in the wash.”
“God, you sounded like a chick just then.”
Spike burst out laughing. “Watch it, luv. So, why Wonder Woman?”
Buffy shrugged, “She was my hero when I was a kid.”
“How so?”
“She fought the bad guys. She was a powerful woman that still had love in her heart no matter how many times the bad guys tried to beat her down. She came back every time with her hair in place, and a smile on her face. She didn’t have a big bag of tricks, but she got the job done. She had this innocence about her and she saved those silly humans…those mortals that constantly seemed to get themselves in trouble. She always saved her man, too.”
“That’s quite a list of reasons.”
“When I was about seven or so, my mom and dad and I went hiking and I didn’t think I’d be able to do the trail. It was too hard, or so I thought anyway. My dad, he talked to me the whole way about Wonder Woman. Asked me questions and got me to get through the rough terrain by asking me what Wonder Woman would do. And sometimes, he’d make me her bracelets and tiara out of construction paper and I’d run around the house pretending to be her.”
“And now you are her,” Spike said softly.
Buffy laughed bitterly, “I’ll never be her.” She stood and gazed off in the distance for a minute, seeming to be lost in some memory or thought. She passed by him, heading into the house. “I’m going to change now, I’m getting cold.”
October 31, 2005
Buffy thinks I hate her. I don’t. It’s funny because for a long time I thought I did hate her. Thought she was nothing more than a spoiled brat. It wasn’t fun to see Joyce hurt because she failed to get through to Buffy when it was obvious that Buffy didn’t want to get through to.
I get it now though, and it’s actually incredibly sad to see. I didn’t think it was possible in my grief to feel someone else’s grief, and to have it affect me the way it has.
I want to hug her. I want to find a way to reach her and it’s like sometimes she’s right there, ready to unburden herself, and then she just draws back. I don’t know what it is. I don’t get why I care if she does or if she doesn’t. Maybe because I see something desperate in her. I see that if she doesn’t let go of the things she carries so deeply inside her, she’s going to explode one day and it’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be a mess.
It could be that I can relate, too. I can see a lost little girl inside her and I feel like a lost little boy.
The nights were the hardest, Spike knew. He wasn’t sure how Buffy dealt with them, and in fact, she’d been quiet since her phone call to Hank, but the nights for him were the worst. It was the prime time for him to remember, lying in the big bed all alone, not feeling the warmth of Joyce’s body next to his, not feeling the familiar dip in the bed, not having someone to fight for possession of the covers with. All the things that were bothersome – like the stealing of the covers or her late night trips to the kitchen – were things he missed. Things that he’d wished never bothered him, things he felt guilty for having had bother him.
Staring at the clock, he found it was one in the morning and doing quick math, he figured he’d been in bed for about two hours now, just tossing and turning. Maybe he needed some of that leftover candy and some milk, time to see what the late night snack fuss was all about.
Stepping out into the hall, he heard it, the sound of Buffy sobbing. It was a sound that he seemed to be as in tune with as he had been with the sound of Joyce’s voice, her laughter and her tears.
Taking a deep breath, and feeling suddenly nervous, Spike rapped on her door lightly. When he failed to get a response, he slowly pushed his way in and found her in the center of her bed, clutching a book to her chest and lost in her anguish.
Uncertain, he stepped forward. “Buffy.”
“What?” she replied, and he was surprised to get that.
He came closer and stared down at her.
She looked up at him. “What?”
“What – what is that?” he pointed to the book she clutched.
“Photo album.”
Yeah, those fuckers were dangerous. He felt like a git just standing there, hovering over her and so he followed his instinct and lay down next to her, facing her.
She stopped crying, looking at him, surprised. He felt for a minute that maybe he should get up, his heart was racing like it never had before, but he stayed, reached out and touched her arm.
And she started again. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Crying.”
“Well, it’s something you need to do obviously.”
“When will it stop, Spike? I just want it to stop.”
“It will, baby, it just takes time.” Where the endearment came from, he didn’t know, but he was glad that she hadn’t picked up on it, or at least, he hoped she hadn’t. Not that Buffy would let something like that go necessarily.
Her next move stunned him. She reached out to him and balled his shirt in her fists. She looked up at him imploringly, desperately. “I need to tell you…”
“Tell me what, luv?” he asked, his heart racing erratically.
“Everything.”
“Let it out; tell me what you need to.”
“I feel like I have this beast inside me. This demon. I feel like I’ve had it for so long and I’ve lived with it for so long and now its coming out of me and I don’t know what to do and how to deal with it.”
“What kind of demon, Buffy?” he asked gently; stroking her arm slowly in what he hoped was a comforting manner.
“It’s the demon that tells me I don’t fit anywhere, that I’m alone, that I’ll always be alone. And it’s all my fault, I see that now and it’s hard to…” she cried harder, “It’s hard for me to admit that I fucked up and that I put my love where it shouldn’t have been, but I couldn’t help it, you see? He’s my father and we were happy once upon a time.”
“That’s not your fault, Buffy that he chose alcohol over you and your mother--”
“I know that it’s not my fault, it’s not that…it’s that I was wrong about following him to Boston and denying my mother for so long. I know it. I know. And I hate that it hurts and that I know I fucked up…I know my mom loved me, I know I did, I just hate that I was so awful to her when she tried so hard and I want to just …I want to just die. It haunts me that she died thinking I hated her when I didn’t. My pride wouldn’t let me tell her she was right and I was wrong, I couldn’t come to her and you and admit that I’d failed again.”
“Buffy, baby, you didn’t fail--”
“I did! I failed my father, I failed my mother and in some weird way I failed you too. I’m sorry I was so awful to her, I’m sorry that you got the brunt of that. I’m sorry she’s dead now. I’m sorry for it all. I want to be a good person, I do, and I’m afraid I don’t know how to be one. I lash out, I get so angry and I don’t know where to put all the rage inside me… I can’t keep my mouth shut sometimes and I hate that about myself. I have such a temper and I just fly off the handle and I want to be better, I want to, I just don’t know how… I don’t know where I fit. I don’t know where I belong…I just don’t know… I just feel so lost, Spike, and I’m tired, I’m just so tired…”
Her vulnerability, her tears, the entire rawness of seeing her so open and in touch with herself, had Spike in tears. She was like an open wound that kept getting picked and picked away at, and all she wanted to do was heal. He knew; knew all too well how that felt.
Gathering her close in his arms, Spike held her close, stroked her back and her hair, letting her let it all out and even allowed himself to cry a little too. If she noticed this, she made no mention of it, and just allowed him to comfort her the way she so desperately needed to be comforted.
Soon, both were asleep.