If there was a moment that she had been more outraged – and, though she would never admit it, embarrassed – she couldn’t remember it.
He had that talent, of course; he always had. Most everything he did angered her to some degree. But somehow, she had found the ability within herself to overlook the seemingly endless list of his negative traits long enough to connect with him the only way she would allow herself.
And he’d never complained. Not once. It was just the way they worked. A moment, a connection, a way for her to forget everything the past months of waking hell had presented to her. Of course, she never stayed, never let him give her any comfort outside of his body. He’d tried, in the beginning; after a while, he’d simply stopped.
And she’d been fine with it. The way they’d worked. She dealt, and so did he. So whenever she’d showed up at his crypt, he’d simply started to undress. Not a word between them.
But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Not like this moment, with Spike’s strong hands gripping her wrists and pushing her away from his body.
------------------
It wasn’t his ideal situation, but as he often did in matters regarding Buffy, he took whatever he could get.
He wasn’t sure when he’d given up on his quest for her heart – or, rather, when it had been placed on the back-burner, for he was certain that his was a quest he would never truly abandon, and every time they saw each other, in the stage in between clothed and naked, there was always the increasingly-distant hope of maybe this time will be different -- but looking at her on this night, at this moment, he knew things could not continue in such a fashion.
When Buffy had come back, she’d been broken, and little by little, she’d reluctantly confessed what she’d been feeling – or more appropriately, everything she wasn’t. He comforted her in the only way she would allow him, and he did it with no complaint.
But he knew a thing or two about smokescreens. Whatever it was the two of them had, in its current incarnation, it wasn’t helping her. It was killing her. It was easy enough to overlook, because Buffy was usually consistent at playing normal.
Except for tonight. Tonight, he’d kissed her, drew back to look into her eyes, and saw absolutely nothing shining back. And the sight of his slayer standing before him, finally admitting that she was broken, scared him more than any demon he’d faced in all his years.
So he did what he’d never thought he’d do. He refused her.
And she, predictably, ran.
------------------
The knock at her door was a surprise. Dawn had been promptly shipped off to Janice’s for the evening, and her tendency to alienate her friends ensured that none would pop by for a random film-fest in the middle of the night. And in her experience, the bad guys didn’t tend to knock.
Spike standing at her doorstep had thrown her – so much so, in fact, that she neglected to notice the paper sack he had clenched in one hand – but more so was the tugging she felt in her stomach. She refused to put a name to it.
“What do you want, Spike?” she asked, her voice fatigued as she leaned against the doorframe.
He ran a quick and critical gaze over her body. While Buffy’s outward appearance screamed of feigned nonchalance, he quickly picked up on the smaller cues. Her shoulders hunched closer to her neck as she leaned against the doorframe, the way she grasped at her forearms as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Her posture absolved him. He’d made the right decision.
“Let me in,” Spike replied, his voice somewhere between insistent request and demanding growl.
“Yeah,” she huffed. “That’s really going to happen.”
He knew why, of course. Recently, theirs had been a relationship where she’d hurt him. Spike had refused her, and therefore she had been hurt. Buffy didn’t deal with change well, especially when it forced her out of her position of power, of complete control.
“Look,” he continued, his voice conveying his aggravation and – was that nervousness? Uncertainty? “Just let me in.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed. “It’s not like you need an invitation.”
The briefest of smirks flashed across his lips before his face slipped back into its mask of desperate casualness. “You’re right,” he replied. “I don’t. But that would kind of defeat the purpose, yeh? Needs to be your decision.”
Perhaps it was fatigue. Perhaps it was a moment of blind insanity. Perhaps somewhere in the back of her mind, she was tired of fighting. Whatever the reason, Buffy took a single step away from the door, her intention and message both abundantly clear. You can come into my house, but I will not let you in.
Spike took a quick step across the threshold, leaving the door open behind him. Thrusting the paper sack into her unprepared arms, he ran a hand over the back of his neck and managed, “I had a whole speech planned out for when I got here. But now that I am…I really don’ think you’d listen to it anyway. So I…” Spike shifted, a muscle in his cheek twitching almost imperceptibly. “Look, jus’…jus’ use that, an’ I’m gonna go patrol, an’ I’ll be back in a few hours, yeh?”
Buffy opened her mouth to reply, but even if she’d known what to say, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference; Spike had torn out of her house quicker than Xander made a beeline for the donut box during research parties.
But Spike had thrown her. Simply put, she had never seen the vampire act…nervous. She’d certainly seen him cocky, and confident, and had even seen a few rare moments of docility and something she might, at a later date, call tenderness…but behind it all had always been a clear foundation of self-assurance. Even though she’d only seen him for a few brief moments, she could tell that his confidence had been lacking.
Buffy turned her eyes to the paper bag she still had clenched awkwardly in semi-closed fists. Unfurling the bunched-up top, she peered inside the bag to find a lone bottle of bubble bath.
Her brow furrowed, and Buffy’s mouth parted in a huff of disgust. Who the hell did he think he was? Did he honestly believe that after rejecting her earlier that evening that she would even consider sharing a bath with him? Even if he hadn’t turned her away, it wasn’t something she would consider sharing to begin with; she and Spike simply did not work that way.
Idly running her thumb over the label of the bottle, Buffy drew a deep breath and sighed. Somewhere, waiting to be fully realized, she didn’t truly believe her conditioned assumptions about Spike’s motivations. On the surface, however, she was presented with two distinct facts. Spike had brought her a bottle of bubble bath, intending for her to use it. He had also shown no interest in joining her, instead opting to handle patrol entirely on his own.
So she was either no longer attractive to him, or he was trying to help her. And as she climbed up the stairs and towards the bathroom, Buffy honestly wasn’t sure which option was the lesser of two evils.
------------------
She was surrounded by warmth and scent. Then darkness, then chill and moisture.
Buffy pushed her hands against the bottom of the bathtub and dragged her body up the curved back, spitting out water as she frantically rubbed at her eyes. Her hair and body were dripping wet, a hazy film of soap floating on the surface of the cold bathwater.
Gazing down at her pruned fingers, she finally realized the absurdity of the situation. William the Bloody had bought her a bottle of scented bubble bath. She, a twenty-year-old woman, had not only fallen asleep in the bathtub, but had managed to fall in, something she’d never heard of happening outside of the movies. Her hair was drenched with filmy remnants of bubbles peppered throughout.
And as she ran wet hands over her hair in attempt to remove most of the bubbles, Buffy Summers did something she hadn’t done since she’d jumped all those months ago.
She laughed.
------------------
Spike hooked each finger of his left hand under his thumb, cracking each knuckle in turn. As he turned the corner onto Revello Drive, he did the same with his right. His mind wandered, as it had done often in the past several weeks, and settled on its favorite subject: Buffy.
He wondered if she’d simply cast the bag aside as soon as he’d walked away from her house, or if the little girl inside of her would not deny the chance to open a surprise present. A smirk tugged at his lips. If he had to bet on it, he would put his stock on Buffy having opened the bag.
But just because she would have opened the bag didn’t mean she would have used it. After all, Spike had never had the chance to explain the motives behind his actions – which, surprisingly, weren’t entirely selfish. In all likelihood, the bottle of bubble bath had either been tossed in the bin or was currently on its way to being a goopy mess on the inside of his crypt. The betting man in Spike rose once again, and the odds favored Buffy’s refusal to accept his gift.
But maybe she had. Maybe – just maybe – she had actually acknowledged that he’d had a good idea, giving her a night to simply be herself and relax. Maybe while he’d been patrolling, she’d walked up the stairs, dropped her scowl and her clothing, and slipped into the sudsy warm water.
His mind conjured images his body could not refuse. Groaning, Spike ran a hand through his platinum locks before reaching down to adjust himself. Now was not the time for such pleasurable pursuits. Not when he was so close to Buffy’s house. Not when the night was not yet over.
Not when there was the possibility that he was close to getting her back.
------------------
Buffy knew that Spike was in the house long before he announced his presence from the foyer. She could feel him, something distinctly Spike, but something akin to stubborn pride refused to let her acknowledge as such. Instead, she ran her brush through her hair one more time before placing it on top of her bureau.
She counted silently to twelve before he knocked on her bedroom door. She watched the reflection of the door in her mirror as another knock sounded before it opened, seemingly on its own, accompanied by a figureless voice.
“Buffy?”
Buffy. Buffy Buffy Buffy. Buffy. Not Slayer. Just Buffy.
She turned to acknowledge him in time to catch the vampire appraising her appearance. Her skin still held a rosy flush, informing him that she had in fact taken a bath. And, of course, while mostly dry, it was still obvious that it had been wet.
And, in turn, she was fairly certain that he could smell the bubble bath. Vampires had better noses than bloodhounds. Spike was certainly no different.
His eyes caught hers and locked. “You didn’t throw it out,” he noted. “I wasn’t sure if you would use--‘s good,” he finished awkwardly, idly picking at the chipped polish of his left thumbnail. “You look…better.”
Buffy opened her mouth to retort, her habit eager to take his awkward compliment and twist it into something insulting, reprieving her of any wrongdoing when she lashed back in kind. Instead, she found herself halting her action, closing her mouth and nodding once.
She would admit – and almost freely – that her previous anger at him had washed down the drain with the worn-out suds of bubble bath. His rejection of her was inexplicably still a sore spot, but she no longer wanted to scream at him. Somewhere deeper inside of her, half-conscious, Buffy realized that Spike’s words had drawn a sensation over her that she hadn’t felt since she’d returned. She felt…calm.
So she simply nodded. And offered an awkward, if slightly brusque, “Yeah. Thanks.”
Spike’s mouth pulled into something akin to a genuine smile, and he nodded acknowledgement in turn. Words were obviously difficult between the two, but he and Buffy were getting increasingly adept at hiding meanings between spoken words. So instead of attempting to speak, he merely held out an arm in supplication.
“I did have somethin’ else planned,” he confessed. “If you’re interested. Jus’…I need you to sit down in front of your bed.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed at his statement. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Spike,” she replied, her normally-strong voice notably quieter.
Spike ran his words over again in his mind, picked up where he’d gone wrong, and shook his head. “Not like that, pet,” he said. “I jus’…jus’ trust me, yeh?” A pause. “Or at leas’ try to trust me. A little bit. Enough that you can sit down an’ know that I’m not gonna…do anything.”
She was sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed, with Spike on the mattress behind her, before she had even caught on to the fact that she had moved. Her body, it seemed, trusted the vampire implicitly, regardless of whether her mind would acknowledge the same trust or not.
“Now,” he said, his voice low, sweeping a hand over her back to push her hair across the front of one shoulder, exposing her neck to him, “Let’s see if you can’t trust me a bit more.”
------------------
The instant his fingers settled on her tightened shoulders, massaging the knotted muscles he found there, it was all Spike could do to hold in the pleasured groan that threatened to escape from his lips. Her flushed skin – which he attributed to the bubble bath, though he preferred to think that he was the cause of some of her color – still held the steam heat from the bathroom, causing a wicked sensation to tingle across his own skin.
“Christ, Buffy,” he breathed, unconsciously lowering his mouth close to her ear. “You’re so warm.”
A gasp and a shiver alerted him to the fact that he – his hands, his voice, perhaps his proximity, or any combination of the three – was having a decidedly encouraging affect on the woman currently relaxing under his touch.
When a small eternity passed, and the vampire finally moved his hands from Buffy’s shoulders to her neck, she was unable to keep from loosing a moan of approval, tinged with more than a hint of arousal. His cock, half-hard since he’d first placed his hands on her, swelled to full arousal, and Spike had to bite at his lip to keep from groaning in frustration.
He knew he didn’t even need to ask her. All he had to do was lean down and start licking at her neck, or perhaps simply move his hands to tease her breasts, and she would be as responsive to his attentions as she ever was. And he wanted it; craved it, in fact, more than anything he could remember. And it would be so easy.
It would be easy, just for that moment. Then things would get difficult again, and Spike simply didn’t want that. It was almost unheard of: William the Bloody willfully passing up something that would bring him personal gain, simply to benefit another. It was a rare occurrence…which was precisely why his efforts this evening would work.
They just had to.
Spike wasn’t sure how long he’d been caught up in his own musings while his body ran on autopilot, continuing to work the kinks out of Buffy’s neck. It could have been minutes, hours, years. What brought him out of his reverie was little more than the rhythm of Buffy’s breathing: she’d fallen asleep beneath his hands.
And that was such a profound thing. That Buffy had trusted him enough to let down her guard while in his presence. He knew, of course, that she would never overtly admit it, but the action touched his inner romantic poet more than she could ever possibly know. Touched him enough to inspire him to lean forward enough to brush his lips against her temple before whispering into her ear. Touched him enough to run a light thumb over her cheek as he tucked her into bed.
Touched him enough to stay, so she wouldn’t have to wake up alone.
------------------
Her eyes flew open forty minutes before sunrise, her body instantly aware that something was wrong. Without thinking, she flew out of bed and hurried to the window, shutting the curtains and throwing the room back into darkness. Running the fabric of the curtains through her fingers, and glancing at the time on her bedside clock, she wondered exactly why she had reacted as she just had. And as her eyes readjusted to the dark of the room, her gaze fell upon the form leaning in repose against the foot of her bed.
Spike.
Buffy’s brow furrowed as she regarded him for a moment, before she held her breath and crossed as quietly as she could to her desk, sitting in the chair and continuing her examination of the still-sleeping vampire.
She supposed what angered her the most was the fact that she simply wasn’t angry, as she would have expected. Spike had invaded her personal space – her bedroom, the most sacred of realms, the one thing she hadn’t let him touch – and not only had she allowed him, she had effectively saved his life the next morning from the encroaching sunlight threatening to shine in through unattended and forgotten windows.
The passing of seven months had seen her relationship with Spike progress from a grudging partnership to a tentative but promising future camaraderie; to mournful as she lay beneath the ground; to awkward and fragile, yet somehow supportive and borderline nurturing; to shallow, empty, meaningless fucking.
She had long stopped blaming Spike for the state of their relationship; now, staring at his sleeping form, she was ready to actually admit as such, at least to herself. She knew the exact point where they had gone wrong: a collapsing house, his lips on hers, a surrender to passion. Sleeping with Spike – no, fucking Spike – had been a disastrous mistake she should have avoided, and now that it had been committed, she craved him like a drug. He was a fix, and little more.
Buffy’s brow furrowed again, and she bit idly at her thumbnail. No. No, that wasn’t right. They’d had a chance, before, and somewhere along the line it had gone horribly wrong. Her train of logic had completely changed course, and she had somehow managed to convince herself that the only way to feel was to be completely devoid of emotions. She had come back a different person than before; not simply a shell, but a complete opposite.
And she had sought feeling in Spike, who loved her; sought everything but his love.
He had refused her, last night. She had come to him and he had refused her, something she did not think him capable of doing. He turned down her body and had instead offered her a bath and a massage. A night to be Buffy. And as she watched his chest take the odd unneeded breath as he slept, she finally admitted that the previous night had not been a botched seduction on his part. The previous night had been entirely about her.
And maybe everything between them had been. From the moment he’d first said he loved her, perhaps everything had been entirely about her.
She’d died, she’d resurrected, she’d fucked him. And between her death and their destruction, he’d never said the words to her. Saying he loved her had never gotten her into his bed; now that she was there, would he say the words again? He had yet to, in the months of their affair, and it had suited her just fine. Sex without emotion was the best way for her to feel. Anything else simply hurt too much.
But all that had been before last night. That had been before bubble baths and neck massages and his quiet, supportive presence. That had been before the words he hadn’t expected her to hear, whispered to her somewhere in the space between asleep and awake.
‘m so sorry, kitten. Never wanted it to be like this.
So simple a statement, so many interpretations. She could choose, if she wished, to apply it directly to herself, along with everything else, as Spike seemed willing to let her do. That Spike had mourned her death, and was now mourning her mockery of a second life. She could be selfish in this, as in so many things regarding him.
And what surprised her was the simple fact that if she were to apply it as Spike had likely meant, applying it to the two of them, to the relationship they could have had, but didn’t, she wouldn’t call him selfish at all.
She wasn’t blind. She had seen the hope in his eyes, every time she had visited him. Sometime between naked and fucking she could always see the longing hidden carefully behind his forward gaze. And as long as that was there, she knew she would never have the strength to leave him completely; indeed, the moment that longing was absent, she knew she would not see him again.
She did not want to be the reason behind the death of that longing.
A realization. A revelation. Perhaps a reaffirmation. They, the two of them, would continue. But things would be different.
Spike shifted in his sleep, and groaned, and Buffy could do nothing else but hold her breath and be as still as possible; praying to every deity she knew, and some she didn’t, that he would not wake up. Epiphanies regarding the status of their relationship were all well and good, but she was far from ready to face him. Not when she was still vulnerable. The last time she’d been vulnerable around him had been a disaster, and had started them down this road in the first place.
Somehow, she knew that he knew as well. And she was finally willing to accept his actions of the previous night as an attempt to derail their current path. To divert onto another path, hoping to find something better, something less destructive, something fulfilling.
He offered, as he had offered more times than she could count, since she’d dug herself from the ground. Only now, she was finally willing to accept.
She wasn’t certain how long she watched him sleeping, lost in the ramifications of her decision. It hadn’t been long; the sun had yet to begin to rise, though she was certain that it wouldn’t be much longer before it did. She blinked, and suddenly he was staring at her.
She opened her mouth to speak, and the words stuck. She could revel in her decisions all she wanted, but she couldn’t voice them. Not yet. It was too much. Too soon. Spike, in a single morning, had torn her world apart, and at the moment she needed to cling to normalcy while she repaired it, incorporating her newfound wisdom.
But it took time. She could only hope that he would recognize it, and wait for her.
“What are you doing in my room?” she demanded, rising from the chair and stalking towards her door, switching on the lights. “The sun’s almost up and you are most definitely not staying here for the day.” Crossing to the bed, she shoved the rising vampire out of the way to grab the afghan that had fallen on the floor, throwing it at him. “It’s not my fault if you dust before you get back to your stupid crypt.”
Grasping the afghan, Spike stared at her in confusion, and somewhere under that, she could see disappointment and hurt. Sighing, he moved to drape the afghan over his body and walk towards her bedroom door.
“Spike.”
He didn’t want to turn, to acknowledge her, to allow her to get to him more than she already had. But he could do nothing but obey her.
“Yeh.” Almost defeated. Certainly cold.
“Are you…will you be in tonight? If I drop by.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, ready to scoff, to argue, when something in her eyes gave him pause. She had life again. Her eyes danced, and he didn’t need to look very hard to see the humor shining within them. And, if he thought back, he would realize that every word she’d spoken to him since he’d awoke had lacked her normal forceful conviction.
Everything except the last. The last had held promise.
For the first time in a while, he’d allowed the fledgling hope he’d sheltered deep inside to begin to flare again. The simple hope that maybe this time could be different.
Spike’s lips pulled in a hesitant grin, and Buffy answered his in kind. They stood for the span of several heartbeats, in the presence of the other, before Buffy lifted her chin and said, “I’m not kidding. You can’t stay here. Go before it’s too late.”
He slipped out of her bedroom door with a nod and a murmured, “Slayer.” A farewell until a later time.
A promise.
When she heard the front door close, Buffy crossed to her window, drawing back the curtains and watching Spike dash to the sewer grate down the road from her house. She would go to him later in the evening, and hopefully her conviction would hold. If the longing surfaced in his eyes she would nurture it, and this time she would finally let him help her. She would let him help her heal. It would take time, certainly, but she would embrace it. Accept it; accept him.
Things would be different.
------------------
A/N: I’m still working on Chirality – I promise! I’m hoping to update chapter five in the next few days; it’s about halfway done. Hope you all still stick with it!
Reviews feed the muse and nourish the soul. If you are so inclined, please leave one!
Author's Chapter Notes:
A belated birthday giftfic for HollyDB. ::snuggles:: She gave me a sexy autographed Spike picture; I gave her fic. I think I got the better end of the bargain. :P