The night Spike got his chip out, he killed two people before the Slayer caught up with him. The second one he didn’t even drink from. Her throat was intact, if bent at a funny angle.
For Buffy, what had started out as a rare night of fun with the gang at the Bronze, turned into a trickling injection of cold fear when Harmony came in and started running her mouth. Her Blondie Bear was probably out there right now, concussing her someone nice to eat.
It didn’t take two heartbeats to turn Harmony into dust, and Buffy wiped her clammy palms on her jeans, head and heart already dwelling on someone else.
Buffy didn’t say a word. She simply tightened her grip on her stake and started for the club door. Tara’s voice stopped her. “What a-are you going to do?”
Buffy turned to look at her, entire body rigid. “What I was too stupid to do before people started dying,” she said.
Tara opened her mouth, but shut it again, a look of deep unease on her face.
Riley shrugged his jacket on. “Let me grab my gear,” he said quietly.
“No.” The word came out forceful. “No,” Buffy amended, softer this time. “I’m taking care of this alone.”
“But,” Willow sputtered, expression tight with concern, “are you sure you don’t want some back up?”
“No. This is between slayer and vampire. This is something I need to do.” Buffy didn’t wait for a response, she just left.
---
It took over an hour for her to track him down. An hour of her brain running wild with ideas of what havoc and violence he could be spreading. She finally found him in his crypt, of all places. He sat in his chair, staring at nothing. One elbow was propped up on the chair arm, hand covering his mouth.
“Spike.”
He didn’t look up. “Found me, did you.” His voice was bewilderingly calm. Like she had come to discuss the weather. Like the two of them were still stuck in Giles’ house together, mutually restrained, one by technology and one by some code she couldn’t put into words. “Took you long enough.”
Buffy took another couple steps into the crypt. “Yeah. I was too busy stumbling across the people you killed.” She planted her hands on her hips. He still wasn’t looking at her and it was really pissing her off. “Gotta say… I’m a little surprised you’re not out there still painting the town red,” she said with disgust.
“No more than I am,” he muttered.
“What?” she snapped.
He sniffed and didn’t repeat himself. Looking up, he finally met her eyes. “Guess this is it, then.” She frowned. “Our final number. The grand finale.”
The second he moved, she went into a fighting stance, hyper aware of the stake tucked in the waist of her jeans, of the dagger that lay by a pile of trash in the corner, and how heavy the long wrought iron candle pillars probably were. But all he did was stand up. Rather languidly, at that.
“How did you get it out?”
“Does it matter?”
Her mouth and voice were hard. “It really doesn’t.”
He took a deep breath, rolled his head around his neck, and vamped out. “C’mon then, let’s do this.”
She didn’t reply, just attacked. He caught her fist, and the one after that. He simply pushed them away, not retaliating, not following up. Angry, she shoved him. He stumbled back a step before seizing her by the arms and holding her there.
“Why aren’t you fighting?” she hissed, breath heavy with fury rather than exertion.
“Call this fighting?” he said, voice and gold eyes furious. “You want to kill me, Slayer, you’re going to have to try harder than that. Won’t just lay here and wait for it,” he said with a snarl and shoved her away from him.
“Really? Cause that’s what it looked like when I walked in.”
He looked at her. “Not sure what I was waiting for.”
----
Spike’s fingers slipped under her shirt, tips pressing against her hot skin. His hands moved to her hips, caressing her side, and a heavy sigh escaped her. Her eyes fluttered shut and she tried to ignore the soft lips moving over her throat.
“We-we shouldn’t,” she gasped out. “I should be looking for whatever’s making Giles blind.”
“Shh…” He wedged a hard thigh between her legs and the pressure almost made her cry. “Won’t hurt any to wait another hour or two. Just relax, kitten.”
His blunt, human teeth scraped her neck and her grip on his arm tightened convulsively. She gave up as his tongue traced her collarbone. Spike buried his face against her neck, into her hair.
She could feel his whole body shuddering with fine tremors. “I love you,” he said softly. Her breath caught in her throat. It was the first time he had said it. He had proposed, but he’d never actually said it.
Blinking rapidly, she wound her arms tight around him and laid her cheek to his hair. He pressed a kiss behind her ear, and said it again. “I love you. I love you.”
----
“I should have killed you the second you got back in town. Chip or no chip.”
His lip curled. “You better believe I would’ve done you in, Slayer.” He struck, lightning fast, his fist landing solidly on her jaw. She stumbled and he charged, slamming her against the cement crypt walls. Dislodged, her stake clattered to the ground as rubble and dust showered down over both of them. “You’ve got to stop falling for us vampire boys. You keep acting all surprised when we start killing people.”
A noise of indignant protest sounded in her throat. “What world are you living in, Spike?” Buffy struggled against the hands pinning her wrists to the wall. “I did not,” she grit out, “fall for you.” She slammed her head forward, and the crunch of bone, followed by a pained shout reverberated in the crypt.
Spike stumbled back, morphing into his human face and clutching his bloody nose. “That fucking hurt,” he yelled, words muffled by his hands. He glared daggers at her, blue eyes murderous.
Buffy cupped a hand to her ear. “What was that?” she asked gleefully. “I was distracted by the sinister attraction that is your nose bleeding all down your shirt.”
He grabbed the nearest object – a bottle of red wine – and chucked it at her.
Laughing, she ducked. It exploded against the wall, spraying her from behind with wine and glass. She shook the glass from her hair and watched as the red liquid trickled past her boots. Her laughter died and her body stilled.
She’d been laughing. She’d been enjoying taunting and fighting him, and all the while bodies were cooling in the morgue.
Buffy looked up. Spike stood, watching her. He’d cleared the blood away. It occurred to her that this was different from their other fights. That this was not William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, the master vampire she always knew would try to kill her if he escaped his leash. If anything, the vampire before her looked confused, uncertain.
The red wine soaked into the suede of her boots, turning the brown dark and ugly.
It didn’t matter. Buffy’s fingers curled into tight fists. Heart or head. Buffy lunged.
----
Buffy pushed open the bathroom door, shoulders square, patience in the forefront of her mind, fully prepared for the next barrage of Spike insults.
Instead, darkness and silence greeted her. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the lack of light. Her hand groped for the light switch and she heard the rattle of chains across tub walls.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice soft, and her hand stilled. “Leave the lights off.”
Normally, that would’ve immediately made her flip them on. But tonight was different. Tonight, her professors had yelled at her. Again. Tonight, she hadn’t stumbled upon a vampire on campus until he was letting the lifeless body of a coed fall to the grass. And tonight, Spike’s voice sounded like she felt. Tired.
“Sitting in the dark by yourself? That’s a new kind of pathetic.” She meant the words to come out zingy and taunting. Instead, they came out quiet, like the room around them.
He said nothing. He lifted a bottle to his lips and took a long drink. Buffy’s nose wrinkled as the smell of alcohol hit her. “Giles gave you booze?” she asked incredulously.
Again, Spike didn’t reply. He just sat there, staring off into the darkness. This new, quiet version of Spike was starting to wig her out. But then he broke the silence.
“I have been trying to figure out what I’m going to do next.” Each word was crafted with the careful deliberation of someone more than a little sloshed. He waved a hand half-heartedly. “Once I make it out, get away from this pisshole of a town.”
Buffy sat on the closed toilet lid. “And? What option won? Sulking forever in Giles’ bathtub or begging Drusilla to look after you for all eternity?”
The expression on his face never changed. “Do you remember when your powers were taken from you, Slayer?” he asked, abruptly.
“Which time,” Buffy grumbled.
“You were such a pretty and fragile thing, trembling from fear.” His words slurred as he spoke. “Your pulse fluttering like a bird’s.” He looked at her for the first time since she came in. “Do you remember what that was like? Going from a creature who could do whatever she wanted to one that knew nothing but to fear?”
At first, Buffy bristled. But then she remembered. She remembered becoming the girl who would’ve worn that dress. “It’s different. You still have your strength.”
He shook his head. “I’m not talking about super powers. It’s about being who you are. It’s about fighting back.” He looked away from her, staring at the wall again.
It was so much easier to look at him when his eyes weren’t watching. She followed the line of his jaw, down his throat, and along the curve of his shoulders. His t-shirt darker than the darkened room. The fear that she had known, trapped in Ethan’s enchanted costume… or when Giles had drugged her, repressing her powers…
If it had been permanent. If she had known she would never get them back. Her stomach clenched.
Spike took another long drink from the bottle, throat working. Yeah, she thought. She might need a drink, too.
He blinked suddenly, and looked at her again. “What are you doing here, Slayer?” he asked, voice uneven.
Just like that, she remembered who she was talking to. A killer. A murderer and a demon. They were nothing alike. She straightened abruptly. “Believe me, I was just asking myself the same thing,” she retorted.
Buffy stood. “Congratulations, Spike. Not only are you helpless and chained up in a Watcher’s bathtub, but you’re sinking to new personal lows at the same time. Good for you.”
Spike glared at her, eyes bright and glistening even in the dark. “Get the fuck out.”
“I am well on my way,” she tossed over her shoulder, heading out the door. She shut it behind her without looking back.
The house was quiet and dark as she picked her backpack up off the hallway floor. Giles had already gone to bed. Behind her, the sound of shattering glass and curses sounded, muffled by the bathroom door.
Buffy ignored the noise, just like she’d ignored the pain lacing his voice, and she tried very hard not to think about being the girl in the pink dress.
----
Her fist clipped his jaw, staggering him. She followed it with a high kick that left him seeing stars and falling against the sarcophagus. He reared up, knocking her next punch aside with his forearm, and delivering a swift jab to her diaphragm. She doubled over as the breath whooshed painfully out of her lungs.
Spike grabbed her arm with one hand, steadying her, and fisted her yellow hair with the other. He pulled tight, making her look up. Her wide, hazel green eyes blinked rapidly as she tried not to tear up at the sharp tug on her scalp. Her eyes locked with his, and her mind raced. Tension wracked his body, pulling the muscles tight, and she considered her options. Heart or head.
He bent down close. “This is what I am,” he said, low, and forceful, and furious. “This is what a vampire does.”
“Who are you trying to convince?” Buffy asked, nudging the stake at her feet with the toe of her boot.
She knocked his hold on her hair loose and surged upwards. He looks so desperate, she thought. Kicking the stake up, she caught it in midair. Why does he look so desperate? He had what he wanted, now.
Buffy’s arm pulled back, ready to let fly, even as her heart and head went in two separate directions.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Originally written for the Fall 2009 round of seasonal_spuffy. I offer a one-shot fic. I hope you enjoy it. But if you don't, it's okay to say that, too. Just tell me why.