Buffy could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage. She knew without trying that she wouldn’t be able to escape the position Spike’s body trapped her in. Whether she even wanted to she couldn’t say. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to make him angry.
“Now, you and I are going to get a few facts straight, Slayer.” Spike spoke again.
The look in his eyes had Buffy completely mesmerized. She could not look away from him.
“Did I ever tell you about how Glory tortured me, Slayer?” Spike asked his voice tight and dangerous.
She thought this might be the point when she should say something, but her throat felt dry and raspy so all she could do was shake her head slightly, her eyes still fixed on his.
“She tied me to the ceiling. Hit me over and over again until half the bones in my body were broken. I wouldn’t even have had the strength to fight her if I was free anymore. Every time she hit me I felt my organs bursting and my bones cracking. Do you know what the worst part was though, Slayer?”
His voice made Buffy shiver. She’d never seen him angry like this before. She’d seen his face contorted in anger in the middle of a fight and she’d seen him frustrated. But she’d never seen this kind of anger contorting his features before. She was certain he had never been this angry with her even when they were still mortal enemies. The look he was giving her chilled her to the bone.
“The worst part,” Spike continued, “was when she shoved her fingers inside my heart. Poked about. Squeezed it so hard I thought for sure I would dust. Do you know what it felt like, Slayer? It felt like I was having a heart attack and dusting at the same time. I’d never bloody been in that much physical pain before."
The word “Slayer” was punctuated with additional anger each time he said it, making Buffy almost flinch each time she heard it.
“Have you ever been tortured, Slayer? I have. Quite a few times. Usually by your precious loverboy for shits and giggles. When it gets real bad, real painful, you go somewhere else in your mind. You think of something beautiful. Something meaningful. Something you’d give fucking anything to keep. Do you know what I thought about, Slayer?”
He paused for a brief moment, as if giving her a chance to answer what was obviously a rhetorical question.
“You. I thought about you. You smiling in the sunlight. And not one of those fake smiles. Not one of those you hide behind to convince your friends that you’re okay. Not the kind that never reaches your eyes. A real smile. The kind I hadn’t seen you smile in years. I hung there, so beaten up that I had to struggle to stay conscious, and I thought that maybe, if I did this, if I refused to let Glory beat the key out of me, maybe someday you would smile like that again. With your whole being. Even if I wasn’t there to see it.”
Despite the words he was uttering, Spike’s tone had not changed at all. The hardness in it had not gone away.
“And then when you jumped off that tower to save the world, I tortured myself. Thought about a million and one ways I could’ve saved you. Most days I couldn’t sleep at all. Starred in all my nightmares you did. Had tears rolling down your face and you blamed me. Blamed me for having to jump. I couldn’t fucking shake that image of you. I tried drinking myself stupid more times than I can count, but every time I finally collapsed into unconsciousness, I saw you. You haunted me, Slayer.”
Buffy could feel his words start to pull at her heartstrings. Could feel the pain behind them, even though outwardly he only showed her anger.
“I went to see Dawn every night,” he went on again, “Even when I wasn’t supposed to be watching her that night. It became a ritual for us. I would knock on her window right before she went to bed. Kiss her forehead and tuck her in. Some nights she cried in my arms for hours before she fell asleep. Most nights I kept watch over her. Sat in a chair by her bed. Made sure that nothing and no one would ever hurt her again. Because I’d made a promise to you, Slayer. Made a promise that I would protect her ‘till the end of the world.”
She felt tears streaming down her face at his words. The only thing keeping her from outright sobbing was the look in his eyes. The deadly one that told her he wasn’t done yet.
“I died for you, Slayer. Went up in flames to save you and your friends. Burned from the inside out. And I did it with a fucking smile on my face. Do you know why, Slayer?”
He studied her face for what seemed like a decade, seemingly looking for something. Whether he found it or not she couldn’t tell. But he did go on.
“Because when you said those words to me…I knew you didn’t mean them…but when you said them…I thought that you understood. I thought you saw me, Slayer. The real bloody me. Behind the swagger and the sodding bleach. Thought that you would never doubt me again. Thought that maybe you did see me as a champion after all. That I’d finally proven myself worthy. And it made my dying again worth it. Even wiped away the fact that I had to watch you suck face with Mr. I-can’t-live-without-my-nancy-boy-hair-gel mere hours after I spent the entire night holding you in my arms.”
She flinched at the reminder of her final kiss with Angel. How could she be such a bitch? He’d watched her kiss Angel after she had told him that the night they spent together meant something to her. And he had let it go. Held her again in his arms that very night. She hadn’t even apologized to him for it. Hadn’t even felt guilty for it at the time.
“Now I am sorry about the thing with Harmony. I really bloody am. Was a stupid, prick-like thing to do. So you be as angry about that as you fucking please. But don’t you ever,” as he pushed her even harder into the wall behind her, “ever fucking pretend that I’m worthless again. Don’t you ever pretend that what I did for you and the world was meaningless. Because we both know the truth of it.”
She looked at him then, her eyes filling with more tears and breathing harder. He moved his face closer to her, his nose lightly grazing her neck. Buffy felt tiny goose bumps rise all over her body. She felt him breathe her in, and it was the most erotic thing anyone had ever done to her. She went weak in his arms as he almost imperceptibly lessened his bruising hold on her. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew without looking that his eyes were a vibrant blue now, almost on fire with their intensity. She could almost feel his face softening against her.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered softly in her ear. His lips then travelled back down to her neck, his nose grazing her skin as he continued to breathe her in. He placed a single feather-light kiss on the side of her throat.
Buffy felt her heart begin to gallop at his actions.
“S…”
But before she could even finish saying his name, he’d relinquished his hold on her completely, causing her to almost fall to the ground, turned away from her, and was now briskly walking down the hallway away from her. She watched him go, still dazed and confused about what had just happened. ‘Any second now,’ she thought, “Any second now and he’s going to turn around and look at me’. But he never did and Buffy watched him go, her heart sinking a little more with every step he took away from her.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm so sorry it took me so long to update!!! I had some real life issues that I had to deal with. Here's chapter 6 and I promise to get better about this updating thing. I'm already working on the rest of the story, so chapter 7 should be here soon!
Chapter End Notes:
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