By the time they got to their destination, Spike was a shuddering mess. Buffy whipped the coat off of his head and he saw her staring down at him with her distant, green eyes. Her stoic expression softened when she saw the state he was in; she picked him up and carried him like he was a toddler. It must've looked ridiculous being that he had at least forty pounds on the girl, or it would've if they weren't invisible. Normally he would've protested that she was treating him like a child, but he was too far gone. He let his throbbing head rest on her shoulder, pride be damned.
The sky was just beginning to lose its sunset colors and settle into dark blue. She hefted his weight easily as they approached a clapboard farmhouse with siding weathered like driftwood. The color was either white or gray, Spike couldn't tell. The wooden steps creaked beneath her feet, as did the gat-toothed porch. She swung open the rusty screen door and then fumbled with the handle of the storm door. Before they passed the threshold, she muttered an invitation for him.
“This is your place, pet?” he asked.
“As much as anything can be mine,” Buffy said.
Once they were inside, she asked him if he was able to stand. He nodded yes and she set him down, his muddy boots leaving prints on the mauve carpeting. Once he wasn't touching her, Buffy disappeared for a moment, only to reappear a few seconds later. She locked the door and began taking off her leather coat, then hung it in the hall closet.
Spike took in the strange, new surroundings. Outside the structure had given off a whiff of dust bowl desperation, inside it was sweet enough to induce diabetic seizures. The walls were covered in shiny, textured pink paper to complement the aforementioned mauve carpet. The nearest floor lamp was festooned with fat, trumpeting cherubs along the base and the shade had cherry colored dingleberries around the edge. To the right was the parlor, stuffed with ornately carved Victorian-like furniture, doilies on nearly every surface and many, many embroidered things. Beside the door was a cross-stich that read “God Bless this Mess,” complemented with an image of a frazzled, white kitten kneeling in prayer; beside that hung a gold-framed mirror. Spike was shocked when he couldn't see his reflection; then he remembered.
He glanced away and then saw Tara walking toward him from a room in the back. In her hand she held a thin, daisy-dappled teacup full of blood. She hugged him and then handed him the cup. Spike balanced the fine china in between his bound hands and drank it without a word. The blood was foul, but tasted better than the weight gaining shakes he'd been subsisting on for the past few months. More than that, it seemed to steady him.
“I'd love a shower,” he said.
Buffy looked at him and he got the sense that she had no idea what to do with him now that he was there. Buffy took the key off her neck and undid Spike’s cuffs. She held his hands a beat too long before letting him go, then Tara bounced into Spike’s arms.
“There are shackles in the basement and a cage. We'll keep him in there,” Buffy said.
Tara turned to Buffy.
“No, I don't agree t,t,to t,t,that,” Tara said.
Buffy ran a shaking hand through her dirty hair.
“It's not forever, just until I figure some things out,” Buffy said.
“What does that mean?” Spike asked. He stroked Tara's back absently.
“I”ve got a friend, somebody who knows about this stuff. He can help, I think,” Buffy said.
“And how long would I be under lock and key?”
“A week, maybe two,” Buffy said.
Tara looked at Spike, incredulous.
“You're not going along with t,t,this, are you?”
“I trust her, love, more than myself right now. Come on Toy, show me the new digs,” Spike said.
“Don't call me that, or the other name, either,” Buffy said.
“The curse thing?” Spike asked.
“How did you know about that?” Buffy asked.
“You pick up a few things if you listen. So if big bad is dust, isn’t the curse broken and all that?” Spike asked.
“It felt a little too easy, killing Angel, I mean. I'm not really sure it took,” Buffy said
“Alright, pet. I’ll just have to use my random nickname generator and come up with something else, how do you feel about Goldilocks?” Spike asked.
Buffy looked from one sibling to the other, then took Spike by the arm.
“We’re going downstairs,” she said.
“What about Commandant?” Spike asked, with a wicked grin.
Buffy shoved him, hard. Tara looked on helplessly as the other girl led her brother through the hallway to the back room, a kitchen. The windows in the kitchen were decorated with scalloped lace curtains. Boldly colored appliances from the nineteen fifties were scattered on the bright, red counter tops. The walls were a faded, toasty shade of yellow and the scent of pizza was wafting from the oven. It was cozy, or would have been, if he didn’t know what was waiting for him in the basement. Buffy walked him to a door covered in chipped, white paint that opened onto the downstairs steps, which were carpeted in misleadingly cheery, green astro-turf.
As they tramped into the lower depths of the house, Spike caught the scent of an agitated animal; it made him more anxious. The floor of the basement was stone, and the cage was black, wrought iron. It looked ancient. There was hay lining the bottom and shackles cemented into the wall. On the outside of the cage was a narrow bed with an enormous gun laying on atop it at a diagonal.
“What is this place?” Spike asked. They had reached the bottom of the stairwell and she was herding him toward the enclosure.
“I used to babysit a werewolf here. It was an old family curse; she was the last one in her line and when she died, she gave me the house. There’s nothing on paper, of course, but I got around that with a little magical fenangling. It’s a handy dandy spell, it can even protect me in a hotel room,” Buffy said.
They were at the black, cage door with its fist-sized lock.
“Anywhere you hang your hat is home, yeah?” Spike asked.
He wrapped a hand around the bars and then looked down at her.
“Anywhere and nowhere,” she said.
Buffy hadn’t let go of his upper arm, but her grip had turned into a caress. She was stroking his skin under the short sleeve of his shirt, while firmly avoiding his eyes.
“We need to talk,” Spike said.
She withdrew her hand and looked up at him, her green eyes angry.
“We have nothing to talk about, there’s no we, he’s dead,” she said.
The words seemed to be spoken more for Buffy than for him, but they still chilled Spike. He was too shocked to argue that he was the same person, just...afflicted somehow. Buffy yanked open the door, startling his hand from the bar and pushed Spike inside. The door clanged shut and then Buffy was fastening the lock.
“Not about us, about Angel and Lacy—“
Buffy stopped and then turned her eyes to his.
“What about Lacy?”
Spike told her everything that happened with Lacy, how she made him, how she helped him and how he’d killed her. Spike explained about the odd warning and her bizarre self-sacrifice. He didn’t spare any detail, not even the part where Lacey assumed Buffy’s form to ease his way into post-life. Buffy blushed at that, and seemed to stiffen at the mention of his ex, which felt like a minor victory to Spike. He told her about his reluctance to end Lacey and his feelings of pleasure mingled with disgust surrounding the feeding. Buffy touched his hand, briefly, when he spoke about his regret.
“She was your sire, that’s what it’s called when a vampire turns somebody. It’s a really intense bond, like family, except all incest-y and gross,” Buffy said.
“It was that,” Spike said, his eyes darting down from her intense scrutiny, “how do you know her?”
“Lacy Chavois was a watcher. When she was alive, she was assigned to help me with my Angel problem, but she ended up getting turned, on purpose. She’d spent her whole life studying vampires and she got obsessed with the idea of being one,” Buffy said.
“I guess it wasn’t all primroses and penny whistles. So what’s a watcher?” Spike asked.
“They’re the people who pay my bills, they know a lot about magic. They teach and train slayers,” Buffy said.
“And this Lacy was your teacher?”
“Yeah, after Giles, my first watcher was murdered, but he was less a teacher. More like a dad,” Buffy said.
Spike reached through the bars and stroked her cheek. She leaned into his fingers for a moment. When she looked at him, tears were burgeoning in her eyes.
“You’re so cold,” she said as her voice cracked.
Buffy ran back upstairs without a backward look.
**
Spike heaped straw into a pile and curled up in it like a gerbil without a wheel. He could hear all the movements, all the settling, every pipe shuddering to life within the house. When Buffy and Tara sat down to eat their meal, he could hear the pizza cutter sticking against the overcooked crust. He could smell more than the burnt food; he could sense the girls, the field mouse nibbling on a kernel of corn behind the wainscoting in the living room, and the sensual chaos caused by all the household chemicals.
Tara took a sip and then set a glass down on the kitchen table before she spoke. Spike concentrated on her voice.
“I know you’ve been t,t,through s,s,something unimaginable, but t,t,treating my brother like an animal is only going t,t,to t,t,turn him into one,” Tara said.
Spike could hear Buffy chewing and then swallowing.
“Angel pretended to be a little, wounded lamb, too,” Buffy said.
“T,t,this is more t,t,than a ploy, and you know it,” Tara said.
“He’s a killer, Tara. Soul or no, that’s what he is,” Buffy said.
“Isn’t t,t,that what you are, t,t,too? I know what a s,s,slayer is, you get your power from a demon. Your reason for existing is to kill, except unlike a vampire, you don’t do it to s,s,survive,” Tara said.
“I protect! I never hurt human beings, only monsters,” Buffy said.
“But you could. You’re s,s,strong enough, and it would make life easier, but you don’t. You control your demon, and Billy can, t,t,too,” Tara said.
Spike heard the scrape of a chair on linoleum.
“I need a shower,” Buffy said apologetically.
He heard his girl’s predator tread padding softly on the stairs, followed by the opening and closing of doors before. Then water surged and all the pipes began to grind. Spike was concentrating so intently on Buffy’s movements, that he didn’t notice Tara until he saw her standing at the top of the basement steps holding a mason jar full of blood in one hand and a few slices of pizza on a paper plate in the other. She smiled at him, and he felt a sense of relief. Spike hopped to his feet as she walked down to meet him.
Tara folded the plate in half and passed Spike the pizza through the metal bars, then handed him the jar. He gulped from it greedily, feeling the bones in his face shift. Spike turned away from Tara until he was finished.
“Do you s,s,still eat people food?” Tara asked.
She held onto the bar and Spike covered her hand with his own. The contact calmed him down, made him feel less like an exhibit at the zoo. He took a bite and mulled it over a bit before swallowing.
“It’s not making me gag or anything, but it tastes of fish fingers,” Spike said.
He didn’t want to tell her that not only could he taste what was cooked in the pan previous to the pizza, but he could also taste the steel wool used to clean it afterward.
“S,s,sorry,” Tara said.
“No worries, love,” he said.
She was quiet for a moment.
“You don’t need to be so hard on her,” Spike said.
“What do you mean?”
“I heard your whole conversation with my girl. Enhanced vampire senses and all,” Spike said.
“She’s got you in a fucking cage, Billy. That rat we kept in the lab had a better set up than this,” Tara said. He’d never heard his sister use that particular dirty word, but at least a sentence had passed through her lips without tripping a stutter.
“Maybe I should be here. This thing that’s in me, Tara, it’s like that time I snorted coke and was on ecstasy except all this weird…extra...evil all at once,” Spike said.
“When did you do t,t,that?” Tara asked.
“Honestly can't tell you exactly when, just that after it was over I woke up naked in a field in Hampshire next to an American girl called Harmony, though I doubt that was her real name,” Spike said.
“Forget I asked, just know t,t,that I understand how you feel,” Tara said.
“You couldn't possibly, love,” Spike said. He let go of the bar and began pacing in the confined space.
Tara sighed and sat down on the bed.
“I didn't want t,to say this in front of s,s,she who must not be named, but there's more to the soul spell than I thought. I t,t,think it's because you're only t,t,technically dead. The spell was supposed to keep you near me, so we could find each other again, like if you were in heaven, I'd get an overwhelming sense of peace when I thought of you--”
“You thought I was going to get into heaven?” Spike asked with a snort.
She smiled.
“Yeah, well, now it's like I've got empathy on steroids with you. I can feel what you feel. You're in the back of my mind, all the time and if I concentrate, it gets more intense. When you were in the trunk, I could sense your headache, your blood lust,” Tara said.
Spike stopped mid-stride and stood very, very still.
“What did you feel when I dug my way out of the grave?”
She closed her eyes, slowly, as though she couldn't speak and look at him at the same time.
“Everything.”
“Did you feel what I wanted to do to you?”
Tara met his gaze, took a deep breath and then exhaled.
“I t,t,told you. I felt everything,” Tara said.
“Then how could you think that I don't belong in a bloody cage?”
“Because I felt the remorse, t,t,too,” she said.
Spike put his hands on his hips, a slim sugar bowl.
“You need to leave this place, you need to leave me to my fate, love,” Spike said.
Tara stood and walked back to the cage. She rested her head in between two bars on the door to his prison.
“I know it's better for you when I'm here, easier for you t,t,to control--” Tara said.
Spike went to her and rested his forehead against hers. It was something he’d always done when she would cry as a little girl.
“What if I start changing you? What if you get to craving a nip of blood and a spot of violence? You're already talking like a sailor on leave,” Spike said.
Tara smiled at him.
“At least I'm stuttering less. Anyway, you won't, change me, at least I don't think and I can't leave you. I know you're in love with her, but s,s,she's s,s,so fragile right now. S,s,she could kill you if I leave, and you're acting like the world would be better off without you, I doubt you'd put up any argument,” Tara said.
“Not in love with her--”
“Quit being s,s,such a boy about it, I can feel your emotions, remember?”
“Well, can you stop it? Sick of my privacy being violated, it's like someone left the gate open to my brain and all sorts are wandering in,” Spike said.
“I'll t,t,try, but it's kind of difficult. Can you sense my presence at all? It’s supposed to be a reciprocal,” Tara said.
He stepped away from her and cocked his head. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the idea of Tara through the riot of new information. It took him a moment, but he found her, a quiet corner of his mind. She was so frightened that he could taste it on the back of his tongue. Her vulnerability sent the demon into a frenzy and it took everything in him to keep the fangs from descending. Spike's eyes popped open.
“No, I can't,” he said.
She smiled sadly and then withdrew from arm's reach. Tara promised to find him some proper bedding instead of the hay, and then with a twirl of her skirt, she was gone. He knew there was no way she could have believed him, not if she felt the blood lust. As Tara walked away Spike finally understood something key about his sister. In all the years when she'd been allowing him to protect her, it had always been more for his sake than her own.
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Chapter End Notes:
I will post two new chapters on Monday. Would love to know what you think of the story thus far.