Part nine - Closer to the edge
Warning - Spike/Dru
Spike sighed as he finished his beer and began picking at the label. The clock on the wall read three am and he was dog tired. But Dru had asked him to go back with her to her office building, so he had gone like a faithful little puppy.
He had wondered how he would feel when they crossed paths again, and it had been just as he had feared. He still loved her, with everything inside him and the pain he felt at being so close to her and unable to touch her… well, in that moment he was glad she had left.
He jumped when she reached out to touch him hand.
“Where’d you go?”
Spike shook his head and stood up, walking a few paces away.
“This is too hard Dru. I can’t be around you and not want you. I’m going to find Buffy and then we’re leaving, heading back to Sunnydale.”
Dru stood up and matched his backwards steps with forward ones.
“From what you’ve told me, are you sure you don’t want me to come help?”
“No luv, we’ll get it done, just like always.”
Dru scoffed and moved forwards another step.
“You can’t trust her Spike. You know what’s she’s like. That chip isn’t a soul, the demon will find ways around it.”
Spike nodded. He knew all that. And yet. There was still something about Buffy. He had noticed it years before, when Drusilla had taken Dawn captive. It had been Buffy who had seen the child back home safe, had claimed to have done it just to see her sire get angry, but there had been a look in her eyes that night she couldn’t have hid. She had been worried for Dawn. She knew exactly what Drusilla would have done to harm the child, so she had gotten her free.
Buffy was more than she let on. More than just a demon hiding out in human form. He didn’t know what, but there was something she refused to let others know.
As he looked at Dru, he struggled to see past his love for her, to really look at the being in front of him without the guise of first love standing in the way.
When one startling fact hit him, he was nearly knocked off his feet.
Dru with her soul was the most caring and selfless person he had met, but Drusilla, the demon inside lacked all humanity.
Buffy somehow had retained enough of herself to not let the demon overpower her. True, she had no soul… had murdered countless people, for food, for fun… but Drusilla had been the one to teach Buffy those things. To enjoy the hunt, to thrive on the kill.
Did he trust the blonde? No, but the scarier part was, he could, given enough time.
He looked up and met Dru’s eyes.
“I don’t trust her, but until she gives me a reason I won’t harm her.” He thought of how he had hurt her, how he had beaten her down in an alley and almost threw up. Never again. Unless he caught her in the act of killing, should she ever find a way around the chip in her head, he would never hurt her.
Dru heard something in his voice that she didn’t like, but in the end what she could she do? He was stubborn. She knew he wasn’t stupid. Buffy would always be dangerous, but she trusted in him at least.
“Okay. But if you ever need me, just call.”
Spike pulled her closed for a hug before it got to be too much and he pulled back.
Dru met his lips with her own cool ones and soon they were lost in the other.
It wasn’t a kiss of passion, but more of the goodbye they had never had.
“I’ll always love you, you know that right?”
She nodded and rested a hand against his cheek.
“And I you my Prince.”
Spike kissed her one last time before it was his turn to walk away.
“Be careful William.”
He held a hand up to let her know he had heard her before he disappeared from her sight.
Dru’s gaze hardened as she followed him out and jumped into her car. Listening to the bond she shared with her childe, she made her way to Buffy.
She had a few words for the blonde vampire.
----------
Buffy knew she was being stared at. And by the feeling, she knew who was doing the staring.
“What do you want Drusilla?” She rolled over in bed and glared at her sure.
Dru growled, yanked Buffy from the bed and pinned her to the wall.
“Dru. If I had lost my soul do you really think you’d still be alive?”
Buffy growled and pushed Dru away from her with such force her sire fell into the chair and broke it.
“Whatever you call yourself, you and I both know the truth don’t we? There’s entirely too much of Drusilla in Dru and not enough the other way around.”
Dru growled and picked herself up from the floor.
“I didn’t come here to fight.”
Buffy snorted and retook her place on the bed, looking for all the world like she was unconcerned with her sire, when really, she was wondering where Spike was.
“Then why are you here?”
Dru lost her demon face and leant against the wall by the door.
“I want to know what’s going on with you and Spike.”
Buffy smirked and stretched out on the bed, her tank riding up a little.
“What did he tell you when you asked that?”
Dru took a step closer, unaware she had done so, her eyes trained on her childe, remembering past times between them. First Spike and now Buffy, she wished cold showers actually helped her.
“He told me you two work together now.”
Buffy sighed and sat up straighter, tugging her tank down. She had seen where Dru’s eyes went and she wasn’t looking to revisit the past any time soon.
“Then that’s what we are.”
“Buffy, I know you. This isn’t just about taking down the people who did this to you. What game are you really playing?”
Buffy rolled her eyes, but Dru carried on.
“You’ve always had a thing for slayers, and right from the start you’ve been… different with William. Why is that?”
Buffy got out of bed and went to the fridge, taking out some blood to heat.
“Look, I don’t know what you think is-”
“I think that you have something planned for him, I’m just not sure what that is yet.”
Buffy snorted and turned her back on her sire.
“Where is the Slayer anyway?”
Dru shrugged.
“On his way here.”
Buffy turned and caught Dru’s eyes.
“Why are you here?”
Dru’s eyes flashed golden as her face changed.
“I’m here to remind you that he belongs to me. Its my mark he wears on his neck.”
Buffy took a step closer to her sire.
“True… your mark… but I noticed that it isn’t a claim, what happened? Too much for you to handle?”
Her head rocked back with the force of the blow, but Buffy came back swinging. Her demon had finally had enough and it cracked. Enough of being pushed around, enough of being written off and enough of being second best to its sire.
With a snarl, Buffy attacked.
----------
Spike cursed as he left the club. He should have known Buffy wasn’t there, should have figured she’d head back to the hotel.
He jumped into his car and sped off, making the six blocks in record time.
He had just locked the car door when he heard it. Bursting through the door to their room he froze at what he saw.
Buffy was there alright. But so was Dru.
And they were both covered in cuts.
“What the bloody hell is going on?”
Both vampires paused when they finally realised the Slayer was in the room.
Slowly, they each let go of the other. Dru removed her hands from Buffy’s hair and Buffy let go of Dru’s throat.
Buffy looked from her sire to the Slayer and tried to smile as she lost her demon face.
“Its not what it looks like.”
Spike threw her a glare letting her know he didn’t believe that for a second.
Spike turned his glare on his ex, something with gave Buffy pause considering just how mad he looked.
“What the hell is going on? We left things on good terms, but I come here to find you two fighting? You can see where I’m a little confused here Dru.”
Dru wiped the blood dripping from a cut above her eye and turned a glare on Buffy.
“She started it.”
Buffy opened her mouth to object but Spike beat her to it.
“I happen to know for a fact that you aren’t six years old Dru! The ‘she started it’ excuse won’t fly with me… and considering the fact that you had to come to her and not the other way around tells me she wasn’t the only one at fault here.”
Buffy smirked at her sire but wiped it from her face when Spike turned his glare on her.
“And you… I warned you… told you not to-”
Buffy raised a hand, and surprisingly Spike stopped talking.
“I agreed not to go looking for trouble with my sire, but trouble came looking for me and I’ve had enough of being pushed around by people.”
The glare she threw him reminded him that he was one of those people and he was able to only just hide his wince.
Dru growled and tried to take a step towards Buffy, but Spike blocked her path.
“Dru… go home.”
Both Buffy and Dru turned wide eyes to him, neither one believing their ears.
Spike ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Its late, I’m tired. In a few hours we will be gone and you can go back to whatever life you were leading here in L.A. I’ve listened to what you had to say, now you listen to me. I’m the Slayer. I’m not going to forget who or what Buffy is-”
Buffy held her head high. She was not ashamed of who, or what, she was. The only shame she felt was over the whole ‘being neutered’ thing. She did turn her attention to the mess of the room, and stooped to pick up a broken piece of bed side cabinet.
“- and if she ever gives me a reason too, I will dust her and she knows it… but for right now, she has my protection.”
Buffy dropped the drawer she had just picked up, and Spike ignored the sound of it crashing to the floor, and the livid expression on Dru’s face.
Dru shook her head sadly and reached out to cup Spike’s cheek.
“You are too good William, and I fear it will be your downfall.”
She turned and left without another word, but Buffy knew, from the look she was given, that Dru would be keeping an eye on the goings on in Sunnydale.
Spike sighed and rolled his neck before turning to his room-mate.
“The next time you need to come up to L.A, count me out.”
Buffy gave him a slight smile before bending down to pick up the pieces of shattered mirror.
Spike took his coat off and looked at the mess of the room. All he wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen any time soon.
Buffy didn’t expect him to help her clean up, so when he knelt beside her and did just that, she paused in what she had been doing to study him.
He knew what she was doing and it was making him nervous, though he didn’t understand why.
As he met her gaze, he reached for a piece of mirrored glass, not realising that the edge was jagged until it cut deep into the skin on his fingers.
Buffy’s demon came to the fore as the smell hit her senses before she even realised what had happened.
Spike reached for the stake he always kept on him when he saw the fangs, but what she did next shocked him.
Buffy’s eyes dropped to take in the blood pouring from the two cuts on the slayers fingers and knew it had to be deep.
Shaking off her demon, she stood up and pulled him with her, not even seeing the stake he had gripped in his good hand. She pushed him into the bathroom and turned on the water tap, letting it run for a second until the water wasn’t just as gross.
Spike winced when she pulled his injured hand under the running water.
“Don’t be such a baby.”
Spike watched as she wiped the blood away with a hand towel before putting it back under the tap and repeating the gesture a few more times to make sure there was no glass in the wound.
Buffy left him alone for a moment to retrieve the first aid kit. When she got back, he had the hand towel wrapped around his fingers, keeping the pressure on until the bleeding stopped.
Buffy gently pried the towel free, pleased to see the bleeding had nearly stopped. She rubbed an anti-bacterial lotion into the skin before wrapping some gauze around his index and middle fingers, using tape to hold it in place.
“It should be all good by morning.”
Spike finally met her eyes, wonder in his own, and Buffy finally noticed the stake.
Her eyes widened a little before she back away.
Spike followed her gaze before throwing the stake into the bedroom.
“Sorry, just, at first… with the vamping-”
Buffy held up and hand to stop him.
“Its okay. I get it.”
She went to leave him to it when his hand reached out and wrapped around her arm.
“Buffy… thank you.”
She looked up and met his gaze.
“Your welcome.”
----------
Spike was glad to see the back of Los Angeles. Buffy still hadn’t told him just what she had picked up when she was there, beside money, and he didn’t want to pry by searching through her things when she was in the shower.
She had told him only that it wasn’t anything evil, so he had no choice but to trust her.
Speaking of, his gaze once more moved to his travel companion. Buffy seemed to tense up the closer they got to home.
“Are you ready to talk about it yet?”
Her head turned so she could meet his gaze. As he looked at her, all he could think of was the kiss they had shared outside Wes’ place.
His eyes darted back to the road before they met her hazel ones again.
He could still remember what she had said to him, as she lay broken on that alley floor.
They hadn’t talked about it, he wasn’t even sure if she remembered telling him, but he did.
Buffy was in love with him. Or so she claimed.
It boggled his mind. He knew first hand that a demon couldn’t love, but as he thought of times he had seen her with Angelus… he couldn’t help but wonder.
Buffy turned back to looking out the window, ignoring what he was asking her.
“Buffy?”
She growled and pinned him with golden eyes.
Spike backed off, getting the message. She didn’t want to talk about it.
“We’ll stop by the butchers before I take you home.”
Buffy nodded that she was listening.
Spike sighted and turned his full attention to the road. Traffic was busy considering that it was after ten pm. They had slept the day away, which surprised the Slayer. He usually had problems sleeping and thought it would be next to impossible to sleep with a vampire so near, but he was out like a light, only waking twice through the night to use the loo.
“I put a few things in motion before we left, hopefully we’ll have some more info on the soldier boys and their Doc’s when we get back.”
Spike turned his head and looked at her, wondering just who she had asked to help.
Buffy could tell what he was thinking and gave him a small smile.
“I asked Clem and a few others to keep an eye out.”
He had heard of Clem, though he hadn’t met the demon yet. He had thought it was simple in the beginning. He was a Slayer. The Slayer hunted and killed demons.
No-one bloody mentioned working with them or falling in love with one.
As his eyes took in Buffy’s profile, Spike winced. He had to add falling in lust to that list now as well.
tbc...
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Author's Chapter Notes:
sorry for the delay