I never believed in love at first sight. I know some people think of me as a romantic fool, but the idea of glancing at someone and knowing you wouldn't want to live without them seemed ridiculous to me, even at the height of my romanticism. As young, geeky William before puberty hit, I sported an almighty unreciprocated crush on my second cousin Cecily, and even that had taken a while to grow into what I thought at the time was love. Of course it wasn't but try telling that to a ten-year-old boy coming to the realisation that girls were actually put here on earth for more than just pulling their hair. Of course, I was one of the lucky ones. I entered puberty a geeky mousy curly haired kid and came out the other side a bleached cool hottie (or so I was told). I didn't have any trouble getting girls after that. But I was never a user. At least, I hope I wasn't. I never lied to get what I wanted. I was at heart, a romantic.
But I didn't believe in love at first sight. Not for a second.
Not until I literally knocked Buffy Summers off her feet.
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My first real memory of her is her mouth. Her lips–their shape. The way they curled around her teeth when she was laughing uncontrollably with me. The way they settled into an almost unconscious pout when she was listening to me talk about where I was from and what I was doing in college. I can remember desperately wanting to feel her lips under mine shockingly quick after meeting her. I'm talking like 5 minutes here. It was almost like an immediate pull. Everything she said, every look she flashed my way, every time a part of her brushed against me as we sat in the library, I felt an urge to just smash my lips on hers. It had never happened so quickly and so thoroughly before. Like I said, I wasn't the kind of guy who really had to go without that often. In fact, I remember I'd just got out of a semi-serious relationship a few weeks before meeting Buffy that day and had had a couple of college-y hook-ups in between too. I was as much as a young guy can be, sexually sated. But not when I laid eyes and ears on her. She was pulling me in every second I spent in her company.
So yeah. Love at first sight. Of course, I didn't immediately think Oh, god, I'm in love with her! while I sat in the library with her. I just thought she was the most desirable girl I'd ever come in contact with. It wasn't until the clarity of hindsight was available to me that I realised I was hers from that second on. I was totally and completely hers.
It's just a shame I never found a way to tell her back then. We could have spared ourselves and others a whole lot of confusion and misery.
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The thing about Buffy that always struck me most was, she was cagey about her life and her feelings. She was delicate. She retreated into herself very quickly when pushed. It took me six months of spending practically every day with her in that library for her to tell me anything even remotely personal, beyond the surface stuff you trot out for any old person. But one day we got onto a subject that turned out was not only touchy for me but was for her too.
I was telling her about my mother. I can't even remember how it came up now, but I do remember her face when I was telling her about watching my mother succumb to cancer. Her eyes were fixed on my face in a way I hadn't seen before, and by the time I was finished, her eyes were glassy, and there was a deep ache behind them.
"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned, and she nodded and tried to brush it off as nothing.
"Yeah, of course. I just–that really sucks, Spike. I'm–I'm so sorry for your loss," she'd said, shaking her head and waving her hand in front of her face to still her tears. She huffed a fake laugh and continued, "God, I'm sorry. I'm such a mess. This is what happens to me when there's a midterm on the horizon."
I reached out across the small space that separated our hands and took hers, obviously surprising her out of her pretense because she fixed her startled eyes on mine as I talked to her softly, quietly.
"It's okay, Buffy. You can tell me things.Confide in me. You don't have to be embarrassed you know."
She stayed silent for about a minute, just regarding me with those beautiful big sad green eyes. Then she'd opened her mouth and started telling me about her own mum–finding her on the couch after coming in from playing outside with her friend and the details she could remember and was telling me about in a quiet voice, painted a vivid picture in my mind. A picture of a lost little girl, a little girl swallowed up by the harsh, real world far too soon. The softness that always flowed from her struck me then as quite astounding really. I was listening to her talk about something that would traumatise a lot of adults and she was just a little girl when it happened, yet she'd survived. She'd rationalised it, even at that young age. The way she'd always talked about herself was like she was an also-ran, just someone that got by, not someone to stand out in a crowd. It was always said in a self-deprecating way so as not to sound self-pitying, but I'd always known that was how she really saw herself. She didn't have the best opinion of herself, and while I was sitting listening to her talk about the worst moment in her life, I was struck by the sudden blindingly obvious truth: I was completely in love with this girl.
I loved everything about her. I loved the surface that had drawn me in that first day I met her. I loved that we could sit and laugh over the most ridiculously unfunny things for hours. I loved that she hated my personal hero Lord Byron because he was 'a wet end,' as she put it and yet could still quote his poetry. I loved the way her face scrunched up in concentration when she was studying. I loved that everyday she offered me a bite of her sandwich, even though I'd always said no in the past. And I loved that she had the strength in her to deal with this loss at such a young age and didn't even know it. I loved her completely.
I know now I should have told her right then. I know now that she wanted me too. But I didn't know it then. What I thought then was that she saw me as her friend and if I pushed her, she'd retreat. And I couldn't stand the thought of her retreating from me. I thought at the time I'd either get her to see me differently, or failing that, I'd get over her.
I really was a stupid little git.
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It took me weeks to work up to my pathetic unclear invitation. Weeks of thinking how best to put it. Weeks of lying in my bed thinking of how to phrase it–how to approach her in the least threatening way. By the time I actually did it, I was so over-wrought I thought I would burst. And when she'd looked at me shyly and said, "Okay." I felt like I won the lottery. I thought it would finally be over–the waiting for her to see me, the dreaming about her, the lying in bed aching for her, the misery of being near her but not having her. I thought it would all finally be over.
I turned up at the bar half an hour early. My palms were sweating and my heart had been beating a samba rhythm all day, but by the time I'd finally got to the bar I felt an excited calm wash over me. This was finally it, I thought. By the time the night was over, I would never have to worry about telling her ever again.
After sitting for a good twenty minutes or so the sweaty palms made reappearance, but I was still so sure it would all be okay. Another ten minutes, and it was finally the time we'd arranged to meet, and I was anxiously watching the door. When a pretty brunette walked in on her own, I had barely noticed her because I was so fixed on seeing Buffy's beautiful face coming through the door. But the brunette had made a beeline for me. She'd perched on the stool next to me and I was a second away from telling her to piss off when she'd introduced herself as Dru, Buffy's best friend. My heart sank a little when Dru told me Buffy had invited her to come along but not quite as much as it did when she'd told me, after another ten minutes or so of no Buffy, that actually Buffy had asked her to come along because she'd always had the idea that the two of us would be really great for each other.
The feeling that came over me when Dru told me Buffy had set me up with her is something I don't think I'll ever forget. My stomach dropped and it was like the world had stopped. I felt like crying to be honest. Not very manly, but I don't really give a fuck. It's the truth. I felt like Dru had just grabbed all my hopes for the night, for my future with Buffy and thrown them back in my face with a laugh. She didn't want me. That's all I could think. She didn't want me, and she never would. I was a friend to her, nothing more. I felt so fucking small at that moment.
I don't really remember much between that little bombshell that shattered my hopes and Buffy finally turning up at the bar. Buffy's told me since that me and Dru had been really into each other when she came in but it's not true, I know it's not. I was on autopilot that whole night–smiling not to be rude, laughing so I wouldn't cry. I may have looked like a man in the throes of flirtation to her and to Dru, but inside I was regressing back to that scrawny little 8 year old boy I'd been. The girl I wanted didn't want me, again. Only this time it was so much worse because I was completely in love with her. I was hers for the taking, only she wasn't gonna take me. She was giving me to her best friend. Christ, that hurt.
When Buffy did turn up, only to urge me very convincingly to go after Dru then make a hasty retreat, I thought it was all over. I watched her walk away from me down that street in a daze and with every step she took, I felt myself getting colder and colder and a numbing feeling of apathy descended on my shoulders. God, it took years to shake it off.
I'm not too sure what I did next. All I remember is falling into a relationship with Dru and being half-asleep for a long time. I honestly can't remember specifics. Days faded into weeks, into months, into years. And all the time Buffy was at the edge of my life, and I took what I could. But being with Dru–I just went along with everything. What she wanted, what life dropped in my lap. It's all such a blur to me now. It was kinda a blur to me at the time. It's funny, but when you don't have your dreams, you're not really alive. You exist, sure, and you get up in the morning and go to school or work and you can laugh and enjoy things, but you're not really there. And you don't even know it. It's like when I used to smoke and people (ex-smokers that I knew) used to tell me that if I stopped I'd taste my food better and wake up without that ashtray taste in my mouth and I used to look at them and think 'oh sod off you patronising dick–I can taste my food fine and I don't have any ashtray taste in my mouth when I wake up'. Then I quit, I knew exactly what they meant. You have to be out of the tunnel before you can look back and see what you were travelling under you know. Well that's what it was like–my relationship with Dru. Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly morose mood, I'll get to thinking of what my life would be like if I'd never made it out. If something hadn't happened to pull me out of my daze. If Buffy hadn't said what she said that night. God, sometimes I think of all I could have missed out on if I'd never made it out of that tunnel.
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When she did say it, sitting across from me in that booth, I felt like all the air had whooshed out of the room. I'd felt like I couldn't breathe. She'd said it in such an offhand way. Then she compounded it by saying "Oh come on, you knew." God, if she'd been a guy and I hadn't loved her so much, I would have hit her. I felt a million things at once: shock, anger, elation, misery, and an all-encompassing need to possess her. It was like I'd buried all my real feelings for years. Not just my feelings for Buffy, my feelings about everything. I'd been locked in a state of numbness for so long and her admission that she felt the same way about me all those years before lit a fire under my arse. I was finally awake. And I just couldn't stop myself from taking her.
I'd pounced on her in the cab, and from the second my lips touched hers I felt alive, really alive for the first time in bloody years. And when I was finally inside her, I had to stop myself from howling with completion. She was beautiful, like I'd always known she would be. She saw right down into me with those green eyes of hers, and I couldn't remember ever feeling so alight before. That's what it was like–like she'd set me on fire. Like I was aching and sated all at once. It was perfect.
When she fell asleep in my arms I stayed awake for hours just looking at her, smelling her, holding her, stroking her soft skin. I think I was completely awestruck that it had finally happened. I actually kissed her and she kissed me back. I'd touched her, I'd been inside her, and she had responded to me. I don't think I gave one thought to the mess we were in. Not that night. No, that night, when I lay there holding her and desperately hoping it wouldn't disappear with the sunrise, I'd jettisoned everything that should have made me feel awful about what we'd done. I mean we'd gone behind her best friend's back, my fiancé. But as I lay there holding her, I just couldn't bring myself to think about it. I just wanted to bask in the feeling of finally getting to touch her.
I awoke before her and by the time she finally opened her green eyes, I was practically vibrating with the anxiety of what would happen, what she would say in the cold light of day. I promised myself I wouldn't push her, I'd let her decide what to do next. I didn't even think of that as a bad decision at the time. I'd thought it was right to let her decide because she was the one who would lose something no matter which way she turned. I was so afraid that when she realised what we'd done, she'd retreat again. I think I actually prayed, for the first time in my life. At the time, I didn't know what I know now. I didn't know she loved me. I was hoping the strength of her long-ago crush would be something she couldn't dismiss easily, but I had no illusions she would feel what I was feeling. I just hoped she would feel something other than regret.
But when she opened her eyes and we heard Dru's voice on her answering machine and she lept away from me as if I was on fire, I felt my stomach drop to my toes. And when she told me it was a mistake, all I could think was to scream in her face that she was a liar. It wasn't a mistake for me. It wasn't because I was drunk; it wasn't because she happened to be there. The way she spoke about it…it made me feel like it wasn't this night of clarity, of release, of beautiful connection. The way she spoke about it made me feel like a cheater. Her too, and I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand the thought of her reducing our moment to that.
She'd done it again. Cut me off at the knees and dropped me so quickly back into the murkiness of doubt and hopelessness that I'd always swum in around her and all I could think was that I'd put myself between Dru and her…and I was so sure that was one competition I would never win. She'd told me I was a drunken mistake and who throws away friendship for that? Would she throw away a lifelong friendship for a crush she'd had years before? I knew at the time she must have felt something for me but I just never imagined she could feel so strongly about me as to choose me over Dru. I was sure she'd pick Dru every time.
When I walked out of her apartment that morning, I didn't go straight home. I didn't even know if I was going to go home at all. All I could think was how could I go back to Dru and just continue to pretend? After that moment, that night. I ended up meandering to my apartment over the course of about four hours and when I finally reached it, I walked around my block about five times. The thought reverberating in my brain was if I should…if I could tell Dru the truth. Not about Buffy. I couldn't have done that to her then. I thought she wanted Dru above everything else, and who was I to take that from her? No, I was contemplating walking up the stairs to our apartment, sitting Dru down and telling her that the charade was over. We didn't love each other; we didn't even pretend to, and it wasn't enough for me. I contemplated just ending it all: being with Dru to be close to Buffy, taking Buffy however I could get her, so long as she was in my life but as with most things in my life up until that point, I stuttered. I walked in the door and opened my mouth to tell her I was leaving, and nothing came out. I gaped at her like a fish. Inside I was screaming at myself to say something, say anything, get it out, but I just couldn't. I guess, pathetic as it sounds, I'm the kind of person who needs motivation to fight. If I don't have it, I do nothing. It's even happened to me in my job–if I don't give a shit about my clients, generally I lose. I have to care. And without Buffy, I didn't care. Without the prospect of her, I didn't care. I could feel myself collapsing inward as I stood there in our old hall and listened to Dru moan about how she'd been waiting for me to finally turn up so we could go to her co-worker's engagement party and how I was a dickhead for making her late. Blah, blah, blah and all I could think was that this was my life. It was the life I'd made for myself. I made my bed and I had to lie in it. After all, what was the point of leaving? I'd be just as alone, just as unhappy, only I really wouldn't have her in any way. Dru would get her, and I'd get nothing. I did what I'd always done with those two girls–I took one so I could get a small piece of the other, the one I really wanted–being with Dru made me weak, but being without Buffy made me even weaker. I hate that version of myself. Even now I'd like nothing more than to go back in time and beat the shit out of him for being so fucking pathetic.
But not then. No, then I accepted that it was pitiful and I'd bloody swum in it. So I said I was sorry, came up with some lame excuse as to my absence and gone into the bedroom to get changed. I didn't look at myself in the mirror; I couldn't. I think I would never have stopped retching if I had. I couldn't look at my reflection and make the decision to keep going with my sham; I did it all blind.
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The next few weeks were among the worst of my life. I spent most nights getting drunk on the couch, while Dru was out fucking that guy in her office. I was so glad she wasn't around to see me. I wanted to be left alone with my drunken self-pity. I had moments where I got so damn pissed off at Buffy, I felt like I could have killed her if I'd seen her. I cried more than any man usually wants to admit.
I phoned Buffy but she avoided my calls. I have no idea what I would have said to her anyway. She seemed so far away from me. I knew she was slipping back to the safe distance she always maintained between us, and it was torture.
Most of those nights I just sat there hating myself because I hadn't even really tried. After all, hindsight makes everything clear and I had plenty of time after that night to think about everything. I did the wrong thing that morning. I had her! And I walked out the door at her behest, never once trying to let her know what she was doing to me. Why hadn't I tried? Why hadn't I seized my chance when I had her attention? Why hadn't I fought for her? Why did I just accept her saying it was a mistake? Was it really done out of a want to respect Buffy's choice? Or was I just being weak, afraid of her final and complete rejection?
I was completely stuck, more than I ever had been before. I couldn't go forward but I couldn't go backward either. I couldn't go back into the daze with Dru and I was utterly convinced, more so than before that I couldn't have Buffy. I felt like I was dangling off the edge of a cliff and I needed someone to push me, to make me choose something, someone, some course, whether it was right or wrong.
Well, someone gave me that push. Some complete wanker whose name I can't even remember but whose face is ingrained in my memory. She'd kissed him–she'd kissed the bloody wanker right in front of me. God, if I ever see that prick again I'm either gonna kiss him or kick ten kinds of shit out of him. It was the lowest point of my adult life, seeing her kiss that dickhead in front of me. Her mouth, the mouth that had haunted me for a decade by that time, was wrapped in a kiss with someone who wasn't me and me watching it happen in front of my face, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was the last straw. I just couldn't take any more. I got so fucking angry with her at that moment. All I could think was that I'd pissed away my chance at telling her my feelings and for what? So she could live in blissful ignorance? So I could sit here and watch this! So I could sit and watch her flirt and kiss another man in front of me!
I'd gone back inside the house not long after and attacked a bottle of whiskey. Dru bitched something about me being a borderline alcoholic and disappeared up to bed but I barely noticed. I was on fire at the thought of her kissing that pillock right in front of me. When the arse walked past me not 10 minutes later with a forlorn expression on his git face, I'd felt my heart start galloping a mile a minute. I sat there on that couch and felt like this was the deciding moment of my life. I could be brave for once where she was concerned–or I could go to bed and live with it. It was my time to man up or shut up. No more moping, whining about what I didn't have. I could go after it or I could put it to rest, finally. Well, they say whiskey is liquid courage, and they're not wrong. I let it guide me back outside. I was honestly beyond caring about who I would hurt, even Buffy. I just had to get it out. I had to try at least once, to really get her.
And oh, Christ, am I glad I did. I came so close to just sitting on that couch, knowing she was still outside on her own and letting it all pass me by again. I came so close. It gives me shivers when I think of how close I came to staying where I was.
But I didn't. I finally did it. I finally told her. And the relief when she finally gave me what I wanted, what I'd always wanted and to know it was what she'd always wanted too–it was beyond the climax of orgasm, beyond the best drugs in the world. It was beyond every feeling I'd ever had. The feeling was indescribable. I can't put into words what it felt like to hear her say those things–that she'd wanted me - loved me - doubted just as much as I did - pined just as much - cried — screamed, such sad little half people we were. So scared and so filled with doubt. All those years wasted because we didn't want to embarrass ourselves, put ourselves out there. I could have wrung Buffy’s, Dru’s, and my neck. What a bloody mess we'd made for ourselves.
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Of course, when it all came out, it made perfect sense. Buffy and Dru's relationship and what they'd taken from each other. Me. And of course what I ended up taking from them. Buffy says I shouldn't think about it that way–that their relationship was on that track before I even came into it, that I actually saved them both in the end, but I can't help it. I was the catalyst. I got myself stuck between them. I let Dru warp me. I let her convince me to pledge my future to her. I put Buffy through that. God, if the situations had been reversed and I had to watch Buffy plan to marry someone, I don't think I'd have been able to sit there with a smile on my face. God, just her kissing that prick once in front of me made me boil. I still can't imagine the misery she'd suffered through for years.
Buffy says I shouldn't dwell on it now and she's right. My girl's always right. There's no point any more. We're out. It's done. We came out of it together. We've built ourselves a life that's perfect for us. And yeah, there are a lot of years of regret that even now I feel the need to make up for and yeah, there are a lot of nights where I just can't stop looking at her, holding onto her as she sleeps. It's what I'm doing right now actually. We're lying in our bed, in our house, in our little town (she calls it a quaint little village - she's such a bloody American sometimes). It's three or so in the morning, and she's lying curled into my side, her lovely golden hair that's dusted with the beginnings of grey hair fanned out on the pillow beside me, but I can't sleep. I'm having one of my reflective nights. It always happens near her birthday. I hold her a little tighter, kiss her a little longer, and love her a little harder. It's our ten-year anniversary coming up soon, and I'm thinking of ways to celebrate it. She keeps saying it doesn't matter as long as we're together but I can't help but think of the time when we gave up on our road-trip and drove back to LA to dump our crappy little rental car before flying over to Europe to go travelling. The night before we left LA for France, I dragged her to our old library on our old campus in the middle of the night and broke a few minor laws to let us in, and we made love in the spot where we met, right against the stacks. She cried and so did I. It healed something in me I hadn't known was still broken. I need to think of something that good for our ten-year wedding anniversary. I need to show this woman that my love for her is not something that's ever going to fade. It'll never go away. It'll never die, even when I do.
I shift slightly, my arm under her pulling her even closer to me and she snuggles further into my side and just when I settle down to try to let sleep claim me, she cracks open an eye and fixes me in her gaze.
"I know what you're doing," she says sleepily.
I smile at her, my head resting in her line of sight on the pillow next to her.
"Just thinking, baby," I say.
"Less thinking, more sleeping."
I laugh quietly and kiss her brow, watching her fall back into sleep.
I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling, sighing in restlessness at the sleep that's eluding me. I really shouldn't have thought over all that misery. Every time I do it takes me back and it takes so long for me to shake myself out of it and remember it's all over. A few minutes go by and then her voice jars me out of my thoughts, softly purring the words I will never get sick of in this life or the next.
"I love you, Spike."
"I love you too, baby," I reply, surprised that she's still awake and turning my head to regard her tired but loving face with a smile stretched on mine.
"Good," she says softly, then her face morphs into what I like to call her game face. "Now stop being so reflective and sad and get your ass to sleep cause you're coming with me to Willow's housewarming later today and you're not getting out of it by claiming lack of sleep, got it?"
"Yes, ma'am," I laugh, rolling over to encompass her in my arms again with a smile on my face.
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Like I said, I didn't always believe in love at first sight. I didn't always believe in happily-ever-afters. I used to think the phrase 'love conquers all' was only meant for movies and books.
Then I walked into a library on an overcast October day and life showed me just how wrong I was.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, so it's just a little one-shot to cover Spike's POV of the whole mess. Like I said in the summary, don't read this unless you've read the main fic Someone Borrowed, Someone Blue. It won't make sense to you and I don't want to see I've got a review and get all excited and then see it's someone saying 'what the feck is this? This don't make no sense! Bad writer!'. That would be upsetting and you don't want to upset me, do you?
This little companion piece has the great distinction of being the first thing I've written to have betas. And they are super smart and super cool (imagine Cartman saying that - suuuppeerrr coooooolll). So many thanks to the lovely Behind Blue Eyes and Sanity Fair because without them this would be a much shorter, much less coherent, pile of grammar poo. Thank you both! :D
This little companion piece has the great distinction of being the first thing I've written to have betas. And they are super smart and super cool (imagine Cartman saying that - suuuppeerrr coooooolll). So many thanks to the lovely Behind Blue Eyes and Sanity Fair because without them this would be a much shorter, much less coherent, pile of grammar poo. Thank you both! :D
Chapter End Notes:
The End