Taking a cool shower didn’t help because he quickly found that he was compelled to pleasure himself as a naked, and very flexible, Buffy danced around his brain like a tiny little temptress.
Trying to shake himself out of his funk, he headed to the kitchen, hoping that the object of his desires was still sleeping. The last thing he needed right now was to have to confront her when she was sitting there all bright and bubbly with annoying shampoo commercial hair, and her sumptuously delicious natural scent, and her stupid pouty lips that he just wanted to kiss the life out of…
No! He chastised himself immediately. Thinking about things like that could only lead to the bad places where he ended up doing the girl doggy style over Tara’s oak kitchen table. Somehow he didn’t think his host would appreciate that.
Ambling into the kitchen, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was only occupied by Tara. The older lady was kneading bread at the counter, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.
“Morning, pet,” Spike grinned, hiding his worries as he smiled at her. She raised her head and returned the smile.
“Good morning William. Did you sleep well?” Tara asked him, noting the shadows highlighting his eyes.
“Yeah like a log,” he lied.
“Uh huh. Buffy’s not awake yet?”
“Probably still sleeping, love. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s knackered enough to snooze the day away. Little mite’s had a hard time of it lately.”
The thought of Buffy and hard in the same sentence only served to harden parts of his own anatomy and he immediately turned away from his surrogate mother.
“Got any more of those choccy biccies, pet?” Spike asked, rooting around in the cupboards looking for the leftover cookies.
“Top left,” Tara directed him casually.
“Thanks,” he replied, locating the treats and happily munching on one of her chocolate chip extravaganzas. He hopped up onto the countertop and grinned childishly.
“Missed your baking, pet. Takes me right back to childhood.”
“I’m not sure your childhood would be a time you’d want to return to,” she replied honestly, pity seeping through her gaze.
“Sometimes I think it was better than the bollocks that bloody adulthood has brought me.”
“Talking of…umm…bollocks.” Spike smiled at the use of her Britishism. “I’ve been wondering Will,” Tara said, cautiously. “What exactly happened to Drusilla?”
Spike shifted against the countertop, his mood taking an immediate nosedive. “What do you mean ‘what happened?’” He swallowed the chunk of cookie that was in his mouth but it suddenly tasted bitter and caustic.
“I mean…where is she? The two of you were love’s young dream, even if she was a total nightmare.” The woman didn’t bother to hide her disdain for the insane brunette. “You almost never left her side and yet you’re here with another woman and Dru is AWOL.”
“Drusilla and me are over.” He tossed the remainder of his cookie in the trash, having suddenly lost his appetite. “There’s not much to say about it really.”
“You’ve never been able to fool me, William. I’m sure there are a lot of things bottled up in that head of yours.”
Spike forced the stale air out of his lungs and rested his head against the cool expanse of tiles behind him. “You’re right,” he told her, letting his eyes drift shut. “But if I talk about it then…”
“Then what, honey?”
“Then I just show myself to be such a bloody fool. Always have been though, haven’t I? Love’s bitch right here.” He threw his arms wildly open, a feral glint in his eyes. “Watch out kiddies or you might turn out to be a sap for any wet pussy in a fifty mile vicinity.”
Tara didn’t even bother to chide him on his language as the worry increased inside of her. What the hell did Drusilla do to him?
“William, I want to help you. Okay?”
“Can you help me get back the last decade and a half that I wasted on that bitch?”
“No, but I can listen.” Abandoning her bread she padded over to him and laid her hands over hers. “Please, Will. I’m concerned about you.”
Finally giving in to her warm touch, Spike laid his head on her shoulder. “A few weeks ago I walked in on Dru shagging Angelus,” he told her gruffly.
“Her stepfather? She’s been having…relations with him?”
“Yeah, suspected it for a long while but never could prove anything until I caught the pair of them at it. Wanted to wash my brain in a bucket of bleach to get that image out of my mind.” He wasn’t sure he’d ever forget his girlfriend’s stepfather’s piggish grunts as his large body covered her birdlike frame. “Seeing Liam Angelus’ hairy arse pumping away at my girl wasn’t something I ever wanted to think about, never mind see.”
“I’m sorry, Will. She didn’t deserve you. You’re a good man and you should have a sweet, faithful girl by your side.”
“I wanted to believe Drusilla was all of those things. Turned out to be wrong though, didn’t I? See, the nasty bint wasn’t just shagging her daddy…she was shagging mine too.”
“Are you telling me that she was sleeping with Ethan?” While Tara wasn’t entirely surprised, she was disgusted by the woman’s actions and made no attempt to conceal it.
“Saw the two of them at it at the mansion. Sick bastard was doing all sorts to her. Made me want to heave.”
“I’m not surprised, sweetie. Goddess, I never imagined someone could be so callous, even Drusilla.”
Spike snorted, suddenly craving a cigarette. “You lived around my Da for all those years, pet. You should be able to recognize cruelty from a thousand yards. Poofter gets off on it, doesn’t he? You should remember that.”
Tara turned her blue doe eyes to him and nodded. “I won’t ever forget what a sadist your father was. I probably know it better than most.” And she did, So many times she’d suffered humiliating indignities on one of his dad’s cruel whims.
“Lucky that I’ll never have kids, huh? Wouldn’t want to pass on this cursed bloodline.”
“You’re not cursed and you don’t know for sure that you’ll never have a child. You’d make a wonderful father, William, no matter what you think.” She patted him on the hand sympathetically and returned to her hunk of dough.
“Can’t imagine it.” He frowned sadly picking off the final remnants of his black nail polish. “Who would want to carry my brat anyway? Only someone who’s as loony as Dru and she’s firmly out of the picture now.”
“What about you and Buffy?” Tara broached, throwing the bread dough down onto the countertop and kneading it vigorously. “It seems you’re getting close to her. And if you and Dru are over and done then there’s nothing to stop you from being with her.”
Spike snorted rudely, hiding his hope in his eyes behind disgust. “There’s nothing going on between me and that little chit,” he replied breathily, swiftly catapulted back into the dream he’d enjoyed during the previous night.
Of course, there was no way he was going to reveal his little nighttime fantasy to anyone, especially Tara. Talking about Drusilla’s whorish actions was one thing but talking about his nocturnal desires? Well he wasn’t even going to touch that level of awkwardness with a ten-foot pole.
“Don’t think I haven’t seen how you look at her, William. I remember when you used to stare at little Cecily Adams that way. Remember her? You were so cute the way you followed her everywhere.”
He vividly recalled his childhood crush and the ensuing humiliation that it caused. He’d fancied himself in love with his classmate but it turned out that she couldn’t stand being around him. She even laughed cruelly about him behind his back.
“I was twelve,” he said with a hint of annoyance seeping into his tone. “And the little bint turned out to be a gigantic bitch anyway.”
“Well I don’t think that Buffy is a…bitch.”
“That’s because you don’t know her that well,” he pouted sulkily. In truth he didn’t think that Buffy was actually a bitch at heart, but when she unleashed her wrath on him she definitely did a good impression of one. His poor testicles could attest to that. However, in the past couple of days she’d been more agreeable, but if he acknowledged that then he’d give into his desires.
And then he’d be Love’s Bitch again.
It was much safer to lie to himself and everyone around him about his feelings.
“Buffy’s just…just a kid I ended up stuck with. The bint’s resourceful and I thought she’d help me take down my Da. Actually, she followed through with that one. But it’s over now”
“So why is she still with you?”
“Dunno,” shrugged Spike. “Just is.”
“And it isn’t because you’ve developed feelings for her?” Tara asked, her eyes glinting with the knowledge that was exactly why she was still firmly at his side.
“Don’t be stupid, Glinda,” he scoffed, trying to convince himself more than Tara about his lack of emotions for the blonde. “The bird means nothing to me.”
Tara rolled her eyes. Sometimes the boy could be so thickheaded that he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. She’d known him long enough that she could tell when he was lying to himself.
“If you say so, William,” was her only reply.
Determined to prove her wrong, as well as wash away the fantasy of Buffy and the ensuing revelation about his feelings that had haunted his dreams, he rounded on her angrily. “I mean it, love. The chit’s been nothing but a liability to me since I met her. Almost got me killed three bloody times.”
“You have such a tendency to exaggerate,” Tara responded disapprovingly.
He rolled his shoulders. “Nah, it’s true. As soon as I can dump her, she’s gone.” He knew that he didn’t mean it but it was like he couldn’t halt the tirade. The words flowed from him like liquid venom, leaving the bitter aftertaste of mendacity in his own mouth. “I’ve had it with women and love so I certainly wouldn’t get involved with one of Ethan’s rejects. Really, Glinda! I don’t know how you could even think I’d bloody well want that.”
Not wanting her to see the tears that were welling up in his eyes, Spike stormed from the room.
“Silly boy,” whispered Tara.
She had a funny feeling that his words would come back to bite him in the ass.
It was the sound of far off voices that pulled Buffy from her troubled sleep. Only sheer fatigue had allowed her to get any sleep at all after her…informative dream. She sat up in bed, stretching her stiff muscles and rolling her joints before climbing out.
The sight of the white, fluffy robe that Tara had left next to the bed warmed her heart and she slipped it on. Although the robe drowned her in its size, she pulled the warm material around her, snuggling into it.
It was the grumbling of her tummy that made her aware of her hunger. She wasn’t really sure how she could still be so famished after all the food she’d eaten the previous night, but she knew that she needed something to sate her hunger.
Padding out of her room, almost silently, she made her way to the kitchen, the sound of the voices becoming closer. However, she stopped in her tracks as she became aware of what the subject of the discussion was.
Her.
“Buffy’s just…just a kid I ended up stuck with,” she heard Spike sneer coldly. The bint’s resourceful and I thought she’d help me take down my Da.”
Shards of ice lodged in her heart, freezing her in her tracks. Did he really feel that way about her? A little piece of her soul dissolved into sorrow.
“So why is she still with you?” Tara asked. Buffy could hear the worry in her voice, grateful for the older blonde’s apparent support.
“Dunno, just is.” His voice was so harsh and uncaring, as if she really was nothing to him, that the blonde teen wanted to burst into floods of tears.
Realizing that Spike had stolen her heart had almost broken her on the inside. But knowing that he didn’t even want it, and would never want it, was enough to completely destroy her.
Unconsciously she wiped away the tears that were trickling down her pale face, barely even listening to what the pair were talking about. Her attention snapped back to Spike when she heard his nasty scoff.
“The bird means nothing to me.” These cold words echoed fatalistically in Buffy’s brain. “The chit’s been nothing but a liability to me since I met her. Almost got me killed three bloody times.”
“Bastard!” Buffy exclaimed under her breath. “I saved his pathetic, worthless life too. Asshole! Fucking asshole!”
Part of her wanted to storm into the kitchen and kick his twisted, heartless ass six ways to Sunday. The part that won out was the part that wanted to cry and wallow as she listened to him systematically describe how he wanted to be rid of her as soon as he could.
“As soon as I can dump her, she’s gone,” he was saying to Tara. I’ve had it with women and love so I certainly wouldn’t get involved with one of Ethan’s rejects.”
One of Ethan’s rejects?
She thought that during the past few days they’d managed to establish some kind of rapport, maybe even friendship. But to him she was just a whore who he’d saved from her fate and nothing more. It cut her to the bone and she had to push down the bile that rose up in her throat.
Unable to listen to another of his words, she turned, fleeing toward her own room. She would leave this place and make it on her own. If he didn’t want her around then she had no business in staying here. After all, she’d done well for exactly eighteen years without him.
Darting into her room, she pulled on some of the horrible clothes he’d purchased for her and steeled herself. She didn’t know where she would go, but she could make it alone.
Of that she was determined.