Take Heart 10, by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: NC-17
Thumbnail: Buffy’s friends are alive and back in her life; Spike’s chip is dead and gone. Yet those two crazy kids still can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. The sluts. All is not rainbows and puppies, however. Buffy needs time to think, while Spike gets Restless.
Timeline: After a different Primeval, BtVS 4.21;
Author's note: Big hug to the glorious Spikejones for beating ;
Author's website: http://home.planet.nl/~dutchbuffy2305;
Feedback: Yes, please, loads of it, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk
"I saved…" Buffy says, but her voice is high and strangled. She starts again. "I saved their lives so many times, and they still…. It's never enough. ‘Buffy, you should have saved me just a little to the left, No to the right. No, upside down.’ I did the best I could, okay?"
“I know," Spike says soothingly and tries to rub her shoulder, but she’s still hurtling at top speed over the sidewalks.
"Am I a bad friend?" Buffy asks. "Do I try hard enough?"
“Absolutely," Spike says. "In fact…."
He grinds to a halt. There you have it already. A moral decision. And the thing is, it’s not exactly one he can ask Buffy to guide him about, since it directly involves her. On the one hand, this seems like the perfect moment to drive a wedge between Buffy and her friends. All the ingredients are there. And formerly he would have, without a second thought, just for the fun of it. But now he has to think further ahead.
It’s tempting to have her all to himself, but is that what would happen? And will he even like it if she’s all his because she’s sad and lonely? If he’s honest with himself, he thinks he prefers her happy and strong. Even without him. Damn, morality is hard. So’s honesty. He takes a deep breath and decides.
"Don’t take it so hard, love. Your friends are upset and tired, and who wouldn’t be? Of course they're grateful you saved their lives. You should all go and sleep it off, and things will look different."
"You think?" Buffy says and trustingly turns her face up to him. Spike drowns in her big eyes, glimmering with surplus tears, and he doesn’t care anymore. Drown, sink, swim, he doesn’t give a damn, as long as he with her.
"I’m sure."
She slides her hand into his and they walk along at a more normal pace in silence. Here and there, a star peeks through the light cloud cover and Sunnydale looks like a peaceful, ordinary town. Lights are glimmering everywhere and the hum of people talking and music form a peaceful background noise, almost like the sea in its blandness and unceasing susurration. He's happy.
Then Buffy suddenly stops and rounds on him, arms crossed and brow creased. Trouble ahead.
"Spike? The gold chain? Explanation, please?"
Why does she have to remember this now? Spike is stupefied by her intuition. There are a thousand ways he could have gotten the damn chain but she homes in on the truth unerringly. And it’s so unfair. She’s angry with the Scoobies, and now she’s taking it out on him?
"Um, well, I was having a smoke out on the seafront-"
"You left Sunnydale? After I told you to stay put?”
"Yeah, pet, I did. Not your puppy." He's fabricated a palatable version of the story in the meantime. "Now. You want the story on the gold chain or not?”
Buffy gives him a curt nod.
“Right then. I’m having a smoke, minding my own business, when I hear screams. There was this girl, stupid little tart, trolling for customers, and she’s getting herself flung about and bloodied up by these evil-looking blokes. You know the type. Shiny sportswear, trainers with big laces, gold chains, guns. Villains, yeah? I want to help her, is all, but I end up killing them. They had guns on them and drugs, too, love, very nasty characters. Are you upset with me now? They were evil."
He can see Buffy's trying hard to fit his story in her worldview. She seems to accept it, for now.
"Try not to kill anyone, Spike, next time. In fact, don't kill anyone, period. Human courts for human scumbags.”
Spike’s not convinced, but his convictions don’t matter, do they? If he does as Buffy wants, all is well. But if he doesn’t?
"Right, then. Buffy, I love you,” and it’s surprisingly easy to say it again, “but I'm not your lapdog. Or your Scoobie dog. Understood?" His tone is final.
Buffy bridles. "So what are you saying, Spike? I should be happy when you kill people? I’m the Slayer. You’re a vampire. Keeping vamps from killing humans? Kinda comes with the territory.”
Spike becomes very still. "Now we arrive at the heart of the matter, don’t we, Slayer? I'm good enough to hold your hand or save your friends, but I’m still just a vampire to you. Equals in the dark, maybe, but still the slime beneath your feet if your friends are around. You can’t have it both ways, love. I am who I am. Either I'm in, fangs and all… Or I’m all the way out. Your choice."
Buffy stares at him. Is she getting at all what he's talking about? She makes a frustrated gesture.
"Spike, you’re twisting my words. I say again, I’m the Slayer. Kinda stretching the rules already here by not staking you. I can’t just let you off the hook for killing humans because you’re my boyf – because you’re fighting on my side. ”
"Alright,” Spike says.. “Say I meet you halfway, Slayer. Never kill another human being. That be good enough? Or will you think up a new test?”
She doesn’t answer, just stares at him frowning and her eyes darkly asking him something, everything. He suspects that in the end he could never ever give up enough to satisfy her. He considers jumping into the DeSoto and driving off for a second or two, but that would be cowardice, running way. He doesn’t do that. . Besides, the lonely, devastated expression on her face is calling him back so hard he can't refuse. He turns back and runs smack into her. She can’t let him go, either. They stare at each other from a distance of three feet or so. Close enough to smell her every emotion, close enough to cloud his senses, especially his common sense.
"Look, Slayer," he begins. "Buffy. I know this isn't right. I know it's insanity. But think of all the things we can be together. We're matched, Slayer. Buffy. When we're fighting together, it's magic. You can't deny that."
Buffy looks at him hopelessly. He's never wanted her so much as now, her face blotchy with crying, wearing that dull wool coat, buttoned up to the neck in her other prissy funeral clothes in colors that are wrong for her, grays and whites and dark blues.
He steps closer, not touching her yet. "When we make love, it's bloody fireworks, Slayer. Never felt anything like it, and I know you haven't either. I know you, the wildness of you in a way your friends can't.”
“Yeah,” she says. “But they know me in ways you can’t. And that’s me too. Just as much as – you know – when I’m with you. I don’t want to lose you, Spike. But I don’t want to lose me either.”
“Okay. Listen. Don’t want you to stop being you. Don’t want me to stop being me. But I’m willing to give up some things. I won’t kill. People. Unless you tell me to. Big step, Buffy. Why can’t you give a little and let that be enough?”
"Maybe it is enough. I’m not sure. And I need to be sure,” she says.
He lets his frustration show.
“t would be so easy to give in, Spike. That's what’s scary."
She’s not gonna give in, Spike thinks. He sort of knew there was no future in it, but now there’s not even a present. His head aches from all the thinking and he’s hungry and it’s all too much. He can’t even whip up the energy to refute her words.
"Let's take it slow, okay, Spike? It’s all overwhelmy right now.”
Spike swallows a lump of disappointment the size of Sunnydale High. "Sure."
Silently they turn onto Revello. Buffy’s house is easily distinguishable from afar. It’s the only house that's dark, and Spike gets a lump in his throat in sympathy for his poor girl. Nobody waiting for her. On the porch, Buffy slips into his arms and gives him a quick kiss on his cheek. Spike’s a little numb from all the thinking and feeling he's done all night and he's okay with just a kiss.
"Goodnight, Spike,” Buffy says, her skin blood warm against his cheek and he feels the trembling of her words down to his boots.
"Gnite, Buff," he murmurs in her ear and tightens his embrace briefly.
Their eyes meet and the fires that have been banked all evening roar into life again. Spike’s gasping, panting, clawing at her clothes; Buffy’s climbing up his body like it’s a palm tree. She moans loudly and Spike feels her breasts quiver against his chest. His knees knock from sheer lust.
His blood is coming to a boil like soup that’s been simmering all evening, and now the lid’s been shoved off and the gas turned higher and he’s threatening to foam over and splatter all over the kitchen. Buffy’s tongue against his is warmer than blood and sweeter than honey.
“Inside, now,” Spike growls, and Buffy looks momentarily confused about which inside he means.
She drops to her feet and with shaking hands fishes around in her purse for her house keys. She turns around, seeking support on the door behind her, bracing herself for Spike.
Spike wants to fall upon her, ravish her to within an inch of her life, but the dark despair he reads on her face beneath the lust makes him hesitate. Is this really what she needs right now? He strokes her hair, trying to calm her with rhythmic soothing movements, and vaguely wonders when he started caring more about her feelings than his cock.
"What say, Slayer, I give you a nice backrub before I tuck you in?"
She quivers beneath his hand, gives a few token pulls on the lapels of his duster but tiredness and sadness are already overtaking the arousal. Yeah. He doesn’t want to hear reproaches about disrespectful shagging after a funeral, right? That's all it is. He's not getting soft.
Buffy has handed him the reins and has lost all will to move on her own. He divests her of her heavy coat and gently pushes her upstairs. She sits on the bed and stares into nothing, her shallow breaths and the occasional trickle of a tear the only indication that she’s alive. Spike undresses her, button for button, hook for hook. He doesn’t quite know why he's enjoying this so much. Maybe because they sort of skipped this stage in their frenzied involuntary magical unions.
“My face,” she says. “I’ve gotta take off my face."
She directs him to cleanser and tissues and he already knows how to do this from Dru. Beneath the foundation, rouge and heavy mascara emerges a pale, tired face, which needs a few nights of uninterrupted sleep.
When she's down to her lace camisole, a flimsy thing that accentuates more than it hides, and her equally flimsy panties, he finds her brush and starts brushing the long hair, slow and patient, trying to persuade her body to take on the same beat as the combing. Buffy yawns and that's the signal for Spike to take off the underwear and push her gently down.
Buffy is almost limp and he could have done anything to her, but he simply undresses her completely and turns her over onto her stomach. He takes off his duster and shoes and straddles her, keeping most of his weight on his knees, then starts a delicate massage, as slow as his brushing. She's so small and skinny that he hardly needs to exert any force to find the slender, tense muscle of her neck and back, and he cajoles them patiently to become soft and relaxed.
Buffy's breathing deeply and Spike knows she’s completely loose now. He turns her over and pushes her legs up. She deserves a nice orgasm or two to make her warm and tingly before sleep. Buffy murmurs something unintelligible.
"That's okay, Buff, just lay back and enjoy it. You don’t have to do anything."
He licks her sweetly red inner lips until they open, swelling, glistening, and gives her his very best efforts at a slow prolonged coming. Doesn’t want it to be abrupt and violent, just the inexorable shuddering and flushing that should send her right over the edge to sleep.
Buffy's limbs are heavy and slack, and Spike senses her heartbeat deepening and the slow building of heat in her loins. She sighs, once, twice, and then she's asleep. Her hands twitch in involuntary spasms, signaling the first stage of sleep, and Spike turns her on her side and folds her under the covers.
He strips and scootches in behind her. His turn. He pushes a pillow between her knees and slips his cock inside her sweet pussy. He slithers in without the slightest resistance. She's all juiced up and wide open for him. Very carefully, he slides in and out until he comes, stifling his groans in the pillow and scrunching up the sheets in the effort to still his bucking hips. Aaah. Now he can sleep. No need to get out of her warm body, she’s so small and light that he can easily bear the weight of her leg for a night.
He wakes up as Buffy's body signals that she is surfacing form sleep. The room is lit by the sunlight that seeps in around the edges of the curtains, and her hair and skin glow in the warm natural light. He's still inside her and he feels himself lengthen and harden. Time for a nice wake-up shag. A bit more active than last night would be nice. He grabs Buffy’s hips, positioning her to receive some good hard thrusts and rams in deep.
Buffy wakes in mid-moan and grabs the headboard to brace herself.
"Good morning, Buffy," he pants.
"Spike, what...” Buffy begins but is silenced by her own sudden and explosive orgasm.
When Buffy regains her breath its almost like she's trying to get away from him. Spike isn't half done, though, and he holds on tight while he thrusts in rapidly.
"Spike," Buffy grits out, "Not now!"
"I’m not done, wait, just a sec," Spike pants and wills himself to come faster. He manages to get himself over the edge in record time, grasping Buff's struggling hips tightly until he's done. His grip slackens and he slumps over on her back, momentarily exhausted,
Buffy twists away from under him and drives her fist into his nose.
"What the fuck?" Spike says, but she hits him again, trying to kick him out of the bed.
"Stop that, Slayer," he bellows, clapping his hands to his bleeding face and falling hard out of the bed.”What the hell are you doing that for?"
"Is that all I am? Your sex toy! I wasn’t even awake yet!" she says indignantly. “Does the word “consent” mean anything to you?”
"Yeah? Well you finished ‘consenting’ before I did, didn’t you, so don’t give me that. It’s a give and take, Slayer, you don’t just buck off a bloke who’s about to come!"
His cock is still hard and points at her reproachfully. Buffy’s eyes are drawn towards it willy-nilly and glaze over.
"Well? Nothing wrong with it, is there? Made you scream, didn’t it? And there’s more if you need some,” Spike wheedles and strokes himself winningly.
His dick grows longer and thicker and Buffy's thighs shake. Spike takes that as encouragement and climbs back in. Buffy lets herself be embraced and his cock is trapped between their bellies, every touch of her smooth skin making it jump. Spike nuzzles her neck, his hands traveling to her breast.
"Buffy…" he groans into the crook of her shoulder. "”Course this is more than sex. You’re the hottest, most beautiful girl in the world. Let me make you happy…"
Buffy's ribcage is heaving under his hands and he smells the rich scent of her arousal. "Spike. I should…"
The phone rings. The shrill sounds give Buffy the extra incentive she couldn’t find on her own, and she sprints off downstairs to answer it.
"Bugger."
Spike sinks down in the bed, still smelling so sweetly of her body and hair, and strokes his aching member while he waits. He hears Buffy talking downstairs. After a bit she comes up again and looks at him from the doorway of the room. Spike arches his back and spreads his legs so she can get a good look at what he's doing.
"Come back in bed, love," he says huskily, "Need you."
"Looks like you're doing just fine on your own, Spike," Buffy says with raised brows and escapes to the bathroom.
Spike really isn't interested in finishing up all by himself and he goes after her. Buffy's already in the shower and there's just room for a fellow if he stands close to the girl. Real close.
“Buffy…don’t leave like that…we were having a good time, weren’t we?”
Buffy sighs and rolls her eyes but allows him to suck on her breasts and cup her ass.
“I really have go over to the Espresso Pump and talk to the guys,” she says. “They’re still so wigged and they wanna know even more gory details.”
“Doesn’t need to be right now, does it? You could stay a bit, keep ol’ Spike company and make him happy?”
Buffy averts her face and busies herself with washing her hair.
“They’re my friends, Spike. They were dead. They need me. You’ll be fine.”
“But I’ll be bored!” Spike whines, but shuts up quickly as he sees that it makes her withdraw further.
Spike swallows his comments as he watches her dry her hair, dress, and make up her face. Buffy is getting flustered and starts dropping things. He bends over to pick up her lipstick.
“Spike. Why don’t you get dressed and get out of my hair when I’m getting ready? It’s freaking me out! You’re all naked…and starey.”
“Nothing I haven't seen before, love. And I love watching you paint your face,” he says and smiles at her.
She turns away from him and starts picking out jewelry. Now what’s he done wrong? He reaches out and strokes her upper arm.
“Love watching you dress. Love watching you do these womanly things.”
“Spike. Come one, I’m not just going to have lattes and giggle. My friends, you know, people who are important to me, are in pain. Or at least big with the confusion.”
“Aw, what’s a few more minutes in the day,” he drawls and nuzzles her neck. “Let’s just have breakfast together, then.”
Buffy utters a strangled little scream and slams her hands on the dresser. “Stop hovering over me,” Buffy says. “You’re making me antsy.”
“Just gonna leave me here, Slayer, aren’t you. You’ve got what you wanted, and now you want to forget about me right quick. Nice.”
He tries to reach her, catch her eyes, make her feel what he means, but she folds her arms and stares stubbornly at the floor.
“You’re a fine one to talk,” she says. “What you did this morning wasn’t so nice either.”
“What? What did I do except give you a brilliant shag and make you happy?”
“That’s just it,” she says, her voice quavering. ”You used me, and you don’t even know it. Is having another shag all you care about?”
Bloody hell, has Xander made her doubt her decisions in a two-minute phone call?
“How can you say that, Buffy?” he starts, but she shoulders past him, her eyes still averted from blood-splattered face and chest, not to mention his evil dangly bits. Might jump out at her and coerce her, right?
“Just be out of here as soon as you can, Spike. You shouldn’t have come in last night. I said I needed to take things slowly.”
She trots out hastily and leaves the house in less than a minute. No breakfast, Spike notes sourly. Someone should take care of her. That went well. Christ, the first twelve hours of integrating into her normal life couldn’t have been less successful. And he can’t even storm out in a huff himself. He needs to plot out a route from the nearest sewer exit at the earliest opportunity, steal a horse blanket from somewhere. His old one has gone missing. Joyce’s duvets and throws are too flammable.
He drags his clothes on and wanders through the house, poking into cupboards and drawers. Nothing much to find. Joyce’s financial statements don’t mean a whole lot to him. He stares at the bankbooks and insurance papers for a long time, trying to figure out if Buffy’s okay financially. If Joyce was as clever and sensible as he thought she’d be, she’d have insurance and a college fund of sorts for Buffy. But what about the house?
There are virtually no books, just some glossy coffee table art books, trendy stuff like African art. Nothing to really read, no novels, no poetry. Barbarians. It’s gonna be long day. Spike stares out of the windows, taking in the little signs of life in the suburbs. A little girl is playing with a bicycle, doing a drive-by shooting on her dolls, running them over next with her little red and yellow front wheels. Spike calculates the distance he'd have to sprint to get at her. He's hungry. If he got a blanket, he could probably make it. Children are so juicy and sweet; his mouth runs at the thought. Buffy probably wouldn't like it though.
He looks over his shoulder guiltily. Oops. She can't blame him for thinking of feeding, can she? Thoughts are not actions. He rests his forehead against the glass and follows the girl's playing mindlessly. His stomach growls and he he'll have to wait here hours before Buffy comes back. She left him behind to languish in boredom in her house while she goes out and has fun with her friends. He fondles his dick though his jeans. He'll just have to amuse himself somehow.
He goes back upstairs. Might as well be comfy while he wanks. On his way to Buffy's bedroom, he catches sight of the other big room, which he presumes must be Joyce's. Maybe old Joyce has some stuff to keep him occupied. The room still smells of her, old perfume and other scents emanating from the bedding and the closets. He takes a peek inside but there’s nothing but her dull mumsy clothes. Not even one silk negligee he could get Buffy to wear. He looks under the aging clothes, and there’s something he likes. Next to the shoes, there’s Joyce’s secret stack of porn.
Spike hefts it out and deposits it on the bed. There might be more interesting goodies. He finds her diaphragm, over-the-date bottle of lube, a vibrator with worn out batteries. Aw. He installs himself ion top of Joyce’s bed and starts reading. It’s very modest, girly, soft-core porn. Not even erotica, really. No four-letter words, just heaving bosoms and glistening members. Still, he might get an idea or two out of this. If Buffy’s been raised on this pap, she might need to be wooed like the wishy-washy heroines in these supermarket paperbacks. Nah. Who’s he kidding? He could no more pretend not to be a violent predator than she could ever become an ordinary girl. She might not know that yet, though. Might still harbor glycerin-softened illusions about her life and her nature.
Spike jerks off perfunctorily but his heart’s not in it. He tries on one of Joyce’s horrid party frocks and plays with her make-up. There’s got to be some more interesting stuff somewhere in here. Joyce can’t be as squeaky clean and boring as she appears on the basis of this search. He delves deeper in to her clothes closet and finds treasure in a dusty shoebox. It contains a couple of thousand dollars in cash and an ancient dried-out joint. Spike sniffs it but decides not to try it. Too old.
What to do about the money? He could take it and use it to buy things for Buffy. Pretty clothes and champagne and a posh dinner or two. This is probably another of these moral things, he reckons. He ought not to take it. But it’s there, and it’s hard to put it back. Buffy would never know. He finally decides he doesn’t need it, as he still has all that drug money. And he can make more by selling the cocaine. Willy would give him a good price for it, probably. He puts the roach and the money back and erases the traces he’s left on the shoebox. At the last moment, he opens it again and takes a hundred dollar bill. Just out of principle.
The day drags on and Buffy’s still not home. Sunset shuffles in so slowly he wants to scream at the sun to hurry up and pack it in. At last, the glowing copper penny drops behind the horizon and lights turn on all over Revello Drive. Spike has the brilliant notion to search Joyce’s coats and finds a house key and a car key. He pockets them with satisfaction. Those are things he might need. He lopes off in the direction of Willy’s. A nice bite of supper first, sell the drugs, hash out a game plan.
Before he can even exit Revello, he has to stuff himself into a laurel bush in a hasty and undignified kerplunk. Scooby alert. Xander and Willow are flanking Buffy, and to his mind, it’s quite obvious that they’re escorting her home in case of trouble. In case the troublesome would-be, or maybe ex-boyfriend hadn’t exited the premises as promised. Spike bites a laurel branch and kicks the trunk with his feet to keep his anger and frustration inaudible. So she’s afraid to be on her own, huh? Thinks she might be persuaded if she went home alone.
Buffy lifts her head and seems to sniff the air, and then unerringly rests her eyes on the laurel bush Spike inhabits. The laurel bush shakes, although there is no wind, but she says nothing and looks away.
Spike’s had it now. When the three are out of sight, he stomps off and vows to stop pursuing Slayers. This Slayer. For tonight, anyway. He sighs and starts walking slowly back to his crypt, taking the long route. He can’t make head or tail out of what he and the Slayer are having together. Her signals are so crossed you could make spaghetti out of the wires. One moment she wants him to act like a boyfriend, and then suddenly he’s all wrong evil creature. Which he is, sure enough, but it’s bloody confusing to have it ignored the one moment and thrown in his face the next. He kicks a brightly colored child’s toy out of the way. Stupid Bob the Builder. He goes back and crushes it between his fingers until the plastic splinters. There. He’s evil. So what?
Spike halts when he spots a couple of blokes carrying bulky objects out of their house and leaving them on the sidewalk. He’s downwind of them and they smell pretty damn good. Sweaty flesh, beer and Cheetos. He knows he can’t eat them, but it can’t hurt to pretend he's going to. Never mind, they’re fat and old and ugly. Beneath his notice. He only eats the young and the pretty, coz he can. Doesn’t have to settle for a beautiful personality, does he? Don’t make the blood taste any different.
One of the objects is a telly. Looks undamaged. He hoists it under one arm and decides to go back for the ugly saggy armchair later tonight. He knows a demon can splice off cable and electricity for a fee, and he’s wealthy man right now. No reason not to install some mod cons in his homely little abode. He's gonna stay, he realizes. Dig in. He’s got his teeth in the Slayer’s neck and he’s not gonna let go until …
Spike halts in the middle of the sidewalk, struck by the fuzziness of his otherwise fervent wish. He doesn’t even know exactly what kind of lovers he wants Buffy and him to be. How can he shape his future with Buffy if he’s not clear about that? Something with her, involving lots and lost of sex, check. But for the rest? He's not aiming to be her eternal sidekick, that’s for sure. She’s got Scoobies for that role. Thoughts like that make his head hurt. He shakes his head to dispel them and jogs on with his telly firmly cradled against his chest. Focuses on problems he can solve, such as how to while away the time he’ll have on his hands sussing her out, and his own feelings.
On his way back from the crypt to pick up the armchair he takes a different route, a habit picked up from his Master-of-Sunnydale days, and passes Giles’ flat. On an obscure whim, he enters the courtyard and rings the bell.
Giles looks unpleasantly surprised. “Spike. You here. What do you want?”
Yes, what does he want? He stands there, mind going round like Charlie Chaplin in a revolving door. Er.
“About the Slayer,” he improvises. “Money and such like. How’s she gonna be? Mortgages and college money. Couldn’t slay very well, could she, if she were kicked out of the house ‘n all.”
Giles’s face scrunches up in search for a suitable expression. “Well. Spike. I, er, I hadn’t really considered that aspect of things yet. Very, er, perspicacious of you.”
Spike pushes past him into the house. “Yeah, well, a bloke’s gotta think ahead, don’t he?”
He gets no answer. When he looks back Giles still stands in the open door, scratching his scalp with a deeply concentrated expression. There’s an odd smell in the house. As if he hasn’t cleaned up properly after the Invasion of the Doppelganger Zombies.
“Rupert! What do you say? Will you look into it?” Spike says loudly, exasperation getting the better of him.
“Huh?”
Giles looks up, retrieving his hand from his scalp guiltily. He checks the quality of the scurf under his fingernails intently before wiping his hand on his baggy sweater.
“Ah, yes, Spike. Where were we? You were mentioning something about…”
Spike rolls his eyes but explains again.
Giles seems to have a hard time keeping his mind on the subject, although he shows flashes of insight. The half-empty decanter and the full glass of amber liquid standing on the table might have something to do with that. Spike pours one for himself. In that half-minute of inattention, Giles has wandered off and is bent over his record collection, muttering under his breath.
Spike swallows away whiskey and impatience and wanders up to Giles’ bent back. Buffy would want him to play nice with Rupert, he’s fairly sure, but the temptation to slap some sense into the man is mounting.
“Rupes old man, pay attention here. Buffy’s important. More important than your sodding record collection.”
He nudges Led Zeppelin contemptuously. “Poncy stuff. So bloody over, mate.”
“Keep your great clumsy feet away from my records,“ Giles says, but he sounds absent. “I can’t remember which one should be next. I used to know them all by heart, but it’s gone. Just gone. What comes after Cream, Spike?”
“How the hell should I know, Rupes? Don’t care, anyway. Well? Are you gonna sort out Buffy’s finances or what?”
“Shut up for a bloody minute, Spike. I need to remember what songs are on this one. I‘m testing myself. I haven’t been well, and something’s wrong with my memory.”
He accompanies these words by more scratching and stretches and flexes his back muscles like a shivery colt trying to get rid of irksome flies.
“Also my skin is too tight. Very annoying.”
Spike steps back. He’s getting worried now. There’s obviously something wrong with the librarian. He wants it not to be true, because he’s had all he can take with spells and carrying around people in his head, but it’s unlikely that this has nothing to do with the resurrection he and Buffy did. Bugger. He pockets a bottle of Scotch because Giles isn’t looking anyway and drifts away.
His first instinct is to go to Buffy and tell her about this, but he decides not to. He’s not a dog who’s dug up a bone and wants to show it proudly to the master, dammit. If they accidentally meet he’ll introduce it casually into the conversation, but until then she can go hang. She kicked him out, after all. Let her suffer a bit. Do her good. No, it won’t. She’s got cause for sadness in plenty. What she needs is to kick ass and get laid, both of which he could provide. Whatever it’s gonna be, he's not going to grovel. Not.
The armchair is still there, which Spike takes as a sign he’s on the right track with all this. He lugs it home via the shortest route. Not that it’s heavy, but it’s unwieldy and he wants to be done with it. He climbs the fences and hedges on his way and throws it over the swimming pools that lie on the shortest measure between A (the chair) and B (his crypt).
He sets it down in front of his not-yet working telly and hefts his stolen bottle of Lagavulin in a toast. To Buffy and the cozy, just-like-a-normal-person’s interior he’s creating. Spike sinks deeper into the chair and drinks pensively. The TV in his head is showing an old black and white movie, but instead of amounting to less than a hill of beans, Rick kicks out the annoying do-gooder hubby and throws Ilse over his shoulder. He takes her back to the Club and they live happily ever after, killing Germans to their hearts’ content. Rick props his elbow on the edge of the screen and leans in confidentially to Spike.
“Listen up, kid,” he says and shoves his cigar to the other corner of his mouth. “A kiss is just a kiss, as time goes by. But this is war. You gotta take sides. It’s not patriotic to be neutral. That’s all there is to it.” He raises his shot glass. “Here’s looking at you, Spike.”
Well, isn’t that just like a movie star, Spike thinks. Doesn’t even wait for what he has to say. He climbs into the screen after Rick and hollers to him to wait up, but he gets lost backstage. Damn arc lights are too bright, he can’t see a thing, blinding him with their brilliance. He blinks away the tears and tries to see the tiny figure standing there. Buffy! She comes into his arms willingly and she tastes of sunlight and toffees. She clasps his hands tightly.
“I love you, Spike,” she whispers. “Goodbye.”
She runs off and disappears into the rich red folds of the curtains. Spike doesn’t want her to go.
“Buffy!” he calls out. “Wait!” I’ll go! I’ll take your place!”
Her voice shouts back to him, muffled by the thick dusty velvet. He fights with the soft, stifling folds, until they turn to satin and silk, lighter and smooth against his fingertips, easier to find his way through. He parts them reverently, feeling the tender petals swell and warm. The lights from the stage shine through the layers of rose red silk, turning everyone in there to shadows slashing through the curtain, cutting them into ribbons. In the hearts of the rose he finds Buffy, kneeling before a statue of the Madonna, clasping the pink-clad knees in supplication.
Her face shines with holy determination.
“I know what to do now, Spike! It’s all so simple! I just have to...”
A big hand swipes in from above and crushes Buffy to a bloody pulp.
“Aah, tasty,” the giant to whom the hand belongs mumbles and licks off the red mash.
It’s Angelus. Why is he bigger, dammit? He wills himself to become as big as the great hulking figure and steps up to him, nose to nose, chest to chest.
“Ah, Spike,” Angelus growls, half laughing. “Like this is gonna be ending in fighting. C’mere, boy.”
It’s hard to resist that confident voice, those dancing brown eyes, the grin.
“Buffy’s mine,” he protests.
“Buffy who?” Angelus says.
He doesn’t know her yet. It’s too early. Angelus turns away and with a squelching sound plunges back into Drusilla’s supine body. Spike steps back in confusion. How did he get here? His big boot lands in the middle of the little people milling around on the stage. They screech and run away in all directions. Shit, he almost crushed Buffy’s little mates there.
“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Spike hates apologizing, but it’s for a good cause.
The Scoobies are lined up in an empty classroom with their faces to the wall, and their hands clasped over their ears. Okay, he gets it. They’re not listening to him. Apology not accepted. Willow’s hair is bleached white. Xander’s wearing his duster, which he’s going to kill him for.
From the corner of his eye he sees a small form enter the room and flit off again. It has to be Buffy. He hurls after her, determined not to lose her this time. He’s looks back over his shoulder to see what happened to Rupert, but all he sees is the empty hallways of a school building.
Buffy’s standing in the desert, a hot wind blowing her thin clothes against her legs, showing off her lush figure. No. She’s trim. The light’s too intense, blinding him with its bone-white glare. He doesn’t dare step out of the shadow of the overhanging rocks onto the sand. She shades her eyes and waves at him, laughing. He loves her outfit, a bright pink sari and short blouse, showing a strip of golden belly.
“Spike! Come over here!”
He must, if she asks. Spike steels himself against the light and throws himself at her feet. The brittle sand burns his knees even as he pulverizes the bone fragments it’s made of. The sun beats on his exposed neck. Gonna be the mother of all sunburns.
He kisses her belly and looks up at her. Everything about her glows unbearably bright, dazzling him.
She smiles down at him and holds out her hands
“Get up Spike,” she says. “You can do it.”
Spike grasps her hands and stands, taller than she is for a moment but she starts growing on him. Her face turns darker, ominously so, greenish, no, turquoise, into dark blue. She has more arms than before. Two of them grip his cock like a vise, two others strangle his throat. A sizzling hot hand plunges into his chest and rips out his heart. Her belt of skulls clatters in the suddenly fetid breeze and her black tongue lolls out of her grotesquely distorted face.
“This is also me, Spike,” she says sadly, her voice tolling into his bones like a bell. “Can you love that part of me?”
Their joined hands burst into flames. He sees he’s burning all over without his heart to protect him, consumed by Buffy, his sun, but he laughs wildly.
“I want to see how it ends!” he says and throws back his head in exultation.
With a last gigantic effort his seed spurts up into the goddess’ deep dark blue navel, and she turns back into Buffy. His flesh is crisping; it smells like bacon, Cook’s burnt it again.
“Good night, William,” his mother says.
“Night, Mum.”
TBC
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