Ginmar
“But, Buffy, did you do anything to lead him on?”
Oh, this was the bad dream. Not good. Even in the dream,
she wondered how come her mother didn’t notice she was sleeping in her
bed with Spike. Couldn’t she just be happy to see her again?
“I hit him a lot. For Spike that’s like third base.”
“Are you sure that’s all?”
In the dream, it was apparent that her mother, while not
being aware that Buffy was dreaming this beside Spike, was nevertheless
aware of recent events, at least the ones that had brought the house down.
Buffy cringed, watching her mother mentally the review all the things she
and Spike had done to each other.
“That’s sort of disgusting, isn’t it, Buffy? He’s
a vampire. But then who else would want you?”
Buffy sighed deeply and opened her eyes. Spike was curled
up against her back, almost as warm as she herself was, the aftereffects
of the bath and the warmth of the bed. She looked down and saw one of his
hands curled loosely around her waist, its nails painted black as usual.
“Oh, God, I am so not ready for this.”
It seemed to slam into her with all its messy implications.
I am sleeping with Spike, literally. Sleeping with him. What if I fart
or something in the night? An entirely gradeschool-like terror of the male
species descended on her for a moment. Having sex? One thing. Sleeping
together, arms wrapped around each other, naked, no barriers, that, that
was entirely something else, and how had this happened?
She wondered if Maggie Walsh had actually conducted a
good class; what about that dream interpretation stuff? She was afraid
of being found out, she could figure that one out. But why was it anyone
else’s business? Why? If it was okay for Xander and Anya…
Buffy sat up abruptly. Spike sighed in his sleep next
to her, then snapped his eyes wide open, the actions of someone all too
used to uneasy sleep. He blinked at her back a few times. She clutched
the sheet to her chest, knowing he was awake, and determined to avoid him.
Spike eyed her vertebrae skeptically. Maybe, he thought,
phrenology wasn’t such an inexact science after all. Buffy’s spine seemed
to be composed of two complete opposites: resignation and just plain aversion.
He’d never known a woman whose body could well, embody such complicated
emotions. He figured if he tried to touch her, she’d snap and shatter like
some long-dead relic.
“Buff?”
If anything, her spine slumped even more. So that’s what
osteoporosis looks like, he thought.
“Nightmare?”
“Nightmare.”
Then she shrugged. Ah, Spike realized. Bad nightmare.
“Just a dream. Go back to sleep.”
“Not now.”
“Was I in it?”
She turned and glared at him, oddly perking him up. At
least if she was pissed, that was better than the moping-around stuff.
He sat and propped himself against the headboard, without covering himself
up. Let the sheets fall where they may.
Buffy glanced over her shoulder at him, then flushed and
hiked the sheet tighter around herself, which, while indicating a great
deal about her mind set, was otherwise next to useless. He could see all
of her back from where he was. He stretched out leg and prodded her back
with his foot. She gave him another profoundly pissed look over her shoulder,
and then, after shifting around, wiggled to the opposite corner of the
bed, and glared sullenly at him while clutching the sheet to her breasts.
He didn’t quite smile at her, but something about her modesty touched him
enough to keep his mouth shut. He leaned forward, slowly, and she just
looked at him, he took the edge of the sheet and slowly pulled it toward
him.
“Stop.”
“I’ve no intention of acting all Amish now, luv.”
He whispered.
She clutched the sheet to her breasts, and then he pulled
it toward him, exposing first her breasts, which she crossed her arms over,
then the rest of her.
“I could look at you forever, if you’d let me.”
He dragged the sheet down her legs, which she crossed
to go with her arms, but it was a start. He leaned back against the headboard
and waited. Her face was flushed, and she looked down, but she made no
effort to retrieve the sheet.
“It’s customary to return a compliment with a compliment.”
He pointed out helpfully.
Which wasn’t helpful, because all of a sudden she had
to look up at him. If anything, she got even redder. He didn’t have an
erection or anything, and the two of them were eyeing each other from their
respective corners of the bed like wary boxers, but at least she was looking
at him, instead of scurrying to get dressed or something.
”Wonderful, just wonderful”, Buffy thought. “This
is so clinical”.
Except it wasn’t, not with Spike giving her the Spike
look, and the knowledge that she could just look at him forever. Every
time she’d looked at him before, it had been out of the corner of her eye,
or while kissing, or in the middle of frenzied sex, so she hadn’t had the
time. He was completely unconcerned about it, although he did spare a thought
for certain shrinkage issues, he being more sensitive to cold than a human
male.
It would be so much easier staying away from him,
if he had been ugly, Buffy thought:
“God, I’m so shallow.” He was so lithe, all cat’s muscles
and long lines, and he felt as good as he looked. “Oh God. Why did I think
that?”
Buffy wondered if she thought about baseball scores
or something, she could ignore the naked vampire in her bed, looking at
with sloe eyes, his hair all rumpled from sleeping. She especially liked
it when it was like that, and usually she was the one who’d done it. Think
of something else. Something else.
“What….?”
“Hm?” Spike cocked his head curiously at her. “You said
something?” They were both whispering.
“What were you…?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What were you like….?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What were you like when you were human?”
Spike, who had been contemplating what was visible of
her breasts, and wondering why women didn’t just spend all day naked in
front of the mirror doing jumping jacks, was caught badly off guard.
“Wha….Huh?”
“What were you like when you were human?”
The full meaning of that sentence sank in slowly, along
with a feeling of dread. He blinked several times, as the complete horror
of his situation hit him. He froze as he considered the truth:
“Well, luv, I was the most pathetic twat you’d ever seen.
Horrifying hair, prissy, never got laid till Dru, and the poetry…! Oh,
God, I’d forgotten the poetry! Although, now that I think about it, I doubt
very much that anybody who had to listen to it, ever forgot it. You see,
that’s why I offed everybody; I didn’t want anybody telling exactly how
ghastly was my verse. Sad but true. Doesn’t that make you feel all amorous
all of a sudden? Care for a shag?”
Then he considered lying, but that was even worse. He
was an awful liar; the unvarnished truth was usually far more effective,
but it was quite different to find one’s self on the spot all of a sudden.
He’d always done his best work there not by actually telling lies, but
by not telling any bloody thing at all. Planting an idea and letting others
run with it. Hinting, implying, speculating in careful not-quite finished
sentences, that was the ticket. But now…?!
Oh, this was priceless, he thought. Priceless. If he told
her the truth, that would certainly douse the inferno they had going. End
of story. She might feel sorry for him, but he’d bet it was a very platonic
kind of sorry. And if he lied, he’d do it so badly she was bound to find
out, and then whatever little headway they’d made would be blown to hell
anyway. And what on earth could he make up anyway?
‘Yeah, babe, I was a..a…’
Crap, he’d already implied as much.
“Bugger”. He thought. “‘Yeah, baby, I’ve always been bad.’
Oh, bloody hell. “
Buffy looked at curiously, wondering why Spike of all
people, who loved nothing so much as to hear himself talk, was suddenly
silent. It did give her extra time to study him further, time she spent
gainfully by eyeing his arms with wide eyes. For some odd reason, she was
acutely conscious of how different their bodies were, and it wasn’t a sexual
realization. She eyed his Adam’s apple, and wondered why on others, she’d
never noticed. He was just so…different. He was also silent, still. She
was the one to come over all puzzled. Then she realized the significance
of it. He wasn’t answering a simple question; it was worse than she’d feared.
Was he worse than Angel? After all, the chronicles had said his nickname
was “William the Bloody.”
Spike saw her puzzled look turn to worry, and he did what
all men do, even vampires, when confronted with the relationship equivalent
of ‘Does this make my butt look big?” He bailed.
“It’s getting close to daylight, pet. I better go.”
“Huh?”
He rolled off the bed, too fast to notice Buffy’s consternation,
the surprise of someone who hadn’t actually considered not spending the
rest of the night alone. He yanked on his jeans, boots, found his tee shirt,
then picked up the coat.
“Buff, I gotta go.”
“Wait.” Buffy whispered.
Too late.
Spike’s feet hit the ground and he immediately wondered
if it was too soon to climb back up to her window.
“Crap,” he muttered. He turned around under her window,
and looked up, planning the assault.
“Hm. I’m a git, here’s the deal. I was…Argh. Bloody hell”’
A vivid mental image of his former self, curls and
all, appeared in his fevered brain, and he winced, wondering if there was
some way that could possibly be tweaked to be, well, something less git-like.
He took a breath, assessing the tree he’d climbed so much earlier in the
evening and had just descended, wondering how he was going to handle this.
“Spike?”
“Gah!”
He jerked around at the sight of a disembodied head floating
at the corner of the house, but it was just Dawn, eyeing him curiously.
At four AM. What the hell? He glared at her severely, but she was unimpressed.
“What are you doing here?” He snapped at her.
“What are you doing here?” She repeated pointedly. “Looking
at Buffy’s window?”
Perfect excuse, even though he didn’t like to lie to the
kid. Just some things she wasn’t ready for.
“And your point would be?”
He lit a cigarette, and tiptoed toward the back porch,
trying not to look like he was tiptoeing.
“Well, I thought maybe you were here to talk about my
route, you know….”
She shrugged in a very self-effacing way that was so Buffy
and Joyce-like that he stared, simultaneously touched and freaked at the
same time. He regrouped and plunged in.
“What route would that be?”
He sat next to her on the deck, patting the wood next
to him, and exhaling a smoke ring. Dawn cocked her head and grimaced at
him, or perhaps the smoke, but she sat. They stared into the Summers back
yard for several minutes, Dawn sleepily, and Spike with a certain degree
of panic. There was a five second rule for retrieving fallen cookies from
the floor, and there was a totally arbitrary time limit for retrieving
one’s ass from one’s girlfriend after it had been pitched into the fire.
He was afraid he was getting close to his expiration date. He also had
the distinct impression that Dawn had something on the tip of her tongue,
and was reluctant to spit it out. Family trait, that.
“All right, kid, what is it?”
“Buffy didn’t ask you?”
“She might have mentioned it, but you know how fast she
talks. Why don’t you fill me in?”
“Well.”
Dawn took a deep breath and clasped her hands between
her knees. He saw for the first time she was wearing her jammies, which
had little white sheep and moon and stars printed all over the tops and
bottoms. She was also wearing little cow slippers; it was these that caught
his eye, because they so perfectly embodied all her contradictions.
Catching his glance, she grinned in a nose-wrinkling way
he could’ve sworn he hadn’t seen since the spring, and stomped one foot
down, hard, on the deck. The slipper mooed. He blinked. Dawn did it again,
and he shook his head, rather disturbed. The second demonstration sounded
as if the cow was in pain..or heat. Either way, definitely a fine end to
a very odd day.
“Well, I like them.” Dawn said rather sullenly.
Aha. Now he knew what he was dealing with: 100% sulking
American teenager, a creature much easier to deal with the half sulky/
half sweet Dawn who kept changing her moods as fast as….well, her sister.
He exhaled more smoke, and Dawn winced. She waved her
hand in front of her face, and he was amused to see it; his smoking had
never before bothered her, so he wondered exactly where she’d gotten that
habit. Someone new she was hanging about with, maybe? He made a mental
note to explore that area later.
“So?” He prodded.
“Well, I want to get a paper route.” She blurted out.
He sighed, knowing where this was going. Good lord, Buffy
was working in that awful place, now Dawn wanted a paper route. He knew
perfectly well why she wanted one, but it had to be asked.
“Why?”
“Because…”
Dawn sighed an exact copy of his sigh, and he bit back
a smile at that. It was obviously a delaying sigh, exactly as his had been,
and he could see her weighing her options in her head. Explanation, or
just spit it out? She spit it out.
“We need the money.”
“Buffy told you this?”
“Oh, no,” she said disgustedly, irritated at not being
kept informed. It had clearly never occurred to her that Buffy wanted to
spare her any adult worries. “But I hear stuff, so I know.”
“What about your Dad?”
Dawn waved a hand dismissively.
“He’s off boinking his secretary and pretending he doesn’t
have us.”
Spike flinched at her careless dismissal of her father,
then wondered at the practiced way she’d said it. Then he wondered at the
man who could ignore his girls in favor of some….Dawn interrupted his thoughts.
“So I know I eat a lot, and there’s bills and stuff…”
And that way, if I pay some of the bills, people will
have to pay attention to me. If I help pay, then I get to decide stuff,
too. I want cable.
“You don’t eat a lot.”
“Well, we don’t have a lot of stuff anyway.”
Spike looked at her, puzzled, and she tossed her head,
then jumped to her feet, and led him into the kitchen. She wasn’t exaggerating;
there were lots of things like crackers and pasta in the cupboards, but
there was nevertheless lots of bare space there. The fridge was even worse;
only one shelf was half full, and there were only a few things scattered
on the rest. Dawn caught his eye and shrugged.
“Mostly, that’s Willow’s.”
“Meaning, hers alone?”
“No. Another shrug. “She says we can eat it, but she never
has anything we like.”
Hm. Hm indeed. He sat down at the table, and ran his hands
through his hair.
“Does Willow pay rent?”
“I don’t think so.” Dawn said doubtfully. She hopped up
on the counter, and poured herself a glass of water. “So what do you think?”
“How, exactly, do you have a paper route with a broken
wrist?”
“That’s where you come in.”
Spike closed his eyes, suddenly picturing himself sullenly
hawking papers on street corners while wearing a newsboy cap or something.
So much for the Big Bad.
“So…” he said dryly. “I do the actual paper delivering,
and you get the money?”
“No!” Dawn giggled, as if affronting his vampire dignity
was amusing. “No, no, you just drive me there and drive me down the street
while I toss the papers.”
“Can you even throw papers like that?”
“They said I’d have to wait till my arm was better. But
I got up early today so I could see what it’s like.’
“Well. Did you?”
“Did I what? See….how it was getting up early?” She shrugged.
“I pretty much already know what that’s like. I really haven’t slept later
since Mom died.”
He paused for a moment, thinking of Joyce.
“Did you think of any reasons why this might not be such
a good idea?”
“Vampires?”
“Well, yeah…”
“And what else?”
“Demons?”
“And uh, other things…Is that why there aren’t any paper
boys in Sunnydale?”
“Could be. What made you want this particular job?”
“I don’t want Buffy’s kind of job. You just do this and
it’s over for the day.”
“It’s a daily?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
Dawn looked in his eyes, and saw him wavering, why, she
didn’t know. She knew he’d help her, he always helped her….
“There’s got to be a better way, Niblet.” He said slowly.
“There just has to be. Is it really that bad?”
“It’s not good,” Dawn countered. “Buffy has a whole drawer
full of those bills. And she’s tired all the time.”
“She didn’t seem too bad…” Spike stopped himself abruptly.
Oh, no, she hadn’t seemed too bad, but had he actually seen her working?
“She’s working a lot.” Dawn’s tone seemed an equal mix
of resentment and worry.
“Too much?”
He hadn’t been paying any attention to much else outside
of her that night, and to be honest, there hadn’t been a lot there; just
her, and the store. What had he missed?
“Much too much.” Dawn clarified. “She’s never home.” She
looked at him suddenly. “What, did you see her?”
“Huh?” Spike blinked at her, caught. “Yes. Ah, yes, I
did.”
“So? Wasn’t she tired?”
Spike considered his options very carefully.
“You know, I wasn’t paying attention to that.”
“You were probably just, you know, paying attention to
her…”
“Hey!”
“Oh, come on, Spike, I totally know how you feel about
her…”
“Subject is closed, Niblet.”
“So, are you going to do it?”
“I have to think about it.”Spike said. “And there’s something
I have to do first.”
Spike drove slowly by the Doublemeat
Palace, and tried to ignore Buffy so he could assess the place. Crap. He’d
gone by it the other night in order to avoid the customers, and he’d been
successful, but he hadn’t gotten a real feel for the place. He’d been too
consumed with her, being alone with her, after the missed meetings, the
charade before her friends. He thought of his Slayer, who defeated demons
with a quip and a well-placed weapon, and wondered how to amend the situation.
He watched the customers flock
to the counter, yelling out their orders, yelling at Buffy, the stink of
the place overwhelming him from across the street. The uniforms were
garish, the hats designed to cause the maximum amount of humiliation in
the wearer. And what on earth did places like that pay? Five bucks an hour?
Six? Even after eight long hours, it was only forty bucks. How could he
have missed it?
Her, of course. It was that simple.
How was he supposed to concentrate on anything else? He’d crept closer,
watching her through the window, thinking about that first moment, the
kiss that started it all, her lips slamming against his, the struggle across
the floor, the building shaking around them. The desperate search for some
anchor in a world that shivered around them, and finding out the only anchor
was one another. He swallowed now as he remembered it. That kiss…..oh,
and then everything after……
He shook himself. That wouldn’t
do at all. He couldn’t concentrate like this.
What on earth could Buffy do, though?
He watched her standing disconsolately
at the counter, and knew there was something he could do. Had to be, and
it had to be beyond this horrible place. She wasn’t supposed to be waiting
on these ghastly, ungrateful people----it was bad enough she had to save
their ungrateful asses over and over again, she had to serve them stupid
food. She’d been resigned to it the other night, having waitressed before,
but this wasn’t waitressing; there were no tips here. He watched her, and
he found himself getting tired.
She did the same thing over and over again; wiping, cleaning,
running, fetching, smiling at idiots who chewed with their mouths open.
He watched people stand in line for ten minutes, get to the front, and
then make up what passed for their minds. There was a guy who ordered a
huge pile of food, then whipped out a checkbook, and when told, evidently,
that the restaurant didn’t take checks, he drew himself up to enormous
heights, bellowing, and then spitefully knocked a cup of soda onto the
counter. Some of the liquid splashed across Buffy’s uniform. The customers
snickered, and he vamped out so abruptly that his chip blazed a warning
across his skull. He clutched his head, waiting for it to end, and wondered
why it was even necessary to have a Vampire Slayer. Obviously what was
really needed was the Slayer of Rude Bastards.
He watched in horror as a swaggering git dressed in head-to-toe
logo wear sauntered up to the counter, and preened while he ordered. Spike,
even without the vamp vision, could see that nothing the twit was wearing
had his own initials on it, and amended his earlier proposal to Slayer
of Rude Bastards Who Dress Badly.
Good God, more people were lining up.
The place was an ant farm, the line snaking around velvet ropes, the drive
through bumper to bumper. What did they put in those burgers? Drugs?
Buffy smiled, took orders, cleaned, smiled, took orders, wiped counters,
watched as careless gits carelessly spilled stuff, and just as carelessly
shrugged it off.
Spike watched and thought of Dawn,
trying to get a paper route with a broken arm that someone caused. Who,
he suddenly wondered, was paying for those medical bills? He’d lay
money it wasn’t Willow.
All Buffy needed, he thought,
was some respite. That was all. Not to be bailed out, just enough so that
she could take a breather, rest, not deal with anything. She needed long
dreamless nights without nightmares about bills, time to recharge her batteries.
Couldn’t they see that?
He wasn’t even sure who they were. He just
knew if he waited around for some of her friends to do something, he’d
die of old age. One last try, he thought. Maybe if he just talked to her…..
But she was so bloody proud. Had to
do it herself. It was one of the things he liked about her, not loved,
but liked, the way she was so ferocious about doing it herself, coping.
The problem is, she had been so good at it for so long, that when she had
too much to do and cope with, she didn’t know it was acceptable to get
help.
He’d help, he thought. He had to. He
was prescient enough to realize there was a certain selfishness there;
he just couldn’t bear to see her like this.
He shook his head at his own foolishness;
picturing nothing more than the two of them as they had been in her bed
before the nightmare, wrapped around each other, all warm from the bath,
just sleeping, an act that somehow seemed almost more intimate than the
sex. At least it would till both of them were making love and not just
him.
He sighed and waited for the rush to
end.
You are the Chosen One.
It was the smell that defeated her, the smell
on top of the cheerful visit from her friends. How on earth could they
visit like that, be perky, when she felt as bad as she’d ever felt?
Weren’t they supposed to see that? Wasn’t that sort of the definition of
friendship? Were they even looking at her?
It was hard to say what was worse about
the place; the comatose coworkers, the hours, or the smirking customers.
She watched with clenched fists as one older gent, obviously drunk, yelled
at one of the youngest workers, a boy no more than sixteen who looked twelve,
because the kid hadn’t put enough ice in his drink. What she could do to
a guy like that… And the manager didn’t do a damned thing about it.
Keep going, she thought. Just keep going.
Overtime. Overtime is good. Rent would be better. She shoved that
thought out of her head. My friends. Save the world a few times and people
seem to think they can just wait around for me to come galloping in and
clean up after them. She avoided the clock, which had become her
enemy. She wiped the counter, swept the floor, mopped the floor, filled
drinks, knowing that if she looked up, no more than seconds would have
passed, and hours still remained. Keep going, Buffy, she told herself.
Keep going. Paycheck.
But the mindless tasks left her
with only two alternatives: think or don’t think. She didn’t want to think
about this place, the very place she stood in now, because it seemed that
this must be hell. The uniform was horribly cheerful, the hats were worse,
and the smell…oh, the smell…..If a demon had suddenly attacked her, she
wouldn’t have had the heart to fight back.
“Buffy! Empty that trashcan!”
She didn’t even protest, because
it meant looking at the Fire Escape of Lust, but it also meant fresh air. Freedom. She yanked the bag out
of the can, and slammed through the back door, stomped to the dumpster,
and realized her feet were practically numb. Accelerated healing powers,
my ass, she thought. She sat down on the last run of the fire escape,
wincing at the sensations suddenly flooding through her abused feet, and
the memories coursing through her head.
Crazy. Bad. Disgusting.
She was so tired, she didn’t have any
defenses left. Crazy? Oh, sure, her best friend was marrying a thousand-year
old demon who, if you didn’t stuff a sock in her mouthright away, would
just natter on about either capitalism or the good old days when she’d
wreaked vengeance on the male half of the population. Her other best
friend had managed to get so drugged on magic that as a result her little
sister now had a broken arm. Her ex was living in LA. But her? She’d
come back wrong. It was like a ghost, hovering around her, that thought,
and the thought of Spike’s last visit. The noises he made, the way he gasped
against her mouth…Oh, it wasn’t fair. She was a Slayer, she lived in a
world with demons and monsters, and she had a vampire, for a boyfriend,
why couldn’t she find a normal guy?
What’s normal around here? A rebellious
voice in her brain piped up. Vampires are normal around here. Get over
it.
Bad, disgusting? It sure didn’t
feel that way. Spike was the only one who’d seen her naked,
body and soul, and her friends, who should have known her better, mistook
her excuses for her. But he didn’t. She blinked rapidly. “Come with
me, Buffy. This place will kill you.” Oh, God, had she wanted to.
But where to? How? He’d said he’d get money for her, and that was something
her friend would surely notice. They wouldn’t notice her depression, the
hours she called ‘patrolling’ when in fact she was with Spike, they wouldn’t
notice Spike patrolling with them for months, trying to save Dawn,
they wouldn’t notice that she needed money that they had, and they wouldn’t
notice how tired she was. But they’d certainly notice some how if
he gave her money enough to stave off the worst of the money hemorrhaging.
And they would disapprove. They would make her feel bad, but they wouldn’t,
of course, help.
She sighed. They needed me to
slay, she thought bleakly, but I need them. I can’t lose anyone else.
She got up and went wearily inside.
The skies darkened,
and the evening rush came. To her, they might as well have been demons,
these people; they seemed to be so distorted, these people, all hurried,
barking orders, glaring at her for her fumbles, all loud voices, too many
of them, none of them looking her in the eye. She ran back and forth, filling
orders, dropping things, dropping fires, never doing anything right, apologizing,
explaining with a self-depreciating giggle that ‘It’s my first day,’ only
to be greeted with a shrug. She kept offering the statement as an explanation,
receiving over and over again the same response: a disinterested eye roll,
a ‘whatever’ or, worst of all, no response at all. Nothing.
Then she looked up, and there was no
one waiting at the counter, and the tables were slowly being abandoned
in the restaurant. She sighed at the chaos in the dining air, but
there was a breeze coming from the drive through. She turned toward it,
not yet ready to face the cleaning up, when she saw something through the
window and froze.
Spike.
Come with me. This place will kill you.
He stared at her though the window, swallowing,
a muscle in his jaw flexing as he looked at her, as if he could make her
come with him by the sheer power of his stare. Behind her,
there was cleaning to be done, over and over again, more food to be cooked,
because her uniform wasn’t yet totally permeated with the grease smell
yet….
She brushed past her coworkers, banged
through the back door, and stopped. He gave her an exasperated sigh that
so reminded her of her mother that she could have broken down right there.
Somebody else who cared enough about her to yell.
She couldn’t go, she absolutely
couldn’t go, but she couldn’t stay, she couldn’t do the same thing endlessly
over and over again, like that horrifying day of the repitition spell at
the Magic Box, except here it was real. She realized, with something like
horror, that she was going to cry, if she didn’t do something about it,
and he knew it, too. He reached out, as if he were afraid of being burned,
and touched her hair. “Come on, Buffy. Leave.” He whispered. It broke
his heart to see her so exhausted, so defeated. Not his Slayer. She grabbed
him by both lapels, and though he had some speeches all worked up in his
head about how he only wanted all of her, they appeared to have been tossed
out the window. She buried his face in his shoulder, and he realized
she was shaking with exhaustion, too proud to admit it, too stubborn to
quit something once she’d started it, and too naïve to realize that
the job was Sisyphean. I only want all of you, he thought, as if it would
convince himself. At least it was’t a New Year’s resolution.
“Come on, Buff.” He whispered again.
“No. I can’t. You know I can’t.”
He was the only one who knew, the only part
of this horrible day that wasn’t nightmarish. She buried her face
in his chest, tightening her arms around his body till it almost hurt,
wanting to crawl inside him, just wanting him.
The wall was against her back, and
he was wrapped around her, the only refuge she had. He knew what
was going to happen, knew he couldn’t stop himself, wondered if he ever
would. She needed him, he thought, and that was enough for now.
He lifted her head off his shoulder with a gentle palm, but his other hand
found her breast, the irresistible soft curse of its underside, and molded
it into his other palm. He slid against her, hands sliding down her
body, down her thighs, lifting her off the ground just enough, rubbing
against her, while she clutched him like a drowning woman. She was the
one who got his fly open, but she lacked her usual coordination, and he
had to lower her the few inches to the ground to lower his pants. He noticed
she winced when her feet hit the ground. He dealt with her clothes as if
she were a child, she was practically limp against him, always looking
desperately into his face.
She was wearing the tacky
skirt that came with the uniform, a coarse polyester that didn’t go at
all with the Victoria’s Secret panties he pushed aside. They were so close
in height he only had to lift her a few inches against the wall, and then
pushed into her. He rocked against her, trying to reach her, but she clutched
him with her hands, pressed her forehead against his, and tried to pull
strength from him. It always worked, he always did this to her, awakening
her nerve endings, charging her cells with pleasure.
Except it didn’t work, not the way
she intended. She saw the dumpster over his shoulder, and reality
descended on her. He was right. It was killing her. She remembered the
first time, the shock on his face as she guided him inside her, the shock
to her senses as he slid all the way home, hitting nerves she didn’t know
she had. The biggest shock had been his eyes, the same eyes looking all
the way inside her now. He was watching her, worrying about her, when,
she thought, I should be worrying about him. He slid one hand between
them, finding her clitoris, and she realized with a shock that some things
didn’t change. It was short, and sharp, this orgasm, her muscles
clenching around him, and she found she wanted him to come more than
she wanted herself to. He braced his hands against the wall, and went faster,
freezing against her, with his face pressed against the wall.
She didn’t want to move, but
that would mean being discovered. Why did she suddenly care? she thought.
She never cared before.
Spike sighed finally, and pulled away
from her, looking at her sadly. The thought hit him again: Money. Lots
of money. He had to get lots and lots of money. Maybe it really was
unfair of him to demand her love when he was a distraction from her responsibilities.
Money. Where could he get money?
He leaned against her, kissing
her with a calmness that he’d never felt any of the other times they’d
had sex. It was almost pleasant, being so calm, so resolved. He knew what
he had to do, and who he had to do it for, and to.
Who had money?
Angel.
Spike rushed around his crypt, hoping there wasn’t a camera any where. He
hadn’t been so happy since….okay, since, well, anything involving Buffy, but
this was different. Kicking demon ass simply wasn’t the challenge it had been,
but this---Angel---this was a challenge. Just like the good old days. He’d whale
some money out of the old bastard, get it funneled to Buffy somehow, and combine
business with pleasure.
Okay, it would be more like combining pleasure with pleasure, but who cared?
He pawed through drawers and crypt spaces, shoving aside bones and things, and
wondering what it would cost to get a cleaning service. One of these days, he
was going to late up a fag, and the crypt would explode as the dust combusted.
Hm.
He found the cattle prod---always useful for a family reunion of sorts---then
the stun gun, plus some ropes. Hm. What would especially irritate Angel?
Fun, probably.
He considered tossing in some Playboys just to be petty, then decided petty
was just another word for creative, and threw his entire stash in there. The
bag was satisfyingly heavy as he hoisted it to his shoulder.
He looked down at the bed, smoothing over the spread with a hand that seemed
to remember Buffy as much as his mind did. “You’re in my gut, Summers…” Funny
that it turned out to be true after all this, he thought. Every part of his
body had a different memory of her, and together they combined and made a terrible
cocktail of sensation that seized his unbeating heat with electricity as if
he was being electrocuted not from life but back to it.
He’d planned on leaving her a note, and cowardice had nothing to do with it.
No, not at all. The fact that he’d been accusing her of holding back while he
was reluctant to reveal his gitlike past was in no way related to his reluctance
to look her in the eye just now.
He got out the roses and shook the petals all over the bed and then admired
the effect. Then he sighed, and settled against the headboard with a piece of
paper and a pen.
“Dear Buffy..” He chewed on the pen, irritated with the very salutation.
“Dearest…”Yeah, sure, that would be a good way or working up to the whole geek
confession.
“Buffy,” Yo, listen up. Sure. I’ll get laid again before the next century.
He stopped and stared at the ceiling. Help was not forthcoming. He thought abruptly,
she’ll be in the tub about now. She’ll be all wet and warm….and he wouldn’t
be able to see her for several days……
Really, it was terrible to leave a note for her. He should do it in person.
It was the least he could do.....
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