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Barb
Angel had never hated
Spike. In the days when Angel had been unencumbered by a soul, Spike had
been a stupidly rebellious minion tolerated only because he kept Drusilla
occupied when Angel had no need of her. Barely worth noticing, much less
hating. When the two of them had met again three years ago, during Spike’s
brief and eventful tenure as Master of Sunnydale’s vampire population, it had
quickly become obvious that for all the outward trappings of power he’d assumed,
Spike was still the same volatile mix of insecurity, viciousness, and bravado
he’d always been. Soul well-lost once more, all the new improved Angelus
had had to do was aim a few jibes at the soft underbelly of Spike’s pride and it
was like old times again, Drusilla dancing attendance on Daddy and Spike reduced
to jealous, impotent fury. Easy.
Until
Spike had broken all the rules, and allied with Buffy to bring Angelus crashing
down. Buffy’s hands had held the blade, but Spike’s shadow presence had
been right beside her, crowing in triumph as she thrust it home and sent the
once-more-souled Angel to hell. All that came later hinged on that moment
when Spike had made the decision--for proper, selfish vampiric reasons--to fight
for a day on the side of light. Now Angel brooded in the sparkling, modern
kitchen of Hank Summers's L.A. apartment, and tried to decide if it were finally
time for him to start hating Spike.
He
definitely hated the whispers, the looks, the smiles, the touches--oh, he really
hated the touches, teasing and tender--the way Spike’s shoulder kept brushing
Buffy’s, the way Buffy’s hand kept meeting Spike’s on the way to the salt.
Spike was still indulging his bizarre addiction to human food, and was devouring
a revolting mixture of scrambled eggs, pig's blood, and tabasco sauce with every
indication of enjoyment. Angel had always scorned that particular
affectation; who was Spike trying to fool? Now he was almost glad of it;
concentrating on the repulsiveness of Spike's breakfast kept him from dwelling
on the far greater repulsiveness of Spike and Buffy exchanging besotted looks,
or the rancorous exchange going on in the next room.
"...knew, and you didn't tell me?" Linda's voice
was clearly audible through the closed bedroom door.
"Tell you what? 'By the way, dear, my daughter's dating
a guy with no pulse?' Why should I think you'd believe it?" Hank’s
voice wasn't quite as emphatic, but just as irritated. "I still
don't believe it!"
Spike cocked his head in
the direction of the master bedroom, thoroughly amused at the discord.
"Think we're going to be sleeping in the car tonight, pet?" He dunked his
toast into his mug of warm pig's blood until it was sodden with gore, and tore
into it with gusto.
Don't you get it,
Buffy? This is what a demon is. Strife is his raison
d'etre.
Buffy did not get it; she just
wrinkled her nose and poured herself more orange juice. "I don't know, but I
hope you have a blanket in your trunk just in case. Watch it, you're
dripping blood on the hash browns."
"Don't
knock it till you've tried it, love."
"I'll
stick with ketchup, thanks." Buffy aimed a little half-frown at Angel, the
worried hostess fretting over a finicky guest. "Are you sure you don't
want anything?"
Angel shook his head.
"I'm fine." Any moment now his brain was going to explode with the
impossibility of the situation. I can't move on, he'd told Buffy
once. You can. I can't. But he'd begun to, this
last summer after her funeral--not to someone else; that was impossible for
someone in his circumstances, but to a place where he didn't feel her loss with
every breath he didn't take. Living in a world without Buffy had proved
infinitely easier than living in a world where Buffy existed and he couldn't
have her. When they'd dragged her back, damn them--Willow and Dawn,
anyway; Spike was already taken care of--he'd braced himself for the renewal of
that old pain, but it hadn't come. The wound had finally closed, and he’d
walked away from their post-post-mortem rendezvous with regret and a tremendous
feeling of freedom.
Until today. It
wasn't that she'd moved on--it was to whom she'd moved. "No, I take it
back. I do want something. An explanation would be
good."
Spike's knuckles whitened on his mug
of blood and the muscles in his jaw worked. "I love Buffy, Buffy loves me,
we've been shagging like minks
for a week, and with luck will continue to do
so for many years to come. Anything else you need to know?"
Angel watched the younger vampire with loathing,
imagining that smug face beaten and bloody, eyes swollen shut, that oily smirk
smashed into broken-toothed ruin... Buffy's hand closed on top of Spike's, her
fingertips barely extending to the first joints of his fingers, and gave it a
reassuring squeeze. Angel pressed his fingers to his temples. He
could feel his skull starting its slow-motion, Technicolor expansion
now.
Linda's muffled tirade continued.
"I can't believe you'd put us in danger like this! He could
have--"
"Talked us to death?" Hank
rejoined.
Spike jerked upright. "I
heard that, y'wanker!"
Buffy finished her
orange juice, got up, tiptoed over to the bedroom door and rapped on it.
"Uh... Dad? We have to leave now."
The argument within silenced itself abruptly. "Fine,
honey. I'll see you later."
Buffy
aimed a stern look at Spike, who mouthed 'Do I have to?' Buffy gestured
emphatically at the bedroom door. Spike sulked for a moment, then heaved a
sigh and recited, "Linda, I'm sorry I scared you, I promise never to eat anyone
even remotely connected to you ever, and could you please not have your grandmum
uninvite me while we're gone?"
More silence,
then a grudging, "I'll think about it," from Linda.
Ordeal survived, Spike got to his feet, locked his hands over his head in
a contented cat-stretch, and chuckled. "Your Dad can pick 'em. Bet
she's a dab hand with a battleaxe." He scooped up a random assortment of
breakfast dishes and dumped them into the sink to dessicate--only
semi-domesticated, then. "We're taking the DeSoto, Peaches. I'm not
entrusting my flammable hide to a sodding ragtop."
Angel watched stolidly as he walked over to Buffy and hooked his arm
around her waist. He felt his fists starting to curl in on themselves
again, and forcibly relaxed, muscle by muscle. He wasn’t going to give
Spike the satisfaction of reacting further. Buffy rolled her eyes as Spike
pulled her close, a little smile playing about her lips--very much aware of what
he was up to, but not complaining about it. The kiss was deep, leisurely,
and intense; far from prolonging it to tweak his nose, Angel got the distinct
impression that the two of them had forgotten his existence
entirely. They finally pulled away from one another, a reluctant,
molasses-slow separation. Spike tossed his car keys into the air and
caught them, shot Angel a cocky, infuriating grin, and sauntered out
whistling. Buffy's eyes followed him out the door, the little smile
lingering.
Angel entertained a vivid,
satisfying image of running Spike over with his own car, grinding his body into
red jelly on the pavement, and felt momentarily better.
Ten minutes later he stood with Buffy in the lobby of the Allman
Luxury Apartments, waiting for Spike to bring the car around from the
underground garage. Not by the southern exposure of the front doors, where
morning sunlight streamed in through the plate-glass windows and set the brass
door fixtures ablaze. They'd dodged the gleaming spears of light and
crossed to the west-facing side entrance, still in deep shadow. Buffy
hadn't hesitated, or checked the position of the sun. "So. You must
have planned this all out pretty well ahead of time," he said with a nod at the
front entrance. "Figured out all the places you can't go, all the things
you can't do with a vampire in tow."
If
Buffy noticed the sarcastic edge to his voice, she ignored it. "I’m all
about meeting the challenge." She sounded almost cheerful about it.
"They don't design buildings for daytime vampire access. This being of the
good under most circumstances. Spike's scarily inventive when it comes to
getting around in the daytime."
"It is
scary, isn't it?" Definite oozing of sarcasm there.
Definite ignoring of oozing sarcasm on Buffy's
part. He should have known there was something wrong at their awkward
meeting last month, but he'd been too stunned by the fact of her return to do
much but wonder at her presence. Buffy, in turn, had been tired and
withdrawn. They might as well have been on different planets for all the
connection they'd made. He wished he could lay it all to the anomaly of
her death and resurrection, but no, this was simpler: two people apart, lives
diverging day by day, month by month, year by year.
If he'd walked into this lobby today and seen her for the first time,
would she arrest his eyes and heart as she had six years ago? Then it had
been her innocence which drew him as much as her beauty, the terrible unfairness
of this girl being made a sacrifice, sent all unawares to fight horrors beyond
imagining. The slender young woman in the camel pullover was still
beautiful, but no longer a child, no longer fresh and innocent and
unspoiled. Death was her companion now; her eyes had seen too much of it,
her hands had dealt too much of it, and now--why, God, why had he never killed
Spike? It would have been so easy!--she’d taken Death into her heart. The
blazing joie de vivre she'd displayed at fifteen was no more; would he notice
her at all? Or would he pass by, his encounter with Buffy Summers nothing
more than a moment of curiosity, quickly forgotten?
If he caught her eyes, perhaps he would pause a moment, still. The
fire had dimmed, but the coals still glowed, waiting only the right breath of
wind to blaze up again, the more fiercely, perhaps, for having been banked.
Buffy gave him a look as he stood brooding
by the potted ficus, a quick lift of the head--pleading, almost shy, balancing
lightly on the balls of her feet as if at any moment she might run to him--or
away. She sought his eyes, apology in her own. "I didn't want you to find
out like this," she said, quiet, sincere. "I was going to tell you.
I was going to find the perfect words to explain it all, and tell you at the
perfect time." She essayed a small, hopeful smile. "I haven't found
the perfect words yet, but I'm pretty sure the perfect time is coming up in
March, 2012."
Did she want him to accept
this with no more cavil than he'd accepted Riley Finn? As if it were right
and healthy, just one more instance of how she'd gone on with her life?
"No time like the present. Tell me how you could do this. With
Spike, of all--my God, Buffy!" Anguish tightened round his heart like
barbed wire; not dead enough to ward off this pain, not yet. "Spike!
You know what he is!" He strode towards her, towering over her
(uncomfortable to do so; he’d grown used to looking Cordelia in the eye).
His hand went to her neck, fingers tracing the fading line of bruises.
"And you let him do this to you?"
Buffy
stiffened at his touch. She pulled down her collar on the other side,
exposing the overlapping white scars--the marks of vampire’s fangs, two from
enemies who’d wished her dead or defiled, the third... "And I let you do
this to me," she said. Her voice was trembling, very slightly. "What
I let Spike do is my choice."
Self-recrimination sprang up in his breast like a weed no amount of reason could
kill: he'd been dying, she'd provoked him, no vampire in creation could have
shown any more control than he had under such circumstances... but all the
rationalizations in the world couldn't change the fact that none of the bite
marks on that fair neck belonged to Spike. It was queerly jolting.
"He hasn't..."
Buffy smiled, a
mischievous little feminine smile. "Are you kidding? He got
offended when I brought it up, in a cute sort of punk-Victorian
way. I thought he'd want to... but biting me? Not even on the radar
for him. Except for those play-bites that make you go all tingly and...
OK, TMI. Sorry."
Angel regarded
the top of her head with bleak disapproval. "You do realize that if you
ever use the word 'cute' to describe any aspect of Spike again, I will have to
kill both of you?"
She took a step
closer and laid a hand on his arm, earnest entreaty in her gaze. "I'm
sorry. I don't want to make this hard for you. I really don't.
But I can't--I can't pretend he's not important to me. I can't pretend he
doesn't make me feel... whole."
"Whole? Buffy..." Angel hesitated, closed his eyes. She was still
looking up at him when he opened them again, big solemn grey-green eyes
searching his face, soft ripe lips parted ever so slightly... obscene, to think
of their living human warmth pressed to Spike's chill dead flesh, as once they'd
pressed to his. "You're right, this is your choice. But if this is
the choice you're making, there's something wrong. I was in a bad place
last year. The despair, the--I did some stupid things, things I
regret. I thought they'd make me feel better--I thought they'd make me
feel, period. But it only made things worse." Her eyes were
attentive, but blank; nothing he was saying was striking any chords. He
swallowed hard and forged on. "This isn't you. The Buffy Summers I
know is a good person, a caring person. You can't tell me that Buffy
Summers is capable of falling in love with a thing that's killed tens of
thousands of people and doesn't care--that a monster like Spike is what it takes
to make you whole."
He'd struck a
nerve; she flinched as if every word had barbs attached. Tears welled up
in her eyes and she blinked them back. “You don’t understand, you
can’t--when I first came back... the whole world was grey, and flat, and so was
I. I didn’t feel good, I didn’t feel bad, I didn’t feel anything. At
all. Everything was just... nothing. Except Spike.” A shaky
little laugh. “The last month’s been my own personal vampire edition
of Pleasantville, minus the extra who looks freakily like an
ex-boyfriend.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and her voice fell to
a whisper. "Maybe I'm not the Buffy Summers you know. Maybe Willow
screwed up. And if I'm not, what are you going to do about it? Take
me back and trade me in for next year's model? I never asked to come back,
but I'm here and you're stuck with me--this me. And this me needs
Spike. Loves Spike."
Her voice
steadied, and she repeated, "I love Spike," almost to herself--was this the
first time she'd said these words aloud to anyone else? "I know what Spike
is. He's killed more people than I can get my mind around. Just like
you." Angel started to protest, but she cut him off. "I know who he
is, too. He’s the one who sat with me when I found out Mom was sick.
He helped me fight Glory and risked his life for my sister and stuck around
after I died and helped my friends. He feeds me disgusting gooey nachos
and cheats at poker and quotes Shakespeare and Johnny Rotten and watches my back
and sort of repents of teaching my sister to shoplift." Her head came up,
and she looked him right in the eye; the light was back in hers. "And he
loves me. Spike loves me, and knows it's impossible, and is willing to
fight to make it work anyway. He may be a monster, but he does a pretty
good imitation of a man."
"And that's
all it is. An imitation. He's not William."
She was angry, now, her gaze gone stormy. "No, he’s
not. I didn't fall in love with William. I fell in love with the
thing that killed him. Do you think I forget that,
ever?”
"Yeah, I do. I was at your
funeral. I got the whole 'Spike's a good guy now, he loved Buffy, the
chip's just as good as a soul' lecture from Dawn." It had shocked him,
Dawn's fierce defense of Spike, almost as much as the gaunt, limping,
hollow-eyed specter Spike had been at the funeral. "It's bullshit.
We both know it. He's--"
"Here," Buffy
said, as the DeSoto pulled up to the curb and Spike laid into the horn.
"Are you coming or not?"
"Buffy... I gave up
everything we had so that you could have--" Something clean, something
sunkissed and normal and good in your life. If you had to throw your life
away on a vampire, why couldn't it have been me? But it was far too
late to ask that question; he'd been the one to leave, after all--not just once,
but at every turn when fate seemed determined to thrust them back
together. He had a destiny, after all, more important than his happiness,
or hers.
Her eyes softened, storm turned to
sea-mist, and for the first time in any of the fights they'd had over that
decision, he saw pity in them rather than wounded betrayal. His was not
the only old wound which had begun to heal. "Yes. That's
right. You gave up everything we had. And now we don't have it
anymore. Please, Angel--don't break what we've still got." She
turned and straight-armed the door, and after a moment Angel bowed his head and
followed her out to the curb, to the place where sunlight and shadow
met.
It wasn't a backup plan,
Willow told herself, because she was going to come up with a miracle. She
was just exploring her options. So far this option didn't look very
promising. She'd been down to the Department of Social Services building
with her parents half a dozen times over the summer, to deal with assorted Dawn
problems, so she hadn't exactly expected marble halls and augustly bearded
Viennese doctors selflessly toiling away on behalf of the indigent in libraries
that made Giles's look like the Scholastic Reader Book Bus, but she hadn't
expected quite so many roaches, either.
The
balding, shirt-sleeved man across the desk from her smacked a dog-eared Ellery
Queen paperback down on their visitor, inspected the corpse for a moment and
flicked it into the trash can. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Rosenberg.
Aaron Gustavsen.” He offered her a large flabby hand and Willow shook it
gingerly. Gustavsen sat back in his chair and rubbed his brow.
“Sorry. It’s like the Apocalypse in here.”
“It can’t--oh.” A squeaky nervous laugh died on her lips. “Figure
of speech, right? Because the whole plagues-of-Egypt motif?”
“Might as well be the end of the world--they've been
tearing up the sewer lines over on Alpert, and the damned things have been
coming up through the drains in the bathroom. We're supposed to be getting
an exterminator in Wednesday." He pursed his lips. "You said you
were concerned about a group of homeless people squatting on city
land?”
Willow nodded.
“Concerned. Very. But not in a call the police way--I want to know
what can be done to un-homeless them. And I think a lot of them aren’t all
there.”
“How many did you say there
were?"
"I'm not totally certain. Maybe
eight? Or... fifteen?" Willow made an apologetic gesture. "I'm
sure there's not more than twenty. But they're all living in the dump,
which can't be sanitary, and, you know, winter's coming and I know we’re not on
the Russian Front or anything, but it gets nippy. I'm worried about
them. So I wanted to see if I could do anything helpful, because that's
me, always helpful."
Gustavsen gave a
noncommital grunt and began shuffling through the mass of papers on his
desk--case histories, forms, menus from The Pizza Guys. "Let's see.
First of all, you'd have to--are you related to any of them? No?
We’d need to send a caseworker to make contact with them, convince them to come
into the Center on their own, and sign up for one of the transitional
programs. That would be difficult. Once that's squared away, you can
get them into the Grapevine Clinic for diagnosis and prescription meds, with
followup to make sure they're taking them, get them into a halfway house and
employment assistance program..."
Willow
brightened. That didn't sound too hard. "Well--that's great! How
long will that take? Can we do it tomorrow? I can take you right
there, and we can round them all up!"
He
stared at her for a minute, then laughed--not unkindly, but as if her enthusiasm
pained him. "First of all, we'd have to assign a caseworker, and we're so
understaffed right now it's not funny. Two weeks, if we’re lucky. Then
we'd need to make sure there's room for more people in any of the
programs. What with the energy crisis last summer and the state's budget
hemorrhaging to death, our DMH and PATH grants have been cut to the bone."
He looked up from his papers and handed her a California Department of Mental
Health pamphlet. "Three to six months, assuming no more budget cuts.
They're good programs, when we can afford them."
Willow stared at the pamphlet. Helping the Homeless Help
Themselves! it said, with a happy little picture of a kindly volunteer
leaning over the shoulder of a sweet old woman who looked way more together than
any of the bag ladies of Willow's acquaintance. "Six months?
That's..."
"What we have to deal
with." A note of sympathy entered his voice. "The other option is to get
yourself appointed the legal guardian of the person you’re concerned about, with
power of attorney. Assuming the court granted your petition, then you
could have them committed to the state mental hospital. Though they’re so
full I don’t think you could keep them there very long; they’d have to go
out-patient, and someone would still need to see that they kept taking their
meds... And you'd have to go through this process individually for each one of
them. Believe me, I wish we could just wave a magic wand and help everyone
immediately, but it can't be done." He smiled wryly. "About all we
could do in the timeframe you're suggesting is call the police and have them
kick them out of the dump and maybe arrest them for squatting."
"I--I see. That's not really what I had in
mind." Willow got up and turned to leave, dejection in every limb of her
body. Halfway to the door she turned and rushed back. "Isn't there
any way to speed things up?"
He
smiled--wistful, almost--and wasn't that weird and disturbing in a pudgy
middle-aged bureaucrat? "There's corners you can cut here and there, but
three months is the best you could hope for. If you want me to put your
name on the waiting list for the Sunnydale Community Outreach, that's the most
comprehensive--"
"Thanks, but I've got
to--this is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Talk.
I've got to talk. To people--uh, relatives. And--thanks for the
pamphlet."
She waved the little slip of
paper at him, feeling like an idiot, and beat a hasty retreat out the door of
the cramped little office before she could make a more elaborate and detailed
idiot of herself--something involving tinfoil hats, maybe.
“Ms. Rosenberg!” Gustavsen called after
her. Willow turned to see him standing in the doorway of his office, his
scalp pink with exertion. “Some advice--don’t try to deal with this on
your own. I know it’s heartbreaking--believe me, I know--but you can do
more harm than good, especially if some of these men are mentally ill. If
you want to help, volunteer at the Salvation Army or the Battered Women’s
Shelter, or someplace where you can learn the ropes.
Please.”
Willow nodded, her eyes
falling to the toes of her Birkenstocks. “I understand.” She turned
once more and scuffed down the corridor with her book bag bumping along behind
her, discouraged. She'd missed lunch to come downtown, she hadn't
accomplished a thing, and--she glanced at the clock over the deserted
receptionist's desk in the lobby--she was going to be late getting back to
campus for her biology class if she didn't hurry. "Wave a magic wand," she
muttered. "Yeah. Right." She shouldered her bag and blinked as
she walked out into the bright December sunlight. The book bag thumped
against her back as she trudged down the sidewalk, one sharp corner digging into
her shoulder blades with every step. Poke, poke, poke. A reminder of
what the bag contained, down under Social Construction of Reality
and Jansen’s History of Art.
In the end it all comes down to what price you’re
willing to pay to get what you want, doesn’t it? You were wiling to give
up your soul to get your friend back. Or so you claimed at the time.
How much are you willing to give up to redeem a dozen
lives?
She left the DMH
building and walked across the dry lawns, past the cooing flocks of
slate-colored pigeons with iridescent necks that congregated around the little
hotdog carts which catered to Sunnydale’s population of civil servants.
There was the Municipal Court building, and Parks and Recreation,
poured-concrete monstrosities dating from the ‘50s. Willow stopped at the
fountain in the center of the square; the fountain itself was turned off, but
the pool still held water, along with a selection of dead leaves and a
scattering of verdigris-encrusted pennies. There was City Hall, with
the Mayor’s office front and center, where Buffy’d had to rescue her from the
late Mayor Wilkins. She tried to remember who the Mayor of Sunnydale was
these days, and failed. The Right Honorable Not-A-Wilkins. She gazed
down at her wavery reflection in the water. She didn’t have any change to
make wishes on.
Her reflection smirked up at
her. Is there anyplace in Sunnydale where you haven’t been kidnaped
and held captive at one point or another?
“Shut up. Shut up! Do you think I’m stupid?” Willow shouted,
causing several pigeons to flutter away in alarm. She dropped the book bag
on the rim of the fountain with a thump and slapped the water with her open
palm, sending droplets flying and breaking the face beneath her into a thousand
crazy shards. “I know what you’re doing! I know what you’re trying
to get me to do!”
A silent laugh echoed
through her head. Do you, clever Wicca? No more
games. No more illusions. Just the voice. Cold and smooth and
dark, like deep water, like liquid obsidian. Then the only question
before us is, are you going to do it?
Over the
last six years Buffy Summers had developed a very firm set of rules concerning
vampires, and kept them constantly in mind when dealing with
Spike.
1. All vampires are to be staked,
immediately.
2. There will be absolutely no flirting, taunting, or
barbed sexual innuendo exchanged between Slayers and chipped, helpless vampires
who are not staked out of misplaced pity and consideration of previous
world-saving assistance.
3. Flirting, taunting, and barbed sexual
innuendo between Slayers and helpless chipped vampires will never, ever lead to
furtive contemplation of what big hands he's got, Grandma, or to sweaty, naughty
thoughts about the implications thereof.
4. Sweaty, naughty thoughts
about helpless chipped vampires will not lead to embarrassing over-reaction when
one discovers said vampire harbors similar thoughts about Slayer, at least until
vampire makes tactical error of chaining one to wall and threatening to sic
ravenous ex-girlfriend on one, thus justifying over-reaction.
5.
Slayers will never, ever forgive vampires for stupid chaining-to-wall stunt,
regardless of degree of heroic suffering endured by said vampire for self
and sister at hands of excessively bitchy hell-goddess.
6. Having
forgiven vampire, Slayers will never be so silly as to re-invite said vampire
into her home. Having re-invited vampire into home, will not give
slightest hint of encouragement to said vampire's heart-melting declaration of
devotion.
7. Slayers will never use dying and returning to life as
excuse for hanging out with morally deficient vampire half responsible for
resurrection, no matter how impressed she may be at younger sister's tales of
what vampire did on his summer vacation.
8. Hanging out with morally
deficient vampire will be on purely platonic, business level only. There
will be no flirting, taunting, or barbed sexual innuendo (see Rule #2); neither
will there be any undue appreciation of vampire's wit, fighting ability,
supermodel-grade cheekbones, muscular yet compact build, et. al. Arguments
and the occasional fistfight are not to be considered expressions of sublimated
passion.
9. Having succumbed to sublimated passion, Slayers will never
be so idiotic as to fall in love with morally deficient vampire. Having
fallen in love with morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never be so idiotic
as to tell him so. Having confessed love to morally deficient vampire,
Slayers will never be so idiotic as to attempt actual relationship.
10.
In hammering out relationship with morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never
engineer a weekend involving said vampire, previous vampire boyfriend, father,
and father's vampire-phobic girlfriend. It cannot end
well.
She was still working on
Number Eleven, which would involve Slayers never driving long distances in the
same car with current and former vampire boyfriends. It wanted
polishing.
They were tooling down Highway 91
towards Corona as fast as the law allowed or a little faster, the mid-morning
sunlight striking a galaxy of miniature rainbows off the DeSoto’s grease-clouded
windshield. Spike was wearing a pair of welder’s goggles to protect his
eyes from the sun--in conjunction with the black leather duster, they made him
resemble a demented World War I ace. “‘....rock all night, sleep all day, it
don’t matter what they say...’” Spike jounced up and down in the driver’s seat
in time to the music, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He took a
deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke, trailing the butt out
the window. “Fuck, I love this song!”
“Is
that what it is?”
“Oh, you love it
too, baby! Better than that Chieftains bollocks, innit? Lights a
fire under you!”
“It’s gonna light a fire
all over you if you don’t roll up the damn window.” Angel slouched further down
in the back seat. “On second thought, go right ahead and leave it
down. And what’s wrong with the Chieftains?”
“Nothing, if your idea of good music begins and ends with ‘Danny
Boy.’” Spike pulled his arm back in just before his hand began to
smoulder, his manic grin never wavering. “Have to roll the window down if
I’m going to have a smoke around you health nuts, don’t I?”
“Let’s not make that literal, hm?”
Buffy opened the glove compartment and pulled the Triple A map from the mess of
repair receipts, broken tire gauges, and general crud, unfolded it and re-traced
their route for the dozenth time. “It’s the second exit,
right?”
“Love, it’s twenty miles
yet.”
“Right. Twenty miles.
Ceasing to panic.” Buffy started to re-fold the map. “Not that I’m
panicking. Large with Zen-like calm, here.” She regarded the
abstract origami sculpture in her lap with dismay, gave up and stuffed the map
back into the glove compartment in ignominious defeat. Spike looked at
her, cigarette cocked at a jaunty angle in one corner of his mouth, and it was
like fighting the magnetic pull of the earth not to scoot across the expanse of
sun-warmed black leather between them and take refuge against his side,
ridiculous goggles and all. That would upset Angel. On the other
hand, wasn’t it unfair to Spike to act based on what would upset Angel? On
the third hand, Angel was doing them a favor and it would be tacky to rub his
nose in her new relationship. On the fourth hand...
...on the fourth hand she was headed to see Faith and her
stomach was tying itself in knots--not weenie little granny knots, either, good
solid double-hitches--and after days of planning she still had no idea what she
was going to say. Spike’s leather-clad arm slid round her shoulders, and
he snugged her up against his lithely-muscled torso (when had she crossed the
seat?) as if they’d been machined for one another, interlocking Buffy n’ Spike
action figures, stakes sold separately. The discordant twinging of her
Slayer senses mellowed into Mmmmmmm, Spike , the tense knot between her
shoulder blades eased up, and she felt a faint hope that she could engage Faith
in civil conversation for five minutes before resorting to communication via
blunt instrument. Next on Oprah: Vampire Valium--Moral Support or
Co-Dependant Wackiness? You Decide!
But whichever it was, it worked, and if the fact that Spike slacked off
on baiting Angel for the remainder of the trip meant anything, at least she
wasn’t the only one jonesing for a PDA fix.
There was covered parking, or close enough for government work; no one
caught fire on the way to the door. There was an hour-long delay while
they signed in, were searched, and cooled their collective heels waiting for a
private booth to open up. There were a dozen other people in the waiting
room with them, including a few fretful children, so discussing what they’d come
for was problematic. Every now and then a man with a clipboard popped out
of a door, called out a name, and disappeared, apparently terrified of seeing
his own shadow and causing six more weeks of incarceration. The lucky
winner would get up, collect their children or CARE packages of cigarettes and
toiletries, and file out through the same door.
Buffy perched on the edge of the bench, one hand fiddling
with the cool silver weight of the ring on the chain around her neck.
Spike was sliding progressively lower on his tailbone beside her, eyes closed,
one hand thrust into his belt and his booted feet obstructing as much of the
aisle in front of him as he could manage. Angel occupied the chair
opposite, watching the two of them with folded arms and a melancholy
frown.
A pair of guards marched by in
the hall outside, escorting a sullen woman with short-cropped hair and an
expression of dull resignation. Buffy watched them disappear down the
corridor, feeling twitchy. The atmosphere was oppressive--the guards, the
stark institutional rooms, the impersonal humiliation of the
routine. Hello, prison! Duh! She’d wanted Faith
here. Scratch that, she’d wanted Faith beaten to a bloody pulp, suffering
every second of misery she’d put Buffy through tenfold, but prison was the right
thing to do, so she’d settled. Or so she’d thought. Stalag 17 this
wasn’t, but... Buffy tilted her head in Spike’s direction and
whispered, “So if you did something awful, which punishment would you pick--get
beaten up, or do ten years?”
“What d’y’mean,
if?” Spike opened one eye. “Getting off scott free’s not an option,
then? Beating. Lock me up and I’d go starkers inside a
week.”
“Total agreement. I mean, it
hurts, but then it’s over. Does that say something about
us?”
“We’re not just masochists, we’re
impatient masochists?”
“I am strangely not
comforted.”
Mr. Clipboard did the human
cuckoo-clock routine again. “Summers?”
Buffy got to her feet, all the knots in her stomach untying at once, releasing a
flock of mutant killer butterflies. Angel looked up. “You want me to
go in with you?” Buffy nodded, and he rose silently to his feet.
Spike didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to; that he’d watch her back was a
given. Her hand found his and hung on tightly as the three of them
followed their guide out the door and into the large hall where the line of
glass-divided booths stretched from one end to the other.
Buffy watched as they brought Faith into
the cubicle, two big guards with crew-cuts and hands the size of Easter
hams. Buffy wondered idly how long it would take Faith to turn them into
cold cuts if the mood took her, and if Faith would enjoy doing it. Faith
of the long dark tresses and heavy-lidded eyes, the face of a street-worn
Madonna and the mouth of a Long Island dockworker, stood there while the guards
uncuffed her hands, trying for nonchalant and mostly succeeding. Buffy
pulled out the chair on her side of the barrier--it was the same kind of chair
they’d had in her elementary school, bright blue plastic seat and all--and sat
down. On her side of the glass Faith did the same. Slayers, dark and
light. Worlds apart. Or maybe, these days, not so
much.
As the guards left them, Faith ran the
palms of her hands down the tails of her blue denim prison shirt, licked her
lips. Nervous. Faith. Dark eyes flicked past Buffy’s shoulder
to the two vampires in the background, doing their own little yin-yang
thing--Angel loomed, Spike lounged. She looked to Angel first, seeking
reassurance, then to Spike, full of questions. “So. B. You
building a harem, or what?” She pressed her hand to the bridge of her
nose, grimacing. “That was so not the first thing I planned on
saying.”
“You had a first thing
planned? One up on me.” Oh, this was going well. Maybe she
should just launch herself at the glass screaming now and avoid the rush.
Spike’s hand drifted over to rest on her shoulder, cool and solid, an anchor to
a world where she wasn’t Psycho-Bitca Buffy. Pause, rewind.
Angel stirred. “Faith, this is Spike.
He’s...” He stopped, struggled with it for awhile, and shrugged.
“Present, for reasons beyond me.”
Spike
smirked and gave Faith a little wave. “We’ve met.”
Faith peered out at him from between her fingers.
“Figured that out, huh?”
“Yeh.” His
smirk intensified. “Lost your chance for that confrontation I
promised you, though. I’m taken.”
“Let’s just embrace the weirdness and move on, shall we?” Buffy
interrupted. Temper-holding exercise #1: Count the nose-smudges on the
barrier between her and Faith. My, what high-quality plexiglass. “I
think the Council of Watchers is going to contact you soon, if they haven’t
already. I think they’re going to ask for your help and offer to get you
out of here. And I--” The words caught in her throat, “I’m asking you to
turn them down.”
Faith braced one foot
against the counter and rocked back in her chair, a frown twisting her
brows. “Turn ‘em down?”
“With a
rousing chorus of ‘Look For the Union Label.’ We’re on strike. I’m
trying to get us paid. I know you hate me and I’m not too fond of you,
but--”
“Fuck, B., I don’t hate you.
I--”
“No!” Buffy cut her off with a
sharp, one-handed chop. “Don’t. Don’t tell me you’re sorry.
There’s not enough sorry in the world. Just... do this thing for me,
and...” Think about bills. Think about Dawn. Think about Dawn’s
tuition. “...we’re even.”
Faith studied her,
pinching her lower lip between thumb and forefinger. When she spoke her voice
was quiet, serious. “I’m copacetic, B. I owe you. But... not
exactly the Council’s poster girl for good behavior, here. What makes you
think they’ll hit me up?”
Buffy
shrugged. “Because with me out of the picture--not patrolling, not making
with the world saveage--you’re the only game in town. And the Slayer
line’s through you, now. If the Council wants a Slayer, they need
you. Or they need you dead.”
“Think
they’d croak me?” Faith’s tone held mild curiosity, no more. “Well,
hell, even if I wanted out of this pit ahead of schedule I wouldn’t kiss their
mildewed British asses to do it. I didn’t get tried as an adult for
nothin’. And if they want me dead...” She licked her lips again, and this
time it wasn’t a nervous gesture at all. “I could use a workout.
What?”
“Nothing. You just... remind me
of someone all of a sudden. There’s one more thing.”
Buffy glanced over her shoulder, catching
Spike’s eye. His scarred brow lifted fractionally; she nodded just as
fractionally, and Spike heaved himself off the cubicle wall he’d been supporting
and shoved his hands in his duster pockets. “Come on, Peaches, we’re
wanted elsewhere.”
Angel looked to
Buffy for confirmation--what, hadn’t he seen her explain it to Spike?
Obviously not onboard the non-verbal Slayer/vampire bandwagon. “I’d like
to talk to Faith privately.” Angel gave Faith a small encouraging smile
and reluctantly followed Spike out of the booth. Buffy took a deep breath
and turned back to her erstwhile nemesis. Faith looked a little older, a
little more tired-- don’t we all?--but solider, somehow, as if the
whirlwind of rage and loss within her had spun itself roots. “So, you’re
looking very... rehabilitated.”
“Yeah,
I’m rehabilitated as all hell. If I’m a real good girl they’ll let me off
the Group W bench next year.” Faith kicked back in her chair and began
winding one of her long dark locks around her index finger. The shadow of
her old sly grin flitted across her face. “You look like you’re getting
laid well and often. I almost didn’t recognize you without the pole up
your ass. You and Soldier Boy still going at it?”
The mention didn’t hurt nearly as much as she thought it
would. Of course, Faith wouldn’t be up on the latest episodes of The
Many Loves of Buffy Summers. “Riley and I broke up last year.
His unit got... reassigned.”
“So who’s
the lucky--fuckin’ A!” Faith dropped her chair back on all fours with a
crash and slapped a palm on the counter before her, the shadow-grin
metamorphosing into the old lunatic glee. “B.! You vamp-lovin’
she-dog, you! It’s short, blond, and lickable, isn’t
it?”
Buffy buried her face in her hands
with an embarrassed little wail and looked up, fixing Faith with huge stricken
eyes. “Is it that obvious? Am I walking around with ‘Spike’s
Lust-Puppy’ stamped on my forehead? ”
Faith snickered. “Something like. I never figured you for the kind
to take that particular walk on the wild side, but the vibe you two got going is
something else. You better watch out, B., or you might start enjoying
life.”
Despite herself, Buffy smiled.
“You laugh, but the possibility’s a constant threat to my peace of mind these
days.” You are not having a conversation with Faith. Stop it,
right this minute. “There is something else I need to tell you
about. When Giles talked to the head of the Council about the money sitch,
part of the song and dance Travers gave him was a lot of hints about Slayers of
a certain age going wonky somehow. For what it’s
worth.”
Faith snorted. “Oh, yeah, I
fear that. Been there, done that, got the commemorative margarita
glass.”
Buffy began playing with the ring
again. “So true--I don’t know how they’d tell with you. But--to
channel Cordelia for a minute--it may be to your advantage that you’re kind of a
whack-job. I don’t trust the Council any farther than I could punt City
Hall, but I’ve got... outside evidence that they may be right.” She laced
her fingers together on the countertop to still the tremor in them.
“When we... when you first came to Sunnydale, you got me to touch it. The
power. Whatever’s inside of us. But then--well, it made you crazy,
giving in to it. Can’t be of the good.”
“I was fucked up long before I got Called, B.” Faith
shrugged. “Can’t blame everything on the Slayer mojo.”
“Yeah, well, after that I thought I could put slaying
in a neat little box. Just what I do, not what I am. Riley thought
that was the way to go, too. Then two years ago we had to perform a spell
to tap the power of the First Slayer to defeat the baddie of the month.
Whatever it was we touched, it was old, and it was strong, and it had a really
nasty temper and a permanent bad hair day. I channeled it. Ever
since then, I’ve been...” She clasped her hands together, hard enough to
leave white marks on the skin. “I don’t want to say different. This
stuff was always there. That’s what’s scary about it. It just keeps
coming closer and closer to the surface.” Leaving Riley asleep in
their bed, oblivious, while she roamed unsatisfied through the night, hunting,
searching, for-- “When I slay--” Deep, trembling breath of
confession; what she could not admit to Spike, even though he already knew the
truth of it, what she feared to admit to Giles, what she had barely begun to
admit to herself--she could admit to Faith, who was also a Slayer, who had swum
these same dark currents, navigated the same riptides of the soul. “I
enjoy it.”
For once Faith’s face was
unreadable. “I told you a long time ago, if you don’t you’re in the wrong
line of business.”
Spike’s voice, sandpaper
and honey, over the rush and whine of traffic: Christ, love, I hope
you enjoy it! But Spike was a vampire, her opposite, her
prey, just as she was his, and she couldn’t quite trust--not yet--that
what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. “Since I got
back...” She stopped, her throat aching. “Since I got back, we go
out patrolling, Spike and I--no. We hunt. We find vampires
and demons and things that go bump in the night, and when we fight--it’s like
we’re this, this force, this--the rush is incredible. I love
it. And since we--I feel him, all the time. I can’t keep my hands
off him. We come back to his crypt or my house and pig out on everything
in sight or make love for hours. Or both. I’m sleeping better than I
have in years. I think I’ve gained three pounds. I.
Feel. Fantastic.
“And it’s wrong,” she
finished quietly. “I know it’s wrong. I know there’s a chance that
it the chip ever breaks down Spike’s not going to be able to control
himself. He’s trying, and I’ll help him any way I can. But he’s a
vampire, a demon, and he... if Spike falls off the wagon, people die. I
shouldn’t be taking the risk.”
Faith
frowned. “So you’re, what, all guilty over this thing with Spike?
And you think that’s the wonkiness Travers was jawing about?”
Buffy shook her head. “No. The wonkiness
is that I am taking the risk. I want to take the
risk. Angel told me I shouldn’t need a monster like Spike to make me feel
whole, but... I think I do. I think maybe...these things I’m feeling...
I’m kind of a monster too. There’s something wrong with me, or I
wouldn’t--I wouldn’t be this happy. And I like it. If I’m wrong I
want to stay that way.” She met Faith’s eyes, her own level and sad.
“I love him. And someday, I may have to kill him. I’m afraid that if
I--if I get more wrong, I won’t be able to do it--not fast enough. I might
even... someone might have to go through me to do it. You’re probably the
only one who could do it. That’s why I’m telling you this.”
For a long minute Faith sat there, staring at Buffy
with bemused sloe-dark eyes. Then she began to laugh, and in another
breath she was doubled over, clutching her stomach with both hands and howling
with mirth. Buffy stared at her, eyes narrowed and lips pressed even
narrower, unable to decide if Faith’s Cheez Whiz had slipped completely off her
cracker or if she were just really, really annoying. “I’m so glad my slow
descent into moral quicksand is amusing.”
“Oh, B.,” Faith gasped, sitting up and wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, but
you’re so damned funny, sitting there with your trembly lip and your
Brave Little Toaster face on! You think you’re goin’ over to the dark
side, and your first move as a rogue Slayer is setting yourself up to get
spanked if you get too naughty! Buffy Summers, the world’s most
goody-two-shoes villain!”
“It sounded a lot
more dramatic the way I put it,” Buffy muttered. She sucked in her lower
lip. It is so not trembly.
“B., if it makes you feel better, if the day comes you can’t keep sweet
William in line, I'll do it.” Faith chuckled. “I owe him a
confrontation. But don’t sell yourself short. You’re still the top
bitch around here, you know? And hey, I’m glad you’ve got something good
goin’.” She leaned forward, forearms crossed on the counter. “He is
good, I hope?”
The corner of Buffy’s mouth twitched.
“No. He’s not good. Yet. But he’s getting better.” She
got up and started to leave, then halted and came back with a little hip-twitch
in her walk. She leaned forward over the counter, resting her weight on
her fists and lowering her voice to a throaty, eat-your-heart-out purr.
“And the way you’re talking about?” She straightened with a smug little
grin, and gave Faith the same little finger-wave Spike had earlier. “Don’t
you wish you knew? See ya, F.”
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