Perhaps he had the first dream when he was as young as six years old. Not the same in total as it came to him after puberty. But the feeling, the sharing of light air that was almost, almost her giggle. And it wasn’t the sound he remembered; it was the music of the sound. He would stand by the piano and plunk. Tinkling piano keys and he tried; he tried with small fingers on big keys to turn the lock to outloud; to hear something of her out here in the world. With him.
She never giggled in any of the later dreams--he would have to go back to that one from childhood from that special magical summer when he was effervescent--so light and glowing his Mother would cry somewhere inside, instinct forming these words in her mind: ‘don’t leave, you’ve just come to join me on earth don’t go, don’t float away...” And she would hug him tight as if to help hold him here. With her.
It was summer--when it happened. And after the dream, dream drunk--he would begin the day and wander, walk, walk and end up somewhere oh yes it was the river and he truly never remembered the walk, only the arriving. Mother didn’t like him walking by the river. But when he came, he stayed, and why should she worry?--it is so lovely here. Truly nothing this beautiful could be a worry.
So he would stay, and would be overjoyed to find himself there like a secret covert gift to himself and as long as he was, as long as he was here--he would make his boats. From bark and bits of wood and twigs--wedge the wood together, pausing to marvel at the texture of the bark, just staring for five minutes or so at a time at the woody flesh. For that’s how it struck. He would make his boats and think of the little girls giggle. He would think of her laughter while he made his boats and try to put that sound of it into the wood, make the wood sound like her.
In the dream, she was in the tall grass, running and frisking about and teasing him too; but he didn’t mind that because he could see her and she was good. She was good. She was a good girl. The love in her heart beating out and thrashing the grass for a succulent harvest. He couldn’t see her face, just her long gold hair. He was standing still and a hand would snap out from under cover of the slim shafts and tap him on the shoulder with piece of wood, teasing him with a slender tree branch. The branch would tap he would turn and then it would be pulled away back into the thick grass. It wasn’t violent, it didn’t hurt, but it happened enough that it taught him to sharpen his reflexes, he had better get better or she would get away. He was never much of an athlete so he used his hearing and his heart...he could feel when she drew near and--got it!. His hand grasped the tree branch and felt the girls surprise at being caught--but she didn’t run. He pulled the branch toward him and a small girl, smaller than him emerged from shelter.
He could never remember her face that part of the dream faded over time. But he remembered long gold hair framing a small heart shaped face. A heart shaped face. And he remembered thinking. Her heart is on her face. And they stood each holding one end of the wood, wouldn’t give up let go, and he thought...’stubborn’ but smiled and she...she smiled back and everything went gold.
So he would make his boats of bark and wood and sometimes, sometimes, draw a picture of her, with pencils, or charcoals and use it for a sail. He would wait for a slight breeze and then drop the boat into the gentle current thinking if the boat with the little charcoal picture of her made it all the way down there, over there past the big rock and around the bend...then it would make the journey all the way to her door near where she lived and we would get married someday when we grow up...if it only makes it past those trees...well if it doesn’t make it...we won’t...we won’t and I’ll never see her again.
William took special care with his boats...but only two of them made it around the bend. He thought about setting a lower standard--not quite as far maybe, but no, he couldn’t change the rules.
Two had made it...out of seventeen. So time and again he might watch, with heart pounding; the wind tip the little craft or perhaps the interference of an uncommissioned wave and the boat would be sideways, paper portrait lying flat on the water, seeping, diluting the magic of the charcoal making it run, run, run away.
*
The second significant dream. He was seventeen.
Hot wet slick tightness holding him dumbstruck. The dream begins with him already inside her; it is his first sensation of making love. It must be. He barley knows how to begin, how to feel this. Her muscles grip him tighter around his shaft and he begins to cry, it feels so good it can’t be, this can’t stay contained within, he has to howl it out, it has to come out. Her hand wipes his tears away and pulls his face down next to hers. It’s her. His girl. He is so happy to see her again he pushes down to place his body on hers, and catches his breath at the feel of her breasts flattening against his chest. He places his cheek next to hers, and kisses her ear and on down her throat...he has to move his body to get closer to hers and when he does, the electric jolt of moving inside her, stuns them both...he is breathing hard, hanging over her, panting, a coil of energy lets loose and suddenly he grips the side of her neck with his blunt teeth to hold her still and slowly starts moving...oh...oh...dear god...she is panting and writhing and calling him something he can’t make out, she is beating a pattern on his back with her fists encouraging him, he moves faster, almost rutting, he feels her legs wrap around as she calls to him. He growls against her throat when she tries to move to rise, get up, and then suddenly, he lets go of his grip, and pumps furiously, she needs more, she, the hot slick tightness sucks and pulls at him, she bucks against him and he thrusts up high and deep into her and holds himself there pinning her to the floor until she gasps out her joy burying her face against his flesh.
He wakes up gasping, shaking, thrilled, more than a little scared and thinks about going to church.
Is that what it’s like?
It must be. Songs and music and literature and poems all try to hold that feeling in poor words long enough to be understood with the mind. But words have borders, and what does one do when one is filled to overflowing? What words could hold this kind of experience without crumbling under the weight of the effort?
And so he tries. He becomes fascinated with the word puzzle box. But his world is small, his fuel to this fire has been limited so far in life, to this, those dreams, and those dreams have set the standard for his life but still are in fact, only two dimensional experience and so that is what he writes. He, emulating what he knows, writes in two dimensions.
For him it is all, all is about finding that beauty again. That beauty and no other will do. And he will allow for no unpleasant thoughts, no horrid world to stimulate unkind thought and this calls for a strict regulation of earthly desire.
All, all is tempered and tamed by his dream life and how it leaks into the waking world. His Mother loves him dearly but worries more than a little about his unfocused sometimes lost expression. She says nothing but, attempts to bring him back to the world by talk of the mundane. He is so pure, so light and she fears for him. Can someone be too beautiful for this world? He shines so and is so light he may float away at the startling sound of a single twig break.
Was she wrong to love him so?
Is he prepared for the world?
He tells no one, of course he tells no one. A word spoken into the world is too hard and sharp and would pierce and break the magic.
It’s hard to sleep sometimes. Most times. He hopes for another dream, for his love to come back, come back and tell him who she is. Where he may find her. But no. No. She never comes back and the years go by and he waits and looks in crowds, in church, follows the faces, the shade of hair but never, never close. Only closed and gone away and he alone left with the untried passion of a lion.
He knows his friends; his friends from university go to the fifteen streets on the Tyneside for...companionship.
But he can’t. Of course he can’t. As if in giving some small part of himself away, any small part given away and it would diminish him so--he would become small, smaller, so small, he would disappear in importance and she wouldn’t be able to find him. And so he keeps himself whole and is proud of it.
He is twenty-seven now and the dreams have faded into the subtext of his poetry. But the water runs deep, so far underground, so far away that only a miser can hear. His conviction has become habit. And sincerity of purpose drifts far afield into rhetoric due to lack of new stimuli and a growing inflexible nature.
Values applauded in a child or teen when stretched forward into adult pull and strain at the borders until the nature is stretched so thin the original value is barely there. William is in danger of becoming a caricature. And to his credit, he is aware of this, and the needs of body and soul knock at him daily. Something needs to change...it may be time--he may need to let go of the dream. He is beginning to understand himself, and he knows that his deep emotional nature needs expression in the material or he will evaporate into the false pride of a prude or...worse...worse break into a free fall from grace, into dissipation.
He...he feels the potential for this extremity deep inside himself; he knows his need for love is coupled with the need for sexual expression. And...he cannot have one without the other.
He will never, never go to the fifteen streets.
He looks for someone to love.
It is her gold dress or perhaps high yellow that resonates something deep within. Something that feels...well it feels like standing in the church lobby when the bells hit the quarter hour. That echo in the body that is so surprised at being awoken it turns to find the source of the inspiration.
Cecily.
Cecily in a yellow dress. And he had seen her before, he had and taken notice of how she shone from the inside out. But her gleaming dark hair made him dismiss her; she looked nothing like the girl in his dreams. But now, tonight...see how that yellow dress has set the sparkling light inside her free?
William knocks an empty punch glass from the table...and then remarkably...remarkably catches it before it crashes, smashes on the floor. There is a slight astonished gasp from Miss Claire and Anthony chuckles out a “Well, well, good show old man...”
William, a little puzzled at the quickness of his own unthinking reflex; places the crystal back carefully, well back on the table. Miss Claire Adams taps him on the shoulder with her fan remarking.
“There you have it William, you’ve moved from potential villain to realized hero within the margin of seconds. Must be a world record, wouldn’t you say Anthony?”
“Quite. And also a case in point. Mark this event, William and reflect back to our conversation of last week.”
William smiled pleasantly at the good natured ribbing of brother and sister.
“Yes Anthony. But I still maintain that only animals can live solely on instinct and reflex. A modern man needs to live through the mind ennobled by beauty and the passions of the sincere heart.”
“Yes, well. Time will tell on all English. All that control, control, control the world even and what? The revolution in America taught us nothing? There is free will choice and imposing English control over the sovereign nations will bite us back and mark us a poor nation in posterity for this huberious. And this applies to how we conduct ourselves in our private concerns as well--look at this crowd all vying to sell themselves into marriage. It’s all about good investments abroad. Come the new century--marriage is the first contract we shall do away with--”
“--Perhaps Miss Claire should not allow you in public whilst still under the influence of your noon day reading of George Elliot.” William chuckled “Anthony, you talk a pretty tale but live quite modestly for a hedonist.”
“I am a hedonist in theory; therefore I have more latitude to live in contradiction. Besides, I am a hedonist of the mind, not the flesh. Too disquieting, that.”
“I am still here, my dear brother.”
“Indeed, and I am respecting your suffragette leanings by including you in this conversation.”
“Oh. Very well then. Quite civil and thank you very much for the equanimity.”
‘Not at all.”
They all laughed, content in the company of mutual minds, and well aware of the rare gift of being with others who understood what it meant to live within the context of personal extremity and under the eye of Queen Victoria.
As the laughter dimmed Williams eye slid sideways to espy Miss Cecily Worthing once again and Claire and Anthony caught the gesture and Williams look of naked appreciation and as if of one mind, brother and sister looked to each other and thought...oh no, oh no...
*
Oh no, oh no...On and on and on and no off switch in sight. Buffy sighed and picked up a loose piece of paper from the top of Willows stacks and promptly began realizing her dream of yet a better, more aerodynamically sound paper plane. She had begun this pursuit years ago in Biology and had over the years perfected the art of the impermanent craft until she was the envy of even Alexander Harris.
She need not comment of the symbolic poetry of the temporary nature of her paper transportation vehicles. Or what Freud would say about her subconscious talking in sub speak. Submarines, boats, trains, cars and planes, any, any anything to get her far away--No. No need for analysis.
I...I think a plane. Yes, a classic choice.
Giles was droning on and on about the nature of diminished demon heritage and could it be possible that the demons they faced here on the Hellmouth were a watered down version and then blank, blank, blah, babble and garble and Willow was taking notes and actually seemed interested and it was boat number five done and paper plane anew...oh new idea.. What if I...(new fold and tuck and finish with a lick on the wing tips for ballast...)
“Balls! Slayer!” Spike was standing near the doorway of the Magic Box a crumpled air plane in the fist he extended to her in outrage. “What is this?”
“Well...” Buffy considered, looking at the smooshed plane he had arrested from its flight path toward his heart. “Looks like trash...uh...that is recycled...to be recycled, yeah...nothing wasted...nope...”
“Hey! Hey wait a minute. Buffy what are you doing? Are you taking my notes?” Willow in a flurry checked her papers “Spike...does that have writing on it?”
Ignoring Willow, Spike’s malevolent attention stayed fixed on the Slayer. He gestured emphatically with the plane. “No...No...This is not trash, not a gesture to be tossed aside. Here, I am helping you all, the lot of you--you in your pathetic useless do-gooder attempt to spit in the wind of the evil that is Sunnyhell and here the Slayer attacks me with a paper plane as soon as I walk through the door. And, mind you, right for the heart!”
“Waa, waa, waa...” Buffy moaned at him.
Spike growled.
Buffy squinted one eye, taking aim at his heart with another plane.
“Spike. Junior mint. Dead dude. You so far out of the loop of big time evil you’re picking a fight over a paper cut? Xander studied him in mild amusement as he sipped his coffee. He loved it when Buffy picked on the bleached boy wonder--it was...reassuring somehow. Like he could relax and let someone else drive.
“Hello? Paper? Ex wood? Its passive aggressive, mate. Textbook hidden hostility.”
They all looked at him blankly as if to say, ‘hidden’?
Buffy broke the silence with a: “Boo.”
And threw another plane at him. It shot like liquid from a water pistol into the waiting mouth of the gaping clown at the carnival and all, all for the cheap prize, the pleasure of the stuffed doggie--
--growling, Spike barked a warning and then. Stopped. Suddenly shifting his mood, his mind spinning on a dime the way it did and analyzed what was left of the plane in his hand.
“Hey. That...that was... bloody brilliant...did you see the way it streamlined? Barely a bit of air friction.” He mused, studying the craft. Oh yeah...I see...it’s in the way you double tucked the wing in--“
“Nope. Not the secret.”
“No? Huh.”
He looked at her closely, appraising a new aspect of familiar nemesis. He slid, prowled closed the gap between them as if his panther padding could stalk the secret from her.
Her heart skipped at beat, her body responding like a drum to a tom tom cat.
Something about the fluid way he walked called to the liquids in her body to come out to meet him and she could hear the faint pulse point of blood pounding into her pussy.
Cat and dog.
Buffy and Spike.
Interchangeable even and did it matter which was which and when?
They even sounded like pet’s names.
“Pet?” He was looking at the pile of paper constructions lying on the floor where she sat. He picked up a sturdy little paper boat and stroked the smooth sides of the little thing until the paper purred.
Oh boy. It just made her mad. Confusion made her mad.
“Pet. More impressive shipyard than Newcastle or Liverpool. ”
“Don’t call me that and...really?”
“Cor, Slayer...these are brilliant, come on give over. I can see how you made this one here, and you’ve an arm an all...but how’d you make it scoot? Come on now, give over.”
“Ah...Spikey, wanna go make da widdle planes fly by, by and float da baby boats?” Xander crooned.
Buffy bristled a bit at that. If that was an insult to Spike--then wouldn’t it be an insult to her as well for making them? She liked to fly da widdle planes after all.
“Harris, a wanker such as yourself could never get a grip far enough away from shooting a wad to turning your hand to be creative--to actually put something in the world besides your sorry spunk missing a warm target. You wankers are all about wank, wank and don’t know thing about art or beauty in the arcane, so you beat it all to holy hell--“
“--I’ll beat you to hell, it’ll be a homecoming--“
Spike leered, “I’m sure you didn’t mean that the way it sounded. “ He winked--
--Xander was a blur of motion as he went for Spikes throat.
Buffy shot up and grabbed a hold of Xander from behind.
‘Buffy let me go...let me get rid of this thing once and for all” Xander’s voice was low, calm to persuade and Buffy held him her face passive, as if considering setting her friend loose to solve the problem of poor ole Spike.
“Ah right.” Spike confirmed “Now...would that be before...or after I give over the information Rupert here would fine tooth comb the world for? Hhmm...What?” Spike casually lit a cigarette ignoring Anya’s glare, nay, double glare, one for Xander, two for tobacco.
Giles who had remained aloof from the mundane discussion and looked up at this point.
“You what?”
“You heard me mate.”
Giles looked inside himself and came up with the words; the right words the right tone to bring calm and order.
“Xander...please...save it for another day.” Simple but true. It worked.
Xander relaxed in Buffy’s grasp and Buffy let him step aside, but she still stood there as if she still needed convincing.
Silence.
“Well...now I’m feeling a bit put out an all, what with that greeting and this wanker wanting to do your grunt work....don’t know as if I feel much like talking to you lot--here I come by, in good faith--“
Buffy had sat back down and had calmly started to build another plane. She spoke up.
“You have til the time I finish this little model of a firefox to spill your cookies--you stay a cookie monster and hoard it all and I’ll cram this down your throat so far I’ll stab your heart from the inside and see, we’ll see just how much wood is left in paper.”
Spike had to force himself not to gulp. She was fantastic. God, she was suddenly so striking leaning back in her chair there calming talking out loud and with everyone to hear about how she would torture him. Such intimate talk in public. She was amazing.
He smiled, he had to. The room was silent as he watched her fold the paper. There down the middle, measure the side wings fold, fold, fold...flip the other side, fold, fold, fold--finally Willow spoke softly.
“Uh Spike...I think she means it.”
Oh yeah she meant it, and he was vaguely aware of his body growing taunt, tight as a bow as he watched her, waiting for the secret, her secret to the success of the craft...tick tock flip and fold...and...and...show me luv...show us then...
(look at her breathing, her breathing getting harder, getting ready, her titties pushed out against her tee in a tit for tat in their tug of war)
She looked up and straight in his eye while little tongue darted out to lick the under side of the flap of the plane, then folded it under...and then...and then, she bowed her head, almost demure, eye lids lowered...she licked and then licked again the other wing...before folding...NO. No she did not just do that. Everyone in the room waited calmly, oblivious to her subtext. The bitch. She simply did not just do that--but his very hard member pushing out against his jeans asking to make the acquaintance of her little pink tongue assured him that she did.
What was that she had said once about riding him until his knees buckled? He hadn’t been able to walk straight for an hour after that and now she was doing it again. Well, not as forthright...but...
She was standing now looking at him dead in the eye plane in hand and advancing.
What was it Rupert had said? Live to fight another day. Yeah old man, thas’ the way of it.
He began speaking without preamble.
“--Was at Louis late last night--over heard a couple of demons talking in Menglantekese.”
“So?”
“So? Menglantekese? Here?”
“Oh no.”
This was from Anya. Who had been strangely quiet up to this point still adjusting to how she should feel about the sight of the ménage a trio: Buffy holding her Xander, and Spike cloaking his sexual arousal with his duster.
The sincere dismay of a thousand plus year old vengeance demon was enough to give one pause. They did, they all paused to look at her and then back at Spike when he spoke again.
“Uh...yeah...”
And then Giles came to life and said as if he had just discovered the continent himself.
“Antarctica!”
“Yeah, thas' right. Now, what’s a demon culture that never ventures away from the protection of a frigid climate--“And here Spike spoke the significant word and caught Buffy’s eye which was promptly rolled heavenward. “Now why are demon scribes, what never venture from the glacier come to fry in good ole Sunnyhell?”
“They are...the keepers of ancient text...legend has it--the text goes back several millennium--“Giles was wiping his glasses which spoke its own volumes.
“Ah...not legend...that’s a fact jack.” Anya was stuttering. “They’ve got a home cook book...that...that could get Richard Nixon reelected. Even now, after he’s dead and everything.”
Wow.
“So what?” Buffy ventured, still tapping her paper plane on the tip of her finger as she eyed the under exploerd frontier that was ‘Spikes chest’.
(Was that her mouth watering?)
“They selling state secrets or something?”
“Well...yeah.” Spike puzzled. “You put it that way. As just another tidbit on the ‘to do’ list just one down from watching a very special episode of Touched by An Angel--oops sorry luv, didn’t mean to bring up old times. All right, not important. Oh well. Right then. Deed done. I’m off.”
Buffy kept even eye contact with Spike as she inserted the tip of the paper plane between her fingers and made little casual thrusts.
(Gag)
“Wait. Spike.” It was Giles. “Is...it...do you think it’s possible the Menglantek might be selling not just selected secrets...but the actual text...itself.”
“There, see?” Spike addressed Buffy but pointed at Giles. “Ask the right question and you’ve got it in one.” Spike beamed at Giles. So proud of the lad.
“Oh dear lord.”
Buffy frowned. “Does this mean...I can’t--“She pushed the point of the paper plane up against the corner her open mouth...
(She did not just do that. Is she doing that?)
“No you can not...” Giles answered her and then as an afterthought he admonished Buffy. “And give Spike his airplane please...and a cell phone and blood and whatever...within reason, he may require.”
Spike and Buffy squared off from each other. She slowly pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and slapped it in his palm. God, it was warm from being close to her body. He put the phone in his pocket feeling the warmth cozy up to his cool flesh. He waited and then cleared his throat in an ‘ahhem’ when she made to turn away without relinquishing--
“Buffy, give Spike his plane...”
“Oh fine.”
She gave him the plane on a huff and a swirl of gold hair that slapped a little in the air in front of him.
The scent. So fresh. It was a summer day, the scent of good green grass still luscious from the nigthts dew before the day burned its back.
“So Spike, you’ll call, press star 2 for my extension, when you have additional information. Hmm?”
“Yeah, right...” He made as if to say goodbye but they had already turned they backs on him and were closing racks around the research. He left with a bell jangle and the timber of its dingle dang speak vibrating, tinkling through and through.
Bloody bells. Bloody slayer scents and bloody bells.
*
He kicked and stuttered and cursed her to the night sky as he made his way round the town. Knocking down signs, varied advice to: ‘stop’ ‘yield’ and one absurd joker with no balls was advising to ‘slow curve ahead’ well, never mind the bullocks of little ‘know it alls’. Always there everywhere he turned. Her bouncing little body, shining gold hair screaming at him like a siren reaching so deep inside him he couldn’t find a space of himself that didn’t contain a thought of her. He was drowning in her.
He was drowning. And as if to prove this he found himself at the edge of the river.
He reached inside himself to find the beginnings of this, this thing, so he could grab it and shake it/her out of him but...no, no use, he couldn’t find it...and what’s that? What’s that advice there?
It was an old sign battered and pinged by potshots but still there advising “no diving”
Bugger that.
He took a running jump and broke the post on the first try. Wood. Well why not? Would you? Will you? Would you Will?
He didn’t dive and he didn’t leave town either. The river was in the way.
*
He was lying flat on his back. He was on the deck of a ship that heaved gently rolling fore to aft. His head moved sideways and he studied the grains of wood on the deck of the ship. He saw brown becoming burnt sienna and sideways there, umbers into glowing purples and then almost pink with life again. The flesh stripped off trees and long dead born again and glowing with the news in the morning sun. He looked at the sunrise. Golden breath blowing on the inside of billowing clouds until they stretched white into yellow into breaking like a happy party balloon. He felt good. So good. Peaceful and calm but still a fuse. Still a live wire and alive with...hope.
“William...Will...” Her voice trilled and the sound he hadn’t heard for more than a century greeted him. His heart leapt so violently at the greeting from his childhood companion he was born/died first heartbeat last leap of life all in one.
His girl, his golden sweet girl.
She came and lay down beside him and his flesh fairly sung hello. Hello, my friend. As if sensing his confused emotional extremity she lay down on her back, she lay next to him letting her bare arm cozy cuddle up to his.
“Spike....look...” and her left arm shot up; finger pointing at the sky.
There was a flock of jet planes trekking across the morning.
She turned her head to look at him. Big wide green eyes and love so deep and wide it was the ocean they sailed upon and not a pond, nor a pool, nor a puddle nor a lake, and alack! She loved him. She loved him. He started to cry, to weep, just small tears really, joy finally and she smiled and said:
“You want one? Cuz if you want one...well lookey what I can do.” She moved her hand up and aligned the span of her open fingers with the size of the third jet.
“See?” She giggled like baby bells, sweet true, incorruptible... “See? It’s easy...”
And she pretended to pluck a plane from the sky and fold it into his palm and then covering his hand with hers.
‘Just a plane sandwich.” She said straight-faced.
He held her hand tight, and thought it was the wisest, most intelligent, most observant, most savvy, bestest pun, and punt to the goal line he had ever heard.
(It wasn’t really in the objective standards of the world but what did that matter?)
Our hero is in love.
*
Spike woke gasping straight up right in bed and wide eyes still wet.
It was Buffy. It was Buffy. It was Buffy.
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh “
The morning sun sneaked in, smiled really through the broken corner of the uppermost stain glass window of his crypt like the idiot savant in joy, oblivious to any bad news on a best day.
He waited for it to come closer to save him, to dust him before he understood, before...
Love...
“Oh...no...god no...Please no...”
And then...
Does...does...does she know me?
*
It was insane. No, it was in the land beyond insane. It was somewhere knocking on the house of cosmic cruelty. Some joke on poor ole Spike. And he could call it a lie, being beguiled except now that it was all pulling together, he knew it was true.
The Slayer, this Buffy was...his dream girl. He winced at the cliché. But cliché’s are overused for a reason. Because they are honest.
And now that she had walked in from the shadows, he had to see again, to see her. He thought about his situation, considering if he was under a spell, but no, this feeling he had, once tapped sprang from deep, deep inside him. And now that the spring was sprung--it was there, there everywhere in him and how would he be able to hide it?
He was never any good at subterfuge. Not really. Not when his emotions were running this high.
He sighed and flipped his zippo and introduced it to cigarette number 23.
He inhaled deeply and looked up at her window. The branches from the tree on the back lawn obscuring much but nothing could block the sounds of his little grunting and her little soft sighs.
And were they ‘little’ to hide what they were doing to a Mother and sister just down the hall--or were they small little sounds, because they were small little feelings? Small insignificant stimuli?
Of course he opted for choice number 2. And thankfully it was soon over. She would be coming out soon. After he fell asleep. Tosser. At least that was the pattern--and he could back out of sight before she emerged...but maybe...maybe tonight he wouldn’t.
*
His skin is what startled her. The sight of his skin. She observed to herself that maybe, maybe it was because he was so often cloaked in leather, so completely covered that any little peek at flesh was a shock.
It was his arms. The sight of his naked flesh, it was the quiet image of the parts of him that didn’t try. Just there. The air grew a little warm inside her when she saw his flesh and it wasn’t...you know sexual...it wasn’t an urge...it was like a little wave. Small little wave hello. It was irritating.
It made her want to hit him. Like with a spit wad or something. No real damage just a nice--bong! To knock the strange feeling back to...to...well not normal there was never normal...but maybe comfortable.
What was he doing with his jacket off anyway? Why was he lurking on the back porch looking so comfortable?
He looked up a little startled...and sheepish? Just what was he up to?
She was about to offer something cutting, some excellent invitation to disembark when his simple:
“Hello Buffy.”
Floored her. Almost absolutely a cold conk.
He said it as if he hadn’t seen her in a long time and was grateful and oh so pleased to see her again.
Just what is he up to?
And to her surprise she reprised with:
“Hello Spike.”
Proving that old adage, that one will indeed give as one gets.
They stood silent in each other’s company for a few moments. And then Buffy asked.
“So what’s up? And where’s your coat?”
Spike considered the two parter and countered with.
“Not Captain Clean...and Miss Nibblet took it inside for a spot cleaning.”
Buffy could feel her face grow flush, though with embarrassment or rage--didn’t know. Maybe both. But at least this was better, this was familiar. Ass hole Spike she could understand.
“Dawn? What is Dawn doing up at this hour?”
“Dunno. Maybe she couldn’t sleep...maybe she heard (cough) noises. Sad, really depriving a young girl of her sleep. Young minds and bodies and al’“
His words were jaunty but sounded a touch sad.
“Shut up Spike or I will stake you here and now.”
“Can’t. Watcher gave me a get away from conflicted Slayer for free card--well at least til he gets what he wants. Thas’ me--I give everybody what they want. Good thing--getting what you want.”
“Shut up Spike.”
He looked at her, and tried a new tact. His voice a little kinder, almost like imploring.
“Only saying, the girl needs her rest, is all. Haven’t you noticed the dark circles under her eyes?”
Buffy stopped and reflected and found herself to be in the almost impossible position of explaining herself to Spike.
“I...just need to...forget sometimes...need to go somewhere I don’t have to think...”
Spike’s eyes grew soft. “I know love...”
Now why did that sound like: ‘I forgive you’?
They looked at each other. Buffy noted the smoothness of his skin and had that strange warm wave again.
Spike took in her long gold hair, still mussed and the high color in her cheeks, the soft sweet glow of who she was, her center filling the space between them until it moved through exterior to prick, to ping his interior so sharp but sweet too.
hello.
The backdoor squeaked open and Dawn slipped out onto the porch with Spike’s coat draped over her arm.
She stood between them, looked at each of them in turn as they gave her their attention.
Tableau.
“Dawn...” Buffy started to speak...but every road that conversation went down ended up someplace wrong for right now. Instead she turned her attention to Spike:
“You have anything you need to tell me--about you know, the Malcontents--
“Menglentek’s. No, I’m on my way over to Willies and then maybe stop by Louie’s again--just stopping by.”
“Well don’t. We are not stopping by buddies. I don’t want you hanging around the house, around my sister, business is business but not, if none. Got it?”
Spike considered her sharp turn around from the previous moment and nodded.
“I’ll let you get back to you upsetting the household--“
“--that is none of your business.” And why did she sound defensive?
Spike shrugged and lit another cigarette, movement of arms and flesh and another small wave hello to Buffy viscera. Flustered she stalked past him and went off into the night to slay something.
Dawn waited a moment for dramatic effect.
And then extended his coat and as he gripped it, Dawn held it for just a moment so he had to tug it away.
He adjusted the coat about his body and said.
“Ta Niblet. Like to keep the old horse looking good.”
She smirked and nodded her head and he said:
“What?”
Dawn’s smile deepened.
“What?” Spike asked a little more imperiously
“You need help Spike, lots and lots of help and if you’re nice to me and walk me to the movies and things after dark and stuff...maybe, just maybe I’ll help you.”
“Help me what?”
“You know.”
“No I don’t”
‘Yes, you do.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No I don’t.”
Screen door slam and Spike insisting ignorance to a Dawn done gone.
Damn.
*
Upstairs, standing by the open window stood Riley. He had heard it all--or most all and...and it made the cross to the male territory thing and a red flag was definitely pulled on that little passion play.
And he knew, he knew. Now he knew what he had long suspected.
There was something between Buffy and Spike.
Something. It was unnamed and unknown in any way that he had ever been able to understood the world up to this point--including having met Angel.
It was something else.
It felt like...like something permanent and long and on going, like something far from the past and reaching deep into future...maybe like a great story and he had just walked into it somewhere in the middle and was left slack jawed and a little oblivious.
Some story that needed...absolutely needed Spike to progress, (what would they do without him?) but not him. Not he. He was a function in a larger plot. It felt...odd, this story. It didn’t feel like a romance story...or an adventure story...it felt like...like something deeper even...maybe...maybe it felt like how great writing feels--like that feeling after Melville, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky like something complex and inexplicable in it’s greatness in the microcosm; you read parts of it and it leaves you going-- ‘well this isn’t so great but.’ But. It is only in reading, in experiencing the full scope of the thing that could really teach you a thing or two about life.
Crime and Punishment
War and Peace
Buffy and Spike
It was a feeling of something bigger and he felt pedestrian, somehow, listening in to their tale.
He watched Spike walk away and let the curtains fall back into place closing off this latest installment from view.
He heard a sound from the yard that felt like Santa with reindeer on the roof; the magic of myth come home to land like a blow on your head.
