She stared. She stared down at the offending thing. The thing. The offensive, the terrible, so unbelievably terrible she was tempted to touch it--so often the unreal ran through her life she needed verification. She was tempted to touch, but no--it was so offensive she recoiled and kept curious fingers reigned in. She needed a second opinion.
“Spike!”
Nothing. No sound...was he still asleep? Too bad.
“Spike!”
She called again and let some of her alarm leak squeak into the almost crack in her voice. That did it. She heard him scrambling up the basement steps. None too stealthy by the way...well half woke or what not and she would let him lose points for that because he sure gained for speed.
It was a sound of scrambling in the basement then it was him standing...um, naked in the doorway of the kitchen a little dazed but already in full battle ready mode--he checked up and down the hallway and found nothing, looked through to the dining room and then he was in the kitchen, blurry eyes finally coming to rest on her where she stood poised at the sink.
She crossed her arms in front of her body as if THAT would protect her poor defenseless eyes getting a full feast of Spike flesh.
God, she had almost forgotten...almost...
“Wha?” He managed “Where?”
As if she just needed to point him in the right direction and he would go like a bullet from a gun.
She said nothing, her face sober, but turned and nodded toward the sink.
He cautiously approached the sink and she said as he looked in.
“You ever see anything like this? Could it have come up through the drain maybe?”
His brows drew together as he looked. Couldn’t see what she was talking about.
“Where is it Slayer? Hiding?”
She pointed to the sink.
He smiled suddenly, comprehending, oh god this was too good. A bug? A bug crawl up and give the Slayer the willies, she killed a Monagtak last night and now a creepy leggy thing is giving her the skin crawls? Too, too good.
Oh he was going to enjoy this.
“A creepy buggy thingy got you going? Got a have a man stamp a spidey for you, luv?” He chuckled.
She stood next to him trying not to inhale the fresh musk from his sex that always emanated from him after he had rested. His body with a fresh scent and a touch of tang that went straight to hers. If he noticed her body heating up he said nothing too amused at the prospect of squashing a bug for his Slayer.
“Where is it then?”
She pointed to the coffee mug sitting in the corner of the sink.
“Hiding is it then?”
He lifted the mug ready to smash grab the offending bit of the earths example of the humblest of creatures. Squashed like a ...
“Don’t see it luv...”
“Don’t you?”
He moved the mug around to see if it was crawling on the other side...nope, all he could see was the congealing blood on the inside of the mug from his late night snack.
“Is it in there...”
He nodded his head toward the murky remains eyeing the blood still sticking to the interior speculatively.
“Maybe if you wash it out...you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
It really wasn’t like her to be so squeamish. What was going on here?
Puzzled, he turned the tap--
“--Ah uh...” Buffy made a disapproving noise at his selection of temperature.
“Try hot...really kill what’s going on in there...”
He turned off the cold tap and turned on the hot, put the cup in the sink and let the water fill it to overflowing, waiting and watching for the terrible thing to come out.
“O.K. I’m still waking up here...what exactly did you see? You...feeling all right pet?” His voice expressing some genuine concern.
“Maybe this well help finish it off.”
Buffy handed him a long handled scrubber, very nice tool for working at the corners in CUPS.
He took the scrubber and was actually scrubbing at the cup before he got it.
“Oh.”
He turned to look at her, at she, with her head cocked sideways, at she, of pursed lips...that were almost...almost a pout...
“Oh you bloody bitch.”
“Well you got the ‘bloody’ part right.”
He smiled. He hummed which grew into a whistle while he worked at cleaning the terrible things clockworks.
She leaned back against the counter and watched him slay the festering bacteria.
He stood still, still naked, no clothes had magically appeared and she had been too pissed before to really get a good eyeful but she did now.
It wasn’t his body, the muscles moving like currents in agreement under the smooth water of his skin. Or his perfect proportion and wouldn’t Michelangelo kicked David out of the Sack for a version of Spike instead.
No. All those things were fine and things of beauty but they were all things of this world. Earth made perfect. There was lots of perfect. Riley was perfect, beyond perfect, and Angel too, Parker sure...but to watch Spike it wasn’t his skin...it was the heat beneath his skin.
He glowed. It was there somewhere inside, something that had survived the trip to vamp land and it beeped back and resonated himself, his flesh and maybe...maybe let him love the way he did...
My god, she thought, really, for the first time...if he ran this hot now...what could he have been like...before. And the Slayer in her sworn to protect such souls, such humans grieved now one hundred and twenty something years later for William. Where was The Slayer when Drusilla went for our William? But maybe, maybe...some people were too beautiful for this world and the world in protest under the weight of such purity felt compelled to pare it down, bite it back to a manageable size.
All this as her good friend washed a cup.
“Have an eyeful then? Get what you need?”
He smiled, voice full of very close to laughing, it was a catchy thing. His good humor was such a balm to her these days.
She jumped up on the counter as if to make a show of getting a better view.
“You have no idea, guys have no idea how unbelievably hot it is to watch you clean something.”
Was Buffy flirting with him?
He turned partway to her, opening himself up slightly, cocking a brow up, not to mention the other (ahem) perking up to take an interest in the conversation.
Didn’t need to mention it because here it was half mast and climbing.
“Spike!”
“Hey...you flirted with me...I have no control over what it does when it hears you flirting...”
“I didn’t...I wasn’t...I...” but she was smiling now as Spike turned full front and they both watched as the cock mast rose now to a full three quarter salute.
“I wasn’t flirting just then...”
“No you were stammering...that’s even sexier...”
She really should stop this and send him downstairs like, NOW...but they had grown so comfortable around each other these past three months, it was...well kinda like the old days...but fun this time...so she played and why not?
“How can stammering be sexy?”
Instead of explaining he demonstrated. Voice low, and caught breathless into a stammer...
“I...oh...oh...gggod...mm...Bu...Buff...Buffy...” It started as a joke but now he got caught up in his own net.
He turned toward her full frontal, nude body on alert but not as naked as his expression. Big warm liquid eyes...full of love and longing and...and holding a kind of promise too...
Buffy’s breath caught in her chest and she felt a jolt in her womb as her poor starved body begged her to feed it something, some contact, some something...
His body felt the pull from hers and suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. The look in her eyes was so filled with need, her gaze slid into him somewhere and made him want...want her warm...her Her...she eased the darkness in him and once down this road, once submitting to the change, he only needed her more, the inspiration of her heavenly connection.
Her heat drew him closer he stepped in cautiously to stand just an arms length away positioning himself between her legs...
Her eyes were caught in his.
“Buffy?”
He stepped into between her legs and so gently, so soflty leaned down to breath a kiss in her ear.
“Buffy...”
So soft, so powerful a thing it is, to be called by name...to be known...
She let the electric current of his kiss turn her blood to something, maybe molten. But the darkness from him came with it too. It was like love and light surrounding a ping of cold empty. It felt like sex without love. Not nearly, not nearly as cold as it had been last year, and she marveled at that...but still there...still...cold...a cold shard from him that he didn’t even know he gave, so used to it he was...and even a sliver of it could lodge in her heart enough to hurt.
She could swallow some of the dark, absorb him for a bit, but not forever and then they might be back where they had been.
She leaned her cheek up against his and felt hot tears shake a fist.
“Shh...tis alright...Buffy luv, I’m here...” uncomprehending her crisis or misunderstanding, he kissed her gently. Their lips clung for a moment, brief but enough to spark life in him and take it from her...
It was small...it didn’t hurt...yet...but it would. He was, after all, in his nature a Vampire and he drew blood or breath or...love...he gave too, oh yes he gave with everything he had...all he had...but it was a pilot light compared to the furnace of her soul.
She loved him. She knew it then, had known it for a while but realized for the first time why it had felt wrong. It was like loving a young man, an adolescent almost, sincere and true but just coming out of adolescence. And she was an adult fully graduated with an advanced degree on humanity. When she saw him, she saw the promise of who he could be...who he might have been, but how would he ever get there with this black space he had inside himself, that to him, felt like home?
She kissed him back, gently lovingly but almost as one would a child.
He drew back and looked into her eyes. He could feel her sexual excitement, smell her arousal...was that chaste kiss a beginning or an end?
She whisper spoke it so small he wasn’t sure he got it ‘aright.
“Oh god...what did she do to you?”
“Who pet?” Pause. Willow? Did she mean Willow...what she did to the chip? What had happened when she went all dark last spring? How could Buffy know about that? A felt a moment of real fear.
“Drusilla.”
Oh. He pulled back to look at her. What was she on about?
“O.K....maybe you should go downstairs now...” Her voice trembled.
His face slipped...
And again she was reminded of a child, who loved so openly he was always, always stunned by a ‘no.’
She tried to joke it up a bit.
“You know...naked and the house has a young girl living in it...and why did you come running up here like that...”
”Thought you needed me Buffy... what; you want me to stop and dress when you sound like that?
He chatted back at her but he was turning away and she knew he was fighting back tears of strange loss and maybe humiliation...and she didn’t want that...she had wanted him to want her...she had softened the air between them and he just responded they way he would. It wasn’t his fault. She hadn’t figured it all out until just, just now and it had come with the force of an epiphany. She had to say something, bring something back to him...
“Well...Greek warriors aside...maybe you should sleep in some clothes when you stay over...you know, in case of Dawn.”
“Sure....” He was at the door and descending when he said softly over his shoulder
“Maybe...maybe I should stop staying over...”
He paused for one hopeful moment and it hurt to stay because she really didn’t want the loss of him...she loved him...
She said softly.
“Maybe.”
He went down the stairs.
*
He stood staring at his clothes like he didn’t know how to work them. How to make them work. What’s the trick? He picked up his black jeans and tried to decide to sit down to put them on or remain standing.
Why is everything in this bloody world so bloody hard?
He opted for standing. He yanked one foot in and liked the awkwardness of it, the difficulty of maintaining balance. Everything, everything in his life had changed within those last ten minutes. He pulled on his black T. Yanked on his boots and now he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. But go where? Do what?
Ever since the crisis last spring, with him helping out when Red lost it that way--Buffy and he had grown so close. They had become friends again. With Red and Giles in England and Xander nursing his wounds in private it had just been him and her and society rules be damned. There was the other thing, that other problem...but she didn’t know about that. And spending so much time with her had helped keep him even.
But. He obviously hadn’t helped her. Or not enough.
What did she do to you?
What? Like he had been in such great shape before? As a human, huh. If she only knew, she would laugh outright.
He heard her come into the kitchen as he was getting ready to go out the back door. He stalled for a moment listening to her behind him, checked for his smokes and...lighter...ignoring her, ignoring the tearing in his throat as best he could...
“You are so beautiful Spike.”
His eyes popped a little at that but the words didn’t matter because it came with that tone, that pitch, that sorrow in her voice that said good bye...again...
“You are...I can feel it inside you when I touch you...”
She reached but he backed sharply away...fine she had something to say then say it. Get it done.
“I can feel the light in you....this person you are, and sometimes it’s closer to the surface and sometimes...it’s not...but this light whoever you are...it’s always surrounded by...something dark.”
He looked down. But couldn’t help saying.
“Lots of human’s are dark, luv, you too sometimes...”
“I...I know...” he would never understand the comparison, he hadn’t a clue not from his perspective, she had to find another way.
“When I see you...it’s like the beginning of a brilliant idea...like something wonderful beginning to happen like god just got this great idea and there’s Spike.”
He cocked his head and looked at her. She had never spoken to him like this before. He watched her eyes, they glowed with inspiration and when she spoke he could feel the truth of it in her words.
“That’s it. I know it’s true. It’s like god just got a great idea and it’s you loving me and then it’s just you by yourself who you are...but...it’s the beginning Spike...you are at the beginning of your idea and I’m...”
“The Slayer...graduate magna cum laude?” He asked somewhat sarcastic but she answered sincerely.
“Yes.”
“So I’m beneath you after all, 'thas what this is about?”
She stepped forward so he could feel the force of her will, her truthspeak.
“No. Something just happened...I...I think I understand something...not beneath me, not at all...we are in exactly the same school, exactly the same...you have been there for me Spike, for years now...my life, what I face...you can take it too...not...everybody can...we are in the same school and it’s a hard one to get into...only you’ve just started...well...not just...but, do you get what I’m talking about?”
He cocked his head. He wasn’t quite sure.
“After we broke up last year...you could have left, made it hard on me, but you didn’t and you threw yourself at Willow when she went for Dawn like running into a house on fire...you...are rare...”
He cocked his head the other way and looked at her, his expression softening somewhat. He took in her open face and wet eyes and knew she was being as honest as she knew how.
“You soothsaying Buffy?”
“I...don’t know...stuff comes to me...but usually in dreams...”
“Life is dream. Dru used to say. We just take turns pretending when we’re awake.”
Buffy shrugged, she did not want to talk about Dru right now. Spike saw that and skipped it.
“I’m getting better Buffy, truly. It’s been...hard...won’t pretend...but...I feel...more...about small things too and not just you and the Bit...”
She nodded and almost smiled and wanted to encourage him the way one would with a small child but didn’t want to patronize him either. He was 128 years old and had an almost eon of experience...but he was in a new school now and sometimes a little lost...what to do?
(The truth she felt push inside her...tell him the truth) But then he asked.
“Will...will you wait for me Buffy...will you wait for me to catch up?”
(the truth)
And then it was there.
“I don’t look at anyone else. In movies, or t.v. or on the street...at guys I mean...I’m not...looking...I don’t...want to look...ever since...I came back, I can only stand to be around you...”
Well that was something.
“I mean, you know...” she grimaced at the clumsy way she put it and then smiled a bit and then finished up as best she could. “I’m not sure what it means and you know life has no promises...but I like being with you best and...and I don’t look at anyone else.”
He would have preferred it if she had said ‘can’t instead of ‘don’t’ but hey. Small mercys.
She was speaking again and he could tell she wanted to hold him, hug him maybe but he was still keeping himself closed off and it was up to him.
She was speaking.
“So we’ll be honest with each other. You tell me what’s going on with you, you know and...”
He kissed her.
(Authors note: I mean he kissed her.)
He opened his heart up into it and let it flow for her to feel it racing toward hers. He pulled her in close, wrapped an arm around her and she found her right arm twining up around his back to weave and grip the hair on the back of his head.
Her womb throbbed and pounded and she felt her opening seek the comfort of his hard body. He pulled back so she could breath and he kissed her gently on the neck, sending small shivers like a shower down, like silver illuminating her body for the heavens to see her from inside out.
He rested his forehead against hers...and then quietly, firmly, pulled himself away.
“That may be true...what you said before...about the class difference an all may be true but just remember this, this is true too...”
She leaned up and kissed him and he felt his knees begin to buckle and he pulled away just as she sagged down to the nearby barstool. He was at the door smiling slightly and breathed.
“When you do your calculating...try to figure that, in there someways too.
His next words were interrupted by the phone ringing.
“Wait a minute, don’t leave...I gotta get that...it might be England...”
He lit a cigarette and waited by the door, eyes downcast, thinking, only half listening, until he heard Buffy’s voice chirp.
“Willow....no, no. not busy, just here in the kitchen with Spike--“
She stopped and listened, Spike watched her carefully and knew it was coming could feel it coming...shit...not enough time...not enough...
He watched Buffy turn her back to him and walk a little down the hall...obviously they were talking about him.
“Slow down Will, what are so saying? No, he hasn’t said anything...what do you mean you just remembered...o.k...I’m listening...”
He watched Buffy’s back stiffen and felt it like it was a blow to his own body. He couldn’t stay to see her eyes...not after everything she had just said...he couldn’t bear to see the look of ‘kill the killer come back into her eyes, he couldn’t bear to see how she reacted when she found out his chip was out...when she asked him, how many he had killed...not ‘if’; ‘how many’. And what could he say? He was no good at lying. He hadn’t ‘killed’ anyone...would she count ‘biting’ as the same thing? It wasn’t to him. But.
The chip had been out and he hadn’t told her. He was young in her eyes and incapable of maturing and this would only prove it. There was only one thing he could think to do...something that had been at the back of his mind for some time...ever since he heard about it really...
When Buffy turned to look down the Hallway into the kitchen...he was gone.
Gone...and on his way to Africa to track down a legend.
*
(use left arrow to go back and bang, bang, bang--wake Spike up)
