“I love you baby and I
always will
I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I
always will
Ever since I put your
picture in a frame...”
Tom Waits
Chapter 2
“Oh My...”
He lay; his head lay on her
shoulder. Her cheek resting upon the top of his head. Her fingers combed gently
through his hair pulling a strand
of hair straight and then when she relaxed the lock springy sprang back to
its corkscrew curl shape.
She smiled, couldn’t help it. Had to do it
again--she selected a soft lock pulled it straight and--shboingg!
She smiled again and tickled the underside of a
curl hanging over his ear. Just wagged
tagged it, bopping
it with the tip of her finger.
What she thought was: kitchy
kitchy coo, but didn’t dare speak out loud.
Spike was half asleep and she
really didn’t want to wake
him up completely but just couldn’t help having his hair at her mercy.
Her new play toy.
Yahoo. Better than
a theme park thrill ride.
Zing!
Spring!
“Uh…having
fun slayer?”
“I’m…I’m
not…slaying…I’m taming…”
Pull
hair: zing! Spring!
“May
take a while…”
His chuckle reverberated
pleasantly in his chest. She snuggled in
closer. They were in bed on the second
floor of Greata’s
farmhouse. It was the smallest room in
the old farmhouse…but then they didn’t need much
space.
“Spent,
oh ‘bout 123 years trying to tame it--finally came down to bleach and a blunt
cut--“
“No.
no, no….”
“Well
you try being a master vampire with spring curls--was getting almost a
challenge a day--“
“Oh,
is that how you got to be such a
great fighter?”
“Huh. Maybe. Is that what you call ironic? Anyway--you’ll never tame it--born wild it
is--“
“Maybe,
maybe I like it wild…”
Grrrr
. A growl purred in his chest.
Hair
Pull: Zing! Spring!
“Did
you just growl at me?”
“What
can I say, pull on me hair all you like--can’t be tutored…”
“What
about these curls?”
Buffy’s other hand smoothed gently down his
stomach to the crown of springy light brown curls crowning
his male member already making a half salute to
its superior officer: hand of Buffy.
Buffy
hand, Buffy breath,
“Buffy…” Spike spoke almost invoked “Buffy…”
Her small sweet hand
wove curious fingers into the tight pubic curls; she gently massaged the lonely
flesh
beneath.
“Doesn’t get enough
attention does it?”
“Was’ that luv?” He breathed deeply as he wove his left hand
though Buffy’s hair at the nape of her neck,
his fingers seeking out this strange sensitive
spot she had, this dip at the base of her skull, there…there…
that’s it…it wasn’t so much an erogenous zone as
a pressure point to release tension…
She combed his pubic curls with her fingers,
careful so careful not to touch the now fully extended penis
standing, twitching almost incredulous at her
ignoring it in favor of the next door neighbor with the ‘bad’
white man’s 70’s ‘fro.
“What about these curls? Are they totally tamed or what? Hmmm…Ah!”
Buffy gasped and sputtered as
a wave of ease soaked through her body she
automatically fell away from Spike onto her back.
“What,
what was that? What did you do?” Buffy breathed
“You
o.k.? Too much?…”
“No, no…I just felt like I got zapped by Vulcan
grip or something…but in a nice way…”
She breathed into
the state of physical peace relaxing into it.
“There’s more.” Spike looked her into the eye and spoke softly. “There is more…do you want more?”
Buffy felt a frisson of love, lust, excitement
and maybe a little fear all charge simultaneously through her
emotional body.
Huh did she want more--flat on her back almost
immobilized. She didn’t think she could move if she tried…
did she want more? He had turned the tables so fast on her--what
was he planning? She looked deeply
into her beloveds eyes, she clearly saw that
this was something he wanted to give to her all it required
was her complete…submission.
Submission.
Not tied up or tied
down…submission…in the ancient way…of woman to man…
Submit to win.
She had the feeling deep in her self her true
nature that this, if she did this…something would be altered
irrevocably.
It would be like loosing her virginity Diane done gone…forever…leaving
what? Or a better
question bringing what new Buffy?
All this flashed and
dashed shimmied and shook while Spike waited she looked into him drinking deep.
“I love you so much…”
His lips hadn’t moved
Oh my god it was she who
spoke.
Blue eyes, blue rain…
“Shhh, don’t cry…”
“’Mnot…”
he insisted as he pressed his cheek up against hers, It was the first
time she had said it, really
said it, with no pressure, no clock ticking,
nothing ticking, nothing beating except her heart for him.
He kissed her ear lobe gently and dipped his
tongue quickly into the deep interior of her ear.
Her body jerked in
response.
“Felt that…”
she murmured, this was wild--that such gentle touching could put her
into such a state.
“You’re gonna feel a lot more…do you Buffy? And then he changed his question to an
appeal: “Let
me…please love, let me love you…”
“Yes…”
She breathed, gasping, trickles of electricity still running a current
from her womb.
Without another word. He took a pillow and propped it up under her
hips lifting her pelvis upward into
the air.
Her legs fell open exposing her occult interior, the female hidden to
his wide open perusal. Funny,
this wasn’t a new position, but the feeling was…
how vulnerable…how submissive…
Sensing her disquiet, he began speaking a string
of nonsensical loving endearments his deep voice winding
its way through the cobweb of her fears to her
center, to her soul. It’s all right, it
is all right. It’s him.
“That right luv, ‘is me,
I’ve got you--always take care of you…”
He was seated at the end of the bed between her
legs--his hands moving down her legs to her feet. He
gently took each foot into each of his separate
hands kissed each one in turn and then gently so gently
pressed his thumb on top of the foot, and index
finger on the meaty middle of bare foot bottom--and pressed.
A sweet gentle music swam through her blood
intoxicated her body, mind and soul with…peace…
She didn’t know how long this went on,
time? What’s that? This felt…this felt …like heaven…gentle tears
of
homecoming slipped from her eyes. But it was alright, it was alright, the more
she quietly cried the better
she felt--as if the water carried hidden poisons
burred deep in her bones.
“Shhh ‘salright
luv…’salright…shhh…”
“Ah… Spike…Spike…” Her voice a thanks and a blessing as soon as
he heard it he pressed his thumbs on
her feet a little harder--her body spasmed in shock. An energy ball lit from deep within her womb
and
electrified her system.
A torrential flood flowed from between her
legs. Her tunnel was instantly erect and
jutting up into the air
searching for her man, his manhood for her
woman---where?
She was absolutely blinded by need, she was
writhing, but he had immobilized her she couldn’t lift herself
to grab him and throw him down. Her vagina gaped like a fish trying to grab
at something anything, the
air, anything, please…
“Please Spike…please…” She could only barely breathe it
She locked eyes with him he was crying, tears
slipping at the sight of her need, her agony…Why? What?
She threw her head back almost out of her
mind.
“Almost there Buffy, hang on…just a little bit
more…” He pressed deeper on the two
pressure points--and
now her heart, her soul joined her bodies cry…
She couldn’t come, she couldn’t orgasm without
him, her heart, her body, her soul…and then she saw how
to get him…she looked him in the eyes while she
brought the force of her desire for him, coalesced it into
a single thought, She looked him in the eye and
imagined him, imagined feeling him, him already deep inside
her, she imagined kissing his heart with
hers. She sent this image into him.
He groaned he could feel his already erect penis
threatening to explode from the inside. He let go of her
feet and her legs fell open, she… opened her
legs to him. She opened her legs for
him. And realized some
where, she had never…opened her legs to a man
before. She locked eyes with him and
lifted her hips…almost shyly…submission...invitation…
Never breaking eye contact, he stood at the edge
of the bed and pulled her hips a little closer to him so
she could feel his tip, at her entranceway--an
electrical shock coursed through her body, she lolled her
head to one side and mewled, she lifted her hips
higher, opened wider…
He began his claim on her. She felt it.
He was letting her feel it--letting her back down, lower her hips,
any sign and he would back down, but once begun,
he would not, he would not stop, she would be his
they would belong to each other.
He inched his member
into her, biting his lip, weeping; control barely there…
Her heart opened at the sight of his tears, and
in reflex the lips of her little cuny gaped and gripped the tip
of his member--sweet electrical current sang in
their bodies. She lay immobile still
paralyzed splayed on her
back--just the lips of her cuny holding
tight. He gripped her hips and began his
claim. She could do nothing,
but lay and feel him claim her body, inch, by
inch year by year she yielded, he took, he took, he took, He
was finally inside, all the way deep inside and
he held her hips to his body not moving just looking at her,
almost triumphant, almost. He had her.
No, she had him. Duplex living. She watched him throw his head back and
relish the feel of her held tight
to him. Annexed.
Mounted.
God help her she loved
it.
But.
She flexed her vaginal
muscles and claimed him.
His shocked gasp slipped into a chuckle and he
leaned over her, arms braced on both sides of her, looking
into her eyes all the while locked tight, held
prisoner, deep inside her.
They kissed their first
kiss as mates.
And then began to
move.
Her body already so deeply detoxed, relaxed
yielded and then gripped him at the height of his thrust,
gripped him and buried him deep within her,
showing him, showing herself some new color, he pressed is
forehead to hers as he rode her, and with every
yield she gave, he lost a bit more of himself inside her…oh
god where was this going?...
He rode
her slow, he rode her fast, at times almost brutally--neither of them appeared
close to climax, he
did not reach for her clitoris--no this was going
to come from deep inside them both.
She was dimly aware of the light in the room
changing--was it getting late but then--AH! God he was riding
her hard again, God she loved the feel of him,
just the feel…didn’t need anything else…ever…just AH! GOD!
SPIKE!
She grabbed the back of neck, buried her fingers in his hair--AH! Something was happening. SPIKE!
She began to feel her body buckle and shake as
if it were trying to shake him off and seize him at the same
time. She
wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in the crook of his neck hanging
on even as her
body tried to buck him off.
He gripped her hips, cupped his hands firmly
under her ass--holding her tight, riding her even while she
bucked, loving her even while they fucked--oh
god, oh, god, oh god…
The Slayer body was building into a frenzy,
building up into a final effort to buck him off--Buffy held on
held on while the slayer had her say. Her body bucked and yowled as Diane ran from
Apollo, run, run,
and just as she began to break, just as she
espied the chasm into which she would be obliterated--just as
she broke, she bit him. The ancient in hickey kiss. She clamped on his neck, her vagina clenched
him and
hung on--if she was breaking, if she was being
broken she wouldn’t fall down alone. She
felt his blood
trickle into her mouth and he roared as he bit
down into her neck. She felt his teeth
pierce her
flesh with a touch of shock.
She shook; the stars spilled down and lifted her
up taking him with her. His body
trembling as he emptied
into her with the light the pure white light
shooting through the cracks of her breaking body. Beautiful
light cracking an old shell. They gently released each others neck at the
same time, kissing and nuzzling
and gently weeping. Joy.
The room had gotten so light and where were the
ceilings and the walls? They looked at the vistas come
to visit. Walls gone and strange
replacement--rolling green of a heaven pasture, a sunrise teaching
everything about Technicolor.
They lay together
quietly gently nestled, nurtured…bliss…quiet…sweet…
Stunned.
Finally suddenly, Buffy
whispered.
“Uh oh. You think we were too loud?”
*
“You bit me.”
“Well…” he considered
carefully; “You bit me first…”
“No…I mean…you bit me…”
He looked down.
Thought for a moment as if these next words would lose him
everything--still had to
speak, the truth wouldn’t change.
“Not human, luv…”
“No…”
“Not completely that
is.”
She kept her face
carefully neutral; she didn’t want him to suspect her disappointment.
“Do you…do you know what
then?”
“Well…I am what I’ve always been, that’s what I
understand what I’ve been given to understand, that is
remember.
Vamp is a human demon hybrid anyway—thas me…just…reorganized. Can’t change the laws
of physics of nature or whatnot.”
“Are you alive?”
“Think so.
Heart pumping, my own blood for the most part-- he stopped when he heard
her intake of breath.
“Blood; that is the proteins, I imagine helps me
heal faster luv. Don’t crave it; don’t
need it, ‘cept in an
emergency like--don’t know it all--kinda
figuring it out day by day, intuition like.”
She was silent.
He continued, might as well
get it all out now.
“Demon’s still here pet. Demon and soul like I
was and doing the time share…better condo though dontcha
think? He
tried to lighten it up. God it hurt him
to think she was disappointed.
“Does it hurt?” She asked meekly
“Come again?”
“Are you in pain…you know hurting the way you
where…” She looked at him with such
concern he almost
cried with relief.
God how he still
scrambled for crumbs from her.
“No. Not
like it was. Reconciled meself. The demon…was cast out of hell for deeds
rendered I imagine--for
holding love in it, for loving you--so it’s like
a fallen angel--but in….reverse so to speak…”
Buffy sat thinking or
rather not thinking. Spike spoke softly.
“I’ve…got things to make up for, luv, things to
never do again--came back through the ashes of what I
was--have to use what I was, memories and such
locked in the coding, have to have that reminder and...
and it physics--I can’t be more than that now
can I?” He added almost defensively.
“I want you. I really like you, who you are,
please don’t do that--that’s not really what I’m thinking…” Her
voice drifted
Spike waited; sometimes
it paid not to guess.
“I am pregnant. I’m sure.”
She kept her eyes down “But...it doesn’t feel…solid…”
Spike swallowed hard and
waited he had absolutely no frame of reference for this conversation. So he just
waited. “I feel like if I just think the wrong
thought too hard…it will go away…”
He had to ask.
“Do you want it to go away?” He took her hand and let his love conduct
itself to her. She really could tell
him anything.
“Buffy…don’t think there’s anything we can’t say to each other…”
“Not like I want it to go away…more like…there’s
more fear sometimes than…I think I should feel, and maybe
too much fear will tip the scales--like a vote
miscounted. And there’s me racing after
yelling--no….no didn’t
mean that, I’m just a little scared…”
“You said it doesn’t
feel real--you think it’s not…human?”
Zing.
How the fuck did he do
it? Saw right through to her score card
once again.
She buried her face
against his chest and breathed him in but said nothing.
He stroked her hair.
“Ah…luv…sweet lamb…” he kissed her forehead.
“We’ll do whatever you want you know that--but I can not
image anything dark or horrid coming out of
you. Your sweet body and soul would wash
it clean daily.
Didn’t you give me a fine scrubbing?”
“You mean thrashing” Her voice was muffled against his chest and
her words were smushed into childlike
enunciation.
He laughed. “In my case, I
suspect ‘twould amount to the same thing.”
They laughed and she
pulled back surprised: “Oh my God you
made me feel better!”
“Did not.”
“Did to.
We have to change your name; you can’t be Spike with that American quilt
homespun coming from
your lips--how about…”
“Noooo…”
“Not Spuffy, cause
that’s me too and how come you get top billing by the way?--“
“--‘Bike?’. You wanna be know as ‘Bike’?
“No, no it would be too
confusing--being a noun…”
“Spike is fine…”
Buffy considered and
then gave the test pilot a twirl.
“Spike, Spank, Spanky,
Spot, Swwank…no…how do you soften Spike, how do you softy soft it?”
She ran her fingers
though his curls spring springing them.
“Like this…”
Spike leaned down and so gently kissed the side
of her mouth, they shared the sweet air between them,
lips meeting gently sharing the air, my breath,
yours, ours…gentle frissons chasing each other on the speed
dial through love center (heart) to emotion
center (stomach) to sex center (groin) to settling down
through the root into the ground (children).
“I want the baby…’
Spike said nothing
nodded his head against hers…
“Mr. Softy soft, spanky
softy…”
He leaned his body in toward hers and looked pointedly
into her eyes. She continued her search for his new
handle…while he pressed his body intimately
against hers.
“Smiley? Smiley soft softy--Ah!’ She quick intake of breath was replaced by a
smile--“maybe not so soft--“
His groin nudged hers…gently insinuating himself
between her legs--she purred content just to feel the
length, feel how hard she made him
“ Ah…mmm Spike…that feels good…” Another nudge and quick thrust and he was
inside her fast and hard
making her body jackknife--
A wordless gasp followed
by the familiar.
“Ah! SPIKE!”
He purred and rolled
onto his back pulling her with so she sat astride
“Mmm Alright luv if you say so…’Spike’ it is
then…”
*
“I love you til the wheels come off
oh...yeah...”
Tom Waits
Chapter 3
Together Again
“Ah...hem...”
Giles tapped his pen on the table’s edge ostensibly as a nervous
gesture, but, really...really
to get Spuffy's...damn...that is...Spikes
attention. This really was becoming...he
didn’t want to think....
’difficult’ and he certainly didn’t begrudge
them their joy in each other...but...
Tap. Pen Tap.
Ah hem.
Spike of Spuffy caught on first and redirected his
attention from Buffy of Spuffy and her hand on his upper
thigh to Giles.
This wasn’t going to work. He
picked Buffy’s hand off his thigh and tucked it little more
safely into the crook of his arm. A more discreet distance from his erogenous
zones. He took in Giles mild discomfort
and smirked a secret smirk. Huh. Still evil after all these years.
O.K. mate settled in for
now.
“I have your attention,
attentions?”
“Well you’re up against some pretty stiff
competition, if you had an incentive say or some kind of bonus
plan, cash reward for questions answered, well
you know...odds would improve.”
Buffy laughed. He was so funny. Wasn’t he just so funny? Everything he did was just well...wonderful.
Giles sighed and then
muttered in response to Spike as much as to Buffy.
“Oh for Christ’s’ sake...” He got up and opened a small cabinet behind
the bread box and pulled out a bottle
of bourbon.
“You bloody
bastard.” Spike called out when he
saw. “I thought I smelled the good stuff
on your breath.”
“Yes...well...” And finally he smiled. “Yes...well...and pulled three small glasses
and placed them on the table
preparing to pour. Buffy shook her head declining.
“I’m plenty intoxicated...” She stopped speaking as Spike leaned in to
nuzzle and press his cheek up against
hers.
Hers. Her. Her. Never enough.
The sweet measure of Spuffy energy seeped,
kissed the room. And Giles paused in his
pouring to stop and
think once again, surprised again. ‘My god, they really do love each other.’
Humbled he placed a shot
in front of Spike and poured one for himself.
The first question would
be the hardest.
Hardline him into answering. Q & A Cut and
Dried. Or. ‘Mates like.’
In a pub on a Friday night. And
the real
test. The
real test was to himself. Every time he
looked at Spike he saw his own miscalculations.
But
honest as he was, fair as he was, that was due
mostly to lack of information. Which
could be remedied.
The remedy for ignorance
was...forum.
It was the British way borrowed from the Romans
borrowed from the Greeks and lit in remembrance at every
kitchen table discussion in the colonies from
revolution to ‘what’s what on the rice krispies?’
He knew the way in.
“I’m sorry.”
Silence.
Spiked looked at him steady, evenly. Buffy willed her arm to remain mute still
wrapped up as it was with his.
She would allow no tremor to pass that would
indicate to Spike which way she wanted him to vote. He had
to make up his own mind about Giles.
She lowered her lids to
hide her secret mind from both men. She
would not arbitrate this.
She felt Spike inhale a huge breath hold it for
a moment like sitting atop a mountain after an earnest climb, a
pause to consider the view, the vista, and then
let it go as he climbed down the other side.
He began to speak with his eyes downcast and
incrementally tightened his grip on Buffy’s arm as he gave
the guided tour.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Pause....absolutely no one dared crack a joke
and the complete lack of initiative given the wide open target
of opportunity make Spike himself spurt a laugh.
“Sorry...really shouldn’t tempt you all like
that...but this is how it’s been playing inside me...being a parent
has got to be all in all the worst most
thankless job ever. And somehow nature
hooks you with that bait
and you’ve bought it all, now being a Da would
be great and might be easy at first cuz you can be in control
somewhat or whattall. But then the bairen starts walking around in
the world and fuck it. The world starts
walking into it. The poor mite. And what, what would I
do? What would I do to keep it safe from
nasties?”
Pause.
“Anything.
I think...I’m afraid I would do anything. Now that scares me I’ll admit and I don’t
think that
would make me good or right or...but...it has
made me understand...you.”
Silence.
What could Giles do but
remove his glasses and perform the wipe and swipe?
His throat tight and puzzled he was indeed at this
strange tear, this strange tear, this strange tear that
wanted to rip at his old world view. He had felt Spike reach into him, into the
complex tangle of his
motivations and empathize. He was just beginning to see what Buffy saw
in him. What an addiction that
could be--to have someone interested enough in
one to have the patience to look hard.
The heady
intoxication of being important. To have someone understand how dearly he
loved Buffy. To be
recognized as her father.
“Right then...let’s talk
about getting the soul...”
Spuffy said nothing,
awaiting direction.
“Can you detail your
thought process as it led up to retrieving your soul?”
“Well...It wasn’t so
much about thinking was it?” Spike gaze
turned inward, into recollect.
“It was much more like feelings. Feeling
layering one on to another and then the pressure of the weight of
it all pushing the whole thing forward.”
“Like a landslide” Buffy of Spuffy offered. She was remembering the catastrophic earth
analogy Illyana
Alaya had sung in the memorial.
“Yeah, pet, like
that. Or how an earthquake out in the
middle of the ocean makes this old tidal wave.”
Spike paused for a moment and then continued:
“It was all bout feeling, feeling it all so deep it pushed--left
no room for anything but some kind of
action. So I started moving even before
even before I knew where
I was going.
Started speaking even before I knew what I was going to say.”
“What were the
feelings?”
"Love, pain, anger disappointment--is that
a feeling? I clung to anger a lot, to
get the ball rolling. Anger
was always a way I could get things done. But it was just the fuel to get the whole
thing moving. That
no concept of the ‘thing’ the shape it would
take, just me willing to do it, to ask anything to fill this, this space. I’ve got a high tolerance for pain, you all
know it’s true, but I had no idea and I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Do you regret it?” Giles asked softly
Spike sputtered.
“How can I answer that mate? If
you ask that question, you have to ask it in a larger
context.
Like: Do you regret all the
killing or...and take it all the way back to: ‘do you regret being born
an all.”
“Do you?”
“No.
Sorry Buffy...but...It’s like this...I’m so sorry for all the pain I created
and recreated, but how can I
regret what I’ve done? Especially if it brought me here. I’ll tell you this. The things I regret are more like
uture things.
Like I would regret not learning from it all; I would regret deeply
falling back into old ways.
I would regret not helping out where I can, of
not using what I know...right?”
Silence for a moment and
then Buffy spoke softly.
‘I...I’ve come to feel the same. The death of the potentials...yeah, now I
accept that, I know its all part
of being a warrior, all the terrible part of
wartime. And that it should hurt. It should be excruciating so we
never want to do it again. I accept the pain as a message.”
“Yeah...thas’ right.”
Giles nodded. Interesting.
“Leading to the next big question of our
lives. What do we do with all this? What do we do now? Go
underground and live a normal life is like
sitting on a buried treasure. Live in
wartime for the rest of our
lives--no soldier can do that. Or should.
Buffy deserves more. She deserves
it.”
Silence while each
imagined a world with and without ‘the path.’
Buffy spoke first and it
was off topic but finger on the pulse of things.
“I...I’ve kinda been
wondering something...”
She didn’t speak again
until Spike nudged her with his elbow.
“Guilt. It’s about guilt. Did you feel guilt before the soul?”
Spike considered. “Pangs.
I could feel threatened by something that interfered with the peace I
felt with
you. You
see that peace at first was so foreign it was painful and then as the space it
filled grew bigger
I craved more of it. And...I felt bad about...about...what could
hurt you...”
Buffy quietly tightened
her grip on his arm to indicate--‘don’t go there--I don’t mean that’
“But guilt.
I thought it was guilt until I got the soul--then what I had felt
without it was peephole next to
a panorama.
Why?”
‘You felt guilt with the
soul.”
Spike puzzled, nodded
his head in affirmation. Buffy turned
her attention to Giles.
“Giles, he felt guilt with the soul.”
Giles was just beginning
to follow her.
“Why should William feel guilty about what the
demon in his body did? You always taught
me they were
separate but if they were separate then why
would Spike feel guilty with the soul--if the soul wasn’t present
in some way.”
Buffy didn’t say it--didn’t want to bring Angel
into the conversation but at times, she couldn’t help but
compare and contrast and it was Spike that spoke
it out loud. Of course.
“You’re thinking of Peaches of course. And the line he fed you all. The Jekyll and Hyde trip to the moon.
Well...you know if I was him, I might have found
some way to split the two in me mind as well.
What I did
was bad enough mind, but I had borders,
rules--Angelus...had none. Absolutely
none. Buffy, when the
Judge laid a hand on him, he didn’t twitch or
even puff. There was not a trace of
humanity in him. Darla was
the same.
It is odd. How they obsessed over
Dru, and fastened onto to her who still retained her humanity
and then Dru to me, and yeah I did, I admit
it. For a demon it’s a dirty word--but
Dru and I found comfort
in each other because of it, oh my god that’s
why they did it. I’ve just now
realized. They had us
around because we still responded to
torture...we still felt pain. They liked
the humanity in us--so they
could tear at it and feel pleasure when it
broke.”
Spike was silent for a
moment, Buffy and Giles waited while he collected his thoughts.
“Of course...of course Angel spilt the two...how
could he ever acknowledge the fact that Liam had agreed
to be this thing. That he was the beginning point. Maybe that’s where the soul guilt comes
in...maybe not
so much as participating...but for agreeing to
the change. And he did. I did, Darla did every demon I know
did except...'cept for Dru. Angel broke her mind before the change...so
she’s not responsible, was even
what you might say raped into being a
vampire. She was as mad as English in
the sun, but there were
moments when she could glimmer and I’d see
her. Who she was, and she always
looked...well a little
stunned to find herself in this conditin. She would ask me, what she was--why couldn’t
she see herself
in the mirror, why did the sun hurt...why...do I
want to kill people...and I’d explain it all to her...I used to
think it was the madness...but maybe...maybe by
rights her soul was trying to call her back because she
didn’t agree to be a vamp. I dunno.
Never thought of it like that before.”
They were silent. The living horror of what Spike had just
described seemed beyond measure. To be
living
guiltless in a prison, a prison that moved you
from place to place and made you do things...the horror of
waking up and finding yourself trapped in a
machine....
Poor Drusilla, poor girl...
“Whoa, wait a minute I don’t like what you’re
thinking Buffy, you stake her--she comes at you ever don’t
ever give her a quarter, not a quarter of a
quarter. Of course I’d prefer not to,
but I’d do it and you must
too. What
I said might be true and all, but if she comes at you and she’s in a mad state
she a serious rival
for the damage Angelus could do and not blink
once about it and make no mistake. I’m telling any of this to
have you go soft on vamps. The watcher’s right about that. There can be no complicated moral questions
when you got your back up. The pull from that
black pit is strong so strong and fews' the vamps there are
who can control it.”
“Could you have done
it?”
“At what stage?
When I was first turned. Yeah...I
think so. I still loved my Mother...it
was still with me
after I turned...so yeah...I think I could have
controlled the bloodlust, given the right initiation. But having
Angelus as a teacher for twenty years? And of course after the
initial...instruction...I had my own tastes...
my own cravings to fill...different than his or
Dru’s...but still deadly...”
“To Slayers.” Giles asked a little sharply.
“To Slayers.”
Spike conceded a little sadly.
Beat of silence that
Buffy filled.
“So you’ll never know if
you could have controlled yourself without the chip.”
“I’d like to think I
could have. I would have. But...I’ll never know.”
“You loved Buffy enough
without the soul, to have done that?”
“Yes.”
Simple, quiet, true.
Buffy entwined her fingers with his and held on
until he turned to look at her and saw in her eyes a
confession of ‘me too.’
He was stilled to his
center, his demon sobbing somewhere inside.
She loves me, she loves me, she
loves me...
Giles quietly poured two more fingers of Bourbon
for him and Spike and waited and watched as Spuffy
spoke to each other in Spuffese.
They really love each other.
Amazing, the turns of the world and how we have
to hang on while it turns or be thrown clear off and find
ourselves shopping for real estate on Neptune.
Predictions, no good, prophecy no good, destiny,
chosen, curses and kingdoms no good there is only
hanging up n ‘never’ and hanging on as the world
turns.
Spuffy, Godspeed. Giles
thought.
Godspeed.
*
“Oh brave new world that has such men and people in
it!”
William Shakespeare
‘The Tempest’
Chapter 4
Reveal
She wanted to touch him, but really, really now
he needed sleep. He needed to get some
solid rest. He
had looked more than a little overdrawn on his
energy bank by the time Giles had finally turned off the
tape recorder and they had sat in silence.
Spike had seemed tired, though if exhausted from
the questions, or all the ‘ahem’ she wasn’t sure and so
she really should let him sleep--but she still
wanted to touch. She contented herself
for the moment with
tactilia ocularia. Touching with the eyes. There is no way that was Latin or words or a
language even, see?
He inspired whole new worlds in her. They would remake the world and the words and
even all the old,
olde overworked overused previously accepted
universal gestures in it. There was no part of the world,
the old world that wouldn’t get a good rewrite.
Vanguards.
Well o.k....could still use some of the old words. Keep some as steady mates, constant
companions.
Some old ways could still come in handy.
And it could also be about respecting your
elders...but still...change...change...and why
not change the whole world just quite simply by loving and
being loved in it?
She was lying with her back against the wall and
raised her self now as gently and as quietly as she could
to a sitting position to better see him: to
ocularize his ‘himness.’
He had seemed to make a strange point of being
the one to sleep on the side of the bed facing out into
the room and suddenly she just ‘got it.’ Understood
it and in so doing understood just a bitty bit more
of him--oh, yeah it’s the version of the old
world thing a gentlemen liked to do:
walk on the side of the
street facing traffic. Protect the female from mud splats and
runaway trains.
He wanted the open side
of the bed in case in had to move fast.
To protect his family. Well.
That was
just...cute.
Buffy smiled.
It was. Seeing as how she could
probably bake his bread ten times till Sunday in his new
physical condition and remembering Riley’s
reaction to being described as kittenish--she reminded herself
best not to mention how cute she thought this
was. Spike was certainly more secure but
jokes or no there
were some things all men just didn’t find funny.
How very dear.
Men were wonderful.
She was smiling and then her brow pulled
together in a puzzle.
Wait a minute.
Just how strong was Spike anyway?
He was defiantly weakened after helping those people
in the car accident. Sharing his quick healing abilities with them
had made her think he was weakened over
all. She
had been careful with him at first, but as the days had gone on...well, wait a
minute...she hadn’t
been holding back at all. Interesting.
She studied him stretched out on his back one
arm thrown up over his head. Little
brown hairs growing in
his armpit.
Well, look at that. That was new
wasn’t it? Spike’s body had been as well
shorn as a baby’s
bottom.
Cool alabaster.
Huh. What
else had changed?
She gently, so gently pulled the light quilt
coverlet from his body inching it down to reveal more of his
flesh to the cooling late summer air.
Little bitty gooseflesh maybe there around his
breasts. He had lovely breasts...well, he did.
Quite
touchable.
Now breast became ‘chest’ when ascribed to men. But a chest was the whole thing the
expanse...and these, quiet swells, low mounds
tipped with nipples tingling in the cool air; were breasts.
Well...they were...sweet.
That was another thing that was going to change
in her new world. This whole
chest/breast thing would be straightened out and men would just have to get
over it. Why not take after women? they just didn’t
want to admit that men, that is in the very
nature of their bodies, were really wanna be women.
Else why would they have
breasts at all? Who were they gonna feed
with those things?
Except food for my eyes.
She almost giggled.
She smiled and almost started to speak to share
her mind with him--make Spike laugh, make William
uncomfortable, make him blush maybe when she
licked his nips and suckled at his breast.
She had seen a bit of blush or maybe it was a
flush when she had described in detail what he could do
with his...no it was a blush.
She smiled almost to tears. God she loved him. She loved William.
It flowed up through her quite suddenly and
shook her heart and bones like it was looking for a way out
into the world.
Some expression. Oh god I’m gonna
start crying again. Spike is gonna think
I’m nuts.
She stroked her chest a bit at the hard ball
growing at the center. Should a person
love so much? And
then a trickle of fear ran through her at the
thought of him...not being there.
Is this what people were taught in life that
William had never learned--hadn’t she been taught to love
carefully, to love in bits so you can still
safely back away--but William had set the gold standard, had set
the bar as high as why not love in heaven here
on earth and lonely as she was for that place, for heaven,
she had wanted it. In her true self she wanted to love like that
and had been looking for a man strong
enough to brave it with her.
Her very nature had wanted it and as competitive
as she was, why not beat him at his own game and
open up and loves him more, even more than he
loved her...oh god...was she in trouble?
Could love be
trouble?
No not love, love was good and holy--it was...being apart that was
trouble...separation.
She shivered at the word, and couldn’t help it
now, had to lie down next to him, feel his body against her.
She lay carefully next to him, spooning her back
against him, he, even asleep on internal direction pulled her
next to him wrapped an arm around her.
Oh god this was better. This was better. Oh thank you god and she found herself
praying, something she
had never ever even done in her whole life even
and the prayer didn’t have words, real words, words that
had bang and blast and were poor mites in
comparison with real soul to soul communication no; this was more
like a thing in her body reaching out to grip
something larger, groping for Mom or Dad, she was suddenly
seeking some solace even bigger than her love
for life, for him...
The prayer felt more like a question really--it
felt something like: ‘how do people do
it?’ How could I bear
life without him now...how could anyone bear
life so far away from heaven and isolated and tucked in tight
into these small, small things, these bodies and
could I bear it if he...left me? If...if
he died...what would
he do if she died?
Her mind grew still and clear and then she
thought of Spike, how he might have felt after she had been killed
and suddenly she knew why...the great puzzle
that had plagued her all of last year and him right in front
of her, all the time--the answer right there.
She had come back
because of him.
Willow would never have been able to pull her
out of heaven without her consent and it had plagued her,
the great ‘why’ had tugged at her and here it
was.
She had come back for
him.
How terrible it was to be separated from your
love and seeing him so miserable...she...she must have
wanted to come back. Just to ease his pain if she could--if it was
possible.
The pain was gone now from her chest; it was
gone now completely and replaced with surprise and...and
something else.
Revelation. To reveal and pull
back the curtain...now makes you responsible for what is on
the other side...and Buffy, being Buffy never
ever walked away from responsibility.
She was the Slayer.
The water slid from her eyes unbidden, she felt a hiccup but held it, still trying
to stay quiet but no good,
he heard it or felt it and now he was kissing
the nape of her neck with such tender care...well that just
made her cry all the more.
The joy of revelation
and sorrow of it too.
He didn’t ask with words, just gentle kissed the
back of her head to quiet and when her breathing had
evened out and she could speak without cracking
the words together she said this:
“We have to help
Cordy...we...we have to...”
He said nothing but pulled her in tighter to
breathe her in all the way into his bones.
He wanted to be her.
He wanted to be her when he grew up.
“We have to help her,
William...”
His heart thrilled strangely in a double beat at
the intimate use of his Christian name.
Not to mention using
the word ‘we’ not ‘I’...
They were together. He nodded against her neck and murmured so
low she just, just heard it.
“And Angel...”
That’s what he had said
and it was true.
“And Angel...”
She agreed and smiled then as she realized, he
had known all along what it was that needed to be done
and just waited, waited for her to find it.
She turned in his arms so they were now face to
face. She gently stroked the cheek of the
man who could
each her a thing or two about this thing they
were in together.
He kissed her gently on the side of her mouth
setting a warm current loose to warm their naked flesh under
the August moon.
“I love you William...”
“I love you
So easy, so easy so
easy...
Oh god, here we go.
*
TBC
In
chapter 5
‘Cordy,
Cordelia, Cordelia Chase Me’
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