(no subject)
"It's not like I wanted to be pounded into the floor--" I protested, then winced at that little slip of the tongue, "--It'd just be nice to feel halfway useful some of the time."
He made all those soothing sounds that used to be comforting, folded me into arms so big that I almost forgot the reason I was mad. But it didn't completely go away. I was used to arms that were all-encompassing or whatever. I was used to god-like bodies and disarming smiles and kisses that blew me away. But I wasn't used to feeling like this and I wasn't sure where it had started or how it had even got as far as it had tonight.
"I'm still the Slayer," I'd protested, "I don't need protecting."
"It's not about protecting you," he'd replied, his voice silky smooth, "But that's not your life any more, Buffy. You said it yourself."
And said it I had. I was all for the odd-night's slayage now and again. Know a demon that needed punched six ways from Sunday? Buffy was your girl... But I wasn't the only girl now. I wasn't the only Chosen One and here, in Rome, the nasties seemed to stay away a lot more than they had in Sunnydale. Strangely - perhaps even Buffy-being-a-little-conceitedy - I'd just assumed that they knew I was here, they'd heard about the crater we'd made of Sunnydale and decided that I wasn't the girl to mess with after all.
Then The Immortal had showed up.
He ran things a certain way, he told me. Rome was his turf and the creatures of the night knew better than to mess with that. We could be a team, he told me, not understanding why his charms, then, didn't have the desired effect. Oh, he was easy on the eyes alright but back then? I wasn't exactly poster girl for a relationship, healthy or otherwise.
"I'm not done baking," I'd told Angel, not ready for anyone to enjoy delicious cookie Buffy and-- How stupid had I sounded back then? Talking about not being baked yet and-- I was supposed to follow that up with what, an 'eat me, I'm done' when I'd figured out what the hell I'd wanted? I'd known what I wanted. It had been right there in front of me the whole damn time and when I finally figured it out, when I finally got with the big emotional-check in and bought a clue? I said those words.
Three little words that I'd denied for the last ever and Spike shot me down in flames. "No you don't, but thanks for saying it." I heard that every night for a year after he-- After we-- After Sunnydale got craterised. There wasn't a night went by that I didn't hear that or wish that it had gone differently, that he knew, that I'd made him see before--
Blinking, I swallowed the knot of grief in my throat and pulled away from my pseudo-boyfriend, avoiding his questing gaze. "I should go... Dawnie..."
"Isn't she staying with friends tonight?" He asked, placing a hand at the small of my back. The touch was slight, comforting even - but it felt wrong. A month of being his better half - still my words, not his - and some things still felt wrong. Like when we kissed, the way his nose would bump mine sometimes, that tiny show of affection. Nice, comforting... But not the one I was used to.
The way it felt when we-- Yeah, he was good. Fantastic, even. But he wasn't Spike. And I knew it was wrong to compare, I knew it was wrong to even try and put a label on what we had when cookie me was still getting over her last attempt at baking but I did it anyway. The Immortal was everything a lover should be. Attentive, giving... A thousand plus years kinda gave him the whole advantage, but it never came close to what I'd shared with Spike.
He didn't know me like Spike did, couldn't play my body the way he had. Couldn't love me the way Spike did.
He wasn't Spike.
Spike was no more. Buried in Sunnydale with the ones we'd left behind - my Mom, Anya, Tara, Ms. Calendar - all the people we'd loved and lost and Spike was right at the bottom of it all. Hail the victorious dead and all that Lord-of-the-Rings crap because he'd done it, he'd saved us, and a part of me had to believe that it had made up for the things he'd done before the soul.
"You were dead too," Giles had reminded me on the bus as we rode away from Sunnydale, "And you were warm. Happy. If Spike is there..."
"If Spike is there I'm happy for him," I said softly, turning my head to stare at Dawn for a moment, "If." Because as much as I wanted to believe, a part of me knew that he mightn't - that the good he'd done mightn't have outweighed the bad and that thought almost crippled me. Spike in hell... When he'd gone through enough of it to get his soul back in the first place.
"He saved people, Buffy," Giles told me, placing a hand on my shoulder, "It might not have made up the balance for some of the things he'd done but fate... It deals well with those who-- You have to believe he found forgiveness."
I remembered telling Giles weeks earlier - when he tried to have Spike killed - that I had nothing left to learn from him. Now I was faced with a man who, aside from Spike, knew me better than I knew myself. And I blinked. Because for a moment it felt like he could see everything I was, everything I'd become and he wasn't surprised, or shocked. He was-- Proud. Just like I was of Spike. I only wished that he'd believed the last words I'd said to him.
"I'm proud of him." I said quietly, because that was the only thing I could offer Giles without breaking into floods of tears. I couldn't tell him that I loved him, that I'd said it but Spike hadn't believed it. He was right. I had to hope that wherever Spike was he knew forgiveness, he knew peace. That had to be enough.
"Buffy?"
I glanced up into dark eyes, blinked again, and caught his sigh. "Sorry," I mumbled, "I'm just distracted is all."
"So it seems. Would you like me to walk you home?"
I met his gaze with an arched eyebrow and a barely concealed glare that said, 'hello, slayer, able to look after myself!'
Fifteen minutes later and I was out of there, wrapping my scarf tight around my neck and slipping my hand into my jeans pocket, running my fingers over the zippo lighter that I'd plucked from my little box of things I'd managed to salvage before the battle. Mr. Gordo, Mr. Pointy... A few photos of my Mom, the gang and I, and Spike's lighter. The one I'd protested until I was blue in the face that I didn't have.
I carried it everywhere. My little good luck charm? I didn't think so, though my luck had been pretty good since we'd given all the girls the power of the Slayer. I'd managed to find us an apartment, enrol Dawn in a local school that wasn't located on a Hellmouth... I'd even managed to find myself a job that I didn't hate 98.5% of the time. I was, like, normal life Buffy. Looking after her sister Buffy.
Bored to goddamn tears Buffy. Okay, okay, so part of me didn't miss the not knowing whether I was going to live to see another day. And I really didn't miss the icky-stinky sewer smell when the slayage got, well, sucky. But I missed-- I missed not having a purpose. I missed not having something to go out and do every night and, really, that was high on the irony-meter. Me, Buffy, she who hated being a Slayer for most of her young life wanting to go back to it. Maybe not full time or anything, but enough so that I could settle this antsy, uneasy feeling inside me that I still couldn't figure out when it had dropped on me.
Sighing, I slipped through the gates to the park that held the same shortcut I travelled every night. "So much for Normal Life Buffy," I murmured to myself, shoving both hands into my pockets as I walked, "More like Much With The Issues Buffy."
[Open to Spike]
He made all those soothing sounds that used to be comforting, folded me into arms so big that I almost forgot the reason I was mad. But it didn't completely go away. I was used to arms that were all-encompassing or whatever. I was used to god-like bodies and disarming smiles and kisses that blew me away. But I wasn't used to feeling like this and I wasn't sure where it had started or how it had even got as far as it had tonight.
"I'm still the Slayer," I'd protested, "I don't need protecting."
"It's not about protecting you," he'd replied, his voice silky smooth, "But that's not your life any more, Buffy. You said it yourself."
And said it I had. I was all for the odd-night's slayage now and again. Know a demon that needed punched six ways from Sunday? Buffy was your girl... But I wasn't the only girl now. I wasn't the only Chosen One and here, in Rome, the nasties seemed to stay away a lot more than they had in Sunnydale. Strangely - perhaps even Buffy-being-a-little-conceitedy - I'd just assumed that they knew I was here, they'd heard about the crater we'd made of Sunnydale and decided that I wasn't the girl to mess with after all.
Then The Immortal had showed up.
He ran things a certain way, he told me. Rome was his turf and the creatures of the night knew better than to mess with that. We could be a team, he told me, not understanding why his charms, then, didn't have the desired effect. Oh, he was easy on the eyes alright but back then? I wasn't exactly poster girl for a relationship, healthy or otherwise.
"I'm not done baking," I'd told Angel, not ready for anyone to enjoy delicious cookie Buffy and-- How stupid had I sounded back then? Talking about not being baked yet and-- I was supposed to follow that up with what, an 'eat me, I'm done' when I'd figured out what the hell I'd wanted? I'd known what I wanted. It had been right there in front of me the whole damn time and when I finally figured it out, when I finally got with the big emotional-check in and bought a clue? I said those words.
Three little words that I'd denied for the last ever and Spike shot me down in flames. "No you don't, but thanks for saying it." I heard that every night for a year after he-- After we-- After Sunnydale got craterised. There wasn't a night went by that I didn't hear that or wish that it had gone differently, that he knew, that I'd made him see before--
Blinking, I swallowed the knot of grief in my throat and pulled away from my pseudo-boyfriend, avoiding his questing gaze. "I should go... Dawnie..."
"Isn't she staying with friends tonight?" He asked, placing a hand at the small of my back. The touch was slight, comforting even - but it felt wrong. A month of being his better half - still my words, not his - and some things still felt wrong. Like when we kissed, the way his nose would bump mine sometimes, that tiny show of affection. Nice, comforting... But not the one I was used to.
The way it felt when we-- Yeah, he was good. Fantastic, even. But he wasn't Spike. And I knew it was wrong to compare, I knew it was wrong to even try and put a label on what we had when cookie me was still getting over her last attempt at baking but I did it anyway. The Immortal was everything a lover should be. Attentive, giving... A thousand plus years kinda gave him the whole advantage, but it never came close to what I'd shared with Spike.
He didn't know me like Spike did, couldn't play my body the way he had. Couldn't love me the way Spike did.
He wasn't Spike.
Spike was no more. Buried in Sunnydale with the ones we'd left behind - my Mom, Anya, Tara, Ms. Calendar - all the people we'd loved and lost and Spike was right at the bottom of it all. Hail the victorious dead and all that Lord-of-the-Rings crap because he'd done it, he'd saved us, and a part of me had to believe that it had made up for the things he'd done before the soul.
"You were dead too," Giles had reminded me on the bus as we rode away from Sunnydale, "And you were warm. Happy. If Spike is there..."
"If Spike is there I'm happy for him," I said softly, turning my head to stare at Dawn for a moment, "If." Because as much as I wanted to believe, a part of me knew that he mightn't - that the good he'd done mightn't have outweighed the bad and that thought almost crippled me. Spike in hell... When he'd gone through enough of it to get his soul back in the first place.
"He saved people, Buffy," Giles told me, placing a hand on my shoulder, "It might not have made up the balance for some of the things he'd done but fate... It deals well with those who-- You have to believe he found forgiveness."
I remembered telling Giles weeks earlier - when he tried to have Spike killed - that I had nothing left to learn from him. Now I was faced with a man who, aside from Spike, knew me better than I knew myself. And I blinked. Because for a moment it felt like he could see everything I was, everything I'd become and he wasn't surprised, or shocked. He was-- Proud. Just like I was of Spike. I only wished that he'd believed the last words I'd said to him.
"I'm proud of him." I said quietly, because that was the only thing I could offer Giles without breaking into floods of tears. I couldn't tell him that I loved him, that I'd said it but Spike hadn't believed it. He was right. I had to hope that wherever Spike was he knew forgiveness, he knew peace. That had to be enough.
"Buffy?"
I glanced up into dark eyes, blinked again, and caught his sigh. "Sorry," I mumbled, "I'm just distracted is all."
"So it seems. Would you like me to walk you home?"
I met his gaze with an arched eyebrow and a barely concealed glare that said, 'hello, slayer, able to look after myself!'
Fifteen minutes later and I was out of there, wrapping my scarf tight around my neck and slipping my hand into my jeans pocket, running my fingers over the zippo lighter that I'd plucked from my little box of things I'd managed to salvage before the battle. Mr. Gordo, Mr. Pointy... A few photos of my Mom, the gang and I, and Spike's lighter. The one I'd protested until I was blue in the face that I didn't have.
I carried it everywhere. My little good luck charm? I didn't think so, though my luck had been pretty good since we'd given all the girls the power of the Slayer. I'd managed to find us an apartment, enrol Dawn in a local school that wasn't located on a Hellmouth... I'd even managed to find myself a job that I didn't hate 98.5% of the time. I was, like, normal life Buffy. Looking after her sister Buffy.
Bored to goddamn tears Buffy. Okay, okay, so part of me didn't miss the not knowing whether I was going to live to see another day. And I really didn't miss the icky-stinky sewer smell when the slayage got, well, sucky. But I missed-- I missed not having a purpose. I missed not having something to go out and do every night and, really, that was high on the irony-meter. Me, Buffy, she who hated being a Slayer for most of her young life wanting to go back to it. Maybe not full time or anything, but enough so that I could settle this antsy, uneasy feeling inside me that I still couldn't figure out when it had dropped on me.
Sighing, I slipped through the gates to the park that held the same shortcut I travelled every night. "So much for Normal Life Buffy," I murmured to myself, shoving both hands into my pockets as I walked, "More like Much With The Issues Buffy."
[Open to Spike]