Sunlight - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Title: Sunlight
Author: mutinousmuse
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,113
Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike with a few cameoes
Spoilers: Series.
Summary:Post series finale. Spike’s gone and Buffy’s seeing things.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Obviously.
A/N: Despite the fact that Buffy was my first fandom so many years ago, this is actually my first BtVS fic. Go figure. Anyway, this is my sappy-maudlin coda for what I think will always be my favorite show. It’s dedicated to mastermia, who made me smile because she wanted to read it.
Sunlight
The first time she sees him after the end she’s in the supermarket with Dawn. It’s a new rule - one normal sisterly activity per week - and today’s event is grocery shopping. She turns a corner and he’s there, crouching down in the pasta aisle examining a box of spaghetti noodles , and she can’t breathe.
“Buffy!” Dawn pokes in her in the shoulder with a jar of peanut butter. “Smooth or crunchy?”
Buffy takes a step forward, arm reaching out. “Spike?”
The man looks up, brown eyes narrowing in confusion, hair suddenly less blonde. She stumbles back, mumbling something apologetic, and not-Spike wanders away.
“He’s dead, Buffy” - Dawn’s needless reminder. “Plus, you know, sunlight.”
Sunlight. The thing Spike turned into.
“Right,” Buffy says. “Chunky.”
“Huh?”
Buffy grabs the chunky peanut butter out of Dawn’s hand and tosses it into the cart. It smushes the celery.
The second time she sees him she’s on patrol. Spin, swivel, stake, Spike. Moonlight glints off of his hair as he darts behind a tree. She follows him into the empty space, and the darkness absorbs him.
She spends the rest of the night wandering through the graveyards of Los Angeles and doesn’t come home until the sun begins to creep up over the hills. Xander gives her a funny look when she walks through the door - then again, most of his looks are funny now, what with the whole pirate thing.
She’s surprised he’s awake. He’s been casanovaing through the potentials - no, the new slayers - and generally doesn’t find occasion to crawl out of bed until the hour hand hits double-digits. She wants to tell him that they’re not Anya, that they’ll never be Anya, and that he’ll spend the rest of his life thinking he’s found her in other women only to watch her slip away, replaced by a stranger.
She doesn’t though - she may not have done the whole graduating from college thing, but she did learn enough from Psych 101 to recognize projecting.
It’s Friday night, which means dinner with Angel. They’re dating now, and it’s a thing, complete with flowers and films and French food. She laughs in the appropriate places, and he pretends not to notice the way her head turns whenever someone passes by in a leather coat.
“Most people don’t live happily ever after with their high school sweethearts,” Willow tells her, and it feels like permission.
Still, being with Angel seems like what she’s supposed to do, so she does it. Besides, she misses cold, hard arms.
It’s thoughts like that which send her out into the night, hunting. She spends her days surrounded by women like her - warriors. Chosen. But she still spends her nights alone.
She’s on a date with Angel the third time sees him. She ignores him, stares down into her soup as though she’s reading her fortune in the creamy broccoli bits. She waits for him to disappear, to turn back into a waiter or a shadow.
It’s not until Angel drops his glass of wine that she looks up.
“You can see him too?” she asks.
Both vampires look at her as though she’s completely batshit, and at least that’s normal.
“Spike.” Angel’s voice is somewhere between annoyed and amazed. “How are you here?”
Spike’s eyes dart back and forth from Angel’s face to Buffy’s to the half empty bottle of something expensive sitting on the table between them.
“I should go.”
He’s through the door before Buffy’s legs start working again, and by the time she reaches the street it’s predictably empty.
She walks home, and Angel doesn’t come after her.
She finds him the next night in a cemetery, perched on a headstone. They don’t talk for a while, and he still chain-smokes.
“So, you and Angel?”
Her words tangle up and Spike makes a noise that sounds like laughter. He mumbles something about how she deserves to be happy and starts to walk away.
“Hey!” She moves after him, grabs his arm and swings him around hard.
“If you wanted to dance, Slayer, you could have just asked.” He jerks back, flinging her arm away, and it’s so familiar that it almost chokes her.
“You can’t just… just come back, all weirdly not dead, and expect me to be sitting here waiting for you,” she snaps. “You died, Spike.”
“I waited,” he said. “For you.” It’s different, she wants to tell him, but he starts to pull away again.
“That’s not fair.”
“Piss off.” He lights another cigarette and flicks the match in her general direction. “Shouldn’t you be running back to the love of your life right about now?”
“Angel is not the love of my life,” she says. “And you still haven’t explained what you’re even doing here.”
“Not the love of your life?” he scoffs. “Fine. Your soulmate. Your Romeo. The Ken to your Barbie.” His gaze drops, and his voice follows suit. “You can’t tell me you’re not in love with him.”
It’s amazing, she thinks, when things get simple. “I’m not in love with him.” It feels strange to say it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Spike looks up. “Right, so, technically you can. But you can also tell me that you’re a 57-year-old brachen demon with a penchant for eating mayonnaise out of the jar but that doesn’t make it so, now does it?”
She takes a step forward, and they’re practically touching. “I’m not in love with him.”
Spike’s hand moves of its own accord to wind through her hair.
“I told you,” she says. “You didn’t believe me, but I told you. I love - ”
He cuts her off, lips crushing against hers. The world is tilting and something finally breaks inside of her but it doesn’t hurt.
When they can speak again, he tells her about The Powers That Be and the amulet and waking up on fire somewhere beneath the earth. She tells him about the celery, and it’s kind of an even trade.
The fifth time she sees him he’s in the kitchen using his patient voice to explain to a wooden-spoon wielding Xander that he’s not The First. Buffy briefly considers reminding Xander that wooden spoons proved generally useless against The First anyway, but decides to pour herself a glass of water instead. She lets herself stare at him - they way his jaw muscles clench and unclench, the way his fingers are never still - and pieces of herself begin to float back together.
She falls asleep tangled up in him on the couch watching old black and whites. He’s still there when she wakes, and he’s warm. Warm like sunlight.
~fin
Author: mutinousmuse
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,113
Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike with a few cameoes
Spoilers: Series.
Summary:Post series finale. Spike’s gone and Buffy’s seeing things.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Obviously.
A/N: Despite the fact that Buffy was my first fandom so many years ago, this is actually my first BtVS fic. Go figure. Anyway, this is my sappy-maudlin coda for what I think will always be my favorite show. It’s dedicated to mastermia, who made me smile because she wanted to read it.
Sunlight
The first time she sees him after the end she’s in the supermarket with Dawn. It’s a new rule - one normal sisterly activity per week - and today’s event is grocery shopping. She turns a corner and he’s there, crouching down in the pasta aisle examining a box of spaghetti noodles , and she can’t breathe.
“Buffy!” Dawn pokes in her in the shoulder with a jar of peanut butter. “Smooth or crunchy?”
Buffy takes a step forward, arm reaching out. “Spike?”
The man looks up, brown eyes narrowing in confusion, hair suddenly less blonde. She stumbles back, mumbling something apologetic, and not-Spike wanders away.
“He’s dead, Buffy” - Dawn’s needless reminder. “Plus, you know, sunlight.”
Sunlight. The thing Spike turned into.
“Right,” Buffy says. “Chunky.”
“Huh?”
Buffy grabs the chunky peanut butter out of Dawn’s hand and tosses it into the cart. It smushes the celery.
The second time she sees him she’s on patrol. Spin, swivel, stake, Spike. Moonlight glints off of his hair as he darts behind a tree. She follows him into the empty space, and the darkness absorbs him.
She spends the rest of the night wandering through the graveyards of Los Angeles and doesn’t come home until the sun begins to creep up over the hills. Xander gives her a funny look when she walks through the door - then again, most of his looks are funny now, what with the whole pirate thing.
She’s surprised he’s awake. He’s been casanovaing through the potentials - no, the new slayers - and generally doesn’t find occasion to crawl out of bed until the hour hand hits double-digits. She wants to tell him that they’re not Anya, that they’ll never be Anya, and that he’ll spend the rest of his life thinking he’s found her in other women only to watch her slip away, replaced by a stranger.
She doesn’t though - she may not have done the whole graduating from college thing, but she did learn enough from Psych 101 to recognize projecting.
It’s Friday night, which means dinner with Angel. They’re dating now, and it’s a thing, complete with flowers and films and French food. She laughs in the appropriate places, and he pretends not to notice the way her head turns whenever someone passes by in a leather coat.
“Most people don’t live happily ever after with their high school sweethearts,” Willow tells her, and it feels like permission.
Still, being with Angel seems like what she’s supposed to do, so she does it. Besides, she misses cold, hard arms.
It’s thoughts like that which send her out into the night, hunting. She spends her days surrounded by women like her - warriors. Chosen. But she still spends her nights alone.
She’s on a date with Angel the third time sees him. She ignores him, stares down into her soup as though she’s reading her fortune in the creamy broccoli bits. She waits for him to disappear, to turn back into a waiter or a shadow.
It’s not until Angel drops his glass of wine that she looks up.
“You can see him too?” she asks.
Both vampires look at her as though she’s completely batshit, and at least that’s normal.
“Spike.” Angel’s voice is somewhere between annoyed and amazed. “How are you here?”
Spike’s eyes dart back and forth from Angel’s face to Buffy’s to the half empty bottle of something expensive sitting on the table between them.
“I should go.”
He’s through the door before Buffy’s legs start working again, and by the time she reaches the street it’s predictably empty.
She walks home, and Angel doesn’t come after her.
She finds him the next night in a cemetery, perched on a headstone. They don’t talk for a while, and he still chain-smokes.
“So, you and Angel?”
Her words tangle up and Spike makes a noise that sounds like laughter. He mumbles something about how she deserves to be happy and starts to walk away.
“Hey!” She moves after him, grabs his arm and swings him around hard.
“If you wanted to dance, Slayer, you could have just asked.” He jerks back, flinging her arm away, and it’s so familiar that it almost chokes her.
“You can’t just… just come back, all weirdly not dead, and expect me to be sitting here waiting for you,” she snaps. “You died, Spike.”
“I waited,” he said. “For you.” It’s different, she wants to tell him, but he starts to pull away again.
“That’s not fair.”
“Piss off.” He lights another cigarette and flicks the match in her general direction. “Shouldn’t you be running back to the love of your life right about now?”
“Angel is not the love of my life,” she says. “And you still haven’t explained what you’re even doing here.”
“Not the love of your life?” he scoffs. “Fine. Your soulmate. Your Romeo. The Ken to your Barbie.” His gaze drops, and his voice follows suit. “You can’t tell me you’re not in love with him.”
It’s amazing, she thinks, when things get simple. “I’m not in love with him.” It feels strange to say it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Spike looks up. “Right, so, technically you can. But you can also tell me that you’re a 57-year-old brachen demon with a penchant for eating mayonnaise out of the jar but that doesn’t make it so, now does it?”
She takes a step forward, and they’re practically touching. “I’m not in love with him.”
Spike’s hand moves of its own accord to wind through her hair.
“I told you,” she says. “You didn’t believe me, but I told you. I love - ”
He cuts her off, lips crushing against hers. The world is tilting and something finally breaks inside of her but it doesn’t hurt.
When they can speak again, he tells her about The Powers That Be and the amulet and waking up on fire somewhere beneath the earth. She tells him about the celery, and it’s kind of an even trade.
The fifth time she sees him he’s in the kitchen using his patient voice to explain to a wooden-spoon wielding Xander that he’s not The First. Buffy briefly considers reminding Xander that wooden spoons proved generally useless against The First anyway, but decides to pour herself a glass of water instead. She lets herself stare at him - they way his jaw muscles clench and unclench, the way his fingers are never still - and pieces of herself begin to float back together.
She falls asleep tangled up in him on the couch watching old black and whites. He’s still there when she wakes, and he’s warm. Warm like sunlight.
~fin