FMK request for some spuffy
In the poll a while ago, this was the "Spuffy" FMK request. I'll be doing the "Spangel" FMK request next. :)
Not sure I really hit what Dreamie wanted with this one - the hurt is all subtle, and the Buffy!Threat implied.
I couldn't find the scene she was talking about - where Buffy and friends are at the mansion and Spike listens in? I could almost imagine it! But maybe it was dialog-free because it's not in the dialog database...
I also confess I wanted to wedge a little Spangelus violence into this one, but it just didn't happen. Everyone please assume there was a naughty erotically charged spanking scene just before the beginning. :)
PAIRING: Spuffy
GENRE: Het
RATING: Not specified
DETAILS: Season Two, when Buffy and friends go to the mansion, and Spike is hiding listening to them, just before they go to fight the Judge -- Buffy actually is aware that Spike is there, and goes back for him, thinking mistakenly that kidnapping him will give her some leverage with Angelus, or at least with Drusilla...She takes him back as a prisoner, and is not very nice to him really, include threats, violence, whatever -- make her be kind of scary to him, really, because at this time they're still mortal enemies...he's still in the wheelchair, getting better, but not very strong yet, so he's pretty much sure that she's going to kill him in the end...you probably know the sort of stuff i like, use your imagination... ;) Buffy is surprised when she contacts Angelus and Dru, planning to use Spike to draw them into a trap -- and finds that neither of the other vampires really cares what happens to Spike...they can respond in a way that is both cruel and humiliating to Spike, at having the Slayer see how little they care for him, even though he's their family...
Seeing his pain at this strikes a chord in buffy, and she feels sympathy for him...once they're alone, she sets about comforting him, much to his surprise...at first he would be somewhat resistant, not expecting kindness from her and suspecting some kind of trap...but she gradually wins him over, and the rest of the fic would be hurt/comfort from there...
Requested by dreamsofspike on February 8, 2007.
Spike pushed the wheels of his wheelchair with especial vehemence, as though he could punish them for being there. It was a cheap damn chair, squeaking, uncomfortable. It had a number stenciled on the cracked vinyl seat from whatever hospital Dru had nicked it from.
He wanted to get to the bench in the garden so he could pull himself out of the damn thing and have a smoke. At least out in the courtyard he didn’t feel like a prisoner. At least when he wasn’t in the chair he could feel normal. Numb from the waist down, sure, but not in the damn chair. The walls of the mansion were growing close, lately, and every damn outside door was set at the top of stairs. Frank Lloyd Wrong hadn’t considered the differently-abled when he designed this decrepit manse.
Spike bounced hard over the marble threshold into the garden. He had to watch the force with which he hit those things - the desire to express some strength, in the limited ways available to him, hit head-long against the flimsiness of the chair. But the moment of dizzying worry as he cantered on one wheel and nearly fell over was almost worth it. Made him feel alive.
Right now Dru was having her big evil party with Angelus. A party made possible by HIM, thank you very much.
He pulled up next to the stone bench and sighed, jamming the wheel-brakes on hard and resting for the transfer itself. “Maybe the slayer’ll dice ‘em,” he mused, feeling much like he did watching a championship match without his team in it: didn’t give a toss who won, but he still wanted to WATCH.
He touched his pocket, confirming the ciggies were ready and accounted for - only had three left in the pack. He’d been bugging the minions for more all week. He’d ask Dru, but she had a habit of forgetting what she came in for once her senses were accosted by the many delights of a convenience store. He set his hands on the armrests and shifted, trying to get his weight distributed right.
And of course it was just then, as he was leaning forward to lift himself, most vulnerable, that the slayer walked in. Bold as brass, boots crunching the dried leaves, twirling her stake like a baton.
Buffy smiled, pleased that her plan was actually working. They HAD left him alone. Please! Doesn’t anyone guard anymore? Didn’t they have minions? “Oh. Look what got left behind. Whatsa matter, Spikey? Not needed in the first wave?”
Spike let go of the armrests and sank back into the chair. “Well, this is simply wonderful. I haven’t had an utterly impossible fight in weeks.” He turned his palms up and beckoned her forward. “Come on, then. You’ll excuse me if I don’t kick.”
“Please. I wouldn’t want to waste my pointy stick. You’re coming with me, and I don’t have time for the usual witty banter, okay?
Spike kept his eyes on her warily as she approached, considering his rather limited options. “Your banter was witty? Next time warn me before making a joke like that. Liable to fall.”
The slayer tucked her stake in her back pocket and walked straight for the back of his chair. “Again: no yappy. I’ve got to get you stashed and then go deal with your psycho sweetie.”
“Like hell!” Spike twisted, grabbing her arm before she could unceremoniously push him out of his own home like a supermarket trolley.
She simply rotated her arm and he fell over the armrest, the chair clattering uselessly to the ground. Spike squirmed helplessly, grabbing for Buffy’s ankles as she easily side-stepped him.
“Woah. Are you, like, totally dead from the waist-down? I mean I thought you’d be able to move a little bit!”
Using one hand to support his weight he lunged at her, but she simply stepped back and kicked, sending him into the edge of the stone bench. “Anyone ever tell you you don’t know when you’re beat?”
He scrambled for purchase against the bench, pulling himself along it until he found a chunk of rock to throw. “I’ll let you know, slayer, if I’m ever beat.”
She dodged the rock easily, and the twig he threw next in sheer desperation bounced harmlessly off her jeans. He had pulled himself almost onto the bench and was looking at her with almost a smile, one fist raised, waiting for her to close.
“Pathetic, much?” Buffy kicked, danced back, kicked. There wasn’t even any enjoyment in it for her. It was more like smashing ants than a fight, though he grabbed and clawed at her foot and tried to dodge. Finally she got a kick solid on his jaw and he simply fell. “Finally.” She pulled the wheelchair out and threw the vampire onto it with a grunt. It took a few inches of sliding the thing stubbornly forward before she realized there were locks on the wheels and let them go.
“You had better be worth this,” she muttered.
***
“I have something of yours,” Buffy said, hoping she sounded more confident than she was, facing Angelus. Drusilla hung on his arm like a garment and it was all she could do to remind herself that this was NOT her boyfriend. She threw the ring she’d taken off Spike’s finger at them.
Angelus caught it easily and turned it over in his hand, studying it. He raised an eyebrow. “Not really my style, lover.” He tossed it over his shoulder. “Some other one night stand?”
Buffy kept her face hard. “That’s Spike’s. I took Spike. You want him back, you meet me in the alleyway between Dock Street and Bridge.”
“Spike’s gone?” He glanced around the mansion in mock concern. “I thought it was quieter.”
“Fine.” Buffy rotated slightly and raised her chin. “Drusilla. How much is loverboy worth to you?”
Drusilla looked up at Angelus. “Oh. Can I have him back, Daddy? He was ever so much fun. And sweet. Like jam and butter. You’re always cross with William, but I know you like him because you make him scream so.”
“Nah,” Angelus smiled, patting Dru’s head. “I think we’ll let the slayer keep him.”
Buffy rolled her wrist. “What, that’s it? A century of undying love and that’s it?”
Drusilla rolled her head against Angelus’ shoulder, smiling at the slayer with vacant contentment.
“Not every love is as timeless as ours,” Angelus said. “Sometimes it lasts over an hour.” He winked.
Buffy threw her stake at him. He caught it, of course. She turned on her heel and stormed off, daring him to come after her.
***
“I kidnapped a whole vampire!” Buffy paced the library. “This isn’t discount minion here, it’s William the Bloody! Big famous bad guy. Don’t they CARE?”
Giles leaned against the circulation desk. “Well, Buffy, they are soulless creatures. Caring isn’t high on their list of qualities.”
“What about that deal with the vampire fan club? Spike totally gave up the whole thing when I threatened his princess. Don’t you think the LEAST she could do is convince Angelus to leave?”
“Buffy…” Giles stared at the ceiling, his jaw tight. “I wish you had told me of this plan from the start. You shouldn’t be looking for ways to run Angelus out of town. He is dangerous wherever he goes and innocent people will die until you find it in yourself to slay him.”
Buffy worried her lower lip, not looking at Giles. “What about Spike? What do I do with him?”
“Good lord, if you can’t stake HIM we may as well give up and rename you ‘Buffy the Vampire Annoyer’.”
There were times when Giles’ kindly blue-jean eyes became hard chips of topaz. It made Buffy feel twelve. She fidgeted a bit with the hem of her short dress. “Okay, I’ll just go home and stake him.”
Giles straightened, whipping his glasses off as though he had to be sure of what he was seeing. “You took him to your HOUSE?”
***
Buffy kicked an acorn down the sidewalk. “What was I supposed to do? Rent a vampire storage locker?”
“Yeah,” Willow said, hugging her books to her chest.
Buffy shot her friend a look. “You don’t sound 100% anti-Giles there, Will. I need best-friend level indignation.”
“Well,” Willow shrugged. “Your house? With the inviting in? Isn’t that kind of… bad?”
“Please. I left him tied up and gagged. Mom’s not even going to know he was there. I’ll vacuum up when he’s dusty and then it’s just ‘huh, where’d that wheelchair come from?’”
They’d reached Buffy’s street and their steps slowed. “Still, it’s a shame it didn’t work. I know you’re trying everything you can to, you know, get out of killing your boyfriend. It was a good plan.”
“It so should have worked! I thought Spike and Nut-zilla were all ‘oh anything for my evil love!’”
They stood together at the base of the porch-steps, regarding the front door like a portal to doom. “What are you going to tell your mom?”
“Nothing. We go in, we slay, dust buster eats the evidence.”
Willow nodded. Together they mounted the steps.
*****
Spike chewed on a mouth full of rag. It tasted of mildew, cleaning solvents and cotton. Which was how the basement smelled, and that gritty combination pervaded him as he stared at the stairs, filling the time by imagining all the different ways he could kill this slayer, if he, you know, could move things with his mind.
And then she was there, creeping down the basement stairs, looking ahead of her hesitantly as though afraid he wouldn’t be there. Like he could go anywhere trussed up like a Christmas turkey and his legs useless, besides.
The redhead following her was a bit of a surprise. Need backup, slayer? Against the crippled, tied up vampire?
Buffy stopped halfway across the room. “Well,” she said, “this is it.”
And he saw the stake clutched tight in her right fist.
Bugger that! He renewed his struggles against the ropes binding him, eyes intent on the slayer.
She raised and lowered her hand in a weak mimicry of the killing blow.
“Come on, Buffy. Wam, bam, no more vamp.” Willow put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I mean, he looks all helpless and kind of pathetic, but remember! He was going to kill Angel! And YOU.”
Buffy looked at the struggling figure before her. He was breathing hard through his nose, grunting with the effort as he twisted against what she had to admit was an excessive amount of ropes.
“I don’t know. I can’t do it with him looking at me like that.”
“Yeah,” Willow said, shrinking back a little herself. “It’s like shooting a puppy. A really evil, mean puppy, but…”
If anything, Spike’s gaze got more intense, his eyes narrowed and glittering with malice. Eyes that said “I am alive and I’m staying that way.”
Sighing, Buffy finished crossing the room and wrenched the gag out of his mouth. “Spike…”
“Haven’t got the balls to put a vamp out of his misery? Give me an inch and I’ll show you who’s a bleedin’ puppy!”
Willow covered her mouth so the evil vampire wouldn’t see her smile. (But come on, it was cute! He was all ‘grr’ and thrashing but he was also a rope burrito.)
“Spike,” Buffy repeated, stepping back. “Can you think of any reason why Drusilla wouldn’t want you back?”
The rage melted from his face like butter in a microwave. “She… she didn’t want me back? You were going to…” And then his face solidified again into a mask of contempt. “Right. Well. Shows what YOU know.”
“Excuse me? Did someone fail to notice who is tied up here?”
“Dru’s batty, Slayer. You gotta catch her in the right mood, is all. An’ I hope you didn’t ask ANGELUS to cough up ransom. If it isn’t hair gel or silk shirts, he’s tighter than a toddler.”
Buffy’s face grew thoughtful.
“Oh no,” Willow said, “Giles! He said no, Buffy.”
“Are you tied to your watcher’s apron-strings, Slayer? Got to get his permission?”
Buffy turned to Willow. “Maybe it can still work! I mean, we have something of value, here, why throw it out?”
“Because the ‘something of value’ can kill us and eat us?”
Spike cocked his head at Willow. “You must be the smart one.”
Buffy grabbed Willow’s elbow and pulled her after her back to the base of the steps.
“Buffy, you aren’t going to do it, are you?”
“I can’t.” She risked a glance back to the vampire, who was smiling now. “Wills, it’s one thing to slay, but to execute? I mean, I know he’s evil and all, but I can’t just kill someone when they’re looking right at me and all… defenseless.”
“This is the compassionate streak that gets the good guy captured by the bad guys,” Willow said.
Knowing he wasn’t supposed to have overheard, Spike said, “Actually, it’s the compassionate streak that defines the good guys as bettern’ the bad guys. It’s bad guys get killed off for being stupidly forgiving in all the pictures.”
The girls took another step away from him. “We’ll just give it one more shot,” Buffy said. “Giles doesn’t have to know. If it doesn’t work, well, poof goes the Spike.”
Reluctantly, Willow nodded. They both glanced back at the tied-up vampire one more time before hurrying up the stairs to plan their assault.
Spike listened to them, heard every word. It was a cute plan - the kind you find on Saturday morning cartoons. A pack of plucky teens with crossbows hiding behind crates for the big bad vampires. Oh it was so pathetic he almost hoped it worked.
Footsteps came and went, all across the ceiling, mapping out the corridors above. The lady of the house came home with a jangle of keys and the rustle of grocery bags. Then there were kitchen bangs and clanks and the smells of food cooking and mother-daughter chatting.
He could shout, he realized. Stupid slayer had left him ungagged. Maybe mum would come running, gasp at the sight of a poor, innocent man… all hog-tied in her basement. Right. Perhaps not. He mentally compared the speed of a caught-out slayer against a confused woman who may or may not try to untie you and it wasn’t even close.
He wriggled, tried to get comfortable. He expected to be stuck down there for some long time. Maybe he’d get skinny from not eating and the ropes would fall away. (And then what? He’d wheel himself up the bloody slat-stair?)
No, he didn’t expect to get out of this.
He also didn’t expect Buffy to come down and check on him before bed. She stood a long while by the stairs, holding her elbows and frowning.
Spike’s dry throat rasped, “Got something you want to share with the rest of the class?”
“Why did you smile while I was kicking your pathetic butt?”
He licked his lips and the ghost of that smile returned. “You never know,” he said, “how you’ll do in the final bout. How you’ll face certain defeat. An’ I knew it was certain. I’m not an idiot. But I was glad I was taking it to the end. Fight to the very last. Always hoped for that.”
An awkward silence passed. Buffy tried to come up with something to say. Finally she whispered, “You are one strange vampire.”
“Yeah. Hungry and thirsty too. I don’t suppose the condemned could…”
But she was already running up the stairs.
***
Spike felt like re-warmed crap. He hadn’t fed in forever, and he hadn’t had a fag in two days, which was leaving him with a jittery feel of need that accentuated the emptiness inside him. Plus he had rope burns on his arms that he knew were his own damn fault for not being able to lie still even when tied down.
After the indignity of being carried out of the basement by the slayer and her little girl friend, and the indignity of being pushed through the streets, came the indignity of waiting, knowing that Angelus and Dru could just as well not show.
The ambush/ prisoner exchange/ desperate ploy by a slayer who wanted to defeat Angelus without having to HURT him - was set in an alleyway behind the Bronze, which made Spike wonder if these kids ever really got out anywhere else.
What was worse was he could smell lingering tobacco. Discarded butts littered the ground near the stage entrance to the night club, soaked in mud and damp and hungry-smelling.
He tried to look bored. Fortunately, on top of everything else, he really was. “You’d better have more than your study-buddies covering the exits, Slayer. This is a piss-poor ambush.”
“Shut up, Spike.” Buffy paced in front of him.
“You have a hundred-year-old vampire as a prisoner, Slayer, you might take advantage of the voice of experience.”
“The only part of you I want to take advantage of is your body.” She stopped mid-pace and turned to him with a horrified expression. “I mean as a thing you use… to ransom. Against Angelus.”
Before Spike could make his biting come back, there was a low whistle.
“They’re coming!” She turned her back to Spike again and tugged at the hem of her jacket. “Just be quiet, let me do the talking, and you’ll get out of this still unable to fit inside a freezer bag. Got it?”
“Loud and clear.”
A single figure approached. Spike craned his neck to try and see around the slayer.
It was a minion. Mike, wasn’t that the bloke’s name? He stopped ten feet away from the slayer, visibly shaking, a paper in his hand. “I bring a message f-from Angelus.”
“He was supposed to come. I said him and Dru, alone.” Buffy planted her fists on her hips.
Mike cringed appropriately. “T-that’s w-wa-what this is about.” He shivered his paper at her. “C-can I read it?”
“I don’t know,” Spike snarked, “C-c-can you?” Buffy frowned at him over her shoulder. He shrugged. “This is my immortal life on the line. What if Benny here buggers it up?”
“To Buffy, The Slayer,” Mike said, and cleared his throat, “Do make sure you kill William in a very slow and painful manner. I hope your memory of our past friendly relations will allow you to send a videotape of the proceedings. PS: We have VHS, not Beta. Will reimburse postage.” Mike folded the paper and smiled nervously. “That’s all. Um… I-I’ll just go, then?” He took a tentative step backward.
Buffy gaped. “Wait a minute- what about Drusilla? Did she have a message?”
Mike shook his head. “N-no. She said something about, um, st-stars would take care of him or something. I’m just gonna go now?” Another two tentative steps backward were followed by Mike turning and running.
Buffy stared after him.
Xander jumped down from a fire escape, crossbow in one hand. “Well that was an ambush that wasn’t.”
Willow stepped out from behind a dumpster. “Should I have shot him, Buffy? I thought about shooting, but he seemed so kinda weasel-y and pathetic.” She twisted her crossbow in her hands.
Buffy turned to Spike. “Explainy?”
He shook his head at her surprise. “Look, pet, we’re evil. Taking care of the wounded isn’t a top priority. It’s more like… let’s pick on the weak link, could be us next week and we don’t wanta think about it.”
“But you took care of Drusilla for, um… I don’t really know how long. But you did.”
He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes half-lidded. “Yeah,” he said.
“Plan B?” Xander shifted his crossbow from one hand to the other, trying to looks suave as he did it, but the balance was a little off so he just sort of fumbled it.
Buffy looked down at the vampire in the wheelchair. Spike wasn’t looking at anything at all. “No,” she said, “let’s just go home.”
***
“What gives?” Spike winced away as Buffy approached him with a hand towel.
“You have, like, blood and stuff.” She gestured at her own forehead.
“Yeah. And?” He watched her warily, and winced again as she put the cloth to his forehead.
“What, are you expecting holy water?” Buffy chided.
“It’d make more sense.”
She scrubbed the dried blood off him with business-like determination. “More sense than getting you UP all those steps into the house and DOWN all those steps into the basement when my mom could hear and come downstairs at any second? Right. I’d do all that just to torture you because I’m oh-so-evil.” She stepped back to look at her handiwork, nodded, and went back to the laundry sink to rinse the rag.
“Why’re you bein’ nice to me?”
“Shut up, Spike. You’re tied up and beaten up. This isn’t nice. This is…” she waved a hand, helpless to come up with a word. She wrung the rag out and set it on the edge of the sink. “What is this?”
“Dunno. A half-hearted guilt assuaging before the main dusting event, or maybe just prettyin’ up the corpse while you’re stuck with it?”
Buffy stared at him. He was slumped against the ropes across his chest, head tilted carelessly to one side. “You really love her, don’t you?”
He snorted and looked away.
“Drusilla,” Buffy pressed. “When you heard that… that she wasn’t going to try to get you back, I saw you. You looked like you wanted to die.”
His head snapped up straight. Carefully, over-pronouncing, he said, “I don’t.”
“But you did.”
“Felt like my heart’d been ripped out, yeah. Hardly any point continuing to breathe. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go on.”
Buffy shook her head. “The weird thing is? It is all the same to me.” She walked over to him. Again he flinched away from her. With a heavy sigh she crouched next to him and started searching for the end of the rope.
Spike watched her with a crinkled brow. “Not going to extract some kind of ‘I won’t try to kill, maim and/or eat you’ promise first?”
“Spike, you’re paralyzed.” Buffy found the knot and started picking it apart.
“Didn’t stop me from putting up a decent fight, did it?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Right,” he said. “Suppose it did. Let’s, uh, never talk about that, yeah?”
A ghost of a smile hit Buffy’s lips. She started unwinding the rope. The confused wonder on his face as she untied him was, well, so not with the ‘evil’ and more with the ‘adorable.’
She got the ropes off of him - she really, really had overdone it, she thought, looking at the huge pile. Spike rubbed his arms. He had raw, red burns across his forearms and just under his t-shirt sleeves. She frowned, noticing the bruises there as well.
“I thought vampires healed,” she said.
“We do, love. When we’re fed.”
She took in his gaunt appearance. “When you… oh. Um. Oh.”
“’S not her fault. Dru tries.” He looked down, flexing his left hand as though testing it. “She just forgets easy, is all. Her world, it changes a lot around her. Hard to keep her mind on any one thing. You should see what happens to her pets.”
“I guess I’ll get you some blood.” Her face scrunched up. “Where do you get blood?”
“Well, I like the neck. Left side, preferably.” He touched his tongue to his teeth.
His leer lost its power when she collapsed, slumped against the pile of ropes at his feet.
“Slayer?” There was a tang of salt in the air. “Slayer, pet, don’t get all poisoned and dying on me; I’ll starve to death down here.”
“I almost said, ‘I’ll just ask Angel where he gets his’.” She smiled up at him and pushed hair away from her tear-wet cheek.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “He’s not worth it.”
Buffy’s sorrow-softened features hardened again. “And Drusilla IS?” She pushed him, and the chair banged against the wall.
Spike had to catch himself to stay in the chair. “Yes,” he said. “She’s worth tears. She’s worth more. She’s a… a black diamond, a succulent pear, delicate and violent and passionate. She’s a goddess among mortals and your Angelus can’t hold a candle to her. He’s a thug who fancies himself Rembrandt because he has the lack-wit patience to irritate his victims to death. Dru could never love him! Not like she loved me. When she could love me. It’s thrall. Or something like it. He killed her. He destroyed her. When he’s with her it’s not about her at all, its all him and what he’s created and I don’t blame her, she’s helpless against it!”
And Spike realized he’d taken one too many detours on his road of thought and just leaned back, let his head graze the gritty basement cinderblock.
Buffy was still curled up next to the spaghetti-pile of rope, sniffling. “Why doesn’t he love me? Just a little? He should re…remember.”
“Problem is he does remember, pet. An’ he hates it. Hates the thought of anything making him less a complete monster. Not allowed to love, yeah? We’re just supposed to obsess. Crave, kill. That’s Angelus 101 there. Bloody boring school to be stuck in for over a dozen miserable years, I can tell you.”
Buffy rubbed her cheeks with the heel of her hand and got to her feet. “I’ll get you some blood,” she said.
“Buffy.” His soft word made her stop at the foot of the stairs. He was leaning forward again, studying her.
“What?”
“Thanks,” he said. “For not killing me, an’ all. And listening.”
“I should kill you,” she said. She looked up the stairs, at the brighter light bleeding under the door to the kitchen. “Giles would tell me to. He’d order me to. He’d have an ANEURYSM if…” she shook her head and looked back at the earnestly confused vampire. “I just know it hurts. And I hurt. I can’t make my hurt stop, not while he’s out there, wearing my lover’s face. But I can help you. Maybe that’ll make it… less worse.”
Spike grasped the wheels for the first time in a while, pushing himself forward. Navigating around the fallen ropes, he heard Buffy hiccup.
“So don’t say he’s not worth it.”
He had to run over some rope - there was no way around it. The flimsy chair wobbled. “Stupidest thing I ever said. You’re right. He’s worth it, ‘cause love is worth it. Always is. Even when it isn’t.”
Buffy saw his shining blue eyes gazing up at her and she let herself be folded into his embrace. Resting her hot cheek against his vinegar-smelling hair while his palm made slow circles on her back.
Buffy sniffled and scooted her knees in from the hard metal arm-rest. “This chair sucks,” she said. It wobbled with her motion.
“You don’t know half of it,” Spike smiled. “C’mon. Can’t feel my legs, you know. An’ a half-starved vampire isn’t the best place to rest your neck.”
She stiffened, suddenly realizing the proximity of his mouth to her throat. “You wouldn’t.”
“Nah. Never bite folks treat me decent. Figure there’s enough natural selection favoring assholes as it is.” He brushed her hair back with one hand. “This is going to put a big damn crimp in my slayer-killing hobby.”
Buffy settled back, on his knee, thought about lack of feeling and if she was actually hurting him right now - his legs felt thin and pressed into the vinyl seat. “Maybe I’ll let you have Kendra, if she comes back and is still all better than me at everything.”
“Would you? Really? Sweetest thing a bloodthirsty killer of my kind’s ever said to me.”
And they looked at each other, and smiled, and didn’t smile, and something passed between them, a knowledge, that they were both sad, but could pretend otherwise, and if they did that long enough, the sad would go away, like a puddle drying under its cap of ice.
Buffy crawled backward off his lap. “I’ll go find that blood.”
The End.
Not sure I really hit what Dreamie wanted with this one - the hurt is all subtle, and the Buffy!Threat implied.
I couldn't find the scene she was talking about - where Buffy and friends are at the mansion and Spike listens in? I could almost imagine it! But maybe it was dialog-free because it's not in the dialog database...
I also confess I wanted to wedge a little Spangelus violence into this one, but it just didn't happen. Everyone please assume there was a naughty erotically charged spanking scene just before the beginning. :)
PAIRING: Spuffy
GENRE: Het
RATING: Not specified
DETAILS: Season Two, when Buffy and friends go to the mansion, and Spike is hiding listening to them, just before they go to fight the Judge -- Buffy actually is aware that Spike is there, and goes back for him, thinking mistakenly that kidnapping him will give her some leverage with Angelus, or at least with Drusilla...She takes him back as a prisoner, and is not very nice to him really, include threats, violence, whatever -- make her be kind of scary to him, really, because at this time they're still mortal enemies...he's still in the wheelchair, getting better, but not very strong yet, so he's pretty much sure that she's going to kill him in the end...you probably know the sort of stuff i like, use your imagination... ;) Buffy is surprised when she contacts Angelus and Dru, planning to use Spike to draw them into a trap -- and finds that neither of the other vampires really cares what happens to Spike...they can respond in a way that is both cruel and humiliating to Spike, at having the Slayer see how little they care for him, even though he's their family...
Seeing his pain at this strikes a chord in buffy, and she feels sympathy for him...once they're alone, she sets about comforting him, much to his surprise...at first he would be somewhat resistant, not expecting kindness from her and suspecting some kind of trap...but she gradually wins him over, and the rest of the fic would be hurt/comfort from there...
Requested by dreamsofspike on February 8, 2007.
Spike pushed the wheels of his wheelchair with especial vehemence, as though he could punish them for being there. It was a cheap damn chair, squeaking, uncomfortable. It had a number stenciled on the cracked vinyl seat from whatever hospital Dru had nicked it from.
He wanted to get to the bench in the garden so he could pull himself out of the damn thing and have a smoke. At least out in the courtyard he didn’t feel like a prisoner. At least when he wasn’t in the chair he could feel normal. Numb from the waist down, sure, but not in the damn chair. The walls of the mansion were growing close, lately, and every damn outside door was set at the top of stairs. Frank Lloyd Wrong hadn’t considered the differently-abled when he designed this decrepit manse.
Spike bounced hard over the marble threshold into the garden. He had to watch the force with which he hit those things - the desire to express some strength, in the limited ways available to him, hit head-long against the flimsiness of the chair. But the moment of dizzying worry as he cantered on one wheel and nearly fell over was almost worth it. Made him feel alive.
Right now Dru was having her big evil party with Angelus. A party made possible by HIM, thank you very much.
He pulled up next to the stone bench and sighed, jamming the wheel-brakes on hard and resting for the transfer itself. “Maybe the slayer’ll dice ‘em,” he mused, feeling much like he did watching a championship match without his team in it: didn’t give a toss who won, but he still wanted to WATCH.
He touched his pocket, confirming the ciggies were ready and accounted for - only had three left in the pack. He’d been bugging the minions for more all week. He’d ask Dru, but she had a habit of forgetting what she came in for once her senses were accosted by the many delights of a convenience store. He set his hands on the armrests and shifted, trying to get his weight distributed right.
And of course it was just then, as he was leaning forward to lift himself, most vulnerable, that the slayer walked in. Bold as brass, boots crunching the dried leaves, twirling her stake like a baton.
Buffy smiled, pleased that her plan was actually working. They HAD left him alone. Please! Doesn’t anyone guard anymore? Didn’t they have minions? “Oh. Look what got left behind. Whatsa matter, Spikey? Not needed in the first wave?”
Spike let go of the armrests and sank back into the chair. “Well, this is simply wonderful. I haven’t had an utterly impossible fight in weeks.” He turned his palms up and beckoned her forward. “Come on, then. You’ll excuse me if I don’t kick.”
“Please. I wouldn’t want to waste my pointy stick. You’re coming with me, and I don’t have time for the usual witty banter, okay?
Spike kept his eyes on her warily as she approached, considering his rather limited options. “Your banter was witty? Next time warn me before making a joke like that. Liable to fall.”
The slayer tucked her stake in her back pocket and walked straight for the back of his chair. “Again: no yappy. I’ve got to get you stashed and then go deal with your psycho sweetie.”
“Like hell!” Spike twisted, grabbing her arm before she could unceremoniously push him out of his own home like a supermarket trolley.
She simply rotated her arm and he fell over the armrest, the chair clattering uselessly to the ground. Spike squirmed helplessly, grabbing for Buffy’s ankles as she easily side-stepped him.
“Woah. Are you, like, totally dead from the waist-down? I mean I thought you’d be able to move a little bit!”
Using one hand to support his weight he lunged at her, but she simply stepped back and kicked, sending him into the edge of the stone bench. “Anyone ever tell you you don’t know when you’re beat?”
He scrambled for purchase against the bench, pulling himself along it until he found a chunk of rock to throw. “I’ll let you know, slayer, if I’m ever beat.”
She dodged the rock easily, and the twig he threw next in sheer desperation bounced harmlessly off her jeans. He had pulled himself almost onto the bench and was looking at her with almost a smile, one fist raised, waiting for her to close.
“Pathetic, much?” Buffy kicked, danced back, kicked. There wasn’t even any enjoyment in it for her. It was more like smashing ants than a fight, though he grabbed and clawed at her foot and tried to dodge. Finally she got a kick solid on his jaw and he simply fell. “Finally.” She pulled the wheelchair out and threw the vampire onto it with a grunt. It took a few inches of sliding the thing stubbornly forward before she realized there were locks on the wheels and let them go.
“You had better be worth this,” she muttered.
***
“I have something of yours,” Buffy said, hoping she sounded more confident than she was, facing Angelus. Drusilla hung on his arm like a garment and it was all she could do to remind herself that this was NOT her boyfriend. She threw the ring she’d taken off Spike’s finger at them.
Angelus caught it easily and turned it over in his hand, studying it. He raised an eyebrow. “Not really my style, lover.” He tossed it over his shoulder. “Some other one night stand?”
Buffy kept her face hard. “That’s Spike’s. I took Spike. You want him back, you meet me in the alleyway between Dock Street and Bridge.”
“Spike’s gone?” He glanced around the mansion in mock concern. “I thought it was quieter.”
“Fine.” Buffy rotated slightly and raised her chin. “Drusilla. How much is loverboy worth to you?”
Drusilla looked up at Angelus. “Oh. Can I have him back, Daddy? He was ever so much fun. And sweet. Like jam and butter. You’re always cross with William, but I know you like him because you make him scream so.”
“Nah,” Angelus smiled, patting Dru’s head. “I think we’ll let the slayer keep him.”
Buffy rolled her wrist. “What, that’s it? A century of undying love and that’s it?”
Drusilla rolled her head against Angelus’ shoulder, smiling at the slayer with vacant contentment.
“Not every love is as timeless as ours,” Angelus said. “Sometimes it lasts over an hour.” He winked.
Buffy threw her stake at him. He caught it, of course. She turned on her heel and stormed off, daring him to come after her.
***
“I kidnapped a whole vampire!” Buffy paced the library. “This isn’t discount minion here, it’s William the Bloody! Big famous bad guy. Don’t they CARE?”
Giles leaned against the circulation desk. “Well, Buffy, they are soulless creatures. Caring isn’t high on their list of qualities.”
“What about that deal with the vampire fan club? Spike totally gave up the whole thing when I threatened his princess. Don’t you think the LEAST she could do is convince Angelus to leave?”
“Buffy…” Giles stared at the ceiling, his jaw tight. “I wish you had told me of this plan from the start. You shouldn’t be looking for ways to run Angelus out of town. He is dangerous wherever he goes and innocent people will die until you find it in yourself to slay him.”
Buffy worried her lower lip, not looking at Giles. “What about Spike? What do I do with him?”
“Good lord, if you can’t stake HIM we may as well give up and rename you ‘Buffy the Vampire Annoyer’.”
There were times when Giles’ kindly blue-jean eyes became hard chips of topaz. It made Buffy feel twelve. She fidgeted a bit with the hem of her short dress. “Okay, I’ll just go home and stake him.”
Giles straightened, whipping his glasses off as though he had to be sure of what he was seeing. “You took him to your HOUSE?”
***
Buffy kicked an acorn down the sidewalk. “What was I supposed to do? Rent a vampire storage locker?”
“Yeah,” Willow said, hugging her books to her chest.
Buffy shot her friend a look. “You don’t sound 100% anti-Giles there, Will. I need best-friend level indignation.”
“Well,” Willow shrugged. “Your house? With the inviting in? Isn’t that kind of… bad?”
“Please. I left him tied up and gagged. Mom’s not even going to know he was there. I’ll vacuum up when he’s dusty and then it’s just ‘huh, where’d that wheelchair come from?’”
They’d reached Buffy’s street and their steps slowed. “Still, it’s a shame it didn’t work. I know you’re trying everything you can to, you know, get out of killing your boyfriend. It was a good plan.”
“It so should have worked! I thought Spike and Nut-zilla were all ‘oh anything for my evil love!’”
They stood together at the base of the porch-steps, regarding the front door like a portal to doom. “What are you going to tell your mom?”
“Nothing. We go in, we slay, dust buster eats the evidence.”
Willow nodded. Together they mounted the steps.
*****
Spike chewed on a mouth full of rag. It tasted of mildew, cleaning solvents and cotton. Which was how the basement smelled, and that gritty combination pervaded him as he stared at the stairs, filling the time by imagining all the different ways he could kill this slayer, if he, you know, could move things with his mind.
And then she was there, creeping down the basement stairs, looking ahead of her hesitantly as though afraid he wouldn’t be there. Like he could go anywhere trussed up like a Christmas turkey and his legs useless, besides.
The redhead following her was a bit of a surprise. Need backup, slayer? Against the crippled, tied up vampire?
Buffy stopped halfway across the room. “Well,” she said, “this is it.”
And he saw the stake clutched tight in her right fist.
Bugger that! He renewed his struggles against the ropes binding him, eyes intent on the slayer.
She raised and lowered her hand in a weak mimicry of the killing blow.
“Come on, Buffy. Wam, bam, no more vamp.” Willow put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I mean, he looks all helpless and kind of pathetic, but remember! He was going to kill Angel! And YOU.”
Buffy looked at the struggling figure before her. He was breathing hard through his nose, grunting with the effort as he twisted against what she had to admit was an excessive amount of ropes.
“I don’t know. I can’t do it with him looking at me like that.”
“Yeah,” Willow said, shrinking back a little herself. “It’s like shooting a puppy. A really evil, mean puppy, but…”
If anything, Spike’s gaze got more intense, his eyes narrowed and glittering with malice. Eyes that said “I am alive and I’m staying that way.”
Sighing, Buffy finished crossing the room and wrenched the gag out of his mouth. “Spike…”
“Haven’t got the balls to put a vamp out of his misery? Give me an inch and I’ll show you who’s a bleedin’ puppy!”
Willow covered her mouth so the evil vampire wouldn’t see her smile. (But come on, it was cute! He was all ‘grr’ and thrashing but he was also a rope burrito.)
“Spike,” Buffy repeated, stepping back. “Can you think of any reason why Drusilla wouldn’t want you back?”
The rage melted from his face like butter in a microwave. “She… she didn’t want me back? You were going to…” And then his face solidified again into a mask of contempt. “Right. Well. Shows what YOU know.”
“Excuse me? Did someone fail to notice who is tied up here?”
“Dru’s batty, Slayer. You gotta catch her in the right mood, is all. An’ I hope you didn’t ask ANGELUS to cough up ransom. If it isn’t hair gel or silk shirts, he’s tighter than a toddler.”
Buffy’s face grew thoughtful.
“Oh no,” Willow said, “Giles! He said no, Buffy.”
“Are you tied to your watcher’s apron-strings, Slayer? Got to get his permission?”
Buffy turned to Willow. “Maybe it can still work! I mean, we have something of value, here, why throw it out?”
“Because the ‘something of value’ can kill us and eat us?”
Spike cocked his head at Willow. “You must be the smart one.”
Buffy grabbed Willow’s elbow and pulled her after her back to the base of the steps.
“Buffy, you aren’t going to do it, are you?”
“I can’t.” She risked a glance back to the vampire, who was smiling now. “Wills, it’s one thing to slay, but to execute? I mean, I know he’s evil and all, but I can’t just kill someone when they’re looking right at me and all… defenseless.”
“This is the compassionate streak that gets the good guy captured by the bad guys,” Willow said.
Knowing he wasn’t supposed to have overheard, Spike said, “Actually, it’s the compassionate streak that defines the good guys as bettern’ the bad guys. It’s bad guys get killed off for being stupidly forgiving in all the pictures.”
The girls took another step away from him. “We’ll just give it one more shot,” Buffy said. “Giles doesn’t have to know. If it doesn’t work, well, poof goes the Spike.”
Reluctantly, Willow nodded. They both glanced back at the tied-up vampire one more time before hurrying up the stairs to plan their assault.
Spike listened to them, heard every word. It was a cute plan - the kind you find on Saturday morning cartoons. A pack of plucky teens with crossbows hiding behind crates for the big bad vampires. Oh it was so pathetic he almost hoped it worked.
Footsteps came and went, all across the ceiling, mapping out the corridors above. The lady of the house came home with a jangle of keys and the rustle of grocery bags. Then there were kitchen bangs and clanks and the smells of food cooking and mother-daughter chatting.
He could shout, he realized. Stupid slayer had left him ungagged. Maybe mum would come running, gasp at the sight of a poor, innocent man… all hog-tied in her basement. Right. Perhaps not. He mentally compared the speed of a caught-out slayer against a confused woman who may or may not try to untie you and it wasn’t even close.
He wriggled, tried to get comfortable. He expected to be stuck down there for some long time. Maybe he’d get skinny from not eating and the ropes would fall away. (And then what? He’d wheel himself up the bloody slat-stair?)
No, he didn’t expect to get out of this.
He also didn’t expect Buffy to come down and check on him before bed. She stood a long while by the stairs, holding her elbows and frowning.
Spike’s dry throat rasped, “Got something you want to share with the rest of the class?”
“Why did you smile while I was kicking your pathetic butt?”
He licked his lips and the ghost of that smile returned. “You never know,” he said, “how you’ll do in the final bout. How you’ll face certain defeat. An’ I knew it was certain. I’m not an idiot. But I was glad I was taking it to the end. Fight to the very last. Always hoped for that.”
An awkward silence passed. Buffy tried to come up with something to say. Finally she whispered, “You are one strange vampire.”
“Yeah. Hungry and thirsty too. I don’t suppose the condemned could…”
But she was already running up the stairs.
***
Spike felt like re-warmed crap. He hadn’t fed in forever, and he hadn’t had a fag in two days, which was leaving him with a jittery feel of need that accentuated the emptiness inside him. Plus he had rope burns on his arms that he knew were his own damn fault for not being able to lie still even when tied down.
After the indignity of being carried out of the basement by the slayer and her little girl friend, and the indignity of being pushed through the streets, came the indignity of waiting, knowing that Angelus and Dru could just as well not show.
The ambush/ prisoner exchange/ desperate ploy by a slayer who wanted to defeat Angelus without having to HURT him - was set in an alleyway behind the Bronze, which made Spike wonder if these kids ever really got out anywhere else.
What was worse was he could smell lingering tobacco. Discarded butts littered the ground near the stage entrance to the night club, soaked in mud and damp and hungry-smelling.
He tried to look bored. Fortunately, on top of everything else, he really was. “You’d better have more than your study-buddies covering the exits, Slayer. This is a piss-poor ambush.”
“Shut up, Spike.” Buffy paced in front of him.
“You have a hundred-year-old vampire as a prisoner, Slayer, you might take advantage of the voice of experience.”
“The only part of you I want to take advantage of is your body.” She stopped mid-pace and turned to him with a horrified expression. “I mean as a thing you use… to ransom. Against Angelus.”
Before Spike could make his biting come back, there was a low whistle.
“They’re coming!” She turned her back to Spike again and tugged at the hem of her jacket. “Just be quiet, let me do the talking, and you’ll get out of this still unable to fit inside a freezer bag. Got it?”
“Loud and clear.”
A single figure approached. Spike craned his neck to try and see around the slayer.
It was a minion. Mike, wasn’t that the bloke’s name? He stopped ten feet away from the slayer, visibly shaking, a paper in his hand. “I bring a message f-from Angelus.”
“He was supposed to come. I said him and Dru, alone.” Buffy planted her fists on her hips.
Mike cringed appropriately. “T-that’s w-wa-what this is about.” He shivered his paper at her. “C-can I read it?”
“I don’t know,” Spike snarked, “C-c-can you?” Buffy frowned at him over her shoulder. He shrugged. “This is my immortal life on the line. What if Benny here buggers it up?”
“To Buffy, The Slayer,” Mike said, and cleared his throat, “Do make sure you kill William in a very slow and painful manner. I hope your memory of our past friendly relations will allow you to send a videotape of the proceedings. PS: We have VHS, not Beta. Will reimburse postage.” Mike folded the paper and smiled nervously. “That’s all. Um… I-I’ll just go, then?” He took a tentative step backward.
Buffy gaped. “Wait a minute- what about Drusilla? Did she have a message?”
Mike shook his head. “N-no. She said something about, um, st-stars would take care of him or something. I’m just gonna go now?” Another two tentative steps backward were followed by Mike turning and running.
Buffy stared after him.
Xander jumped down from a fire escape, crossbow in one hand. “Well that was an ambush that wasn’t.”
Willow stepped out from behind a dumpster. “Should I have shot him, Buffy? I thought about shooting, but he seemed so kinda weasel-y and pathetic.” She twisted her crossbow in her hands.
Buffy turned to Spike. “Explainy?”
He shook his head at her surprise. “Look, pet, we’re evil. Taking care of the wounded isn’t a top priority. It’s more like… let’s pick on the weak link, could be us next week and we don’t wanta think about it.”
“But you took care of Drusilla for, um… I don’t really know how long. But you did.”
He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes half-lidded. “Yeah,” he said.
“Plan B?” Xander shifted his crossbow from one hand to the other, trying to looks suave as he did it, but the balance was a little off so he just sort of fumbled it.
Buffy looked down at the vampire in the wheelchair. Spike wasn’t looking at anything at all. “No,” she said, “let’s just go home.”
***
“What gives?” Spike winced away as Buffy approached him with a hand towel.
“You have, like, blood and stuff.” She gestured at her own forehead.
“Yeah. And?” He watched her warily, and winced again as she put the cloth to his forehead.
“What, are you expecting holy water?” Buffy chided.
“It’d make more sense.”
She scrubbed the dried blood off him with business-like determination. “More sense than getting you UP all those steps into the house and DOWN all those steps into the basement when my mom could hear and come downstairs at any second? Right. I’d do all that just to torture you because I’m oh-so-evil.” She stepped back to look at her handiwork, nodded, and went back to the laundry sink to rinse the rag.
“Why’re you bein’ nice to me?”
“Shut up, Spike. You’re tied up and beaten up. This isn’t nice. This is…” she waved a hand, helpless to come up with a word. She wrung the rag out and set it on the edge of the sink. “What is this?”
“Dunno. A half-hearted guilt assuaging before the main dusting event, or maybe just prettyin’ up the corpse while you’re stuck with it?”
Buffy stared at him. He was slumped against the ropes across his chest, head tilted carelessly to one side. “You really love her, don’t you?”
He snorted and looked away.
“Drusilla,” Buffy pressed. “When you heard that… that she wasn’t going to try to get you back, I saw you. You looked like you wanted to die.”
His head snapped up straight. Carefully, over-pronouncing, he said, “I don’t.”
“But you did.”
“Felt like my heart’d been ripped out, yeah. Hardly any point continuing to breathe. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go on.”
Buffy shook her head. “The weird thing is? It is all the same to me.” She walked over to him. Again he flinched away from her. With a heavy sigh she crouched next to him and started searching for the end of the rope.
Spike watched her with a crinkled brow. “Not going to extract some kind of ‘I won’t try to kill, maim and/or eat you’ promise first?”
“Spike, you’re paralyzed.” Buffy found the knot and started picking it apart.
“Didn’t stop me from putting up a decent fight, did it?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Right,” he said. “Suppose it did. Let’s, uh, never talk about that, yeah?”
A ghost of a smile hit Buffy’s lips. She started unwinding the rope. The confused wonder on his face as she untied him was, well, so not with the ‘evil’ and more with the ‘adorable.’
She got the ropes off of him - she really, really had overdone it, she thought, looking at the huge pile. Spike rubbed his arms. He had raw, red burns across his forearms and just under his t-shirt sleeves. She frowned, noticing the bruises there as well.
“I thought vampires healed,” she said.
“We do, love. When we’re fed.”
She took in his gaunt appearance. “When you… oh. Um. Oh.”
“’S not her fault. Dru tries.” He looked down, flexing his left hand as though testing it. “She just forgets easy, is all. Her world, it changes a lot around her. Hard to keep her mind on any one thing. You should see what happens to her pets.”
“I guess I’ll get you some blood.” Her face scrunched up. “Where do you get blood?”
“Well, I like the neck. Left side, preferably.” He touched his tongue to his teeth.
His leer lost its power when she collapsed, slumped against the pile of ropes at his feet.
“Slayer?” There was a tang of salt in the air. “Slayer, pet, don’t get all poisoned and dying on me; I’ll starve to death down here.”
“I almost said, ‘I’ll just ask Angel where he gets his’.” She smiled up at him and pushed hair away from her tear-wet cheek.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “He’s not worth it.”
Buffy’s sorrow-softened features hardened again. “And Drusilla IS?” She pushed him, and the chair banged against the wall.
Spike had to catch himself to stay in the chair. “Yes,” he said. “She’s worth tears. She’s worth more. She’s a… a black diamond, a succulent pear, delicate and violent and passionate. She’s a goddess among mortals and your Angelus can’t hold a candle to her. He’s a thug who fancies himself Rembrandt because he has the lack-wit patience to irritate his victims to death. Dru could never love him! Not like she loved me. When she could love me. It’s thrall. Or something like it. He killed her. He destroyed her. When he’s with her it’s not about her at all, its all him and what he’s created and I don’t blame her, she’s helpless against it!”
And Spike realized he’d taken one too many detours on his road of thought and just leaned back, let his head graze the gritty basement cinderblock.
Buffy was still curled up next to the spaghetti-pile of rope, sniffling. “Why doesn’t he love me? Just a little? He should re…remember.”
“Problem is he does remember, pet. An’ he hates it. Hates the thought of anything making him less a complete monster. Not allowed to love, yeah? We’re just supposed to obsess. Crave, kill. That’s Angelus 101 there. Bloody boring school to be stuck in for over a dozen miserable years, I can tell you.”
Buffy rubbed her cheeks with the heel of her hand and got to her feet. “I’ll get you some blood,” she said.
“Buffy.” His soft word made her stop at the foot of the stairs. He was leaning forward again, studying her.
“What?”
“Thanks,” he said. “For not killing me, an’ all. And listening.”
“I should kill you,” she said. She looked up the stairs, at the brighter light bleeding under the door to the kitchen. “Giles would tell me to. He’d order me to. He’d have an ANEURYSM if…” she shook her head and looked back at the earnestly confused vampire. “I just know it hurts. And I hurt. I can’t make my hurt stop, not while he’s out there, wearing my lover’s face. But I can help you. Maybe that’ll make it… less worse.”
Spike grasped the wheels for the first time in a while, pushing himself forward. Navigating around the fallen ropes, he heard Buffy hiccup.
“So don’t say he’s not worth it.”
He had to run over some rope - there was no way around it. The flimsy chair wobbled. “Stupidest thing I ever said. You’re right. He’s worth it, ‘cause love is worth it. Always is. Even when it isn’t.”
Buffy saw his shining blue eyes gazing up at her and she let herself be folded into his embrace. Resting her hot cheek against his vinegar-smelling hair while his palm made slow circles on her back.
Buffy sniffled and scooted her knees in from the hard metal arm-rest. “This chair sucks,” she said. It wobbled with her motion.
“You don’t know half of it,” Spike smiled. “C’mon. Can’t feel my legs, you know. An’ a half-starved vampire isn’t the best place to rest your neck.”
She stiffened, suddenly realizing the proximity of his mouth to her throat. “You wouldn’t.”
“Nah. Never bite folks treat me decent. Figure there’s enough natural selection favoring assholes as it is.” He brushed her hair back with one hand. “This is going to put a big damn crimp in my slayer-killing hobby.”
Buffy settled back, on his knee, thought about lack of feeling and if she was actually hurting him right now - his legs felt thin and pressed into the vinyl seat. “Maybe I’ll let you have Kendra, if she comes back and is still all better than me at everything.”
“Would you? Really? Sweetest thing a bloodthirsty killer of my kind’s ever said to me.”
And they looked at each other, and smiled, and didn’t smile, and something passed between them, a knowledge, that they were both sad, but could pretend otherwise, and if they did that long enough, the sad would go away, like a puddle drying under its cap of ice.
Buffy crawled backward off his lap. “I’ll go find that blood.”
The End.