For Shapinglight: Denial
This is a mod challenge for Shapinglight who requested more Spike/Riley in the vein of what I've already written with this pairing.
So I decided to carry on straight from my last Spiley, Codependent.
You don't have to read that fic to get this one - just know that it's season five and rather than leave after the events in "Into the Woods", Riley has stuck around, forming a codependent (ha!) bite-and-sex relationship with Spike.
Some dialog taken from the episode "Intervention".
Riley knew a lot about denial. It was right there in his textbook on coping mechanisms.
That wasn’t the only place he knew it from.
“So,” Buffy dropped into the seat next to him at the table in the back of the Magic Box. “I thought you had some big new job in far away land?”
Riley cleared his throat. “I decided to finish my PhD.”
“Hm,” said Spike, leaning against a back wall. When Riley looked at him, the blond vampire looked away.
“Oh. Well… good. It’s good that we can, you know, be friends, work together.”
“Yeah. It’s good.”
Spike’s softly-muttered, “Christ,” was the perfect punctuation on the awkwardness.
“And why are YOU still hanging around?” Buffy turned sharply to Spike.
He lifted one shoulder. “Bored.”
Riley pretended to pay attention to his book. He pretended to pay attention when the group was all there and discussing the latest dilemma - something with a super-strong girl? He put in an Oscar-worthy performance with an audience of one. Only Spike knew that he was there just because Spike was, because he had to be near him, had to see the press of his lips, the pink tip of his tongue when he spoke, his teeth.
Spike’s mouth opened, his tongue travelled slowly along his lower lip and stopped there.
Riley shook his head, re-focusing his gaze to realize Spike was giving him a knowing leer. Riley forced his eyes to his book. Reading. Reading about… Denial. Oh, irony.
Riley felt Buffy shift in her chair next to him. She was letting her hair cover her face, avoiding Spike’s gaze, a bit of color on her cheeks.
Spike gave Riley a smug nod.
What was that? Riley stared at words on the page that kept sliding apart and together. He could not remember a single word said during the meeting, had he been asked.
As everyone started leaving, he closed his books, and followed them out. He hoped he hadn’t been given an important job. He supposed he should wander around and look for something evil.
Spike dropped into step beside him. “Sorry you had to see that,” Spike said, in a smug voice that betoked the exact opposite sentiment.
“See what?” Riley said, and saw Spike’s face fall, for a moment.
It was just a moment. His leer returned. “Slayer’s got the hots for me,” he said, rocking on the balls of his feet. “I confessed my feelings. It was moving. Well, didn’t really end all that great, but for a while there I had three ladies in my lair. Jealous?”
Riley felt a stab in his throat, but he managed to keep his expression neutral. “Why should I be? You’re both free to do what you want.” Riley lengthened his stride and kept his gaze firmly forward.
Spike jogged backwards in front of him. “Liar. You’re jealous.”
Riley kept walking, trying to ignore him. “Buffy and I broke up. It’s not my business anymore.”
“Wasn’t talking about Buffy.” Spike raised his chin. “Come on, put those big hands on me and make me think twice about fooling around on you.”
Riley stopped. He sighed.
“Oh,” Spike purred, “Like you don’t love throwing your muscle around.”
“Spike, we’re not in a relationship.”
Spike’s eyebrows rose and knit together. His mouth fell open and then compressed into a tight line. “Is that right.”
“I’m… look, it’s…”
Spike threw his head back and laughed. “Oh please don’t give me some whitebread brush-off. It’s not you, it’s me? It’s not passion and blood and sex, oh wait… it is.”
Riley felt himself blushing to the roots of his hair. He tightened his grip on his books and walked purposefully head, brushing past Spike when he tried to stop him. “I don’t want to have this conversation on the street, thanks.”
“Fine. I’ll just go talk to BUFFY since I’m not in a RELATIONSHIP.”
Riley groaned. Spike was supposed to be so much older than him, why did it feel like he was dating a high-schooler?
Except, of course, they weren’t dating. He kept his path forward, his eyes on the pavement in front of him. He didn’t look up until he had to open to door to his dorm, at which point he stood there, still, looking at the empty, well-lit entryway, wondering why he was so shocked not to see Spike there.
***
“We need your help,” Xander said, leaning in the door to Riley’s dorm room. “We’re doing an intervention.”
Riley blinked slowly. “Well, I’m not actually a psychiatrist, you know.”
“It’s Buffy. No, it’s Spike. Well, actually it’s Buffy. Just, come on, I’ll explain on the way.”
Riley felt dizzy as he followed Xander out of the building. “No… he was just making things up. Because he’s mentally thirteen years old.”
“Yeah, well, I wish that were the entire story, but Willow and I saw it with our own four eyes and believe me, the image is still burning on my retinas.”
Riley felt like he’d been sucker-punched. “That can’t be right. All I saw was, I mean, they did look at each other this one time.”
“I’m hoping for magic spells,” Xander said. “But it could be grief making her do the wacky.”
Riley felt another stab. He hadn’t been able to comfort Buffy much, feeling like the unwanted ex, an outsider and insider at the same time. “I thought Buffy was moving on, getting back to normal business.”
“There’s that patented Sunnydale denial!” Xander clapped him on the back. “It’s almost like you grew up here.”
I’m in a love triangle, Riley thought. It made him stop in place and Xander had to tug him forward. No, no that wasn’t right. The thing with him and Spike, it was about… a nasty secret habit. It was about the bite for him and the blood for Spike, a fair exchange of vices. He wasn’t jealous.
He just really, really hoped Xander was imagining this.
***
Spike didn’t get the bot ENTIRELY to make Riley jealous. It was also a way to work out his inexplicable, WRONG attraction to the slayer. Rather like how Riley was using him to work out his inappropriate feelings toward getting bit.
He looked down at the shiny, perfect blonde hair, smelling faintly of plastic, and sighed. I’m just like this thing, he thought: a crutch, a habit, stupidly programmed to seek love.
“Who’s that?” Buffybot perkily asked, as the sound of footsteps approached.
“Uh…” Spike hurried zipped up. “Down there,” he pointed to the ladder to his luxury lower level. “No matter what, don’t come out until I come get you.”
“Okay!” She cheerfully accepted and -way, way too slowly - climbed down the steps.
When Spike turned and saw Riley and Xander come in together, he almost called her back up. “Oh, it’s you.”
“I saw you in the cemetery, with Buffy,” Xander said.
Spike cut his eyes quickly to Riley. “Yeah?” He smiled and ran a hand down his stomach, trying to look unconcerned and sexy at the same time. “Can’t see how it’s any business of yours.”
“It’s my business because Buffy’s my friend. She’s going through a lot of stuff right now and you’re taking advantage of her.”
Spike relaxed. This was a story he could run with. He shrugged. “She’s upset about her mum. And if she turns to me for comfort, well…”
“You are so full of it,” Riley shouted. The big boy-scout looked caught out when Xander gaped at him. Spike loved seeing Riley trying so hard to control himself. Oh yes, this was all working to his advantage.
Riley crowded up to Spike, looming over him in that appealing way of his. “You aren’t comforting her. You’re using her.”
“Oh? You think?” Spike let his mouth hang open, licking his upper teeth, which he knew drove Riley to distraction. “Using her for what, do you think?”
Riley’s pupils dilated. His breath was coming in hard little pants. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” Spike playfully leaned forward, breathing in Riley’s exhales. Would Captain Straightlaced give in to his rage? Let the puppy see what he’d been up to?
Xander spoke. “Buffy has lots of friends and we love her very much and we’ll do what we have to to protect her.”
Riley flinched back, seeming to realize how close he’d come to giving up the truth. Spike groaned. “For Christ’s sake, droopy, give us a mo’.”
“If that means killing you, then, well, that’s just a bonus,” Xander said, stepping forward as Riley stepped back. Xander looked to Riley for confirmation, but the big solider looked baffled and lost.
Spike ignored the instinct to comfort him. “No one’s going to kill me. I’m too sexy.”
Then the door burst open an a creepy little guy looking like the ren fair leper time forgot came in. “Gentlemen, I hope I’m not disturbing you. A moment of your time?”
Four more leper-enactors came in. They smelled vile - like garbage and burlap. Before Spike could come up with a witty one-liner, it was fighting time.
“Spike?”
Spike stupidly paused, looking at Riley, who was looking back at him, and well, wasn’t that a stupid way to lose a fight?
***
Spike’s day proceeded so badly that getting stuffed into a foul-smelling sack was almost the highlight of it. He was tortured by a hell-god. He was carried humiliatingly by humans, and was pretty sure he wasn’t remotely sexy or dangerous-looking when Riley laid him down on his crypt slab.
But then, he’d gotten an unexpected gift. A chaste kiss. A thank-you. Somehow, a strange idea that he’d done The Right Thing. Was this swelling in his chest what drove the good guys to keep fighting when they knew they would lose? He supposed it must be. He watched her swishing skirt disappear through the crypt door.
Someone cleared his throat. Spike turned so fast his head swam, his vision darkening. He held a hand to his head to keep his brain inside it. Well, it felt like that.
Riley stood there, holding a duffle bag over one shoulder and biting his lip. “I… I saw everything.”
“Did you? How lovely.” Spike laid back on the nice, cold stone. “Bugger off.”
He heard the duffle set down and unzip. Then he flinched as something cool and wet touched his face. He opened his eyes - with difficulty. He tried to push Riley’s hand away, but his heart wasn’t entirely in it. Riley washed the blood from his face with care.
“You don’t need to clean my wounds, you berk. Can’t get infected.”
Riley kept at his work, brushing thoroughly, hurting at times with the sure pressure and slow sweep of the rag, but it was a good kind of hurt, the hurt of care and mending and… Spike shut his thoughts down before they got too sentimental. He let Riley move him, lifting each hand to clean the sores on his wrists. The bandages were clean and dry and felt heavenly.
Spike fidgeted, wanting Riley to say something, but he didn’t, just kept at his work, focused on his task, like he saw wounds and skin, not the person in front of him. Spike licked his cracked lips. “So did I manage to make you jealous at last?”
“Yes, Spike. You did.” Riley put Spike’s hand on his shoulder and wrapped his arms around his torso. “Can you sit up? Pull on me if you need to.”
“Berk.” Spike bit his lip and did as bidden. “I’ve had worse than this, you know. Hell, I’ve had worse than this and we called it a fun evening in with the family.”
Once Spike was upright, Riley passed the bandages around his torso, covering his chest wounds. As he unwound the roll, Riley said, “It killed me, seeing how much you care for Buffy. That you care more about her than me.”
“I don’t believe it! You sad wanker!”
Riley’s eyes met his at last, hot with anger. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been wanting something more from me, some declaration of… of something. But that’s no reason to kick me while I’m down.”
Spike had to briefly flight his way past Riley’s hands to cup his face. “When I say ‘you sad wanker’ it means ‘kiss me’.”
Riley instantly looked lost again. “But… Buffy?”
“Buffy’s a dream. A fantasy. You’re here, idiot, and you’re warm and alive and despite myself I fucking love you. Twat.”
Slowly, Riley’s lip jerked up into a tentative smile. “I think I’d be perfectly happy right now, if it weren’t for all the insults.”
Spike pressed his cut, bleeding lips to Riley’s, and the kiss hurt, but that made it better, like love was supposed to hurt. Riley’s big arms wrapped around him, radiating heat through stiff bandages and stiff muscles.
Gently, Riley pulled away. “Easy,” he said. “Easy. Here. Swing your legs over this side of the sarcophagus. I want to see how your feet are.”
Spike winced at the motion as a laugh escaped him. “Why the bloody hell do you want to inspect my feet?”
“I don’t think I can carry you all the way to my place.”
Spike pretended affront as Riley wiped and examined his soles. “You’d bloody well better not try to carry me! I’m a grown man and I don’t need to be carried.” Riley looked up at him, amused and reproving. “Much. Any more. Than I was already today.” Spike twitched with embarrassment.
Riley declared his feet fit for travel and helped him on with his boots. His arm was strong and supporting under Spike’s shoulders, but he didn’t make out like he was helping him walk. Spike was painfully grateful for that. “So why didn’t you drop me at your place to start with?”
“You were in love with Buffy and I was jealous enough to want to punish you. Now shut up, you need your energy for the walk. It’s almost two miles to my dorm.”
“What happened to your big SUV?”
“Government owned it.”
“Hell. I have to seduce a richer bloke next time.”
“You didn’t seduce me,” Riley said. “I seduced you.”
Slowly, both smiling, they made their way home.
THE END
So I decided to carry on straight from my last Spiley, Codependent.
You don't have to read that fic to get this one - just know that it's season five and rather than leave after the events in "Into the Woods", Riley has stuck around, forming a codependent (ha!) bite-and-sex relationship with Spike.
Some dialog taken from the episode "Intervention".
Riley knew a lot about denial. It was right there in his textbook on coping mechanisms.
That wasn’t the only place he knew it from.
“So,” Buffy dropped into the seat next to him at the table in the back of the Magic Box. “I thought you had some big new job in far away land?”
Riley cleared his throat. “I decided to finish my PhD.”
“Hm,” said Spike, leaning against a back wall. When Riley looked at him, the blond vampire looked away.
“Oh. Well… good. It’s good that we can, you know, be friends, work together.”
“Yeah. It’s good.”
Spike’s softly-muttered, “Christ,” was the perfect punctuation on the awkwardness.
“And why are YOU still hanging around?” Buffy turned sharply to Spike.
He lifted one shoulder. “Bored.”
Riley pretended to pay attention to his book. He pretended to pay attention when the group was all there and discussing the latest dilemma - something with a super-strong girl? He put in an Oscar-worthy performance with an audience of one. Only Spike knew that he was there just because Spike was, because he had to be near him, had to see the press of his lips, the pink tip of his tongue when he spoke, his teeth.
Spike’s mouth opened, his tongue travelled slowly along his lower lip and stopped there.
Riley shook his head, re-focusing his gaze to realize Spike was giving him a knowing leer. Riley forced his eyes to his book. Reading. Reading about… Denial. Oh, irony.
Riley felt Buffy shift in her chair next to him. She was letting her hair cover her face, avoiding Spike’s gaze, a bit of color on her cheeks.
Spike gave Riley a smug nod.
What was that? Riley stared at words on the page that kept sliding apart and together. He could not remember a single word said during the meeting, had he been asked.
As everyone started leaving, he closed his books, and followed them out. He hoped he hadn’t been given an important job. He supposed he should wander around and look for something evil.
Spike dropped into step beside him. “Sorry you had to see that,” Spike said, in a smug voice that betoked the exact opposite sentiment.
“See what?” Riley said, and saw Spike’s face fall, for a moment.
It was just a moment. His leer returned. “Slayer’s got the hots for me,” he said, rocking on the balls of his feet. “I confessed my feelings. It was moving. Well, didn’t really end all that great, but for a while there I had three ladies in my lair. Jealous?”
Riley felt a stab in his throat, but he managed to keep his expression neutral. “Why should I be? You’re both free to do what you want.” Riley lengthened his stride and kept his gaze firmly forward.
Spike jogged backwards in front of him. “Liar. You’re jealous.”
Riley kept walking, trying to ignore him. “Buffy and I broke up. It’s not my business anymore.”
“Wasn’t talking about Buffy.” Spike raised his chin. “Come on, put those big hands on me and make me think twice about fooling around on you.”
Riley stopped. He sighed.
“Oh,” Spike purred, “Like you don’t love throwing your muscle around.”
“Spike, we’re not in a relationship.”
Spike’s eyebrows rose and knit together. His mouth fell open and then compressed into a tight line. “Is that right.”
“I’m… look, it’s…”
Spike threw his head back and laughed. “Oh please don’t give me some whitebread brush-off. It’s not you, it’s me? It’s not passion and blood and sex, oh wait… it is.”
Riley felt himself blushing to the roots of his hair. He tightened his grip on his books and walked purposefully head, brushing past Spike when he tried to stop him. “I don’t want to have this conversation on the street, thanks.”
“Fine. I’ll just go talk to BUFFY since I’m not in a RELATIONSHIP.”
Riley groaned. Spike was supposed to be so much older than him, why did it feel like he was dating a high-schooler?
Except, of course, they weren’t dating. He kept his path forward, his eyes on the pavement in front of him. He didn’t look up until he had to open to door to his dorm, at which point he stood there, still, looking at the empty, well-lit entryway, wondering why he was so shocked not to see Spike there.
***
“We need your help,” Xander said, leaning in the door to Riley’s dorm room. “We’re doing an intervention.”
Riley blinked slowly. “Well, I’m not actually a psychiatrist, you know.”
“It’s Buffy. No, it’s Spike. Well, actually it’s Buffy. Just, come on, I’ll explain on the way.”
Riley felt dizzy as he followed Xander out of the building. “No… he was just making things up. Because he’s mentally thirteen years old.”
“Yeah, well, I wish that were the entire story, but Willow and I saw it with our own four eyes and believe me, the image is still burning on my retinas.”
Riley felt like he’d been sucker-punched. “That can’t be right. All I saw was, I mean, they did look at each other this one time.”
“I’m hoping for magic spells,” Xander said. “But it could be grief making her do the wacky.”
Riley felt another stab. He hadn’t been able to comfort Buffy much, feeling like the unwanted ex, an outsider and insider at the same time. “I thought Buffy was moving on, getting back to normal business.”
“There’s that patented Sunnydale denial!” Xander clapped him on the back. “It’s almost like you grew up here.”
I’m in a love triangle, Riley thought. It made him stop in place and Xander had to tug him forward. No, no that wasn’t right. The thing with him and Spike, it was about… a nasty secret habit. It was about the bite for him and the blood for Spike, a fair exchange of vices. He wasn’t jealous.
He just really, really hoped Xander was imagining this.
***
Spike didn’t get the bot ENTIRELY to make Riley jealous. It was also a way to work out his inexplicable, WRONG attraction to the slayer. Rather like how Riley was using him to work out his inappropriate feelings toward getting bit.
He looked down at the shiny, perfect blonde hair, smelling faintly of plastic, and sighed. I’m just like this thing, he thought: a crutch, a habit, stupidly programmed to seek love.
“Who’s that?” Buffybot perkily asked, as the sound of footsteps approached.
“Uh…” Spike hurried zipped up. “Down there,” he pointed to the ladder to his luxury lower level. “No matter what, don’t come out until I come get you.”
“Okay!” She cheerfully accepted and -way, way too slowly - climbed down the steps.
When Spike turned and saw Riley and Xander come in together, he almost called her back up. “Oh, it’s you.”
“I saw you in the cemetery, with Buffy,” Xander said.
Spike cut his eyes quickly to Riley. “Yeah?” He smiled and ran a hand down his stomach, trying to look unconcerned and sexy at the same time. “Can’t see how it’s any business of yours.”
“It’s my business because Buffy’s my friend. She’s going through a lot of stuff right now and you’re taking advantage of her.”
Spike relaxed. This was a story he could run with. He shrugged. “She’s upset about her mum. And if she turns to me for comfort, well…”
“You are so full of it,” Riley shouted. The big boy-scout looked caught out when Xander gaped at him. Spike loved seeing Riley trying so hard to control himself. Oh yes, this was all working to his advantage.
Riley crowded up to Spike, looming over him in that appealing way of his. “You aren’t comforting her. You’re using her.”
“Oh? You think?” Spike let his mouth hang open, licking his upper teeth, which he knew drove Riley to distraction. “Using her for what, do you think?”
Riley’s pupils dilated. His breath was coming in hard little pants. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” Spike playfully leaned forward, breathing in Riley’s exhales. Would Captain Straightlaced give in to his rage? Let the puppy see what he’d been up to?
Xander spoke. “Buffy has lots of friends and we love her very much and we’ll do what we have to to protect her.”
Riley flinched back, seeming to realize how close he’d come to giving up the truth. Spike groaned. “For Christ’s sake, droopy, give us a mo’.”
“If that means killing you, then, well, that’s just a bonus,” Xander said, stepping forward as Riley stepped back. Xander looked to Riley for confirmation, but the big solider looked baffled and lost.
Spike ignored the instinct to comfort him. “No one’s going to kill me. I’m too sexy.”
Then the door burst open an a creepy little guy looking like the ren fair leper time forgot came in. “Gentlemen, I hope I’m not disturbing you. A moment of your time?”
Four more leper-enactors came in. They smelled vile - like garbage and burlap. Before Spike could come up with a witty one-liner, it was fighting time.
“Spike?”
Spike stupidly paused, looking at Riley, who was looking back at him, and well, wasn’t that a stupid way to lose a fight?
***
Spike’s day proceeded so badly that getting stuffed into a foul-smelling sack was almost the highlight of it. He was tortured by a hell-god. He was carried humiliatingly by humans, and was pretty sure he wasn’t remotely sexy or dangerous-looking when Riley laid him down on his crypt slab.
But then, he’d gotten an unexpected gift. A chaste kiss. A thank-you. Somehow, a strange idea that he’d done The Right Thing. Was this swelling in his chest what drove the good guys to keep fighting when they knew they would lose? He supposed it must be. He watched her swishing skirt disappear through the crypt door.
Someone cleared his throat. Spike turned so fast his head swam, his vision darkening. He held a hand to his head to keep his brain inside it. Well, it felt like that.
Riley stood there, holding a duffle bag over one shoulder and biting his lip. “I… I saw everything.”
“Did you? How lovely.” Spike laid back on the nice, cold stone. “Bugger off.”
He heard the duffle set down and unzip. Then he flinched as something cool and wet touched his face. He opened his eyes - with difficulty. He tried to push Riley’s hand away, but his heart wasn’t entirely in it. Riley washed the blood from his face with care.
“You don’t need to clean my wounds, you berk. Can’t get infected.”
Riley kept at his work, brushing thoroughly, hurting at times with the sure pressure and slow sweep of the rag, but it was a good kind of hurt, the hurt of care and mending and… Spike shut his thoughts down before they got too sentimental. He let Riley move him, lifting each hand to clean the sores on his wrists. The bandages were clean and dry and felt heavenly.
Spike fidgeted, wanting Riley to say something, but he didn’t, just kept at his work, focused on his task, like he saw wounds and skin, not the person in front of him. Spike licked his cracked lips. “So did I manage to make you jealous at last?”
“Yes, Spike. You did.” Riley put Spike’s hand on his shoulder and wrapped his arms around his torso. “Can you sit up? Pull on me if you need to.”
“Berk.” Spike bit his lip and did as bidden. “I’ve had worse than this, you know. Hell, I’ve had worse than this and we called it a fun evening in with the family.”
Once Spike was upright, Riley passed the bandages around his torso, covering his chest wounds. As he unwound the roll, Riley said, “It killed me, seeing how much you care for Buffy. That you care more about her than me.”
“I don’t believe it! You sad wanker!”
Riley’s eyes met his at last, hot with anger. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been wanting something more from me, some declaration of… of something. But that’s no reason to kick me while I’m down.”
Spike had to briefly flight his way past Riley’s hands to cup his face. “When I say ‘you sad wanker’ it means ‘kiss me’.”
Riley instantly looked lost again. “But… Buffy?”
“Buffy’s a dream. A fantasy. You’re here, idiot, and you’re warm and alive and despite myself I fucking love you. Twat.”
Slowly, Riley’s lip jerked up into a tentative smile. “I think I’d be perfectly happy right now, if it weren’t for all the insults.”
Spike pressed his cut, bleeding lips to Riley’s, and the kiss hurt, but that made it better, like love was supposed to hurt. Riley’s big arms wrapped around him, radiating heat through stiff bandages and stiff muscles.
Gently, Riley pulled away. “Easy,” he said. “Easy. Here. Swing your legs over this side of the sarcophagus. I want to see how your feet are.”
Spike winced at the motion as a laugh escaped him. “Why the bloody hell do you want to inspect my feet?”
“I don’t think I can carry you all the way to my place.”
Spike pretended affront as Riley wiped and examined his soles. “You’d bloody well better not try to carry me! I’m a grown man and I don’t need to be carried.” Riley looked up at him, amused and reproving. “Much. Any more. Than I was already today.” Spike twitched with embarrassment.
Riley declared his feet fit for travel and helped him on with his boots. His arm was strong and supporting under Spike’s shoulders, but he didn’t make out like he was helping him walk. Spike was painfully grateful for that. “So why didn’t you drop me at your place to start with?”
“You were in love with Buffy and I was jealous enough to want to punish you. Now shut up, you need your energy for the walk. It’s almost two miles to my dorm.”
“What happened to your big SUV?”
“Government owned it.”
“Hell. I have to seduce a richer bloke next time.”
“You didn’t seduce me,” Riley said. “I seduced you.”
Slowly, both smiling, they made their way home.
THE END