Fic: 'What it is to Burn' by Quinara [Spuffy; R; 3/4]
Heh, so I forgot that I find it incredibly hard to do anything when I'm in the final stages of getting a fic up to post, because apparently I really can't think about more than one thing at once. So have more! Probably the other part too a little later! Let it be said that I tried to post like a normal person, even if I failed.
The beginning of this fic, with slightly more substantial notes, is here! This part is also (a slightly longer interpretation of) ~4000 words and free of stuff that usually gets a warning, though I will say outright that it explores sex people have had but don't remember. The people involved are in it together and don't mind, but it is what it is. I'm also really sorry to, er, anyone who expects this part to be just a big pile of porn...
What it is to Burn.
After three years in a long distance relationship, Buffy’s the one who cracks first.
[one] [two]
three
“We made a what?” Spike asked, turning over in her arms.
Buffy shook her head, feeling him freeze when he saw it. The nightstand had been pulled away from the wall and set back from the bed, very near Spike’s rickety white wardrobe. On it was a short stack of books - a couple of novels and Spike’s diary thing, her pocket A-Z - and sitting on top of that was his camera, shut down but staring at them like a miniature robot voyeur.
There had always been a latent sense of prudery in her vampire - small enough that she usually had to work pretty hard to find it, but there all the same - so Buffy wasn’t surprised that it took him a couple of seconds to recover. Of course, when he did, he recovered well. With a smirk on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, he turned back to her and murmured, “Well, I never.”
She could feel herself blush as he pecked her on the lips, but she met his smile all the same. “What are you thinking?” she asked, because she wanted him to say it first.
He winked, completely onto her. “Think we need to see what Santa got us, don’t you?” he said, starting to climb out of bed. He seemed to change his mind as he hit the floor, however, pausing before offering a hand. “Actually, d’you fancy the honours?” he asked as she accepted his help to her feet. “I think we also need a fry-up.”
Her stomach gurgled in agreement. “Mmm, French toast…” she thought aloud, kissing collarbone and giving Spike’s neglected morning stiffy a little tug. It was fun to make him jump. And she was getting used to this tape idea; it could come in very handy for after she went home, and there could be supplements via email…
In her mind, also, Buffy could recall a conversation. She’d been saying, distantly, that she’d never seen any porn apart from the whole thing at the Magic Box with Spike and poor Anya (may she rest in peace). Why she’d been saying that, Buffy didn’t know, but they’d been in the apartment and it had made her sad. Spike, like the looming romance hero he was, had told her him and Anya had been nothing, and there had been far too many clothes for it to be considered porn anyway. She’d commented something about how she'd often wondered what they looked like from the outside, because they were freaking hot…
“We can make that happen,” Spike told her breathlessly then, half about the French toast, Buffy was certain, but half - she knew as his voice lilted in surprise - as he remembered saying it the night before.
She looked up at him, a definite smirk filling her expression. Oh yeah, she recalled as she met daring eyes. “Let’s do it,” she agreed, and they sealed the agreement with some A-grade minor-detour tongue action.
“Right,” Spike said, grinning as they pulled back. After a second, he kicked his jeans up into his hands and jerked his head over to the desk in the corner. “The cables should be with the computer,” he explained, clothing himself enough to make her pout. “Password’s, er, ‘p1stolfuck’ with a one instead of the I…”
That made her laugh, and her brain managed to catch up with the logic that there would be frying and hot oily things, which weren’t so great around certain body parts. Clothing was necessary. Picking up his shirt for herself (mostly so he couldn’t wear it), Buffy nodded at him and they split up to do their tasks.
As the clattering started in the kitchenette, Buffy booted up Spike’s laptop and logged in, surprised to come face-to-face with herself and Dawn, grinning from the desktop. They were stood in front of glass, the Embankment skyline behind them, and Buffy blinked as she remembered. Of course, this was a photo she’d sent from Dawn’s birthday last month. They’d gone out for the day and ended up on the London Eye, because her sister had wanted to do ‘one last really touristy thing’ before she left for college.
She was touched, Buffy decided as she plugged the camera in. If she’d thought about it, she probably would have expected to see one of the far pervier photos she’d sent Spike from the last couple of years. But that wasn’t giving him enough credit, was it? It wasn’t like her computer desktop was decorated with pervy pictures of him. They were all hidden away in a really boring-sounding work subfolder… No, her home PC had a collage of various things he’d sent her, little handwritten poems and cartoons about Angel versus the hair gel demon. Dawn had been convinced to make all the scans look like an arty noticeboard, even as she’d complained the sonnets made her puke.
But anyway, this was not the time to be thinking about Dawn, Buffy told herself. Spike’s computer had found the camera’s video files now. There were preview images, including one which (oh dear god) definitely showed some tangled naked limbs.
Throwing caution to the wind, Buffy double-clicked. A media player whirred into being.
And then - ”Can you see me?” a mini Buffy was suddenly asking from the screen, still clothed and sitting on Spike’s made bed, a little pixelated with her eye line just above the shot. What she actually said was more like, ”Cnyousee-mee…?” - all slurred together and sing-song, but Buffy was mostly able to translate. She had half-lidded eyes and was swaying, stretching out a leg in front of her. It was bare and shoeless, and it seemed to be pointing at whoever she was eyeing up, licking her lips like a satisfied cat.
I hope it’s not that obvious every time I want some, was the first thing Buffy thought to herself, even as she made the video full screen and Spike’s voice came purring from the monitor, “Clear as fucking crystal, pet.” Or, indeed, ”Clear'sfungcryssalpeh.” He sounded even more ready for it than she did. Also - drunk.
Pixelated Spike came into shot then, and immediately Buffy felt embarrassed. With completely unguarded expressions on their blurry faces, the two figures giggled at what they were doing, looking down the lens and then back to each other where they sat together on the bed. Self-consciousness seemed to be beating them; they played with each other’s fingers, pulling funny faces and nudging knees.
It was, for the moment, really not that sexy. And the lighting was terrible.
“Oh, is it working?” Buffy’s thankfully more sober Spike called over, raising his voice above the hiss of cooking oil.
“Yeah,” she called back, keeping an eye on the screen. “I think you’ve got a while, though. I vaguely remember a conversation…” And right then she did.
Sure enough, Screen Spike broke his first kiss with Screen Buffy to ask, in yet more slurred tones, “Sure you wanna do this?” It was like he was in a teen movie, the good guy character who was going to act like a jerk in the morning.
And Screen Buffy was lapping up seduction like an ingénue, giggling again. “Uh huh,” she said, in a tone girly enough to make sober self shudder. “Gotta try new things; it’s the rule.” Another kiss, which, OK, was a little bit steamy this time. They were getting better. “Wanna remember.” Double OK, Buffy thought as there was more kissing, maybe they could work with this. ”But…” And then there was a glance at the camera, which ruined the mood. “Nervous. What if we’re awful?” Screen Buffy was panicking, in an embarrassingly saccharine way. “What’ll we think in the morning?”
And so began a lengthy, bizarre and only half-intelligible conversation about how sexy they were and how fun it was going to be to watch the video. All Buffy could do was cringe at how self-absorbed they sounded, not to mention how boring they were being. “Come on, guys!” she told the screen, feeling strangely like she was old to their young. “Get on with the sex already.”
Frustrated by how much her screen version seemed to be thinking, Buffy left the video running and went to help her Spike with his cooking. She had no plans to think today and had certainly had none last night, especially not in lieu of more entertaining activities. All she wanted was to enjoy life, preferably with physical stuff she could remember and fried food. She was going to make a start on it right now.
As she purposefully walked into the bounds of the kitchenette, Spike gave her one look and laughed. “Are they taking their time about it?” he asked, sarcastically slurping his mug of blood. It was as if he’d seen this coming. She could only try to ignore the gooey tones of their recorded voices, focusing on the sounds of cooking and filling herself a glass of water.
“Now I understand those cheesy porn segues,” she commented as she wrapped an arm around Spike’s waist, sipping what would hopefully be her hangover cure. “Real time mood building’s kinda…” She tried to work out what the various fried bits were. “Ooh, you made mushrooms?”
Potential boredom did not, however, deter them from sitting back in front of the screen when the food was done. Maybe it was because she was sitting on Spike’s lap now, his bare arms hiking up her shirt a little too high for it to remain a cover up; maybe it was because sitting still reminded her of the various pleasant aches she was feeling - but watching a badly-lit, drunk version of herself make out with a hot shirtless guy was strangely entertaining.
“So, d’you think they’ve forgotten about the camera yet?” Spike asked, not sounding particularly turned on either. He always thought pictures of himself made him look like a bobble-headed runt, of course, at least secretly. He was way too insecure.
But Buffy supposed he probably thought the same about some of her opinions… “I guess they’ve got to at some point.” God, her make-out technique was really - not that attractive to look at. “Why am I so grabby?” she asked after a few more seconds, disgruntled. “You’re so good with the smoothy-slidey action.”
Spike laughed. “It’s all right, Slayer,” he promised, squeezing her thigh with a hand that held a fork. “I like you grabby.”
With Buffy’s last bite of French toast, Screen Spike finally got a clue and started undoing the buttons down the front of Screen Buffy’s dress. It had been bought specifically with Spike in mind, Buffy remembered, though she knew that particular plan was going to be as cheesy as hell any moment -
“Oh, I remember,” the Spike behind her suddenly said, tightening his hold on her waist. “No bra and no knickers, and I’d been clueless the whole bloody evening. Could’ve had you on the street in ten seconds flat.”
Buffy scowled, not so impressed by that image.
“Sorry, love,” he immediately apologised when she stiffened, kissing her neck through hair. “’Course I wouldn’t have. Not romantic at all. I’m a bad rude man.” Naturally, that was the moment when Screen Spike caught a peep of something he liked, so gave up unbuttoning to simply rip Screen Buffy’s dress in two. Buffy didn’t want to laugh, but it was hard not to, especially when her Spike deadpanned, “As we can see.”
After a few more seconds, however, amusement shifted into something else. The problem was, they could both see how deeply this assault on her dress made Screen Buffy breathe. She was on her knees on the bedclothes, slinky fabric hanging freefall from her shoulders, and her stomach was plunging in and out underneath her ribs. Her boobs sat there like they usually did, but Buffy couldn’t take her eyes from the way her knees were edging open, obviously in response to some feeling. It made her quite conscious of her own un-underweared state.
Softly, Spike’s voice whispered in her ear again, seguing from apologetic to sinful with one tiny growl. “Don’t worry,” he said, as his hand snuck down between her legs. It came with the promise of a slow, leisurely finger fuck. “I’ve got you.”
Giving in, Buffy leaned back, scooching further up his lap as she shook her head. “You so saw this coming,” she accused, even as he shrugged his innocence. Her legs fell open over his thighs, because they always knew what to do, and she was rewarded for the access. “Should get your jeans off,” she commented resignedly, lolling her head back to give him a kiss on the jaw.
He laughed, but at least unbuttoned, providing her with a revolutionary new form of lumbar support.
Was this quite how she had planned this morning? Buffy wondered as she got herself comfy. Feeling a frown cross her face, she wasn’t sure she had plans at all, and it was hard to feel like that was a good thing. She knew she was starting to sober up, because she could feel a headache coming on - and the hollow feeling in her achey limbs was reminding her of all the things they had to talk about…
But she was ignoring that, she decided, closing her eyes for a moment and listening to herself moan. She was settling against curving fingers; they were warming her up again.
On screen, Spike and Buffy had definitely forgotten about the camera. After some interesting gasps and rustles, Buffy opened her eyes to find that they were finally fascinating, rutting with a harsh, drunken energy into the sheets and pawing at each other’s bodies.
She was watching now, but... It wasn’t cinematic in the least, the movements small and jagged, and the dialogue shifted between the mundane, the melodramatic and the incomprehensible with every second thrust. The angle she and Spike were viewing from often didn’t show very much, just skin that she’d seen before, but every now and then there would be a glimpse of something startlingly hardcore or - unctuous, which Buffy wasn’t quite sure what to do with.
Generally, she found it hard to tell whether this was turning her on any more than being tended to by her undressed boyfriend usually would. Was she enjoying this? The giggling, the laughter, she realised with a start, that had fallen by the wayside, and the talking was going too, comments drifting into grunts.
After a few minutes, it was just her being fucked against a headboard, mouth open, panting, her eyes shut. There was a deep frown across her brow. Spike had one foot on the floor and one knee hooked under her thigh, every muscle strained. With her arms spread out along the headboard and up the wall, they were barely touching each other. Thump-creak, thump-creak, thump.
“Why…” Buffy asked, reaching for Spike’s hand between her legs. “Why don’t we look happy?” His fingers stilled and she could feel a bitter pang of recognition.
“Think that’s concentration?” Spike suggested, though he didn’t sound too convinced. He was probably watching how his screen image paid more attention to his rhythm than his partner. She certainly was. “Don’t know.”
This wasn’t right. But they were drunk, Buffy remembered. Really, really drunk. “I think they’re zoning out,” she said, shivering with disappointment. On screen, the apartment sounded so quiet. “They’re not…” She didn’t like it, she decided. She really didn’t like it. “Can we fastforward, maybe?” she asked, instinctively closing her legs a little and curling more into the comfort rather than the stimulation of Spike’s arms. “Skip some? I don’t like that we aren’t talking.” It reminded her too much of how they’d once been. If there was one thing she expected these days, what with their telephone conversations, it was talking during sex.
“Yeah…” Spike agreed, squeezing her hand. He leaned them forward to move the mouse with his left. “Christ, this thing goes on for hours,” he muttered as the timer showed up.
She entwined their fingers, trying to reassure herself. “At least we got stamina.”
That earned her a snort. “What we got is a brand new memory card…”
After a little bit of skipping, however, it became clear that Screen Buffy and Spike really had forgotten about the recording, so had no compunction about rolling out of shot and off the bed entirely.
Whumph. Watching, they both winced as the couple fell to the ground, out of view.
“Well,” Spike commented simply. “Now I remember why my bum feels bruised.”
“Poor Spike’s bum,” Buffy sympathised even through her frown, reaching behind to give him a little rub.
Tracking through, it took a while before anything more than a phantom limb reappeared, though there were enough recorded moans and satisfied, breathy silences that it sounded like a reasonable time was being had. The video didn’t actually go on for hours, more like seventy-two minutes and thirty-three seconds, but the majority of that seemed to be an empty bed.
Buffy had something of a premonition about what was coming from the feel she was copping of Spike’s ass, but it was still a shock when their counterparts came back on screen, sixty-eight minutes in. They were wrestling on the floor, wrenching each other back into view, when Screen Buffy unceremoniously bent her vampire over the bed and started having her way with the back of him.
With his arm around her waist again, Spike guffawed. She could feel it as his knee jerked, in time with her mouth (and the odd bit of finger). “Slayer,” he asked, impressed. “Did I know you had that in you?”
Apparently he didn’t remember this. But she did, a little, and she had the worst feeling of apprehension about what was coming next. “We’ve done this before, haven’t we?” she said, trying to keep her tone light even as they leaned back from the desk. They could ignore the way she was clutching his arm. “I guess it’s always so fun when you go on me,” she babbled nervously. “You just, you know, you need to get me this drunk so I forget what comes outta there…”
Her heart really wasn’t in the banter. Spike was blissing out on screen, but it was as if he was going through only the best kind of pain, and Buffy, she was concentrating harder than anything, squeezing her eyes shut as she applied herself. It was just like before and, watching, Buffy hated it. She… What was it she could remember?
“Oh, pet,” Spike said suddenly behind her, dropping a long kiss to the crook of her neck. For a moment Buffy wondered what he’d picked up on, but of course he was the first to spot it: on the monitor, her shoulders were shaking.
Screen Buffy kept going until Spike gave them a fairly understated money shot, but after that, in the instant after her partner cried out, she was seizing up with great, keening, drunken sobs. Her forehead slammed into Spike’s tailbone and her fingers clawed on his hips.
At that moment, Buffy remembered exactly what she’d said, what she’d been thinking. The terror of it, the building sense of despair, it all came tumbling out of her. “Dohnwaaggo,” she was gasping through Spike’s speakers, gulping between consonants. “Dohmaymiggo; donwanleeyou; donwanshhend.”
Looking dazed, bewildered and a little broken, Spike then was turning back to the camera, dragging Buffy up into his shaking arms. He looked weak and lost in the dead emptiness of the apartment, curling around his girlfriend and shushing as she cried her guts out.
I don’t wanna go. Don’t make me go. I don’t wanna leave you; I don’t want this to end.
As she watched, remembering, Buffy felt like her heart was being pried open. It was like someone was pulling out all the stupid, selfish, melodramatic thoughts and feelings she’d tried to keep secret and was painting them around the room. This wasn’t meant to happen - ever. Yes, it hurt that they were apart. Maybe it hurt a lot. But she didn’t talk about it, didn’t think it. She certainly didn’t cry about it.
Behind her, Spike was silent, shaky like her. He kept his lips pressed to where her skin escaped from his shirt. Buffy knew he desperately wanted to hear this, couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, but she wanted him to forget, to shut it down so she didn’t have to remember.
“Why do I have to love you?” Buffy was bawling from the display, a lumpy body of flesh in harsh, bright light and all too comprehensible. Earlier she had sounded so young, playing a game, but now she was every inch the twenty-five year old Slayer, haggard and breaking right at her expected time. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair to feel like this! And why, why is it - possible… Everyone always knows how to live without me, but I have no idea how to live without you. None. I don’t know - how do I go back home now? How many years am I gonna -”
And that was when the video cut out, thankfully. The screen went black.
In the silence of the apartment, the air rich with the smell of bacon and eggs, Spike carefully turned her around to meet his wide, blue eyes. Even with his arms around her, Buffy could feel her lip was quivering. “Well,” she said anyway, certain there was no hiding anymore. “I guess that happened.”
For a moment, he stared at her and she wondered how much he remembered. There was more crying than the video showed, Buffy knew, mostly with the same worries on repeat - then comfort, more sex and maybe finally sleep? She should have remembered that getting drunk never worked out for her.
Whatever Spike was remembering, it made him shake his head, mouth in a little O of confusion. “But I don’t know how to live without you,” he promised spontaneously, as if she should have known that all along. “I mean, look at this place.” He cast an arm around them and she looked, took in the gungy carpet and the peeling paint. The dust she hadn’t been going to mention. “It’s a hole.” Spike still sounded confused. “We both know it’s a hole. Most of the time I don’t keep it clean and it’s only because you were coming that I bothered to get rid of the mould.”
She said nothing, not certain how to respond and certain that if she opened her mouth she would cry again. Because that changed nothing, did it? Even if he was living like one of those Da Vinci Code self-harm monks, he was still living, getting by.
Watching her think this, Spike swallowed, eyes flashing before he impulsively lifted her up and took them both back to bed. “I spend hours blackmailing myself not to call you,” he said, cradling her against him. Their half-worn clothes were all lumpy, in the way. “I have targets - eighteen hours since you last called - and at least an hour after I first think of it. I’ve convinced myself Tuesday’s are bad luck, and I can’t disturb your Friday night.” Eyes on hers, he was whispering his devotion, and it was only then she realised that they’d never turned the lights off, before. As his litany continued she was staring at the same halogen-lit white skin from the film. “I can’t call when your soaps are on,” he explained, as if he’d been holding this panic back for years, “or the tennis or your holiday shows. Not when you’re eating, might be sleeping, or when you’ve just got back from work.” He was touching her hair and she was responding, but the comfort was only fractional. “Can’t call if I need it too much, if my fingers shake on the dial. Not until I’ve killed three vampires and a demon since the last time we spoke. Not for six hours after I’ve looked through your photos.”
Was this why he always sounded so together when he called? Buffy knew she was never that strong.
“Maybe - maybe you have it bad, love,” Spike finished, and at last she recognised the desperation, “but I am fucking obsessed.” With a sneer of self-disgust he shut his eyes, inhaling viciously as he touched their foreheads together on the covers. “I’ve never been able to shake it. You know that. It burns off when you’ve been around a while - that last year in Sunnydale when I saw you every day, I coped well enough with that - but these days I’m a joke. I know you used to believe I could be something better, but this, this is all I am.”
Still afraid of her own feelings, Buffy wondered if he’d been trying to hide this the whole time. She found his hands and clasped them in her own, unable to decide which other part of him to hold. “You know what I think’s hard?” she said, willing him to agree with her, because she was starting to believe this was true. “I used to think it was staying strong, you know?” Was she going to say this? She wasn’t meant to say this. But she had to, didn’t she? “Accepting everything that happens around you and keeping to the mission, carrying on. But I… I think it’s harder to, you know, realise what makes you happy and go for it, make things work so you can be. Make - like, permanent decisions about how your life’s gonna change instead of hoping for good things to come along.”
Breathing, Spike ran his thumbs over the backs of her palms. After a moment he smirked, tone full of irony. “I swear I remember saying something like that to you once. Possibly before I had a soul.”
He was watching her, love and amusement clear to read on his face, but she wondered if he’d got what she meant. “I used to have a motto, ‘seize the moment’,” she said, trying to make him understand. “Something happened to both of us, I guess?”
He agreed. “Who’d have thought heroic death could be such a downer?”
Testing him, she nodded as they embraced again. This really, really was not what she was meant to be saying, but it was now or never. She was still a little drunk. “You know,” she said carefully, feeling his ribs under her forearm. “With the new system Giles is putting together, there’s gonna be rewards for that kind of thing. He says I’m gonna be rich; I think I could hook you up with some sweet, sweet recompense too…”
He flicked his eyebrows before kissing her, like he was paying more attention to her tone than her words. “My temptress with the golden moneybags, you are.”
No, she realised, looking at him. Hearing the resistance. He understood.
Oh god. He just didn’t want to say he wouldn’t come.
OK then, she thought rationally, her heart pumping. She’d always seen that coming, hadn’t she? It didn’t matter. “Just tell me you’re happy here,” she said, changing tack, surprising herself by cutting to the chase. He was startled too, but she met his eyes with no guile whatsoever. “Tell me you’re happy here, and I’ll stay.” In the end, wasn’t it all this simple? “Dawn, she’s in college now; there’s nothing in London I need more than you.”
That was what it came down to, wasn’t it? There were many things, many little things that she liked about her current home. Her nearness to Giles and Dawn. The feeling she got walking down her street. The gang from the rink she did Orange Wednesdays with. The local library. The cheese guy at the market. But - she could give it up. She would give it up if she had to.
Even if Spike was looking at her like she’d just thrown away her one last shred of sanity. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked, shaking his head at her. “Of course I’m not happy here. I’m doing naff all but live out Angel’s bloody guilt issues, last man standing after his planned suicide dead end - and I have all the home comforts of a bloody… Termite. Happy? Christ, most days I would settle for melancholic…”
Then why won’t you…? She couldn’t ask him to come with her. It was an unspoken agreement that neither of them would ask, because it wasn’t fair. But he wasn’t getting it, he wasn’t getting it at all, and she decided then and there that if he said nothing by the end of her trip, then she would be going home to get her things in order to move.
Buffy had never thought she’d be the one to crack first, but she didn’t care. She didn’t. She couldn’t do this anymore.
.
[four]
The beginning of this fic, with slightly more substantial notes, is here! This part is also (a slightly longer interpretation of) ~4000 words and free of stuff that usually gets a warning, though I will say outright that it explores sex people have had but don't remember. The people involved are in it together and don't mind, but it is what it is. I'm also really sorry to, er, anyone who expects this part to be just a big pile of porn...
What it is to Burn.
After three years in a long distance relationship, Buffy’s the one who cracks first.
[one] [two]
three
“We made a what?” Spike asked, turning over in her arms.
Buffy shook her head, feeling him freeze when he saw it. The nightstand had been pulled away from the wall and set back from the bed, very near Spike’s rickety white wardrobe. On it was a short stack of books - a couple of novels and Spike’s diary thing, her pocket A-Z - and sitting on top of that was his camera, shut down but staring at them like a miniature robot voyeur.
There had always been a latent sense of prudery in her vampire - small enough that she usually had to work pretty hard to find it, but there all the same - so Buffy wasn’t surprised that it took him a couple of seconds to recover. Of course, when he did, he recovered well. With a smirk on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, he turned back to her and murmured, “Well, I never.”
She could feel herself blush as he pecked her on the lips, but she met his smile all the same. “What are you thinking?” she asked, because she wanted him to say it first.
He winked, completely onto her. “Think we need to see what Santa got us, don’t you?” he said, starting to climb out of bed. He seemed to change his mind as he hit the floor, however, pausing before offering a hand. “Actually, d’you fancy the honours?” he asked as she accepted his help to her feet. “I think we also need a fry-up.”
Her stomach gurgled in agreement. “Mmm, French toast…” she thought aloud, kissing collarbone and giving Spike’s neglected morning stiffy a little tug. It was fun to make him jump. And she was getting used to this tape idea; it could come in very handy for after she went home, and there could be supplements via email…
In her mind, also, Buffy could recall a conversation. She’d been saying, distantly, that she’d never seen any porn apart from the whole thing at the Magic Box with Spike and poor Anya (may she rest in peace). Why she’d been saying that, Buffy didn’t know, but they’d been in the apartment and it had made her sad. Spike, like the looming romance hero he was, had told her him and Anya had been nothing, and there had been far too many clothes for it to be considered porn anyway. She’d commented something about how she'd often wondered what they looked like from the outside, because they were freaking hot…
“We can make that happen,” Spike told her breathlessly then, half about the French toast, Buffy was certain, but half - she knew as his voice lilted in surprise - as he remembered saying it the night before.
She looked up at him, a definite smirk filling her expression. Oh yeah, she recalled as she met daring eyes. “Let’s do it,” she agreed, and they sealed the agreement with some A-grade minor-detour tongue action.
“Right,” Spike said, grinning as they pulled back. After a second, he kicked his jeans up into his hands and jerked his head over to the desk in the corner. “The cables should be with the computer,” he explained, clothing himself enough to make her pout. “Password’s, er, ‘p1stolfuck’ with a one instead of the I…”
That made her laugh, and her brain managed to catch up with the logic that there would be frying and hot oily things, which weren’t so great around certain body parts. Clothing was necessary. Picking up his shirt for herself (mostly so he couldn’t wear it), Buffy nodded at him and they split up to do their tasks.
As the clattering started in the kitchenette, Buffy booted up Spike’s laptop and logged in, surprised to come face-to-face with herself and Dawn, grinning from the desktop. They were stood in front of glass, the Embankment skyline behind them, and Buffy blinked as she remembered. Of course, this was a photo she’d sent from Dawn’s birthday last month. They’d gone out for the day and ended up on the London Eye, because her sister had wanted to do ‘one last really touristy thing’ before she left for college.
She was touched, Buffy decided as she plugged the camera in. If she’d thought about it, she probably would have expected to see one of the far pervier photos she’d sent Spike from the last couple of years. But that wasn’t giving him enough credit, was it? It wasn’t like her computer desktop was decorated with pervy pictures of him. They were all hidden away in a really boring-sounding work subfolder… No, her home PC had a collage of various things he’d sent her, little handwritten poems and cartoons about Angel versus the hair gel demon. Dawn had been convinced to make all the scans look like an arty noticeboard, even as she’d complained the sonnets made her puke.
But anyway, this was not the time to be thinking about Dawn, Buffy told herself. Spike’s computer had found the camera’s video files now. There were preview images, including one which (oh dear god) definitely showed some tangled naked limbs.
Throwing caution to the wind, Buffy double-clicked. A media player whirred into being.
And then - ”Can you see me?” a mini Buffy was suddenly asking from the screen, still clothed and sitting on Spike’s made bed, a little pixelated with her eye line just above the shot. What she actually said was more like, ”Cnyousee-mee…?” - all slurred together and sing-song, but Buffy was mostly able to translate. She had half-lidded eyes and was swaying, stretching out a leg in front of her. It was bare and shoeless, and it seemed to be pointing at whoever she was eyeing up, licking her lips like a satisfied cat.
I hope it’s not that obvious every time I want some, was the first thing Buffy thought to herself, even as she made the video full screen and Spike’s voice came purring from the monitor, “Clear as fucking crystal, pet.” Or, indeed, ”Clear'sfungcryssalpeh.” He sounded even more ready for it than she did. Also - drunk.
Pixelated Spike came into shot then, and immediately Buffy felt embarrassed. With completely unguarded expressions on their blurry faces, the two figures giggled at what they were doing, looking down the lens and then back to each other where they sat together on the bed. Self-consciousness seemed to be beating them; they played with each other’s fingers, pulling funny faces and nudging knees.
It was, for the moment, really not that sexy. And the lighting was terrible.
“Oh, is it working?” Buffy’s thankfully more sober Spike called over, raising his voice above the hiss of cooking oil.
“Yeah,” she called back, keeping an eye on the screen. “I think you’ve got a while, though. I vaguely remember a conversation…” And right then she did.
Sure enough, Screen Spike broke his first kiss with Screen Buffy to ask, in yet more slurred tones, “Sure you wanna do this?” It was like he was in a teen movie, the good guy character who was going to act like a jerk in the morning.
And Screen Buffy was lapping up seduction like an ingénue, giggling again. “Uh huh,” she said, in a tone girly enough to make sober self shudder. “Gotta try new things; it’s the rule.” Another kiss, which, OK, was a little bit steamy this time. They were getting better. “Wanna remember.” Double OK, Buffy thought as there was more kissing, maybe they could work with this. ”But…” And then there was a glance at the camera, which ruined the mood. “Nervous. What if we’re awful?” Screen Buffy was panicking, in an embarrassingly saccharine way. “What’ll we think in the morning?”
And so began a lengthy, bizarre and only half-intelligible conversation about how sexy they were and how fun it was going to be to watch the video. All Buffy could do was cringe at how self-absorbed they sounded, not to mention how boring they were being. “Come on, guys!” she told the screen, feeling strangely like she was old to their young. “Get on with the sex already.”
Frustrated by how much her screen version seemed to be thinking, Buffy left the video running and went to help her Spike with his cooking. She had no plans to think today and had certainly had none last night, especially not in lieu of more entertaining activities. All she wanted was to enjoy life, preferably with physical stuff she could remember and fried food. She was going to make a start on it right now.
As she purposefully walked into the bounds of the kitchenette, Spike gave her one look and laughed. “Are they taking their time about it?” he asked, sarcastically slurping his mug of blood. It was as if he’d seen this coming. She could only try to ignore the gooey tones of their recorded voices, focusing on the sounds of cooking and filling herself a glass of water.
“Now I understand those cheesy porn segues,” she commented as she wrapped an arm around Spike’s waist, sipping what would hopefully be her hangover cure. “Real time mood building’s kinda…” She tried to work out what the various fried bits were. “Ooh, you made mushrooms?”
Potential boredom did not, however, deter them from sitting back in front of the screen when the food was done. Maybe it was because she was sitting on Spike’s lap now, his bare arms hiking up her shirt a little too high for it to remain a cover up; maybe it was because sitting still reminded her of the various pleasant aches she was feeling - but watching a badly-lit, drunk version of herself make out with a hot shirtless guy was strangely entertaining.
“So, d’you think they’ve forgotten about the camera yet?” Spike asked, not sounding particularly turned on either. He always thought pictures of himself made him look like a bobble-headed runt, of course, at least secretly. He was way too insecure.
But Buffy supposed he probably thought the same about some of her opinions… “I guess they’ve got to at some point.” God, her make-out technique was really - not that attractive to look at. “Why am I so grabby?” she asked after a few more seconds, disgruntled. “You’re so good with the smoothy-slidey action.”
Spike laughed. “It’s all right, Slayer,” he promised, squeezing her thigh with a hand that held a fork. “I like you grabby.”
With Buffy’s last bite of French toast, Screen Spike finally got a clue and started undoing the buttons down the front of Screen Buffy’s dress. It had been bought specifically with Spike in mind, Buffy remembered, though she knew that particular plan was going to be as cheesy as hell any moment -
“Oh, I remember,” the Spike behind her suddenly said, tightening his hold on her waist. “No bra and no knickers, and I’d been clueless the whole bloody evening. Could’ve had you on the street in ten seconds flat.”
Buffy scowled, not so impressed by that image.
“Sorry, love,” he immediately apologised when she stiffened, kissing her neck through hair. “’Course I wouldn’t have. Not romantic at all. I’m a bad rude man.” Naturally, that was the moment when Screen Spike caught a peep of something he liked, so gave up unbuttoning to simply rip Screen Buffy’s dress in two. Buffy didn’t want to laugh, but it was hard not to, especially when her Spike deadpanned, “As we can see.”
After a few more seconds, however, amusement shifted into something else. The problem was, they could both see how deeply this assault on her dress made Screen Buffy breathe. She was on her knees on the bedclothes, slinky fabric hanging freefall from her shoulders, and her stomach was plunging in and out underneath her ribs. Her boobs sat there like they usually did, but Buffy couldn’t take her eyes from the way her knees were edging open, obviously in response to some feeling. It made her quite conscious of her own un-underweared state.
Softly, Spike’s voice whispered in her ear again, seguing from apologetic to sinful with one tiny growl. “Don’t worry,” he said, as his hand snuck down between her legs. It came with the promise of a slow, leisurely finger fuck. “I’ve got you.”
Giving in, Buffy leaned back, scooching further up his lap as she shook her head. “You so saw this coming,” she accused, even as he shrugged his innocence. Her legs fell open over his thighs, because they always knew what to do, and she was rewarded for the access. “Should get your jeans off,” she commented resignedly, lolling her head back to give him a kiss on the jaw.
He laughed, but at least unbuttoned, providing her with a revolutionary new form of lumbar support.
Was this quite how she had planned this morning? Buffy wondered as she got herself comfy. Feeling a frown cross her face, she wasn’t sure she had plans at all, and it was hard to feel like that was a good thing. She knew she was starting to sober up, because she could feel a headache coming on - and the hollow feeling in her achey limbs was reminding her of all the things they had to talk about…
But she was ignoring that, she decided, closing her eyes for a moment and listening to herself moan. She was settling against curving fingers; they were warming her up again.
On screen, Spike and Buffy had definitely forgotten about the camera. After some interesting gasps and rustles, Buffy opened her eyes to find that they were finally fascinating, rutting with a harsh, drunken energy into the sheets and pawing at each other’s bodies.
She was watching now, but... It wasn’t cinematic in the least, the movements small and jagged, and the dialogue shifted between the mundane, the melodramatic and the incomprehensible with every second thrust. The angle she and Spike were viewing from often didn’t show very much, just skin that she’d seen before, but every now and then there would be a glimpse of something startlingly hardcore or - unctuous, which Buffy wasn’t quite sure what to do with.
Generally, she found it hard to tell whether this was turning her on any more than being tended to by her undressed boyfriend usually would. Was she enjoying this? The giggling, the laughter, she realised with a start, that had fallen by the wayside, and the talking was going too, comments drifting into grunts.
After a few minutes, it was just her being fucked against a headboard, mouth open, panting, her eyes shut. There was a deep frown across her brow. Spike had one foot on the floor and one knee hooked under her thigh, every muscle strained. With her arms spread out along the headboard and up the wall, they were barely touching each other. Thump-creak, thump-creak, thump.
“Why…” Buffy asked, reaching for Spike’s hand between her legs. “Why don’t we look happy?” His fingers stilled and she could feel a bitter pang of recognition.
“Think that’s concentration?” Spike suggested, though he didn’t sound too convinced. He was probably watching how his screen image paid more attention to his rhythm than his partner. She certainly was. “Don’t know.”
This wasn’t right. But they were drunk, Buffy remembered. Really, really drunk. “I think they’re zoning out,” she said, shivering with disappointment. On screen, the apartment sounded so quiet. “They’re not…” She didn’t like it, she decided. She really didn’t like it. “Can we fastforward, maybe?” she asked, instinctively closing her legs a little and curling more into the comfort rather than the stimulation of Spike’s arms. “Skip some? I don’t like that we aren’t talking.” It reminded her too much of how they’d once been. If there was one thing she expected these days, what with their telephone conversations, it was talking during sex.
“Yeah…” Spike agreed, squeezing her hand. He leaned them forward to move the mouse with his left. “Christ, this thing goes on for hours,” he muttered as the timer showed up.
She entwined their fingers, trying to reassure herself. “At least we got stamina.”
That earned her a snort. “What we got is a brand new memory card…”
After a little bit of skipping, however, it became clear that Screen Buffy and Spike really had forgotten about the recording, so had no compunction about rolling out of shot and off the bed entirely.
Whumph. Watching, they both winced as the couple fell to the ground, out of view.
“Well,” Spike commented simply. “Now I remember why my bum feels bruised.”
“Poor Spike’s bum,” Buffy sympathised even through her frown, reaching behind to give him a little rub.
Tracking through, it took a while before anything more than a phantom limb reappeared, though there were enough recorded moans and satisfied, breathy silences that it sounded like a reasonable time was being had. The video didn’t actually go on for hours, more like seventy-two minutes and thirty-three seconds, but the majority of that seemed to be an empty bed.
Buffy had something of a premonition about what was coming from the feel she was copping of Spike’s ass, but it was still a shock when their counterparts came back on screen, sixty-eight minutes in. They were wrestling on the floor, wrenching each other back into view, when Screen Buffy unceremoniously bent her vampire over the bed and started having her way with the back of him.
With his arm around her waist again, Spike guffawed. She could feel it as his knee jerked, in time with her mouth (and the odd bit of finger). “Slayer,” he asked, impressed. “Did I know you had that in you?”
Apparently he didn’t remember this. But she did, a little, and she had the worst feeling of apprehension about what was coming next. “We’ve done this before, haven’t we?” she said, trying to keep her tone light even as they leaned back from the desk. They could ignore the way she was clutching his arm. “I guess it’s always so fun when you go on me,” she babbled nervously. “You just, you know, you need to get me this drunk so I forget what comes outta there…”
Her heart really wasn’t in the banter. Spike was blissing out on screen, but it was as if he was going through only the best kind of pain, and Buffy, she was concentrating harder than anything, squeezing her eyes shut as she applied herself. It was just like before and, watching, Buffy hated it. She… What was it she could remember?
“Oh, pet,” Spike said suddenly behind her, dropping a long kiss to the crook of her neck. For a moment Buffy wondered what he’d picked up on, but of course he was the first to spot it: on the monitor, her shoulders were shaking.
Screen Buffy kept going until Spike gave them a fairly understated money shot, but after that, in the instant after her partner cried out, she was seizing up with great, keening, drunken sobs. Her forehead slammed into Spike’s tailbone and her fingers clawed on his hips.
At that moment, Buffy remembered exactly what she’d said, what she’d been thinking. The terror of it, the building sense of despair, it all came tumbling out of her. “Dohnwaaggo,” she was gasping through Spike’s speakers, gulping between consonants. “Dohmaymiggo; donwanleeyou; donwanshhend.”
Looking dazed, bewildered and a little broken, Spike then was turning back to the camera, dragging Buffy up into his shaking arms. He looked weak and lost in the dead emptiness of the apartment, curling around his girlfriend and shushing as she cried her guts out.
I don’t wanna go. Don’t make me go. I don’t wanna leave you; I don’t want this to end.
As she watched, remembering, Buffy felt like her heart was being pried open. It was like someone was pulling out all the stupid, selfish, melodramatic thoughts and feelings she’d tried to keep secret and was painting them around the room. This wasn’t meant to happen - ever. Yes, it hurt that they were apart. Maybe it hurt a lot. But she didn’t talk about it, didn’t think it. She certainly didn’t cry about it.
Behind her, Spike was silent, shaky like her. He kept his lips pressed to where her skin escaped from his shirt. Buffy knew he desperately wanted to hear this, couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, but she wanted him to forget, to shut it down so she didn’t have to remember.
“Why do I have to love you?” Buffy was bawling from the display, a lumpy body of flesh in harsh, bright light and all too comprehensible. Earlier she had sounded so young, playing a game, but now she was every inch the twenty-five year old Slayer, haggard and breaking right at her expected time. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair to feel like this! And why, why is it - possible… Everyone always knows how to live without me, but I have no idea how to live without you. None. I don’t know - how do I go back home now? How many years am I gonna -”
And that was when the video cut out, thankfully. The screen went black.
In the silence of the apartment, the air rich with the smell of bacon and eggs, Spike carefully turned her around to meet his wide, blue eyes. Even with his arms around her, Buffy could feel her lip was quivering. “Well,” she said anyway, certain there was no hiding anymore. “I guess that happened.”
For a moment, he stared at her and she wondered how much he remembered. There was more crying than the video showed, Buffy knew, mostly with the same worries on repeat - then comfort, more sex and maybe finally sleep? She should have remembered that getting drunk never worked out for her.
Whatever Spike was remembering, it made him shake his head, mouth in a little O of confusion. “But I don’t know how to live without you,” he promised spontaneously, as if she should have known that all along. “I mean, look at this place.” He cast an arm around them and she looked, took in the gungy carpet and the peeling paint. The dust she hadn’t been going to mention. “It’s a hole.” Spike still sounded confused. “We both know it’s a hole. Most of the time I don’t keep it clean and it’s only because you were coming that I bothered to get rid of the mould.”
She said nothing, not certain how to respond and certain that if she opened her mouth she would cry again. Because that changed nothing, did it? Even if he was living like one of those Da Vinci Code self-harm monks, he was still living, getting by.
Watching her think this, Spike swallowed, eyes flashing before he impulsively lifted her up and took them both back to bed. “I spend hours blackmailing myself not to call you,” he said, cradling her against him. Their half-worn clothes were all lumpy, in the way. “I have targets - eighteen hours since you last called - and at least an hour after I first think of it. I’ve convinced myself Tuesday’s are bad luck, and I can’t disturb your Friday night.” Eyes on hers, he was whispering his devotion, and it was only then she realised that they’d never turned the lights off, before. As his litany continued she was staring at the same halogen-lit white skin from the film. “I can’t call when your soaps are on,” he explained, as if he’d been holding this panic back for years, “or the tennis or your holiday shows. Not when you’re eating, might be sleeping, or when you’ve just got back from work.” He was touching her hair and she was responding, but the comfort was only fractional. “Can’t call if I need it too much, if my fingers shake on the dial. Not until I’ve killed three vampires and a demon since the last time we spoke. Not for six hours after I’ve looked through your photos.”
Was this why he always sounded so together when he called? Buffy knew she was never that strong.
“Maybe - maybe you have it bad, love,” Spike finished, and at last she recognised the desperation, “but I am fucking obsessed.” With a sneer of self-disgust he shut his eyes, inhaling viciously as he touched their foreheads together on the covers. “I’ve never been able to shake it. You know that. It burns off when you’ve been around a while - that last year in Sunnydale when I saw you every day, I coped well enough with that - but these days I’m a joke. I know you used to believe I could be something better, but this, this is all I am.”
Still afraid of her own feelings, Buffy wondered if he’d been trying to hide this the whole time. She found his hands and clasped them in her own, unable to decide which other part of him to hold. “You know what I think’s hard?” she said, willing him to agree with her, because she was starting to believe this was true. “I used to think it was staying strong, you know?” Was she going to say this? She wasn’t meant to say this. But she had to, didn’t she? “Accepting everything that happens around you and keeping to the mission, carrying on. But I… I think it’s harder to, you know, realise what makes you happy and go for it, make things work so you can be. Make - like, permanent decisions about how your life’s gonna change instead of hoping for good things to come along.”
Breathing, Spike ran his thumbs over the backs of her palms. After a moment he smirked, tone full of irony. “I swear I remember saying something like that to you once. Possibly before I had a soul.”
He was watching her, love and amusement clear to read on his face, but she wondered if he’d got what she meant. “I used to have a motto, ‘seize the moment’,” she said, trying to make him understand. “Something happened to both of us, I guess?”
He agreed. “Who’d have thought heroic death could be such a downer?”
Testing him, she nodded as they embraced again. This really, really was not what she was meant to be saying, but it was now or never. She was still a little drunk. “You know,” she said carefully, feeling his ribs under her forearm. “With the new system Giles is putting together, there’s gonna be rewards for that kind of thing. He says I’m gonna be rich; I think I could hook you up with some sweet, sweet recompense too…”
He flicked his eyebrows before kissing her, like he was paying more attention to her tone than her words. “My temptress with the golden moneybags, you are.”
No, she realised, looking at him. Hearing the resistance. He understood.
Oh god. He just didn’t want to say he wouldn’t come.
OK then, she thought rationally, her heart pumping. She’d always seen that coming, hadn’t she? It didn’t matter. “Just tell me you’re happy here,” she said, changing tack, surprising herself by cutting to the chase. He was startled too, but she met his eyes with no guile whatsoever. “Tell me you’re happy here, and I’ll stay.” In the end, wasn’t it all this simple? “Dawn, she’s in college now; there’s nothing in London I need more than you.”
That was what it came down to, wasn’t it? There were many things, many little things that she liked about her current home. Her nearness to Giles and Dawn. The feeling she got walking down her street. The gang from the rink she did Orange Wednesdays with. The local library. The cheese guy at the market. But - she could give it up. She would give it up if she had to.
Even if Spike was looking at her like she’d just thrown away her one last shred of sanity. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked, shaking his head at her. “Of course I’m not happy here. I’m doing naff all but live out Angel’s bloody guilt issues, last man standing after his planned suicide dead end - and I have all the home comforts of a bloody… Termite. Happy? Christ, most days I would settle for melancholic…”
Then why won’t you…? She couldn’t ask him to come with her. It was an unspoken agreement that neither of them would ask, because it wasn’t fair. But he wasn’t getting it, he wasn’t getting it at all, and she decided then and there that if he said nothing by the end of her trip, then she would be going home to get her things in order to move.
Buffy had never thought she’d be the one to crack first, but she didn’t care. She didn’t. She couldn’t do this anymore.
.
[four]