Chapter Eight

One week. How had she survived a whole week of her friends trying to get answers to questions she didn’t want to face, teachers asking for homework in subjects she didn’t want to attend, and Giles asking about a vampire she didn’t want to ever see again?

By the many sympathetic hugs from her friends, Buffy guessed that Giles had told them what Angel had done to her. They probably had many versions of their own answers to what they wanted to know—what they seemed to need her to tell them. But Buffy was close lipped. She couldn’t tell the tale of Angel without revealing the uncertainty she felt over her association with Spike.

The blond vamp had disappeared out of her life. No goodbye kisses, no demented pencil drawn portraits of her sleeping left beside her pillow, no dead animals left anywhere near her house. And the lack of his apparent interest in how she would take it, hurt.

She knew that it was foolish to think he could have ever fallen for her. In her head, she knew. Her heart was driven by something else completely. Her heart felt things that her head constantly chastised her for.

Craving more erotic experiences with a creature who had more or less raped her of her innocence and youth. Spike had put a frown of depression on her face and abandoned her to the feeling of a worthless slut. It made her eyes burn and her throat ache.

Was that how he saw her?

Hours and hours of her every day were spent on Buffy obsessing over how he felt. Had he left her because she was no good? Was she just a silly girl he could get a few good laughs out of? Or was it deeper? Had he set out to destroy the Slayer no matter which way he tried?

And the thing that made her cry in the night and doubt herself in everything she did: Was she unloveable? Was she so repulsive and inexperienced that even a monster couldn’t stay with her?

Buffy would never have thought she would let herself fall so far as to be needing validation of her worth from a monster. Then again, she’d never have believed that she would let her body be stroked and pleasured by a vampire, either. And yet, the misery that came with every moment of feeling discarded, rejected, proved to her that whatever it was that she needed from Spike, it was breaking her in its absence.

Buffy had forced a barrier of solitude around herself, finding it unbearable to allow her friends to be around her for time other than at school. Sometimes they forced the issue and she was stuck with Xander quipping with a mouthful of chips and Willow panicking at every vampire that came across their path.

She felt like her stake was her only friend those nights. The only thing that stayed silent enough for her to hear the drop of dust as it hit the dirt around her. She wanted that quiet. Wanted to be immersed in that shelter of dangerous destiny so she could pine and punish herself for wanting to find a peroxided-haired vampire in her cemetery.

Buffy was convinced he’d come. If her friends were just somewhere else. Each night they insisted on tagging along and she knew in her heart that he was watching. She was missing him only because they couldn’t leave her alone. The nights she walked the darkness alone, she never felt him. Her neck would ache, and her heart felt squeezed. She had no understanding why he was treating her like some one night fuck toy and leaving her to shatter herself with words and thoughts.

Thursday night, Buffy had convinced Willow to study for some test the redhead had been worrying about, and offered a silent prayer of thanks that Xander felt it best to stay in. She’d created a nightly path for herself—one that never faltered a step from the routine. Having her head telling Buffy that she hated Spike intensely, and that the best thing to do once he finally revealed himself was to lodge a stake in his chest, seemed too much when he actually stepped out of the shadows.

Buffy gasped as the moonlight caught his hair and words she’d too long practised caught in her throat. He stood, more still than she’d ever seen him, and treated the ground at her feet to a very intent stare. All the hate that had burned within Buffy seemed to fade away as she watched and craved to touch him. Craved for him to touch her and show her she meant something—even if it was only something small.

Buffy had tried picturing this moment—and it more often than not ended up with her pushing a stake through clothing, skin and bone and to watch in relieved satisfaction as dust over a century old drifted to the ground.

Now that he was in front of her, Buffy could only admit to herself that it had all been a lie. A mistake that she could have ever killed him. She’d known it that first time she’d had the chance—the night he’d turned and revealed his back to her. But it was easier to convince herself that she could do it if she had to. If the world was at stake, she could so eradicate her boyfriend, couldn’t she?

Then her chin wobbled and she knew. Even now she was recognising him as her boyfriend in her head. Making him beloved and breaking into tiny heartbroken pieces because he wasn’t there. He didn’t want her like she wanted him, and she hated herself for wanting a monster in disguise of beauty.

Buffy wasn’t word girl. She knew it and becoming garbled in front of Willow on a daily basis made it pretty darn obvious to everyone she knew. So on this occasion, the mix-up of her feelings kind of left her speechless and in no possible position of expressing to Spike what she’d discovered.

The air around them seemed charged with an energy that hadn’t been there five minutes before. Buffy drew in a shuddering breath and waited, hoping for something but unsure what. When Spike finally looked up and she could see the same confusion on his face, she was able to breathe comfortably for the first time since he’d left her.

“Buffy?” Spike tipped his head to the side and watched. He could feel each shiver as it raced though the Slayer’s body, felt the strain on her lungs as she drew in breath. Felt the pounding of her heart and knew that whatever this was between them—whether based on a lie or not—had to have room to spread wings.

She said nothing, just waited for whatever he was going to broach as her pretty glossy lips parted and enticed him closer. He couldn’t tell her his plan—not until he’d tasted her once again.

Cool lips claimed warm and tested all the resolve Spike had. He’d spent days wondering and arguing with himself that this was for the best. That he owed it to Buffy to let her find happiness apart from him. He was a vampire—the thing she was made to hate and kill and it made no sense to spend time falling in love with her. And the most important thing to Spike right now was to make sense. To find sense in this situation.

He hadn’t found it yet, but it didn’t mean he had to stop trying.

Spike felt the trembling of Buffy’s lips as she clung to him. Her hands were clutching the leather at his forearms, her lips not letting him go. And as he tried to make himself fall back, tried to let go, she poked her tongue through her lips to gently lick at his. When he opened his mouth, he tasted her tears and it brought the knot back to his throat. The knot he’d been forcing away with crate after crate of the hard stuff.

God, he was trying to do the right thing—so why did it feel so bloody wrong? Buffy’s arms crept around his neck, holding him tight as she sobbed into his mouth. And when the function of a kiss became impossible, she buried her face into his neck and hiccuped her sorrow.

“Where did you go?”

The yearning in her voice was a shock. Happiness was tinder at the base of his non-existent soul and her wanting to know his whereabouts lit a spark amongst it.

“Did you miss me?” He was trying for brave, cocky but knew he’d done it wrong again as he watched her face crumble. Her cheeks were wet within a second and her chin and lips were weak. Finally, she couldn’t allow him to see any longer and collapsed into the palms of her hands.

“Oh, sweetheart.” And he folded her in his arms, tightening them as she started to shake and rock against him. “I’m so sorry for doing this to you. I want to make it right. Want to help you.”

Buffy heard the words and was calmed.

Maybe together they could sort it out, make a path through the mess and validate her feelings. Maybe with a gentle word or two, Spike could eradicate the damage and put her back together again. For the first time in the week, Buffy felt hopeful.

She could feel the slight coolness of his skin through the front of his tee, glad that it was tight and she could be as close as she needed. This slow, comforting hug put them on a different level, brought a semblance of normal to an existence that had been so far from not.

Boyfriend.

That word was back in her mind, and as Buffy felt his arms tight around her, she could imagine the concept easily. She felt safe, cared for and needed. She felt a little bit loved and it caused a rush of happiness to creep up on her.

When she pulled away, her lips were curved in a smile.

“It’s okay now. Everything is fine,” she told him, confident finally that it all would be.

But his frown popped her bubble in seconds.

While Buffy’s fingers itched to stretch around his neck and fluff his curls, the look on his face told her to back off. One step and she was shaking her head at him, really NOT wanting him to speak.

“Buffy, I need to leave. Need to let you get back to normal and forget I ever happened to you.” Spike’s voice was low and soothing, but each syllable that passed his lips stabbed at something fragile.

Buffy was moaning. He couldn’t bear the sound and yet it got louder.

“You’re leaving?” Her eyes were wide, incredulous even as the tears rushed down her face.

“Buffy, it’s for the best, love.”

“No.” She was taking steps back, shaking her head in denial as he opened his mouth and broke her heart into smaller bits. “Don’t call me love.” And she’d lost control of her voice, lost control of everything as she flew at him and punched him in that face that even an angel could love.

There was a surge of hopelessness that fired through her, giving her fists strength they hadn’t felt all week. She pummelled his face, beat his body as she screamed insanity at his unmoving body.

She was weak and hysterical by the time she stopped, sobbing into the broken form of her lover even as he held her against him and cried silent tears. Wrong again. Always bloody wrong, no matter what he did. Dru had cursed him with her ‘don’t hurt the girl’, because surely he was incapable of anything else.

It felt like it took hours before Spike could find the strength to get up, to shift Buffy’s shaking body enough to get back to his feet. The sun was still a bit off, but he knew it would be best for Buffy to get home. He had to make sure she was safe.

When he got her there, there was nothing more. She was rocking with her back to him, her face rubbing helplessly into her pillow.

There was nothing he could do but hurt her more.

So, he turned away and left.