Chapter 48: Model Behaviour
Okay, first of all, my sincerest apologies for leaving you all so long between updates, especially considering the Hank!bomb I dropped on you last chapter. That was kinda evil of me, huh? Oops!
This chapter is unbetaed, lemme know of any glaring mistakes and I’ll fix them.
Thanks to: magnus374, Mya222, Meavepagan, DauntlessGrace, Fraggleshrew, Amayuscula, CrazyCatLady402, Sunalso, pfeifferpack, albies, kimothyschma, -Carrie-Ann-, Special Squirrel, Kirsty, Lonelygirl, dmf109, and RakshaGirl for your reviews!
I appreciate each and every word (not to mention your patience between updates). Upside…I have six, yes six completed chapters waiting after this one. So you won’t have to wait months for the next update.
Buffy clenched her jaw and hardened her heart. After the last time they’d spoken, when he’d given his ultimatum about college, she’d felt hatred toward her father for the first time.
But threatening Spike?
The man was dead to her.
But he’d also won. She was going to have to do as he demanded. Because Buffy refused to be responsible for stealing Spike’s future.
“Alright,” she murmured down the phone. Her answer was a foregone conclusion, and her extended silence had been telling enough, but when Hank Summers asked a question he expected a verbal response.
“There’s my good girl.”
Buffy felt sick to her stomach. Her father continued to drone on for a while about his plans for the ‘family’ once they were reunited—unsurprisingly, her mother wasn’t mentioned in this part of the conversation—but Buffy blocked most of it out. What was the point? It wasn’t like her say really mattered, did it?
She murmured noises of agreement, to keep up the charade that she was listening, all the while her thoughts wandered. She mentally rifled through her plans for the future and sent them all to the shredder. Her hopes and dreams vanished into the abyss. Because if this moment taught her anything, it was that once her father had her where he wanted her, she was never getting free.
Not ever.
Apparently, someone at his office must have needed him, because mid-sentence he cut off, only to interrupt his own train of thought with a statement of being needed elsewhere. Buffy didn’t response, she just waited for the dial tone before she hung up.
And then proceeded to burst into inconsolable tears.
~*~*~
Several hours later—after she’d managed to get her crying jag under control, and then tried to disguise the evidence of her tears with some light makeup—Buffy was in the process of saying goodbye to her mom.
She was all packed for the meet in LA, and now all she had to do was let her mom go and they could get in the car to drive to school. But first, she had to physically let her mom go.
Buffy had thought she’d miss the opportunity to see her before she made her way to the High School—she’d decided on walking, because calling Spike for a lift was not an option. So, imagine her surprise upon seeing her mother walk in the front door as she’d descended the stairs. She’d practically flown down the remaining few steps, thrown her bag on the floor, and then launched herself at her mom as if it had been years since she’d last seen her.
Because after next week, who knew how long it would be before she saw her again?
With the hours her mother kept for the gallery, it wasn’t as if she could just decide to blow off work for a day to come visit her in LA. Buffy didn’t think her father would be letting her out of his sight anytime soon, so visits back to Sunnydale would probably occur around the same time hell froze over.
Realising that her mom would get suspicious if she didn’t pull herself out of this funk, Buffy released her, and took a step back.
“Hey, mom.”
“Sweetheart,” Joyce said, reaching forward to brush a lock of hair behind Buffy’s ear. “Is everything okay?”
Biting the inside of her cheek to ward off tears, she nodded. Forcing false pep into her tone she spun around and reached for her bag. “Yep, everything’s great. Just happy to see you.”
Joyce studied her daughter, trying to determine the reason for the brave face she was trying to keep pasted on. And then like a lightbulb, the reason came to her.
“Buffy,” she began slowly. “If you’re worried about being around him, now that things are… different, you needn’t be.”
Buffy’s eyes widened almost comically. Her mom couldn’t know about her father’s plan already, could she? He’d said he would allow her to be the one to tell her, but then she’d be a fool to trust anything he said considering he was blackmailing her to leave in the first place. “Uh, what?”
“He was really concerned when you were injured.” Joyce tucked another lock of hair back, studying the paleness of Buffy’s cheeks. “He was beside himself, really.”
It took a moment, but then Buffy realised what her mother meant. She was talking about Spike, not he who should not be named.
“But if you really don’t want to be around him, I can call up your coach and—”
“No!” Buffy blurted, before lowering the volume of her voice. “No, it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded vehemently. It was a big fat lie, but she was going to sell it for everything she was worth. Because if her mom though that was why she was worried, she wouldn’t dig any deeper.
And honestly, she was worried about spending time with Spike. Being in his presence was going to be hard. No, it was going to be awkward, especially now they were in a civil but not really friends stage. She wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to spend a little time with him before she left though.
Of course, there was also the whole she-must-attend-the-meet-and-perform-well-or-else threat hanging over her.
So, anxiety aside, it was a moot point. Buffy would be going to the meet.
And there was no time like the present.
~*~*~
Never had Spike been more desperate for a cigarette than he was in this very moment. Okay, so that might be a slight over-exaggeration, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t jonesing bad.
He’d just suffered through a twenty-minute lecture from Principal Snyder, about all that he could look forward to if he didn’t ‘return the school to glory and win every damn event he was signed up for’. Basically, the whole conversation was one big threat of his future expulsion if he wasn’t on his very, very best behaviour while representing the school.
Model behaviour might have been mentioned. And then defined. With actual dictionary references.
It was as if the little dictator thought he were a child, with how he was spoken to. And it had taken every smidge of Spike’s willpower not to tell him where to shove his threats. Because expulsion would kind of throw a kink his future plans, not to mention mean he’d spent the last week locked in a box of a room for nothing, and a complete and utter waste of his time.
He’d just decided he was going to submit to the craving, when he saw a familiar car pull up in the lot. Buffy’s mom’s SUV.
A sense of relief hit him at the sight. He’d been a little worried she wouldn’t be coming to the event, and it would be days before he could lay his eyes on her again—this week had been hard enough. As firm as he was in his decision about their relationship, that didn’t mean he didn’t want to see her, be around her. And now he’d have that opportunity.
For nearly three whole days.
He couldn’t wait.
~*~*~
The second she’d swung the car door closed behind her, Buffy was swept up into a warm hug.
“Hey, Buffy!”
She turned around, and returned Beth’s embrace. “Hey.”
“Are you excited about the meet?” From the way she bounced around, it was obvious Beth was. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Buffy found herself smiling along with her teammate before she broke into giggles at the other girls’ antics.
“I heard there’s going to be a bunch of scouts there!”
And just like that, Buffy’s amusement faded. Oh, she knew there was going to be scouts there. She had the inside scoop.
She mentally cursed her father for stealing her enjoyment.
Beth kept chattering away, oblivious to the dark turn of Buffy’s thoughts. “I mean, we all know they’re going to have their eyes fixed on you, but maybe they’ll take an interest in the rest of the team as well?”
Not wanting to bring her friend low, Buffy nodded. “I’m sure they will.”
“Did I hear mention of scouts?” Buffy stiffened at the sound of her mom’s voice. “That’s exciting.”
“Yeah, it is,” Buffy agreed half-heartedly. Knowing her mom would get suspicious by her lack of enthusiasm, she fixed a bright smile on her face, but she couldn’t force anything verbal passed her lips. She was lying enough right now as it is.
A flash of black and blond over her mother’s shoulder drew her attention, and her breath caught in her throat.
Spike…
She shouldn’t be surprised to see him, had known he’d be here at some point, but somehow the sight of him still took her breath away.
Butterflies took flight and her hands turned clammy. A cold sweat crept up the back of her neck and she fought the urge to mop it away.
Then she worried about why she was so worried about doing so, which in turn just created more—you guessed it—worry. She was a mess. If it weren’t for the fact her mother was standing right there she probably would’ve run.
Whether toward or from Spike she couldn’t say.
Every fibre in her body sang out for contact with his, whilst her bruised and broken heart shied away. Her body twitched, her subconscious taking the decision of stay, go, or flee away from her. Her feet were saying go.
But not away.
The two steps she took were towards him.
Her father’s threats rang in her ears, and stilled all movement.
She couldn’t take his future from him, so that meant she couldn’t have one with him.
In any capacity.
Doing a complete one-eighty on her plan from earlier to gorge herself—metaphorically speaking—on his presence, she’d now decided, with one glance, being around Spike was too hard.
A clean break was what she needed.
Which meant staying away from him as much as possible.
So she turned to Beth in search of aid, knowing her friend wouldn’t let her down. She also knew, that with a few choice words, she wouldn’t actually have to partake in too much actual talk either, because her chatty friend would fill the empty spaces for them.
“Sit with me on the bus? I need some girl talk.”
“Sure.” Her perky friend nodded with enthusiasm, before linking arms their arms.
Buffy waved over her shoulder at her mom, who returned the gesture by blowing kisses, and then focussed her entire attention on Beth. She was already talking a mile a minute.
Buffer in placer. And just like that she could almost breathe again.
If only the nagging ache in her chest would cease.
~*~*~
Spike’s plans of sitting beside Buffy were quashed. Beth had commandeered what he’d come to think of as his seat. And then dropped her bag on the seat in front, the action an effective broadcasting of the girls’ desire for privacy.
And he didn’t have the heart to breech it.
It was just a bus ride. He still had all night, and two whole days to talk with and spend time with Buffy.
He could wait.
~*~*~
He couldn’t wait.
Waiting out a bus ride, well, he hadn’t wanted to, but he could deal with that. He could even deal with the kinda cute—if you ignored the fact she was avoiding him—way she half hid behind Beth as they de-bussed and retrieved their baggage. But when the hiding didn’t stop when they got into the hotel and instead turned into a complete and utter freezing out, well that he couldn’t handle.
Between Beth, Alicia and Carla commandeering any down time the team had, and taking any empty seat beside her when the team met—including during dinner—Spike had yet to get a moment alone with Buffy. They’d even managed to stop him from gaining entrance to the elevator with them upon going up to their rooms for the evening, claiming it was overfull with their swimming gear and luggage.
He’d thought he could wait her out, but he was finding it much harder than he’d anticipated.
As a matter of fact, Spike’s patience had vanished.
But as it was now essentially lights out, and the team had retired to their rooms for the night, there was nothing he could do about it until morning. Unless he wanted to try and get past Beth and her oddly sweet but entirely inconvenient protective behaviour towards Buffy.
Spike wasn’t sure what the girls had talked about on the bus, but considering how effective a road block his teammate had been, it couldn’t have been good.
He liked the idea that Buffy was talking poorly about him to her friend just about as much as he enjoyed her avoidance, that of course being not at all.
But he wasn’t going to go banging down her door demanding answers.
At least not tonight.
Tomorrow morning, however, was another story.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter End Notes: More Spuffy is coming I promise, and sooner than you may think.
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