Chapter 11
“Spike?” Buffy called from where she was on the computer in the living room.
“Yes, luv?” Spike questioned back from the kitchen as he chopped onions for the spaghetti sauce he was making for dinner.
“Do you have a Paypal account I could use to order these books?”
“I thought you had one.”
“I can’t remember my password and they want me to fax all this crap to them. It could take three weeks. I want these now and I already won the bid on E-bay.”
“Luv, we really need to work on you thinking these things through first,” Spike told her, walking in the living room.
She was staring at the screen. “I think about enough things, trust me. The guy I’m buying the books off of won’t let me send him a check or a money order. He said he doesn’t go to the bank that often to take care of them. You know what I think?” she asked, looking up at him.
“What’s that?”
“I think he’s a heifer. He’s like the mom in ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ He can’t leave the house because he is in fact imprisoned because of his hieferness.”
Spike burst out laughing, unable to stop himself. “You have a wild imagination, pet.”
Buffy beamed up at him. “Thanks! So, can I use your Paypal? I’ll just give you the money for them.”
“Sure, luv. What are you getting?”
“Michael Foucault’s The Rise of Insanity in the Age of Reason–”
“Of course,” Spike said dryly.
“And a couple books on Wicca.”
“You’re really getting into that, aren’t you?”
“I guess that means I need something.”
“Like?”
“I’m not sure yet. A reason for everything. A way for everything to make sense.”
“I see.”
“Maybe we could do it together,” she said hopefully, looking up at him.
He smiled, “Maybe, pet.”
********
November 22, 2005
I had sex with Angel last night. It was our third date. Is that bad? I don’t even know. All I knew was that one minute we were sitting in his apartment watching a movie and I started thinking how the next day was Thanksgiving and how my mother was dead and even if I hadn’t spent the last five Thanksgivings with her, I knew what she was doing on them – what she was making –mashed potatoes with lumps and gravy with turkey chunks – and I knew that I could, at any given time, go to her and not having fucking Lean Cuisine for my Thanksgiving dinner because my fucking father was too fucking busy with his new fucking family to even care about me and —
And I turned to Angel and asked if he wanted to fuck. What guy is going to say no to that? He was floored by it at first, I could tell and he asked a dozen times just before I went down on him if I was sure. Funny how a blowjob can shut a guy up for good, which was just what I was going for.
Then I came home even after Angel begged me to stay. I couldn’t do that though. Spike was home and Spike was no doubt waiting up for me. When I came home that night, I couldn’t look Spike in the eye.
Today was a moping day, Buffy decided. The Macy’s Day parade had been on, and it didn’t matter to her. She could smell the turkey that Spike had woken up early to put in, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care that she hadn’t showered either. She should what with Angel’s scent still on her.
Finding Buffy on the couch still, where she’d been since nine that morning, Spike sighed heavily and sat down next to her. “Pet, it’s hard for me too.”
“Then wallow with me.”
“Some of us wallow in different ways.”
She looked over at him, turning her body toward his. “How are you wallowing?”
“Buffy, come on,” he shook his head, “I don’t want to get into that.”
“Why not?” she pouted. “It’d make me feel better to know.”
He heaved a sigh. “Well, I cried this morning, how’s that?”
“You did?” God, she seemed so eager about it.
“You have a morbid fascination with people hurting, you know that?”
Her eyes welled up in tears. “No, it’s not that.”
“Christ, Buffy, I’m sorry,” and he moved closer to her, enfolding her in his arms. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yeah, you did. It’s just that I like to know that I’m not alone in these things, Spike. I …I’ve been alone so much and it kills me to know that all of that was my doing —all my doing. I feel as though I’d been cut off for so long from people – being depressed as I was, not having many friends that I could really talk to and now I have…”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” she took a trembling sigh, “I have you.”
“And it feels good to share, yeah?”
“Yes. I didn’t realize I needed it. When you wallow in your own misery for so long you tend to feel you’re the only one that feels that way in the world. And when you realize that you’re not alone, it becomes a fascination almost. Like, how do you deal with it? How is it that you cried this morning and was able to get up and still put a turkey in? I felt like shit last night and I – How do you do it?”
“You felt like shit last night and you–?”
“I cried.”
“You’re lying to me.”
She scowled up at him. “How the fuck do you know?”
“I can just tell. You breezed right past that, Buffy. What did you do?”
“It’s none of your business!” she shouted and pushed out of his arms, standing up. “I’m taking a shower.”
“You expect me to share but you fucking can’t?” Spike shouted back at her, jumping up from the couch. “That’s not fair, is it?”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“Spare me the cliché’s Buffy.”
“I cried in your arms already, what more do you want from me?”
“Everything, I want everything from you! I want to know when you’re sad and happy, angry and anything in between. I want to know it all, not just the bits and pieces you share and then expect me to bare my soul to you. You want to wallow with me but that just means you want to sit here in silence together and suffer alone.”
She stood there, completely stunned, staring at him.
“You make jokes, you hide behind your quips and your sarcasm, and oh God, pet, you’re a funny girl, but I need more than that. I don’t want to be alone either!” And he started to cry, goddammit, he started to cry.
And he sobbed harder when she brought him into her arms and held him just as he’d held her once upon a time. She whispered, “I’m sorry” over and over to him, stroking his back and holding him as tight as her little arms would allow.
“What did you do, Buffy?” he whispered when he was done sobbing his heart out.
“I slept with Angel.”
That didn’t help, that made it worse. Much, much worse. Spike felt sick, angered, and something else he did not want to define. Not that he wanted to feel anything he was currently feeling at all. He didn’t want to have that reaction to her having been with her boyfriend. He didn’t want to have the reactions he had whenever she went out with the idiot.
Pushing her away, he stared down at her face full of apology, and her own face wet with tears. He shook his head and stalked off, leaving the house completely, leaving her there. Alone.
*********
“Hey Joyce,” Spike said upon coming up to Joyce’s grave. Plopping down on the slightly wet grass, he sighed, trembling, and started to cry. “Your daughter is killing me, Joyce, she’s killing me…I can’t…I can’t do this.”
Getting up, he headed to the one bar in town he knew would be open.