Chapter 52
Spike was fuming by the time he got home. He slammed into the house, throwing his keys at least in the direction of the dining room table, and let out a roar to end all roars. The house shook from it practically.
Storming up the stairs, he threw his duffel bag in his room, taking out his alarm clock, journal and pen, sending them skittering across the room.
“She tells me I run from my fucking problems, but she kicked me out!” he hollered at his bedroom. “Bloody stubborn bint. I’m tired of the push and pull, the constant fucking push and pull. ‘Come here, Spike’ ‘Go away Spike’. I can’t ever win. She wants me, she doesn’t want me – I can’t do anything right! She wants to be independent; she wants to do all these things on her own. For fucks sake she lived alone for five years and now she wants to go back to that?”
And you lived with someone for five years, you were a husband for all that time – don’t you want some time to get your shit together?his mind warred with him.
Spike let out another roar of frustration and ran down the stairs, heading for the liquor cabinet. There was one way to shut his brain off. Good ol’ Jack never got him riled up, good ol’ Jack always wanted him – in fact, Jack beckoned him. So, Spike paid Jack a visit.
********
Buffy stared at the calendar. Two days. Two long days since Spike had stormed out her apartment, two days since she’d seen him smile and heard his voice.
“Buffy, just go see him,” Willow said, clipping some rose stems to place in a vase.
“No,” Buffy said stubbornly, shaking her head. “I always run after him and try to make amends with him. I’m not doing it. He wants to be a big baby and give me the cold shoulder; well he can go right on ahead and do that.”
Willow gave her a look that told her perhaps she was making a mistake, but Buffy refused to cave. She had to be strong in this. The same argument over and over was getting tiresome. It was wearing trying to be everything he needed her to be at the sacrifice of herself. She wanted to be there for him, and yet she wanted to have a little breathing room too, but when she gave an inch, he took a mile and then demanded more.
“You know,” Willow said thoughtfully, frowning slightly, “Maybe this break is a good thing.”
Buffy perked up, “You think so?”
“I do. I mean maybe it will give him the impetus to seek some help. He’s at least given you some space, right?”
“Right, but it’s just made me worry how he’s doing.”
“So, call him and find out at least that.”
“No. Cause somehow, I’ll get sucked in again. I’ll go to him and try to ‘fix’ him, and then I won’t push the issue and he’ll depend on me again and I’ll feel suffocated again and then we’ll argue again and–”
“And he’s coming in the store.”
Buffy jumped up from her stool behind the cash wrap just as Spike entered the shop. He stopped just inside, taking off his sunglasses and staring at her.
“Hi,” she said finally, smoothing her shirt.
“Hi.” He sounded hoarse she noted, and he looked bedraggled too.
He stepped forward, “Can I talk to you?”
She nodded and looked at Willow who just nodded. “You can come in back,” Buffy told him. “Follow me.”
He did so and once in the backroom surrounded by a desk, ribbons, vases, clips and foam for the fake flower arrangements, Buffy turned and faced him.
Immediately, he took her in his arms. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too. What have you been doing?”
“Nothing of importance.”
“Drinking? You look like hell?”
He froze in her arms. “How did you know?”
“You forget I know you,” she told him and pulled out of his arms. “Have you been working at all?”
“Not much.”
Sighing, Buffy stepped away from him. “So…what are you going to do?”
“Well, I’ve gone on my bender and now I’m done.”
“Did it help whatever you needed to get out of your system?”
“It did what I needed it to do,” he said stiffly and looked away from her. “I am an adult, Buffy, I am allowed to drink.”
“I don’t care if you drink, Spike, but don’t be irresponsible about it.”
“As usual, I can do nothing right,” he muttered.
“You do plenty right, so don’t give me that crap. Don’t turn this on me, don’t make this my issue.”
“I’m not making anything your issues; you make all your issues mine!”
“I do not! – All right, look, this isn’t helping anything. I’m so tired of having the same fucking argument, Spike.”
“Then we stop having the same argument. It’s quite simple, really.”
She nodded, “You’re right, it is. So, let me put it in a way that might penetrate. You either call someone and get some help, or we’re over.”
She was lying of course, and she knew it. She could no more give him up than he could give her up, but there had to be something that got through his thick skull, there had to be something that made him do it, and she was hoping that maybe it was her really leaving, and not the imaginary leaving he thought she’d do that would make him do it. She just hoped he didn’t call her bluff.
He stared at her. “What?”
Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she said again, “Call and make an appointment and actually follow through, or we’re over.”
He shook his head, “You don’t mean that.”
“Try me,” she answered softly.
Smirking he stepped forward and tugged her into his arms, his blue eyes boring into her. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Bending his head he nipped at her lips, sliding his tongue along the seam, begging for entrance. “No, you don’t. You love me.” And he slid his hands to her bottom and pulled her roughly against him.
She pushed at him, gathering her senses. “I do love you which is why I want you to get help. So, either do it, or get out.”
They stared at each other for a long time, Spike’s expression blank and devoid of emotion. Buffy stood her ground, refusing to back down.
Finally, he let out a resolute sigh. “Fine,” he said, “Give me the number and I’ll call Lorne’s office and make an appointment.”
She stared at him a bit longer, studying him. “Call him here. Right here with me.”
He nodded, letting out another sigh. “Fine.”
Handing him the cordless that was in the back, Buffy recited the number from memory and listened as Spike talked to the receptionist and set up a meeting with a Tara McClay. Clicking the phone off, he looked up at her. “Happy?”
He wasn’t, she knew that much, but she didn’t care. It was done, and he was going to go – that was for damn sure. Lunging at him, she wrapped herself around him like a second skin and kissed him soundly.
“Very.”