Chapter 2: New Conversations
Buffy paused before heading back down to the basement. The troops were roused and the speeches were made. Now it was just her and him, and possibly their last night. Implications were there. Expecations probably. Conversations needing to be had definitely. Feelings between the two of them, still. She breathed in quietly, fully aware of the fact that Spike knew she was standing just outside the door just as she knew he was sitting down there. Tinglies were a’tingling, in the Slayer and Vampire sort of way. And, ok – a little in the nervous way, too.
Breathing in sharply, she pushed open the door, shutting it softly behind her as she climbed silently down the steps. Stopping at the bottom, she was met with the mirrored reaction of Spike, who had pushed himself off of his cot and was now standing just as awkwardly as she was on the opposite side of the basement.
Smiling, she strolled over towards him, acting as casually as she could muster.
“So, uh, I was thinking…” Spike started, his eyes locked intensely with hers.
“And already I’m scared,” Buffy interrupted, jokingly.
Spike couldn’t help but give into the smile that crept his face, but he didn’t let that derail his thoughts. “Where’s the Champ, anyways?” He paused for just a second, watching for any sign of regret on her face. “Why isn’t Angel here to wear Pretty McPendant?” he called out of his shoulder as he turned from her, making his way back to his bed. He set the amulet down on the dresser beside it as he sat down, attention jumping back to Buffy.
“Because,” she answered, following him and taking the place beside him on the cot. “I asked him to go – I told him to go. I figure if this thing gets past us, past Sunnydale, he’ll be there in LA to help hold it off. You know, that whole ‘second wave’ thing? It’s ‘strategic’,” she told him proudly, jokingly, using the word Giles had called it. She looked over at Spike, who was pushing himself comfortably back up against the wall. Buffy followed, pushing herself backwards until she felt the cold wall behind her, her legs shooting out in front of her, touching his beside them. She looked over at him again, her head resting against the hard concrete. She saw the way he was staring at her, trying to figure out if what she just said was the truth, or all of the truth anyways. Of course he wouldn’t believe what she’d say, but he’d accept it anyways. Or pretend to atleast. She turned from his questioning eyes, glancing around thoughtlessly at the different things in the basement. Ohh, washing machine. Pretty.
Spike shifted beside her uncomfortably, painfully aware of the way her legs brushed up against his. So he gets the short end of the straw because Buffy sent Angel back to LA? Funny, was this decision made before or after the kissing? He decided it didn’t matter, because she was down there with him now when she could’ve just as easily been upstairs with him. So she says he gets the amulet because she sent Angel back to LA? Back to LA to just hold off the First? Fine, he’ll buy that. Just for non-arguments sake, because he, personally, still felt like there was something between himself and her. And he knew that she felt something, too. Told him a few nights ago that she wasn’t ready for him to not be there, whatever the hell that meant. She wouldn’t say exactly, because that’d make things way too easy for them. No, he was left with the cryptic admission on her part. And now he was getting the cryptic again. He wouldn’t push her, though. He didn’t want to start up a conversation he knew she wasn’t ready to have. She knew how he felt about her, he told her not two nights ago, and he’d leave it at that.
“That right?” he finally asked, drawing it out, waiting for her to lie to him, to tell him it was. He looked forward, wishing he had a cigarette right about then.
“Yea. Most of it,” she agreed, looking over at him again pointedly.
“Most of it?” he asked carefully, turning to meet her stare. Her looking into his eyes that way that she did made him weak, always had – even when he hated her. He didn’t know what else to say, what she meant by it. So he waited for an explanation. But she just looked at him, smiling, and said, “Yea.”
Well bloody hell, what did that mean? Always with the vague, like he’s supposed to pick up on her intentions by the tone of her sodding voice or something.
“…Yea,” he sighed back, accepting that as an answer. He paused, not wanting to turn this into some Poof-like moment with the double dose of brooding. “So, what does the amulet do anyways? Just for show and looks, ’cause I got to tell you – purple? It doesn’t exactly do flattering things to my skin tone.”
Buffy laughed. He always knew how to break the tension by making her smile. “I don’t know…” she started. And she didn’t know. Angel didn’t know either, and the little he did didn’t help explain much. It was an amulet Angel knew nothing about, that was supposedly supposed to be the end in their end-all fight. Big with the good, but something she couldn’t just slip on Andrew with a slap to the back and a shove into the Hellmouth. Nope, needed a Champion, who was more than human and with a soul. Which was quite nicely convienent, given the vampire to her right. Two years earlier and they’d have been doomed. Or, you know, Angel could’ve stuck around and worn the necklace…
“Great,” came Spike’s voice beside her, bringing her back to their conversation. He was looking down at her, the hint of a smile etched on his face. “So I’m just s’posed to wear this – this thing, given to you by the brooding block of forehead, mind you — and by the way, did he know about us?” He lifted his head upwards, visibally backtracking. “I mean, not that there’s an us now…but, the us before…”
Surprisingly, she laughed a little. “I don’t know. I think so,” she admitted.
Really? So the poof did know. How convenient he show up now then, all heroic-like.
“He said something about it, so I guess he did. I don’t think he knew the details though,” she continued, looking over at Spike with a smile. “He didn’t know you had a soul. You should’ve seen him when I told him,” she laughed.
He smirked back. He could just imagine Angel, all glowering and broody, probably going off on some tangent about how he had a soul first, getting all self-righteously pissed because that exclusive club of his was now not so exclusive.
“Hell,” Spike snorted. “He probably took that as a personal blow. Like I was taking his girl by using the thing that made him special,” he sneered sarcastically. And like that, he brought the conversation to a dead halt. He couldn’t stand that poof – never would – and he couldn’t ever stop himself from saying so.
Instead of the expected argument or the jab to his side by bony Buffy elbows, she just shrugged her shoulders beside him. “I’m not ‘his girl’ you know. Haven’t been for a while. I mean, maybe at one time I was – but that was a while ago. A long while ago, actually. Since then I’ve been Riley’s Girl, a little bit of Parker’s Girl – which was not so much me being ‘his girl’ as his ‘flavor of the week’ by the way. And…I’ve been your girl.”
The “your girl”, as quiet as it came out, caught him completely off guard, and she noticed. Noticed in the way he reacted to those words, noticed in the way she felt him turn to stare at her. She knew he was looking at her now with that same indescribable face he had that time she first saw him at the bottom of her stairs after her friends had brought her back from the dead, like he didn’t trust what he was seeing. Like now he didn’t trust what he heard.
“Well, maybe I was never ‘your girl’,” she clarified abruptly, fast to explain. “Not in a Riley or Angel way…but in a way…an ‘us’ kind of way,” she added, still without looking over at him. She couldn’t look at him, because if she did, she’d see that face, that mask of pure vulnerability. And then she’d look into his eyes, get lost in them for a minute, questioning their exact color of blue, because they really were an interesting shade of blue, taking in all the emotions he would be emitting through to her in them. And then she’d next casually glance down at his lips, so soft, and so full was that bottom lip. And she knew that when she did, if she did, she’d want to kiss him, want to be with him. And she couldn’t, not now anyways. Not with a house full of Slayerettes and friends, and oh god – Giles. And not with the impending Apocalypse. And not now because she wasn’t quite ready to get so emotionally attatched to him again. So she ignored that pit in her stomach and that strain in her heart, instead looking straight ahead, studying the wood of the basement stairs, fully knowing that Spike was still staring at her with that gaze that almost melted away her last remaining bit of restraint.
She changed the subject, think less want-to-kiss-Spike thoughts.
“It’ll help us you know,” she forced out nervously.
Spike continued to stare at her, still hung up on her admission. It took a second before her words registered, and when they did, he looked away disappointedly. ‘Course, change of conversation – typical. “What’ll help us, luv?” he asked, surpressing the sigh that came with the annoyance at her tendency to shy away from serious conversations.
“The amulet. I don’t know what it does. But, I have a feeling – Slayer instincts or something. I can’t explain it, but I think it’ll help us.”
“Well that’s good then, isn’t it. Almost makes seeing Angel worth it. Except not,” he smiled, looking back over at her.
She laughed, turning her head to meet his eyes. And there he was smiling back at her. She still wanted to kiss him, but she could keep the thoughts in the PG-13 area. PG, even. He held her all night, and they didn’t kiss once. They didn’t do anything but stare at each other and hold each other and sleep. Her, and Spike. It still hits her from time to time that it’s Spike she has these feelings for and thinks about. Even last year when she was sleeping with him, despite all the self-loathing – and the Spike-loathing – despite all the manipulation and the dysfunction and the using – they had had a bond. Initially, atleast. On some level, he trusted her. Trusted her not to ever stake him, trusted her to have his back. And she trusted him with Dawn, with her family. They weren’t buddies, but there was something there that connected them – Slayer and Vampire. But now it was something else. He had a soul, and that meant something. It meant something more. She knew he loved her before, when he didn’t have it, but him having it made it much more…real? Believable? Acceptable? She didn’t know, but it was something. She wasn’t just aware of his love now, but she felt it, too. Felt it every time he looked over at her, every time she brushed up against him, every time she heard him say her name.
And it was okay. Last year, the thought of Spike loving her made her sick to her stomach. Angel could love her, but Angel was different. Spike was…Spike. Dead. Evil. A vampire. And ok, so was Angel – but he was different. The same kind of different that Spike was now. Only – he was, and he wasn’t. He still seemed like the same old Spike he was before he got the soul. Maybe a little quieter, occasionally a bit crazier – but the core of him still seemed to be the same as it was not so long ago. He still loved Buffy, that hadn’t changed. And that rocked her whole “Evil, Soulless” world, because as much as he proclaimed his love for her without the soul and as much as she was aware of it – she never really figured he’d meant “love” in the same way Angel had meant it. Or Riley. Spike’s love had to be twisted, because he didn’t have a soul. So when he said he’d love her, she figured, yea – but in your delusional sick, soulless way. But now it was different. Complete 360. Or 180, whichever one of those meant the complete opposite. He says he loves her, and it’s okay. Even though it’s the same love coming from the same vampire who before she wouldn’t even let finish the words out of his mouth about it.
Beside her, Spike pulled his knee up to him, snapping Buffy back to reality. The tension in the room would have been thick enough to cut if they were speaking figuratively, random noises from upstairs the only sound in the otherwise silent basement.
“So, whatcha thinking about?” she asked him, feeling some of that tension dissolve.
“‘Bout nothing, really,” he sighed. And he wasn’t lying, he wasn’t really thinking much of anything. He didn’t want to think too much about why Buffy was being so quiet, didn’t want to think about all the things it could or couldn’t mean. But now that she brought it up, maybe he did want to know. “What’re you thinking about?” he asked her.
“Thinking about tomorrow, actually,” she lied. Well, she was sort of thinking about tomorrow. Now, anyways.
“Yea, guess I was, too,” he lied back. They both sat there for a few minutes, looking at each other.
She was the first to break their gaze, glancing downwards when it started to get too uncomfortable. Uncomfortable only because itwasn’t uncomfortable. She looked down at his hand that was lying next to her, casually picking it up. “Why don’t you paint your nails black anymore?” she asked, her fingers lightly grazing his skin as she studied his polish-less tips.
He laughed, or more sort of chuckled. He didn’t really know why. There wasn’t ever a conscious decision made by him where he suddenly decided he wouldn’t do it anymore, though he had been sort of busy with getting a soul, going a bit mad, and being controlled by incorporeal brain-fucking Firsts.
“I don’t know – guess I haven’t had time, or thought about it much. Ya know, “Hey, First – could you stop brainwashing me long enough for me to touch up the nails a bit?'” he mocked, snorting dismissively.
She smiled, as she examined his hands. She noticed the chipped polish, barely recognizable if you weren’t looking for it. She wondered if the last time he’d painted his nails was before he got his soul. If the polish had survived all the trials he’d told her he’d been put through, if it was there the moment he had first got his soul. She laughed to herself at the idea of Spike stopping mid-fight, heavy in some trial to earn his soul back, to re-apply the black polish. Superficially speaking, the black nailpolish was nice. Definitely of the good. And she’d never admit that to him, that she liked it. Liked his whole look, in fact. The bleach white hair, the long leather coat, the heavy black boats. The black nails. But just thinking about him taking the time to bleach his hair made her want to laugh. The smile grew as she remembered the one occasion that was her catching him mid-touchup with the nails. She’d been pissed, barrelling through his door, and there he was – sitting on the top of a sarcophagus in his crypt, painting his nails.
Against her hand, his hand was cold, like he’d stuck it in ice or something – but that was pretty much a 24/7 deal with him, one that she was used to and didn’t really think twice about. She took his hand between hers and tried to warm it up by rubbing her hands around it, staring at him playfully as she did so.
He looked down at her, smiling and amused. Knew it wouldn’t work – the warmth never stayed – but she was touching him, holding his hand, so he didn’t care much for the outcome.
She returned the smile, clasping her fingers into his and kept them that way, letting their hands fall together to her lap. Of all the things she and Spike did together, all the unspellable positions and the late night “dates”, she had never held his hand. Never just held it like she was now. Felt different, but okay.
They sat there, both looking straight ahead. Both thinking about “tomorrow” and “nothing”, and holding hands.