Chapter 26
Chapter Notes:
There was nothing he could say to her. No words he could conjure up to make it any better. All the things Spike expected, all the assumptions that Buffy would always get what she wanted had shattered and flung themselves into his lap in a sobbing mass of hysteric tears. When she first emerged from the LACDC building and stomped over to his car where he’d been waiting on her, he didn’t have to ask to know that the audition hadn’t gone well. She looked as if she’d been holding back a tidal wave when she opened the car door, and once she was fully seated inside, she’d burst into tears and collapsed onto him.
That was five minutes ago, and she’d yet to do anything else but cry.
“It’s all right,” was all he could manage to say, not that she could hear him with her entire head squished and burrowed into his legs. “What happened?”
Her head flipped up to look at him, blonde hairs stuck unattractively to the wet streaks on her red cheeks, and her eyes glaring. “What do you think happened?” He winced a bit from the volume of her voice and from his own ignorant comment. Then her chin quivered. Then she was sobbing again. “I’m sorry I-I yell-yelled…at…y-y-you!” Her shoulders bounced with each heavy sob and he felt his chest burn with sympathy.
“It’s ok,” he said, offering a smile and plucking a strand of hair away from her nose. “You can yell at me if it makes you feel better.”
She smiled sadly, dropping her head onto his shoulder. He wished she could be closer, but the damn console between the seats separated them.
“I didn’t even get to finish my routine.”
“What?”
She sniffled and messily wiped her nose with the back of her hand. He’d have been grossed out by the sight of it if he didn’t love the hell out of her.
“I started my routine and only got about ten seconds in before they stopped me and told me that’s all they needed to see.”
“But they didn’t even get to see the good part!”
“I know!” she said, suddenly fueled with anger and the solidarity he gave, turning to face him. “They didn’t even give me a chance. And when I asked them if I could start over, they go, ‘NEXT!’ like it was American Idol or something. What did I do wrong? You saw my routine this morning and it was good, right?”
“’Course it was, love.”
“I know I didn’t mess up. I know I did it right.”
Before she could start to cry again, Spike sniffed angrily said, “Not a sodding thing wrong with what you did. Just a bunch of sad old gits that think they’re better than everyone. Might be stupid enough to march right in there and show ‘em what’s what for making my girl cry. Don’t know what they’re missin’ rejecting you,” he said, shoulders tense with rage. “Wring their necks and shove my boot up their asses…”
“No need to storm the castle,” she said, rubbing his arm with tender affection. He laughed a little, even though she was mocking him, but he had meant what he said. He really would crash that audition room and make a scene if she gave him the word. Spike might have grown up leaps and bounds over the past few weeks, but he could still be a childish fucker if there were good cause for being one.
“I mean it. It’s not fair to stop you before you even started. How’s that right?”
Her eyes softened, and he spotted the instant that she realized he’d been sincere. That look, that one right there, the one that thanked him for loving her the way she needed—there wasn’t anything better than that.
The need to just do something about it…well, it wasn’t about showing how big his stones were. At least it wasn’t about that for him. It was pure prejudice, because Spike didn’t understand how anyone could watch Buffy dance and not think she was the most amazing creature to ever grace the dance floor. Even if it only lasted ten seconds. Some people just needed to be beaten over the head to agree with your valid and very right point of view.
“It has to be because you’re seventeen. That’s the only reason that makes sense.”
Her smile grew, and he must have hit the jackpot with that statement because she unbuckled his seat belt and crawled over him to straddle his legs. She lazily draped her arms around his shoulders and locked her eyes with his. “That has to be it.”
He put his hands on her waist, stole a whiff of her hair when she moved to adjust her legs more comfortably, and smiled up at her when she looked at him once more. “Isn’t that what your instructor said? That they rarely take anyone under eighteen?”
“Yeah…” She looked down. Her disappointment had never quite vanished. “I just got my hopes up. Stupid birthday being late. It’s my parent’s fault! They’re the ones who put me in school too early.”
“So take a few months off when you graduate high school and audition again in the fall for the second semester.” He began playing with her hair.
“I can’t do that.” She brushed his hand away. “I can’t just wait around and not have a backup plan if I don’t make the audition again in six months. Mom and Dad will kill me. I’ve already caused enough damage to my record with the suspension to not make it into a good school and my grades aren’t exactly anything to brag about. I haven’t applied anywhere, Spike. I put all my stock into this one pot and…”
“So what if you don’t know what you’re going to do right now? World’s gonna keep on spinning whether you get into college or not.”
“Well, gee, Spike. I feel so much better.” She started to move away from him, but he quickly banded his arms around her and held her still. She groaned in irritation, but started giggling when he persisted in kissing her cheek over and over again.
“You know what I mean. One more,” he said, leaning forward for a final peck on her cheek. She sighed through her relenting smile. He loved the freedom he felt in knowing that she liked him. “No sense in beating yourself up over it. Shit happens. Welcome to the rest of the world.”
“You think you’re cute when you smile like that, but really, you’re not.”
“I’m at least ten percent cute.”
“I deserve to be angry about this! I get some…y’know, cry time, because my dreams just crumbled in front of me.”
“Sorry,” he said, kissing her cheeks again and rubbing her back. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t be upset. I just don’t want you to think this is the end or that this was the only opportunity you’ll ever have. Might not have turned out the way you wanted but now you’ve got the experience behind you to know what to do next time.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time, Spike.”
He laughed, and only because he thought she was joking. When her face remained stoic, his face melted into curious concern. “What do you mean?”
She crawled off of him and back into her seat. Once he heard the click of her seatbelt, he knew she’d locked something away from him. He could curse himself for laughing, for having ruined the moment.
“Can you just take me home?”
“Buffy, talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk any more. Right now, I just feel like eating eleven pounds of fat and chocolate and never leaving my bedroom again except to sign waivers that allow my parents the right to pull the plug if I fall into a sugar coma.”
“That sounds hopeful.”
She shrugged casually, but he could see that something more than the audition was bothering her. “I’m a hopeful kinda gal.” And every second that passed with her brushing it off, he knew he’d be no closer to getting it out of her.
“You sure there’s nothing else you want to—”
“Spike, please? I don’t want to talk about it.”
He waited a moment, hoping she’d change her mind. “Well,” he said, starting the ignition, “if you’re going to spend the rest of your life in the bedroom, you could at least include a roguishly handsome young lad in your fantasy, there for the sole purpose of feeding you and changing your dirty clothes.” He shot her an eyebrow waggle when he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Oooh, good point. You really think Christian Bale would do that for me?”
“Christian Ba—?!” he said, sneering, shifting gears with a mad flick of his wrist. “Think you’re pretty hilarious, don’t you?”
Laughing and reaching over to lay her hand on his knee, she said, “Aww, honey, I don’t want Christian Bale.”
“Damn right.”
“I only want you to be my slave for eternity. Doesn’t that make you feel better?” She grinned up at him and he chuckled, taking a deep breath when it seemed she wasn’t going to let him in on the secret. She could smile and make all the cute little comments she wanted. He knew she wasn’t okay, and he didn’t like it. But he wasn’t going to force it out of her either.
Except that he was going to try. “So when you say there isn’t going to be a next time, do you mean that the school will somehow vanish in the next few months or…?”
“Turn right here.”
“What?”
“That’s my exit. Turn right.”
“I know how to get to your house. Answer the question.”
“You’ve never gone to my house from this direction so I thought I’d help.”
“Answer the question.”
“What was the question?”
He squeezed the steering wheel and clenched his jaw shut. “We’re just going to keep doing this until one of us gives up, right?”
“Keep doing what? Was that the question? That’s not a very good question, Spike.”
He abruptly jerked the steering wheel to the right, causing both the tires and his girlfriend to squeal, and once he was safely on the shoulder of the highway, he put the car in park.
“Holy crap, Spike! You’re crazy! You just drove across fifty lanes and almost killed me!”
“You might think no one in your life gives a shit about you enough to pry and try helping you out, but I do, Buffy!”
“What are you talking about? Oh my God, you’re insane!”
“Am I? Answer the question, Buffy.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Why won’t you just tell me? You know if you don’t tell me I’ll make it worse than it is in my head and I won’t stop asking until you tell me.”
She immediately turned her head away, looking idly out the car window. “My parents both threatened to cancel my dance classes if I didn’t get my grades up and then when I was suspended, they were really going to pull me out. My mom drove down there and everything, but my teacher told her about this audition, that I had promise and blah, blah, blah… so she and Dad gave me one more chance. That if I was really so good and if I could really do something with dance, they’d keep paying for the classes. But now that I didn’t get the spot, Dad will stop paying for my classes, and I’ll have to start applying for the schools they think I should go to.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me that? Why was that so hard?”
“Because it means that things between you and I can’t work out! It means I’ll be away and you’re only here for a few months anyway before you go back to London so what’s the point?” The car rocked back and forth from the rushing traffic inches from the driver’s side door. He felt something churn inside him, something dreadful and mean. “Dad will want me to go to Notre Dame or he’ll put me to work for him and I’ll be who knows where for who knows how long doing who knows what. That leaves just a couple of months here with you until I graduate and then what? Are we gonna chat online and make out on webcams? Be pen pals?”
Spike couldn’t catch his breath, nor could he find any solutions with his mind spinning and horns blazing as cars whizzed past them on the busy freeway. It was something always lurking in the corners of his mind, the very real possibility that he couldn’t renew his visa, he’d have to go back to London and be unable to return to the states because he couldn’t afford it, and if there was a delay in his possible return, that their long distance relationship might suffer. He’d been so focused on simply getting her that he rarely, if ever, thought much about what came next. Love just worked itself out, or so he kept telling himself.
“I’ll pay for your classes then.”
“Spike, you can’t—”
“Can’t be that much. I make eight dollars an hour and I’m sure Rupert’ll cut me some slack on chipping in on rent, considering the circumstances.”
She chewed on her lips and her eyebrows curled up in the middle. “You’re very sweet to offer, but I can’t accept that.”
“What, I’m not good enough to help you out? Think I can’t pull my own weight? Because I’ll tell you right now—”
“My classes are $800 a session.”
“—that that is way too much bloody money. Fucking hell! That’s almost how much Rupert pays every month for his flat!”
“We um, we kinda have the best guy around, and he has a waiting list a mile long.”
He hoped she said something around the $300 mark, for the entire month. But four sessions a month meant $3200 he’d never be able to make. He supposed that was chump change to the likes of Hank Summers but Spike couldn’t wrap his mind around the number without feeling like a crook.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“So you’re just going to give up, then? Is that it? Just gonna throw your hands in the air, tuck your tail between your legs? End it with me because there’s no point, right?”
She wiped at her eyes. “You know I don’t want to do that. But won’t it be worse if we wait? Won’t it be more difficult?”
“It’s already difficult! I love you. I’m fucking in, you know? You put all your stock into dance? Well I put all my stock into you. I put everything into what I feel for you and I’m not about to just piss it away because it’s going to suck losing you later. I just got you. I just fucking got you! After all that’s happened, the day after you decide to give it a go, I’m supposed to let you walk away?”
“You’re so sure about everything. Nothing fazes you! Don’t you ever think about reality, Spike? Because the reality is that we’re both young and the longer we spend apart, the more likely it is that we won’t stay together.”
“Sorry for sticking to my convictions. How terrible that one of us wants to try and find a way. What an awful, horrible man I am.”
“I don’t need the sarcasm, Spike. I’m just trying to be realistic.”
“You’re being a coward and you’re giving up. If you want something bad enough, Buffy, you fucking take it. If there’s something you can’t live without, then nothing will stand in your way from getting it. You can’t give up the one time life doesn’t bend to your will.”
“The one time? You really think my life’s been nothing but easy, don’t you?”
“When it comes to things like this? Yes. I do. You’ve got everything you want and you didn’t have to do a damn thing for it. You’ve said as much yourself! I mean, come on! You take dance lessons from a man that charges $800 a session. Most people in the normal world don’t have that readily available to them. So you failed an audition when you were too young to begin with. Boo hoo! Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again if it means so much to you.”
“I really want to hit you right now.”
“But you’re not going to, because you know I’m right.”
“I just don’t see how any of this is going to work out.”
“Do you want it to work out?”
She huffed, obviously offended by his remark. “Of course I do! You know how much I love dancing.”
“I mean between us.”
“Oh…” She rubbed her thighs with the palms of her hands, and he could tell she felt guilty about missing what he’d meant. However, she was taking a long time to answer and he started to feel nervous. “I think… I think if I lose you I’ll go crazy.”
The wave of relief that crashed over him had his whole body sagging into his seat. He grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. The tiny smile she gave him warmed his heart, but he knew he wouldn’t feel right again until he had a solution. “Can you just trust me that things will work out? One way or another, we’ll figure this out together.”
She nodded, hiding the fact that her eyes started to tear up again. “Ok, because I’m not ready to say goodbye. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to say that.”
There was a moment of silence so thick with promise that he was wise to remain quiet and still just so it could seep into his pores. But Spike could never keep quiet for very long.
“I have to kiss you now.”
She smiled when his lips pressed against hers, but the minute her arms wrapped around his neck and she sighed into him, he knew she’d realized what an idiot she’d been for even having the notion to end things. This theory solidified when she squeezed him tight, ran her fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair, and she whispered, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Then I’ll do all I can to make sure you don’t ever have to find that out.”
Spike loved making Buffy melt, and this was no exception. She was kissing him in the next minute, prying his mouth open with her tongue, and digging her nails into his skin. She was like a woman starved, greedily sucking his lips and sliding her hand over his crotch. Her blatant want both shocked and aroused him.
“Buffy,” he mumbled, suddenly dizzy as her kiss grew more passionate, his cock straining for her touch, and when she banged her elbow on the console to try and get closer, she abruptly pulled away. Her eyes were shining and dark, she was panting, and if it weren’t for the tiny flash of her tongue that touched the corner of her mouth, he’d have thought she was going to reject him.
“Home now.”
He nodded dumbly, and got the hell back onto the highway.
* * *
“Wait, lights,” Buffy said, shooting her hand out aimlessly to turn on her bedroom light as Spike kissed her neck with her back pressed against the wall.
“God, I’m so…” He squeezed her hips, looking down at her with barely contained lust. “Look what you’ve done to me.” He was hard as nails, and she’d teased him for the entire drive, grabbing and groping and tickling and squeezing…they were lucky he didn’t crash the car and fuck her right there in the rubble.
“What have I done?” she said innocently, tracing the tip of his cock through his jeans with her fingernail. He shivered.
“I’m trying to be a nice bloke, here.”
“Maybe I don’t like it when you’re nice.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m cruel.”
“Try me.”
Spike kissed her hard, grabbed her leg at the back of the knee and hoisted it up and around his waist. She moaned when he rolled his hips forward and rubbed his prick against her. He slid his hand down to her ass, letting his fingers tease the edge of her panties. “You sure?”
She sucked his earlobe into his mouth and moaned, so he figured that was a yes, and lifted her up to carry her over to her obnoxiously large and faux fur covered bed. God, he’d dreamed of doing all sorts of nasty things to her on that bed, and now she was here, tugging at his belt, shamelessly spread wide beneath him, giving him a full view of her panties. Dance skirts were probably the best invention in the world. Too bad she’d be out of it in a minute. Or would she…?
“Come on, I wanna touch you,” she said, plucking at his zipper and thinking she was the boss of him. He grabbed her wrists and jerked them up to hold them in place over her head, making her gasp.
“Oh no, kitten. That’s not how we play this.” One hand secured her wrists and the other ghosted over her chest, down her stomach, until he reached the hem of her skirt. She was wriggling and arching beneath him, desperate for his touch. “Look who’s worked up.”
“Touch me! God, I just need to—”
“Teased me all the way here and you think you I’ll let you get away with it?”
She whimpered when his middle finger slid over the crotch of her panties. “Like that?”
“Yes…” She closed her eyes, her mouth dropping open to let out an almost silent breath when he did it again, gentler this time. He looked down, smiling proudly at the wet spot forming on her panties. He released the grip on her wrists, and thankfully, she remained still. He grabbed a fistful of her panties at the waistband beneath her navel, tugging upwards to exaggerate the shapes of her pussy, making every bump and fold strain beneath the fabric. She opened her eyes then, slightly embarrassed, but once he traced the outlines of her labia with the tip of his finger, she didn’t seem to mind so much.
“So pretty,” he whispered, rubbing tight circles over her clit, down between her folds and pushing the fabric into her, soaking her up.
“Please take them off.”
“But I’m not done with them yet.” He tugged the fabric again, this time making it bunch between her folds, exposing just enough pink skin on either side to drive both of them crazy. She was glistening, and fuck it’d been too long since he’d last tasted her. He couldn’t yet, though, so he settled for sliding his fingers beneath the cloth to feel how slippery she was. She cried out in pleasure, and he couldn’t contain the growl in his throat at the sight of her. “Feel good?”
“Yes…please…I want to touch you, Spike. Please, please, please…”
Had a girl ever…ever begged to touch him before? Hell no they hadn’t. That could only mean that Buffy was an angel and that she deserved what she asked for.
Spike’s greedy middle finger traced and teased the edge of her tight opening while simultaneously unzipping his jeans. Her hand worked its way into his pants quicker than he could get them down his hips, and he felt something warm and wet surround his cock before he realized it was her mouth. “Oh, fu—ck!”
Buffy was moaning—moaning!—as her pretty pink lips swallowed his cock, and he could only stare agape, panting, trembling when her hot tongue smoothed over the underside on her way back up his length. “Christ, Buffy…”
“Mmm,” she said, smiling, sucking on the tip and rubbing her pussy against his fingers to remind him what he should be doing. He roughly tugged her panties to the side and slid his finger into her, hissing when she took him in her mouth again. She was driving him insane the way she seemed to need him. He could feel her getting impossibly wet and that only turned him on more. She liked what she was doing, and he’d cry in thanks if he wasn’t preoccupied with making her come.
Spike yanked her top up, his body moving on autopilot now, overwhelmed with the feel of her tongue and hands, locked-in to the motion of his finger inside her, and unable to do much more than pant and squeeze the nearest breast. She lay on her back, looking up at him as she stroked his cock, licking and suckling it, and his knees started to tremble and quake as they struggled to hold his body up, but he ignored it. She was too beautiful, too fucking perfect right then to ruin it with a change of position.
“I want you to come,” she said softly. He wondered if she was getting back at him for that day in the dance studio, or if she was repaying him. Either way, it was brilliant. She slicked her hand over him, whispering, “Please come,” looking right into his wide, love-struck eyes.
“Ho—” His balls tightened, and she rolled onto her side to face him, focusing solely on what she was doing, and he was too close to the brink to argue. He felt one of her hands on his ass, guiding him forward into her mouth roughly, wanting him deeper.
Unable to resist the invitation, his hand tangled into her hair at the back of her head and he started to thrust into her mouth. He thought he might hurt her doing this, but she was humming amorously, squeezing her thighs together, and—
“Oh, Christ! Oh fuck—oh fuck—oh f—” There was no stopping what was to happen next, but she didn’t seem to mind, and all he could do was stutter and babble on about how much he loved her mouth as he came, thrusting quick and hard, feeling the tendons in his neck pull taut as he let out a final cry.
Winded, buzzing from the afterglow, and weak in the knees, Spike collapsed onto his back and tried catching his breath, smiling goofily. “Are you…are you ok?” He rolled his head towards her, swallowing a gulp of air. “Buffy?” He propped himself up on his elbows when he felt the bed shifting, his eyes widening when she straddled his thighs and stroked his softening cock.
“What are you—”
“You do something to me, Spike.” She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his penis, and he was suddenly getting hard again. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes me feel so…” It was adorable, really, watching her blush as she jerked him off.
“So what?”
“I just want to rip your clothes off all the time,” she said, gripping him tighter, breathing a bit heavier. “And I always stop myself because I think, ‘This isn’t real. This won’t last. He won’t stay.’” She licked her lips and he almost came. He weaved his fingers into the faux fur beneath him and squeezed. “But you’re not going to leave are you?” She kissed the dip beneath his right hip bone, then the left, and then she smiled at him so beautifully he almost felt as if he’d blasphemed when he let out a moan of approval.
“I’m not going to leave. I love you.”
“Lots of people said they loved me before.” She kissed the entire length of his cock, then his navel through his tee, his sternum, his throat. “But I think you’re the only one who meant it.”
“Buffy…” He touched her cheek, turning her face to look at her, trying to convey a fraction of what he was feeling in his expression. “I love you so much. This isn’t just passing the time for me or some frivolous romance. I don’t—”
“What you don’t have to do is explain yourself. I know, Spike.” She kissed him sweetly. “I just want to enjoy myself with you. I want to act on impulse and not be afraid of the outcome. I want to pull you aside and give you sloppy kisses in public and say what I’m feeling when I feel it. I’ve always wanted that… but I didn’t know I could have it until today. You had an out. You could have taken the opportunity to leave and I would’ve understood. But you didn’t.” She looked surprised as she told this to him, as if she’d fully expected him to take the free pass. He opened his mouth to reassure her, but she stopped him again.
“So right now, I’m going to put this in my mouth again, and you’re going to like it.” She grinned devilishly, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. “And then you’re going to pay me back with that talented tongue of yours.”
“Knew there was a catch in there somewhere,” he said, biting his lip and grunting when she started to tease him with her tongue. “Hey, wait a minute…I was in control here not too long ago…”
She giggled, and it made his entire body vibrate, considering the fact that he was stuffed halfway into her mouth. She pulled off of him noisily and said, “You were right…I don’t like it when you’re cruel.”
“You like it a little too much, is what you mean to s—oh that’s the spot, that’s the one…right there…Jesus, Buffy, I’m gonna come right now if you keep…doing…”
Well, Buffy was no quitter.
TBC