Chapter III
Chapter Notes: Just to preface: I hate using lyrics in my stories. The scene never plays out the way it does in my mind, particularly since there is no way to implant music into fiction. It becomes nothing more tuneless, italicized words, and unless the reader is familiar with the song in question, it often falls upon imagination to be pulled off effectively. Having said this, I’ve read many stories where the tactic of lyrics has been successful. This is a commentary on my own work and shouldn’t be regarded as a blanket statement on using song lyrics in other fiction.
I say this because this chapter contains lyrics from two songs. I worried over how to portray this—figuring I’d only mention the songs in question. However, I quickly realized that for me feel the scene as a writer, including the lyrics themselves was the only way to get around it. My natural aversion to including lyrics in my stories has left me a little iffy on whether or not I like the way it came out. I thought about striking the scene altogether, but it was important (to me, at least) and hopefully will be enjoyable to everyone reading.
My betas assured me it worked, and they’re all pretty (if not harshly) honest with me. I can only hope they were right.
Having said that, my thanks to EB, Megan, Tami, Mari, and Jenny for their revisions/comments/suggestions. And to all my readers for their encouragement, and enthusiasm. I also must thank Mrs.P and Galatea personally for comments made for the last chapter not entirely related to content. I very much appreciated your support. Thank you.
Disclaimer: My Boogie Shoes was written by Harry Wayne Casey and
Robert Finch. The Long and Winding Road was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
He remembered how she’d looked the night after her resurrection. Her blank, lost expression, the distance in her eyes, and the way she seemed so at home in his crypt. So still and quiet. So thoroughly lost. She’d sat in his rocker, looking at him numbly as though expecting him to make sense of what she was going through. And all he could do was babble endlessly. Tell her things he’d whispered to her headstone with quiet elegance and humility, never envisioning he’d have the chance to speak to her face.
In her presence, the words he’d wished to say had jumped into an incoherent mess, and he’d sputtered hopelessly with the fervent need to be heard before she remembered she was Buffy and that Buffy never hung out at his crypt. Even now, Spike didn’t know if she recalled that night—or if she did, she probably hadn’t retained what he’d said. Things had been so confused, so erratic. He’d been afraid she would disappear in a blink and his world would again be a barren wasteland. Having Buffy back had been the most profound awakening of his existence. And even with as emotionally frazzled as it left him, the happiness in his chest had threatened to detonate on overload. Looking back now, even though naught but three weeks had passed, Spike was astonished he’d made it through those first few days. Not out of depression—out of elation.
Even after she’d told him about Heaven, he couldn’t wish himself back to the place he’d been before she returned. He ached for her, cried for her, paced the length of his crypt more times than he could count, and while he would do anything to make her pain go away, he couldn’t wish her dead.
He was too selfish. He needed Buffy here.
Tonight was so far removed from the first night she’d sat in his crypt. Well, the first night since her resurrection. He should come up with a clever abbreviation for the new era in which they’d entered. Forget Before Christ or Anno Domini. Spike’s life was divided into clearly lined epochs: human, the Drusilla years, arriving at Sunnydale, the chip, and Buffy.
Buffy, however, was a lifetime in and of herself. There was pre-death and post-death. And now he was living in her afterlife. Close enough to touch her, his lips still tingling with her kisses, and so afraid she would vanish he was completely at odds at what to do.
Granted, if she hadn’t run after he lost his temper, perhaps she wouldn’t run at all.
A bloke could hope.
“Do you think we could get some light?” Buffy asked, nodding to the cream-colored candles which lined the far wall. “I’m not exactly built with superhuman eyesight.”
Spike grinned, his hand dipping into his duster-pocket to retrieve his lighter. “That doesn’ seem right.”
“I know. I wonder if I can get an upgrade.” Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t suppose it’s as easy as writing to your Congressman.”
A warm chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Draft a letter to the Powers?” he asked, gifting each candle along the ledge with fire. It always surprised him how much a difference a few candles could make. From complete darkness to light with practically nothing at all.
“I think they owe me.”
“We’re agreed.” Spike exhaled deeply, pocketing the lighter but not immediately turning back to her. He was at a loss—a complete standstill. The air between them was strained and awkward. They were both incredibly aware that their relationship had moved from a solid foundation onto a balance beam, and neither knew which way to tip; which side would provide the softest ground on which to fall.
“I…uhhh…I didn’t bring any clothes with me,” Buffy said uneasily. “For…umm…staying. I didn’t think I’d…when I went the Bronze earlier…”
Spike’s eyes fluttered shut, a cold draft seizing his insides. She was chickening out already. He couldn’t say he was surprised, but it didn’t make the disappointment any less crushing. If she turned and walked out that door, he didn’t know what he would do. “I got stuff you can wear,” he replied, hoping he didn’t actually sound as desperate as he did in his head. “T-shirts an’…”
“Stuff you stole from my basement last year?”
He turned around at last, surprised and relieved at the teasing in her voice. The same which miraculously reached her eyes. And yet, though he knew she’d asked to lighten the mood, his answer was anything but playful. “Sorry, love,” he replied softly. “I…uhhh…I gave it all back.”
Buffy blinked. “You what?”
“All your stuff. The sweater. The frilly li’l camisoles. Fuck, even the photos I lifted. Everything…everything.” He paused, catching himself. That wasn’t entirely true. There was one photo he’d kept. Only one. And he carried it with him wherever he went. Every day over the summer. Even now. A reminder of what his carelessness had cost him. Cost Dawn. Cost the world.
Every night before he fell asleep, he would take her photo out and stare. Just stare. Her hair framing her face, her green eyes bright with mirth and her gorgeous mouth tugged in a smile which couldn’t be anything but genuine. She was wearing a soft white sweater, her hands folded near her cheek as though trying to capture her laughter. She looked alive. She looked happy. She looked loved. And on clear nights, he could pretend she was looking at him. That he’d done something, said something, to make her come to life.
“Everything,” Spike whispered again, resolution hardening. He’d come to a decision in a matter of seconds. The photo in his pocket belonged to him. It was faded because of the countless times his fingers had traced her perfect face and his lips had graced her image. God, he’d caught himself kissing her a thousand times, as though the photo served as a portal to the world beyond this one. As though she could feel the caress; as though she could feel he was still in love with her and always would be, and he would fulfill his promise to protect Dawn until the end of days.
“I couldn’t…the reminder was too much,” he heard himself saying, crippled at last under the power of her stare. “What I did. What I didn’t do. The things I could’ve done. Knowing I wouldn’t…that you’d never be here…”
“I’m here,” Buffy said softly.
Spike nodded in a daze, not quite hearing her. “Yeah. But you weren’t all summer. An’ I couldn’t…I visited you every night, though. Every cursed night. Told you stupid things. Rambled on for ages. Brought you flowers, but they all…”
The air smelled of tears. God, he was such a prat. He had the woman he loved in his home and within five minutes he’d already made her cry.
“Spike…”
“I shouldn’t talk about—”
“No, it’s okay.” Buffy stepped forward, a hand halfway raised. “I…God, I’m sorry, Spike.”
What?
“What?”
“For…for so many things. Everything I said last year…within reason.” Her nose scrunched adorably. “I still think I was within my right to be of the wigged with the way you declared your love for me.”
He couldn’t help it; he grinned. A sheepish grin, but a grin nonetheless. “Leas’ it was memorable,” he argued weakly.
“That’s one word for it.” The smile on her face was the sort which brought about the fall of empires. She held so much power in her small hands—power beyond what the world had given to her in the shape of a Calling—and she didn’t know it. She didn’t know how just looking at her, drinking her in, making her smile…she didn’t know how she rendered him thoroughly and irrevocably hers. Especially knowing it was a smile just for him. There was no one else in the world right now except the two of them, and she wasn’t running.
“I do have some tees,” he said again. “Nothing fancy or what all, but…if you want ‘em, they’re yours.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Spike swallowed hard and drank her in greedily. The air between them strained.
“You…uhh…want some nosh?” Stupid question, he knew, seeing as he’d just watched her devour her weight in chocolate, but he needed to keep speaking. “I don’t have much. Jus’ stuff I got after the…the last time you were here. Figured you wouldn’t want liquor—”
She laughed and nodded. “I still have a hangover from that one drinkfest with you. I don’t think I’ll be touching alcohol again until I’m eighty-seven.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well. The lesson is to learn to hold it.”
“I hold it just fine, thank you!” An adorable pout crossed her lips. “Just in…moderation.”
“Well, until you learn how to moderate, then, I have some doughnuts an’ milk. Oh, and a coffee-maker I lif—err, bought earlier this week.”
The narrowing of her eyes let him know, in no uncertain terms, he was busted.
“Stealing is wrong,” she said.
Spike took her lack of disgust as a good sign and decided to proceed, however tentatively. “So the Good Book says.”
She smirked. “Cute.”
“I try my best.” He paused hopefully and motioned toward the fridge. “Want a doughnut?”
Her grin was infectious. “To wash down my brownie sundae? Do you have any real food?”
“I’ll get some.” Anything to keep her smiling. “I’ll get anything you want.”
“And pay with actual money?” Buffy retorted, circling his coffee table to plop tiredly into his recliner. “I’d hate to have to bail you out of jail. That’d just be awkward. And they’d ask all kinds of questions. Like why you look like the living dead under certain lighting and how they couldn’t find a pulse for the polygraph.”
Spike snorted appreciatively, the tension in his body slowly easing. Knowledge was colliding with understanding, clinging to vapors of hope as they formed and solidified in his mind. Hardening into resolution. Into comprehension. The night wasn’t about to end. She meant what she said; she wanted to stay. She wanted to stay with him because it made her feel safe. It made her feel…God, it made her feel.
He made her feel.
And she wasn’t running.
“They’ll make me take a lie detector test for lifting food an’ appliances?” he asked, moving toward his kitchen nook.
“Of course,” Buffy agreed. “In this town, petty theft is the only thing the police department doesn’t turn a blind eye to.”
“Dunno, pet. I like to think I’ve gotten good at petty theft. I’ve been at it for a while.”
“You must be getting more comfortable if you’re making open admissions like that.”
Spike glanced up, his hand curled around the handle of his fridge. Her beautiful eyes twinkled at him over the headrest of his recliner. Christ, this felt good. Natural. Calm. Easy. And yet, he still felt the rush. The fire. The whispers of what bubbled beneath the surface of their easy conversation. With as light as things were now, it could snap in a blink. The tension between them hadn’t gone anywhere—it was merely waiting to be ignited.
“’m getting used to the idea that you’re not gonna kick me in the head and rush home, yeah.”
Buffy made a face. “Have I actually kicked you in the head before?”
“Dunno,” he replied easily, turning his attention to his meager provisions. “Sounds like somethin’ you’d do.”
A quick perusal of the refrigerator confirmed what he already knew: there was nothing to give her aside from pastries and milk. He desperately needed lessons in the culinary desires of human women. It was something he’d never before needed to consider, but now he was fascinated with the subject—fascinated with every aspect of her needs. Her everyday, monotonous needs. Anything he could give her. Anything his knowledge of the human condition failed to cover.
Water. Bread. Fruits. Veggies. Junk food. Soda pop. Lunch meat. Snack foods. Condiments. Napkins. Paper plates. Plasticware. He’d need a place to keep his Buffy-friendly food. A cabinet? A cupboard? Perhaps he should look into moving someplace somewhat respectable, but he liked his crypt too much to consider giving it up. There was only one thing of which he was reasonably certain: he couldn’t keep everything fresh by sticking it in the fridge.
Or maybe he could; he just didn’t think it was the way things were done.
Was there a book on this sort of thing? A how-to guide for vamps on how to please and accommodate the needs of the humans they loved?
“We can get other things,” Spike said absently, drawing out his gallon-jug of milk and slamming the refrigerator door shut. He checked the expiration date and released a long, relieved sigh. At least he’d gotten that much right, though he had the horrible feeling it was a happy mistake. “You can jot down some things you want an’ I’ll make sure we have ‘em in stock, yeah? An’…”
The words caught up with him the second they breathed air.
He was asking Buffy for a grocery list.
He was asking her to make his home her home as well. He was asking her…and Christ, how he wanted it. It was insane and it would never happen—this pipe-dream involving him, Buffy, a bed, and a cozy little crypt for two—but it didn’t stop the fantasy. The place where they could live together happily. Where she would wake up in his arms with a smile on her face. Where they would hold hands in public and dance each other blind at the Bronze. Where they would spar on nights when the local newbies weren’t putting up enough of a good fight. Where they would worship each other’s bodies into exhaustion.
Where she would smile every night as she had tonight.
However, she wasn’t smiling when he glanced up.
She was crying.
The bottom of his stomach fell out, and a desperate cry tore through his throat. “Buffy?”
Her shoulders shook. There was a quick jerk of her head. Her eyes were cast downward.
A piece of worn paper was in her hand.
A piece of paper he knew all too well.
“Oh God,” Spike murmured, all thought of food forgotten. He shoved the milk back into the fridge and kicked it closed on instinct, rounding around the nook and jerking to a halt in front of her. She still hadn’t looked up. The page was wrinkled and the tear-smeared ink bled together, but the words were legible. He knew, for every time his eyes had fallen upon the verses, a part of him had snapped clean in half.
He’d never meant for Buffy to see it. What a damn fool thing to leave around the crypt. How could he be so careless?
“Buffy—”
She held up her left hand, clutching the poem like a lifeline in the other. “Did…is this for me?”
“I wrote it—”
Her head shot up. “You wrote this?” she demanded breathlessly. It wasn’t a revelation. It was confirmation. It was something she knew but hadn’t yet grasped. Something she was waiting to be cemented before hardening into knowledge. “You…you wrote this?”
A weak smile tugged on his lips. “Is it so hard to believe?”
Buffy didn’t answer. Her face crumbled in a fresh onslaught of tears, her head swooping downward as though made insupportable by gravity. “Oh Spike…” She trembled, and he wanted to go to her but didn’t dare. An invisible line had sprouted between them. “Have…has anyone seen this?”
He swallowed hard. “I read it.”
“Read it?”
“Willow…she said you’d want me to say something. When we…an’ so I wrote. I wrote you. Wrote you as best I could…from the…” Spike forced his eyes away from the paper in her hand. “I wrote it…an’ I said it for you, love.”
“Spike…”
“I know it’s no good—”
“No good? Spike, this is the most…” Christ, she was crying in earnest now. Hot tears scaling down her perfect cheeks, her eyes shimmering, her breaths hard and erratic. “This is the most…the most…beautiful…oh God…”
There was nothing to say. Nothing at all to say. He was staring at her and she was staring back, her face wet with tears. She looked at him like she’d never before quite seen him; like she’d been searching through the dark to catch the full outline of his face and hadn’t been successful until just now. Until this minute.
Buffy finally knew him. And where the last woman he loved who’d read his poetry had ripped his heart out, she, the Slayer, was giving it back.
But God, he didn’t want to think about the poem. The poem brought him nothing but the heartache which had gone into writing it. The hours spent listening to the endless, desperate echoes of his own heartbroken sobs, tearing reams of paper out of binders and tossing drafts in every direction before the words formed as he wanted.
He didn’t want to think of the poem. He wanted to get her off the poem.
“Can I have this?” Buffy whispered, clutching the paper to her breast. “I…or can you at least write it down for me so I can—”
“It’s yours.”
She blinked. “You’re sure?”
“I wrote it for you, Buffy. It was never mine.”
“They’re your words.”
“An’ I know them by heart. I’ll know them till the sun goes out for good.” Spike smiled gently, relieved but not entirely mollified when she folded and tucked the poem into her back pocket. It remained between them.
The air was thick enough to suffocate a dead man. He needed clarity.
“Dance with me,” he said suddenly, needing something—anything—to drag her attention away from his words. Perhaps later he wouldn’t feel so naked, so thoroughly exposed. Perhaps later it would hit him that Buffy had wept over the verses because she thought they were beautiful. Because she felt the love he’d given her, brief as it had been. Perhaps. But poetry and William the Bloody Awful Poet walked a fine line between humiliation and despair, and neither party was one he wanted to attend.
“There’s no music,” Buffy replied, every inch of her body shaking.
“I’ll get music.”
There were blokes, he wagered, who could offer her more. Loads more. Sunlit walks on the beach. A house filled with noisy little tykes. A guarantee to never again do his shopping by means of the five-fingered discount. He pictured stereos and candlelight, perhaps rose petals and bottles of wine on ice. All the things she should have; nice things. Respectable things. Whereas Spike, in stark contrast, had nothing in his crypt to offer but Whisky, milk, doughnuts, a t-shirt in which to sleep, his bed, and a rusty old boom-box he’d lifted from the junkyard eons ago.
It was good for a few things. Spike liked music and Clem liked making mixed tapes and CDs. The random selection of tunes did its best to keep the crypt from feeling even more like a tomb.
A small grin tugged on Spike’s lips. Plus, there was that one time he and the Buffy-bot had done some fairly kinky things while AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long filled the air. Oh yes. Music had its uses.
And right now, he wanted to make her laugh. Anything to still the tears his words had inspired.
His nerves strung out and his heart on the line, he popped in a CD and turned to face her, holding out a hand. “Dance with me,” he whispered again.
It happened before she could reply: the crypt burst out with a clash of woodwinds and percussion, so startling her with both the volume and the tenor, she at first jumped, then dissolved into giggles.
Spike smirked. That was more like it.
“You wanna dance to this?” she asked, taking his hand.
Girl, to be with you is my fav’rite thing
Uh huh
And I can’t wait ‘til I see you again
Yeah, yeah
“Don’ have a choice now,” he agreed, hooking an arm around her waist. “It’s in the sodding song.”
I want to put on my my my my my
Boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you, yeah
I want to put on my my my my my
Boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you, uh huh
He’d told her once that dancing was all they’d ever done, and God how he stood by it. They danced when they argued. When their bodies were set in the motion of a fight. When their eyes locked across a crowded room. When her lips brushed his, welcoming his tongue into the haven of her mouth. There wasn’t a time in all their years in which they hadn’t danced together in one fashion or another. To have her in his arms now, actually dancing with her, was a sensation beyond all sensations.
It’d been so long since he’d truly danced.
I want to do it ’til the sun comes up
Uh huh,
And I want to do it ’til
I can’t get enough
Yeah, yeah
Spike grinned and dipped her, relishing her surprised giggle. Drinking it up like water.
I want to put on my my my my my
Boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you, uh huh
I want to put on my my my my my
Boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you.
“This doesn’t strike me as a Spike song,” she said cheekily, earning herself another dip.
“Spike has many songs,” he retorted. “Live as long as Spike’s lived, you’ve seen many bloody trends.”
“I thought you’d’ve skipped the seventies.”
Uh huh, yeah yeah
I want to put on my my my my my
Boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you, yeah
“Oi! Loads of good music came outta the seventies.”
“This one of them?”
“It’s catchy!”
I want to put on my my my my my
Boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you, yeah
Buffy spun out of his arms as the music died, laughing so hard the tears she’d previously devoted to his poem were now fat, happy, and made entirely of mirth. And the sight was so fucking gorgeous the floor nearly vanished beneath his feet. He’d never seen her laugh like this. He’d never really seen her laugh, full stop. Not with him. Not when they were alone.
And then the tone changed completely. Something else filled the air.
A steady vocal. The ring of a well-played piano. Spike’s stomach dropped and his nonbeating heart skipped.
This was the sort of thing with which Karma had a bloody field day playing. The loud, intrusive, joyous chords of KC and the Sunshine Band dissolved into nothing, leaving only the reflective poetry of words he knew too well.
Knew because he felt them. Every time he looked at her, he felt them.
The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door
The smile melted from Buffy’s face. A slow, methodical fade-away which would have destroyed him had her eyes not remained open and hopeful. He could see the clockwork of her mind, turning, twisting, and arriving at a destination before he could blink. And the next thing he knew, she was in his arms again. Like at the Bronze. Like they’d been under the stairs. Not kissing him—not torturing him with that masterful mouth of hers—rather just holding him. Her body hot and thriving with life, molded perfectly against him. Holding him.
The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way
Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Anyway, you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried
“This is a very strange mix,” Buffy said softly. The sensuous curves of her body were made only to entice. And for the way she moved against him, he had the profound sense that she knew exactly what she was doing. That every swirl of her hips, every time her eyes touched his, his throat ran dry and his cock strained and he had to fight every natural instinct to keep from throwing her against the nearest available surface.
But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long, long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door
“I’m…I’m a strange bloke,” he replied belatedly, his fingers digging into her hips, terrified she’d drift into nothingness if he so much as blinked.
But still they lead me back
to the long winding road
You left me standing here
a long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
lead me to your door
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
“I’m seeing that.”
The warmth which touched her lips was soon on his own lips. The curve of her smile. The hint of chocolate, and then God, her tongue. She swallowed him, devoured him, held him to her as her mouth opened and welcomed him into the paradise from which she’d banished him only hours before. And Spike was a goner. A complete and utter goner. He moaned and melted into her, distantly aware that it was supposed to be the other way around but not giving a wretched damn as long as she kept kissing him. The taste of her had him inebriated, lost, his hands melded to her hips and her arms locked around his neck. Then, after it occurred to him once and for all that she wasn’t running, he felt it safe at last to hold her as he’d wanted all night.
This kiss was unlike any they’d ever shared. The desperation from the Bronze had dissipated. There were no tears of despair. No needy scraping of her teeth against his lips as she tried to consume him. Here there was no heartache.
But she was memorizing him again. Imprinting him on her skin. Taking him inside her mouth, licking his tongue with her own, and setting him so aflame it was a wonder he could feel at all. His nerves were buzzing. His hands were entangled in her. Her fingers were in his hair, rubbing his cheeks, exploring his throat, yet she didn’t stop kissing him. She would breathe and kiss him. Sigh and kiss him. Murmur and kiss him. Moan and kiss him. Her brow nudged his when their lips weren’t fused, her eyes closed, but the whole of her was void of despair. There was no cold in her. Not like there had been.
No, she was all warmth now.
Warm and wiggling and alive.
And kissing him.
“Spike,” she murmured, her hips moving in a way which had to be subconscious against his. Oh God, to think she might be doing that on purpose… “Spike…”
No one had ever said his name like that. It was, hands down, the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.
He knew what he wanted. He wanted her downstairs, naked and beneath him. Wanted her eyes focused on him. Wanted her breasts in his hands and her nipples between his fingers. Wanted her throat loved into a blush-red from his mouth. Wanted to pepper kisses down her stomach and bury his face between her heavenly thighs, lick her up until she became so unwound it would take centuries to piece her back together. Wanted to sink inside her. Wanted to watch her eyes as his cock unlocked her body’s secrets. Wanted to hold her as she spasmed and drenched him, all the while whispering his love for her into her hair, hoping his body conveyed what he’d been telling her for what felt like lifetimes.
He wanted to make her feel like the goddess she was by worshipping her.
But Buffy had set the rules tonight, and he wasn’t going to be the one to change them. As much as he craved her, if all she wanted were kisses, he wouldn’t be a prat and push her for more. Not after what they’d done tonight. Not after what they’d shared. He wasn’t going to ruin it by pushing for sex.
Because distantly, he knew that was how it would be interpreted. The last thing he wanted was invariably the first conclusion within jumping distance.
He didn’t just want sex. He wanted to love her.
And if loving her tonight meant sharing kisses, he was content to share them.
“Spike,” she whispered again, her eyes batting open and meeting his. “Unh…”
The CD player had long made the switch to track three. Neither was paying attention anymore.
“Buffy?”
“You…ummm…you don’t have to sleep on the floor. If you don’t want.” She took that succulent lower lip he’d been nibbling on just seconds ago and worried it with her teeth. “I don’t…I’m not ready for…the next thing…but I wouldn’t mind sharing the bed.”
He had two choices: fall to his knees in amazement or kiss her breathless.
He went with the latter.
After all, in this world or in any other, there simply would never be enough kissing her.