Chapter 12: Never Friends
“Spike? Who did you piss off this time?”
Buffy’s sneering comment made Spike turn to her and growl, game face in full effect.
“How do you know they’re not after you?” he shot back as he dusted his assailant with his own stake.
“Because they usually don’t come at me with stakes.”
She was right, and she knew he knew it; just as she knew he wasn’t going to admit it. He had been irritable ever since he had turned up for patrol, and if she was correct, the smell coming off him was alcohol. He didn’t appear to be drunk, but she would have bet anything he had been not very long ago.
“How about we get out of here?” he suggested before a fresh wave of vamps could attack. They were clearly outnumbered, and she agreed easily. There was no shame in knowing when to retreat, or so Giles had told her on a couple of occasions.
At her signal, they fled. They ran the entire cemetery and three more blocks before they finally shook off the last of their attackers.
“So, any idea why they want to dust you?” she asked again.
He shrugged as he searched his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter and grimaced when he pulled out an almost empty package.
“What do you think? I patrol with the Slayer. Does Trick need a better reason that that?”
She stared at him. “You know who is after you?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he said after he had lit a cigarette. “But he tried to off you, so it makes sense he would try to get rid of me for helping you.”
She remembered then where she had heard the name before. Trick was the vamp who had organized Slayerfest. It was hard to believe it had not even been a month since she had refused to listen to Spike’s warning. Hard to believe, also, how much she had come to rely on Spike since then. Even. even begun to trust him.
“I’ll head back to the mansion,” Spike said glumly. “Lay low for a couple of nights, see if they forget about me.”
Buffy nodded and decided to accompany him. She had planned to see Angel later as she did most nights, so she might as well go now with Spike in case he was attacked again. She doubted that the vampires would give up so fast, or that Spike would be able to stay in for more than a night as he had said for that matter. She had noticed he had been very edgy the last few days – or rather, even more than he had been before. And it was worse on the nights Angel joined them for patrol; Spike infallibly walked away without a word after a few minutes. It was difficult for her to understand why he had wanted so much to keep Angelus alive and curse him with a soul. Now that it had happened, they didn’t seem to be getting along. Apparently, his plans had not worked any better than Buffy’s.
After Angel had returned, Buffy had been happy. She had hoped that they could pick up from where they had left off after that fateful night; but more importantly, she had had the certitude that everything would be fine. Everything. Instead, long days and even longer nights had passed crushing her illusions.
Everything was going to be fine, except nothing was.
Her mom knew about Angel’s return. She did not approve of Buffy spending time with him – and that was the understatement of the century. Coming from the same woman who regularly chatted with a vampire over cups of hot cocoa, it was, however, somewhat laughable. Moreover, it was during one of these chats that she had learned about Angel, Spike having blabbered about it one night. Buffy had given him hell, until he had icily pointed out that her mother deserved a minimum of respect and telling her what everyone else knew had been a simple courtesy on his part. The blond really cared about Joyce, and Buffy wasn’t sure what to think of their friendship. She wasn’t sure, either, if she was imagining things or if he had sounded like William when he had lectured her.
Giles and the Scoobies were very twitchy whenever someone mentioned Angel’s name. She couldn’t really blame them; but she had hoped they wouldn’t have reacted so badly. After all, they had accepted Spike. They were supportive, in their own way, but there had been no mistaking Willow’s relief when Buffy had told her she was only friend with Angel, nothing more. Angel wasn’t ready for more; he seemed wary of the theoretical improvement of the cursing spell. Buffy wasn’t sure she trusted it either, or that she trusted herself. Sometimes, she wasn’t even sure she trusted Angel.
When he had been resouled, Angel had had no memory of what had happened. It could have made things simpler, but it didn’t, quite the contrary. He had asked her to tell him what he couldn’t remember, to help him understand why he was on the mansion’s floor, chained, with the Scoobies doing spells over him, and Spike looking at him as if he were the devil and his savior all rolled into one. Buffy hadn’t been able to tell him. She knew now that Spike had, and Angel’s pain and guilt about what he had done were obvious. She tried to spend time with him, comfort him; but it wasn’t always easy, especially when she was the one needing to be comforted. They were taking things slow. There had been a few late night patrols, but not enough talking as far as Buffy was concerned. She didn’t know what, if anything, Angel felt for her now. They hadn’t picked up things were they had left off with Angelus’ intrusion. Instead, they had started again from square one, and sometimes, it felt as if they’d never get any further than that.
As soon as he and Buffy reached the mansion, Spike retreated to his room before the usual show could make him gag. He had seen the Slayer and Angel do their act practically every night since his grand-sire had returned, and every night it was worse. She came to the mansion after patrol, spent an hour or two with the big brooder, tried to make him talk when it was clearly the last thing Angel wanted to do. Or maybe not the last. Spike had never seen them do much more than hold hands. It was downright sickening.
Not that he wanted them to do anything more than hold hands, of course.
They were playing a game, both of them, pretending they were old friends getting reacquainted after a long absence, pretending they didn’t still want each other. Didn’t really work. It was clear to anyone but the most obtuse that the attraction was still there. They both wished things would go back to what they had once shared; but they both were too scared to even try to reach out for it and see if it was possible. And that was nauseating to Spike. If they had fallen in bed together, he could have accepted it. Not been happy about it, but not surprised either. But to see them dance around each other, pretending they didn’t want more and being miserable for no other reason than because they were inflicting it upon themselves.
One good thing had happened with Angel’s return. The brunet apparently had a little money stored away, and in itself, it had been a surprise, although not as much as the fact that he was now paying for both their blood. They hadn’t talked much since Spike had explained to him the events during Angelus’ little stroll, and the blond could see that his grand-sire was wary of him, which made his generosity even stranger. Spike still planned to ask the questions that burned his lips, about the soul, how to make it ache less, how to simply survive; but there had never been a good time so far. Angel was always brooding, or with Buffy, or in his room, and none of it helped to start a conversation. So instead, Spike took his time, telling himself that he was simply waiting for Angel to adjust himself to his soul. Cheap booze bought with the cash he didn’t spend on blood helped to make the time go faster. Drunkenness was a blessed state of being, freeing him from the less than pleasant guilt he still wasn’t getting used to as well as the crappy soap opera playing out in his own house – no, not his, Angel’s. The claim hadn’t been made in words, but it was all too clear from the way Angel had taken to cleaning it, even getting a sofa and armchair from wherever.
Drunkenness was a blessed state of being, but it was also difficult to achieve with only one bottle of bad scotch.
Having emptied said bottle, Spike put his boots and duster back on with a little more difficulty than usual and frowned as he checked his pockets. Enough to get a bottle, even two if he picked the cheapest brand, but definitely not enough to last long. Scowling, he walked out of his room, trying both to steady his uneven stride and to ignore the not-couple on his way out of the mansion. Unfortunately, the not-couple didn’t ignore him.
“Where are you going?” the Slayer called before he had reached the door. “Vampire gang wants you dust, remember?”
He stopped with his hand on the door handle, the muscles in his arms shaking from holding it too tight. The battle in him was raging. Part of him wanted the fight, the possibility of coming across the gang again and being dust before morning came. But another part, a louder part, refused to take the easy way out.
“At least if I’m dust I won’t have to look at you two anymore,” he growled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Buffy replied instantly, defensive as always.
He turned to face them. They had been all cozy, sitting on the new sofa by the fire, but now the Slayer was on her feet, arms crossed and eyes storming.
“It means,” he replied slowly, fighting his uncooperative tongue to enunciate each word precisely, “that it makes me sick to see the act you’re playing. Making googly-eyes at each other.”
“We are not.”
“. and pretending you aren’t,” he finished as if he hadn’t been interrupted, his words becoming quicker and more slurred as he came to stand in front of her. “Bad stuff happened, got that, I was there too. Now you’re trying to pretend it didn’t, not talking about it and ignoring that everyone sees Angelus rather than Angel. Even you, Slayer. Fuck, even Angel does it, don’t you peaches? It’s fine with me. Not going around calling myself William. You were right, Slayer, I’m not different. Soul or not, I’m the same man inside; it’s time we all stopped pretending. Angelus could have loved you, if he hadn’t been so bloody scared of what it meant. And now your dear Angel is just as scared, and you.”
The brunet finally reacted, getting up and glaring at Spike as he ordered him to be quiet.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Angel spat. “You’ve had a soul for a few months, and you think you have it all figured out? You think it’ll make it hurt any less to help the Slayer do her job? You haven’t begun to learn. And you don’t know a damn thing about love either. Just because you were with Dru since she made you, you think that makes you an expert? She didn’t even.”
Spike’s reaction was instinctive. And like so many times before with Angelus, he lashed out at the implied insult about his relationship with Drusilla. His fist was blocked inches from Angel’s face by the Slayer’s deceptively small hand.
“I think you need to sober up,” she said coldly. “You’re obviously not thinking straight.”
“And you’re thinking too much!” he shouted, pulling out of her grip and storming away from them. “You two look at each other and I can practically hear you think! Wondering if you can forget and forgive, if there’s too much in your past to be more than friends, or if you’ll end up hating each other because it all gets so blurred. Hey, newsflash. You’re not friends. You’ll never be friends. You’ll be in love till it kills you both. You’ll fight, and you’ll shag, and you’ll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you’ll never be friends. Love isn’t brains, children, it’s blood… blood screaming inside you to work its will.”
Hand clenched over his own aching heart, he watched them, standing side by side, looking at him as if he were insane. Too blind to see they were more insane than he was. Shaking his head in disgust, he strode out of the mansion, leaving them to their game of pretend.
The vampire in front of him twitched in nervousness, and Mayor Wilkins sighed. He was beginning to regret his decision of employing vampires. The same sense of initiative that had interested him in Mr. Trick in the first place had now proved to be more than a slight inconvenience.
“Now, explain to me again why you thought it would be a good idea to rouse the Slayer’s suspicions that vampires in this town are anything but organized,” he asked pleasantly. “And while you’re at it, try to persuade me that you’ll never do something stupid behind my back again. By all means, be convincing. I hate to have dust all over my office. It’s very unsanitary.”
Angel, in all of his incarnations, had and still has a problem with letting people get close to him. Got a whole theory about that and how it played a part in Angelus’ obsession with the Slayer. Angel had allowed her to get close, too close, close enough to make him feel human, and that just set Angelus off once he was back. It didn’t help that his demon had lost the plot somewhere after a century of being caged. I had seen the same thing before, with Darla, Dru, even me. Periods of showering us with attention followed by sheer brutality once his interest reached a certain point. Angelus refused to feel anything that might have even remotely resembled love, claiming demons could not know the feeling. Angel followed the same path, simply shifting his arguments to say he wasn’t worthy of being loved, couldn’t give the other person’s what they deserved. Buffy learned about his feelings soon enough.
I guess it’s not just a demon thing though, that inability to accept and enjoy what is freely given to you. Humans also get hurt in this game. Like the Witch and Harris. They played with fire and got burnt; burnt their loved ones in the process. I had seen it coming – smelled it, in fact, as their scents were more of each other’s than of their respective crushes – but it had never been my business to interfere with their choices, and I couldn’t make myself care much about the crash when it came. I had my own deep aches by then.
I had thought Angel’s presence would help me. Thought he’d be able to share with me whatever he had learned about being souled in the past hundred years -bloody bastard. I still haven’t decided if he has learned nothing or if he simply is too much of a bastard to share. I had thought also that having someone like me around would make things easier. I am not one for loneliness. Angel’s return made me feel lonelier than I had even been with Angelus around. The bloody idiot would barely talk to me at all, and that night when he finally did it was to basically rip me to shreds. And there was the matter of the Slayer, still in love but so afraid of what might happen if the curse hadn’t really been fixed, spending ever more time with the poof, and in consequence less with the poor dupe who had a crush on her.
I was set on leaving town when I left the mansion the next night under Angel’s silent stare. I didn’t believe I had it in me to fight once more with him over a woman who had clearly already chosen. I didn’t believe I could stay and not eventually make a fool of myself. Of course I had to stop and say goodbye to Dawn and Joyce. And of course they talked me out of leaving Sunnyhell.