Title: Deconstructing Chaos
Word Count: 992
Characters/Pairings: Buffy/Spike
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Set pre-Smashed in early season 6, slightly AU, angsty
Summary: Buffy reflects on life and love, until a nighttime visitors disturbs her reverie.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not the characters, not the world, not the relationships. I'm just playing in Joss's sandbox.
Author's Notes: This was written for my fanfic50 claim, #13: want.
.
She keeps telling herself she doesn't want him, doesn't like him, certainly doesn't love him. He's a vicious killer and he can't experience real emotions. He's a beast, not a man. Still, she leaves the phone plugged in this time and the window is wide open, just in case he decides to shout up to her, like some twisted reincarnation of Romeo. She'll be his Juliet, she decides, the day he climbs up the side of the house in a doublet and hose, his declarations of love in iambic pentameter.
He had told her of his days as a man, a poet--before his siring. They laughed at him, once. "They call him William the Bloody--because of his bloody awful poetry!" Suddenly she is back at the Bronze, her side aching from her own stake turned against her. Red, red blood filled her mind and she was more aware than ever of her own mortality. Her life stretched before her like a fragile string, easily snapped. She wanted to know. She wanted to be prepared. She didn't want to die. Not then. Not before she knew the sweet relief of heaven.
So she came to him.
For a few dollars thrown in his lap, Spike had told her everything. Two slayers, one in China, one in New York. He'd enjoyed the dance. It makes her sick. Sick, sick, sick. She is better than that. Slaying is her calling, her job. She doesn't enjoy it. She refuses to delight in the rush of the hunt, the fleeting satisfaction of feeling hard, cold matter around her stake crumble into a neat little pile of dust.
She let herself go, once, and everything went wrong. There was broken glass and a police car and too sudden out of nowhere slayer reflexes not good enough blood, blood, blood. A dead man. A human being. Blood, flesh, life. A beating heart that one girl stopped. In an instant. She'd extinguished a life with just a steady arm and a pointy stick.
It could have been her. She could just as easily have been Buffy the Murderer. Buffy the Human Killer. Buffy the Rogue Slayer. Buffy doing the mayor's bidding, trying to find the father figure she's almost had. Buffy shooting a poisoned arrow. Buffy in jail in L.A. She shudders at the thought, squeezing her eyes shut against the image of that silly, helpless man, collapsed against a dumpster, mouth gaping in shock and pain. Did his life flash before his eyes? Did he wish he could have said a final word to a friend, a brother, a lover? Did anyone mourn for him? Did anyone cry over his lifeless body, too shaken to rasp out a positive identification at the morgue? Too many questions. It's all in the past now. A painful memory in a stack of others, all courtesy of everybody's favorite Hellmouth.
"Buffy?"
She isn't startled. She simply opens her eyes and sits up, hugging her knees to her chest.
"What is it, Spike?" She fights to keep the sheer exhaustion out of her voice, to force just the right amount of hatred and disgust into each word.
"Something seriously bad is goin' down in good ol' Sunny-Hell."
"Oh yeah? Why aren't you off frolicking in the entrails of innocents?" She sighs. Spike is starting to remind her of Angel. He's Bad News Guy, always showing up with a cryptic warning and then disappearing into the night. Well, not so much with the disappearing. Spike is always there. And if he isn't, she always knows where to find him. He isn't elusive. And maybe she likes that about him. But Spike is an evil monster, a killer. A chip is a poor substitute for a soul. Spike is bad. Angel was--is--good. Simple as that.
She uncurls to sit on the side of her bed, facing Spike. His hands are gripping the sill and his peroxide hair is glowing an eerie silver in the moonlight. It looks almost radioactive. She fights to keep from smirking at him, looking so earnest.
"Thought I'd tip you off. Do you a favor, y'know." His words are colder than before, his body stiff and unyielding.
"So, this is just a random act of kindness?"
"Well, yeah." She stares at him, and he looks uncomfortable. "Listen, the demon causin' the ruckus is an old enemy, thought maybe I'd help you track 'im down."
"Not so random, then. Go, beat him up. It's your fight."
"Tired?" he asks, and the gentleness in his gaze is disgusting. It sends a quiver down her spine which she ignores.
She shakes her head. "I don't get tired."
"'Course you do," he says softly. He slides easily over the sill and sits down on the bed beside her. His gesture is inappropriately intimate, equal parts creepy and sweet. She freezes, not able to move closer and not wanting to move away. Spike is close to her, so very close. If he were a human she would be able to feel the heat radiating from his body, even hear the beat of his heart in the quiet California night. When he speaks again, his voice is a breathy whisper, filled with barely restrained want. "Everyone needs a break, once in awhile."
She wants to be cool and detached and perfectly nonchalant, but his proximity is making her thoughts dissolve into increasing chaos. There's a word for that, but she can't remember it--oh God, what is he doing? He's leaning closer to her and his hand has somehow moved to cover hers. His knee brushes, ever so softly, against her thigh. She realizes she is shaking--or maybe he is. Spike is doing that thing with his mouth and his tongue, that thing that drives her just a little bit insane, and she is kissing him, her lips pressed against his, and she isn't sure who started it and honestly, she doesn't care.
.