Invisible
Spike/Buffy
BtVS Season Seven post 'First Date' (R)
He can't believe that it hurts so much. Staring down at his scuffed boots and ragged jeans, he lets out a long sigh. He shouldn't have come. Why in the world had he even volunteered, he wonders, and then immediately checks himself. Of course, he knows why he's here.
This is the moment he's dreaded since she spurned 's killing me. Perhaps he's been preparing himself for this night ever since that awful day.
They weren't friends anymore, would never be anything to each other except a painful reminder of past sins and failures.
He'd told her that it didn't matter, that he no longer dreamed of picket fences. And love. The word hovered unspoken in the air between them, as they attempted to casually discuss her date.
How many ways can a man lie to himself?
How much understanding and restraint was expected when you watched hope slip away from you, day by day?
Unbearable.
He'd volunteered to find her tonight, not just because of any concern about Xander, but because he had to see it for himself. Has to face the reality that there is nothing, nothing he can do now to win her love. And here it is, all laid out nice and tidy before him in the dimly lit restaurant.
She is so beautiful tonight. She's let her hair grow out again, and it is all shining and glowing, flowing down her back. Tumbling down her soft, strong back. He gives himself a mental smack.
Tonight's the night you're gonna forget her. Let her go.
Laughter and snippets of conversation float out of the restaurant, and he recognizes her voice—light, eager, flowing effortlessly. She's happy, he thinks sadly.
He steps closer to the small window and watches the scene unfold. It hurts. And he doesn't know where to turn to or where to hide or run from her happiness.
She's left him forever, forgotten him. She's relieved, he sees, not to be in his presence. He's been a burden for her, he admits to himself. He faces the reality of her grim concern, and her efficient caretaking, rather coldly and somewhat impatiently given.
He is a problem. Something to be handled, fixed, sorted out. His soul, a gift she never wanted.
He is invisible to her now.
And so, feeling that nothing really matters anymore, and that he's just the little messenger boy, he simply goes inside to interrupt the tender scene between the Slayer and her new boyfriend.
Boyfriend, he thinks with disgust. The man must be ten years older than her. Why doesn't he hit on someone his own age? And then he remembers that he, himself, is over a hundred years old, so what does that make him?
A fool.
One of the waiters tries to prevent him from entering the elegant dining room, but Spike brushes him aside and heads straight to the table where the woman he loves is being wooed by another man.
He notes the Principal's expensive suit, and elegantly groomed form. And most excruciating, the confidence and warmth, all too apparent, as Wood leans across the table and feeds Buffy another bite of some fancy confection.
"I think that's the best thing I ever had in my mouth," she gushes to Wood.
"I find that very hard to believe," he replies, smiling at the suggestive comment.
Spike clears his throat. They haven't even noticed him standing there during their seductive exchange.
He's invisible to them.
Wood lowers his voice and asks her, "So, Miss Buffy Summers, just what do you want in life?"
Can't they see him hovering next to their table? Is he a ghost?
"Hmmm, more sweet stuff is good. Or maybe, maybe..." She gets a faraway look in her eyes, and a little grimace crosses her face.
Spike takes a quick step back, and Buffy turns her head at his sudden movement.
"Spike." She sounds irritated. "What do you want?"
Nothing. I want nothing. Not anymore. Not ever.
"Nothing," he says with a strangled voice. "Uh…Buffy, you'd better call home." Turning on his heel, he rushes out of the restaurant and into the dark alley. Screw Xander. The Scoobies can clean up their own mess.
He finds the darkness soothing. He doesn't want to play the game anymore. Tired. He pauses at the street corner and kicks at a crumpled beer can lying in the gutter. It skitters across the road and bounces off the far curb with a hollow, metallic echo.
The ringing of the bells, he thinks. Someone's dying. Someone won't make it to another dawn.
It hurts.
It was several days before she actually realized that Spike wasn't coming back. Robin had been so helpful with the Potentials, and it was a relief to have a real man in her life again.
She recalled her moments of confusion when Spike had returned with his soul for her. His sad display of gallantry and sorrow in the church. All that energy and effort gone to waste on her. What in the hell did he'd think he been doing?
Wanted to be her man. Loved her. Thought she might love him back.
The thought crossed her mind that maybe he didn't 'think' anymore. That perhaps he 'wasn't' anymore. Gone. More than gone. Dust. For some strange reason, which she didn't understand, she became mildly obsessed with trying to find out what happened to him.
Faded completely from the earth. Gone. Invisible.
Her obsession lasted for seven years after the glorious defeat of the First and the final closing of the hellmouth. It lasted until just a week before her wedding to Robin Wood, when she told herself that she had to stop it. Why should she care now?
One night she took her pile of notebooks, scraps of paper, filled with false leads and disconnected phone numbers, which she kept hidden in the back of her closet, and burned them all. It didn't really matter anymore, did it?
Anyway, she thought, as she contemplated the pile of ashes, he's the one who left without a word. After all she'd done for him. Ungrateful, stupid, stubborn vampire.
Complete waste of time. All those years.
Her wedding day dawned bright and hot. The temperature was already in the high nineties. As she walked down the aisle toward the altar and her eagerly awaiting groom, she felt faint and stumbled.
Someone stretched out a hand to catch her as she fell. A strangely familiar hand. A strong hand, comforting and cool in the blistering heat. She found herself staring into a pair of dark blue eyes. His eyes.
Later, in a small motel room several hundred miles from Sunnydale, naked and exhausted, she moans with pleasure as he presses the cold ice against her neck. She curls up against his chest and gazes up at him, studying his face. Memorizing each line, each curve of cheek, arch of brow.
And his eyes. Languid in the heat, full of happiness.
Breathtaking. Stubborn, tender, achingly beautiful vampire. He'd always known what she wanted. Always.
And now she has eternity to give him what he deserves.
~fin~