Spark

What a perfect girl. Blonde hair and eyes whose color can't be known at any given moment. Eyes that change with moods and seasons. Eyes that pierce me sharper than any stake ever could. Eyes that make me want you.
When we met it was cold. Not the weather, of course. It was October in California, and besides, I'm room temperature. It was cold the way you looked at me, and the way I looked back. No thoughts except hate and power. Cold.
Years later, it was hot. Scorching. It felt like a fever that has to burn out. You came to me and I came in you. No thoughts or feelings but of twisted love and cursed lust. The things I did to you…I never did them to anyone else. Not even when I was torturing them, when I was soulless and evil with no chip to hold me back. But then…the chip didn't hold me back from you. And you craved it, you loved it…but you never loved me. Still, I shared your heat. Every time I touched you, kissed you, fucked you; I felt your heat. I felt like we were one, like I was alive too. But of course, I wasn't. Not yet.

There was a day when everything changed. We had met secretly yet again for a quick fuck, but you seemed…nicer. Almost innocent. That day…it had been a hard day, and you really needed someone to love you. I took you in my arms and I held you for a long, sweet moment before I pounded you. And when I went into your heat and my eyes rolled back and I realized with complete clarity just what you meant to me, I felt it. My heartbeat. Just once. Just one small beat when we were wrapped up in each other. The heat was almost unendurable and I was about to long for the cold when I sparked alive and it thumped. I looked into your eyes, and I felt more than lust for you. I felt love. And I gasped for air that I no longer needed and I held you too tightly, almost breaking you as you moaned for me and for the pain which filled you with fire and I was alive again, for that second I was truly alive.

Then the moment passed and it stopped, nothing but a distant memory. But I knew I hadn't imagined it, and I never forgot it, not even when you left me and I grew cold without your heat. Even when you never came back to warm my broken dead body I remembered that for one beat I had been alive. It was quick, and it was painful, and it was utterly impossible…but it happened. I tried to remember how it felt and I tried to make it beat again. I tried everything, but to no avail. So I went to you. I craved you and I craved my beating heart and it sent me over the edge and I tried to hurt you just so I could try and feel it again. But all I felt was fear and cold, so cold, the same cold that I'd felt when we first met. A winter filled with hate and anger and power decaying in my chest, snowing on my dead lungs. So cold.

And so I left. I clung to my heartbeat, that one simple thump that changed everything. I went deep into the desert to get my spark back. Life is not something that you can take back so easily. On the contrary, it's almost impossible. I still tried though, and I won. They gave me my soul and told me that if I could just get you to love me, touch me, fill me with your heat again, I could get it to pump. They said that my soul would help the fire of my life stay lit. You're the spark. My spark. You're the one that makes me heat up and breathe and love. I love you with or without my soul. You can only love me with it. That's why I got it back. I got it so I could have a chance at being yours, really yours, not like before.

Having a soul wasn't like what I thought it would be. I knew it was going to hurt, and I knew it would be painful, but I didn't know I'd see them all the time. My victims. I felt guilty about things I didn't even remember doing. I was sick in the head, really sick. I hid from you. I avoided you. But I still never forgot the heartbeat. I still never forgot the reason I was doing all this. For you. To be alive again. I became obsessed with living. I wanted to eat and breathe and live with you. I couldn't bear to be immortal. I couldn't stand the fear of having to watch you die again, of having to try and live without you. Especially because you deserve to live forever and I deserve nothing.

The day you rejoined the living is the day I cried with joy. I couldn't believe I had found you. I couldn't believe I'd gotten another chance. And in the basement, almost a year later, you found me. When you found me, I knew I had one more chance. You cared about me. I wanted to throw my arms around you and feel your spark warm me and make love you. I wanted you to lie on my chest and listen to my heart beat for you, my love. I wanted to feel my heart beating fast and loud and alive. But I controlled myself. I had hurt you so much. Yes, I had figured out how to become human. It was within my grasp…but my quest for mortality had caused me to hurt you. I had almost forced myself upon you…I didn't deserve to be human. I didn't deserve a chance with you.

Not long after my return, the First took me over. I killed people. I was afraid. I was afraid for my soul and my heart that could beat again one day. And for you. I was terrified that it would end up killing you through me, or that this great evil would get the best of you in the end. I was so frightened that you would die just when I had risked everything to be with, just when I had a chance to love you, to get you to love me. Just when I had a chance to be your lover…your boyfriend…your husband with a soul and beating heart. Your premature demise was a silly fear, I'll admit. I had already seen that you could defeat anything -even death. Yours and mine.

That night…before we went under the high school…when I was just holding you…it meant everything to me. That's the night that really cemented in my mind how much I love and want to be with you. Always. My love for you is so real. That night I almost felt my heartbeat. Holding you close to me, lovingly, looking you in your beautiful, piercing eyes and feeling the warmth of your hand in mine…I almost told you then. I almost confessed. I almost broke down and said, "Buffy, make love with me and I can be human again. We could be together forever. You are the spark inside me." But I didn't. Because never again will I force myself upon you. Never again will I take what I don't deserve, no matter how willing you are. When you tell me you love me, and when you trust me and love me enough to spark me, to gift me with your heat, to let me all the way in again…that's when my heart will start to beat. That's when I will come alive. And it's happening now.

You are with me, as I become a champion. You are with me, my spark, my love, my fire and my soul, as I finish the job. And as you tell me that you love me, I can feel it. My heart starts to beat. With joy it thumps against my chest, as if it wants to escape and present itself to you. And the heat…I can feel it coursing through me and from my hand to yours this time. The heat is excruciating. There is too much of it to handle. The heat scorches me to my core and I want to scream out, but I don't. Because suddenly I understand. You were my spark; and now I have to burn.

A/N: This is my first fanfiction in four years.