Title – Dying

Author – Ciara

Email Addy – vamp_lizzie@hotmail.com

Summary – Buffy contemplates her relationship with Spike. S/B.

Rating – PG

Spoiler Warning Up To Wrecked.

_____________________________________________________________

Remember, you promised me...
I'm dying, I'm dying please
I want to, I need to be...
Under your skin
Our love is quicksand, so easy to drown
They steal the gravity out from moving ground

Remember, you promised me...
I'm dying, I'm dying please
I want to I need to be...
Under your skin

And now I understand
You leave with everything
You leave with everything I am
Remember....

Hole, "Dying"

________________________________________________________________

Warm. So warm. It was how she always she felt around him. It was the way she felt when she looked up at the sun on a cold day. He wasn't her sun, though. She gave that right to no one. Why let someone who could burn you be your sun? You always ended up hurt. She was already hurt, anyways. He did that to her, too. Not a very healthy relationship, she mused. If only she could drop the gut feeling that she need him around her to feel… complete. But no, no matter what she did, she kept on needing him. Something had to give, sooner or later, or she'd get really hurt.

She'd managed to refrain from really falling bad for him. Nope. She didn't really love him. At least, if she did, she sure as hell wouldn't admit that to him. If she did, there'd be more pain. Ouch. It made her feel like a trained puppy. She was associating actions with consequential pain, and avoiding those actions. She could still remember a time when pain was something she needed to stay real. It kept her feet on the ground, and her head on her shoulders. Not anymore, though. Not after she had died, the second time. Now, everything hurt, all the time. The mental and physical torture he implemented on her… it hurt. Pain could kill her inside, and it was. Slowly. She was dying, more. Every second. And he was helping, in his own special way.

Of course, she kept the bold façade. She had to. She did naught but wince when others struck her. She smiled when things were supposed to be funny. She tried to keep her pride. She had to. If she didn't, there was a horribly strong possibility that those around her would falter. They'd obviously needed her enough to bring her back from the dead; how badly would they fall if she stopped being strong? She only hoped he couldn't see through the smiles, and the bitter grins. If he figured her out, she doubted that she could keep the game up anymore. 

But… He loved her. She knew this, and she believed this. Of course, she refused to really accept it. Accepting it would mean pain, and it would mean guilt. Guilt for breaking the heart of something that was capable of love. 'Cause she'd done that, she'd done that several times. Occasionally, she wondered if all that battering of his heart had really done something to him. Maybe made him a bit bitterer. Perhaps she was guilty for that entire snap back he'd gone through when the chip had been found to not work in her case.

She was drowning in this world she'd been thrown into.

"Slayer?"

She looked up from her contemplative position, sitting cross-legged by a gravestone. She was aware of the deadness that was apparent in her face. He looked down on her, cautiously. The smugness he'd been displaying recently was gone.

"What, Spike?" she said, in a voice that was practically a whisper. Cold tears were running down her face, as she looked up at him expressionless.

"You're crying, luv."

"I know, Spike."

She looked back down to the ground and placed her head in her hands cautiously. He lowered himself to the ground and sat himself by her side, keeping a constant wary eye on her being.

"Any… particular reason?" he asked, slowly. She looked back up, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

"Not really." She whispered again. He was at a loss. Not sure of what to say, what to do. He sat in silence for a moment before offering a simple, "Tell me what's wrong, Buffy."

She sat, motionless for an eternal moment.

"I don't love you." She said, as though it was a deep, profound thought, as opposed to a simple statement. He grinned bitterly, biting his bottom lip.

"This is something to cry about?" he laughed, bringing his hands together and wringing his fingers.

"Anything to do with you is worth crying about." She stated, with a slight shrug. Her face had taken on expression, finally. But it was nothing but nonchalance.

Her utter lack of passion with the her words was what stung him initially. It was harder to deflect a statement made in hatred. But she was… so indifferent as she spoke with him. It was a change. He tried in vain to shrug the impression her testimony left on him.

" Oh."

"Spike, why do you love me?"

He didn't like the way this conversation was going. Not one bit. She was different this evening. Her bold demeanor gone, replaced by a weaker, more defeated girl, with a lonely heart. He was confused. The change worried him.

"I…"

He paused. The answer didn't come to him so naturally, as it did when she was beating the crap out of him.

"Because you're you?"

She smiled. The first real expression he'd seen on her face. But it wasn't a smile, per se. In fact, it was as much of a smile as it was a grimace.

"What a terrible answer." She muttered.

He said nothing.

"You love me because I'm the slayer, Spike. You love me because I can hurt you. You love me because I'm the violence you crave, embodied. You don't just love me, you love the pain."

He was silent. He wanted to object, wanted to stand and declare her disillusion, wanted to embrace her and spout poetry. But she was right.

"But the pain… is what kills me, Spike." She added.

"I can change, Buff-"

"No, no you can't. You're you, Spike. You can't change, because you're immortal. Your essence is captured, and perpetuated for the rest of eternity. You can't change. Not on your own."

The utter harsh truth of her words bit into him, and he found his face contorted in a grimace of frustration and pain. He got up, defensively.

"Look, slayer, I'm fed up with this lecture!"

He grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her up. She came lazily to her feet, as he took a step back.

"Spike…"

He looked at her bitterly, the gravity of everything she'd said to him setting in.

She really didn't love him. She knew how he felt better then he did. And she seemed to think he could never change.

"You don't know me!" he cried, anguished. He felt his open hand fly out and strike her with a sickening crack across her left cheek. Before the sound reached his ears, he regretted the action, and winced back.

She raised a hurt hand to her cheek, and touched the quickly reddening spot tenderly. As more tears reached her eyes, she opened her mouth and whispered.

"I don't love you, Spike."

~fin~

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