A Future Awry
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or Spike or any part of what has come to be known as the Whedon-verse. Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own it. No one said I can't play with it though.
The chapter title "Bad Romance" and any included lyrics are borrowed from the song by Lady Gaga by the same name.
Chapter Nine: Bad Romance
Spike sat quietly in the hotel room, his eyes locked on the honey-blonde vampire that lay sprawled across the bed. In one hand he held a glass full of ice, half emptied of bourbon. Carelessly, he tossed back the rest of the liquid contents. "Blood hell, Slayer," he muttered softly. He closed his eyes, leaning back in the poorly-upholstered armchair. He'd known from the moment that the red-head said she'd done a runner, that Buffy was in bad shape. How couldn't she be? First time a vampire drank from a living human was a powerful experience. Having gone years without it, she was obviously feeling the effects of both the guilt from her soul, and her sublimated bloodlust making itself known.
Still, finding her attacking some helpless photographer in a cemetery had not been even close to what he had expected.
A small, strangled sound coming from the bed had Spike's eyes flying open. He watched Buffy as she shifted, curling into a ball around herself. The sound of sniffles came quickly after. Spike leaned forward, eyes intent. As far as he could tell, she was still asleep. Was crying in her sleep. His heart felt torn. But then again, he wasn't surprised. She'd always had the ability to rip his heart out.
He stood up slowly, covered the few steps to the bed in an instant, and settled down on the side nearest the chair. With a hand that he would have vehemently denied was shaking, he stroked the few loose strands of hair that had fallen across Buffy's face. He leaned closer in, letting his fingers trace the paths of the tears that had slipped through her closed eyelids from her chin back up to her eyes. A wave of longing swept over him suddenly, and he wished he could take it all back. Every year he'd been without her. He'd take them back, lay himself at her feet, beg for her forgiveness. So long as she would let him stay by her side.
But he would never tell her this out loud. She'd laugh scornfully. It was just her nature.
His eyes widened as she moved beneath his caress. A choked sob escaped her as her body writhed, as if in pain. He could sense the awareness creeping back into her system, but he sat frozen. He wanted to move away, back to the chair, back to the comfort of distance from her intoxicating presence, but how could he when she was already looking up at him with those terrible green eyes?
"Spike?" her voice was little more than a whisper. A look of confusion settled across her features. "Did I… was it… was I dreaming?" She touched her head gingerly as she slowly sat up. "I must have gotten hit pretty hard." She smiled weakly at him. "I mean, I feel like… it was like this whole other life…" He felt her eyes sweep across him. His hair was still bleached, but he was in vastly more current clothing. The black leather duster that lay across the arm of the chair was not the one he had been so attached to. And she would know she was a vampire.
"Oh," he felt her unnecessary exhalation of breath. He watched her eyes glance warily around the room, letting memories reorganize themselves in her head. He watched her nibble on her lower lip. Watched her eyes widen briefly before closing. Watched her fall back onto the bed, grasping the coverlet beneath her hands with tight-gripped urgency as she attempted to hide herself from the world.
"I didn't… god… please tell me I didn't?" Her voice was muffled beneath the bedding she had pulled over top of her, but he knew it had all fallen back into place.
"He's fine," he said dryly, letting the silence settle across the room.
A slight movement in the bedding had her peering back up at him. "You stopped me?" It was a question, her earnest eyes gazing up at him in a mixture of confusion and longing, though whether it was for what he had to tell her or for him, Spike couldn't guess.
"Had to," he replied stiffly, "Saw the state you were in 'cause of biting that wanker in Hollywood… couldn't very well let you make things worse."
He watched her shiver. "You know?" she whispered, her gaze falling from his to the floral pattern of the coverlet. Her voice was tinged with shame and fear.
"Way he was yelling 'bout it on your front lawn, wouldn't be surprised if all of Hollywood knows." He wanted to be nice to her. Somehow he couldn't be. Wasn't in either of their natures, he supposed.
The silence hung thickly in the room. "Why are you here?" she asked finally, her voice sounding smaller than he had ever heard it.
A dozen callous answers lay on his tongue, and each of them sat too heavily to be spoken. He gazed down at her tousled hair, her red-stained lips, her glowing green eyes, and only the truth would do. Even if it tore his heart to shreds. Even if he didn't think he could survive another rejection at the hands of Buffy Summers. "Because I love you," his voice sounded muffled and husky to his ears.
He watched her eyes widen. Watched her turn away from his gaze. Felt his heart splinter yet again. How masochistic was he? To once again throw his love at her mercy?
"Then why didn't you tell me that you were alive?" Buffy's voice was small in the confines of the room, and it was making his heart ache. Buffy Summers wasn't supposed to whimper and hide herself in a cheap hotel room. She was supposed to burn with righteousness and spark with violence. He'd rather take a punch to the nose than this brokenness.
Spike swallowed heavily. "Didn't think you'd want me around, muckin' things up." He paused, "Then we just didn't know what had happened to you. No one told us anything. We just assumed…"
"That I was fine?" her head was still bowed away from him, though he could hear the tears in her voice. A hollow-sounding laugh wracked her tiny frame. "And instead, you find me acting," her voice cracked, "Like the fledges we used to dust without a second thought." She lifted her head then, her green eyes looking grey with dispassion.
"Buffy," he heard himself murmur, "It's fine. It's…"
"Bloodlust," she finished for him. "Yeah, right. Bloodlust isn't what's driving me crazy. Isn't what…. Isn't what has me picturing how to kill. Imaging how to torture. How to drag out someone's agony."
Spike blinked. "Buffy, love," he said softly, "That's exactly what bloodlust is. It's not just about the blood – it's the violence, the power. You're no longer bound by the rules. And your demon knows that, fights against you for that."
She stared back at him dully. "But then how did you manage it?" Her voice was little more than a whisper, "How did you control it? It seemed… it never seemed this hard."
Spike swallowed hard, standing up and walking away from the bed, his hands clenching into fists. "You thought it was easy for me?" His voice barely sounded like his own. He laughed hollowly. "Oh, pet, you have no idea." He struggled to keep his temper in check, but every moment of his history with her was bubbling to the surface. Every moment he had restrained himself, every second he had spent keeping himself under control. Those bleak weeks when he had believed he couldn't hurt anything. Living without the violence. Feeling helpless. And she had thought it was easy.
"And what then?" he continued, "Any time I slipped in any way, you just thought I was what? Weak?" He spun on his heel, his eyes flashing dangerously golden. "All those years of your prissy righteous act, and now that you actually have to live with it, all you can do is whine?"
She sat up, still half-covered in the twisted coverlet. "Oh, so after years of silence, now you come back just to lecture me on what a bitch I was?" She lifted her arms, pulling the coverlet away from her body. "What were you even doing here? Following me, just waiting for me to slip up? Waiting for the moment when you could find me feeling awful enough to loose control and sink my fangs into whoever was dumb enough to cross my path?" Her eyes were sparking with gold now, her vampiric visage slipping through. "Tell me, Spike," she spat, "What part of playing the hero do you like best? The attention or the fact that you can now rub it in my face?"
He glared at her, feeling his own control melting away under her yellow gaze, and the apparent struggle on her face to keep the bumpies at bay. "Tell me then, Slayer," he replied roughly, "Just why is everything always about you?" He smirked, "Are we finally getting to the heart of it? You just like being the centre of attention, don't you? First the righteous Slayer, surrounded by brooding lovers and your brave little friends, and when that ran out, you went and found yourself a place in Hollywood. Cause if you can't save the world, you might as well be at the centre of it, right?"
She was shaking with anger now, her body visibly trembling with the frustration she felt. Her blood felt oddly hot in her veins as she lithely unwrapped herself from where she sat on the bed. "Oh of course," she chirped in a false perkiness, "I'm the attention-whore. Please ignore that little Spikey has been running all over Hollywood himself, with his pretty face all over the covers of the tabloids. And who's that on the cover with him? Oh, it's the skank-of-the-week. Guess I'm not the only one who likes a little attention."
He growled then. "Just what do you think you know, Slayer?" They were both beyond control now, their human guises slipping away until they stood vampire-to-vampire, golden gazes locked and literally shaking with fury.
"I know you don't actually love me," she hissed.
Which was literally the final straw, because how could she stand there, golden eyes flashing and fangs down, commanding him with all her fury and fire and not expect him to be effected? Spike did the only thing he could, and he grabbed her wrist. Pulling her tightly to him in one swift movement, he attacked her mouth with the desire of years of hopeless longing. He pulled her body so close to his that he could feel her squirm in surprise against him, and it only served to fuel his hunger for her.
Her mouth tasted like blood, and the dangerous duel of their tongues and teeth was nicking both of their lips, adding fresh blood into the mix. He pushed against her, backing her up towards the bed. Years without her were working against him. The need to explore her body, to see the differences that being a vampire had wrought across her skin, was burning him alive. Dimly, he found himself wondering how she could still burn him, when her skin was no longer warmer than his own.
He ripped his mouth away from hers with another growl. He stared down at her possessively. He wanted her. Wanted to never let her leave his side again. She gazed back at him, her expression dazed. He watched her pink tongue flick outwards, licking the blood from her lips. "Don't love you?" he echoed her words in a deep rumble, "Summers, I'm bloody drowning in you."
The look in her eyes was one of deep recognition, and for a moment, he could have sworn that she really, honestly, saw him. For perhaps the first time, she saw him entirely, no matter that it had taken her years and becoming a vampire to do it.
"Spike," she whispered softly, her vampire face fading from her features. She reached one tentative hand towards him, running her palm down the side of his face, her fingers running over his cheekbones. He let himself close his eyes in response, his own gameface slipping away.
The punch to the nose wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting.
"Bloody hell, Slayer," he yelled, lifting a hand to his nose, where blood dripped slowly down. "What the…"
"You deserved it," she replied succinctly, "For not telling me you were alive." She then stepped closer to him, invading his space and pulling his hands down towards her. She licked her lips and leaned up towards him. For a moment, Spike thought she was going to kiss him, and let his eyelids sink closed again, even though that had already proven itself to be a bad idea.
The light touch of her tongue against his face froze him in place. She was licking the blood away from his features, a satisfied hum echoing through her body, whether she knew it or not. "Buffy," he whispered, not quite willing to let her know just what she was doing to him, "What are you…"
She pulled away slightly, self-consciously running her fingertips over the corners of her mouth. She smiled up at him coquettishly, "You taste good," she whispered, licking her fingertips slowly.
Spike groaned quietly against her, grabbing hold of her and forcibly pushing her onto the bed. "You'll be the death of me," he murmured into her ear as she writhed against him, clothes losing themselves almost of their own accord.
"I hope not," she murmured in reply, "seeing as how we're both already dead."
He wondered if it was insanity or just the demon that found the fact that Buffy Summers was a vampire incredibly arousing. In either case, he lost no time in expressing his feelings on the matter.
