TITLE: "Wagering History (3/4)"
BY: Annie Sewell-Jennings
E-MAIL: auralissa@aol.com
SUMMARY: A game of spades provides high stakes and reveals
everything. Buffy/Spike
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Post-"Intervention"
DISTRIBUTION: My site,
http://geocities.com/anniesjennings/index.html, and wherever else
it is wanted, provided that permission is requested prior to
archival
DISCLAIMER: The characters of Buffy, Willow, Xander and Spike are
the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. I don't
own them; I just make them have lots of sex. But I haven't heard
any complaints yet, so... ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This piece is dedicated to the players of our own
never-ending game of Spades: Barbara and Megan. I will always
bring that bitch home. g Also, thanks to my beta-reading pal,
Heather. :)


*****

I think that I'm beginning to like the way that he smokes
cigarettes.

There's something very sensual about watching Spike smoke. Maybe
it's the contrast of his fingernails against the white paper of
the cigarette. Or is it the way that the filter looks between his
lips? Part of it is the casual way that he does it, because he
knows that he's addicted and does not care and because these will
not kill him. And the smoke itself halos his face, softens his
sharp features a bit, and makes him look a little mysterious.

And a lot sexy.

There wasn't anyone in the club at this point. Closing time had
come and gone a *long* time ago, and we were pretty much the only
ones in the club. After closing time, they played whatever they
wanted to play, and Nelly Furtado's album made for good
background music as we sat around and played cards. My slutty
silver tube top was an excellent argument for us to stay there
and chill, let me tell you. The guy just stared down my top and
told me that we could stay as long as we wanted. We even got free
beer and a free pack of cigarettes for Spike.

Which he was smoking and subsequently turning me on.

Oh, don't think of me like that. It's not my fault. I couldn't
help it. What else was I supposed to do when he was sitting there
being so damned charming? Shuffling cards with those *really*
fast hands, making idle conversation and making me laugh. It was
the strangest feeling that I had ever felt in my life - the
feeling of the line being blurred. I didn't know what the hell I
was doing, but it was so easy to talk to him. So easy to sit
there and play gin until 4am.

And we kept on sharing secrets.

"So you think that the reason all of the music on the radio sucks
now is because of Bill Clinton?" I asked, feeling a little loopy
and Spike-drunk.

He nodded, taking a swig of the free Heineken that Lusty Bouncer
Guy gave us (tm Spike). "Absolutely," Spike said, his cigarette
burning between his fingers. "Your dumb American president gave
all the money to these idiot teenaged girls and they ran right
out and bought as much plastic pop music they could find. Now
that's what we have to listen to. No more Foghat, no more Clash,
no more Ramones. Just shiny happy people." A little snarl
appeared on his mouth. "Makes me right sick to my stomach."

I arched my eyebrow and made my move, placing a ten on the table
and picking up an ace. "Either that or you had too much Heineken
tonight," I said, and he gave me a wry smile, saying that he
probably had. He smelled like alcohol. That added to his unique
Spike-smell was sensory overkill. Booze, cigarettes, and sex.
Spike smelled so awfully good.

I think I started giving him the dopey smile then. The smile
where I'm resting my hand in my chin and kind of mooning at him.
It was a very bad thing, especially because he caught it.
Naturally. I can't get away with anything when it comes to Spike.
He saw the starry-eyed look, the little happy glow, and he just
smiled right back. Oh, he knew that he had me.

Then he played the two of hearts, and I picked it up, placing
down a jack of spades. "Gin," I said softly, displaying my hand
to him. He didn't bother to look at it, and I frowned. "Why don't
you look at my cards? See for yourself?"

Spike shook his head, taking my cards from me and stacking the
deck. "Don't have you pegged for a cheater," he said, and I
swallowed. Of course not. To him, I would never lie or cheat. I
was a goddamned saint, and it offended me.

"I could cheat," I said, pissed for being put on a pedestal. "I
could lie. You think that you have me pegged, Spike, but you
don't. You don't know all of me."

I didn't mean it as a challenge. Honest. But I should have known
that that was how Spike would take it. The same competitive drive
that Willow has? Well, Spike has that *plus* a good dose of
starry-eyed love.

He looked down, his face crowned in cigarette smoke, the cards
between his fingers as he shuffled them absently. "You wish that
you could play the guitar," he murmured. "You try every now and
then, but it frustrates you and you give up. You have a secret
love for classical music. Your favorite season is summertime
because of the thunderstorms. Late at night, when the bit's
asleep, you pace around your mother's bedroom like a lost little
lamb, and look out the window with the saddest damn look on your
face. Like you're expecting someone to come and see you for what
you are." A sad little smile touched his mouth. "And even though
you'll never admit it, you like the smell of cigarettes."

I did. I liked the smell of the burning tobacco clinging to his
collar, though I tried to tell myself that it was gross and
sleazy. It was warm and almost old, distinctive and heavy. It
made me feel warm inside. I hated that he knew that about me,
that he knew my secrets, that he knew the things that made me who
I was. That he loved me for me was a crime, absolutely
unforgiveable. Why should Spike be able to love me like this when
Angel and Riley had failed?

Why should my mortal enemy be the only one to ever love me for
who I am?

I gritted my teeth, stubbornly setting my jaw. I was ready to
unleash absolute hell on him for daring to tell me these things.
"Did the game change, Spike?" I asked softly. "I must have missed
when we decided to tell each other secrets that weren't ours."

God, Spike sucks for having such a great smile. I hated him for
flashing those pearly whites at me like it was so damn cute that
I decided to play rough with him. "Oh, go on ahead," he dared.
"This should be entertaining."

I leaned in close to him, so close that if he could breathe, I
could have felt it. "You hate your crypt because it's empty," I
murmured. "You still write poetry, and it still sucks. Your
favorite season is summer because of the thunderstorms, and
that's one of the reasons why you love me - because I get that.
Sometimes, late at night, you sit underneath the oak tree in my
front yard and smoke cigarette after cigarette, just to watch me,
because you're lonely." My voice got suddenly cold. "And you
never wanted to kill me."

Oh, I knew Spike. I knew him so well that I could have written a
best-selling novel revealing all of his secrets and gotten a
butt-load of money from the Watcher's Council for writing it.

And it made him smile. It made him light up like fireworks. It
bothered me that he could think that it was so good that I knew
who he was. "Oh, my," Spike sighed. "Knowing you... That's
expected of me. I'm in love with you. But you know me... Know
every little detail, every little nook and cranny..." He arched
his eyebrow at me. "Now then, duchess, what's that say about
you?"

I think my jaw might have dropped, but I can't say. He pissed me
off more than he's ever managed to piss me off with that one
arrogant little statement. Maybe it was because he might have
been right. What did it say about me that I knew him so well? So
what if I did? I gritted my teeth and stiffened my body, glaring
at him. "Did we just abandon the card game?" I asked him. "I
mean, what is this? Grill Buffy for intimate details night?"

"No," Spike said shortly, and I could tell that he was chomping
at the bit to get to me. If I was pissed, then he had just gone
nuclear. "This is 'Make Buffy Admit the Truth' night." His smile
turned cruel. "And you know, you're just *so* damned good at
lying."

Okay. So maybe running to the bathroom wasn't the snappiest
comeback, but I sort-of-really panicked. Running away is my
answer to most uncomfortable situations anyway. Slayer survival
skills and social graces don't always go hand-in-hand. But I just
couldn't take it anymore, and dammit if Spike didn't hurt my
feelings. I ran into the bathroom and threw cold water on my
face, and tried to stop myself from feeling bad.

"Just bad Spike words," I muttered to myself as I wiped my face
off with a paper towel. "Bad, meaningless Spike words."

But that was what made me run in the first place. Maybe there was
a little truth in there. I threw the paper towel in the trashcan
angrily, running my hands through my hair and trying to calm
myself down. I was fine. Spike was wrong. I hadn't been lying all
night, and I had never lied to him. I hated him. I wanted to kill
him. These are normal thoughts to have when dealing with an
aggravating little monster like Spike.

Calm. Collected. Cool. And with great hair. Yes, I was back to
normal Buffy status, ready to go back and make Spike weep with
frustration that he couldn't ever have someone as to-die-for as
me. Then I turned around in the mirror and froze.

It was me. A skinny chick in a silver tube top and flushed skin,
hair wet around the face, makeup nearly gone, and a little hurt
expression on her mouth. It was me, naked and exposed, on the
glass. And I was upset by it, because I saw what Spike saw. I saw
the girl who couldn't lie.

I did love thunderstorms in the summertime, especially right
before they come, when you don't know how bad the storm will be
and it feels like it might be a tornado. And I couldn't help but
wander through my mother's bedroom at night, missing how good she
smelled, and wish that someone would understand how I felt
without her.

And I remembered the taste of cigarettes on his mouth, underneath
the blood and the bruises. I remembered how strangely hot his
mouth was, and how badly my heart hurt when I kissed him. It
pained me to kiss him so gingerly.

I didn't know what to do, so I just closed the door on the
bathroom and walked back out in the club.

He was still sitting there at the table, the cards still between
his hands, and I saw that he didn't expect me to come back. He
looked relieved and surprised when I walked back to the table.
"Thought I ditched you?" I said, and Spike shrugged.

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said, and I knew that he was
right. I'd walked out on him so many times. That should be a good
sign, that I had managed to leave him before, but I thought about
how many times I should have killed him but ran away instead. Not
a good thing. Not a very good thing at all.

I sighed, and tilted my head at him. "There's a first time for
everything," I said softly, reminding him of what I said earlier,
when we first started this whole mess. "I won, but we're playing
things a little differently. I'm asking you a question, and you
have to answer it with complete honesty. No bullshit."

"No bullshit," Spike repeated, his eyes deadly serious and his
voice rough.

"What did Glory do to you?"

I had seen the damage, but I didn't know its source. I needed to
know what she had done to him, not only for my own use against
her, but to know what he had been through for us. How much he had
suffered.

I think I offended him. His jaw clenched, and his eyes turned
harsh, like I doubted his pain's authenticity. "Well, this black
eye was from her slamming her right into me," he said, pointing
to his purple eye with a chipped fingernail. "And all these
little tiny cuts around the mouth? A glass. Right in my face.
Hurt like a bitch. Almost made me cry."

There was rage in his voice suddenly, and I wished that I could
revoke the question. "Spike," I started, feeling terrible and
mean, "just..."

"No," Spike said coldly, his jaw resolute, and I could see that
the memory of his ordeal was making his hands shake. He shrugged
off his coat until he was in nothing but his black tee shirt, and
I could see his arms. There were burns in his forearms, on the
palm of his hand. "She found my cigarettes in my pocket, and
decided to have herself a smoke break before chaining me from the
ceiling. And I could go further and show you how she poked holes
in my chest with her fingers and cut me open like a rotten apple,
but I think that Lusty Bouncer Guy would get upset if I was
sitting here without a stitch on, don't you?"

I had nothing to say. I couldn't look away from his hands, with
those dark red burnmarks, the kind that would probably scar. He
had been scarred for me. I didn't know what to tell him, how to
apologize for making him answer such a bad question. "I'm sorry,
Spike," I muttered, feeling ashamed. "That was wrong of me to
ask."

But once Spike's temper is out of the bullpen, it doesn't stop
until someone's lying in the ground, bleeding. "Oh, we're not
quite done yet, duchess. We've still got the mouth. She dragged
me by my lip, you know, and then slammed that glass in my mouth,
along with a couple of really good punches. Let me tell you,
she's got one hell of a right hook."

It made me feel terrible. I was a beast. "Spike..."

"Is that what you wanted to hear?" he asked, his voice suddenly
quiet. "Wanted to see if I suffered enough to be good enough for
you?"

I was torn between two halves, one wanting to snipe back at him
that he would never suffer enough for me, and the other wanting
to tell him that he should not have had to suffer in the first
place. The sight of his bruised and purple eye, then the sight of
his mouth swollen, made me waver to the latter.

Waveringly, I brought my hand over and cupped it over his,
absolutely incapable of looking him straight in the eye. I didn't
have anything to say that would make for a good apology, so I
just held his hand briefly, and I felt him relax under my touch.
His skin was cold, but not unappealingly so. It wasn't hard; it
was soft, and slightly moist. He was nervous around me, and the
thought surprised me. I didn't think that Spike could ever be
nervous - he was too goddamn snide and arrogant to give a shit.

But I could see the sudden insecurity, the chink in the bleach
and leather armor. It was how his hand would occasionally jump
under mine, like he wanted to touch me so badly but couldn't
bring himself to actually do it. It was nice to see him
vulnerable, considering that he's usually a jackass.

"Forget it," Spike sighed, and I had to bite down a smile. Men
can be so easy sometimes. They're all whores for love. "Doesn't
matter. What's done is done and so on."

I didn't move my hand. My fingers didn't want to move, even when
my brain told me that it was probably an opportune time to move
them. Actually, my brain was telling me that it was a bad idea
for me to have put my hand there in the first place, but as Spike
said, "what's done is done." I just wanted to let my hand linger
there, wanted to feel my hot palms against his cool ones, like
they somehow balanced each other out.

That was when he decided that it was a good idea for him to move
his other hand, and reached around to cup my wrist, surrounding
my skin with his cool sweat. It made me shudder, made me think
about my hot mouth against his bruised lips. I wanted to taste
him again. I wanted to drown in his nicotine and blood.

Blood...

"Shit," I muttered as I pulled away from him, jerky with my
actions, too afraid to be graceful. I had the shit scared out of
me, terrified of myself and what I was doing. I stood up quickly,
trying to gather the deck of cards in my hand and failing
miserably. Cards scattered on the table, and I muttered an
apology, abandoning the deck on the table. Mental note: buy
Xander a new deck of cards. Or, considering what this game had
led to, never buy Xander cards again.

"Don't," Spike said hoarsely, and I looked down at him with
horror, realizing that he wanted me. It was sexy. It was awful.

"I have to go home," I said, my voice sharp and alarmed. "I have
to get Dawn to school in the morning, and I have to go talk to
some of my professors, and I have things to do..." I suddenly
felt bad for ditching him, but what else could I do? This wasn't
his fault, but being around him wasn't a good idea on my part.

Before he could say anything else, I spun around and walked
towards the door, my cheeks flaming and my vision a little
blurred from panic and alcohol. Oh, Lord, it was a terrible,
terrible idea to get plastered and hang around with Spike.

"Definitely not a bright night for you, Buff," I muttered,
walking out the exit door and into the back alley where I'd
learned a good history lesson from my favorite mortal enemy not
too long ago. The first night where he tried to kiss me. The
first time I should have figured out that something was wrong.

"Buffy!"

Goddammit, couldn't I escape him for once? Here he was, already
limping his way out the door, looking as pathetic and heartbroken
as a Sid Vicious wannabe could look. "I never got to ask you a
question," Spike demanded, and I clenched my jaw at him, tipping
my chin and glaring at him.

"Did you forget the rules, Spike?" I asked harshly. "You didn't
win the hand. I did."

Spike narrowed his eyes at me, getting so close so that if he
breathed, I would be able to feel it. "I thought we threw out the
cards a long time ago," he said lowly. "I'm asking my goddamn
question."

Glaring at him coldly, I dared him to ask it. Come on, Spike. Ask
your stupid little question. "Oh, please," I sneered. "I'm
really, really in need of a good laugh."

Tightly, like it was killing him to even speak to me, Spike
smiled. "All right then," he said. "Why didn't you ever kill me?"

It floored me, and I didn't know what to say. I wanted to run.
Wanted to flee as far away from Spike and his nasty, complicated
question. I wanted to stake him. I still wanted to kiss him. But
all that I could do was look at him, mouth flapping like a dying
fish, without anything to say.

Then we both looked up, startled by what we saw above us.

Great.

A thunderstorm.

*****

(end part three)

*****