TITLE: "Wagering History (4/4)"
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've never been a religious girl. My father used to try to get me
to go to church with him before he decided to go all deadbeat
dad, but we lived with my mother, the recovering hippie, so my
sister and I never got a real taste of religion. I've never
really missed it, but on this night, I did come to a conclusion
in matters of faith:

Every single god in the world was in on a massive spiritual
conspiracy to make me suffer.

Honestly, it was the only viable reason I could think of for my
current situation. I was stuck in a little backroom of the Bronze
intended for rowdy drunks and teenagers on bad trips in the
middle of a vicious thunderstorm with Spike, and we weren't going
anywhere for a while.

The room smelled like dead fish. Dead fish, spilled booze, wasted
cigarettes and the lovely smell of vomit. The only attempt at
decor in the room was a bunch of old posters and advertisements
plastered to the walls, and a fluorescent light flickered wearily
from above, shorting out every now and then from the lightning
storm raging outside.

Of course, due to the "God vs. Buffy" war that I explained
earlier, there was only one itty bitty cot pushed back in the
corner of this dirty little room, and that was what Spike and I
had to share for the duration of the night.

Neither one of us wanted to look at the cot. Spike hovered in the
corner, adding another cigarette to the stench, and I crossed my
arms over my chest to hide the skimpiness of my silver tube top
from him. I whistled, he smoked, I hummed along to the songs, he
glared at me to tell me that my singing was not fit for sound in
general.

"This sucks," I said aloud grouchily, pacing back and forth.
"This really, really sucks." To punctuate how much the situation
sucked, I kicked a broken bottle of beer across the floor, and
its stale contents spilled over the cement floor. It wasn't until
afterwards that I realized what I had done - now neither one of
us could sleep on the beer-soaked floor. It was bed or bust, and
I had just fucked myself over royally.

"Could be worse," Spike said off-handedly. "Could be raining."

Great. I was locked into a dank little room containing one tiny
cot and a vampire obsessed with me and Mel Brooks movies.

Briefly, I thought about starting to keep score again:

God: 2
Buffy: 0
Spike: Probably a million points.

He was loving it. I could tell that this was exactly what he had
always hoped for - being locked in a little room with Buffy
Summers and one stinky, uncomfortable-looking cot to share for
the duration of a night. Yup, Spike was in a hovel twisted into
some sort of sick heaven for him, and I was beginning to feel a
little panicky at the prospect of sharing a bed with him.

Sighing, I sat down on the dreaded bed and put my head in my
hands. I wished that I was anywhere in the world other than in
this room. There was a broken clock on the wall, teasing me with
the possibility of even knowing what time it was, and I shook my
head. "I've got to get home soon," I muttered. "Dawn needs me."

"Oh, I'm sure that the munchkin will be fine," Spike said.
"She'll brush her teeth and say her prayers and all that domestic
bullshit, and she'll wake up without even knowing that you were
gone all night."

The thought distressed me suddenly. Would Dawn even miss me?
Would she even look for her sorry excuse for a mother, even try
to find out where her sister had gone?

I bit my lip and worried about her, and Spike suddenly frowned,
wincing when he realized that, as per usual, he had said the
wrong thing. "Hey, I don't mean that," he said quickly. "All I'm
saying is that she'll be fine without you for just one night.
Giles will hold the old fort down."

Sharply, I looked up at him and gave a pointed look to his
battered state. "That would be a lot more reassuring without the
bruises and the limp," I said, and Spike had the decency to let
that go. "Everything's dangerous right now, Spike. I need to be
home. What if Glory takes this opportunity..." I couldn't even
bear to finish. All I could do was think about how young Dawn
was, how much I loved her, and I couldn't speak.

He touched me then. Literally. His fingers ran through my hair,
carefully sweeping it away from my shoulders. "She won't," he
murmured. "Took care of that already, remember? Got the pain to
prove it."

Oh, we all had the pain to prove it. Like now, the pain of not
knowing whether to push Spike away or pull him close. My brain
told me a thousand reasons why I should stake him now like I had
never been able to before, but my skin was coming up with some
excellent opposing arguments. Like how nice his cool fingers felt
in the humidity. Or how beautiful his eyes could be when he was
like this, like the blue became more noticeable. And damn, that
mouth, so ripe and swollen, so deliciously enticing...

Shit.

Quickly, I jerked away from him, standing up and crossing the
other side of the room, never glancing back at him. "Stupid
broken clock," I spat at the useless clock on the wall.

I heard him throw his cigarette to the ground, and I refused to
look at him. I knew that he was sulking around, pissed off that I
had rejected him, and I could hear him limp back and forth across
the jail cell. Seething, I set my jaw and turned around, back
against the wall, arms crossed, in complete bitch mode.

"You know, pacing in small quarters is not exactly charming," I
said snidely, and Spike glared at me with a malice that I
recognized. Oh, good. It was time to fight. The only part of my
twisted relationship with Spike that was *any* fun whatsoever.
The man really does have a talent for verbal warfare.

Thunder clapped outside; the storm was really beginning to rage.
I didn't appreciate Mother Nature's hand in this catastrophe.
"Oh, but everything I does pisses you off, now doesn't it?" Spike
shot back at me, and it was not very convincing or threatening
with him dragging his wounded leg behind him.

I glared back at him, giving him the patented "whatever" eye roll
that only a true California girl can do properly, and it just
pissed him off even more. "You're just torturing me for fun,
Summers," he said. "Making me think that everything's all right
with a game of cards, making me throw out everything I have to
offer but offering nothing back but a little sympathy and a right
to the chin."

"What have you thrown out on the table tonight, Spike?" I
challenged, and Spike laughed tiredly, in exasperation.

"Oh, I threw it all out," Spike sighed. "History, passion, and a
couple of aces. But really, what have you given me? I just want
answers. I just want you to answer a question that I can't figure
out."

There was lightning; I could see it through the frosted glass of
the window in the small chamber. Rain pelted against the glass,
and I wished for a tornado, just like I always did, but this was
for a good purpose - to kill me and get me out of this situation.
But I knew that the storm wouldn't be so kind, so I had to answer
his damned question. The question that I didn't even know how to
answer.

"Fine," I said lowly, and then I started to sweat. Damned
humidity. Damned vampire. "I never killed you because... I don't
really know, sometimes. Maybe the world was more interesting with
you in it. Maybe all the fights, all the arguments, all the nose-
thumbing is kind of fun. Maybe I like it sometimes."

My mouth was running away with itself again, and I felt like a
cartoon when I clapped my hand over my mouth at the end. Nice
save there, chosen one.

Now Spike was staring at me, like he honestly hadn't expected me
to give a really, brutally honest answer to his question. "You
get it too, don't you," he said, his voice low, seductive and
almost lilting. Like hypnosis through honey. "The fights are the
best part. The banter, the threats, the fire... You aggravate me
more than any other person on the planet."

He aggravated me, too. No one could crawl under my skin and
rattle my nerves like Spike. It was beyond reason to get so
pissed off at him sometimes, but I couldn't help it. He pressed
my buttons in all the wrong places, and somehow, I ended up
pressing all of his in all the right.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to me, and I tilted my head towards
the side. Not challenging anymore, merely... Curious. "You said
that was a question that you never figured out," I said quietly.
Everything had grown softer suddenly, like the electricity had
settled into nothing more than a burning ember between us. "Well,
I have one too. Why do you love me?"

Spike was taken aback by the question briefly, and then he
stepped forward, his bruises dark shadows underneath his eyes.
"You know, took me a long time to know why myself," he said,
running his hand through his tousled hair. "Couldn't figure it
out for the life of me. All I knew was that I woke up in the
middle of the night and suddenly..." He didn't say it; he just
let his voice trail off, and then he stepped even closer, so
close that I was trapped between him and the dirty wall.

His fingertips skimmed over my forearm, and I couldn't help it. I
shivered, feeling like his touch was lightning, and I was shocked
through and through. I simmered underneath Spike's touch, and I
looked up at him, captured in his gaze. "Fucked me up good, you
did," he murmured. "Not your fault though. Not mine, either. It's
just the way that it is, duchess. I loved you from the beginning,
from the first time I saw you and Xander dancing right in this
very place. The curve of your shoulder..."

His hand reached up to touch it, and his rough fingertips
caressed my skin in a way that made my heartbeat race and my
breath quicken. "The fall of your hair..." Now his fingers
stroked my temple, running through my hair and making my mouth
dry and my body feel swollen and sore with arousal. "It all did
something to me. But it's not just lust; I could have dealt with
lust. It's something more. Something about you..."

"What?" I whispered hoarsely, my voice caught by the storm inside
of me.

The back of his hand whispered down my cheek, and I turned my
face to it, wanting his touch, wanting him to continue with these
feather-light caresses. Gently, I reached up to cup his forearm,
to keep him positioned there, to fasten him to me. "Everything
about you," he sighed, and I could feel the tension from him,
knowing that he wanted this as badly as I did. Just to touch for
a while. Just to explore and feel this light. This... Free. "It's
everything about you, Buffy. You're everything that I lost when I
was made, everything that I thought I didn't want, but..."

Suddenly, I understood. We had never wanted each other, but in
this room, without our careful guards and the rules we were
supposed to live by, we had found each other. He had broken
everything he lived by, and had been bruised and beaten by it. I
didn't know that vampires could be noble. Didn't know that he
could be heroic. And I wanted that piece of him, that new,
strange glimmer in him that was so alluring and... Good.

Slowly, almost shyly, I reached my other hand up to touch him,
and I wrapped my hand around his neck, cupping his head in my
hands. His hair was soft under my touch. I didn't know that he
could be soft like this. Didn't know that he could be this lush.
I was swimming, almost drowning, and buried underneath the stench
of the room was *his* smell. The smell of cigarettes and sex.

The smell that I loved.

So close together, so entwined that we were nearly inseparable,
Spike leaned forward, his voice hushed and rough. "Answer me one
more question," he murmured into the curve of my ear, his lips
caressing my earlobe in a manner that made me hiss out a moan.
"Tell me why you kissed me yesterday."

Cheek to cheek now, I pressed my face against the side of his,
never wanting to let go of his skin, and I brushed my own lips
against his ear when I responded, without the lies, without the
falsehoods. "Because of the bruises," I whispered, terrified of
my honesty and spellbound by his. "Because of the split lip, and
the glass in your cheek, and the cuts on your chest." The chest
that my hand was now touching, never hearing the beat of his
heart, and never really needing to, either. I knew it was there.
I knew it was mine. "Because of them, you were beautiful."

Now I touched him, touched his bruises. I felt the swollen heat
of fever underneath his cheek, and even as he winced, he wanted
me to touch him. Spike pressed his cheek against my hand, and
then I touched his mouth, feeling the silk of his lips underneath
my hand, remembering how he felt underneath my kiss...

And then I was feeling it, as I leaned my head up to his and
kissed him again.

Power, this time. No fleeting little breath, no soft slide. This
was all passion, all teeth and tongue, as we met frantically at
the mouth and kissed until I was breathless. Hunger and greed
seized me, and I dug my hands into his shoulders, pulling him
close to me while we kissed feverishily. His mouth tasted like
everything good and everything bad, confusing and nice all at
once.

Losing it. I was completely losing it. This would be the
definition of losing it, kissing Spike like this, but I decided
right then and there that I didn't care. So what if I was losing
it? I must have been losing it for years, since I knew in that
moment, lost in his kiss, that I had wanted this from the
beginning. I had wanted him in a primal sense, and after tonight,
after yesterday, I was beginning to want him in other senses,
too.

I wanted his heart.

Our hands were everywhere, scouring across each other's bodies,
looking for the places that we wanted to nuzzle and caress, the
places we wanted to bite and lick. I found my first spot in the
hollow of his jaw, nipping at where his heart should beat with my
blunt teeth. His tongue looped through the silver hoop in my
earlobe, licking at metal and skin. Fingernails scratched against
the skin of my back, and I hissed, arching my hips against him
and throwing my head against the wall. I was burning from the
inside out, on fire with want, and the thunderstorm raged
outside.

I stepped away from him then, just one foot back, and looked at
him. I could see the arousal in him, from the way his erection
pressed against his black jeans, to the way that his eyes burned
like immolation. He wanted it, and I wanted to give it to him.
Let him know that no fake girl would ever provide him with as
much pleasure as I possibly could. Tell him that programming and
wires were nothing compared to me.

Programming. Wires. It was just... Too weird. I couldn't help but
think of what he might have done with it, the things he could
have programmed, and it, well, freaked me out. I was *not* going
to have sex with someone who had made a robot me and had sex with
it only forty-eight hours ago. It was just not the brightest of
ideas... At least not now.

I sighed, looking away from him briefly. "Look, I hope you don't
think I'm that easy," I said, turning my face back to him and
arching my eyebrow. "I've had bad experiences with first-night
relationships. They always end up leaving in the morning."

Spike flashed me an ironic smile. "Well, pet, leaving at sunrise
wasn't exactly my plan," he said glibly, and I rolled my eyes,
leaving a smile on my face when I did it.

"Smartass," I said, and it was hard not to smile at him. "But you
did get the picture, right? This is all still very weird and
very, very wrong, especially after the most recent wacky robot
hyjinx." It was a pointed remark, and believe me, he got it. He
even had the decency to look a little shame-faced, conceding that
yes, building a fake Buffy and having some sort of warped sex
with it was not going to get me into bed.

At least not tonight.

"Right," Spike said, grimacing when he shifted his weight onto
his wounded leg. "Probably not a good idea anyway, what with all
the bruises and the pain."

"Yeah," I said, feigning innocence. "Probably not a good idea at
all."

"Well, we still have that one bed and a couple of hours before
sunrise," Spike said, gesturing to the cot underneath the frosted
window. "How 'bout I promise you that I won't get fresh if you
don't?"

I barked out a laugh at that one and then ran my hands through my
hair, still trying to overcome the buzz from beer and Spike. "I
can't make any promises," I said a little shakily. I got hot all
over again every time I glanced in his direction. Oh, those hands
and how they flipped so gracefully through the deck when he
shuffled... Or that mouth, tasting like cigarettes...

Nope. No promises whatsoever.

Awkwardly, Spike looked away when he shed his coat, and gingerly
took off his shirt, wincing at his sore body. I was almost
floored by how badly he had been tortured. There were all sorts
of circular wounds on his chest, scabbed over and still tender-
looking, and long slashes that only could have come from a
skilled hand wielding a sharp blade.

"Jesus," I muttered, walking over to him when he stumbled briefly
and nearly fell over. Quickly, I put my arm around him and helped
him to the bed, cradling his head in my hand before laying him
down. "Oh, man, Spike, I'm sorry..."

"Not your fault," he said tiredly. "She just got a little carried
away, I suppose."

Worrying at my lip with my teeth, I sat down next to him on the
bed and felt a little bad that I hadn't been there the night
before. "How badly does it hurt?" I asked, and Spike shrugged his
shoulders, looking down at the scrawls across his chest.

"Bad," he admitted. "Could be worse, though."

I smiled. "Could be raining," I finished softly, and reached down
to touch one of the stray locks of white-blond hair falling over
his brow. "You know, I think I like your hair better this way.
Say good-bye to the hair gel - it's now officially gone."

"Bye," Spike sighed wearily, and I could tell that he was
exhausted. It was nearly sunrise, and he was fading out, beaten
and ready to go to sleep. Frankly, after a night like tonight, I
was worn out, too.

Gently, I laid myself down next to him, pulling the scratchy-
looking blanket over our bodies and turning myself towards him.
Nothing wrong with a little spooning, right? Nothing strange or
weird there, snuggling up with the guy I've been halfheartedly
trying to kill for the past three years, right? I sighed to
myself. Oh, it was wrong, all right. It was wrong and right all
at the same time.

I tucked my head underneath his chin, resting my cheek on his
shoulder, pressing my palm against his cool, bruised chest. "I
don't really know what to think of you right now, Spike," I
murmured. "I really don't."

Strange to feel him chuckle underneath my cheek. Strange but
good. "Neither do I, duchess," he said, and I smiled.

"Duchess," I said. "I could get used to that term of endearment.
Much better than 'Slayer'. How weird would that sound if--"
Better not to finish that sentence. I've said too much for one
night, anyway.

Again, that nice little chuckle. He had a nice laugh, and I'd
never noticed it before now. He sounded happy when he laughed,
and I'd never heard that from one of my lovers. Not even Riley,
and never Angel. Only Spike could ever be happy with me - sad but
exhilarating all at once.

Outside, the rain was beginning to slow, and the thunder was
nothing more than an occasional rumble or tired growl. No more
lightning, just the steady white noise of rain. It was soothing,
nice, lying on a cot underneath a scratchy blanket with my cheek
against Spike's chest and his hand on my back.

"And the award for strangest night in history goes to," I
murmured against his skin, and I felt him laugh again while
touching my hair.

"So, pet, where do we go from here?" he asked, and I shrugged my
shoulders.

"I don't know," I said. "I think I need some time to figure all
of this out. And some time to get over the freak-out factor. But
until then, who knows? Maybe another game of spades next week." I
grinned broadly. "After all, we did beat the shit out of Willow
and Xander."

Now it was Spike's turn to gloat, and he was, naturally, an
expert. "Yeah," he said slowly, with great satisfaction. "We
certainly did. They'll think twice before they play with us
again."

"Oh, definitely," I agreed, and then I lifted my head up so that
I could see his face. It was beautiful, even under the bruises,
or maybe it was because of the bruises. His good deeds written
across the structure of his face, like an addition to his angular
architecture, made my heart hurt in a way that I had never
experienced before. Confusing, painful, but undoubtedly good all
at once.

"Spike," I murmured, looking at his heavy-lidded eyes. He had
such long eyelashes. "Do you want to know what secret I'm going
to tell?" He nodded, and I smiled. "I'm telling it to you, and
the secret is that I could fall in love with you."

It was the truth. The way that he sacrificed himself, the painful
way that he was changing, the brilliant flash of his eyes and the
tilt of his chin... I could fall in love with him if I knew him
better. If I gave myself time and allowed myself to do so.

And I could definitely fall in love with the way that he kissed
me just then, with that silky pout of a mouth that should never
have been given to any human being. "Want to know what I'm going
to tell?" he murmured back, and I nodded. "I'm going to tell
Giles that Xander shagged Anya in his bathroom."

I threw my head back and laughed, flicking his forehead with my
finger. "Punk," I snorted, and Spike grinned, fingering a lock of
my hair.

"Duchess."

So what if I didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow? So
what if I had absolutely no way to predict how fate or destiny or
even the weather was going to unfold? Strangely, none of these
things mattered in this dank and extremely disgusting little
room, curled up in a creaky cot with a vampire that I was maybe
falling in love with. All that mattered was that I was a duchess
and he was a punk, and there was still a good hour before sunrise
that I could spend in his arms. And maybe a lifetime after that.
Or at least until he started acting like a jackass again.

Just as I was about to drift off into never-never land, Spike
touched my temple with his fingertip and spoke. "So, tomorrow
night, hearts?"

And all I could do was groan and say, "Deal me in."

*****

(end)

*****

Well, that's the end of my strange little spades-oriented fic. I
hope that everyone got a little levity and fun from it, and I had
a blast writing it. Thanks again to Heather for beta-reading, to
Barbara and Megan for playing in real-life, and to the readers
who will hopefully send me a little feedback at
auralissa@aol.com.

*****