Disclaimers, etc, in chapter one.


HAPPINESS (2/3)
by wisteria

wisteria@smyrnacable.net


+++++

"Nevermind the curse I wore
Proud like a badge
till it just won't shine no more"
-- Grant Lee Buffalo


+++++


"Just stay on I-10. Straight. Don't stop until I
tell you to," he'd instructed.

"Easy enough," was her reply.

He'd filled up the tank a little while before they
stopped, and if it gets too low, they'll just find a
rest stop and crash until sunset.

She's quiet up front. He's stretched out in the
backseat, as much as his legs will allow. Duster's
covering him, with a paper bag over his head. The
whole lack-of-breathing thing can be helpful at
times. Back in Nevada, she got pissy and said that
the blacked-out windows were practically a serial
killer beacon to cops, so he grumbled as she set
about scrubbing them off with a rest stop bathroom's
paper towel doused in water.

A half-hour or so ago, he asked her how she was doing
up there. She didn't reply.

Figures.

She only talks when she wants to.

Goes to show who wears the pants in this twisted
little relationship. The whole thing with Dru was
twisted too, but at least he got to call the shots.
Sometimes.

He shifts in the backseat, grinding his teeth at the
musty scent of the paper bag, and lets the annoying
rhythm of her accelerating/braking lull him into
something resembling sleep.


+++++

Driving's easy enough. She should've started doing
it years ago -- gotten out of town and away from it
all. Guess all she needed was a really straight road
like this one.

The downside of driving is the cramps. Every muscle
in her body is sore. If she weren't so achy, she'd
be amused that sitting completely still can wear her
body down more than an hour-long fight with a royally
pissed-off vamp.

"What'd he say?" asks a voice from the backseat.
Damn. She'd hoped he would just keep quiet until he
took over the driving.

"What?"

His voice is muffled, like someone had shoved a gag
in him. Not a bad idea, really.

"Watcher Boy. Before he left. What'd he say to
you?"

Oh. *So* not the conversation she wanted to be
having right now. "Nothing. He didn't say
anything."

Spike chuffed. "Yeah, like I'd believe that. The
man always has to stick his foot in and say the right
thing, even though he usually ends up bollixing it
up."

Impulsively, she spits out, "He didn't say anything
at all, okay? He called the house when I got back
but I told Dawn not to tell him I was there."

"And then you decided to flounce off to the Bronze
and indulge in a little alcohol therapy?"

"I wasn't drunk."

She can hear him laugh through the stupid paper bag
on his head. "Oh, right. Nursing a soda all night."

Buffy rolls her head back as far as she can while
still watching the road, and she tries to work out
the kinks. She's definitely not in the mood to be
taunted by a guy who couldn't spell "commitment" if
he had a dictionary in front of him.

Okay, she knows that's not true, but she's not in the
mood to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Leave it to him to not just shut up.

"You should've talked to him, you know. Things left
unsaid -- they're not good. They haunt you."

Buffy grinds her teeth. "What would you know about
it? You couldn't shut up if your un-life depended on
it."

"I know a damn sight more about it than you do, you
fool! Give me credit for having learned a little
something or another in the past century and a half."
He pauses and she can hear the rustle of the paper
bag. When he speaks again, his voice is softer.
"All I'm saying is that no matter how angry you are
with him, he deserved more than you lying like a
schoolgirl. When someone leaves, you have to give
them a proper goodbye, or the whole relationship is
soiled."

She lets herself stew. She doesn't want to be
hearing this from him. "And you would know this
because....?"

He gets quiet again.

She watches the road, trying to convince herself that
she's glad this conversation is over. Damn him.

"There are people in my life who I didn't say goodbye
to when we parted. Important people. People I
loved. Like my Mum. She never approved of me and we
quarreled most of the time, but she was my mother and
I loved her. I never did tell her that."

She catches her breath and blinks her eyes as his
words resonate with her own situation. No way will
she cry in front of him.

His fingers come up to comb through the hair that
falls over the back of the headrest. The touch is
soothing. She bites her lip, not wanting to feel
soothed by him.

"Same for you, I reckon," he murmurs.

Buffy blinks away tears and keeps her eyes on the
road.


+++++


"What was it like back then?"

"Back when?"

"When I was dead."

She turns to look at him, and he looks away.

A car pulls in to the bay next to them. She can't
see it, but she hears the starting of the hose. A
mist begins to fill the air outside the drive-up car
wash, casting rainbows in the dusky light.

They've been sitting, silent most of the time, since
he told her to pull off the freeway and into this car
wash outside of Tucson. She needed a rest, but she
wasn't about to just park on the shoulder.

The air inside the car is tense, has been tense since
the lethargy of Vegas wore off. He tells her stories
and blabbers on about pointless stuff, but all she
can think of is that those are the same lips that
kissed her. Twice.

So much easier to talk to when he wanted to kill me,
indeed.

He doesn't respond to her question until after the
other car has pulled out of the bay.

"You may have been in heaven, but it was hell down
here."

Oh.

She remembers being thirteen, back when she was all
self-absorbed and desperately in need of someone to
actually tell her how special she was. She remembers
being curled up on her bed, sobbing, after her crush
Kevin McKay dissed her during lunchtime and all her
so-called friends laughed at her. She remembers
wanting to die.

Actually, she didn't want to die, really. Just
wanted to spite her friends, to be temporarily dead
and watch her funeral from the shadows, seeing them
all so upset over her death and wishing they'd been
nicer to her when she was alive.

It was a very different world back then. Now she's
had that experience for real, and it's not all it was
cracked up to be before she'd ever even heard the
word "slayer".

She turns to look at Spike, who is looking out the
opposite window.

"What did you all do?"

He doesn't respond.

She raises her voice, as if maybe he didn't hear her.
"I mean, what did everyone do all day? Or night, in
your case. Nobody's really told me much about that."

"I'd really rather not..." he begins, then he looks
over at her. Her face must be saying something she
doesn't realize, because he bites the corner of his
lower lip then says, "Right, then. Don't know much
about the others. It's not like we sat around
braiding each other's hair or anything."

Buffy can't help but chuckle at that mental image.
He smiles, just barely, then continues. "Tara didn't
like me coming round at first. Threatened to do an
uninvite spell on me once, a few weeks after...
that." He stresses the word and she knows what he's
talking about. "But I put my foot down and that was
that. Told her nobody was going to mess with Dawn if
I had my druthers. 'Course, I also think mostly
Willow just convinced her I could be the sitter."

He pauses. The car next to them pulls out of the
bay.

"I kept her safe, though. It's all that mattered."

She wants to reach over and take his hand. Squeeze
it. Just hold it or whatever. But she thinks that
wouldn't be a good idea for either of them, so she
settles for saying, "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Nothing for you to appreciate. I did it because I
wanted to. Had to keep all the nasties away from
her, since I couldn't do it that night." As he
speaks, his voice dwindles to near a whisper. "But
you're welcome all the same."

The shadows are shifting outside the car wash. She
watches cars driving by. Traffic's picking up. Some
drivers have switched on their lights. The sun is
setting behind the Arizona mountains in the distance.
Spike will probably want to hit the road again soon.

He starts to speak again, and as he does she almost
feels him picking up speed, getting back in his old
verbose groove. "I did a lot of drinking. Not
something to be proud of, but there you have it.
Took the edge off the pain." He steals a quick
glance at her and adds, "Don't worry. Didn't do it
in front of Dawn. Might have helped her, though, to
take a sip or too. Then again, wouldn't be healthy
for her liver, would it? She took it pretty bad.
Everyone did, but her most of all. Guess that's to
be expected."

A chill washes over Buffy, and pain settles in her
gut. She can't grip his hand, so she grips her own.
Her nails bite into her palms, the melanin already
wearing grooves in her flesh.

"But just before you came back, she was starting to
get over it, I think. Didn't seem as depressed as
she had been. Smiled more. Started going out with
her friends again, but only during daylight hours
even though she fought me tooth and nail on that one.
Kept mentioning some boy's name, but once I got a
look at him walking home from school with her, we had
words, and that was the end of that. She didn't talk
to me for a week."

Buffy wants to chuckle, but when she starts to do so,
it just rolls around in her belly and makes her
nauseous.

"Everything was dark all summer," he says. "Just as
dark as any place I've ever been, but all inside the
head. They didn't talk to me about it, but I could
tell. I went out patrolling with them sometimes, but
it was all smash and bash. They were just as much
like automatons as that bloody Bot was. I dealt with
it by drinking and taking care of Dawn. They coped
by trying to bring you back. Success on all fronts,
huh?"

He stops and looks at her again. She returns his
look. His eyes are shiny, like he's about to cry.
The idea of him crying makes her really
uncomfortable, but she forces herself not to look
away.

"Now you're back, and just in the nick of time.
Everyone's happy again. Life's good for all." He
pauses, and his voice cracks. "Well, good for all
except you, I reckon."

She watches as he blinks a few times, but it only
spreads the tears in his eyes. "You too?" she asks.

"Hmm?"

"Are you happy too?"

He reaches over and traces one finger across the back
of her hand. She shivers. The nausea fades.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "I'm happy too."

They continue to stare at each other. She waits for
something to happen. For him to say something else,
or even for him to kiss her. But she doesn't think
he will. He always waits for her cue.

She wants to kiss him again, but she can't. She
knows that if she kisses him now, it'll be soft.
Tender. It'll make her feel things she doesn't want
to feel. She needs hardness and that glint of evil
in his eyes. Not this.

Finally, he pulls his hand away and puts it on the
steering wheel. "It's getting dark. Guess we can
blow out of here."

Right. Time to head farther away from Sunnydale.
Maybe everyone else is happy, but she's not.
Suddenly she can't get far enough away.


+++++


Somewhere near the Texas-New Mexico border she sits
bolt-upright in the passenger seat.

The movement startles him, and he nearly swerves the
car off the road. Not many other cars around, at
least.

"What's wrong, Slayer? Nightmare?" he says as he
reaches over to turn down the radio playing staticky
middle-of-the-night BBC World Service. The comforts
of the old world aren't very comfortable anymore.

"I'm leaving Dawn alone," she says, her voice
breathless and scared.

Yeah, you are, he thinks. But it was your choice to
leave with me. He doesn't tell her this.

He's supposed to calm her down, so he tries his best.
"Look, Willow's there with her. The thing you told
me about with Tara has probably blown over and those
two are going to keep her safe. She's fine, okay?"

It's selfish of him to try and talk her out of going
back. He wants to keep her here with him. If it
weren't a monumentally bad idea on so many levels,
he'd want to turn her and keep her with him forever.

So he's surprised to hear his voice saying, "Do you
want to turn back, then?"

She's quiet for a couple of miles, then she says, "I
don't know. Stop at the next town, so I can call and
check up on her."

"It's the middle of the night. You're just going to
wake everyone up and get them all scared again. Call
them in the morning."

"Maybe. I don't know. I don't know about anything
anymore."

Ten miles later, she's asleep again.


+++++

"You're not going to like this, but the vein's run
dry."

"Huh?" As usual, his charming voice has pulled her
out of a rather nice doze.

"Blood. Need more of it."

Oh, great. Yeah, sure, it's part of the whole
vampire thing and he needs it the same way she needed
that crappy burger they stopped for a couple of hours
ago, but still.

"Find some roadkill and have yourself a real good
feast."

"Nah," he chuckles. "The whole motor oil thing tends
to spoil the taste. 'Sides, I haven't had any since
I finished the last of those bags from home back last
night, and you still don't know how to drive well
enough to get us anywhere when I'm curled up in the
backseat like a famine victim."

Buffy rolls her eyes and stares out the window.

An hour later she's in one of the most bizarre
experiences of her life. She stands at a payphone in
El Paso, asking the operator for the address of the
local blood bank. When she'd told Spike he should
just make the damn call himself, he'd told her that
her voice was more anonymous than his. Paranoid,
much?

She rattles off the address and he looks it up on his
map. "Right. Good. Only a few miles away."

Once they're there, he cases the joint. Cases it.
For real. She leans back against the car and watches
him, torn between wanting to laugh and run in horror.
When he gets back to the car she asks, "Did you hit
the security guards upside the head?"

"No, I did not," he says, all indignant. "The lack
of protection here is a crime. Then again, I haven't
heard much about vampires hanging out in El Paso, so
maybe they don't need much security. Whatever the
case, guard's in the front lobby. Looks half-asleep.
We can pick the lock on the back door."

"YOU can pick the back door, Spike. This is your
little plan."

He actually looks upset. "Fine. Have it your way.
Back in 20."

He skulks off back around the side of the building,
and she finds herself following him from a distance.
This predatory thing of his is full of badness, but
she can't help watching it. So, this is how he hunts
his prey? She should be taking notes. Instead,
she's looking at the sleek way he sidles up to the
back door and slips inside.

Nineteen minutes later, he's back outside, his body
listing from the huge ice chest he's carrying. "Give
us a hand, luv?"

"Nope."

She does open the door for him. As he dumps the
chest in the backseat and scoots into the driver's
seat, she says, "You know, you're a pretty pathetic
vampire, stealing from the Red Cross."

"I'm a vampire who wants to live." He stops short as
he starts to pull out of the alley. "Okay, bad
choice of words. You get the picture."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Want to live?"

He doesn't respond for a while, and she thinks maybe
he just doesn't want to answer that question. But as
they're heading back to the freeway, he says, "Do I
want to live? Not really. Don't miss human life all
that much."

She'd been feeling pretty alert for the past hour,
but now she stifles a yawn. "I'm going to back to
sleep," she mutters. "You have fun with your blood."

Buffy tries to doze off, but the streetlights flicker
behind her eyelids. She tries to breathe long and
deep to lull herself, but it doesn't work.

He plays with the radio a bit, surprising her when he
settles on a jazz station. She's even more surprised
when he begins to hum along with the trumpet on the
radio. She forgets sometimes that he's old enough to
have heard this song when it was first played live.

The low music does the trick, though. She's nearly
out when she hears the low murmur of his voice again.

"You make me want to be alive, Buffy."

She pretends to be asleep, but his words wake her up
again.


+++++


If it's Tuesday, it must be Fort Stockton. She'd
complained that the car was making her nauseous, so
he'd pulled into the parking lot of a divey
convenience store and he went inside to get her some
Saltines and club soda. Now they're parked in
another parking lot -- elementary school, he thinks -
- and she's stretched out in the backseat.

He's turned around in the front, and he watches her
sleep.

She's so beautiful like this. Hell, beautiful is too
trite a word. Everything about her is light. Her
skin glows in the yellow light like the sun's rays.
She makes him miss the sun.

Best of it is that she lets him watch her sleep. Oh,
he knows she'll never trust him, but by letting him
do this, it's almost as if she does. And that should
be enough for him. Shouldn't it?


+++++


"We were down here once, Drusilla and I."

He pauses and looks over at her. She's still curled
up on the rickety motel room chair, staring at the
closed drapes glowing red from the afternoon sunlight
beyond. The first time he told her a story, a
hundred or so miles outside of Vegas, she told him
she really didn't want to hear tales of mayhem and
death. I've had enough for a lifetime, she'd said.

She doesn't protest anymore.

So he continues. "Back during the early '80s. Oil
boom, 'Rhinestone Cowboy', all that shit. She saw
some woman in New York wearing one of those gaudy
hats and decided she wanted one straight from the
source. Ridiculous idea, even for her."

He thinks he sees a ghost of a smile on her face, but
wouldn't lay a wager on it.

"Anyway, we got down here and she found herself a
hat. Right nice one, too, all sparkly and blood-red,
perched on the head of some tart at a country joint.
The woman was tarty, all right. Not very delicious
at all. Tasted like barbecue or something."

He can't help but grin at the memory.

"When we went back inside, I nicked a handful of
quarters from the tip jar and Dru put 'em in the
jukebox. Played Hank Williams for hours. Thank God
the whole cowboy phase was a short one."

Spike prattles on for a little longer, reminiscing
about a road trip in another decade. Buffy continues
to stare at the drapes.

He finally gives up and slides off the bed. "Are you
tired?" he asks as he walks over to the dresser.
"You're welcome to the bed if you want to get some
sleep."

"I'm fine," she murmurs in response. They're her
first words in the two hours since they checked into
this cheap chain motel outside of Houston. A hundred
and twenty minutes of him babbling, watching her look
anywhere but at him.

He opens the ice chest to find the blood bags
floating in tepid water. Spoilage won't do at all.
Unfortunately, the ice machine is outside, and the
sunset won't be for another few hours.

"Slayer?"

"What?"

Word number three.

"I need some ice."

She turns to look at him. It's a start, right? Too
bad her eyes looked deader than his.

They stare at each other for a twenty count. He
waits for her to find some not-so-clever way to sod
off.

Finally, she walks over and takes the ice chest from
him, her hot hand brushing against his cool one.
After he watches her slip out the door, he looks down
at his palm.

Fingernail-shaped crescents of blood mark his hand.
Hers.

He can't help himself. Spike brings his hand to his
mouth and licks it dry.

Her blood is bitter on his lips.

His appetite is gone.

She's gone for a good long while, so long that he
wonders if she's hitched a ride back to California.
Lots of all-too-human beasties outside, willing to
drop everything for a chance up a blonde bombshell's
skirt. He's scared for her. Given what he's seen
the past few days, he's not all that confident she'd
even try to defend herself.

But she comes back to him.

She slips into the room like a zephyr, all cool air
and thin substance.

The latched ice chest clatters to the cheap carpet as
she crosses the room to him, striding with economical
moves and fierce purpose.

She latches her lips to his.

It's painful and awful and electric and as exquisite
as virgin blood.

It's what living must have been like, if he'd
properly lived when he still had a heartbeat.

He knows what's going to happen; she's developed a
pattern in only three times out. Kiss him until
she's blue in the face and he's simply blue. Then
walk away with a shiver and a backward glance.

As she pulls back to gasp for air, he wonders why he
lets her do this to him. It's everything and nothing
he wants, but he can't help himself.

The light behind his eyelids sparks indigo.


+++++


She concentrates on the act of breathing. In and
out. Using your diaphragm to pull in the air makes
you sleepy, but using your lungs causes shallow
breaths that invigorate you.

She lets her diaphragm push back and forth. She
wants to be sleepy.

Cars speed along the interstate about a hundred yards
away as she sits on this motel parking lot curb.
Texas doesn't look all that different from
California. Same flatlands, brown grass, wide open
sky. This surprises her, but she knows it shouldn't.
Travel's never been part of her game plan. There are
so many places she hasn't seen. But then, she's
never felt like she was missing much.

Buffy watches the sunset over the horizon, looking at
the way it peeks behind a Burger King sign.

She's furious with the sun for setting.

When it's gone, he's going to come out and want to
talk to her. He'll want to ask her questions like
why she kisses him then runs away. Like what does he
mean to her. Like why she treats him like this when
all he wants to do is love her.

She should have run farther away.

But instead she bolted from the room and walked over
to the gas station next to the motel. She still had
a twenty he'd given her from his casino winnings
(which he'd won by cheating, but then that was so
"him", wasn't it?) She bought some M&M's and a
Slurpee, hoping it would wash away the taste he left
on her mouth even though it's kind of too chilly
outside for a slushie. She called Dawn again, but
all she got was the answering machine. Left another
message saying that she was okay, not to worry about
her. Then she came back here. She should've gone
back inside the room, but now she's sitting on this
curb, watching the sunset.

The Slurpee's all gone, but she can still taste him.
Problem is, he tastes good.

It's all his fault, of course.

How's she supposed to resist him when he's there when
she needs a sympathetic ear and everyone else is
leaving her and her whole world is crumbling away and
all she wants is to feel the touch of someone who
loves her?

All his fault.

She turns and looks over her shoulder at the window
of the motel room. He's watching her.

His face is framed by the drapes. His head is cocked
to one side in the way she now knows is how he looks
at her when he's all emotional-ish. He has this
weird look on his face. Someone else would probably
call it "tender", but she doesn't want to think of it
that way.

He's still looking at her, and he bites his lip. She
wishes those were fangs biting down, not the dull
edges of his front teeth. Then she could remind
herself that he's a bad man -- a thing, really -- and
she should get the hell away from him or else grab a
stake.

She could remind herself that he's not the same thing
that took her away from it all when she needed more
than anything to be away. That he's not the same
thing who would do anything she asked him to, even
stake himself if she commanded it. That, as much as
it makes her stomach rebel to even think about it,
he's not the same thing who is -- was -- could still
be -- the person she's closest to on earth.

Damn him.

Then again, he's already been to hell. Too late for
damning.

He raises his eyebrow. Come in, it says. Be with
me.

She looks away and picks up the Slurpee cup, stirring
the syrupy dregs with the straw-spoon.

Time passes.

It's almost totally dark when he finally comes out of
the motel room, the clunky orange key chain tapping
against his hand. In his other hand he holds his ice
chest full of blood.

"Time to get out of here," he mutters and walks over
to the tiny lobby to return the key.

When he returns, she's still sitting there. "Are you
going to come or not?" he asks, his voice irritated.

The parking lot lights reflect off his face. His
eyes are shiny and she thinks she sees tracks of
tears on his cheeks. She looks away. Doesn't want
to see that at all.

What she wants is to sit here until her life starts
to make sense again. She wants to walk over to the
highway and hitch a ride back to California, or else
demand her share of the winnings -- *his* winnings --
and get a flight home. She wants to be anywhere but
here with a goddamned vampire who irritates the hell
out of her and loves her more than reason.

It's just not natural. Nothing is anymore.

With a sigh, she stands up and walks over to the
passenger side of the car.

"Let's go."


+++++

End, Chapter two.

wisteria@smyrnacable.net