AUTHOR: Kevin A. Poston (Fojiao2)
DISCLAIMER: I own none of the characters used here and am not profiting by them at all. They are the sole property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and anyone else Joss okays.
SPOILERS: Up through "Older and Far Away" (Season Six)
SUMMARY: Spike can't speak because of a bet with Buffy, but it just allows her to hear his heart even clearer. Unrepentantly sappy and mushy!
FEEDBACK: You are all SO KIND for reviewing the first part of my story when I was stupid enough to not even ask for it. Yes, please, give me any and every bit of feedback you can, my ego needs to be drawn up from the dry well of reality on a daily basis.
DEDICATION: This is for Lisa Y. Drexel, because her "Bet" series of stories were just wonderful. And I want to thank David Lynch for making the word "Silencio" have a power that I'll never really get over.
Spike went missing from Buffy's life for five days. It was strange how little that affected her routine. To Buffy it was almost like a part of her day was gone, like the mail stopped coming for a week. But no one else commented on it--he was never mentioned at the Magic Box, or at home, either. Dawn, wrapped up in the punishments she was facing for her shoplifting, was too busy damning everyone and everything in existence for the horrible deal she'd gotten in life. She'd taken Spike for granted for a while anyway, and a week without his presence at the house was nothing new. But Buffy felt his absence, and reflected on the fact that he fit into those little spaces in her life where nothing else did. The job, the friends, the slaying, the family, the housework, the time she spent sleeping--it all added up until there were just bits and pieces of her week that weren't full. And those pieces were where she usually placed Spike. Each meeting was only at her convenience, as if he weren't worthy of disrupting her normal life at all. God, when he'd chained her up on his wall, hadn't he begged her for just a crumb of affection? It seems that that was just what she'd been allowing him for weeks now: crumbs of her precious time.
For Spike's part, he spent those days practicing. He knew that he could control himself enough not to speak in the presence of Buffy or her friends, no matter what they did to get a rise out of him. But what if someone surprised him, or made him shout after receiving a hit on patrol? The stakes were far too high for something like that to happen. So he practiced being completely silent with himself alone, never letting a sound out as he puttered around his crypt or walked around at night to dust a few of his pesky brother vampires. On the third day he went to Willy's Bar for a new supply of blood and stayed a while to see what the demons were talking about these days. He got into a satisfying bar fight and tore a souvenir horn off a Sarnath demon, all without speaking once. His greatest test came on the fifth day when he was fixing a bookcase in his crypt. He let the hammer slip and smashed his thumb good and proper. For a full second he felt sure that he would scream--but a second can stretch out in intense pain, as he well knew. In that second he was able to weigh all options, gather strength he usually didn't use off the battlefield, and clench his jaw. He didn't even grunt as he looked at the poor thumb, throbbing in waves of pain.
He was ready. Time for the Xander test.
As soon as the sun set Spike was out of his crypt and on his way to the Magic Box. He knew they were researching, trying to find some way to locate the Nerds of Doom. Willow, now that she was relying on her mind more than magic, was once again super-research-girl (to use Buffy's phrase). She'd hit upon the idea of locating the trio through the demons they'd summoned, most recently the R'Sindi demons whose time-shifting had confused Buffy. They were so rare that the components used to summon them had to lead the Scoobies to their new lair. Tracking down those components was the hard part, though, and required research time not only through books but Willow's Internet skills.
The little bell announced Spike's arrival in the shop, and everyone at the table looked up to see who'd entered. All eyes then turned back to their books or computer screen--except for Buffy's. He held her eyes and gave her a winning smile, the whole world disappearing for a moment except for them. Then his smile became a smirk, and he loped forward and took a chair at the table beside Xander, lounging indolently there.
"Great," growled Xander. "So much for my plans to spend a day free of undead cooties."
Spike just sat, looking at the ceiling, or silently counting the books on the shelves. Buffy was squirming in her seat on the other side of the table but she kept her eyes locked on the pages in front of her.
The fact that Spike hadn't responded was starting to grate on Xander. He looked to his right again, making sure that the vampire wasn't making some silent obscene gesture in his direction. But Spike was simply watching Anya as she danced around the inventory with a feather duster.
"Why are you even here?" Xander groused to Spike. "To help in research? Or just drive us nuts?"
Spike shrugged, then reached into a pocket of his duster.
"No! Don't you try to smoke in here!" Buffy said, when he pulled out a thick notepad. He looked at her, an eyebrow raised, then took out a pen and began to write on one of the pages. He tore off the note and passed it to Xander.
Xander read it out loud: "How can I be of service?" He noticed that Spike's handwriting was nothing like the vampire he knew--it was elegant and highly stylized.
"So what's this?" he asked, waving the note. "Has your throat seized from drinking cold blood?" Now everyone--Willow, Dawn, Anya, and Tara from a seat apart from the table--was looking at Spike.
"It's a bet," Buffy said, and all eyes turned to her. She sighed deeply. "It was last week. I bet him that he couldn't shut the hell up for a while."
"What's 'a while?'" asked Dawn.
"Until I ask him to talk again," she responded, not looking up.
Xander now looked at Spike with wide eyes. "So we can count on ten or twenty years of blissful silence from you, eh?" A growl issued from Spike's chest, but Xander only chuckled. "Please! We both know you can't do anything to me!" He leaned forward, looking at Spike like a zoo animal. "So I could say anything to you--anything!--and you can't respond?"
Still wearing a harsh look, Spike nodded.
"Well, there's something I've wanted to say for a while," Xander said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
"Xander--" Willow warned, but he waved her off, concentrating on Spike.
"I want to know why the hell you're still here," Xander said. "I mean, the only good you ever did was to help us and Buffy on patrol. But things have been pretty quiet recently. There hasn't been anything in months that the ol' Buffster couldn't take down herself. So why are you still hanging around, Spike? What possible good could you do for us? Why haven't you found some new town to haunt?"
"Hey! He's my friend!" Dawn protested.
"He's evil, Dawn," Xander countered. "He's just using the fact that you still care about him to sucker us for blood or protection from some nasty that he can't handle himself. The fact is--" And now Xander leaned forward, saying this directly into the vampire's still blue eyes, "You're not really a friend to anyone here, Spike. We're all just a means to an end to you, aren't we? I don't know what sick goal you have, but I'm sure it's there somewhere. You don't have a grain of real caring in that heartless, soulless chest, do you? You're nothing but a neutered, drunken, obsessive, pathetic leech. Why haven't you put yourself out of our misery yet?"
"Xander, stop!" shouted Tara. "God, I never realized you could be such a bully!"
Spike's face hadn't moved through Xander's entire tirade. When Tara spoke, breaking the spell of hostility flowing from Xander, he looked down. Now all eyes in the room were on Spike as he looked up once more. And everone saw a single tear running down his cheek.
Xander, wide-eyed, backed away. It was the last thing he would have expected from Spike. Buffy and Willow, equally surprised, gave each other worried looks.
"Xander!" said Dawn, getting up and rushing over to comfort the vampire. "You made Spike cry!"
"I-- I--" was all Xander could say.
The tears kept flowing from Spike. Dawn had her arm around his shoulder, trying to calm him. With shaking hands, he fumbled for the notepad and wrote something quickly, then passed the note to Dawn. She began to read it with a troubled expression, then broke into a quick smile that she tried to cover with her hand. Finally she pointed at Xander and said, "Ha!"
"What?"
She then read triumphantly from the note Spike wrote: "A true warrior uses every weapon in his arsenal."
As soon as she said the words, Spike's whole body language changed. He wasn't huddled in on himself, weeping. Now he was the arrogant, confident Spike that everyone knew so well, one arm thrown over the back of the chair, legs stretched out, his face beaming from a smirk and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Tears were still sliding down his cheeks, but they were so obviously fake now that they didn't have nearly the same power.
Tara hid her own smile. Willow just rolled her eyes at yet another Spike maneuver that was distracting everyone from research. Anya went back to her dusting, silently grateful that someone else could see that Xander could sometimes be a bully. Xander became introspective, wondering how once again his own words were used to bring him down. Buffy shook her head and stood up. "C'mon, crybaby," she said, "You wanna patrol?"
Spike shot out of his chair, nodding eagerly.
As they walked the sidewalk toward one of Sunnydale's twelve cemeteries, Buffy said, "I don't think that was funny, y'know. You've always been good at manipulating people's emotions. It's one of the reasons I find it so hard to trust you."
Spike nodded behind her. He'd known it wouldn't earn him any brownie points, but he really had to see if Harris' comments would force him to explode. As it was his anger was still firmly in check, under his control for once. His own eyes went wide as he realized something. Maybe Buffy was right, maybe his mouth really was his biggest problem. It was always a surprise--and at the same time a warm little bit of reassurance--when he found that, while he knew Buffy better than she knew herself most times, she could also see into places in his heart that he didn't know were there.
"You can never just play nice," Buffy continued, not once turning to see if Spike was following, knowing full well that he was. "You come to my party--bringing a demon, no less--and end up threatening a guest. And the little side-jokes that you made ALL evening! I know what's going on, you know about it--why would you need to make those jokes? Oh, you just-- you just--!" She was swinging her fists in the air in front of her.
Spike spun her around, and she looked at him in shock. He took one of her tiny fists and brought it to his chest, miming a punch. She stepped back. "No. No, I won't hit you." His mouth dropped open in hurt at that. "I didn't say I'd NEVER hit you," she corrected, and Spike calmed down. "I just won't use you to take out my frustrations. That's . . . so of the wrong I won't even go into it." He began to pantomime something else, and she stopped him. "And yes, I will stop shouting. So are you okay?" He nodded, and they continued to the cemetery.
Buffy was still in a mood to verbalize, though, so when an errant breeze brought some of Spike's cigarette smoke to her face, she took her involuntary coughing as a reason to vent. "Smoking," she growled out, and stopped them both. "Why the hell do you smoke?" she shot at Spike, who stood with eyebrows up. "It can't be an addiction--back when we had you tied up in Giles' apartment you didn't say one word about needing to get cigarettes. In fact, I think I only saw you smoke all the time after you got the chip in your head. So what's the deal with them anyway?" She leaned her butt against a bench at a bus stop and crossed her arms over her chest, obviously expecting an answer.
Spike looked around for a moment. Because they were still in the downtown district, they were beside a fence that was covered in posters--the large smiling doughy face of a politician and the commentary AVERY FOR CITY COUNCIL. Spike took the lit cigarette from his mouth, held it up so Buffy could clearly see this was a demonstration of something, and brought the lit end into the eye of a poster's face. It sizzled and burned a hole in the eye. He then held it up again for Buffy's inspection. "So it's a weapon," she said, "part of your 'arsenal.'" He nodded emphatically, the cigarette returning to his mouth for a reassuring puff.
He then took his lighter from his jeans pocket. The little silver beauty had taken on a special significance for both of them recently--Buffy's hand involuntarily went to the shorter ends of her hair at the sight of it. He held it up demonstrably, then switched to his game face with an expression of utter menace, his hands curling into claws and raking the air. He then let his human face slip back into place, and held up the lighter. "What?" Buffy asked. He tapped the lighter against his chest, then held it up again. "It's from your heart?" Spike rolled his eyes. He tapped his forehead with the lighter, then his chest, then held it out and showed his gameface again. "It makes you feel? It makes you feel dangerous?" He smiled widely in his human face once more and nodded deeply. "Okay, that makes no damn sense. How can having a lighter make you feel dangerous?"
He looked at her through half-lidded eyes and lit a small blue flame on the lighter. He then stepped back and calmly set the corner of one of the campaign posters on fire. He let it burn for a minute before Buffy rushed over and put it out with the sleeve of her jacket. The air was still filled with the acrid stench of the fire and she looked at him in annoyance. He looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah," she said, "so you can start a fire. That makes you dangerous?"
Spike waited for her to get it, and a few seconds later her eyes flew wide open in alarm. "Hey! You started a fire! And your chip didn't go off at all!" He nodded. "And you could do this all along, couldn't you?" Again, he nodded. "You could've burned down half of Sunnydale. Could've done it for years now." Again, he waited for her to get it, and once again she was a few seconds in realizing his point. "But you didn't."
He smirked at her and began to slowly walk toward the cemetery once more. He knew that she'd follow. He hadn't walked a half-block before she tapped on his shoulder, turning him around. "What else?" Buffy asked. "How else are you dangerous, even with the chip?"
He thought about this carefully. Then he took out his lighter once more and took his shortened cigarette in the other hand. He made a light and brought the end of the cigarette to the flame. Then he hissed between his teeth, parting his lips only slightly. "Ssssssssssss."
Buffy's mouth dropped open. "A fuse," she breathed. "You could light a fuse, couldn't you? And the chip wouldn't be affected."
Spike threw the cigarette into the street, then pantomimed one of his painful attacks rocking him. Then he stood straight and threw a punch, then mimed the exact same pain from his head.
Buffy got it. "Throwing a stick of dynamite wouldn't cause you much more pain than throwing a punch," she said. Spike nodded slowly, watching her eyes, wondering how she would take this. It wasn't exactly a secret--if any of the Scoobs gave more than a damn about him and had tried to ask him these questions even two years before he'd have been happy to tell them. But he saw no reason to give them reasons to stake him when they spent so much time finding reasons of their own.
Buffy's mind was racing. He'd told them for years that he was still dangerous, that he was something to be respected rather than ridiculed. They hadn't gotten it, or rather, none of them had wanted to get it. They had enough dangers leaping at them all the time, there was no need to create new ones in avenues they had assumed were safe. Realizing all of this created a paradox within her, like most of her thoughts about Spike. This knowledge made him less trustworthy--yet at the same time made her trust him more, made her depend on him more as an ally. Because he'd been able to do this with explosives even before he worked with them, she was sure. He could have done this when he was working with Adam. Strolling up to Giles' place and tossing in a grenade would have changed the entire balance of power at that time. But she also knew that that just wasn't Spike's style. She'd known that from the first night she fought him, when he threw away a perfectly good weapon so he could fight the Slayer on an even footing. Winning was not always important with Spike, never had been. The way he won, or the way he lost, was uppermost in his mind. And if he was fighting on her side, then the right way--the Buffy way--was what he would commit himself to.
Such a big answer from such a small question! Buffy hadn't expected this at all. But it seemed like, without words to hide behind, Spike not only wasn't giving her his usual attitude but was giving her the whole unvarnished truth. And that led to all kinds of possible questions.
She looked into Spike's eyes. "Okay, here's another one. How would you answer Xander's question? Just why have you stayed in Sunnydale when you could have been out lighting fires and causing chaos in Non-Slayerland?"
Oh, that was easy. He bent forward and took her hands, making them cup together. He then cupped both of his hands on his chest so that they looked like a heart. He detached this heart and put it into her hands. Just that simple. He stepped back and put both his hands into his duster pockets, looking for the telltale signs of repulsion on her part.
But Buffy had only one thought: Wow. Even without words he was capable of those annoyingly sweet things that she would never forget. No one she knew could make her furious so quickly, or make her forgive him just as swiftly.
She looked up and grabbed Spike's shoulder. He knew what was coming, then, and his worried composure turned into a smile. She brought him forward for a deep kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck, losing all thought in the feel of skin on skin and tongue against tongue. He put his arms around her waist, letting her push him back against the wall of a restaurant. It was the most public thing she'd done with him since kissing him in The Bronze some months ago, so a part of him knew that it wasn't going to go beyond this, at least not now. So he relaxed into the kiss, not wanting it to end, just feeling every breath and movement and wave of heat that she gave him. She rubbed herself up and down against him, the points of her nipples drawing matching hieroglyphics on his chest.
Buffy pulled back minutely, her lips still on his own. "Spike," she whispered. "Tell me you love me."
His only response was a smirk, which Buffy could feel instead of see. She giggled. "You're not gonna fall for that one, are you?" He didn't even chuckle, just leaned forward for another kiss.
The wager, it seemed, was still on.
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TO BE CONTINUED--One more chapter oughtta wrap this one up.