"She doesn't love you anymore, mate... might as well get over it." Spike mumbled to his precious bottle of bourbon, which was already half empty. He frowned as the words hung in the air, ringing hollowly off of the crypt walls, his eyes glazed and unfocused. "No, hold on... she never loved you. Might as well get pissed... no, wait... already am pissed." He sat there for a moment and thought. "Might as well get... more pissed."
Satisfied that his decision was indeed a fine one, Spike brought the bottle to his lips for another long swig. A knock at the door caused him to jump, lips losing contact with the mouth of the bottle, a splash of bourbon drenching his jaw and neck and soaking the collar of his t-shirt.
"Bloody -- come in!" He shouted, leaning forward and wiping off his face disgustedly on the sleeve of his shirt.
"Spike?" Tara asked timidly as she opened the crypt door a tiny crack and peeked inside.
"Witch?" Spike turned all the way around in his seat to find her watching him uncertainly. "It is you. What brings you by my way? Come in." He settled back into his chair and brought the bottle to his lips again. "Yeah. C'mon in and join the party."
"I'm sorry... i-is this a bad time?" She inched into the room, hands fidgeting together at her middle as she inched around the chair so that she could see his face.
"Naw. What makes you think that?" He slurred.
"Well, just the... the bottle and..." Tara glanced around. Buffy had told her how nicely Spike had fixed the crypt up, but now she could see it was in shambles. Scorch marks on the stone floor, the scavenged furniture all overturned or broken beyond repair. "The mess?"
"Yeah. Gave the maid the week off," Spike chuckled darkly, throwing his head back to take another bracing gulp from his bottle. "Pull up a heap of rubbish and have a seat."
Tara perched on the edge of one of the sarcophaguses that remained from when the crypt had still been used as a crypt and folded her hands in her lap.
"Are you okay?" She asked gently. "Buffy told me... about..."
"About her givin' me the elbow? Did she." Spike didn't look the slightest bit surprised. Instead, he lifted his head and fixed narrowed eyes on her. "You two have been awful chummy, lately. Noticed it at the birthday party. When did that happen?"
"Well... that's kind of why I wanted to come and talk to you," she said, eyes downcast, focused on her hands and the way they twisted and fidgeted together. "She... Buffy, she asked me to check out the spell that we used to bring her back. She told me that you could hurt her without your chip going off and she wanted to know why."
"That's gettin' right down to the heart of the matter, isn't it?" Spike huffed out a laugh. "Way to get down to business." Another sip of bourbon. "So, what was the verdict?" He kept his expression carefully neutral.
"Buffy's not a demon," Tara said quietly. "The spell did something to the cells in her body and it confused your chip and that's why you're able to..."
"C'mon, say it," Spike snapped as he pushed himself up out of his chair, swaying unsteadily for a moment before righting himself. "I'm sure she did. Took her against her will? Made her do disgusting, filthy, perverted things? Right?" He sneered as he watched Tara shift uncomfortably in place. "Fucked her... right?" One last swig from his bottle and he threw it aside.
Tara marveled at the minute amount of effort he expended and the startling results that revealed just how strong he truly was; the bottle shattered against the far wall, raining down slivers of glass, trickles of bourbon rolling down the wall.
"We brought the house down, y'know... literally," he said. Tara tore her eyes away from the wall and looked at him. He didn't look well. His eyes were bloodshot and there were deep, dark circles beneath them. "The first time we did it, we wound up in this abandoned place and we fucked so hard and so long that the house fell down around our bloody ears."
He leaned in close, purposefully invading her personal space. "Did she tell you all that? Did she?"
"N-n..." Tara stopped and took a moment to calm herself. She fought the urge to cringe away from his hard stare and shored up her courage. "No. She didn't. She just told me that you could... that you could hurt her."
"So... she's not a demon. Well. Bully for her... let's have a little nip to celebrate. What d'you say, pet?" Spike leaned in again, one hand resting on top of the sarcophagus lid next to Tara's thigh.
"Thank you, Spike, but I'm not much of a drinker," Tara said carefully, apologetically. The vampire was obviously very drunk and in a great deal of pain - there was no telling what he would do. Although, it was true that he couldn't hurt her, not really, because of his chip - which had not stopped working on everyone else apart from Buffy - she just didn't want things to escalate to that level. Calm. Needed to keep him calm. "And you shouldn't drink anymore, either... I think you've had enough for one night, don't you?"
"Yeah, maybe so. All out of booze, anyway... that was my last bloody bottle," he said with a shrug, nodding his head in the direction of the shattered remains glittering on the dirt floor several feet away. Long, nimble fingers brushed against the outside of her thigh - even through the fabric of her skirt, she could feel how cool they were.
"Spike... wh-what are you doing?" She stammered, wide eyes searching his face.
"Oh, I was just thinkin'... could always find another way to celebrate... couldn't we, pet?" He whispered and leaned in, brushing his lips against her cheek. "You want to?"
"But what about Buffy... you're in love with Buffy. You still love her, don't you?" Tara asked, keeping her tone mild and hoping against hope that if she mentioned Buffy's name that somehow he would give up this rather ham-handed seduction. She knew that he loved Buffy, that he was in love with her and, going by what Willow had told her of Spike and his former love Drusilla, was fiercely loyal and faithful to his paramours.
"Yeah, I am," Spike said, watching impassively as his fingertips slid back and forth along the length of her leg. She could see that his hands were shaking. "Not that it matters."
"But it does... it does matter," she said.
"Why? Why does it? Why should it? I love her; she doesn't love me... simple as that. Doin' this wouldn't make any difference to her... nothin' I do makes any difference to her, unless it makes things inconvenient for her." He pursed his lips, placid expression melting away, blue eyes flashing with anger. "That's all it was to her, inconvenient: my love for her, my still bein' here... all of it."
"I'm sorry," Tara said. She placed her hand on top of his, at once clasping it to give it a gentle squeeze and also thusly putting a stop to his distracting caresses.
Before she knew it, his lips smashed against hers and his hand caught her left in a fast, unbreakable grasp. Although he didn't grip it tightly enough to cause her pain, seeming to know just how far he could take it before the chip would protest. She opened her mouth to cry out, yelp, something - but his tongue soon filled the empty space that sound would have occupied, even if only for a moment.
He insinuated himself between her knees, fitting himself against her, arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close as he ravaged her mouth.
His kisses were sloppy and tasted of bourbon and she couldn't breathe and she couldn't remember ever kissing a boy like this. But Spike wasn't a boy... No matter how young he looked, how young he had been when he was turned, he was almost older than the entire Scooby gang combined.
The fingers of her right hand curled tightly around the edge of the sarcophagus lid and, for a moment, she thought she might break her own fingers she was gripping it so tightly. She feared she might faint from lack of oxygen, but finally, he broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. He was panting, unnecessarily so... and she was surprised to find his breath didn't smell like she thought it would. It wasn't exactly as though she'd ever been close enough to a vampire to smell their breath, before... but, when she'd thought about it, she'd felt sure that their breath would smell like what they were: dead.
There was the overpowering scent of bourbon over all, but underneath, his breath was stale... like a room that had been closed up for years and years, all the furniture inside it draped with heavy white sheets.
"Tara," he whispered, voice rough with want and liquor and pried her fingers from the lid with a surprisingly gentle hand. "Touch me..."
"Spike, please... you don't want to do this," she said, trying to free her hand from his grasp and simultaneously trying to tamp down the panic surging through her veins.
"No, I do... I want you," he countered, releasing her left hand. His right hand began wandering over her body, smoothing down her throat, over her left breast and down her belly to clutch at her hip. The fingers of his other hand danced over her collarbone, voice a rough, plaintive whisper in her ear. "Let me have you, Tara... let me make love to you. I'll do whatever you like, anything you like. I could use my hands, my mouth... slip my tongue inside you and make love to you with my mouth. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Spike, no... You're drunk..." Tara shivered. "You don't know what you're doing. P-please... stop before you do something you regret. Stop this..."
"How could I regret this... eh?" Spike asked, nuzzling her fine hair, his touches and words becoming more and more desperate. "Ohh, you smell so sweet. Please, Tara... I'll never ask you for another blessèd thing..."
"Spike..." Her voice sounded so soft, so tiny to her own ears, she would have been surprised if Spike heard her at all.
"It's not workin', see? The drink, my bike... go out every night and take on the nastiest demons you ever did see and none of it helps."
They both cried out in pain and lurched back as Spike's questing fingers gripped the hair at the back of Tara's head a bit too tightly and set off his chip.
Knocked back a pace by the shock, he pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead, snarling at the pain.
Watching him, heart fluttering weakly in her chest, Tara couldn't help but feel sorry for Spike. She was sure he hadn't meant to do it and, truly, it hadn't hurt that badly, but what difference did that make to a tiny chunk of silicon and wires?
He'd have to deal with an alcohol-induced hangover as well as a chip-induced one in the morning, whether he'd meant to hurt her or not.
His agonized susurrations soon gave way to broken sobs and he fell to his knees in front of her, fingers threaded into his platinum curls, clutching tightly.
At first, Tara thought that perhaps the zap from the chip had shocked him back into sobriety, but then, his tears took on a new purpose. He choked on his tears and hiccupped, and an agonized sound worked its way out of him... it was a rough, harsh, animal sound made by once-human lungs. Like the sounds she could recall Oz making when he'd lost control of his werewolf half and chased her through the UC Sunnydale halls in broad daylight.
Spike's arms wound around Tara's leg and he pillowed his head on her thigh, tears leaking from his tightly closed lids and seeping into the thin weave of her skirt.
"Please, Tara... please, help me," he choked out. "What do I do? Tell me what to do that'll make her love me like I love -- I'll do whatever you say, whatever it takes... help me, please..."
His desperate entreaties tore at her heart. She would have to have been blind not to notice the way that he gazed at Buffy, his longing unabashed and his adoration... absolute and unconditional. She would have to have been made of marble not to feel the love that Spike harbored for Buffy or feel the pain now radiating from his trembling form.
Twice, now, in as many weeks, people had collapsed at her feet and rested their heads in her lap as they wept. She had not been especially close to either person, but could not refuse them comfort. Perhaps that was why they had chosen her. Because they knew that she would comfort them, regardless of the fact that she wasn't a 'real' Scooby. Because they felt they could trust her not to mock them or belittle them for their 'weakness'...
Two of the strongest people she had ever known in her life.
Still... even the strongest of people had their breaking points... and it appeared that Spike had finally reached his. She could remember, not too long ago, when she'd been in the place he was at that moment... packing her things in hastily assembled cardboard boxes she'd found by the dumpsters in the alley behind the Magic Box. It nearly killed her, walking out that night, leaving Willow behind to shoulder the responsibility of what she'd done, accept the weighty repercussions using such powerful and invasive spells had wrought... but it had been just as painful for Tara. The betrayal, the purposeful violation of her mind. She wasn't sure if she could ever feel safe or feel that she could trust Willow as she once had.
This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you... She could remember her father saying that, every time he took his belt to her bare skin.
In the broadest sense, Tara knew that Willow would probably be much better off. Time. They both needed time.
Willow had only come into magic just a few short years before, when she'd been a timid, bookish computer geek in high school... she hadn't had the discipline Tara's own mother had taught her, even before Tara took her first steps. It had been a part of her life as long as she had lived - it was craft and tradition, art and blood rite.
Reaching out a cautious hand, Tara combed her fingers through Spike's hair, her other arm going around him, holding him. A soft, melodious humming echoed through the crypt - a lullaby that her mother had sung to her as a child - it was simple, but soothing. Which was sorely needed... the soothing.
Spike's hair was clean and soft and curly. She'd felt sure that it would feel stiff or tacky from the gel he usually put in it to keep the springy waves in check.
If she were to consider the situation objectively for a moment, she might realize just how odd it was. She was in a cemetery, in the middle of the night, perched on a sarcophagus with a drunken vampire wrapped around her knees like a child terrified of being abandoned.
The noises that came from him as he cried still sounded partly human, almost childlike, in the midst of all that other-ness, and something about them chilled Tara inexplicably: she could feel the hair on the back of her neck prickling with alarm. She recited a serenity chant to herself in her mind, visualizing waves of warm blue light filling her insides, taking away the panic... and then she visualized that energy flowing through her and, conducted by the few points of contact between the two of them, flowing into Spike.
After a long while, the tears finally tapered off and then subsided, but Spike remained curled up at her feet, arms still locked around her right leg, his hand cupping her knee.
She continued to stroke his hair and hum, immersing herself completely in the moment - where there was no Spike, there was no Tara, no vampire or witch... all there was were two people who were hurting and trying to get along the best way they could.
Tara was surprised to find that it was helping her, doing this... helping Spike, taking pity on him, and showing him kindness when no one else would.
She was drawn from her thoughts as she realized her knee - no, her whole leg - had begun vibrating. Looking down at Spike, she listened closely and could hear a low, thrumming sound... he was purring.
"You sound like a cat," she said, unable to hide her delighted smile, fingers carding through his hair. "We -- well, I -- no, we... we had a cat, Willow and I did. Miss Kitty Fantastico. Maybe Willow told you about her before. She was so sweet and so little... but she ran away. When Glory tore the dorm room wall down, she got out. Then, what with Glory and ..." Don't think about getting your brain sucked by a hell goddess, don't say anything about Buffy dying, "Everything else... we never got the chance to look for her. I miss her."
Spike didn't reply or try to pull away... he remained perfectly still, letting her ramble on as he continued to purr. And she knew she was - rambling - but it made her feel better. To be able to talk to someone - about anything at all ... was almost soothing, for her.
And it went on that way for a long, long while... Spike curled up at her feet. He didn't cry again after that, but Tara continued to talk and stroke his hair.
When his purring quieted and then ceased, she realized that he had finally fallen asleep and she carefully eased his head from her knee as she slipped off of the sarcophagus. There was no way that she could move him someplace more comfortable than the floor without waking him and he desperately needed the rest.
She gently lowered him onto the floor and then retrieved a blanket and pillow from the chair nearby. She stopped mid-step when she realized that he had probably been sleeping in that ratty old chair for days, ever since his crypt had been destroyed by the grenades that Buffy had tossed into the downstairs to destroy the demon eggs Spike had been hiding there.
Shaking her head, she crouched down beside him, slipped the pillow under his head and covered him with the blanket. Even in sleep, he looked tormented.
She understood Buffy's reservations about being with Spike, about the things that they had done with and to each other over the years - emotionally, mentally, and physically - but seeing him like this, in so much pain, troubled her unduly. Her mother had always told her that if it walked like a duck and talked like a duck, then it was a duck. Spike behaved and spoke and had emotions just like a person... so, in her mind, that meant he was one.
Her mother had also taught her to have empathy for others, even if the way a person behaved made it difficult to find or express that empathy. With Spike, it was difficult - then again, she supposed a great many things were made more so, merely due to the fact that it was Spike - but she could still feel for him, could feel sorry for him because of what he was going through. Especially after he'd spent the entire summer trying to help her perfect her staking technique, muttering to himself about her long skirts keeping her from chasing after the vamps fast enough to catch up to them, about her spells going haywire.
Really, though, chasing after vampires was stressful; she couldn't be expected to run and cast at the same time without making at least one or two mistakes. She'd always been bad under pressure, but towards the end of the summer - before she and Willow and Anya and Xander had brought Buffy back - they'd really been getting into the swing of things.
Working with Giles, Anya, Xander and Willow... feeling, oddly, very much like a team, held together by their memories and unspoken, respective oaths to make Buffy proud of each of them. She had, after all, given up her life to save the world, again... it was the very least they could do to honor her memory.
For a vampire, Spike had a rather well developed sense of honor and duty... and Tara had seen that every night she'd gone out on patrol with him. She really should have been surprised that Spike had remained in Sunnydale, even after Buffy's death, but the way that he looked at Dawn, at times - those hard, determined stares - she knew. Buffy had exacted some kind of promise from him to keep Dawn safe, to watch after Dawn, should anything happen to her big sister. Even then, she had the feeling that even if Buffy hadn't made him promise, he would have stayed in Sunnydale to protect her all the same.
With regret tugging at her heart, Tara carefully turned the rusted latch on the crypt door and, with one last glance at the unconscious figure on the floor, she left.
If Tara didn't hurry, she'd be late meeting Tasha at the library. It wasn't a girl-liking, girl-dating type of situation; she and Tash had been put together by the professor to work on a project for her Womens' History class.
Tara ran a comb through her hair, still slick and shiny from her rushed shower. As she padded into her small kitchenette, the slices of bread she'd fed into the toaster popped up, now a light golden brown.
Gingerly catching one of the hot slices with the thumb and forefinger of her free hand, she dropped it onto a plate and went to the fridge, returning with a small jar of marmalade. She tucked her comb into the deep pocket of her robe and set about preparing her rather slapdash breakfast.
Tara couldn't help but grin ruefully ... when she'd been living with Willow, Dawn and Buffy, she'd always been the one to look after the other three. Making sure they ate well, make sure Dawn had her complete and balanced breakfast before being shipped off to school toting a bagged lunch. These days, Tara was lucky if she remembered to feed herself.
She was only just smoothing a thin glaze of the preserves onto her toast when she heard the knock at her door.
"I'll be right there," she called. She placed her toast and the butter knife back on the plate and, with one last quick, longing glance, she went to answer the door.
Apparently her visitor didn't approve of the ten-second delay, for soon the small apartment was filled with the sounds of frantic banging, which reverberated through the front room with a full, hollow sound like a kettle drum.
"Just a minute," she said, the racket beginning to wear on her patience, but it also puzzled her. Who on earth would be on her doorstep at this time of the morning? The thought crossed her mind that it might be Willow and she felt an unpleasant weight sink into the pit of her stomach, replacing the ache of hunger that had been there only moments before.
The knocking continued.
"Who is it?" Tara asked, drawing her robe more securely around herself and knotted the sash as she began to work open the locks on the door. There was no reply... and the persistent banging had stopped.
If there was one thing she'd learned from living in Sunnydale, one thing she'd learned from being friends with the Scoobies... well, actually, now that she thought about it, it was really two things. Don't leave your door unlocked, whether you're home or you're out and don't just say 'come in' without checking to see who - or what - was waiting for you on the other side.
"Who's --" She managed to get the locks undone and the door open, but once she did, her frustration evaporated like water on a sizzling hot plate. "There." She sighed, but there was no one waiting on the other side of the door who could answer her. No one there at all.
Frowning, Tara glanced to one side of the door and then the other, finding no traces of her mysterious caller. Her eyes darted down for a moment, hand already grasping the door to pull it closed, when she saw a box sitting on her doorstep.
Tara knelt down, making sure to keep an eye out for any possible ambush by some daytime-walking demony thing, and studied the box. It was not much to look at - just plain, white cardboard, with holes along the sides and the top of the lid. Also resting atop the lid was a small bouquet of wildflowers, tied together with a length of white string.
Now even more puzzled, Tara picked up the bouquet and then carefully eased the lid off of the box. Inside, she found a black and gray kitten.
"Ohh," she gasped in delight as she placed the bouquet on the step beside her and gathered the kitten up into her hands. "Hello," she whispered and smiled as the kitten patted at her cheek with its silky little paw, keen blue eyes meeting her own curiously. "Who brought you to me, I wonder? Where did you come from? Hmm?"
Tara cradled the kitten to her chest as she leaned down. There was no sign of a card or note of any kind inside the box. She lifted it and found that there was also nothing hidden beneath it.
The kitten's tiny nose bumped against her cheek, nuzzling, and it began to purr. For a moment, Tara sat there, trying to puzzle out just who would leave her such a wonderful gift. The kitten gently butted its nose against her cheek again and Tara absently scritched between the kitten's ears, coaxing a louder purr from it.
Tara's fingers stilled their soothing motions, eyes going wide as the answer dawned on her. That sound. She remembered hearing something very much like it only a couple of evenings before. Only it wasn't a kitten who'd made them, not even a cat... merely a drunk, heart-broken vampire. Who she distinctly remembered telling about losing her own cat.
A warm, knowing smile teasing at the corners of her mouth, she held the kitten closer to her. She placed the lid back on top of the box and placed the bouquet on top of it, gathering them up one-handed. Pressing the stems of the wildflowers against the top of the box to keep from losing her hold on them, she eased herself up off of the ground.
"Let's get you some nice milk, hmm?" She whispered, glancing down at the kitten. Lifting its head up to look at Tara, the kitten's tongue darted out and brushed against the tip of her nose, drawing a soft laugh from her.
Tara eased the door closed and never saw the fine wisps of smoke that had been drifting along the breeze, or the blanket-clad figure that bolted for the shadows as she disappeared back into her apartment.