Chapter 4: Truth and Lies

There it was. She turned, putting on her best ice queen face. Seeing it, Spike took a brief, sharp intake of air. "Never mind," he muttered.

Buffy shifted uncomfortably and disappointedly. She turned around again to make her exit but Spike just as soon tried to find something to get her to stay.

"I'm not your girlfriend, Buffy."

"What?" She whirled around quickly. She laughed harshly. "I never thought you were. I prefer my girlfriends much less testosterone-inclined."

"I mean it. I'm not your friend," he snarled, stalking up to her. "I'm not one of your lovable Scoobies you set up pity party with." It hurt him to say that, knowing that he would take all he could get, just as long as she was near him. But he had to do what he could to retain some of the dignity he had left. "I told you I'm not gonna be your whipping boy anymore, and I meant it."

Buffy clenched her jaw tightly. "Don't flatter yourself Spike," she said, her voicing rising in volume. "You don't need to worry about me visiting you anymore, as long as you stay the hell away from me!" God, that was so tired, she thought.

"Fine!" He yelled.

"FINE!" She yelled back.

Suddenly there was a tangle of arms and lips. Crushing her body hard against his, Buffy hungrily tore at his lips, grasping at his shoulders, then curling her arms around his neck and her legs around his. Spike was in turn grasping her arms, pushing her closer and closer, losing himself in the scent of her hair and the taste of her tongue. "Buffy . . ." he panted, as he broke away to kiss her neck that she arched back for that sole purpose. His hands crept down from Buffy's neck to graze ever so softly on her breasts. She sighed and moaned slightly at his touch, but her sounds were smothered by his mouth on hers. Her hands crept down his sides to tear his shirt from his jeans in a crazed, deliriously passionate manner. Suddenly she flew back to her panic-filled senses and gave him a push that sent him flying.

"Bloody hell!" Spike yelled as he crashed into a pillar.

" We can't do this . . . again," Buffy said firmly, trying to convince herself more than him.

"And why the hell not?" Spike sniggered as he lankly walked up to her, snaking an arm around her waist and drawing her close. She pushed away again and struggled to gather her things.

"Buffy . . ."

"NO SPIKE. Please, please, can we not talk about this right now?" Buffy's voice audibly wavered.

"When then Buffy?" Spike asked irately. "When were we going to talk about the fact that we slept together?" Buffy twitched at the words. "When it happens again? You come crawling into my bed when you get pissed off at the bitlet at home or when Red slips up with the magic again? Then leave me in the morning as abruptly as you came with only a slap in the face and a kick in the bum? I told you I'm not playing that game anymore Buffy."

"What do you want from want from me Spike?" Buffy asked for the second time, but with more insistence, more meaning.

"I want you to admit that this—" Spike waved at the air in between him and Buffy. "This… it means something to you, because I know it does. You can be the Archduchess of denial, but you can't deny something as strong as this."

Buffy stared and probed into Spike's dark, endless eyes. God, she could let herself get lost in them forever, if she wanted. "It's wrong."

Spike lost it, running over to leave a dusty hole in the wall of his crypt with his fist, yelling with fury the whole time. "BLOOODDDY HELL, woman, why do you have to be so goddamn' predictable??!!"

"You don't have a soul." Buffy's voice remained at a constant softness.

"Oh are we at the part where you tell me the 65820 reasons why this is wrong?" Spike sighed.

"You're a vampire. A world famous vampire. One from the bloodline of the Master. I'm the slayer. Add it up, you don't get a good result."

"It's an equation I remember you trying once before."

"That's the exactly the point! It didn't end good----It ended up hellish in fact. Why do you think this---" Buffy imitated Spike's movements, "would end up any different?"

"I'm insulted that you compare me to the likes of Ol' Poofter."

"Well the similarities are striking, you know. Pointy teethed, liquidy diet."

"Still it's like comparing apples and oranges. Like comparing a marvelously, extraordinarily delicious apple to a rotten orange."

Buffy sighed. "Well it's true that you two can't be compared. You two are really individuals. Angel is a good, upright citizen with a soul, whereas you are a bottomless pit of evil."

"We all caught up on that again, are we? Me with the no-soul?"

"Well yeah Spike, that is kind of a biggie. And don't tell me that that little metal plate is a makeshift soul because that is so lame."

Spike grinned. "Look ducks, you and I know it. Even without this soddin' chip embedded in my skull, I'm a good man at heart."

"You don't have a heart and no we don't know that," Buffy shot back.

"Love changed me, Buffy," Spike said, more serious this time.

"Oh please." Buffy laughed, her laughter cut with sarcasm. "You were in love with Drusilla for over a hundred years and you killed thousands and thousands of people."

"Well considering Dru was the one to turn me, I wouldn't cite that as a healthy relationship."

"And this is??" Buffy gaped with incredulous irony. "Face it Spike, this 'relationship' is as twisted as they come. All that's between us has been death threats and murder attempts sprinkled with verbal and physical sparring and . . . " She sighed as she said it, "A one-night stand."

"A one-night stand." Spike repeated disdainfully. "Is that what it was? Then tell me, do one-night stands provide so much temptation that you got to hang bloody garlic strings from your window? If this is a bloody one-night stand, why is it that you can't seem to keep away from me?"

Buffy laughed again, a harsher, more spiteful laugh. "Me keep away from you? You make me sound like the lovesick puppy here. I'm not the one who as recently as last year had me chained and shocked with a cattle prod."

Spike lowered his head. "You know I was a totally different person then."

"You were? You said you loved me, which is the same as you're claiming now."

"Well yes . . . but I loved you in a different way then. I hated loving you, it was like a bloody disease. I was just getting over being just another neutered baddie, and to suddenly wake up and love you . . . well it was a soddin' disgrace, it was."

"This is self-redeeming why?"

"What I'm sayin is, I was just tryin to get back at you for plaguing me, my heart, my whole undead being. I was ready to stake myself before you shot through my heart like some bloody poison. It made me feel just all the more desperate for wanting something I could never have, especially something that I had hated for so long. But now . . . it's too late Buffy. It's gone too deep. I can't deny my feelings for you anymore or try to force you to love me." Spike chuckled. "And you can't very well blame me for that whole chained up thing. It had been years since I've 'wooed' a girl and my more sociable attempts backfired miserably. And with Dru bein' my only relationship since, I wasn't very prepared to handle the situation gracefully." Turning to face Buffy's stoic face, his head drooped a bit to conceal a smirk.

"The point is, I love you in a totally different way now. I know not to push, I know that you might never love me, and I accept that. I could be happy just to watch you from afar, Buffy. It might seem desperate, but like I told you once before, just loving you makes me feel like a man." Then he turned and looked at her and she could see there was no sense of pleading in his declaration of love, only pure devotion. For that one moment she wanted to forget, wanted to let herself go and free herself from the self made walls she had created to keep him out. She could almost see reflected in his eyes her own, full of want, need and confusion.

Spike recognized the look and then a gleam of hope erupted through his non-existent heart. Then, suddenly he just looked very tired.

"But you won't let me do that Slayer. You keep leaving these traces of hope that I can feed upon, then taking them away. You keep playing with my head, letting believe that there's a chance for us. And then the next day, you go back, full bitch mode and leave me out in the cold." Spike neared her once more, so close that he could feel her shaking. "Buffy, I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me, just once and finally. Tell me that you feel nothing for me, that you can't spare me a crumb . . . and I'll leave you alone. I'll still help you with Dawn and all the rest of the soddin' Scoobies, but I'll never speak to you about my feelings again. I'll accept."

Buffy felt for the thousandth time that evening tears well up in her eyes. A slayer's supposed to stronger than this, she thought. But then again why? Why? And How? How could she shut him out again, with him standing in front of her pouring everything he felt out? How could she when he was being so goddamn earnest and looking like such a lost, helpless, gorgeous child? She had seen him sullen and broken after Dru had left, but she had never seen him as vulnerable as this. And she wanted him so badly. Not only her body, but her heart as well. She wanted him to touch her him both places so deeply and forget all about her death, her mom, her sister, her friends. She wanted to feel.

"I---I want something normal." Trust her to avoid the question entirely and struggle to keep her defenses up. She thought Spike might explode, but his head dropped and he rubbed his eyes with pure exhaustion. He expected her to do something like this, to not let herself be so truthful yet, so he played along.

"Define normal," he sighed

She sank back into the couch. "The 2.5 kids, the picket fence, the husband with the briefcase, me in the apron with the apple pie."

"You think you'll be able to balance that pie while you're busy staking all those vamps?" Spike said in his most sardonic voice as he collapsed beside her. "You can never wish for normalcy, pet, not when you're a world-renowned slayer. Besides, you had normal. Captain Cardboard for anyone else would be a one-in-a million boyfriend. A smart kid with super-human strength—for awhile, at least--- and a sweet job working undercover for the government. Anyone else would think he was bloody cartoon. But to you, he was normal. He could never match up to you because he had no comprehension of being a slayer meant. The finest line between life and death, the rush you get from not only walking, but running back and forth on that line. He could never understand your darkness, Slayer, and I don't think even Poof was willing to understand that. But I am."

He moved to crouch in front of Buffy. He tenderly, without any intention to make it seductive, cupped her cheek in his hand. "And that's not to say that I imagine you completely dark. I know how you can a bloody, beautiful goody-two shoes. But I accept that dark side to you because I accept you as the slayer. You can't separate that from your personality. It's who you are." Buffy leaned into his hand, relishing at how soft it felt. She shuddered into it, not only because she knew that deep down, there was truth to his words, but also because of the unnerving blueness of his eyes and the soft fullness of his lips.

This is what she feared the most. The moment when all was silent, when all the verbal tete-a-tete was exhausted and all that was left was the two of them, gazing deep into each eyes and so close, yet at the same times, still too far, to accept the truth between them. Even scarier, Buffy didn't care anymore. She simply wanted to give in to the tension and forget who she was. Forget that she was the slayer and that he . . . well, that he was Spike, and only acknowledge this buzz of electricity between them. She paused to gaze into his eyes once more, then slowly leaned forward and grasped the neck of his shirt to drag him into a kiss. Her tongue probed his mouth, tasting the soft bitterness of nicotine and smoke. She groaned his name softly and she could feel him smile under her lips. She arched towards him, letting him explore the sweetest parts of her mouth. She ran her hands through his hair, softer than she thought it would be, and dragged him towards her, kicking his duster off feverishly. He carefully lowered himself towards Buffy and took her in his arms. She limply wrapped herself around him, burying her head into the crook of his neck and legs around his waist, moaning softly. With her like that, it was quite simple to pick her up amid a fury of kisses and lips and lower her onto the bed.