Cold Comfort

Set after 'Entropy' (Buffy Season 6)

Chapter Three

'Spike?'

It's Xander, and his voice is harsh. Spike leans more closely back into the shadow of his tree. Xander's stalking the darkened garden, and even to a vampire who could fight back without blowing a fuse, he'd look menacing.

'Spike,' he says again, still sniffing the air. Spike hastily stubs out his thirteenth cigarette.

'It's starting to amaze me how much you don't know when the dead lie down,' Xander says, looking behind trees. His tone is almost chatty, and Spike sincerely hopes he hasn't actually gone mad. Before that night at the Magic Box, only Scooby he's ever been remotely afraid of, even for a second, is Willow. But he hasn't forgotten the feel of that axe at his throat. (Hasn't forgotten Buffy either, lightning-quick, pulling Xander away. For a palpitating second he'd thought it was the frenzied concern of a woman for her lover. Now he thinks bitterly, frenzied concern of a dog for its bone.

There's a swish of leaves and they're face to face.

They stare at each other. Xander breaks first. He dives for Spike's neck, fumbling in his pocket for a stake. Spike sees, hits him in the jaw quickly, reels backwards with the pain. Xander draws back to knock him out, but Spike catches him first, slamming him against the tree with one hand, clutching his own temples with the other.

'Not tonight, darling,' he breathes through set teeth. 'I've got a headache.'

His adrenaline's up for the first time in days, but Xander's gone limp, hanging his head forward, the anger in his eyes glazed over.

Spike feels a badly-timed and unprecedented stab of pity. No love lost between them, but still Xander's the life and breath of normal to him - not always good, not always brave, but always there, with something to say. He drops his arm.

'Xander. Here. I'm sorry.'

Xander makes a noise that could be a laugh or could be a choke. Or he could be starting to be sick.

'You're sorry all right,' he says. 'Soulless piece of shit.'

There's no smart answer to that one, so Spike says 'Fuck you,' and turns to walk away. But as he does he hears Xander's voice: it sounds strangled, as though he doesn't want to speak but can't contain the words.

'She went back to D'Hoffryn because of what you did.'

Spike stops in his tracks.

'Because of what I did?' he says. 'Personally, I think ripping her heart out in public and leaving her to mop up the mess, hits an ex-demon a little harder than givin' her a little undead sugar, don't you?'

Xander winces, possibly at the thought of his disastrous wedding day, but Spike's always sensitive to the thought that humans find him disgusting, and snaps back.

'Oh right. Let's all go 'ew' at the thought of a bit of vampire action. You make me vomit. You think the reason you can't forgive her is that I don't have a soul? Bollocks it is.' His tone becomes icily deliberate: 'You don't like vampires because Buffy gets off on them. You just can't stand it that she's only hot if a guy's cold.'

Xander turns his head away sharply, moves to walk off, but Spike catches at him.

'You loved it when that GI dolly was her baby, didn't you?' he says. His eyes are gleaming, he's getting back his power to wound. 'You thought he was Super-Xander. Just you, all puffed up with combats and government-issue steroids.' He's inching towards Xander, a sing-song note creeping into his voice.

'You still think it too, don't you - if you eat up your greens and remember to wash behind your ears you'll grow up big and strong like him, and maybe you'll be good enough for her someday. What do you think Anya was doing with me? Pleasure-cruising? She was trying to forget -'

But he's pushed it too far. Xander hits him hard, into the ground. His black eyes are snapping, the whitened, grief-loosened skin of his face trembles. He looks madder than Spike's ever seen him.

'She's not like you!' he says fiercely. 'Is that what you think? You're a killer. She's - ' he gulps. He doesn't know what she is anymore. 'She's -whatever she is, she's a good person.'

He steps back, tears in his eyes, and walks away, stumbling from the shakiness of despair and violence on a long-empty stomach.

Spike's still on the ground, eyes closed. A good person. Cute. Happy endings for the geek patrol, then. Mickey gets Minnie. He gets to his feet. That's all, folks.

Buffy's awake. She lies in bed, listening to the yelling in the garden. She can't hear the words, not really.

She hears Spike's voice in her head, again and again.

''S good enough for Buffy,' with that choke in the middle. She can see the contempt in his face. He knows what she knows. She should have been the one to say that.

But she didn't. She let all the accusations pour by, abandoned Anya to Xander's disgust when she could have defended her.

You had sex with that. You let that evil soulless thing touch you. First body you could find, dead or alive.

If the words fit Anya, they fit her too, and she'd been snivellingly afraid of losing Xander's love. Worship. Couldn't bear him to look at her and feel sick.

So she'd kept quiet, let him think Anya was some ravening underworld slut, too degenerate even to stop and check for a pulse.

She turns her face into her pillow, waves of sad, choky, little sobs breaking out of her. She isn't anyone's sweet, brave Buffy, not any more.

'Why can't you just get off my back?'

Dawn's using the voice in which she used to say 'Mo-om! She's pulling my hair-air!'

'I can if you do what you're told,' says Buffy, hands on hips. Flashback to her mom, the day Buffy wanted to wear her Mr Tickle pyjamas on the third grade class trip. She sighs.

'I don't have time for this. Tara's going to be here any minute to do a locator spell. This whole Nerd-Mafia thing could be way more serious than we thought, and if we don't find Warren soon -'

'Right. The world's going to end if I don't eat that gross doublemeat gastroenteritis-burger right this second. How come you're making this into such a big deal?'

'Dawn, last night I asked Xander to pick you up from your party, and the next thing I know he's carrying you in through that door. You said it was because you skipped dinner; therefore you are not going to skip dinner again tonight. And there's no gastroenteritis. When did you get so picky anyway? Two years ago this was your favourite dinner.'

'Two years ago I didn't exist. Not my fault if those monks programmed sleazy diner taste into my brain.'

'Don't talk like that,' says Buffy sharply. She hates it when Dawn carelessly throws up the things she's worked so hard to forget. She's forgotten that not long ago she had Giles to look grey-faced and reproving when she threw her own smart-mouthed, ruthless pebbles.

'Whatever,' says Dawn, getting up from the table. 'I'm going to Janice's.'

'Fine,' says Buffy shortly. 'Go hang out in Pleasantville. I hope they're having ooky left-over pot-roast.'

Dawn slams the door.

Buffy takes Dawn's reheated doublemeat burger over to the sink. Janice's mom has been really great, having Dawn over such a lot. Some days she wishes Janice's mom would fall into a vat of her delicious homemade salsa dip.

She looks out of the window, caught by one of those fits of the blues you get after a fight. After a week of fights that have brought the world crashing down, when there's nothing to pick you up again because nothing's your own.

Last night, long after the voices outside her window had stopped, she'd thought she heard the noise of a lighter.

'Buffy? What's the matter?'

She looks round. It's Tara, with Willow following her. She looks concerned.

'Huh? The matter with what?'

'Oh - no. You were just - staring at the tree, and I thought... but everything's ok?'

''I'm fine. The tree's - fine. Did you get the stuff?'

Tara nods. 'We have everything we need right here.' She turns to Willow. 'Are you - sure you should watch?'

Buffy looks alarmed. She looks from one witch to the other. 'Watch as in watch-the-magic watch?'

Willow's eyes are bright - she's almost bobbing up and down on her toes. Buffy thinks, I haven't seen her do that since Miss Calendar's class. Tara's looking down as she lays out spell ingredients on the table.

Willow says, 'Buffy, this thing with Warren could be really big. If things get bad, I want to be able to help. No touching, I promise - I just want to keep in the picture.' Her face looks serious. 'You might need me.'