Tip, Tip, Fall



"Speak up, kitten. I can't hear you over the roar of your silence." Spike dryly shoots my way, a fretful smile twitching his mouth.

Since I hastily ended our make-out session and our escaping the hell that was the janitor's closet, there is awkward brooding silence on my part, and many ice breaker jibes on his part, that have failed in their purpose. I have not let him within one foot of my body, afraid way past a dubious thought that by his next touch, he will truly realize and understand what I am. He will never know that. He should never.

'Cause damn, he may leave me. Leave me to that sucking numbing void again. No one to be dependent on, to have a clenching grip upon, no one to show Spike's Buffy anymore . . . the only Buffy that I, I can come to love. It would be back to Buffy's only dependency, which was Buffy. Which worked to a certain degree. I got this far, haven't I?

But after experiencing these fleeting moments with Spike, I don't want to go trudging back to fleeting moments without Spike.

He trickily shadowed us out the back door I had entered through, and into what he calls a classic car, and what I call scratched, smelly, and decrepit. Black paint smears the-appearing to have never been washed in years-windows . . . I have mild apprehensions that we could easily get in a car crash with these crazed windows, for I can not see a thing through them, and I bet Spike can't see much better than me!

The tires are fine, the paint job on the outside is fine, the door handles . . . have to be jiggled to be opened from the outside, and car exhaust just materializes from the back to float in through the windows and fuse with Spike's cigarette smoke. Hack. Hack.

Now the inside rivals a dumpster for smell and content.

The heady fragrance of layers upon layers of dried alcohol, stale food, the car exhaust, the faint smell of sex (freaky, I feel right at home), Newport cigarette smoke, and his tantalizing cologne (which is like the only good scent in this whole car) attack my nose. Desolate bottles of a wide selection of alcoholic beverages, empty packages from fast food joints, used up lighters, and sets of his never changing outfit litter the hunk of junk's interior.

Oh . . . my . . . god.

Is that caked cum on the dashboard?

My body cringes into the seat more. Ew.

And its on the back of his seat.

Cringes again. Ew.

Splattered on some of the bottles.

Cringes more. Ew.

Have consideration for your passengers, buster.

I swivel my head to gaze at him. "Do you ever clean your car?"

"No." He flatly replies, puffs his cigarette, and turns the wheel. "Are you volunteering?"

"As if."

"Then clamp your gob."

My eyebrows crinkle, an expression of disbelief marking my face. Wasn't he the one poking and prodding me to speak for the last ten minutes? One minutes he wants me, one minutes he doesn't. Is that a good thing? Yeah, he should want me, 'cause I'm me, with the body and the hair and the eyes and the cute pout.

They all want me. But he doesn't . . . not anymore. My insides squeeze, tremble, gurgle from that thought. No! They all want me. But he doesn't . . . not anymore. Noooo. They, they all want me.

Whoa. Whoa. Repeating, much? We have to be professional. We have a job to do. So it doesn't matter what anybody wants. What I want from him. What he did, and should still want from me.

Curling my body into a half-fetal position, I critically survey his stance; knuckles clenching the steering wheel, body lax within the hold of his seat, cigarette sexily dangling, eyes fixated only on the endless black of the night road and its endless paths with endless possibilities.

What is he thinking? I really wish I had that power for unsure and tense moments like these. His jibes have stopped. The chill of the atmosphere has grown teeth-chattering. Trains of my thoughts chug on then derail, chug on then derail. My breathing is forced to flow normally instead of the desired shallow.

"Spike," I venture with no idea of my next words, "what does Silver Panther mean, anyway?"

"I said-"

Halting his words with my own, I shriek, "What the hell, Spike? What the hell?" I reconfigure my body to be facing him, eyes squinted in fury, breaths coming out in pants. "First you wanted me to talk, now when I do, you're all grr argh! What do you want from me Spikey? Silence or babble?" I barely pause. "If you dare pick silence this partnership will not work. Silence will get us no where but glued to the square right before square one!" I draw in a shuddering breath. "And you're promise will be instant garbage."

All through my tantrum he remains stoic except for the compression of his jaw, and the tiny ticking of a clear blue vein in his neck. I hit a nerve. Great. Now I slump back into my seat, with arms crossed and face pinched-it creaks a bit.

"You know, you are one moody whore." He begins with venom-like words; stinging, inflicting, burning, paralyzing. "You're sendin' out crisscrossing signals. My noggin is 'bout to become a mush of grits from your spasmodic tendencies. Make up your mind, sweets." Our eyes lock as he offers me a sober glare of frustration. "And I agree, silence won't work to succeed with our goal. But I wasn't the one that went from the poster girl for a horny teenager, to a random scorned woman, to Behin' the Prostitute, to Silent Bob in staggerin' hot flashes." A long puff from his cancer stick as he turns to glare. "And my promise, " Smoke arrogantly streams from his mouth in toxic grey clouds to suffocate my face, "still stands if you yank that pole from your ass and do somethin' productive with it." Eyes now back on the road.

My wounded wails permeate the car smothering any other sounds. My salty tears drizzle down my cheeks further botching my make-up. The car swerves. He jerkily pulls over. Our acceptance of each other's presence burns out. Spike re-opens his big fat mouth only to be shushed by my shaky but sure words.

"You have no ri-right." Another hearty wail. "Look at you Spike. You, you lost your girlfriend. Boo-hoo. That was ages ago." I hiccup. "And it was quick. She died-bam. You had your grieving period. Now you are the man you are today. But my suffering is day by day. There is no bam. There is no grieving period. I sit in it. And sit in. Day in. Day out."

A long thoughtful silence.

"Don't cry, love." He scoots over and envelopes me in his arms, becoming a human cradle for one big baby.

These words of his baffle me. This is the first time he has ever called me love. And I like it. Just a casual word he most likely says all the time, like pet, kitten, and sweets. But it feels as if this word is only for me, meant for my ears and no others, and that it is rare when he says this one with so much flooding emotion latched onto them. So soothing as water to a parched throat. A bath to the chronically dirty.

Here I am enveloped in not just his arms but his-not love, something akin to love, a few notches below, but not love. It is enough, though. Enough that my wails have morphed into murmurs of satisfaction; my tears yummy to my tummy.

How can he go from whip lashing torturer to a nurse for the ill?

Who knows. Who cares. He is just one big leather clad guy with so many sides. He's not the traditional quarter. Flip it. Heads. Flip it. Tails. This man is so . . . augh . . . complicated. He projects the appearance of a quarter but when you flip him, and flip him, and flip him you get mercurial results. Always varying. Always ever-changing.

"You're bloody right." He rubs my arms up and down. "I 'ave no inklin' of your type of pain. Not even a minuscule smudge in my record." He exhales a long sigh disturbing the hair on top of my head. "And I admit, I crossed the line there, but Buffy-love, I 'ad my reasons." A glum chuckle. "You are one wishy-washy chit. Turbulent as a tornado. You took my nerves in your bitty fists, caressed, bruised, sparked, stretched 'em to a ball of knots." His voice gets gruff and apologetic. "So I, I, I just 'ad it with the lot of you, right then and there."

I gently murmur incoherent replies, nuzzling deeper into his chest, muscles relaxing, brain devolving to creamy goo. Mmmm . . . mmm . . . mmm. . . good. Like Cambells soup. Without the soup. Yeah.

"Ahhh!"

"Bloody hell!"

"You can't know! You shouldn't know!"

"Get back in the bloody car!"

"Don't get any closer!"

"Calm the bloody down!"

"Not any closer!"

"What the bloody 'appened?!"

"Just-just stop!"

"Calm down."

"No."

"Come 'ere . . ."

"No."

Spike stands but a million miles away-two yards to be exact, eyes wide and brimming with concern, hand reaching, reaching, groping, coaxing for mine, other hand raking through his peroxide curls, lean body appearing as if apart of the infinite darkness swathing us, enthrallingly vampiric in all plausible features and stance. The car is way back where it was parked. A puny shape on my horizon.

My feet ache to trot back into those arms; they take a step, and I halt them.

Cars whiz by on this dimly lit street. Pedestrians are fewer and farther between, some splashed here and there, not giving me and Spike a half-glance as they scamper along with their business. There's L.A for you. Look out for number one only.

He takes a step forward. I take one back.

Spike's touched me again. He knows what I really am. He knows. He shouldn't. He can't. But he does. All my denials mean diddly squat, for he does, he knows. A stupid whore. Here I am. Not Angel's precious whore. Not Spike's partner. Not Willow and Xander's best friend.

Just one stupid whore.

"Again with mood swings." He grounds out, pauses, then slips low and husky. "Buffy . . . come 'ere . . .

"What's wrong?"

My eyes glance behind me, down the grimy sidewalk path, which will inevitably lead home, where I can double over in my bed, get piss drunk beyond moving, puke my woes out upon my sheets, forget everything and anything, but it will last for one night . . . thus returning me to the real world the next day.

Should I do that? Forget this whole plan thingie and continue this life? No. I shouldn't. But he knows. He fucking knows. Can I continue on this journey with him knowing? Can I . . .?

With tons of trepidation I jittery inquire, "Spike, are you wigged out by what I am?"

He takes a step forward. I stand still.

"Quite the contrary, love. I'm intrigued by your everything." He rakishly smirks.

He begins a liquid walk over to me, graceful with every subtle movement, sure in its pace. My knees wobble with relief. Maybe touching will be okay then. It will be all right. I may be a stupid whore . . . but he accepts that.

"Thank you, Spike." My words are genuine as real diamonds to be bestowed to him.

His hand brushes mine. "Oi, was that all this was about?" Lacing our fingers, he casually swings our joined hands, gently lugging me back to the car with him. "Well it's quite ducky that we got that spit shined clear, blondie." He flashes a know-it-all look my way. "I like you. You hate me. Right dandy."

I tilt my head his angle, face glowing with a crooked smile, and cautiously voice:

"I'll never understand you."

He pulls the edges of his lips up slowly in a sexy smile, beautiful eyes drilling into mine, face absolutely smug. "Part of my charm."

I hastily duck my head, breaking that intimate moment, all to alert of our ongoing flirtations. He's just a partner. Maybe even a friend. Exactly, Buffy. You do not need to further screw up this with your screw up qualities. There's got to be some good qualities you have that can contribute greatly to this . . . other than playful words, sarcasm, tears, violence, and sex.

I perform a big gulp, suddenly being bombarded by frightening thoughts of my kiss with failure. As I said before, no one can destroy this in less than a second, but me. That thought echoes within the confines of my mind, taunting and foreboding.

Spike pokes at the silence, unknowingly helping to deter the echo. "That's what Dru used to call me when she gazed at the stars."

My eyebrows crinkle, then iron out. "She liked the outdoors?"

We curve by three tough gangsters. One brazen red-head black female speaking in hushed tones, ". . . with Oz's help . . . take down . . ." Two hooded black males flanking her left and right, listening attentively. All walking briskly; walking with a destination in mind. I cast them a curious look as we pass.

Spike resumes the conversation. "No, she saw the stars through our bedroom."

Our pace is equal. Hands swinging by mutual urge now.

"Out the window?"

He cocks glances up at the expanse of night sky, and nostalgically voices. "Our bedroom ceiling."

I am at a loss for words, wracking my head for something bordering on nice, not wanting to damage the mood. "Uh, queer . . ."

"You're tellin' me." He vigorously chuckles, ensnaring me in his laughter.

We enter the car. He starts up the engine.

"Where are we going?" I glance over at him as he zooms us away from the curb-resulting in my body smacking the seat-and back into the L.A. streets.

A wicked smile grasps his face. I shudder at its magnitude.

He licks his lips. "To see the Devil's Angels."







Author's Note: Heya! Yeah, I know, you thought I was dead. Nah. Just this chapter so far is my longest as you might have noticed. And who knows how much longer or shorter the next will be . . . which I have yet to work on, 'cause of the third chapter of Now Hero Anon (READ IT READ IT READ IT) the other fic that I'm working on is taking some time. Hmm. And I know who the Devil's Angels are, but not exactly what part they'll play, or how the meeting will go between Buffy and Spike and them, or how he knows of them. Nothing. Nada. But eh, I'm a writer (proud of it, biotch!) so I'll think of stuff.

And who thinks Spike was just to yummy in this chapter? Oh, yeah. I like making Spike yummy. Well, 'cause James Marsters is yummy and brings that to Spike and I'm babbling about stuff we already know. So . . . mmm . . . yummy.

Hope you will review, *offers urging smile* it helps. Wuvs you all!

P.S. I know this goes against everything I believe! *dramatic sigh* But I may write an anti-Buffy/Spike fic soon to just, just, just *longer dramatic sigh with finger swathed spit tears* to challenge myself. Just a thought . . . What do you all think?