Title: We Are The Sum Of All Our Damage
Author: Mercy
Disclaimers: I own nothing they belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy; I just borrow them on occasion. If only Josh would rent them out for functions or special occasions then I would be a VERY happy little vegemite !!!!!(Aussie for a very happy little girl)
Thanks: For Danielle who suggested I write something a little saucy, 'cuz I should', well here it is and I hope you like it!! Also importantly my two Beta Readers:
Kirsty, for telling me to just do it!!! For just reading it because I asked her to do it, then Beta reading it twice because of email problems!!! You're a champion!!!
Rebecca, for putting up with me taking my time, and dumping everything just to do it!! You are a legend!!
Summary: Set in Chosen just after Spike spots Angel with Buffy, and he has the Amulet, just before that Spuffy moment, this is my take on what should have happened for Spuffy fans, it will continue post Chosen outside of canon.
Rating: R
**Chapter One**
*Past Damage *
After seeing Angel, Buffy felt her emotions rage in conflict within herself, one of old love and past memories of him, battling internally with feelings of heat, desire, lust, and passion for another. She sat in the kitchen next to Dawn, attempting to eat something that resembled dinner, which she'd cooked earlier in the day, she found herself pondering on her meeting with Angel. Perhaps it was time to put old feelings to rest, to allow herself to move forward beyond the battle that was coming with The First, and permit herself a future. But her thoughts always can back, no matter what she was thinking about, to the same thing or in her case the same person.
Spike. William The Bloody.
It was like a cycle that kept repeating itself, eventually she always ended up back at him. First Angel, Parker (well one night only), then Riley, and ending with Spike. It always ended with him, thinking about him, the mistakes she'd made, the ones he'd made, and the ones they'd made together. The fact that she'd used him for her own needs, that he allowed her to, and that both of them were doing it for the wrong reasons, not the right ones. It come down to the fact that both of them just wanted to feel something, for her it was just to feel alive, for him it was just to feel her around him, to make some kind of connection to her. It was like he was putting his hand out to save her from herself, but she had refused to see it, refused to acknowledge it, and refused to accept it. In the end it had become twisted and defective, allowing it to warp his emotions, distort the truth and unleash the demon within him that he had held back for so long. The demon that was used to getting what it wanted, even if by force, reigning in the man he was trying to become.
She had once said something to the effect that 'death, blood and sex were all the same thing for vamps', but she was beginning to wonder if it applied to her, with her human lovers things had been just about the sex, but with her vamp lovers there had been something else. With Angel it had been all the trimmings of first love mushiness, and with Spike it had been the need to feel something in her non existence, that had been last year. But she knew that it was being with him that allowed her to feel what she needed, he never asked for anything, he just gave whatever she asked from him.
She was the bringer of death to his kind, stopped the flow of blood from their victims by staking them, and had repeated marathon sex with one of them. So in one way or another she had encompassed all these things. Death, blood and sex. It all came together, entwined simultaneously to bring her to the point she was now, and still gravitating her towards what she knew to be true.
She still wanted Spike despite everything that had happened last year, her using him as an instrument to make her feel something, cumulating in the attempted rape in her bathroom, and finally to him getting a soul for her. Despite all this she understood both of their attitudes in these situations, and the degree of responsibility they both had to share for all of it. Yet she also had seen him change so much over the last few years, from the vicious psychotic vampire that he was, to the warrior that had began to fight by her side today. Buffy knew deep down that it was because he loved her that he had changed, not like Angel had changed because his soul had given him a conscious, and had forced him to give up his dark desires to torture the innocent.
He had done it for her. All for her.
"Hello, Buffy to earth. Earth to Buffy. Come in Space Cadet Summers!" Dawn yelled at her sister, waving her hand in front of her sisters face trying to break the trance that had her sister captive.
"Hey", Buffy gaze broke from the fork in front off her and brought her back to reality with a thud.
"What gives sis?" Dawn asked of her sister, wondering what was going on in that head of hers. Some thing important if she read her sister right, maybe a plan to beat the living hell out of something, or feeding Andrew to the First, if Dawn had her way.
"Nothing, just thinking."
"Nothing must be important, you were totally out of it!!" Dawn commenting on her sisters lack of being on the same planet as the rest of them.
"You know, decisions, decisions. What's for dinner, what am I gonna wear on my big date with the First. You know little details like that have to meticulously worked out."
"Yeah sure Buffy! Come on what where you thinking about?"
"Dawn mind your own business okay", the look from Buffy towards her would have caused the next apocalypse itself with stare she shot at her sister.
"Okay, okay, well aren't you 'Miss Knickers in a Twist'", Dawn retaliated back.
"Where on earth did you hear that one?"
"What?", Dawn crossed her arms in self-defence.
"Miss Knickers or other?", Buffy inquired of her sister, "Hang on let me guess?"
"Leave him out of it!"
"So Spike again, talk about butchering the Queens English instead of half of Europe!!", Buffy observed, "But then again he already did that!", getting out of her chair, moving towards the door that lead to the basement.
"What ..??", Dawn got out of her chair, and walked towards the basement door and stood in front of it as if to guard its entry, "Buffy!"
"Dawn!"
"Please don't break his heart again, it'll kill him!", Dawn moved towards her sister, putting her hand over the basement door.
"This is coming from you, who threatened to burn him alive in his sleep if he ever threatened to hurt me again?" Buffy questioned her sister who had an apparent change of heart about the vampire.
"Yeah well, I think that he's proven himself over the last few months don't you? I mean from raving loony to champion of the people, what a change? And funnily enough he's still just mad enough to be in love with you?" Dawn said tightening her grip on the door handle.
"I know Dawn, if anyone knows that it's me.", Buffy's hand went over her sisters and gently removed it from the door handle, "And I'm going to do something I should have done along time ago. Just keep the army out of the basement please Dawn!"
"Yes General Buffy, Sir!!" , Dawn took a step back from the door, raising her hand as to gesture that Buffy open the door and go right in.
Buffy moved a step closer to the basement door and put her hand on the handle and twisted the knob. Taking a deep breathe, and mustering all the strength that she could, she took a step forward in the stair well of the basement. The light from above shadowed the staircase, illuminating her path, down to the bowels of the house, and into the shadows...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Staring into the amulet that Buffy had given him, he studied its shape, textures and reflection of colors emanating from it. Even in the shadows of the basement it reflected light, casting colors into every direction of the room, as if giving off its own light show. It felt warm to touch, burning even sometimes, showing some of its true power from its crystal icy exterior, making him hold it from its chain half the time. Strangely no one else had felt the warmth, maybe it was just made for him, as if eons ago someone knew it would come to be his one day. Maybe just maybe, he had become that champion, which Buffy had claimed him to be.
He needed to hear that from her just now, he needed anything she was willing to offer. Her support for him over the last few months had saved him from the madness that had penetrated and poisoned his mind. She believed in him and it was paying off, he had begun down this path of change for her, but in the end he realized that he'd done it for himself. She'd been his crutch and now it was time to get on his own two feet and walk the path by himself, as much as he didn't want to do it alone, maybe he had too.
Seeing her with Angel had just pulled at all his insecurities, that he wasn't good enough for her, maybe he was still beneath her, maybe....
'Bleedin soul'
He felt the pull of it on his consciousness, he never had let it dwell on anything he'd down in the past, he couldn't change what had happened only move forward with the soul, as it was now such a fundamental part of him. He had realized that without it he wouldn't be where he was now. But still at times it stung, especially in his dreams, or more to the point his nightmares, where the incidents like that in the bathroom just played over and over in his mind. He just had to get past that point and move on, one step at a time, and he felt that he was talking each one in the right direction.
Especially with Buffy, she'd proven she trusted him the nights that they lay in each others arms and just slept. Holding each other, giving each other strength, becoming the others anchors to face the next challenge in the battle, and the ongoing war. This would never have happened if she didn't trust or need him at this pivotal point in time. Buffy had began to realize just what he was becoming and what he could be, maybe he just needed to let himself believe it too.
He'd never forget the moment she'd given him the amulet, and confirmed the role of Champion on him. The look in her eyes, the softening of her face, and the look of 'I have faith in you'. It was just as precious the night she'd asked him to lay beside her in the bed of the house she'd taken over, and returned to him the next night in the basement. It gave him the courage to believe in what he had become, he was more than what he had been, much more, strangely in a way maybe regained a bit more of his humanity, and found a little self respect he'd lost after being chipped.
At least he didn't feel like a cage animal with the soul like he had with the chip, not being able to hunt because of the pain. But choosing not to hunt because of his feelings for Buffy and the soul giving him cause not to, he still didn't understand that one fully but you can't analyze every thing in one day. At least he could understand the ponce a little better, and his loss of appetite for the living, but the thrill of the hunt of the demon kind that was something he'd rediscovered with a sane mind. And it helped with the cause, and put him in good standing with the Slayer, and he couldn't hope with Buffy as a person as well.
But he just couldn't get the bitter taste out of his mouth seeing her lock tongues with his Grand Sire, it just made him want to go and sort the sod out. But he had no claim on Buffy, no say in what she did or with who, but he could feel the demon rage within in, wanting to claim Buffy for himself and mark her his, so the sod knew just who she belonged too. He could remember every time they'd been together the need to rein the demon in from making a 'claim' on her, sometimes just about biting his own arm just to gratify the demon.
The ambiguity of the situation could have been seen by a blind man, just '~what the bloody hell did she expected from me~', Spike couldn't help but wonder about where he fit into her scheme of things, one minute he's the Big Bad fighting by her side, and the next the ponce shows up, and steals the show. The messages that Buffy was sending him were just too confusing, he needed to clarify his role in her life, the battle.....and just his unlife in general.
His gaze broke away from the amulet, as his ears picked up the sounds of foot steps on the basement stairs. The rhythm of the approaching steps was distinct and so familiar too him, he'd burned their echoes in his brain for the last 6 years. It looked like he was about to get his wish, and discover maybe something he hoped he never hear. That it was truly not him that she wanted, that she didn't need him, and she never could truly love him for who he was.
A single shadow descended the stair case, its length distorted by the light coming from the kitchen, with the steps creaking as it descended into the basement. Buffy moved into his line of vision, he dropped the amulet into his hand, as it burned into his skin, he used the physical pain to overwhelm his own emotional pain, hoping that its charring mark would be more painful than the poignant pain he knew was coming.
"Spike, we have to talk"
"I know what you're going to say"
"And just what would that be?"
Author: Mercy
Disclaimers: I own nothing they belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy; I just borrow them on occasion. If only Josh would rent them out for functions or special occasions then I would be a VERY happy little vegemite !!!!!(Aussie for a very happy little girl)
Thanks: For Danielle who suggested I write something a little saucy, 'cuz I should', well here it is and I hope you like it!! Also importantly my two Beta Readers:
Kirsty, for telling me to just do it!!! For just reading it because I asked her to do it, then Beta reading it twice because of email problems!!! You're a champion!!!
Rebecca, for putting up with me taking my time, and dumping everything just to do it!! You are a legend!!
Summary: Set in Chosen just after Spike spots Angel with Buffy, and he has the Amulet, just before that Spuffy moment, this is my take on what should have happened for Spuffy fans, it will continue post Chosen outside of canon.
Rating: R
**Chapter One**
*Past Damage *
After seeing Angel, Buffy felt her emotions rage in conflict within herself, one of old love and past memories of him, battling internally with feelings of heat, desire, lust, and passion for another. She sat in the kitchen next to Dawn, attempting to eat something that resembled dinner, which she'd cooked earlier in the day, she found herself pondering on her meeting with Angel. Perhaps it was time to put old feelings to rest, to allow herself to move forward beyond the battle that was coming with The First, and permit herself a future. But her thoughts always can back, no matter what she was thinking about, to the same thing or in her case the same person.
Spike. William The Bloody.
It was like a cycle that kept repeating itself, eventually she always ended up back at him. First Angel, Parker (well one night only), then Riley, and ending with Spike. It always ended with him, thinking about him, the mistakes she'd made, the ones he'd made, and the ones they'd made together. The fact that she'd used him for her own needs, that he allowed her to, and that both of them were doing it for the wrong reasons, not the right ones. It come down to the fact that both of them just wanted to feel something, for her it was just to feel alive, for him it was just to feel her around him, to make some kind of connection to her. It was like he was putting his hand out to save her from herself, but she had refused to see it, refused to acknowledge it, and refused to accept it. In the end it had become twisted and defective, allowing it to warp his emotions, distort the truth and unleash the demon within him that he had held back for so long. The demon that was used to getting what it wanted, even if by force, reigning in the man he was trying to become.
She had once said something to the effect that 'death, blood and sex were all the same thing for vamps', but she was beginning to wonder if it applied to her, with her human lovers things had been just about the sex, but with her vamp lovers there had been something else. With Angel it had been all the trimmings of first love mushiness, and with Spike it had been the need to feel something in her non existence, that had been last year. But she knew that it was being with him that allowed her to feel what she needed, he never asked for anything, he just gave whatever she asked from him.
She was the bringer of death to his kind, stopped the flow of blood from their victims by staking them, and had repeated marathon sex with one of them. So in one way or another she had encompassed all these things. Death, blood and sex. It all came together, entwined simultaneously to bring her to the point she was now, and still gravitating her towards what she knew to be true.
She still wanted Spike despite everything that had happened last year, her using him as an instrument to make her feel something, cumulating in the attempted rape in her bathroom, and finally to him getting a soul for her. Despite all this she understood both of their attitudes in these situations, and the degree of responsibility they both had to share for all of it. Yet she also had seen him change so much over the last few years, from the vicious psychotic vampire that he was, to the warrior that had began to fight by her side today. Buffy knew deep down that it was because he loved her that he had changed, not like Angel had changed because his soul had given him a conscious, and had forced him to give up his dark desires to torture the innocent.
He had done it for her. All for her.
"Hello, Buffy to earth. Earth to Buffy. Come in Space Cadet Summers!" Dawn yelled at her sister, waving her hand in front of her sisters face trying to break the trance that had her sister captive.
"Hey", Buffy gaze broke from the fork in front off her and brought her back to reality with a thud.
"What gives sis?" Dawn asked of her sister, wondering what was going on in that head of hers. Some thing important if she read her sister right, maybe a plan to beat the living hell out of something, or feeding Andrew to the First, if Dawn had her way.
"Nothing, just thinking."
"Nothing must be important, you were totally out of it!!" Dawn commenting on her sisters lack of being on the same planet as the rest of them.
"You know, decisions, decisions. What's for dinner, what am I gonna wear on my big date with the First. You know little details like that have to meticulously worked out."
"Yeah sure Buffy! Come on what where you thinking about?"
"Dawn mind your own business okay", the look from Buffy towards her would have caused the next apocalypse itself with stare she shot at her sister.
"Okay, okay, well aren't you 'Miss Knickers in a Twist'", Dawn retaliated back.
"Where on earth did you hear that one?"
"What?", Dawn crossed her arms in self-defence.
"Miss Knickers or other?", Buffy inquired of her sister, "Hang on let me guess?"
"Leave him out of it!"
"So Spike again, talk about butchering the Queens English instead of half of Europe!!", Buffy observed, "But then again he already did that!", getting out of her chair, moving towards the door that lead to the basement.
"What ..??", Dawn got out of her chair, and walked towards the basement door and stood in front of it as if to guard its entry, "Buffy!"
"Dawn!"
"Please don't break his heart again, it'll kill him!", Dawn moved towards her sister, putting her hand over the basement door.
"This is coming from you, who threatened to burn him alive in his sleep if he ever threatened to hurt me again?" Buffy questioned her sister who had an apparent change of heart about the vampire.
"Yeah well, I think that he's proven himself over the last few months don't you? I mean from raving loony to champion of the people, what a change? And funnily enough he's still just mad enough to be in love with you?" Dawn said tightening her grip on the door handle.
"I know Dawn, if anyone knows that it's me.", Buffy's hand went over her sisters and gently removed it from the door handle, "And I'm going to do something I should have done along time ago. Just keep the army out of the basement please Dawn!"
"Yes General Buffy, Sir!!" , Dawn took a step back from the door, raising her hand as to gesture that Buffy open the door and go right in.
Buffy moved a step closer to the basement door and put her hand on the handle and twisted the knob. Taking a deep breathe, and mustering all the strength that she could, she took a step forward in the stair well of the basement. The light from above shadowed the staircase, illuminating her path, down to the bowels of the house, and into the shadows...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Staring into the amulet that Buffy had given him, he studied its shape, textures and reflection of colors emanating from it. Even in the shadows of the basement it reflected light, casting colors into every direction of the room, as if giving off its own light show. It felt warm to touch, burning even sometimes, showing some of its true power from its crystal icy exterior, making him hold it from its chain half the time. Strangely no one else had felt the warmth, maybe it was just made for him, as if eons ago someone knew it would come to be his one day. Maybe just maybe, he had become that champion, which Buffy had claimed him to be.
He needed to hear that from her just now, he needed anything she was willing to offer. Her support for him over the last few months had saved him from the madness that had penetrated and poisoned his mind. She believed in him and it was paying off, he had begun down this path of change for her, but in the end he realized that he'd done it for himself. She'd been his crutch and now it was time to get on his own two feet and walk the path by himself, as much as he didn't want to do it alone, maybe he had too.
Seeing her with Angel had just pulled at all his insecurities, that he wasn't good enough for her, maybe he was still beneath her, maybe....
'Bleedin soul'
He felt the pull of it on his consciousness, he never had let it dwell on anything he'd down in the past, he couldn't change what had happened only move forward with the soul, as it was now such a fundamental part of him. He had realized that without it he wouldn't be where he was now. But still at times it stung, especially in his dreams, or more to the point his nightmares, where the incidents like that in the bathroom just played over and over in his mind. He just had to get past that point and move on, one step at a time, and he felt that he was talking each one in the right direction.
Especially with Buffy, she'd proven she trusted him the nights that they lay in each others arms and just slept. Holding each other, giving each other strength, becoming the others anchors to face the next challenge in the battle, and the ongoing war. This would never have happened if she didn't trust or need him at this pivotal point in time. Buffy had began to realize just what he was becoming and what he could be, maybe he just needed to let himself believe it too.
He'd never forget the moment she'd given him the amulet, and confirmed the role of Champion on him. The look in her eyes, the softening of her face, and the look of 'I have faith in you'. It was just as precious the night she'd asked him to lay beside her in the bed of the house she'd taken over, and returned to him the next night in the basement. It gave him the courage to believe in what he had become, he was more than what he had been, much more, strangely in a way maybe regained a bit more of his humanity, and found a little self respect he'd lost after being chipped.
At least he didn't feel like a cage animal with the soul like he had with the chip, not being able to hunt because of the pain. But choosing not to hunt because of his feelings for Buffy and the soul giving him cause not to, he still didn't understand that one fully but you can't analyze every thing in one day. At least he could understand the ponce a little better, and his loss of appetite for the living, but the thrill of the hunt of the demon kind that was something he'd rediscovered with a sane mind. And it helped with the cause, and put him in good standing with the Slayer, and he couldn't hope with Buffy as a person as well.
But he just couldn't get the bitter taste out of his mouth seeing her lock tongues with his Grand Sire, it just made him want to go and sort the sod out. But he had no claim on Buffy, no say in what she did or with who, but he could feel the demon rage within in, wanting to claim Buffy for himself and mark her his, so the sod knew just who she belonged too. He could remember every time they'd been together the need to rein the demon in from making a 'claim' on her, sometimes just about biting his own arm just to gratify the demon.
The ambiguity of the situation could have been seen by a blind man, just '~what the bloody hell did she expected from me~', Spike couldn't help but wonder about where he fit into her scheme of things, one minute he's the Big Bad fighting by her side, and the next the ponce shows up, and steals the show. The messages that Buffy was sending him were just too confusing, he needed to clarify his role in her life, the battle.....and just his unlife in general.
His gaze broke away from the amulet, as his ears picked up the sounds of foot steps on the basement stairs. The rhythm of the approaching steps was distinct and so familiar too him, he'd burned their echoes in his brain for the last 6 years. It looked like he was about to get his wish, and discover maybe something he hoped he never hear. That it was truly not him that she wanted, that she didn't need him, and she never could truly love him for who he was.
A single shadow descended the stair case, its length distorted by the light coming from the kitchen, with the steps creaking as it descended into the basement. Buffy moved into his line of vision, he dropped the amulet into his hand, as it burned into his skin, he used the physical pain to overwhelm his own emotional pain, hoping that its charring mark would be more painful than the poignant pain he knew was coming.
"Spike, we have to talk"
"I know what you're going to say"
"And just what would that be?"