"How long've we been walking? Feels like ages."
Buffy sighed. "It can't have been more than half an hour."
Spike plucked at the fabric of his black shirt. It was plastered to his chest with sweat. "'S bloody hot out here." He kicked up dirt. "Like the surface of Mercury."
"You're just not used to the pretty sunshine yet," Buffy replied. A smile quirked at her mouth. "I can't wait to see if you freckle."
"Ha ha," Spike muttered, scanning the barren, pastoral landscape. It looked remarkably like the landscape from half an hour ago.
"Looking for a flashing red 'EXIT' sign?"
"Actually? Yeah." He glanced back at the Slayer and caught her eyes darting away from his face. He chose to overlook it. "There must be some way out of this hellhole."
"The hellhole that is my mind?"
Spike started to snark back, but bit his tongue just in time to stop himself. He started off again. The more space there was between them, the less confusing things got. What I need is a few hours away from Princess Charming to get my sanity back to full power. Can't be held responsible for my actions under all this stress.
Buffy frowned at his lack of response, watching him walk away. Was the
situation really that hopeless? Sure, she'd called an end to the pointless
banter, but... She could always get a response from him one way or
another. Vice versa. If he was that numbed to her to not even care
anymore... ----
Warm artificial lights. Linoleum beneath her feet.
"Buffy! Don't be mad!"
"Why would I be~"
"Spike's back. And he's begging to see you."-----
Buffy blinked. Sunlight. Grass prickling her shins. The memory had been so
real, it took Buffy a second to realize she wasn't in her kitchen, heart
pounding as she watched Willow nervously bite her lip.
"What the--" she heard from in front of her. Spike. He saw it too?
She suddenly jerked as the world around her, the fields, the sun, the retreating vampire, blinked away, replaced by a cinderblocked alley.
It was night.
She looked around her, a tingle of worried anticipation running through.
"Um...." Okay. Dream theater routine. I can handle this. No mindtrap virgin here.
"Will you stop following me??"
Buffy's eyes widened at the angry voice, and she realized where she was. Oh, shit.
"Buffy--"
But she knew the plea wasn't directed at her. Not her her, anyway. She turned into the alley. Oh, God, no. This can't...
"I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hurt you, Spike. But if you don't stop following me around!"
"Christ, Summers, will you just listen to me for once in your life??"
An incensed, white-sweatered Buffy whirled on the approaching Spike. "No, you listen to me!" she hissed. "This has gone on for too .damned .long, and I'm sick of it, Spike! I really really am. I was sick of it last year, I was sick of it the year before, and--"she stopped, and appeared to be doing a mental tally, "--and I was sick of it the year before that! You've been torturing me for years, Spike, and you never go away!" She pointed fiercely at him. "And do you know why??"
"Because I love you!!" he roared. Removed Buffy felt a chill, and saw a tense-looking Spike standing in the shadows behind the one proclaiming his love. Oh no. No, don't make me watch this again. Don't remind him all the reasons he hates me.
"No you DON'T!" Buffy screamed back. "Wake up and smell the psychobabble, Spike. We're both depraved."
The incongruity of it was enough to distract him. "What the bleedin' hell are you talking about?"
"Haven't you figured it out? Don't you see why it hurts so much? We're
both masochists, Spike. You hurt yourself by chasing me, and I hurt
myself by letting you think you're gaining. We're nothing but extensions
of each other's neuroses, can't you see that??"
Buffy covered her eyes against the pain. Across the way, Spike winced at the
remembered ache.
They both took a step back, and she shook her head, turning to go. "Freud would have a fucking field day," she muttered.
Spike wasn't about to let it go at that. "That's not all this is," he growled, grabbing her arm and swinging her back.
He never saw the blow coming, didn't even realize what had happened until he'd slammed into the brick wall and slid down to the concrete ground. He touched his bleeding nose and stared up at Buffy in shock.
"Yes .it .is."
And his face hardened in the face of her hardness.
"Yeah. Maybe you're right."
She left him there, but her counterpart continued to stare at the place
where she'd stood.
...Until it began to dissolve around her.
Sunshine. Grass. An annoying abundance of both.
Buffy blinked, and fell to her knees. "What the hell was that?"
"Refreshing," came the answering voice. She looked up to see a furrowed-brow Spike. "Looks like your head's a bit more twisted up than originally anticipated, doesn't it?"
"Spike..."
He held up a hand. "Save it for the Real World, pet. It's probably all jollies for you in here, but I'd like to get the fuckout as quickly as is superhumanly possible."
He about-faced and started walking away.
For several seconds, Buffy had to stay where she was and digest the plot. She had just gone from aloof Spike to pleading Spike and back again, and her head was spinning. But one thing had become abundantly clear:
This was absolutely ridiculous.
And it has to stop.
And fast.
She started moving.
"Spike! Wait!" She jogged to catch up, heart pumping with the exhilaration of decision. I've had it with this emotional gamut game. It ends now.
The vampire turned to face her, eyebrow arched. It starts now.
"Yes, Princess?" Why can't you just stay at a reasonable distance? Can't you see I can't think with you here?
"Cut it," she snapped. "We need a blowdry, a-sap-y, before the attack of the flashbacks strikes again."
Spike furrowed . "Blow--?"
"Airing out," she impatiently untwisted her stress-induced metaphor. "A trip to wide-open-spaces, because the oh-so-fun 'contents under pressure' game is getting a little too painful."
Inside, Spike was slightly impressed. Pressing the issue? That's not like m-our little Buffy. Outwardly, though, he sought to show no sign of reaction. "Alright," he conceded, spreading his arms. "Ladies and Slayers first."
Buffy took a breath. I feel some angst coming on. "I--"
Spike waited a few seconds, then cocked a brow. "You..."
She stomped the ground. "What do you want me to say?"
"Me? You're the one that instigated the share session."
She shook her head in an irritation that baffled him. "But you know what I'm going to say! You're the one being the emotional bottleneck! You go first."
Nooo way. No Pandoras getting in this box. "Nah. You."
"You!"
"You."
Buffy felt the pressure building. Soon she'd either have to hit something or scream.
"You!"
"You."
"YOU!"
"You!"
She stomped her foot again, and capitulated. "I love you, dammit! Do you have any idea what that's like?? Why are you making this so hard?"
Spike gave her a disbelieving look before turning skyward. "Dozy bint! Do
you even realize what you're SAYING??" His eyes went back to her. "How
can you act righteous about this, you--you..." He trailed off, apparently
having exhausted his female euphemisms.
Tears sprang to her eyes. "I love you!"
"And I loved you!" he yelled, cutting her short. Both stood gasping for a second, less than a foot apart. "It meant nothing!" he said fiercely. "Nothing I did meant anything, and now it's your time and you want me along for the ride?" He straightened. "Like hell. I'm not going through that hell coaster another time. Even if--" he stopped, gained composure. Shook his shaking finger in her face.
"Nothing," he whispered violently, "no-bloody-thing is worth the torture of being your lapdog." And a little voice inside him whispered, Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, Spike.
It seemed like a pretty final statement.
But Buffy had caught the slip, didn't care what it meant, just that it was there and one thing was rushing through her mind at that moment, staring into the vampire's furious eyes:
Hope.
"But I don't want a lapdog."
She saw the confusion flit across his brow before he sighed. "Then what the hell do you want, Summers? What does it take to make you happy, so I can find it, and kill it, and lay it at your feet, and make all this madness stop?" If she says 'you' ; so help me--
Don't say 'you.' How cliched can you get?
Then she realized what she wanted to say.
"I want--"
She felt the earth shift around her.
"No! Not now! Not--"--
"Well, yeah, Buff, I heard she was back, but I didn't tell you because I really didn't think you'd care. I mean, what harm can Harmony possibly do?"--
Sunlight. Buffy blinked at Spike, who seemed a little confused.
The rushing sensation returned.
--A graveyard at night. She falls to the dirt, and briefly considers not getting
back up.--
Sunlight. Spike's eyes on hers.
"Buf--"
--The kitchen, her hands in dishwater, scraping the remains of scrambled
eggs off the pan with her fingernails, she catches a flash of white on the
porch, and knows he's there.--
Sunlight.
"--fy. What the hell is go--"
--Watching herself standing in front of her mirror, dressing for patrol. She frowns critically at her outfit, then wonders what she's doing. Near the mirror, Spike is looking around, wondering why he is seeing this.--
Sunlight. The sensations shifting beneath her feet made her stagger, and she fell into Spike's arms. She was slightly surprised when he actually caught her in them.
She felt the world dissolving around her yet again, and gripped his head, forcing Spike to look at her before it was too late, and they were forced back into the past.
Staring into his eyes, she whispered fiercely:
"I want to be what you need."
--
and then everything was gone in a blaze of white.
@@@
Her bedroom.
Buffy was sitting indian style at the foot of her bed, staring at the headboard. The stereo was on, and a disc was spinning optimistically in its cradle, but the volume had been turned off. The room was muted.
But then a sob ripped the papery silence, followed by another.
The other Buffy --the one watching from the doorway like Ebenezer at the schoolhouse-- emitted a sympathetic squeak as her doppelganger's face twisted in a effort to hold the pain inside.
She remembered this. She knew what this was. This was The Moment.
People tell you that it's invisible, indefinable, that moment you don't just fall into love, but land in it.
Bullshit.
A year ago she'd felt it, and now she was watching it again. She remembered. It had corresponded exactly with the first gut-wrenching sob.
One to recognise the painful landing.
One to affirm her location.
...The rest to regret the timing.
On the bed, the Slayer tipped over onto her side and curled into the fetal position, shoulders quaking violently, but silent once more.
The only sound was the crystal crinkle of a newborn heart breaking.
Too late. I'm too lateNot. He. I'm. Oh God Oh God. Why am I such a fucking idiot? Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why! I'm too late.
The weeping Buffy's thought's echoed in the voyeur Buffy's head. Too late. Too late. Too late.
"Too late," came the responding mutter. Buffy caught a flash of black, and glanced up to see Spike flickering in and out of the opposite corner of the room. He was watching her twin with a furrowed brow.
An irrational embarrassment bubbled up in her. He can't watch this! He has no right to be in my room at a time like this!
Then she realized.
He had every right.
It was the Spike Show.
There was another hiccupping wail, and she turned away.
Spike couldn't stop staring.
Without having to wonder, he knew what he was watching. He vaguely remembered the outfit she'd been wearing that night, but it was more than that. He was standing in the squishy center, where Buffy let down her guard. Where she had no reason to hide her thoughts. Everything was ringing loud and clear.
Too late. I lost him. Too late.
The night she'd gone too far. She'd left him on the ground, his ears ringing with her parting words, and that had been when he'd stopped chasing.
But, he was slowly beginning to realize, watching the pitiful curled figure on the bed, that really was all he'd stopped doing. The urge to reach out and pull her to him was almost overwhelming. And he was suddenly running out of reasons not to.
Reasons numbered zero when the other Buffy sank to her knees on the floor, and joined her twin in sobbing. Two choruses now rent the air.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
The room dissolved around them, and he was left in the sunshine with one crying Slayer curled in the grass.
He could still hear her internal chorus. Too late. Too late.
No longer able to stop himself, he fell to his knees next to her and pulled her into his arms. Unthinkingly, she turned in his grip and wrapped herself around him, clinging with the strength of the weeping.
"Too late," she gasped out between hiccuping sobs. "I'm too late, I really--" she choked off into his shoulder.
His hand tightened it's grip on the back of her head. God, this felt so good. How could he think this was wrong? This was what had been missing. This was what he needed.
She was what he needed.
What the lady wants, the lady gets.
He tried to gently pry her arms from around his neck, so he could see her face. When that didn't work, he gave her a hard yank, and she came free.
She seemed to come to herself, then, and backed away, sniffing. "Sorry. I just..."
Spike grabbed her shoulders to keep her from pulling any further away. Her palpable confusion made him positively gleeful. Or maybe it was just the euphoria of finally letting his emotions out to play. He put his hands to her cheeks, rubbing at her tears with his thumbs.
"I'm a fool," he murmured.
Buffy's brows drew together in confusion. "What?" she gasped, still racked by the abating sobs.
He pulled her face closer, so that their foreheads bumped together. She was shocked to see tears in his eyes. What's he doing?
"Spike?"
"No," he answered.
"What?" She tried to pull away to see him better, but he held her fast. Her heart started beating more quickly.
"No," he repeated, letting her back a few inches so that they could focus on each others' eyes. "It's not too late."
And before Buffy could completely register what he meant, Spike swooped in the few inches between them and captured her lips in a kiss free of pain.
@@@
@@@
I'm easily distracted. Forgive me.
~starmouse