*I could be lying to my sister right now,* Buffy thought. *'I've got important business, slayer business. Why don't you stay over at Angelica's again tonight? Go shoe-shopping then drink too much espresso, we'll send the bill to the watcher's council.' I could be lying to Willow, and Xander, and Giles. 'Sorry I missed the linkup. My cat broke the crystal.' I'd have to get a cat, but it's like Spike said, they're everywhere. Maybe I should get a cat. Would I have to lie to the cat? I could be telling all of these lies, could be digging myself into another hole that just has room for me and Spike.*
But she wasn't. She had sent him out the door, and she was slouched on the couch now, waiting for Dawn to come home. *I could have my legs wrapped around the hard body of a constantly horny vampire who loves me beyond reason and will never, ever get enough of me.* She rolled her head back against the couch and pressed her palms to her thighs. *Shit,* she thought, *Maturity sucks.*
Spike had been gone for twelve hours. A brief stop in Pompeii, he assured her, and he should be in L.A. by now. With Angel. Angel. Who the hell saw that one coming? All of the places that the mysterious powers that governed the universe could have chosen to dump her resurrected champion ensouled vampire lover, and they went for the lap -- and that was an unfortunate image, but it was the best she could do -- of her other resurrected champion ensouled vampire lover. "Dear Abby," she mentally composed. "I'm sure you hear this one all the time --"
*
They had made love one last time before he left. Quiet, slow, face-to-face look-me-in-the-eye-while-we-do-this love. At first it felt ridiculous. At first, they traded nervous laughter. This wasn't what Buffy and Spike did. Buffy and Spike threw each other across the room and left claw marks on skin, made shreds of clothing, groaned and cursed and knocked the other down, made the other beg for a breath, or a hand, or a taste. This was Riley Finn kind of love, lie-on-your-back-while-he-puts-his-ear-to-your-chest-and-listens-to-your-heart-beat love. Not that she could do the same with Spike, but heartbeats were just circulation, just biology, just another superstition that anyone who had died as many times as these two hungry lovers could surely live outside of.
Soon, they were not laughing. Soon, his weight was on her, and when she felt him with every inch of her, she tried to turn her eyes away, tried to close them, and he spread his long fingers under her chin and gasped, as though he really needed the breath, "Look," gasp "please" groan " I need you to see --oh God -- me." And so she gave him her eyes, memorized every crease and shift and convulsion in the sharp lines of his face, because she knew that daylight was chasing them from the east, and he would have to flee before it.
And when he finally slid his hands away from her sides, she slipped easily from his grasp and fell silent into her bed. He stood, and she turned her eyes down, not to watch his back as he left. When her breath settled back to a saner, weekday pace, she gathered the kimono from between the sheets, pulled the sash around her, and followed him to the living room. He was already dressed, in a tight black T-shirt and leather pants that were truly redundant on that body. He had his foot on the veneer of the coffee table tightening the laces of his combat boots.
*Don't leave me again, you fucker,* she thought, surprised by the violent suddenness of the emotion, and then by how quickly it was gone.
"You could call me sometime," she said to his back, and he jumped, jarring the table with his foot, so that a blown-glass vase Dawn had bought in Venice fell to shards on the floor.
"Bloody hell, Slayer!" Spike choked out, then tilted his head at her. "I was ready to say good-bye. Except I just --" He looked away.
"Wasn't ready?" Buffy smiled and stepped close to him. "You could call, that would be all right."
"You don't trust us," he said flatly. "Wolfram & Hart."
"Yes," she said firmly, then shook her head. "No. I mean, I'm not sure."
"And I'm not sure, either, but I can't wait, right now, until I'm sure. The closest I can come to being sure is --" He looked up and with an edge in his voice said, "If you repeat this, I'll kill you, and if I'm dead, I'll haunt you. But Buffy - it's Angel. If I'm on the lookout for a white hat, if I need someone to trust is doing his damn best to do the right thing." Spike swallowed. "Why am I gonna look further than him? I don't know all the reasons he has for being wrapped up with these ghouls, but I can't doubt that he has reasons."
She hesitated, her eyes running over the broken glass on the floor. "Any chance you can find out what they are?"
"And be your spy in the house of Wolfram?" he asked, then said firmly, "No. The phone thing?" He raised a hand to his ear. "That works with Angel too. You'll get more out of him than I will, anyway, and for that matter - well, the invitation stands. We could use a slayer around the place, and I bet L.A. would even suit the Little Bit. She probably has a hundred little friends running around with madeup memories about what a swell kid she was. The offer's not exactly mine to make, but I don't imagine a lot of protests from the vamp upstairs." He shrugged. "You wouldn't even have to see me if you didn't want. 'S not about you and me."
Buffy coughed into her hand. "Bullshit."
"Fine," he shrugged. "Bullshit. If you want to come there and be with me, I'll throw you a three-ring-circus. But any case, we're a bit short in the female department, this minute. I don't mean girls. Hell, it's L.A. But women -- fighters. Planners. I wouldn't have thought what a difference that could make, but when you lot aren't there anymore. Keeping things shipshape. It's like, well, there's a bit of a hole in the world." He knelt to brush the vase shards into his hands, as though he had just noticed them there. "There is one you know. A hole."
"In the world?"
"I went underground, stood there and looked at it. Goes clear down and comes out the other side. I'll take you someday. It's not a pretty sight, but just to know it's there. That's quite a thing."
"You stood there and looked at it?"
He nodded, then straightened and moved toward her, brushing the bits of glass into her hands, as if it were the most natural thing to do with them and she, as if she agreed, cup her palms to take them. She said, "I hope you spit. Into the hole."
"Of course I spit."
"Of course you did." She closed her hand around the glass. A small piece bit into her skin. "Men always spit."
He smiled. "Is that what I am?"
"Spike, it's not my fight. If you just wait to talk to Giles, maybe we could set something up for you to do. In England or even -- you know. Here."
"And that fight's not mine." He pulled the long black duster over his shoulders and nodded at the door. "Buffy, the sun -- I have to leave."
"I know."
She dropped the glass into a bowl on the coffee table. The smallest piece stabbed into her thumb, and she felt the warmth of blood pooling on her finger. Stepping toward him, she said, "Don't tell Angel." Then, "Oh God -- he's not going to be able to do that thing where he smells me on you, is he? Because, you know," she shuddered. "Gross."
He shook his head. "Enough volcanic ash and dead vamp between me and L.A., even the Brooding One won't know what he's smelling." Spike raised an eyebrow. "You're sure you're not up for Pompeii? Last days of and all, you and me, with the decadence."
"Once again? A world of no."
Spike rocked back on his heels and looked at her. "He'll figure out I was here. It's his bloody plane."
Not lying to Dawn and Willow and the others was one thing. Keeping the two vampires in her life from killing each other, that was something else. "Tell him -- you saw me and, well, I'm still not happy, but -- I don't know, tell him I chased you off."
"How about if I say you told me to crawl into a hole and die, and not come out --That would be easy, seeing as you did."
"OK, I was a little upset. Your timing there was not so great."
"You mean, I should have been more forthcoming? About the Angel situation." He smiled. "It would have made a difference?"
"It -- I don't know, possibly."
He nodded. "I think my timing was OK."
"Don't come out unless it's a very sunny day."
He held up his hands in surrender. "I get it. Can I tell him about the kiss?"
"Which --?" she paused.
"The one you're about to give me. He will be very suspicious if I try to deny that there was a kiss."
"Nice try."
He sulked. "I mean, he showed up out of the blue, got a kiss, just saying hello --"
"Right. With your lips." She put her hands against his shoulders, leaned in, and kissed him. He tasted like garlic and cigarettes, an iron pungency that might have been blood, and a salt warmth that could only have been her.
"I don't know," he panted when he pulled away, "If I should tell him about that particular kiss."
She raised her right hand to his mouth, and he frowned at the trickle of red blossoming from one finger. "Whaz' this?"
"Slayer blood," she whispered. "Healing properties. Protection."
"Really?" he said quietly. She nodded and he said, "Buffy, a kiss is just a kiss. A body's just a body, but blood --"
"I'm giving it. Take it. Take some of me with you. Be safe."
"Safe," he repeated, then raised her finger to his mouth. He pressed the pad to his top front teeth, closed his wet lips around the finger, and drew out the blood like a nursing child. Cradling her hand, he rocked back and forth for what could only have been a minute, but felt so much longer. His eyes never left hers, until he lifted her hand from his mouth and whispered. "Enough. Now seeing as I don't want my tight hot little body getting fried again. I'll be on my way."
She opened the door to the street and gave him a gentle shove out of it, "You and your chipmunk heart? Can bite me."
Spike raised his eyebrows and whispered, "Rain check." His coat waved in the breeze of the approaching dawn. She slipped inside, not allowing herself to watch him look back.
*
Twelve hours later, Buffy brushed the last of the glass into the garbage and settled down to wait for a much tardier Dawn. As she shifted on the cushion, something hard moved beneath it. She reached her hand down and came out with a silver lighter, just as her sister burst through the door. "Oh my God Buffy you are not gonna believe what Angelica and I found at the magic shop and I know I probably shouldn't have taken her there but she just happened to see this pendant Willow sent me and -- What's wrong, what are you staring at?"
*I could be lying to my sister,* she repeated and held up the lighter. "Dawn," she said. "You'd better sit down. No, we'll start up the link. We need to talk. All of us."
END
But she wasn't. She had sent him out the door, and she was slouched on the couch now, waiting for Dawn to come home. *I could have my legs wrapped around the hard body of a constantly horny vampire who loves me beyond reason and will never, ever get enough of me.* She rolled her head back against the couch and pressed her palms to her thighs. *Shit,* she thought, *Maturity sucks.*
Spike had been gone for twelve hours. A brief stop in Pompeii, he assured her, and he should be in L.A. by now. With Angel. Angel. Who the hell saw that one coming? All of the places that the mysterious powers that governed the universe could have chosen to dump her resurrected champion ensouled vampire lover, and they went for the lap -- and that was an unfortunate image, but it was the best she could do -- of her other resurrected champion ensouled vampire lover. "Dear Abby," she mentally composed. "I'm sure you hear this one all the time --"
*
They had made love one last time before he left. Quiet, slow, face-to-face look-me-in-the-eye-while-we-do-this love. At first it felt ridiculous. At first, they traded nervous laughter. This wasn't what Buffy and Spike did. Buffy and Spike threw each other across the room and left claw marks on skin, made shreds of clothing, groaned and cursed and knocked the other down, made the other beg for a breath, or a hand, or a taste. This was Riley Finn kind of love, lie-on-your-back-while-he-puts-his-ear-to-your-chest-and-listens-to-your-heart-beat love. Not that she could do the same with Spike, but heartbeats were just circulation, just biology, just another superstition that anyone who had died as many times as these two hungry lovers could surely live outside of.
Soon, they were not laughing. Soon, his weight was on her, and when she felt him with every inch of her, she tried to turn her eyes away, tried to close them, and he spread his long fingers under her chin and gasped, as though he really needed the breath, "Look," gasp "please" groan " I need you to see --oh God -- me." And so she gave him her eyes, memorized every crease and shift and convulsion in the sharp lines of his face, because she knew that daylight was chasing them from the east, and he would have to flee before it.
And when he finally slid his hands away from her sides, she slipped easily from his grasp and fell silent into her bed. He stood, and she turned her eyes down, not to watch his back as he left. When her breath settled back to a saner, weekday pace, she gathered the kimono from between the sheets, pulled the sash around her, and followed him to the living room. He was already dressed, in a tight black T-shirt and leather pants that were truly redundant on that body. He had his foot on the veneer of the coffee table tightening the laces of his combat boots.
*Don't leave me again, you fucker,* she thought, surprised by the violent suddenness of the emotion, and then by how quickly it was gone.
"You could call me sometime," she said to his back, and he jumped, jarring the table with his foot, so that a blown-glass vase Dawn had bought in Venice fell to shards on the floor.
"Bloody hell, Slayer!" Spike choked out, then tilted his head at her. "I was ready to say good-bye. Except I just --" He looked away.
"Wasn't ready?" Buffy smiled and stepped close to him. "You could call, that would be all right."
"You don't trust us," he said flatly. "Wolfram & Hart."
"Yes," she said firmly, then shook her head. "No. I mean, I'm not sure."
"And I'm not sure, either, but I can't wait, right now, until I'm sure. The closest I can come to being sure is --" He looked up and with an edge in his voice said, "If you repeat this, I'll kill you, and if I'm dead, I'll haunt you. But Buffy - it's Angel. If I'm on the lookout for a white hat, if I need someone to trust is doing his damn best to do the right thing." Spike swallowed. "Why am I gonna look further than him? I don't know all the reasons he has for being wrapped up with these ghouls, but I can't doubt that he has reasons."
She hesitated, her eyes running over the broken glass on the floor. "Any chance you can find out what they are?"
"And be your spy in the house of Wolfram?" he asked, then said firmly, "No. The phone thing?" He raised a hand to his ear. "That works with Angel too. You'll get more out of him than I will, anyway, and for that matter - well, the invitation stands. We could use a slayer around the place, and I bet L.A. would even suit the Little Bit. She probably has a hundred little friends running around with madeup memories about what a swell kid she was. The offer's not exactly mine to make, but I don't imagine a lot of protests from the vamp upstairs." He shrugged. "You wouldn't even have to see me if you didn't want. 'S not about you and me."
Buffy coughed into her hand. "Bullshit."
"Fine," he shrugged. "Bullshit. If you want to come there and be with me, I'll throw you a three-ring-circus. But any case, we're a bit short in the female department, this minute. I don't mean girls. Hell, it's L.A. But women -- fighters. Planners. I wouldn't have thought what a difference that could make, but when you lot aren't there anymore. Keeping things shipshape. It's like, well, there's a bit of a hole in the world." He knelt to brush the vase shards into his hands, as though he had just noticed them there. "There is one you know. A hole."
"In the world?"
"I went underground, stood there and looked at it. Goes clear down and comes out the other side. I'll take you someday. It's not a pretty sight, but just to know it's there. That's quite a thing."
"You stood there and looked at it?"
He nodded, then straightened and moved toward her, brushing the bits of glass into her hands, as if it were the most natural thing to do with them and she, as if she agreed, cup her palms to take them. She said, "I hope you spit. Into the hole."
"Of course I spit."
"Of course you did." She closed her hand around the glass. A small piece bit into her skin. "Men always spit."
He smiled. "Is that what I am?"
"Spike, it's not my fight. If you just wait to talk to Giles, maybe we could set something up for you to do. In England or even -- you know. Here."
"And that fight's not mine." He pulled the long black duster over his shoulders and nodded at the door. "Buffy, the sun -- I have to leave."
"I know."
She dropped the glass into a bowl on the coffee table. The smallest piece stabbed into her thumb, and she felt the warmth of blood pooling on her finger. Stepping toward him, she said, "Don't tell Angel." Then, "Oh God -- he's not going to be able to do that thing where he smells me on you, is he? Because, you know," she shuddered. "Gross."
He shook his head. "Enough volcanic ash and dead vamp between me and L.A., even the Brooding One won't know what he's smelling." Spike raised an eyebrow. "You're sure you're not up for Pompeii? Last days of and all, you and me, with the decadence."
"Once again? A world of no."
Spike rocked back on his heels and looked at her. "He'll figure out I was here. It's his bloody plane."
Not lying to Dawn and Willow and the others was one thing. Keeping the two vampires in her life from killing each other, that was something else. "Tell him -- you saw me and, well, I'm still not happy, but -- I don't know, tell him I chased you off."
"How about if I say you told me to crawl into a hole and die, and not come out --That would be easy, seeing as you did."
"OK, I was a little upset. Your timing there was not so great."
"You mean, I should have been more forthcoming? About the Angel situation." He smiled. "It would have made a difference?"
"It -- I don't know, possibly."
He nodded. "I think my timing was OK."
"Don't come out unless it's a very sunny day."
He held up his hands in surrender. "I get it. Can I tell him about the kiss?"
"Which --?" she paused.
"The one you're about to give me. He will be very suspicious if I try to deny that there was a kiss."
"Nice try."
He sulked. "I mean, he showed up out of the blue, got a kiss, just saying hello --"
"Right. With your lips." She put her hands against his shoulders, leaned in, and kissed him. He tasted like garlic and cigarettes, an iron pungency that might have been blood, and a salt warmth that could only have been her.
"I don't know," he panted when he pulled away, "If I should tell him about that particular kiss."
She raised her right hand to his mouth, and he frowned at the trickle of red blossoming from one finger. "Whaz' this?"
"Slayer blood," she whispered. "Healing properties. Protection."
"Really?" he said quietly. She nodded and he said, "Buffy, a kiss is just a kiss. A body's just a body, but blood --"
"I'm giving it. Take it. Take some of me with you. Be safe."
"Safe," he repeated, then raised her finger to his mouth. He pressed the pad to his top front teeth, closed his wet lips around the finger, and drew out the blood like a nursing child. Cradling her hand, he rocked back and forth for what could only have been a minute, but felt so much longer. His eyes never left hers, until he lifted her hand from his mouth and whispered. "Enough. Now seeing as I don't want my tight hot little body getting fried again. I'll be on my way."
She opened the door to the street and gave him a gentle shove out of it, "You and your chipmunk heart? Can bite me."
Spike raised his eyebrows and whispered, "Rain check." His coat waved in the breeze of the approaching dawn. She slipped inside, not allowing herself to watch him look back.
*
Twelve hours later, Buffy brushed the last of the glass into the garbage and settled down to wait for a much tardier Dawn. As she shifted on the cushion, something hard moved beneath it. She reached her hand down and came out with a silver lighter, just as her sister burst through the door. "Oh my God Buffy you are not gonna believe what Angelica and I found at the magic shop and I know I probably shouldn't have taken her there but she just happened to see this pendant Willow sent me and -- What's wrong, what are you staring at?"
*I could be lying to my sister,* she repeated and held up the lighter. "Dawn," she said. "You'd better sit down. No, we'll start up the link. We need to talk. All of us."
END