Crossing into unchipped country (21/22) by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: At the start, around AtS 5.09 or 5.10
Author's note: Thanks to my dear betas.
Author's website: http:home.planet.nl/dutchbuffy2305
Feedback: Yes, please, to dutchbuffy2305yahoo.co.uk
Spike remembers killing a little girl and tossing away her cheap rubber toy in the gutter. The little yellow duckling bobbed helplessly on the shallow stream and finally disappeared around a corner. He feels like that rubber ducky now. His stomach churns with apprehension. His face must stay impassive, as impassive as the other Spike truly feels. He can't help a sickening fear that she won't be able to do it, that she really can't tell them apart. If she loves him, she has to know who's who, right? Then her face loses its insecurity and he sees her dress herself in power and grace once more.
All his anger and resentment just fall away from him when he sees her standing there, legs wide and arms crossed, flaming with the knowledge of who she is and what she can do, and he hears her voice firmly refuse to play the game. That's his girl, she's the one. Doesn't just play along, always thinks outside the box and stays true to herself. Yeah, Buffy, here I am. I'm yours. He steps forward, feels his cheeks stretching in a grin. The smile on her face dazzles him when he comes for her. She'll be his surrogate sunshine, her whole body is glowing at him with her eyes all big and happy. Without looking back he hastily slaps something in his alter ego's duster pocket and then he's standing right in front of her, can't resist grabbing her in a brief tight hug.
He doesn't even notice the transfer to the bleachers until his feet hit the ground again.
The three suits are holding back the surging mob of Ethans and black blobs with their armored briefcases, so Buffy and he can walk unhindered to the luxury extra-wide gateway. He closes his eyes during the travel through the interdimensional portal. He never loses the feel of her in his arms, warm and real, big enough to heat him through and through, tiny scrap of a girl that she is. It's the size of her heart that matters.
His feet sink slightly into the surface he's standing on. Must be the carpet in Angel's office. He doesn't want to open his eyes yet, but he can feel the silent gazes of at least a dozen people pressing in on him. He pulls Buffy hard against his body for a last moment, then grabs her hand, steps away, and turns to face the multitudes.
A deafening chorus of shouts and applause starts up the moment he does that. All he can see is smiling faces, directed at him and at Buffy. Lorne, flunky, Harmony, Xander and Andrew, more flunkies, Dawn jumping up and down, Angel with a big grin, flunkies….Angel with a big grin, no less, while he's coming back the hero, handsome man saved the girl? And where's Pryce?
Dawn rushes past him, enveloping Buffy in a big, crushing hug, except of course the Slayer doesn't crush. He sneaks a peek at her while Andrew does a good imitation of Dawn on him, but Buffy's still glowing and looking happier than he's ever seen her, disheveled hair, torn dress and filthy feet notwithstanding.
Everybody wants to pump his hand and clap his shoulder. Harmony tries a full body slam and he has to pry her off his lips where she's trying to take up residence.
"None of that, now, Harm," he says and she pouts at him.
"You'll always be my Blondie Bear," she says defiantly.
He should have brought her the purple unicorn as a gift, he reckons. Disabuse her of some of these silly notions. She's done well enough on them, though. Hasn't even got a soul and look where she is. He just tugs at a lock of her carefully casual hair and wishes her well.
Buffy excitedly throws out snatches of her adventures. "Xander, you'll never guess who we saw!"
"Um, no?" Xander says.
"Three Ethan Raynes!" Buffy says triumphantly. "He's the one who sent the other Spike to snatch me! He wanted revenge."
"Four Ethans," Spike says. "One was a Watcher, and they fed him to...killed him."
"Ew!" Dawn says.
"And what do we learn from this, children?" Xander says. "Kill the bad guys the first time around instead of running them out of town. They always come back, like in sequels."
Spike glares.
"Or, you know, you could just date them?" Xander trails off.
"I don't think that worked when Giles tried it with Ethan," Willow says without a shred of irony, and Spike stifles a grin. He's gonna remember that little tidbit for later use.
Spike tries to pull Buffy down on the couch with him, but she's too wound up to sit still and wanders around the room chattering her head off. He'd just like to go home and have her to himself, but he knows the dues to friendship and team spirit must be paid.
"Spike!" Buffy exclaims suddenly.
"What is it, love?"
"No, not you, the other one. He's still trapped in there. We have to save him," Buffy says.
"What category does he fall in?" Xander says, "Big bads to kill or guys whose twins we date?"
"Shut up, Xan," Willow says.
"Willow. The device. We need to get back in, Spike!" Buffy is frantic.
"You have your Spike," Andrew says. "Why do you need two? You could leave one for other people!""
"He helped me; it isn't fair to leave him to be killed by the Blobs."
"I gave him the device," Spike says quietly. "I reckoned he was on his own, after that. Don't forget Dru and him are vampires without souls."
"You gave him…" Buffy gapes. "Okay. Cool. Good thinking. Yeah, I don't think I need to…yeah."
"Hold on, Buffy," Xander says sharply. "So, he could still cross to our dimension and start killing again, Spike? Just because this Spike is good, doesn't mean we should give all vampires a pass from now on!"
Spike shrugs.
Buffy looks at Xander with a frown on her face. "It's not a free pass, Xan. You haven't met the Gatekeepers. He has a chance of getting out of there, no more. Not even fifty-fifty. And he knows I'll kill him if he comes back to my dimension."
"What about other dimensions? He could still go there and wreak havoc!" Angel chips in.
Buffy bites her lip and straightens her spine. "I can't be responsible for all the dimensions. I'm not the only Slayer in the Universe. They'll have to fend for themselves."
Spike nods, and catches a mirroring movement from Angel. Christ, they agree on something. He needs a drink.
After the flunkies, including Harmony, have scurried back to their workplaces, Angel gets out the Laphroaig and pours shots for the small group that's still there, determined to celebrate. He's really trying, poor old thing. He deserves points for effort.
Buffy declines the whiskey, as he knew she would, and complains about her disheveled state.
"God, I could use a shower and clean clothes!" she says, and Angel immediately offers her the use of his personal shower. The whole party troops upstairs, the Scoobies exclaiming about the private elevator. Angel takes Buffy along to show her the bathroom. Spike's not at all bothered by this. Not in the least. He trusts Buffy.
Predictably, Dawn and Andrew sprawl on the oversize sofa and try out the chairs. Angel comes back alone. Good. Xander gets voluble with his second glass of whiskey and fawns over Dead Boy's latest incarnation, penthouse and private jet exclamations coming out again and again. Angel allows the fawning; he seems to enjoy been sucked up to. He must be missing it from all his absent and dead friends, right? Spike really needs to go wash out his brain. All this jealousy ain't pretty.
Spike walks off and leans against the wall, still nursing his first whiskey, thinking about Buffy in the shower. Nobody's watching him, he could just go check out how she is. He walks up to the bathroom slowly, unsure of his reception. Annoying but true. The rules always seem different in the real world, certainly with Buffy.
The sight that greets him still gets him where he lives, even if he's seen it all before, in much less romantic settings. Buffy's standing in Angel's gigantic granite shower cubicle, wreathed in steam, eyes closed. She's the antitheses of everything the shower cubicle stands for, like design, hard angles, absence of color. She's gold and pink and brown, dozens of shades of bronze, and she doesn't have a straight line anywhere. Her hands wander dreamily over her body, now hiding a golden breast and brown nipple with a veil of soap suds, then revealing them again. The breast springs loose from her hand and she languidly extends an arm above her head and performs a ballet version of a stretching exercise. She's Aphrodite rising from the foam, and he's not thinking of what caused Aphrodite to be born there, or Botticelli's Venus after some months of rigorous exercise and tanning.
The glass of whiskey almost slips from his hand and he quickly gulps down the remaining fluid. Does she always act like this in strange guys' bathrooms; guys who don't even have locks on their bathroom doors? She slides her hand down her outstretched arm from the wrist to the shoulder and then lets it travel down her slick body, circling the navel and descending over her mound to disappear between her legs. Christ. He sees the wicked little smile on her face and finally gets that it's a performance. For him, he hopes.
"Hey, you," Buffy says with one of her big spotlight smiles. "Come on in, you must be feeling pretty filthy too."
"Always," he drawls and shows her his tongue.
She pinks a little, becoming rosy and shy down to her nipples. She rises to the occasion, however, by lifting her arms and twirling for him. Spike feels a rush of fear cramping his guts - it's so much like his dream from last night that he takes an instinctive look upwards for the sun, although he knows he's in a bathroom under a solid roof.
Buffy notices his hesitation and lowers her arms quickly, like she's folding in her wings. He really doesn't want her to go back into her cocoon so he steps forward, pushes through his sudden fear and starts undressing.
"It's a bit scary," he says to her in the most conversational tone he can muster and steps into the shower cabin – it's almost as big as his whole apartment.
Buffy looks up at him with her eyes widening, but when he closes the distance between them to nothing her nervousness subsides and she puts her wet cheek against his chest.
"Why?" she says softly.
"Because," he shrugs. "I dunno, Buffy. The real world coming between us? Reaching the pinnacle of your dreams and not knowing what the landscape will look like from up there?"
She hugs him tighter and he closes his eyes, his cheek on her sodden hair. "I like being your pinnacle," she says with a smile in her voice. "I'm sure there are other mountains we can scale together, you know?"
"You think we will?" he asks.
"Yeah."
They stand under the rushing water of the shower, content to let their tired limbs be washed clean. The water noise makes a blanket of sound they can huddle under and pretend the world doesn't exist for a few minutes.
"I don't know," Buffy says after a bit. "Maybe it's scary, but it can also be a relief. When I finally gave myself over to being a Slayer it was like that."
"Hmm."
Buffy shivers and Spike reaches over to turn off the water. "Let's get you dried off."
Buffy lets him dry her off, which is so new and intimate it's more gratifying than mere sex. He acquits himself of this important task with great thoroughness, gently lifting up her breasts to dry every fold of her exquisite flesh, between her toes, behind her ears. Buffy giggles and leans against him.
"Now I'll do you," she says when she's had enough of his patient fiddling.
Her approach to drying off is much rougher and more direct than his. She leans into him to pass the towel behind his back and than starts shimmying the towel left and right, traveling from his arse to his neck. The only thing he has to do is lean into this miniature tornado and watch her jiggling breasts. Her whole body has softened and filled out with the thinnest most elegant little layer of extra flesh, not enough to propel her out of size zero, but sufficient to make her lose the gauntness of the last year in Sunnydale. She again looks like what she is, a young woman just blossoming into maturity, instead of a hardened tired warrior. Her lips are full again and smile often, her eyes sparkle up at him and he loves the wicked little tweak she gives his cock, who's an eager participant in these little games.
He fills his hands with her buttocks and marvels at their soft fullness. "Buffy, your arse is the most gorgeous thing on this earth. A bum like that would make the moon jealous."
"The moon?" she says with a worried look at her backside. "You think I'm fat?"
"Aw, Buffy, you know what I mean."
"Just kidding," she says.
She grips him strongly around the ribs and walks him backwards until they land on Angel's bed. She maneuvers herself on his lap and starts a serious kissing offensive. She must be joking. Not on Angel's bed, for God's sake.
"Buffy! Not here," he says, forcing away her hands from his dick. "This is Angel's bedroom. We can't do it here."
Buffy pouts at him. The lip. He has to be strong and not get that lip.
"Besides, I don't want to. Want me some privacy and enough time, and not have half a dozen people wondering where we are, love."
Buffy sighs but snuggles against him. "You could call me sweetheart again, or Goldilocks, you know."
"I will," he promises.
Who knew she remembered stuff like that? He's a little touched. A lot, actually. The enormity of him lying here with a willing, relaxed Buffy hits him again. She's his, for the first time she's really his girl. He falls silent, his hands immobilized on her warm silky thighs, suddenly flattened and awed by his being chosen. After six years of enmity and striving, hopeless love and unexpected sex, violence and insanity, she's his. He's hers.
Even Buffy senses his sudden shift of mood and stops playing. "Hey, silent Spike," she says. "Whatever happened to talky Spike?"
"He got lost," Spike says, he doesn't know why.
"Can I get him back?"
"I don't know, Buffy," Spike says, a little disturbed by this. "You wanted me to change, and I did. Might be some good bits got left by the wayside as well as bad bits…Dunno."
"It's okay," Buffy says hastily. "You're okay; you're the one I love. Whoever you are now. Whole package, warts and all."
"I have no warts," Spike says, feigning indignation. "Which you know, because I'm absolutely positive you checked out every inch of me at one time."
Buffy blushes at the memory. "I did. And I will again, soon," she promises. "But not now, I agree. It would be tacky to use poor Angel's room, when he can never…you know."
Spike considers telling her about the werewolf, but having a soul doesn't mean going that much against his own interests.
"Let's get dressed and go back to the others," Buffy says.
Buffy has borrowed some clothes from Willow, which pinch or flop in all the wrong places, but Spike has to get back into his torn and dirty ones. Buffy looks critically at his black T-shirt. "I liked the clothes you wore last year," she says. "Although the arms are a good thing."
All the compliments are making him nervous. It seems unnatural, somehow. He'll need some time to get used to the reality of Buffy.
Buffy hesitates as they are about to walk back into the living room. Spike puts his arm around her waist and pulls her hips against his. If she thinks he's gonna hang back humbly like he always did in Sunnydale, she's got a surprise coming. Buffy bites her lips and smiles at him shakily.
"I get it now, Spike. It is scary," she says.
She draws closer to him and they enter the room together. Angel glowers at him, but as that's his default setting these days, Spike pays it no mind. The Scoobies react well, he thinks. Willow gives them a big smile and a wink, Xander a reserved nod, Andrew and Dawn a repeat of their hugging thing.
"Two heroes, destined for each other," Andrew says with a catch in his voice. "Like Faramir and Éowyn."
"Actually," Dawn says, "there was A…aow?"
Andrew lifts one eyebrow like James Bond, and Dawn shuts up. Yeah, well, Spike's read the books, too.
"It's not kyrumption," Angel says, or something like that.
What's he talking about?
Lorne nods and waves at them. "By spikenard and saffron, I could sing, just watching you two turtle doves coo and twitter. Congratulations, my sweets."
Spike sees Buffy look a bit askance at Lorne's green horned exuberance and parrot colored suit, and he bets she doesn't get his sense of humor either. There are some attempts by Lorne and Xander to revive the party, but everyone is starting to flag badly. Spike misses his other teammates, and he guesses so does Angel.
The view from Angel's window really is gorgeous, much better than from his own rooftop. The sky is purpling and the first flash of orange light from the rising sun reflects on one of the mirrored-glass office buildings. Who'd have thought Spike the vampire would ever look upon a sunrise like that, huh? Or bring home the Slayer as his girlfriend? Not him, that's for sure. Nor the other people present, but they're taking it better than he could have expected. He's just lucky that the brash Kennedy and the old Watcher aren't present. Wouldn't have gone as easy on Buffy otherwise. They're still not out of the woods in that respect. Nothing's settled yet.
While he's been staring out of the window like the dreamer he is, people have begun breaking up the party. There's kissing and shaking hands and Buffy and the Scoobies are saying goodbye. Buffy comes up to him, and he doesn't know what he was expecting, but not her perfunctory kiss and pat on his butt.
"See ya, honey!" she says sweetly.
And off she goes. The last second he could have called out a question passses and she's gone. He schools his face to indifference and nods to Angel and Lorne.
"Time to hit the tunnels," he says.
"Don't forget the meeting!" Angel calls out.
Spike has no clue what meeting gramps is talking about but he doesn't care. He needs all his wits to keep his face impassive until he's safely in the sewers. Once outside the Wolfram & Hart entrance he gets out a cigarette with shaking fingers and tries to light it. He wishes he still had his silver lighter, but it's the only thing that hasn't resurrected with him. He must have left it in the basement in Sunnydale that last morning.
His hand shakes. Okay. Buffy's gone off with her friends and hardly bothered to say goodbye. That must mean she's counting on meeting him really soon, like today. This reasoning is impeccable, but the accompanying feelings are mostly quivering with apprehension. They're not sure at all. He beats them down ruthlessly and shuts the lid on them. He's Spike, Hero and Souled Vampire extraordinaire, and of course his newly found love is meeting him tonight. If she was going back to Cleveland she'd have made more of the goodbye, of course she would. They haven't even talked about the how or the where of their relationship and he realizes that even in his fantasies, he's never thought much beyond being acknowledged in the presence of her friends and waking up in her bed. There clearly is more to a relationship than that. Where to live? Together or apart? What about money? If these were the things Buffy was wigged about two years ago he may have to forgive her for that in retrospect. It's utterly frightening.
He's not gonna live in Cleveland, he decides. That would mean being in the Slayer's entourage, obeying her orders. They'll work together side by side or not at all. He lights another cigarette and pushes off from the sewer wall he's been leaning against to get himself moving. Slowly he makes his way home. Every step brings him fresh obstacles. No wonder Buffy despaired of making him understand what kept her from loving him. There are so many things.
Love is only a beginning, and as he walks, somberly chain smoking his way through his crumpled packet of fags, he gets a notion they might not make it past that. Christ.
When he gets home he hits his second wind. He throws away his ruined clothes and gets out fresh ones. Right, laundry. He'll have to be less haphazard about that. Better sheets. In fact, better apartment altogether. He can't let Buffy live without sunlight. That is, if she'll deign to come visit him once in a while. What's he been thinking? She can't live here. Dawn, Hellmouths, God knows what other obligations she has. He sits down again, head in hands. Too many obstacles.
From under the bed Spike pulls out a carton of stuff he got at a garage sale a couple of months ago, when he was feeling more hopeful. It's mostly books, with one treasure inside, which was the main reason he bought it: Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, a favorite of his for a hundred years. Thou, singing beside me in the wilderness. He puts the carton on the kitchen table and lies down on the bed with the musty age-softened book in his hands. It's a cheap edition, but he's never much cared about that. As long as the words are still readable, a book's condition has never mattered to him.
He must have fallen asleep, because his internal clock is telling him the day has passed in an eye-blink and it's late afternoon already. One lonely ray of warm evening light shines through his one tiny window. Buffy's taking her time about coming, she couldn't have been saying goodbye to the Scoobies all day, could she? She's gone back to Cleveland. No, she wouldn't.
He searches for his cell phone and finds it in his freezer. That is weird. He must have been drunk, and put his vodka in the bedside drawer. Buffy hasn't called. No, she doesn't even have the number, she couldn't call. Never mind, she's not coming and he's just gonna drink down his dinner and get over to the club like he always does, waiting for the night to fall and grow old enough to offer some challenge. He'll need to kill several big somethings tonight if Buffy's not coming.
TBC