Spinning the Wheel 13 - When shall we meet again
"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be; what thou art promis'd,: yet do I fear thy nature, It is too full o' th' milk of humane kindness; to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great… wouldst be what?" Buffy exclaimed over dramatically and plopped down on the couch, flinging her textbook on the coffee table.
Spike had his troubles to save his mug of coffee from the flying literature.
"Why does this have to be so… British?" she sighed and draped one arm over her eyes.
"Hey. No bad word about the Mother Country." he replied with mock anger, looking at the exhausted blond in front of him.
"Sorry. It's just…" she shook her head unable to express her mood properly. "I can't get this straight. This language is just... too complicated. I can't do this."
"If I can, you can, too. It's not that difficult."
"Yeah, maybe it goes with the mother milk, what do I know."
"Have you ever looked up the word 'prejudice'?" he shot back.
"I know, I know. You know what I mean." she squinted at him from under her arm and saw him smirking at her. "Are you making fun of me?" she asked.
"Maybe." the smirk seemed plastered on his face.
"Oh thank you. I thought you'd be a little supportive. Now you're making fun of me. That's the kinda guy I need." she rolled her eyes at him and pouted.
"I'm not making fun of you, okay? You just keep saying that you can't do it until you actually fail." he gave her an honest look. "Plus you faking a British accent is just priceless." he shrugged innocently.
Buffy sighed again but picked up her textbook again and looked over the lines she just read. This was hell. She should have never gotten into this whole drama mess. She would stand on stage not being able to say a word and everybody would be laughing at her. She would make a total fool out of herself if she didn't quit this class.
"I'll go and give the coffee machine another go. Want one, too?" Spike placed his mug in his lap and moved back to twist around and continue into the kitchen.
"If you got milk I'm on it." Buffy answered, her nose still in her text.
"Sure." he said from the kitchen. Soon, the coffee machine was sent into action and the bitter smell of the brew filled the room. As the coffee bubbled up into the pot, he watched her from behind the counter.
He remembered sitting here and waiting for the tea water to boil. Now it was the same situation but the conditions had changed a bit.
Buffy wasn't on duty with her probation anymore. She was here because he had asked her to, because she wanted it. Spike couldn't remember when he had somebody here because he had asked for it. It was too long ago. But now she was here. And it felt nice, just like he'd said the other day.
It was nice to have somebody around to talk to even if it was just the casual small-talk kind of thing. Buffy had stopped asked annoying questions for sometime, that was a bonus. It almost felt as if they were some sort of friends. Not the close buddy kind of friends who had sleepovers or movie nights every Tuesday but they were getting along.
They felt comfortable in each other's presence and Spike felt his mood lighten a little bit with every day.
"You dead in there?" he heard Buffy's voice and snapped out of his thoughts.
"Nope, alive and kicking. More or less" he said, a little weary if she might have seen him staring at her.
"Great, cause I'm a little dehydrating in here."
"Be there in a minute."
They sipped their coffee in silence. Buffy was flipped through the pages of her textbook, trying to learn her lines.
"I will definitely screw this thing." she exclaimed after a while causing Spike to jump at her sudden words and almost spill his coffee.
"What?"
"The play. I won't do it. Next time I have class I'll go to the professor and tell him that I'm out." she shook her head with her eyes focussed on the text.
"Why's that now?"
"I don't know. It's... I look at these lines and don't get them. I could stare at this book for ten hours straight and I won't understand a single word. I can never go up on stage."
"Yes, you will." he said with a resolved look on his face. Buffy knew that look from Willow. She could be a stubborn bitch from hell if she wanted to. But this was the first time she saw it on Spike.
She looked at him with surprised eyes until he continued. "You can do this. Believe me. You just have to open up for it, that's all. When you continue saying 'oh I can't do that' then you won't. You have to believe in yourself."
Buffy stared at him for a second then she exploded into one syllable. "Wow." She gave an impressed frown. "That was... convincing."
"Neat, huh? That's what my teacher told me back then. I was nervous as hell, too. But he used much more words for it." The resolved look transformed into an assuring smile.
Buffy sighed. "So… I might not quit. But when I suck it's your fault."
He held up his hands in defeat. "Blame all on me."
"Thanks." Buffy smiled back at him and nodded slightly. There was a moment of silence until she continued. "Did you do any other plays in school?" Why exactly was she asking that? To pass this awkward moment for one thing but she just couldn't imagine Spike up on stage in that play. She'd seen that guy from college that was supposed to be her partner and when she had tried to replace the image, she just couldn't.
"No, one and only. Was in my senior year. Plus that one almost risked my graduation. If I'd done another one, I wouldn't have made it."
"You put much effort in it, huh?"
"Yeah, went through the lines every free minute. That's why I still know 'em by heart.
"Was about a girl, wasn't it?" Buffy, why can't you just shut up? Why do you have to ask these questions?
"How did you figure?" Spike looked at her, a curious and slightly confused frown on his face.
Buffy was startled for a moment that he actually replied to that. She had expected him to be all get-the-hell-out-of-apartment again. "Ehm... I just… it was like that back at our high school. The guys just got into theatre or art class when they were either overly talented and that was rare. Or they wanted to get into a girl's pants." she explained frankly, not sure if she went too far again.
Spike was quiet for a moment, pondering the thought of what to tell her and what to keep unsaid. Actually, he didn't want to share too much of his private life, especially the not so bright part back then. With a little sigh, he finally answered. "Yeah, was about a girl."
"Did it work?" Buffy almost blurted. Where did that sudden interest come from? Maybe it was the surprise that made her ask further questions.
"If you consider being humiliated in front of the entire school as 'working' than yeah. If you think that we lived happily ever after, no it didn't." Hm... that wasn't hard to tell. He had thought there would be much more pain and heartache involved when he thought about weither to say it or not.
"Oh... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"
"No... it's... it's okay. That's over and done with. Was year's ago." he gave her another assuring smile.
Yeah... right... you're over and done with it, his inner voice told with a mocking tone. You'll never get over that. Never. The words will stay stuck in your head until the day you die and even then you'll hear them. 'You're beneath me.' That's what she'd said, right there at the premiere party of the play for everybody to hear. And wasn't she right?
"…what you mean."
"What?" Spike snapped out of his thoughts, blinked and looked up at the blonde again. "Sorry, I was..."
"I said that I know what you mean. With the over and done with part. I was like that, too."
"You were? What happened?"
"The year we moved here..." Buffy hesitated for a moment but she felt the urge to tell him. He had told her something, now it was her turn. "Was my first year, here. I had a crush on this guy. Owen. The all-American darling kind of guy, just to cover the shallow part of me. I was totally into him, I even started reading Emily Dickens for him." She twisted her mouth in distaste and rolled her eyes.
"Did it work?" he mirrored her own words.
"Not really. We were out on a date once, but he was... he actually was more weird than I had expected after he showed up at the library to ask for a book. So we went out to the Bronze and when he took me home, he wanted to take the shortcut through the cemetery. He was all into the crazy stuff, like wanting to break into the morgue and stuff like that. So… I broke up with him."
"Sounds bad. But still... I got you beat." a slight smirk played around his lips, trying to cover the bitter taste of his own memory.
"Yeah, can't catch up with you on that one." she mirror his smile, then her gaze dropped down at her watch. "Oh... gosh. I have to go." She scrambled to her feet, stuffing the textbook into her purse.
"Why's that now?" Spike's mood sank with a flash of disappointment.
"I gotta pick up Dawn at her friend's house. My mom will kill me if I'm late."
"Oh... okay then." he felt slightly relieved to hear that, he just couldn't fathom why.
He followed Buffy as she walked to the door. When the blonde suddenly whipped around, he gave a start.
"You know what?" she blurted.
Instead of an answer, he shot her an expectant look.
"My... ehm... my birthday was a little wonky with Xander peeking through the window and all…plus… I wanted to thank you for the necklace again. So... I ... ehm… I wanted to ask you out."
"You do what?" He just couldn't keep the words in. Through his surprise, they found a way out.
"I wanted to ask you out... to dinner... my bill... Friday night." Oh yeah, she was nervous. She must be as nervous as he had been when he'd ask her to come over again.
He pondered that for a moment. When he said 'yes', that would be more than just their usual routine or his visit at her birthday. That would be a date. She was asking him out on a date.
"Okay." he heard himself say with a little shaky voice. Great, now he'd grown a second brain that was answering the questions for him. It just kept getting better and better.
"Great. I'll pick you up... say... around eight?" Buffy beamed at him with one of those sunshine smiles.
"Leave a bit of chivalry, will you? I pick you up. Can't give you a ride, but..."
"Not that my mom would ever give me the car again. It's okay. See you on Friday then." she opened the door and was out in a breath.
"So long." was all he could manage, but she didn't hear it anyway.
With a sigh he moved back into the living room again. He'd just been invited out on a date. He couldn't believe it. Maybe it was nothing on her side, but it meant something to him, something that he couldn't find words for. He just hoped that he would find them on Friday night.
