A/N : Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it, and hope everybody else is having a good weekend too!
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 13
"Oh, great" Doyle sighed, shaking his head as he came out of his bedroom and surveyed the scene. The devastation that lay before him was once a semi-tidy and presentable living space. Spike had a bad night last night, that much was obvious. He drank most nights, but not to excess as a rule. The last binge Doyle remembered his friend going on was when he and Drusilla were finally over. If the two empty bourbon bottles were anything to go by he'd probably seen that very same woman last night, opening up old wounds that had only just recently properly healed.
"Come on, you lazy bugger" the Irishman called to Spike as he walked around the couch, picking up the bleached blond's leather coat that had been haphazardly discarded over the coffee table, next to an ashtray that was overflowing with cigarette butts. Spike also smoked too much when he got upset and/or angry.
"Yo, Spike!" Doyle yelled more loudly, kicking the other man's booted foot where it hung over the end of the couch, his head at the opposite end, face pushed unattractively into the cushions, "Rise and shine, Sleeping Ugly!" he shouted near his ear and finally Spike seemed to hear him.
One hand immediately went to his face as Spike shied away from the daylight and tried to deal with both the banging in his head and the terrible feeling of nausea that flooded his system. His body felt like lead, his head swam violently with every tiny movement, and little did Spike know that this was the best he would feel all day. At this precise moment in time his mind was sufficiently foggy and asleep that it didn't remember the events of last night clearly enough for them to hurt.
Doyle had left the living room, taking some random garbage into the kitchen when Spike managed to pull himself into a sitting position and some of the haze in his head cleared. He closed his eyes and wished the pain away, that terrible feeling like a knife in his heart as he recalled exactly what had happened last night with Buffy. God he hated her, and the world for making this situation present itself. He also loved those two things for the same reason and that didn't help his sanity or the pain in his head and heart.
"You got sufficiently wasted last night then" Doyle said too loudly as he came back into the room and found his friend still on the couch looking decidedly worse for wear from the bourbon he'd consumed the night before.
"Piss off" Spike muttered as he wished the world away. Sadly it did not co-operate, and neither did Doyle.
"Look, the way I see it" the Irishman sighed as he sat himself on the coffee table opposite Spike, "is the only two reasons a fella such as yourself gets himself in the state you find yourself in this fine mornin' is money or women" he counted the two on his fingers, "Seein' as I happen to know I'm the gamblin' man out of the two of us, I'd say your problem revolves around a certain lady" he guessed. Spike continued to ignore him, hand tightening on the empty Jack bottle in his hand.
"Right then, so now the question becomes which particular lady could've made you such a mess?" Doyle continued his one man conversion since Spike was not forthcoming, "There was of course the beautiful but insane Drusilla, but I know she's so far out the picture it's untrue" he said thoughtfully, "And the only other woman I can think of that'd make our man Spikey here turn to the drink so easy is the Proprietor of one fabulous night-club by the name of The Bronze" he smirked, "Miss Buffy Summers, come on down" he said with a grin, the expression sliding from his face when Spike glanced at him and he saw something he hoped he'd never see again after the debacle with Dru - tears in his good friends eyes.
As Doyle's expression shifted, Spike knew he'd seen the drops of sadness he'd been trying to hide. He hated it and showed that hate the only way he knew how, by throwing the bottle in his hand against the wall with a force that smashed it into a hundred tiny pieces on impact. Doyle's eyes followed the bottle's fate and by the time his vision shifted back to where Spike had been, the bleached blond was gone, the bedroom door slamming behind him.
"Well, Doyle my boy" the Irishman said to himself, "You knew they were attracted to each other. Seems you never accounted for your ol' pal Spike fallin' in love again"
"Buffy?"
The blonde vaguely heard her name being called down the hall outside her office, though she made no move or sound to tell her friend where she was hiding. She'd stopped crying hours ago, tears would only come for so long and her body could only convulse with sobs so much before her muscles ached. She'd done a terrible thing, possibly two terrible things, definitely one beautiful thing, but that might also prove to be a wrong thing. Despite hours of thinking it over, and over, and over, Buffy still wasn't entirely sure which was her bigger crime, or if she'd done anything so very bad at all.
"Buffy?" Willow called again, smiling with relief as she opened the door to the office and found her missing friend inside. The smile disappeared when she saw the state of the blonde, sat at her desk, holding her ripped top to her body, tear stains on her face.
"Oh my Goddess, what happened to you!" she gasped as she rushed to her friends side and knelt by the chair, "Buffy talk to me" she urged, "Tell me, who did this to you?"
After a long moment, Buffy found words to answer.
"I did it, Will" she croaked out, "I... I wanted to, and he... I never thought it would... I never meant to..." she shook her head, collapsing into another fit of tears and Willow held her friend as best she could as she processed the broken sentences and tried to make sense of the situation. It had initially looked as if someone had taken advantage of Buffy, but as she tried to explain it seemed that the blonde had wanted whatever had happened to happen, which begged the question, why was she so upset now?
"It wasn't supposed to be so complicated, Will" Buffy coughed and spluttered the sentence out as she pulled away from her friend and tried to explain, "I never meant for it to be like this"
"Sweetie, what wasn't supposed to be so complicated?" Willow urged her to explain further, "I don't understand"
"Spike was here" she said, looking down at the floor, "We were fighting and then we kissed and..." the look on her face meant Willow got her full meaning without her having to finish the sentence.
"Oh" was all the stunned red-head could find to say. She'd known for a while that things weren't perfect between Buffy and Angel, and the love/hate thing that had been going on with her and Spike was pretty obvious too. Still the last thing Willow had expected was to find her best friend had done the deed with Spike and in her office no less!
"It was just sex" Buffy shook her head, eyes fixing on the desk a moment later, bringing Willow's attention to the fact the things upon it were in disarray, making her wonder if that was where it had happened, "It was just supposed to be physical, I never thought he'd..."
"Never thought he'd what?" Willow asked with a frown when her friend fell silent again.
"How can he, Will?" she said, as her eyes shifted back to her friend, "How can he love me when he hates me so much, when he... how can he?" she asked again, looking so terribly confused.
"He loves you?" the red-head checked, "I mean, he said those actual words?"
Buffy nodded her head.
"Right after we... He just said it and I freaked out" she admitted, swallowing hard so she could continue, "I made him leave and now... God, Will, the things he can make me feel, I never thought anybody could do that to me" she said, looking equal parts stunned and horrified by her own words, "but then he had to ruin it" she cried and Willow wasn't sure what she was supposed to say.
First off, she was stunned at her friend and the way she'd betrayed Angel by being with Spike. She was further shocked by the fact that it seemed the bleached blond was in love with Buffy. Of course one might say Buffy was justified in her betrayal, after all it seemed highly likely what Angel was often unfaithful to the blonde, not that two wrongs made a right at all but... Willow felt quite dizzy as she went over it all in her head, the biggest shock still being that her straight-laced friend had found her pleasures with the hired help on a desk in the middle of the day!
Poor Willow didn't quite know how to deal with that one. Though she knew Buffy had been sleeping with Angel for months now, she herself was still a virgin and a little shy and embarrassed when it came to talking about this kind of thing. So far she and Oz had not progressed beyond a little kissage and that was fine for now.
"Sweetie, I wish I knew what to say to help you" Willow sighed, "but, it's all up to you now. Do you love Spike?" she checked and it took Buffy a few moments before she found words to answer.
"No" she lied blatantly, though Willow didn't know it, "No, I don't" she said firmly, though she never did meet her friends eyes.
"And Angel?" she prompted, wondering if it was another fight with her fiance that had caused Buffy to do what she had with Spike. Angel could be a really nice guy when he wanted to be, but since he'd been working with Darla things had changed. That woman could wrap men round her little finger so easily, and Angel was her favourite toy whom it seemed she could control better than anyone. One argument too many might have been all it took to push Buffy over the edge and make her do something she now regretted with a guy like Spike.
"We fought" Buffy admitted, sniffing still from all the crying that had come before, "It was stupid, all about Darla" she spat the blonde's name out as if saying it left a nasty taste in her mouth, "I said it didn't matter, it was all okay. Will, I was so stupid"
"No, sweetie" Willow shook her head, though in all honesty she wasn't sure if what she said was true, she wasn't even certain which part of what Buffy had done the blonde now considered to be stupid. The fighting with Angel perhaps, or forgiving him too easily, or maybe what she'd done with Spike on the desk, or something else entirely could be what she was referring too, "Buffy, whatever's happened, you are not stupid. You're just... confused" she said, knowing she felt exactly the same and it wasn't even her problem, "I guess you need to figure out where to go from here, what you wanna do next?"
"There's only one thing I can do" she said, nodding her head and wiping tear tracks and ruined mascara from her cheeks with the backs of her hands, "I'll go home and change, and then I'll go see him, make this right" she said determinedly, scrambling to her feet. She had her coat on, her purse in her hand and was by the door, all before Willow had managed to get back on her feet.
"Thanks, Will" she said with a shaky smile, as she exited the office, leaving the bemused red-head behind.
"You're welcome?" she said uncertainly to the now empty room, wondering what she'd even done that had been helpful.
"I dunno, princess, wish I bloody did" Doyle said in a low voice. He had called Cordelia to warn her work not be much fun tonight one way or the other. Knowing as he did that something must have happened between Spike and Buffy, it either meant working at the Bronze tonight would mean facing several hours in an atmosphere of some awful kind, or being one or two people short should one or both of the blond 'couple' choose not to show their face.
"Well, we have to do something, Doyle" Cordy told him in no uncertain terms, holding the phone under her chin as she made some lunch, "I am so sick of all this stuff between Buffy and Spike. They're causing me stress and that's just not good for the complexion"
"Sweetheart, no matter what happens with those two, it won't change how beautiful you are to me, stressed or not, alright?" he told her honestly and she blushed on the other end of the line.
"Seriously, we need to figure this out" Cordy told him, "I can't work with those two alternately bitching and making goo-goo eyes at each other. They're driving me crazy!"
"Well, you know Buffy better than most" Doyle sighed, "Can't you talk to her, find out what happened and such?"
"I dunno" Cordy shrugged to herself, "We haven't talked like that since High School. I'm not exactly in with the in crowd anymore and... What the hell was that!" she said suddenly as a loud noise down the line almost made her drop the phone. Grabbing the receiver with her hand she put it back to her ear tentatively.
"That'll be Spike then" Doyle explained, "Seems he plugged his guitar into the amp and knocked the volume up beyond breaking point" he said, his expression pained as he covered his other ear and forced the phone tight against the other so he could still hear Cordelia when she spoke.
"Won't your neighbours mind the noise?" she winced, holding the phone a few inches from her ear. She didn't hear most of Doyle's reply, just a vague apology and goodbye before the line went dead. Cordy was mostly just thankful that the noise had gone away and that Spike was doing something other than getting drunk and moping, which apparently had been his main activities throughout the morning. Maybe being loud was his next step towards recovery, she considered as she took her food over to the couch and sat down to eat, considering what colour she might paint the living room when she'd actually earned enough money to pay for the supplies.
"Spike!" Doyle bellowed from the bedroom door for the fourth time and to no avail as the bleached blond kept his back to his friend and played his guitar too loudly. With a string of unheard curse words, Doyle knelt down by the amp and pulled out the cable, silencing the music his friend was making and causing him to spin round fast with a look like thunder on his face.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for!" he complained and the Irishman looked at him incredulously.
"Spike, man, the neighbours have been bangin' on the floor and the ceiling both" he explained, "And I myself was two seconds away from havin' my brain run out my ears!"
"What brain?" Spike shot back, only semi-joking and Doyle looked somewhere between amused and angry.
"Oh, right, I get it" he said with a look, "Think you'll take out your woman trouble on me now? Well, think again, man, I'm not bearing the brunt of this little misunderstanding or whatever the hell it is you've had with Miss Buffy Summers"
"I don't want to talk about her" Spike said, looking away, "Don't even want to think about her, stupid bloody bint" he swore, kicking an empty can across the carpet out of temper.
"Not sayin' I want to talk about her either, man, but whatever the hell happened with you two wants fixin' and fast" Doyle told him in no uncertain terms, "So deal with it, as soon as, right?" he said, before leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
Spike watched his friend go and thought carefully about his next move. Doyle was right, he did need to do something about Buffy. She should never have got to him, made him feel all this stuff, mixed him up so bad, even worse than Dru had.
"Gotta move on" he said to himself, though he wasn't entirely sure it was possibly, he was bloody well going to try. No woman was going to control him, not this time.
To Be Continued...