"Like someone is cutting into my brain with a knife..."
That was exactly what it felt like. Like someone was cutting into his brain with a knife. Forget the doctor poking round with his fat probing fingers, digging around in the folds of his mind like a pawing schoolboy under the blouse of a first girlfriend. This was far worse.
This was her.
He'd spent the whole day stewing in his chair. Couldn't sleep. Wouldn't eat. Just fidgeting endlessly. Fidgeting and thinking and clawing at himself, trying to feel some pain that wasn't inflicted by thoughts of her.
He could feel her swimming around now, burning in his head. Incinerating him from the inside.
Should've killed her. Should've killed her all the fucking times I had the chance, but instead I toyed with her. Why didn't I kill her!? And now I'm sitting in a cold dark crypt whilst the thought of her turns me inside out.
God its choking me.
The thought of her tongue in his mouth burns him, the heat of her pressed against him...
Haven't felt any heat in over a century.
...Haven't felt a living breathing woman in that way my entire life if we're going to speak the truth about it. Just dead ones... I know what Dru meant now when she said I taste like ashes. Everything else will now too.
Felt her heart beating through her tongue...
He takes a long shivering breath in thinking about what a hot beating tongue would feel like elsewhere. How her hot skin pressed against him would smoulder-
"Spikey?"
Uh Christ what now?
Harmony slips off the bed where she's been flicking through a magazine, reading pieces aloud with endless commentary in between as she lounges against the pillows. He's managed to just about tune her out, like having the radio on constantly in the background.
She leans against the armchair he's lounging in.
"Is everything alright?"
"M'fine."
"You've been so quiet since we got back from the hospital?"
"You do enough yammering on for the both of us, Harm. Can't honestly see how you can tell."
"Why are you in a mood?" She pouts, and fingers a lock of his hair, curling her finger across his jaw.
His nostrils flare at her touch but he doesn't answer. The nails of the hand he's leaning against are pushing into his scalp, digging in as if trying to crush the thought of Buffy out with his own fingers.
He feels restless, angry.
Unsatisfied...
He bites at the insides of his cheeks, trying to quell the shaking fidgeting feeling that's vibrating every muscle to the point of distraction.
Harmony slips onto his lap and he feels his skin crawl. Trying to shift away from her...
Why the fuck did I let her back in? Her never-ending drivelling on about insipid nothingness is relentless.
At least Dru's babbling had poetry underneath it. What on earth possessed me to invite her back in, I-
A glint of the candlelight plays across Harmony's hair for a moment and he sees it. Sees it how he must've unconsciously seen it months ago.
Soft blonde hair. Just for moment, the way her hair drapes down across her face... you could almost think just for a moment... if the lighting was poor enough, or the liquor strong enough you could maybe mistake her from the side as... as...
He pushes her off his lap hard as he stands, his gut twisting viciously around the thoughts biting into his head.
"...Get out."
Don't tell me that's what I was doing... don't tell me that...
But it's too late for the thoughts to dip back into his subconscious. They glisten like wet shiny pennies in his mind so he can't look away from the truth of it.
Harmony looks up at him from the floor. Tears flood her eyes.
"Why?"
He shakes his head, clenches his jaw as he swallows the horror of his realisation down like bile.
"Spikey, I-"
"It's been fun while it lasted Harm." He smirks, laying it on thick so she doesn't hear the shaking in his voice. "But quite frankly I don't think I can take one second more of your endless harping on. Get. Out. Before I rip that overused voice box out of your throat and do the world a good turn for once."
Harmony blinks, stumbling to her feet. And miraculously is lost for words.
The hush in the crypt cloaks him as she slams the door behind her and he takes a deep shivering breathe in, running his hands through his hair. Down his face. He pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lights one with a shaking hand.
Get a grip.
Get a fucking grip.
He takes a deep long drag, nearly inhaling half the cigarette in one sucking pull.
But it does nothing to settle him.
A hard thundering need presses down on him. Finishing the last little piece of his resolve, crushing it as he crushes the cigarette under his heel.
Spike waits in the shadow of the tree outside her house, scuffing his boots in the debris of an entire packet of smoked cigarette stubs that have done nothing to take the edge off. He steps back out of the way of the beam of headlight's as a car pulls up alongside the house. The horn bleats a couple of times.
The windows are well lit and he watches as the youngest Summers bounces down the stairs with a backpack slung over a shoulder. Her lips move as she calls out something to Buffy, then she's out and running down the steps, climbing into the back of the car. Spike can just make out another teenage brat in the backseat as the car pulls off.
One down then. What about Joyce?
He scans the windows but he can't see her inside. He bites at his lip trying to calm his nervous jittering as he waits for a glimpse of her.
Come out, Slayer. God this is bloody unbearable.
A faint sound of their phone ringing travels out to him and she appears.
Buffy. All bouncy golden curls and soft edges. She's wearing jeans and a red sleeveless top that clutches at every curve and Spike feels a sharp deep clench just below his stomach. The marks he left on her arms and neck have vanished, and he feels their loss bitterly.
God I want to see you covered in my fingerprints, Buffy. Pretty little cat, I'd let you cover me in your claw marks too...
She answers the phone, and he can make out her lips form Riley. All patience and restraint leaves him.
Can't wait. Can't wait one bleeding second longer. Joyce or no Joyce, I need her to see me. See what she's doing to me. Make her confront it.
He storms up the steps and throws the front door open. Buffy jumps a little as he closes the door behind him hard. He stands watching her, picking up the tinny voice of Riley on the other end of the phone.
"Buffy? Did your mom just get home?"
Uh huh. He thinks, relaxing from one tension as a different kind takes its place. So no Joyce.
His eyes meet hers and she bites the inside of her cheeks, scowling back at him.
"Buffy?"
"Uh... no, she's staying over night at the hospital. It's just... Dawn. She forgot her keys."
Spike rises at an eyebrow at her stammering lie.
"How's your mom doing? No more fainting spells?"
"No- uh. She's much better. The doctor's think it was probably just low blood sugar-" GET OUT she mouths. Spike shakes his head slowly.
"That's a relief, are they going to do anymore tests?"
"She's got more blood tests tomorrow-" OUT!
He takes a step closer to her and she prickles noticeably, anger flushes her cheeks a soft pink.
So pretty. Thinks Spike, admiring the flush as it blooms down her neck. Down under the neckline of her top.
Dead girls don't blush… you need blood pumping for that. Need a heart beating…
"At the hospital?" Riley asks, disturbing Spike's train of thought for just a moment.
He reaches out a hand, fingers trailing softly down Buffy's arm, and she grabs him hard by the lapel of his leather duster, pinning him against the banisters of the stairs. Spike grins, biting his tongue in between his teeth as the warmth of her arm spreads over his chest.
OUT Spike!
"Buffy?"
-Make me. He mouths back, feeling himself harden against the stiff denim of his jeans.
"…Buffy?"
-Buffy He mouths her name, mocking Riley, leaning in closer. She lets him off the banister an inch just to shove him back harder.
"I'm here. Sorry, yes it's at the hospital."
Spike shrugs himself out of his coat leaving Buffy holding it as he slips out from underneath her arm. She snarls, dropping it to the floor.
"Do you want me to go with you? I can give you guys a ride there?"
"I-," Spike slips past her moving up the stairs to her bedroom, "I uh-"
"Is everything alright?"
Spike turns at the top of the stairs grinning, before disappearing into her room. Buffy rolls her eyes in exasperation.
"Everything's fine. Sorry I'm-"
"A bit distracted?"
"Yeah. Uh, Xander's driving us there, and you don't have to drive all the way out just to hang out in a waiting room all day."
She climbs the stairs, can hear Spike moving about in her room.
He's standing in front of the table by her bed, fingers trailing over her things; trinkets, candles, picture frames...
"I don't mind? If you... if you'd want some company?"
Spike doesn't turn around. Instead his fingers curl around a photograph that's tucked into the frame of her mirror. Her and Riley on a picnic, smiling into the camera, all sunshine and laughter. Buffy's stomach lurches as he tugs it loose out of the mirror's frame. She clenches her fist as Spike turns, eyebrow raised in a leering smirk.
She swallows the anger down, trying to keep her voice level.
"No really it's ok, but maybe you could come round after?"
Spike's fingers have found a pair of scissors on her desk. He leans against the table. Without taking his eyes from hers he starts cutting into the photograph. Straight up the centre, separating her from Riley, curling around the silhouette of her carefully.
"It's a date. I'll bring the donuts and coffee?"
With a last flourishing snip Spike finishes his surgical removal of Riley from the photograph, tucking the Buffy half down into the pocket of his jeans. The fingers of his hand trail over his groin for a moment before he takes up the other half, the Riley half, and starts snipping pieces off, working from the bottom.
"Sure. I-I'll let you know when we're home." Buffy's face is a picture of fury as Spike snips more and more pieces of Riley away, tiny little snippets falling to the floor.
"OK. I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow."
There's just a small sliver of the photo left in his fingers.
"I love you."
He stops cutting, eyes burning into her as he sets the scissors to Riley's neck. Buffy swallows.
"...You too."
Spike mock winces.
Oof. "You too." Coldhearted, ice queen. He cuts Riley's head off with a last decisive snip, letting the pieces flutter to floor, joining the rest of the confetti.
He twirls the scissors in his fingers, smirking at her, dumping them on the table with a clatter as she ends the call. He waits, eyeing her fists, waiting for the first punch to start it all. Egging it on.
Give me something, Slayer.
He's almost tranquil with the thought of it, floating on the anticipation of it. Those deep green eyes are lit with flames.
Didn't know green could burn like that...
"I obviously didn't make myself clear." Her words are strained through barely controlled fury. "Get out of my house, Spike. You have officially worn out what microscopic welcome you had left."
"...Soldier Boy's all better then is he?" He tilts his head. She's holding the phone in her hand so tightly that there's a tiny little crack appearing in the plastic underneath her fingers. "His heart all healed up now?"
She blinks, momentarily taken aback.
"How did you-"
"Could hear it a mile away, luv. Sounded like a buzzsaw." He inspects his fingernails, scratching at the black nail varnish absentmindedly. "Got me wondering, y'know. Why would a man with a ticker about to burst out through his chest like that go hiding around in those nasty old caves? When he's clearly got such a devoted girl back home worried about him?"
"Enough. Out. Now. Before I really lose my patience and drop you head first out the window."
Spike raises an eyebrow, playing with the rings on his fingers.
"You'd have to come a bit closer than that, pet." He smiles. "Made him feel like a man, did it? All that adrenaline. Been getting a bit edgy recently, hasn't he?"
"Shut up."
"Not been feeling quite the big man on campus anymore since he found out his dainty little misses has got strength he can only dream about. That's it isn't it?"
She's frozen to the spot, but he catches an almost invisible flinch.
"Oooh dear. That is it." He chuckles softly. "Guess he's not exactly the type to take being left on the benches very well, huh?"
"You don't know what you're talking ab-"
"Do you love him?"
The question throws her completely off balance coming from him. She blinks, trying to re-engage her mouth with her brain.
Say something.
But her thoughts are squirming around the question. And Spike's eyes are drilling into her from across the room, filling her head with a thick rising fury.
Not really fury though. Not quite anger. It burns like it but the burn is spreading lower, not sitting high up in her throat the way it was when she found Riley in the caves. The way it was when she left the hospital to get away from him.
Got to get out of this room.
She heads for the door. Hating the idea of leaving him alone in her bedroom but hating the idea of hearing one more word out of his treacherous mouth more.
She's at the top of the stairs when she feels his hand gripping her arm.
"What the hell are you doing-"
"It won't last Buffy. Men like Riley, they look nice and safe but they can't take it. Sooner or later they'll twist it around on you. Act like you pushed them away just because you're strong enough not to need them."
"Every day, you're just a little further out of my reach."
Buffy stiffens noticeably.
God, was he there or something? How the hell does he piece it all together like that?
"That's not how it is." She lies.
"It is. That's exactly how it is." His arm has snaked around her waist without her realising. Hard fingers dig into a point just to the side of her spine, catching a soft spot that makes gasp. Her back arches up, crushing her breasts up into his chest.
"You want someone as strong as you, luv. Someone who won't force you to hold yourself back all the time. Isn't that what you want?"
There's a heart stopping moment as her eyes connect with his. The heartbeat in her chest is thumping against him.
Could almost make believe I had one of those again. Hammering away like that... it's a miracle they can hear anything over that din...
His lips brush hers. Her eyes are only just open a little but he can see the blacks of her pupils dilate, pushing out the green all the way to the edges.
He leans in closer, savouring the moment just before the kiss when her arm comes across his chest. Blocking him like a piece of steel.
"Say that is what I want, Spike." He's so close he can taste her words in his mouth. And then in an instant it's all ripped away, the heat, and the fire, and her heart beating just over his, and he goes sprawling against the wall of the landing as she pushes him back so hard he leaves a crack in the plaster of the wall.
"It wouldn't be with you."