Agony. There was really only one word for it. It had been agony. Counting the days without her like a convict in prison.
Didn't rightly know why he counted them. Needed to see some difference from the monotonous misery he supposed. But no matter what people said time didn't heal all wounds. Instead it seemed to stretch it out further, making the pain more acute with every passing day. Sucking every little bit of willpower out of him.
Dawn could see it, he knew. And it hurt her to see it, that was obvious. He would have taken his leave and left her in peace then, but she was all that was left of any duty now. The promise he'd made. Without that he'd have downed a bottle of vodka, smoked a last cigarette and walked out into the blistering Sunnydale sunshine. Go out of this world feeling some sort of warmth maybe. Feeling something at least.
Just to feel something.
The misery had been crushing, it had, but in its place a suffocating nothingness had settled in. Like some piece of him had just been... switched off. That little tiny grain of a soul he'd had left broken and swept away. At first the numbness was a relief. Like the first hit of a drug that took the pain away and made everything seem floaty and far off. But this... this was endless. Gray, and cold, and endless. Even the pain had meant something. Meant that she was still there, that he still had her in some way, even if it was nothing more than the torture of her absence. But without it... there was no hope.
And then, like a miracle, she was there. Standing there like it was... easy. As she had been just before. On the night when he had looked up at her and told her that he might be a monster but she made him feel like he could be more than that. That he was worth more than that.
Just standing there as if what had happened in between was nothing but a bad dream.
Coming back to him.
Except she hadn't. She hadn't come back to him. It was no miracle. She'd been dragged back. They had dragged her back. Pulled her out of wherever she had been and then left her to fight her own way out of a cold grave. Forced her into this rotten, miserable world all over again and then called it a night. Let her break her knuckles open on the wood of her coffin. Let her tear her fingernails as she clawed her way out of the dirt like a monster.
How could they?! How could they -
He gasps. His hand is buried in a crevice of the cave wall. He hadn't even noticed his fist flying until the pain brought him out of his pacing fury.
He pulls back, feeling skin tearing further, sticking to the rocks before pulling apart. He flexes the hand in the dim cold light filtering down from above. Bruised knuckles, blood weeping, shining blackly in the gloom. The glint of bone underneath, poking through like a broken tooth in a grinning mouth.
Spike chuckles. Winces at the ache the sound of his own laughter causes. At how manic and lonely it sounds. Chokes on a sob as it spills out of his throat.
Just like hers. Two bad beginnings starting the same way... torn, bleeding hands. Alone in the dark.
She deserved so much more. Saved the whole world, all over again, but her return was no more triumphant than some lowly disgusting demon clawing it's way into a fresh hell.
A creak from the crypt up above pulls him back out of his wallowing anger. Someone's creeping about upstairs.
He takes a breath in but all he can smell is her, as he has been for months. A disturbing haunting after image that wouldn't let him be, until he couldn't rely on his senses anymore. Even coming back to the house after a panicky hour looking for Dawn, walking in, the scent, the real scent, of her had already been in his head. Hadn't left his mind since...
Since.
Is that going to stop? Now that she's back, will she stop taking up her hellish residence in my head?
Do I want that or don't I?
God that moment. That heartbreaking, gut twisting moment, when he'd realized that other smell permeating around her was soil. Blood and freshly crawled out of soil.
He unsheathes a knife, scales the ladder to the hole above.
Constant.
A million little aches, a thousand little needles of pain, bright lights and the healing scabs across her knuckles, cold stinging air. The pain of it all... was constant. It never seemed to stop. No respite, not even for one blessed second.
She hadn't slept since she'd come back. Not really. Had lain awake in her room through the nights. Any brief moment in which her exhausted mind had finally managed to pass out was immediately interrupted with thoughts of... of dirt. Of a wooden box with no air in it. Nothing on the other side of that box but what felt like miles and miles of dirt, impenetrable and endless, in between her and fresh air.
There had been a moment. She didn't know how long that moment had been but it had been there nevertheless. A moment of defeat. The thought that.. maybe she could just stay in the box. Let the air run out. Let the weight of the earth above remain impenetrable. Let it crush her back into that warm endless bliss that had surrounded her only a fragment of time before.
Let it sink her back into that soft perfect ending.
Let it be over.
Buffy takes a deep shuddering breath in. And out again. Let's the cool air of the cemetery wash over her. Breathing in the smell of grass.
If I crawl back into one of these graves... will I get to the other side again?
The thought makes her shiver hard.
How do you stop wanting it after you've had it? Am I always going to be touched by that now? Is it going to get worse? Like an infection I can't fight now that it's been let in?
These questions make her sick, but her mind won't stop throwing them up, won't stop asking them.
Never had been one to give up. But it was all so difficult to pick back up again. Having to eat. Needing to sleep. She couldn't handle food yet. She didn't tell the others but her stomach was still... well, dead. Couldn't handle more than a small amount of food after so long without. The dinners they'd made her she'd been pretending to eat, burying the leftovers in the trash.
Just want to sleep. One night of sleep without feeling like I'm buried alive. Without feeling like I'm covered in earth and grit and mud. Without feeling it peeling back my fingernails. Just one night.
She fingers the gate of the crypt, trailing a hand over the wrought ironwork.
He knows.
He knows what it's like to crawl out of... to crawl out of it.
Just need to be around someone that knows that. This is such a crippling misery but he knows it too. That's something. I can't do all this smiling and pretending to be fine. It's hurting my face all this fake smiling. Every time Will or Xander or Dawn ask me if I'm alright I think I'm going to be sick.
Every time they look at me waiting for me to thank them I think I'm going to... I can't think about what I want to do. I'm not allowed to think about that.
I can't do that to Dawn. I've got to do this for Dawn now. That's just the end of it.
She pushes the crypt door open. Gently. Not her usual forceful kicking in. Slipping in between the gap she's made, down into the gloom.
It's dark but she can't see him. No candles are lit and the telltale hairs on the back of her neck don't rise at his presence.
There's a minuscule shuffling down below. What sounds like boots scuffed on rocks, and the sound of him climbing the ladder.
She holds her breath.
Should I even be here?
That look in his eyes as she'd come down the stairs. It was exquisitely miserable. And yet so full of... love.
Ok, that's what it was.
Never really believed that's what it was.
Never thought he could, without a soul. Wouldn't let myself believe that, because that meant Angelus could. Can't think about that now...
And now I'm standing here, intending to manipulate that because... because I can't sleep and I can't eat and I just want the pain to stop. Just want it to stop.
But will I end up just inflicting pain on him instead?
Do I care if I do-
"Buffy-" a strangled gasp accompanies her name out of his mouth.
She blinks, turning, having lost track of the sound of his footsteps with the unyielding yammering of her own inner turmoil.
And decides she doesn't care. That she needs to be here whether he wants it or not...
"Every night I save you."
His words take her breath away. She can't quite meet his eyes. It seems every interaction, every small moment together is becoming further and further soaked in tension, from the first moment she descended the stairs and saw him at the bottom of them.
Though it should feel exhausting it's addictive. She craves it. A small sense of distraction from all the other painful moments of being around everyone else. No hiding the pain, no pretending to be happy to be back, not even any questions as to why she's there. Just a strangely silent truce. A quiet acceptance of each other.
How much I need that now.
His words should make her cry. Somewhere deep down she knows that but she's too exhausted to have such emotions. Instead they just make her feel a slight sense of relief. What she needs to ask for she might actually get.
She swallows hard, digging her thumbs into her eyes.
Ask him...
"Spike, I–"
"You really don't have to say anything, Buffy." He interrupts, sounding like a little boy. Trying to undo too much already said. "I didn't mean– I've bolloxed things up." He takes a heaving breath in. "I just– I wanted you to know."
She nods, not knowing how to get back to what she wanted to say either.
Let him talk. Neither of us have got anyone else that we can just talk to right now...
"It's been hard on you." His eyes flicker up to hers. Confused. Utterly unused to sympathy from her.
"Dawn told me how– how you've been since… how you've both been."
He rubs the back of his neck, making it click, fidgeting uncomfortably.
"She told me you've been looking after her?"
He swallows.
"More the other way around really." He smirks sadly and she joins him in a half hearted chuckle, little more than air tripping over her teeth.
"Seems unlikely."
The smile dies. He shrugs, not meeting her eyes.
"I made a promise. End of the world. I meant it, y'know."
"I do. I know."
Silence for a few heartbeats.
"Speaking of? Shouldn't you, I dunno... Be catching up on some high strung sisterly affection? Sure you're missing out on some quality teenage girl babble. Hate for you to miss it on my account."
"Probably. It's just... difficult. Can't seem to fit back in quite right."
"It'll come. Eternal hell experiences probably make things a little out of sync and such?"
She flinches and he bites his tongue.
Shouldn't have brought it up.
"Sorry... I-"
"No-it's-"
"I..." they burble over each other, sharing a wince.
"It's fine. I should... I should go." But she doesn't stand to leave. He waits a while, trying to read the myriad of emotions flickering over her soft features in the half light.
"Want some company back?" He offers, expecting a resounding no.
"Yes." God, yes.
She doesn't mean for it to come out so emphatic but he doesn't seem to notice, just tucks his bleeding hand into his coat pocket and offers her the other.
They walk mostly in silence back through the cemetery. Ground fog hides some of the lower broken off headstones so they stick to the path, boots crunching companionably on the gravel together.
It doesn't take long for the gates out into the street to materialise out of the gloom, the soft glow of street lights ahead.
Buffy bites her lip. Torn with indecision.
Maybe I'll actually sleep tonight.
Maybe I can get through it without... without someone else.
Without him.
But a nagging little voice in her head sneers fat chance. She's had to walk through the cemetery with blinders on, pointedly not looking at the graves, refusing to let the smell of wet soil climb into her head. It's cloying. Contaminating. Makes her feel like she can't breathe... can't breathe... can't-
"Big sigh, Slayer?"
She blinks, realizing Spike is looking at her with concern. Not the worried-about-Buffy look everyone else has been wearing for days. The look people give you before slipping in suggestions of antidepressant charms or memory replacement spells into the conversation.
It's more of a let-me-in look. Let-me-help look.
She swallows.
Alright... ok.
"Not sleeping too well."
"Bad dreams?"
Understatement.
"Yes."
"...Buried alive?"
She stifles a gasp, swallows it down. Tears sting her eyes and she blinks them back.
If he agrees I don't want it to be because I cried.
"Yes."
He doesn't know what to say. Wants to reach for her fingers. Hold her, the way he would with Dru when she needed it. Tell her it'll get better...
If only I knew that for sure. She doesn't have an eternity to get over it...
Death wishes can be cancerous...
Buffy's house comes into view. The windows are dark. Dawn, Willow, and Tara turned in hours ago.
Spike shuffles helplessly staring up at the house with her. Less than a week ago he was on Dawn watch. Things hurt so much but they made sense a little. There was a routine of sorts. Dinner with the Bit, make sure she did her homework, then either card games or TV depending what was on.
Sometimes he'd let her repaint the black polish on his fingers-nails.
Sometimes they could even break through each other's grief for just a minute to share a laugh. Little in-jokes stacking up between them like the nickels and dimes they'd play Rummy for.
He finds himself missing that a lot. The crypt is cold and lonely. The thin little glimmers of Buffy being back that lights up his whole world only seem to accentuate how separate he is from them all the rest of the time.
How cast out he is.
The core group is re-knitting itself back together again with her at the centre. And him on the outside. Always looking in.
Is Little Bit still doing her homework? That book report on Jules Verne is due Monday-
"Spike?"
She's standing on the steps leading to the front door. The way she's looking down at him, all big green eyes and sweet soft features makes his gut twist. Even tired as she is, as strong as she has to be, she really is a beauty.
He swallows, re-adjusts his coat.
"Right then. I'll push off, let you get your beauty sleep."
He turns to leave but her hand catches his elbow.
"Spike..." she doesn't let go for a while, obviously trying to get words out that don't want to be said.
His stomach plummets.
This is it then. The bit where she tells me they don't need me anymore. Don't want me skulking about anymore. No more her. No more Bit. Back in your hole-
"Can you stay?"
He's too stunned to say anything for what feels like an age. She starts babbling, mistaking his shock for hesitation.
"I just... I'm so tired and the dreams are getting worse, somehow, didn't think it could get worse, I mean they're just normal nightmares no Slayer-y visions but I can't sleep and then with the-, and I just, and you can say no I'd understand the no after everything-"
"Buffy-" it comes out a little more than a croak, but it's enough to pull her back out of her spiralling word vomit. She catches her breath.
"Please don't say no."
He clenches his hand, feeling the cuts spread out over his knuckles, feeling the pain of it acutely.
Not dreaming then.
He thinks about asking her what she wants from this. What this means...
Figures it's not worth it.
Assume she just wants to get some sleep, don't count on anything more...
The house is gloomy, but he knows his way to her bedroom blindfolded by now. A multitude of times sneaking in, just to run his fingers over her things. Catch the scent of her on her clothes. Hoarding little mementos to make being apart from her less corrosive.
He winces.
No wonder she didn't trust me. Couldn't trust myself...
She opens the bedroom door and he follows her inside, eyes adjusting painfully as she turns on the bedside light.
He hasn't been back in this room since she died. Everything's still perfectly in its place. Clean and dust free. Girly but littered with her Slayer-ness: crucifix jewellery on the vanity table, weapons in the chest at the bottom of her bed.
She scoops up some clothes, smiling a little sheepishly at him as she darts round him out to the bathroom.
Alone in her room he takes the time to just breathe. Not that he needs it. Just wants to fill himself with her smell again. Even at night, even despite the chill and the horror of the last few months, there's light and warmth in her scent. Like summer just turning into fall.
She comes back from the bathroom in a tank top and shorts, hair loose. Spike's mouth goes completely dry, and he pulls his eyes away so she doesn't see the hunger underneath his gaze.
He shrugs out of his leather coat as smoothly as he can, feeling like every single movement might set her off into a frenzy, like trying to keep still around a wild animal liable to bolt. The air seems to crackle with the tension of it.
He slips off his boots, bare feet on her carpet. Such a little thing...
She peels back the sheets and settles herself on the bed.
"You... you can get more comfortable. If you want."
He furrows his brow. The whole situation is so Twilight Zone that every word is like a bad translation.
Could really do with subtitles for this... whatever this is.
She nods at his trousers.
"I don't suppose you usually sleep in jeans."
Understanding dawns.
Oh... oh God... how to broach this.
"Uh. I uh... didn't exactly pack for this." He gulps, hoping she'll piece together what he's trying to say.
It's her turn to frown.
Nope, not gonna cut it.
No turning back now then.
"This is sort of it Slayer. I'm not... really a boxers or a briefs kind of guy."
In the soft glow of the bedside lamp the blush that suddenly colors her cheeks is deep magenta. He holds his breath, expecting her to change her mind, call the whole thing off, but instead she lets out a slight near laugh. The first to sound almost like a real laugh she's made since being back.
"Oh. Right. I can lend you something?" She heads to her closet. "I can't promise it'll be black."
Spike bites his tongue, not trusting himself with any riposte.
"…Crap." Buffy mumbles, searching through a pile of clothes.
"What?"
"Um..." She winces.
"Spit it out."
"Well... the only clean thing I have are my yummy-sushi pyjamas."
"...Really trying to suck the last little bit of dignity out of me aren't cha?"
"It's bad laundry timing." She smiles, a little weakly, holding them out to him. "Although that is a small bonus."
Spike bites his cheek, holding back a grin, and takes the pyjamas from her.
"Turn around."
She blinks.
"You can use the bathroom-"
"Buffy if you think I'm walking down your landing in these you are off your bloody rocker." He motions for her to turn with a flick of his fingers.
She bites back a smirk, and he feels a small twinge of pride at having caused it. It's the first normal Buffy emotion she's shown in days.
She tries to keep the blush from deepening as she listens to the sound of his belt unbuckling. Zipper unzipping.
He clears his throat when he's finished and she turns round. She can't help a small laugh from escaping her.
"Don't you dare laugh, Slayer!" But he's smiling too as he dumps his jeans across a chair, sushi patterned bottoms clinging to his hips, paired with his black t-shirt.
Around anyone else he'd be livid at the humiliation, but that small laugh has already set up a place in his memory as a most treasured moment.
"I wasn't laughing at you."
"Bollocks."
"No really." She tucks herself back under the sheets of the bed, still smiling. "It's not as bad as the time your stuff got ruined and you had to borrow Xander's Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants combo."
"Oh, you really are trying to push my buttons tonight, huh?"
"Didn't look that bad."
"Bite your tongue." He slips in next to her, the pair of them sitting rigidly side by side. "Only truly deranged people own Hawaiian shirts."
"What about Hawaiian's?"
He chuckles, but now that he's in her bed a heavy silence descends between them. Both of them waiting, trying to read each other's expressions, not sure what to do next.
Buffy swallows, and shuts off the light. She can still see him clearly in the dark, the blonde of his hair and the white of his skin contrasting starkly with the black of his eyebrows. And his eyes.
She reaches over his stomach with her right hand and grips his wrist, gently pulling him down and over her. Wriggling down next to him. His other arm slips underneath her neck and she resettles herself deeper into him, cradled entirely against him in the dark.
A lump in his throat chokes him as she pulls his arm around and across her further, tucking his forearm against her. His thumb resting on the little pulse at her neck. His fingers splayed across her shoulder as she holds him there, cradling his arm like a child clinging to a stuffed toy in the dark.
He swallows the lump, breathes out, and pulls her in closer towards his chest. Her fingers don't let go of his arm but she relaxes a little bit more, shuffles backwards into him until she's pulled his whole arm over her, touching shoulder to shoulder.
She's got him wrapped around her so tightly his cheek is all but flush against the back of her head. Strands of her hair tickle his face, prickling his eyes. He can't move his hands so he uses his chin to smooth them down out of the way of his face as slowly as he can, trying not to startle her, but if anything it seems she eases up a little bit more. The back of her neck is warm against his cheek.
He shuts his eyes, feeling a sudden rush of dizziness from the overwhelming feeling of her being in his arms.
"Is this alright, Buffy?" He only whispers, sure that anything louder will cause her to take flight out of this moment. Doesn't call her a pet name, despite it dancing on his tongue. Doesn't want to remind her who it is that has their arms wrapped around her.
He feels her nod against his arm, but he's not really thinking about his arm. He's thinking about her bare legs next to his. The curve of her back pressed against him. The soft warm skin of her neck millimetres away from his lips. All of it excruciatingly overwhelming.
"Your feet are cold." She mumbles, hot air pricking over his bicep.
If he had any room in his head for his own thoughts he'd laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
"Not a great deal to be done about that, luv."
He stills, hoping she won't notice how panicked he is that he let a pet name slip.
Don't wanna mess this up, Jesus if I fuck this up I'll stake myself-
She shifts a little, scooping his feet up with her own and settling them in between her calves. He gasps, tickling the back of her neck with his shock. Glorious warmth enveloping him. All of her pressed against all of him in the dark. He feels like he's sinking down into the heat, letting it pull him under.
It's a while before she drifts off to sleep, when her breathing finally changes and the last little bit of tension leaves her shoulders. He's still awake behind her, watching her in the dark. Watching the rise and fall of her breathing, feeling the heat of it tickling his skin. The death grip she has on his arm loosens slightly.
He brushes his fingers across her shoulder, softly. Just wanting to feel the warmth of her underneath his fingertips. Feel the little jump of the pulse at her neck against his thumb, nothing more. She stirs slightly. Sighs.
After an hour she stirs harder. Twitching a little as she slips into dreamland. He doesn't take his eyes off her, rubbing her clavicle a little with his thumb, trying to instil calm into her but it doesn't work.
"Nn," she mumbles, eyes starting to screw up. "Nn-no. Don't" He stills his hand. Is about to pull back entirely.
"Don't pull me out. Please." Little more than a strangled whisper. He holds her tighter and she whimpers, sounding like a terrified little girl. "Please. Please don't make me go back. I'm done. Let me be...done... Don't make me go back..."
"Shhh shh shh." He rocks her a little, pulling her out of the dream but not waking her completely. "S'just a bad dream, luv. Leave it behind."
Her eyes flicker under her eyelids, breathing still laboured. His other arm is still spread out underneath her head and he wraps it down around her, swaddling her completely in his embrace and she moans a little. He shushes her again, stroking her shoulder slowly, listening as her heartbeat starts to slow back down and she sighs. Nuzzling his arm with her face. Her breathing eventually stretching back out into the long low exhales of deep sleep.
Spike furrows his brow, watching her more closely now.
Don't make me go back...
That doesn't sound right...
