Digressions - Nihilistbear's Writings

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Cigarette Smoke and Moonlight Author’s Note: "Why are you always around when I'm misreable?" - Buffy, "Flooded" Set in my personal Season Six-verse, branching off from “Numbered Days”, this one somewhere around “Flooded”. This particular story is mostly from Buffy’s point of view, with the occasional cameo from Spike. For more information on this series, go here. Ever wonder how Spike learned about the body switch with Faith? Here ya go. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He’s sitting on the back porch when she steps out of the house. She’s escaping the never-ending noise of life in a house full of women, women who are focused on her well-being and making her feel happy and comfortable and content in this new life. Which only makes the adjustments harder, of course. Everyone makes it harder. Except him. He’s silent, lit cigarette hanging from his lips, eyes focused on the ground. The moonlight plays in his unnatural hair, makes it silver instead of white. He absorbs all the light around him, and that comforts her. There’s too much light in this place to begin with, the brightness and color makes her eyes ache constantly. But he’s two-toned. Black clothes and white body, and its easier somehow to be near him than anyone else. Willow’s loud prints, Dawn’s pastels, even Tara’s muted earth tones are getting to her lately, and looking at her closet full of flashy clothes makes her a little queasy. She settles next to him on the stairs, and he silently hands her a freshly lit cigarette. She holds one every time she sits here with him, and lets it burn down to the filter, the patterns of the smoke against the moonlight fascinating her. He doesn’t say anything, and she wonders what happened to the man she left, the one that never shut up. The one who always said things that burned to the core, and never knew when to stop. Sometimes she misses that; she feels like the world’s changed completely in the five months she was … gone, and she wishes it hadn’t. She can’t adjust to this new life, to a world where Xander’s a responsible adult getting married, and Giles yells at Willow about spells; where Dawn turns to Tara for comfort instead of her, and Spike is completely speechless. She looks over at him, and he smiles at her, a sardonic half-grin. At least that hasn’t changed. Spike can still sum up the idiocies of life in a single facial expression. In this twisted world something has stayed as an anchor, and she’s grateful for what she can get. “Long day, pet?” he says. Despite his apparent vow of silence, he’s always the first to speak, like he knows she needs a prompt, that she can’t bring herself to start a conversation with him, because that would seem like she’s seeking his company, and she isn’t ready to face the thought of that yet. “Little bit,” she replies with a tired smile. “Dawn got in trouble at school today. She was late again; I forgot to get up when my alarm went off and make sure she was awake. Then she forgot to bring her assignments for half her classes.” “Get an angry phone call?” he asks solicitously. “Shall I go to the school and rip the teacher’s throat out? Make her stop calling, as it were?” She grins. Spike making jokes about violence should bother her, but it doesn’t. He makes light of the millions of problems she’s facing, and that makes it easier to sleep at night. Which beats the hell out of everyone else’s attempts at comfort. If Willow or Xander look at her with those reassuring/needy-for-reassurance smiles one more time, she’s moving into a crypt. If she has to, she’ll even take Dawn. Anything to escape these people, and that’s depressing, because these are her friends, the people she’s fought for since she moved to Sunnydale. They’ve been her motivation, and if she doesn’t feel motivated to help them anymore, what on earth is going to motivate her? Spike throws down his cigarette, lights another one almost immediately. She drops her cigarette butt as well. It’s gotten close to her fingertips, and she’s learned painfully that cigarette burns on fingertips hurt like hell. “Have you ever thought of leaving, Spike?” She doesn’t know why she’s asking him a question. Usually he questions, she answers and he offers to damage something and make it better, then they wait a few moments and repeat the drill. Today, though, she feels like actually learning something about him. Even if that’s the scariest thought she’s had in a while. He’s surprised too. “Pardon?” he asks, shocked that she wants to know about his thoughts. This is a side of Buffy he’d never expected to see. “Have you ever thought of packing up, throwing everything in that ugly old car of yours and heading out?” “My car is a bloody classic, woman. I’ll thank you not to disparage her. I love that car like I love y- this duster.” She had no idea what ‘disparage’ meant, but it sounded like he didn’t want her to insult his battered wreck of a vehicle. And she noticed how he’d cut off what he’d meant to say; he was trying not to burden her with his feelings, and after a day of faking happiness to soothe everyone’s nerves, it’s a nice gesture. “Okay, have you ever thought of throwing everything you own into your ‘classic’ and leaving town? Just walking away from all of this drama. Y’know, the yearly apocalypses, the eternal battling, the incessant-“ she stops before she gets too close to insulting the people who love her. That would be going too far, placing too much of an emphasis on their almost-but-not-quite-friendship. He rests his elbows on the porch and leans back, feet propped on the bottom stair, and she finds herself thinking very wrong thoughts about Spike reclining, so she turns her head towards the sky and watches his cigarette smoke make airy designs against the moon. He’s pondering her question quite a bit. It seemed like a simple one to her, but she should have remembered that Spike is never simple; he’s the most complex person she’s ever met. Spike doesn’t live in a world of short answers and simple thoughts. Spike’s deep, and that’s just –weird, and not something she’s ever thought of him before. “Yeah, I thought about it. Right after I first go the chip, I went looking for Harmony, of all people” and he chuckles roughly. “See if she’d take me back. Kill people for me so I could eat them, all that rot. Take her to San Francisco or something; get the hell out of this town that’s seen my ass kicked far too often. But Harm didn’t want me back, kicked me out. So I ended up with you people.” He drags deeply on his cigarette. “Least I was eating, and no one was trying to kill me.” She eyes him at that comment. “Well, no one was trying to seriously kill me, just lots of posturing and empty threats.” He’s teasing her, and a smile comes to her face. “So I stayed for a bit.” Another drag, and he blows out smoke rings this time. She watches them drift up to the sky, widening and distorting before they deliquesce. It’s almost artistic. “Found out I could hit demons, and thought of leaving town once more. Become a demon hunter somewhere, make some dosh that way. But I was getting on okay with the money I got for helping you, and leaving seemed like too much work. Why leave a good deal, right?" He doesn't wait for her to answer; he know's she wants to listen, not talk. "Then those commando tossers shoved that tracer in me, and I seriously contemplated leaving, getting the hell away from them.” “So why’d you stay?” she asks. She’s really curious about that; he’d been a hunted man for that entire year, but he’d hung around anyway. He leers at her comically. “You came on to me in the Bronze.” She sits up at that, suddenly furious. “I so did not! I never came on to you in my entire life! Except that spell of Willow’s and that was mutual, buddy! But I never, ever, came on to you after that!” She’s mad, and it’s kind of nice actually. Nice to feel something other than numb. “But you did,” he replies calmly. “Ran into you there, you made some comment about not realizing I was a vampire, and that pissed me off. So I said, ‘Do you know why I really hate you, Summers?’ and you said ‘Cuz I’m a stuck up tight ass with no sense of fun?’ and I said ‘yeah, that covers it’ and you said you could have me, had muscles that could squeeze me and make me pop like a warm bottle of-” “I so don’t want to hear the rest of that, Spike.” She thinks about it for a second. “Wait. Was this just a bit after Riley came back, and Xander and Giles told you about some crazy girl who was after us?” “Yeah, it happened the day after they told me.” He’d been planning to find the girl himself, point her in the right direction and watch the fireworks. “You moron! Didn’t anyone ever tell you about Faith stealing my body?” “Who doing what to your what?” He’s perplexed. It’s a nice look on him; he’s always so damn self-assured. She laughs then, a soft laugh and he smiles because she’s laughing, even if she’s laughing at him. “Faith stole my body. Willow and Tara ran into her that night, too. She’s the one who came on to you, Spike. Not me.” She looked at him hard. “Wait. Is that when you-” she can’t finish the sentence, but he got it. “No, that was later. Then I decided to stick around so I could kick your ass for the unwanted -er- stimulation as soon as I got the chip out.” Another leer, and she grins. He’s making her smile, and that’s worth all the laughter, all the pain and mockery. If his love for her can make her laugh, it’s enough for him. He’s lowered his expectations since her death; screw hoping she’ll ever love him. Right now he’ll settle for making her happy. Another drag on the cigarette. They’re getting to things he’s not sure he wants to bring up, but she’d asked, and she’s interested in him, so he can’t pass up the chance to tell her everything. All the little quirks and faults, all the crazy things he’s done and seen. He knows her intimately, but she knows almost nothing about him. He wants to tell her everything he can. “Then Adam came and offered to take the chip out for me. So I made you lot fight so he could get you alone in the Initiative.” This is harder than he imagined. He hates thinking about the harm he’s done her. All the battles where he knew he hurt her, all his little cruelties since the chip. They’re things he’s ashamed of, but he wants to tell her. Try and make her see he’s changed since then. “So that’s why you turned on us. I’d wondered about that. I thought we were getting to be friends, then you reminded us that we couldn’t trust you at all. But it makes sense now, Spike. I really do get it.” Of course she gets it; she’s done countless things that seemed inexplicable unless you knew the reason. Letting Angel drain her to get better, stabbing Faith, running away that awful summer after Acathla, promising to kill anyone who harmed Dawn, even if she was ending the world. They all made sense if you knew her reasoning, but no one had bothered to learn Spike’s reasoning. They’d just assumed he was beneath notice. We treated him like dirt and he stayed. Even Giles couldn’t stay while I was gone, and everyone loved him. Spike stays, even when he has no reason to. She shoves that troubling thought to the back of her mind. It’s not something she wants to think about too hard. “Yeah. But then Adam went back on his word, so I decided to throw my lot in with you and the Scoobies, and stay. When that Initiative doctor came and I tried to get the chip out yet again, I was ready to get the hell out. Kill you all, maybe, and leave town.” He pauses. Should he tell her this part? “ “That day…” he sighs deeply; his cigarette has gone out, so he grabs another and lights it, dragging deeply before continuing. “That day, I had a dream.” “Like Martin Luther King?” she replied teasingly. “Demons and Humans together at last?” “Yeah, something like that.” No need to tell her the specifics of the dream. He’s told her enough for tonight. “Wow. I bet you got great marks in school, Spike.” “What makes you say that?” and why was she thinking about him going to school? He had an image, dammit! She’s supposed to think he’s been bad for as long as he’d been alive, and she’s thinking he’s educated. Bloody Hell! “Well, I expected a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘once in awhile but not lately’. I got a short life history. Teachers love that.” She’s grinning again, taking some of the sting out of her words and he grins back. “Well, the short answer is, ‘once in awhile, but not lately.’” He’s smiling sweetly now, and its making parts of her twitch, and other parts clench, and she really can’t think of these things right now, because that’s a place she can’t go. “Haven’t thought about leaving since you came back. Thought about it once or twice this summer, but that passed quickly.” He stretches slightly, then settles back into his lounge on her stairs. “Why’d you ask anyway, Slayer? Trying to get me out of town?” Please, please say no. “No.” She sighs deeply and looks at the sky. “Sometimes…” a long pause. Can she tell him this? She can’t tell anyone else, but Spike won’t freak out or ask her if she’s okay or do any of the other irritating things her friends have been doing lately. “Sometimes I want to leave, though. I wish I’d gotten my license at some point. I’d pack up mom’s old Bronco, take Dawn-” Maybe. Probably. “-and leave. Go somewhere without demons and monsters and v-” she cuts off suddenly; she forgets from time to time that he’s one of the monsters. He’s so human. Not like Angel, who was the epitome of brooding vampirism, who never drank anything but blood and never ate anything at all. Spike smokes too much, and yells at the TV, and eats spicy buffalo wings. He’s more human than half the people she knows. “Without vampires,” he finishes for her. “Thought the same myself this summer, but couldn’t take her completely away from vampires, could I? She’d be living with one day in and day out. So I scrapped it. ‘Sides, she loves Tara half to death. And if I took Tara, I’d have to bring Red, then the boy’d want to come, and his little demon. So in the end, it was just easier to stay here. At least there’s a house here, and plenty of disinterested butchers who never ask why you’re buying eight pints of cow blood a week.” She’s really laughing now. The troubles that plagued her all day have fallen away at Spike’s story, and he realizes that he can give something besides a smile. He can give her cigarette smoke and moonlight, silly stories and a single unsmoked fag. He can give her a less complicated life, for the few moments he has her to himself on these steps every night. It makes everything worth it. Go To Friends In Low Places Go Back To Numbered Days Table Of Contents Choose Another Series 26 December 2003