Digressions - Nihilistbear's Writings

Warning: The Fiction On This Site Sometimes Contains Graphic Adult Situations. If you aren't old enough to read the stories marked NC-17, please don't.

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In the morning they all got up. Dawn squealed when the water from Spike’s ‘shower’ half froze her and they shared a laugh. Tara ran out and grabbed some food from the house. They sat around all day, playing cards while Spike taught them the finer moments of rock and roll, playing his albums loudly as they sat on the bed. When Spike’s stories came on, they all crowded upstairs on his chair, squabbling loudly about people and vampires who hogged too much space and Spike thought, through all the clatter and noise, in this moment, I am content. And so schedules were rearranged, and the new summer plan was ‘decorate the hole Spike calls home.” Spike would crash on the couch at the Summers’ house, just in case Dawn had a nightmare, which happened less frequently but occurred nonetheless. He’d awaken before sunrise, head back to the crypt and fall asleep on his bed, to be awakened again later in the day by Dawn jumping on his stomach and shrieking “GET UP, GET UP, GET UP!” He’d curse loudly and Dawn would giggle as she dragged his protesting form off the bed and upstairs. Tara would be waiting for them, arms crossed, tapping her foot lightly. She’d be in ragged jeans and an old tank top, a scarf holding her hair off her face. They’d yell and argue as Tara and Dawn hauled in the furniture they’d found at the dump or in front of people’s houses and slowly but surely, Spike’s crypt became less of a tomb and more of a gothic loft. When the girls finished their decorating project, it was mid August. Tara made the bed for the last time with cotton sheets and an old bedspread she’d found at the thrift store. She dusted her hands and proudly declared the crypt fit for human habitation. Spike protested that he wasn’t human and Dawn thwacked him over the head with a pillow, starting a huge pillow fight to break in the new linens. They celebrated the newfound hominess of Spike’s crypt by having a sleepover, complete with pizza and movies. Spike had shelled out the money for a VCR, refusing to name the source of the cash, and they rented eight movies and tried to stay up all night watching them. Dawn made it through five and fell asleep on the couch. Spike climbed downstairs and grabbed a blanket for her, tucking her in gently. He and Tara finished two more movies, and Tara fell asleep in Spike’s lap. He shook her awake gently and herded her downstairs to the bed. Making sure she was comfortable, he kissed her on the cheek and inhaled the scent of her shampoo before climbing the ladder and kipping out on the sarcophagus. That night he dreamed of Tara. She’d come to him in the night and begged him to take her, and when she climaxed she offered him her neck. He awoke in the morning with cum-stained jeans and a heavy sense of guilt. He climbed downstairs, studiously avoiding looking at Tara, fast asleep and looking like an angel in flannel on his newly fashionable bed. He grabbed some jeans from the new dresser, headed for the shower and washed away his dreams along with his spunk. Tara could never be his; she was a woman in love with someone else, another woman, no less, and he was a delusional man drawn to anyone paid attention to him. After that, the secret meetings stepped up, and Spike found himself sharing Tara’s company less and less. He hated to admit it, but it was for the best. He’d had similar dreams when he’d fallen in love with Buffy, and he didn’t want to do the undying impossible love shite again. Dawn started school, and had lots of homework that Spike had to help her with. And the demons returned to town, having heard, or finally noticed, that Sunnydale hadn’t been sucked into hell. So patrolling was stepped up, and Spike found himself too occupied, between killing things and helping Dawn, to talk to Tara at all. Then Willow did the super secret spell that Tara had been told to keep quiet about, the spell that brought Buffy back. After it was over, after he stormed off on his new motorbike and Xander left, he returned to the house and confronted Tara. “So this was the big dangerous spell you were worried about,” he said angrily. Tara nodded and looked away, ashamed to meet his eyes. “Well, thanks for the heads up, pet,” he snarled. “Next time you decide to mess with the natural course of life, you could tell me, so I can be prepared, yeah?” He’d stormed away in a cloud of cigarette smoke and black leather, cursing loudly as he went. Buffy was alive, and Spike found himself her father confessor, listening with horror as she told him about heaven and her unceremonious removal from it. I should tell Tara, he thought to himself, then remembered her speech about protecting the secrets of the one you loved. So he kept it to himself, partly because Buffy had asked him too, partly to spite the witch he’d gotten so close to when Buffy was gone. Then the magical sing-along happened. Afterwards, when Buffy ran away from the kiss and Spike stood in the alley watching her go, Tara came out of the Bronze by herself. “You knew,” she said softly, a hint of accusation in her voice. “You knew and you didn’t tell anyone. Not even-” she cut herself off and took a deep breath. “Dawn.” But Spike heard the unspoken me and he casually threw her words from the summer back at her. “If someone I love asks me to keep a secret, I keep it. Surely you understand,” he added snidely. Tara crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Yeah, I understand.” She turned away from him and Spike nearly grabbed her and begged for forgiveness. He stopped himself, though, hardening his heart, because tonight he’d already had it made amply clear by Giles that his presence was unwelcome in the little gang now that their goddess was back. Tarnished, but back, and the hired muscle could go to hell. He didn’t speak to her again until the night after the memory wipe. Buffy had run away after kissing him, and rather than waste the energy on chasing her, he used it to productively decimate the back alley of the Bronze. After the last crate was thrown against the brick wall, he screamed his rage a final time and hopped on his bike, gassing it and roaring out of the alley. He continued swearing as he took dangerous corners, safe in the knowledge that even if he did wipe out spectacularly, he’d live. When he got to the crypt, he slammed the door open, either too angry to notice the scent of someone in his home or aware on some level that the person wasn’t a danger to him. He swore loudly as he dragged the bike inside and parked it in the far corner. “Hi, Spike,” a soft voice said from the vicinity of his chair. He whirled around and encountered a tearstained Tara, a box of stuff on the floor at her feet. “What the hell do you want?” he asked angrily. “I don’t have the patience for any of you bloody people right now. Get out.” Tara broke into fresh tears and Spike cursed loudly before throwing his jacket across the sarcophagus and sitting on the arm of the chair. “What’s all this?’ he asked, and his voice softened from angry to soothing. “Why are you in my crypt bawling and not off with Willow, making her kiss you for every little flirtation with Harris?” Tara buried her face in his side and wailed harder. “It was her spell,” she bawled. “Willow cast the memory spell, to make Buffy forget, and probably me, too, because she promised she’d stop using magic for a week and couldn’t do it.” She sobbed loudly. “I can’t believe she’d do this, and twice!” “Twice?” Spike asked softly. Fuck. And he thought life with hot-and-cold Buffy was hard. At least she wasn’t fucking up his memory. Repeatedly, no less. “Yeah,” Tara sniffed. “We had a fight, and she made me forget it.” Tara started crying again. “I thought she loved me, but she only loved me when we were playing things her way.” Spike held her tightly as Tara cried out the pain of the betrayal, and led her downstairs when she said she should leave. “Where you gonna go at three AM, Tara?” he asked softly, and she acquiesced, going to the alcove to change into her plaid pyjamas that Spike recognized from nights of sleeping next to them, a terrified girl between them. This time Spike tucked Tara in, and smoothed a hand over her hair as he sang songs he’d half forgotten which had been part of his childhood, ancient lullabies that Tara had never heard. And when he moved to get off the bed, she clung to him, so he slid under the covers as well, still fully dressed. And as Tara snuggled against him, he thought, in this moment, I am content. The next morning he awoke, a hand on Tara’s full breast, her shirt having gotten rucked up somehow. He got out of bed quickly and jerked off in the shower before she could awaken. Tara woke slowly, and Spike wondered why he’d never seen her get up, even if he’d seen her fall asleep a hundred times. She stretched like a kitten, even mewling softly and she loosened all her limbs. The her eyes opened, she smiled sweetly… And sat up quickly, clutching the sheet to her chest. “Where am I?” she asked breathlessly, and Spike feared Willow had cast another spell, until the memories of the previous night returned and she began crying again. Spike joined her on the bed and let her shed her final tears, before she got up, showered and dressed. She moved into an apartment that night, Spike helping her carry all the boxes and scrounge some furniture from the dump. He hugged her tightly and promised to come visit soon. But then Buffy jumped him and they tore down a building - and everything was lost in the shuffle – and he fell deeper and deeper into his beloved’s anguish – and he gave up everything he had to make her whole. When Buffy beat him and left him in the alley, he forced himself to walk to Tara’s apartment, where he collapsed on her couch and slept for three days, only waking to be fed blood that Tara had gotten in some demon bar she never discussed, human blood to fix him up. And as he healed, he listened to Tara humming as she fluttered about her kitchen, mumbling to herself as she took notes from an ancient text that gave off a dark magic vibe like an illness, something he never thought she’d touch, and whispering on the phone to Dawn. He thought, through all the pain of bones reconnecting and wounds closing, in this moment, I am content, and became convinced it really was a sensation Tara gave off, because there was no reason to feel content, not when the love of his life had nearly destroyed him physically and he was in more pain than anyone should bear. He left after the sun went down on the fourth day, and promised that this time he really would visit. Tara laughed and said “Sure, sure,” before kissing him on the cheek and fluttering a hand over his still swollen right eye. But he kept his promise this time, and in those visits Tara told him Buffy had told her about their sex fest. She did it to explain her funny but odd teasing at the party that nearly didn’t end. He’d had a good night altogether, what with him and Buffy playing cards and sneaking off to make out like children in the hall closet or the basement. He’d taken hope at the easy togetherness they shared, and even more as Tara told him Buffy had opened up to at least one of her friends. He danced Tara around her apartment, singing “Oh Happy Day” at the top of his lungs as she laughed breathlessly. He kissed her exuberantly on the mouth, then raced out to that hall screaming, “She loves me!” as Tara’s neighbours, apparently all ancient crones with curlers in their blue hair, stood at their doorways and glared. However, at least one approved if him, because he heard a wobbly high pitched voice say to Tara as he waltzed down the stairs, “He’s a lively one, dear. I’d keep him if I were you.” Then things went pear shaped, and Spike found himself kipped out on Tara’s couch once more after Riley, the too-tall bastard, had convinced Buffy not only to leave him – Spike - but to blow up his home as well. Tara had tried to soothe him, but he’d been disconsolate. He was mourning Buffy. After everything they’d done, everything he’d taken from her, the beatings, the insults, the denial of him, he’d lost her anyway. He sat on Tara’s couch day and night, staring unseeingly at the walls. Finally, after a week, Tara pulled him out of his deep funk. She went with him to the crypt to clean it out once and for all, tossing the burnt out rubbish into the industrial garbage bags she’d brought along. She’d held him as he sobbed, bemoaning the loss of everything that mattered, everything that had defined him, except the duster, which had escaped the blast and the fallout by being on the couch as his world went to hell. They scavenged new furniture, Spike risking the sunlight occasionally to help drag the heavier stuff in. When they were done, the place wasn’t perfect, but there was a new bed and a new dresser, and Tara surprised him with a bag of clothes picked up at the thrift store. Then he and Tara had gone out and gotten rip-roaringly drunk at Willie’s, Tara showing a stomach for liquor he couldn’t even imagine. They’d stumbled back to her apartment, and she’d nearly fallen twice as she tried to retrieve the keys she dropped. Spike had handily solved the problem by bouncing them onto his boot and flicking them in the air before catching them and shoving the wrong key into the lock. “No, let me,” Tara had slurred, and she got the keys from his hand and carefully held them in front to her face, counting off the four keys before selecting the right one and somehow opening the door. They’d fallen in the floor together, Spike somehow landing on top of her as she giggled madly. “Tara,” he’d said solemnly. “I do believe I’m quite intoxicated.” Tara giggled harder. “Yeah, I do believe you’re quite intaxercatered too.” “You are drunk,” he replied. “You can’t even speak properly.” “Says the man who can’t remember he lives in California now!” she’d exclaimed. “Hey! You insulting my accent?” he demanded. “I’ll have you know, women find it sexy! It’s gold!” “I find it sexy,” she said softly, abruptly cutting off her giggles. “Very sexy,” and she’d pulled his head down to hers, kissing him hard. Spike kissed her for long minutes, getting caught in the sensation of Tara, the girl he’d dreamed about with strange regularity for the last year. Then his brain, alcohol logged though it was, kicked back in. He pulled away. “Tara,” he whispered. “This is a bad idea. We’re wasted.” He pushed himself off her. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.” “I get it. You don’t want me,” she said softly as Spike picked her up and threw her arm over his shoulder. “I know I’m not Buffy.” Spike growled. “Well, you’re half right, but it’s nothing to do with Buffy, and for the record, I know I’m not Willow. So let’s not get into the battle of who’s trying to screw whom to forget, yeah?” Tara didn’t protest after that, and Spike laid her on her bed gently. He tucked her in, kissed her forehead and went to the kitchen to grab a jug for water for the morning and a bucket to puke in should the need arise. “What did you mean, half right?” Tara had asked sleepily, and Spike was just drunk enough to answer her honestly. “I do want you,” he replied softly, and closed the bedroom door behind him. When morning came, they tiptoed around each other, mindful of hangovers and things better left unremembered and unsaid. Tara headed off for class. Spike stared at the walls and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. He’d gotten to the point where him wanting Tara made perfect sense, from how she looked when the sun caught her off-blonde hair and her smile sparkled to the way her hips filled out her jeans and her ability to love everything that came her way. He was just starting on trying to figure out where Tara wanting him made sense, having been caught up in a hundred images of her during his attempt to suss himself out, when the door opened and Tara brought in a girl, a strange girl with short black hair and a pierced nose, who had his half sneer and cocky attitude. “Spike, this is Andrea,” she said quietly. “She’s in my art history class.” Spike nodded at the creature beside Tara. “I thought we could all have dinner or something. Maybe at the restaurant over on Maplehill?” Spike realized Tara was trying to set him up with the girl and forced the bitterness out of his throat. He knew then what had triggered her wanting him, no need to work it out. Too much liquor. So they went to dinner, and while he didn’t exactly hit it off with the strange girl, she was easy and hot for him, and he moved into her apartment for the next two days, fucking her mindlessly as he dreamed of Buffy and Tara, going out both nights while she worked at the Bronze to find Buffy and make her see sense. He considered visiting Tara, but figured her gift of the girl was a nice ‘please don’t call on me’ gift and steered clear of her. He took her to the wedding, but left early. He walked to her car in the parking lot and announced, grinning cruelly, that she was a shitty flatmate and he was bored with her. Amy, or Anna, or whatever the hell her name was, screamed and scowled, but Spike remained disinterested. He went back to his crypt and started drinking steadily, only leaving to buy smokes and booze. On one such outing, he ran into Buffy, Xander and Willow, and Buffy was losing her mind. After catching the demon and giving the antidote to Buffy, with a scathing speech he knew would never penetrate her cold little heart, he took the sewers to Tara’s building and pounded on the door. Tara opened it quickly. “Spike!” she said with surprise. “I heard you and Andrea didn’t work things out.” So that was the daft girl’s name. “Not here to discuss that,” he said shortly. “Buffy’s lost her mind. Thinks she’s delusional. Dawn’s taking it pretty badly, and she’ll want you near. You should go there.” Tara hesitated. “Well?” “Have I done something to upset you?” she asked softly. “You haven’t been around lately.” Spike chuckled bitterly. “Now’s not the time for a heart to heart, Tara. Just go.” He turned away from her door and left, heading back to the crypt to drink a little more, drift away on the alcohol and forget, for a short time, that Tara used to make him feel safe, and Buffy used to make him feel needed. Now both made him feel unwelcome and dirty, and he didn’t have it in him to care. As the night wore on, he headed to the lower level of the crypt, distressingly bare of anything but his bed and dresser, the rugs and other furniture gone forever. He drifted to sleep, and fell prey to the most vivid dream yet. He was lying on his back, half asleep when warm hands caressed his. “Buffy?” he whispered hoarsely. But these were the wrong hands, these hands were bigger, and softer, free of the calluses created by years of handling weapons. Long hair fell across his face and he inhaled. Roses and the smell of autumn. “Tara?” “Shhh…” a voice exhaled softly, and he knew then it was Tara, whose melodious voice was always present. “Yes, it’s me.” Soft mouth over his and she was kissing him, gently pressing her lips to his. He opened his mouth when her tongue teased the seam and she slid inside, tasting like peaches. “Tara…” he moaned, and bought his hands up to touch her, any part of her he could reach. They fell across her back and he felt she was naked as his hands skirted her full body, pressing into wide hips and soft buttocks. “I figured it out,” she said as she pulled away from the kiss. “You’re mad because of Andrea. You think I tossed Andrea at you because I was embarrassed about kissing you that night.” Warm hands on the sheets, pulling them down and her soft body, no harsh planes and angles, just womanly flesh, sliding underneath and pressing itself to him. “Yeah…” Spike murmured, still half asleep and entirely convinced this was a dream, because Tara wouldn’t crawl into his bed naked, and place soft kisses along his collarbone while providing an answer for the fuck up that was his last few weeks. “Well, you were wrong. I introduced you to Andrea, because I thought she was your type. Snarky, a little dark, rough around the edges, like you, and the complete opposite of me. I thought she was what you wanted because you didn’t want me, or you would have taken me while we were drunk and crazy.” “Don’t be stupid,” he said, moaning as her hands slid over his chest and abs, not touching anything that desperately needed to be touched. “If I didn’t want you I wouldn’t be having this dream.” Couldn’t the girl understand that, dream vision though she may be? “You’re not dreaming,” that sweet voice breathed into his ear. “Not dreaming, Spike, I swear.” The hands became more insistent, and she ran a hand over his nipple, yeah, like that, and he thought, through his hazy half sleep, in this moment, I am content… And woke up, cock throbbing beneath the sheets, rubbing the cool cotton, since he’d stopped wearing his jeans to bed when Dawn stopped coming over to wake him, and he ran his hand down his chest to wrap around himself. Then really woke up, because suddenly a hand was over his, and blue eyes looking at him, and a soft smile warming his face and it was Tara. Really Tara. “What?” he said softly. “I mean, what are you doing here?” She smiled that smile, her warm earth mother smile and said softly, “I’m here to be with you.” “Are you drunk?” he asked hazily. He sniffed the air around her and only smelled roses and autumn and the ocean scent of arousal. “No, not drunk.” “No, not drunk,” she agreed. She tapped her fingers against the hand still wrapped around his cock. “Um, what should I do?” she asked shyly. “Are you sure?” he said softly. “I thought you were waiting for Willow. I thought you guys made some headway at the party.” “I don’t think she wants me anymore,” she confessed softly. “Ah, so this is comfort for you then?” he asked cruelly. “Going to tease the vampire so you can feel better about yourself?” “No,” she said, and she refused to take offense, even though he was goading her into anger, trying to make her back down. “This is for us. Because we’re alone right now, and the outsiders always stick together, right?” “Do the outsiders always have sex to affirm their choice to stick together?” he replied snidely. “Only Dawn should be here too, trying to get some touch.” Tara laughed, laughed when she was supposed to get angry and storm away, leave him alone so he could do the right thing. So he could deny himself of her and be a good man. “She’s busy,” Tara said softly. “She has homework.” Her hand caressed the back of his again and she whispered, “Show me?” And he couldn’t do it, couldn’t step away from the offer in her eyes and the warmth of her against him. So he removed his hand from his cock, wrapped hers around him instead and taught her how to hold him, moving her hand as she looked into his eyes, a smile on her face. Once she had the rhythm, he removed his hand and brought it to the back of her head, pulling her mouth to his and kissing her deeply, the taste of peaches and heaven on his tongue, the smell of autumn and roses in his nostrils. Tara smelled of comfort. He moved his hand from the back of her head and mapped out her body. Strong shoulders, smooth arms. None of the preternatural muscle of Buffy or Drusilla. Tara felt like the women he dreamed of as a human. His hand slid down further pressing the smooth flesh over her ribs lightly, happy he couldn’t count them. Happy that this woman was real, not skin stretched over bones and filled with the spirit of something that didn’t want to be there. And further down, ghosting over soft hip and smooth thigh, before making his way back up her body to cup one full breast, testing its weight in his hand, thumb brushing over a pebbled nipple. Tara pulled away from his kiss with a gasp, looking in his eyes as he teased her nipple, the strokes of her hand faltering, then picking up speed. He smiled gently at her, then moved his head down to take her nipple in his mouth as his fingers skimmed over her soft belly. He circled her navel and she giggled as he found one of her ticklish places. He pulled away from her breast and smiled at her, his eyes darkening as his fingers slid lower, through the patch of soft curls that adorned the top of her mons and further down, tracing the hairless skin of her labia. Tara moaned as her eyes fluttered shut, her hand slowing down on his cock for a long moment. Spike slipped his index finger lightly over her clit and she yelped, her hand picking up the pace as he rubbed her clit with his thumb while sliding two fingers in side her, finding her G-spot. Spike watched the way her emotions played across her face, keeping his own arousal in check despite the persistence of her warm hand. She was new to all this, didn’t know the little tricks that could shatter a man’s control. Or so he thought. Tara came with a wail, bucking against his hand, and the look on her face, coupled with the tightening of her hand and the way she showed him her neck as her head fell backwards, made him come hard, jerking his hips towards her and spilling all over her soft hand. He slipped his fingers out of her and removed his thumb, cupping her gently and rubbing slightly as she slowly came down. He waited until her eyes opened again, then slowly lifted the two fingers that had been buried in her heat to his mouth. Careful not to spill a drop, he licked them clean, his eyes never leaving hers. She didn’t blush at the intimacy as he’d supposed she would, and he reminded himself that, for all that Tara had never been with a man, she’d had sex, and had probably seen her lovers do this exact same thing a hundred times or more. Then she lifted her own hand, covered in his spunk, and licked it clean, her eyes never leaving his, a smirk on her full mouth, and he was hard. Instantly, painfully hard, at the sight of the goddess cleaning herself after bringing off a demon. With a growl he slammed his mouth across hers again, tasting himself on her lips, knowing she was tasting herself on him. He rolled them slightly and Tara was beneath him, undulating against him, a wicked smile on her face every time she brushed against his throbbing cock, knowing what she was doing to him. “Tara,” he growled. “Tara, stop. I’m trying to be careful.” “I don’t need you to be careful, Spike,” she said softly. “I’ve never been with a guy, no, but I’ve had girlfriends.” She blushed as she tried to make her point. “Th-things have been…” Spike closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself, except he only grew more excited as the scent of autumn and ocean filled his senses. He buried his face against her throat and sighed. “What’s wrong?” Tara whispered. “Am I…” “Not you,” Spike assured her. “Just… never had this before. Been first.” He smiled at her. “Trying to savour the moment.” Tara bucked her hips against him then and he groaned loudly. “Savour the moment when you’re in it, Spike,” she said teasingly as a hand slid down and wrapped around his cock. She positioned him at her entrance. “Come inside, Spike.” Spike tried to stop, tried to tell himself this was a bad idea. Tried not to inhale Tara’s maddening scent, tried not to feel her heat pressing against his cock. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t one to do the right thing when the wrong thing was there and twice as tempting. He slid inside carefully, watchful of any signs on Tara’s face that would show she wasn’t enjoying herself. All he saw was need, pure aching need, and he was sure her expression was mirrored on his face. He pushed forward even more carefully, then slipped all the way in, the tip of his cock pressing against the mouth of her womb. They both exhaled ragged sighs. “All right?” he asked Tara. “Not hurting you or anything?” “No, not hurting,” she panted. “It’s different, and a little, um, b-bigger than I’m used to but it feels…” She writhed her hips and Spike moaned. “It feels pretty good.” Spike began thrusting slowly, resting his body on hers so he could feel every inch of it. “So sweet, just like I dreamed,” he mumbled and Tara smiled up at him. He kissed her softly, increasing the pressure as he increased his thrusts, and her muscles began clamping around him. He pulled away from the kiss to allow her to breathe, and began nibbling along her jugular. Tara moaned and he nipped sharply, making her yelp. She lifted one hand off his back to direct his face back to hers, and kissed him thoroughly. Her hips bucked up to meet him and Spike thought, through the haze of bliss and ocean and autumn, in this moment, I am content. He pushed himself up and slipped a hand between them, toying with her clit. Her hands clawed into his back briefly, but let go quickly. Tara didn’t have it in her to hurt him, or anyone. He played with her clit gently and watched as she responded, reading her face as she climbed higher and higher, watching her as she climaxed and clenched around him before falling over the edge with her. ~~~~~~ Tara’s fallen asleep curled against him, and Spike wonders if this was part of the vagaries of fate. Taking Buffy, giving him Tara, giving him Buffy again only to take her away and place Tara in his arms. Tara stirs next to him and opens her eyes, smiling sleepily. Spike grins at her and places a kiss on her sleep-smoothed forehead. “I need to go,” she says softly. “I have classes tomorrow, and I have this paper…” Spike feels a shaft of pain float through him. Another woman after him for fucking, using him to make herself feel better. He’d expected different of Tara, but he had no idea why. In the end, he was just a person to be used by these women and he’d take it, take it every time because he loves them, and he’s loves bitch. “Right,” he says softly. He wants to scream and rage, beg her to explain why they all do this to him, why she would hurt him in the end, like the others. But he can’t rage at Tara; it would be the most grievous sin- something Angelus would do- tear her to pieces with words and rebuild her into something fucked up. And while he doesn’t have a soul, he does have a concept of what’s bad and what’s purely evil. And he knows himself well enough to know that somehow the demon screwed up, and purely evil isn’t in him. So he watches as she pulls on her clothes, staying in this bed that reeks of her, lets himself lie in the wreckage of his world. Doesn’t bother to fight because it’s all worthless in the end. He can never be enough for Buffy, the warrior, and he can never be enough for Tara, the earth mother. He goes upstairs to complete his plans of getting marvelously wasted, when Buffy enters his crypt with some cockamamie story about surveillance cameras, as if she’d forgotten he prefers to lurk about her a little bit more personally. Then she throws his feelings back in his face, by acknowledging their existence only to deny their plausibility. He finds it somewhere in himself to tell her to go to hell. She leaves his crypt. He stares at the ceiling for long hours before remembering he was once a proactive kind of guy and he heads for the Magic Shop to get a spell and make it all go away. ~~~~~~ Y’know, having sex with Anya wasn’t part of his proactive plan. In fact, Anya’s place in the plan beyond ‘person who provides the spell’ hadn’t been considered. But he’s drunk and inside her, and he’s never given enough of a damn about Xander’s feelings to think twice about screwing his ex on a table. And isn’t he a lucky demon, fucking two women in the span of a few hours, such a stud he is. He’s Don fucking Juan. Another one of these Scoobies, using him to forget, but Anya’s been straightforward all along. She doesn’t play stupid games and make him feel wanted as a person. She just wants his body. And as Tara once said, Anya’s very refreshing. ~~~~~~ When Xander storms off and Buffy leaves him by the wall, he picks himself up and heads to Tara’s apartment, hoping that she can bring the calm she always brings despite the fact she doesn’t want him. Tara’s not home. He sniffs the air and follows her scent. She’s on her way to Revello Drive, and Spike follows her, hoping he can see her before anyone else does. Xander beats him to the punch; he can see them talking in the distance, a block away from the house. Xander’s a mess, and Tara comforts him enough to get him to turn around and head for his apartment. Spike steps forward as soon as Xander’s gone, because Tara’s sitting on someone’s lawn and crying. “What’s this, pet?” he asks softly, and she looks up at him with such hate he steps backwards. “How could you?” she whispers. “I thought…” she choked on her words but forced herself to continue. “I thought that we… that we…” She stands, walks to him and slaps him across the face. Spike lifts a hand to his stinging cheek. He’s been hit by stronger, with more intent to harm, but nothing hurts like this, the final betrayal. “I was just a girl, wasn’t I?” she said tearfully. “I know I’m not Buffy, I can live with that. But we- I though we were friends, Spike. I thought we had something.” “Oh, is that why you walked out after we had sex, yeah?” he asks angrily, thrown on the defensive by her sharp words. “Because we were such good friends, with so much between us?” “I had a paper!” she yelled. “I had to leave! I wanted to stay, and anyway, you didn’t try to stop me. You just lay there and let me walk out.” She’s managed to abandon her tears in her rage, and Spike sees a side of her he’d never known, the side that lived in that hellhole family for eighteen years, the side that had learned to stand up against all pain. She’s magnificent. And in the moment he knows that beyond all doubt, he’s lost her. He loses them all in the end, it seems. “Well, I guess we suffered a communication breakdown, pet,” he says sadly. “Go on, go back to your girl. You deserve better than this.” He turns away, blocks her sobs. He’s fucked up all year, but this is something he can do right. He can send her back to the person she belongs with. Everything else has fallen to the wayside in this horrible/wonderful year, and it stands to reason the band of brothers that was the outsiders would fall apart as well. In the end, it’s all for the best. Best for Tara, best for Dawn. Even best for Buffy. He’s in two minds about whether or not it’s the best for him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sonnet 29 can be found here Full Lyrics to You Are My Sunshine, copyright © 1940 Peer International Corporation, can be found here Other Standalones Pick another Series 18 February 2004