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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Stripped ~~~~~~ Buffy leans against the kitchen counter and closes her eyes. She places tired hands at her temples and rubs hard, trying to draw the tension out through her fingertips, trying to capture it and throw it away. It doesn’t work. She stands and crosses her arms over her ribs, worries about how thin she was getting. Wonders if she could even find food in a house full of teenage girls. She thinks wistfully of the age of the waif, the mid nineties, when girls would rather die than admit they consumed anything resembling nutrition. In a house this crowded, there’d be piles of food as each girl tried to hide the fact she required sustenance from every other girl in the building. A quick picture of twenty girls sneaking into the bathroom to eat a handful of stale crackers before they get caught flashes across her mind and she smiles wryly. Yeah, those were the days. There was something to be said about poor body image. She sighs. She’s thinking crazy again; she’s too tired for this job. Training a group of girls to kill things, trying to be a mentor, when she can barely have a conversation with Willow or Xander. It’s ridiculous. She can’t even make the words “Oh, God, Xander. You still want her,” fall from her lips after each fight he has with Anya. Can’t ask Willow about Kennedy. Can’t talk to Giles at all. She can’t remember the last real conversation she had with someone. She closes her eyes and tries to bring back the old days, when she still felt something. When there was a life beyond the mission. When she’d beg Giles to let her go on a single date. When she’d still been a part of something. She feels him as he climbs the stairs, hears the slight creaks as he places his feet on all the right spaces. He knows she’s alone up here, and is making as much noise as possible to warn her he’s approaching. He stands at the doorway. “Your stalking skills are off, Spike. I heard you as soon as you set foot on the steps,” she says, trying to inject some humor into her voice and failing miserably. Spike walks behind her, lifts a hand to rest on her shoulder but stopping before touching her. Not his right, anymore. Never really was. “I was trying to alert you to my presence,” he says lightly. “So you could prepare yourself. Fix your face, attach some false bravado to your smile and hope it would reach your eyes.” Buffy shudders. “God, you really go for the hurt, don’t you?” she says bitterly. “You never know when to let it be.” Spike shrugged, walked around her in a wide circle and headed to the fridge. He grabbed a bag of blood and ripped it open. He poured it into a mug and warmed it up. “Just calling it as I see it,” he says quietly. “Doesn’t pay to lie about how you feel, Buffy.” The microwave dings and he grabs the mug. He turns away from her, tired of trying to reach her. He’s so shocked by the warm arms wrapping around his waist that he nearly spits out a mouthful of blood. He closes his eyes and basks in the feel of Buffy against him, wrapped around him tightly in a way she never would have permitted last year. She pulls away just as he gets used to the feel of her against his back. His tee shirt’s still warm and he realizes she’s been crying. He turns around slowly. “Buffy?” She wipes her hands across her eyes quickly. “Sorry. I’m in a weird mood today.” “I gathered that,” he says, a frown marring his forehead. “What’s going on?” “I don’t know,” she says softly. “It’s just… do you know I haven’t had a conversation with anyone since this all started? A real conversation, the kind where you say, ‘hey how are you, how was your day, did you watch anything good lately?’.” Spike nods, but remained silent. Buffy had to talk right now, not listen or be soothed. “I feel like…” she sighs. “I’m lost, y’know? Everything that made me human. Everything that separated me from being the Slayer. It’s gone.” “My mom,” she says softly. “Obviously. Giles went to England, Willow went insane, Xander decided to not get married and Dawn…” she looks at the ground. “I haven’t had a second to talk to her since – I can’t even remember. It’s all being taken away from me.” She brushes tired hands across her eyes again, and tried to massage the pain out of her temples. “And in the end, I’m alone. It’s all gone and I’m alone, and I can’t bear the thought.” Spike crosses the kitchen and stops in front of her. “You’ll never be really alone, Buffy,” he whispers, removing her hands from her temples and holding them in one of his as he forced her chin up and brushed her hair back from her face. Buffy looks at him, tears in her eyes. “How do you know that?” she says quietly. “They keep taking everything away from me, God, or the Powers, or whoever’s in charge. It all gets stripped away, and I can’t do anything to stop it from happening.” Spike doesn’t think; he reacts to her pain and pulls her against him. She sobs softly against his chest. “They can’t take me away from you,” he whispers. “No one can. I won’t let them.” They hear footsteps in the entryway and break apart quickly, Buffy wiping the tears from her face and Spike grabbing the mug and drinking the cooling blood as fast as possible. Before they’re overtaken by a horde of hungry teens, Buffy looks at Spike and offers a tremulous smile. “Promise?” Spike grins around his mug. “I give you my word as a gentleman,” he says cheekily and she smiles for the first time in weeks. ~~~~~~ This is how the world ends. Oh, not really, of course. No, Buffy has saved the day yet again. Let’s hear it for the Slayer. Whoo hoo. Except this time it wasn’t her. Not her death, not her fighting, not her super, wonderful, amazing, never before seen plan. Buffy may have turned reality around, made a million girls warriors in a matter of minutes, but she didn’t save the day, and she wishes to God everyone would just shut the hell up about how she stopped the world from ending and recognize the hero for once. Spike. Spike, who wore the necklace to the end, who’d permanently shut down the Hellmouth she’s been fighting for the last seven years. What she couldn’t accomplish in all these years, Spike has made happen, and he only had to die once to do it. And no one will listen to her when she tries to explain that. As they sit on the bus, cheering and laughing, patting each other on the back, she leans against the window and watches the highway pass her by. Spike had promised he’d never leave her, but in the end, he’d been forced to break that promise. Not by his choice, but by any number of turns she’d led him along. Sending Angel away when he meant to wear it. Not wearing the damned thing herself. Not ripping it from his neck and dragging him up the damned stairs. Kissing Angel and not making it clear that they were just caught in some weird moment based on not seeing each other for two years. And the biggest mistake of all: waiting until the last second to tell him she loved him. Not making it as clear as possible before then so he’d know she was telling the truth. Spike died thinking she’d lied to make the end easier on him, and she hated herself for letting that happen. Because she did love him, had loved him since… well, that’s hard to figure out at this moment, but it happened much earlier than in the damn Hellmouth as he was burning to death to save the day. The Powers That Be can kiss her ass. She’s through with them; there’s hundreds of other girls ready to fulfill the calling, and she has nothing left for them to destroy. God, can’t these children shut up? Don’t they realize what just happened? Don’t they get it? Spike’s dead, he died to save all their lives, when all they could do was hate him for so long, and there’s not a single tear in anyone’s eyes. Someone slides into the seat next to her and she glances at the intruder. It’s Dawn. “So, wanna tell me about it?” she asked softly. “About what happened, and why our town is just a giant hole in the ground?” “No, I really don’t,” she says coldly, and ignores the hurt in Dawn’s eyes. Let her hurt. They can all hurt, and she just doesn’t care. It’s all been stripped away. ~~~~~~ Rome’s beautiful. It really, really is, and during the day, when Dawn’s wandering beside her or behind her after school, looking at the marvelous and old city, Buffy sometimes forgets to think about Spike. But at night, when she goes back to her old ways of hunting to get rid of the tension, killing the vampires that threaten her new home, she invariably thinks of him. She glances back over her shoulder to see if he saw how awesome her moves were with that “Fuck me now, Slayer” look in his eyes, or catches herself as she’s about to ask him if he wants to break into the Sistine Chapel and explain all the pictures to her, or wonders if he’d dance in the Trevi Fountain with her, and if he ever threw a coin into it, so he’d come back to this gorgeous city. She asks him if he can speak Italian. Then she remembers he’s dead. And she’s in mourning all over again. Dawn always asks her why she’s so troubled in the morning, and she brushes it off. Spike is hers, hers to love and hers to mourn, and she deserves the pain of life without him, deserves to keep this one thing just for herself. Because if she shares the story, Dawn’ll cry along with her, and she’ll start healing. And that’s something she doesn’t want to do just yet, because as long as she mourns Spike, his face is prominent in her mind, every angle highlighted by shadows and hers alone. Once she heals, he’ll be gone forever, like her mother’s face, lost beneath the rubble of Sunnydale, like Tara’s gentle smile and Jesse’s easy commentary. Everyone she’s lost, even if some didn’t entirely belong to her, and now that she’s healed, they’ve faded away. She’s not ready to let Spike fade away yet, so she goes out every night and almost always ends up talking to herself because she forgets he’s nowhere near her, and she comes home with hollow eyes every morning, packs Dawn off to school and sleeps, so she can dream of him. ~~~~~~ They’ve been in Italy for a year, moving on from Rome to Florence. Dawn hadn’t made any friends in her new school; seeing girls she’d lived with for months die brutally made her a little careful about opening herself to people. She graduated early, and at the end of the year Dawn told Buffy she was going to England to help rebuild the Council. Buffy didn’t bother to reply. She’d lost her sister the same day she refused to tell her about Spike, and she’s never really bothered to find her. They went back to Rome at the end of the summer, because Florence has bored Buffy beyond belief, and Dawn’s had enough of the museums and old architecture. They move back to their old apartment with ease. Like everything else, it belongs to the Council, so it hasn’t been rented out. They’ve unpacked what little they carry with them and Dawn’s settled onto the couch to watch movies while Buffy patrols. “Buffy,” Dawn asks softly as she’s about to walk out the door. “In a week, I’m going to England. Before that happens, I hope to God you’ll tell me what the hell went on in Sunnydale, because when I leave, you’ll lose the chance.” Buffy refuses the olive branch Dawn’s offering. “Don’t wait up,” she replies and slams the door. ~~~~~~ She’s back at the Trevi Fountain. It’s a favourite place for vampires; there’s so many people it’s easy to get lost in the crowd, find someone who looks lonely and sad, and feed off them. She sits on the edge and stares at the water, littered with Euros. “I wonder if you ever cast a coin into the fountain,” she whispers as she trails her fingers across the water. “Did you ever do it, Spike, and hope you’d come back?” “Doesn’t everyone?” a British voice replies, so much like Spike’s that her heart clenches. “It’s a tradition, y’know.” Buffy looks over her shoulder, and Spike’s standing behind her, black duster, black jeans, black tee shirt and the ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. She’s gone over the deep end now; she’s actually seeing him. “Course, right after that I reached in and grabbed it back, before Angelus saw and made fun of me.” She waves a hand in front of her eyes: her vision’s fine. She pinches herself: it hurts like a bitch so she’s awake. Her mouth is still hanging open, but she snaps it shut and glares at him. “Who the hell are you?” she asked angrily. “Because I could have sworn that Spike sealed the First inside the Hellmouth for good, and if it is you, you have no right to be wearing his face.” She stands and moves to punch the image in the face. Her fist connects, and the resounding crack is accompanied by a flurry of British curses as Not!Spike’s hands fly to his face. “Oww!” he yelled. “Bloody hell! Why do you always go for the nose? It’s amazing I don’t look like a prize fighter with the number of times you’ve broken it!” He touches the area around his nose gently, checking to see if anything’s out of place. “Oh my god, it’s you,” she whispers and throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around him. Unfortunately, he’s still checking his nose for damage, so he’s unprepared for her assault, and they fall backwards, Spike slamming his head against the ground and Buffy landing on him with an “oomph”. “You, it’s you, you’re real,” she says frantically, running her hands over as much of him as she can touch. “You’re really here.” Spike grabs her roving hands in one of his and turns her face to his. “Yeah, love, it’s me,” he whispers. “I’m back; you can’t keep Spike down with a little sunlight.” Buffy laughs and sobs at the same time. “Yeah, I should have known,” she whispers. She stands and holds out her hand. “Come on, Spike. We’ll go back to the apartment, and you can tell me how you managed to defy death.” “Oh, like that’s a great accomplishment to you, Slayer,” he teases. “Little Miss ‘Kill Me Once, Shame on Me, Kill Me Twice, Shame on You’.” Buffy stops. “You’re right. Everyone else gets to come back to life, why shouldn’t you have a chance?” She smiles at him, a real smile, almost a Buffybot Smile, except there’s this shadow in her eyes, like she’s been lost for a long time, and only just figured out how to get back. She wraps her tiny warm hand around his and babbles about Italy. She talks interminably about the beauties of the city of Rome, and does he speak Italian, or fake it, like her, and how she wants him to go to the Sistine Chapel, and could he enter the Vatican, and would he please dance in the fountain with her, because it’s been calling her name for ages now. Spike stops, and the weight on her hand forces her to look back at him. “Buffy.” She smiles at him. “What?” she asks lightly. “Don’t you like Rome? Aren’t you enjoying yourself?” Her smile quivers a bit and she looks at the ground, trying to regain the happiness she’d felt only a minute ago. “It’s really beautiful.” Spike lets go of her hand and steps forward, crowding into her space, just like the old days, when she’d craved him being close to her and hated the fact she’d craved it. “Tell me, pet,” he asks softly. “How’s Dawn? Willow? Xander? Hell, how’s the ever-annoying Andrew? Is he still reshaping reality as he sees fit?” Buffy doesn’t answer. “Do you even know?” he whispers. “Have you spoken to any of them in the last week? Month? Year, even?” She turns away from him and walks away as fast as possible, but Spike catches her. “What’s happened since I left, Buffy?” he demands. “Did you make a conscious decision to not give a damn about anything, or did it come about gradually? Why the hell are you patrolling alone and asking a figment of your imagination questions?” “You don’t know!” she yells, spinning around and glaring at him. “It’s been so hard!” “What?” he yells back. “The permanent vacation you’ve got going? The posh apartment in Rome? The fancy school for Dawn, and the fancy clothes for you and those hideous and therefore expensive shoes? Yeah, your life’s been a real bitch, Slayer.” “You’re so self-absorbed!” she screamed, uncaring of the crowd that’s gathered. “You think it’s been a party since I left California?” “Well, you ran as fast as you could!” he roars. “And it doesn’t seem to be all that stressful for you in the Eternal City.” “Why don’t you just leave?” she hisses even as a part of her screams at her for letting him go. “Just run on back to wherever you came from, and never speak to me again!” “Because I love you!” he yells. “They couldn’t even burn it out of me, although I’m beginning to wonder about my sanity. I love you, okay? And I needed to know-” he shakes his head. “Forget it. I’m insane, and you’re a bitch. Those are things we established a long time ago.” He turns away from her. “I’ll go.” “Spike!” she screams at his retreating back. “You can’t walk away from me!” She ran after him and grabbed his arm, spinning him to face her. “You aren’t allowed to do that!” “Oh, I’m not allowed?” he said incredulously. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She’s all ready to scream at him again, but something shatters inside her and she crumbled, falling to her knees. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want it to be this way.” Spike glowers at her for a moment, huddled on the ground, and she knows he’s trying to walk away from her. Just as she’s about to plead with him to stay, he sighs. “Neither do I,” he whispers as he bends down and picks her up, carefully lifting her and cradling her against him, whispering soothing words as he carries her effortlessly. “Where’s that apartment?” he asks, and when Buffy tells him the address, he heads towards the building, still trying to comfort her. ~~~~~~ Dawn’s already in bed, which is in every way a blessing. There’s too much to explain, and she doesn’t really have it in her to begin. Spike carries her to her room, strips her clothes off her and doesn’t even linger too long over her body. He pulls a tee-shirt over her head and tucks her under the covers. Then he slides next to her, respectfully above the sheets and wraps his arms around her. She’s never forgotten how safe she felt laying in Spike’s arms those few nights before the battle, and having him there again makes the last year fade into nothing. “Tell me what happened,” Spike whispers. “What happened that made you turn your back on everything?” “I killed you,” she whispered. “I killed you, and you died thinking I was throwing you a pity fuck, almost.” She shuddered. “And no one would listen when I tried to explain what you did, and you were gone, and no one cared except me.” She moved closer to him. “This isn’t some demon induced non reality, is it?” she asks softly. “Because having you back, and losing you again, is gonna drive me over the edge, Spike. I’m barely hanging on as it is. Dawn-” A sob hitches in her throat. “Dawn’s leaving in a week, to go to England, and when she’s gone, she’ll never speak to me again, and I don’t have the faintest idea of where everyone else is. The last person I saw was Giles, when he gave me the keys to our apartment in Florence.” She sobs loudly. “It’s all been stripped away Spike, just like I knew it would be.” Spike kisses the top of her head. “We’ll fix that tomorrow, Buffy,” he says. “Tomorrow, you’ll talk to Dawn, and explain why you’ve been so distant, and the day after we’ll call Giles, and the week after that, I’ll let you figure out on your own before you stake me on principle.” She laughed through her quieting sobs. “So you’re here for good?” she asks softly, running light fingers along his arms. “You’re not leaving, even if you’re insane and I’m a bitch?” Spike smiled against her hair. “I told you a long time ago, they can’t take me away from you.” He grinned. “You’re stuck with me, Buffy. I figured it out, and I came to tell you that. In the end, I’ll follow you wherever you lead.” Buffy turned and looked up at him. “Sounds like a good plan to me.” Other Standalones Choose a Different Series 21 March 2004