herself_nyc (herself_nyc) wrote in herself_nyc_fic, @ 2008-05-08 12:23:00 |
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"So how was it?"
"What?" Christ, why'd she have to be such a chatterbox? He didn't remember her being like that. "Don't need to talk about it."
They'd gotten in to bedthe impersonal hotel bed that was the size of a fortress, plenty of chaste space between themand gone to sleep. He was amazed now that he'd dropped off, and sorry to be awake again so soon. Especially to find her apparently alert as a bunny, propped on pillows her phone in her hand, typing with her thumbs.
"Oh, we need to talk about it." She set the device aside. "There was a time when tasting me what was the most important thing in your world. A long time ago, of course. But ... I just have to wonder. You finally do it, and was it ...."
"Said I was sorry."
"I know. I'm not asking for more apology, I'm asking what it was like?"
Why was he always attracted to women who could make him writhe inside? "Muffed it, didn't I?"
"So you were disappointed?"
"Buffy, know I was out of line. Dunno why I did it."
"Really? You really don't know why? I think it was because you thought that was what I wanted. That I must want you to rough me up, to try it on with me. Because you get this idea that somehow you acting like a vampire is all you're good for with me, and you wanted me to put you in your place. And then I didn't put you in your place. So along with being angry at yourself, you got angry with me."
"Always sensed you'd have a kink for it," he muttered. "Back in the day an' all. An' it is what I'm good for, yeah? Because you do have a kink."
"And there you go again. I thought you weren't going to do that to me anymore."
"Do what."
"Act like I'm using you. I know I'm not. Not this time." She shook her head. "Don't manipulate me into punishing you. You don't need to be punished and neither do I. I thought we wanted each other's company."
He grunted. Checking off the box next to Neither agree nor disagree.
"All that time with Xander, he couldn't teach you your worth?"
"He taught me," Spike said. The question made him sullen, like when she'd taunted him earlier, wondering how Harris put up with him. In all those decades there were always people who never stopped seeing them as an odd couple, an anomaly. People who were their friends.
Even her. Who was supposed to know them both so well.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Have you really forgotten ...." He glanced up then, in time to see her glance off, so he couldn't catch her eye. Her cheek was pale. "Forgotten that at the beginning, I wanted you too?"
"Thought you did." Ancient history, this was ancient history, how could she bring this up? Why? Surely what they were negotiating now wasn't about that kind of love. She ought to be past that by now, old woman with grown grandchildren that she was. "Only 'til you saw Angel again. Couldn't have gone any other way, than you marryin' him. You two were meant for sweethearts. You were each other's reward."
"Reward? You really think like that?"
"Yeah, I do." He thumped the pillow. "Only sorry you didn't get to keep him longer. Liam died too soon."
"He did. But you know ... shit, I shouldn't say this."
"Then don't."
She ignored him, "I loved him dearly, I loved him every day. But I used to think too, what if. What if you and Xander hadn't happened, what if you'd wanted me when I wanted you. The life we could've had."
"Don't talk nonsense. He gave you everythin'. You an' him were everythin'. That's life. You were both alive."
Buffy moved then, leaning in close, so her nose was inches from his. "You say that like it makes my marriage worthier than yours. You weren't alive, and yet you and Xander were partners all his life. I thought you two seemed pretty happy, all in all. Pretty satisfied with each other. How come you think you were good enough for him but not for me? If he were here, I think that would piss him off."
"Don't ask me that."
"Does it feel like betraying him, to be with me now? Is that it?"
Again he was filled with that ballooning urge to punch her. Buffy seemed to feel it; she drew back a little. "Did you ... did you two ever think about turning him?"
"An' what a nosy bitch you are today."
His snarl made her flinch.
"I'm sorry. I justI'm just trying to have a conversation here."
"If you must know, yeah, there was a time when it was an issue. When Harris was headin' towards forty, he got it into his sweet head that we'd be better off bein' birds of a feather. He was terrified of that, of course, like the good sane fellow he was, but he pretended he wasn't, an' he badgered me day an' night to turn him. Kept sayin' it would be good for me. kept sayin' he was at his peak and the time was right." The memories of that period in their relationship, the blunt frustrating struggle of it, piled up in his mind like thunder clouds behind a mesa. He realized it made him feel a little better, this forced recollection of something besides Harris's final sufferings, or earlier goodness. They'd been capable of towering conflicts, fierce fights. Easy to forget now he was gone. "We almost split over it. I was leery though, to let him out of my sight, that he might get blotto an' go put himself in some other demon's way."
"Oh Spike."
"He was so afraid of it, y'see. An' what he feared, he used to want to run to it, confront it. Hated to think he was anyway a coward. Of course he wasn't. But he was right to fear bein' made over into such a abomination."
She curled a hand around his. "You're not an abomination."
"I am. Obscene creature with a soul thrust into it, that's what I am, when all's said an' done. Even if he could've had his soul back too, Harris as a vampire was somethin' I'd die before I'd permit."
The whole question had come up again with that initial cancer diagnosis. And that time Spike had gone halfway to agreeing that it would be better to turn him, to continue their life together, than to let Xander suffer and die. They'd hardly talked about it at all, but there was a long time when the idea existed between them, like an escape hatch Xander could turn to if things got bad enough. Spike had told himself then that if Xander asked for it, if he asked for it clearly, this time he wouldn't refuse. But the request never came.
She stroked his hand, and he could feel her looking at him with compassion, but he couldn't meet her eyes; it was all he could do not to burst out crying. Why hadn't he done what he always said? He'd never wanted to outlive Harris, not for more than a day. Living with him, watching him age and then sicken, he'd imagined that he shared the pattern of that human life; that his own existence would follow that pattern. He'd taken an ease from the notion, a certainty. And yet here it was a few years, and he'd gone on postponing his quietus. Every time he visited the grave he meant to stay there until sun-up, flame out and be done, and every time he'd shirked.
He told himself it was for the mission. The Council needed him, the slayers needed him.
Bullshit.
He was the coward. Whatever that heaven was that Buffy had gone to when she'd been dead, was never going to admit him. That was where Harris was now, he was certain of it. But his own spirit and Harris's weren't going to be reunited anywhere.
Spike yanked his hand away.
Buffy said, "Your sadness, your regrets, don't scare me." Her tone now was playful.
"No?"
"No." She reached for him again, smoothing her fingers through the crisp curls above his temple. "Be a little kinder to yourself, though. Like you always were to Xander. Like you can be to me."
"You're bein' uncharacteristically patient. Dunno if I can get on with it."
"The slayer cutting you some slack. I guess that's your cross to bear here." She smiled. "Your idea of hell."
Her fingers were still tangled in his hair; she tugged him closer. "I'm still waiting for that kiss."
He kissed her. She looked at him, still playful. He didn't know what to say, quite what was called for in this moment.
"You're really good."
He heard this as an assurance of his place on the right side of the Great Line, until he realized that she meant his kissing. She liked the way he kissed. That was what she wanted right now. He came in for another. Her hands were on his face. "Kiss my pussy?" she whispered.
"Yeah, all right." There was no uncertainty now. He was to begin to work off his debt of presumption and anger and blood by pleasuring her. He still felt the effects of her coursing in him; would go on feeling it for hours, the preternatural energy that roiled with his sadness, oil and water that wouldn't mix.
She laid a finger on his lips. "You want to?"
"Course I want to."
"We could fuck instead. Or"
"Your quim's not gonna kiss itself. Give me it."
She was blushing now. "If you're not ready, we could get up. Or you could go back to sleep. Maybe you want to be alone. I don't mean to impose"
What she'd said before, about making love to himI was making god-damn love to you!came back into his head, echoing as half rebuke, half delight. He knew those weren't words Buffy said easily, without meaning them. "Like it when you tell me what you want. Like licking out your little box an' making you shake. Now give." He pounced on her, pinning her with his body, drawing her thighs apart. She relaxed when his mouth touched her, and after a moment, a mewing sigh escaped her, and she tensed in a new way, her hips rippling as if to feed herself to him. After a few minutes her hand found its way to where his cock was trapped between his belly and the bed, and made a warm fist around it, skinning and unskinning the head in time to the rhythm of his tongue.
Later, after a long time between her thighs, followed by a fuck, she drowsed in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder. It did amaze him, to find himself with her, the subject of her patience and kindness and apparent affection. Really must be down to sheer longevity; she'd always been most at ease with the people she'd known longest, and who else remained but him? He thought about what she'd asked before, how was it? It had been forever since he'd longed to drink her down, and his impulse to bite her had surprised himself more than her. She'd taken that assault so gracefully.
And she was right ... he was disappointed. Hadn't enjoyed it properly, and now he was left with a craven craving urge for itnot her so much, but the experience so long tamed, of taking prey, of feeding. Except for biting the occasional demon in battleonly he didn't much care for demon bloodhe'd been on the wagon for over a century.
Spoiled that now, and for what?
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