herself_nyc (herself_nyc) wrote in herself_nyc_fic, @ 2008-05-12 09:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | s/b fic, waiting around |
Fic: WAITING AROUND (pt 10 of ?)
As they emerged into the kitchen from the basement, hoping to make a quiet get-away, Luz and Joe came back into the house.
The babies were still crying, but more quietly now; they were wrung out and exhausted. Luz and Joe looked pretty wrung out themselves, each with a baby on their shoulder, jogging and comforting them.
Buffy said, "We'll go. We're sorry for all the confusion."
Luz shook her head. "Please stay."
Spike was looking at his boot toes; she could feel how much he wanted to disappear. But Luz approached them then; blocking the way out of the kitchen. She looked Buffy in the eye.
"I feel stupid. All this time I thought you all were pulling my leg, and it bugged me. But I was wrong. You all were just being straight with me, and I didn't believe you. I believe you now. That you're Joe's grandma. That vampires ... vampires are real." She glanced at Spike. "If you say he's all right, I guess he's all right with me."
Before she could answer, Spike said, "S'your house, Missis. You don't want monsters in it, you needn't have 'em."
The look Luz gave him then was not at all what Buffy had expected, and it made her chest crack.
A piteous compassion, as if she'd been told some grave, irrevocable news.
And then she stepped up to Spike, and offered him the baby, who was blinking now, on the verge of sleep. "You like holding her, yes? I see how much you like it."
Spike almost didn't accept her, but Luz handed the child over and he had no choice but to catch her. Watching this, Buffy wondered how many infants Spike had snatched from their mother's arms, from cradles in invaded rooms, to drain and abandon. The images flooded her head, catching her off guardit had been forever since she'd considered Spike's past, thought of him as a predator. That she would think of it now disgusted her, even as the sight of him, gathering Rose up high against his chest, where he could inhale her baby smell, filled her with a confused instinct to intervene.
But Luz was plucking at Spike's sleeve, leading him into the living room, encouraging him to sit down, to be at home. She almost wanted to follow and tell Luz that this was too much, that Spike wasn't actually a member of this family, that she needn't overdo her welcome.
"Want one of your own?"
Joe's voice in her ear startled her; she turned from the scene in the living room. "No more babies for Buffy."
"I just meant this one. Just for a lend. I need to get started on preparing lunch."
"Huh? Oh, sure." Taking Daisy with practiced nonchalance, she returned her attention to the scene in the next room, where Spike was now firmly seated at one end of the sofa with his armful of sleeping Rose, while Luz perched near him, one cushion-span away, leaning forward, her hands caught between her knees as if she had to restrain herself from undoing her generous impulse and snatching the child back. She was talking to Spike in a rasped whisper, like there was a great necessity for discretion about what he was.
Except, Buffy realized a moment later, that wasn't it. It was only that the baby was asleep; she didn't want to wake the baby. Spike replied in the same tones, they spoke back and forth awkwardly, not quite looking at each other, looking more at Rose's sleeping face, as though she was the subject of their consultation. Except Buffy knew it wasn't. She waited, as behind her Joe began rooting around in the refrigerator. Then it came, what she'd been expecting; the crunch. Spike lifted his game-face and pointed it at Luz, the gold eyes slowly opening and shutting, like a sated lion's. Luz gasped, but she didn't move, neither forward or back. Just looked at what she'd asked to see again, and then, after a long frozen moment, put a hand up in the air, arresting it half-way, until Spike's solemn nod freed it to reach across and touch.
The small brown fingers probed the sharp distended cheekbones, the ruffled nose, the harsh brows, pressing on the bones as if Spike were some inanimate object. Buffy couldn't see Luz's face, but she could imagine her expression.
Then she got up. "I gotta fix the lunch. You sit. You sit long as you like." She made a gesture with her hand, as if to ward him in place. Then she half turned back, another glance at her child in the vampire's arms. "I am sorry for you, Will. Okay? I am sorry."
Buffy wanted to slap her then, wanted to shout that Spike didn't need pity about being undead, respect, yes, but not pity. She wanted Spike to assert that, to turn aside her remark, but he only nodded, letting the game-face go, returning his attention to the sleeping infant he cradled. There was no time to say anything, because now Luz was right beside her, looking at her, her large eyes full of apology.
"I thought you all were disrepecting me, with those stories. I really didn't understand. I think I disrespected you."
"No, you didn't," Buffy said. "It's okay. Really, it's okay. Just a big misunderstanding, from now on we'll laugh about it, yes? And you'll have your story too, you can tell your story about today."
Luz smiled a little at that, rather bravely, which showed that she was still wondering if she'd fetched up among people who were too weird for her to cope with. But she nodded, and said thank you, and told Buffy to put the baby down whenever she got tired of her, and that the lunch would be ready as soon as she'd made the tortillas.
Buffy sat beside Spike. It felt odd, the two of them in a surburban living room, each with an infant in arms. Like another one of Willow's old spells, where she'd twitch her nostrils and make them into the married couple with the sudden family they couldn't quite cope with.
Willow. God.
"You okay, Spike? You want to put her down?"
"No. Have to give her over soon enough."
"You wouldn't want to stuck with her for very long."
"You wouldn't," he said.
Buffy stared, and sighed. Then she rose and went to put Daisy in her cradle.
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