herself_nyc (herself_nyc) wrote in herself_nyc_fic, @ 2007-08-15 16:53:00 |
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"Well," Willow said, "I guess it's twenty minutes after or twenty minutes of."
Xander glanced up from his coffee cup. "Huh?"
"That's what my Grandma used to say whenever there was one of these uncomfortable pauses in the conversation. She'd say, 'it's either twenty minutes after or twenty minutes of."
Xander checked his watch. "How do you like that."
Uncomfortable pauses, hoo yeah. Buffy had hoped, after the lousy 'Welcome Home' party where no one would talk to her, that then turned into the lousy 'Welcome Home' party where everyone was shouting angrily at her, and then into the kind of party she knew how to handle, with the zombies pouring in and the Mask of Death fused into Mom's friend's face, that things might get back to normal now in her little world.
Only it was turning out, not so much. Okay, she'd always been a big freak in Sunnydale, as Cordy never tired of reminding her. But now she was a different kind of freak, with a secret identityGirl Who Comes Alive (Sexually) With The Undeadshe didn't know how to share with her selected confidants.
Didn't know and didn't care to. They all seemed so ... kid-ish. Whereas she couldn't remember feeling like a kid. What she felt these days, with a curfew and a long checklist of chores to perform at home, stupid classes to show up for, and a kindergarten of a social life, was like an adult trapped in a dream of still being a child who had to ask permission for everything, had to follow the rules.
Plus the new slayer, Faith, had just turned up. All Buffy had gotten out of her presence so far was almost killed when Faith's big problem, Kakistos, came to town. Meanwhile Faith was doing a bang-up job of highjacking her role, her watcher, her friends.
To the point that they barely seemed to care anymore that she'd taken off and returned. They'd stopped being angry at her because they were all interested in following Faith around, listening to her brag, watching her stick her tits out. And when they weren't doing that they were all about the double-dating, Xander with Cordy and Willow with Oz and Nobody with Buffy.
Not that she wanted anybody because she'd never again rely on anything with a penis. Men Were Shits. They made you like them and trust them and open up to them and then wham! they made you wish you were a deaf-mute with your legs fused together because if that's what you were you wouldn't get into that kind of trouble and end up trapped in a box you'd outgrown, feeling like a fool.
"I, uh, have some studying to do," Willow said, sliding off her stool. "What about you guys?"
Xander drained his coffee cup.
Like you study, Buffy thought, watching him puppy off behind like he couldn't wait to hit the books. He couldn't wait to get away from her.
Because I'm strange now. I'm not the proper Buffy anymore.
Maybe I'm not even the proper slayer anymore. Now Faith's here.
Which brought her back around againlately all her thoughts reminded her of some nightmarish carousel of ickto her anger at the betrayer who'd delivered her back to home, high school and hellmouth.
He better not come back here, because I will pull out his lying tongue and throttle him with it slowly before I stake him. I regret only that I will have but one opportunity to totally dust that dirty liar's ass.
He was more and worse than a dirty liar, he was ... but as Buffy walked along Main and cut left onto Las Reinas towards home, her mind shied away from the rest of the categories of what Spike was; she couldn't review her slow roasting rage without admitting her own part in it.
She'd wanted to be with Spike. She'd made plans with him.
There was no forgiveness for that.
On Revello, she considered whether to go back in via the trellis and her bedroom window, or through the door. If Mom saw her, she'd give her the third degree about her day. But if Mom didn't see her, she'd come to her room before she went to bed, and the third degree would be even longer because there'd be no escaping it by skipping off upstairs.
The door it was.
When they first got back to Sunnydale, she'd told Joyce about the long long eastbound Greyhound trip, about the checker job at Gristedes and the girls she'd shared the crummy flat with. All she'd offered to her mother's barrage of questions about Spike and Mr Vaux's house was a repeated assertion that nothing happened. She never defined happened and Joyce never explicitly asked, though she dragged Buffy off to the doctor for a full check-up that included testing her for pregnancy and every possible venereal disease, as well as listening to the doctor hem and haw his way through a lecture about the Importance Of Making Responsible Choices Now She Was A Young Woman. After those results came up clean, neither of them referred again to the summer's events. Her mother was focused on the challenge of getting her back into school, and more involved in their household.
She also seemed, despite the nightly Twenty Questions thing, to be kind of afraid of her.
Joyce's voice rang out as Buffy opened the front door. "Is that you?"
"Yes, I'm home."
"Have you done your patrol?"
"Yes. I met the guys for coffee after." That sounded so normal. She was all about normal now, the new normal. The normal that was a complete charade.
Her mother appeared in the doorway, a pencil behind her ear, the small calculator clutched in her hand.
"Do you have any homework?"
"Done."
"Are you going to bed now?"
Do you HEAR yourself? She wasn't going to say it. There was no point provoking a screaming fight. "I'm going to take a shower first."
Joyce rearranged her face into a less anxious harried expression. "I could fix us a snack first if you're hungry."
"I'm OK. I'll say good night."
"Good night, sweetheart."
The impulse to reach out for a hug was there, but Joyce had already withdrawn back towards the dining room table strewn with the gallery accounts.
Buffy took the stairs two at a time. A shower would be good. A nice long shower, where she could get herself off three or four times without her mother over-hearing her, and then maybe she'd feel dopey enough to fall asleep without having to do the whole Ring-Around-the-Recrimination-Rosy with herself again tonight.
Of course, she hoped that every night. It was pretty much the only hope she had left right now.
But it flew right out of her mind when she flipped on the light in her room to find she wasn't alone.
"Hello, cutie. Missed me?"
No way. His appearance, leaning on the windowsill in her pink little room, affected her like seeing a rat peek out of the bedclothespresaging a loss of control, disorganization getting in, bleeding towards disaster.
Fists formed. "You are going to be so sorry you came back here." Half a dozen scenarios of his violent dusting arose all at once in her head.
"You did miss me. I'm touched." He gave her a blatant once-over. "You're thinner, that's no good. Told you to train yourself up. Off your feed, are you?"
"Don't try to talk to me, Spike."
He nodded in seemingly amiable agreement. "Not here for chit-chat."
His cool blatant taunting tone spun up a thunderspout of fury that made her vision go dim even as strength and force shimmered through her. Snatching up the first weapon that came to handa ceramic figurine of a big-eyed girl she'd had since she was fiveBuffy launched herself at him. The curtains stirred like emanations as her blow came down on nothing. The breeze of his passage raised the gooseflesh on her cheek and arm. She almost lost the statuette, scooping it clear of the sill at the last second.
She spun around. Now he was leaning against the door. He grinned, showing her the tip of his tongue.
She started towards him again, already feeling doltish with the toy statuette raised over her head, but was checked by his wagging finger and the exaggerated whisper in which he said "Ah-ah-ah. Don't want to make a noise and bring your esteemed mama up here to investigate. Anyway, this isn't where it's going to happen."
She blinked. "Where what's going to happen?"
"Where I'm going to kill you."
"Not after I kill you first! Which I am so going to do, you" Her lips were tingling, her tongue numb; the words sounded thick, odd coming out. Which I am so going to do? Gah.
His smile took on a dreamy air, as if she was proposing an attractive fantasy. "Remains to be seen." He opened her door. "Ta for now. I'll just see myself out, shall I?"
He started towards the upstairs landing. Her paralysis opened, she slammed forward, grabbing for him. "You can't go down there!"
Her shout echoed down the stairwell. Shit. The last thing she needed was Mom poking her head out to see what she was hollering about.
He smiled again, bland and pleasant as a librarian. "Be seeing you."
His passage down the stairs and out was swift and silent. The front door drifted back on its latch with a nearly inaudible click. She sped down after, flinging the door open to give chase.
"Buffy! I thought you'd gone to bed."
Her mother's voice floating out of the dining room jerked her to a halt. "Huh? Oh ... I just wanted to check ... that ... you know, that you'd remembered to lock up."
"I will when I go up. I've got another hour's work here at least."
"Yeah" Her hand was still on the front door, the fresher air from the street cool against her overheated face. She imagined Spike out there, eluding her, laughing at her. She must've looked like such a tool, brandishing that figurine, babbling. Great moves, Slayer.
He could've darted off in any direction; too late to catch him now.
Waiting up for the sounds of her mother coming up, getting ready for bed, Buffy sat tense, a stake gripped in her hands, by the open window he'd entered through.
Why did you do it? What were you thinking? I don't care about why you did itI know you never think! I hate you! And now I'm staking you staking you staking you! Her revenge fantasies were so incoherent they made her cheeks burn.
That first glimpse of him, like an image seen in a lightning flash, kept hitting her with renewed little shocks of incredulity. It was true, it was true, was it true? It couldn't be. Couldn't be possible. She hadn't exactly disbelieved the note, but his Special Delivery threats never felt real ... as the days rolled into weeks she'd focused only on her outrage at how he'd handed her off back into this cramped box of a childhood. She'd barely considered his motives.
For the first time she had to think of it as actual: he'd slipped his soul. And like Angelus before him, bent on revenge, he was out to ruin her life.
Well, not if she ruined his first.
As soon as the house was all quiet, she'd drop down to the yard and take off. Each minute of waiting seemed endless; her heart thubbed with an irritating, embarrassing intensity. She'd opened her history book as if she was really going to do the reading for her morning class, but of course all she could think of was when she'd get her hands on him. She'd make him hurt before she finished him off.
At last she was sure her mother must be asleep, and crept out onto the roof outside her window, dropped down to the turf, and took off for Crawford Street.
The old mansion there was unlit, and eerily quiet. Approaching it was hard, the air getting thicker and thicker as she grew nearshe'd fought for her life here, she'd sent her lover to hell here. It felt wrong that the place was still standingthe mansion ought to be a ruin.
It only took a few minutes' snooping around to determine that no one had been near it in months. She heard rats squeaking in one room.
Huh. She'd been so sure Spike would return to the scene of the crime.
The factory, then. That must be the place he was holing up, where he'd stayed when he first brought Drusilla to Sunnydale. Of course! She should've gone there first. That was his place, before Angelus showed up.
But the factory too, when she scouted it, was deserted. There were signs on the lower levels of recent partying, but of a decidedly human varietybeer cans, pizza boxes, fug. No sign anywhere around the peripheral fence of his car, either.
Double huh.
She tried the demon bar on the far side of the tracks.
The clientele all slunk out the back as soon as she barged in, but not before she got a glimpse around the placeno white-blond head in sight.
When she shook down Willy the bartender, he couldn't tell her anythingand for once she believed him. He hadn't seen Spike in months. He had no intel or rumors. "You knowmuch as I enjoy your lovely little knee in my groinI'd tell you if I knew, right, Slayer?" His sickly green-toothed grin was completely ingenuous. She let him go and stormed out.
Why didn't I slay him when I had him there? So it would've been noisy. Mom knows what's the what now. Which was easy to forget, because it was still so new and sort of slip-slidey to think about.
Well, there wasn't a stake handy, for one thingthey were all in the trunk under the bed. She'd have to do something about that. He was not going to catch her out twice.
The next time she saw him, he was definitely gonna go POW!-as-in-powder.
Everything here brought back Dru. The leafy doggy scent of the suburban air, the quiet bland streets she'd paced down in the small hours, whispering fairy tales about the houses' inhabitants as if each bungalow or ranch was a fairy cove full of treasure and magical secrets. She came to him in dreams, sometimes in tears, crying out to him in the dark where are you, where are you my Spike? and other times quiet and small, refusing to speak or talk to him no matter what he did.
He woke those afternoons thinking there was never going to be ample revenge for her loss.
He'd focused his thoughts on Drusilla the whole time since he got fixed. She was his great Unfinished Business, Unclaimed Baggage, the half of him sheered away so that, even put back to rights as he was, he'd never be whole again. He kept her in sight the whole way across the continent, in his mind's eye the figurehead of his land-yacht, the purpose of his trip.
He was going to make the Slayer pay for her death. For fucking up his unlife.
He was a little disappointed, leaving Revello, that she didn't come after him, even though that wasn't part of the plan for tonight. A little disappointed too that she hadn't made a plausible attack on him in the housethat gesture with the figurine was merely ridiculous, not worth engaging with. He fancied wrecking the place a bit, a little property-damage to make his evening, and this time he'd know to keep an eye out for the mother ... who was a bit of all right herself. He'd taste her too before he was done here.
But the Slayer needed to step up. Give him a proper fight before he snuffed her. That was the whole point. Not for her to stand there holding a toy in her hand, looking ... looking ... well, the girl needed to pull herself together, that was all.
Because he'd made a vow. To the memory of his Drusilla. To Love itself. Until he'd drunk deep from the Slayer, until he felt her heart slow and stop in his arms, he couldn't kill.
She would be his next kill, his great and glorious triumphant kill. But it had to be proper.
And it had to be soon.
Because he was hungry.
But that didn't mean he was gonna starve.
The boy thrashed. He was bigger than Spikeas big as Angelus. Young and strong. But he was crocked when he walked out of the Bronze, and he parted from his friends to go into the alley for a piss. That was a mistake, though it wouldn't be fatal.
He'd never seen Spike coming, and wouldn't see him going, either. In the morning he'd wonder how his neck got punctured.
The boy's skin was hot, his blood 70 proof. Spike ground his cheek into the brick as he sucked him down, listening for the moment when the breathing changed, the heart slowed. The moment of detachment. Dropped him then and walked away, back to his car.
The motel was by the beach, one town over. Slayer wouldn't find him hereshe might ransack all of Sunnydale but it would never occur to her to look any farther afield than that. For all her smarts and sass she could be a bit of a dullard sometimes.
He liked hearing the dull roar of the waves as he lay in bed through the sun-soaked day.
That morning, sated on frat boy, he didn't go to sleep. He'd seen her, and right, it hadn't gone exactly as he'd wanted it to, but ... he'd seen her. Said his piece and felt her anger and apprehension perfume the air. Stirred her up.
Maybe even scared her.
Good. Fear would force her to find her courage. When he fought her, he needed her to be fierce and righteous and strong.
Lying on his back in the air-conditioned room, eyes closed, he stretched and flexed, sighed and relaxed. Things weren't all bad. Yes, he was all alone, and full of vengeance. But his existence that had been pulled inside out was right again. He was Spike once more, all those ugly itchy feelings of guilt and remorse put back in their proper perspectivethe perspective of Who gives a fuck!
He smiled, wrapping his fist around his rising cock, putting himself back there, the rear seat of the car, the hot chirring night, Slayer's heat a knock-out, her heat and her wet needy cunt and breathless mouth. All for him, all her mighty desire and her power, delicious and perfect. He'd made her forget all about Angelus, he was sure of that. Made her forget everything she was supposed to do and be around him, opened her right up to her quivering essence.
She'd belonged to him.
That's how he'd tell it, later. Tell the story of the slayer he seduced, seduced to her marrow so she was all for him ... the story of how he let her go, and came back to kill her right and proper.
What a story it was going to be.
Ptuui. Life sucked. Faith had almost gotten her killed by that Kissy-Toes guy, and now she over to dinner again. This was the third time mom had invited her, and now her mother was actually making 'move in' noisestelling Faith that as long as she would be responsible for her own laundry and tidying her space, she was perfectly welcome to live in the guest room because that terrible motel down by the freeway was absolutely no place for a young girl, and she was giving her The Look now, the Agree With Me Enthusiastically look. Buffy stirred her salad around before she murmured, "Sure. You should do that." Mom liked her because she talked more than Buffy did anymore, and ate more too. She would probably break their food budget, but heyif Mom couldn't think of that herself, Buffy wasn't going to be the bad guy and tell her.
Later that night, while they were patrolling and Faith was peppering her with remarks about how slaying made her horny, it occurred to Buffy to wonder why she was set on disliking Faith.
After all, they had a lot in common, and wasn't she kind of taking some of the heat off? Maybe having Faith live in would distract Mom. Hell, she'd already distracted her friends, who followed her around any chance they had like goslings, and that stupid new watcher Wesley Wyndam-Whatever was more on Faith's case than on hers.
Come to think of it, they had pretty much the same attitude towards him, which was another point in common.
Buffy cut off Faith mid-stream. "Hey. Why do you keep talking about sex? Are you coming on to me?"
Well, didn't that shut her up? Faith's face went through some changes in the next few seconds, 'til it settled on a sly grin that reminded her of ... never mind who. "Why, B? You offerin'?"
Buffy hadn't been offering. She'd never thought about kissing girls, but now she focused on Faith's pouty plum-colored mouth, it looked like something that be interesting to try.
"Do you do that?" She asked more out of curiosity than as a next step.
Faith shrugged. "I could."
"But have you?"
Faith cocked her head. "You're refusin' to tell me any of the good stuff about you and this Angel character, but you want me to tell you if I fuck girls?"
"What? No!" Who said anything about fucking? "I just ... you act like ... I thought you ...."
"You thought everybody's gotta want some of you," Faith said, sidling closer. Then she was right up close, kissing her, and it was weird because they were the same height and Faith's mouth was soft, her face small, she smelled all wrong, and yet Buffy's body responded with that inner kick that made her want more. Despite that, she pulled back.
It was weird. It was weird because when she'd felt Faith's mouth on hers, her slipping tongue, it was Spike her mind fell against. His mouth, his body, she'd grown so used to them, but in that exciting gotta have more way, not in a bored way. And even though she hated him now and would be dusting him soon, all of that was still inside her, messing her around.
Faith was staring. Her eyes reflected the moonlight. "You haven't kissed anybody since Angel, huh?"
Buffy didn't know how to answer this question, until she realized she didn't have to answer it at all. Grasping Faith's face, she took another try. The second time was bettershe concentrated not on what wasn't there, but what was. Faith was all curvy and strong and her hair felt kind of great, and ....
"Yo, wait a mo'," Faith gasped. "Probably shouldn't just give the vamps a free show."
"Vamps where?" She fisted her stake. She hadn't felt the proximity of any vamps.
"Nah, just, any that might turn up." They'd killed a few earlier in the evening but here in Crestview anyhow it was quiet.
Now it was Buffy's turn to hand out the narrowed eye. "You didn't think I would, did you?"
Faith glanced away. "You gonna be one of those girls who's all tease, I'm not playin'. Otherwise, we know where we can go."
An hour later Buffy lay staring at the blinking fairy lights Faith had strung up around her motel room, listening to the gush of water in the bathroom. She was slightly stunned. To the extent she'd ever thought about what women did together in bed, she'd imagined it all soft sighing fluttery touches and gentle little gasps. Turned out thatwhy was it a surprise?Faith was pretty much just like her, only maybe even more so, because some of what Faith had just done to her wouldn't have ever crossed her mind even if she'd been locked in a room and told she had to write out a list of fifty filthy things to do to another girl before she'd be let out.
Faith reappeared then, wrapped in a towel, wet hair dangling. "Feel better now?"
Why was it no surprise that she didn't go in for cuddling?
Not like Spike. Spike had ... Buffy shoved that thought aside with a shudder she chose to assign to revulsion. "Yeah, I'm okay." She was sore and bruised but she'd sure worked off some tension. It was better than nothing. But now she wondered what Faith was thinking.
"Betcha never thought you'd fuck another slayer, right?"
"No, I never did." She was trying to think how she was going to get out of here. Her clothes were all the place and some of them were torn.
"Was all I thought about, soon's I found out there were two of us." Faith's grin was starry. "And now I know." Dropping the towel, she stepped forward, but Buffy put up a hand.
"Look, we"
Faith turned her back smoothly, as if she'd meant to all along, and began to root through one of the bureau drawers. "Whatevs."
"OK, so ... uh ...." Buffy got up, and began looking for her jeans. "Are you still planning to move into our guestroom?"
Suddenly Faith was laughing. "You're smart, B. Really smart."
"Iwhat?"
"Gettin' your Mom to invite me to live in your house. That was clever, all right."
"I had nothing to do withwait! You think I wanted"
Faith gave her a well, duh! look.
"Hey, I don't care what you do. As for this--it was all right but it's not like we're joined at the hip now."
It was clear from Faith's expression that Buffy had stolen her stance.
"Yeah, sure."
"So you can come to Revello or not, but it doesn't mean ...."
"Yeah. I got it. It's not like I'm gonna give up cock for you, get a grip."
"I'm not into anything heavy," Buffy pushed on. Her blouse was in two pieces. She reached over Faith's shoulder to snatch a tee-shirt out of her drawer. "You can lend me this, right?"
The air outside the stinky little motel room was cooler. Buffy took some deep breaths as she walked away. Okay, that was ... confusing. What did I just do? She couldn't even sort out who'd hit on whom, and then apart from all the brand-new sensations and the obscure sense of triumph that always suffused her when she'd come a few times in quick succession, Buffy was left feeling ... odd.
Like she'd done something sneaky. Like she'd cheated. Which made no sense, and God, the sooner she could stake Spike the better she'd feel.
Maybe she could find him now. Get it over with. Get it done.
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