It’s my day already and I’m woefully unprepared. Oh well.
I’ve got 5 drabbles here and will hopefully have some other stuff a bit later. HOPEFULLY. (yes that does mean I’m still actually working on them. Me = procrastinator)
Title: 5 Missing Scenes from Season 7
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, but I ought to. They like me better.
5 Missing Scenes from Season 7
Beneath You
He cuts quite the picture. Steals her breath for several moments. She knows her inaction is deplorable but she is rooted to the spot. All she can do is look and admire the expanse of cold pale skin bathed in the blue light of the night. Buffy can feel the tickle of a tear sliding down her cheek and then the smell hits her. Burning flesh.
She snaps into action just like a Slayer should.
Running the few steps towards him she grabs him around the waist and wrenches him away from the cross, throwing him roughly to the ground. He blinks up at her tiredly.
Can we rest now, Buffy?
She looks down at him. At his burnt arms, burnt face, his expression of sheer exhaustion and she doesn’t understand. She looks down at Spike because that’s all she has ever done and it’s all she knows how to do. Even now. Even now he has a soul. And he lets her.
He doesn’t try and get up, just looks at her and waits. Waits for her, like always. A soul may have made him insane but it hasn’t changed his reason. The reason he strives to do what he thinks he should. She is still his reason. And she doesn’t want to be. She wants him to be his own reason.
Now, though, looking right into those eyes of his – something she has been avoiding since he returned – she wants to say she can see it in him, just like Anya did. But she can’t. He looks the same, his eyes haven’t changed. She can’t see it but its there burning away at him.
“Is it… permanent?” Buffy asks and can’t believe it’s the first question upon her lips.
Spike shrugs with one shoulder. “Ashes to ashes.”
She frowns. She wants to leave. To run. To pretend this never happened. And she knows she will do just that, but not yet. Buffy crouches down slowly beside him and studies him closely. He returns her gaze but says nothing.
Slowly, carefully, she reaches out to touch his cheek. Brushes a finger along the line of his cheekbone careful not to disturb the fresh burns. He feels the same. She expected him to be… different. Smoother or…or… maybe rougher. Warmer. Which is all totally irrational because a soul doesn’t change the fact that he is a vampire.
“You’re the same,” she voices the opinion aloud.
Spike bows his head, voice quiet. “Back to the beginning.”
Buffy stands and after a moment she hesitantly offers him her hand. Surprise lighting up his features he slips his cold hand into hers. She doesn’t react violently to the touch as she did earlier. He is in pain and even after everything he has done to her; she doesn’t want to be the cause of any more suffering tonight. Once he is upright she pulls away and his grip lingers on hers for only a moment longer than necessary.
And then she runs.
+ + +
Sleeper
“…I’m gonna have to get close to Spike.”
“Nah, it’s too dangerous.”
Spike agrees. He does object to them talking about him as though he’s not two feet away, though. Admittedly he is rooted to the couch and clutching the blanket around him as though he’s comatose – but that doesn’t make him deaf. At least he doesn’t think he is but he must be losing time because the next thing he knows Buffy is standing in front of him and the others have cleared off.
He blinks and opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. He shuts his mouth again and Buffy sighs deeply. He hates to be the cause of that sigh. Hates to be such a burden on her. Knows that she’s got enough on her plate at the moment without him leaning on her.
Spike thinks, not for the first time tonight, that she should have just done it. Should’ve staked him. He wished deeply that she had. Doesn’t really understand why she didn’t. Thinks it might be something to do with her ability to pick up strays and try and keep them going rather than doing the humane thing and putting them down. And he’d be the first to admit he is the Slayer’s number one lapdog.
“Spike,” Buffy says, her voice hushed and beautiful. “Come on. You need some rest.”
He won’t sleep. How can he ever sleep again? There’s blood all over his hands. He can see it seeping between his fingers as he holds his palms up before his face. Spike shakes his head slightly and the movement seems to provoke a flicker of relief on the Slayer’s face.
And then he sees himself standing behind her and telling him to rip that face off.
“No!” He screeches causing her to jump back, afraid.
She should be afraid. He balls his fists up in the blanket and looks away from himself but feels cold lips at his ears whispering over and over, ‘Tear her pretty little eyes out, Spike. Do it for me.’
And he wants to do it. He wants to feel her neck beneath his lips. Wants to end her.
How could she bring him here? How could she bring him to her home to hurt her and her friends? And he knows he will. He knows he’ll come for them in their sleep. Knows he’ll wake up dazed and afraid, lips coated in their blood. And for the briefest of moments – before the howling grief and terror – he’ll like it.
Spike whimpers and the voice in his ear laughs.
“Spike,” Buffy grabs his shoulders and looks right into him. “It’s okay. You’re here now. With me. It’s safe.”
It’s his turn to laugh now, the sound bitter and broken. “Not safe. Not even close. It’s here. All the time.”
“What can I do?”
“Tie me up,” Spike insists.
She pauses a moment. “Okay.”
He feels a little better.
‘…snap her spine, leave her broken…’
+ + +
Showtime
They walk through the town in the dead of night, both bruised and broken, both tired and aching. And both of them still think to themselves what a nice night it is. Despite the imminent apocalypse, she thinks. Despite the hours upon hours of torture, he thinks.
The walk down the middle of an empty road in an empty street, his arm slung over her shoulders for support, and are glad to be in each others company.
Being apart from him for those few days was harder for Buffy than she wants to admit to herself. And not just because she knew what he was up against. She just missed him being there. She’d gotten used to having him around again.
“Thank you,” he wheezes.
Buffy smiles and helps him up a curb. “Just don’t make a habit out of it.”
He laughs and then grunts in pain at the sensation. She becomes suddenly aware that he is shirtless and that she should have brought him something to wear. Her arm is wrapped around his waist, her hand resting on his side. His skin is icy. She worries at how cold he is until she remembers how ridiculous that is.
Spike tucks a finger underneath her chin and turns her face towards him. “You’re hurt.”
Buffy laughs at the absurdity of the statement. “So are you. I think your pain takes precedence over mine, just this once.”
He says nothing to that – just smiles softly and then winces in pain and she hurries them along, practically keeping him upright. It’s all she can do. They make it to her house and the moment he reaches the threshold Spike’s legs give way and the weight of him brings her to the floor beside him.
Buffy manages to pull him up and over her shoulder, grunting as her sore bones protest. She carries him up the stairs and past curious eyes, down the hall to the room she sleeps in. It’s there that she lies him down on the bed and he groans in both relief and pain.
“Carrying me over the threshold?” voice languid, eyelids heavy. “Very romantic, pet.”
Buffy shakes her head and rolls her eyes but she is glad he is well enough to joke with her. She starts for the door, ready to go out and get him the blood he needs, when the stubborn vampire sits up. Spike rubs the heel of his hand against his eye and clutches at his side.
She turns back. “Rest.”
“’Should put some ice on that lip of yours,” Spike suggests.
She touches her finger to the swell of her mouth self-consciously. Of course he’d be more worried about her than himself. Stupid vampire.
Buffy walks over. Presses her hands to his shoulders and nudges him backward. Spike lays down, compliant. She pulls a blanket over him, pulls it up to his chin. He sleeps.
+ + +
Lies My Parent’s Told Me
Shutting the door in Giles’ face had been a hard thing to do but that didn’t mean it was the wrong thing. She knew it wasn’t. He’d taken things too far, didn’t trust her judgement and tried to make her decisions for her. Buffy has no more to learn from someone like that. He’s Giles and she loves him but right now she doesn’t like him and she doesn’t trust him.
So when a soft knock sounds on the door to her bedroom only minutes later, Buffy sighs in annoyance. She doesn’t want to have this conversation with him. Not yet. She straightens her shoulders and puts on her best defiant face before she pulls the door open.
But it isn’t Giles. It’s him.
Buffy’s shoulders slump in relief at not having to keep up the façade of the tough and determined warrior. After all, he knows better.
“Don’t mean to intrude,” he rasps quietly. “But I thought…maybe…you might want someone. To talk to, I mean.”
She smiles tiredly. “Not really.”
“Alright,” Spike nods in easy acceptance and turns to go.
Buffy catches his wrist. “But not being alone would be nice. If that’s okay?”
Spike nods again. This is how they are now. Cautious. Unsure. No more grabbing and having. Now it’s all about asking for the smallest things. She wonders how long they’ll be like this. Maybe it’s all they’ll ever be.
Spike steps into her room carefully and closes the door quietly behind himself. Both of them are aware that even this will start a dozen rumours off between the Potentials. They’ll whisper amongst themselves late at night, inventing stories of romance and passion, with Andrew whispering clichés about heaving bosoms and vampire thrall. It disturbs Buffy to think of Andrew mentioning her bosom.
She casts the thought aside and sits down on her bed. On what was once her mother’s bed. It’s at times like these she misses her mother. The strangest of times.
Spike stands awkwardly in the centre of the room and Buffy knows he would never even think about sitting beside her. She gestures to the chair beside her mother’s vanity table. The chair she had to replace when he broke the last one. The chair she’d tied him to. Buffy tries not to think too much about tying Spike up, it evokes all kinds of confusing feelings in her. Feelings she’s not quite ready to face.
And so they sit like this, not talking, and he doesn’t put any pressure on her. Instead he just gives her a hesitant smile. Buffy likes it when he smiles. She returns the smile and they continue to sit quietly together.
+ + +
Chosen
When she comes down the stairs to the basement and he stands up to face her, that’s when the fluttering begins in the bottom of her stomach. She’s missed the butterflies. Missed having someone who causes them. For quite a while now he’s been the cause. It’s inexplicable, really, considering how they started out.
Spike and Buffy.
She’s given up trying to figure out how it happened. How she could ever feel this way about him. Buffy knows her friends don’t understand it either but she doesn’t much care. Sometimes these things happen and, boy, do they happen to her a whole hell of a lot.
Spike shifts on his feet, watching her. Buffy knows this may be it for them. She could die tomorrow. Or he might. They both might. The world might die tomorrow. Still, she’s scared. Not of the dying, she’s been there before, but of never telling him. Buffy’s tried a hundred times to tell him what exactly he means to her but it never quite comes out right… or at all. Mostly it’s down to fear of rejection, of taking that step with him, but partly it’s because she doesn’t even know herself. She’s still not sure exactly what it is she feels for him. She’s never felt this way before. It’s not what she had with Angel or Riley. It’s something new. Something between just them. Incomparable.
Spike says, “Big day tomorrow.”
As if she needs reminding. She thinks he’s wrong, though. She thinks today is a bigger day. She thinks that right now is the moment. Here in her basement. With him standing there. And her standing here. Buffy thinks now might be it.
Buffy starts to take a step towards him but then doesn’t. Decides maybe having some distance is better, give her space to think, to get the wording right. Now is the time for an eloquent declaration.
She says nothing.
Spike smiles. “Not in the talking mood, then. Fair enough. Fancy a spot of brooding?”
Buffy laughs then, shakes her head and looks down at the floor. “I’m an idiot.”
“How’s that then?”
“’Cos I am,” she says.
Spike nods. “Okay. You’re an idiot.”
Buffy looks up and glares at him playfully, “You suck.”
“Do I? I recall that being your forte,” Spike’s eyes sparkle.
She gapes at him, amused. It’s been a long time since he spoke to her like that. She’s missed it.
“Yeah, you pull a face just like that one.” He heckles.
This time she stalks up to him and punches him on the arm. He rubs the bruise and complains, pouting. When she throws her arms around him he is far from prepared and goes rigid. Then a moment passes and his arms enfold around her, returning the hug.
“We’ll make it,” he whispers.
She believes him.
+ + +
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/157257.html
