Disclaimer: I won the rights to Buffy and her friends in a thumb wrestling match from ME, Fox, and Joss. Then I lost them back in a rock-paper-scissors marathon. Nickel owns the rights to “Stupid Thing.”
Nickel’s web site has a clip of Stupid Thing. Nickel played at the Bronze in School Hard.
Feedback: loved
Stupid Thing
“No picture phones in the Stick, buddy. Unless you make a deal with a girl in one of the private booths.”
Spike lowers the cell phone he has been staring at for the last forty minutes. He raises his eyes to the bouncer. His amber eyes.
“Not using the camera. Now back off.”
The bouncer backs off.
I did a stupid thing last night
I called you
Sunshine gyrates her thong, carefully designed to hide nothing, on the stage six feet above Spike. Then she holds tight onto the pole and dips herself lower into his visual field.
Spike doesn’t notice. His eyes focus on the woman on the phone.
Focus on her number, anyway, since he hasn’t yet pressed the call button. He stole it. Rifled through Angel’s desk drawers to find it. And now he doesn’t know what to do with it.
A moment of weakness
No not a moment
More like three months of weakness
Three months since he became solid. He still doesn’t know who had really sent that package.
And three months he still hasn’t called her. He told Andrew that he would, but he still hasn’t. Doesn’t even know if the boy kept his secret.
Maybe she already knows he is back and simply doesn’t want to hear from him. Maybe she would be disappointed when she heard his voice. Feeding the annoying vampire just enough crumbs to keep him around, one more chore for the busy slayer. Or maybe she would finally reject him outright this time.
Maybe she’s happy with a new boyfriend. And maybe he would be the one to answer the phone and Spike would have to talk to him. Leave a message with him while she’s out slaying vampires. Patrolling alone when Spike should be the one at her back, keeping her alive to a ripe old age.
Or maybe she’s given up slaying and vampires entirely. There are plenty of new girls on the job. She always wanted to be a normal girl. Now she can shop for shoes, go back to school, get to know her sister. The only thing Spike had ever been good for is fighting; now he is useless to her.
Better to stay out of her life. Not to be a burden. Not to get rejected. Not to hear that she’s finally ready for him not to be there.
I’m one step away from crashing to my knees
One step away from spilling my guts to you
He has her programmed into the auto-dial. Just one button to press and he will connect to her. Have to tell her that he is back.
What if she doesn’t want him to come to her? “What a surprize, Spike. I’m so glad you’re back. Have a nice life. Is there anything else? I’m busy.” She won’t invite him, he knows. He has to be the one to make the first move. And then will she see him? Invite him into her home? Keep him on the knife edge until she’s found a substitute?
Then meet him for coffee and tell him about the fine man she’s been seeing with the key quality that he isn’t Spike. And send Spike on his way.
Maybe he would have to beg just to see her at all?
She isn’t going to let him right back into her basement again. Have to start over from the beginning. Need to win her attention all over again, but this time with nothing to offer her.
I did a stupid thing last night
I called you
I’m doing all right
Sunshine is jiggling around topless now. She’s considerably larger up there than the girl in the phone. Arguably prettier, too. But Spike can look at her all night and not feel a thing.
Scary name, anyway. Sunshine.
He should move on. Sure, he knows it. She told him often enough. Then she would be furious at him for doing it.
But how is he supposed to move on when a nice jiggling girl like Sunshine does nothing for him? Maybe if she were fighting something up on that stage. That’s the kind of man Spike is.
It’s not about legs, not about breasts. It’s about power.
But that isn’t it either. The way she tried, the way she inspired, a slayer with friends and family, the way she never quit even when she was beaten, a slayer like no other. She was the one. Is the one.
It could only be her or no one at all. Her or never be close to anyone again in his unlife.
Which only makes harder to press that last button and find out for sure.
No don’t feel sorry for me
Really I’m all right
Spike will have to explain what he has been doing. Why it took him so long to call. Every day that gets harder to explain.
He will have to talk about running off after the slayer without a plan and getting his fool hands chopped off. Nearly lost his head, too. About how he trusted Doyle who wasn’t really Doyle. Explain what a damn useless fool he has been on his own with nothing to show but a few dozen vampire victims’ lives and saving Angel’s skin from Eve. And saving Angel with the sting operation on the necromancer.
Saving her precious Angel might actually count for something with her.
I’m one step away from crashing to my knees
One step away from spilling my guts to you
Angel doesn’t have to beg, of course. He’s the upstairs boyfriend. Can’t even do the job properly but just shows up for a victory snog once in a while. Play a little tongue hockey, put her off the prospective new beau, and wring out a new promise that she will be waiting for him to decide when Angel finally wants her.
Even if she could love Spike, she would just be waiting for grandpappy to come along and take his place at his leisure. Keeping Spike around while she’s waiting for Angel, just like Dru.
No. Can’t compare her to Dru. Even though she looks at him just like Dru.
You see there’s this huge chunk of me missing
It’s gone and I can’t feel it
I can’t feel it
I can’t feel it
Spike feels empty without her. Even with the soul inside him, he’s still empty.
Maybe empty is all he will ever feel again.
But he was empty when he was around her, too.
She did need him, in the end. Needed to take strength from him to reclaim the slayer inside. Needed his arms around her that night.
But it didn’t mean anything. She said so herself. Just a bit of cold comfort from the cellar dweller.
He wanted to support her, back her up, heal her that year she came back from the dead but he couldn’t do anything but fill her up the little time when she lowered herself. It meant everything to him to be allowed to listen to her, touch her. But it never meant anything to her. He was always too far beneath her.
I did a stupid thing last night
I called you
It’s the last time
Always beneath her. Had to bring her down just to touch her.
She reached up to snog Angel. Then she came down to make Spike beg her to stay in his bed. Stay one more night in the basement cuckolding him with grandsire on her lips. The lips too precious to share with Spike.
She would punish him for holding onto his pride. Asking to come to her would be reaching too far above him. She has no place for him in her new life and it’s not his right to ask.
And maybe tomorrow night will be the last time
I’m one step away from crashing to my knees
He closes up the phone and slips it into the duster’s inner pocket. Not tonight, but maybe tomorrow night would be the time. Maybe he could talk to her tomorrow night.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/92700.html
