Here’s part two of my fic. Ratings and disclaimers are in the previous section. I hope you enjoy it.
At Play With the Gods (2/3)
It was a quiet walk home.
Smith had vanished as quickly as she’d appeared, muttering something about how shoddy the research department was and how this meant more overtime, and leaving the dagger behind. Spike gave the thing a disgusted glance and started walking down the street, and Buffy was left to catch up to him as quickly as she could.
“Spike! Spike…wait!”
With a grimace of disgust, Buffy reached down and wrenched the heel off her unbroken shoe. They were ruined anyway; why not go for broke and allow herself some small comfort? Spike was nearing the end of the block by the time she was finished with her footwear issues, and she reached out to catch him arm.
“Should probably get that knife to Giles, let him take a look at it,” he muttered. His muscles were tight under her hand, and he wasn’t looking at her. Buffy felt a small flutter of panic. The night had started off so well, and it looked like everything had fallen apart. Not now, please….
“Spike,” she said quietly, “let’s talk about this. Look, I know what she said, but it probably isn’t…”
He wheeled around, dislodging her hand from his arm. “Probably isn’t what? The truth?” He pursed his lips in a self-deprecating sneer, shaking his head in disgust. “It’s the same old song, one I got tired of singing a long time ago.”
“Look, would you just…”
“Leave it,” he barked, turning and marching off down the street without her. “Maybe you should let him know that it’s time to be a hero again.”
Buffy cast a baleful look at his disappearing back and followed, seething. Fine. He wanted to act like a jealous three year old? She’d let him. She was more than half tempted to go find Giles right then and let Spike find his own way home, but she decided against it. Giles could wait until tomorrow. She needed to clear her head a bit before she went to see him.
This was…wow. Okay, first things first: apocalypse coming. She could deal with that. After all, how many had she been through at this point? It was the other part that had her so unsettled. Vampire champion…destined as soulmates…this is not the vampire… Her brain was stuck in some kind of feedback loop, and she was having a hard time hearing through the buzzing in her ears. She couldn’t think straight. Did this mean that Spike wasn’t…and she wasn’t…no. No, it didn’t mean what she thought it did. There must have been some kind of mistake, they were wrong, she couldn’t accept this, and oh god could her brain give it a rest for two seconds? Why did this have to happen now, right when she had been so happy?
In the meantime, Spike was getting further and further away from her, and she struggled to catch up in her ruined boots. By the time she reached the flat, he’d already disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Buffy hesitated to follow him, and eventually settled on the couch and started idly flicking through the channels. She didn’t think she could deal with a fight right now, not when she still felt so confused and unsettled.
Two hours later she woke up, her neck stiff and her cheek laced with drool from her impromptu nap. It took her a second to get her bearings and realize that she was still on the couch, the TV playing in the background and casting flicking shadows around the darkened flat. Her bedroom door was still closed, and Buffy felt a rush of hurt that Spike hadn’t been out to find her or bring her into bed. It was tempting to just stay and sleep on the couch — it was certainly easier than trying to deal with things while they were both exhausted — but she rejected the idea. She was an adult, damn it, and she needed to act like one, even if she was the only one who did.
Spike was curled up into a small lump on what was nominally his own side of the bed. Nominally, because on a normal night he tended to appropriate most of the available space in one massive sprawl. This time, however, his back was to the room, leaving most of the bed empty. Buffy didn’t know whether to feel pleased that he’d saved space for her or hurt at his seeming indifference as to whether or not she shared his bed.
“Spike?”
Not so much as a twitch, which honestly didn’t mean much. He could be sleeping, or he could be sulking. Buffy sighed and peeled off her clothes, hesitating when she automatically reached for the nightshirt she usually wore. London nights were usually too chilly to sleep without one, especially sharing a bed with someone who generated no body heat. Tonight, though, the shirt felt like another barrier between the two of them. Buffy abandoned her clothes and slid in between the sheets.
Spike still hadn’t moved, and Buffy hesitated before sliding forward to lay behind him. After a moment’s pause, she slid her arm around his waist and cuddled up to him, the cool flesh of his back stimulating her soft nipples and leaving goosebumps on the sensitive skin of her breasts. He stirred slightly, and she smiled. Definitely awake now.
For several long moments she contented herself with running her hand over his chest, smoothing her way down to his stomach and brushing her fingers over the curves of his skin. He did nothing to encourage her, and she was starting to wonder if he’d gone back to sleep. After a time she moved her hand lower and curved it around the soft length of his cock, fondling him gently. He stayed soft, and she blinked hard against a sudden irrational rush of tears. It was her, wasn’t it? Everything had been going so perfectly and she’d ruined it somehow, even if it was just by being the subject of yet another stupid prophecy.
Buffy let out a shaky sigh and released him, resting her hand against his belly again. It was so hard to hold herself in stillness like this when everything in her was screaming to get up, run out and kill something. But she had decided that this was something she needed to do, and so she stayed there, holding tight to the silent vampire in front of her. Her throat was tight and sore from holding back her tears, but she refused to let them fall. Closing her eyes, she pressed a soft kiss to the back of Spike’s neck.
“I love you,” she whispered.
For a long moment there was no response, and Buffy’s fight-or-flight instinct was about to take over, maturity be damned. Then Spike caught her hand in his, lacing their fingers together and giving her hand a gentle squeeze. She squeezed back, a few tears escaping from the edges of her closed eyes. Resting her hot forehead against the smooth skin of his back, she let the rest of the night pass in silence.
“Well, hello to you too,” he said dryly. “Do come in. Why yes, I did had a pleasant flight. It was so nice of you to ask.”
“Answers, Giles,” Buffy said, her voice deadly serious. “Looks like there’s another apocalypse in town, and the Powers that Be even sent me a present for this one.” She nodded toward the dagger, and Giles picked it up and examined it curiously.
“It’s certainly very old,” he said, and Buffy rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, I got that one all on my own. What is it, and what does it have to do with me?”
Giles blinked at her, a small frown line forming between his eyes, but he bent over the dagger again. “These markings seem to be a form of…proto-Urdu, perhaps? There’s certainly something familiar about it. I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you more after I’ve had a chance to look through my books.
“Good,” Buffy said brusquely. “Keep me informed.” She was halfway out of the office when Giles’s voice stopped her.
“Buffy?” he asked. “I’d like to have a little more information, if possible. Where did this come from, and how do you know that the Powers meant it for you?”
Buffy tightened her jaw and stared at the floor. “There was a woman — well, she looked like a woman. A demon of some kind. She gave me the knife, told me an apocalypse was on the way, then disappeared. End of story.”
“I see,” Giles said slowly. He let the knife drop back onto his desk and regarded Buffy with the same impenetrable expression he’d used on her for the last ten years. She began to squirm under his scrutiny. “Is that all?” he asked gently. “We’ve faced this sort of thing before, you know.”
Buffy blinked rapidly, ridiculously close to tears for the second time in twenty-four hours. “It’s just this…thing.” Sighing heavily at Giles’s look of confusion, she collapsed into the spare chair he kept on the other side of the desk. “It’s about Spike.” And she told him everything that the strange woman had said, her eyes fixed on the desk the entire time. She was too nervous to look him in the eyes, afraid to see an I-told-you-so look of satisfaction. She couldn’t stand that, not now.
“Your soulmate,” Giles said. It wasn’t a question, and she held her breath. “And you said that she was definitely not talking about Spike. Do you think she meant An….”
“I don’t know!” Buffy launched herself out of the chair and began pacing the room, her hands tightly clenched into fists. “I don’t know what she meant, or who. I don’t know what this means.” She could hear voice getting shaky, and she wiped angrily at her watering eyes. “This is not fair. After everything I’ve done for them, after everything I’ve been through…Giles, I’ve been so happy.” She knew she was starting to sound more like a little girl and less like the woman who’d become the leader to dozens of Slayers worldwide. She bit her tongue before she could embarrass herself any more, wrapping her arms defensively around herself. The room was silent for a long moment, and then she heard the leather of Giles’s chair creak as he stood up.
“And what does Spike have to say about this?” he asked. Buffy gave a lopsided shrug, just the merest lift of one shoulder, and he sighed. “I see.” Buffy braced herself for the lecture she knew was coming, but he merely sighed again and settled himself against the desk. “Well, as much as I am loath to give you relationship advice, perhaps you might consider talking to him.”
Buffy frowned. “It’s not quite that simple.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” he said gently. “Buffy, I’m not sure what to tell you. Prophecies — if this is indeed a true prophecy — can be fulfilled in unexpected ways. It may mean exactly what you fear it means, and on the other hand it may mean something quite different. Only time will tell. In the matter of your romantic destiny, I’m afraid you’re on the same page as the rest of humanity.” There was a note of humor in his voice, and Buffy looked up in surprise. “Besides,” he said, his eyes warm and amused, “the Slayer I know has a bit of a habit of turning prophecies on their heads.”
Buffy froze in sudden awareness. He was right. God, she had been so stupid, letting herself get all mixed up and confused. How had she not seen it before? She knew what she had to do to fix things. Without another word, she threw Giles a quick grin and bolted from the office, running at full speed towards her flat.
She had a little vampire problem to deal with.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/103418.html
