Okay, this is the last one. Good thing, too. I’m getting veeery sleepy. Hope I can keep from going cross-eyed long enough to post this correctly.
Many thanks for letting me be a part of this and for all the inspiration and motivation. It feels so good to be writing (fanfic) again! Especially Spuffy fanfic. ::loves it so much::
Anyway, hope you enjoy!
Title: Made for Each Other
Author: annapurna_2
Rating: PG-13
I used to think about it a lot. What would have happened if Spike had made it out of the hellmouth. If he hadn’t insisted on staying behind to finish the job. Or if I’d yanked the stupid amulet off his neck, tossed it into that bottomless pit and dragged him up the stairs with me.
The bus was gone. The sun was blazing away in the sky. Sunnydale was imploding. No way he would’ve lasted more than a minute or two.
But, still… if there’d been a chance.
Would I have told him, once we’d made it out of town? Would I have said the words and made him believe it? I honestly don’t know.
I don’t even know if I would’ve believed it. Really. Not if we’d both made it out of there safe and sound.
Realizing I was losing him for good… that’s what did it. I stood there, and it dawned on me that this time he would leave and never come back. That’s when it hit me right in the face. We’re talking major light-bulb-over-the-head time here, and the words just sort of… slipped out.
Too little, too late. Major bummer for us both.
You know that old cliché? About how you never really appreciate what you have until you don’t have it anymore. Why is that? I cared about Spike. I did. Loved him, especially in our last days together. He didn’t believe it, but it’s true.
But even so… even after the Big Epiphany… That’s how I think about it. Capital B. Capital E. Even then it wasn’t until later, when things were quiet and a little more settled, that I started to really get it. To understand… as Giles would say… the full magnitude of what I’d lost.
Spike was gone. Forever. Period. The end.
Only… not.
Now I guess I know what it feels like. To love someone who doesn’t love you back. To walk into a room and know he’s wishing you were anywhere but here. To see that hungry glint in his eyes when you wear that tight, low-cut number you picked out just for him and then die a little because it’s clear that lust is all you inspire anymore.
He doesn’t want to hurt you, but he’s moved on. Got friends of his own. Someone else to fight beside. Like the whole situation isn’t awkward enough. We have to go and throw Angel into the mix.
Still, you can’t give it up. The hope. The wanting. There’s something inside that refuses to turn tail and run. A little voice that insists he still loves you, even if he’s stupid enough to think he’s past all that. That if you’re determined enough and patient enough, he’ll finally have to give in and admit it.
And, okay, maybe it’s just a teensy bit stalkery and not something you’re remotely proud of, but all’s fair in love and war and payback’s a bitch, right?
It’s not like you aren’t useful here. There’s plenty of evil to fight and you’re still the slayer. One of them, anyway. And it’s not so unusual. Two people… in the workplace. Feelings develop.
Oh, irony… thy name is Buffy. And it sucks.
***
Gets harder every day she’s here. And I’m not talkin’ in a physical sense, though there’s that, too. Bloody traitorous prick of mine. Stands right up every time I get even the barest whiff of her.
And I’ve been gettin’ plenty of those of late.
She wants me to say I love her. Done everything but stand on her head and whistle God Save the Queen just to get me to take notice.
I do, of course. Love her. Not like I can just turn it off, is it? Even though she seems to think I can. Thing is, I know it would never work. Didn’t care once. Was willing to take what I could get for as long as I could get it. Not anymore.
She deserves better than that. Me, too. Maybe. I hope.
It’s just… too much has happened. Things I did to her. She did to me. Ways we hurt each other. That bloody fucking night in the bathroom and what almost happened there. Not somethin’ I can let go, even if she can.
And there’s one more thing I can’t get past. Her. Dancing. With The Immortal.
Can’t say I expected her to smear ashes on her face and tear her clothes and wail over my grave. If I’d had one, I mean. But did she have to go and find someone else so dammed bloody fast? And did it have to be the likes of him? Big sodding ponce that he is.
I try to remember why I ever loved her in the first place. And I can’t, really. Shouldn’t have happened. Crime against nature. Vampire gettin’ the big warm and fuzzies for a slayer. What kind of a wanker falls for his mortal enemy, anyway?
Sure, she was something special. Could tell that, first time I laid eyes on her. Strong and smart and easy to look at. Had a real wit about her, too. And not even a little bit predictable. Always kept me guessin’, she did, my little slayer.
She hated me, of course. Maybe that was part of it. Always wanted the things I couldn’t have. But there was a passion in her eyes and poetry in her dance. And every time we fought, I felt…
Alive.
Still feel that way when I look at her. Still get weak in the knees like a giddy schoolboy.
Because for whatever reasons I loved her first, I love her now for a whole different set. I love her for the way she cares. Some think she’s harder now, and they’d be right. But you try going from heaven straight to hell on earth and see if you’d do any better.
Feels things just as deeply. I know she does. Maybe even more so. Just not as easy for her to show it as it used to be.
She’s loyal to a fault. Found that out firsthand. Stands by you when you’re down, no matter how hard they make it for her.
And she’s so bloody brave, even with her insecurities. Got a few of those, all right, but she doesn’t give in. Stares ’em right in the face and refuses to blink. Most of the time.
But what I love most? The way she does what’s right, even if it damned near kills her. And I don’t mean in the physical sense.
That’s why I can’t let her know. Can’t ever let her see. Because as much as I’ve changed, and as hard as I try, one thing’s still the same.
I’m beneath her.
***
Finally. The yelling has stopped and it’s quiet now… for pretty much everybody else, at least. Me, I’m a vampire. Which means I’ve got vampire hearing. Which means I know exactly what’s happening in there.
Lucky me.
They don’t get it. Why I did it. I can tell by the little sidelong glances they’re giving me. Or in Harmony’s case, the outright glare.
I’m just tired of it all. The waiting and the wondering… and the hoping. Especially the hoping. I mean, come on. It’s not like there’s a chance. Not like there used to be.
I knew it the second she stormed into my office, all fired up with righteous slayer indignation. Demanding to know why I hadn’t told her. About the trip to Rome.
About him.
And if there was even the slightest doubt left, it died a quick and not-so-painless death as soon as he breezed into the room. Should’ve felt her before he came in, but he was too busy shooting his mouth off about something stupid. Imagine that.
Have to say, I’ve never seen anything shut him up so fast.
The way they stood there and looked at each other. It was pretty obvious somebody would be having fresh-baked cookies that night, and it wasn’t going to be me. All he had to do was reach out and take what was right there in front of him.
But this is Spike we’re talking about. When did he ever take the smart and easy way out?
Instead, he blinked. Shook it off and played it cool. Made me want to bash in his thick skull. Not that I wanted to stand there and watch them run into each other’s arms or anything. Hell, no.
But it hurt her. Any idiot could see that. Except for one particular idiot, apparently.
So she took her cue from him. Skipped over the big, emotional reunion. Ripped us a new one for spying on her. And for keeping her in the dark about pretty much everything.
I thought about reminding her that some of it wasn’t really her business, but somehow it never seemed the right time. Instead, we all got terribly polite. Agreed to work together to bring down the Senior Partners. Scrapped my plan completely because she had a better one. Or so she insisted. Didn’t matter that I’d been planning this out for months. That I’d laid all the groundwork. That Fred had died in the process and that I wanted to make her death count for something.
Thing is, there was no getting around it. It was certain suicide, and now that she was there I couldn’t let her be a party to it.
So, on to Plan B.
Which, in Buffy’s mind, included a lot of extra-curricular sparring sessions with a souled vampire who wasn’t me. Not that it did her much good. Gotta hand it to Spike. I don’t know if I could’ve resisted temptation when it was constantly throwing me to the ground and straddling my hips. Or squirming beneath me every time I pinned it to the floor.
And, honestly, that’s what finally did it. The fucking damned sexual tension that was so hot and heavy it kept distracting everyone from the mission at hand.
I don’t care what anyone thinks. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way her smile faded every time he left the room, or with that damned puppy-dog gaze he gave her whenever she wasn’t looking. Both of them too stubborn and thick-headed to just come out and admit they were made for each other.
Because they are, dammit.
So I snapped. Locked them in the training room. Made them hash it out. Told them things each didn’t want the other to know. Left them there to finally put us all out of our misery.
And they did. Three times, so far.
Damned vampire hearing.
FINIS
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/194088.html
