Fic: Thousand Mile Wish, PG-13 (3/5)

And on to the next part… 

Part III: Wanting

“I saw Spike last night,” Dawn announced.

“You what?” Buffy asked. “I told him to stay away from you.”

Dawn gave her sister a dirty look. “I can take care of myself, Buffy. And when were you going to tell me that Spike wasn’t going to stick around?”

“He told you about that?” Buffy asked. “Wait, what did he tell you?”

“Spike said that he’d made a bargain to change, and that he had to go at the end of the month and he wasn’t going to be able to come back.” Dawn paused in the middle of pouring her cereal. “I don’t want him to leave town again.”

“I don’t either,” Buffy admitted. “It’s just that every time I try to talk to him, he disappears.”

“He didn’t disappear last night,” Dawn replied. “Maybe it’s you.”

Buffy looked hurt. “You’re saying he doesn’t want to be around me?”

Dawn shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to figure out why he keeps disappearing in the first place.”

Buffy looked at the clock and groaned. “Darn it. I’ve got a shift at the Doublemeat.”

“You did put in your notice, didn’t you?” Dawn asked.

Buffy nodded. “Yes, I did. Now that the loan check came through, we should be fine.”

“It’s about time,” Dawn said, breathing a sigh of relief. If she had to eat one more Meat Medley, she was going to shoot somebody. Possibly her sister.

Buffy grimaced. “Yeah, well, someone had to pay the mortgage.”

Dawn huffed. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, Dad should have been the one doing it the entire time.”

“You won’t get any arguments from me,” Buffy replied. “I’ll see you later tonight, okay?” She put the cow hat on with a habitual wince.

To her credit, Dawn didn’t even snicker. “You got it. Maybe you should look for Spike again while you’re on patrol,” she suggested. “And try not to make him disappear again.”

“That totally wasn’t my fault,” Buffy shot back. “Can I help it if Spike just disappears?”

They were brave words, since Buffy had the funny feeling that she was the cause behind the whole thing.

~~~~~

It wasn’t really Spike’s fault that things had gotten better after he’d left town. Mostly it had to do with the fact that the social worker who’d been assigned to their case after Doris Kroeger was more interested in helping Buffy find ways to make things better, rather than finding fault. It had been Ms. Andrews who’d suggested filing a petition with the court to have her father’s pay docked for child support. Even though Buffy was over eighteen, Dawn wasn’t, and Ms. Andrews thought he ought to be at least helping with her support.

With the social worker’s assistance, Buffy managed to get her dad to start sending them money on a monthly basis, enough to pay most of the mortgage. She also managed to get her application into UC Sunnydale before the final deadline. Ms. Andrews had helped with that as well. When Buffy had asked why she was so helpful, the woman had simply shaken her head. “Mrs. Kroeger comes from the older school, Buffy. I prefer to make every possible effort to allow siblings to stay together.”

As a result, things had gotten much better over the summer. Buffy had managed to save up some money, which meant that she could quit her job at the Doublemeat now that school had started. Willow was paying more rent, which meant they actually had real food in the house again. Money was still tight, but the situation wasn’t desperate.

Buffy was happier, Dawn was happier, life was better.

Except for the small issue of missing Spike.

The Slayer was well aware that she shouldn’t be missing him, but she did. She wanted to kick his undead, bleached ass. She also wanted his hands and mouth to work their magic and make her troubles disappear as they had so many times in the past.

Buffy knew it was wrong, and yet he’d been the one to make her feel. There had been moments where she’d felt so loved in his arms. She suspected that if things hadn’t gone so horribly wrong, she might have eventually gone back to him. That epiphany she’d had crawling out of the grave had included a certain realization about Spike.

After all, why should she demand that her boyfriend have a soul when her—human—best friend came this close to ending the world?

Of course, that kind of realization didn’t do her a heck of a lot of good when Spike wasn’t around, and apparently it wasn’t doing her much good now that he was back. Not if he was literally disappearing every time she tried to have a conversation with him.

There was still that small, annoying voice in the back of her mind that reminded her that Spike hadn’t disappeared on Dawn, that she hadn’t been terribly nice to him since he reappeared, that she hadn’t shared any of these thoughts with him.

Buffy still wasn’t very good at listening to that voice, but it wouldn’t shut up, and working at the Doublemeat wasn’t mentally demanding. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Spike and what he’d told her and Dawn. As angry as she’d been at his insinuation that it was her fault that he was going to have to leave again, Buffy knew that she had to take some of the blame. Not to mention the fact that Spike probably hadn’t meant it that way at all.

As soon as she got off work, Buffy went home, took a quick shower to wash off the grease, and dressed for patrol. She didn’t bother questioning why she pulled on the jeans that she knew showed off her figure best. Nor did she question why she wore the same red shirt she’d worn that night she had kissed Spike for the first time.

Well, the second time they’d kissed. It had been the first time there had been any tongue involved.

In order to make sure she didn’t question her choice of clothing, Buffy pulled her hair back, knowing that Spike liked it better down. It seemed a good compromise.

She kept a sharp eye out for Spike, her senses fully extended. Buffy felt like she needed to find him; they had to discuss what he meant by saying that he wasn’t going to be able to stick around. She needed to figure out how to stop it, how to prevent him from leaving. Whatever it took.

Buffy sighed. That also meant she was going to have to find some way to prevent him from disappearing.

She caught a glimpse of his bleach-blond hair and hurried her steps to catch up. “Spike!”

Buffy could see him glance around, startled, and immediately start to fade from view. “No, you don’t,” she muttered, running to grab him before he could disappear from view completely. As long as they were in physical contact, Spike didn’t seem prone to vanishing.

She hit his flickering body with a flying tackle and wound up straddling his middle. His body’s reaction was immediate, and Buffy figured if vampires could flush in embarrassment, he would have. “Buffy,” he began, trying to push her off of him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she stated firmly. “Not until I know that you’re not going go up in smoke.”

“Should hope not,” Spike muttered, lying back down. “That’s not the way I want to go out.”

Buffy moved up a little bit so that she was sitting on him in a slightly less awkward position. “So is this how we’re going to do it, or can we go somewhere and talk?”

“You tell me,” Spike replied. “You’re the only one who seems to have the knack for making me go all transparent.”

“Where do you go?” Buffy asked curiously.

“Dunno,” he replied, and she could see the discomfort in his eyes.

With a sigh, Buffy got up, offering him a hand up. “Do you want to go somewhere to talk?”

“That would depend on whether you’re planning on talking or yelling. If you’re going to be yelling at me, I’d prefer we do it right here.”

“I’m not going to yell,” Buffy replied stiffly. “I just—I want to know what happened, Spike. You said you changed for me.”

Spike shrugged. “I changed. It doesn’t matter. End of story.”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because it doesn’t change anything,” Spike replied. “Can I go now?”

“Please don’t.” Buffy knew she needed to say something to keep him there, something that would explain how she’d missed him, how she’d wanted to tell him about the new social worker, and her dad finally paying up, and starting school and quitting the Doublemeat.

How when she’d started sleeping with him she’d somehow lost her best friend without even realizing it.

Spike’s face was unreadable. “What do you want from me?”

“I just want you,” Buffy replied, knowing as the words came out that he was going to take that the wrong way. “Not—I mean, can we just talk?”

She could tell that he wasn’t quite sure how to react to her request. He seemed torn between leaving and staying, and Buffy waited for him to make up his mind with a tension that had her strung wire-tight. “Yeah, let’s go talk, Slayer.”

 

Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/13020.html