Title: Random Conversation
Rating: PG-13
Medium: Fanfic
Title: Random Conversation
Pairing: Buffy/Spike
A/N: Just a night on patrol, sometime during season 6…
Disclaimer: All characters herein are created and owned by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No infringement on their rights is intended. This is for entertainment purposes only. Don’t run with scissors.
Random Conversation
They walked through Shady Rest cemetery, their coats flapping around them as they dodged tombstones and stepped over floral arrangements. It was a companionable silence, unstressed by need to fill in the empty stretches with idle chatter. They had done this together for so long it was second nature to them.
He walked on the left, she on the right, their dominant hands free for whatever may come their way. Their distance was almost constant, with little meandering from the parallel course they were set upon. A precise two paces separated them, distance enough to clear a roundhouse kick or sandwich a lone vampire.
Spike pursed his lips, and looked up at the bright stars above Sunnydale. “Fall’s coming on. I always hated fall.”
She looked at him, curiosity getting the best of her, as always, when he made such cryptic statements into an art form. “Why do you hate fall?”
He shot her a sidelong glance, and concentrated on the ground instead. “Leaves provide cover, pet. No cover, the prey can see you coming.”
She considered, then nodded. “I get that. I sometimes forget that you….”
“Yeah. So do I.”
They walked onward. Deep in the cemetery, under some pretty red and gold maple trees, they heard a rustle beneath the leaves. Before they could respond, a vamp stood up out of the dirt, and smiled at them.
“Brought me a snack, huh?”
She looked at him, and he looked back at her. “They always think the same thing, don’t they?”
“Yeah. It’s their way. Do you want—?”
“Yeah, it’s my turn.” She advanced on the fledgling, and saw the feral gleam in his eye. Spike leaned against a tree and lit a cigarette, intent on watching her movements.
He was entranced by the sway of her hips as she walked up to the fledge. He was enthralled by the curve of her mouth, smiling secretively into the face of confusion. He was envious of the fledge’s position. He would give his wrinklies to dance with the Slayer again.
The vampire charged at her, which she easily sidestepped, and shoved him into his headstone. “You know,” she said, dodging another blow, “I would think,” she gritted as she brought his arm down over her knee, bending it backward at the elbow and snapping the joint, “that someday, someone would know me right off, instead of me having to kick their ass first.”
She kneed the vamp in the nose, and he backed away, holding his bleeding appendage with his still functional arm. He stared at Spike, in shock. “She’s the Slayer, dude.”
Spike looked at him, already bored with the fledge’s fighting skills. “Yeah? What was your first clue?”
“So why don’t you help me fight this bitch? Why are you just standing there smoking, man?”
Buffy stood there panting from her exertion, and watched Spike as he kicked off the tree he was leaning against. Spike walked calmly to the vampire’s side, and the vamp grinned, feeling an evening of the odds. Turning to him, Spike threw his arm around him, an evil smirk on his face. “You know, nobody I know has ever called her a bitch to her face and lived. Or unlived, as the case may be.”
The vampire looked less sure now. “You won’t either.” The stake appeared in Spike’s hand out of nowhere, and paused. “Nobody calls my sweetheart a bitch, wanker. Nobody but me, at least.” The shock lasted only a moment, then dust took its place.
Spike shrugged the dust off his leather, and reached in his pocket for another cigarette to replace the one he’d dropped. He and Buffy started walking again, waiting.
“Why did you tell that vamp I was your sweetheart?”
The question shocked Spike out of his silent lucidity. “Dunno. Guess I just wanted to see the look on his face.”
Silence between them, but only for a moment. “Am I your sweetheart?”
She can’t tell? She doesn’t know? How many times does the bint have to hear the words before she believes them? What do I have to say to make her hear me? “Well, I guess that’s up to you, pet,” he drawled.
She thought, and the tension grew thicker with the minutes. She could see him, coiled with anxiety and prepared for her to hurt him one way or the other, physically, mentally, or emotionally. Is that what I am to him? Abusive? Cruel? What am I doing to us? She paused, her steps faltering, and he turned to look at her, shadows hiding his face.
“Spike—”
“Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it. I can’t, not today. Tell me any other day, but not today.” She could hear the man in him begging, and something cracked inside her, deep.
I’ve been telling myself that this is just sex, but it isn’t. Emotions are involved here, his and mine, and if I keep on insisting that its just sex, it’s wrong. I care about him. He’s been good to me—and he kept his promise to me. How can I do this to him, and to myself? If he’s the only one who can make me feel, then why do I keep denying myself the feelings I have?
She looked at him in the shadows, both of them hidden from sight and hiding within as well. When the air between them grew thicker than concrete, and it became hard for both of them to breathe, she cleared her throat to speak.
“Well,” she started, “I guess I am your sweetheart at that. Never thought of it that way.”
Her statement pulled the plug, and the tension drained away with their shared exhalation. Turning as one, they started again on their parallel course, heading to the next grave and the next staking.
Crickets chirruped erratically in the cooling air. Stars shone brittle again in the crispness of the sky. Their feet crushed fallen leaves, and the fragrance of fall tickled their nostrils.
“I’ve always liked summer. I’m a summers girl. Get it?”
“I got it, Buffy. Funny.”
They walked on, hunting together.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/7557.html
