Seeing Pink (1/2)

Title: Seeing Pink
Rating: PG-13 (I think)
Medium: fanfic
Disclaimer: I don’t own Buffy!
Summary: A spuffy fan’s take on how to change Seeing Red to get a happy ending and a “new era”. This is pure wish fulfilment. Written for Seasonal Spuffy. I’m so excited!
Warnings and notes:
– Seeing Red upsets me so I decided to change the entire thing to fit my tastes.
– Contains reference to the episode ‘Seeing Red’ and so consequently to rape.
– I have changed things to meet my needs – and/or my muses demands.
– It is from Spike’s POV
– Flashbacks are in italics – and taken directly from the show.

Chapter One

“Stupid bloody bitch! It’s all her fault anyway,” Spike ranted as he stormed through one of Sunnydale’s plethora of cemeteries.

“I care about you, William,” he raised his voice into a shaky falsetto, in a horrendous imitation of her. “But I,” he placed a hand over his heart in an overly dramatic gesture, “I’d rather be miserable and pine over married soldier boy and a wanker who can never even touch me without becoming a monster.”

He sneered, “Well, I guess that Angel and I have one thing in common then. Other than being in love with the Slayer and having had Drusilla.” He licked his whiskey drenched lips, as he remembered the things that he had done to his goldilocks. She certainly knew how to unleash the monster within. He could still feel the bruises from the last time. He was half tempted to walk around with his shirt off just to show them off like medals of honour.

Spike grinned at the memory. He had always maintained that violence and a good dose of sex solved everything. Especially when washed down with a large measure of scotch.

In a silent toast to this thought, he raised his bottle only to discover that it was empty. It had had all of it’s juice sucked out and was a hollow wreck. Just like him. He threw it away, smirking as it shattered. His eyes slid back across the landscape until they landed on one headstone in particular that was staring at him disapprovingly.

“What are you staring at?” He demanded.

The stone did not respond.

“Hoity toity,” he growled and went over and gave it a good kicking. “Bitch!“ He sank down next to it in a semi-drunken stupor. “She doesn’t understand me,” he wrapped his arm around the stone as if it were a long lost friend.

“You understand me though don’t you,” he read the name, “Ernst. You understand me, don’t you Ernest?”

This time the stone’s silence seemed to be one of gentle, friendly acceptance.

Spike smiled at him. “Good man, have a drink.” He produced a second – or rather tenth if counting from the beginning of his drinking binge – bottle of scotch that he had pilfered from a local store.

“Not a drinker, huh? I remember the t-total movement when it started. Couldn’t do it myself, but good for you. Here’s to your health,” he clinked his bottle against the headstone and then moved to drink from it.

Nothing came out.

He frowned at it for a few seconds before he discovered the problem.

“Oops, have to open it first.” He did so with a swift yank and downed half of its contents in one, long draft. “Ah,” he sighed, “that’s better.” Only it wasn’t. He was still miserable. Alone and miserable.

He confided in his only friend: Ernest.

“You know, Ernie. I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time on her. Right stuck up cow, she is! Everything’s about her. What’s that?” He leant in, “You’re quite right! She’s so ready to throw away what we had and then I’m with another girl and poof she doesn’t want that. Imagine that.” Another glug accompanied this statement.

“I’m just her little play thing. I’m there when she wants me and then I’m supposed to sit back on the shelf and not talk to any of the other toys and just wait there in readiness until little Miss High and Mighty deems fit. I have my pride, you know!” He lied. Where she was concerned, his pride could be as well and truly damned as his soul. Wherever the little bugger was. He hadn’t had a single complaint over the last few weeks when she would barge into his home without knocking, take him off the shelve, dust him off and then play with him until his battery wore out.

He was at her beck and call.

He was her bitch.

He had been her bitch. Now he was just the ex that she refused to even publicly claim.

He took another long drink.

Spike stared at her in disgust. “You think I could do that?”

“Because you don’t lie or cheat or steal or manipulate…” She answered in a self-righteous manner.

He gave her back the camera. Revolted by the very idea. “I don’t hurt you,” he answered quietly, pained to even have to say the words. He took a few steps away from her.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” If she had known… If she had any idea… She could never have asked him such a thing. Sure he loved her. Sure he had been obsessed with her in the past. But spying on her, through a camera that anyone else could have got their grubby little mitts on? That wasn’t him! And when he found the bastard who had dared to spy on his girl… He just hoped that it was a demon, otherwise he was going to have the mother of all headaches.

“I’ve tried to make it clear to you, but you won’t see it,” he paused. “Something happened to me. The way I feel… about you… it’s different. And no matter how hard you try to convince yourself it isn’t, it’s real.”

“I think it is,” she uttered the words, softly, but it didn’t matter. His heart took flight. He would have thought that it was just a dream, but she was wearing far too many clothes for that. Plus her hands weren’t down his trousers.

“For you.” She cut down all of his hope as quickly as she had stirred them in his breast.

She turned to walk away and, for once, Spike was almost glad to see her go; he could not hide the despair creeping across his features.

Buffy paused by the door, before turning back to him.

This was it, he told himself. This was it. She was finally ready to admit the truth, she was going to come back to him. Her beautiful lips parted and he prepared to hang on every word. He knew that he was a bad, bad man – a vampire, indeed – who could never deserve her but he could change. He could do anything for her.

“I know that’s not what you want to hear. I’m sorry. I really am. But, Spike, you have to move on. You have to get over-”

“Get out.”

“Stupid bitch,” Spike groused, leaning against his friendly headstone for support. “She didn’t really want me to move on, you know? No. Second I try to she gets all mad and stuff. And not the good kind of jealous mad that leads to making up on the floor, but the walking out of your life forever mad! That’s no fun.”

His sad expression only lasted a second before it was once again replaced with anger.

“God! How could the dozy cow think that I could possibly want anyone but her? I mean sure I have had a thing for vengeance demons in the past. And blondes. And evil beings who should have been dead thousands of years ago, but if she’d asked me to stay with her I’d never have strayed. Oh, buggering hell! I sound like a bloody puppy!” He lamented.

Just to prove that he was no breed of canine, he slurped up some more alcohol and continued to vent his spleen. This Ernest fellow really was remarkably understanding. He felt bad for having kicked him earlier.

“I would have staked Dru for her! That’s how serious I was. I saved her bloody little friends time and time again. I babysat nibblet when I could have been out doing any number of wicked things but no, I had to stay in like a good puppy. I got the shit knocked out of me by Glory for her. I got beaten up numerous time by her. Sometimes when I was only trying to help, but did I complain… Well, yeah, of course I did, but I stuck around. That’s what counts! That’s what bloody counting,” he repeated in a low grumble, as he discovered the truth of the statement that happiness could not be found at the bottom of a bottle. Not even the tenth one. “More than that bloody poofter did!”

He rested his head against his fallen friend. “I was just a toy for her. Why won’t she play with me again?”

“So she’s back,” Spike commented with a sneer as he emerged from below stairs. “Thought you’d be off snogging with soldier-boy.” And the thought had made him sick. He had considered whether he could pry his chip out without impairing his ability to track the bastard down and kill him. He wouldn’t care if he died after that.

“He’s gone,” she answered simply, and almost without emotion.

He stared at her. Riley was not only an idiot – which he had already known -, he was also probably gay. He continued to regard her. No, if he had only been gay then Buffy would have turned him. She was so beautiful. Even when she smelled like the dead, rotting carcass – the scent of the Double Meat Palace – which was not a turn on, even for a vampire.

“So, you come for a bit of cold comfort?” He sighed, trying not to let his excitement show. It wasn’t how he would have chosen to have her, but he wasn’t fussy. The more times that he could bed her, the better – and that wasn’t just Spike Junior talking. It was only a matter of time before she gave into the passion that rippled between them and admitted that she loved him. Maybe not quite as much as he loved her, but he could un-live with that. “The bed’s a bit blown up, but then, that was never our-”

“I’m not here to-” She interrupted him.

He regarded her, waiting for her little speech. “I’m not here for that. I don’t want you. This isn’t happening. Okay, just one more time. One more time. This doesn’t mean anything. Oh Spike.” It was getting a little wearing, but as she normally had her hands down his trousers while she was reciting half of it, he put up with it. She would come around soon. Pun fully intended.

“And I’m not here to bust your chops about your stupid scheme, either.”

He raised an eyebrow at that sentence. That was a turn up for the books.

“That’s just you. I should have remembered,” she continued, looking almost sad.

“So this is worse then, is it? This is you telling me-” Could she just get on with it so that he could get on with shagging her brains out? In his impartial medical opinion, she looked like she needed a good seeing to.

“It’s over,” she informed him, quietly.

Spike smiled as he moved closer to her. It had taken him a few attempts but he had finally caught his cue. He knew where they were in the never ending play that was their relationship now. She was going to tell him that none of this was what she wanted. Then she was going to screw him. He wanted to push her a little further this time. To edge ever closer to making her admit that she wanted him. As more than just a bit of “cold comfort”.

“I’ve memorised this tune, luv. Think I have the sheet music. Doesn’t change what you want,” he drew in closer to her. If he could just seduce her before he actually got his hands on her…

“I know that,” for once she didn’t try to deny what was between them. “I do want you.”

He stared at her in a mixture of surprise and delight.

“Being with you… makes things… simpler. For a little while,” she confessed.

Damned right it did! He would make everything simple for her, if only she would let him. He would pay her bills, sort out nibblet’s bad behaviour, see to that social worker who was causing her problems, and the wussy trio wouldn’t know what had hit them. He thought that it would be a 2×4, but the plan could change.

Still, he couldn’t let the aspersion on his manhood go without comment, “I don’t call five hours straight a little while,” he grinned crookedly at her. He knew that she was tormented by the same memories as he was, he could smell her and smirked at the way that she pushed her thighs together, in spite of herself. Oh, she was going to be his. She just needed a good shag. And a full night’s sleep. Then he would get to sorting out everything in his Slayer’s life. She was going to see what it was like to have a real man to look after. One who would love and protect her, not bugger off at the first sign of difficulty.

“I’m using you.”

He stared at her. Those were not the words that he had expected.

“I can’t love you,” she continued, but he knew that she was just lying to herself.

“I’m just… being weak, and selfish…” She trailed off and he moved in even closer.

“Really not complaining here.” All that he needed to do was get her in his arms and he could kiss all of these silly ideas away.

“And it’s killing me.”

Killing her? Killing her? Buffy and kill in the same sentence? That wasn’t funny. Especially when she was the object rather than the subject. Anyone else who had said something like that would have been worm food. You couldn’t joke about things like that after what they had been through. She had died. Twice. The only thing that had kept him from meeting his own pointy death had been his promise to take care of bitty Buffy.

He frowned at her. He was on the point of giving her a stern talking to about jokes that were not funny and not to bandy words like that around when he realised that she meant it.

“I have to be strong about this,” she whispered.

He continued to stare at her. He was powerless to do anything else.

“I’m sorry… William.”

His jaw trembled – he convinced himself, just with tension – as he recalled that day. Stupid bloody Riley Finn. Getting his kitten all worked up like that. He hadn’t slept a wink the following day. He had been so close to having her completely. He was the one that she had come to when she had needed comfort, affection, love. Him! He was the only one that she could count on and she knew it.

“You know, it would be one thing is she were actually happy,” he confided in Ernst. “If she were in love with someone else, and happy, or even just content with life then I would be happy for her.” He considered this. “No, I can’t lie to you. I would be a broken man, dreaming about killing him horribly and drinking myself into a stupor. But I wouldn’t get in her way,” he pointed at the stone as he asked, “And do you know why?”

He waited one beat. “Exactly. Because I love her. Stupid, stuck up bitch that she is!” He tried to drink again only to find that his bottle had not magically refilled itself. Blasted Hellmouth, couldn’t do anything right!

“You know what? I’m going to go and tell her. This sitting around and moping isn’t going to get me anywhere,” he jumped to his feet and swayed, alarmingly. “Doesn’t do a bit of good! I’m going to be a man. I’m going to track her down and remind her of what she’s missing. That’s what she wants. A man who’s going to fight for her! Saw it on a show once!”

He grinned lopsidedly at the granite confident. “Thanks mate!”

 

Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/557958.html