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Chapter 15
 
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Betaed by: Goblin_Dae, Science, and Subtilior

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognizable characters, locations, and dialogue belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the various writers. This is written purely for fun.

DUST: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fanfic by KnifeEdge



15.

Anthony Michael Hall finished up his speech, and Judd Nelson strode off across the football field in his long coat and big ugly boots. Buffy sighed. Then she glanced over at the other end of the couch where Spike was lounging, his gaze still fixed on the TV.

He'd been oddly silent—especially considering he couldn't usually get through an episode of Passions without a running commentary. His dark brows were drawn together as if he were deep in thought. He'd probably hated it.

"You hated it," she blurted.

He turned his head to look at her. "No," he said slowly, as if he hadn't really considered his opinion beforehand. "I liked it. Didn't think I would but ... it was good. Sort of deep, you know?"

"Deep?"

"Yeah. Like, how they set them up at the beginning as these stereotypes, yeah? Right down to their bloody costumes. Then they start peeling back the layers till you see that they're not all that different and—" He broke off, giving her a startled look.

"And?"

He regarded her warily. "Nothin'," he said. "Just ... that people aren't just what you see. There's more underneath. It's … deep. Kinda thought it'd be a soggy chick flick to be honest."

Buffy sighed and settled back in her comfy nest. This wasn't bad. She was still kinda sore, but she was warm and cozy, and for a little while she'd been able to forget just how mega-weird her own life was. "I just like it," she said. "They're so ... normal. I mean, they've got all these normal problems. Parents and school and friends. I remember when my life was that way."

"What? No vampires eating the townies and witches casting spells all over the place? Hate to tell you, luv, that goes on everywhere. Just most people don't get to see it or recognize it when it happens. You couldn't go back to normal. You'd know it for a lie, and you'd be bored in a month."

Maybe. She thought about it sometimes, about going back to normal. It'd be so nice to have nothing more to worry about than college and getting her license and shopping and boys.

"That test thing they gave you," Spike said, turning to her, suddenly serious. "You said they took your powers. How'd you feel then, Slayer?"

"I hated it," she confessed. She nestled deeper under her blankets. "It ... I still was me, you know. My first instinct was to protect people and I couldn't. I hated it."

Spike snorted. "Yeah, I can sympathize."

She looked at him sharply. He was glowering a little at the credits rolling across the screen.

"You don't protect people," she said.

"No, I don't."

Oh. He was thinking of ... ew.

But no one had taken his powers. If he wanted, he could still bite . He was the one that had chosen not to, in order to get her help.

Which, now that she thought about it, was kinda ... She wanted to say 'extraordinary,' but that was just a little too Giles-y. Mindblowing, maybe? If his instincts to kill were as strong as her instincts to protect, though, it was only a matter of time before he gave in to them.

Inexplicably, something in her clenched at the thought—and it wasn't her girly-bits this time. She'd have to stake Spike someday, probably sooner rather than later.

Well, he was a vampire. He'd do his thing, and she'd do hers, and that would be that.

He was looking at her, an amused smile playing over his lips.

"What?" she asked, irritated again.

"You're thinkin' about staking me."

"I'm always thinking about staking you."

"But you haven't," he said. "Ought to, of course. Vampire here. Killed a lot of your kind over the years. I'm a threat, and your instincts are likely tellin' you right now that I'm still a threat. Just like my instincts are tellin' me, first, that you're food—and a right tasty morsel at that—and second, that you're a danger to my continued existence and I ought to do you in before you do me. And I'm ignoring them. Know why?"

Buffy clenched her fists under the blankets. "I'm sure you're about to enlighten me."

"Because I'm not just a label, and neither are you, sweetheart. You're not just the Slayer. And I'm not just a vampire. We're complicated, you and me. Got thoughts and feelings and what-all. Histories. We can chose to be our stereotypes, or we can be something greater than them."

"You're telling me that you—evil, soulless, bloodsucking creature of the night—can choose not to eat people?" Buffy laughed.

"What do you think I've been doin' for the last three weeks, Slayer?"

"It won't last, Spike. Like you said, I couldn't stop Slaying for more than a month without getting bored. You're a vampire. You're gonna eat someone eventually."

He thought it over for a minute, then shrugged. "Yeah. You're right. Still doesn't mean that the only thing I am is a vampire."

Right. Spike had hidden depths. Like a bleached iceberg. Who was he kidding? He was as deep as a spoon, only less reflective. Buffy rolled her eyes. "Why are we even talking?"

"Movie's over. Would you rather be reading?"

If she was going to be honest, the answer was no. It had been nice to sit for a couple of hours and lose herself in other people's normal troubles. Even Spike had been something she could ignore for the first time in weeks, wedged into the corner like a throw pillow.

So what if she'd caught herself glancing at him every so often throughout the movie to gauge his reactions?

Still, if they weren't going to go out and patrol, they probably should get with the researching. She usually was excused from patrolling on nights when she'd started her period. By tomorrow the cramps would be done, and she wouldn't be so achy. In the meantime, she saw no reason to leave the couch.

But she didn't want Spike to think that she liked being talking buddies with him. Their conversations had a tendency to end with one of them punching the other, and fighting in her current condition wasn't the best idea.

"Talk to you or research? Sign me up for research." Buffy reached for the remote—and then paused, her finger hovering over the stop button. She liked this song, dammit. Instead she let the credits continue rolling, humming along to Don't You Forget About Me while she stretched for the nearest book.

***

Her cramps were getting crampy again just about the time she stumbled on something interesting. In fact, she might have missed it if her girly-bits hadn't chosen that moment to give an insistent twinge. It was enough to make her grimace and then glance at the page again. She frowned.

"Huh."

It wasn't a reversal spell. It wasn't even technically a spell at all. It was more of a chanty thing. She read the description of it twice, just to be sure. "Spike, I think I might have found something."

Spike didn't answer. When she looked up, she realized the vampire was sprawled at the opposite end of the couch, a book across his chest, dead asleep. "Spike, wake up!" Frustrated, she wiggled a foot out from under her blankets and kicked him in the hip.

"Ow! Bloody hell." He leveled a sleepy glare in her direction. "What?"

"I've found something. I think." She leaned over and laid the book on the cushion between them. "It's a revealing thingy. Like a … what's it called when you sort of hypnotize yourself? You do a chant, and it lets you see any currently active spells or magic and trace them back to their sources. It doesn't last very long, but maybe long enough for us to find whoever did this ..."

Spike leaned toward her and read the page. "Well, I'll be buggered," he said. "What do we need?"

"Uh, candles, incense, sand … I think we brought some back with us after—"

"The Flying Cauldron incident? Yeah, they're in the kitchen." He looked up at her then, and maybe it was the lamplight, or maybe it was just that she was suddenly aware of how close they were, but his eyes were so incredibly blue. They reminded her of the ocean, and for a moment she had the sensation that she could fall into them and drown. "Shall we?"

"Huh?"

He snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Get with it, Slayer. Think you're already half zonked on your own."

Damn vampire eyes with the thralliness. Buffy gritted her teeth and kicked away her blankets. Spike frowned at her, then got up and went to the kitchen. It only took a few minutes for him to come back, laden with an armful of spell stuff and another glass of water and pain killers. She took them from him gratefully, but paused before popping them in her mouth.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"What?"

"That I need pain killers?"

Spike ducked his head a little and avoided her eyes. "Vampire," he said, after a pause. "Just do. You want to do this spell here? Or ..."

She wondered at that for a moment, if he could somehow sense when she was in pain. Wiggy, if true. Or maybe he could smell it somehow, which was not only against the rules but also? Yuck. She took the medicine, then looked at the room. "Foyer," she decided. The floor was wood there—it'd be easier to clean up the sand.

While she disentangled herself from her nest and went in search of shoes, Spike poured out a sand circle big enough for the both of them, and lit the candles and incense. He was already settling into his half of the circle when she returned. "You're sure you did this right?" she asked.

"I can actually follow directions, Slayer," he said. "Get your arse in the circle."

She levered herself down, wincing at the aches in her thighs. Spike read from the book. "This is usually done with just one person."

"Well, it's not gonna be you. I don't trust you. I want to see it for myself."

"Yeah, and I want to be sure you don't just go harin' off after some magical butterflies, so we're modifying it a bit. Where you go, I go, isn't that the rule, Slayer?"

"Whatever. What do we do now?"

He looked at the book. "Uh ... I think ..." He did a sort of squirmy thing, like he wasn't particularly comfortable with what he was about to say. "See, thing is ... it's supposed to just be one person, yeah? So ... we have to ... be one person."

Horrified, Buffy snatched the book out of his hands and read it for herself. He was right. One person.

Technically Spike didn't qualify as a person, but she doubted that the trance made that distinction.

"Uh ... how exactly are you proposing that we do that?" she asked. "And you better phrase your response in the form of a question, cause this is totally double jeopardy for you. Lose, and you get to be one with the dust circle."

"We hold hands?" His scarred eyebrow quirked. "What did you think I was gonna say, Slayer?"

Buffy sighed and shoved images from her most recent dream to the back of her brain. "Never mind," she said. "Okay, we hold hands, and chant, and then what?"

"We close our eyes and concentrate," he said.

"On?"

"Achievin' a higher state of consciousness."

"Achieving a huh?"

***

Apparently, achieving a higher state of consciousness required a lot of breathing. Controlled breathing. They sat opposite one another in the circle, eyes closed, hands held, a single candle burning between them. Spike had said to empty her mind of everything but her breathing, to concentrate on letting it bear her up to a higher plane.

Impossible, with him touching her, but she refused to back down from this and let him try it alone. So she concentrated.

Mostly she concentrated on trying not to concentrate on the vampire she was now voluntarily touching.

Breathe in.

Spike's hands cradled hers, so still that she might have forgotten they were hands at all, if she hadn't been so utterly aware that they were Spike's. His palms were slightly rough; his fingers calloused. Her hands seemed tiny, compared to his. Their knees were touching, as were the toes of their shoes.

Breathe out.

He breathed at the same time she did, Buffy noted; every time she inhaled or exhaled, she felt him match it. It was probably easier that way, since he didn't actually have to breathe. Between them the candle burned steadily, the glow flickered red and gold against her closed eyelids. Incense wafted around them. She smelled the sharp woodsy smoke every time she inhaled.

Breathe in.

Time passed. They'd been like this forever. She was supposed to clear her mind, but how could she possibly do that when she was sitting in a tiny little circle with Spike?

Breathe out.

The circle felt like it was getting smaller. Tighter. The incense was in her lungs now. Their hands were so still, yet her flesh was warming his till they seemed to reach the same temperature. The candle burned hotter, ripples of heat warmed her face and melted their hands together. They wouldn't be able to pull them apart when this was over, she was sure of it. Their hands would be fused into lumpy, melty Spuffy fists.

Ew.

Breathe in.

Higher state of consciousness. She could do that. Hadn't Giles been teaching her all those meditation thingies last year? Only that reminded her that the last time she'd been all meditate-y with Giles he'd been drugging her, and that wasn't exactly a zen-inducing memory when you were holding hands with a vampire.

One of Spike's fingers twitched, stroking along the pulse point of her wrist.

Breathe out.

Okay, so the meditation stuff must be working cause she hadn't even flinched. In fact, it felt sort of good when he did it again. Hypnotic almost. Soothing. He did the same thing to her other wrist. Until he was stroking her skin in time with her breathing.

Breathe in.

Concentrate. Soft little strokes against her skin. Smoke swirled around her. Breathe. Extend her senses. Breathe. Be one person. Breathe. Smoke filled the circle, which coiled tighter still, until she could feel it pressing against her, drawing her into the middle, into the candle flame, and bringing Spike with her.

Breathe out.

Her eyelashes fluttered open. Dark eyes stared back into hers, the pupils dilated until the blue irises were just a ring of color around them. It was like looking into an endless series of mirrors, in them she saw herself reflected into infinity. She glowed bright and golden in his gaze, like a small personal sun floating in a dark sky.

She blinked, and everything moved slowly. Each movement of her head felt like it left ripples. When she looked up again he was still there, which was right and wrong. Right because he was now a part of her, and wrong because he shouldn't exist so far apart from her. She could feel him in her.

When he moved, his human features moved first so that she could see through them to the demonic visage, trailing a split second behind. Both of his faces were serious, studying her with the same intensity with which she was watching him.

She looked away. The candle had burnt to nothing. The incense had long ago wafted away. The house was so bright, though.

Delicate, glowing strands of magic wove through the air.

She stood, flowing up from the floor. He rose with her. Their gaze followed the spiderweb strands that seemed to connect everything to everything else. One of the brightest seemed to connect upstairs, but there were a million other threads, some brighter than others, that went every which way. When they moved, the strands moved with them. Whatever it was, it was connected to them, too.

As one, they went out the door and down the street. Their eyes saw the way the filaments connected the town and them to it. A million thin strands draped every tree and bush; brighter threads shot through the hearts of the sleepers in their cars, or went into the houses all around them. And from every person another set of threads extended, connecting to everyone and everything.

It was as if they were walking through cobwebs of magic, woven so tightly and intricately over everything that there was no discernible pattern to follow. They wandered, their gazes taking it all in.

Is there a nexus?

No.

Buffy didn't know what a nexus was, but she wasn't just Buffy right now. She was part of Spike, and their thoughts echoed between them. They moved together—slow, steady steps that drew them deeper into the town where millions of strands overlapped.

But there was nothing there. No nexus, no discernible pattern, no thread that glowed brighter than the others, no path to follow out of the maze, no spider lurking in the center of the web.

The light grew, however, so deeply entangled were they. It glowed through them, shining through their clothes and skin until they could see the shadows of each other's bones. Fascinated, they turned to face each other again. She watched him move, watched the ripples behind him when the demon moved in his wake.

Slayer. Buffy.

His gaze was riveted on her.

She tilted her head slightly and watched as he seemed to flicker before her eyes: bleached white hair fading to a sandy blond, then black. The length changed from second to second—growing longer and then shorter, spiked then slicked again. His clothes shimmered, too, blurring from his black jeans and t-shirt through a hundred other costumes and styles and fashions. The only thing that remained constant was his face: his blue eyes, cheekbones, lips … and lurking just behind it, the ridged features of his demonic self.

Her left hand didn't seem to belong to her anymore. So she raised her right and traced the sculpture beneath his skin, mapping the lines of his brow ridges onto the smooth planes of his human face. His left hand came up between them and painted designs over her face: broad strokes across her cheeks, around her mouth and eyes.

Slayer.

His eyes held hers once more, and in them she saw things move. She felt him in her, his rage and frustration and nearly consuming hunger and beyond that a deep, gaping wound of yearning that called to something hollow in her as well. It was a hole so deep it was bottomless. You could pour an ocean of blood into it, and it would never be filled.

From somewhere, the thought came: Not blood. Light. Light can fill that darkness.

You shine so brightly. His eyes held so much awe, like he was seeing the dawn for the first time in more than a hundred years.

Through their hands she felt her pulse, felt the throbbing core of her where her female blood pooled and her muscles contracted, felt the empty aching place beneath that seemed to stretch through the whole of her. He could fill that place, she knew.

They drew closer, fingers still painting each other's faces with hidden truths. In this moment, he completed her, closed the circle of herself. There were barriers in the way, but they were fragile and easy to break.

They reached, found, met, clung.

Somehow she'd always known his taste, known how he would feel under her hands and lips and tongue, known the sounds he would make, and the way he would fit against her. They were two halves of one whole, carved from the same substance, separated by a distance thinner than the edge of a knife.

His breath whispered against her lips, "Slayer ..."

And Buffy landed back inside herself with a bone-rattling THUD.

She jerked away from him, eyes wide. His hair stood up in unruly curls, as if someone had run their hands through it, and his mouth looked as swollen as hers felt. His shirt was torn down the middle, but his pants were still safely on.

Which was really good because, she realized, they stood in the middle of the street. Even though everyone was asleep it would have been utterly humiliating to discover that she'd been ... whatever it was they had totally not been about to do, right in the middle of town.

A breeze gusted. Spike's eyes practically popped from their sockets, and she glanced down to see that her shirt was ripped, too. Buffy clutched the halves together, tightly .

"This never happened," she said, and her voice sounded raw and rough as sandpaper, as though something had been yanked out of her chest through her throat. When she looked back at him, he seemed just as shocked and unsettled, and the light in his eyes had gone out.

"No," he said, hoarsely. "Never happened."

 

 
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