full 3/4 1/2   skin light dark       
 
 
29 Admissions
 
<<     >>
 


Chapter 29 - Admissions

“Are you in love with me?”

Spike stared at her. The silence dragged on.

“You’re stuck in me,” he finally said. “Love? I don’t know. I was on the way, maybe, but didn’t exactly have time.” He looked at her.

“So you’re not?”

“I s’pose not. Don’t get me wrong, love, I like you. A lot. More than I should like anyone, definitely more than I should like the Slayer.”

“I suppose that’s good. It’ll make things simpler if you’re not.”

“Excuse me?”

She looked at him blankly, as if pulled from her train of thought.

“Don’t s’pose you’re in love with me?” Spike retorted.

“If things were different. I thought I was.”

“If you weren’t the Sl—”

“If you weren’t a killer!” she blurted. Then, “This Slayer thing bugs you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it bloody well bugs me! Vampires don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings for the sodding Slayer.”

“Then why are you following me?”

“Cause I can’t get you out of my head. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, especially when I should want to kill you.”

“You don’t want to kill me,” Buffy said, crossing her arms.

“Vampires kill Slayers.”

“But you don’t want to kill Buffy.”

“Buffy, you are the Slayer!”

“And you don’t want to kill me!”

“No!” he yelled back, looking slightly startled.

“But you’ve killed Slayers before,” she said. “Yeah, Wesley filled me in on that.”

“So I’ve done a Slayer or two, so what?” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Or three, I should say.”

“I wasn’t the Slayer when you did me,” she said matter-of-factly, not even taking the time to be affronted by his implication.

Spike caught her arm and pinned her in place with his gaze. “You were perfect, Buffy,” he said. “We were perfect, we were so good together.” He pointed to the bed. “Right over there, I know you felt it.”

She tried hard not to follow the direction of his arm with her eyes. “That was before.”

“You were in me before, you’re in me now—I can’t get you out. I should wanna get you out—bad enough that you were human, but this?”

“Newsflash, Spike. The Slayer thing is not our only problem. In fact, it’s not a problem for me at all. I left you before I was the Slayer, remember? Even if I wasn’t the Slayer, I couldn’t be with you now. I can’t be with someone who kills.”

“I’m a vampire.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Be a vampire?” he asked incredulously.

“Kill!” Buffy pulled away from him and started pacing again. She drained the last from her cup and threw it in the trash. “How long have I been in your head?”

“You said you had a question, not twenty.”

Buffy shot him a look. “How long?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “You were just there. Since we danced, since we kissed, since I saved you, since I tasted you—none of it, all of it.”

“Then why when you left, did you say we should never see each other again?”

“I was tryin’ to protect you!”

“From what?”

“Me.”

Oh, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this. But like watching a train wreck, she couldn’t stop. “Why?”

“Cause I liked you too much for somethin’ to happen to you.”

“What? What was going to happen to me, Spike?”

He stepped into her space. “I was gonna happen to you. You asked me if I bit every girl I slept with? Yeah, I bit them. I fucked ’em and drained ’em dry.”

Buffy blanched, looking at him with a certain amount of horror and a certain amount of hurt. “Were you going to do that with me?”

“No! But I didn’t know how to deal with you. You were supposed to be a job. I was supposed to keep you alive, get paid, and then walk away and never think of you again. That’s how it works. You weren’t supposed to make me want— I was gonna keep you safe, and if that meant from me as well, then better that I not see you again.”

“But you didn’t.”

Spike stared down at her.

“Do anything,” she clarified.

“No.”

“Did you want to?”

“No. But I didn’t think there was any other way for it to end. I’m a vampire. You’re right, I kill. But I didn’t wanna kill you, so I stayed away from you. Or tried to.”

“And now?” They were still standing so close.

“It was the only way to see you. I knew, I knew you weren’t comin’ back. And I knew that I shouldn’t care about you, especially after you became—so I watched, I followed.”

“But you saved me tonight.”

“Bloody hell, you think I was just gonna stand there and watch him kill you?”

Silence.

Buffy stepped away, momentarily turning her side to him. “Are you obsessed with me?”

He laughed. “That’s just what your Watcher said, before I slammed him into a wall.”

“Did you hurt him?” she asked sharply.

Spike’s look darkened. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

There was another silence.

“Okay,” Buffy finally said.

“Okay? Okay, what?”

“I’m leaving, you know,” she said abruptly.

“What?”

“I’m going to Sunnydale.”

“The Hellmouth,” he said. Then, “Were you gonna tell me?”

“I’m telling you now. Yeah, I’m going to the Hellmouth. And apparently, besides all the usual stuff that goes on there, some gang of vampires has taken over. And I’m supposed to go fight them. Me. I thought I could do it, you know? Slayer here, after all. But after last night—”

“Hey now, that was just a little slip up.”

“Don’t. You, of all people, don’t. That’s all it takes, isn’t it? Just one little slip, and bang! Dead Slayer. Was that what it took when you did it? Well, was it?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“I don’t want to be the world’s shortest lived Slayer.”

He started to point out that she probably wasn’t, but decided against it.

“I don’t want to die. I don’t think I can do this.”

Spike was at a loss for words. Part of him wanted to comfort her, tell her everything was going to be all right. But besides having no clue how to go about it, he couldn’t lie to her like that. However, what she said next completely threw him.

“I want to hire you. To work for me, to come to Sunnydale.”

“Come again?”

“To patrol with me, to fight with me, to train with me. This Giles guy who’s supposed to be my Watcher? He’s older than Wesley, apparently. Sure, techniques and stuff, but I need someone I can fight against full out. I realized that when you made me fight you tonight. I need to know what I can do, need to push myself. I have to be the best. Because I want to live.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do,” Buffy said. “Hire you. Business. Wesley says you’re all about the business. Any job for the right price, isn’t it?”

Spike glared at her. “You know how much I was gettin’ paid to watch you when you were just a girl? It’d take a lot more than that for me to watch the Slayer’s back, fight alongside the Slayer, fucking train the Slayer to more efficiently slay vampires. That’s a whole other deal than me lurkin’ around alleys and killin’ the stray nasty while you patrol.”

“You won’t miss stalking me?”

“Oh, I’ll miss you, pet,” he said, his expression softening slightly. “I’ll even worry, wonder, ’bout you. But let’s face facts. I’m not gonna change and neither are you. Maybe this is for the best.”

“I’m not buying it.”

He scowled again. “Good, cause I’m not sellin’ it.”

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t have followed me there?”

Spike shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe, maybe not. That’s a lot of effort for someone who hates me, no matter how stuck in me they are.”

“I don’t,” Buffy said. “Hate you. I even like you, most of the time. But, I don’t think I can love you.”

“Fair enough, pet.” He sighed. “Though, I probably at least would’ve dropped by to give you what for for not tellin’ me you were gonna leave.”

“I’m leaving,” she repeated, moving directly in front of him. “And I need your help. C’mon, Spike, what’s it gonna cost? Everyone has a price.”

“You couldn’t pay it. Sorry, love, but that’s the way it is.”

Buffy steeled herself. “Well, how’s this? Something money can’t buy.”

“Yeah, what’s that, then?” he scoffed.

“Blood. My blood. Come with me, help me, and you can have your own personal supply of Slayer blood, fresh from the source.”

Spike stared at her.

“Done.”

-----
-
-
-
Sunnydale, present:

“Angelus!” Darla called, not looking up from her fashion magazine. “She’s doing it again.” She referred to Drusilla, who was writhing on the table and moaning.

“Take care of it!”

“I can’t,” Darla singsonged. “You know she only stops for you these days.”

He came into the room and stood before Dru, who was reaching and pulling as if at invisible cords in the air. He grabbed one of her arms. “Dru, what is it? What do you see?”

“The naughty Slayer.” She laughed. “Daddy shouldn’t have killed her. Now you’ve brought it all down upon us.”

“Brought what? Is something coming?”

“Only Miss Edith knows.” She brought Angelus’s hand to her lips and ran her tongue over it. “And she won’t tell us yet.”

 
<<     >>