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Home Is Where They Have to Let You In by slaymesoftly
 
Nine
 
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Chapter Nine

Bob remained in his nice, safe, dark corner of the cellar until his senses told him that it would be okay to go into the kitchen.  He fixed himself a mug of warm blood, drained it, then made another and carried it into the living room where he turned on the telly and settled down to watch it.  Buffy hadn’t said when she expected Willow and Katrina to come by, and he wasn’t sure if she was planning to be there or not, so he’d dressed and stayed where he could hear if anyone knocked.

Which turned out not to have been necessary, as Buffy came home shortly after he’d gotten comfortable, bringing Willow and Katrina with her.  Hearing the TV, Buffy steered them into the living room where Bob was just getting to his feet.

“Don’t get up,” Katrina said quickly, only her professionalism preventing her reaction to his appearance to show on her face.

“’S alright,” he said. “Think my mum may have taught me manners at some point. Always rise when a lady enters the room.  Anyway, took one of Buffy’s magic pills this morning, and I’m feelin’ pretty good.”

Katrina nodded. “Uh huh. She’s already told me about what happened yesterday when you were on the drugs.  Sit down.”

Startled, he sat, looking at Buffy for confirmation that he’d done the right thing.  She smiled and nodded.  “Bob, this is Katrina. She’s the healer I told you about.  She has some questions for you, and she might want to take a closer look at your burns, okay?”

Katrina turned to Buffy and Willow and smiled apologetically. “Do you mind if we have some privacy? In case I need to examine the wound in his leg?”

Biting back to urge to say she’d already seen everything he had, Buffy nodded. “Okay, just holler if you need us.”

“You’re not afraid to be here without the Slayer?” Bob asked.

Katrina smiled. “Is there any reason why I should be?”

“No! But….”

“There you go, then. I’m not afraid because there’s no reason to be.”

He seemed to be pouting. “Just once, I’d like to meet somebody who actually thinks vampires are dangerous.”

She gave a small giggle. “Oh, we all know how dangerous most vamps are, believe me. The whole school is devoted to training slayers to keep the vampire population down. But the only other souled vampires that we know about were on our side… most of the time… so I trust you.”

“Bloody stupid, if you ask me,” he grumbled.  “Maybe I’m nothing like those other vampires with souls. You don’t know.”

“Actually, I do. I’ve been reading your aura while we’ve been talking, and it’s very clear.  Hate to disappoint you, but you’re definitely one of the good guys.”

“Oh. Well. Good on me, then.”

“Exactly. Now, let’s see what we can do to help you get better a little faster.  May I see your arm?”

By the time Bob had taken his shirt off for her so that she could examine the healing wound from Gill’s stake, and he’d pulled up the leg of his pants so that she could look at that, more worrisome injury, she was nodding to herself and reaching into her bag.

“So, Doctor Witch, what’s the verdict? Am I going to stay dead?”

“You are. For a good long time, I suspect. If you survived whatever did this to you, I can’t imagine what it would take to actually kill –er, dust – you.”

“I think a pointy piece of wood would do the job just fine,” Buffy said as she followed Willow into the room.  “Are you finished with him yet?”

Katrina looked up with a smile. “Yes. I’m just getting out some salve that he should rub on those scars twice a day to soften them up.  It has some ingredients that should make them less… well, not less noticeable, because I’m afraid it’s going to be a long time before they disappear – if they ever do—” She stopped and glanced into Bob’s stricken eyes.  “I’m sorry. I just don’t know enough about vampire physiology to say. A human would be scarred for life.  Buffy says vampires don’t keep scars forever, so… But I don’t know. I’m just giving you my opinion.”

“’S alright, luv. I don’t mind them, as long as they won’t keep me from being useful.  Jus’ feel bad for anybody who has to look at me.”

“The salve should help a lot. Twice a day. Every day.” Katrina glanced up at Buffy. “He might need help with his back. It’s going to be a while before they loosen up enough for him to reach everywhere.”

“I can do it,” Buffy said, not meeting Bob’s eyes.  “About the other thing…”

Katrina looked at Willow and then back to Buffy. “Willow was worried that he had somehow been given a soul that had belonged to someone you knew. But he’s got his own soul. I can tell that for sure. So, it may seem like one she’s seen before, but it isn’t. It’s all his.”

Willow frowned but bowed to Katrina’s greater knowledge and experience. Buffy just shrugged and said, “So, it really was nothing then, huh, Wills?”

“Yep. Just like I told you. It was nothing. Just a little glitch in the spell probably. It’s not like reading souls is my specialty, and I probably wasn’t as good at it when I… Yep. Not a problem.” She smiled, but her eyes were clouded with doubt.

After listening to Bob’s thanks several times, Buffy saw Willow and Katrina to the door, assuring them that she would call if there was anything new to report. She closed the door behind them and rested her head against it for a moment.

“Slay—Buffy?”

She raised her head and gave Bob a forced smile. “Let’s get that salve on you, huh? The sooner we start, the sooner it works.”

“How about you let me see what I can do for myself, then you can catch all those hard-to-reach places…” He gave what in a less disfigured face would have passed for a leer, but even Buffy wasn’t so oblivious that she couldn’t tell he was just trying to jolly her out of what seemed to be a moment of melancholy.

“Ha, bloody, ha, Bob,” she threw back at him, smiling in recognition of his attempt to cheer her up.  “You wish.  Call me when you’re done with what you can reach.” She flounced out to the kitchen, where she acknowledged both her temporary disappointment that the soul wasn’t Spike’s (something she’d almost immediately figured out was what Willow was trying to hide from her), and the way Bob had been able to brighten her mood so easily.  Her reverie was interrupted by Bob’s plaintive, “I need you, Slayer,” and she rose to her feet.

“I’m coming,” she called back. “But you’d better have your pants on…”



After a couple of days, the routine had been established. Buffy got up, showered, got dressed and ate her cereal.  While she was drinking her coffee, Bob would get up and rub the salve over all the parts of his body he could reach, then call her to come do his back.  She would go downstairs, take the jar of salve, and rub it on all the scars he couldn’t reach – which were all on his back.

In the evening, they would repeat the ritual, with Bob having brought the jar upstairs at some point during the day so that Buffy could do his back as close to twelve hours from the last time as could fit into her schedule. By the second day, the wound on his rib had healed over and it was added to the flesh to be covered in salve. Bob could reach all of it but the part that went around his side, which was added to Buffy’s territory.

They were several days into the routine when Buffy noticed that not only were the scars diminishing somewhat, but the flesh beneath them had filled out and there were now visible muscles across his back.

“Hey! I’ve finally fattened you up. Yay!”

“Fat?  I’m getting fat?”  He whirled in a circle, trying to see his own back.

“And they think women are vain…” She stopped him and held him still. “I just meant that you aren’t skin and bones anymore, you doofus.”  She blushed and dropped her hands. “It looks good.”

“Oh. Well, that’s alright, then.” He relaxed and looked at his torso. “Yeah. I guess I am filling out some. It’s hard to tell with all the….”

“They’re getting better too,” Buffy said with more sympathy than she usually showed him.  “I can see the difference, even if you can’t.  Trust me, they’re getting better.”

“I’m an ungrateful, self-centered git,” he said. “You’ve saved my life, healed my boo boos…” He smiled when she flinched at hearing her own words. “… and I’m worrying that I’m not going to be pretty. I’m sorry, pet.”

He dropped his head as she bent to put the salve away. When she stood up, she patted him on his salve-covered head.  “Whoa! I think your hair’s growing back!”  She rubbed her hand over the stubble she could just feel, laughing when he made a humming sound in his throat.

“Like that, huh? It made you purr.”

“I did not purr!”

“Hate to break it to you, macho man, but vamps purr when they’re happy or content. And you purred.”

With a giggle, she waved goodbye and ran up the stairs to leave for work, leaving him staring after her with a wistful smile on his face.

Don’t even think about it, you git. You’re ugly as sin, and you probably will be from now on. Count your blessings that she hasn’t thrown you out yet, and don’t be dreaming things you’ve got no right to dream.



When Buffy got home in the afternoon, he was once again asleep in front of the TV and a soap opera. She watched as he began to dream again, flinching when he began to struggle and whimper. A scream ripped from his throat as he sat up, panting for air and looking around wildly.  Buffy approached, but waited until his fangs went away before resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just another…”

“Daymare?”

“Flashback,” he said tersely.  “I think they’re flashbacks.”

“What happened in this one?”

He shook his head. “I start to forget ‘soon’s I wake up. I think there was a dragon…” He glanced up at her. “Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a dragon?” 

“I have, actually. Nasty thing. But it wasn’t from this dimension. I don’t think we have any dragons here.”

“Well, wherever I was, there was one there. And he breathed fire. At me. And I was… I don’t know now, but it seems like I couldn’t get away. Must have been chained up or something.”

“This is great!” He stared at her dubiously.  “No, really. Think about it. You’re starting to remember – at least when you’re asleep. Your brain must be healing too.” She stared at him, chewing her lip. “It’s too bad there isn’t some way to get the salve in there…”

“Uh uh, Slayer. We won’t be doing brain surgery on me so that you can rub salve on my brain cells.  It’s bad enough you tried to make me eat it to help clear up the scars on my vocal cords.”

“Hey, that could have worked! You just kept swallowing it too fast.”

“Uh huh.”

He stood up and stretched, his arms now much more flexible and able to reach all the way up.  “So what’s the plan for tonight, Buffy?  More telly?”

“No, I just came home to do your back. I’ve got to go out again.  There’s some kind of demon outbreak going on all over the city.”

He frowned. “Demon outbreak? That sounds dangerous.”

She blinked at him. “Uh, Bob? My job? Dangerous is kinda the default mode.” When his frown deepened, making the scars still across his face crinkle up, she sighed. “I’ll be fine. I promise.  And if I’m not…  I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“I should be helping,” he said abruptly. “I could help.”

“And you will,” she soothed. “As soon as you’ve got full range of motion and I’m sure you can take care of yourself.”

“Was taking care of myself long before I met you, Slayer,” he snarled, then recoiled, just as surprised as she was by his anger. 

“And you were doing a bang-up job of it!” she snapped back. “Or have you forgotten why you were lurking in my shed, Mr. I-can’t-catch-anything-to-eat!”

“I’m sorry, Buffy.” His anger vanished as quickly as it had come. “I guess I’m still testy from dreaming about being dragon shish-ka-bob – pun not intended.”

Her shoulders slumped as she relaxed. “It’s fine. I know you’re getting antsy, being here all day by yourself.  But there’s nothing I can do about it. We’ve got stuff going on right now, and I have to do my job.”

 “Know that, Slayer. I said I was sorry.”  

 “Okay then, let’s get that salve on your back so I can get out of here.”

He obediently followed her downstairs, stripping off his tee-shirt as he did so.  With clinical detachment, Buffy grabbed the salve and began to rub it in to the scars still only too visible on his back.  As she rubbed, she could feel the much smaller ridges and new skin.  “I think these are getting a lot better,” she said.  “I can still see them, but it’s starting to feel more like real skin.”

“Know what vamp skin should feel like, do you?” he asked.

  “Don’t.”

He sighed, accepting her warning. In spite of his occasional questions, she still refused to talk about Spike with him, telling him it was none of his business.  She also refused to tell him that it was because she didn’t want to be reminded of what she’d lost, now that she’d spent years accepting it; and he was beginning to understand her well enough to realize he was awakening painful memories every time he asked her to talk about Spike.

She put the jar down and headed for the stairs. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back. There’s more blood in the fridge and you can set the clock on the stove to remind you when to get to the rest of those scars.” Without further conversation, she ran up the stairs, leaving him to stare after her.



It wasn’t long before boredom took over and Bob wandered upstairs to find something to do. He ignored the TV, going up the stairs that were becoming more and more familiar now that he could shower every day or so.  He still needed the banister to get up, but he was able to come down on his feet with just help from the wall and the railing.

As had become his habit, he went first into Buffy’s room and lay down on her bed, inhaling her scent and indulging in a few moments of sheer pleasure. He resolutely kept his hand off his cock, refusing to sully his relationship with her by having a wank in her bed, regardless of how badly he wanted to.  His body’s reaction to her was becoming more and more difficult to hide as the loose sweatpants had a tendency to tent in front him every time she touched him or got too close.

“Pathetic wanker, that’s what I am,” he muttered, rolling his head over and catching a glimpse of the old books on her nightstand. Curious, he sat up and opened the first book. His hand began to shake as he read the dedication. “To William, on your twentieth birthday, Love Mother.”  Visions flashed through his mind – too fast for him to study or sort them out – but causing a physical reaction that he couldn’t understand or control. He trembled all over, his nerves and muscles jumping under his skin.

He dropped the book and grabbed one of the others, opening it to find it was a journal of some sort. As he read, he could feel the reaction spreading to his brain; awareness growing, he could feel the neurons connecting in his head, until he dropped the journal and fell to the floor. “Bloody hell,” he whispered just before he passed out.



He woke up just in time to hear Buffy and Dawn entering the house. He scuttled to the door, gaining his feet when he got to the hallway, and dashed across the hall to the bathroom, huddling in the shower and trying to gain control of himself.  As he wrapped his arms around his body, he rocked back and forth, memory after memory crashing into his consciousness.  The fight in the alley; the dragon; Angel’s flaming death as he brought the dragon down with him; his own capture and subsequent interminable torment by the angry minions in the hell dimension he’d been carried to.  He remembered Illyria, fighting her way through a horde of demons until she could free him and drag him back through a portal with her.  His memory was still blank from that time until he came to himself only yards from Buffy’s back gate, but he remembered every second of his waking time since then, including Buffy’s kindness and care. He reached one hand to his face, feeling the still-visible scars there and the newly softened skin. 

As he heard the girls coming up the stairs, he stood up, took a deep breath, rinsed his face off in the sink, and opened the door just as they got to the top.

“Oh, there you are. I wondered.”  Buffy looked tired and bruised, and a bit bloody if his nose was telling him the truth. It wasn’t a conscious decision not to tell her who he was, but an instinctive need to conceal it, that had him choking out, “Sorry, Slayer. Was just… Are you hurt?” 

Buffy blinked at the change of subject, but answered him. “Just a little. It’s been a rough night. She flexed one arm and winced. “I might have to dip into your pain pill stash, though, if this isn’t better by tomorrow.”

Dawn took a shocked look at Bob, and he remembered that she’d been gone from the house much of the past few days when he’d been healing.

“You look a lot better,” she said. “Almost… well, not human, cause… but, you know… better.”  She headed for her room. “I’m just going to go crash in my bed now. If I never see another demon, it’ll be too soon.”

Bob/Spike looked at Buffy and stepped closer. “What’s goin’ on out there?”

She shrugged. “We don’t know. Bunch of ugly demon-things that aren’t even from this dimension, as far as we can tell. They’re searching for something. We don’t know what it is, but they don’t care who or what they kill to find it; hence the rough night.” She yawned. “I lost track of how many we killed. All I know is, I need some rest before I go back out there. I hope to hell none of them followed me home.”

“Go on,” he said. “Get some sleep. I’ll stay up and keep watch for you.”

She raised an eyebrow in surprise, but was too tired to argue. “Okay. Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it. Not that I think they’re likely to come looking in the Slayer’s house for whatever it is, but…” She missed the way his face went still at her words, and the way his hands clenched at his sides. Dawn, however, had turned around to say ‘goodnight’ and had not missed it; she frowned at the vampire, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

You wouldn’t have any idea what they’re looking for, would you, Bob?” she asked, emphasizing “you”.

Before he could respond, Buffy said, “Don’t be silly, Dawn. What would he know about it? He never leaves the house.”

“I’ll be downstairs, keeping watch,” he said, moving to the stairs and descending before anyone could ask anything else. As he retreated, he could hear Dawn argue, “But Buffy, we don’t know what happened to him before, or where it happened. What if they’re here for him?”

“Then they’ll find out they can’t have him.  Don’t worry about it. Just go to bed.”

“You know I’m not going to be the only one who thinks of that,” Dawn warned as she went back to her room.  “Giles is going to be all over it. And Bob’s not stupid,” she added as she closed the door.

Buffy stared from her comfy-looking bed to the stairs, then groaned and followed Bob downstairs.  She found him prowling around the house, checking doors and windows, a mug of blood in hand.

“Thought you were going to bed,” he said, keeping his head turned away. Even though he’d been in close proximity to Buffy for almost a week, now that he knew who he really was, he was afraid to meet her eyes, sure that his would give him away.

Buffy sighed. “If they’re here for you, we’ll deal with it.  Don’t do anything noble or stupid while I’m asleep, okay?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I don’t want to wake up and find you’ve gone away to hide somewhere because you’re trying to protect us.  I’m going to put Dawn back inside the Slayer compound until this is over, so she’ll be safe.”

“And you?”

“And I’m going to be kicking demon butt until they decide their own dimension is a good place to be.  Promise me. Now.”

“If it’s me, I’m putting you in danger,” he said with a stubborn glare. When her hard stare began to turn into a confused frown, he looked away quickly.  “I don’t want to do that. You’ve done enough for me.”

“It’s my job, Bob. It’s who I am. The demons are here. Doesn’t matter what brought them here, it’s up to me to get rid of them.  If you go out there and hide somewhere else, it isn’t going to stop them from looking; it’s just going to distract me while I worry about you. Now promise me, so I can get some sleep.”

“Alright, Slayer. I promise. When you wake up in the morning, I’ll still be here.  But we’re going to talk about this again.”

“Whatever. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, love.”

Buffy stumbled up the stairs and to her bed, shedding clothes as she went, and falling face down on it, was asleep before her eyes were even shut. 

 
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