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Chapter 8, in which Buffy and Spike discuss their relationship history.
 
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“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.”
— Oscar Wilde

 

    “I think we’re ready to discuss our relationship history now,” Buffy said.

    Wes was surprised. “Oh? Well, then. Which one of you would like to start?”

    “I will,” Buffy said. “This was Spike’s idea,” she said. “But he said he wanted me to go first.”

    “Okay,” Wes said.

    Buffy took a deep breath to begin. “Apart from some really boring middle school stuff... well, I guess the guy Spike later turned into a vampire was kind of traumatic–”

    “Hey, Ford was Dru. She thought he was cute.”

    “Doesn’t matter,” Buffy said. “I really never had a real... boyfriend until I came to Sunnydale. No one I was really in love with. Or... did anything with,” Buffy said. Spike’s exact words were, I can tell you the sordid history of my love life, but only if you talk about Angel. The whole thing. Spell it out to him. I need to hear you say it out loud from the beginning. And so do you. “So, I got to Sunnydale, and... I really didn’t want to be the slayer anymore, but the council had sent a watcher, and there was this hellmouth. So rather than school books and homecoming dances, suddenly I’m dropped back in the middle of death and destruction. And in the middle of all this, up comes this really cute guy who’s... mysterious and kind of alluring. And he seems really interested in me, and he keeps giving me really nice gifts. And he’s helping me. But I don’t know a thing about him, except that he keeps showing up and fighting monsters. And his name is Angel.

    “So then, I’m really curious, and he ends up trapped in my house, and... it’s like... so much sexual tension you could cut it with a butter knife, and then he kisses me, and it turns out he’s a vampire.” She swallowed. “And suddenly all that tension turns like totally charged, and there’s like actual death between us. But he was lying from the first day....” She turned to Spike. “He was, because he didn’t tell me he was a vampire, and then he didn’t tell me about Drusilla, and when you showed up, he didn’t tell me he knew you. And I mean, god, I mean he like, what, sired you, right?”

    “Old sire. Grand sire.”

    “Yeah.” She turned back to Wesley. “Anyway, he was always lying. But I really loved him, and I didn’t know how to cope with that. He gave me this ring... this ring. A Celtic heart, it’s called.”

    Spike suddenly laughed.

    “Do you have something to say?” Wesley asked.

    “No,” Spike said quietly. “Let her finish.”

    “So he gave me this ring,” Buffy said. Her voice was trembling. “And it was kind of like an engagement. And we had this... big bad Judge to face – thank you so much, Spike.

    “Again, that was Dru,” Spike said. “Like I’d have known where to find all those bits.”

    “You can’t just pass all the evil off to your girlfriend and say it wasn’t you.”

    “I didn’t say I wasn’t evil. I said that wasn’t me. Accuse me of something that was actually my doing, and I’ll say I did it, no trouble.”

    Buffy rolled her eyes. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Anyway, things had... been getting more and more intense for more than half a year, and it was my birthday, and we’d both nearly died, and... and... well, I guess we were always nearly dying. And it always made me want to reach for life....” She swallowed. “And we made love. It was my first time.”

    “How old were you?” Wesley asked.

    “Well, you know how old I was. I was seventeen.”

    “Barely,” Spike said.

    “Before we go on, I just want to point something out,” Wesley said.

    “What’s that?”

    “That the laws in California for statutory rape include anyone under the age of eighteen, having sex with anyone more than three years their senior.”

    “Yeah, but he was a vampire. He was immortal.”

    “Ah,” Wesley said. “Yes. Well.” He paused. “So, because he was over two hundred, you believe that the law... no longer applies?”

    “Well... no.” Buffy said. “It’s not the same because he was a vampire. I mean, he wasn’t even human.”

    “He was once,” Wesley said. “How old was Angel when he was turned? Do you know?”

    “Um...”

    “Well into his twenties,” Spike said. “Closer to thirty.”

    Wes turned his eyes back to Buffy. “Is that true?”

    Buffy was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah,” she said.

    “So, even if he had been human, would that act have counted as an act of rape in a court of law?”

    “It wasn’t a rape!” Buffy said.

    “Were you a minor?”

    “Well... yeah. I mean, no. It was my idea – I mean like all my idea. He kept telling me we couldn’t happen, and I was the one who wouldn’t let it go.”

    “But he did allow it to happen.”

    “Yeah, but it was me who did it. And I wasn’t sixteen anymore.”

    “Barely,” Spike said again.

    Buffy didn’t like that. “I was seventeen.”

    “But,” Wes said, “the law states that, as a man, Angel could have been convicted of a misdemeanor, and put into prison for a year for engaging in sexual intercourse with you at the age of ... seventeen. It would have been put on his criminal record, and he would not have been permitted any job wherein he would interact with minors. He also could have been subject to a civil penalty of up to ten thousand dollars. ”

    Wesley had looked this up, waiting for exactly this moment. He’d heard about the general history of Buffy and Angel from Giles. In fact, he had learned all he could about Spike, Buffy and Angel before he’d started their first counseling session, even going so far as to visit Angel – without telling him why – before he came to Sunnydale. He had asked casually how Angel and Buffy had met, and was horrified when he learned Angel had been directed toward her by another demon of questionable background, and stalked her outside her highschool. There was something all too reminiscent of purely human evil in the story – the same kind of evil that Wesley had felt himself guilty of when he’d found himself attracted to Cordelia. Even if the relationship had ultimately gone nowhere, sexually, the very idea had given him serious qualms. And Cordelia had been eighteen. A very mature eighteen, and Wes was only in his twenties. But Angel had been over two hundred, and a vampire. Buffy had been only fifteen, and Angel had not seemed to have any qualms at all. He certainly hadn’t stated any when Wes had asked.

    Angel was handling himself well enough in LA, but Wesley still wasn’t entirely sure about the footing of his morals. Pointing out that Angel was willing to take what he wanted, whether it was moral or not, was important. He wasn’t a murderer any longer, but he was still a vampire. Wesley had always thought Buffy trusted Angel far too much. Angel might have meant well, but his nature was that of a vampire.

    Buffy, who was having trouble paying for college, blinked at his statement. “How much?”

    “Ten thousand, civil penalties.”

    “Ten thousand. A single credit costs like eight-hundred bucks, and I could have gotten ten thousand dollars just for going to bed with the guy?”

    Spike chuckled.

    “If he were human, and subject to human laws, yes,” Wesley said.

    “Even if the sex was consensual? Even if I started it?”

    “Yes. By the laws of this state, he was still committing a crime.”

    Buffy sat back. It wasn’t entirely true that she had started it, completely. She knew Angel had put himself in a position where it was possible for her to do so. Over and over and over again he had done this. He had embraced her, and then put her away so many times she never knew where she stood, until she felt on very shaky ground. She’d wanted to claim him in some way, in order to make herself sure of him. She wondered now if that had been intentional, too. If she’d been completely sure he wasn’t going to leave, would she have been so desperate to go to his bed right then?

    Something Willow had told her rose in her mind. Willow had given Oz the chance to sleep with her, just after they’d gotten back together, and Oz had refused. He was sexually experienced, and less than two years older than her, but Willow wasn’t yet eighteen. Oz had told her he wasn’t going anywhere. They had time. Angel never told Buffy that. He was immortal, and he had never told her they could wait. He was always kissing her, and in the same breath saying it was wrong to be togther, so she always felt a sense of urgency. We have to be together now.

    She’d felt so grown up and mature at the time. It was only two years ago... but she felt very young when she looked back on it.

    “But I understand that isn’t the full story, is it.”

    Buffy shook her head. “No. Angel... has a soul,” Buffy said. “And sleeping with me made him perfectly happy.”

    Spike smothered a laugh again.

    “So, since the curse was supposed to make him miserable, him being happy broke it, and... he lost his soul again.”

    “And then what happened?”

    Buffy swallowed. She sketched out the remainder of that horrific year, as her friends were tormented or actually killed, she blamed herself for not killing Angel when she had the chance, and the final battle, where Spike had shown up, a wild card switching sides. Slowly, painfully, she told the tale of how the gates of hell began to open, and Buffy was forced to kill her boyfriend, just as Willow finally performed the curse and his soul was returned to him. Then she went through the next year, her final year in high school, as Angel returned, and their affection returned, and she made herself fully forgive him – asked him to forgive himself – at Christmas.

    “And then, just as things started to seem perfect again... as we were snuggling and... well, petting a little... I mean, no sex, because we were both afraid it might happen again, but, I mean... I think we would have found a way around it eventually. I was trying to, anyway. But then he broke up with me. Broke up, left town. Well, broke up, danced with me at prom, hung around a lot tormenting me, and then left town,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And it... it felt like I was dying. I mean, we kept having guest spots in each other’s dreams. There’s some deep sense of... destiny about us.” Spike laughed again, rather loudly this time, but he waved Buffy on when she glared at him to ask him what. Buffy sighed, and then looked back to Wes. “And then he shows up this last Thanksgiving, and I could feel him, outside. My soul, it recognized his, I knew he was there.”

    Wesley raised his eyebrows. “You believe you felt his soul.

    “Well. It must have been.”

    Wes frowned and said nothing. “What?” Buffy finally asked.

    “Well... you know am well versed in the lore of the slayer.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Isn’t it true that as a slayer you can sense the presence of vampires? Even when they are disguised?”

    “Well... yeah, in theory.”

    “Is it possible that what you felt when you... felt Angel was just some... variant of that feeling?”

    “Well... truth to tell, I’m not really good at that,” Buffy said. “I mean, Giles keeps telling me I can do it, and I do sometimes, but it’s really not something I’ve tried to hone or anything.”

    “Ah,” Wesley said. “If you close your eyes, can you sense... well, Spike?”

    Buffy closed her eyes and tried. “Yeah,” she said.

    “What’s it feel like?”

    “A weight. Or... like a hole somewhere. It’s just... he’s there, that’s all.”

    “Is it the same as your feeling when Angel was near?”

    “No,” she said quickly. Then frowned. “Sort of....” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “I don’t know.”

    Wesley nodded. “Well, my understanding... and be aware, I only know of this through reading. I am not a slayer myself, of course. But my understanding is that the slayer senses a vampire much as a vampire can scent a human being. And each person, as any dog will tell you, has enough of an individual scent that they can be tracked over long distances.”

    “Oh, yeah,” Spike said. “Every bugger smells different. They’re all human, but they’re all different.”

    “Do you find that to be case?” Wes asked Buffy. “Do different vampires... sense differently?”

    Buffy nodded. “When it works. It’s always a little different.”

    “Could it not be that you simply know Angel’s presence, through familiarity? And thus you feel it more acutely than any other random vampire?” Buffy was silent. “I was just considering. It might be that you are feeling his soul, as you suggest. Or... it could just be your ordinary slayer senses.”

    Buffy looked drawn. “If you’d said that two days ago,” she said, “I’d have ignored you.” She shook her head. “My ideas of destiny have changed.” She sighed.

    “So. Is there more to this history of yours?”

    “Well, I don’t know what’s normal anymore,” Buffy said. “Because there was this guy in college, and I really liked him, and he was really sweet. But it turned out he was hunting me, just like a vampire would. And now when I ask around – which I should have done before I let him catch me I realize – he’s notorious. Parker is known for targeting girls, sleeping with them once, and leaving them. And I... didn’t see it. It was like... I’d done it to myself again. I don’t know what a normal relationship looks like.” She frowned. “And now it turns out that Angel... really just doesn’t want to be with me. I mean, at all. Even if he has the chance, he won’t take it. And I know that... for sure.” She shrugged. “He had his chance, and all he wanted to do with it was throw it away. And torture me with it. And now I don’t think he ever loved me at all. I mean, he thinks he does, so he's not lying, but what he’s loving isn’t really me. So. That’s the end of that.”

    Wesley shook his head. “No, it isn’t.”

    “Well, yeah. That’s it, those are the guys I’ve been with.”

    “Apart from Spike.”

    “Yeah.”

    “So tell me about Spike.”

    Buffy blinked. “Um... well.”

    She glanced at Spike, who was smiling at her, his eyes flirtatious. “Go on, slayer. Tell ‘im.”

    Buffy rolled her eyes and turned back to Wes. “Do we have to? He knows this bit.”

    “Not from your perspective. How did you two meet?”

    “Spike wanted to kill me.”

    “There’s more to it than that, I’m sure,” Wesley said.

    Buffy sighed. “Okay. Well. Spike and I met before Angel and I... well... really... before he lost his soul.”

    “Okay.”

    “Spike tried to kill me, and then I tried to kill him, and then he was injured, and then Angel stole his girlfriend, and he came up to ask for my help.”

    Spike scoffed. “I didn’t ask for anything, slayer. You were the one with a kidnapped watcher and a scattered Scooby clan.”

    Buffy sighed. “Okay. He offered his help. Better?” she asked.

    “Don’t do me any favors, slayer.”

    “Anyway, so we had this truce, and then he came back after Dru dumped him and tried to kill me again. Then these commando guys grabbed him, and put this chip in his head, and now he can’t hurt people.”

    “And then?” Wesley prompted.

    “And then what?”

    “How did the two of you get together?”

    “It was a spell!”

    Wes nodded sagely. “So how did this spell manifest. Tell me. What were you doing?”

    Buffy could feel Spike’s eyes on her. “Well, we were fighting.” Buffy realized that was a ridiculous thing to say – of course they were fighting. “I mean, we’re always fighting. But I was trying not to stake him, actually. He was threatening that they’d be finding my body for weeks if he got that chip out. And I threw him into this chair to tie him down, and I was glaring down into his face, you know, to intimidate him.” She stopped.

    “And?”

    “And I kissed him,” Buffy said.

    “Hard,” Spike said.

    “Why did you kiss him?”

    “Well. That was the spell.” Buffy blushed.

    Wesley nodded. “But you didn’t think it was a spell at the time. Why did you think you kissed him? Was it completely spontaneous? Just a sudden impulse? What was the thought process?”

    Buffy thought back. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, there was something... charged about the whole thing.”

    “We’d been flirting for days,” Spike said. “She’d been tempting me with her neck, and teasing me with the ropes.”

    “I was tying you up because I didn’t trust you.”

    “Uh-huh,” Spike said.

    “So after you kissed him, what happened?”

    “Well... I untied him, and he sort of... hugged me... and then...”

    “I caught her up in a fiery embrace, and fell to my knees to ask for her sodding hand,” Spike said with slightly amused contempt.

    “Why did you do that?”

    Spike gazed at Buffy. “Because that kiss was the best thing that had ever happened to me,” he said. “And I wanted another, and another. And I proposed marriage immediately, because I couldn’t imagine another day of my unlife without her in it.”

    Buffy didn’t want to be touched by what he was saying, but she swallowed.

    “How do you feel about that, Buffy?”

    Buffy shrugged. “It was sweet. It’s still sweet.” She wouldn’t look at him. “It’s a good spell.”

    Wesley nodded. “All right. So, Spike, I suppose that makes it your turn. Do you want to go into your own relationship history?”

    “No.”

    Buffy glared at him. “What?”

    “He asked if I wanted to,” Spike said. “I don’t.”

    “That’s not–”

    “I’m still going to,” he said. He gazed at Buffy for a long moment. “It’s just hard.”

    “And what makes it so hard?” Wes asked.

    “Well. What do your watchers’ records say ‘bout me, anyway?”

    “Ahm...” Wesley flipped to a page in his notebook. “Spike. Also known as William the Bloody. Named for torturing his victims with railroad spikes. First sighted about 1880... member of the gang known as The Whirlwind... some link to the Master there...”

    “That was Darla.”

    Angel’s sire, Buffy remembered.

    Wesley nodded. “Sighted in quite a number of mob attacks. Very violent in the early years. Killed two slayers in the last century. Nikki Wood about thirty years ago, and Xin Rong during the Boxer Rebellion...”

    Spike raised an eyebrow. “Xin Rong? Was that her name?” He smiled, looking pleased, as if he’d just heard about an old lover.

    Buffy was appalled. “You didn’t know?”

    Spike rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t speak Chinese. How could I have picked a name out of all that clanging?”

    “You’re disgusting.”

    “I’m a vampire!”

    “You didn’t even care about her name?”

    “I didn’t know it,” Spike said sternly. “I’d have cared. Believe me. That sweet beauty?” He chuckled. “Oh, I would have cared.” He leaned back in his chair, and idly touched his eyebrow. “Well well. Xin Rong.”

    Buffy stood up. “That’s it. I don’t give a rat’s ass what his history is. I can’t do this.”

    “Leaving won’t solve anything!” Wesley called after her retreating back.

    Buffy glared at the two of them. “I just told something very personal, and you two are making jokes about dead slayers!”

    Wesley frowned. “I don’t believe either of us were making jokes,” he said. “I’m sorry to have brought it up. Was there a reason you asked, Spike?”

    He shrugged. “Just wanted to know if you had any idea about who I was as a human being.”

    “Why?”

    “‘Cause I was hoping I wouldn’t have to say it myself,” he said. He looked up at Buffy. “Are you gonna sit down, pet, or are we just gonna go back to the workout room?”

    Buffy blushed in spite of herself.  

    He gave her an absolutely charming grin beneath his bruised eye. “Believe me. I’d be thrilled to work a few more things out.”

    Buffy took a deep breath and went back to her chair.

    “Okay,” Spike said. “Darla sired Angel, yeah?” he said to Buffy. “Then Angel made Dru. Dru made me. I was... um. Well. Dru made me ‘cause Angel was neglecting her,” he said. His voice was casual, and he expressively used his hands as he spoke, but he wouldn’t meet either of their eyes. “And... well. See, Dru had visions. She could kind of see things others couldn’t? And she saw that if she made me, that I’d... kinda take care of her. ‘Cause I’d love her. And I-I really did love her,” he said, his voice growing a little quieter. “It was kinda my raison d’etre, if you must know.”

    “Not killing?” Wesley asked.

    Spike shook his head. “No. No, that came second to Dru.” He stopped. “And then Dru dumped me, and I went back to Sunnydale, for Buffy.”

    “That was lame,” Buffy said. “And you forgot Harmony.”

    “There was nothing to remember about Harmony,” Spike said, a statement Buffy actually believed. “She was a hot blond bint with good tits I tumbled into my bed a few times, that’s it.”

    “Ugh.” Buffy shuddered her revulsion. “You are such a pig, Spike.”

    “Oink.”

    “You’re disgusting.”

    Spike regarded her. “So suddenly you have respect for Harmony? First I’ve heard of it, slayer. Who’s the pig now?”

    “It’s your opinion of women that’s disgusting.”

    “No,” Spike said. “That’s not my opinion of women. That’s just Harm.”

    “And when you’re passing kittens ‘round your poker table, do you call me a warm body with a great ass?” Buffy asked.

    “Well, you do have a great ass,” Spike said. “But if Clem or any of those blokes said word one about you, I’d bloody rip them a new one. I have a few times,” Spike said. “You’re not Harmony, Buffy.” He sighed. “Harmony wasn’t you. ‘Course I never loved her.” He looked away. “Couldn’t possibly.”

    Wesley nodded. “So you feel that Buffy... your relationship with Buffy is different from this... tumbling you used to do.”

    “Night and day,” he said. A strange little smile softened Spike’s face. It wasn’t his sexy smirk or his wicked-evil grin. It was something soft. Warm. It seemed very human. “From the first moment I saw Buffy,” Spike said, “I knew there was something special about her. Not just that she was the slayer. I knew slayers. No, she was more than that. Not just all that power. She had style, attitude. Such joy in life. She was trying to study,” he chuckled, “at the Bronze, because that makes sense, great study spot. Mangling her French. Finally she abandoned it and went out on the dance floor. And she bleeding owned it the moment she stepped onto it. Just like she owns everything she stands on. She glowed like a candle, pulsing out a warm radiance into the night. And when she started moving those hips there, the whole world disappeared. The music faded, everyone else sort of vanished into the distance, and as far as I was concerned, it was just her and me alone on the face of an empty planet.” He smiled. “And I didn’t even know her name.”

    Buffy stared at him. He’d never told her this before.

    There was a long silence. “So, are you saying it was love at first sight?” Wesley finally asked.

    “I... wouldn’t... call that love, no,” Spike said. “No. But I did know in that instant that I had to make her mine. One way or another.”

    “What do you mean, make her yours?”

    Spike took in a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. “She would be my prey. She would be my kill. Or she would be my killer. Either way, she had to be mine.” He chuckled. “I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to claim her. There was an auspicious day, St. Vigi-something, vamps were supposed to have extra power to draw on or some such bollocks, and it was five bloody days away!” Spike was almost trembling at the memory of his anticipation. He rubbed his forehead shyly, and looked at her, biting his lip. “I just had to see you again.”

    He swallowed. “That’s what I meant when I said I wished she was more like before,” Spike said. “Not hot from some witch’s spell. Just... throw the book away, sod this, I’m gonna dance. Just more like herself.”

    Buffy stared at him. “I was very young,” she said. “A lot of things... hadn’t happened to me yet.”

    “I know it,” he said. “But I still see it sometimes, when you let your guard down. It’s just... it's so rare you let your guard down anymore.”

    Wesley was staring at Spike with a little frown between his eyes. “But...  you do very much feel as if... you had a connection with the slayer... before you began this....” Wesley stopped, unable to ask any more inane questions. Turning their own words back on themselves was one thing – that was what Rogerian psychotherapy was supposed to do – but he was shaken again. He was finding it very hard not to suddenly announce, My god! You actually love her! What perverse twist had occurred in the vampire’s demonic mind that had made him go and fall in love with the slayer? Angel he could sort of understand. There was a soul in the mix, and Angel had been directed toward the slayer by the powers that be. But Spike? The idea horrified him and intrigued him at the same time.

    But it had taken a spell to make Buffy feel the same. It was a tragedy on the same scale as Romeo and Juliet, with players just as helpless and naive as Shakespeare’s doomed teenagers. Wesley had a terrible fear that the ending would be just as bloody.

    “Yeah. That’s where I came in,” Spike said, as if Wesley’s half formed question had made sense. “And maybe I’m under a bloody spell, but I’ve still claimed the most glorious woman on the planet as my wife. And no matter how insane it is, or whether or not it’s right, or whether its gonna eat us both up... I will never just walk away from this. I’m never gonna give her up, or leave her to face this world alone, no matter what anyone says is best. She is mine. And I belong to her.”

    He hadn’t taken his eyes off Buffy as he said all this. She was beet red. She looked down.

    Wes tried to get back to his agenda. It was hard. “So. Um. This hundred years with–” Wes checked his notes. Spike’s confession had thrown most of the other thoughts clear out of his head. “Drusilla. This ended... before Harmony, then?”

    Spike looked uncomfortable again. “Yeah. But... it wasn’t just... I loved Dru, but there was a lot of baggage there. I mean Angel–” he stopped himself with a humorless laugh. “That’s why I laughed when you talked about Angel and destiny. Angel didn’t believe in destiny, not when I knew him. You have any idea how many victims he gave those stupid rings to before he ate them? Destiny, fidelity, love, they were all jokes to him. ‘Fact, he went and shagged Dru in front of me when I dared say anything of the kind, back when I was all newborn and naive and thought she and I were meant for each other. Had to prove he still owned her, didn’t he.” He looked down. “Had to prove he owned me.”

    There was a long silence. Wes tried again. “And what–”

    “I can’t do this,” Spike said suddenly.

    Buffy swallowed. “Please?”

    Spike took in a deep breath and looked at Wes. “I thought this’d be easier if had you to sorta make me keep talking.”

    “And it’s not?”

    “Well.” He turned to Buffy. “I just dunno if I want him to hear it.”

    “Would you like me to step into the other room?” Wes asked.

    They both looked at him in surprise. “You can do that?”

    “There are no rules for this,” Wes said. “My job is one of mediation and suggestions for adaptation. The relationship is yours. You felt more comfortable with me to hold you accountable for relaying the information. I don’t actually have to know what that information is.”

    Spike considered this. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Yeah, I’d feel better with just her.”

    “All right, then,” Wesley said. “I’ll go and make some coffee. I’ll be back soon – if either of you feel you need me, just poke your head out the door.”

    Wesley headed out into the back rooms of his rented office/apartment. He got himself a few biscuits, made some coffee, drank a cup, and then went back to his office. He paused, about to knock on the door, but he could still hear their voices, talking earnestly. He lowered his hand and went back to the kitchen.

    He did a few dishes, dried them, put them away, had another cup of coffee, and went back to the office. There were raised voices. He was about to knock again when Buffy’s voice cut through Spike’s rant. “But don’t you see, that wasn’t your fault! That was something Angel did to you, not something you caused.”

    Wes stepped away again. Whatever was happening in there, it was intense and personal, and Buffy seemed to be handling it well. Wes made himself a grilled cheese sandwich, since there didn’t seem to be much else to do, heated up some soup, had himself a light supper, and went back to the office.

    That was definitely sobbing, now, on both sides, and Wes knew he should go in, but he didn’t think he should get between them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t contentious. They weren’t arguing. He went back to the kitchen, cleaned up his supper dishes, took out the garbage, went to the bathroom, washed his hands, read a little bit, came back to check on his clients...

    That was definitely the sound of breaking furniture. “All right, you two, clearly there’s some contention–” Wesley called out, opening the door. “Oh. Sorry. Um. I’ll just... um... right. Then. Well, then. Um. Excuse me.” He closed the door, his cheeks hot. Clearly he wasn’t needed yet. Goodness, the slayer was... athletic.

 

 
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