Chapter Four

When Willow timidly announced she'd be prepared to take the potentials on a Bronze shaped outing Spike could have kissed her. The suppressed pleasure on Buffy's face alone was worth a big fat snog.

And now after weeks of cramped chaos in every room the house was unnaturally quiet. Dawn had elected for mysterious teenage rituals in the usually busy bathroom, Xander was playing sheepdog to Willow's guardian angel and Buffy had eschewed Giles and the auxiliary Scoobies in the living room in favour of a little alone time.

Spike found her on the porch, staring at her hands and looking a million miles away.

"You worrying about the upcoming apocalypse or the hormone bomb out on the town?"

Buffy turned to give him a distracted smile as he settled on the steps beside her.

"You, actually."

"Thought we agreed you don't need to worry about me?"

"Not worrying, per se. Just thinking about last year. I've got the night off, why shouldn't I think? And I should. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history, etc etc."

Despite his better intentions Spike bristled a little. "There will be no repeat of last year," he stated. "I'm different, Buffy."

"But am I?"

The question caught him by surprise.

Spike could hardly remember the pale, miserable shadow of last year, eclipsed by this vibrant new girl. No, woman.

"Brooks no comparison, love. Less of a bitch, to use your words. Happier, I'd say, feeling better about yourself. And it's good to see."

Buffy laughed, eyes dancing as she glanced at him sideways. "Oh you, you always make me feel better. Wouldn't have survived last year without you."

"Worked out nicely, then." The vampire was doing an internal Snoopy dance at her casual admission, so glad she could laugh with him now. "So why all the thinking?"

"You really have problems with that concept, don't you?" Another laugh, teasing now. "Buffy thinking, the last sign of an apocalypse."

"I've learnt to be cautious. No telling what might be going on in your head and sometimes you overestimate my powers of clairvoyance."

"It's just... I'm happier now, like you say. And I'm happy you're... well whoever you are now. I shouldn't want..."

She lowered her voice, as if making a great confession, and looked down at her shoes. "I miss it sometimes, last year. Not the feeling shitty all the time but... sometimes... Oh crap, I get on at you for the stammering and now I can't finish a sentence."

If Spike had learned one thing from her it was a little patience, so he waited silently for her to gather her thoughts.

"I'm just so fucked up," sighed Buffy eventually. "Really was all badness last year and I wasn't myself. But now, I should know better, but sometimes I remember... You know what? I think my subconscious hates me. It's evil and must be killed."

"Might get a bit messy, that."

"Full frontal lobotomy ought to do it. Ever considered trepanning?"

Spike dared a grin, but it was obvious under the joking something was nagging at her and she didn't know how to get it out.

"Everyone's fucked up, you do know that? One way or another, Slayer, everyone's confused."

"Tell that to Doctor Phil. My dreams would make his eyes pop out."

Spike couldn't help laughing now. "Sometimes, Buffy love, I don't know if you're pondering the philosophical terrors of life or worrying about a yen for rough sex."

At her guilty start he chuckled again. "Ooh, has the Slayer been having naughty thoughts?"

Buffy glared out of habit, then added a nod.

"You're a daft old bird sometimes, no point worrying about what gets you hot, is there? No-one expects you to be Julie Andrews in the privacy of your own mind."

"I left nun-like a way back, you've still got the scars."

"Wear 'em like trophies," he scoffed. "Never did anything to me I wouldn't have begged you to. You know what was wrong with last year, Slayer? Not with me, I was an arsehole and I'm working on that. But why you were so unhappy?"

"Cause I'm a sick little puppy who can't tell the difference between fighting and fucking?"

"Cause. You. Beat. Yourself. Up. You've got all the time in the world for me, and Willow, and Angel, though none of us deserve to be forgiven, but for yourself you set impossible targets of perfection."

Buffy shook her head. "I'm far from perfect. And I hurt you, whatever you might say. Don't want to do that again. Don't want to be that person again. But sometimes I see you and I do, want to do it all again."

Hmm. Spike took a moment to digest that. Seemed like anything he could say would sound like a come-on, and perhaps it wasn't a good moment to point out he wouldn't mind. "If me being around's making you... unsettled, I can buzz off. Just say the word."

"No!" Buffy elbowed him soundly and continued with some asperity. "If you're going to get all melodramatic again I'm reconsidering this conversation bullshit. I was just thinking, I do that sometimes, I'm told it's healthy. There's no big drama, just who I am, I like to understand stuff and sometimes it takes me a lot of working out."

She shot him a look that was almost pleading. "It's hard enough to share my thoughts. And I have abandonment issues, you keep offering to go away and I'm gonna think you want to."

Spike bumped her shoulder affectionately. "Now who's being melodramatic? You'd have to throw me out, we both know it."

Maybe it took a bit of getting used to, being friends, he was still adjusting to mature Buffy, who worked through issues and didn't let her problems overwhelm her. And maybe not everything could be glossed over with a new start, but God he felt close, sitting here sharing her thoughts.

Spike put his arm around her and Buffy laid her head on his shoulder.

"You're a good person, love. Seen the best and the worst of you and I should know. There's nothing wrong with what we did."

Buffy snorted. "The other day or last year?"

"Either. Both. But I was talking about last year. It's connected in your head, the sex and the misery, but if you'd done those things with someone you loved, or just for fun..."

Buffy straightened up to give him her full attention and Spike suddenly found he was getting a little tongue tied himself. "We were bad for each other, but that wasn't the sex. S'not dirty... what consenting adults do in bed... whatever the hell gets you wet, it's not wrong... S'awkward, this talking stuff, ain't it?"

Buffy seemed torn between blushing and smirking, went with both. "You were very good at the sex." She patted his knee, mostly teasing. "So wasn't the problem."

"Thank you," he growled sarcastically. "But I don't actually have performance anxiety and I was talking about you. Using sex to punish yourself, that's twisted. Doing something that makes you miserable. Being ashamed, that's what's fucked up."

"Wasn't ashamed of you," answered Buffy softly. "Just what I made you do."

"You didn't make me do anything!"

"Not made, then, encouraged. Wanted you to take me, and hurt me, taught you that when I said no, I meant make me..."

Buffy trailed off, Spike was staring at her in a way that made her almost afraid.

"If this is going where I think it's going, you can just shut your fucking mouth, young lady."

She gaped at him in amazement.

"You want to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, fine. But you can't take responsibility for what I did, what anyone does, understand?"

She shook her head. "Wasn't going there. But you did a bad thing and you're sorry, and you changed. Me, I did lots of bad things, and I want to do them again."

"Really?" Spike drawled into her ear, low and seductive. "Like what?"

"It's not funny!"

"Bloody well is. What, exactly, is it you want to do that's so bad? Phone your dad, ask if your mum only ever fancied the missionary."

He rode right through Buffy's scandalized gasp, warming to his subject. "Do you know Willow and Tara kept a strap on under the bed? Size of it made me envious. Giles has a stash of specialist magazines that are illegal in California. Hell, even Dawnie-"

"Stop right there!" Buffy squeaked. "I never want to know the end of that sentence."

But Spike wasn't to be stopped.

"Giles and your Mum did it on the bonnet of a police car, just for the thrill of maybe being caught."

"They were under a spell!"

"To make them feel young. You're already young. You're allowed to be irresponsible, expected to make the occasional bad choice, and you're supposed to cut loose and have a little fun. If your idea of fun leaves bruises, well that's between you and whoever you're having fun with. Believe me, there's no higher power that cares if you like a bit of S&M. Come to England, it's virtually a way of life. Hell, go to Germany, see what they sell on the high streets and then tell me you're peculiar.

"S'got nothing to do with being the Slayer, not really, 'cept you can give more and take more. And sure you have to be careful cause you can hurt where another girl wouldn't leave a mark, but all men live with that. You shouldn't ever be ashamed of what you want, everyone's got their own dirty secret, nine times out of ten it's the ones who bottle it up who turn out to be a menace to society. It can only be wrong if you're willing to hurt people to get what you want and I know you better than that.

"I knew you didn't want me and I tried to take you anyway and nothing you did can excuse that. Nothing you did should be compared 'cause I always wanted you, enjoyed every second and you know it, only hurt when you didn't want me and that's not your fault, just the way of the world. You're just... normal. If you'd ever had a chance to leave this suburban hell hole and see a bit of real life you'd have found all this out for yourself. You're never alone, s'why talking so important. And I've been doing that a while, shutting up now.

"Your mouth is open, by the way."

Buffy closed her jaws with a snap that echoed round the now silent garden.

"Pervert," she said eventually.

"Necrophiliac," he shot back.

Buffy laughed, she couldn't help it. "Got me there. You realise we've been talking about sex for, like, ten minutes and you haven't hit on me once? What's up with that?"

Spike eyed her warily, be easier if she told him what the right answer was before asking questions like that. "It's not a trick question," she added, with unnerving perception. "I'm just wondering."

"Didn't think you'd want me to."

"Were you having a different conversation to the one I was having?"

He cocked his head on one side, regarded her thoughtfully. "What does that mean, Buffy?"

The Slayer wriggled a little, caught in his piercing gaze. "That sounds like a serious question. I'm kinda all serioused out, you mentioned something about fun?"

"Um I did?" Spike stalled, tried to recall the exact words of his impassioned rant. "And serioused? Can't let that one go."

Buffy met his eye, and he could see she was trying not to smile at his uncertainty. "Not S&M fun, just cutting loose. What do young people do? And it's so very sad I have to ask that question."

"Drink lots and listen to really bad music," answered Spike promptly. "Then gyrate around in a ridiculous parody of dancing until they're sick on their ridiculously expensive shoes."

"Hmm. Think I've passed young. What do slightly older people do?"

"Better music, less vomiting."

"Right." Buffy used Spike's shoulder to lever herself to her feet and dusted down her jeans. "Give me a couple of hours to get Dawn out of the bathroom. If you fancy it, that is."

Spike shrugged, tried very hard to stay casual. "Would have gone with the S&M myself, but I'll deal."

********

When Buffy reappeared a mere 45 minutes later it was with a much made up Dawn, towering over her sister in a pair of borrowed heels.

Off Spike's look the Slayer shrugged and explained.

"We're gonna sneak her into the new bar down town, really living dangerously tonight. Anya's going to join us when she's done in the shower. I told Andrew he couldn't come, just to prove I'm still sane."

Spike fought down uncharitable disappointment that he wasn't getting her all to himself, and gave Dawn his best evil grin. "Come on, then, let's go and corrupt the minor."

And it was impossible to feel hard done by as she took his arm walking down the front path, done up to the nines and positively glowing. And relaxed, for all that she was still Buffy and still had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was carrying it better.

"If you two are gonna make with the PDA's I'm calling social services," said Dawn tartly.

Buffy laughed, leaned into Spike with a suggestiveness purely for show as she turned round to answer. The vampire shivered against her, hard in seconds.

"You just wait, missy. I'm gonna dance, embarrassingly and enthusiastically. Then I'm gonna get drunk and tell all your potential dates cutsie baby stories. Then I'm gonna let Spike threaten to rip their arms off and you're gonna wish I was just snogging him in a corner somewhere."

"Snogging? God! Buffy, you need therapy."

But the Slayer just laughed again. "This is therapy. Grown-up, alcoholic, dancing therapy. You wanted to come."

"Fine," Dawn snapped, marching past Spike and Buffy with a disdainful toss of her head. "But you'd better be sharing that alcohol. Passing out sounds good right about now."

Buffy followed, tugging a dazed Spike in her wake.

Snogging? Suddenly Spike was convinced this was a really bad idea. If one casual touch and the merest suggestion of a kiss left his thought process in tatters, how the hell was he to survive watching her dance?

"PDA's?" he asked quietly.

"Public displays of affection."

"Like... holding hands?" Spike suggested.

To be continued....



And can I make a request? If you feel moved to comment, say something mean. Everyone's been really nice, maybe it's an American thing, and it's toe curlingly good to read that people have enjoyed my fiction enough to comment and say so. But without critisism my learning curve is going to be a horizontal line.