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part two - what dreams may come

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Music had to be the most eclectic thing on the planet. There was just so much to choose from. Angel -- He of the Giant Forehead -- for one reason or another, adored that classical stuff: Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven... Barry Manilow. Dawn, on the other hand, was the typical teenage girl, enjoying most of the music of the pop genre -- unfortunately, this idolization included the Backstreet Boys, he remembered, cringing. Except that Dawn's enjoyment of music wasn't limited to just pop and that was why he adored her. She shared Spike and Buffy's enjoyment of rock, alternative, and punk.

Okay, so Buffy hadn't been that keen on punk, but he'd been getting her there. The Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and all the rest, they were the classics. And once, he'd even caught her humming along to one of their songs (to which, of course, she'd promptly denied doing so).

He was presently riffling through CDs at the local f.y.e. He was looking for three CDs, specifically. The Linkin Park CD that was red and had the odd little military man on the front -- it had belonged to Dawn. She'd allowed him to borrow it, but she'd never gotten it back because he'd left so abruptly. When he'd returned, he'd discovered that Clem had sat on it during his occupation of the crypt.

The other one was Buffy's Our Lady Peace CD, which had also had the misfortune of being crushed beneath Clem's big, floppy-skinned bum. He'd had to nick that one, because she'd put up such a raucous about letting him borrow it. He hadn't understood what the big deal had been, she hadn't even been listening to it that much. He doubted that she even realized that it was still missing now.

A man on a mission for Our Lady Peace, Linkin Park, and... something else that he wasn't certain about getting yet. He was skimming the new releases, hoping to God that he could find something worth listening to where the lead vocalist didn't just scream nonsensical words.

This was good. He was focusing on something that wasn't Buffy. Well, okay, it had something to do with Buffy, but the blonde little firebomb wasn't monopolizing his thoughts as he did it, like she usually did. He was just trying to find replacements for the CDs that he'd borrowed.

'Course, he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to get the CDs to them. He had contemplated leaving them in the mailbox with a small note saying 'Goodbye, forever', but that was too melodramatic and Peaches-like, even for him. Plus, he was pretty sure Buffy would maim him if she found out that he'd even taken her CD in the first place, and then had accidentally gotten it destroyed.

Stupid Clem.

Another good thing. He was focusing on Buffy beating the shit out of him for something other than his lapse in sanity regarding his attempted ra -- er... that 'R' word that he still couldn't quite bring himself to say.

He frowned. Wait a minute -- he shouldn't be thinking of Buffy beating the shit out of him, full stop. He'd had enough of being her personal punching bag, her faithful, heel-licking little puppy. She wasn't going to bring him down anymore, she wasn't going to make him feel useless, she wasn't going to use him as a walking, talking dildo anymore. He'd wanted a relationship from that bitch, he'd given her everything that he'd ever been, and he'd even given her everything that he'd ever hoped to be, because of her, and she had just rejected him.

He was going to do whatever it took to get over her. He knew it couldn't work. He'd known that when he'd fallen in love with her. Images of her smiles and sounds of her laughter had eaten him from the inside out, night after night, and at some points had almost succeeded in reducing him to agonized, heart-wrenching tears. He was in love with a woman he wasn't supposed to love who would never feel anything but hate and revulsion for him.

He supposed that it was finally sinking in.

He wouldn't stop loving her -- oh, no, he couldn't do that. He'd tried everything he could to stop loving her -- he'd thought it was the chip's fault, for Christ's sake -- but the end result was that he loved her all the more. No, he wouldn't stop loving her.

But he was going to stop trying to get her to love him. Because it wasn't going to happen. He knew that. Finally, he knew that.

Buffy was a diamond in the rough, there was no question there. He was certain that she had touched the lives of anyone and everyone that she had ever come in contact with. And he knew that she would find someone who would love her for who she was -- as much as the thought of someone else loving and touching his princess revolted him.

"Fuck," he snarled out loud. After a moment, he looked up and realized he was being stared at. Whoops. That was probably one obscenity that shouldn't have been uttered in such a public place. A few teenagers down the row from him began snickering, and Spike snarled ferally. They gaped at him, stunned, before taking off.

Spike chuckled to himself. Hey, he wasn't going to hurt them. But he'd never sworn to himself that he wouldn't scare them once in a while. He wasn't Angel, after all.

Funny thing mentioning the big lunkhead. He'd stopped by Los Angeles on his way back to Sunnydale, and he'd gone sniffing around the old Hyperion where his sire had taken up residence. He'd figured that maybe the original Soul Train could give him some advice, since he had absolutely no bloody idea what he was dealing with here.

Only problem was that nobody had been there. Nobody except some young black guy, who looked awfully familiar in one way or another, and a sweet-faced young brunette with a hint of a Southern twang. The two had told him that Angel, the cheerleader, and Angel's son (?!) Connor had all gone missing.

Of course, at the time, Spike had been eager to get back to Sunnydale to show off his spiffing new soul, so he had decided not to stay. And he'd actually been reluctant at the idea of leaving his grandsire MIA, but he'd helped the best he could, following the cold trail of Angel's familiar scent down to some place called Point Dume. However far they took it after that was up to them.

Over the speakers in the shop, a song by Michelle Branch suddenly came on, and Spike started. His eyes widened as he recognized the song and the lyrics. He hadn't been that in tune with the song in the first place -- he'd been more hopeful towards getting Buffy to give him a second glance after that whole mistaken identity thing that Red had pulled -- but he knew well enough that it had been the song playing live at the Bronze that very night.

Closing his eyes, the images came to him slowly, one by one -- her open rejection of him at the bar, simply by turning her head. His hurt pride, forcing him to stalk away from her and toward the Bronze doors. Sensing her presence behind him and turning to see her running for him, unshed tears glistening in her eyes. Pulling her protectively into his arms and whisking her into that corner, that bloody sacred corner that they'd marked as their own. His quaking fingers trailing down her soft, smooth, trembling cheek, and the desperation on both parts as their lips met --

He let out a soft cry and bowed his head.

It wasn't fair.

---

Ah. So they'd decided to visit again tonight. How lovely. More torment. More torture. He'd thought he'd faced the brunt of it at the music store earlier. Obviously he was wrong, because here they were now, once again, plaguing his dreams.

"Tell me you love me."

"You were amazing..."

"Tell me you want me."

"I love you."

"I can't love you."

"I'm using you."

"Let yourself love me!"

"I'll make you feel it!"

"Ask me again why I could never love you!"

Ask me again why I could never love you, she says as she holds her bathrobe up against her, almost as if it would protect her. Her eyes filled with tears, so uncaring, so hateful. And he without a clue as to what he's just done -- what he just tried to do -- until he sees her tear-streaked face. And his guilt and horror overwhelms him. He gulps out loud, stares at her in misery and terror, then runs out the door.

Spike woke up slowly, his eyes filled with tears. Oh, god, what had he done? What the hell was so wrong with him that he'd nearly raped the woman he was in love with?

Actually, he could answer that question easily. She'd led him on. She'd used him so many times, she'd taken and taken so much from him, taken everything that he'd freely given her, and he'd finally wanted something back. And what he'd wanted had been her heart. A heart that she refused to give to him.

He sat up and wiped his eyes, then rested his head in his hands. She cared about him, he knew she did. It hadn't been just wanton lust. She had to have cared about him. Just a little bit. She had to.

Ask me again why I could never love you. Why she could never love him? Or why she couldn't let herself? He'd shown her his passion for her, his love for her, how deeply she made him feel, how much she'd changed him.

And it frightened her.

She didn't want to love again, because loving meant losing, love meant pain, loving him meant that she'd have to throw out everything that she'd ever been taught. Not only that, but how would it have felt for her to explain to her friends that she'd fallen in love with another vampire? Xander already had him on his hate list as it was and Willow would probably have fainted after panicking that she'd produced yet another wonky spell.

Then, on top of that, was the fact that he'd been soul-less. Having a soul meant so much to the bloody bint. Why could she not understand that a soul wasn't what made you love someone? He had even explained it to her, back when he'd been pining after Dru, and Buffy had been nattering on and on and on about Angel. "Blood isn't brains, children. It's blood, screaming inside you to work it's will." Didn't really matter if the blood was borrowed or not. It was still inside of you, making you risk your bloody neck for something -- or someone -- you shouldn't risk it for in the first place.

A soul was there to chastise you for doing wrong things, to provide direction and guidance for... for things that he had done, for things that Angel had done. Angel had been far worse off, because he'd killed so many more people than Spike had even fought with, and Angelus had done it just for fun at times. He'd had his soul for slightly more than eighty years, having gotten it only a decade or two after Spike had been turned.

No -- dammit, no! He was not going to sit there and contemplate his shitty lot in life. He wasn't going to brood like Angel. His sire had done enough of that in the past one hundred some years for the entire continent of North America. Spike was going to deal with this in his own way.

He grunted and stood up, snatching his pants, sliding them up his narrow, lean hips, then yanked on a shirt before fastening the clasps on the jeans.

Sighing, he marched toward his door and slammed it shut. Clem would more than likely show up later to consume whatever food he had in there, so he wasn't worried.

He was going hunting.

---

Cool, smooth limbs shifted under her, unable to do more than rub against her ample body. Her head rolled back in ecstasy, her eyes closed in the most extreme representation of absolute bliss and pleasure. Her head moved forward again, and looking down at him, her stance and posture took on that of a predator's, riding him slow, but hard.

Because that was what she was. She was a predator. And he was her prey.

Well... for now.

He gazed up at her from beneath half-lidded eyes, jerking slightly and letting out a soft groan as she plunged down particularly hard. She raised her eyes to his arms, handcuffed above his head. How was it that he could exhibit total and complete trust in her, having no doubt in his mind that he would, one way or another, come out of this alive?

A desperation to be closer to him, to truly feel skin-on-skin, pleaded with her, and she leaned forward, sliding her hands up his arms, up the smooth alabaster of his skin. She noticed the way his eyes darted back and forth between her face and her heavy breasts, looming closer and closer to come in contact with his cold flesh just.... there.

He gasped and thrust under her once more, and she situated her body fully above his, her hands reaching his cuffed wrists and squeezing possessively, her body pressing tightly against his own. Beneath her, in only the most pleasurable sense of the words. Dead wrong that he was beneath her. In fact, they were definitely on the same level. She matched his ferocity, his passion, his strength. She would even go so far as to say that they were One and the same.

A tightening in her feminine muscles alerted her and suddenly, she arched, her head tilting back. And as if on cue, he began to growl, to rumble, his body arching in much the same way, though as she came down, his yellow-tinged eyes locked on hers at his orgasm.

They moaned in unison.

She lowered herself once more, her nipples still erect, brushing over his chest and against his own, before she moved her lips to his.

BAM!

Buffy shot up, eyes wide, looking around frantically.

"Buffy? Are you here?" Pause. "Buffy?"

Buffy's eyes brightened. Dawn!

"I'm upstairs, Dawnie!" she called.

Dawn had stayed at her friend Addy's house last night, she remembered. Obviously, the girls had gone to school together this morning, and Dawn hadn't bothered to call home to let her know. Ah, she'd let her get away with it this time.

Buffy had fallen asleep out of absolute exhaustion last night, combined with the Headache of All Headaches. That, and the apparition that she'd seen that had looked remarkably like her ex-lover... like Spike... had left her in a bit of a daze.

Also, she'd been enjoying that particular dream she'd been having. The one and only time she'd ever been daring enough with Spike to handcuff him during their Destructo-Sex sessions. She still couldn't get over the fact that he'd had total and complete faith in her, that he hadn't been worried that he'd end out the night with a stake through his heart or waiting outside for the sunrise. How could he have been so trusting, knowing and experiencing how hateful and selfish and caustic Buffy could be and had been in the past?

Maybe that was one of the things that she'd hated about him. She had thrown her all at him, unleashed verbal torment, physical hatred on him, denounced him more times than she could count, and yet he still came back to her. Even before she'd made the über-bad mistake of sleeping with him.

Not that he wasn't a good lover. Strike the good from the record and replace it with phenomenal. It was just that she shouldn't have turned to him for physical comfort to seek some sort of feeling. She'd warped his feelings, knowing that he loved her, and still, she had used him. She just hadn't been able to stop, and all it had taken was Riley's discovery of her in Spike's bed.

She'd been ashamed of him.

Of course, she'd had good reason to be at the time... so she thought. Her (married!) ex-boyfriend had just discovered her in bed, naked, with her so-called mortal enemy-turned-lover. She was supposed to hate his immortal guts and be the prime figure in his death, if it ever happened. And instead, she was sleeping with him. And because of that shame she had felt when Riley had found them out, she had blown up Spike's home, stomped on him, then broken his heart, breaking up with him the morning after. The verbal blow she'd dealt him -- calling him William when she apologized -- had been the final nail in the coffin. She had denounced him from her life as both human and vampire. Her actions, and his hurt and confusion were what had driven him to seek comfort in Anya's arms.

She supposed she'd deserved that retaliation blow most of all. She had dumped him, then told him to move on, when it was obvious that he could do anything but. And it hurt her when she thought back on it now, because she believed that he loved her, that he was utterly devoted to her. He couldn't move on, because to him, after her, there was nothing to move on to. He might as well have wished for his death to claim him.

Thinking back to that last night in each other's arms... that had been the first time they'd made love. The real first time. No trashing buildings in this scenario. All the other times, they were fucking each other sideways and up and down the walls and floors of his crypt. Spike had tried many different times to add his love and tenderness to the mix, but Buffy would become rigid and unresponsive.

It was her shock and hurt at the thought that Riley had managed to move on, and had found a wife only a year after he'd left her, and she was still right back where she started, fucking the evil, soulless thing. It was her fear of not being loved that had pulled her to Spike that night, when you knew damn fucking well that he loved you, you cold bitch, her inner thoughts accused. She had finally allowed him to shower her with his love and affection, and they had truly made love, much to Spike's delight.

And then the world -- or rather, Spike's crypt -- went boom.

At first, she'd been ashamed of him, and had thought herself justified when Riley had called Spike "The Doctor."

And now she was just ashamed of herself. She'd spent the better part of the year learning Spike's ins and outs, learning everything that made him tick -- she should've known better. Spike never would have had those demon eggs inside his crypt if he'd known they were volatile. And then Riley had started springing his accusations, and she'd jumped to believe him. The betrayal on Spike's face had stricken her heart.

She'd broken up with him the next morning, and he'd been clueless, unable to understand why. He'd almost looked like a puppy that couldn't understand why its owner was beating him. Why? Why had she given herself to him so lovingly, so passionately, so intimately, so... sincerely, in that way, the way he'd always longed for, and then jerked it away right out from under him?

Buffy pouted as she jogged down the steps, rushing desperately to see her sister. Dawn's presence was the best thing in her life right now. Buffy had worked so hard to maintain the level of trust and understanding that now stood as strong as a cemented wall between them, and she was not about to do one thing to collapse it.

She knew that Dawn thought about Spike probably as much as she did. Spike had been her guardian, the only one she'd really had left when Buffy had died. They had bonded over their grief, and it had brought them closer than they had been before. Dawn hadn't been able to clutch on to the other Scoobies -- because, well, facing it, Giles had become pretty much withdrawn and sullen, not talking to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. Xander and Anya had been occupied in comforting each other, and so had Willow and Tara.

No one had even thought of Dawn. No one except the so-called soulless vampire.

Spike had adored Dawn like she was his very own flesh and blood. He had held her in a higher regard than any of the other Scoobies, save for Tara, not simply because she was his beloved's younger sister, but because the girl had treated him like a human, like he'd mattered, and hadn't simply tolerated him because of his love for Buffy.

She hopped down the staircase and threw her arms around Dawn, smiling. "Hey, Dawnie. How were classes today?"

Dawn's lower lip poked out about a foot. "Stupid. Mr. Carney is way too brutal on the math assignments. Pages 281 to 283, one through fifty, all? And it's Algebra Two, which makes it even worse! I barely remember Algebra One!"

Buffy mimicked her sister's pout. "Aww, poor baby. Not to fear, Dawnie. When is it due?"

Dawn gazed at her sister sullenly. "Well, with the block scheduling and Labor Day off, it won't be due till next Wednesday."

Buffy clapped her hands together, as if she'd accomplished something. "Great! Giles will be back by then, maybe we can figure out a way to get you through it all, okay?"

Dawn frowned. "But what about -- Oh, right. Willow's still all Quiet Girl, and you sucked at any subject that wasn't lunch or gym."

The Slayer glared at her sister, rapping her lightly on the arm. "Hey! I'll admit, I wasn't good in high school, but I still managed to graduate, didn't I? I, I blew everyone's SAT scores out of the water, and I graduated, and saved the world from a giant snake mayor and, ooh! Plus, I got to blow the school up while I was doing it."

Dawn grinned. "Does that mean I get to blow up Sunnydale High when I graduate? Sort of make it a Summers tradition. You know, just in case Sunnydale's new Mayor wants to take a bite out of the senior class again."

Buffy snorted. "I'm glad you wanna follow in my footsteps, but let's not get too hasty, right? Besides. Taxes wiped us out this year while they were rebuilding the new one. I don't really want a repeat in the next four years."

The teenager sighed. "Fine. No ka-boom for the school." She grinned devilishly. "Yet." She shrugged. "'Sides, I really don't feel like relocating again. 'S enough that I had to go to that other cruddy high school, an' anyway, it'd pretty much blow."

Buffy laughed. "You'll get your chance, Dawn, I promise. If some big ugly is threatening the school and the senior class, you have full permission to help me blow it up again, kay?"

Dawn grumbled under her breath. "That sounds like the kind of compromise you would make. Spike would have let me blow it up on my own!"

Silence.

Buffy glanced sideways at the sixteen-year-old. By the 'Oh, shit!' look on Dawn's face, the girl had realized what she'd just said, and was hoping to high Heaven and some form of God that Buffy hadn't noticed. Determined to not turn her sister anal-retentively paranoid, Buffy took a deep, calming breath and cleared her throat. Impromptu trip to Egypt, anyone?

"Dawn," she began brightly, "why don't you go put your things in your room, and we'll go get ice cream or something, okay?"

Dawn smiled, obviously relieved that Buffy hadn't called her on her slip-up. She nodded happily. "Okay! Great! That sounds great. I'll go do that now."

---

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Dawn berated herself later on that night. I just HAD to mention Spike, didn't I? How could I be so stupid? How could I not remember how bad Buffy wigs every time she hears his name?

Oh, boo. Now she felt worse.

Buffy had finally trusted her in the cemetery by herself, although she was still never allowed out after sunset, unless one of the Scoobs was with her.

Maybe Buffy figured that as long as she was checking on Clem, or going to visit Mom or Tara's grave, then it was all right. Buffy had put her trust in Dawn, and Dawn didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize that trust. No more sneaking out for her. Sneaking out equaled unhappy Buffy, and that in itself could turn out to be almost apocalyptic right there. Beware the pissed off Slayer.

Well, considering she'd already visited both Mom and Tara (with hunker-loads of flowers), she figured she might as well check up on Clem. They'd sort of lost track of him after Willow transported them to the Magic Box from Rack's old place, but later on they'd found him cowering in the alley next to The Magic Box by a dumpster. Poor guy; he'd been scared out of his wits. Buffy had needed to haul him up from behind the dumpster and propel him back to Spike's crypt.

Dawn didn't know how she felt about visiting the crypt anymore when it wasn't Spike she was intent on seeing. The vampire had a soft spot in her heart, true, but she'd been devastated when she'd found out that he'd left because of what he'd attempted to do to Buffy. Dawn didn't really know whether to feel angry at him, or sorry for him, or to just plain miss him. Well, yeah, she missed him. That was a given. She'd needed him the summer that Buffy had died. He'd filled in the void that losing her sister had left, mostly because he was feeling the exact same things. Unlike the rest of the group, she had fully believed him when he said he loved Buffy.

Anyway, Xander had taken full responsibility of harboring the anger field toward Spike. Willow wasn't in any condition to feel anything more than numbness, and if she even dared to act all self-righteous where Spike was concerned, then Dawn had the Warren card to throw in the red-head's face. Anya sympathized with Spike, since she had realized exactly why they'd ended up sleeping with each other. They had sort of been in the same boat, after all -- Xander had dumped her, and Buffy had just dumped Spike. And since Anya was a demon, she could sense Spike's pain and aggravation and hurt over the relationship.

Dawn guessed that she could feel Buffy's feelings about it, too, but chose not to tell. Because true to her nature, Buffy would promptly deny any of it.

Sighing, she moved up the steps to the crypt before pushing open the door. She made a decision -- she was mad at Spike, and she felt sorry for him as well because of what Buffy had put him through, but it didn't matter what else, because she missed him like hell. He had always been a part of her life in some way, ever since the very first time he'd ever come to Sunnydale, and being incredibly angry at him for attempting to rape Buffy didn't cancel out her Spike-missage. Besides, if Xander's story were to even be believed, he'd found Buffy on the floor of the bathroom with blood all over her body and teeth marks in her neck -- and that was just plain ludicrous.

Now, if Spike had only kept in contact with them to let him know how he was doing.

"Clem? Are you here?" she called out, stepping through the doorway and hopping over the step inside the mausoleum. The upper level of the crypt was empty, and so she frowned, pushing deeper into the candle-lit crypt.

Wait, candle-lit? Clem never lit the candles like this. He'd preferred the half-decent lantern that Spike had managed to rummage out of the dump two years ago to the candles that Spike had insisted remain lit. She shrugged it off. Oh, well. Maybe Clem had come to his senses. The candles placed strategically all over the crypt gave more light than that shoddy lantern anyway.

A sudden thought sparked her. Maybe he was downstairs, or rummaging through the tunnels past the blown-up bedroom? A small whimper from the lower level confirmed her thoughts and she smiled slightly, descending the ladder that served as a make-shift staircase.

"Clem?" she called out gently, in case the big blob was asleep in the ruins of Spike's bed.

And there was someone on the bed... but it was most certainly not Clem. She felt her heart jump into her throat, and she moved closer, standing at the foot of the bed.

It couldn't be.

It could just be a really good impersonator. But did anything ever really go like that? She knew it was him. The defining features gave it away. The pale, pale, almost translucent skin; the hard sculpted muscles that she shouldn't have known about but had seen more than once when she'd snuck out to visit him during the whole Glory spiel; the arched, sort of cross-shaped scar accenting his left eyebrow; the platinum-silver color of his curls, making it plainly obvious that he hadn't touched up in a while. His roots had nearly taken over his head.

God, it was really him. He was back.

And he looked like he was in immense pain. He whimpered again, his right side twitching slightly, and his body spasmed. A soft, agonized moan ripped out of his lips, and he jerked again, flipping onto his side. He wasn't covered by any blankets, but he was shirtless, and at least he was wearing his jeans.

"Spike?" she whispered, staring at him like he was a personal message from the gods. Hah. Hardly. But still, metaphor. It worked.

He moaned again, and his body shuddered as he burrowed his face under his pillows. God, it hurt. Why did it have to hurt so much?

She moved closer, reaching out her hand to touch his arm. "Spike?" she asked again, her warm fingers brushing against his unnaturally cold skin. At the moment of contact, Spike shot straight up in game face, snarling and growling in fear, his gaze shooting around the crypt. Dawn jumped back, her eyes wide. When Spike's gaze wavered and locked on her, his game face almost melted off, and his soft blue eyes gazed up at her hopefully.

"Nibblet?"



To be continued...