Chapter 7: In Sin and Error Pining

“Hey, kiddo, thought you were grounded,” said Xander, as Dawn followed Tara into the Magic Box. He was sporting a nasty cut on his forehead from last night’s Ghora battle, which he’d refused to let Anya cover with a bandage because he thought it made him look manly.

“Buffy didn’t come home last night,” Dawn grumbled. “Technically, Tara’s still baby-sitting.”

“Dawn has to leave for school soon, but we figured she’d turn up here for the Scooby meeting,” Tara added.

The others exchanged nervous glances. “Buffy didn’t come home?” Giles repeated. He leaned delicately against the display counter, careful of his bruised ribs.

“You don’t think she finally got herself eaten by some demon, do you?” Anya asked, a little too chirpy for the situation.

“She was on a date with Jacob,” said Dawn, in her “how stupid are you?” teenager voice.

“She still could’ve run into… oh,” Xander said, shifting in his seat. “Right. Um…”

“They were having sex,” Anya concluded for him, bringing a look of pained embarrassment to his face. Giles cleared his throat uncomfortably, while Tara kept her eyes trained on the floor.

“Well, you see, Dawnie,” Xander started, cringing as he spoke. “When two people love each other, they, um, well, sometimes they… uh, help me out here, Will.”

Willow lifted her head from her position on the floor, engulfed in pillows in the reading corner. She opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, she launched into a coughing fit that wracked her small frame. Tara hurried to the floor at her side, rubbing her back.

“It’s okay, guys,” said Dawn, making a face. “Mom gave me the sex talk, like, years ago.” Xander gave a visible sigh of relief.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Tara asked, stroking Willow’s hair as her coughs died down to a faint wheeze.

“I’m fine,” she managed. “Just a little worn out from magicking the Ghoras last night.”

Tara was about to argue when Spike burst through the basement door. “All right, where’s the Slayer?” he said grumpily. “’S too early in the morning for a creature of the night the likes of me.”

“She’s not here yet. Keep your pants on,” said Xander.

Before he could decide whether to deign to respond, Buffy entered the magic shop, and Spike realized with frightening clarity that he wasn’t the only one who had a problem keeping his pants on.

“Hey, guys, what’s going on? How was the demon-hunting last night?”

“All demons dead and accounted for,” Xander reported.

Spike’s face darkened as his heightened senses focused on the Slayer and the pungent musk that spoke of sweat and sex and arousal. She’d showered, of course, but he could still smell it on her like foul perfume, beneath the flowery soap and fruity shampoo.

“Good.” She caught Spike’s eye and nearly withered at the wounded look he gave her.

Standing in the shop, Buffy was reminded of the first – and only – time she’d made love with Angel. She’d been so paranoid, certain that anyone who looked at her could see the change, could tell that she was somehow different. She was wrong, of course, her own shame causing her to read too much into offhand comments and idle observations.

But Spike… Spike knew. And suddenly, she realized there was something even worse than her knowing about Spike and Susan.

“So,” she said, desperate to keep up a conversation to avoid thinking about Spike thinking about her having sex. “Um, was it hard?” She winced.

“Ah, rather difficult, actually,” said Giles. “They have three heads, you know.”

“Spike took one out all by himself,” Anya told her.

Spike ducked his head to avoid Buffy’s eyes. “Had some experience with Ghora demons.”

Dawn tried to give him a secret conspiratorial grin, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, either, and she pouted. She thought last year’s Ghora adventure warranted a little secret-handshake action. He must be in one of his moods, or he’d at least have given her a wink behind Buffy’s back. Then, she realized… Buffy and Jacob, Spike mad. Right.

Buffy caught sight of Willow and Tara on the floor and gave them a concerned look. “Will? How you doing? Are you okay?”

Willow sighed. “Hello, five minutes ago, nice to see you again. For the last time, I’m fine.” She started to get to her feet, batting away Tara’s helping hand. “I’m just a little worn out, okay?”

Spike studied her carefully. “You sure, Red? You’re lookin’ a bit peaked.”

“I’m still worried,” Tara volunteered. She turned back to Willow, who was busy demonstrating that she could stand on her own without assistance. “Even if it is just the magic tiring you out, you shouldn’t be this weak.”

Willow shook her head, but that was a little too much with the dizzy and she had to put out a hand to steady herself. “It’s just the flu or something.”

“Yeah, remember when Buffy had the flu and she ended up in the hospital battling an invisible life-sucking monster?” Xander chimed in. “No good. Take drugs.”

“I don’t know what you guys are all so worked up about. I have the flu and I used a lot of magic last night, and if I just get a good night’s sleep, I’ll be –” She was hit with a sudden case of vertigo and would have fallen back to the floor if Tara hadn’t been there to catch her.

“Fine. Yes, we know,” Tara said, adopting her lecturing mom tone. “But you’re going to the doctor. Come on.” Willow weakly allowed herself to be ushered out of the magic shop as the others looked on with concern.

“I’m worried about her,” said Xander. “I think she might be really sick.”

“She’s paler than me, and I’m already dead,” Spike added. “That can’t be good.”

Buffy chewed on her lower lip. “She just had a cold the other day.”

“Looks like it’s gotten worse,” Xander said. “I’ll be glad when she’s had a doctor look at her.”

“Me, too.” Buffy looked around the room. “In the meantime, who’s up for getting researchy? We’ve still got a demon summoner out there.”

Giles folded his arms across his chest. “I’m glad you mentioned that, Buffy. I’d almost thought you’d forgotten.”

“Okay, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been sort of wrapped up with Jacob lately. But – but I’m no good with languages anyway. You and Will are the real translators… and Spike.” She risked a glance at him and immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Sorry, can’t stay.” His words were clipped as he fixed her with hardened eyes. “Got things to do.” And he left without another word.

“Since you started dating Jacob, Spike’s virtually disappeared as well,” Giles observed.

“He’s jealous,” said Anya, “and therefore selfish and grumpy.”

Buffy swallowed back bile as she thought of a completely different reason why Spike hadn’t been around. Maybe he was just too busy with Susan to bother. “I – I’ll talk to him,” she offered reluctantly. “Tell him you want his help with stuff.”

“I say good riddance,” Xander said.

Dawn’s head snapped up from the notebook she was idly flipping through. “Hey! I like Spike!”

Buffy gave her a sharp look. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

Xander jumped up, jingling his car keys. “On it.”

“Hey,” Dawn said. “Hey, wait a minute.”

Buffy looked at her, agitated. “Dawn…”

“No, not that. Check this out.” She showed the others the notebook she’d been flipping through. It was written in an ancient language, possibly some mixture of Latin and demon. “I don’t know what most of those words are, but this one kinda stood out.” She pointed to the word Acanthia. “That’s the demon that attacked me and Spike.”

Giles snatched the notebook out of her hands and examined it. “Can you read it?” Buffy asked him.

“I’ll have to work on it. But this – this could be useful.”

Dawn smiled triumphantly. “You’re still grounded,” said Buffy, causing the younger girl’s grin to fade. “Go to school.”

*****

When Jacob woke up in the morning, he was alone in bed.

It wasn’t a terrible shock – Buffy had warned him it might happen. Something about an early morning Scooby meeting to confirm that no one had been killed or maimed in last night’s activities. If it gave her peace of mind, it was fine with him. He was serious about being supportive slayer-boyfriend, and if she had to go do slayery things, he was all with the support. Despite his assurances, she’d still been concerned about it, babbling things about turning evil in the morning that he didn’t understand, but which made her seem all the more endearing for being so sincere about it.

He slipped out of bed and threw on sweats and a t-shirt, headed for the campus fitness center. He definitely needed to work out. Stretching his muscles, he found them still sore from the night before. He’d never been particularly athletic, but he always thought of himself as being in shape. But Buffy was something else entirely, and even though he had no hope of keeping up with supernatural strength, he wanted to at least be capable of walking upright after sleeping with her. That meant some serious muscle toning was in order.

This would be good for him, he told himself. Exercise was always good, kept you healthy. He wasn’t going to freak out because his wisp of a girlfriend was stronger than he was. Buffy had mentioned how she sometimes unintentionally made human guys feel inferior – well, he wouldn’t be like that. Buffy wanted him – she’d made that clear enough last night – and it didn’t matter to her that he wasn’t Superman.

Still, he thought, groaning as he bent to pull his sneakers on, a little extra time at the gym wouldn’t hurt.

*****

The Veloxin demon watched, cloaked in spells that made him blend into the background so as not to attract undue attention in the daylight, as the boy left the apartment at a jog. The demon followed, striding on at a steady pace, always keeping the boy several yards ahead. He’d seen the Slayer slip out earlier, having spent the night writhing in the young man’s bed, blissfully unaware of their voyeur. He’d observed the whole thing with a dispassionate eye. The mating rituals of humans were of little interest to him, all the groaning and sweating and thumping. It was distasteful, really. Truly civilized creatures laid eggs.

He wondered where the Slayer had gone so early, but that wasn’t part of his assignment. Her movements were of concern, of course, but his charge was to follow the boy. Others would take care of the Slayer.

His target led him across campus to the fitness center, where he disappeared into a jungle of weights and machinery. More sweating. The demon understood this practice only slightly better than the mating rituals. Honestly, humans were boring.

*****

The crypt door emitted a slight squeak as Buffy eased it open. Doubtless Spike had heard the noise, if he was home, but there were no vampires to greet her when she crept inside. Downstairs, then.

No matter how comfortable she was with Spike – and that level of comfort varied depending on the day of the week and the volatile state of his ever-changing mood – she always felt a little tingle of fear as she descended into his lair. Something about going into the belly of the beast that set off her internal slayer alarms. Danger! they said, shooting urgent telegrams up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on their way to her brain, which promptly ignored the missives in favor of practiced rationalization. Just Spike. No worries.

Making her way down the ladder, she seized on that thought. Of all the things Spike could smell on her, at least the one she could control was fear.

“Hey,” she greeted him, jumping down from the third rung above the floor. He was sprawled – he always seemed to sprawl, as if to take up as much space as possible to compensate for his compact frame – on the sofa reading a book. She tried to discern which one, but the battered brown leather cover revealed no title or author. He flicked his gaze up at her entry and then, with an unreadable expression, returned to his book.

“Thought you might want to patrol,” she tried, doing her best to act friendly and not betray the awkwardness she felt. “Maybe we could talk?”

He looked up again, pursed his lips as though considering it, and said, “No,” before going back to ignoring her.

“Well, that’s a hard argument to deflect, what with the N and the O and all.”

No response.

He was simmering, that quiet anger that always unnerved her, because it was so un-Spike-like. When he was pissed off, there was lots of yelling, and the throwing and breaking of things, often preceded by large quantities of alcohol to give the destruction a drunken flair. But the quiet, tight calm meant that he wasn’t just angry, he was also deeply hurt.

Desperate to fill the silence, Buffy babbled. “But you like killing things. I mean, you really like killing things. It’s like… your entire reason for existing. You were all ready to stake yourself until you found out you could hurt demons.” He shot her a deadly glare and she quickly backpedaled. “Okay, sore subject but… but you’ve never passed up a demon-thumping –”

The other problem with the quiet rage was that he could suddenly explode without warning, like a little one-man Chernobyl. One day it’s all fine and peachy, and then bam! All of a sudden everything’s radioactive and you’re killing Russian peasants by the score. And, in Spike’s case at least, she imagined that last part had at one time been literal.

“…so it can’t be the demon part, so it has to be the me part, and I get that, okay, but you never want to talk, you just get all, you know, and you sulk and –”

He snapped the book shut and pushed up off the sofa. Oh, here comes the mushroom cloud, she thought.

“Will you shut up?” He pressed one hand to his temple, trying to ward off a headache. “Can’t hear myself think with your bloody yappin’.” She could see the calculation written on his face – deciding which would hurt more, backfire from the chip if he punched her, or listening to her babble.

“You see? It is the me part and you’re being all avoidy.” He rolled his eyes. “I know you’re angry –”

“Not angry, pet.”

She tossed her head in an exasperated gesture. “Hurt, then. I’m not trying to – look, I just… I thought we could be civilized for once –”

“Is that what this is?” Spike let out a harsh laugh, leaning in close. “You being civilized? Coming around here rubbing my nose in –”

“Well, maybe you should keep your big nose out of my sex life! It’s none of your business!”

“What am I s’posed to do when you come here stinking of him?”

“I can’t help it! It’s not my fault you have a preternatural sense of smell!” She could hear the tinge of hysteria behind her voice, and she knew she should stop to breathe, calm herself down, but deep down she knew what she was really there to say, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What do you care, anyway? Aren’t you too busy fucking Susan to worry about what I do?”

It was as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Spike froze, staring at her in shock, and everything was completely still as the meaning of her words sunk in.

“How – how did you know…?”

“Clem,” she said disgustedly. “I went looking for you at Willy’s the other night, to tell you about the Ghoras. How long?”

“What?”

“How long have you been fucking her?” Buffy asked through gritted teeth.

“Why do you give a toss, Slayer?” Spike snapped, shock and dismay giving way to anger. “You made it bloody well clear you weren’t interested, so why should I be accountable to you on who I share a bed with?”

“Because you’re supposed to be in love with me!” she burst out. Her hand flew to her mouth when she realized what she’d said. “I mean… I didn’t…”

But it was too late. Spike had already read between the lines. “Oh, is that right? You want it both ways, is that it? Want your perfect, normal boyfriend, so you can pretend you live a bloody normal life.” He spat out “normal” as though it were a dirty word. “But you still need me on the side, right? Pining away for you? Willing slave?” He glared at her, shaking his head in warning. “’M not a bloody toy, Buffy. Tired of being jerked around.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” she insisted.

He stepped right up to her, invading her space threateningly. “Still wanna tell me who I can shag, though, don’t you?”

“I don’t care who you ‘shag’!” she said, pressing her palms against Spike’s chest and shoving him backwards.

“You’re a coward, Buffy,” he shot back. “You know you’ve got feelings for me, an’ you’re too bloody scared to admit it. What are you afraid of?” he taunted her. “What your friends’ll think? Or are you scared you’ve got a dark side, a little vampire fetish?”

She hit him for that, a backhand across the jaw that rattled his teeth. “Don’t you dare talk about Angel like that. I don’t have a fetish. You’re not even a real vampire anymore, with that chip in your head. You’re just a sorry excuse for a –”

Buffy raised her arm for another blow, but he caught her mid-swing, seizing her wrist and twisting her arm until there was an audible snap. The pain rocketed through his brain, but he gritted his teeth against it, refusing to allow it to show on his face.

She gaped at him in disbelief, her injured arm cradled protectively against her chest. Spike punched the expression right off her face, even as stars darted across his own vision.

“I can be a real vampire, pet,” he growled, and she realized just how much more terrifying it was to see him this furious and still looking human. At least in game face, she knew what to expect. “Best not to let yourself forget it.”

She knocked him backwards with her good arm. He fell over a pile of books, but rolled through the fall with preternatural grace and sprang back up a few feet away. “I’m evil, right? That’s the reason you’ll never love me?” He swooped down, snatching up one of the books at his feet. “That’s the reason I’m not” – he hurled Robert Browning at her – “bloody good enough?” He stumbled a little as the chip informed him with its excruciating relentlessness that throwing things would hurt her.

Buffy batted down the projectile poetry and watched Spike’s anger trail off into frustration. He clutched his head, gripping fistfuls of his hair and pulling it out of its carefully slicked-back coif. There were tears in his eyes now, but whether from emotion or the pain from the chip, she wasn’t sure.

“I was jealous,” she said quietly. Spike looked up at her, a mixture of pain and confusion on his face.

“That’s why I slept with Jacob last night. I knew about Susan, and I was jealous.” She met his eyes, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. “I don’t know if you – love her, or – or if you’re just… anyway. And if you do… love her, then I – I want you to be happy. But if you just wanted me to know how it feels, then… it worked. I get it, okay? It hurts.”

Buffy took a deep breath, waiting for Spike to respond. When he didn’t, she nodded and started backing toward the stairs. “I’ll just… leave you alone now.”

Spike blinked several times, desperately trying to regain his bearings. “Buffy… wait,” he said, but she was already gone.