Chapter Text
Spike lingers underneath Buffy's window, pacing back and forth in front of the tree in the yard.
Every part of his being is screaming to go in, wake her up and drag her downtown. Let her take in what her sweet little rebound has been crawling around with.
I want this to be over. I want them to be over so BAD and I want it to be over now. God I want it so bad it's torture.
But...
He's downtown now, but for how long? How long will his bought-and-paid-for bites go on for before he finishes and heads back?
Shit that's the last thing I'd need. Crashing into him on the street, without getting a chance to show her, where he'll make up some weak pathetic excuse and she'll buy the whole damn thing or... or shit him catching me in her bedroom, and I go up in a sodding cloud of dust... Too much of a gamble.
Those bite marks though. They're fresh. Recent. So, he goes back fairly often, right? He's already at least a little addicted, that much is obvious, right? He can't hang about for a less risky moment. He's sneaking around now while she's sleeping, when she could wake up any fucking minute and notice he's gone.
Human's don't heal quickly, but those bites are just a few nights old if that. Maybe not even that long.
Tomorrow then. I can wait one more night. I can wait until tomorrow for him to walk into a trap of his own design.
Enjoy it while it lasts, crewcut. This is the end of the fucking line.
Joyce settles herself up against the pillows of the hospital bed as Dawn and Buffy scrunch up next to her. The dinner cart has been and gone and Joyce pokes at the creamed spinach and potatoes on her plastic plate.
"Ugh, one more night in this place. I don't think I can take it!" She rubs her temple, carefully avoiding the bandage over the top of her hair line.
Dawn plays with the green jello dessert, squishing it between her fingers and occasionally sucking pieces of it off her fingers.
"Soak it all up while you can, leisure-having-lady," Buffy smirks, "12 more hours and you've got Dawn-patrol again."
"Hey!" Dawn flicks a green jello fragment at Buffy.
"My point exactly." Buffy finds the jello piece and flicks it back, getting it right in Dawn's hair.
"Girls, don't. I'm pretty sure they'll kick us out if you start a food fight... on second thought keep going-"
"Good Morning Joyce," Doctor Kriegel steps into the room from the bustle outside the door, "how're we feeling today?"
"Better. Less tired. Still a bit headachey."
"Well, that'll improve as the antibiotics start working. Try and get as much rest as possible. That goes double for when you're back home too," he eyeballs Dawn and Buffy, "make sure she gets plenty of rest, feet up, no excuses. And a reminder that visiting hours are strictly 8 'til 8. Even if you've only got one more night with us Joyce, no more late night visitors, you need your sleep-" his beeper gives a shrill little whistle and he checks it, signs Joyce's clipboard and the bottom of her bed and nods an exit.
Dawn raises an eyebrow at Buffy, who reciprocates with a look of her own.
"Late night visitors?" Buffy grins, gently teasing.
"Maybe it's a handsome doctor," grins Dawn, "or- oh, or one of the mental patients down the hall?"
"Thanks very much." Joyce says pinching her on the arm.
"Oh I'm sure the hospital is just teaming with eligible potential step-dad types." Buffy chuckles.
"Yeah, is it that bald man 3 doors down? The one who always has the back of his gown open."
"Mr Morris-" Buffy interjects.
"Yeah! Is it Mr Morris?" Dawn crumbles into a fit of giggles. "Are you going to be Joyce Morris?"
"Stop it the pair of you." Joyce rolls her eyes biting back giggles of her own. "I must be getting better if you're making fun of me."
"So who was this mystery midnight visitor?" Buffy asks, fishing a can of soda out of her bag and opening the tab.
"Spike."
Buffy's hand clenches suddenly, crushing the aluminium, causing the can to fizz dramatically and she holds it over the side of the bed to stop it spilling all over the sheets.
"SPIKE?! Spike was here?"
"How come Spike was here?" Dawn interrupts, sitting up straighter suddenly far more interested.
"He just came to see how I was doing." Joyce finally pushes the plate of hospital food away from her, having mashed the spinach into the potatoes completely creating an unattractive slime green moss effect.
"He can't just... come by though, can he? Don't we have a- a visitors list or-or something?"
"Buffy, it was fine, honestly."
"Mom, he's dangerous-"
"It's not like he can do anything. He's got that chip in his head. His head chip." Dawn says picking up another cube of jello.
"I don't think he's dangerous. At least not anymore." Joyce watches as Dawn pulls the cube of jello apart into little wiggling pieces.
"I cannot believe the two of you." Buffy says, still holding her half exploded-half crumpled can of soda. "He's dead, and evil, and a vampire, you can't just let him wonder in. Literally rule number one here, vampires equal bad."
"Right, that's why you were never with Angel for three years." Mumbles Dawn around her jello covered fingers.
"Angel was good. He had a soul."
"Except when he didn't." Says Joyce, surprising herself with the moral stance she didn't realize she was taking.
"Mom!" Buffy splutters.
"-I watched this episode of the Simpsons," Dawn starts, sucking more jello off her fingers and ignoring Buffy's outburst. "Where Bart sells his soul to Millhouse for five dollars, and he gets all sad and nothing he used to like makes him happy anymore, and then Lisa gets his soul back for him, but she says some philosophers believe that nobody is born with a soul and that you have to earn one through suffering and praying and stuff like that. Like maybe, do you think, if Spike suffered a lot, and- and wanted his soul back, do you think he could get one?"
"Spike doesn't have a soul, Dawn. He has a chip. It's not even remotely the same thing."
"But then... maybe the chip is like the whale."
"The... what?" Buffy's brow furrows trying to keep up with Dawn's train of thought.
"The whale. Jonah's whale. You know because Jonah was running around and being all not good and stuff and God sent a whale to swallow him up, and it seemed like a punishment to Jonah. But I think, maybe it was God giving him what he needed. He needed the thinking- the thing where you- where you think-"
"Contemplation." Joyce interjects.
"Right the that, so that he could come back to being good. And once he did, God let him out of the whale again. So maybe, even though, you know, he didn't ask for it, the chip is like that for Spike? So that he can think about being good. Like a whale stomach."
Buffy rolls her eyes, shaking her head at Joyce.
"You were the one who insisted on teaching her to talk." But Dawn's half philosophy half Simpsons trivia rambling meshes a little too well with the thoughts that have been circulating in her own brain.
It's true Spike isn't like any other vampire she's met. Other vampires, and actually most other demons, are blood thirsty, obviously, but also blood obsessed. As if that was all they could possibly think about at any given moment. Not just one track minded but stupid with it. Feral with it.
He's not controlled by it. There's room inside him for other thoughts. Other things.
She sighs. More messy thoughts.
"So what are you girls up to tonight?" Joyce asks, not quite expertly changing the topic. "Your last night of mom-freedom?"
"I'm staying round Janice's." Dawn starts arranging blobs of jello into a smiley face on the dinner tray.
"I thought you were staying with Xander?" Buffy asks.
"I know but Anya keeps wanting to play the Game of Life and talking loudly about Xander sex. Besides, Janice's dad is making homemade pizza. No contest."
"What about you?" Joyce turns, brushing Buffy's her back from her face. "Night out on the town with Riley?"
"Oh- uh. No, I gave him the night off."
"I don't think he thinks of you as a chore Buffy."
"I know that." Buffy flushes, not wanting to explain in detail and in front of Dawn how much she doesn't want to be around Riley right now. After last night everything feels ooky and out of sync, and this morning he'd been even more distant. And a little dazed. "Gonna squeeze in a quick patrol. Then I've got homework and studying to catch up on. Was gonna hit the books. Catch up with what I missed the last couple of weeks."
"With Willow?"
"Yep. Study is in session at the Summer house."
"Fair enough, but you know you should get some proper time to yourself? Have some fun. Why don't you get Riley to take you to a movie or something?"
"I will. Another night. He's meeting up with some ex-army-buddies or something, but he'll probably come round later for- uh..." She glances at Dawn. "Um... Bible study."
"Well... good." Smirks Joyce. "As long as the two of you are spending some quality time together... with the Lord."
"You could look up that part about Jonah and the Whale." Says Dawn through a cube of jello. Joyce laughs, and Buffy can't help herself either.
"Ok, so, we're doing World War 1, so open your textbook to page 428."
Willow moves the drinks out of the way of the textbook so Buffy can open it fully. They've settled at a table on the balcony of the bronze, spilling over with notepads and textbooks. The music of the acoustic set playing below keeps the background noise at a pleasantly mellow volume, and the chatter around them remains unobtrusive but Buffy can't help but fidget in her chair.
Willow fusses around her, checking notes to questions and underlining causes for her, but she's not paying attention.
"Alright, here, this starting paragraph here, you could use more of an example of propaganda during the first-...Buffy?"
"Hmm?" Buffy's staring down below into the dance floor. A flash of platinum blonde hair caught her eye for a second. Her stomach does a flip, contracting with a little flutter.
She takes a breath. What is wrong with me? Why does the thought of seeing him set me off like this?
"Uh... Earth to Buffy?"
"What? Oh, sorry Will. Which bit are we doing now?"
"Second question down, propoganda efforts in the US?"
"Right, Ok. Great. And... what do I have to do?"
"Just underline cause and effects on the opposite page."
"Uh huh."
"...You Ok Buffy? You seem all... somewhere else-y?"
"Oh uh sorry Will. It's the history-ness. Can't seem to focus."
"Everything alright with Riley?"
"What?" Buffy's head snaps up, suddenly. "Yeah... everything fine."
"It's just, it's a Friday night and you're here hitting the books? Shouldn't you be, I dunno, celebratin' in style?"
"No I gotta cram this in. Besides I'm meeting him afterwards for patrol."
"Didn't you already patrol?"
"Yeah but, I have to do like... a real one and then a Riley one. He get's all pouty if I go without him but he's sort of slowing me down. God that sounds so harsh. And we're even more out of sync since I got hurt."
"He just wants to help?" Willow says trying to diffuse the sourness that's starting to sting Buffy's words.
"I know." Buffy lets her gaze trails off again, sighing bitterly.
Another flash of blonde drags her eyes back to the floor below. He's there, just to the side of the bar with a beer in his hand, drinking in the shadows. The way he moves is sort of hypnotic. Slow and swaggering like he has all the time in the world. Like a panther, not necessarily predatory, but definitely something dangerous curled underneath hard muscles and harder features. Even chipped there's something mean underneath. She tracks his movements towards the back of the Bronze, watching him sidestep couples, dipping out of her line of sight as he passes underneath the stairs.
Willow, follows her gaze down but doesn't spot Spike in the crowd.
"Vampire or something?"
Or something.
"Yeah. I'll uh... I'll be right back. I'll grab snacks from the bar on my way back alright? Guard the books."
"Check. Books are guarded."
Buffy slips off her seat and heads down the metal stairs into the crowd below. There's a few couples swaying together to the music and Buffy edges around them heading for the shadows underneath the stairs. The hairs on the back of her neck have started prickling, and as she catches sight of him, leaning against the wall, his beer bottle dangling from his fingers, a lit cigarette in the other.
"Spike." She crosses her arms and sets her face into a hard scowl that feels far from genuine.
His eyes snap to hers, cold and cool and lit underneath by a burning glow. He notes the hard look in her eye, the anger simmering under the surface of a barely contained frosty attitude, and stands a little straighter against the wall.
"What's eating you, Slayer? Or have you just come to keep tabs on me?" He grins, goading her on, wanting to see that anger shift out from underneath.
"I'm not the one keeping tabs."
His brow furrows as he takes a drag of his cigarette.
"You lost me, pet."
She snaps, closes a fist around the collar of his shirt and pins him hard against the wall. He lets out a soft growl that slips all the way down her back.
"Give it me good, Buffy. It'll make you feel better." He chuckles, watching color flush in her cheeks. She bites the inside of her cheek, pushing her arm up a little into his throat. He groans and she feels the vibration of it against her wrist. "Come on, harder. You want to do it harder."
She pushes off him hard, suddenly very aware of his skin against hers, and he laughs, straightening his collar back into place.
"How about you tell me what you were doing at the hospital, Spike."
"Oh, is that what this is all about? Don't get your knickers twisted, it was just a couple of blood packs-"
"God, disgusting, and not what I'm talking about." Her nostrils flare as he takes a swig of his beer, seemingly unconcerned by the hard edge in her voice that suddenly doesn't feel as sharp as it was. "Stay away from my mother, Spike. Or we're really going to have a problem." She turns to walk away from him.
"She's doing better then?"
He calls after her and something in his voice stops her. Some note of genuine concern.
...He actually cares.
She shrugs it off with effort, and heads back up to Willow.