Dirty Back Road Sequel, Part 16
Apr. 9th, 2006 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookOkay, I'm exhausted. And if I wait until the next chapter is done, even though it's getting there, I'm worried I'll start to tinker at this some more. Which I don't want to. So, new chapter. Another long one, and only the start of the real Dawn and Buffy talks. Probably two more to go after this to wrap things up. Which I hope hope hope I can get done in one piece.
The first part of this chapter will be familiar to some - it's a slightly expanded version of a flashback I did a week or so ago as a standalone story.
Story recap:
Previously on "Does It Have to Mean Something?":
Post-"Chosen," with so many new Slayers all over the world, Buffy decides to more or less retire from being a Slayer herself and settles down in Rome to live "like a person," which in her case means just enjoying not having to fight all the time, and some quality shopping. Meanwhile, as we saw in Angel Season 5, Spike is brought back to life from the amulet in L.A., pitches in to help Angel in his fight against evil, and various events lead to "Not Fade Away," in which Angel and his crew take on the Circle of Black Thorn, the arm of the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart here on earth.
But Angel's plan was actually a bit more extensive than challenging the Senior Partners to a street fight - having been tipped off by the Black Thorn's request to have him sign away the Shanshu prophecy, Angel realizes the importance of the Shanshu to the Senior Partners, and while still CEO of Wolfram & Hart, uses the company's resources to have a spell cast on himself and Spike, essentially bonding the two mystically. Now, Angel can't be killed without also killing Spike, leaving no one to fulfill the Shanshu and Wolfram & Hart's plans for the Apocalypse. The entire demon world is forced to choose sides between the two souled vampires, as Angel and Spike play up their rivalry for all that it's worth, and try to maneuver the underworld into civil war.
Buffy and Spike meet by accident at the Pantheon (as seen in the final chapter of "Dirty Back Road"). Overjoyed that Spike is alive, Buffy spends the following week taking him out on dates, only to discover, at the end of the week, that he never planned to stay, thanks to the already in-progress world-saving plan with Angel. Plus the whole prophecy thing. And the fact that he seems to think Buffy only really thinks of him as a friend. Buffy and Spike shout at each other a lot, take a trip to another dimension in which Spike is trapped starving for several months, Angel rides to the rescue... and then everyone goes back to Buffy's apartment where Angel explains everything, Buffy and Spike shout at each other some more, sort of make up and also make out until Dawn comes home, Spike and Angel leave, and Buffy is left behind with her sister to consider what to do next.
And after talking it all out, all the previous events of the night, Buffy is seized by an impulse to fess up and tell her sister everything--her whole sordid history with Spike. But how will Dawn react?
But first, a little flashback...
Previous chapters here.
Chapter 16
__________
January 2002
She pushes the crypt door open. Quietly, which is unusual for her. No sudden bursting entrance, no aggressive display to let her captive audience know who's boss. Not this time.
It hadn't really even occurred to her, before this exact moment, that she'd been doing that. Marching into his crypt wearing the exact same attitude that she typically used when walking into Willy's bar. Heads up, demons. Slayer in the house.
Hesitant, she pauses on the threshold before stealing inside.
The upper level of the crypt is empty. Dark. She can't help but be surprised--this time of night, he's always here. Always waiting, even if he tries not to look like he is. Candles burning, TV on. A warm pool of light for her to walk into.
She drifts from shadow to shadow, through the cool stone and the blue moonlight. Between the pieces of misplaced furniture and the strewn trash on the floor. Sure sign that he hasn't lingered here, that. The places where he spends time are always tidy. Or at least comfortable. Welcoming.
She works a glove off one hand with her teeth and places the naked palm facedown on the silent TV.
Cold.
She stands still for a moment, senses stretching. Trying to tell herself that she doesn't actually feel him, that she doesn't know perfectly well that he's there.
Just not... here.
She stops pretending, and takes a deep breath. Steps to the entrance to the lower level, and descends.
He's there. On the bed, although she can barely see him in the gloom--no candles are lit in here either. The moonlight descending from above is all the light there is.
Her night vision isn't great, but... good enough. She knows the place.
She finds a candle, matches at the bedside. Stumbles as she moves because the floor is cluttered with clothes. Probably dropped them as he walked, let them fall.
Light flares with the match, and she can see him.
Asleep.
She sags on her feet. It's almost obscene, how grateful she feels. That she doesn't have to confront him immediately, doesn't have to talk. Not just for her sake, but...
She still doesn't know what she's going to say.
He looks... pretty much like she feared he would. Bruised. Split lips, puffy eyes. Misshapen look to one cheek, his browline. Swollen mess along the edge of his jaw. She lifts the candle, brings it close enough to him to get a good look, then replaces it on the bedside table, swallowing past the hard lump in her throat.
So she's seen him now. Seen what she's done, and... and he's sleeping, which is good. At home, or-or what passes for his home anyway. A cold stone gravesite with exposed roots sticking out of the walls and skeletons still in it here and there--but hey, vampire, so that's homey. Right?
She sits down on the bed. The one that they almost never use.
He doesn't even move. Not that she'd expect him to. He sleeps like...
Right. Like the dead.
Ghost of a dream image whipping through her mind, cool moonlight in her own room, her own bed, then back to this place, familiar and secret and smelling a little too much like dirt, hothardhurtslipperysex and his face staring up at her, hard planes and soft open mouth and wrists chained back, and she runs her hands along his arms because it's thrilling for her to see him like that...
Helpless.
...and then he's asleep, asleep like this, and she lifts a stake...
She reaches out a trembling hand, unconsciously echoing the dream. Lets her fingers caress along an arm, a shoulder, any part of him that's not bruised. Although most of him isn't, actually--she'd been pretty good at restricting her attack to his face. Not that she really wants to think about that, how she'd gone after him to hurt, not to kill.
Because a killing rage she could've rationalized somehow. Understood.
Killing demons was what she was supposed to do. Because they hurt people. Killed them. And enjoyed it.
People.
Why do I feel like this?
Mesmerized, she lets her fingertips ghost across his swollen lips. Shivers.
There's nothing wrong with her. That's what Tara said.
She's not a demon.
__________
October 2004
It didn't take long.
Honestly, she was surprised how not-long it took, laying out the full story of herself and Spike. Months, years of emotional agony distilled down to bare spare facts.
Every night I save you.
I just want to feel.
You came back wrong.
You can't feel anything real.
You love me.
No I don't.
I love you.
No you don't.
Exhausting, though, just like she was. Exhausted. The frantic, stressful rush of it, like the whole day and night before, and by the time she was done with it, explaining their whole poisonous history in the most basic of terms:
We saw each other. A lot. You know, patrolling and... talking, and then... some kissing. After the dancing demon thing--you remember that, right? I kissed him. After. You know. The thing where I almost burned up. A-and then... things kind of went downhill from there, and...
What was she even talking about, anyway?
It was a mystery. Why she'd even wanted to tell it anymore in the first place. It was only that she'd emerged from the bathroom needing to get it all out, sick it up, just like her breakfast. Secrets that had been inside her for so long that she'd almost forgotten that they had any power.
"Do you have anything you want to ask me?" Buffy's fingers were knotted together, strangling each other.
Dawn shook her head once. No. The curtain of her hair swung.
"Oh." This part, her sister's reaction, Buffy hadn't really planned for.
"I, uh, already knew a lot of it," Dawn said gently, and then, at Buffy's stricken expression, rushed to add: "Not the details. But, you know. The rough outline."
"Oh?" The rough outline. Buffy felt her face grow hot.
"I kind of guessed."
"Oh." Buffy said again. She felt a little more stupid each time she said it.
She unknit her fingers, recomposed her hands in her lap. Okay, so Dawn had theories. That made sense, now that she thought about it. Actually, she didn't know why she was even surprised. Dawn had lived with them, after all, along with everyone else she knew, that final year in Sunnydale. Probably all the Potentials had theories, too.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Buffy." Dawn spoke up again, suddenly. "I mean... it's been a long time."
"I know."
"And, I mean..." Dawn stared off into the distance, unfocused. "I-I kinda thought you wanted me to forget all that stuff. Even, you know, the parts I didn't know about. What with the whole he-has-a-soul-now--"
"Right," Buffy said hurriedly. "That's not why I wanted to tell you."
"Why did you?"
"I, um..." Buffy repositioned again, placed her palms facedown on the couch. And then it hit her, a shuddering sense of deja vu, hard enough to make her shiver. Right there in her quiet living room, in the glowing morning light filtering through the curtains, despite how different all that was to the way it had actually been, Buffy could still feel it. The memory of sitting on a couch totally unlike this one, on a dreary and miserable and horrible night, and pouring out her heart to Tara, poor Tara. Currently-dead-but-still-alive-then Tara. Falling to her knees and crying.
"I'm not really sure."
"This just can't be me, it isn't me."
There was a long pause, awkward.
"Okaaaay," Dawn said. She stood up, looked around as if she'd lost something. "Well, um... thanks for telling me. I mean, it's... probably good, you know, not to have--" She seemed to be groping for the right word. "--secrets."
"Right." Buffy forced a smile by way of reply. "Secrets, definitely bad."
"I'm gonna, uh, go finish up the dishes now," Dawn said, and then she practically disappeared, retreating into the kitchen so fast that she might've been pulled in there by a string.
Buffy stared after her, at the space where she'd been. The deja vu was stronger than ever--she just couldn't stop thinking about Tara. Tara who had listened to her, accepted. Understood.
And it was two years later, Rome instead of Sunndale, day instead of night, her sister instead of a friend of a friend, and she was still pouring out her heart about Spike, and wanting... what?
Forgiveness? Sympathy?
Understanding?
She got up and followed Dawn into the kitchen.
__________
January 2002
A disaster.
Buffy sipped at her drink. Sangria. Fruity and festive. An adult's drink, with alcohol, which she could handle now. In small quantities.
Yep, a disaster, she thought again, sucking harder on her straw. Not that her track record for stress-free celebrations on her birthday had ever been all that good. So actually, by that measure, this one probably wasn't all that bad.
Which was actually kind of a terrifying thought. She blew bubbles through her straw.
And it was all Spike's fault, of course. She should've been happy. Her friends were all together, and better yet, they were talking. Tara and Willow, with their heads inclined together over the stereo, a good sign. Xander and Anya, all cuddly in the big armchair. Dawn, and her own awkward blind "date" Richard right here on the couch--and okay, that was not so thrilling, but still. Normal and nice. Even Sophie and Spike's demon-friend Clem seemed to be getting along, although that was a little less with the normal and nice.
Which brought her back around to Spike himself.
Thus, the disaster.
He hadn't been seen since the gifts. Since he'd hovered in the doorway, hands clasped over his crotch, that wicked little smile on his face when he saw Willow's present.
Instant gratification, pet? Got something for your little acheys right here.
Why, why, why, her mind chanted, did he have to show up? The thought circled in her head, a tongue in a loose tooth. Why did he have to come?
Well, duh. Obvious. Because of her. Because he was trying to send a message to her, that he didn't hold a grudge about the black eye, the beating. Not that it was even likely he would. After all the beatdowns she'd given him over the years, the broken back, the wheelchair... if he could get past all that, he could probably get past anything.
Which still didn't answer what she was going to do about it. Him.
Or what she even wanted.
"What do you think, Buffy?"
"Whazza?" Startled, Buffy swiveled in her seat. Her sister was staring at her with a mildly annoyed expression, one that said you weren't even listening, were you?
Well, of course she'd been listening. "Oh, sure. That sounds great!" She flashed a dazzling smile. Mostly at Richard, who beamed back at her.
She hoped he was the one who'd been talking.
He was... a nice enough guy. Pleasant. Even if he did work in construction, which Xander seemed to have forgotten was no longer her favorite thing.
Right, nice guys. Nice guys who pretend a girl who just saved their lives is crazy. She so really was not in the mood for dealing with tender egos like that.
And it's not even like I was trying to be some kind of ball-buster or anything. Hello, not even the guy whose balls I actually do almost bust on occasion complains about that, and... oh, crap. Crap crap crap.
Her face felt hot. She sucked even harder on her straw. Tipped back the glass to get at the last dregs. And was struck in the face by a piece of booze-soaked fruit.
"Gah!" she sputtered, stumbling to her feet. The orange or apple or whatever-it-was practically stuck to her face, a mushy kiss on the lips; she tried not to too obviously spit. The fruit chunk fell back into the glass with a wet plop.
"You okay?" Richard said, squinting up at her.
"I'm fine." She wiped her mouth, offered him a sticky grin. "I'm... just gonna get some water. Be right back." She stumbled toward the kitchen.
Spike was there. An unexpected black shape in the corner, like a spider. The sight of him brought her up so short that her heels skidded on the tiles.
"What are you doing in here?" The exclamation was out of her before she could help it.
He looked around. He seemed to have been staring out the window, one hip boosted up on the counter. One hand in his coat pocket, the other wrapped around a bottle of beer.
"Taking a breather," he said. "The vapors of chummy togetherness were getting a little thick in there for me." He took a drink from his beer.
Her stomach flip-flopped. Chummy togetherness. "You don't breathe."
"Well, yeah, you caught me. I've been getting up to all sorts of mischief in the spice drawer."
She almost laughed at that, but crossed to the sink instead. Tried not to notice his eyes on her as she washed the gummy fruit juice from her face, blotted with a towel. The weight of his gaze prickled on the back of her neck.
"Let me know when you want your present," he murmured, leaning into her ear.
She closed her eyes momentarily, bathed in the electricity humming between them like a live wire.
It's not him, she told herself. It's just the sex. It's not even that great. Or... okay, it is that great. But that's only because... it's forbidden. Risky.
And that's why she still couldn't tell anybody. Not that she--
God, did she want to? Was she really thinking about it?
Risky. His mouth on hers, kissing. Her friends only a few feet away, singing, oblivious. In the Bronze, where anyone could have seen them, anyone. His fingers on her clit through her jeans pocket right here in this kitchen, and--oh, god--right in front of Xander, when she was still invisible, her legs thrown over Spike's shoulders and him inside her deep...
That was it, though, wasn't it? The danger. It was just that she wasn't used to hiding things from her friends and family, lying to them, sneaking. It was exciting because it was new, because it was... a novelty.
Okay, except for the Slayer thing. And--oh god.
Angel.
Oh god.
"I don't--" she blurted, her eyes snapping open, unsure even as the babbling words came out what she intended to say. "I don't want you lurking in here."
He lifted an eyebrow.
"I'm serious." She turned to face him. Eye to eye and mouth to mouth, and yes, she could do this. She could be this close to him and not kiss, or want to. Because risk wasn't always so sexy. Or secrets. "You could scare people."
"People." he repeated, small amused smile on his face. Just open-mouthed enough for her to see his eyeteeth, which did indeed look like little vampire fangs. Even when he was in human face. "I don't think that pal of yours from the burger place has the courage to come in here alone."
"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."
"Oh, your handsome swain, you mean? Don't want me to scare him." He lifted a finger to her hair, lifted her bangs off her forehead, a feather-light touch that made her want to shudder.
She ignored him. She could do that.
"You should... come out," she heard herself saying. "Into the other room. With us."
He lifted the other eyebrow. "Us."
"Like I told you. I just... don't want you lurking."
He pursed his lips, as if considering, and her heartrate increased. Arousal nudging at the edges of her awareness.
Party on, Buffy, a traitorous voice inside her whispered. It's your birthday.
"Alright," he agreed, and ran one finger down the length of her arm. "Whatever the birthday girl wants."
__________
October 2004
"You okay?" Buffy paused in the kitchen doorway, leaned against the jamb.
"I'm fine." Dawn's back was to the door; she was filling the sink with water.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Dawn shut off the water, added a squirt of liquid soap. "No. I mean, I told you. I don't really know what there is to talk about." She rummaged through the water, fished out a glass, started twisting a sponge into it.
"Do you hate me?"
Dawn halted. Like a clockwork winding down, her movements slowed, stopped. Soap bubbles popped in the water in the ensuing silence.
"What?" she whispered.
"Do you hate--" Buffy began to repeat, but before she could even finish, Dawn was spinning around.
"Why would you even think that?" She threw the glass in her hand back into the water behind her; it sent up a geysering splash, like a bomb.
Buffy shrugged, too tired to really feel the drama. "Because I'm not proud of a lot of that story."
"Well, you don't need me to tell you that, do you?"
"No, I don't. But I still--"
"I really can't believe you sometimes," Dawn said. "You know that? You tell me all this two years later, and your first thought is that I'll hate you?"
Buffy closed her eyes. "Look. It's--"
"Don't say it's complicated."
"I wasn't going to." Buffy thought fast. "I-I was gonna say confusing." And you didn't answer my question, her mind added silently.
Dawn snorted. "Why not ask if I hate him? 'Cause, you know, that would make a little more sense."
"I already asked you that."
"Yeah, before you told me anything."
"Well, do you?"
Dawn whirled around again, faced the sink. "No. I don't... I don't hate either one of you, okay? I-I told you I'm getting used to--"
"I know it's hard."
"No you don't!" Dawn hung her head. She leaned against the counter with soapy, dripping hands. "I can't talk about this anymore."
Buffy bit her lip and nodded, even though she knew Dawn couldn't see her.
Because she really did get it, now. Now that the whole thing was open, laid out for an outside observer. It wasn't easy to understand. She wasn't sure at all she could even explain it to herself. Even now.
Maybe that's why she'd needed to tell it.
"You're right," she agreed. "We're both tired. Maybe we should just go to bed. Do this in the morning."
Dawn glanced at the window. The sun was already streaming in.
"Or later, whatever," Buffy amended.
"Dishes."
"I'll do 'em. You go on." With a hand on Dawn's elbow, Buffy steered her sister toward the door. Dawn was practically limp, let herself be moved around. She kept walking in a straight line even after Buffy let her go, down the hallway and directly to her own room into which she disappeared and shut the door.
Buffy turned back to the dishes. Plunged her hands into the water, sudsed and rinsed and cleaned. Wondered in a vague sort of way how anything was still dirty, since hadn't Dawn already done the washing up earlier in the evening? Was she actually rewashing things that were clean?
She finished up anyway, turned off the overhead light. Blinked in surprise when it didn't make any difference until she realized that the room was flooded with early-morning sun.
Golden.
__________
Hurrying to her own bedroom, still anxious and frantic for reasons she couldn't yet name, Buffy couldn't help but notice a change in the air. Like the calm after a storm. The entire apartment felt different, like an empty stage for drama. Abandoned.
Spike and Angel both lingered. She could still feel their presences in the room, like ghosts.
She pushed through the rustling memories, down the hall to her room.
Inviolate. Drama-free. No lover had ever been invited here, not even Romeo. They'd never gotten past the living room and the kitchen, laughing through the occasional bottle of wine and chocolate-dipped strawberry, and then.... well, that teensy little misunderstanding about which nights of the week Dawn would be home.
She climbed into bed, stripped off her clothes almost as an afterthought and lay there, face up, her hands folded across her chest. The sun streaming in through the thin gauzy curtains dazzled her eyes.
It ocurrred to her for the first time that the whole apartment had an eastern exposure. Not a vampire-friendly place at all.
Angel had come to her room in Sunnydale. Like a fairytale prince.
He'd climbed the trellis. Night after night. Stolen in for yearning kisses, hushed talks. Even when he wasn't there, he was there.
She shut her eyes.
Spike had never been in her room at all. Except to steal things. To deliver tense messages from the door.
In her dreams.
A red glow was still visible behind her eyes. Too much sun, too late. She had time to wonder how she would ever be able to calm down enough to rest before sleep rose up to greet her. Like a suffocating hand.
__________
Water.
Underwater.
Light from above. Buffy rolled in the depths. Warmth on her skin from the light above, she swam effortlessly upward in liquid suspension. Broke through the surface to where it was even brighter, to where the sun's rays were beating down on the water's churning surface, a fresh wind kicking up waves.
It was better up here.
She shook her long hair, sending droplets flying, heaved her slim body up onto a jutting rock. It was the only solid land visible in an unending ocean. Which was no problem, of course, because she was a mermaid.
Buffy kicked her legs, wiggled her toes. Okay, no tail, granted, but she was a mermaid all the same. She knew it. Being a mermaid was more a mental thing, anyway. A fish state of mind.
The rock was bathed in light. Brilliant-bright, warm, hot like it never was in the deep, deep water. The sun beamed down on her with an almost physical weight.
"Go away," she told Spike. His head in the water, peeping up to look at her, seal-sleek.
He didn't answer, but she could feel the pressure of his reply. Inside her head. Yeah, you say it, but you know you don't want me to go, baby. You called me.
"I like it up here," she insisted. "Stop following me."
He grinned. Latched strong fingers onto the rock and started to climb.
She shied away. He was wet, dripping, and she was almost dry.
"Go home!" she shouted. "I don't want you here!"
He vanished. No transition, no puff of smoke, just not there. Buffy had enough time to blink and to frown, and to notice that the sun was sinking in the sky like a big orange fireball, and that the air was getting cold.
And come to think of it, there were supposed to be other people here too, weren't there? She couldn't remember.
"You can come out now," she called out, but it felt like too late.
The sun had gone down.
She flung herself off the rock, swam back down into the ocean. Down to the floor, where the deep cold was. Someone should be there. There were always people there.
She spotted a tunnel.
Swam through it. Until the water dried up, slowed down to a trickle, and then she had to crawl. The tunnel turned into a damp tube, a pipe made out of brick, like a drain, tighter and tighter until she finally emerged, gasping, on her hands and knees.
A dark place with stale air. A furnished room.
A basement. She stood. It was half-empty, a concrete box, with all the furnishings piled up in one corner. Bookshelves along the wall, weapons on hooks. A desk, cramped and near-buried, piled with papers. An awkwardly placed leather couch. Shag rug. Ugh. Ugly.
"I don't care what you want to call it, it's the results I'm interested in, not an encounter group." And all of a sudden, she noticed Angel was there, pacing behind the desk, a phone to his ear.
"Angel?" Buffy was suddenly self-conscious. She was muddy and dirty and--oops--naked, why had she not noticed that before? "Do you, uh, have a towel or something?"
She was dripping on his carpet.
He made an impatient gesture. Wait. Apparently, not too concerned with her nude problem. "Well, of course I want it in time for world domination," he barked into the phone. "I'm on a schedule here."
Buffy hesitated. She'd remembered why she was there, sort of, but wondered if she she should really mention Spike in front of Angel. He probably wouldn't like it.
No, wait--of course he wouldn't like it. What was she thinking?
"Do you mind?" Angel covered the receiver with one hand, as if she'd spoken. "This is an important call."
"Okay." She turned away, faux-causal, and pretended to study the weapons on the walls. Rearranged her hair, without being too obvious about it. That would be tacky.
There were pictures too, hanging next to the weapons. She followed them with her eyes, faded portraits of old men, lower and lower on the wall until she found herself stooping, head nearly at floor level.
There were also diplomas. Flowery scrollwork in frames, in a line along the baseboard. Veni, Vidi, Vici, read one, a postage-stamp-sized document that would've looked right at home in a furnished mousehole. Memento Mori, said the next.
There were more. Smaller. Illegible.
"Those aren't mine," Angel spoke harshly, addressing her upturned ass, and then he turned back to the recieiver, "Can you get it in that color or not?"
The photos were fascinating. They got smaller and smaller too as they got closer to the floor, so Buffy got back down on her hands and knees. Followed the line of ornate frames out into the hallway, where the air was dark and somehow thick--it dragged against her limbs, resistant, like gelatin. Surrounded by pictures, squeezed into another small space, she extended one hand and tried to break through the membrane with her fingertips, sharp nails poking at the unseen.
"You won't find anything that way."
Spike's voice. At last. She felt everything in her relax.
"What are you doing here?" she asked irritably. She couldn't even see him. Knew he was there, but she couldn't lift her head, the hallway had gotten so small, so tight. She kept stabbing her fingers forward into the invisible barrier instead, trying and trying--why wouldn't it let go? "Aren't you going to help me?"
"I am." Click of a cigarette lighter, the sharp smell of smoke.
"Don't do that." She wrinkled her nose.
"Stop me."
She struggled against the confining walls. Air pressing in on her, suffocating. She couldn't breathe. "I can't get out," she admitted.
"Yes, you can."
"I can't!" She let out a long sob. "You never believe me."
"Well, you do say a lot of things."
Then the room was turning, spinning in nauseating, swooping turns. And then she was stumbling forward, the dark hallway around her blurring into a forest. No, wait--a cemetery. Headstones all around, sticking up from the ground like discolored jagged teeth. High on a bluff. Fresh smell of the sea in the air.
Oh. The same cemetery where she'd crawled out of a grave with Dawn. Except her own gravestone was there right in front of her this time. Mocking. She saved the world a lot.
"Home again, home again." Spike said.
She stood. He was right there this time, standing beside her the way he used to. Cool smooth blackness, leather coat like a wall. His head almost floating above the darkness, pale as the moon.
Raspy sound of him putting the cigarette to his lips, a long inhale.
She inhaled the sea air, banished the memory of rotting-sweet-sick-dust-dirt-decay.
Not her home at all. She wasn't in love with it. Not anymore. "I'm... looking for a new place."
"I know what you mean," he said, and pointed two fingers, the cigarette clamped between them like a third finger of jutting bone. "It's a misery when you don't know where you belong anymore. When the monument doesn't match. Assuming there even is one." He let his hand fall.
She furrowed her brow. Concerned, suddenly. Worried. "Where--"
And then she woke up.
The first part of this chapter will be familiar to some - it's a slightly expanded version of a flashback I did a week or so ago as a standalone story.
Story recap:
Previously on "Does It Have to Mean Something?":
Post-"Chosen," with so many new Slayers all over the world, Buffy decides to more or less retire from being a Slayer herself and settles down in Rome to live "like a person," which in her case means just enjoying not having to fight all the time, and some quality shopping. Meanwhile, as we saw in Angel Season 5, Spike is brought back to life from the amulet in L.A., pitches in to help Angel in his fight against evil, and various events lead to "Not Fade Away," in which Angel and his crew take on the Circle of Black Thorn, the arm of the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart here on earth.
But Angel's plan was actually a bit more extensive than challenging the Senior Partners to a street fight - having been tipped off by the Black Thorn's request to have him sign away the Shanshu prophecy, Angel realizes the importance of the Shanshu to the Senior Partners, and while still CEO of Wolfram & Hart, uses the company's resources to have a spell cast on himself and Spike, essentially bonding the two mystically. Now, Angel can't be killed without also killing Spike, leaving no one to fulfill the Shanshu and Wolfram & Hart's plans for the Apocalypse. The entire demon world is forced to choose sides between the two souled vampires, as Angel and Spike play up their rivalry for all that it's worth, and try to maneuver the underworld into civil war.
Buffy and Spike meet by accident at the Pantheon (as seen in the final chapter of "Dirty Back Road"). Overjoyed that Spike is alive, Buffy spends the following week taking him out on dates, only to discover, at the end of the week, that he never planned to stay, thanks to the already in-progress world-saving plan with Angel. Plus the whole prophecy thing. And the fact that he seems to think Buffy only really thinks of him as a friend. Buffy and Spike shout at each other a lot, take a trip to another dimension in which Spike is trapped starving for several months, Angel rides to the rescue... and then everyone goes back to Buffy's apartment where Angel explains everything, Buffy and Spike shout at each other some more, sort of make up and also make out until Dawn comes home, Spike and Angel leave, and Buffy is left behind with her sister to consider what to do next.
And after talking it all out, all the previous events of the night, Buffy is seized by an impulse to fess up and tell her sister everything--her whole sordid history with Spike. But how will Dawn react?
But first, a little flashback...
Previous chapters here.
Chapter 16
__________
January 2002
She pushes the crypt door open. Quietly, which is unusual for her. No sudden bursting entrance, no aggressive display to let her captive audience know who's boss. Not this time.
It hadn't really even occurred to her, before this exact moment, that she'd been doing that. Marching into his crypt wearing the exact same attitude that she typically used when walking into Willy's bar. Heads up, demons. Slayer in the house.
Hesitant, she pauses on the threshold before stealing inside.
The upper level of the crypt is empty. Dark. She can't help but be surprised--this time of night, he's always here. Always waiting, even if he tries not to look like he is. Candles burning, TV on. A warm pool of light for her to walk into.
She drifts from shadow to shadow, through the cool stone and the blue moonlight. Between the pieces of misplaced furniture and the strewn trash on the floor. Sure sign that he hasn't lingered here, that. The places where he spends time are always tidy. Or at least comfortable. Welcoming.
She works a glove off one hand with her teeth and places the naked palm facedown on the silent TV.
Cold.
She stands still for a moment, senses stretching. Trying to tell herself that she doesn't actually feel him, that she doesn't know perfectly well that he's there.
Just not... here.
She stops pretending, and takes a deep breath. Steps to the entrance to the lower level, and descends.
He's there. On the bed, although she can barely see him in the gloom--no candles are lit in here either. The moonlight descending from above is all the light there is.
Her night vision isn't great, but... good enough. She knows the place.
She finds a candle, matches at the bedside. Stumbles as she moves because the floor is cluttered with clothes. Probably dropped them as he walked, let them fall.
Light flares with the match, and she can see him.
Asleep.
She sags on her feet. It's almost obscene, how grateful she feels. That she doesn't have to confront him immediately, doesn't have to talk. Not just for her sake, but...
She still doesn't know what she's going to say.
He looks... pretty much like she feared he would. Bruised. Split lips, puffy eyes. Misshapen look to one cheek, his browline. Swollen mess along the edge of his jaw. She lifts the candle, brings it close enough to him to get a good look, then replaces it on the bedside table, swallowing past the hard lump in her throat.
So she's seen him now. Seen what she's done, and... and he's sleeping, which is good. At home, or-or what passes for his home anyway. A cold stone gravesite with exposed roots sticking out of the walls and skeletons still in it here and there--but hey, vampire, so that's homey. Right?
She sits down on the bed. The one that they almost never use.
He doesn't even move. Not that she'd expect him to. He sleeps like...
Right. Like the dead.
Ghost of a dream image whipping through her mind, cool moonlight in her own room, her own bed, then back to this place, familiar and secret and smelling a little too much like dirt, hothardhurtslipperysex and his face staring up at her, hard planes and soft open mouth and wrists chained back, and she runs her hands along his arms because it's thrilling for her to see him like that...
Helpless.
...and then he's asleep, asleep like this, and she lifts a stake...
She reaches out a trembling hand, unconsciously echoing the dream. Lets her fingers caress along an arm, a shoulder, any part of him that's not bruised. Although most of him isn't, actually--she'd been pretty good at restricting her attack to his face. Not that she really wants to think about that, how she'd gone after him to hurt, not to kill.
Because a killing rage she could've rationalized somehow. Understood.
Killing demons was what she was supposed to do. Because they hurt people. Killed them. And enjoyed it.
People.
Why do I feel like this?
Mesmerized, she lets her fingertips ghost across his swollen lips. Shivers.
There's nothing wrong with her. That's what Tara said.
She's not a demon.
__________
October 2004
It didn't take long.
Honestly, she was surprised how not-long it took, laying out the full story of herself and Spike. Months, years of emotional agony distilled down to bare spare facts.
Every night I save you.
I just want to feel.
You came back wrong.
You can't feel anything real.
You love me.
No I don't.
I love you.
No you don't.
Exhausting, though, just like she was. Exhausted. The frantic, stressful rush of it, like the whole day and night before, and by the time she was done with it, explaining their whole poisonous history in the most basic of terms:
We saw each other. A lot. You know, patrolling and... talking, and then... some kissing. After the dancing demon thing--you remember that, right? I kissed him. After. You know. The thing where I almost burned up. A-and then... things kind of went downhill from there, and...
What was she even talking about, anyway?
It was a mystery. Why she'd even wanted to tell it anymore in the first place. It was only that she'd emerged from the bathroom needing to get it all out, sick it up, just like her breakfast. Secrets that had been inside her for so long that she'd almost forgotten that they had any power.
"Do you have anything you want to ask me?" Buffy's fingers were knotted together, strangling each other.
Dawn shook her head once. No. The curtain of her hair swung.
"Oh." This part, her sister's reaction, Buffy hadn't really planned for.
"I, uh, already knew a lot of it," Dawn said gently, and then, at Buffy's stricken expression, rushed to add: "Not the details. But, you know. The rough outline."
"Oh?" The rough outline. Buffy felt her face grow hot.
"I kind of guessed."
"Oh." Buffy said again. She felt a little more stupid each time she said it.
She unknit her fingers, recomposed her hands in her lap. Okay, so Dawn had theories. That made sense, now that she thought about it. Actually, she didn't know why she was even surprised. Dawn had lived with them, after all, along with everyone else she knew, that final year in Sunnydale. Probably all the Potentials had theories, too.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Buffy." Dawn spoke up again, suddenly. "I mean... it's been a long time."
"I know."
"And, I mean..." Dawn stared off into the distance, unfocused. "I-I kinda thought you wanted me to forget all that stuff. Even, you know, the parts I didn't know about. What with the whole he-has-a-soul-now--"
"Right," Buffy said hurriedly. "That's not why I wanted to tell you."
"Why did you?"
"I, um..." Buffy repositioned again, placed her palms facedown on the couch. And then it hit her, a shuddering sense of deja vu, hard enough to make her shiver. Right there in her quiet living room, in the glowing morning light filtering through the curtains, despite how different all that was to the way it had actually been, Buffy could still feel it. The memory of sitting on a couch totally unlike this one, on a dreary and miserable and horrible night, and pouring out her heart to Tara, poor Tara. Currently-dead-but-still-alive-then Tara. Falling to her knees and crying.
"I'm not really sure."
"This just can't be me, it isn't me."
There was a long pause, awkward.
"Okaaaay," Dawn said. She stood up, looked around as if she'd lost something. "Well, um... thanks for telling me. I mean, it's... probably good, you know, not to have--" She seemed to be groping for the right word. "--secrets."
"Right." Buffy forced a smile by way of reply. "Secrets, definitely bad."
"I'm gonna, uh, go finish up the dishes now," Dawn said, and then she practically disappeared, retreating into the kitchen so fast that she might've been pulled in there by a string.
Buffy stared after her, at the space where she'd been. The deja vu was stronger than ever--she just couldn't stop thinking about Tara. Tara who had listened to her, accepted. Understood.
And it was two years later, Rome instead of Sunndale, day instead of night, her sister instead of a friend of a friend, and she was still pouring out her heart about Spike, and wanting... what?
Forgiveness? Sympathy?
Understanding?
She got up and followed Dawn into the kitchen.
__________
January 2002
A disaster.
Buffy sipped at her drink. Sangria. Fruity and festive. An adult's drink, with alcohol, which she could handle now. In small quantities.
Yep, a disaster, she thought again, sucking harder on her straw. Not that her track record for stress-free celebrations on her birthday had ever been all that good. So actually, by that measure, this one probably wasn't all that bad.
Which was actually kind of a terrifying thought. She blew bubbles through her straw.
And it was all Spike's fault, of course. She should've been happy. Her friends were all together, and better yet, they were talking. Tara and Willow, with their heads inclined together over the stereo, a good sign. Xander and Anya, all cuddly in the big armchair. Dawn, and her own awkward blind "date" Richard right here on the couch--and okay, that was not so thrilling, but still. Normal and nice. Even Sophie and Spike's demon-friend Clem seemed to be getting along, although that was a little less with the normal and nice.
Which brought her back around to Spike himself.
Thus, the disaster.
He hadn't been seen since the gifts. Since he'd hovered in the doorway, hands clasped over his crotch, that wicked little smile on his face when he saw Willow's present.
Instant gratification, pet? Got something for your little acheys right here.
Why, why, why, her mind chanted, did he have to show up? The thought circled in her head, a tongue in a loose tooth. Why did he have to come?
Well, duh. Obvious. Because of her. Because he was trying to send a message to her, that he didn't hold a grudge about the black eye, the beating. Not that it was even likely he would. After all the beatdowns she'd given him over the years, the broken back, the wheelchair... if he could get past all that, he could probably get past anything.
Which still didn't answer what she was going to do about it. Him.
Or what she even wanted.
"What do you think, Buffy?"
"Whazza?" Startled, Buffy swiveled in her seat. Her sister was staring at her with a mildly annoyed expression, one that said you weren't even listening, were you?
Well, of course she'd been listening. "Oh, sure. That sounds great!" She flashed a dazzling smile. Mostly at Richard, who beamed back at her.
She hoped he was the one who'd been talking.
He was... a nice enough guy. Pleasant. Even if he did work in construction, which Xander seemed to have forgotten was no longer her favorite thing.
Right, nice guys. Nice guys who pretend a girl who just saved their lives is crazy. She so really was not in the mood for dealing with tender egos like that.
And it's not even like I was trying to be some kind of ball-buster or anything. Hello, not even the guy whose balls I actually do almost bust on occasion complains about that, and... oh, crap. Crap crap crap.
Her face felt hot. She sucked even harder on her straw. Tipped back the glass to get at the last dregs. And was struck in the face by a piece of booze-soaked fruit.
"Gah!" she sputtered, stumbling to her feet. The orange or apple or whatever-it-was practically stuck to her face, a mushy kiss on the lips; she tried not to too obviously spit. The fruit chunk fell back into the glass with a wet plop.
"You okay?" Richard said, squinting up at her.
"I'm fine." She wiped her mouth, offered him a sticky grin. "I'm... just gonna get some water. Be right back." She stumbled toward the kitchen.
Spike was there. An unexpected black shape in the corner, like a spider. The sight of him brought her up so short that her heels skidded on the tiles.
"What are you doing in here?" The exclamation was out of her before she could help it.
He looked around. He seemed to have been staring out the window, one hip boosted up on the counter. One hand in his coat pocket, the other wrapped around a bottle of beer.
"Taking a breather," he said. "The vapors of chummy togetherness were getting a little thick in there for me." He took a drink from his beer.
Her stomach flip-flopped. Chummy togetherness. "You don't breathe."
"Well, yeah, you caught me. I've been getting up to all sorts of mischief in the spice drawer."
She almost laughed at that, but crossed to the sink instead. Tried not to notice his eyes on her as she washed the gummy fruit juice from her face, blotted with a towel. The weight of his gaze prickled on the back of her neck.
"Let me know when you want your present," he murmured, leaning into her ear.
She closed her eyes momentarily, bathed in the electricity humming between them like a live wire.
It's not him, she told herself. It's just the sex. It's not even that great. Or... okay, it is that great. But that's only because... it's forbidden. Risky.
And that's why she still couldn't tell anybody. Not that she--
God, did she want to? Was she really thinking about it?
Risky. His mouth on hers, kissing. Her friends only a few feet away, singing, oblivious. In the Bronze, where anyone could have seen them, anyone. His fingers on her clit through her jeans pocket right here in this kitchen, and--oh, god--right in front of Xander, when she was still invisible, her legs thrown over Spike's shoulders and him inside her deep...
That was it, though, wasn't it? The danger. It was just that she wasn't used to hiding things from her friends and family, lying to them, sneaking. It was exciting because it was new, because it was... a novelty.
Okay, except for the Slayer thing. And--oh god.
Angel.
Oh god.
"I don't--" she blurted, her eyes snapping open, unsure even as the babbling words came out what she intended to say. "I don't want you lurking in here."
He lifted an eyebrow.
"I'm serious." She turned to face him. Eye to eye and mouth to mouth, and yes, she could do this. She could be this close to him and not kiss, or want to. Because risk wasn't always so sexy. Or secrets. "You could scare people."
"People." he repeated, small amused smile on his face. Just open-mouthed enough for her to see his eyeteeth, which did indeed look like little vampire fangs. Even when he was in human face. "I don't think that pal of yours from the burger place has the courage to come in here alone."
"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."
"Oh, your handsome swain, you mean? Don't want me to scare him." He lifted a finger to her hair, lifted her bangs off her forehead, a feather-light touch that made her want to shudder.
She ignored him. She could do that.
"You should... come out," she heard herself saying. "Into the other room. With us."
He lifted the other eyebrow. "Us."
"Like I told you. I just... don't want you lurking."
He pursed his lips, as if considering, and her heartrate increased. Arousal nudging at the edges of her awareness.
Party on, Buffy, a traitorous voice inside her whispered. It's your birthday.
"Alright," he agreed, and ran one finger down the length of her arm. "Whatever the birthday girl wants."
__________
October 2004
"You okay?" Buffy paused in the kitchen doorway, leaned against the jamb.
"I'm fine." Dawn's back was to the door; she was filling the sink with water.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Dawn shut off the water, added a squirt of liquid soap. "No. I mean, I told you. I don't really know what there is to talk about." She rummaged through the water, fished out a glass, started twisting a sponge into it.
"Do you hate me?"
Dawn halted. Like a clockwork winding down, her movements slowed, stopped. Soap bubbles popped in the water in the ensuing silence.
"What?" she whispered.
"Do you hate--" Buffy began to repeat, but before she could even finish, Dawn was spinning around.
"Why would you even think that?" She threw the glass in her hand back into the water behind her; it sent up a geysering splash, like a bomb.
Buffy shrugged, too tired to really feel the drama. "Because I'm not proud of a lot of that story."
"Well, you don't need me to tell you that, do you?"
"No, I don't. But I still--"
"I really can't believe you sometimes," Dawn said. "You know that? You tell me all this two years later, and your first thought is that I'll hate you?"
Buffy closed her eyes. "Look. It's--"
"Don't say it's complicated."
"I wasn't going to." Buffy thought fast. "I-I was gonna say confusing." And you didn't answer my question, her mind added silently.
Dawn snorted. "Why not ask if I hate him? 'Cause, you know, that would make a little more sense."
"I already asked you that."
"Yeah, before you told me anything."
"Well, do you?"
Dawn whirled around again, faced the sink. "No. I don't... I don't hate either one of you, okay? I-I told you I'm getting used to--"
"I know it's hard."
"No you don't!" Dawn hung her head. She leaned against the counter with soapy, dripping hands. "I can't talk about this anymore."
Buffy bit her lip and nodded, even though she knew Dawn couldn't see her.
Because she really did get it, now. Now that the whole thing was open, laid out for an outside observer. It wasn't easy to understand. She wasn't sure at all she could even explain it to herself. Even now.
Maybe that's why she'd needed to tell it.
"You're right," she agreed. "We're both tired. Maybe we should just go to bed. Do this in the morning."
Dawn glanced at the window. The sun was already streaming in.
"Or later, whatever," Buffy amended.
"Dishes."
"I'll do 'em. You go on." With a hand on Dawn's elbow, Buffy steered her sister toward the door. Dawn was practically limp, let herself be moved around. She kept walking in a straight line even after Buffy let her go, down the hallway and directly to her own room into which she disappeared and shut the door.
Buffy turned back to the dishes. Plunged her hands into the water, sudsed and rinsed and cleaned. Wondered in a vague sort of way how anything was still dirty, since hadn't Dawn already done the washing up earlier in the evening? Was she actually rewashing things that were clean?
She finished up anyway, turned off the overhead light. Blinked in surprise when it didn't make any difference until she realized that the room was flooded with early-morning sun.
Golden.
__________
Hurrying to her own bedroom, still anxious and frantic for reasons she couldn't yet name, Buffy couldn't help but notice a change in the air. Like the calm after a storm. The entire apartment felt different, like an empty stage for drama. Abandoned.
Spike and Angel both lingered. She could still feel their presences in the room, like ghosts.
She pushed through the rustling memories, down the hall to her room.
Inviolate. Drama-free. No lover had ever been invited here, not even Romeo. They'd never gotten past the living room and the kitchen, laughing through the occasional bottle of wine and chocolate-dipped strawberry, and then.... well, that teensy little misunderstanding about which nights of the week Dawn would be home.
She climbed into bed, stripped off her clothes almost as an afterthought and lay there, face up, her hands folded across her chest. The sun streaming in through the thin gauzy curtains dazzled her eyes.
It ocurrred to her for the first time that the whole apartment had an eastern exposure. Not a vampire-friendly place at all.
Angel had come to her room in Sunnydale. Like a fairytale prince.
He'd climbed the trellis. Night after night. Stolen in for yearning kisses, hushed talks. Even when he wasn't there, he was there.
She shut her eyes.
Spike had never been in her room at all. Except to steal things. To deliver tense messages from the door.
In her dreams.
A red glow was still visible behind her eyes. Too much sun, too late. She had time to wonder how she would ever be able to calm down enough to rest before sleep rose up to greet her. Like a suffocating hand.
__________
Water.
Underwater.
Light from above. Buffy rolled in the depths. Warmth on her skin from the light above, she swam effortlessly upward in liquid suspension. Broke through the surface to where it was even brighter, to where the sun's rays were beating down on the water's churning surface, a fresh wind kicking up waves.
It was better up here.
She shook her long hair, sending droplets flying, heaved her slim body up onto a jutting rock. It was the only solid land visible in an unending ocean. Which was no problem, of course, because she was a mermaid.
Buffy kicked her legs, wiggled her toes. Okay, no tail, granted, but she was a mermaid all the same. She knew it. Being a mermaid was more a mental thing, anyway. A fish state of mind.
The rock was bathed in light. Brilliant-bright, warm, hot like it never was in the deep, deep water. The sun beamed down on her with an almost physical weight.
"Go away," she told Spike. His head in the water, peeping up to look at her, seal-sleek.
He didn't answer, but she could feel the pressure of his reply. Inside her head. Yeah, you say it, but you know you don't want me to go, baby. You called me.
"I like it up here," she insisted. "Stop following me."
He grinned. Latched strong fingers onto the rock and started to climb.
She shied away. He was wet, dripping, and she was almost dry.
"Go home!" she shouted. "I don't want you here!"
He vanished. No transition, no puff of smoke, just not there. Buffy had enough time to blink and to frown, and to notice that the sun was sinking in the sky like a big orange fireball, and that the air was getting cold.
And come to think of it, there were supposed to be other people here too, weren't there? She couldn't remember.
"You can come out now," she called out, but it felt like too late.
The sun had gone down.
She flung herself off the rock, swam back down into the ocean. Down to the floor, where the deep cold was. Someone should be there. There were always people there.
She spotted a tunnel.
Swam through it. Until the water dried up, slowed down to a trickle, and then she had to crawl. The tunnel turned into a damp tube, a pipe made out of brick, like a drain, tighter and tighter until she finally emerged, gasping, on her hands and knees.
A dark place with stale air. A furnished room.
A basement. She stood. It was half-empty, a concrete box, with all the furnishings piled up in one corner. Bookshelves along the wall, weapons on hooks. A desk, cramped and near-buried, piled with papers. An awkwardly placed leather couch. Shag rug. Ugh. Ugly.
"I don't care what you want to call it, it's the results I'm interested in, not an encounter group." And all of a sudden, she noticed Angel was there, pacing behind the desk, a phone to his ear.
"Angel?" Buffy was suddenly self-conscious. She was muddy and dirty and--oops--naked, why had she not noticed that before? "Do you, uh, have a towel or something?"
She was dripping on his carpet.
He made an impatient gesture. Wait. Apparently, not too concerned with her nude problem. "Well, of course I want it in time for world domination," he barked into the phone. "I'm on a schedule here."
Buffy hesitated. She'd remembered why she was there, sort of, but wondered if she she should really mention Spike in front of Angel. He probably wouldn't like it.
No, wait--of course he wouldn't like it. What was she thinking?
"Do you mind?" Angel covered the receiver with one hand, as if she'd spoken. "This is an important call."
"Okay." She turned away, faux-causal, and pretended to study the weapons on the walls. Rearranged her hair, without being too obvious about it. That would be tacky.
There were pictures too, hanging next to the weapons. She followed them with her eyes, faded portraits of old men, lower and lower on the wall until she found herself stooping, head nearly at floor level.
There were also diplomas. Flowery scrollwork in frames, in a line along the baseboard. Veni, Vidi, Vici, read one, a postage-stamp-sized document that would've looked right at home in a furnished mousehole. Memento Mori, said the next.
There were more. Smaller. Illegible.
"Those aren't mine," Angel spoke harshly, addressing her upturned ass, and then he turned back to the recieiver, "Can you get it in that color or not?"
The photos were fascinating. They got smaller and smaller too as they got closer to the floor, so Buffy got back down on her hands and knees. Followed the line of ornate frames out into the hallway, where the air was dark and somehow thick--it dragged against her limbs, resistant, like gelatin. Surrounded by pictures, squeezed into another small space, she extended one hand and tried to break through the membrane with her fingertips, sharp nails poking at the unseen.
"You won't find anything that way."
Spike's voice. At last. She felt everything in her relax.
"What are you doing here?" she asked irritably. She couldn't even see him. Knew he was there, but she couldn't lift her head, the hallway had gotten so small, so tight. She kept stabbing her fingers forward into the invisible barrier instead, trying and trying--why wouldn't it let go? "Aren't you going to help me?"
"I am." Click of a cigarette lighter, the sharp smell of smoke.
"Don't do that." She wrinkled her nose.
"Stop me."
She struggled against the confining walls. Air pressing in on her, suffocating. She couldn't breathe. "I can't get out," she admitted.
"Yes, you can."
"I can't!" She let out a long sob. "You never believe me."
"Well, you do say a lot of things."
Then the room was turning, spinning in nauseating, swooping turns. And then she was stumbling forward, the dark hallway around her blurring into a forest. No, wait--a cemetery. Headstones all around, sticking up from the ground like discolored jagged teeth. High on a bluff. Fresh smell of the sea in the air.
Oh. The same cemetery where she'd crawled out of a grave with Dawn. Except her own gravestone was there right in front of her this time. Mocking. She saved the world a lot.
"Home again, home again." Spike said.
She stood. He was right there this time, standing beside her the way he used to. Cool smooth blackness, leather coat like a wall. His head almost floating above the darkness, pale as the moon.
Raspy sound of him putting the cigarette to his lips, a long inhale.
She inhaled the sea air, banished the memory of rotting-sweet-sick-dust-dirt-decay.
Not her home at all. She wasn't in love with it. Not anymore. "I'm... looking for a new place."
"I know what you mean," he said, and pointed two fingers, the cigarette clamped between them like a third finger of jutting bone. "It's a misery when you don't know where you belong anymore. When the monument doesn't match. Assuming there even is one." He let his hand fall.
She furrowed her brow. Concerned, suddenly. Worried. "Where--"
And then she woke up.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 11:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 11:40 am (UTC)GOOD FIC WEEK!!!
Very excited to read this.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 11:52 am (UTC)Loved this - especially the flashbacks which were *so* hot! Also loved how you summed up their relationship in a few short sentences - how each sentence holds a whole tale, that automatically tells itself in our heads.
And the dream was superb!
::applauds::
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:30 pm (UTC)I was really hoping to get the next chapter up too at the same time, but finally figured this one was running so long and since the next one is mostly in the edit stage, I could go ahead and post. (Weirdly enough, that dream sequence was written ages ago, long before I'd gotten my head wrapped around the rest of the chapter structre.)
For some reason, I'm fascinated by "Older and Far Away." : )
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 11:54 am (UTC)Awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:32 pm (UTC)And thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 12:01 pm (UTC)I AM SO EXCITED!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:34 pm (UTC)But, you know, glad to be with the excitement-causing. Whee!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 12:22 pm (UTC)Wondered in a vague sort of way how anything was still dirty, since hadn't Dawn already done the washing up earlier in the evening? Was she actually rewashing things that were clean?
I love the imagery this suggests to me and that of the following lines also
She finished up anyway, turned off the overhead light. Blinked in surprise when it didn't make any difference until she realized that the room was flooded with early-morning sun.
None so blind as those who will not see?
Golden.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:36 pm (UTC)*g* Yes oh yes.
None so blind as those who will not see?
Ooh! My symbolism is often designed to be really, really stupidly literal, so I love when I hear cool new interpretations of it. Neat!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 12:25 pm (UTC)Wonderful stuff. The kitchen bit was really sexy.
Encore!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:39 pm (UTC)It's so funny to see such response to the kitchen scene - that was literally a last-minute addition. I just wanted another flashback there, and seized on that point in time as being one of Buffy's key moments of indecisiveness, teetering on edge of different ways her story could go.
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Date: 2006-04-09 01:23 pm (UTC)I also liked the nature of Dawn's anguish.
Wonderful chapter.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 01:48 pm (UTC)There's probably symbolism up the wazoo in that dream, but I'm way too thickheaded to figure it out. I did love this line, though:
Rearranged her hair, without being too obvious about it. That would be tacky.
Boy, that tiny snippet just sums up their whole relationship for me. Much too worried that the other would see their true selves to ever really know each other.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 02:48 pm (UTC)I do that myself. *g* I keep wondering, "say, what was I doing with that part again?"
There's probably symbolism up the wazoo in that dream, but I'm way too thickheaded to figure it out.
I actually doubt it - I only really do symbolism in a very surface-y way. It's all right there in either the visuals or the dialogue. The Latin is the only cheat, and that's still very basic, open to interpretation.
Much too worried that the other would see their true selves to ever really know each other.
(nods) The whole of the dream is about Buffy's perception of the other two. (I hope it's not too spoilery of me to say this?)
Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 04:49 pm (UTC)Really enjoyed this chapter; you have a great Buffy voice. Very believable. The dream in particular was well done. Love the imagery there; especially the pictures and diplomas. Does the latin have any significance? Or are they just phrases Buffy might know? Just curious! Buffy naked and vulnerable while Angel ignores her for the phone seems important. I can easily see Buffy feeling that way. Poor Buffy!
I think my favorite bit is Buffy as a mermaid sunning herself on a rock, and Selkie (sp?) Spike bobbing up and leaving when dismissed. Very effective visual, and it ties in nicely with both the Dead Things flashbacks and the first part of this story.
Nice look at Dawn from Buffy's perspective too. I do feel badly for her in all of this. That's a lot of angst to drop on the poor kid!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-09 11:44 pm (UTC)The Latin quotes are "memento mori," "remember that you will die" (the description the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_%28full%29) page has some nice nuances flagged for that one, and "veini, vidi, vici," a Caesar quote, "I came, I saw, I conquered." Those particular quotes were chosen to be little subconscious hints from Buffy's own mind, trying to tell her something about Spike and Angel, the sort of thing she might have registered in the back of her brain somewhere from school. Although which quote applies to which character, if either, is where interpretation comes in.
I really feel for Dawn. I think one of the goals of this story was to come at a lot of this from her point of view.
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Date: 2006-04-12 08:27 am (UTC)My feel on dream sequences is that if the meaning is too obvious, it's not right. That the best stuff is like a conglomeration of unconscious fears. Which, again, brings me back around to you being the dream master. : )
I've come to realize over time that in some ways, I define the characters by what they fear. And how they react to it. It's made for some interesting thought tracks on Buffy, which I'm hoping I'll eventually be able to pay off.
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Date: 2006-04-14 03:16 am (UTC)Loved the Older and Far Away and Spike saying he was doing wicked things in the spice drawer. Poor battered boy, coming back for more.
And this summation:
Every night I save you.
I just want to feel.
You came back wrong.
You can't feel anything real.
You love me.
No I don't.
I love you.
No you don't.
Just brilliant.
I'm interested to know what scares Dawn so much about Buffy telling her story.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-14 07:58 am (UTC)The summation was the final decision after more tweaking and rewriting and rethinking than you even want to know about - at one point, I had Buffy actually telling her pretty much her whole story, in highlights, with observations in between, and I finally realized, hey, if even I"M bored with this...! At the end off the day, it really seemed to come down to those few lines.
I'm interested to know what scares Dawn so much about Buffy telling her story.
I feel like I've been building up to this part forever! Most of Dawn's reaction was written ages ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 07:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 10:09 am (UTC)But anyway, thank you! The Dawn and Buffy interaction was something that really started to grow on me more and more as the real heart of this story, as it originally began as a continution of "Dirty Back Road," and their conversation in the epilogue there. So when I started this story, it began with another conversation, and in some ways, it's really the two sisters talking that it's all about. What they know about each other and how they relate. So yes, definitely more Dawn to come.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-05 08:05 pm (UTC)Amazing stuff. I read The Center last weekend and just loved it. Your Buffy and Spike are awesome and these fics just feed my post-NFA hope for a stronger Buffy and Spike relationship.
Beautifully written and I've friended you, btw. Feel free to friend back if you choose.
Adriana
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-08 08:13 am (UTC)Thank you! I'm a firm believer in moving things forward. I don't know if seeing people learn from their experiences counts as a kink, but if so, it may be mine. : )
And welcome, friend!