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S p i k e / B u f f y . F a n f i c t i o n . b y .K J .D r a f t
STILL LIFE IN SUNNYDALE Chapter Six Alone at Willy's, nursing a glass of straight Whiskey, Spike reaches back through his mind, trying to determine when reality split into two equally dismal slices. I didn't make a wish until I was safely on the bus, and that was just to myself, I didn't mean it... Maybe Anya still heard me, somehow? She can detect people's distress, it draws her out, she must have heard! The bar tender wipes down a spot near Spike. Spike reaches out and grips his shirt collar, vice-like, and pulls him closer. Insists, "I didn't want this. I mean, I wanted this, but not like this. Wanted her to come to me of her own free will, completely conscious of the choice, not majiked or mojo'd or cajoled into it by specifically interpreted to bite you in the ass wishes made off hand in a bus stop." The bar tender regards him uneasily. Spike is about to continue babbling when Clem, beer in floppy hand, takes the stool next to him. "Talking to a bar tender about your romantic troubles? Isn't that a bit cliché?" Clem remarks. "You know, clichés don't just spontaneously generate as a plot to torment precocious, artistic fools," Spike grinds out. "Sometimes they make sense. I'm drinking, he's here, captive audience, part of his post, and he feels better about himself in comparison. We all get something." "I'll take over," Clem interjects eagerly. Spike reluctantly liberates the bartender's now very wrinkled shirt. The bar tender glares once at Spike, but wisely moves off without critique. "So, fill me in on the latest," Clem suggests convivially, in the same manner one might request the score of a recently concluded baseball game, or the outcome of a first date. Spike regards him through a skeptical lens. You don't want to hear this. No one wants to hear this. This story should be retired, just another tale I don't tell anymore. The one that always begins before Buffy's death, and ends with my eternal and complete emasculation. Never the less, he feels the need to try again, try to divest himself of the memories, rid them from his heart for good. His voice is morose: "Before she jumped, we were at her house, and it occurred to me that I didn't know anything about her, not really. Only thing I knew was that she could never love me. And I liked that about her." Deep swig. God this is hard. Admitting things to myself. "When she came back I got my bloody second chance, didn't I? I wanted to do anything for her, which meant mostly sitting there, being stupid and sad and desperate, on the verge of saying something regrettable, of busting up a perfectly false friendship. That is, a friendship based on false pretenses. Didn't want to be her friend." Tried to make her admit she loved me, because it was too horrifying to think I might be dead wrong. Better to be dead drunk. He drains the glass. Pauses, holding it in the air. "I have her now, though." He chuckles, mirthless. Slams the glass down, signals brusquely for another. Turns to Clem, really meeting his eyes for the first time that night. "Only she's not her." Clem thinks that maybe if he drinks another beer, Spike's rant will begin to make sense. It doesn't help that Spike remains silent for long stretches, brain churning furiously, working through the logic. For her to need me, a need had to be created. She needs me to kill people because what else would she possibly need me for? "'Not Quite Buffy', I'll call her. Looks like her, tastes like her, fights like her, acts like her." His voice stumbles into pithy sarcasm: "Except for that whole 'killing humans' element, of course. Was I so desperate to have her that I could over look that, never think to wonder why?" Beat. "Shoulda wished for her to love me." No! Can't imagine what a Buffy who loved me would be like, if a Buffy who needs me is such a perversion. "What's torturing me is maybe she could have. Loved me. Before. If I hadn't meddled. Now I've wished it out of her, haven't I." Clem has no clue how to respond. Spike's riddled reflection has mystified him more than usual. Ooh, fresh beer. He trades his empty glass for a full one. Tries to respond to Spike's baffling statement. "Uh, maybe not?" "No, I've guaranteed it. She needs me. But never anything more, and never anything less." Unless... what if I talk to Anya? Explain. Ask her to make things right, return my wish, return the world to how it was, everything back on its axis... Am I strong enough to do that? With this question comes a darker, more burdensome insight. "Even a condemned man has a choice in how to approach the gallows," he states cryptically to Clem, and promptly scoots his seat back from the bar. ** Buffy, clad in her yummy sushi pajamas, yet somehow scarier to Willow and Xander than she was when she tried to kill them, regards her friends across the kitchen table with disdain and aggravation. Not affectionate aggravation for the quirks of one's oldest and dearest, but the true Mind Your Own Damn Business type. "You don't have to kill him, that's not what we're saying," Willow explains. "Yes it is. It's exactly what we're saying!" Xander interjects. "Or, it should be. So I'll just say it. He has the chip out. You should kill him." "I'm not gonna kill Spike. He's completely under my control." Pause. "We have an understanding." "What do you mean?" Willow asks slowly, "Are you letting him drink from you?" "No, look, you probably don't want to hear this, but here it is. I don't really need you guys at the moment." "So I noticed," Willow mumbles. "You ask me for addresses like once a week, and never follow up on it or tell me why. Plus, hey, not exactly pushing me to the limit of my abilities." "Spike and I have a system, and it works." Buffy ruffles under several stacks of newspapers to produce the headline she's most proud of. "Crime Rate in Sunnydale down by sixteen percent," she reads, holding it up. "So how about we don't question what I'm doing or how I'm doing it? Just take the summer off and have regular lives for once. You deserve a break." "But --" Xander sputters. "I'm serious. Things are fine." "Spike threatened my life at the Bronze," he protests. "If I scold him, will you feel better?" she snaps, then eases off, softening. "You know he won't touch you." Xander does not, in fact, know that. Willow's up to bat: "Dawn says you're never home. You just leave her envelopes of money on the table." "I happen to be busy! When I'm not working, I'm patrolling, and vice versa, and for the first time all year I'm enjoying both." She stands, yawning. Xander senses that the yawn's entirely manufactured, a statement to convey her current opinion of them. "If you guys want to watch a movie that's cool, but I'm hitting the sack." After she heads upstairs, Willow flips through the newspaper, dragging her fingers along articles. Halts abruptly. "I knew it! I remember that guy. I gave her his address the other day, it took minimum hackage, but -- now he's dead." "It's coincidence, come on. No way Buffy has anything to do with it." But a chill settles over their conversation then. "Giles is coming in on Friday," Willow states. "We'll talk to him them." "I can't believe Anya's leaving," Xander admits, voice dropping. ** Inside the Magic Box, Anya flips the Closed sign around. Locks the door and steps out, yanking it shut. It's later than usual, because of last minute inventory and organization. She stares inside the dark, empty store, noting her reflection in its glass for the last time. She knows it's time to move on, but remains no less depressed by the truth of it. The next instant, a hand covers her mouth from behind. Soft words fill her brain: "I know what you did to Buffy, making her need me. That isn't how I wanted her. But that doesn't mean I'm willing to let her go. You're the only one who can turn things back." You're the only one who can take Buffy away from me. No! It wasn't me! "I'm sorry Pet, but you had a good run. Longer and fuller than most." Though his hand leaves her mouth briefly, the words It was Halfrek never reach her lips. Spike
snaps her neck like a matchstick. Never to ignite again. ** It's four in the morning when Buffy hears him outside on the roof. She casts the covers off and pads over to the open window. "Thought I told you not to make me wait." Spike's been there awhile, if the cigarette butts surrounding him are any indication. He takes a deep drag off his latest and speaks without turning to face her. "You were sleeping, didn't want to disturb you." She crawls out the window and sits near him. They both examine the sky, alone in their contemplation. "I realized why you wouldn't take the flowers from me." "Spike..." "You said it yourself. Too much work. Too real. So I got you this." He produces a single rose. It's made of silk. Places it between them, another timeless divider. "No upkeep. And at least fake flowers never lose their color." He snorts. "But I have confidence in you, Buffy. I have faith that you -- you'll find a way to make it die." Buffy touches the flower idly. "Why you do always do this to yourself?" she inquires, earnestly curious. "Do what?" "Tie yourself up, like you're Houdini or something, and then wonder why you can't escape. When you tied the knots yourself! Or, you know, you taught the guy. You taught the assistant. Trapped by association." "I taught you." "Yeah, maybe you did." All tied up and nowhere to go, even if we could escape. "My point is you make every single thing difficult. On purpose." "Trust me, you help." He lights his next cigarette with the end of his current one. Pauses in the ritual to grill her. "Don't you ever want someone to come along and knock you off kilter? That's how you make me feel, Buffy. I want you to feel it, too, feel it, feel it, feel something -- " "I do." She places her hand on his. Just for a second. "I feel it." For once, he's appeased. For once, he shuts up. Not for long, of course. Flicks the spent cig off the roof. "It's been a year." "Since ..?" "Since they brought you back." Swallows. "Has it gotten any easier?" "I was thinking about it in the shower the other day. Everybody goes through this. We're all yanked out of the womb. We all start the same way, someplace warm and perfect and then you're born, and the water's too hot, but you get used to it. I can get used to this." It's sudden, this realization. Sudden and somber. She looks at him then, and he can see it in her eyes, even in the dark She's thoroughly resigned. "I can get used to anything at all." "You shouldn't have to." "Even people in hell get used to it, right? Eventually." "No one gets used to hell. It wouldn't be hell if they did." "Well. That clinches it." Tiny smile. "This must not be hell, then." Maybe not for you, he thinks. She nods toward the window. "Let's go inside." "Get in bed," he tells her. "I need another minute." She crawls back through the window, compliant. And he's reminded once again that this is his world now. He made it. Later, as he lies beside her, watching her slumber, he wishes he would pass out. Doesn't want to hang on anymore. Eventually, as with the first, this wish is granted and he falls asleep, thinking the last thought over and again, thinking she'll never love me and that's just fine. She'll never love me and that's just fine.
THE
END
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