“We’re looking for a girl. American. Blonde. Blue eyes.”
“Her eyes are hazel, you bloody nit.”
Buffy heard the voice from across the dance floor, and her eyes shot open. The Immortal was smiling, still dancing, oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend was moving steadily and purposefully away.
“I clearly remember her eyes being blue,” Angel was retorting, finger in Spike’s face. Buffy froze, only ten feet away, as her eyes absorbed the pillar of black leather before her. “We had tons of deep, soulful eye-gazing. I think I’d know better than you what color her eyes are.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re thinking of that bloody wolf girl!” Spike replied hotly, and Buffy could tell he was seconds from a fight.
“They’re green,” she interjected. “Hazel, yeah.”
Both vampires were staring at her, but she was looking at only one. She crossed the last few feet and planted herself in front of Spike, looking up into his eyes and the very realness of him.
He obviously wasn’t expecting it when her fist shot out and he crumpled to the floor. She stood over him as a crowd gathered and the Immortal stepped up.
“Mi amore,” he pleaded, trying to draw her away.
“Not now,” she shoved him away impatiently, eyes still riveted to Spike as he picked himself up.
“Yeah, you bloody ponce. You heard the Slayer. So get going,” he chided, giving the Immortal a dismissive wave of his hand before turning to Buffy. “Look pet, I would’ve called, ‘cept-”
“Except you were incorporeal. And then?”
“Bloody Andrew,” Spike swore under his breath before opening his hands to Buffy. “And then… I dunno. I was an arse. Didn’t think you’d want me back, anyways.”
“Not want you back?!” she screeched. It was just the two of them right now. The people and the music and the Immortal and Angel had melted away so that all her senses were full of Spike. “I only just love you, you stupid head!” Aww, shit; she was crying now – big, fat tears that leaked down her cheek and splashed onto the ground.
“You do?” He had softened, his eyes a startling color of blue as he took a step forward. She let him grab hold of her, let him tip her chin up so that she could see the soft grin. “Say it again.”
Still crying, she raised her arms up, cupped his face. “I love you, I do. I love you, Spike – never anyone but you.”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding!” Angel had stepped into their small circle, rudely bringing them back to the center of the club, and the attention of a growing crowd. “I thought I was the love of your life!”
“Your time’s bloody past, Peaches,” Spike shot him a smug grin. “My girl, now.”
“But, Buffy!” Angel was getting kind of desperate, Buffy decided. So she broke away from Spike, placed a hand on his cheek.
“Of course I’ll always love you, Angel.” (He resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at Spike.) “But I love Spike. I love him so much it hurts to think about him.”
“Mi amore,” the Immortal had stepped forward, this time at Angel’s side, hands held out. “What about me? You tell me you love me, and yet-”
“I don’t,” she said simply. “Geez, is Riley going to show up next, too? Maybe Pike? I love Spike, you guys. Get over it.”
“Is this a dream, luv? Are you really here with me?” Buffy turned back to Spike, smiling and grasped his hands tightly in hers.
“It’s too good to be a dream.”
She’d been hearing the rumors for a while now. Things like that always seemed to circulate the busier demon bars, where the lies and boasts often outnumbered the truths. But when rumors that a feral, souled vampire who ranted and screamed throughout the night was holed up somewhere in Cleveland reached Buffy’s ears, there seemed nothing better to do than investigate.
Which is how she wound up here, following some demon’s crude directions through the great labyrinth of sewers to where, he claimed, the vampire rested. It seemed so stupid, she thought. Spike had been gone three months now, and Buffy believed she would have felt something – anything - if he’d come back… but no. It was probably some weird, wacked-out vamp hiding out in the sewers. No soul, no anything but that. Just a vampire. Just business.
That’s when she heard the screaming; a low, keening sound that was half-scream, half-sob rent the air around her. She followed it, ears stinging, until the narrow sewage tunnel widened out into a large cavern of sorts. And it was him.
It was Spike.
Stretched out on his back in the middle, barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of tattered jeans, his mouth opened impossibly wide and let out that raw, guttural sound that had led her here. When he heard her, he stilled. Didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge her presence; simply quieted and curled into himself.
She approached softly, her boots making soft sucking sounds in the muck, and knelt down next to him. Her heart seemed to ice over, looking over his bruised body, the scrapes on face and his protruding ribs. His hair had grown out all honey-colored and blonde, sticking up in wild curls like when she’d first seen him last year, huddled in the basement scratching his heart out.
“Get up Spike,” she snapped, standing back up. “I’m taking you out of here.”
He rolled over to look up at her. His eyes were wide and blue, mouth slightly agape as if experiencing consciousness for the first time.
“Who’re you, then?”
Spike – her Spike – had always told her how unforgettable she was. He used to remark on how he’d know her anywhere, from the scent she gave off, that he’d find her even if he was blind and deaf, just by smelling for her. He’d lick and kiss her body and tell her how gorgeous and unique and sweet-smelling she was down there until she quit squirming and kicked him in the face.
Apparently he was wrong.
He staid huddled against the passenger side door all the way back to her hotel room, mumbling to himself and casting fearful glances her way. Upon arriving, she’d had to drag him out and up the back stairs, lest someone see them and ask questions. Once inside, she’d thought of calling for help. But one look at him had her setting the phone down to crouch before him.
“Spike… it’s me, it’s Buffy. Don’t you know me?” He shook his head, eyes dark with confusion. “Well, I know you,” she said. “Will you let me clean you up? Feed you?”
He didn’t answer then, just stared at space over her right shoulder. She took it as a yes, and dragged him into the bathroom.
The filth and muck that covered him was appalling, and she had to use a pair of scissors to get the crusted-over jeans off of him. He didn’t seem exactly shy of his nudity – her Spike never had been, of course – but his skin jumped whenever she touched it, even just to help slide his jeans off.
Once he was bare, and she realized how she’d never fully forgotten the shape of his body, the curves and angles and hardness, she turned the shower on hot and let the steam fill the small bathroom.
“I’m going to get in with you,” she motioned towards the shower stall. “To help you clean up, okay?”
He seemed to accept it, averting his gaze as she slipped out of her clothes and followed him into the shower of boiling water that cascaded around them. He hissed as the scalding water hit his wounds, and she used soft fingers to massage away the dirt and grime.
So focused as she was, she didn’t notice he was touching her until he’d tipped her face back and pressed his lips to hers.
Thoughts about the wrongness of the entire situation seemed to flow down the drain as her mouth opened beneath his. The way he kissed was so much like how he’d kissed her before that she was certain he really did remember her, that he was just fooling her all along.
But no, because her Spike wouldn’t have done that. He’d have pulled her against them the first time he saw her, and taken her against that hard sewer wall while whispering the sweetest endearments into her ear. This Spike didn’t know her, was just attracted to her.
She smiled. He’d also said that his demon would know her anywhere.
When they finally got out of the shower, jelly-boned and lips swollen from kissing, she wrapped him up in a fluffy white robe and sat him up on the bed. Turning her back, she grabbed a letter opener from the little desk against the wall. Slicing into the palm of her hand, she watched the blood bubble up into her cupped hand. She moved slowly towards him, eyes not on him, but on her hand. She offered it to him shyly, not wanting to watch his face as he drank her blood.
Funny, how Spike had never asked for, never taken, her blood. The Master, Angel, and Dracula had all tasted her, slipped their fangs into her neck and sucked the liquid red from her neck.
He took a precursory sniff, something she inwardly laughed at, before his tongue slipped forward and touched her palm. She jerked a bit, before pressing it closer to his mouth, until her hand was star-fished over his lips, the cut running horizontally to his open mouth. She watched despite herself as he took long, deep draughts of her blood, his eyes closing in contentment. By the time she gently pulled away and pressed a washcloth to her hand to staunch the cut, his wounds had scabbed or else turned a bright pink.
“Thank you,” he mumbled softly, and she could see the exhaustion that threatened to overcome him. Without words between them, she put him to sleep in the big, queen-sized bed. He curled up beneath the large comforter, looking so lost and pale beneath it. She watched him sleep, in that silent, motionless slumber reminiscent of a corpse’s, before turning away.
Seated at the desk once more she pulled the contact list up on her cellphone. Who to call, that could offer any help? Not Giles – last time he’d been involved in Spike’s affairs it had been to kill him. Faith was in some distant Hellmouth with Wood, slaying and fucking on a nightly basis – she wouldn’t offer much help or support. Xander and Dawn were away, pretending everyone didn’t already know they were together. And Willow – Buffy’s best friend for so many years now – was in a different dimension with her girlfriend at the moment.
Okay, so no friends to come to the rescue. And she was most definitely avoiding thinking about calling Angel. She had called him one night, sobbing, over Spike’s death. Per usual regarding his wayward grand-childe, Angel was stolid and uncomforting. If anything, he’d kill Spike, and make sure he didn’t come back.
Exhaustion was overcoming her as well, she realized with a long yawn, and she stumbled from the desk to the bed sleepily. Shucking the fluffy robe she’d put on after their shower, she slipped into the bed and pressed herself against Spike’s cool back. He seemed to shudder and expel a soft sigh at her touch, and she heard the words tumbling out of his mouth in his stupor.
“That’s it, luv,” he whispered. “Knew you’d come back to me.”
She jerked away, shook his shoulder.
“Spike, wake up.” He turned to look at her, eyes confused and clouded in sleep. “What did you say, just now? That you knew I’d come back?”
He shook his head in obvious bewilderment, scooted a little further from her. She sighed, dropping her head onto the pillow. Twining her arms around him, she soothed him back into sleep and watched him slumber until she was satisfied he wasn’t going to do anymore sleep-talking. She’d been sure, for a moment, that it was her Spike mumbling in his sleep, that he knew she’d find him here in this crazy Ohio city. It seemed, at least, that he was in there somewhere, that in time she’d pull her real Spike out of this hollow look-alike.
Pressing her cheek to his shoulder, she followed him into sleep.
There was always tomorrow to sort out these crazy things.