An invisible coat of fine sweat covered her naked, trembling body; her heart was beating at a wild speed. She looked down and saw Spike’s head leaning against her breasts.
He did that every time, after their bodies, their tongues had fought this intimate fight in which there was no loser.
Sometimes she wanted to ask him what he found so fascinating about listening to her wild heartbeat, but she never did. Maybe because she knew that he would tell her how much he loved lying next to her, feeling her body’s warmth.
With a coarse movement she pushed his head off her breast, trying to bring distance between their bodies.
She wanted to get up, but she felt her legs being all loose and watery, and so she remained lying and tried not to look at him, knowing that her eyes wouldn’t obey her mute order, however.
His blonde hair was all messed up and she had to think that it had been her hands, which had dishevelled it, just as it had been her teeth which had left bite marks on his shoulder.
Sluggishly she lifted a hand and touched her sore lips, which burned from his kisses, when she saw that he bent down to her, intending to softly touch her lips to ease the pain.
"Don’t," she murmured and turned her face aside, letting him know that she wouldn’t allow any tenderness.
Some seconds passed before she looked at him again.
His skin had the colour of old ivory, and astonishingly soft, nearly as polished, it also felt.
And suddenly she longed for allowing herself to lie in his arms, but she forced this tiny moment of weakness back down.
He had turned onto his belly and leaned on his forearms, watching her face intently, as if wanting to make sure that no detail, no unevenness of her face had escaped his notice.
He had this expression on his face she couldn’t stand and she was aware that she should look away, if she didn’t want to risk that it engraved in her soul.
When she felt that her body was able to move, she slowly rose, avoiding meeting gazes with him.
He reached for her arm and without wanting it she turned to him.
„Did it hurt… when Angel left you?“
Surprised from the question, her eyes first narrowed, than widened.
She stared at him, while hundreds of thoughts rotated in her head at the same time.
He was completely serious and she saw that his lips were shaking, betraying what was, actually, hidden behind his question:
Will it hurt when you leave me?
She didn’t look at him, knowing well that she answered not only the spoken, but also the unspoken question as she said:
„Yes.“
He nodded, as if he would have expected nothing else, while his eyes silently asked her to lie down beside him again. And she didn’t know why she did it, but she sank onto the bed again and looked at him.
„Did you cry?“
His voice was hardly a whisper and she had to fight against a sudden arising feeling of sadness. She didn’t how much time had passed, while they looked at each without saying a word.
And then, with a gentleness she wouldn’t ever put it past him, he took her hand in his and quietly said:
„I’ll never make you cry, Buffy. Never. I know that you don´t wanna hear this, but I tell you anyway. I promise you. “
For a moment, she shut her eyes, while she pressed her lips so firmly together that it hurt.
Fighting against herself, she tried to stop that the meaning of his words reached her mind.
She desperately refused to be touched by his promise, although a tiny part of her knew
that this fight was hopeless.
She had done everything to prevent it, but the part of her soul which she tried to suppress panicky knew that he had already crept into her heart, under her skin.
Somewhere from a distance, she heard ringing church bells which announced an hour, she guessed, far after midnight.
And suddenly she had to think of a text line from ‘Hotel California’, the old song by the Eagles in which Don Henley sang with his smoky voice:
‘I heard the mission bell,
And I was thinking to myself:
‘This could be heaven or this could be hell.’
As if she had burned herself, she hit his hand away and struggled to free herself from the white sheets, which seemed to clutch her, while she hissed:
„You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.“
With a hectic movement she reached for her trousers, which lay crumpled up beside the bed, and then turned round to him, ignoring the pain in his eyes:
“It doesn’t mean anything to me, Spike.“ She said his name as if it was something bitter and poisonous she wanted to spit out.
A short, humourless laughter escaped his mouth as he got up from the bed and shouted:
„Are you trying to fool me... or to fool yourself? Stop it, Buffy. I know it. I feel it. I can read your face like a book, and your body betrays it, just like the fact that you’re here…”
She shook her head, as if wanting to shake off his words from her consciousness, and said sharply:
„You’re still trying to disavow it, don’t you? “
He wanted to answer something, but she cut him off.
„ You don’t get it, do you? That, what you consider to be love, is nothing else than your dreamy version of what is really between us. I’m using you, Spike. We ... we’re using ourselves mutually. I use you to feel dead and you use me to feel alive. “
Her words cut into his skin like a knife, she saw him wincing as if somebody had rammed an iron fist into the stomach.
„No... That’s not true, “he stammered.
And suddenly she felt a lump in her throat; she swallowed and closed the eyes to force back the tears, which slowly veiled her view.
When she opened them again, he stood directly in front of her, his arms lay on her shoulders and she had the contradictory urge to press him against her body and at the same time hit him as hard as she could.
She escaped from his clutch, went some steps backwards and bent down to reach for her t-shirt, which she pulled quickly over her head then.
He still stood there and looked at her as if waiting for something that he knew would never come.
„I love you.“
She turned her head, escaping from the expression in his eyes.
„Let me love you, Buffy.” His voice was just a whisper and she felt how his look was burning through her eyelids, which were firmly closed.
Without looking at him she shook her head and pressed her lips together to a thin, painful line.
„Never. “Her voice sounded strange, as if it belonged to somebody else.
She opened her eyes and saw that he came up to her, with slow steps, as if he was afraid that she would turn round and leave, if he went faster.
He stopped a few steps before her and she knew that she shouldn’t allow for him to speak, to look at her, to touch her.
And, nevertheless, she stopped where she was as if she was held on by an invisible hand, waiting that the inevitable happened.
„You think it’s that easy, Buffy. You put on your damned mask and hide behind it… you hope that it will help to suppress your feelings.“
While he spoke, he got closer.
She wanted to shout at him that it was anything else but easy, but no word came over her lips.
Instead her right hand reached to her back pocket until she felt the smooth wood of the stake.
It felt good in her hand.
It reminded her of who she was and above all, who he was.
„You’re here to feel dead? Damn, Buffy ... you’ve never been as alive as in these moments when I was inside of you. Look at me and tell me that it’s not true ... When you’re with me you’re not the Slayer. You’re neither the big sis, nor the friend who carries the responsibility for everything. You are you, Buffy. Just you. And you feel it when you’re with me, I am the one to make you feel.”
She stepped back, knowing well that he had stripped her mask away and had seen her feeling beneath.
Spike filled his lungs with the unneeded air in quick breaths and stopped.
He knew that he had crossed an invisible border; that he had broken her unspoken rules like fragile glass and although a part of his mind told him that he should stop, he simply couldn’t help.
„You love me, Buffy. So much that it hurts. “
He could feel her pulse which flowed like a wild river in her veins; he smelled her blind desperation and her fear.
Fear of his words, fear of the truth.
The hand behind Buffy’s backs stretched around the stake so violently that she wouldn’t have been surprised, if she had crushed it.
She wanted to say that she despised him more than anyone else.
She wanted to shout at him how badly she wanted him to disappear from her life, but not a sound came over her shaking lips.
Helplessly she watched how he started moving again, getting closer and closer. And she knew that she was lost.
With a jerky movement she pulled out the hand with the stake from behind her back.
It was the only desperate possibility which occurred to her... she had to show him why she couldn’t love him, why she wasn’t allowed to love him.
Not one second she had expected him to assail her in order to grab her by her shoulders - driven by his desperation of being rejected by her, tormented by the fear of having to watch her walk out of his door forever - in the very moment in which she raised her hand.
The stake tore an ugly wound in the spotlessness of his white skin and pierced his meat with accidental, deadly precision, right there where his dead heart beat inaudibly for her.
An expression of purest surprise appeared on his face when he lowered his head and saw the stake in his violently lifting and lowering breast.
A dumb shout of horror escaped her opened mouth.
He lifted the head to look in her face, his lips parted to a silent: „Buffy ...?"
She tripped forwards, unable to believe that this had really happened.
She held out her arms, but her fingers only felt cold air and dust, which slowly trickled, like in an hourglass, through her trembling fingers.
*********
Somebody she didn’t recognize shook her by the shoulder and said something to her that she didn’t get.
She guessed that there were several persons, but she wasn’t sure.
Their voices resounded in the crypt and she was aware that the words were directed to her, but it seemed to her that they spoke in a foreign language she didn’t understand.
A blurred face appeared in front of hers, while somebody stepped behind her and forced her on her legs.
Someone tried to help her standing on her feet, while another nameless figure grabbed her hands and talked to her.
She wanted to tell them that they should leave her alone, but she couldn’t remember how to form thoughts into words.
And as somebody tried to open her hands by force, she defended herself desperately and shouted out a loud " NO! ", but it was too late.
Tiny, fine dust particles fell from her palm on the cold stone ground.
„Everything’s gonna be alright, Buffy, shhh… We’ll take you home,“ a voice promised her which belonged to a face she started to recognize bit by bit.
The other shapeless figures slowly changed to people she began to recognize, too, and while they carried her out of the crypt, the only thing she could think of was that nothing would ever be alright again.
**********
She stood in her room and stared out of the window, while the scenes of the last night happened in her head over and over again.
She hadn’t cried a single tear since her friends had brought her home, because it demanded a strength she didn’t have anymore.
She looked down at her body, seriously surprised not to see the shapeless, empty cover she believed she was.
She closed her eyes, but the picture, which rotated like a snapshot in her head, pushed mercilessly in front of her closed eyelids.
Again and again she saw Spike’s face as the stake had pierced his breast.
An expression of deepest pain and surprise had been in his eyes when he had looked at her, and she knew that this look would pursue her as long as she lived.
Her arms crossed over her breast as though she was cold while she began to sob.
In this moment she wished that she would have, at least just once, let him embrace her.
How would it have felt?
Warm?
Protecting?
She wanted nothing more than his arms around her body which held her, but she would never again feel them.
Just like his kisses.
Or his love.
She had killed him in so many ways.
With her words, the said ones as well as with the unsaid.
With her icy looks, her actions.
And yesterday... yesterday she hadn’t only killed him inwardly.
With tired steps she crept back to her bed, built a long form of her blanked which remotely resembled a body and lay down, putting an arm around the lifeless cover.
She laid her head between the cushion and the cover, as if she would lean against a shoulder and whispered quietly: „Forgive me. “
*********
She seemed to have fallen asleep.
When she opened her eyes she noticed that something in her room was different.
Despite the darkness she saw it immediately - somebody was there, only a few steps away from her.
She didn’t dare to blink, fearing that he would disappear if she did.
Spike came up to her with slow steps, never turning the look from her, while a barely discernible smile appeared on his face.
She swallowed and prayed to a God she didn’t believe in that she may never wake up if she was asleep or that she, if she was awake, never wanted to sleep again.
„I had a dreadful nightmare, Spike,” she said in a voice which sounded as if she had forgotten how to speak a long time ago and which she now remembered laboriously again.
„I dreamed that I killed you. “
He seemed to want to say something, then, however, he barely shook his head, while she slowly rose.
“Stay seated,” he softly said and she noticed that he sounded as if he spoke from a wide distance; his voice was quiet like a breath of wind.
She obeyed and remained where she was.
Her body started to tremble as he got closer and squatted on the ground beside her.
He was so close that she would only have needed to stretch her arm out to touch him, but when she lifted the hand, he drew back.
He smiled at her but it wasn’t the smile she had expected. It was not warm at all, instead of this it looked wistful, almost regretful.
„Spike...“ A dry sobbing escaped her throat, and the hand which she had stretched to touch him slowly sank down.
He put his head aside a little and just looked at her, seemed to search for something in her eyes and then said in such a quiet voice that she had trouble to understand him:
„I want to ask you for something.“
Silently she looked at him, not daring to turn the look away from him.
He was so serious and he looked as if nothing had ever been so important to him.
„I don’t want you to reproach yourself for anything, Buffy. Promise me.” Urgently, nearly begging he looked at her, waiting for her to make the promise he had asked her for.
An expression of deepest dismay appeared on his face when he saw that a tear ran down her cheek.
„Buffy... “ he whispered helplessly, while she buried her face in her hands.
„I know you didn’t want it,” he continued softly. „I’ve seen it in your eyes. “
He saw her shoulders shaking.
Under her hands, which covered her face, he heard her sobbing and he longed desperately for being able to take her hands in his.
"Buffy..." he asked.
Slowly she let her arms sink, feebly as if she had dragged a heavy load.
She wanted to let him know so many things, but her throat was knotted and she didn’t say a single word. Instead, a whining sound came over her dry lips as she looked at him.
And then she finally brought herself to speak to him.
„I can’t, Spike. What you have asked me for.“ Her voice was fragile like glass, but she continued to speak without looking at him.
„I don’t know how to live with it... I killed you. I didn’t want to, Spike, oh God... I feel so empty and cold and... and I’m so dreadfully scared... without you. It hurts... I can’t stand it. And I know that it will never stop. Never.“
She couldn’t speak further, she felt as if an invisible hand squeezed her heart with pitiless cruelty and she started sobbing helplessly.
"Buffy ..." he began gently. „Listen to me, luv. “
Her body started to tremble as he continued.
„I know. I saw it in your eyes, Buffy. Everything you could never tell me... I saw it for this one tiny moment. Your feelings for me... your shock about what had happened... I could see it. “
Silently she looked into his eyes which sparkled darkly like a nightly ocean.
„Sometimes I‘d thought about my ending, you know. And I had hoped ... that your face would be the last thing I see. Buffy, I...“
„Spike, please,” she interrupted him with breaking voice.
She suddenly knew what he wanted to say.
He would want to thank her and that was more than she could stand.
He understood and nodded slowly.
„You’ll be strong, Buffy, I know it. For me ... okay?” he asked whispering.
She nodded and knew at the same moment that she lied to him.
Slowly she got up from the bed and looked at him, helplessly and lost, like a child who wishes for a precious Christmas present from his parents, although it knows that it will never get it.
„Can you embrace me ...? Please,” she quietly asked, while her eyes filled with tears.
His face expressed so many emotions and at the same time she felt how he hesitated.
Then, however, he stepped up carefully to her, lifted his arms and the next moment she felt a cold touch on her skin.
She closed her eyes and for the first time allowed that the tears began to streak down her cheeks.
„Please, forgive me,” she whispered desperately and longed for being able to feel his body.
„There’s nothing I have to forgive, Buffy, “ he whispered softly and she felt a cold touch on her forehead.
When she opened the eyes, she saw that he had bent down to her to kiss her forehead.
„Gotta go now,” he quietly murmured in her ear.
„No... please... don’t leave me alone,” she stammered desperately.
„Think of what you promised me. You’ll be strong. It ... it will be easier... when time goes by.“
She cried and tried to cling on to his appearance, but she could only feel a cool substance under her fingers.
„I’m the one who has to ask you for forgiveness,“ he whispered and looked sadly at her tear-swollen face.
„I’d promised to you that I’ll never make you cry and I didn’t keep it. I’m sorry, pet... so sorry...”
She shook her head while she looked at his face under a veil of tears.
And although his figure became paler and paler bit by bit, she saw that he cried.
She held out her hands to him, trying to touch him.
„I love you, Spike. “ Her voice was clear in spite of her tears, for the first time this night.
Slowly he moved up to her, lifted his arms and embraced her, carefully and protecting, and for this one moment she felt him. Not only as a chill touch, she felt his body, his embrace.
She lifted her head and leaned her forehead against his, closing her eyes and pressing her lips on his.
And while their lips touched, their tears mixed.
„Love you, too...“ she heard his voice, so quietly, so far and at the same time nothing in her life had ever been that clear and intense.
She opened her eyes and looked at his figure which became more and more indistinctly and paler.
And she didn’t know where she took the strength from but she got to answer his smile when he lifted his hand for the last time and disappeared bit by bit.
*******
The days passed and she felt the emptiness inside of her which lay like a dark carpet on her soul.
Sometimes she cried when she went past his crypt.
She also cried when she saw somebody who reminded her of him.
She caught herself how she searched his face in the masses when she walked through the streets, although she knew that it was hopeless.
She began to pray for a miracle.
And it should take a long time until she understood that the miracle happened every day, at every moment.
When it was raining, it weren’t just the drops.
It were kisses which touched her skin.
The wind wasn’t just wind, it were hands which caressed her hair.
And she knew that she would carry on.
Somehow.
FIN