“Where is he?” she yelled at the skinny demon half her size. The pathetic creature shook his wobbly head on a thin neck. She punched him in his ugly snout, threw him against the wall and stomped out.
Apparently no one knew anything.
'Dammit!'
It had been a week since he’d gone and it seemed that no one had seen him since. Not that she'd bothered to search for him before yesterday, but Buffy hadn't been anticipating that something might actually have happened to the stupid vampire. It was already the fifth demon bar and still nothing.
Buffy wasn’t worried, she was angry. Really, really angry. Not worried. And when she got her hands on his stupid hide she would shake the balls off of him! She got into the car and drove off. Mom hadn’t wanted to let her use the SUV at first, but Buffy had explained the situation to her. She had already searched all his usual hideouts the day before and was going to look for him in places farther from home, places she did not know so well. Buffy felt bad about telling her because now her mom was worried too.
The reason she hadn't been worried was that this kind of thing was nothing new in their relationship. But this time it was different. Spike had never gone missing for quite so long. It usually took him a couple of days till he resurfaced; sometimes with a split lip or a black eye, sometimes even beat-up and limping. Other times she spotted him merrily strutting around the cemetery or found him in his crypt, drunk as sailor on a shore. Once he had been so piss drunk that t he had mistook a neighbouring crypt for his own, and she only found him because he had been yelling a god-awful song on top of his dead lungs. But usually she didn’t even have to look for him; he mostly came back on his own after one more of their disagreements just at the crack of dawn. Then she’d patch him up and they’d never talk about it.
Last time it happened at the Bronze.
”Why the hell did you come, if you don't want to be here?”
“I came to be with you!”
“Well I don't want to be with you if you are being like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like a... like a...” Buffy had been livid by that time. “Like a vampire!” She delivered it with such loathing that he got her meaning instantly. 'Vampire' translated into 'dirt under my boots' in Buffy-speak.
He snorted but she saw a flash of hurt in his eyes.
“That's what I am, aren't I?” he said calmly and left.
It was turning into a pattern, a vicious circle. They had a major fight and he took off, he’d come back, they’d take it slow for a while, then have another fight, and he’d leave again. These were not the small quarrels and bickerings which were started for the sole purpose of ending in make-up sex. Spike loved those as much as she did, Buffy knew. It was probably a vampire thing, she supposed, except that she loved them too. Spike was fun to bicker with.
But the last fight was not one of those, nor had it been a typical shouting match. This fight was something she would not forgive him unless he did some major grovelling. But the problem was that he was not around to do that.
'Damn him!' she thought again for the hundredth time. The stupid vampire drank, fought and drank more until he couldn’t fight and it was only a matter of time before he ended up dustbin. She wiped her eyes. She was not crying, dammit! She was not.
She pulled up to the entrance of yet another bar. It seemed to be human, but it was already after midnight and she was desperate. She would roam all the drinking facilities in the bloody country, if she needed. Great, just great. Now she was even cursing like him!
The place was dimly lit and seemed to consist of many smaller rooms of different shapes and sizes. She walked from one room into another, sometimes going up a couple of steps and sometimes descending. It smelled of fried food, sweat, cigarette smoke and beer. Somewhere a piano was playing; the melody was sad, mellow and somewhat painful to listen to. Buffy guessed it might be blues.
Spike wasn’t here. Buffy wasn’t surprised – it was too peaceful place for him. She went to the bar where a typical middle aged man with tired eyes and a day-old beard was serving, probably the owner himself.
“What can I get you, Miss?”
“Nothing, thank you. I'm actually looking for someone.” Buffy didn’t really think that Spike had been here but she couldn’t leave without asking. “Male, five feet nine, bleached blond hair, blue eyes and a snarky attitude? He wears a long black leather duster.”
After hearing that she was not a buying customer, the barman had turned away from her to wipe the shelf, but now he turned back to her.
“If you came to take him home, could you please wait for an hour?” he asked politely. “He promised to fill in until two.”
“He's here?” She could not believe that she had found Spike. Her heart rate increased. “Wait, what did he agree to do until two?” she asked, suspicious.
The man raised an eyebrow.
“Perhaps it is not your hubby then, though the description sure fits.” He gestured to the doorway on his left. “Take a look behind the piano, miss.”
Buffy felt her eyebrows rise, but her legs were already walking towards the room indicated.
'I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes!'
She saw but she still did not quite believe – there, on the low stage at the far end of the room sat her long-lost vampire; eyes half closed, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, fingers swiftly moving on the piano keys. Buffy discovered that her mouth was hanging open and closed it.
It took him only a moment to feel her presence or her stare, she didn’t know which, but the way the song ended in an off-key blunder made her feel good. Swiftly she stepped up to him.
“We’re going home,” she stated, her hands on her hips. She felt relief at him being alive and anger at seeing him unharmed, while dilly-dallying... playing the... playing the piano, while she was running around town looking for him.
“Yeah? Says who?” His voice was as cold as hers. No surprise there.
“I am!” She saw him snort and open his mouth to say something, but cut him off, “Mom's been worried about you, you moron!”
He looked taken aback at that bit of information, but after a moment he turned back to the piano.
“I have still an hour to go,” he said indifferently and began to play.
Buffy felt her eyes prickle. She turned around and stormed outside. She was not, she was not, going to cry.
Buffy sat in her car doing nothing. Blinking and staring at the wheel, because she was not... A sob escaped her and she gave up the pretence.
“Why did you hit him? You need that headache like a hole in your head!”
“I barely touched the guy! And he had his paws on you!”
“Had he? How the hell did you even notice when you were drooling all over that redhead!”
“I was not!”
“Were too!”
“I was... Hell, Buffy! You are my girlfriend!”
“So what? Does it mean I can't dance with other guys, Mr Caveman?!”
“Bloody…! Look, Buffy, lets just go home, okay?”
She wished they had. At that point she’d even thought that he might be trying to make up with her until he called her...
“You whore!”
Admittedly, it was after she had danced with one more guy of tall and dark variety. But the skanky barmaid had been flirting with Spike all night and Buffy had finally seen red and the row was even worse than usual. He'd felf and now here she was, crying and waiting until he deemed it fit to come for her.
It had been a tough year. Worse than all the crappy years before that and she'd had some very bad. Spike was the only thing that she had been able to find some joy in, but now even that was soiled by the vampire's selfishness.
After returning from... there (the only time she had actually used the word, was when she’d told Spike about it), she had gradually fallen into a relationship with the vampire. Buffy had panicked when everybody found out, but aside from Giles and Xander, they had been surprisingly okay with it. Tara had been a big help. Somehow her quiet acceptance made it all right for Buffy and others.
And then slowly, oh so slowly, she had discovered that she felt a lot deeper for Spike than she could have ever imagined. So deeply in fact, that she was now acting like a pathetic housewife, looking for her wayward husband and picking him up from bars. She had no idea what she would do when he got himself dusted or decided that he finally had it with her and hit the road again.
It was quarter to two now. She wiped away her tears and took out a small pocket mirror to make herself presentable. Spike would probably be too drunk to smell her tears, even if sometimes it seemed that he actually did care.
Buffy had barely entered when she potter Spike at the bar.
“Hey, Chuck, I'm gonna wrap up early today. Where's my pay?”
She heard the man behind the bar grumble something and put a bottle of some clear liquor on the bar. Buffy thought that the man would then open the cash register to hand out a few bills but to her amazement nothing of the kind happened. Spike took the bottle and with a short 'thank you' headed towards the exit.
Buffy stared as he got closer and when he passed her, she realized that she had been holding her breath.
“Got wheels?” he asked but all Buffy could do was goggle at the new low her boyfriend had fallen into.
She turned to him as he scanned the parking lot with his blood shot eyes. For a moment more Buffy observed his cold expression and more or less sober pose. His stance didn't mean shit, apparently he'd been drinking for the whole week non-stop. She gestured wordlessly to the SUV.
He moved towards the car but before he had a chance to get in, she grabbed the bottle from his hand and hurled it against the wall of the bar. The smash was loud but neither of them even flinched.
Spike just turned slowly to look at her. His eyes were so menacing, that they actually looked almost watery grey, his jaw was clenched and so were his fists. For a moment she actually thought that he would strike her.
Then he stepped around her to the driver's side and got in. She never drove when they were together, so she sat on the passenger seat and gave him the keys. His body was still tense and she was ready for the explosion.
He stepped on the accelerator, the tires screeched and she pressed her nails into the seat's upholstery. Buffy wanted to tell him off about ruining her mom's car, in spite of the fact that if it had been her behind the wheel at the moment, she would’ve probably done the same. Still, she bit her lip and didn’t say anything until she noticed him take a wrong turn.
“Where are you going?” she more or less barked. Although Spike didn’t actually live with her, he often stayed the night. This time it went without saying that if her mother had been worried about him, then he would at least show his face at the house on Revello. Besides, it was her mother's SUV.
“Spike!”
Spike didn't answer.
After a minute he parked.
In front of a liquor store.
He got out and so did she. By the time she got into the store, he was already taking a bottle from the shelf.
“You are not buying that.”
“Watch me.”
“You don't have money!”
He got a couple of bills from the front pocket of his jeans and almost jabbed them into her nose but she grabbed his hand.
“Let go, Slayer,” he hissed.
“You are not drinking any more!” she hissed back.
“You are not my mother!” he yelled back as he wrestled his wrist out of her grasp. “Not my bloody wife!”
“I'm your girlfriend!”
“Are you really? Why won't you act like one then!?”
“I am, you, you... you're an alcoholic, Spike!” she shouted.
“Don't you bloody think I know that?” he roared back. And then froze.
Buffy did too. “I didn't think you'd ever admit it,” she said quietly, shocked.
Spike seemed shocked too when he said, “What does it matter? I don't have to be sober to fuck you.”
It was said quietly and so sadly that she barely heard him.
“But I want you sober,” she said as quietly. “Please.” She saw him swallow and blink.
“Why?”
She didn't know why, but if she did, she wouldn't tell him anyway. The truth was, she did not want him just sober, she wanted him happy, and he obviously was not.
“What if something happens, something big... and... and you’re somewhere off, drinking? Or passed out, completely unable to fight?” she asked him in a small voice.
He listened to her and then looked down. Maybe he was ashamed or sad or disappointed, she didn’t know. But at least he wasn’t mad at her any more.
“Fine,” he finally said. “Let's get you home.”
Sometimes she thought that maybe, just maybe, vampires were able to love.
The end (for now)