Title: The Spotless Mind
Setting: Season five, au from mid-Crush
Summary: Spike is attacked before he can reveal his true feelings to Buffy and the only way to save him involves entering his mind...
Disclaimer: All produce related to BtVS and Ats are Joss Whedon’s property, not mine, but don’t sue me for borrowing, I’m only human *shifty eyes*
PROLOGUE: Veteris Vestigia Flammae
He wasn’t quite sure what had brought him here at three in the morning. Wasn’t entirely certain that there was actually a reason for him to be sitting, hunched over beside a years old crypt, the pathway barely even visible beneath the overgrown grasses of the cemetery.
His mind momentarily drifted to Drusilla, the beautiful vampire he’d been sharing a bed with back in LA just hours ago. He wondered why, when she was everything he’d ever wanted and needed, after she’d finally returned to his side and promised to love him the way he wanted her to, why it was *him* who had left her.
It didn’t make sense. Not even slightly. And he wondered how he’d justify it when he finally went crawling back to her, having found nothing in the small town he’d never even heard of before anyway. The small town whose name had slipped unnoticed into his dreaming mind and left him with no choice but to get onto the next train and wait to see why he was there.
Spike sighed, his head falling back against the stone wall behind him. So, he’d done something spontaneous for once; climbed out of the bed he and Drusilla had just christened, ran to the train station, stared at the train listings for a good half hour and eventually decided upon a distant place called Montauk. He’d bought a ticket, too tired to bother arguing with the ticket collector. And then he’d waited, sitting on the platform and feeling rather specifically as if he were escaping something, though what that something would be, he really didn’t know.
He’d been fully prepared to travel the miles and miles to the destination he had chosen for his escape, but then that pleasant female voice that you so often hear at the train station had played over the intercom…….
“….……..The train now arriving at platform two is the 12.08 train to Sunnydale station, calling at…………”
And for some reason, the name of that town, a town he’d never even heard of before, struck a chord within him, and he’d leapt from his bench like a madman, dashing over the footbridge that arched above the track and took him over to platform two, battling through the closing doors of a train bound for Sunnydale station, collapsing into an empty seat, and staring out of the window in wonderment of what he’d just done.
Now that really *was* spontaneous.
So now here he was, sitting outside an empty crypt and wondering why. Why he hadn’t left yet. Why he’d deserted Drusilla when she was all he wanted. And why he’d even come here in the first place. What had forced him out of that bed and onto the train, because it sure as Hell wasn’t a desire to visit the beach. It ran deeper than that, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what he was doing here.
A heartbeat caught his attention, and he looked up in time to see a petite blond girl thrashing a vampire to the ground, stake plunging mercilessly into an unbeating heart and then collapsing into a pile of dust just like the immobilized body.
Shit. Slayer- must be.
Spike scrambled to his feet, trying to level his head out ready for the inevitable fight. So she was the reason he’d been drawn to this bloody Hell-hole. Time to claim his third Slayer eh?
He watched as blond hair was flicked effortlessly over smooth, tanned shoulders. It felt like a movement he’d seen a hundred times before, felt almost like something he’d studied for years and stored away in some dark recess at the back of his mind.
Spike shook his head, a frown creasing his brow. Ridiculous.
Finally, he stepped forward.
“Nice moves.” he said smoothly, his voice ringing out through the cemetery and making her pivot on her small feet, blond hair flicking back over her shoulder as her eyes met his for the first time. “Slayer, I presume.”
Her chestnut gaze swept slowly up his body, as if sizing him up in preparation of the coming fight. Then a small, confident smile curved her lips.
“Accents usually make for tougher vamps.” she observed off-handedly in a voice that was slick like honey, “Or at least, that was the case with Dracula.”
Spike felt the respect that leapt instantly into his eyes at hearing that this tiny girl had defeated the legendary vampire. He compressed the emotion though, and he smirked at her as he said. “Spent some holidays with Drac in my time. Didn’t seem like the kind of guy to be taken out by a Slayer.”
“That so?” the small Slayer asked, her head quirking to one side, “Then I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I-”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t lie.” he said, and he smirked as he saw her cool slip a little, to be replaced with annoyance. “You gotta name pet?”
“I sure do.” she said, whipping out another stake and plastering her face with false enthusiasm, “Not that you’ll be around long enough to hear it.”
She lunged at him, all business now as her stake swung dangerously close to his chest. Spike quickly side-stepped her attack however, catching her wrist and spinning her so her petite body was pressed against his.
“Wanna tell me your name pet?” he growled into her ear, “I’ve got all day.”
The Slayer struggled for a moment or two, flexible fingers clawing at the strong arm clamped across her neck, eventually realizing talking her way out of this situation would be her best bet.
She sighed as she relaxed her body and said. “It’s Buffy.”
Spike’s amused snort came out with such a force that his arm slacked from across her chest, and Buffy pushed herself free of his grip; spinning around to slam a kick into his chest.
Her heart gave a slight, inexplicable pang as she watched him crash to the ground.
She quickly covered her reaction however, and began to circle him like a predator.
“And you?” she asked, “You have a name?”
“Spike.” he told her. “William the Bloody.”
“Charming.” the young Slayer remarked. Then her head tipped slightly to the side. “You seem… Familiar.” Spike watched her as she toyed with the recognition. “Do I know you?”
“Don’t think so love.” he said, eyebrow quirking. “Wistful thinking?”
She pulled a face, “As if.”
He couldn’t explain what happened next, but for some reason, his face split out into a charming smile, and he climbed back to his feet, gracefully sweeping his coat up too.
“Buffy…” he said, “S’kinda name you don’t go forgettin’ in a hurry. I’m sure I’d *remember* pet.”
“Likewise.” she quipped in reply, “Spike’s the kind of name you’re still laughing about a year later.” her eyes turned momentarily serious. “You just seem…”
“Familiar?”
“And I don’t have the usual urge to slay.”
Spike chuckled slightly, taking a liking to this girl already. Damn Slayer, Dru would never forgive him if he let her get under his skin.
“Fancy slaying a double shot of vodka with me at the nearest bar?” he asked, grinning and kicking himself at the same time, “I’m sure I can find a place.”
“I…” Buffy too was smiling, despite her urge to slap the smirk from his pretty mouth. “Would it be so wrong?”
“Slayer and vamp sharing a drink together? Nah; it’d be like old nick.”
So they went, and they drank, and they shared the stories of their pasts. Buffy told him about the demon’s she’d faced off with. Spike told her how he’d been vamped.
“Was in the alley.” he said, “Can never remember why. Was upset about something, as old nancy boys, like I was, so often are.”
Buffy smirked, enjoying his story.
“And then?” she asked, “You made it out into the alley.” she subconsciously leaned closer to the dangerous blond, “What next?”
“Met Dru is all.” he said, “Remember that alright.” he sighed in recollection, leaning back lazily on his bar stool, “She entranced me with her gaze; told me she could show me worlds beyond our own, then she transformed before my very gaze.”
Buffy shivered slightly, noting the dangerous glint in his gaze.
“And where is she now?” she asked, suspecting the female vampire must be gone, or why else would he be spending the night alone in Sunnydale. “Slain?”
“No…” his gaze turned haughty, “Back in LA, lying in bed where I left her.”
“Still together?” Buffy asked, astonished, if not just a little disappointed.
“As of yesterday.” he said. “We’ve spent a while apart in recent years, but I was attacked a few nights ago and it was her who came to my rescue. Took me back to LA with her until I recovered. Was there again, with those eyes, when I woke up.”
Buffy embraced herself uncomfortably, feeling as if she were crushing on what clearly belonged to another woman. Keen to change the subject, she asked; “Why did you split up before?” realizing, a little sheepishly, that she had not managed to change the subject in any way, shape or form.
Spike’s brow creased a little with confusion. “Don’t rightly remember that either.” he said, rubbing at his forehead with agitation. “Seems that attack the other night had some lasting effects after all.” he sighed slightly as he added, “Dru was always carrying on with other creatures. Must’ve been that which finally split us up.”
Buffy nodded with understanding, her mind flashing back to her own ex, Riley Finn. He’d been carrying on with other creatures too, and she knew how unpleasant it was to find out that the one you loved wasn’t getting enough of his kicks out of simply being with you.
“I get why you’d leave her.” she said, looking into his crystal blue eyes, “Hurts like a bitch to find out.”
“Sounds like the voice of experience love.” Spike replied, looking into a gaze fresh with recent pain, “But if I recall rightly, she was the one who left me.”
After a lot more alcohol consumption, and a few more silly stories (slightly slurred and very animated) the Slayer and Vampire finally got up to leave. The bar tender bid them farewell, though neither could remember giving him their names, and they made their way back to the place where they had met.
Chestnut eyes met sparkling blue in a blaze of inexplicable passion; emotions coursing through two sets of veins with indescribable need and longing.
“Who are you?” Buffy enquired, though she knew well by now that he was her supposed mortal enemy. “Why do I care already?”
He touched her face, and it felt like a place his hand had rested a hundred times before.
Then slowly his opened mouth sank towards her jugular.
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A/N: just a little taster [[excuse the pun]] let me know what you thought. And yes- I made the banner myself **is proud**
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