Part Five: Beyond The Looking Glass
The majority of the trip to Giles’s consisted of an inward mantra of reaffirmation that the vampire that had scared Wesley was most likely a wandering miscreant who had flocked to the Hellmouth after catching wind of its noted reputation. Ten minutes of blessed and uncharacteristic silence from Faith allowed an extra measure of leverage, enabling her mind to pull the wool over her eyes even more.
It wasn’t entirely the most ridiculous thing she had heard, but it was close.
They weren’t at Giles’s for long; just long enough to get the full story from an overly panicked and very-much exaggerating Wesley. He was sporting a nasty shiner and his glasses had seen better days, but it was otherwise obvious that the bulk of the damage had been to his self-esteem.
It was difficult to judge the look on Giles’s face. They waited patiently as Wesley calmed himself and suffered through several revised tellings of the story. However, despite the changes to minute details, the main points remained the same. Things Buffy couldn’t readily dismiss.
Old ratty car. Burst through the welcome sign. Cigarette. Leather. Blond. British.
Fortunately, the others remained ignorant to her thoughts. Faith was more interested in leaving and getting in a few good slays, and Wesley wouldn’t know Spike from Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys. And Giles…
Giles was the loose canon. Giles knew her better than anyone at times. And Giles was currently studying her suspiciously, measuring her with the same look that told her that he knew she was hiding something. It didn’t seem terribly long ago when she could pull a fast one on him without so much as batting an eye, but he was beyond that now. That paternal glimmer buried within his gaze was enough to tell her that. Buffy swallowed hard. He was thinking the same thing she was. He knew the same thing she did. Spike had returned. Spike was back in town, and under the terms of his last departure, she could only imagine the welcoming committee he would receive.
But that didn’t explain why Giles refrained from voicing his conclusion. It didn’t explain the something different in his eyes. It didn’t do much to explain anything. The Watcher wasn’t one to withhold information, especially with a renowned and proud slayer-killer wandering the streets. There was more than comprehension there. He was watching her for a response. He was attempting to decipher what sort of reaction Spike’s return would have on her. He was waiting to see what she said.
Out of everyone, he had been the least vocal about the night that had rendered him jobless. There was nothing he could say that had not already been said; nothing he could imply that had not been beaten into the ground. Plus, it was possible that he felt that he owed her something. that what had happened was entirely his fault—and she wasn’t one to disagree. Buffy remembered well how angry she’d been with him for keeping the birthday ritual from her. She trusted Giles more than anyone—her mom or her friends—which made his deceit absolutely crushing. Not even Angel’s desouling had hurt her as much. However, Buffy had forgiven him, her resentment replaced by her own self-loathing, not to mention the wealth of negativity directed at Spike. Logic did not enter into her estranged line of thinking.
If it was Spike—if he was the one responsible for Wesley’s shiner—he was being fairly presumptuous in coming back. In making his presence known so loudly.
Oh, well, her inner will snapped. Isn’t that ironic? An hour ago, you were cursing him for not being here…PMSing, much?
“Really,” Wesley was saying, “it’s completely miraculous that my eye isn’t much worse. Had I been caught on better awares, I—”
“Would have fallen over without getting hit first?” Faith offered with saccharine falsity, earning a wounded look.
“This was no ordinary vampire,” he insisted for what had to be the twentieth time in ten minutes. “I daresay, he—”
“Was the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered vamp you ever set eyes on?” Buffy offered.
Wesley stared at her blankly. “Well, erm, yes.”
Giles blinked. “Did you just quote Monty Python?”
Oh crap.
Faith just looked at her, lost.
“Ummm. No,” Buffy replied quickly. “I mean, I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to shut him up.”
“Pardon me if I believe more attention should be drawn to the matter,” Wesley huffed indignantly. “After all, with a vampire of that brawn loose in Sunnydale, I shudder to think how quickly the—”
Faith rolled her eyes and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Enough about the damn vamp, all right? Honestly, Wes, I’m startin’ to think you just pulled this story outta your ass to get some notice. Nifty shiner you got there. Are you sure you didn’t just walk into a lamppost?”
Wesley made one last pathetic attempt to gather sympathy, which everyone promptly ignored.
“Look,” Faith continued. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but there are more important things to discuss, rather than yap away about some so-called vamp who—by amazing coincidence—decided not to kill you, okay Chief?”
“Are you seriously insinuating that I fabricated the event?”
“Ohhh, now there’s a thought,” she continued with a malicious grin. “Maybe next time we’ll get lucky and he’ll tear your head off.”
“I’m with Faith,” Buffy heard herself say, eliciting one supremely offended and two befuddled glances in response. “Not about Wes…well, actually, yeah. About that, too. But more to the effect that there are important things to discuss. Sacred duty stuff. “I only meant that if we can progress beyond Screams-Like-A-Woman’s recent crisis, we have an update from the demony front.”
That caught Giles’s interest. It had been a long while since she saw him light up with such fluid rapidity. “Oh?”
“Something that might be related to the Mayor,” she clarified. “Demon caught us on patrol. Said he was willing to sell us the Books of Ascension…whatever those are.”
There was a long pause as this new information was digested.
“The books of what?” Wesley finally commented.
“Ascension. Like I said, not exactly on the ‘here’s the definition’ front, but he said it has something to do with the Mayor.”
“He could have been lying,” Faith offered. “Demons tend to do that, you know. He might’ve just wanted the money.”
Giles had a pensively collected look on his face. “How much?”
“Five G’s.” The raven-haired Slayer shrugged indifferently. “Seems to me if these books were so important, he would’ve upped the price to something he knew the Council could front.”
“I believe it’s unusual that a demon would want cash in the first place,” Wesley observed.
Giles seemed to share his sentiments, a look of disapproval marring his brow. “Demons after money. Whatever happened to the still beating heart of a virgin? No one has any standards anymore.”
Everyone took a prolonged minute to study him speculatively.
“I was just saying…” When their scrutiny didn’t let up, he replaced his glasses on the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat. “Ascension…that’s not a term I’m familiar with.”
“Nor I,” Wesley commented.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Well, that was a given…”
“There might be some books at the library…”
“Ascension sounds big with the power, and power seems to be Willow’s primary focus right now.” Buffy observed, avoiding the instinctive wince that tagged along with any mention of her best friend’s name. The last thing she needed right now was a reminder that they weren’t speaking. “Didn’t you lend her most of your books?”
Giles shook his head. “I let her take home one, maybe two at a time. There are also some volumes of deeper magic that I keep in a secure location. With the rate at which she’s progressing…I fear what might happen if she pushes herself to mature plateaus before she’s ready.”
That earned a wry chuckle. “Yeah, she might actually float erasers instead of pencils.”
“I’m serious, Buffy. Considering where she was in her studies this time last year, she has made remarkable progress. People with access to that kind of power tend to…” His eyes hazed over poignantly for an instant. “Jenny practiced her entire life and had only surpassed the stage Willow is at right now when Ang…when she died. Given Willow’s dedication…” He looked down when his emotions threatened to get the better of him. The one-year anniversary of his girlfriend’s murder had only recently passed. He hadn’t said anything, of course, but his mood had been touchy and distant.
Much like hers, but to a lesser degree. Giles had the decency not to let his emotions influence his behavior.
Faith broke the uncomfortable silence as only Faith could: faking a wide yawn and heading for the front door without any semblance of break. “Well, L’s and G’s,” she drawled, “as much fun as this has been…it’s wicked early and I have better things to do than sit here and reminisce.” Her eyes locked on Buffy. “You know where to find me if all this hoopla starts to make sense, don’t yah, girlfriend?”
A weak nod. “Yeah. You Bronzing it?”
“That and then some.” She shrugged at the pointed look that earned. “Might as well. The night’s still young, and tomorrow’s not a school day.” A thoughtful pause. “Well, no day’s a school day, come to think of it. Not for me anyway. Ta.”
“I really don’t like her,” Wesley mused the second she was gone.
Buffy sighed and pouted her dissatisfaction. “Responsibility sucks,” she complained under her breath. “Faith parties, and I’m stuck with the homework. Giles, I’m going home. It’s been a long night. Movie and Wesley nearly-getting-almost threatened by a twenty-foot vamp with bear-like claws.”
And Spike might be back in town, and you’re not sure how to feel about that.
“I beg your—”
She shook her head shortly as she headed for the door. “I’ll see you on Monday. Don’t hesitate to not call if something really boring happens.”
Stepping outside was like surfacing after being under water too long. There had been too many revelations in one night—too much to consider. Faith’s casual, though unsurprising, negligence of all things world-saveage related. The demon’s proposal. Wesley’s admittedly loud shiner. The possibility that the bane of her existence was back in town, and her thrill of excitement at the possibility that it was true.
Though she so shouldn’t be excited about that. She still had pieces to pick up. And who knew? Perhaps it wasn’t Spike. There were plenty of vamps that went around without care for the property they destroyed and lived in decades classically and forever defined as retro. There were plenty of vamps that came and went. There were plenty…
Who left Watchers alive?
It might not be him.
Yeah…and maybe tomorrow you’ll win the lottery, get the Nobel Prize, and be crowned the Queen of England.
The smile that should have crossed her lips remained at bay. There was nothing to smile about.
Not with Angel giving her the silent treatment.
Not with ugly demons seeking her out.
Not with Spike’s potential return.
Everything in the Land of Buffy was so irreversibly screwed up, and she didn’t know how to begin fixing it. Perhaps with a good night’s sleep, and a call of reconciliation to Willow in the morning.
It was a start.
*~*~*
He would not lurk outside her window.
Spike was many things. A killer, a vampire, a slayer-killer, but he was not some gammy Angel-wannabe. He would not lurk outside her window and brood. He would not watch her when he knew he could not be seen. He would not reach in and caress her skin while she slept.
No, that was much too Angelish. He refused to lurk outside her window.
Pacing outside her window was a completely different story. Angel never paced, and he therefore had no qualms. Back and forth, refusing to make circles, knowing she wasn’t there. Where was she? The cemeteries had been graced with the quick once-over, and while he could very definitely smell her proximity, patrolling had been abandoned more than an hour ago.
Which meant she would return at any time. Only she hadn’t. It was a dangerous assumption. If she caught a glance of him pacing restlessly below her window…he didn’t want to think what sort of reaction that would provoke. It was a bad idea coming here. A bad, dangerous idea. But he couldn’t stay away.
Bloody brilliant, mate, the vampire scoffed to himself, lighting up one of his last cigarettes. Come roarin’ back into town, determined to steer clear of the chit long enough to see if she’s even interested…an’ whaddya do? Go to her house straight away.
His plans never worked.
It didn’t seem to matter, though. She wasn’t home. From the look of things, she hadn’t been home for several hours. Hell, he couldn’t blame the girl. It was Friday night. While Sunnydale wasn’t exactly notorious for its fabulous tourist attractions, he seemed to remember the Bronze as a place of notable teenage hormonal enjoyment.
That thought made him pause discreetly in his paces. No, on second thought, he much preferred her home. Not enjoying anything. Away from the greedy paws of adolescent males, or worse, not-so adolescent elder vampires.
That nagging voice that jested that he was a fool for returning surfaced once more. Despite what she had said, he couldn’t honestly expect her to live up to it. He had known the minute he stepped away from her window those short weeks ago that returning would be the dumbest thing he could do. Leaving in the first place was the idiot’s way out—rendering her alone with her Slayer thoughts that reeked of nobility and Peaches-prone googly eyes. Waltzing back into her life whenever he pleased didn’t bother him as much. The notion that he should never have left was dangerous enough to quench any fire.
But not as palpable as the understanding that his Achilles’ Heel was returning in the first place. He was drowning in the temptation of Buffy Summers, to the point where he couldn’t smother her image, no matter how hard he tried. To where not being near her might have ended him before anything else had the chance.
He was not brooding, and he was not lurking outside her window.
And she was still not home.
Friday night, mate. If she’s not out dancin’, the silly bint prob’ly went out with Peaches.
That thought did not rest well with him. Spike stamped out his cigarette and reached for another. He eyed the tree that led directly to her room. To her empty bed. Was it Angelish to climb up if she wasn’t there? He couldn’t remember Angel staring longingly into a vacant room that smelled of her, even in his not-so-soulful days. No, Angelus always went to her when he knew she was there. When he wanted to torment her with hints of his presence.
What about masochism? Spike had no intention of tormenting Buffy. To enter the room that was saturated with her scent would only serve to cripple him. Suppose he didn’t want to leave? Suppose he got one of his bright ideas, stripped, and crawled into her bed?
Mmm…comfy bed…Buffy in comfy bed…Buffy naked in comfy bed…
Which was precisely why he shouldn’t risk it. He hadn’t yet composed what he wanted to say when he saw her again. That thought alone was enough to make him weep with laughter. For whatever reason, he suspected that his usual bluntness would be resented. Especially if he discovered that he had returned only to face the biting edge of her dismissal—or worse—the pointy end of her stake.
However, at the same time, he understood that any prepared argument would be forgotten the minute her pretty little mouth opened. The girl had the annoying ability to educe two emotions so completely opposite on the conventional roster: hatred and lust. It was a good thing that he was beyond convention, and that those two particular emotions coincided perfectly with his nature. One did not survive without the other.
The tree looked tall and inviting, and the room it led to smelled of her. A vampire’s most basic instincts were not to be fought—it was calling to him. Cliché and everything: a sodding moth to the flame. In the end, who was he to resist? There was nothing to do but follow.
Spike cursed himself. His stamina wasn’t showing its brighter colors.
Then again, it never did.
The window pushed open easily, welcoming him, and his senses were immediately bombarded with the essence of Buffy Summers. Strong, blazing whiffs of tattletale naughtiness to bank in his mental palace. The potency nearly overwhelmed him. What he felt upon roaring back into town could not hope to compare. The Slayer’s personal best. Her room. The room he had never seen, despite numerous crossings.
It was so…cute. Elements of kid-dom were scattered here and there. He approached the bed and picked up a stuffed pig with an amused grin. She had the weirdest taste. From the animals to the New Kids’ posters. The text books to the scattered CD collection. Annoyingly simplistic; the true signs of a teenage girl. He found it charming. So this was where the Slayer lived. This was where she came when the vamps were dust. The air was hers. The space was hers. The bed was hers. If he decided to apply his vampiric senses, he would see the indentation her body made into the mattress.
Personal. It felt personal being here. Standing in the place where she lived. His skin hummed lightly in effect.
Somewhere, Spike knew that it was wrong. He was invading her privacy, he was entering without permission, and there was every possibility that she didn’t know he was back. She would be livid if she found him here. The prat of a Watcher that the Council had sent over hadn’t moved for quite some time, even though he had barely tapped him. He wondered briefly how the Slayer would react to that. The story would spread soon of how they crossed paths and why, and there was no doubt that she would piece two and two together. Then again, how much would the bloke remember? Enough to announce his presence?
A bittersweet thought ran through him. Perhaps that was why she was gone tonight. Perhaps she was seeking him out. Would she greet him with a stake or a kiss? Did she care about the ponce or did her loyalty remain steadfast with Giles?
These questions really had to end. He was giving himself a headache.
Spike decided to make the visit brief. There was no sense dragging things out. The longer he stayed, the more prone she was to interrupting him. Thus, his survey ran fast: speedy but memorable. Not the sort of behavior one would expect from one sent to kill her—rather, endearing touches to things that belonged to her. He inhaled as much of her air as he could, wanting to keep her in his mouth until he retired for the evening.
It amused him to see a discarded rental of The Life of Brian plopped on the far corner of her dresser. He distinctly remembered her saying that she wasn’t a fan of Monty Python before he pushed her to the confession that she hadn’t understood it. He would like to hear what her verdict was now, and was completely prepared to argue the film’s finer points. The little bint was stubborn, after all. She probably sat through it just to tally up its flaws.
The smile that tackled his lips was wide with speculation. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Something else attracted his interest. There was a pile of dirty clothes in the corner. Spike’s head quirked and he followed his nose. The search wasn’t extensive; he snatched the panties that smelled most of her and hailed them to his senses with a muffled moan. God, he had missed that scent. Raw, unadulterated Buffy. The same he had tasted and craved. Enough to fuel a thousand nights’ worth of dreams, if nothing else. His cock twitched within his trousers, and he knew it was time to go.
The Slayer’s personals found their way into his back pocket. He returned to the window, then paused to glance over her room once more. Buffy was caught in that blessed stage between childhood and maturity. He often had to remind himself how young she was. The night they shared had shown both colors; he had seen the stuck-up teen and he had seen the woman she was destined to become. And both sides drove him batty.
Which is why you shouldn’t’ve come back, he warned himself, slipping down the tree. She’s the Slayer, for God’s sake! ‘S bad enough you can’t kill the chit. Are you sayin’ you’re—
No. That was a path he had not yet explored. One he didn’t want to think about. Lusting was one thing. It was natural and just. Love…love was…
Outta the bloody question.
Spike sighed, removing the fag from his lips and extinguishing it beneath his boot. Tomorrow he would attempt to see her. Try to establish communication, even if it lasted for only three seconds. He needed to know where he stood. The concept of forced distance was becoming more and more intolerable. She was a drug, and the town was his supplier. Coming home, he’d admitted his addiction and conceded that he desperately needed a fix.
Or twenty.
But not now. Not with his return so young against the night air. He needed time to adjust.
He had to see her first.
*~*~*
The night had already been so distorted. Devilishly bizarre, even if it was the Hellmouth. Whore-bag fun with Angel while she attempted to get herself off by thinking of someone else, a round or two in the mystic mind game with Faith, encounter with a demon who did not desire the still-beating heart of a virgin, and Wesley’s run-in with a Could-Be Spike. There was every possibility that what she felt now was the physical manifestation of the eccentricity, conjured by her paranoia in a lasting attempt to weird her out even further, but she didn’t think so.
Something was off.
Buffy inhaled deeply, and any room for doubt was quenched. Faint wisps of nicotine tickled her nose. Hints of leather and…was she imagining that? No, there was definitely a cigarette feel in here. Combined with the tinglies that were going stir-crazy in the pit of her stomach. Buffy was prepared to observe anything tonight.
Mr. Gordo accompanied her to the window and helped her pull it shut. He nestled securely against her bosom and gave her what comfort an inanimate creature could. But Buffy was lost. Staring down the path where he undoubtedly disappeared. Wondering how long Spike had been here. Wondering what it was he was trying to accomplish.
Buffy was vaguely aware that she should be furious at the intrusion, and she was sure she was, somewhere. The night, however, had taken too much out of her. There was plenty of time to be incensed tomorrow. For now, she settled on mindlessly aimed vindictiveness.
Presumptuous bastard.
No denying anymore. She couldn’t if she tried. The bleached bloodsucker was back in town. He was back, and he hadn’t forgotten about her or what she’d said. Nothing.
Not a damn word.
TBC |
