Breathless Confidences
The Burn Away Series 5
Written by: PerleTwo
Author's Website
Summary: Buffy's hospital stay leads to a renewed connection with Spike. S2, set during
Killed by Death
Disclaimer: The show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of it's characters belong to Joss,
Mutant Enemy, & Fox Prod.
Feedback: perletwo@yahoo.com
Buffy shifted uncomfortably in her too-small hospital bed. The room smelled like
Lysol. The IV needle in her hand hurt; her regenerative ability kept trying to
heal the skin around it with the needle still in. And she was burning up under
all these covers. {{God, I *HATE* hospitals!}} she thought
bitterly.
Worst of all, when her Spidey-sense started tingling to alert
her to the presence of a vampire, all she could do was lie there and let it make
her feel like jumping out of her skin!
The curtains rustled, and she
tensed; then Spike stepped out of the shadows, and she relaxed with a smile.
"Thank God, it's just you, Spike.'M stuck here without a stake in sight..." she
croaked through her swollen throat.
"How you doin', pet?" Odd. Spike was
twitchy and tense and looked almost - scared?
"Great now that you're
here," she answered, struggling to rise. "C'mon, help me get up so's I can
-"
"SLAYER!" The vampire moved lightning-quick to the bedside, shoving
her back down.
"HEY!" Buffy struggled under his hands. "What's THAT all
about?! C'mon, you're a rebel! I thought you'd jump at the chance to help me
play hooky!"
"From *school,* sure," he said, stroking her sweaty hair off
her face. "From your mum's, no problem. From Watcher-boy's tutelage, anytime.
But not from 'ospital, pet! Not when you're ill!"
"...mmmm..." Buffy
stopped struggling abruptly at the gentle motion of his hand, which she grabbed
and lay against her flushed cheek. "Cold hands...feels good..." She moved his
hand down her throat and into the gap at the neck of her hospital gown. "If
you're not gonna help me get out of here, you could at least get into this bed
an' help cool me off..."
"Luv, you've got a right 'igh fever by the feel
of it, I don't think gettin' all worked up's quite what the doctor ordered..."
He pulled his hand away and began prowling the room restlessly, and she
pouted.
"So. Bring me a gift, at least?" He looked startled, and she
nodded at the plant on the nightstand, a grin on her face. "That's what people
do when they visit sick friends in the hospital, y'know..."
"Sorry. I'm
not a people. Didn't know." She shook her head, went into a coughing fit. He
looked alarmed, but she waved his concern away. " 'M fine. Relax..."
He
took out a cigarette and pulled out his lighter with the other hand, and she
cleared her throat noisily, gesturing toward an oxygen tank in the corner. "O2.
Sparks. Bad combination. Go boom." Grimacing, he pocketed the lighter and
glanced around the room, fingers beginning to field-strip the filter on the
cigarette.
"WHAT is going ON with you, Spike? I've never seen you this -
this - nervous!" she said finally, sinking back down into the bed.
He
prowled around the bed, seeming to take up all the space in the room. "You're
the Slayer," he said finally, voice accusing. "Slayers aren't supposed to get
sick!"
She sighed. "It's just the 'flu. Normal people get it all the
time. I'm gonna be fine."
"Sure. Normal people get thrown in 'ospital for
it all the time too."
She laughed, painful through her sore throat.
"Aww. The Big Bad's scared of a little bug...."
His voice rose an octave.
"People DIE from what you've got, Slayer! 'Ave a little more respect f'r
it!"
"Thought you wanted me dead, Spike..." she said, too
sweetly.
"No...what I want is to kill you. There's a difference." Buffy
threw her hands up, stumped and incredulous.
"It's about the only way I
can claim t'win a fight with you fair 'n square, Slayer. So yeah, I wouldn't
mind killin' you. But I don't - want you to just up an' die. Not like this." His
fingers twisted the cigarette in his hand. "It's just - it's beneath you. You
deserve a better death than this. Somethin' - honorable. Somethin' they'd'a
written an epic poem about back when they did things like that for
heroes."
"Vampires. I swear." She rose up again, and he was back at the
head of her bed in a flash. "Nono, 'm jus' tryin' to sit up, help me shift, 'k?"
When she was settled back against the pillows propping her up, she looked at him
steadily, evaluating. "What's this all about, Spike?" she asked softly. "Really
about."
He paced again, looking like a wild thing caged; then pulled up a
metal chair with a scrape and dropped into it backward, leaning his arms over
the chairback. He looked away, then met her eyes again. "Long time ago. When I
was 'uman like you."
He looked down, then started again. "I 'ad a li'l
sister, some six years younger'n me. Beautiful li'l thing - you know those
portraits people like Gainsborough always used to do, pretty li'l rosy-cheeked
English children wi' curly brown 'air an' big blue eyes, in fancy clothes? That
was 'er. Knew 'ow to work those looks too, wrap the grownups right 'round 'er
finger..." Buffy caught his eye and smiled encouragingly.
"Grew like a
weed, smart as a whip - too smart really for a proper young lady in the world we
lived in, she should'a been born in your time, Slayer, when she could'a grown up
t'be anythin' she liked. Too precocious t'be 'eld back - she always ran
everywhere, Mum was always yellin' down the lane after her t'slow
down..."
His eyes lost focus, looking backward in time. "Pain in my arse,
she was. Thought she knew ev'rythin'. Longed to catch me out at somethin' so she
could rat me out an' be the 'ero. Was always creepin' around spyin' on me,
pokin' through my room...thinkin' she was invisible when she was more like a
bull in a china shop, y'know? Drove me nuts, that mum 'n dad couldn't see 'er
workin' em for all she was worth..."
"Tell me," Buffy said softly, voice
scratching against her prickly throat, and he snapped back to the present, just
like that.
"Y'don't really need me to tell you what's comin', do you? She
died. Of what you've got now. Influenza. Rheumatic fever, then; bronchial
infection or somesuch now." He looked down at the desiccated remains of his
cigarette. "Either way - she couldn't breathe, pet. She'd lie there like a dead
thing already, gaspin' and strugglin'...an' she 'ad this stunned look in 'er
eyes, like she'd thought she was invulnerable an' this wasn't s'posed t'be
'appenin' to her, must be some mistake somewhere...She was eight. I was
fourteen."
"Doctors?" Buffy asked, trying to catch his eye.
"Oh.
Yeah. Sure. She 'ad 'em. Did what they could. Wasn't much." He looked up at the
IV bag dangling from the pole above her. "Anyone asks you what the biggest thing
t'happen in the 20th century was, pet? That's it, right there." He pointed to
the bag. "Penicillin. 'Bout the only true miracle man can really claim to've
made. You've got the good stuff goin' in your arm there, Slayer, just lie there
like a good girl an' let it do its magic already..."
Buffy nodded,
letting a silence stretch between them while he collected himself. "Spike?" He
looked up. "Answer a question, maybe two?" A nod. "What was her name? - and, Did
you love her?"
Pain crossed his eyes. "Violet. Her name was Violet," he
said softly. "And - yes. I loved her. Didn't even know 'ow much, 'til she was
gone." He closed his eyes and went silent again.
"Spike?" He looked up.
"I hate hospitals."
"Obviously." He smiled wryly.
"No. I mean, I
*really* hate hospitals. I - could you pass me some water, please?" He did so,
and after she'd sipped a bit, she continued.
"I had a cousin. My mom's
sister's girl. They lived two streets over from us when I was little and we
lived in L.A. Mom and Aunt Cathy used to throw us together all the time, she was
almost more like a big sister to me. Then one day she went in the hospital, with
one of those things they haven't come up with a miracle for yet. And we spent
all our time hanging around waiting rooms, like I bet Mom's doing out there
right now." Spike nodded.
"They didn't want me going in to see her,
something about germs, but I snuck in anyway, of course. She looked - like a
ghost. Like she wasn't really there anymore. And it was like I could *feel* - it
was like, there was this energy inside her I could feel, and it was ebbing,
slipping away from her..."
Spike reached over and took her hand. "She
was dying, of course. You know what that's like, when they're slipping away like
that. I'd never seen anything like it before, though. I was so scared - first I
thought, I wasn't supposed to be in here, what if I did something that made her
worse? And then, I was scared 'cause the thing in the bed was her but it wasn't
her, and I couldn't get my mind around that...And then it was like everything
started happening at once, there were doctors and nurses all around and they
pushed me out of the way..."
"I know now they were trying to save her,
but it looked to me at the time like they were beating the hell out of her. Like
she'd done something bad. And I got even more scared by all that. I was eight."
She took a long swallow of water. "So. I hate hospitals. See?"
He nodded.
"Eight?" A nod back from her. "Right when your parents were splittin' up an' you
were s'posed t'be on the ice rink, right?" Buffy looked surprised, but nodded.
"What was her name?"
"Celia." Buffy shifted in the bed. "And - yes. I
loved her."
Spike leaned over the bedrail and put a gentle kiss on her
forehead, and her hand came up to cup his cheek. He covered it with his own hand
as he straightened up, placing another kiss in her palm.
"You should
rest." She made a small moaning noise in disappointment. "Tell you what - I'll -
bring you a gift."
"No, I was kidding, Spike. You don't have to
-"
"No, I do, too." He smiled down at her. "That *is* what people do,
when they visit sick friends in hospital. Right?" Smiling, she nodded. "Take
care of yourself,
pet."
* * *
An
hour later, Spike was cursing himself for making that promise as he prowled the
aisles of a 24-hour drugstore. What *did* people bring to sick people as gifts?
Somebody named Willow'd got the plant thing covered; he'd seen the little card
on the bedside table.
He bypassed the candy and cards; the Slayer didn't
seem the frilly-and-sweet type, although there were still plenty of them there,
left over from Valentine's Day. Easter stuff was coming in, but chicks and
bunnies didn't seem quite her speed either. Too bright and sunshiney for night
things like themselves.
Music? 'Flu gives you headaches, moron, he told
himself sternly. C'mon. Something to brighten up a sterile hospital room, make
her a little less scared. Remind her what a kick-ass superheroine she is. How
hard can this be?
He wandered back, through sewing notions and hair care
products and patent medicines for ailments he wasn't subject to, ticking over
possibilities and rejecting them as fast as they came to mind.
On a
clearance shelf at the back of the store he found something he fell in love with
right away. A leftover from the store's long-ago Hallowe'en promotion, the large
white-furred Teddy bear sported a shock of black hair growing up from a widow's
peak, black pointed eyebrows, vampire fangs and a black-and-purple cape. Dead
cheap, too.
Smiling, he picked up the bear and held it at arm's length,
then regretfully put it back down again. Its fur was hot to the touch. She's
feverish - last thing she needs is somethin' to make the bed even warmer, he
thought as he turned to walk away. But he turned and gave the bear a last look
as he turned into the next aisle.
Damn, when did babies get to needin' so
much *stuff?* he wondered, roaming the baby care aisle. Baby oil - he could
think of a dozen interesting uses for that once she was well, but not much of a
gift while she's in stir. Eighty different grades of plastic nappies. Stuff made
outta terry-cloth God never intended to be soft.
Still, a lot of it was
cute, and designed to answer baby-care problems he'd never even heard of. Not
useful in his present condition, but still. He picked up one little terry-cloth
item and turned it over idly in his hand, smiling at the novel idea. Violet
coulda used one'a these when she was little an' kept wantin' to run before she
could even walk straight...
The proverbial light bulb went off over his
head, and he set the little baby item back. He hurried back to the clearance
shelf and grabbed the bear, then backtracked through several other aisles,
picking things up as he went. Paid at the front and took the parcel out to the
DeSoto to do some work, stopping at a curb market for a bag of ice on the way
back to the
hospital.
* * *
At
the hospital, Buffy was stuck in a fever dream. The fact that part of her mind
recognized it as a dream while it was happening in no way lessened its sticky
unpleasantness.
The dream started with her sneaking in to Celia's
hospital room. Everything went the way it actually had at first, and then she
was looking down at her eight-year-old self, trapped in bed with her life
seeping away. She tried to get her other self out of the bed, only to be
shouldered aside by a crush of doctors and nurses.
She heard the child
crying and screaming and tried to push forward to the bed; then the doctor
nearest the bed turned to face her, and she tried to scream, but no sound came
out. It was Angel, and the little girl's blood was dripping from his fangs. He
reached for her...
...and the dream shifted, and she was in Angel's old
apartment, in his arms the night they'd made love. She relaxed in relief and
reveled in the sensations, wishing the moment would never end. But she became
aware of something warm and wet dripping onto her hands and Angel's
back.
She looked up over Angel's shoulder to find Kendra standing over
them, staring at her accusingly. Blood was dripping from the wide open gash in
her throat, and again Buffy tried to make the soundless scream in her dream.
Kendra was holding Mr. Pointy out to her, and Buffy shook her head,
desperately refusing. But the dead Slayer was immovable, and Buffy took the
stake from her regretfully, holding it up over Angel's back above the heart,
just as she'd been trained. She took a last look into her lover's face, warm and
open and trusting - {{I can't do it!}} - and she looked back up at
Kendra.
But Kendra had become Drusilla, standing over them both with
fangs bared, bearing down on her, and it was Angelus in bed above her, crushing
her with his weight and plunging her into hot liquid darkness...
And then
as panic was about to overtake her completely, she felt a cool breeze wash over
her, and the heavy weight was gone. She once again felt the press of a cold male
body against hers, but it was leaner and harder, and its owner was careful not
to overwhelm her. {{Spike,}} she thought with relief, cuddling in closer to his
coolness, and she felt his lips press against her forehead again as they had
before he left.
She opened her eyes in the dream to find herself atop a
frozen pond in the moonlight, in Spike's arms. There was no one else around.
Reaching up, she pressed her mouth to his gratefully, and let her lips part to
admit his cool, wet tongue, playing her own against it. He groaned into her
mouth, and she wriggled lightly against him in the embrace, feeling muscles
jumping all over beneath his skin at the movement.
Despite the chill of
the ice, she could feel his erection pressing into her thigh, and while his
hands roamed along her skin, lighting it up with desire, she brought her legs up
and tried to work them around his hips. She was frustratingly unsuccessful, but
did manage to bring his hard cock down to press against her tingling clitoris,
and rubbed herself against him at that angle until he groaned again and began to
move with her. The world was spinning, and she felt like she was flying, like
she did when she was skating.
When he couldn't bear her little moans and
whimpers any longer, he pulled her knees up around him and slid inside her,
guiding her into a deep, easy rhythm in the same motion. Her hands and mouth
roamed his skin ceaselessly as their bodies rocked, generating heat and friction
enough to weaken the ice under them.
Buffy was caught in a delicious
whirl of sensations, hot and cold mixing and pushing at one another along her
skin delightfully. She gave her conscious mind up to them and just felt the
pleasure, right up until the moment their orgasms hit - the moment the ice
shattered under them and they slid under the water with a crash.
* * *
Buffy
woke up from the dream with a start, gasping for air. When she realized she was
awake and safe, she sat up in the darkened room and looked around. No Angel. No
Kendra. No Dru. She was alone.
Except for the stuffed animal she was
clutching greedily to her chest.
Which was - cold to the
touch?
She pushed the toy away and looked it over. A Halloween Teddy.
White fur on the body, Drac-black hair on its head. Pointy eyebrows. Fangs.
{{Awww. Cute! Somebody knows me well...}}
Puzzled by the cold and the
weight of the thing, she turned the bear over and flipped back its cape. There
was a zipper clumsily hand-sewn into the seam holding the body together at the
back, and a smaller one in the seam at the back of the head.
Unzipping
the body, she reached in through a thin layer of stuffing and pulled out a
standard rubber ice bag, stuffed full with ice cubes. A smaller one was inside
the head, and little frozen gel-packs like you'd use to ice down bruises were
sewn into the arms and legs, she realized as she felt the liquid move under her
fingers. No wonder she'd suddenly cooled down in her sleep!
She looked
closer at the bear's face. Someone had carefully clipped a few threads out of
the end of its right eyebrow, creating a notch right at the same place as
Spike's scar.
She laughed out loud and hugged the bear to her again.
"Thank you, Spike," she called, confident he was near enough to hear
her.
* * *
Outside
in the hall, Spike leaned against the wall beyond the second door down, out of
sight of Buffy's family and friends.
He nodded, once, when his vampire
hearing picked up the sound of her laughter. {{You're welcome, love,}} he
thought as he turned to leave, finally lighting his cigarette.
TBC...
Back to Fiction: By Alpha ~
Back to Fiction: By Season