Rating: PG – For now, mostly going to a strong R or more later
Spoilers: Up to Season 4’s ‘Something Blue’. I’m working between then and Hush, most likely going into a Hush, so let’s say up to ‘Hush’, just to be safe.
Notes: Feedback is a must that is if you want more, if not I’ll just finished this and keep it all for myself. The Spike-Bot muse is very touchy right now, so help feed his usually over inflated ego.J
Disclaimer: I own none. Characters are Joss’s creation. I’m just borrowing them for an idea I had. The song is also not mine. It belongs to another God amongst men, Bruce Springsteen, and I mean no disrespect, and am making no fundage.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
You and me we were the pretenders
We let it all slip away
In the end what you don't surrender
Well the world just strips away
Girl, ain't no kindness in the face of strangers
Ain't gonna find no miracles here
Well you can wait on your blesses my darlin'
But I got a deal for you right here
I ain't lookin' for praise or pity
I ain't comin' 'round searchin' for a crutch
I just want someone to talk to
And a little of that Human Touch
Just a little of that Human Touch
Ain't no mercy on the streets of this town
Ain't no bread from heavenly skies
Ain't nobody drawin' wine from this blood
It's just you and me tonight
Tell me, in a world without pity
Do you think what I'm askin's too much
I just want something to hold on to
And a little of that Human Touch
Just a little of that Human Touch
Oh girl that feeling of safety you prize
Well it comes at a hard hard price
You can't shut off the risk and the pain
Without losin' the love that remains
We're all riders on this train
So you've been broken and you've been hurt
Show me somebody who ain't
Yeah, I know I ain't nobody's bargain
But, hell, a little touchup
and a little paint...
You might need somethin' to hold on to
When all the answers, they don't amount to
much
Somebody that you could just to talk to
And a little of that Human Touch
Baby, in a world without pity
Do you think what I'm askin's too much
I just want to feel you in my arms
Share a little of that Human Touch
Feel a little of that Human Touch
Give me a little of that Human Touch
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~Part: 1~
Willow stared down at the slip of paper in her hands, shock and disbelief clearly written on her face. It can’t be me, she thought as she stared.
Her night had started out as any other since that fateful day back in her sophomore year of high school, a research session with Giles and the rest of the Scooby gang. Only instead of the old library of Sunnydale High, she had been in Giles’s apartment. She had been sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, when she dropped her pen. When she leaned down to look under the couch for it, she had found the paper.
Curiousity had always been one of her many strong points, and her worse downfall all rolled into one little package. It had kept her grades high, mind sharp, and had caused her to find out more information on the things that go bump in the night, on more occasions, then she would have liked.
It was that insidiously delightful thirst for knowledge that caused her to unfold the paper and read the words that had been scrawled on the stark whiteness of it.
Her eyes scanned the words written, words that would cause the brain to burn and the guts to go gooey. Words so sensual that if spoken out loud in a low toned voice, would cause any persons, within ear shot, knees to feel like jelly, all wobbly and shaky. To cause unbridled passion to flow, like the roaring, wild white water rapids of an angry river. Words so moving and full of feeling that would cause a heart of ice to melt under the heated gaze of the speaker. Words, that if really meant for her, had given her hope that there was someone out there that did want her. Someone that ached for the feeling that she had lost the moment she walked into that crypt. The feeling she lost the night before, but she hadn’t realized it at the time, when Oz decided to share his cage with Veruca. The feeling that had caused her to wish for death to find her, and in away it had, but Spike found he had a loss of his own. A loss that she found herself focusing on so she wouldn’t fall into the blackness that threatened to engulf her, or at least partially that night. It wasn’t until her ‘will be done’ spell went wonky that she truly identified what she was missing and longing for, love.
The need to love and be loved in return. The underlying emotion in the letter that had struck her so far out of right field, that it left her motionless and silent. The emotion that rendered her willing to give the writer a million chances at redemption as long as it wasn’t taken away. Again.
~~~*~~~
A few blocks away, in the other wise quietly peaceful apartment complex that housed one Mr. Rupert Giles, in the ground floor apartment, a male was desperately searching. Furniture was flipped, end over end, papers and books scattered around the area. It looked as though a hurricane had struck this often-quiet corner of the complex. When in actuality, all the chaos and destruction had been caused by one man. A man, that had been around for one hundred and twenty-six years and planned on being around for many more, who was searching desperately for something. A single sheet of paper, that was nowhere to be found in the small apartment. A sheet of paper that held what was left of his own broken and battered undead heart. A sheet of paper that was, pure and simple proof that he was and forever would be love’s bitch.
Spike stood in the middle of the trashed room, threw his head back, and roared. His human face let his underlying true nature loose, as his teeth sharpened, eyes glittered golden, and bones shifted and cause his brow to become ridged and protruding.
He roared, letting all his pent up frustrations from his newly chipped status, the loss of the Gem of Amarra, the loss of his sire, his princess, the loss of his freedom and now, the loss of his own longing before he even had a chance to make his intentions known. For he knew that if anyone of the small group of white hats found that letter, he would loose his Red, before he even had the chance to talk to her again.
The time he kidnapped her and the boy for her to do the love spell to bring Dru back to him, the night he found out he couldn’t bite, on Thanksgiving day, when he showed up at his most hated enemies doorstep, and the night her spell made him believe himself in love with his mortal enemy, were mere moments of the times he hoped to talk with her. To get to know her, more then just the witch, the Slayer’s little friend, he wanted to know the woman under all the masks she showed the world. And now, the Slayer’s pet stake, Mr. Pointy, was sure to prevent all that from happening.
And for that reason alone, he roared.
~Part: 2~
Buffy sighed exhaustedly as she slowly walked towards the dorm room she shared with her best friend, Willow Rosenberg. She slowly rolled her neck to loosen the tightness of the muscles; she hoped Willow was feeling a little better.
She sighed; again, as she thought of everything her friend had been put through in the past weeks. Buffy understood Willow’s pain to a point being that both of their previous loves had up and left them alone. She knew that Angel’s leaving Sunnydale for the over crowded City of Angels, and his reasons for leaving were extremely different from Oz’s reasons, but both had deeply wounded the two girls.
Angel had left knowing that Buffy couldn’t live the kind of life he had to offer her. They both hoped and prayed that things were different, but they knew that the Fates had dealt them one of shittiest hands they possibly could. A Slayer in love with a vampire with a soul. It was a relationship doomed to heartbreak and neither one of them would have able to handle that pain, again.
Oz’s departure had been worse, and for different reasons. He needed to leave because he took a life. He let his alter ego, the werewolf, take over and had almost killed Willow in the process. His exit out of the town of Sunnydale had an added pain. He had betrayed the most important thing in life. He had betrayed the love that Willow freely gave him, and had sex with another woman. It didn’t matter that his basis instinct, the instinct of the wolf, drew him to Veruca, another werewolf, or the fact that the act had happened during the phases of the full moon, it’s the fact that it happened at all. And the fact that he had to leave to work on his issues, leaving Willow a nearly empty shell of the bundle of happiness that she once was.
Willow had finally started to show signs of recovery. Buffy knew that road was long and hard and the possibility that she may never fully recover was an extremely probable prospect. But Buffy was determined not to let that happen. She would not let her best friend do that to herself.
Buffy rolled her shoulders, as she tried to work the kinks out of them, before she opened the door leading to her home, away from home, while she was a student at UC Sunnydale. Good old room 214 on the second floor of Stevenson Hall.
She opened to door and was surprised to find Willow sitting on her bed. “Hey, Wills.” She said as she walked in and relocked the door behind herself. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Buffy took a few steps closer to the red head, and called to her, again, after not getting an answer the first time. “Wills?” She asked as she waved a hand in front of the other girls face.
“Huh?” Willow asked confused as she snapped out of her daze. “Hi, Buffy.” She said as just noticed her standing there.
“Are you ok?” Buffy asked as she sat down on the bed next to Willow.
“I think so.” Willow said softly. “I found this at Giles’ tonight.” She responded as she held the letter out to Buffy.
Buffy took the piece of paper from her friend and silently read over the writings.
After a few moments of almost painful silence, Buffy finally spoke. “Wow.” She responded in an almost awed voice. “Who wrote it?”
Willow shrugged her shoulders, and shook her head as she answered. “I haven’t got a clue. I found it under the couch and I don’t recognize the hand writing.”
Buffy cleared her throat, before she spoke, again. “Wow. That’s just…Wow.”
“Yeah, I know.” Willow replied in the same shocked voice as Buffy used.
They sat in silence for a few moments more, before Buffy jumped up and faced the red head. “Willow! We have to find out who wrote this. Whoever did is so obviously the right guy for you.” She said excitedly.
Willow looked up at Buffy in a mixture of fear and shock. “But… But what if it’s not even about me?” She asked softly. “I can’t get my hopes up like that and then have them crushed in a matter of moments.”
“I know, sweetie.” Buffy said softly, as she sat back down and put her arm round Willow’s shoulders. “Why don’t we just try to find out who wrote it, and then we’ll be able to know if it’s true or not? We’ll approach this in a very clear and professional way.”
“I think I can handle that.” Willow said as she smiled slightly at Buffy. “And if it was all a joke, I’ll just turn the person into a… a… um, I don’t know what, but it’ll be icky and gross.”
Buffy laughed. “Yep. No one messes with Super Witchy Willow.”
~~~*~~~
A few blocks away, a man walked tiredly down the stairs to his apartment. He crossed the courtyard he pulled out his keys. As he unlocked and opened his door, his mind was drifting to his nice comforting bed. Tonight’s patrol with his Slayer seemed to be more active then it had been in past weeks, and he had the budding bruises to prove it.
He walked into his home in a daze, which was until his foot kicked something. He looked down and found one of his books lying there and slowly looked around as another book caught his eyes. His jaw dropped open as he saw the mess, which was just a few hours ago, his living room. Giles’s eyes widely searched the room, looking for anything that would give him a clue as to what manner of demon had done this.
He got his answer, when the chime of the microwave brought his attention to the kitchen. What he saw there made his blood almost run cold with fury. Spike was leaning casually against the counter drinking out of a mug, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO, YOU BLOODY BASTARD!?!” Giles yelled.
“I lost something. I was looking.” Spike replied as if it was normal for the room to look like it was hit by one of those earthquakes California was so famous for.
Giles narrowed his eyes. “If it’s not clean up and put back close to what it previously was, then in the morning when I wake, you will be getting a birds eye view of the bright California sunshine.” He nearly growled out in anger.
Spike looked at him and arched an eyebrow appraisingly. “Right.” He replied in his natural tone of voice.
~Part: 3~
Willow made her way to Giles’ apartment the next night for the usual research and patrol party, but her mind was more on the letter and Buffy’s plan, then the demon of the moment.
Buffy’s plan was actually very ‘professional detective’. The girls had worked on a list of ‘suspects’, and had come up with a total of four, after they discounted Xander. Willow had explained to that it couldn’t possibly have been Xander, because his handwriting hadn’t changed much from first grade, now it was just chicken scratch, not chicken scratch a inch big. Besides, he had the weird thing going with Anya, and neither girl thought he would do anything to upset the former vengeance demon.
So they had four suspects, Giles, because it was his house, Angel, and Doyle, because the LA crew had come up a few days before to help with a particularly nasty gang of Fetlock demons, and Spike. Buffy refused to believe that anything as romantic and packed with juicy goodness as that letter could have come from the mind of a soulless, blood thirsty demon such as Spike, so Willow had added him to the list in her head.
She smiled slightly at the thought of the newly chipped vampire. He was recently getting a little nicer to, well, her, while he still hated the others with a blazing passion, but he was starting to be a little less vocal about it. Ok, so he didn’t change that much, but he had stopped being mean to her. She often found herself thinking back on that night in her dorm room.
~*~*~*~
Willow sat back against the headboard of her bed and stared at the vampire sitting a few feet away from her. He had his head in his hands as he spoke, and Willow watched him with a skeptical eye.
“I don’t understand. This sort of thing’s never happened to me before.” His muffled response held confusion and a bit of incredibility.
Willow watched him unsure of what was happening or most likely, what game he was playing with her. “Maybe you were nervous.” Came Willow’s timid response.
“I felt all right when I started. Let’s try again.” Spike leaped for her and drew back immediately.
He tried again, and the same thing happened. “Ow! Oh! Ow! Damn it!” Spike got up and kicked the trashcan by his foot. Willow watched from the bed as he started pacing at the foot of her bed.
Willow looked confused from her spot on the bed as she spoke. “Maybe you’re trying to hard. Doesn’t this happen to every vampire?”
Spike continued to pace as he answered her. “Not to me, it doesn’t!”
“It’s me. Isn’t it?” Spike stopped pacing briefly to look at Willow sitting on the bed. The tears welled in Willow’s eyes. ‘I’m not even good enough for Spike to kill.’ She thought as she reached a conclusion as to why all this was happening.
“What are you talking about?” He asked as he continued to pace, looking over at her off and on as she spoke.
“Well, you came looking for Buffy, then settled. I…I…” Willow sniffled slightly as she spoke. “You didn’t want to bite me. I just happened to be around.”
“Piffle!” Spike said as he waved off her comment with one hand and hooked the thumb of his other hand in the waistband of his black jeans. He kept watching her as he paced.
“ I know I’m not the kind of girl that vamps like to sink their teeth into. It’s always like, ‘ooh, you’re like a sister to me,’ or, ‘oh, you’re such a good friend.” Willow said sadly watching him pace.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He said as he moved to sit back down on the bed. “I’d bite you in a heartbeat.”
“Really?” Willow looked up at him, with a slight relief and hopefulness in her voice.
Spike nodded his head a little as he spoke. “Thought about it.”
“When?” Willow asked softly watching as he sat close to her, again.
“Remember last year, you had on that… Fuzzy pink number with the lilac underneath?” He said remembering and then looking over at her and arching his eyebrow as he leered at her.
“I never would have guessed. You played the blood-lust kinda cool.” Willow said with a slight smile on her face.
Spike nodded again. “Mmm. I hate being obvious, all fang-y and “grrr”.” He said making claws with his hands. “Takes the mystery out.”
“But if you could…” Willow asked hopefully.
“If I could, yeah.” Spike said finishing her thought.
“You know this doesn’t make you any less terrifying.” She said trying to be supportive.
“Don’t patronize me.” He took a deep breath. And as he looked at her, Willow saw a look in his eyes that haunted her. He had vulnerability, sadness, confusion, and a few other emotions that she couldn’t see as he quickly turned away from her, again, and placed his head in his hands. “I’m only a hundred and twenty-six.”
~*~*~*~
Willow smiled slightly as she picked up her pace. She soon found herself standing at the front door to Giles’s condo. She knocked softly, before she looked down at her watch. “Oh, darn it.” She mumbled under her breath.
The door opened and before she looked up she identified the man that opened it. How could she not? It was the voice that had haunted her since her senior year, but for totally different reasons then it did the year before. “Such language, pet.” The voice admonished softly.
Willow looked up and smiled slightly. “Well, I’ve been known to throw words like that around at times.”
“Well, aren’t you the wicked little witch of Sunnydale.” Spike said smirking slightly at her as he moved for her to enter the apartment.
Willow walked in and set her messenger bag on the couch as he shut the door. She looked in to the kitchen though the little counter alcove, but found it empty. “Where’s Giles? I know I’m early, but…” She asked as she turned to find him watching her.
“He ran down to that magic shop. Something about a book he ordered.” Spike answered as he walked into the tiny kitchen and started making his dinner.
Willow walked over and pulled out one of the chairs at the counter. She sat down and watched him. He had one his normal black jeans and black tee shirt, but she noticed he didn’t have his boots on, or socks for that matter.
Spike could almost feel her looking at him and decided to break a bit of the tension. “So, did you feel the need to make anymore of those cookies? ‘Cause I still have a bit of Slayer taste in my mouth and could use something sweet to take it away.” He teased slightly as he turned to the microwave and punched the buttons to set the timer.
Willow giggled a bit. “No. No more bad will spells.” She got up and walked over to her bag, took something out of it, before returning to her spot. “But, I just happen to have a few left. If you’re nice I may just share with you.”
“Oh, Red.” Spike said as he leaned on the counter towards her. “I can be very nice if given the chance.” He said as he slowly reached a hand out towards her. He smiled at her as he snagged the baggie of cookies from her hand. He turned and opened the refrigerator, pulled out a can of soda, and set it in front of her, before pulling his mug out of the beeping microwave.
“Thanks.” Willow said as she opened the soda and took a sip. “So how are doing?”
He shrugged his shoulders as he took a cookie out of the bag and dunked it in his mug. “Bagged blood is for the birds, or well, Paingel, but its better then wasting away to a sunken corpse.”
“Yeah, that would be bad.” She said as she made a face at his visuals.
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment as he sipped his blood, before he spoke again. “How are you handling things, really?”
Willow looked up from her cookie shocked. “Day by day, I guess. You?”
“Same.” He answered shortly.
“Why do you care?” She asked softly as she looked back down at her cookie.
He shrugged, but she didn’t see it. “Same boat, different species.”
“Oh.” She replied softly before taking another sip of her soda. After a few moments of silence, she spoke, again. “Did I really have a choice?” She asked. It’s was a question that she had often found herself thinking about at the weirdest times, and she figured this was as good a time as any to ask.
“No, you really didn’t.” He said knowing exactly what she was talking about. “I would have killed you, but you wouldn’t have stayed that way.” Willow looked up at him shocked. “You would have turned me?”
“In a heartbeat.” He said remembering that night and everything about her that night. Her hair, the open necked shirt, her smell, they had all become one of his favorite daydreams.
He found her looking curiously at him, as if she was looking for the right way to say something. “Why?”
Spike stood a bit straighter as he took another sip from his mug. His eyes took on a slight dreamy look in them as he finally spoke. “You would make a wicked vampire, luv. All that hidden fire.”
“What makes you say I have a hidden fire?” Willow asked as mind went back to a part of the letter that mentioned her having a hidden fire.
Spike looked at her and noticed the look in her eyes that she got whenever she was trying to figure out a puzzle. “Well, You stood up to a drunken, evil, soulless vampire that kidnapped you, and told him that there would be no having of any kind.” He said as he leered at her.
Willow smiled at him. “Yeah, who was that mean old vamp, again?” She asked laughing as he puffed out his chest when she mentioned ‘mean’, before he joined her in laughing.
“Whatever happened with that anyway? Buffy said that you left to make Dru love you, again?” She asked after she calmed down.
Spike stopped laughing at the mention of Dru. “I did. A few weeks later, she did it again, this time with a fungus demon.” He downed the rest of his blood and took his mug to the sink. “Said I wasn’t demon enough for her.” He snorted. “Me. Can you believe that one?”
“No, I can’t.” Willow said softly. “You are very much a demon, just very different from other ones. Maybe she just didn’t love you as much as you loved her. She didn’t deserve you.”
Spike turned and looked at her. She had her head down and was looking at the top of her soda can. “He didn’t deserve you.” He said softly, so softly that Willow almost didn’t hear him. Almost. She kept her head down and pretended that she didn’t hear him. No matter what anyone thought, Willow knew Spike almost as well as she knew herself and she knew that he would freak if he knew she heard him.
“Well, she wasn’t that bright then.” She said hoping to cheer him up a bit. She looked up at him, hoping he wouldn’t kill her later just for that remark.
Spike chuckled. “Yeah, Dru wasn’t the brightest bulb.” He said before he smiled at her. Suddenly, he stood bolt straight and growled softly. “Slayer’s here.”
Willow turned and waited, a few moments later the door opened and Buffy walked in.
Buffy looked over, saw Willow and smiled. “Hey, Wills.” When she noticed Spike standing in the kitchen, she frowned. “Oh, neutered one.”
“Sod off, Slayer.” Spike grumbled as he walked to the living room and sat on the couch. He turned on the tv to drown out the Slayer’s voice. ‘I finally have a decent spot of conversation with Red, and then the Slayer comes and mucks it up.’ He thought as he watched some meaningless talk show. ‘I really hate her.’
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