Tango
Part One“Hang on a minute,” Spike scolded. He made a wild grab for Buffy’s elbow, catching her just before she entered the abandoned building in pursuit of three huge vampires. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, spinning her back to face him.
“Fighting Evil,” Buffy replied, in a “buy a clue Spike” tone of voice, as she wrenched free of his painful grip. “You remember? My night job?”
“Yeah, well, I also remember that the Rottweiler Triplets kicked your ass less than five minutes ago,” Spike snapped back, pointedly. “You know, in case you forgot.”
“They got in a couple lucky shots.”
“Well, looks like their lucky night, dunnit? With you about to go Muldering into that deathtrap and me without my tiny pocket torch and cell phone. What’s the plan then? We use our sunny personalities to toast them?
“Oh, Spike, You think that will work?” Buffy asked, breathlessly, giving a perfect imitation of the Bot’s wide-eyed adoration.
“That’s clever, that is,” Spike nodded, not at all amused. “With a razor wit like that you won’t have any trouble entertaining the troops. I can see my talents aren’t needed here so I‘ll just toddle on home and leave you to it.”
Buffy didn’t reply as he turned and stalked off into the night but she did cast a skeptical glance at the dilapidated building. Xander and Tara were blocks away and illogical as it was without Spike the night seemed suddenly colder.
Buffy shivered slightly. She looked after her erstwhile companion who was a good 20 yards up the street his pantheric stride covering ground quickly.“Okay, maybe you’re right,” the Slayer muttered, under her breath, certain he wouldn’t hear.
“No MAYBE about it,” Spike shouted, still walking away. “Go on n’kill yourself all over again. I can’t stop you. Matter of fact, I’m going to be the perfect 21st Century companion and support your decision completely.”
He was furious. Far angrier than this evening’s botched encounter or Buffy’s flippancy warranted. He’d been angry for almost three weeks. Ever since Buffy announced her plan to start dating again. Dating! When she'd made the pronouncement, he'd choked on one of Willow's mystery chip cookies and Dawn had thoughtlessly tried to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him.
He stopped under a streetlamp to pat himself down for a pack of smokes. Leaning into the lamppost, he lit up and let most of his attention turn back toward the spot where he’d left the Slayer. Spike was 95% certain she hadn’t entered the building. But he needed to be 100% sure. He waited, listening, cigarette dangling from his lips. There was a stir in the shadows behind him as he clicked his lighter closed. Spike tensed, turned and caught the scent of her, even through the tang of burning tobacco.
“Will you, please, stop quoting from the relationship books, already?” Buffy sighed, stepping into the aurora of light.
“Don’t like my insight into your feminine wiles?”
“Don’t think you come from anywhere close to Mars,” Buffy supplied, looking nervously around for her fellow Scoobies. So far, she had managed to cover up her, for lack of a better word, "relationship" with the vampire. But Buffy was seriously worried. If she didn't find another outlet for her hormones soon Buffy was afraid the whole world would find out just how sick and twisted she really was.
“I have a cave,” he smiled, exhaling a blue cloud around them, before amending, “well, a crypt…same difference.”
“You know, I seriously doubt that it is,” Buffy returned, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “And you know what else I doubt?”
“That I have a good grip on the 'Sunlight of Security?'" Spike asked, too innocently. "That I truly understand a woman’s need for admiration and respect? That I can let go of my carnal desires long enough to patiently bring you to your sexual peak?
“No…well, okay…that last one,” Buffy grimaced, blushing prettily. She tried in vain to shake off the mental images as she continued, “because there is NO way you and Gary Smalley are on the same page with your definitions of the word ‘carnal’.”
“Ain’t Gary I’m trying to communicate with here, pet,” Spike leered, briefly.
When Buffy gave him the deadpan stare he remembered his righteous anger. With a flick of his wrist the vampire tossed his half-smoked cigarette into the gutter.
He pulled his duster tight and pushed off from the lamppost.
“Love to stay and chat but I have pressing business with…”
Spike verbally stumbled to the pause. He frowned up the street as if he might read the nature of his ‘pressing business’ in the distance.
“…with someone else,” he finished, lamely.
As he turned to leave the Slayer stepped in close and placed a restraining hand on his arm. It was a feather light touch but it halted Spike in his tracks.
She said his name, breathing it out softly, “Spike?”
“Wh-what?” he said, trying very hard not to look at her. He concentrated hisattention on a crack in the concrete underfoot.
“This isn’t just about tonight? Me being careless or reckless or whatever? This is something between you and mhhh…”
Spike shifted, lifting his gaze from the sidewalk and meeting her eye. An electric circuit seemed to click closed between them. Buffy felt the current rush through her body from their point of contact. Suddenly, the Slayer didn’t want to know what was going on with Spike. She just wanted to get as far away from him as possible. Before she gave into her desire to get as close to him as possible.
The Slayer jerked away from his arm like it had scalded her but Spike closed in relentlessly until she was backed up against the streetlight’s concrete pole.
“Me and…you, Luv?” he gloated. “You saying there’s a ‘me and you’?”
“That’s NOT what I am saying,” Buffy snapped, sliding away. “There is a YOU and there is a ME.”
“And there is something between us?”
Spike was feeling better than he had in weeks. He stalked Buffy with playful intensity well aware of the effect he was having on her. It was the same vein tingling rush she caused in him. Moving around the lamppost to keep the Slayer’s back against it, he felt himself growing hard in response to their game. The hot scent coming off of his beloved was more intoxicating than fresh spilled blood.
Buffy stuttered, “N-no! I me-m-mean...yes! Something…between. Not SOMETHING BETWEEN!”
“We should try a mirroring exercise,” Spike said. “Because I hear what you’re saying but I’m not sure that I completely grasp your meaning.”
“What?” Buffy's mouth dropped open as she puckered her brow up at him.
“Mirroring,” Spike clarified. “Copying each other’s movements and repeating each other’s words in a search for better understanding. Now let’s see…you took my arm like this…”
He reached out and laid his hand against the bare skin of Buffy’s forearm. The Slayer’s entire body jerked from the powerful surge of her hormonal response.
In her mind's eye, they were twined together, flesh on flesh. She could hear the panting moan of her own desire. It longed for voice. Buffy was forced to bite down hard on her lower lip to keep the sound from escaping. Her gaze locked onto Spike’s and her interior switchboard lit up.
“This isn’t just about tonight,” Spike whispered, repeating Buffy’s exact words as he trailed his fingertips along her arm. Her simple statement suddenly seemed to be layered with ulterior meaning, “You…being careless or reckless…or…”
“Whatever?” Buffy added, breathlessly, just before the vampire’s fingers brushed over the tip of her cotton-covered breast.
“This is something between us,” Spike finished and leaned in to kiss her.
“You and me,” Buffy corrected, before parting her lips to receive him.
Spike lost all sense of self-preservation in the thrill of the moment. He ground the Slayer into the concrete lamppost. Grabbing fistfuls of her glorious hair, he held her in place as he savaged her mouth with his tongue. Buffy moaned and arched back like the poster girl for full body surrender. She wrapped herself around Spike like he was her personal salvation. And he was.
His blood had given her new life and it sang now in her veins. She could feel the gravitational pull of it, drawing them together.
But was that reason enough to give in to this wicked hunger?
Was a blood bonding enough of a foundation to build on? Was it even possible to build something approaching normal with a vampire? A dead, demon-animated thing? Buffy felt the returning prick of her subconscious and she pushed at Spike, twisting out of his arms.
"Baby…what?" Spike blinked, like a man awaking from a drugged sleep, his tone one of throaty confusion. He looked around, half expecting to see some enemy.
"I don't want this," Buffy asserted, hating the tremor in her voice.
"You do," he said, firmly, reaching for her again. "You know you do."
Panicking, she slapped him, hard, growling, "Leave me alone."
Spike balled up his fist, eyes blazing. He stepped in, challenging her, "You're aching for it aren't you? Some physical contact. Fighting or fucking, makes no never mind. Go on then get it out of your system. I'm not good enough for the likes of you to bed…but nobody else is stepping up to the plate now are they? Guess a small dose of your precious self is more than most men can handle."
Buffy gaped at him, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. Afraid of the hurt, she let anger carry her past painful truths and spat out, "You're not a man. Men can handle me just fine. You wait and see how well they handle me." She spun on her heel and stalked off, shouldering between Xander and Tara as they rounded the corner of Elm Street, barely slowing her pace to accommodate them.
The two Scoobies shot a look back at Spike before trotting after the Slayer.
Sighing, Spike fished in his duster pocket, pulling out a battered spiral bound notebook and a pen. Flipping to a blank page, he wrote, "September 18th - Argued with Buffy, again. Negative: Dating still a go. Positive: Snogged. Progress. Points for Mirroring. Next up Quality Time."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“He is out to drive me insane,” Buffy Summers said, by way of greeting, as Willow Rosenberg bounced down the steps of the Education Building. “One more snide comment, just one more and I’m going to slip him the wooden sayonara.”
“What did Spike do now?” the red-haired witch sighed, as she watched the Slayer pace back and forth in a tightly wound manner. There was only one being on the planet that could unsettle Buffy to this extent.
“It’s the whole relationship thing again,” the Slayer snarled, in exasperation. "Last night during patrol and again today. Like it’s fate or destiny and we belong together, now. Look at this," she urged, holding out at card. Willow took it and read the neatly printed words.
"It's," the witch began, trying not to smile, "it's a poem."
The Slayer struck a dramatic pose one hand pressed to her breast and the other raised toward the Heavens as she quoted in a bombastic British accent, “Both born of the darkness, now joined in the blood!”
“Is this…?” Willow hesitated, scanning the elegantly written verse again before rushing out the question. "Is it because of your resurrection?"
Buffy nodded, blushing uncontrollably as she mumbled, "He says 'we are one…like the siring.'"
Willow turned the magical ramifications over in her mind, considering her spell from this new angle. “That’s an intriguing concept actually. I wonder if…”
“And when you say ‘intriguing’,” Buffy interrupted, “I am sure what you really mean is ‘icky’?”
“Oh, well, yes,” Willow changed gears, quickly. "It’s very icky and also…uhm…bad…Spike is so very bad…to say something like,” she snorted, derisively, air quoting, "'We are one'…you and Spike…one…laughable…HA!"
Buffy looked even more morose, “Why did you have to use HIS blood, Will?”
“The spell called for heart’s blood,” Willow explained. “I couldn't spill the blood of an innocent?”
“I guess,” Buffy mumbled, as she plopped onto a bus-stop bench halfway along Oak Street. “But why did it have to be SPIKE? You couldn’t have called Angel?”
“Spike was here,” Willow replied, taking a seat next to her friend. “He volunteered. Besides would you really be any happier if I'd bound you to Angel?”
“Please don’t use that word,” Buffy grimaced, springing to her feet again and launching into a rant. “Bound! I am bound to Spike! Hand to hand, heart to heart…leg shackle to ball and chain. It’s like some kind of death sentence.” She exchanged a glance with her resurrectionist and then laughed, loosing her steam,
“Okay…literally.”
“He missed you, Buffy,” Willow said, after a long pause. “Did you know? He went a little crazy after…" the witch sighed, remembering the pain they all had endured. "When you died he wept like a…a lost child.”
Buffy sank back down onto the bench, sighing.
"Dawn told me," she admitted. They watched a Silver Porsche pull up to the opposite curb and stop before she continued, “She said he stayed by my grave. Night after night. Weeping. Until you agreed to bring me back. But…that doesn’t change the way things are, Willow. I need to find someone real…someone normal…. someone living. And Spike just needs to let go and move on.”
The two friends sat side by side each lost in thought. They watched a couple exit the flashy car at the far curb and climb the steps of a brownstone apartment building. The man graciously took the woman's arm, pulling her close. She was young and trim but exceedingly plain with virtually no figure. She had a pointy forgettable face and wispy nut-brown hair.
Her companion was a marked contrast, a glittering privateer of a man, all brooding brow, flowing locks and rippling muscles. He looked like something just off the cover of a trashy paperback novel. Willow and Buffy exchanged a telling glance as they contemplated the mismatched pair.
“Boy!” Buffy whispered, leaning close to her bud. “Talk about the odd couple.”
“Do you think he’s like…a…you know?” Willow tipped her hand, suggestively.
“Gigolo?” Buffy asked, giving the word a ‘duh’ spin.
“Well…” Willow cocked her head and grinned, “…a paid escort, anyway?”
“Definitely,” Buffy giggled, as the couple vanished into the building. “Did you see that shirt? Open to the waist. And the gold earring?”
“Not to mention that bodice ripper body,” Willow observed, wryly. “Something tells me she isn’t interested in the intellectual relationship.”
“Will?” Buffy gasped, in mocked shock. “I didn’t know you noticed that kind of thing anymore. Are you thinking of switching back to the home team?”
“I'm gay not blind,” Willow said with a sidelong glance and a small smile. “I was just pointing out the obvious attractions of the man. Speaking from a purely aesthetic standpoint. Like with art or music. But he is kind of your type.”
“Nope,” Buffy said, standing up and shaking her head in a firm negative. “His type is no longer my type. I’ve had enough of those hulking, omni-present men of many muscles and few words. Next time out, I’m after a talker. I want someone svelte and sensitive. An intellectual type that writes the poetry.”
“Usually don’t find that sort of thing lurking around Sunnydale,” Willow laughed, following the Slayer across the street.
“Oh, he’s out there,” Buffy assured, as she paused to give “Cover Boy’s” silver Porsche a closer look. “I can sense him.”
Caught up in studying the car, neither woman noticed the view through one of the brownstone’s windows. Inside one of the front apartments, the longhaired hunk and his mousy companion were engaged in passionate lovemaking. They were locked together, half-naked, in what looked like the kitchenette. Suddenly, gray tentacles erupted from the entire length of the man’s body.
The barbed ends of each swaying member pierced the woman’s flesh and she arched back, struggling like a fish caught in an anemone’s deadly embrace. She seemed to be screaming but no sound filtered out to the street. Sparks of plasmic energy danced between the pair for several long seconds and then the tentacles pulled free. The woman’s emaciated body crumbled to the floor, nothing more than a pile of dusty skin and bones.
Buffy straightened slightly and looked around as if she’d heard something odd. She felt a tingling sensation crawl along her exposed flesh. In the apartment the Faux-Male also appeared to be listening. Noticing the open curtain, the hunky creature belatedly pulled the sash closed just before the Slayer ran her appraising glance over the front of the building. Seeing nothing unusual, but still supremely wigged, Buffy took Willow firmly by the elbow and hustled her up the street.
The brownstone apartment’s curtains twitched open slightly. Through the thin slit in the drapes, the Fabio look-a-like stared fixedly after the Slayer. His features and figure began to melt, blending and twisting together. In a very short time, the tentacled demon had assumed a svelte, poetic and very familiar form.
Letting the curtain fall back, the Incubus turned a critical eye on the apartment. A shower of sparks and a rippling wave of energy spread out from his body and the décor of the room changed. Red gingham curtains became sunny yellow, the kitschy kitchen took on a sleek, streamlined look and the entertainment center became a bookcase full of intellectual texts. The remains of his latest meal morphed into a fine antique vase. The creature picked up his new vase, placing it in an artistic arrangement with some other gewgaws on a small table. In the street below, the Silver Porsche melted away and for a brief moment was replaced with a rusted out Jetta before stretching like a contented cat and settling into the outline of a Buffy-pleasing Black Jaguar.