As soon as the sun started to set, he proceeded with Plan B. It was easy enough to scrounge up the chains and manacles—Spike always kept a healthy supply of bondage props handy around the crypt. He was a real boy scout like that. He hauled the stuff over to Revello Drive and got to work.
Inside the Summers home, Buffy was helping her mom wash up the dinner plates. Dawn stood and watched lazily, chewing on a piece of garlic bread.
“Don’t you have homework to do, Dawn?” Buffy asked snidely.
“Hey! Aren’t you in school too? Mom?” Dawn whined, mouth full of bread. “Tell Buffy to go do her homework. I bet she’s failing, like, everything.” Joyce simply shook her head tiredly at her girls, as she put some plates away in the cupboard..
“I save the world in my spare time. What’s your excuse?”
“I have an overbearing big sister who is the root of all things wrong in my life. Plus, I’m a figment of some old Monkses imaginations.”
“Monks’” Joyce corrected. “I, at least, paid attention in school.” Dawn rolled her eyes, but it had been obvious by the spite in her voice that acknowledging her fiction of a life still pained her.
Suddenly, Buffy cocked her head towards the front of the house. “Shhh!” Dawn and Joyce exchanged bewildered looks. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “Something’s out front.”
“Something? Why is it always some thing? I like ones better than things,” Dawn remarked, grabbing her mom’s hand.
“Glory?” Joyce asked nervously. Buffy approached the front door cautiously, grabbing a sword from the hall closet on her way. It sounded like there were chains rattling outside. She swung the door open dramatically, expecting the assailant to be standing right in front of her. But it wasn’t.
“Spike?”
He was smoking a cigarette in the traditional place under the big tree on her front lawn. The only difference was that for some reason totally eluding Buffy at that moment, he was chained to the tree. Or more precisely, there were chains around the tree, and he was manacled to the chains. He looked almost comical, trying to smoke his cigarette, his arms not reaching more than half-way to his mouth, and him having to hunch over and stretch his neck in order to get a haul.
“Evenin’ Slayer. Beautiful night, yeah? Care for a fag?” He said casually, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Buffy dropped her sword, and stepped off the front porch.
“What is this, Spike?” She demanded suspiciously.
“Hmm? What?”
Buffy let out a frustrated sigh. “This! Is this more of your stupid games?”
“I don’t know what you’re on about, luv.”
“Arggg. You. Are. Chained. To. My. Tree.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes. That, you jackass.”
“Well, I got to thinking, and I figured, if you didn’t like me tying you up, must be ‘cause—and I can’t believe this didn’t occur to me earlier—you’re not sub. You’re dom.”
“Huh?”
“Dominant, luv. Dominant,” he explained, with a mischievous half-smile.
“Get off my tree, Spike,” she hissed. “And stop calling me luv!” She wasn’t amused.
“Can’t.”
“What do you mean, ‘can’t’?” she asked with trepidation.
“Don’t have the keys. I’m here for the long haul.”
“Whatever. I know you have them. And if you think I’m going to go fishing around in those tight pockets of yours . . . You’ll be gone by sunrise. I could just ignore you until then.”
“I suppose one way or another, I will be,” Spike said knowingly. Buffy’s eyes widened in shock and realization.
“One way or another? What’s going on here? Did someone else chain you up? Did Drusilla?”
“I know you feel it, Slayer. You want it as much as I do,” he whispered.
“Okay. . . you did this. Why? How is this going to prove anything? We’ve been through all this. Two days ago! Remember? With you all ‘blah, blah, you bitches, blah, blah, cattle prod.’ And me all ‘you can’t love!’ and ‘only if I was unconscious.’”
“I know. But I figured it out. I went about it all wrong.”
“And this is your new devious plan? Chain yourself to my tree, and turn into a pile of dust come morning? I think your ex-girlfriend’s insanity rubbed off on you.Or molted off.”
“I know what I’m doing. I’m not nuts. I’m in love.”
“Enough!” Buffy screamed. “I can’t believe this! You can burn out here. I’m going inside, and when I get up tomorrow morning, you *will* be gone. And I don’t care how.”
“What ever you say, Slayer,” Spike called after her, as she trudged back to the front door. He flicked away his cigarette butt, and let his cocky confident face fall away, revealing someone who seemed a bit more nervous. “This better bloody well work, Spike, you stupid git,” he mumbled to himself, and slid down the tree to sit on the grass.
+ + +
“Is everything okay?” Joyce asked Buffy as the front door slammed shut. She put a concerned hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just Spike. Again,” Buffy humphed, as she peered out the small window on the door, squinting balefully.
“His crazy girlfriend wasn’t . . .”
“No, Mom. She’s long gone. Look, forget about it. Spike is just being a pain in the ass. Nothing dire.” Dawn suddenly emerged from the kitchen and butted in between her mom and sister, trying to get a look out the front door. “Spike’s here?” she asked cheerily. Buffy held her away from the door.
“Uh, no. He left Dawnie. And we hate him now, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Dawn frowned, and turned to go upstairs. Half way up, she turned around and looked down at Buffy and Joyce who were settling in front of the TV.
“You don’t uh, think what he did was um, kinda . . . romantic?” Dawn asked nervously, her pubescent voice cracking on the last few words.
“NO!” Joyce and Buffy replied in unison. Obviously disappointed, Dawn bowed her head, and went up to her room.
+ + +
The moment Buffy closed her bedroom door to go to sleep, Dawn started pounding on it.
“What?!” Buffy groaned as she opened the door. Dawn squeezed past her, into the room, and shut the door behind her.
“Why is Spike chained to our tree?” she asked, arms crossed, foot tapping.
“Did you talk to him? Don’t talk to him, Dawn. You’ll only encourage him,” Buffy ordered.
“Mom doesn’t know, does she? Unlike her, my window faces the front yard, dufus. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” She asked sharply.
“I didn’t really care, Dawn. Now go to bed.”
“No! If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll tell Mom you chained Spike to our tree!”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Dawn . . .” they went into face-off mode, glaring at each other as intensely as possible. Dawn, unfortunately was the undefeated champion of that particular sport. “Fine. If you must know, Spike chained himself to the tree.”
“Why?”
“Attention. What else?”
“Do you think he’ll leave?”
“Of course he will. He has a very short attention span. Plus, sun equals dusty Spike. I’m sure he’ll be gone in a few hours,” she assured her sister. “As long as we keep ignoring him,” she added emphatically. Dawn furrowed her brow.
“Why didn’t you just kick him off the property?”
“He’s locked to the tree . . . and he says he doesn’t have the keys.”
“What?!” Dawn exclaimed angrily. “He’ll die!” Buffy rolled her eyes.
“I know he has them, Dawn. He’s not that stupid. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of frisking him for them!”
“First: Eeww! Second: how can you be so sure? Spike is soooo in love with you, what if he really has lost his mind? If he dies, it will be your fault,” Dawn pouted.
“He is not in love with me. He’s just frustrated because he can’t try to kill me anymore, so he wants to f—“
“—Don’t even say it! I’ll scream!” Dawn interjected desperately.
“Just go to bed, Dawn,” Buffy said with a yawn, “when you wake up tomorrow, he’ll be back in his crypt, I promise.” She opened her bedroom door, and pushed Dawn inelegantly into the hallway. Dawn sulked back into her room, and fell asleep by her window, while looking down at Spike as he sat under the tree, chain smoking.
At 12:30, Buffy woke up, got out of bed, and looked out of her window. She grimaced. Spike was still there. She crawled back under her covers with determination. She would not let that stupid vampire get the better of her. She groaned into her pillow, wondering desperately why her life had to be so freaking mellowdramatic. On top of everything, Dawn had succeeded in planting the seeds of Miracle-Grown doubt in her head. What if Spike was telling the truth, and he really didn’t have the key? But why would he do that? Was he actually suicidal? Great, that’s what she really needed—a manic-depressive vampire stalker.
At 1:47, she woke up again, looked outside. He was still there. So this was his plan all along? Sleep deprivation. Wait. She wasn’t supposed to care. Even if he was dust, she wasn’t supposed to give a damn. And that’s when it hit her: Spike was out to prove that she did. That she cared whether he lived or died. Well, She would show him.
3:09: She’s awake again. Damn it! She crawled out of bed, and pushed her face against the windowpane. Spike was leaning against the tree. No, wait . . . he was banging his head against the tree? Ha! Having second thoughts, fang boy? Even from this distance, Buffy could see the creases in his furrowed brow. He was totally about to cave! He was the big cave man—er, vampire.
3:47: Not even an hour! Sheesh. Buffy went to the window to gloat to herself about how right she was. Her jaw tightened. He was still there! What was he doing for entertainment? He wasn’t smoking. Probably ran out of fags hours ago. Was he singing to himself? His lips were moving . . . Oh, god. Out of curiosity, she cracked open her window, ever so slightly, but it was just enough. Spike’s head shot up towards the window. Stupid vampiric hearing.
“You gonna leave me out here to burn, Slayer?” he called up to her.
“Yes, Spike. Yes I am,” she proclaimed, opening her window a bit wider.
“So why you watching over me then?”
“I’m not. I just wanted some fresh air,” she lied.
“Right, sure. And I’m the bloody Duke of Alsace!”
“I don’t know who Al is, or if he has a nice ass. But if you’re its duke, then it’s probably a very loud, obnoxious, and evil, soulless ass.”
“Funny.”
“I try.”
“Come on Slayer. Time for a bit of rescue-the-Spike. I really am in a pickle here.”
“A pickle? You are totally self-pickled! Self-picklers don’t get rescued.”
“This was a bad idea,” Spike admitted, squirming in his shackles. “I don’t know why I expected you to give a shit. I really am a worthless waste of corpse to you, aren’t I?”
“That about sums it up,” Buffy answered happily.
“But I love. I feel,” Spike yelled up to her desperately, leaning as far out from the tree as his arms would allow. “Maybe I’m not human. I don’t have a sodding soul. But I know that I love you. That has to mean something, doesn’t it? I care about you Buffy. I would consider dying for you.”
“You would consider? Wow. I’m speechless. Or not so much . . . That means nothing. I would consider dying for a plate of hash browns.”
“It makes things easier for you, eh? Pretending everything fits into its proper box? Delude yourself. I’m just a walking corpse. Emotionless. Evil. ‘Cause what would that mean if I wasn’t, right? Your whole belief system starts to look about as sturdy as a bloody Popsicle stick house.”
“No, Spike. You’re wrong. This isn’t about me and my . . . Popsicle sticks. This is about you. And no matter how much you jabber on and on, you will never understand what real love is.”
“Ah, and I suppose you do,” Spike replied wryly. Buffy said nothing. She shut the window, and went back to bed.
Buffy was jolted awake by the sensation of sunlight penetrating her eyelids. Her heart was already beating heavily. She knew what to do instinctively. As she pulled her sheet off her bed frantically, she could hear his yowl. She flung the window open, bounded off the roof and onto the front lawn, the sheet billowing behind her. In one swift and elegant movement, she enveloped Spike and herself in the sheet, and fell on top of him, reassuring herself that he was still there.
“Spike!” As her eyes adjusted to the quality of light, she scanned the vampire for injury. His face was unsinged, but he was cradling his left hand. It appeared to be broken in a few painfully obvious places. And it was no longer shackled. Buffy was reeling, trying to process what had happened in the past 20 seconds.
“You idiot!”
“Buffy, I-“
“What were you thinking?”
“I know you don’t-“ He cut himself off. “I just had to do something.”
“Spike, that is the . . . the stupidest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She said, in awe.
“Yeah?”
“You couldn’t just hold up your ghetto blaster, play some Peter Gabriel, like a normal boy?”
“ ‘m not a normal boy.”
“Obviously. Are you okay?”
Spike stared at her, stunned. “Are you asking?”
“Despite myself.” With a half-smile, and a twinkle in her eye. “We need to get you inside. Unless you feel like camping out under here all day?” Spike shook his head.
“Key?” Buffy continued, glancing at his right hand, which was a bit battered, but still manacled.
“Crypt. Fridge,” Spike replied, his head lowered in embarrassment.
“Buffy?” came a voice from beyond the shelter of Buffy’s dark blue sheet.
“Mom.” Buffy’s voice was filled with dread. She crawled carefully out into the light. Joyce was standing with her hands on her hips, and she squinted at Buffy suspiciously as she emerged.
“Mind telling me why you’re cozying up with a vampire on my front lawn at 6 in the morning?”
“I . . . um . . . Spike was just . . . he was chained to the tree. . . and then the sun. . . and so I . . .” Buffy stammered. Joyce rolled her eyes.
“If he’s not gone by the time I come home for lunch, you will both be in big trouble. Did you hear that Spike?”
“Yes Ma’am!” Spike answered promptly, the only part of the lump on the lawn that proved it was him, his clunky black combat boots poking out, like the wicked vampire of the east or something.
As her mother turned to leave, Buffy poked at Spike through the sheet with her bare foot. “I’ll be back soon.”
+ + +
She found the key in the fridge, just like he’d said, next to a can of Guinness and a jar of peanut butter. As she snagged it, she thought briefly that she might very well be losing her mind. She had been given the opportunity to be rid of Spike for good, guilt free. But she literally took a flying leap to save him instead. Damn it! She was becoming attached to him. That was the horrifying truth of the matter. He was like an irritating child that followed her everywhere, and she was just used to him. In that split second when she had woken up and heard him screaming outside, unsure if she wasn’t already too late, she knew. Knew that if he turned to dust, a part of her would secretly grieve.
What did it all mean? What he had done a few days ago, tying her up with Drusilla, had been sick, wrong, and sadly misguided. Buffy had to wonder at how little Spike knew about traditional human dating rituals. But this recent performance had been different. Okay it was really messed up, but Buffy was having a hard time ignoring how good it had made her feel. That Spike would offer to kill his ex in order to prove his love didn’t reflect his most redeeming qualities. But that he would risk killing himself? It was sick. Sick, and wrong, Buffy kept telling herself as she walked home.
And it was stupid. And crazy. And unbearably amazing . . .
Buffy heard a slight whimper as she approached the tree.
“Hey,” she said as she dropped under the sheet, and found Spike trying to re-align a bone with little success. “Don’t do that,” she urged softly, taking the wounded hand gently in her own. “I’ll fix you up inside,” she continued, pulling the key from the square pocket on the front of her pajama pants. Spike looked up at her with a confusion that saddened her slightly. These might have been the kindest words she had ever spoken to him.
+ + +
Dawn was in the shower when Buffy barged into the bathroom in search of the first-aid kit. As if on cue, she screeched bloody murder.
“Buffy . . . get out!”
“Morning Dawnie,” Buffy replied cheerily, as she scavenged for spare bandages under the sink. Dawn turned the water off, stepped out of the shower, and began to towel herself off immodestly.
“Privacy. It’s a word. Look it up. Learn,” Dawn grumbled, teeth clenched.
“Sorry,” Buffy said, sincerely this time. For someone who had about 3 hours sleep, she was in an excellent mood. “Emergency. I need these for Spike,” she explained, holding up the white bandage and tape she had managed to dig up from the piles of junk that they had amassed under the sink over a period of 5 years.
“Oh. Wait. What? He left,” Dawn said, confused. “I woke up and he was gone.”
“When did you wake up?”
“Right before I got in the shower. Is he okay?”
Buffy sighed. So much for hating Spike. “Hmm. Right after I let him inside.” She sighed again. So much for the dis-invite. “And yeah, I hopped off the roof, and threw a sheet over him before he went poof. Kinda like an anti-David Copperfield . . .” she mused to herself .
“And he’s in the house because?”
“Oh. I, uh . . . he freaked when the sun started to come up, and hurt his hand. So I-“
“-Thought you’d play nurse with the vampire whose undead guts you claim to hate?” Dawn finished snidely as she tied her bathrobe on securely. Buffy gave her eyes a retaliatory roll, and stepped into the hallway.
“I’m just feeling philanthropic. That’s all.” That’s all, she repeated in her head a few times more as she returned to the living room.
+ + +
Spike was sitting on the edge of the couch, trying not to disturb his surroundings any more than necessary. His damaged hand lay limp on his knee as he looked awkwardly around the room at nothing in particular. It hurt like a bitch, but being invited back in made it all worth it. Hell, he would have, and could have, endured much worse pain if it meant he would be back on the Slayer’s “Allies” list.
He heard her approach and restrained himself from gawking at her like an imbecile. She kneeled on the floor next to him. He glanced at her quickly and then to the stairs, where he spied the little sis peeking through the banister. He winked at her, and she bolted back upstairs.
“What?” Buffy asked.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you smiling?” She sounded more shocked than curious.
“ I’m not smiling.” He was done for. Damn it. He did not bloody well smile. Smirked, sure. Half-smiled, maybe. But the Big Bad didn’t smile.
“Well, you were two seconds ago.”
“The nibblit’s a nosey one,” he explained with a chin-point towards the staircase.
“Probably just making sure I’m not staking you or something.”
“Is that right? Fond of me, isn’t she?” he said proudly.
“That might be an understatement,” Buffy said hesitantly. But it was too late. One Vampire ego meal to go, served and gobbled up greedily. Spike was feeling just swell.
“Arrrggg!” Okay, that fucking hurt. Buffy had grabbed his hand and done something really horrible to it, when he wasn’t paying attention. That was just dirty. “What did you do?”
“Well, I touched it . . .” she said, intentionally crass.
“Then don’t!” Spike said, squirming and trying not to move the hand from where it lay now in Buffy’s.
“This is more than just one break,” she sighed, and grappled with the bandage, holding one end between her teeth as she wrapped the hand up, along with his wrist which wasn’t looking or feeling too healthy either, he had to admit.
“Really? How can you tell?” he replied sarcastically. “Was it the mangled manner in which it doesn’t so much look like a hand, per se? Maybe it’s those rebellious little bones trying to escape the tyranny that is my flesh?” he continued, grinding his teeth. “That’s what gave it away.”
Buffy stared at Spike looking wholly unimpressed. She looked down at his hand in hers and dropped it. No, not that face, Spike shuddered. He immediately wanted to take it all back. Never could shut his bloody trap.
His hand had fallen onto the coffee table with a thud when Buffy had released it, and he just then noticed the pain.
“Owe.” He said, almost inaudibly, his head lowered.
“You are infuriating, you know that?” Buffy finally spoke.
“I’d bloody well hope so. . .” Spike mumbled.
“Not to mention ungrateful. Do you even realize what is happening here?” she asked, tugging on her own hair in frustration.
“The Slayer’s berating the Vampire for being a bad houseguest?”
Buffy groaned. “I hate you! I hate you, and I saved your sorry ass, and I let you into my home! I bandaged your frikkin’ hand! And I hate you!”
“You’re supposed to hate me, you mean,” Spike added smoothly.
“Shut up. This is my rant.”
“Sorry. Continue, by all means.”
“Yeah. So, like I was saying . . . “
“You hate me . . . “
“Yes, I hate you. Do you understand what this means? I mean, what I’ve done? How lucky you are? How much of a cool person I am? ‘Cause that’s all this is—me being cool. Just because I jumped to your rescue, you shouldn’t think that I . . . I feel anything for you. That would be wrong. And stupid. Got it?”
“Stupid, wrong. Got it.”
“I’m just a good person. And that means doing nice things for people, even if I don’t like them—I mean hate them.” Spike gave her a speculative glare. “Do! Do hate!”
“I know you’re a good person, luv. You’re the bloody do-gooder of the decade. That doesn’t change the fact that—“ Spike cut himself off mid-sentence. He didn’t want to piss her off even more. He’d just have to play along.
“What? What fact? Tell me what you’re thinking, Spike.”
“Why? So you can fix it?” he asked angrily. “So you can tell me I’m wrong? No thanks.” Spike sank into the sofa, held his wounded hand up to his chest protectively, and looked down at it as if some terrible wrong had been committed.
And Buffy, for reasons that completely eluded her, felt as though she had been the committer of this wrong.
“Spike, I . . . You aren’t doing yourself any good by believing in these lies. You have to face reality.”
“Spare me the psychological platitudes, Buffy. You believe what you like, and I’ll believe what I like, alright?”
“I don’t just ‘believe’ I don’t love you, Spike, I know it. And I do know what love feels like,” she added, finally answering his question to her from the night before.
“So do I, damn it!”
“I know.”
“What?”
“I know. Now. You showed me, albeit, somewhat melodramatically, but you showed me. And I think I believe you.”
Spike said nothing. His eyes filled with tears, and he turned away from her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. And this hurt him more than any punch she’d ever thrown him, because he knew what she was apologizing for. She wasn’t sorry for not believing him. She was sorry that he had fallen in love with a girl who would never be able to love him back.