Summary: Beneath You, Chapel Scene. A short, dark journey through that all too familiar chapel. Buffy POV. Angst warning.
Rating: R
Buffy's footsteps echo in the church. She doesn't like the sound; the eerie tap, tap, tap drifting through the dusty air. She also doesn't like the tingling that tells her a vampire is near. The tingle is special, familiar and unique to Spike. And the fact that Spike's tingle is special? Well, she likes that least of all.
She sniffs the air and her lips purse in distaste. A sickly sweet mixture of long dead roses and the musk of ancient hymnals assaults her. It's the odor of death. Not the pungent copper scent of new death; no, this is old death. Buffy remembers it from her mother's funeral. When the flowers wilted and the last casserole had found its way to the trash, it was this smell that lingered on her coat and in her living room.
"Hello," Spike calls from behind and she nearly jumps out of her skin, memories scattering like marbles on linoleum. He moves in front of her, and Buffy's skin itches nervously at his closeness.
"What the hell are you?" she starts, though she has no idea what she's even asking, so it's good that he interrupts her, shoving a wad of blue fabric at her.
"It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide."
She stares at the clothing fisted in his pale fingers. Her eyes linger too long on his hand. On fingers that once curled in her hair, slid down her spine, snaked between her legs. She shakes her head and flinches when he tosses the shirt past her.
"No more mind games, Spike," she says with the snap of authority in her tone. But is he the one with games on his mind? Sure, Buffy, that's why he looks like he lost his last friend and you're thinking about his hands under your skirt.
"No more mind games. No more mind."
She hates the sound of his voice. Hollow. Dead. Funny enough, that word was all wrong when describing any part of this particular vampire. This voice shouldn't come from him; she misses the throaty rumble of his real voice. The one that made her name sound like the most delicious kind of sin. It didn't have to be her name, though. Hell, he used to be able to make ordering a burger something that oozed with innuendo.
Her eyes focus on his torso, on the curve of muscle sculpting shadows beneath his flesh. A memory of the satin feel of that skin buzzes through her mind and she resists the urge to slap it away. The cruel red lines criss-crossing his chest take her mind to a new place, no less uncomfortable than the last. Buffy reaches for him, fingertips burning at his nearness.
Spike shrinks away, and it cuts her like a knife. A thousand times she has endured his kicks, punches and brutal words, but this horrified recoiling undoes her.
"Tell me what happened to you," she says, even as he pulls back.
"Hey, hey, hey! No touching," he shouts, still an arm's length away, eyes and body twitchy. Buffy's gut twists like she is at the top of a rollercoaster, because there's something tickling in her throat that tells her whatever is wrong with him is big. Maybe too big for her to handle.
"Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark."
He's still right in front of her, darting around like a panther trapped in a closet. Something cold and slick curls in her already twisting gut. A whisper in her mind tells her the cold thing is guilt.
"Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through," he reaches for his zipper and now it's her turn to recoil, "Get it hard; service the girl."
Horrified, she slaps at his hands, "Stop it!"
Why the slapping, Buff? Because it makes you remember that night in the bathroom? Maybe. Or does it make you remember the way he said your name? That night he whispered it like a prayer, his eyes so soft, and your stake so sharp as it pressed between his ribs. Your ruthless fucking or his attempted rape? Which memory do you want to slap away this time?
His hand is on her throat before she can figure it out. Her reflexes send him flying to the floor. He lands with a crash, and she cringes as the church pews snap to splinters. It doesn't matter, she thinks. No one likes funerals anyway and this church doesn't get much call for weddings.
"Right. Girl doesn't want to be serviced. Because there's no spark. Ain't we in a soddin' engine?"
What does that even mean? And why is the twisting in her gut moving into her throat?
"Spike, have you completely lost your mind?" she asks, moving towards the pile of scraps that he's lying in. He looks strangely relaxed, propped up on his elbows amid a dozen pieces of wood that could turn him to dust.
"Well, yes. Where have you been all night?"
For that instant, he is all Spike. All bright eyes and biting tongue. She thinks this has been a ruse, almost hopes it is. Because if it's a joke, then Spike, the real Spike is still in there. Somewhere. And if he is in there, he's mocking her. Her chin tilts in prideful scorn. She's practiced it so often with him, she should have it patented.
"You thought you would just come back here and... be with me?"
"First time for everything."
That pisses her off. He is toying with her, and she isn't in the mood to be a toy. Not after the bathroom, and speaking of that, how could he?! How dare he?! And how is it different than her riding him with a stake imbedded half an inch into his chest?
Hm, no answer for that.
"This is all you get," she deadpans, mad at him and mad at herself, "I'm listening," she starts almost snarling, but something about the slump of his shoulders softens her tone, "Tell me what happened."
"I tried to find it, of course," he says, tucking his chin to his shoulder shyly.
"Find what?"
"The spark. The missing. The piece that fit," Spike pauses, his voice desperate and pained. His head is waggling back and forth, eyes bouncing to everything, anything but her, "That would make me fit. Because you didn't want..."
She sees his tears. They glimmer like diamonds on his cheeks and burn like fire in her stomach.
"God, I can't... Not with you looking," he says, stumbling to his feet.
She watches him walk away, skulking into the back of the church. She should stop him, she knows it. But her hands feel slick and her throat feels dry and frankly, all the crazy talk is wearing her out.
"I dreamed of killing you," he says, slipping in and out of the shadows. Buffy's eyes track him, only drifting once to locate something sharp and wooden. She won't stake him. She knows it. She's had plenty of chances. Wonders briefly what it would take to make her stake him. Either way, the splintered wood scraping against her palm makes her feel better. Stronger.
"I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak? Thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your... ending? Angel-he should've warned me."
Her heart skips three beats at that. She feels something looming at the mention of her old lover's name. Something unspeakable and unknown lingers just ahead. She's at the crest of the hill now and this rollercoaster is going to plunge. Buffy holds her breath, adrenaline making her veins hum with anticipation.
"He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time. The spark."
He's coming closer now, and so is the thing. The explanation for all of this. She feels it moving in, screaming at her like a bolt of lightning caught in slow motion. And now she wants off this ride. She doesn't want to go down this track. Buffy takes a breath to scream at him, but her lungs are too tight to let anything out.
"I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it," he says as he ambles towards her.
Buffy doesn't even turn to him. She's paralyzed like a deer in headlights, unable or maybe unwilling to face the brutal collision barreling straight for her.
"They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn," he says.
And then it hits her with all its scorching glory. The truth is like ice and fire together, rattling in her bones until she wonders if she can stand.
"Your soul," she says, amazed that she managed to form the words.
"Bit worse for lack of use," he laughs bitterly, just behind her shoulder.
She finally turns to face him, feeling nothing and everything at once. His face is washed in the liquid blue of moonlight, shadows deepening the hollows of his cheeks.
"You got your soul back," she says with gravel in her voice, "How?"
"It's what you wanted, right?"
For her? No. No. No. He did this for her?
His eyes wander to the ceiling, and he nearly shouts, "It's what you wanted, right?"
Buffy considers running, or vomiting, or maybe just staking him so that she doesn't have to think about how complicated everything just got. But she can't stake him. No, she's never had the nerve for that, so she doesn't do anything. He moves past her to the center aisle, coming so close they almost brush. Buffy watches him pass, eyes following his pale back as he strolls towards the altar, his hair a shock of white in the darkness.
"And-and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I- and him... and it... the other, the thing beneath-beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go. Go to hell."
Spike pauses a few feet from the iron cross, looking every bit the repentant sinner. The irony of his position is just one more thing to make her head spin. And how should she make sense of this? Even if it made sense, what should she do with it? With a vampire so messed up in the head that he did the unthinkable, the unbelievable, just because he thought she wanted it.
"Why? Why would you do that," she screeches, because it's insane! He's insane! How could he have done this? How dare he complicate things like this?
"Buffy, shame on you," he says, turning his head moonlight tracing sorrow in his profile, "Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers."
Oh God, the words hurt. They burn her like a brand, searing parts of her heart and soul she didn't know pain could reach. She feels tears coming. Not from her throat or her eyes. No, these are coming from somewhere deep, some dark and secret hollow.
"To be the kind of man who would never," he looks away and his voice drops, "to be a kind of man."
They're closer now, the tears. She can feel them shivering in her veins and dancing on her skin. Her face is hot and her knees are giving way as she watches him. Spike's gaze is fixed on the crucifix.
"She shall look on him with forgiveness," he says, moving closer to the cross, "and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved."
Buffy is staring at the strong line of his shoulders, fighting the tears that are burning in her eyes and quickening her breath. Through blurred vision, she sees that he is within arm's reach of the cross, that sacred icon of love's greatest sacrifice. Symbolic, much?
She wants to die for the things she's done to him. A monster, she had called him. A pig. A demon. A thing. But now she knows the truth. That thing knows more about love than anyone she knows. That thing loves her better than anyone else. And she knows it.
She'd have to be blind to have missed it. It was always there. In the quick, unneeded breath he took just before she kissed him in that alley. In the tremble of his fingers beneath the stairwell at The Bronze. In the awestruck stare at the abandoned building when she slid onto him for that first terrible time.
His is the kind of love that would move mountains. Or stake long-term lovers. Or get back hundred year old souls. She has to swallow that now, and it goes down like broken glass.
"So everything's OK, right?" he sighs, so close to the crucifix now that he's nearly touching it, and before she blinks, he is. His arms are around it and his body is prone. The smoke begins to rise, and at last her tears fall.
She did this. Did this to someone who loves her like no one else ever has. It's insane love, sure. What else would you expect from Spike? But no way can she deny how real it is. It's so real now she could probably put a damn bow on it.
"Can-can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?"
The tears make tracks down her face. Useless buckets of salt. That's what he called them. That's how she feels. Useless. Helpless. Lost in the face of a love so strong she can barely comprehend it. Did Angel ever love her like this? Did anyone? Oh, don't think about that.
Smoke continues to rise, bringing the acrid smell of burnt flesh. Her nostrils flare and she flinches, the smell horrifying her in a way the sight cannot. The odor breaks her trance, sending her into action. The hero in her wrenches him from the crucifix with shaking arms, while the girl in her winces at the burns on his arms and wishes she had moved faster.
His body is still smoking as they crumble to the floor together. Strength and consciousness both abandon him as he slumps into her arms. Buffy is beneath him, his body sideways between her legs, his hip against her sex, long arms dangled around her waist.
She doesn't think about the bathroom when she feels him between her legs. She doesn't think about the abandoned house or her own front lawn or a hundred other sordid encounters, either. She only thinks of one night. Just one.
"Tell me you love me," she demanded.
Her memory focuses on his eyes, on the flicker of hope dancing in the despair.
"I love you," he said, "You know I do."
Wet lashes blink away new tears and old memories, bringing her back to the church. She uses one arm to pull his shoulders closer. Her free hand reaches for his cheek, palm pushing at his jaw until she can see his face. His lips are moving, but it's clear he isn't lucid. Buffy hears nothing. She leans close. A whisper, just a breath, which makes her wonder how he does speak, because vampire.you know, undead and all that. But she doesn't care.
She cares about what he's saying. The same words over and over. She picks the syllables apart, separating the mumble of air into sense, and at last, at last, she understands him.
"To be hers.to be hers.to be hers."
There is a sound of grief, a horrible keening wail. It erupts into the room, setting her teeth on edge until she realizes the awful sound is coming from her. Knowing it only makes it worse. She weeps into his pale neck while her fingers tangle in his paler hair. The sobs rock her torso, and she uses them, letting whole her body rock the vampire like a baby.
The enemy she's fought and fucked. Hated and loved.
Yeah, loved.
Somehow that little truth wiggles out of her head while Spike babbles. It isn't like loving Angel, or Riley. Not like family either. This is different. It's the kind of gritty love that Hollywood loves to exploit in behind-the-scenes specials. But it's real. It was always real for him, and now it's real for her too.
In her arms he slowly calms, but she keeps swaying, pressing soft kisses to his hairline and softer touches to the cool satin of his back. She shoves away thoughts of dealing with it. She doesn't know how to deal. She doesn't know anything yet. But she will.
"No more mind games," she says again, and this time everything about that sentence feels new. Everything about it feels right.
"To be hers," Spike says again, this time adding a little voice to the breath.
And somehow that's different too, even though he's been babbling on for the better part of an hour. Everything's new. Everything's real. Spike isn't a soulless thing anymore. Truth told, he was never a thing at all. He was always a man.a kind of man, anyways. But that's all he ever wanted, isn't it?
"To be hers," he says again.
"Yeah," Buffy starts, "To be mine."
Then her hands still and her mind clears. She looks down at the vampire. The one that defied her every stereotype shattered her every illusion. The one who gave everything he had for the slim hope of making her happy. For the chance at being hers. She closes her eyes, pressing a final kiss to his cool lips.
"Yeah, Spike, you're mine," she adds in a whisper while she rocks, accepting it. Accepting him.
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