Summary: *Sequel to Constant Craving* When William “Spike” Pratt walked out of her life nearly seven years ago, Buffy Summers never expected to see him again. But here he was, home for her mother’s funeral and determined to get her to open up to him by using whatever means he deemed necessary… even if it meant holding her hair back when she got sick.
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: Not quite sure how many read these things, or how many even want to know when a chapter contains a bit of angst, but just in case... high angst, heavy emotion ahead! Tread accordingly! Special thank you to Mari for the beta! You so ROCK!
Spike raised the crystal tumbler to his lips, knocking back yet another triple shot of Dewar’s whiskey, welcoming the mild burn to his throat and the familiar fire in his chest. From downstairs, he could still hear Buffy’s piercing emotive sobs, her obvious grief over her actions doing nothing to soothe the betrayal, the hurt and disappointment he felt inside his bones.
He’d warned her once about Lindsey, about his disturbing obsession with having everything, experiencing everything that Spike did. She swore then that she was different, that she’d be the one thing in his life, the only thing in his life, Lindsey and his crazy fixation couldn’t breach.
But he had, hadn’t he? Granted, it had taken a few years, but Lindsey finally made his move. He’d gone after the one thing Spike would have sworn in blood the bastard couldn’t sodding touch, and it bleeding stung that Buffy let him, that she offered him a spot inside of her, a spot Spike had naively thought belonged to him alone.
And now she might be pregnant, having the baby of the one man on earth Spike hated more than his own bloody father. If that wasn’t some bleeding irony, he didn’t know what was.
“Bloody bastard pro’ly planned it,” he muttered aloud, scowling, clenching his jaw. “Pro’ly poked a bleedin’ hole in the condom himself.” Whoa. Wait. Hang on.
Spike shot forward, straightening in his seat, gripping his glass tight enough to crack its bloody edge. Had the sodding git even worn a condom? Buffy hadn’t alluded to one, but then again, he hadn’t actually been listening at the time. Too bloody busy seeing red to hear anything she’d tried telling him, which was the whole sodding point of walking out on her the way he had.
If he’d stayed in that room with her any longer, he’d have said some things he’d no doubt regret come morning; he already had a bit too much to lament when it came to her as it was. Still… if she bleeding slept with that careless, selfish prick without making him wear a bloody condom, he’d… he’d… “…bloody well kill her, I will!”
He slammed his empty glass onto the table and rose to his feet in one fluid motion, turning toward the doorway just as his godfather rounded the corner, blue eyes narrowed with the same aggravation he knew to be in his own. “Where the bloody hell do you think you are going?” the older man asked, crossing his arms over his chest, doing his best to block the only conceivable exit out of the room. “Certainly not back upstairs to see Elizabeth. You’ve done enough damage in that regard tonight, don’t you think?”
Bloody hell. “Don’ you go startin’ in on me, Ripper. You don’ have a soddin’ clue what you’re bloody talkin’ about.” He took a step forward, hands flexing at his sides when the other man made no move to leave. Sod it all. “Giles, get out of my bloody way. I mean it. I got me a girl to see and I‘m not about to let you keep me from her.”
“You are not going to her in this state,” Giles warned, closing the distance between them, placing a firm hand against his chest. “You are quite simply spoiling for a fight right now, William, and I am not about to just stand by and let you pick one with Elizabeth. That poor girl has been through enough today.”
Did the bleeding bastard think he didn’t know that? “What the bloody fuck do you expect me to do, Ripper? Just ignore what’s goin’ on? Just forget about what she told me?” He shook his head. “You don’ know what she did, Rupes. If you did, you wouldn’ be tryin’ to—”
“I know, William,” the other man admitted with a stretched sigh, dropping his arms and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I am afraid I’ve known for a couple of weeks now.”
Spike backed up, both hands bunching into a fist. “And you didn’ soddin’ see fit to tell me ‘bout it?” Blunt fingernails imbedded into his palms; Spike ignored the sting of fresh cut skin as he ground out, “Yeah, some godfather you are. Never did have my bloody back, always too busy stickin’ a knife in it to care.”
Hurt flickered in the other man’s eyes as he slowly contended, “That… isn’t fair, William. I simply did not think it my place to tell you about Lindsey. You have to understand, son—”
“No, I don’ have to soddin’ understand!”
Spike pivoted, searching for something to throw; his gaze landed on the tiny, cracked tumbler he’d set aside a few moments before. He picked it up, hurtling it into the nearest wall, mindless of the sharp, jagged shards that came dangerously close to his own face. “And I’m not your bleedin’ son, either,” he spat, turning back to Giles, glaring, daring him to say something about the mess, about Lindsey or Buffy or anything else he felt the need to discuss just then. When he didn’t, Spike’s lips curled upward in satisfaction.
He rocked back on his heels, body tense, spoiling for a fight. “What’s the matter, mate? Truth a bit too bitter of a pill for you to swallow? Thinkin’ back on what might’ve been had my mother actually given you a shot at her? Or wait, she did, didn’ she? You just didn’ have the bleedin’ balls to follow through.”
Spike didn’t know what he expected really, but as Giles lunged for him, knocking him backward over the coffee table, age-spotted hand constricting around his throat, he could’ve sworn he saw the same crazed, mechanical desperation on his face that Spike felt running rampant through his own veins.
“You do not have the bloody right to say such a thing to me,” Rupert snarled, blue eyes blazing black fire. “And if you value that big, oversized mouth of yours, Spike, you won’t ever be saying them to me again. I loved your mother, but Joyce is… was my wife and I will not have you disrespect her in this house, and especially not today.”
The hand at his neck relaxed, somewhat. Yet, the heavy body above him never moved. “Get. The. Bloody. Hell. Off. Of. Me. You. Stupid. Bloody. Tosser.” Spike bucked up, tightly encircling the other man’s wrist with his fingers, applying just enough pressure to loosen the grip at his throat. When it was gone, he shoved the other man off to the side of his body, getting to his feet, one hand moving to the now aching muscle in his lower back, ignoring the warmth of fresh blood on his forehead.
“What the hell were you tryin’ to prove?” he asked, glaring at the man just now staggering to his feet. “You could’ve damn well broken something!” He stopped, frowning at the newly damaged coffee table that lay in shambles between them. Bleeding, buggering hell. “Something else, I mean,” he clarified, rolling his eyes, joining in as the other man began to chuckle.
Giles reached out, clapping him on the back, drawing him in for a tight hug. “Good lord, but I needed that.” His grip tightened before he pulled back, his reproachful gaze roaming over Spike’s face. “Does it hurt?” the old man asked, tilting his chin toward the cut on his brow. “It looks a mite deep. Perhaps we should take you to the E.R. for stitches?”
Spike sighed. “I don’ need any soddin’ stitches. It’ll heal.” Eventually. “’Sides, I bloody well deserved it. Shouldn’ ‘ve said what I said to you. ‘M sorry, mate. I know you cared about my mum, lot more ‘n she deserved I reckon.”
“That isn’t true, son. Your mother deserved the world; she just didn’t think she could get that world from me, and much as I hated to admit it to myself back then, I know that she was right. We simply wouldn’t have worked out. We were both entirely too bloody stubborn for our own good, I’m afraid.” Giles gave him a pointed glare, lowering his body onto the small, floral loveseat behind him.
Spike frowned again, turning to take his own seat on the couch. “Look, I know what you’re goin’ to say, Rupes. But you’re wrong, mate. Buffy and I… it’s not as easy as that. Made some mistakes, the two of us. A mite too many to ever fully put to rights again, I reckon.
“Always gonna be somethin’ tearin’ us apart. If not Lindsey, it’d be somethin’ else. Jus’ the way it is, I s’pose.” He lifted a shoulder, leaning forward to wipe the blood off his temple with the bottom edge of his T-shirt and wincing as the muscles between his shoulder blades protested, sharply. “Bloody hell, Rupes, I think you might’ve done a bit of damage to me this time.”
He looked up, scowling at the pleased look on the older man’s face. “Oi! Don’ start thinkin’ you can take me all the time, gramps. Caught me by surprise t’night, you did. Don’ expect it to happen again, though.”
“And it couldn’t possibly be that you are simply out of shape?” Giles asked looking him over, his displeasure over what he saw heightened in his gaze. “Do you think I haven’t noticed that you’ve lost a bit of weight since I last visited you in San Diego? You haven’t been taking care of yourself, William. Why?”
Spike looked away. “Doesn’ matter. Got a bit lost in somethin’ is all. ‘M fine now.”
“You are obviously not fine.” Giles scooted closer, both hands dangling in his lap. “Why didn’t you come home before now, Spike? I called you several times over the last few months, letting you know you were needed here. Why did you wait until after Joyce… passed on to come back?”
He turned back with a glare. “You know why, Rupert. I made a promise. Didn’ plan on breakin’ it. Not even for you.”
“Yet you did break it. You’re back, you’re here and you are obviously still very much in love with Elizabeth.” Knowing blue eyes narrowed a fraction as he sagely asked, “What made you change your mind? What made you come home to us, home to her?”
Spike closed his eyelids, lowering his head to the back of the couch. “Had some stupid soddin’ dream. Buffy was in trouble. She… needed me.” He opened his eyes, raised his head again. “Turns out, my bloody dream wasn’ so stupid after all.”
He pursed his lips, clenching his jaw as he admitted, “I made a right git of myself t’night, Ripper. I walked out on her without givin’ her a chance to tell me about Lindsey, about… why she went to him, why she let him… touch her.”
“Are you asking me to tell you why?” Giles asked, straightening in his seat. “Because if you are and even though its against my better judgment, I will tell you, but I must warn you, William, I cannot guarantee you will like what you hear.”
Oh, he sodding knew that. Bloody felt it in his bones, he did. “Doesn’ mean I don’ need to hear it,” he said slowly, evenly, silently wishing their brief tussle hadn’t broken the only sodding bottle of whiskey left in the house. “And I need to have my bloody facts straight if I’m to try and talk to her about it. If I wait and let her tell me in the mornin’, I’ll be so busy puttin’ my bleedin’ foot in my mouth she won’ even get to finish tellin’ the story.”
Giles nodded, using his hands on his knees to push himself to his feet. “In that case, let me go get another bottle of Dewar’s from upstairs. I have a feeling we’ll both need it by the time the story is over.”
Spike groaned, settling himself back against the couch cushions, one arm slung over his eyes as he waited for the other man to return. If Giles was offering more whiskey, the truth about how Buffy came to be with Lindsey must be pretty bleeding bad, which meant he had to have more than a few of his wits about him if he was going to deal with talking to Buffy about it tomorrow.
“Right, here we go,” his godfather said, placing the unopened bottle of whiskey in his lap. “That should do for a start. If we need more, I have another bottle hidden in the cabinet upstairs. But I’ll only get that if you promise not to tell Buffy that I’ve hid it. She hates it when I drink and I promised her after the last time, I wouldn’t do it again.”
Oh hell. If Buffy didn’t want the old man to drink and Spike let him drink anyway, he’d never hear the sodding end of it. “How ‘bout we get us a couple of sodas then? Don’ know about you, but I’ve got no hankerin’ to put myself any further on Buffy’s bad side. Girl’s already got enough reason to wanna bloody kill me as is.”
“Might be for the best, I suppose,” Giles said, trying to hide his grin. “Be easier to get control over yourself if you aren’t three sheets to wind, don’t you think?”
Bleedin’, bloody wanker! He sodding set him up on that one, didn’t he? Walked him right into his bloody trap, he did. “All right, old man, I get it. Won’ go drinkin’ in the house again.” Rupert narrowed his eyes, forcing Spike to amend his last statement. “Oh, sod it all, Rupes! I won’ bloody drink again period. Bleedin’ happy now you narcissistic poofter?”
“Quite, actually. Be even more so when you explain to Buffy exactly how her mother’s favorite antique coffee table got smashed.”
Oh, bloody hell. In for a pound and all that rot, right? “I’ll fix the damn thing ‘fore she wakes up. Anythin’ else you care to guilt me into agreein’ to?”
“Yes, there is something else.” He tossed the whiskey bottle onto the empty loveseat, turning back to Spike with a serious, no-bones-about-it expression. “I want you to get over this… hatred you have for Lindsey. It isn’t healthy for you, and it isn’t healthy for Elizabeth, either.”
Yeah, well, that one’s gonna be easier said than done, mate. “Not makin’ you that kind of promise, Rupes. You should bloody know better than to be askin’ it, least askin’ it ‘fore I’ve heard the full story.”
“Then perhaps it’s time I told it to you,” Giles muttered, casting a quick glance at the unopened bottle across from them. “I just hope Elizabeth doesn’t become too upset with me for telling you something you bloody well should be asking of her.”
Spike frowned. Maybe Rupert was right. Maybe he should just go upstairs and talk to Buffy. Let her tell him what happened, what led to her breaking her promise by crawling into bed with Lindsey. But he wasn’t sure he could bloody take hearing her talk about sleeping with the sodding bastard, not knowing what he knew about himself and about his hatred for all things Lindsey.
“William? Are you even listening to me?”
He blinked, his gaze jerking back to the other man’s face. “No, sorry, I wasn’. Was just…” he paused, giving his head a quick shake. “Never mind, jus’ finish tellin’ me what you know. Can sort the rest out in the mornin’ with Buffy.”
“Do you think that wise? Waiting until the morning to talk with her again?”
Spike’s frown deepened. “Hang on. Wasn’ it you that bloody well told me I wasn’ goin’ up there to talk to her t’night?”
“And were you not blooding listening to me when I said you were simply, ‘spoiling for a fight’.”
Okay, sodding bastard had him there. He had been spoiling for a fight, and Buffy was, at that point in time, his best chance at getting it. “So, you’d let me go up then, if I wanted to…”
Giles nodded. “If you’d rather hear the story from her, I’m not going to stop you, William. It should come from her, as I am sure you well know.”
It should, but it wouldn’t. Not the first time at least. “Tell me,” he ordered gruffly, shaking his head again. “Tell me what the bleedin’ hell happened to make her go to him.”
By ten o’clock the next morning, Spike knew he was an idiot for not takin’ Rupert’s advice from the night before, having chosen to go to his own room and sleep the alcohol off instead of walking straight into Buffy’s and begging her forgiveness. Because now that he’d actually set eyes on her again, now that he’d seen the blood shot irises and dark, puffy circles beneath her lower lids, he damn well knew he’d made a big, bloody mistake in walking out on her before she could explain what happened between them.
She obviously hadn’t slept any better than he had, and while he had the jackhammer of all bloody headaches to contend with, she still had the evidence of her tears lining both cheeks. Somehow the tears seemed worse, though how he couldn’t quite be certain.
Buffy didn’t look at him as she crossed to the breakfast bar and fixed herself a bowl of cereal—bananas and bran flakes, her favorite. And she didn’t look at him when she left the room to eat by herself in the living room, either.
Stubborn bint’s gonna make me grovel, innit she? He shook his head, tossing the morning’s newspaper onto the kitchen table and headed for the refrigerator to fix her a small glass of juice. She liked juice when she’d been pregnant before. He remembered that. She’d liked to have her feet rubbed, too, although he bloody doubted she’d let him get away with that this morning.
Gripping the glass in his hand, Spike turned to head in the direction she’d gone. Halfway there though, he stopped, struck speechless by the sight and sound of more bloody tears.
Bleeding hell but he was a right bastard, wasn’t he? Damn well should have fixed this sodding mess last night. “Buffy, love, sweetheart, don’ cry,” he said, setting the glass on the coffee table and reaching for her hands. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see. Everythin’ ‘ll be all right.”
“No, it won’t. You hate me.”
He sighed, reaching for her hand and lightly stroking its back. “I don’ hate you, pet. Could never hate you, you know that. Was just hurt is all. Still hurt, I reckon. But you can understand that, can’ you, love? Why I’d be hurt? Why I’d need some bloody time to sort myself out?”
Her panicked eyes shot to his face at that, her pupils widening even more when they spotted the fresh scar above his left eyebrow; she extracted her hand from beneath his palm and reached out to touch his brow, pulling back when he winced at the contact. She bit her lip, calmly searched his eyes. “You’re leaving town again?”
Leaving? Where the sodding hell would she get an idea like that? “No, I’m not leavin’. Told you I’d be stickin’ around, didn’ I? Take more ‘n you sleepin’ with a bloody wanker like Lindsey to change my mind about that, love.”
She glanced away, folding her hands back into her lap. “I’m sorry I got drunk, Spike. I would never have let him touch me otherwise.”
“I know, pet. Believe me, I know.” He frowned, placing a finger beneath her chin, forcing her weary gaze back to his face. “’M sorry, too, Buffy. Had no right to be angry with you. Wasn’ fair of me. ‘M the one that left you, yeah? You had a right to find someone else while I was gone. Can’ hold it agains’ you that you did, even if it was a poncy-ass wanker like McDonald.”
Hazel eyes widened in distress. “It was just once, Spike. I swear to God, it was just the one night and it wouldn’t have happened at all if I hadn’t been so upset about mom’s tumor and scared to death of not being able to make things right with her before I—.”
“I know, love. Calm down, yeah? Not good to be gettin’ yourself so worked up.” He eyed the cereal and juice on the coffee table beside him. “Think you can eat somethin’ while we talk? Gotta be at leas’ a li’l hungry, what with us sleepin’ through dinner last night and all.”
This time it was Buffy who frowned. “Why are you being so nice to me? Why aren’t you more upset about Lindsey? What changed?”
“Nothin’, just had a li’l shift in perspective is all.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “A little shift named Giles, you mean.” She narrowed her eyes, irritation radiating from their greenish-blue depths. “He told you what happened, didn’t he? He told you that Lindsey died?”
“He did.”
“And his being dead makes it okay not to hate me now? It just erases all that anger and disgust you felt toward me last night?”
Spike groaned, leaning back on his haunches to glare at her. “What the bleedin’ hell do you expect from me, Buffy? You want me to yell at you? You want me to bloody throw things? Hit a wall? Roar in outrage? What good would it do? Person ‘m most mad at isn’ bloody here to defend himself anymore.”
“And that pisses you off, doesn’t it? That he isn’t here for you to fight with again?” She shook her head, knocking him out of her way as she jumped to her feet. “You’ll never change will you? You’ll always be raging at everyone else but the person that deserves it the most, in this case, me.”
Spike grabbed her arm, narrowing his eyes when she glared up at him. “What the hell are you goin’ on about, Buffy? I’ve raged at you plenty of times in the past, and wanted to rage at you plenty more times than that.
“What the bloody hell do you want from me here?”
She shut her eyelids, counted to ten and gently pulled her arm free of his grasp. “If you have to ask me, Spike, that just goes to show how very little you know about women, or about this woman in particular.”
He watched her walk away, watched her walk up the stairs and out of sight, and frowned, both hands moving to his hips. “What the soddin’ hell did I do now?”
Buffy knew it wasn’t fair to walk out on Spike the way she had. She knew she should have stayed and at least tried to explain some of what she was feeling. But how could she when it didn’t even really make sense to her?
All night last night, she’d wished for him to come to her. Wished for him to take her in his arms and tell her he forgave her for sleeping with his friend, for sleeping with Lindsey. Yet he hadn’t done it, hadn’t so much as approached her until today, this morning, when she no longer had the will or the energy to really fight with him.
And when he did finally approach her, he wasn’t angry or upset with her. He said he understood. That he’d been hurt but that he didn’t blame her for doing what she did.
But he should have blamed her. He should have been positively livid with her.
It didn’t matter that they were divorced. That he’d been the one to leave her and that she had no real moral ties to him. They’d been married for God’s sake and she’d gone to bed with his ex-best friend, the one man he hated more than anyone or anything else in the world.
How could he possibly be okay with that? In the span of twenty-four hours, no less.
He couldn’t. He couldn’t be okay with it. And until he was, until he could be honest with himself and with her, there really wasn’t much more for them to say to each other.
A/N: Chapter five will be up next Tuesday!
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