Spike quickly found out, however, that Tara hadn't had time to think out her plans clearly, beyond getting him involved.
"No, no, no! Absolutely not!" he exclaimed at one point.
"But I thought you cared about her! If you aren't willing to give up having sex with her-"
"It's not like that, ducks. I may be an evil, lustful demon, but I'd wear a soddin' chastity belt if I thought it would help. Well, maybe for a little while, at least," he added hastily. "But you're not thinking about Buffy's history. If I don't mean anything to her, if I'm nothing but her sex toy," he couldn't help but grimace at the thought, "then fine, I could cut her off with no problems. But if she has any feelings for me at all, pulling away from her would be the worst thing I could do. She's got real problems with the people she loves leavin' her, especially men."
Tara's brow wrinkled a bit. "Because of her father, Riley, and Giles?"
Spike snorted. "Don't forget ol' Tall, Dark, and Stupid." At Tara's blank look, he clarified. "Angel."
Tara frowned. "Oh. Willow told me a bit about Angel before she went to L.A last summer, but I never got the whole story. We were all kind of . . . out of it at the time," she added ruefully.
Spike cocked his head in amazement at her. "So no one ever told you the whole bleedin' soap opera? Well, I'm not exactly the best one to tell this tale, 'cause I wasn't here for the whole thing, and between adoring Buffy and hatin' Angel's guts I'm not really neutral here, but I suppose I can give you the highlights. I gather it started almost as soon as Buffy arrived here in Sunnyhell . . ."
Tara listened in amazement as Spike laid out the whole tragic tale. Angel. The Master. Darla. The gypsies' curse. When she heard how the curse had been broken, and what Angelus had done to Buffy in the following weeks, she felt her eyes begin to tear. She knew what it was like to have someone she loved hurt her, but what Spike was describing to her was appalling. The things her family and Willow had done to her had hurt her deeply, but they were just stupid, ignorant, shortsighted, human things. The deliberate, systematic torture that Angelus had put Buffy through made her feel nauseous.
Spike seemed to notice the green look on her face, and stopped his narrative for the moment. "I know what you're thinking, luv, and believe it or not, I felt the same way even then."
This really confused Tara. "But I thought you hated Buffy at the time."
"Of course I hated her. She was the bane of my bloody existence at the time! Still is, in some ways . . ." he muttered.
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, occasionally puffing on it or gesturing with it as he continued. "But even under all the hate I respected her. Remember that I'd fought two Slayers before, and they were real good, but I still managed to kill 'em both. And no one else I'd ever fought had even came close to those two.
"But Buffy . . . " A smile came to Spike's face as he broke off a moment, then continued, "Buffy was the best damn fighter I'd ever met. Quick, resourceful, willing to banter a bit between fisticuffs . . . It was glorious. It was a goddamn dream come true." He seemed to shake himself a bit, and took another puff of tobacco smoke. "Sure, I wanted to kill her, but what I really wanted to do was beat her, hopefully in an all-out brawl that would last a whole night."
"So it was all about . . . competition?"
"Of course it was about competition! It was about bein' the best. About beatin' the best! Angelus could have his mind-games and his torture, he always considered himself the Soddin' Great Artist of Pain and Death. What a crock!" He laughed. "Angelus never took any risks, never got into a fight he didn't know he could win. At least, not until Buffy got under his skin . . ." He chuckled a moment before continuing his story.
Tara didn't think it could've gotten any worse but it did. Acathla. The restoration of Angel's soul. And then . . .
"God," she whispered. "How did she do it? How could she . . . ?" She couldn't even say the words. She looked up and Spike and simply asked, "How did she survive it?"
"She damn near didn't, from what I hear. She completely fell apart, ran away from home, and tried to give up bein' the Slayer. You'd have to ask Red or the Bit about that, I was too busy getting my own butt out of town at the time, with Drusilla on my back both literally and figuratively. I only know about the end of the fight because Dru had a vision about it, and I managed to piece it together from her crazy ramblings and the fact that the whole world hadn't gone to Hell."
Spike sped up his narrative a bit, explaining, "I only came back when Dru started carryin' on with other demons behind my back, or rather, in front of my face. I don't know how Angel got back from Hell, or what went on between the two of them for most of that year. All I know is that after this huge fight where they fought a giant snake-demon and blew up the high school -- God, I wish I coulda seen that one! -- the Great Pouf proved once and for all what a bloody flamin' stupid git he is, by breaking up with Buffy and shufflin' off to L.A. Threw away the best thing he ever had, and broke her heart at the same time."
Tara digested this for a moment, then slowly sighed. "I see what you mean about Buffy's problem. If she thinks you're going to leave her, she'll probably go into a panic. But you two can't go on like this. She's got sex and guilt and self-punishment all mixed up in her head, and it's only going to get worse. If you ever want to . . . " she couldn't believe she was saying this to Spike, of all people, "If you ever want to have a real relationship with her, you have to start fixing things now."
Spike took one last puff on his cigarette, then threw it on the floor and stamped it out. "I can try . . . doin' other things with 'er, but it'll be hard, in more ways than one. Ever since our little musical adventure, whenever she sees me, she beats me up and tells me how disgusting I am," here he pointed to his black-and-blue face, " or she throws me up against the wall and tries to climb down my throat. Or both."
Tara couldn't help blushing at the image Spike's words brought to mind, but her thoughts were interrupted as Spike continued. "But it's more than just her. I'm just as out of control as she is, these days. I've loved her -- well, I've admitted to myself that I've loved her -- for over a year now. That was bad enough, when she just hated my guts. But ever since we've been together . . . when I'm around her . . . when I'm with her . . . . I feel alive again. But she drives me so crazy, I don't know sometimes whether I want to bite her or shag her senseless! We're like . . ." he picked up his lighter, ". . . like flint and steel. When we rub together," he says as he flicks the lighter, "sparks fly."
Tara thought about this a moment, then said, "Maybe I need to see the two of you get together."
"WOT!?"
Tara suddenly blushed and giggled as she realized how that had sounded. "No, not like that! I mean I need to see your auras, what happens to them when you touch one another. Maybe that will give me a clue as to what's going on." She muttered half to herself, "I wish I'd thought of this before, when I was with her. Now she's cried herself to sleep, and I'm going to be busy with classes for a couple of days . . . Maybe at Buffy's birthday party, I can check her aura out, both when she's alone and when she's with you."
Spike looked doubtful. "I don't know about all this aura stuff. How reliable is it anyway?"
Tara brightened. "Oh, if you can see someone's aura, you can tell all kinds of things about them! That's how I knew that Faith had switched places with Buffy when I first 'met' her."
Spike stared at Tara, not quite believing his ears. "When did this happen?" Then he remembered a certain night when Xander and Giles had warned him about a rogue Slayer, and a certain bizarre encounter with Buffy at the Bronze, and he laughed. "No, wait, let me guess. It was right after Buffy's first dust-up with Adam, when he tried to turn Soldier Boy into shish kabob."
Tara wrinkled her nose at that, but nodded.
Spike chuckled. "So that's what was goin' on that night! I just figured she was drunk -- Buffy never could hold her liquor -- and feelin' all frustrated since she couldn't see her little tin soldier." He nodded to himself. So that had been Faith. Idly wishing for a moment that he'd had the opportunity to show her what happens to bad little Slayers who tease vampires, he continued, "And you were able to tell that from Buffy's aura?"
Tara nodded, and filled him in on a few of the details. "Naturally, we weren't telling you what was going on, since you were evil then."
"I still am, luv, I still am," Spike chuckled. "But there's evil, and then there's evil. Truth be told, even with all the hell I've had over the past couple years, I've had as much fun fightin' alongside Buffy as fightin' with Buffy. As for the rest of you Scoobies, Droopy and I will never get along, and I know Demongirl can't stand me, but you an' Red treat me like a person instead of a thing . . . and you know I adore the Li'l Bit."
That last comment made Tara frown, and think some more. "Until lately, I would've said that the best way to make things better with Buffy would be to get Dawn on your side, but the two of them don't seem to be getting along very well."
Spike waved that off. "Of course they're not getting along, they're sisters. As much as they love each other, they've always gotten on each others' nerves."
Tara shook her head. "No, it's more than that. I can't put my finger on it, but something's up with them." She suddenly found herself yawning.
Spike stood up. "Let me walk you back to your place. You don't look very alert right now, and I can't afford to let one of my few friends get eaten right now."
Tara smiled. Ever since he'd done her the strange favor of hitting her in the nose, she'd gone out of her way to pay more attention to the blond vampire and the things he did. She'd been surprised to find that underneath the rough-and-tough "I'm an evil demon" exterior was a complex, intelligent, even compassionate person. He didn't seem to have much regard for humanity as a whole, but he was a loyal friend and a powerful ally. Spike wasn't exactly a shining example of humanity . . . but she'd known human beings who were less human than he was.
And she found that she really liked it when he called her his friend. "Thanks Spike. I'd like that."
The two walked to Tara's apartment, and agreed that they would think things over, and try to brainstorm a bit at Buffy's birthday party.
|
|
|
|
Rave
Barbie Girl (Becca)
biscuit07
Filmtheory (Jim)
Malice (Jess)
MebbtheScribe (MichaelB)
Reset (Allie)
Shay (Marrisa)
somnambulist29 (Shea)
Stephanie Loss
Wendyness (Wendy)
Questions?Contact Us
|
|
All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.
Powered with the assitance of eFiction.
|
|
|
