SUNDAY
MORNING COMING DOWN 17
by
crazydiamondsue
Fear roared in Spike’s head and he attempted to shake it away. He hadn’t shown
fear when he’d faced down three slayers, hadn’t let himself feel it any of the
times Angel had tried to wring it from him, and he wasn’t going to let it
dissolve him into a blithering mess now just because a lost slip of a girl and a
scared, angry boy were forcing it from him.
Still, nothing short of dying
was going to keep him from getting back to the Summers’ house faster than
inhumanly possible. He hadn’t lost Dawn and he hadn’t forced Xander into
crawling into his mind to hide. Wasn’t his betrayal, and fearing that it was
wouldn’t change it. He’d kept his promises, now he just had to suss out a way to
change the things he couldn’t control.
He looked back behind him to
where Xander followed, the darkness of early morning obscuring everything but
the blank shimmer of Xander’s eyes, the pale gleam of his fingers on Spike’s
arm.
Spike slowed as the lights from the house broke from the trees
around them. The porch was empty and silent, and Xander’s slow and careful steps
to meet him thudded hollowly in the midnight quiet around them.
Spike’s
hand closed over the door handle and some dim part of his brain registered the
memory of Dawn carefully locking it, despite the easy way it turned in his hand.
Xander started to drift away from him, and Spike reached out and fisted a hand
in his shirt front. Xander swayed slightly, and Spike tightened his grip,
jerking Xander back to him on one side and snapping the door handle cleanly in
half with the other.
Spike grunted quietly and then shoved the door open,
slamming it against the far wall as he strode into the foyer, dragging Xander
behind him. The house lights were still on, flickering hope, but he couldn’t
remember if Dawn had turned them off before they’d left.
“Dawn!” Spike
glanced over at Xander, equally searching for and hoping not to a find a
reaction to the undercurrent of terror shadowing the command in his voice.
Xander’s face remained blank, his eyes meeting Spike’s with the same
dull sheen they turned on the rest of the familiar room.
Spike turned
away, unable to read anything in that blank stare and afraid of how deep that
emptiness went. Even at her weakest, Spike had always been able to read Dru's
eyes, see the brilliance that danced just beyond, out of reach of the madness.
Xander, however…
But he didn’t have time for this, any of it. No matter
how deeply buried Xander was, or what had forced him to crawl in and find a
place to hide to begin with, at least he was here, and whole, at his side. Let
Willow sort him out, Spike nodded to himself, because there were other things,
and morning was coming sooner than answers, leaving him with things he couldn’t
change and forcing him away from the things he could.
“Dawn!” And he felt
her, he knew he did, part of it human and half-remembered, the sense of a
presence, and part of it something other – a knowing, and not just a hope, that
she was here.
***
Xander felt Spike’s hand loosen on his wrist and he followed Spike’s gaze
to the top of the stair where Dawn stood, looking down at both of them. She
eased slowly down the steps, not taking them two at once this time, her steps
slow and measured, eyeing them hesitantly.
Xander’s eyes lowered and he
followed the scuff of her feet against the carpet runner. He felt Spike brush
past him, tension even Xander could feel radiating as Spike stopped at the foot
of the stairs and looked up at Dawn.
“Thank God,” Spike growled, his hand
closing around the banister, the wood creaking. “You…”
Xander heard the
words thicken in Spike’s throat, and then Spike’s voice was rising, a blustering
anger that Xander knew covered for something darker, something deeper.
“I
could kill you,” Spike continued, his eyes not leaving Dawn.
“Spike,” she
said quietly as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“I mean it.
I could rip your head off one-handed and drink from your brain stem.”
Dawn ignored Spike’s bluster and edged closer, stopping just short of
him. They both stilled, looking at one another, and Xander watched as Spike’s
anger seemed to go to a place somewhere so far beyond mere rage that it became
an eerie sort of calm. Dawn lost her jittery, hesitant motion, transformed
somehow, then reached out, resting a hand on Spike's sleeve.
They stood
there silently for a moment, staring at one another, Dawn’s face calm and
imploring, and Spike losing all tension and just easing into her
touch.
Xander cocked his head, watching them as if this was some sort of
performance they were holding for his benefit, their voices rising and falling
with unheard words, eyes meeting in a way Xander couldn’t understand.
Free of all worry and understanding, he just stared at them, finding
them almost strangers. Seeing for the first time the woman that Dawn would be
someday, calm and sure. Spike dropping the armor he wore as easily as that coat,
becoming just a man, unsure and unguarded. Looking at Dawn as if she had the
answers to questions that had remained unanswered so long he’d stopped asking
them.
Both so unaware of him that Xander edged closer, wondering idly if
this was what it had been like with Buffy and Spike in those moments hidden from
the rest of them. Spike needing someone to treat him like a man, and
Buffy…
“Spike…Xander,” Dawn said, looking between them, and Xander’s head
jerked toward her. Her eyes hadn’t really met his yet, she didn’t know about his
bubble of numb, didn’t know what he’d…something wrong, something she
wouldn’t…and then everything around them thrummed. Xander shook his head,
hearing Dawn’s voice again, seeing Spike turn, his eyes finding Xander’s and the
tension flowing back.
“Look,” she said softly, and Xander’s gaze left
Spike, following Dawn’s up the stairway and…
White. She was wearing
white. Just like the first time he’d ever seen her – and the
last.
***
Spike tore his gaze away from Xander, sparing a glance toward the stairs
where both Dawn and Xander stared, transfixed. “Yeah? Seen the bloody ‘Bot
before…”
And then her eyes met his, and he knew.
Dawn turned away
from him, her hand dropping from his arm and reaching for Buffy. “She's kind of,
um...she's been through a lot...with the...death. But I think she's okay.”
Spike stared at two of them, his throat working, all of the things he’d
wanted to say, to take back, to promise, rushing through him. I want you to
know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but...after that. Every
night after that. I'd see it all again...do something different. Faster or more
clever. Dozens of times, lots of different ways...Every night I save
you.
When the words came, they were deepened, rough and unplanned.
“Her hands.”
Dawn’s hands fluttered around Buffy now, unable to settle,
hesitant, as if touching Buffy would make her disappear. “Um, I was gonna fix
'em. I don't know how they got like that.”
Spike nodded slowly. “I do.
Clawed her way out of a coffin, that's how. Innit that right?”
***
Spike’s eyes had never left Buffy, but Xander’s never left Spike.
At first he’d thought that Buffy was just part of his bubble universe,
his mind letting him see the things he wanted to see. A world where Buffy
came walking back to him, and it was okay this time – none of the horror of his
walking nightmares since the day Willow had promised she could make it happen. A
world where Spike still stood by his side while they smiled up at Buffy, just
happy to have her back and sharing a laugh at the joy bursting from Dawn’s
face…
But Spike had stepped toward Buffy, the words, “Done it myself,”
falling from his lips and then everything burst around Xander. It wasn’t
Technicolor surround-sound, it was flat and human and real.
Dawn’s hair
wild around her face, dirt-smudged and childish, not a woman on the brink, but a
little girl who’d been given her greatest wish and terrified of losing it again.
Spike, eyes wild and staring, focused on Buffy’s face and Xander had gotten his
wish, too, lost in the mix again and unthought-of.
Clawed her way out
of a coffin.
Everything he’d risked, all the words he’d been afraid
of saying all summer, staring down Willow and maybe losing her as he said them –
and for this. It wasn’t some glorious return, Buffy rushing to hug him, knowing
his grief somehow, and easing it.
Somehow, despite everything, they’d
brought her back to life. Right where they’d left her – in her coffin.
He watched as Spike shook his head, taking another step toward Buffy.
“Um...We'll take care of you. Come here.” Spike’s hand hovered above her
shoulder, and Xander watched it tremble and then drop away, gesturing her toward
the living room and then nodding to Dawn. “Get some stuff, uh, mercurochrome,
bandages.”
Dawn nodded and jogged toward the kitchen. Xander stared
after her and then stood there, hearing everything now; Spike’s voice a deep
rumble and Buffy’s answers quiet, the sound just a murmur.
Xander turned
walked toward the door, his hand reaching for it and then staring dumbly at the
broken handle. No choice, no escape, unable to lock himself back into his mind
or unlock the door that lead away from this –
And then the door flew open
and Willow rushed into him, her hands gripping his shoulders, her eyes bright as
she stared up at him. “Is she here?”
Tara brushed past them, her
movements quick and nervous as she stopped in the doorway of the living room,
her breath leaving her in a rush. “Sh-she’s here.”
“Oh, Xander, it
worked! It must have…I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, but it worked – Tara and I
saw them, Dawn and Buffy – on the tower! And we ran and we yelled but they must
not have heard us and then we weren’t sure…I tried to find you and tell you, but
then we came here, just in case, and…” Willow’s words stopped abruptly as she
looked at him, stilling.
“Xander.” She swallowed hard and stepped back
from him slightly. “You were right. And, yeah, I know, easy for me to say now,
but you were and I have to tell you – Tara and I talked and, god, Xander, I was
so wrong, everything you said, and,” her eyes searched his, but Xander just
looked back at her, silent and waiting.
“And I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“I know that doesn’t…make up for…but I can make this right, I know I,” she
sighed, dropping her gaze. “And I’m doing it again, huh?” She met Xander’s gaze
firmly. “I don’t know if I can make this right, but as long as Buffy’s
okay, we can figure something out.”
She reached for his hand carefully;
as if afraid he’d pull it back. “And what I said about you and Spike, I was
wro-”
“Will,” Xander said quietly, reaching up to brush her hair back
from her cheek. “It’s okay. You did it and…” Xander glanced back toward the
living room. “Everything is just like it used to be.”
His hand fell away
from her and he reached for the door, slamming it open and then walking out into
the darkness.
***
“Buffy! Are you okay?”
Spike dropped Buffy’s hands as Willow and
Tara ran into the room. He stood, looking down at Buffy for a moment and then
glanced toward Xander, frowning when he found the foyer empty, the door hanging
open.
He glanced back toward Dawn as she spoke.
“You knew she was
back? How did you know?” Dawn stared at Willow and Tara, her eyes widening. “You
did this…what did you do?”
Willow tore her eyes away from Buffy and
turned a cautious gaze toward Dawn. “A…a spell. We did a spell. We didn’t think
it worked…”
Spike's jaw tightened and he whirled away from them and
headed toward the door.
“Spike, wait!”
Spike spun around, looking
at Willow. His throat seized shut at the look in her eyes, bright and dancing;
fear warring with happiness, with pride, on her face.
“You,” he
said thickly, advancing on her, finding a dark joy in the way she immediately
trembled and stepped back from him. “You green girl. The one who would smile,
and smile, and be a villain.”
Willow shook her head. “Spike…what? No, I
–”
“You shut me out,” he said carefully as anger coiled and the chip
buzzed in warning. “You knew there was a chance that she'd…that she’d come back
wrong. So wrong that you'd have...” Spike dropped his head and then glanced back
at Buffy, silent and still between Tara and Dawn as they reached for her with
careful hands. His voice lowered, anger restrained. “That you would have to get
rid of what came back. And you knew I wouldn't let you. If any part of
that was Buffy, I wouldn't let you.”
“No!” Willow said quickly, casting
her own look back at Buffy. “That’s not…” her voice grew small. “We just didn’t
tell you.” She looked down at her hands. “And I know that was…wrong. That I
should have. But I couldn’t, and I thought everything would be okay, that
she once she was back, everything would –”
Spike shook his head, backing
away. “Confess yourself to heaven – not to me. You think you know what you’ve
done, what wrongs you have to make right. But you haven’t even…that’s the thing
about magic, there’s always consequences.”
He reached the door and looked
back at her. “And when sorrows come, they come in bloody battalions.”
Xander concentrated on the feel of the shovel in his hands, the wooden
handle digging into his cut palms as he used the vague grey outline of the
headstone to guide him in the darkness.
He looked down at the grave, and
at the place where the ground opened from it. It wasn’t a large opening, but
then, Buffy was so small…
Xander swallowed and looked away. Away from the
overturned earth, scattered with bits of white satin lining that Tara had sewn
so carefully and that Anya had helped him nail inside the coffin without a word
of complaint.
He looked instead at the headstone. She saved the world
– a lot. He couldn’t even remember which of them had thought of that, but he
did remember that it had almost made Dawn smile.
He dropped the head of
the shovel down, tapping against the shards of wood that poked up from the
ground. She clawed her way through that. Three months of Sundays they’d
stood at this grave, and the one time she’d really needed them to be here,
they’d…no, Xander thought, shaking his head, he’d let her down.
He
stood over her grave, the shovel in his hands and feeling like time had slammed
him back, back to the night he and Giles had dug it, knowing they were going to
have to put Buffy in it, and away from them. Not knowing at the time that he’d
come back here again and again, hiding from himself even with the others. The
times alone when it served as a purpose; the one thing that he could still do
for her now that there was nothing else. Others when he came just because it was
her…or all he had left of her. And now, Sunday again, and it was just a hole.
Time slammed him back, taking away the grief that had dogged him each
time he stood in this place. She was back, and all things had become new,
nothing left but a hole, just as if this grief, this summer, had never happened.
As if none of it had.
Xander lifted the shovel in his hands, forcing the
tip of it down on the wood and shoving it back beneath the earth. The shovel
rose again, dirt falling with a hollow sound back into the grave as Xander
filled it.
The snick of a lighter sounded behind him, unnaturally loud in
the silence and Xander’s hands tightened on the shovel handle. When Spike spoke,
his voice was low and carefully measured.
“What are you
doing?”
Xander’s eyes squeezed shut and he didn’t bother to turn around.
He focused instead on the weight of the shovel in his hands and the sound of the
dirt falling from it. “Fixing a hole.”
Spike chuckled, but it was dirty
sound, dark and strangled from his throat. “Well, I walked right into that one,
didn’t I? So…” Xander heard the rustle of Spike’s duster behind him, leather
boots creaking as steps grew nearer, “you’re back to talking to me, then?”
“Yeah,” Xander answered, with a humorless laugh of his own. “Sorry about
that back there – just kind of…” he shrugged. “It was a thing.”
“Lot of
that going on tonight,” Spike agreed.
Xander heard the leaves crunch as
Spike moved around him, edging the sides of grave and stopping just behind the
headstone. Xander glanced up to see long, slender fingers curve around the rough
hewn edges of the marble and drum against it lightly.
“You know, I think
I figured it out,” Spike said.
Xander’s gaze left Spike’s hands and
lifted slowly, his breath stuttering in his chest when he saw the dried tears on
Spike’s cheeks, and the look of utter bitterness on his face.
“Willow
didn’t want me to know, and you were my distraction, right?” Spike continued.
“Took one for the team?” He lifted the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled
deeply, his voice coming low and husky as he exhaled. “Well, I’ll be sure to
tell them how sweet you took it.”
Xander wasn’t sure what surprised him
more, the ability to laugh at that or the harsh, ugly tone it had as it left his
lips.
“Right,” he said, nodding. “I was your distraction.” He
looked away from Spike, lifting and filling the shovel again. “You know, Spike,
for someone’s who survived for over a hundred years by cunning and impulse
alone, you’re surprisingly predictable. How very like you to run after me to get
your…what? Pound of flesh? Instead of staying to...”
Xander’s voiced
trailed away on words even now best left unsaid. He shook his head, his smile a
bitter mockery. “You just don’t know how to be happy, Spike.”
Spike
snorted. “Look who’s talking. Don’t see you all piled up with them back there,”
he said with a nod toward the lights of town, “braiding hair and trading
secrets.”
Xander looked away, the thought of curling up between Buffy
and Willow at this moment unfathomable. Buffy alive and thanking them for
everything they’d done to make that happen, and then finding out what he had…He
looked back down at the grave, and the purple-black slivers of the urn that
gleamed in the moonlight.
“You knew,” Spike said suddenly, the mocking
tone dropping from his voice. “You brought her back and you didn't tell
me.”
“Well, now you know,” Xander said. He hid the wince that followed
that, because of all the times he’d manage casual, to sound cool and unaffected,
this had to be it.
“All summer,” Spike said, his eyes not leaving
Xander. “I worked beside you, patrolled, watched Dawn, listened to you and
Willow blather on and on about how things were going to be now, how we we
going to handle them. Shared your flat, shared your bloody…”
Spike
stopped and Xander sighed quietly, letting the shovel fall to the ground.
“You’re just covering, Spike.” He looked up, meeting Spike’s angry glare. “Look
me in the eyes, and tell me when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the
happiest moment of your entire existence.”
A muscle twitched in
Spike’s cheek and his lips tightened, but his eyes never left Xander’s,
everything he felt laid bare and open.
Xander’s eyes widened and then he
stumbled back as Spike leapt over the headstone, boots crunching against the
exposed coffin as he walked toward Xander.
“Guess I should have seen it,
really,” Spike said as he reached out with a negligent hand and grabbed a fist
full of Xander’s shirt, holding him there. “Knew there was something, of course,
but I just figured that was you – letting go of the old ways and trying to find
that darkness within. With me. Worried, too, all summer, ‘bout keepin’ a
promise, protecting Dawn. ‘Til the end of the world,” he said with a soft laugh.
“But it wasn’t just me keepin’ promises, was it? Crawlin’ out of my bed without
a word and running to Willow, making your plans to bring her back.” Spike
scoffed, dipping his head mockingly. “Slayer’s Loyal to the end.”
Xander
wrenched out of Spike’s grip and shoved him away. “Loyal?” He spun around
back to the grave, his hands digging through dirt and shards of wood until he
found what he wanted. He held a piece of the urn in his fingers, the edges sharp
and slashing into his hand. “Buffy didn’t do this, Spike.”
He
flipped the chipped pottery toward Spike, smiling grimly as Spike caught it in
the air. “That one was all me. Yeah, I knew. Willow told me, but that was after
you and I…” Xander shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I knew, and I didn’t tell
you, but that’s not the worst I’ve done.”
He nodded toward the grave. “I
came out here with Willow and Tara tonight, lit the candles, made enough noise
to wake the dead. All in the name of what was right – we had to bring her back,
had to fix everything. Because Willow could. But you know what, Spike? I
couldn’t.” He laughed bitterly. “I talked a good game, though, shoulda been
there. All the reasons why it wasn’t right, and not what Buffy wanted.
But Willow still wouldn’t stop, because she had her reasons, and despite what we
did or didn’t do, her heart was in the right place.”
Xander took a deep
breath. “So I grabbed that,” he said, nodding to the shard in Spike’s hand, “and
I smashed it. Slammed it into the ground, right where we put Buffy. And all
along, I told myself it was the right thing to do. That lasted right up until
the part where I couldn’t claw my way out of myself, like she had to from that
grave. And you want to know why? Because even if they were the right reasons,
and what we did was wrong, I knew deep down that part of me was doing it because
of you.”
Xander looked up at Spike silently, swallowing hard. “Because if
she came back, I’d have watch you crawl out of my bed without a word and run to
her. And I have to live with that.” Xander licked his lips and then shook his
head. “So I’m not the Loyal, Spike. I’m the fuck-up. But when we walked into
that house and I saw her come down those stairs…” Xander’s jaw lifted and he met
Spike’s eyes evenly. “Best fuck-up I’ve ever made in my life.”
Spike stared back at Xander and then looked down at the chip of pottery
in his hand. He ran his fingers across a jagged edge as he turned it over,
looking at the smooth, curved underside, still stained with blood. Knowing it
for what it was; the dark magic rising from it almost a stench.
“You did
this for me,” Spike said softly. He looked at Xander again and then flung the
chip away, the sound of it as it shattered against the headstone causing Xander
to jerk and step back.
“Well, at least now you’re telling your lies to
my face,” Spike continued. He walked forward until Xander was forced to stop,
his back between Spike and the open grave. “You did this for you,” he said, with
a glance toward the grave. “A bit for her, maybe, but mostly for you. And you
thought you’d never have to be man enough to tell me the truth of it, because
I’m not supposed to be here, am I, Xander?”
Xander said nothing and Spike
scoffed, “Not part of your plan, was it? I’m supposed to be…what? On bended knee
before the Slayer, eyes cast down as I explain our little…dalliance as the
truest expression of my grief?” Spike snorted.
“You love her.” Xander’s
voice was dark and gritty and Spike hadn’t seen that mixture of pain and anger
mar his face since the night the boy had shambled his way into a crypt and
demanded whiskey for his troubles and ended up getting more than he’d bargained
for.
Spike stepped back slightly and Xander continued, “Buffy. Can’t
deny it, Spike, because you told me so yourself. ‘Never doubt you love,’” Xander
said, laughing bitterly. “Guess I play things a little closer to the chest than
you do, though, because you might not have known we were bringing her back, but
I never doubted for a second what you’d do the moment we had.”
Spike
stared at Xander incredulously and then lunged forward, grabbing Xander’s chin
and kissing him angrily. It was a brief kiss, passionless in its intensity and
so dry and spare that Spike licked his lips as he broke
it.
“That’s all I ever had of Buffy, you dim bastard,” he said,
forcing Xander to look at him. “A kiss of peace – a kiss of payment. But you’d
know all about that, right? Gave me the big payoff all summer.”
Spike
chuckled, trying to force answers from the look of shock on Xander’s face,
waiting for awareness to dawn and finding nothing in the darkness but doubt.
“Don’t know what you thought it was like between me and the Slayer, but…shared
your bed, Harris, and in the end, I guess Buffy was the one that treated
me like a man. Least she was honest about how little I meant to her.”
Spike swallowed hard. “She treated me like a man,” he repeated, looking
away. “But you made me feel like one, and I can’t forgive that.”
“One
hundred forty-seven days yesterday, hundred forty-eight today,” Xander
quoted dully.
Spike’s head jerked and then Xander was on him, hands
fisted into the collar of Spike’s duster, forcing Spike to look at him.
“Yeah, I heard you. Right down to the second, wasn’t it? You shared my
bed,” Xander nodded, “counting down the days. Did you glance at the clock when
it turned over midnight and ticked off another day while I was inside you? How
about that, Spike?”
A slow smile spread over Spike’s face and widened as
he saw that it caused Xander’s anger to waver uncertainly. “Yeah,” he said
softly, “that’s it. There’s the man I was looking for.”
Xander’s hands
loosened on Spike’s jacket, and Spike backed away, nodding. “Knew the exact day,
the exact hour she jumped. First ‘cause it was the single most painful
moment of my entire existence,” he said with a pointed look at Xander. “But I
don’t have to tell you that, mate, you were there. You know how that was. But
what you don’t know is that something…changed. Shifted, like.”
Xander was
a dim shadow against the pale glow of the headstone and Spike eyed him
carefully. “Before the chip, I didn’t care about much,” he said simply. “Loved
Dru, loved bein’ a vampire more. The thrill, the rush, the crunch. Loved being
something other, not having to care. And then there was the chip…” he shrugged
slowly and then reached into his pockets for his cigarettes. “And then there was
Buffy. Soon as that was, though, she was gone. Become a vampire, you've got
nothing to fear. But then I did. And that’s you, love.”
Spike lit the
cigarette, drawing on it slowly and watching every expression that flitted
across Xander’s face. “Never had to put much thought into loving Buffy, beyond
the ‘oh, dear God,’ moment, that is. Tried to force it a couple of times, but
never got what was I was anglin’ for. Got somethin’ else, though. Got her mum,
her little sis, treatin’ me with respect. And sometimes her, too.” Spike smiled
sadly.
“Coulda left once she was gone, you know. Except for a promise I
made. Buffy dyin’ didn’t break that promise, only forced me to want to keep it.
Keepin’ Dawn safe, and the rest of you lot just sort of fell in there. But then
there you were – eyes like holes, drillin’ into me, seein’ me. Wanting
me,” Spike finished with a sigh.
Spike drew deeply on his cigarette and
waited for Xander to speak. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this, or
even how much longer he wanted to do this. The anger at Xander’s betrayal
was still a steady thrum, fists clenching and unclenching. But this was one
Why? he had to figure out, hear answered. Wouldn’t cost him anything he
hadn’t already lost, either way.
“Should’ve stayed away, I ‘spose,” Spike
continued lightly as Xander didn’t answer. He grinned slightly. “But you were
just so much…fun, Harris. No matter how hard I pushed, you bore up and shoved
back. And then you weren’t shoving me away, so I stayed. Pushed you hard,
though, tryin’ to get you to find that darkness, the man beneath. Knew what you
were runnin’ from, hadn’t wanted to feel it myself. All that bloody nobility
Buffy seemed…seems to inspire. Caring’s a bitch, innit? So I watched you trying
to break away from all of it, running from yourself and hiding with me. Because
you could, and she was gone. But now she’s back.”
Spiked dropped his
cigarette and crushed it into the ground beneath his feet. He looked up at
Xander, brow arched. “Changes the game a bit, doesn’t it?”
Xander stood as he had, feet poised on the lip of the grave, and tried
to play all of that back in his head. There was too much, though, and most of it
felt like Spike was fishing for something. So he tried to pare it down, get the
basics, the meat, as Spike would say.
All of the reasons Spike had
let this happen, this summer, and despite the way things stood now, he realized
it had happened. Whether Buffy was back or not and all the wrongs and
rights he’d done in making that so, everything Spike had outlined had happened
between them. And Spike, of course, once again saw too much. Things Xander had
kept hidden laid bare in Spike’s words – the fear and the guilty pleasures of
this summer, and the joy at not having to be the heart of everything.
The
knowledge that Spike knew Xander had been trying to hide in him, whether he knew
everything Xander had been running from or not. And then clarity popped like
just as he had earlier tonight from his scramble of fear when he’d seen Buffy
walk down those stairs. Buffy was back…and Spike was here.
And
once clarity decides to party, it evidently settles in for an all-nighter,
because Xander reexamined that statement and stumbled back, almost pitching into
the grave behind before Spike’s hand shot out to steady him.
“Buffy’s
back,” Xander said, his lips falling open and his hands trembling at his sides.
“Buffy’s alive.”
“Well, yeah,” Spike drawled slowly. He cocked his head,
his expression inscrutable; as if this was the path least likely he’d expected
Xander to choose. Spike nodded toward the boards that cracked under Xander’s
feet as he gained his footing and backed away from the grave. “Not quite a
rolled away stone, that, but as far as harbingers go, it’s one of the more
obvious ones.”
Xander shook his head. “Buffy…I didn’t get a chance…” he
looked at Spike and swallowed. “I didn’t see. Is she okay? I mean, did she seem
like…Buffy?”
A shadow crossed Spike’s face and then he shrugged. “Didn’t
try to eat my brains, if that’s what you’re asking. Seemed okay; best as can be
expected.” He looked at Xander for a moment and then said, “But you’re obviously
not, since you didn’t go for the easy brain eating set-up I just handed
you.”
Xander stared at him in horror for a minute and then laughed.
Laughter felt strange in this place, but Xander didn’t stop to examine it.
He gave Spike a brief smile. “Too easy.”
Spike’s eyes on him
were suddenly too expectant; looking for things that Xander was afraid weren’t
there. He turned away from it, and back toward the grave. Stepping away from
Spike, he crouched down and lifted the shovel off of the grave, uncovering the
hole he’d half-filled.
“The thing, though, bigger than you and me and
what happened this summer, and bigger than the apology you’re trying to stare
out of me…” Xander turned his head and looked back at Spike.
“Right?”
Spike dipped his head. “One of the things I’m waiting for,
anyway.”
Xander frowned and turned back to the grave. “The thing is,” he
said carefully, “where does grief go? I mean, how do you go from grief to joy
and back in a second? Everything we felt all summer…does it mean
anything? And Buffy never saw any of that – all that time, it never happened for
her. She was dead, and it was wrong, and then we were trying to be bring her
back, and it was wrong and now she’s back and I just feel…I feel like I can’t
just…shut off all those things I felt this summer. I mean, I watched her fall,
and I held her in my arms, and then she was here,” he said, waving at the grave.
“And that’s all she was. So now she’s supposed to be undead? It just
makes all of that stuff, all those feelings seem…meaningless.”
Xander
chuckled, dropping his head and shaking it. “And I know how that sounds – like
I’m feeling bad that my best friend’s not dead.” He turned around to look at
Spike. “Stupid, huh?”
Spike stared at him for a moment and then shrugged.
“Not stupid. Bit wrong-headed, but you’re only human. Death is just as malleable
as life, love. Maybe not from your perspective, but I’m the unliving proof of
it. I don’t believe in destiny, or fate, or any of that rot, lived too long to
see things as a divinity shaping our end, but some things are without
explanation. They just are, Xander.”
And Xander felt it again,
that tug from Spike, that expectation. As if he were supposed to be giving
something, and not just a clumsy apology for things that couldn’t be swept away
with ‘sorry.’ Irritated beyond reason, he snorted softly. “Yeah, I guess I
shouldn’t be looking to a vampire to understand the black and white of life and
death, huh?”
“I may be a vampire, but, baby, you’re the walking dead.”
Xander spun around to see Spike behind him, and close, eyes burning into
his with all of the anger that Xander had just sensed beneath the surface. “You
protected her death,” Spike said with a glance toward the headstone and then
looked back at Xander. “Now what are you going to do with her life? Or is that
it, Xander? Buffy was gone, and you got to be the man, and now she’s back and
you’re…”
Xander shoved Spike away from him and started to get to his
feet. His breath left him in a rush as Spike slammed into him, his chest taking
the brunt of Spike’s weight as they fell back onto the grave and the ruptured
coffin cracked ominously beneath them.
“Pushed for it all summer, didn’t
I, Xander?” Spike lay half atop Xander, his hands plunged into the dirt and
grass on either side of them, keeping them both from being impaled on the
shattered wood below. “Trying to get you to be the man I knew you were inside.
Bit dark, but noble despite all of that. Show you how to figure a way to be
both, let you find the man underneath the fear. Get you to take what you
wanted. Now I’m bloody givin’ it to you with both hands, and you’re still hiding
behind the Slayer.”
Xander licked his lips, his body motionless as Spike
slithered over him and the ground trembled around them. “I’m not hiding, Spike.
You wanted to know, and now you do. I’m not hiding anything.”
“Oh, no?”
Spike asked softly. His hips twisted and he grinned at the rush of breath that
left Xander. “Explain to me then why part of you just wants to run back to that
house, back to Buffy and your mates and spend the rest of your life not looking
me in the eye and hoping I’ll just go away.” Spike dropped his full weight on
Xander, his hands digging deeper in the earth so that he could drag their bodies
together. “And part of you is just begging me to fuck you on the Slayer’s empty
grave.”
Xander’s anger faded and he laughed softly. “Maybe I am. Both.
Maybe. But even if this is something we both want, we’re the only ones
who will want it.” Xander felt the ground shift beneath them as Spike’s hips
shuddered against his again and groaned. “Might want to watch the thrusting,
buddy, you’re in more danger from the poky sticks than I am. Fuck you on the
Slayer’s grave,” he snorted. “Nice. Rip that one off of Angelus?”
Spike grinned down at him. “Vampire, remember? Kinky.”
Xander
sighed. “So my neck reminds me.” He sobered. “Seriously, Spike, even if we
figure out a way to dig ourselves out of this mess we’re in, we’re not the only
ones who’re gonna have to deal.”
“Xander…” Spike jumped up, his hand
latched around Xander’s wrist and pulling them both to their feet. “Buffy’s
back, and yeah, seems mostly all there,” he said bluntly. “But even if she’s not
been tainted, somehow, by where she’s been, you’ve all got bigger things to
worry about than how everyone’s gonna react to what you and I were getting up to
during her little dirt nap. Or what you even want to do. Not your fight,
wasn’t it?”
Xander thought about being able to turn away now. Now that
Buffy was back, and Giles would return and the good fight would come out
swinging again. Down, but not out.
“Seems like you’ve got a few choices,
really,” Spike said. “Head back to Slayer Central and stand at Buffy’s side
again, with or without me.” Spike looked at him thoughtfully. “Or you can be out
– for real this time.” Spike nodded back toward the road. “Gas up the car, kiss
the Niblet goodbye and hit the road, find somewhere without girls with pointy
sticks and monsters in the night. But that one…” he took a step toward Xander,
his voice lowering. “That one you do without me. Because if all the reasons
you’ve been hiding from me are true, then we’ve got a fight on our hands.” Spike
grinned slowly. “And I’ve never run from a fight.”
“I’m staying,” Xander
said firmly, this time not waiting for Spike to ask him what he wanted. Buffy
was back…and Spike was here. Clarity was a beautiful thing. “Buffy’s
going to need...I mean, I always knew I'd be there for Buffy, right up till the
end, and you’re right – that one’s not all about me. And Willow,” Xander winced
slightly. “That’s going to be a conversation. Although she said that you as far
as you and I went…” Xander shrugged, his head ducked.
“Think Willow’s
figured out that the one thing she needs to worry about having control over
right now is herself.” Spike looked at him thoughtfully. “You sure about this,
Xander? You can stay running scared, but that isn’t the man I came here tonight
to find. I wanted the man who took what he wanted, who stood up to someone he
loved even when he thought it could mean losing everything. The man
I…”
Spike stopped and looked at Xander silently.
“The man you
what?” Xander asked quietly.
Spike gave Xander an appraising look and
then shook his head. “No, you don’t deserve the words.” He moved closer, the
expectation back in his eyes as they stared fiercely into Xander’s. “The man who
deserves them would take them.”
Xander took a deep breath. He
looked back at the grave, all of the fear stirring, eager to rush back and then
turned back to Spike, everything that this was between them, whatever it was,
honest and open. “I’m in it for the fight, but I don’t know if this is love,
Spike. Love isn’t betrayal, and…and fucking and fighting and not knowing if it’s
all just…”
Xander broke off as Spike chuckled softly.
Spike
reached up, his hands cupping the back of Xander’s neck and drawing him forward
until their lips were a breath apart. “Xander, this is the very ecstasy
of love.”
**********
Some dialogue
references from BtVS “After Life.”
Many, many references from William
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was a…thing.
**********
