Visits to the Grave

Buffy gripped the wooden shaft tightly in her hand as she maneuvered between headstones, her mind numb as she walked in auto-pilot toward the vampire’s crypt. She felt splinters digging into the flesh of her fingers, but she didn’t acknowledge them.

That’s what upset her the most. No one understood what it was like to feel pain and discomfort and to not care. Sometimes she could revert back to Normal Buffy, bitching about her chipped nails and the high prices at the grocery store, but when it got too quiet and all she could do was think, she started to feel less. Funnily enough it was the little things she could feel the most. It’s like she came back unable to fit the bigger emotions inside of her.

Except for when she was around him, and there were not enough words in the English language to describe how wrong that was. The dead man made her feel alive.

Maybe it was because he didn’t have a soul. Her friends could at least relate to the human desire for rest; after all, we all die in the end. We all hope for peace. That’s what Buffy had had, before they brought her back. Spike didn’t understand that.

As she approached his door, she didn’t acknowledge the truth – it wasn’t that Spike didn’t understand, it was that he understood too well. In a way they fit like puzzle pieces. Spike, the dead man who craved life and loved as if he had a soul, and Buffy, the living girl who couldn’t do either. They made one demented, two-pieced puzzle.

She didn’t think about her feelings for him as she passed through the crypt door and climbed down the ladder to the lower level. She didn’t love him, not like that. She’d never truly admit to anyone that she felt anything for him, not only because she was afraid of what it meant, but also because she couldn’t explain it. Sometimes she felt like she loved him, but she knew that she didn’t. If anyone ever asked what her feelings were, she wouldn’t be able to answer. That’s why it was a secret. In a way, it almost made it not real.

If Buffy had thought about any of this as she approached the bed where the vampire lay sleeping, she would’ve been distracted from her objective. She raised the stake in her hand.

This is why they’d brought her back, after all. To be the Slayer.

 

Spike’s eyes fluttered open slowly, adjusting in the dim light as he awoke. Still drowsy from sleep, it took him a moment to figure out why he was waking. Then the pain in his chest registered.

He focused on her face, her teeth bared as she looked down at him, ragged breaths causing her chest to heave. Calmly, his eyes traveled down the body currently straddling his waist to the stake pressed firmly into his chest.

“Are we playing this game again?” he asked curiously, his voice low. He knew not to disturb her when she got like this.

Tendrils of hair fell from the bun at the nape of her neck, but Buffy didn’t respond. Not verbally, anyway. Spike felt the jagged tip of the stake break through a layer of skin. It hurt, but he didn’t make a sound, knowing that he had to wait this out.

“You gonna kill me, Buffy?” he asked, but there was no doubtfulness in his tone. He spoke almost robotically, except he cared too much not to convey his concern for her. Spike hated seeing her like this.

“I hate you, Spike,” she replied, but with little conviction. It was as if she were reading a script. “You’re a vampire.”

“Got me there, love,” he said, slowly moving his hands to rest on her knees. He didn’t touch her sexually, more out of a need to connect with her and offer comfort. Give her something tangible so she’d come back to reality. Spike never knew where she went. “Killing me’s not gonna make your problems go away, though.”

Buffy wanted to scream at him then. He talked like he knew the answer to all of her problems, but how could he? He wasn’t even scared.

She should be scaring him. Buffy was about to kill him, after all.

“But you know I can’t deny you anything. So do it.”

Buffy’s eyes widened a fraction at his words. And then she saw the stake rise over her head and plunge into his chest, breaking through flesh and bone until it pierced his heart. She saw his eyes widen in surprise, then close in understanding before he became a shower of dust raining down on the bed sheets. She felt herself fall on top of his gritty remains, but the pain in her heart didn’t go away. It grew.

Spike’s hands tightened ever so slightly on her knees, and it was then that she’d realized her eyes were closed. She looked down at his caring face, disgusted by what she’d seen in her mind’s eye. Buffy had never dusted a vampire that wasn’t in game face. She couldn’t remember doing it, anyway. Imagining Spike’s human face disintegrate showed her that if she did kill him, she’d be killing a man, not a demon.

Realizing that she thought of Spike as a man caused her to pull the stake away from his chest. Spike grunted slightly in relief, and Buffy stared at the red mark she’d dug into his skin. The stake slipped through her fingers and landed soundlessly on the bed beside him as her shoulders began to shake.

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to do her job, and she couldn’t. God, why did he have to be so impossible?

Spike sighed with relief as Buffy started to weep. He hated seeing her in pain, but anything was better than the look she gave him when she paid him these deathly visits. Spike couldn’t see any life in her eyes when she did.

He sat up and wrapped his arms around her, and Buffy leaned forward into his embrace. He didn’t try to shush her like a child; he didn’t rock her back and forth. Spike did, however, cradle her neck with one hand while the other rubbed soothing circles on her back.

It wasn’t fair that her friends couldn’t do this for her. It wasn’t fair that she relied on a vampire for the comfort that she so desperately needed in order to heal. She wrapped her arms around his neck and wept softly, wishing that she could love him. It would make things so much easier if she did.

Spike’s fingers threaded through her hair and he continued stroking her back. This was the third time she’d come to him, stake in hand. She never attacked him, not when she got like this. It was always at night when she came, ready to end his life. At first he thought they were playing a game. He tried to play along, but after awhile he had his arms full of weeping Slayer. She was definitely not playing.

“I’m sorry,” she said for the third time.

His hands slid upward to cup her face, pulling her back so he could look into her round, watery eyes.

“There you are,” he said with flicker of a smile, seeing the life shining in her tears.

Buffy kissed him, knowing that they’d never speak of this moment. Spike never brought these visits up, never mentioned them after the fact, and for that she was grateful.

Soon they were rolling beneath the sheets, her tears forgotten as he moved above her. Spike wondered if it was some form of guilt that allowed her to be gentle with him this time. Usually the tempo of their lovemaking was much more upbeat.

Her arms gripped his shoulders and he kissed her tenderly, willing her to feel the words that repeated over and over in his head.

I love you, I love you, I love you…

Buffy gasped and went rigid. Once the waves of sensation had passed, she opened her eyes and saw him, still moving slowly inside of her. It was in that moment she loved him.

And things seemed so much easier.