tamingthemuse | Prompt #166 - Albatross Around Your Neck - Unexpected (1/1) - spikesdeb

Title: Unexpected
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Prompt: #166 Albatross around your neck
Rating: General
Author's note: Set in Season 5 - Riley's gone, Buffy's struggling to deal with Glory and Spike's always there. Buffy really feels as though being the slayer is a huge burden, but Spike just wants to make things better - for both of them.
Word count: 1218

Thanks to seductivembrace for tidying my scribblings and making me seem normal. :)

UNEXPECTED

Buffy cradled her injured arm against her side and made her sorry way home. It was after three in the morning, so at least she wouldn't have to play down the injury in front of her mom and Dawn. Even though somewhere at the back of her mind Joyce Summers knew that Buffy was injured in the line of duty on an almost nightly basis, seeing it still freaked her out and sent her mom-ness off the scale. Buffy had enough to put up with the albatross around her neck that was being the chosen one, emphasis on the one.

As she took a shortcut through Restfield, her footsteps soon gained an echo and she sighed with irritation. Lately, wherever she went she had a shadow and it was beginning to really annoy her. She got that Spike was probably bored with the not being able to kill and all, but why he had to tag along on her patrols was beyond her. It wasn't like she was nice to him or anything; in fact, nine times out of ten she beat him down and left him in a heap before stalking off.

She stopped suddenly, and the vampire trotting along behind her ran into her back and cursed.

“Bloody hell, Slayer! Give a bloke some warning before you put the brakes on. Nearly bust my nose.”

Buffy turned and placed her hands on her hips, grimacing with pain as she forgot about her injury. Spike noticed and furrowed his brow with concern, moving towards her with hands outstretched to check it out, but hurriedly stuffing them into his duster pockets as he realised what he was doing. He ached to make things better for her, but Buffy really wasn't into being mauled and comforted by a dead, unclean thing, as she'd clearly pointed out to him that he was on more than one occasion.

Still, the urge to touch her and make sure she was fine was overwhelming and he chewed on his lip as she faced him and pouted. Oh god, that pout was going to do him in...

Finally, he managed to focus on the words that were spilling from Buffy's mouth.

“...so can you just stop following me around like a love-sick puppy? Everywhere I look, there you are, all...all...ineffectual and soppy. I think I liked you better when you were trying to kill me, at least then you were worth some attention.”

Spike couldn't help it. His face shifted as he snarled and stalked towards her, gaining him a piercing pain in the temple as he clearly meant to do her harm. The nervous shift of her eyes and the fumbling at her waist for a stake actually made him feel better, even though he then backed away cradling his head as the pain increased.

“See? Mr. Bite-Me-Not strikes again. Give it up, Spike. Go bury yourself in a hole somewhere and leave me alone.”

As Buffy stalked off into the night, Spike swiped at the tear that ran down his cheek as his vampiric ridges melted away. He seemed destined to be told by the women he loved that he wasn't good enough for them. Cecily started it all, telling his human self that he was beneath her. Dru made it worse, leaving him for a slime-covered demon with barely a backward glance. And now Buffy; Buffy, the woman he worshipped, the woman he'd die for, the woman who made him feel more alive than he'd ever been with just a quick smile.

He was such a schmuck.

Without any conscious thought, he found himself following her again, keeping his distance, just to make sure that she got home in one piece as she was clearly injured. And yeah, she was the Slayer, but he was still a gentleman beneath it all, and he'd dust himself if anything happened to her. No, she might not want his help, or his devotion, but she had it all the same.

Buffy sensed Spike behind her again, but she'd run out of the energy needed to argue with him any more. Her shoulder was agonisingly painful, probably out if its socket, and every step jarred it further. She stifled a sob, hating the way she was feeling right now. Her mom was out of the hospital, but still weak and probably felt sicker than she was letting on. Dawn was a real handful, and on top of the normal kid sister worries that came with her being a teenager, Buffy had discovered she was a mystical key and had to be protected to save the world. Again. Riley had...Riley was gone, thinking that she didn't care about him enough to let him in. And she did care, far too much as it turned out.

Then there was Spike. Spike, the defanged vampire who wasn't even worth a staking, who had some strange fixation with her. She had no clue what to do about it. She stopped again, and turned around, head bowed as she took a deep breath.

“Spike. I know you're there. Slayer, remember? Just come out.”

After a brief pause while Spike cursed at his lack of stealth, he walked towards her, head tilted as he fixed an unrepentant look on his face. “Just out walkin', Slayer. Not my fault you're movin' like a lame elephant and in my way. Not followin' you.”

Somehow, Spike being brash and clearly lying, made her lips twitch as she hid a smile. Sometimes he was almost sweet, in a totally lame and former-enemy kind of way.

Huh. Where had that thought come from?

“And you're out walking...where?”

“Er...I'm a citizen, I can walk where I want. What's it to you anyway?” Spike pouted and glowered and for one glorious moment, Buffy saw him in a different light. She giggled, and Spike's pout melted away despite his efforts to maintain it. Just seeing her smile lit up his world, and the thought that he was the cause of it was wonderful. He raised his eyebrow, wordlessly urging her to elaborate.

“It's just...look, truce? I'm tired, I'm sore and I really can't handle any more tonight. I just want to go home, fix my arm and get some sleep, all – oh, maybe four hours of it. I can't be looking over my shoulder and wondering whether it's you or some other vampire wanting a nibble of me all the way back to Revello Drive. So – walk with me where I can see you, or go away. Whichever.”

Spike bit back the retort that was rattling in his throat about wanting to nibble her, and nodded. Being accepted as a companion on the Slayer's walk home was a big step in his very vague plan to make himself indispensable to her, and an unexpected one at that. He'd take it.

And although they didn't speak the entire way, by the time Buffy had closed the front door behind her and gifted him with a slight nod and an upturned quirk of her lips, Spike was walking on air as he turned tail and headed home. Okay, so it wasn't a betrothal, but it was a crumb.

A crumb that made him feel that he wasn't beneath her.