tamingthemuse | #167 - antapology - As You Wish - angelswilliam

Title: As You Wish
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Buffy and Spike
Prompt: tamingthemuse #167 antapology
Rating: Teens and up
Genre: ?
Word Count: 1147 (acc. to MS Word), starting with my own plot, despite my expanding on episode dialogue
Spoilers/Warnings: SPOILERS: "As You Were," Season 6, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; WARNINGS: Heavy angst, bitterness, rage, and profanity including the almighty F.
Summary: Buffy has played one too many rounds of "kick the Spike."
Disclaimer: Not mine. The people who created, wrote, produced, and distributed the original characters and/or plots own everything this writing is based on. This is just me having fun. Besides, I'm broke, so you won't get nuttin' if you sue.
Feedback: Concrit and stroking are welcome. Flames will get R2-D2's CO2 spray in the face.
Author's note: The instant I got the definition of this word, this episode and part of it popped into my head. Gee, I wonder why?
Distribution: If I'm a member of your archive, community, forum, group, etc., please remind me if I don't post it. Anyone else, please comment with an invite.

Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer....
Spike stood staring at the ruins of his crypt. That bitch had finally let him in, asked him to tell her he loved her, then what did she do? Soon as soldier boy accused him of wrongdoing, she took his side over couldn't-possibly-be-living-up-to-his-word-that-he'd-changed-Spike.... Well, okay, so he had done what Finn was accusing him of at the time, but that was bloody well beside the point.

Buffy had let the bastard blow up his crypt! Fuck that, she'd thrown the bloody grenade down into the lower level!

So, here he was, taking in the panoramic of the ruins of his bed, the tatters of pink satin bedclothes Harmony'd insisted on back when he'd been tolerating her as his live-in fuck, the feathers from the pillows...it'd look like the bloody setting for a bloody porn flick if everything weren't so covered in black with the huge gaping hole in the bed.

Spike chuckled to himself. Couldn't have been more poetical than to have the bloody grenade land in the middle of his bed, could it? Almost like the Slayer targeted it. Never let them fuck on the bed, why not ruin it besides to make sure good ol' Spike is sure to get the message?

He kicked at what appeared to be a charred piece of bedpost, but anger faded into despair as soon as he had. He sighed and shook his head, at a loss for what to do next. He stared at the floor, wondering. Where could he go, now? He'd set up home in this crypt, put in a lot of work over his years in Sunnydale, scavenging for the best bits of furniture and such. He was actually rather proud of the job he'd done with it. Even managed to find himself a telly and most of a kitchen...but that was all gone, now. All of it. Because soldier boy had come along and Buffy had tossed one of his grenades down the chute.

Suddenly, Spike's anger came back.

As if on cue, the door to his crypt opened, and Spike soon heard the subtle sound of Buffy's feet descending the now perilous ladder into the lower level. He kept his back turned to her.

"So, she's back. Thought you'd be off snogging soldier boy."

"He's gone."

Spike spared her a glance over his shoulder. "So, you come for a bit of cold comfort?" He sighed and indicated the room before him. "The bed's a bit blown up, but then again, that was never our--"

"I'm not here to--" When she didn't continue, Spike turned around. "And, "I'm not here to bust your chops about your stupid scheme, either. That's just you. I should have remembered."

"So, this is worse, then, is it? This is you telling me--?"

"It's over."

Spike smiled halfway, gently huffing a laugh, and moved toward her.

"I've memorized this tune, luv. Think I have the sheet music. Doesn't change what you want." He reached for her.

She twisted before he could reach her and backed away a step.

"I know that." A pause, and then, "I do want you." At Spike's shocked but hopeful expression, she clarified, "Being with you...makes things...simpler. For a little while."

"I don't call 5 hours a little while."

Buffy looked at the floor. "I'm using you."

He stared at her, at once feeling sorry for her and hating her for doing what he knew she was doing, whether he wanted to admit it fully to himself or not.

Still staring at the floor, she continued. "I can't love you. I'm just being weak...and selfish--"

"Really not complaining, here," Spike interrupted, moving closer.

Buffy's eyes snapped up, looking directly into his "--and it's killing me.

Spike frowned, the mantra "No, no, no, no, no!" sounding louder and louder in his head.

Buffy took a deep breath, straightening her back and shoulders. "I have to be strong about this."

Spike just stared at her, his head too full of fear and denial to speak.

"I'm sorry...William." She turned and walked to the ladder and out of his unlife....

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Something in Spike snapped, and reality came crashing into his brain.

Did she just say she was sorry? She blows my home to bits. She comes here the very day she asks me if I love her and tells me she's done with me. And she's bloody sorry?

He ran for the ladder, breaking the fragile charred bottom wrung as he furiously climbed to the main floor of his crypt.

Knowing Buffy would have gotten nearly all the way across the cemetery by then, Spike went into an all-out sprint to catch up with her, his leather coat billowing behind him. He soon caught sight of her and began to slow just as she turned around to face him.

Oh, right. She can hear and sense vamps approaching. Bloody hell. Well, who bloody well cares?

"Spike, please, don't make this hard."

He arrived to face her as she completed her sentence.

"Don't make this hard? Don't make this hard??? Oh, all right. I'll just go back to fucking that hole in the wall of my crypt, then." He stopped, tilted his head, and snorted. "Oh, wait. I can't, because I DON'T BLOODY HAVE A CRYPT ANYMORE!!!"

She stared at her dew-soaked sneakers. "I don't know how many times I can say I'm sorry before everything's right."

"Try never!" Spike tore his cigarettes from his coat pocket, tapping the pack hard to get one to fall into his waiting fingers. Putting it into his mouth, he continued. "Your first apology wasn't worth piss, and neither will any others! You don't just get me as your secret nasty, treat me like so much shit, blow everything I own to bits, say, 'I'm sorry I fucked you up the arse for showing me the best time I've ever had,' and walk away without so much as a thank you!" He sheltered his cigarette from the wind and lit it with his lighter, then snapped the lighter shut again, returning both it and the pack to his pocket. Putting his fingers to the cigarette, he inhaled deep, then took it out and blew the smoke in her exact direction, grinning as she tried not to cough.

"Asshole."

"Look who's talking."

Her shoulders slumped, she let out a heavy sigh.

"I don't know what you expect me to do, Spike. Nothing's going to change. I'm not going to change my mind about this. I don't know what more I can do but say I'm sorry because I can't give you what you obviously want."

He swung his upper body closer to her a bit. "Oh? What is it you think I want, then?" He returned to his original position. "Pfft. Don't flatter yourself, luv. I know how to take a kick to the bollocks as a hint."

She wasn't sure if that was an attempt to lighten the mood or sarcasm to cover his hurt. Probably the latter...but, still, she had to stand firm.

"Could've fooled me. Why'd you chase me down, if that's the case?"

"I bloody told you why! That you--Your bloody apol--You're a bloody bitch, Slayer! 'S about time someone told you, all right?"

"Duly noted." She nodded stiffly.

He grabbed his cigarette from his mouth and tossed it carelessly aside before moving closer to her with his index finger pointing at her face.

"Don't you do that, Buffy," he said, his voice dangerously low. "Don't give me that 'I'm the all-powerful, all-knowing Slayer and you're the dimwitted vampire' routine. You don't get that luxury. Not now. Not with me. Not after what we had."

"We didn't have anything, Spike."

"Oh, it's back to that, then, is it?" Spike gave a humorless laugh. "That's rich. You remember what you said to me this morning? Just this morning? When you came to me so hot for it you tore one of my favorite shirts?"

"Shut up."

"Ah, so you do remember."

"You asked me to tell you I loved you."

"It didn't mean anything."

"It did to me."

She looked directly into his eyes. "Exactly."

He tilted his head. "Exactly? Exactly what?"

"It means something to you but not to me. That's why it has to stop. I'm using you, and we're both going to end up getting hurt if we keep going."

Spike grinned. "We both have gotten hurt...and we both seemed to like it...quite a bit if memory serves."

Buffy sighed, her lips pressing together in frustration both with his intentional segue and with the effect it was having on her.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

He gave a quick sigh. "Yeah, what of it? Doesn't hurt to share a fond memory with an old flame, does it?"

More sighing, more frustration, more undesirable effects.

"'Sides," Spike continued, "well aware I'm being used. Knew from the start what I would be to you. Didn't much care. Just wanted to be with--there for you."

Buffy shook her head. "That makes it all the worse. Spike, if you were doing this to comfort me and I was doing it for the sex and not the snuggles, it was all wrong...for both of us."

"So? We've talked about it, and now we both know what each other wants and can build on that."

"Spike, you're not listening."

"Maybe I'm not. "Maybe I think you're shoving off too quick. We had a breakthrough today and it scared you. Not the first person it's happened to, Buffy. We can work through it if you'll give it a chance."

Tears formed in her eyes as she shook her head slowly. She backed away to perch on a grave marker. "Spike, there's nothing to give a chance to."

"Bollocks!"

"You said earlier you understood!" Her tears had reached her voice, now. "Why are you pushing this, now?"

"Because I saw the look in your eyes when I mentioned this morning."

Shit. "I already told you, Spike. That didn't mean anything."

"The look in your eyes told me different."

"Spike, please, let it go."

"Sorry. Can't."

"You're just going to have to. Dawn's expecting me, and in case you haven't noticed, the sun's going to be up soon."

He let his attention wander from her for a moment and, sure enough, his skin and nostrils were beginning to prickle with the warning of coming sunrise.

"This isn't over, Slayer," he growled at her, his eyes turning amber as his demon struggled to come to the fore to drive him to shelter by instinct.

"It is," she yelled over her shoulder from the cemetery gate. "I hope someday soon you'll be able to accept that and that we can be friends."

His full vampire visage did come forward, then, but it wasn't completely because of the coming dawn. He ran toward the disarray that was his crypt, ready to tear it apart even more once he'd reached it.

-THE END-