“I did a spell…”
“You did a spell…”
“Yes. To…to stop me from being tempted.”
“To stop you from being tempted…”
“And, um, I guess it sort of, um…”
“Broke my penis!” Spike yelled at her, the muscle in his jaw ticking so hard Buffy wondered if it was possible for it to explode.
“I’m sorry!” Buffy yelled back. “I didn’t mean for it to do anything to you. I…I thought it would just do something to me. Make me not want you anymore.”
“You bloody stupid bint! Did you learn nothing from those morons you call friends and their idiotic forays into magic?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Oh, you’re sorry. Well, then that just makes it all better then.” Spike looked down for a moment, then back up at her, his eyes flashing. “Except for the part where he still doesn’t work!”
“Well, this is really all your fault anyway!” Buffy screamed, taking a step closer to him.
“My…” Spike shook his head. “How the bloody fuck is it my fault that you used magic to make me sodding impotent?”
“Because! Because you kept showing up with…with the temptation, and…and you kept making me want you.”
“Oh, I kept making you…” Spike laughed a humorless laugh. “Need I remind you, Slayer that you jumped me that first night. Oh, and I believe it was you who couldn’t get my jeans off fast enough this afternoon, too. So don’t even try to make this about me.”
“You’ve been trying to seduce me for years!”
“Yeah, and you’ve wanted me for years! I still don’t see how any of this justifies you breaking my penis.”
Buffy opened her mouth to respond, but quickly snapped it shut again. “You’re right.”
“I… Wait, come again on that one?”
“I said you’re right,” Buffy repeated, though she seemed less-than-happy to be saying it. “I shouldn’t have done this. I knew better than to mess around with magic, but I did it anyway, and now you’re…um…yeah.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have done it!” Spike yelled, his anger flaring right back up. “You of all people should know you don’t go messing with forces you don’t know a bloody thing about!”
“I know! I… I’ll fix it, Spike. I’ll do another spell, reverse…”
“No.”
“No?” Buffy asked, taken aback by his vehement denial. “You don’t want to fix…um…this?”
“Oh, I want to fix this all right, Slayer. But I want someone who actually knows what she’s doing to be the one doing the fixing. With my luck, you’ll just end up making it fall off.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed. “But Willow’s going all cold-turkey on the magic.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure that’ll turn out just great for her, but she’s the second-to-the-last person I’d want trying to fix this anyway. If anyone’s going to be using magic around my dick, it’s going to be someone with actual sense. Besides, she’s got a bloody big mouth, and she’d probably end up telling Harris, and I so don’t want him knowing I’m suddenly a candidate for Viagra. You’re going to take me to see Glinda.”
“Tara?”
“Yeah, her.”
“She moved out.”
Spike’s eyes closed and his jaw clenched, an expression Buffy had come to associate with him being really exasperated. “I know that, Slayer,” he ground out. “But I assume just because she’s getting some distance from your little Scooby group doesn’t mean she’s dropped off the edge of the bloody world.”
“No. She moved back into the dorms on campus.”
“So we’ll go there.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“But it’s the middle of the day. You could end up all extra crispy.”
Spike met her eyes. “In a situation like this, it’s worth the risk.”
“Wow. You men really are attached to your penises.”
“Need I remind you, I can hurt you now.”
Buffy swallowed. Spike was looking at her in a way he hadn’t in a very, very long time. He wouldn’t actually hurt her, would he? “Get dressed and we’ll head over there through the sewers.”
“You better hope she can fix this,” Spike growled before he stormed across the room over to his clothes.
Buffy wondered where the Hellmouth was to open up and swallow her whole when she wanted it to.
The last thing Tara expected to see outside of her door when she got back to her dorm was Buffy standing with a very dejected looking Spike, clutching a tatty, charred blanket. She blinked, wondering for a moment if she was seeing things.
Nope, they were there, both looking completely miserable. Tara ran through scenarios in her head, trying to imagine what could be bringing them here. Had something bad happened to Willow?
She rushed over to the blond pair. “What’s wrong? I…is…”
“Willow’s fine,” Buffy said quickly, correctly guessing what would put that look of panic in Tara’s eyes. “We’re here because, um…Spike has a problem.”
Tara’s brow furrowed. “A problem? What kind of problem?”
Spike glanced around and saw the various college students wandering around. “Um…can we maybe talk about it inside? Where it’s private?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yeah, definitely an ‘in private’ sort of conversation,” Buffy concurred.
“Um, okay,” Tara agreed, her curiosity piqued. She fished inside of her bag for her keys, then unlocked the door. Buffy hurried in after her, while Spike stayed out in the hallway.
“Uh, Glinda?”
Tara turned around, confused for a moment before she remembered. “Oh, right. Come in, Spike.”
Spike entered her dorm room then, quickly shutting and locking the door behind him. Tara frowned. “Okay, what is going on here?” she asked.
Buffy and Spike replied at the same time, their words coming out in a rush.
“She did a spell.”
“His penis is broken.”
“Wait…huh?” Tara asked, blinking. She was even more confused now than before they’d attempted to fill her in on the situation.
Buffy and Spike exchanged a look, and then with a sigh, Buffy turned back to Tara. “I did a spell this morning and now his penis won’t work.”
“You did a spell and now…” Tara glanced between the two blonds warily. “What kind of spell did you do?”
“One to remove temptation,” Buffy replied, her voice small.
“And the temptation was…” Tara stopped. “Oh. Oh, my…”
“Look, it was a really stupid thing to do, but I was desperate, and I saw the magic stuff that Willow was packing away, and…”
“She got tempted,” Spike snapped. “Apparently, she has issues with that.”
Buffy blushed. “I thought it was going to make me not tempted. I didn’t think it was going to make him all impotent.”
Spike bristled beside her, but bit his tongue. Buffy assumed that was for Tara’s benefit.
“Buffy, you really shouldn’t mess with forces you don’t…” Tara began.
“Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know that better than anyone,” Buffy interjected, not in the mood for a lecture. “I just wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Great. She breaks my penis because she’s having a blonde moment. Terrific,” Spike muttered.
“Oh, like you can say anything about having blonde moments,” Buffy snipped at him.
“Mine aren’t in question right now, Slayer.”
Buffy opened her mouth to retort, but Tara stepped between them. “Okay, you guys, knock it off,” she said with a forcefulness that surprised both of her unexpected guests. “What’s done is done. If we’re going to fix it, we have to move forward. Buffy, I need you to go home and get me everything you used in that spell. Quickly. Spike, you stay here. It’s sunny out there, and that blanket looks like it’s seen better days.”
“We had a little incident coming out of the sewer,” Buffy explained.
Tara nodded. “We’ll wait for you here. Okay, Spike?”
Spike turned his attention back to Buffy. “Hurry, Slayer. This is causing detrimental damage to my ego.”
Buffy had a witty retort, but thought better of saying it. Instead, she left the dorm room and headed towards her house to get what Tara asked for.
Tara sat down on the edge of her bed and gestured towards a chair. “You can sit if you want.”
Spike nodded and took a seat, shifting around for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite get comfortable.
“So you and Buffy are…” Tara asked after a couple minutes of silence.
Spike knew Buffy hadn’t wanted any of her friends to know what had happened, but he figured under these circumstances, that was just too bad for her. Besides, given the nature of the spell and what it had affected, it was pretty obvious anyway. “Yeah. We were anyway. Don’t really know what’s going to happen from here.”
“How long?”
“Not long. A couple of days.”
Tara figured that must’ve been where Buffy had been the night she’d stayed over there until the morning with Dawn. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Woman had all but castrated me figuratively anyway. Might as well just go ahead and make it literal.” He slumped back in the chair, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I…I’ll do my best to fix it,” Tara said. “Though I can’t make any promises. I…I’m not really all that powerful. There’s other witches who could probably…”
“No. I asked Buffy to take me to you for a reason,” Spike replied. “You’re the only witch I trust enough to do anything that affects me down there. You’re not a half-wit.”
“Thanks,” Tara said, oddly touched by his admission.
“Y’welcome.”
“I’ll do the best I can. And I’ll be careful,” Tara promised.
“I know you will, pet.” Spike slumped more in the chair. “This is so bloody unfair. It was working just fine this morning.”
Tara blushed, not really wanting to give that comment too much thought. “Well, I’ll do all I can to have it working this evening, too,” she said.
“Good.”
Tara looked down and examined her nails. Spike continued to sulk in the chair.
An awkward silence filled the room.
Buffy burst in through the door, out of breath and carrying a box. “Okay, this is everything,” she said as she kicked the door shut behind her. “Here.”
Tara took the box from Buffy and sat back down on the bed with it. “It’s going to take me a little time to go through everything. I don’t want to rush it and get the counterspell wrong.”
“Take all the time you need, Glinda,” Spike replied, still seated, still sulking. “This isn’t something I want rushed at the expense of getting it done right.”
Tara nodded. “Understood.”
As Tara began to go through the box and piece together what it was Buffy had done, Buffy found her attention pulled towards the vampire in question. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d seen him look more miserable, even when he’d first gotten the chip. She walked over to him and ran her fingers through his hair.
“It’ll be all right, Spike. We’ll get this fixed, and then I’ll…I’ll make it up to you.”
Spike pushed her hand away. “I’m not sure I want you to make it up to me, Slayer.”
Tara glanced up quickly at the couple, but then turned her attention back to the task at hand.
“You don’t want…” Buffy’s voice got small, her tone hurt. “Why?”
“Why? Why, she asks.” Spike snorted. “I can’t believe you really have to ask that.”
“I didn’t mean to break it, Spike,” Buffy said softly. “I didn’t mean to do anything to you at all.”
“Yeah, Slayer, you did,” Spike replied. “You’d rather use magic to repel me than deal with whatever this is between us. And that…well, it smarts a bit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
Spike didn’t want her anymore? Did this mean he was going to stop showing up and seducing her? Shouldn’t that make her happy?
Only it didn’t. It really, really didn’t. Instead, she felt…hurt. She wanted to call it simple rejection, but it went deeper than that. Deeper than she wanted it to. Spike wanting her despite all the reasons she’d given him not to had been the one constant in her life as of late, and now…
Buffy refused to let herself think this was irreversible. Tara would fix Spike, and then…
“And then what, Buffy?” she silently asked herself. She’d go back to sleeping with Spike? They’d hold hands and skip merrily into a field of flowers? Nothing had really changed from this morning. She still couldn’t be with Spike for more reasons than she could even list. If he didn’t want her anymore, well, maybe she hadn’t gone about it the way she should have, but it was still probably for the best.
She pretended the warmth pricking her eyes wasn’t tears.
I’m glad to see people liked the first chapter of this story. I hope you liked the second one, too.
Please review!