“God, do I ever know that look,” Spike said, rolling his eyes skywards. “Every time I see it, I brace myself for a bloody lecture.”
“After six and a half centuries, I’ve more or less got the lectures memorized,” Edmund replied. “I see her start to cross her arms over her chest, and I tune out.”
Spike shook his head and chuckled. “Not sure Buffy would let me get away with that one. Even if she does tend to get a bit redundant.”
“I find it’s a lot harder for Isobel to get angry with me when she’s upside down. It’s difficult to remember what pissed you off when you’re lightheaded.”
“Tried that. I usually get kicked in the face.”
“Slayers,” Edmund said sympathetically. “They definitely don’t make things easy on a man.” A beat of silence past before he added wistfully, “But damn, the sex…”
Spike’s eyes glazed over for a moment just thinking about that. “The heat…”
“Those muscles…”
“Completely worth getting punched in the nose.”
“Oh yeah. Actually, that part can be pretty hot, too…”
Spike smirked at that. “Drives me wild when Buffy’s angry. She gets all flushed, and her chest starts heaving. Most gorgeous thing in the whole fucking world.”
“Sometimes I rile Izzy up just so I can get angry sex.”
Spike chuckled. “Yeah, I do that with Buffy, too.” He sighed, sobering. “I only wish she wouldn’t stay angry after the sex. Does Isobel ever tell you you’re an evil, disgusting thing?”
“She has. More in the beginning, though,” Edmund replied. “When I first got a hold of her, she was a pious little Catholic girl who’d been fed a bunch of tripe by the Watchers’ Council. And we’ve had our rows, that’s for certain. Isobel loves me. She knows what I am, and she’s learned to accept that. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to let me get away with being nothing but a monster either. It’s been centuries since she was called, but Isobel’s still a Slayer. She’s always going to be a Slayer, no matter how many girls have come along since her. She’s got this unbreakable connection to the light, and in order to love her, I know I’ve got to understand and respect that. I may not have chosen who I fell in love with, but I chose to stay and accept the daily challenge to myself to be the best man I can be for her. No matter how tempting it may be sometimes, I can’t ever try to pull her down into the darkness with me. She’d never survive there – it’s not who she is. If I did that, if I smothered that part of her that makes her who she is, then I’d be killing everything I love about her.”
Edmund paused for a moment, giving his words some time to sink in before he started again. “So yeah, sometimes she says things that are hurtful. Sometimes they’re not called for, and sometimes they probably are. But she keeps me on my toes, too, always pushing me to strive for something better. Sometimes I can hate her for it, but I love her for it, too.”
“I try to be better for Buffy,” Spike said softly, looking down at the crypt floor. “I try to fight on her side, turn my back completely on mine, but it’s not enough for her.”
“You’ve got to stop thinking about it as your side versus hers. For any relationship to work, you have to see both of you together as a team, even if it doesn’t always feel that way or if sometimes the other person doesn’t want to let it be that way. Yeah, you’re a vampire and she’s a Slayer, and that’s always going to be an issue. But hey, if Man City fans and Man U fans can make a relationship work, then really, vampire and Slayer – not such a big deal.”
Spike chuckled softly. “You’ve got a point there.”
“The first time I saw Isobel, she was fighting. Wrestling with a demon three times her size and barely breaking a sweat. In my hundred and nineteen on the planet, I’d never seen something so beautiful,” Edmund said, a small smile tugging at his lips as he recalled the memory time had not managed to make any less vivid. “I was with my sister – my sire – and her three current male companions at the time, and they told me that was a Slayer and I needed to stay away. They told me she was the enemy, something I couldn’t touch. But I never let myself think that way. I didn’t care how things were supposed to be – I just cared about what I felt and what Isobel was to me.”
“Wish I’d thought that way from the start,” Spike said with a snort. “By the time I got to Buffy, I’d already killed two Slayers.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m pretty sure there’s not a vampire around who doesn’t know who you are, be they completely in awe or completely jealous.”
Spike arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? Which one are you then?”
Edmund shrugged. “Indifferent.” Then, he grinned. “You know, I didn’t exactly make the best first steps with Isobel either. I wanted to talk to her, but I was nervous. She seemed, well, completely out of my league. But I couldn’t get her out of my head, and I kept craving her attention, even if I couldn’t build up the nerve to actually let her see me.”
“Please tell me you did something royally idiotic so I won’t feel so bad,” Spike said. “You’ve managed to make things work out so well with Isobel that I just feel like a fuck up.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Edmund said. “And you’ve caught us on a good day. Trust me, we have our bad ones, too. But yeah, I did something pretty stupid. My brilliant plan to get her attention was to make my presence known in different villages, lure her there to see her, and then panic, run off, and start the whole process all over again.”
Spike arched his eyebrow. “Yeah, that is pretty stupid. And yet, she still seemed like she forgave you fairly easily.”
Edmund shrugged. “Isobel didn’t have any emotional baggage when I met her. Not as far as men were concerned anyway. She was a complete innocent, so I had an advantage. Sex was all new to her, so once I got the nerve to seduce her, it was relatively easy, and that kept her with me until…well, until other things strengthened the bond.” He gave Spike a teasing smirk. “Something tells me you didn’t have such an easy set up with Buffy.”
“God, not at all,” Spike said, running his hands through his hair. “Not only did I have to deal with human men doing a number on her before I got to her, my wanker of a soul-having grandsire did, too, making her completely convinced a vampire and a Slayer could never work just because she didn’t work with Angel.” Spike spat the name of the other vampire with disgust.
“Well, I hope getting a chance to talk to Izzy will help her with that,” Edmund said. “Let her see that this sort of relationship can work. Isobel’s been obsessed with that ever since she started dreaming about Buffy. Apparently she got a condensed version of your relationship courtesy of the Powers That Be and she was determined to come here and make Buffy see the light.”
“Good luck on that one,” Spike muttered. “You could attack Buffy with spotlights, and she’d still swear it was dark.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Edmund replied with a wry smile. “My Isobel’s a persuasive one.”
“And my Buffy’s a stubborn one.”
Before Edmund could respond, the door of the crypt burst open, an out-of-breath Slayer running inside. “Spike, we have to talk,” she said between pants. She winced. “No, I mean we do, but…” She stopped, took a deep breath and made herself calm down. “We have to talk, but not in the way that sounds, because it’s not a bad talk, or at least I don’t think it’s going to be a bad talk. I mean, I guess it could turn bad, but…”
Spike turned to Edmund. “Does Isobel ramble like this?”
“Oh yeah.” He grinned. “It’s adorable.”
“Isn’t it?” Spike replied. “Makes me want to pat her head.”
Buffy sighed exasperatedly and crossed her arms, and Edmund and Spike both started to laugh.
“Ugh, like one of you isn’t bad enough,” Buffy said with a pout.
“Aww. C’mere, pouty,” Spike said, reaching his hand out to Buffy. Much to his surprise, she actually went to him, letting him wrap his arm around her.
“I’ll take that as my cue to go find my Slayer, let you two have a chat.” He clapped Spike on the back and gave him a nod. Spike nodded back.
“Isobel was at my house when I left her,” Buffy said. “It’s…”
“I can find Isobel,” Edmund said, cutting off her unnecessary directions. “I could find her anywhere.”
With that, he gave a brief good-bye and slipped from the crypt.
Alone with Spike now, Buffy felt herself growing suddenly self-conscious. He had his arm around her, and all she wanted to do was relax in his embrace, but she knew there were things that needed to be said.
She just had no idea how to say them.
After several moments of uneasy silence, Spike was the first one to break it. “Did you have a good talk with Isobel?”
“Yeah, we… She said it’s okay for me to, you know, like you.”
Spike wasn’t sure if he found her response frustrating or endearing. “And do you like me?” he asked, hoping he could prompt her to give him more.
“Can we not talk?” Buffy asked. “I don’t like talking. Let’s just…pretend we talked and have sex instead.”
A part of Spike was very intrigued by that plan, though he decided now was probably a good time to think with the head that sat on his neck for once where Buffy was concerned.
“Are you sure?” Buffy asked with a seductive grin, her hands reaching for his jeans.
Spike called on more willpower than he knew he had and moved her hands away from him. She started to protest, but her words trailed off into a shout when he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Buffy asked, kicking.
Spike ducked his head away from her booted feet. “Sitting you down for a talk,” he replied as he put her down on a sarcophagus. She started to stand up immediately, but Spike pushed her down and wagged a finger at her. “Move, and I’ll have to break out the chains again.”
Buffy smirked, a tempting sparkle in her eye. “There could be chains.”
Spike refused to be swayed. He’d been down this road with Buffy enough times to know the ending by heart. It was time for something else. “Look, you little minx, I don’t care how much you pout and try to tempt me with bondage, you’re not getting into my pants until we’ve had a discussion.”
“Girl,” Buffy muttered, earning her a stern look from Spike, though she did stay put on the sarcophagus.
“Look, Buffy, I know you’d probably rather have all your teeth ripped out of your head than have a serious talk about our relationship, but I’ve got to know where we stand now. This thing with Isobel and Edmund – it changes things, yeah?”
Buffy looked down, but nodded. “Yes. It does.”
“You can’t hide behind your relationship with Angelus now,” Spike pointed out. “You can’t use that as some sort of proof that vampires and Slayers won’t work.”
“I know.” Buffy sighed. “I think I’ve just lost a lot of my excuses. I always thought that having feelings for you was morally wrong. Like if I cared about you, then maybe I really did belong in the dark, like you said. But if the Powers wanted me to meet Isobel and Edmund, to see how happy they are together, then I guess that means they’re okay with me being with you, too.”
“You don’t belong in the dark, Buffy,” Spike told her, thinking back to what Edmund had said and knowing the other vampire was right. “I shouldn’t have dragged you down like that.”
Buffy put her hand gently over his, and for the first time, Spike really believed they could get to a good place together. “You didn’t drag me down, Spike. I was already there, and it didn’t have to do with anything you did. I thought I’d been thrown out of Heaven. I felt like there had to be something wrong with me because of that, and then I was having all these feelings for you, and I don’t know… I’ve just been so mixed up since… Well, I was going to say since I came back, but it’s been longer than that. I think I’ve really been on this path since the moment I was Called, and I never did anything to really try to fight against all those dark feelings inside of me. I was too busy concentrating on what I had to do as a Slayer to spend any time at all on what I needed to do to stay a mentally healthy person, you know?”
“Yeah, sorta noticed that,” Spike replied, earning him a glare from Buffy.
“You aren’t supposed to be so quick to call me crazy,” Buffy chided. “At least pretend to give it some thought or something. Maybe a token protest?”
“Why?” Spike winked at her. “You know me – I’ve always gone for the crazy chicks.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and smacked him on the arm, but Spike could see a hint of a smile on her face, too. “Well, you know, they say like attracts like, so if you attract the crazies…”
Spike snorted. “I was completely sane before you women drove me around the sodding bend.”
“Yeah, somehow I seriously doubt that.”
Buffy’s demeanor changed suddenly, her eyes darting downwards as her face lost is playful expression, and Spike braced himself for the worst. As much as he wanted to believe that meeting Edmund and Isobel would be enough to make Buffy stop insisting what they had was wrong and would never work, he couldn’t help but fear that Buffy would continue on as she had and simply spin this some way to make it bad.
“Spike, there’s something I do need to tell you, and it’s kind of big, but I think you need to know.”
Spike would’ve sworn he could feel his heart breaking in his chest, and he clenched his fists, waiting for whatever was coming. She’s seemed like she wanted to be around him when she’d shown up, sure, and she had said it would be a “good” talk, but good for whom? Buffy always went from seeming like she might actually care about him to crushing his heart in a matter of seconds. Why should now be any different?
“I didn’t get tossed out of Heaven.”
Okay, so he hadn’t been expecting that. Whatever that actually meant… She hadn’t been tossed out of Heaven… What, did they politely ask her to leave?
Or, Spike wondered with a growing sense of dread, had she never been in Heaven at all?
“Isobel was in Heaven once, too,” Buffy said, her gaze firmly on the stone beneath her and off Spike, leaving her clueless to the play of emotions on his face. “She died about six months after she was Called, but Edmund had her resurrected. She said when you first come back, things are all hazy and jumbled, but she helped me remember what…” Buffy took a deep breath, her throat seeming to tighten as her desire to tell Spike the truth and her fear of what would happen when she did warred inside of her. “She helped me remember what I’d forgotten.”
Was she trying to torture him? Her evasive half-answers were about to make him scream, and he fought to keep hold of what little patience he’d been granted in his existence. “What had you forgotten Buffy?”
“Watching you,” she said softly, and Spike could tell she’d started crying.
“Watching me…? Buffy?”
She looked up sharply, wiping at the tears that ran down her face. “I could see you. You were so broken, Spike. You were hurting so much, trying to go on and take care of Dawn the way I asked you to, but you were just wasting away, and… I begged them. I begged them over and over again to let me go back to you. Everything was different there, so much clearer, and I knew where I was supposed to be. I knew where I belonged, and it wasn’t in Heaven.”
Her hand trembled as she reached across the sarcophagus and placed it over his. “I belong with you.”
Buffy’s revelation was a burst of light in his heart, and Spike watched her, his own love for her laid bare in his eyes as he finally allowed himself to hope.
He only prayed that she wouldn’t snatch it away from him with her next breath.
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Chapter End Notes:
To be concluded in the next chapter…
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