Make Me

He didn’t come down all day.  She waited but he didn’t come down.

She would pace, just get up and move a little to keep her senses sharp, made herself some tea and feasted on cookies, really, really not a good idea, to sugar herself up--but she was hungry and too afraid to go out, to leave the proximity of him, had to keep some certain kind of radius to him.

Also she was listening and been listening all morning and couldn’t really relax despite Kendra’s cryptic message that he might be o.k.--she couldn’t relax until she heard his footfall; the squeak of some old boards overhead.

Spike.  Feet of Spike.

O.K. O.K. O.K.

And she had braced herself for facing him when he came down.  But he didn’t.

She did not have the nerve really, to break into his world again, his home.  She would, if she had too, just would prefer to be...respectful.

Maybe, because it was Monday--It was Monday wasn’t it?  Maybe he didn’t open the store on Monday? 

Buffy went to the front window to check the hours, pulled the card from the door--no...he was open on Monday.  But it also said, if closed please ring for appointment.  So maybe he kept hours as he liked.

Maybe he just didn’t feel up to it.

Yeah maybe that.

So she listened for his feet print on the other side of the ceiling and tried to think what to do.

The phone rang on the counter and she jumped a bit...watched it ring four times and then heard a far off ring upstairs.

Forwarded.  She listened to see how many times it rang.  O.K. he picked it up on mid eighth ring.  So he’s up and about.  Well that’s good.

Her own cell rang softly at about 10:16--she checked the screen, really did not want to talk to Angel: Spilsby.  Willow, she considered letting her voicemail pick it up and then punched the button.

“Hi Will.”

*

He knew she was downstairs or somewhere nearby, so he voted for downstairs.  It was the softness in the air, he always felt when she was nearby, the thing he felt that she didn’t seem to.

Oh well, sulk a bit and why not?

He was getting hungry and there was no food in the place, and his metabolism ran so high, he’d found he’d had to feed this poor old body quite a bit.  But that was also in regard to the energy he used up when wearing ‘the suit’ as he called it. 

So he kinda wished she would leave so he could order take out or something...did he have an account with anybody that would deliver this early?  Oh yeah, Mao’s would deliver on credit.  Just leave the food at the back door...but he’d have to go down and get it and no way was he facing her like this. Not.  Bloody. Likely.  Not again.

So he projected with his mind:  Go, go, go away...but still it felt so nice to have her aura so nearby to soften the air.

Go, go, stay, stay...just don’t come up.

No wonder he had gotten addicted to her, even a day in her presence and he’d be helplessly hooked again.

Maybe he should get out of here?  Whatever it was it would have to wait till dark.

Another irony, all human (mostly) and ensouled too but still monster enough to have to travel in the dark.

God really was the funniest chap--humor took an acquired taste though. 

*

She had fallen asleep sometime in the late afternoon.  And when she woke in was dark outside and there was the faint but distinctive aroma of Chicken fried rice.  It was there in the air.  And she could identify it so easily because she was so hungry. 

She followed the faint little traces in the air like a cartoon character following something almost visible.

Drat.

She could smell it out here in the hallway but not in the shop.  That meant the sneaky little English prat snuck down here (Snuck? In his own place?--Don’t correct me!)

He had waited until she feel asleep and had ordered food...probably lots of food...mmm...food and then had snuck yes SNUCK past tense of sneak, is snuck and the food was definitely past tense and gobble gobbled.

Huh. He must know she is here, cuz wouldn’t he have come to front door to pick up the food?  Instead of having the delivery guy send it to the back?

No that logic was no good.  If the store was closed he would use the back door.  But he knew, cuz...hey!  The middle doors dividing the duplex were open and he must have dared a look in at her.

I hope I was slobbering.  Asleep and slobbering all over his chair--cuz that’s what he gets for not leaving me any food, for not sharing.  He knew how ravenous she could get...and had always taken care of her before. 

He had always taken care of her.         

O.K.   

O.K.

She got it.

She got it.

She went to the cash register and looked for menus to local restaurants.  Two could play at that.  Let’s see, what smells really, really good?    Fish n’ chips...maybe...not her favorite, but might be nice bait to wiggle for an English fish.

Rostocelli? Yes.  Nice cheesy tomatoey aroma--with bread, warm garlic bread.  She made the call on her cell phone and waited by the back door of the shop, in case her directions had been too vague or off.

Hee hee hee.

*

That Bitch.  And he meant that with a capital ‘B’ for Buffed.  He thought he had ordered enough food to last for days and that Chinese was what was wanted but he had eaten it all and she was STILL here and then he smelt that...that...

Rich thick hot promise of hot tomato sauce and the closest he had gotten to the satisfaction of blood in this body and there it was tantalizing and thick as a heartfelt promise.

What time was it?  He checked his watch, 12:05.  They might still deliver. He went into his living room to pick up the phone and noticed his front door open a crack...

He walked cautiously to the door to push it shut but felt something lean against it from the other side.  He opened the door to find. Two Little white bags and two big white bags and lovely just lovely smells coming from them.

No message, no note, just little bags of food ready and waiting and delivered to his door like an appeal.

This gesture more than any word or series of words spoken in her quiet Buffy voice whispered:

‘Please forgive me.’

He was not going to cry...he wasn’t.  But he did pick up the food and he did forgive her.

Always.

He was the monster after all.

*

O.K. day two and he still hasn’t come down and Willow thinks I should go up and Xander thinks I shouldn’t and Giles abstains. And as Dawn says how can you run a business if you’re not in business?

She was going up.

She chose 12:00, high noon.  It might have been poetic but really, it was only an accident because that was as long as it took for her to get her nerve up.

She opened the middle doors and made a big deal about climbing the stairs so he would have no doubt about her intentions and...and...

“...Don’t really want to see you right now Slayer...”

His voice stopped her just outside the front door to his flat.

Beat.

“I wanna see you.”

He chortled. 

“You really should at least...consider...not getting everything you want...”

Pause.

“Spike...do you really, honestly think I’ve gotten everything in life I’ve wanted?”

Pause

“’Suppose not.”

Pause.

“Please.”

“Just...don’t wanna see you heave your fine dinner all over me rugs again.  Oriental dontcha know.”

“Oh yeah, like you are so into the material world.”

“Different.  These are special rugs they are...magic...flying carpet like and intestinal regurgitation inhibits the natural what’ is--mechanics.”

“Oh come on...are they really?  Let me see, show me how they work--”

“--Make me.”

Pause.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.”

“Can I apologize without this big hulking piece of wood between us?”

“God, Buffy...that...is...poetic...”

“Spike...”

“I’m not kidding and its ironic too--put Guy de Maupassant to shame.  ‘Big hulking piece of wood’ do you get it?  I’m going to write that one down for you--you may not want it now-- ”

“I’m coming in--“

“--Please don’t, don’t wanna make you sick--really. Although you’d think something like that globulous Gob-horik would have turned your stomach a lot faster--”

“--Please don’t...” She whispered, “Please, please don’t...besides it wasn’t you; what happened to you...it was...it was the thought of how much pain you were in...I know what burns feel like...it ...hurt...I...it was terrible...”

Silence.

“Oh.  So I look alright then?”

“Oh no, it’s pretty bad, but--I want to talk to you for a while, I wanna see you--if you’re so worried about it, just put on your charm--“

“--Can’t.  You broke it.”

Buffy too alarmed to stop herself opened the door and stepped in:

“I did what?!”

He was there sitting on the sofa near the window looking up into her, his eyes big, looking trapped and a little fearful.

She swallowed.  Yeah it was bad.  It was bad when he was in the dark, now in the light she could see well and truly it was very bad. 

She felt tears spring to her eyes and she did some deep breathing.

“Do I have to worry about me fine furnishings?”  He barely whispered.

“No.”  She breathed back.  “It’s...it’s what I said...not you...it’s what you went through.  If you doubt me just remember I felt bad after you’ve been beaten up before you know...”

He looked down--ah...memories...

This was good, she was bantering a bit...that’s right, just keep it moving; don’t break down or he’ll take it wrong.

He was looking down at the coffee table. She followed his gaze.

It was the amulet she had given him so many years ago.  Broken in three pieces.

“I broke it.”  She repeated uselessly

“Well...depends on your point of view...did you break it?  Or did every moment we’ve ever lived come racing to a point and snap crackle pop?”    

“Thank you Zen.”

“No problem.”  

She sat down on the couch next to him and she felt him ease away from her a little on reflex and she bit her lip.

“Uh...sorry?”  She whispered

“Uh huh...well said.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Don’t think so.  There’s someone I can call back in Arizona...but I’ve just been sitting here thinking; what’s the point?

“O.K. Sulking?”

He paused as if he had to think about it.

“Yeah...little bit.”

“Maybe Willow--“Buffy started

”--NO!  Do not bring them bloody into it.”  Spike said tightly.

She bit her lip.

“They know?  Course they know.  Well doesn’t matter--don’t want they’re help...or yours for that matter.”

“But I broke it.  I gotta fix it.”

“Don’t know as that you can.  Turns out that amulet is a one in a million and a little multi tasker too.”

“But I know Willow can do a charm, a glamour.”

“That wasn’t glamour, nothing like magic--it was...like a projection, rearranging the third dimensions just right around me.  My energy projected through it and let me touch the world and...have the world touch me.  T’wasn’t magic. T’was more like...physics.  Pain might have been the price of admission to bring me back to being alive and evil free--but that amulet was the pot of gold at the end.”

Buffy looked at him cocking her head.

“Hey, necessity is the mother of learning something.”

“So I hear.”

They both looked at the broken pieces.

“Unbelievable...” She touched one of the pieces and felt him wince just a bit in reflex...like she was going to hurt him somehow in some new way.  She ignored him and pushed the pieces back together, broken but up close.

“What about this person in Arizona?”

Spike drew in a breath.

“Shaman of all shamans, king of medicine men.  He had a vision about me, an’ he’s the one what found me crawling in the mud.  He told me later that’s what saved most my hyde, kept me from cooking all the way through.  The earth loving me.  Thas’ what he said”

Buffy’s hands gripped each other.

“I didn’t know...I thought you were gone...”

“Think I was...I remember burning up...or maybe I was just burning through--definitely felt the black...the evil being burnt out of me...it...it felt good Buffy I wasn’t lying about that...whatever anger or whatever I feel now it’s small...maybe ordinary is the word...it’s not trip connected to a potential black explosion of evil.  I’m safe as houses.”

He wanted to smile, she wanted to cry.

“Ah luv don’t...can’t believe it--you fall into my life...won’t take ‘no’; break my favorite toy and NOW I have to hand YOU a hanky.  Incredible.  An’ I don’t have any cuz manly ex vamps don’t cry.”

“Spike...” she hiccupped choked it out “I’ve missed you so much...”  She leaned her head down on her knees and...and he reached out and stroked her back...had too, had to ease her pain if he could...

“Ah luv...”

Her words were broken coming as they did from her hurt.

“I’m so glad you’re not dead...annndd...I’m sorry I broke your...yourrr...thing...”

“Shh...shhh...things are bound to get broke, milk always gets spilled...”

She pulled herself up and leaned in against him wrapping her arms around his chest--

--He choked a bit, no one had touched him like that, the real him, since, her, since seven years ago...

The shock melted to pleasure...humans were meant to touch and be touched--not a monster or man monster even.      

“I’ll fix it...I’ll, I’ll get you a new one, a better one...the best one... ” she broke into his chest.

“Shh...shh sure you will luv...I’m sure of it...”

And with these words even if they were only spoken as comfort were enough for Buffy to hang onto.  He would let her help him...

He would let her love him.

At least that’s how she chose to hear it, and with such slim permission one can change the world.  All one really needs is a toe in the door...a bitty, bitty...space to begin.

He stroked her hair with his good left hand and she leaned into him, and of all the impossible things; she kissed his chest. 

*