Old Friends The Book Ends

O.K. her hands were sweaty, she didn’t know why she was doing this--why was she doing this?  Anybody want to take a stab-- you there...reader out there--yeah that’s right I mean you reading this right now--any ideas on what I’m doing here? This was the moment for audience participation because I’m running on empty.

Buffy thought all this and why not just buy a book?  Just say she was an avid reader and stopped by to buy and why not a book?  Books have all these ideas, plans and proposals stuffed into them, no, no, that wasn’t her, she wasn’t about the planning...no she would just open her mouth and see what popped.

It was just past 10:30, just a little after the store was open for business, she had thought this part out at least...the day would be fresh, so maybe he wouldn’t be too tired to listen and...and maybe as this was Saturday there wouldn’t be any customers yet so they could talk...she could apologize and explain a little...and...she opened the door...

To see Dawn jumping up and down in an excited little jig.

And there was Scott of course, he was there too sitting on the arm of the nearest easy chair eyes helplessly fixed on Dawns, giggling bosom.

And Willem

Willem looking at Scott with a puzzled expression, staring at his gormless behavior and then as if he couldn’t really believe his eyes he pulled his glasses from his breast pocket and slipped them on just to be sure...before he killed him--

No, really, she watched Willem go all predatory, like that vibe she had picked up when they first met and this could be bad and poor Scott was clueless.

Now she had heard the British make disparaging remarks about barbarians--which meant really anyone un-Brit.  But fisticuffs was not really the best method in schooling someone like Scott, first cuz...well...she thought his head was just too thick for the infamous single blow of enlightenment.  You know that thing Japanese spiritual masters did when one of their students, just didn’t get it.

And much as she herself would love to deliver the shock a boo boo--Dawn may not understand the subtly of ancient and respected traditions of higher education.

‘Willem!”  She said as greeting and preventative measure. 

He stopped and looked at her in amazement, like he was suddenly caught between two very desirable targets, a poor puppy caught between mistress’s new leather glove...ooh new chew toy and...and a liv a snap.

It only took a second for him to see that neither option was opportune and instead he turned to Dawn.

“So, you’re happy then--you found what you needed?”

Dawn was turned pages, and moaning...”Oh man...oh man...OooH!  OooH!     

And then she was jumping and jigging again.  Scott’s jaw hung open.

Willem looked up at the ceiling and Buffy could just about hear him counting

One, two, three, four, five,

“Whatcha got there Dawny?”  She asked and came to look over her shoulder stepping in front of her to obscure the jig from Scott, hoping this strategy gave him a moment to compose himself.

“Well this one’s a diary from the middle 1800’s not old at all in scope with the wall--just somebody local who kept track of stories, you know, legends...ghost stories...”

“--just as long as they stay stories...”  Buffy murmured

“No...they’re going to...” and here Dawn’s voice got all soft and playfully ominous, “...LEAP off the page at GET you...”

“Please.  Been there.”

Willem had been at the fireplace getting the fire going for the day when those last words caught his attention.

“Really?”  He searched his memory, couldn’t remember any such thing happening.  But life had gone on without Spike.  MANY Spikeless adventures.

“It was about...oh five years ago, remember Dawny--“Dawn nudged her with her elbow and Buffy’s mouth snapped shut. 

(And Spike thought, Oh Dawn you really have to teach me that one.  No, Willem thought, I love how Buffy speaks her mind.  Yeah. Sighed Spike. Me too.  Forthright. )   

“What happened five years ago?”  Scott asked in his best Highlander

Dawn sighed, and in that sigh she said this: ‘isn’t everything about him

just...well...wonderful!’

Willem threw a log on the fire and suggested, “There is at least an entire bookcase back there on Hadrian’s Wall--what you have there is just what I keep in the safe--“

“--This is valuable?”  Dawns face fell.  “How expensive?”

“We’ll work it out, I also barter...but perhaps your...” and here he looked at Scott trying to find a word, any word to fit through his mouth in way that wouldn’t choke him. 

“Your...friend could help you.  The best books are on the top two shelves...he’s such a great looming git, he’ll be able to reach them for you, and won’t need to bother the ladder.”      

“Ta mate,” Scott beamed, just simply beamed at Willem and leapt up to lead the way back to the stacks.

Willem stopped.  William’s poor heart smiled and said ‘see that?’  Scott never even heard the insult--all he heard was how he could be of assistance to his love.

Well all right then, maybe, maybe Dawn had chosen wisely and hadn’t lost all sense after all.   

Buffy was watching him.

He poked the fire and adjusted the grid for sparks checked the area for fire hazards and said low, barely audible.

“So he doesn’t know.  Dawn hasn’t told him anything about you.”

“Me?”  Buffy asked all innocence.

“That you’re the Slayer.”

“I never said I was the Slayer, no one ever said I was the Slayer.”

Willem just stared at her until she shrugged.  “O.K. not hard to figure out.  Does that scare you--are you scared?”

Willem looked at her as he walked by to set up the tea and put out cookies, there was a smile struggling to loose itself in him and what was she on about?

“What are you on about?”  He asked over his shoulder.

“Well...” she continued.  “Some men are you know, threatened by a woman that’s stronger than him...”

Suddenly just suddenly he had enough.

Fine. Fine.

Kismet might have sent her the first time, but not the second or the third and bloody hell he was just quite suddenly done with running.  He wanted her, he always had, always would--this thing between them wasn’t his problem it had always been hers...so he stopped fighting and fell.

He turned to face her with a package of oatmeal raison cookies in his hand and looked into her eyes and spoke the truth.

“Who said you were stronger that me?”

Quiet.

His words went through her ears but once inside her head they did a slow soft dive to deep sweet female places.  Her womb was tightening and extending.  The female

version of a hard on.

“I could take you no problem.”  She said, but it came out sounding more like a plea.

Instead of a retort he reached into the bag and pulled out a big plump cookie and held it out to her in his hand.

“Take a biscuit instead...” he suggested gently and it sounded like a dare and it was.

It was a good looking cookie she wanted it.  Buffy reached forward and as she took it, her fingers brushed his and it happened again that jolt of electric connection that wanted so badly to fuse and interlock their sex bits until they couldn’t see straight and all the life force needing this expression was in that touch and his thumb moved gently over her forefinger.

His touch was light, she could withdraw but...couldn’t...he...he was stronger...his need for her was the compelling strength of nature itself; the need to mate and her body’s response was already slicking the way inside her, she could feel her knees buckling as her body prepared, wanted to submit, to fall down on the ground, knees buckling up so she could present herself.

He groaned and caught her before she hit the floor.  She was vaguely aware of being carried and placed gently in an easy chair; he knelt on the floor between her knees, and stroked her face...

“Ah Buffy, love...I’m so sorry...how long has it been since a man loved you?  Poor lamb...”

She looked at him through glazed eyes but said nothing.

And then touching her face wasn’t enough, he leaned in to kiss the side of her temple...small warm flood she leaned her face toward the source of the heat.

He pressed his cheek against hers while his hand, his right hand found her left breast and his thumb grazed the tip of her nipple through the fabric of her shirt, her body arched up to meet his touch, she sunk down in the chair to arch her pelvis up.

“Oh god Buffy, stop, stop luv...I’m not that strong, you undo me...”

And then he was kissing her neck fastening his teeth onto the side of her neck and sucking her flesh up into his mouth.

She whimpered and pushed her groin up close wordlessly begging...

Her hands went into his shirt, finding his flesh and then downward looking feeling for a

zipper...

He kissed up her neck and found the small dip behind her ear that made her--

“Spike...” she gasped out as her body jackknifed in orgasm.

She arched against him as her body buckled.

Willem stopped.  Spike was gone.  It was like a splash of cold water.

Gently he pulled away; he took her searching hand and guided it gently back to her chest.  He kissed the side of her face and stayed close breathing with her until her breath evened and she calmed down.

She looked into his brown eyes, brown not blue and then looked down,  Willem stroked the side of her arm once more and then leaned back and sat in the easy chair adjacent to where she sat.

They were quiet for a moment and then he asked sadly.

“Look so much like him, do I then?” 

She wouldn’t look at him.  How had this happened?  Oh yeah, the cookie...but...but had baited him...she had...she had put the bait on the hook...why?  And he deserved an answer.

“No...no not really...I mean you do in the English inbred everyone looks alike in a sallow way...”

Here he cleared his throat.

“But...that’s only because there is no sun...”

“You’re avoiding.”

She was.  “You don’t look like him...you...feel like him.  Can’t explain it.”

“Try.”

She looked at him.  And he helped her out by asking;

“Is he dead?  Gone?  Cuz he’d have to be dead to not be with someone like you.”

“Yeah...he’s gone.”  She looked inside herself to see what to say.  “Funny thing is...I...didn’t know how much I’ve missed him till a few months ago...I just blotted him out, just didn’t talk about him or think about him really...”

“Didn’t grieve him?”

“No.”

Willem looked away into the fire and blinked until his eyes were clear.

 “Not in the way you’d think.  To grieve, I’d have to acknowledge feeling something, and I was so used to pushing my feelings away, I just...it went underground...like a low grade fever.”

He didn’t look at her but he was listening.

“It was like I was in a low grade fever that only broke at night when I was asleep and I would wake up in the morning with...water all over me, sweat, tears streaming down my cheeks...and I wouldn’t remember anything from dreams or anything I would think, really...I was so dense...I’d think...what’s the matter with me?  You know?”

Willem nodded, he could completely see Buffy having to compartmentalize to the degree she didn’t know what was coming from where.

“You’re the slayer.  You have a lot to deal with, could have just been pressure, relieving the pressure...so you wouldn’t implode or somewhat.”

Buffy nodded.  “That’s what I thought...I began to think of it as my morning dew; just this morning water thing from nature.  No biggie.”

“You’re alright Buffy.  You’re a good woman.  You’re subconscious took over, took care of you.  It’s all right.”

She didn’t know why, but somehow it sounded like:  “I forgive you.”

She accepted it.

“And now you have someone, this vampire--“

“Angel.”

“Right.”

She laughed.  “It’s funny, Spike didn’t like Angel either.”

Willem said nothing but his expression said right sensible bloke your Spike.

“Uh...sorry...I threw myself at you.”  Buffy murmured, “I guess it’s been awhile...”

Oh she was going to rationalize was she?  Well all right.  Her life was hard who was he to say her this way or that--this was something she had to know from the inside of herself and words, an engraved message from the mind meant nothing.

“You’re so lovely Buffy, inside and out, any bloke got to count himself on god’s short list to be your mate.  Hope this...blighter realizes it.”   

Buffy looked sad for a moment.

“There is no one else in the world for me right now, and it’s not really like we’re together...really...Angel and I have known each other a long time and how we love each other is from a long time ago...he’s like the person you hold in the back of your mind from high school...you know, the one you might want if no one else came along...”

“But...Oi aye I do hear a bit of a big ‘BUT’” Willem encouraged her.

“Buuutt...because it’s from long ago...I think...I feel he still holds me in his heart like a young girl...he...oh my god why am I telling you this?”

“Sorry chit, we’ve just past the ‘just good friends’ parenthetical--spill, dish it...”  Willem leaned in and the restored gleam in his eye brought a smile to her lips.

“Well...when Angel found out about Spike, he well...it wasn’t so much that he wanted to kill Spike, of course he did--that was understandable...it was how his opinion...changed...shifted about...me.  That is; when he heard the whole story--he said a couple things like:  ‘How could you’ with that ‘thing’...couple of things like that--and then he dropped it--but I don’t think he’s ever seen me the same.  I...think...deep down I think he could never imagine me...”

“--What, brought to orgasm from a couple of kisses?  Have sex in a public place with someone you barely know after wrestling over a cookie?”

“Uh...” She had to smile but went on following her thought: “Maybe...that...but I don’t think he could ever imagine me making up my own mind.  Oh he knows I’m a fighter and I do that all the time...but I think there is a part of him that denies that I could choose to be with Spike...and not...apologize for it.”

He looked down to hide his eyes from her and said nothing, if he started, there would be no stopping and so instead he asked:

“You care for a cuppa?”

“You bloody English and your home remedies.”  Buffy leaned back in the chair.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”  As he prepared her tea from hot water from the hot plate, he asked, tried to sound casual.

“So, you all are going to do it.  You really gonna use the Seal of Ohm and what?  What option?”

Buffy turned in her chair to watch him.

“Angel made the call.  He wants the divorce...but...but when Angelus is freed he wants Willow, that’s one of my good friends you met last night, he wants her to bind him--“

“And kill him?  Put blood on her hands?--”

“No.  He’ll do it. Angel--Liam, he will kill Angelus.”

Willem sighed and brought her a mug of tea; she saw him think twice about handing it directly to her and instead placed it on the table in front of her.

“Not so easy killing a demon in its true form.”

They sipped their tea.  Willem asked.

“And what about Angelus--what’s he say?  Angel must be able to communicate something from him and don’t think that old demon isn’t listening in an’ knows your plans.”

“He thinks...it thinks it can win.  That Liam won’t be able to kill it--or it’ll escape somehow and even if it is killed it will go back to hell which is like home to it.  Better than being behind bars.  It wants a fight, a chance.  Justice.”

“An’ everybody is on board with this?  They all understand?”

“Giles has reservations--something about ‘the devil you know’--“

Willem snorted in agreement.

“--But, yeah.  We’ve all known Angel for many years so it’s like family...and it seems right.”

“And you need a mate.”  Willem ventured softly.  “Oh it’s all right to know what you need--say that was a step forward for you, right?  I mean after what you’ve told me.”

“Yeah...but it’s that’s not it, really. O.K. to be honest...it is...but only around the edges.  I went on a walkabout a few days ago, and something came to me...Willem...maybe I’ve been so long in the defensive position I’ve never considered to be the offense.  And what if the offense is love?  Just love, put more love in the world.  And doing this, isn’t even for me or for Angel, but for love’s sake, it has to do with some of things you said days ago, why not just do it because...

“It’s justice?”  Willem offered.

“Maybe.  Maybe.  To be honest, I’m not smart enough to know, but I trust my feelings...”

“Do you?”  He looked at her directly.

“I’m learning to trust my feelings.” She rewrote.

“Fair enough.”

“So.  Will...would you reconsider helping us?  Willow and Midge are in and both extremely powerful.  Giles is tenor--

“--Good singer--“

“--You know what I mean.  And after meeting you last night Willow agrees with Giles--she thinks you got the right stuff to ground everybody while they go flying.  But...but you would have to take your charm off.  I guess you guys all wear protection amulets and they would have to go--you need to stand naked or something before god--metaphorically speaking...no full frontal nudity required....”

And here her voice wound down to a sputter as she watched him lean forward elbows on his knees head between his hands.

She waited, it didn’t take long.

“I can’t Buffy.  Just...can’t” 

“Why?”  She asked simply

“I...think its wrong...like putting a gun to heavens head--you would be appealing for justice--which by rights and cosmic law will have to be granted--but then use the trust placed in you, to use the privilege as an opportunity to betray the demon; to kill it, and not on the battlefield...but...but in a court of law.  Do you see?  Maybe...maybe if it was about saving the world--“

“--But don’t you see?  This is about saving the world--in the best possible way, one person at a time--“

“--Bloody hell Buffy!  I know you need it, I REALLY do, but do you need to get laid so bad that you would break--“

--she dropped her tea mug and her hand shot out and slapped him so hard his head snapped back.

She was instantly sorry but she wasn’t.  She hadn’t hit him as the Slayer, if she had his head would be off his body--did he know that?

“I didn’t hit you as the slayer; I slapped you as a woman.”  She said coldly as she got up gathered her things and walked past him to leave, and as she passed his chair, she heard the crunch of glass under her shoe and stopped and sighed.

Great. His glasses must have been knocked off sometime during their little...make out session. Now she had to apologize.

She fished in coat jacket for her wallet pulled out some pretty pictured paper--what was enough?  She put the money on the counter and said simply.

“Sorry about your glasses.”

And left before he could see her start to cry.

Anthony saw it though as she brushed past him.  He came into the store scratching his spiked black hair.

“Lad, was’ happened here then?”  He nodded back at the girl running away now.  “That looks like a hanging job.”

 “That...sounds just about right...”   

Spike put the back of his hand against his eyes and pinched them shut to keep the tears inside. Why pretend?  He was Spike alright.  Still Spike, still alive...still evil...

Spike rose and without another word left by way of the interior door leaving the store in Anthony’s hands.

*