Revelations in the Night
Jul. 14th, 2022 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apachefirecatTitle: Revelations in the Night
Dedicated To: <3 My beloved J, who, in his own way, is fighting to be a better man for me just as Spike fought for Buffy <3
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Spike/Buffy
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Revelations come sometimes in the middle of the night, when we're more asleep than awake, when we expect them the least...
Word Count: 2281
Written For: Sunshine Challenge Day 3: Moonstone and HC Bingo Round 13: Stalkers
Warnings: Angel/Buffy fans may not be pleased with this one.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
She wakes from a nightmare, a scream in her throat. She was killed again, but this time, she didn't make it in time. This time, she failed, and she didn't just fail to save Dawnie. She failed her mother. She failed her friends. She failed the whole world, and she was the last woman alive, alive but powerless, unable to help anyone, even herself. She's trembling as she pulls her knees up to her chest. Tears are starting to flow yet again this night. She knew she shouldn't have tried to sleep, at least not until daylight.
Daylight meant that the others were safe, but then too, daylight meant work and taking Dawnie to school, making sure that her kid sister was getting the education of which being a Slayer had deprived her, just as it did so many other things. She never has any time anymore, certainly not to herself. At night, she's saving the world, and from almost daylight all the way until the sun sinks and the Vampires slink out of their holes, she's running to take care of everybody else.
Wasn't there something Giles needed her to do today? And she promised she'd talk to Anya for Xander about that thing. Didn't Willow need help studying? Her mind whirls as the clock ticks. Does she have enough bread left to make Dawn's sandwiches? There's four pieces, she believes, meaning they'll have to do without toast this morning but Dawnie'll love actually getting to eat that awful, sugary cereal. How Buffy liked it so much when she was little, she'll never again understand.
There's so much to do, so many people who need her, and yet... Yet, in the end, it's all going to be for nothing. In the end, when the last moments come, she's not going to be able to save them, just like she couldn't save her mother or Miss Calendar or Kendra. She saves everyone she can, until she can't, until she doesn't make it there in time, and for every one of the people who she has allowed to stay close to her as she has grown older as a Slayer, breaking every record held by Slayers before her, for every one she still dares to love and hold dear, there's going to come that time. There's going to come a time when she is too late, when she cannot save them, when they, too, die and leave her even further alone.
The tears are streaming down her face now, but suddenly, Buffy yelps. She pounces up from her bed, her tears forgotten, and grabs her stakes. But just before she can sling herself through her window, Buffy stills. She tilts her head to one side, studying the great big, translucent, blue orbs. They're not orbs at all, or moonstones which are very pretty rocks she had been admiring at Giles' magic shop much earlier that day. Anya had said something about them being good against nightmares and for fertility -- which, of course, she would know all about -- and had asked her if she didn't want to get one for herself and Spike.
Buffy had dropped the crystal-like gemstone right then and there, with the former Vengeance Demon smiling so knowingly at her. She had blustered about how it had nothing to do with Spike, most certainly not his eyes (which it had, in truth, reminded her of), and how she definitely interested in fertility, especially not with some terrible Vampire, and had pretty well nearly ran out of the shop. She had not returned there for the rest of the day, but she is going to have to face them tomorrow or, rather, later this very same day.
Right now, though, she's face to face with the Vampire who confuses her more than any of the rest of her connections, confuses her and excites her in ways she's never felt before, including from Angel and Riley. Those puppy romances, although she'd certainly felt like her love and affection for Angel would be ever-lasting, seem to have prepared her very little for the intense heat that Spike makes her feel and the twisted emotions that contort in her every time she's alone with him. He makes her so angry, and yet makes her so horny. And yet there are other times that she just...
Releasing a frustrated sigh that borders on a growl, Buffy shoves her window up and yells at him, "I ALMOST STAKED YOU!"
Spike shrugs. "Wouldn't be the first time," he says, cupping a hand around his cigarette and nonchalantly striking his lighter.
"What are you doing here?" Buffy demands, not realizing that he hasn't actually lit his cigarette.
"Watching over you. You seemed in a bit of a shambles today," he admits, shrugging one leather-clad shoulder. She knows what those arms can do to her and for her. She knows what it feels like to fight this man almost to the death, but she also knows that when the world is closing in on her, when nobody else understands her, he somehow manages to both be there for her and understand her, very often without her even having to admit a word of truth. "Can't very well save the world if somebody comes sneaking into your bedroom window, can you, Slayer?"
He knows she's dedicated herself to the world. She's given this world, this calling to be its Slayer, everything. It's why she can't have a life of her own, can't settle down and have a husband and children of her own, can't even have a freaking college education. She can't have friends like normal people, and her family dies all around her. Her bottom lip trembles, and she can feel the tears starting to well up in her eyes again.
"Used to pop by quite often around this time of the morning actually have a spot of cocoa with your mum before running off before the sun could get me."
"I..." Words fail her. She wishes she could lie to him and say that she hadn't known that, but she had. Spike had reached out to her mother even before he'd gotten his soul, before he'd fought for it which was something Angel had never done. Oh, sure, he'd fought against Angelus to keep it once he got it, but there was still a small part of Buffy that couldn't help thinking he would have given up his soul in a heartbeat if not for Angelus if it had meant being able to be with her. She...
Looking up at Spike and realizing that it's started raining at some point, she remembers the night she made love to Angel... and realizes, too, that she no longer wants him in that same way. He's a wonderful friend, and there's no one she'd rather fight beside, including Spike. But as for love? As for the big L? As for wanting to be held, wanting to be loved in all the ways of the word which most certainly was not just sexual? For all that and more, she wants the man standing right before her now, standing in the rain, his jacket already soaked just so he can watch over her.
And that's what he'd been doing too. Buffy knows he could have opened that window very easily and come inside. He could have snuck up on her. He could have tried to rape her again. Perhaps she should be bothered by the fact that he was stalking her, waiting just outside her window, watching her as she slept... Perhaps it's something about those big, beautiful, blue eyes of his that seem to shine with the soul within like those moonstones that had held her attention so riveted earlier that day (yesterday now). Whatever it is, she somehow knows he was telling her the truth, and she can tell when this Vamp's lying. He doesn't lie anywhere nearly as smoothly as Angelus had, at least, not to her.
"Come inside," she whispers, not even hearing her words and barely aware of the fact that her lips are moving to produce them. She grabs his arms and pulls him into her bedroom. "You're soaked." She pushes his jacket off of him, gently, tenderly. His shirt is the next to go, and she runs her hands down his bare chest, feeling every inch of him. Tonight, she isn't wanting to make love tonight. She's not hot; she's not horny. Well, touching his bare skin is starting to make her horny, but that's not what she's thinking about. She's thinking about all the times she could have had him instead of pushing him constantly away, about all he's endured trying to make himself better not just for her but a better man in general (after all, she'd been dead when he'd cared for Dawn, and he'd thought she hadn't even known about his visits with her mother), about how no matter what she does to him, he's always there for her...
"I'm -- " the words start to come, but then he's ever so softly, lighter than a feather, pressing his index finger against her open mouth.
"No. Hush. You don't mean it. You're exhausted."
She is. She's more tired than she thinks anyone knows, more exhausted than she can ever dare to let on. She is so beyond extremely exhausted. Death would come as a sweet release, if it didn't mean leaving behind all the people who need her, her family, her friends, Dawn... She has to hold it together, she thinks even as she sways slightly. She has to make sure she's there for them, has to make sure she doesn't let them down.
If she could just rest -- But she can't. There's only a few more hours left until she's got to get Dawn ready for school, get her lunch packed, make sure she's done her homework and is ready for whatever test is to come today -- What day of the week is it anyway, and what tests does her kid sister have today? Is she ready for them? Are any of them ready for what they have yet to face?
She's caught herself unknowingly, and Spike's beginning to bleed from where her fingernails are digging into his skin. "Easy, luv," he murmurs. "I'm all for blood play, but not tonight. Tonight you need to rest."
She blinks. "Oh!" She yanks her hands away from him, noting that, yet again, she's hurt him and he's still being there for her, standing steadfast, not judging her for harming him when he's done no wrong. Oh, sure, he's done plenty of wrong including to her -- all of her friends and family would be amongst the first to cry out all that he's done wrong --, but she knows this man, not just this Vampire, way better than any of them do, way better than they are willing to. She knows he saved the world before he ever got his soul not because it was the right thing to do but because he'd thought it would please the woman he then loved. She feels a surprising pang of jealousy as she thinks back to Drusilla, but he didn't stay with her. He's here with her now. He fought for his soul to become better for her. Surely he has the right to spend just one night with her.
Her mind made up, Buffy turns from Spike, yanks her thick, black curtains closed, takes his hand in hers, and leads him wordlessly to her bed. She has no words for all the mixed up feelings she's feeling now. She has no words for everything this man is coming to mean to her, for everything he has done for her, for all he has forgiven her... She starts to speak, but he presses his finger tenderly against her pursed lips again.
He wraps his arms around her, and she rests her head on him. In scant minutes, she's out cold, and this time, she won't dream. This time, nightmares will not make her even more tired than she is now as sleep claims her once more. Spike reaches beyond her, moving slowly and very carefully so as not to wake her, and flicks her clock off. Then he holds her until he can hear Dawn moving out in the hallway beyond her room. He leaves her as wordlessly as he's been since she let him lay down with her this magical night and hold her close. He leaves, -- but not without a chaste kiss on her sleeping head.
When Buffy finally wakes, it's with a jolt. "Dawn!" She leaps to her feet and runs to the kitchen. There's a simple note on the table. She stares at it in wonder. Slowly she lifts it and reads the words a simple time.
"Nibblet's fed," it reads in what must be Spike's antiqued handwriting, "and she's going to ace her test today. No worries, luv. You're strong. Be the woman you are, and you'll beat them all, Buffy."
It's simple, just four lines, but Buffy reads it over and over again. Many years later, when she needs encouragement, she'll tuck the same, little script of paper out of her pocket and read it yet again. But right now, she smiles, and decides, with a glance at her mother's clock on the wall, that she might as well just call a sick day. She'll more than make up for it tonight, -- and she'll more than tell Spike everything she can't voice with words with her body entwined around his. Smiling, her green eyes alight with the first true happiness she's felt in a very long time, Buffy heads back to her bed.
The End
Dedicated To: <3 My beloved J, who, in his own way, is fighting to be a better man for me just as Spike fought for Buffy <3
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Spike/Buffy
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Revelations come sometimes in the middle of the night, when we're more asleep than awake, when we expect them the least...
Word Count: 2281
Written For: Sunshine Challenge Day 3: Moonstone and HC Bingo Round 13: Stalkers
Warnings: Angel/Buffy fans may not be pleased with this one.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
She wakes from a nightmare, a scream in her throat. She was killed again, but this time, she didn't make it in time. This time, she failed, and she didn't just fail to save Dawnie. She failed her mother. She failed her friends. She failed the whole world, and she was the last woman alive, alive but powerless, unable to help anyone, even herself. She's trembling as she pulls her knees up to her chest. Tears are starting to flow yet again this night. She knew she shouldn't have tried to sleep, at least not until daylight.
Daylight meant that the others were safe, but then too, daylight meant work and taking Dawnie to school, making sure that her kid sister was getting the education of which being a Slayer had deprived her, just as it did so many other things. She never has any time anymore, certainly not to herself. At night, she's saving the world, and from almost daylight all the way until the sun sinks and the Vampires slink out of their holes, she's running to take care of everybody else.
Wasn't there something Giles needed her to do today? And she promised she'd talk to Anya for Xander about that thing. Didn't Willow need help studying? Her mind whirls as the clock ticks. Does she have enough bread left to make Dawn's sandwiches? There's four pieces, she believes, meaning they'll have to do without toast this morning but Dawnie'll love actually getting to eat that awful, sugary cereal. How Buffy liked it so much when she was little, she'll never again understand.
There's so much to do, so many people who need her, and yet... Yet, in the end, it's all going to be for nothing. In the end, when the last moments come, she's not going to be able to save them, just like she couldn't save her mother or Miss Calendar or Kendra. She saves everyone she can, until she can't, until she doesn't make it there in time, and for every one of the people who she has allowed to stay close to her as she has grown older as a Slayer, breaking every record held by Slayers before her, for every one she still dares to love and hold dear, there's going to come that time. There's going to come a time when she is too late, when she cannot save them, when they, too, die and leave her even further alone.
The tears are streaming down her face now, but suddenly, Buffy yelps. She pounces up from her bed, her tears forgotten, and grabs her stakes. But just before she can sling herself through her window, Buffy stills. She tilts her head to one side, studying the great big, translucent, blue orbs. They're not orbs at all, or moonstones which are very pretty rocks she had been admiring at Giles' magic shop much earlier that day. Anya had said something about them being good against nightmares and for fertility -- which, of course, she would know all about -- and had asked her if she didn't want to get one for herself and Spike.
Buffy had dropped the crystal-like gemstone right then and there, with the former Vengeance Demon smiling so knowingly at her. She had blustered about how it had nothing to do with Spike, most certainly not his eyes (which it had, in truth, reminded her of), and how she definitely interested in fertility, especially not with some terrible Vampire, and had pretty well nearly ran out of the shop. She had not returned there for the rest of the day, but she is going to have to face them tomorrow or, rather, later this very same day.
Right now, though, she's face to face with the Vampire who confuses her more than any of the rest of her connections, confuses her and excites her in ways she's never felt before, including from Angel and Riley. Those puppy romances, although she'd certainly felt like her love and affection for Angel would be ever-lasting, seem to have prepared her very little for the intense heat that Spike makes her feel and the twisted emotions that contort in her every time she's alone with him. He makes her so angry, and yet makes her so horny. And yet there are other times that she just...
Releasing a frustrated sigh that borders on a growl, Buffy shoves her window up and yells at him, "I ALMOST STAKED YOU!"
Spike shrugs. "Wouldn't be the first time," he says, cupping a hand around his cigarette and nonchalantly striking his lighter.
"What are you doing here?" Buffy demands, not realizing that he hasn't actually lit his cigarette.
"Watching over you. You seemed in a bit of a shambles today," he admits, shrugging one leather-clad shoulder. She knows what those arms can do to her and for her. She knows what it feels like to fight this man almost to the death, but she also knows that when the world is closing in on her, when nobody else understands her, he somehow manages to both be there for her and understand her, very often without her even having to admit a word of truth. "Can't very well save the world if somebody comes sneaking into your bedroom window, can you, Slayer?"
He knows she's dedicated herself to the world. She's given this world, this calling to be its Slayer, everything. It's why she can't have a life of her own, can't settle down and have a husband and children of her own, can't even have a freaking college education. She can't have friends like normal people, and her family dies all around her. Her bottom lip trembles, and she can feel the tears starting to well up in her eyes again.
"Used to pop by quite often around this time of the morning actually have a spot of cocoa with your mum before running off before the sun could get me."
"I..." Words fail her. She wishes she could lie to him and say that she hadn't known that, but she had. Spike had reached out to her mother even before he'd gotten his soul, before he'd fought for it which was something Angel had never done. Oh, sure, he'd fought against Angelus to keep it once he got it, but there was still a small part of Buffy that couldn't help thinking he would have given up his soul in a heartbeat if not for Angelus if it had meant being able to be with her. She...
Looking up at Spike and realizing that it's started raining at some point, she remembers the night she made love to Angel... and realizes, too, that she no longer wants him in that same way. He's a wonderful friend, and there's no one she'd rather fight beside, including Spike. But as for love? As for the big L? As for wanting to be held, wanting to be loved in all the ways of the word which most certainly was not just sexual? For all that and more, she wants the man standing right before her now, standing in the rain, his jacket already soaked just so he can watch over her.
And that's what he'd been doing too. Buffy knows he could have opened that window very easily and come inside. He could have snuck up on her. He could have tried to rape her again. Perhaps she should be bothered by the fact that he was stalking her, waiting just outside her window, watching her as she slept... Perhaps it's something about those big, beautiful, blue eyes of his that seem to shine with the soul within like those moonstones that had held her attention so riveted earlier that day (yesterday now). Whatever it is, she somehow knows he was telling her the truth, and she can tell when this Vamp's lying. He doesn't lie anywhere nearly as smoothly as Angelus had, at least, not to her.
"Come inside," she whispers, not even hearing her words and barely aware of the fact that her lips are moving to produce them. She grabs his arms and pulls him into her bedroom. "You're soaked." She pushes his jacket off of him, gently, tenderly. His shirt is the next to go, and she runs her hands down his bare chest, feeling every inch of him. Tonight, she isn't wanting to make love tonight. She's not hot; she's not horny. Well, touching his bare skin is starting to make her horny, but that's not what she's thinking about. She's thinking about all the times she could have had him instead of pushing him constantly away, about all he's endured trying to make himself better not just for her but a better man in general (after all, she'd been dead when he'd cared for Dawn, and he'd thought she hadn't even known about his visits with her mother), about how no matter what she does to him, he's always there for her...
"I'm -- " the words start to come, but then he's ever so softly, lighter than a feather, pressing his index finger against her open mouth.
"No. Hush. You don't mean it. You're exhausted."
She is. She's more tired than she thinks anyone knows, more exhausted than she can ever dare to let on. She is so beyond extremely exhausted. Death would come as a sweet release, if it didn't mean leaving behind all the people who need her, her family, her friends, Dawn... She has to hold it together, she thinks even as she sways slightly. She has to make sure she's there for them, has to make sure she doesn't let them down.
If she could just rest -- But she can't. There's only a few more hours left until she's got to get Dawn ready for school, get her lunch packed, make sure she's done her homework and is ready for whatever test is to come today -- What day of the week is it anyway, and what tests does her kid sister have today? Is she ready for them? Are any of them ready for what they have yet to face?
She's caught herself unknowingly, and Spike's beginning to bleed from where her fingernails are digging into his skin. "Easy, luv," he murmurs. "I'm all for blood play, but not tonight. Tonight you need to rest."
She blinks. "Oh!" She yanks her hands away from him, noting that, yet again, she's hurt him and he's still being there for her, standing steadfast, not judging her for harming him when he's done no wrong. Oh, sure, he's done plenty of wrong including to her -- all of her friends and family would be amongst the first to cry out all that he's done wrong --, but she knows this man, not just this Vampire, way better than any of them do, way better than they are willing to. She knows he saved the world before he ever got his soul not because it was the right thing to do but because he'd thought it would please the woman he then loved. She feels a surprising pang of jealousy as she thinks back to Drusilla, but he didn't stay with her. He's here with her now. He fought for his soul to become better for her. Surely he has the right to spend just one night with her.
Her mind made up, Buffy turns from Spike, yanks her thick, black curtains closed, takes his hand in hers, and leads him wordlessly to her bed. She has no words for all the mixed up feelings she's feeling now. She has no words for everything this man is coming to mean to her, for everything he has done for her, for all he has forgiven her... She starts to speak, but he presses his finger tenderly against her pursed lips again.
He wraps his arms around her, and she rests her head on him. In scant minutes, she's out cold, and this time, she won't dream. This time, nightmares will not make her even more tired than she is now as sleep claims her once more. Spike reaches beyond her, moving slowly and very carefully so as not to wake her, and flicks her clock off. Then he holds her until he can hear Dawn moving out in the hallway beyond her room. He leaves her as wordlessly as he's been since she let him lay down with her this magical night and hold her close. He leaves, -- but not without a chaste kiss on her sleeping head.
When Buffy finally wakes, it's with a jolt. "Dawn!" She leaps to her feet and runs to the kitchen. There's a simple note on the table. She stares at it in wonder. Slowly she lifts it and reads the words a simple time.
"Nibblet's fed," it reads in what must be Spike's antiqued handwriting, "and she's going to ace her test today. No worries, luv. You're strong. Be the woman you are, and you'll beat them all, Buffy."
It's simple, just four lines, but Buffy reads it over and over again. Many years later, when she needs encouragement, she'll tuck the same, little script of paper out of her pocket and read it yet again. But right now, she smiles, and decides, with a glance at her mother's clock on the wall, that she might as well just call a sick day. She'll more than make up for it tonight, -- and she'll more than tell Spike everything she can't voice with words with her body entwined around his. Smiling, her green eyes alight with the first true happiness she's felt in a very long time, Buffy heads back to her bed.
The End
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Date: 2022-07-15 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-16 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-05 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-16 10:40 pm (UTC)This one line is worth the price of admission alone! Not that the rest isn't wonderful written, it absolutely is, but gosh, this one line.
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Date: 2022-08-05 11:00 pm (UTC)