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“You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire, blinding. That's why you pull away from it...” –The First Slayer * * * * * Buffy sat on her bedroom floor staring at Spike’s duster draped neatly over a chair. The duster had been in her room now for the past five months. Sometimes she’d hide it in the closet out of sight, sometimes she’d use it as a blanket to cover her at night, savoring his scent as she fell to sleep, and sometimes she’d throw it on the floor and kick it into a corner venting her rage on the inanimate object. “He’s gone.” She spoke the words out loud. She felt nothing but sorrow now. She’d tried to summon anger, disgust, tried to imagine, to relive the final scene that had played out between them. He’d tried to force her. His voice, full of fury and tears had held such desperation. For what? She tried to recall the image of him pushing her down onto the floor but as always, all she could envision was his battered face as she beat him senseless that night in the alley and then his soft voice, echoing over and over -- “You always hurt the ones you love.” She pulled his duster off the chair and pressed it against her face. The leather was soft and cool. Like his skin. His skin slipping gracefully, passionately across her body. Always there for her. Always knowing her mind, her heart. He’d known she was lying. She had wanted him. Loved him. But could not, would not allow herself to trust him. She could never speak those words of love to him. The fear was far too deep. “He’s really gone.” She stood up and folded the duster neatly and placed it under her pillow. She needed to go on patrol, needed to forget, forget everything. “Bye Dawn,” she called as she left the house. Dawn ran to the door and gave her a hug. “Be careful, love you.” Buffy slowly walked down Revello drive. It was the end of summer and everything was dry and thirsty. There was a bittersweet smell of decaying leaves in the air and faint smoky scent from the endless wildfires that had been ravaging the foothills. She walked aimlessly, lost in thought. She wondered if he still existed on this earth. Perhaps he’d been dusted, caught in the ruthless summer sun. Somehow she felt that she’d know it, would feel the moment that he ceased to be. She’d long since forgiven him for his desperate act. Acknowledged to herself that she done the same or worse to him both physically and emotionally. But she still felt she’d made the right decision. She did it for him. “For him…” God, she was so lonely. She still had Xander and Willow, and Dawn of course. But she had this loneliness inside her that felt as fathomless as the darkest abyss. No one knew her depths. No one had ever known her depths. Except him. Ah, but she missed his voice most of all. And his quiet presence always there to cover her back, teasing…joking… “I wish him happiness…” She suddenly had the strange sensation that he was beside her. She quickly turned but there was only empty air. She stood staring off down the street. “I’m losing it.” She shook her head and then began walking toward the cemetery. She thought about Willow. Willow was so strange and silent these days. Immersed herself in school. Would only talk about Ancient History or Chaos Theory. Most of the time Buffy had no idea what she was talking about. Willow never spoke about Tara’s death. About her own descent into madness. Only once she’d told Buffy one late night, with tears in her eyes, what Tara had said to her on their last night together, “Can we skip all this struggle and just go right to the part where you’re kissing me.” Tara had forgiven Willow everything. Everything was upside down. The world was chaos, confusion. Nothing fit where it was supposed to fit. She laughed to herself. Willow had tried to explain Chaos to her, explained that deep inside the apparent utter randomness of all living forms as they moved through time was a hidden structure, a pattern. Something beautiful and deep if one only looked. Buffy looked at her life now and saw nothing beautiful and deep. And she began to question the meaning of love. “Why can’t I just forget love? Why can’t I just be a nice strong, brave Slayer, save the world a few more times, and just fade into the night?” Her love for him, her desire for him had been so raw, so blindingly deep and hot. Every night they’d spend endless hours making love. She’d seek him out. Hungered for him all the time. Knew that he always wanted her, was always ready for her. No matter what she did to him. No matter how she shamed and humiliated him, pushed him away in front of others. Because he knew, always knew that later he’d find her lying naked in his bed, demanding that he please her and he always pleased her. She stood before his abandoned crypt. And once again she thought to herself, “How could I love someone who lived in a tomb, someone dead, without a soul? Who was he really? I never really listened to him when he tried to tell me what he felt, who he was.” She went up to the door of the crypt and placed her hand against the rough wood. “Perhaps he is just on the other side. Waiting for me.” The hard surface of the wooden door struck her as a symbol of all the barriers that had stood between them. Hard and unyielding like her steadfast refusal to hear him out. Rough and impenetrable like the wild darkness of his heart which she’d run from in fear. “He knew who I was…saw me…feel so invisible now.” She smiled, remembering his words when he’d thrown her out of this very door so long ago – “If I can’t have all of you…” he said. But she’d never given him what he most desired. Three simple words. But…but perhaps she should’ve explained to him the real reason why she couldn’t say them. And then maybe she wouldn’t feel as if she were drowning. “I’m losing it,” she sighed and then in a burst of anger smashed in the door with a vicious kick. She climbed down into the lower part of the crypt and stood gazing down at his dusty bed. She ripped off the sheet and buried her face in its folds, she was hungry, desperate for the scent of him. “Where the hell are you?!” she screamed into the emptiness. “I loved you!” * * * * * “Love is pain and the Slayer forges strength from pain.” – The First Slayer * * * * * Spike woke from his dream with a start. He ran his hands over his face, it was wet with tears. “Bloody dreams,” he groaned. He could keep the fire of his anger burning just fine when he was awake, but he lost it in his dreams. His dreams of her. Dreams of what he’d done to her. What she’d done to him. Well that would all change now. Now he was free to choose and he’d show her…show her what? He was torn between wanting to let her dust him or the harder path, which he tried not to think of because it meant giving in, giving in to that love which he still bore for her. Which burned him, incinerated him nightly in his dreams. That last look in her eyes haunted him. And he knew that that second path was closed to him forever. He was doomed. What had hurt him the most was that she knew, she knew all those months that his chip wouldn’t work with her. He never hurt her and had given her everything she’d asked from him. But nothing he did made her trust him. So it didn’t really matter if he had a chip or not. The only thing that mattered to her, he thought bitterly was that she’d never stake him, end his misery as long as he appeared helpless before others. “Well that’s all changed now,” he thought grimly. He crawled from the backseat of his car where he’d been sleeping and got into the driver’s seat. “One last dance, Slayer,” he said as he started the engine. He parked his car on the far side of town, found an entrance into the sewers and made his way towards his crypt. * * * * * Buffy left the crypt and ran out of the cemetery, she couldn’t bear this pain anymore. He’d been gone for so long now and the pain inside her had only grown stronger. She couldn’t understand it, couldn’t think it away, couldn’t sleep it away. It was always with her. Turmoil and pain…her world in chaos. She thought about him, dreamed about him. Every place she went in Sunnydale held a memory of him. She found herself walking past the Magic Box. She hadn’t gone near the place since the night she saved Spike from being staked by Xander. The night she watched him make love to Anya. The pain surged through her again. “Why is it so bad tonight?” she thought. “It’s that damn duster. Knew I shouldn’t have taken it out of the closet.” The door to the Magic Box opened and out walked Anya. Anya stopped suddenly as soon as she saw Buffy. Her face turned bright red. “Buffy…” “Hey.” Buffy said morosely. She hadn’t spoken to Anya since that night. “Are you ok?” Anya asked. “Yeah…well…no.” Buffy blurted out and then regretted it immediately. “Do you want to talk?” “No, no…ah…there is something…” Buffy stammered. “What? What is it?” Anya asked. “Do you know a good a numbing spell?” Anya started laughing uncontrollably. “Hey! What’s so funny?” Buffy said. “It’s just that…just that…That’s what Spike wanted!” she sputtered and then suddenly sat down on the curb and started to cry. “Anya…I…” Buffy sat down on the curb next to Anya and waited until she stopped crying. “Everything is so screwed up…I didn’t know, swear I didn’t know how you felt about him. I wouldn’t have…” Anya paused, “And Xander will never forgive me. He hates me now.” “Don’t think he hates you…he was just disappointed and hurt, really hurt…jealous maybe…he thought it meant that everything that had gone on between you really was nothing to you…if you could’ve…if you could’ve…” Buffy couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “Had sex with Spike.” Anya finished her sentence. “Yeah, that...” “But it didn’t mean anything.” “No?” “We were drunk and trying to forget, forget what we’d lost. It’s my fault really. I wanted to get Spike drunk. Wanted him to wish a curse on Xander, because I couldn’t do it myself. And then he got all kind and sympathetic and really, really listened to me." “Yeah he does that,” Buffy said quietly, not sure if she could bear to hear anymore. “He told me I was a wonderful, beautiful woman and that I deserved to have someone who loved me. That we both did. And he was so sad. Begged me for a numbing spell, something to stop the pain, stop the love. So I got him drunk. When he was talking about his girl, I didn’t know, never guessed it was you.” Anya glanced over at Buffy who was holding back her own tears. “Didn’t he tell you what happened?” Anya asked. “Oh, he tried. He tried to explain, to apologize. But I wouldn’t listen. I never listened to him. And then he went wild and tried to force himself on me. And then he just left. I don’t know if he’s lying in some dust heap or wrecking havoc on the world.” “I didn’t know…that’s bad…I can’t imagine him doing that to you. He must have been out of his mind to do something like that to you.” “Well we both drove each other full speed down the path to crazy. But I wish, I just wish I could talk to him now, wish that we could try to understand what happened. And I wish I could understand why I still love him. It hurts.” “Maybe someday you will.” Anya put her arm around Buffy’s shoulder and gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry. For everything.” * * * * * “Love. Give. Forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.”- The First Slayer * * * * * Spike placed the candle on a small ledge and then lay down on his bed. He put the small, sharp stake he’d been carrying with him for the past few months under the mattress and then he turned over and lay on his back. He stared at the ceiling. No that was not a good position, reminded him of all the times she straddled him and ridden him to ecstacy. Maybe on his side would be better. He rolled over onto his right side and faced the wall. Not that wasn’t any good either. He could see faintly scratched into the wall’s surface ‘Buffy & Spike’ written in the center of a heart. What a stupid love-sick wanker he'd been back then. Well, only a few more hours and it would all be over. He rolled over and lay on his stomach, pushing his face into the crumpled sheet. He felt a sharp needle like object stick his cheek. He felt under the sheet and pulled out a gold earring. Her earring he guessed, though he didn’t recognize it. “When had she lost it?” he wondered. “Which time?” He moaned as the memories overwhelmed him. He curled himself up on the far left hand corner of the bed and fell into a restless sleep. * * * * * Buffy stood naked before her mirror. Her body looked dull to her. Her skin seemed gray and lifeless. She was so tired. Poor Anya. Really felt sorry for her because she knew that Xander would never forgive her. Both of them were so desperately unhappy now. Life was just a stupid joke. What you want the most you mustn’t have. What you least desire flows into your hands like an endless river. Love. Whoever invented love must have had a truly sick mind. It was just a small, transient island of happiness battered by endless waves of pain. “Slayers should be exempt from love, from this kind of pain,” she thought. “Don’t we deserve a break, after all we do for the world?” She reached up to take off her new gold earrings that Dawn had bought for her. One was missing. “How could that happen?” she thought, “Wasn’t in any fights tonight…” Then she remembered what she’d done with Spike’s sheet. The earring must have gotten snagged in the sheet. “I have to go back and find it. Dawn will be so hurt if I lost it.” She sighed with resignation and slowly got dressed again. * * * * * Buffy entered Spike’s crypt in a daze. She was so sleepy. So exhausted from the emotions she’d felt that day. From her conversation with Anya. From remembering. She climbed down the ladder and gave a great yawn. She could just sleep for days. She went over and sat down softly on the bed. Maybe she’d just take a quick nap here, where no one could find her, bother her. She’d look for the earring later. Just a little sleep. She yawned and curled up on the right side of the bed and fell into a deep sleep. * * * * * Spike was having another bad dream. He was lurking in a dark corner of the Bronze watching Buffy dance. One after another young and handsome man came up to her and swept her around the dance floor. She was laughing and happy. She was free. Free of him he thought as he stood in the corner watching her every movement. Remembering how she used to dance in his arms. On top of him, under him, sweeping him up in the dance of her raw passion. Her passion for him. Suddenly the music stopped and the room darkened. And she was sitting alone in the middle of the Bronze, sitting alone on the floor in her bathrobe crying. He’d done that to her and he came out from where he was hiding and gave her the stake. Begged her to do what he asked. But she just shook her head. And he started yelling at her. “This is what you always wanted, what you’ve always really wanted to do. Just do it!” But she just kept shaking her head, the tears flowing down her face. And suddenly he was kneeling down on the floor next to her, and she took him in her arms and held on to him with such fierceness that he thought she’d break his ribs and the pain was so great, his chest felt like it would explode, the pain was so sharp and …. * * * * * “Ow! Bloody hell!” Spike yelled, jerked out of his sleep by the pain in his chest. Someone had their arms wrapped around him in a vise like grip. The candle had burned down and the room was in utter darkness. He rolled over struggling to free himself from the demon who had the death grip on him. “Buffy!” He tried to extricate himself from her arms, but she seemed to be trapped in some strange dream of her own and wouldn’t loosen her hold on him. “Spike…I need,” she moaned. He surrendered his body into her embrace. She began to kiss his face, pausing to inhale his scent, moaning and calling his name. “Buffy, wake up…wake up, love. It’s me. I’m here.” He placed his lips on hers and gently teased them open with his tongue. Tasting her sweetness, savoring the yielding softness of her mouth, her lips, her tongue as she opened to him completely. Their kiss lasted for hours it seemed, when she pulled back gasping for air and then snuggled her head under his neck. She relaxed her hold on him and her hands slowly stroked his skin. “Spike?” she whispered. “Yes love.” “I wasn’t really asleep. I…” “Don’t say anything…I have to tell you something first.” He slipped his hand under the mattress and brought up the stake. “Made this for you, for you to…” He gestured toward his heart. “The chip’s gone love. I’m all free and strong now so you don’t… you don’t need to feel guilty.” He placed the stake in her hand. She raised the stake into the air above them. She gave him a look of despair and with a sudden motion slashed it down toward her breast. He grabbed her wrist and stopped the stake before it pierced her skin. “Oh Buffy, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. What have we done to each other!” he cried. He wrenched the stake out of her hand and flung it across the room. “Don’t want to live without you. Please don’t leave me,” she begged as he started to rise from the bed. “What do you want? What do you want from me?” he cried. “I came here to let you stake me. Get it all over with. End this pain. What do you want from me?” “Want you to talk to me…talk to me…tell me everything. Tell me everything ‘cause I love you. Love you. And I need to understand why.” “Talk?” Spike lay back down on the bed and propped his head in his hand. “That’s it?” “Well for the next few days and then...” She slid her hand down the cool silken skin of his chest, and down the exquisite curve of his well muscled waist. “There might be just one more thing.” He gasped at her touch. “Days?” he asked. “Yes love, for days and days and days. I want to hear everything, every last detail, every last strange dusty corner of your mind. Everything.” “Do I get to eat during this verbal odyssey?” She laughed. “Forgot how beautiful your laugh is, pet.” He placed his hand on her forehead and pushed her tangled hair away from her face. “Just one question before I start,” He gave her a very serious look. “Do you know what the hell happened to my duster?” “I’m sensing a beautiful pattern here…” she smiled. “Say them again.” he asked. “You know…those words.” “I love you,” she whispered. * * * * * finis |
| Love and Chaos |
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