Title: Blackbird Author: Rose (compassrosey@yahoo.com) Summary: Adding the damage up. Author Notes: I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. -Wallace Stevens Yes, yes. I know Spuffy = wrong, morally repugnant. It's evil. I get it. Story Notes: Spoilers for most of season 6. Warnings: het Disclaimer: Not mine, but aren't you glad? Author's Website: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The first kiss (the real first kiss) tickles him all over his body. It makes him the happiest man in the world. He hates her, but somehow the thought of spending eternity with her fills him joy. Her mouth is so warm and it drips like a red wet red stain. For days afterwards he can taste chocolate and slayer. He pulls a blonde hair from a shirt. And for the first time he realizes she no more a real blonde than he is. She throws the ring back at him one day while he's chained in Giles' tub. He puts it in the inside pocket of his duster once he's allowed to the coat back on. He keeps it there for a long while, and runs his fingers around the hard of edge of it when he gets bored. He doesn't put the ring back on again until much later-when he loves her and can't taste her in his mouth anymore-- when he's at his lowest point. He puts it on the fourth finger of his left hand. He tells himself that they have to be bonded in some way now, since they've exchanged rings. 2. The second kiss is the best. It's the most unexpected of all the kisses and just what he needs. He hadn't noticed that the 'bot was cold as he was. It had been long enough since the first kiss (the real first kiss) that he had forgotten her heat. But he felt it now. And what she was doing and why she was there rips through him. As though he could put Dawn in danger, as though she thought he could. Hadn't she left the bite sized one under his care enough, did she think he would've passed the little bit off to the first power hungry god who came along? He knows it's her and can't resist. He dips his head down for more, opens his mouth, just- But she's already halfway across the crypt. 3. The first kiss is magic. Not as in the oh god melty good magic kind of way, but in the demons who wear zoot suits and have good rhythm kind of way. The kiss itself is kind of icky: too much tongue for a first kiss, too much teeth altogether. It feels like he's going to chew her lips off. Where did he think they were? Behind the 7-11 in the sixth grade? In the Bronze his hand on her face had caused a landslide in her body. Something gave way, slipped lose from its moorings and slid the length of her insides to pool, wet and heavy between her legs. It wasn't the fire in her belly that she remembered, but it was something. She pulls away to breathe and he says her name. The landslide starts again. She leans back into him, but hears Dawn calling her name. She pushes Spike away and runs to her sister. 4. She goes to the Bronze to get fucked. Let's be honest, folks, she thinks as she sits in the bar and waits for sex to come walking up to her. 40 minutes later, no takers. And no liquor, the bartender won't believe she's a day over 16 and even if she were of age, she's not carrying ID. But even after today's trip down memory-less lane, she doesn't think about getting a wallet. Aren't I still a hottie? She wonders. Was it always this hard to get laid and I just never knew it. There are more things she wishes she could just stay in the dark about. She won't think about Giles on a plane or the domestic melodrama going on at her house. Instead she contemplates her nails, which are chipped and her cuticles, which are in terrible shape. She concentrates on the display of bottles behind the bar. She tries to burn. Spike comes, which is perfect in so many ways. She won't think about him either, with his tongue and too earnest face. Earnest doesn't look good on him and she actually misses way back when he wanted her dead, instead of wanting her period. He stomps away and she think he could teach Dawn a thing or two about being a brat. But then it hits her: she's passing up her chance for sex tonight. Sex with a vampire. Again. Won't daddy be proud? She catches him with a hand around his wrist. He has thin wrists, like girl. It's easy to lead him under the stairs. Whatever he's saying she doesn't hear. It doesn't matter now anyway. This time the kisses are better. His mouth is cold on hers and soft, like the secret meat of oysters or the fleshy insides of her upper arms where she used to practice kissing when she was a little girl. His tongue moves against hers, traces her teeth, flicks against the roof of her mouth. She almost loses herself for a second, almost winds her arms around him to pull him close. They break a part for a moment and he rests his forehead on hers. She makes herself open her eyes and sees that his are still closed. He traces the planes of her face with his, with his nose. He's totally lost now, she can tell. His hands are on her waist. But his fingers have found their way past her clothes. His thumbs run back and fourth under the waistband of her jeans, his fingers splay out on her stomach. She leans back against the support beam and his face follows for a second before he opens his eyes and looks at her. He steps into her space again. With one hand he pulls her hips back toward him, just her hips. With the other hand he touches her face. She takes his thumb into her mouth, closes her teeth on the first joint. "Let's get out of here," he says She tilts her head back, letting this thumb fall from her mouth. "Where would we go?" she asks. The possibility of escape fills her with a strange anticipation. "I don't care," he grounds out. "Anywhere I can be alone with you." He pushes back into her space until she's standing up straight again and pinned between him and the stairs. She realizes he's talking about sex, not running away and even though she came to the Bronze to get fucked, she suddenly does not want to have sex with a vampire. Again. Especially not this vampire. "I have to get back," she tells him. "Dawn," she says with a quick snap, and there it is--her get out of jail free card. She worries about using it so early in the game. She's not sure it's a trick that will work again. 5. She fucks him with her eyes open. He's not used to it. It undoes him. That first moment-- when he knew he was inside her, and knew she knew, knew that she had made a choice--she kept his eyes. He thinks he'll remember it forever. Now he can't stop touching her. Won't stop. He can fight back now, and he's remembered how to fight for what he wants. He forgets from time to time that it's never the good man that makes them weak in the knees, never the brooding, drunk, bloody awful poet. It's the thing somewhere inside him that is unafraid; that's what they are attracted to. She only really looks at him when he's inside her. And with each thrust of his cock, his fingers, his tongue, he thinks, my god she see me. In the end that's all he ever wanted from any woman. So he won't stop touching her. Because when he's touching her, he can see she's right there with him. For the first time since he first saw her after the summer, standing on the stairs, he thinks she feels something. This is the woman he always wanted. He takes her shoulder and rolls her onto her back, towards him. He covers her with his body. "Say you want me," he tells her. "You want me," she answers back and bites at his chin. He just laughs then and kisses her neck, her clavicle, nips her shoulder because he can. She puts one arm around him and the other reaches up towards the second floor they fell from. "Oh God, Spike," she breathes into his ear. "I can see stars." 6. He waits downstairs and smokes, because he knows she'll be able to smell it. He knows she'll come downstairs and tell him to stop, tell him to get out. She caught his eye and gave him a dirty look when she saw him out front on her way back from taking the Nibblet to hospital. But she didn't re-whammy the place or even lock the door, so he sits and fight an urge to see what's on cable. It takes her while to come down and when she does, she smells like garlic. "You have to go," she whispers in that fake way that's not a whisper at all. She crosses her arms under her breasts. She's wearing a thin undershirt, the kind with the tiny straps that are more like dental floss. Her nipples stand out in little points and he thinks he can barely make out their dark pink color through the shirt. In a flash he's off the couch and into her space. One hand tips her face up to his and he just barely kisses her. Then he waits back a bit. She opens her eyes to see where his mouth has gone. She licks her lips. She moves in toward him, but he doesn't meet her halfway, makes her close the whole distance herself. And she does. 7. Being invisible makes her think that part of the reason vampires can do whatever they want is the whole "not having to see yourself in the mirror" thing She's not thinking about yesterday, she's not thinking about tomorrow, she's not even thinking about today. She feels unencumbered, light as snow, without a name. Or she would feel without a name if Spike would stop saying it over and over. She stops licking her way up the inside of his thigh and moves up his body. He gives a little disappointed sigh and she shuts his mouth with a kiss. He looks surprised. She thinks it must be like being blindfolded without the blindfold and laughs at her own joke. And at the sound he smiles. She had never noticed what a nice smile he has, like a normal person, like a real boy. She moves away from his body and lifts his head looking for her. He has only a vague idea where she is and what she's doing. She licks one of his nipples and then blows across it. He groans. He waits for her to move again. 8. She loves the job. She hates the smell and most of her co-workers and the scratchy polyester uniform and of course the stupid hat. But the job itself is great. All her friends think she's depressed. God, if only, she thinks. She doesn't have the energy to be depressed. Or angry, or anything else for that matter. It takes work to feel; she knows that now. And it's all so hard. Sure, it was easy to be kicky and rebellious with more than a touch of teenage defiance when all you we defying was math and gym and your mother. She can't stand how she's expected to be pretty, and smart, and the warrior of the people. Something's got to give. So she works double shifts at the DMP and if she burns the burgers no one talks about how the world might end. The register even tells her how to make change. It's hours and hours and hours a day when no one expects anything of her and she doesn't have to be the one to make decisions. She borders on lazy. She passes the buck. She disappears. The only thing that ruins it is when Spike comes by with his face and his tongue and his you're better than this. Oh, yeah better than fried notmeat, but not too good for a quickie by the dumpster. He doesn't really like to do her there, she can tell. But it's not like he's gonna say no. He tries to kiss her and she won't let him, until he grabs her jaw with his hand and forces her mouth open with his. And that's okay, too. She'd rather it not be up to her. 9. Buffy never locks her front door. And even though vamps need the invite to get in, Xander thinks it's about time she learned how to turn a deadbolt. Locks are just as good as keeping people in as they are at keeping people out. He's early for the meeting and doesn't see anyone in the house. He yells up the stairs and no one comes running. He's about to walk into the kitchen when he sees what has to be Spike's duster clad back. He opens his mouth to tell Spike to get the hell out, but he stops when a girlish hands appears and fingers try and thread though Spike's over gelled hair. This makes Xander pause. Then he hears Buffy and he thinks he's going to be sick. "Everybody will be here soon," she says. "You have to go." "Make me," Spike answers back. And then there are the kissing sounds. Xander really feels the need to throw up- literally, right there on Buffy's carpet. Why me, he thinks. Why am I always the one who has to see Buffy in flagrante delicto - er, corpus delicti with the wrong guy? "Why don't you ever listen to me when I tell you to go?" She sounds petulant and very young. It's a Buffy he hasn't heard in years. "I'll believe you want me to go when you can tell me without your hand on my ass, pet." Okay, Xander thinks, vomit again. Buffy laughs and he hears her hit Spike. "Hey, now! Watch the leather," Spike says and he laughs, too. Xander is about to burst in and make a scene, but something inside stops him. She sounded so very young. And he thinks in a way she still is. He loves her, she's his friend, but he thinks, she's frozen in a parody of who she used to be. That's what they did to her. When they brought her back. For the first time it really occurs to him that Buffy dropped out of college. He knows now what that means. He's gone on to other things, but Buffy-She's still making out with vampires. He loves her, God, it amazes him sometimes how much more he can love her now as a friend, now that he doesn't want her. He wants something more for her, but he doesn't know what it is-- how to give it her or lead her to it. He thinks this thing with Spike, whatever it is, will end badly. And he hopes, he prays, that it will be the thing that finally sends Spike out of their lives. So, Xander promises then, decides at that moment, that he will always be her friend. That he will be the one man who never disappears from her life. 10. She knows he asleep because he's not breathing. When he sleeps, he sleeps like, well, he sleeps like the dead. He's sprawled on the bed, shirt off and his face is still a mess. She doesn't know why she came. It seemed easier to just come here than to try and go home. She doesn't want to see Dawn right now. She can't even bring herself to feel guilty about that. She just wants it quiet and being with Spike can make her head be still. She knows he won't make her talk, and she hopes in some offhand part deep inside that he'll take revenge for what she did to his face. But behold the dark knight: after a bloody confrontation in the alleyway, he comes home and conks out. She almost has a new respect for him: sometimes he does know when to quit. She wants to say she's sorry, but she isn't really. It's more that she's sorry that she's not sorry. She knows there was a time there that she did treat him like a man, but now he's less than a vampire to her. And she's almost sorry for that. How do you apologize to the devil, she wonders. Because he doesn't breathe, he doesn't snore, which is a blessing. She takes off her clothes and moves to join him in the bed, but she's cold and she remembers that it won't be any warmer next to him. So she hunts in the dark a bit for one of his black T-shirts. She puts it on and it hits her how physically small he really is. He's not much taller than she is. She lies down next to Spike without actually touching him. She molds herself into the hollows his body leaves in the bed. 11. These days he's actually glad she doesn't spend the night. He likes to watch the clothes come back on. It seems sexier to see how she shimmies back in to her jeans, than to actually have his dick inside her. She keeps her back turned tonight. Her arms reach behind and her fingers work her bra together. She rolls her shoulders into the straps and he smiles, because he'll never be tired of seeing that. He hordes these small bight intimacies. They make him feel more alive than blood. He's addicted to the access he has to her now. He loved being her confessor, even though he was uncomfortable with the responsibility that some times came with knowing her secrets. Now that they're sleeping together, she doesn't talk to him anymore. Still, he thinks, he must know her better than anyone around these days. The thought makes him dizzy, important. Willow can't know can't know the way Buffy's eyes flutter when she comes. Harris can't know the way Buffy turns her shirts counterclockwise while looking for the tag before putting it on. But the thought still nags him that there's something important he's missing-- that's there's something she's not telling him. He moves to the edge of the bed and hooks a finger in the waistband of her pants. "Come here," he says. "No, Spike. C'mon. I have to go. Dawn-" "--Is getting to be a big girl." He's on his knees on the bed now, hands on her waist turning her towards him. He nuzzles her neck, tries not to notice the scars from Angel, Dracula. "Stay. Here. With me." 12. She's looking for her underwear, again. She can't find it anywhere. She's sure she was wearing it when they came down the ladder. Not her shirt and her bra-they're still upstairs, but her underwear... She remembers he was on his knees when she climbed down and he had kissed her stomach, ran his tongue in circles around her belly button and started undoing her pants. She sees her pants, but her undies are no where to be found. Then it hits her. "Spike," she says with her back still towards him "I can't afford your underwear habit. Give 'em back." "I don't know what you're talking about." She turns around just in time to see him sling shot them across the crypt. They hit her in the shoulder. "Ruin all my fun," he sulks. "You're just freakish," she says and starts getting dressed. "No," he answers and puts his arms behind his head "vampire." "I know," she tells him. And she thinks about killing him. She thinks about it a lot actually. And this is what she thinks: It would be harder to kill him than it was to kill Angel. Not because she loves him more, but because he's so in her life. With Angel it was love and all so new and strange. She wanted to carry it in her pocket for always. Keep it special just for herself. There were things she never even told Willow, because she had thought that part of love was a secret between the two people involved. But she honestly doesn't love Spike, never tried to make a place just for him. So, he snuck in where ever he could. Now he's tied up in so many of the important moments of her life- killing Angel, Riley leaving, Giles leaving, her mother dying, her job, and Dawn, and Dawn. Instead she kills herself bit by bit day by day. It's easier than having his dust on her shoes. 13. The problem is, Spike thinks, you never know it's the last time until it's too late. He's said it before and he'll say it again. Not that their last time hadn't been great, because it was- he had just thought maybe they had turned a corner in their... whatever it was. He was right about the corner, but it just wasn't the corner he thought it was, wanted it to be. The last time he loved it lasted for more than a century. That made this seem like a footnote. He didn't want that. He wanted some proof that it was real, that it had happened. But there was nothing. The marks on their bodies healed and disappeared. His crypt, where they had spent so many hours, was dust and ash. Tell me you love me, she had said. He takes the ring off his finger. Oh, pet. I do.