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Blood and Fire	By : addielogan Category: -Buffy the Vampire Slayer > Het - Male/Female > Buffy/Spike(William) > Buffy/Spike(William) Views: 8173 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Spike's only real communication with the
bartender had been his gruff order to keep his glass full and the quiet yet
menacing growl he'd given when the bartender had tried to tell him he'd had
enough. Spike would know when he'd had enough, and seeing as he was still able
to feel, that time had not yet come.
However, he was beginning to doubt that
there was enough alcohol in that place to fix his mood. He needed a real
release. He needed violence and bloodshed.
His gaze fixed on a burly man who had been
monopolizing the pool table for most of the night, and he grinned slowly. Nothing
got someone ready for a fight quicker than losing money, and Spike was sure he
could arrange himself a good brawl. It wouldn't be as satisfying as a hunt and
a kill, but it would do.
Spike downed the rest of his drink then
stood and made his way to the pool table.

***
*** ***
Buffy paced in front of the couch. Spike had
been gone for hours, and she had no idea where he'd gone. She'd tried
reaching out through the claim, but with the dark haze she had found in Spike's
mind, she had quickly decided it was best just to keep as pulled back from him
as she could. His current mood was not one she wanted to share.
Her stomach growled softly, but she ignored
it, her focus completely on Spike. Her emotions ran back and forth between
angry and worried as her thoughts bounced from the way he'd just left
after dropping the whole immortal bombshell on her to concern over where he
could be and if he was in any sort of trouble, and back again.
She stopped in mid-pace when she heard the
door open and gasped as she turned and saw Spike. It was obvious he'd been in a
fight, and Buffy gave into her first urge, which was to run over to him and
help him out of his coat. "Where have you been? What happened?" she
asked quickly.
Spike winced in pain as the duster slid off
into Buffy's arms. "Went to a bar. Got in a bit of a fight. I'm
fine."
Buffy's concern began to fade, and she
tossed the duster over the edge of the couch before crossing her arms in front
of her. "You were in a bar fight?"
"Yeah. What of it?"
"I have been worried about you all
night, and then here you come just walking in after being gone for hours, all
beat up from a bar fight!" Buffy yelled. "What is wrong with you,
huh?"
Spike stepped back, his annoyance at her
yelling making him totally miss the part where she admitted to worrying about
him. "I needed to get out for a bit! And what's with you, huh? You
tell me to leave you alone all the sodding time, and when I finally do, I come
home to finding you playing nagging wife!"
"Oh, don't you even make this about
me," Buffy snapped. "You left me here alone and didn't even tell me
where you were going!"
"Yeah, cause when I left, you really
wanted to talk to me."
"You could've left a note!"
Spike held up a hand. "I'm not in the
mood for this, Buffy. I needed a drink, and I needed a brawl, so I went out."
"You needed a brawl? What the
hell does that mean? You like getting your face beat in?"
"The other guy looks a lot worse."
At the look of horror that went across Buffy's face at that, Spike sighed.
"He's alive. I didn't kill, didn't feed�which you should know, since you
would've felt it if I had. I didn't do anything he can't heal from. And yeah, I
need a fight now and then. Demon, craves violence�stop me when I get to something
that you don't already know."
Buffy's eyes narrowed. "I know all of that."
"Yeah, well, then you can just accept
the fact that I need a fight now and then. You won't let me feed, so I can't
get what I need there, and our sex life is a bloody joke so that doesn't
help matters much either."
Buffy's mouth fell open slightly and her
eyes filled with hurt. "Our sex life is a joke?" she asked in a small
voice.
Spike sighed when he realized what he'd said.
"I didn't mean it like that. The sex itself is good, kitten�you know it
is. But you go hot and cold on me all the time, and I can't count on getting it
every time I need it."
"So it's my fault that you go out and
get into bar fights because I don't have sex with you enough?"
"Well, yeah."
Buffy threw her hands up in disgust. "You're
a pig." She turned to storm off, but quickly realized there wasn't really
anywhere to go in the hotel to get away from him, so she sat down on the couch
instead, pointedly not looking at him.
"Bollocks," Spike muttered. Then
he spoke louder. "Buffy, I didn't� Come on, I'm drunk and I just got into
a bloody fight. You can't honestly expect to have a real conversation about any
of this right now."
"There's no conversation to have,
Spike."
Spike's anger rose again at that. "There
bloody well is! I am so tired of this from you. You go back and forth on me all
the time so I never know which version of you I'm gonna get. And nothing I do
is ever good enough for you. I try to act like a man, you throw it back in my
face. I act like a demon, and I disgust you. What can I do?"
Buffy turned, her eyes red with tears even
as her muscles trembled with anger. "Take it all back! Erase all of this,
so I can just go back to my life!"
"Well I can't! We're stuck with each
other forever, whether you like it or not!"
Silence hung between them for long moments
until Buffy finally whispered, just loud enough for Spike's vampiric hearing to
detect, "I can't keep doing this."
He responded honestly. "Neither can
I."
"So what are we going to do?"
The question was the elephant that had
followed them since he'd first claimed her, and now it was out in the open.
Neither one of them could go back to the lives they'd led before meeting, and
the one they'd started together wasn't working either. On top of that, every
attempt Spike had made to make things work between them had fallen flat. So
where did that leave them?
His head and body ached, and Spike wished he
could go to bed and save this for later, but he also knew he couldn't. They
couldn't go on with this game of tug of war any longer, and with Buffy so apt
to change her mood in a blink, he had to take advantage of the moment when it
came. He walked over the couch and sat beside Buffy, close to her, but not
touching.
"We're in this for the long haul
now," Spike said. "I can't take it back. I'm sorry."
"Sorry you claimed me?" Buffy
asked.
Spike shook his head. "No. I know you
probably want me to be, but I can't. I'm a right selfish bastard, I know, but I
want you. You're mine, and I can't see that as a bad thing�even if you do have
a habit of driving me around the sodding bend. I've always been love's bitch,
and now you're the woman I love, so all I want is to be with you. Simple as
that. But I am sorry for the way it all happened. I've hurt you. I know that.
And I'm sorry."
Buffy looked at him, the expression on her
face one Spike couldn't quite figure out. But she wasn't yelling at him, so he
decided to take that as a good sign. "Would you do it all over
again?"
"No," Spike replied, shaking his
head. "I would've claimed you that first time in the warehouse and then
gone off with you someplace nice." He offered her a small smile.
"Too bad you're so flammable. We
could've gone to Mexico, been beach bums."
"Beach still looks pretty in the night
time, pet."
Buffy gave a half smile, though pain was
still clear in her eyes. Spike felt something clutch the inside of his chest,
and he was surprised to note that it was genuine guilt. He'd spent over
a century living without guilt, without regrets, and now�he hurt because he'd
hurt this girl. It wasn't the way things were supposed to be, not with him
being a vampire, but it was the truth all the same. The longer he was around
her, the more he thought about the things he'd done to her, the worse it made
him feel.
He wanted to make it up to her. Not because
he wanted to get her to love him, but because he thought she deserved it. It
was a strange moment of epiphany for him, and he wondered if it would all seem
the same in the morning when the haze of too much drink was gone.
Buffy didn't just feel the way she did
towards him because she hated vampires. She felt the way she did because he was
her tormenter. He'd taken her life as much as if he'd drained her dry�only worse
because now he'd forced her into what for her must be something akin to hell.
But he couldn't change anything about the
past. He couldn't go back in time and whisk her off the first time they met so
he could treat her right from the very beginning. And even if he could, who was
to say it would bring them any place different? All he had to work with now was
the present, and what it would mean for their future. Odds were they had a lot
of future stretched ahead of them at that, and he couldn't go on they way they
had been any more than she could.
He cupped her cheek, grateful when she
didn't pull away from his touch. "What do you need to make you happy, pet?
Tell me."
Buffy swallowed, her gaze seeming to search
Spike's for long moments before she answered. "I need�I need to know who
killed my mother. It's been all I've focused on for so long, and I can't just
stop my search. If it wasn't you that did it, then I need to know who
did. There's someone out there that took my mother's life, and all that knowing
that does is eat away at me. She needs her peace, Spike. I have to give it to
her."
It wasn't the answer Spike had been
expecting, though he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. When he'd met
her, Buffy had been consumed by the need to avenge her mother, willingly
pitting herself more than once against a vampire that she had been no match for
in order to try to fulfill that need. Of course it was something that still
weighed on her. At least she'd seemed to accept that it really wasn't him who
had killed Joyce.
"Then we'll find who it was,"
Spike told her. "I've got a connection to the demon world�obviously. I can
help you."
For the first time since he'd claimed her,
Spike saw hope in Buffy's eyes. "Can you? Will you?"
"Of course, pet. You're my mate, Buffy.
Your fight is mine now."
"How are you going to help me?"
"Well, she died in Los Angeles, right?
I figure we can start by going back there. It's been several years, yeah, but
the death of a Slayer isn't something that stays quiet. Whoever killed her is
probably still bragging about it to this day�you can take my word on that one.
I can get into places you can't, and I can look around, listen to who's still
talking. Hopefully, I'll find who did it."
"And then what?" Buffy asked.
"I kill them," Spike replied with
a shrug.
Buffy shook her head. "No. I
kill them."
"Buffy, listen to me. Whoever offed
your mum has got to be strong�killin' a Slayer isn't an easy task. Had things
gone differently, I would've killed you when you came after me. I'm not letting
you put yourself in that sort of danger. You want your mother's murderer dead,
fine�he's as good as dead. But you're not going to be the one to do it."
Buffy raised her chin. "I'm stronger
now than I was."
"Doesn't make a difference," Spike
replied.
"I don't need to be protected,
Spike," Buffy snapped. "I'm not incapable of fighting."
"I never said you were. But I'm not
going to let you put yourself in unnecessary danger either."
"Avenging the death of my mother isn't
'unnecessary danger.'"
"It is if I can do it for you!"
Buffy opened her mouth to protest again at that, and Spike realized quickly
that he wasn't going to get her to see things his way, so he spoke again.
"Look, how about this�when we find out who it was, we decide how we're going
to handle it, all right?"
Buffy knew he was placating her, but she was
willing to go along with it for the time being. After they found out who it
was, she could do what needed to be done. "Okay. Can we start for L.A. tomorrow
night?"
"If that's what you want to do, yeah,
we can."
She gave him a genuine smile before she
surprised Spike by siding up to him and resting her head against him. He put
his arm around her, but said nothing, not wanting to spoil this moment between
them. Tonight had been the exact opposite of everything else between them,
starting with the anger and hurtful words and ending with something close to
peace. He wasn't fool enough to think it would be smooth sailing for them from that
point on, but at least there seemed to be the possibility that they could be
moving towards something other than the constant conflict that had plagued
their relationship.
Maybe it was progress. Spike could only
hope.
Eventually, Buffy's breathing pattern
changed, and Spike realized she'd fallen asleep. He smiled softly and kissed the
top of her head before he picked her up and carried her to the bed to tuck her
in.

***
*** ***
See? I can move things along!
Please review.
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