Buffy sat on her bed, stunned. Spike had gone to feed...to kill a human being. How could she have let herself ignore that fundamental part of him?
Fury swept through her and Buffy stormed into the bathroom, stripping the t-shirt over her head. Turning on the cold water, she stepped into the shower and yelled in shock as the water hit her. As her body adjusted to the temperature, she grabbed soap and a washcloth and began to scrub her body, trying to rid herself of Spike's touch.
This was becoming a bad habit. She craved his touch...but when reality returned...he was a vampire, a demon, a killer. He was out there killing...and she had given herself to him eagerly...joyfully. The lips that had kissed her with such tender hunger were now satiating another hunger.
He was killing. She should have stopped him. Why hadn't she stopped him? Screaming into the spray of cold water, Buffy rubbed the sponge over her breasts, digging deeply into skin that had so recently flushed at a demon's touch.
Buffy's skin reddened from the cold water and her hard scrubbing, but she kept going, washing from head to toe, desperate to erase his touch from her skin.
It didn't help. She had turned her back on everything, betrayed everyone she loved and everything she believed in--family, friends, her home, her duty...She had learned to live with that. Existing from day to day, not thinking, not remembering.
And then he had dropped into her life, forcing her to remember, forcing her to feel. Emotions buried for two months were swelling inside her, driving her insane...and memories...
Screaming, "NO," she squeezed her eyes shut against the images of her greatest betrayal. Shivering at the cold, Buffy continued to scrub her aching body, wishing, praying that the scourging of her flesh would help cleanse her soul.
Finally, gasping for breath, Buffy turned off the water and staggered from the shower. Staring into the mirror over the sink, she saw a wild-eyed stranger. A stranger who had let a demon fuck her, not once, but twice. A stranger who had reveled in the pleasure that demon gave her. For two months, this stranger had been the only reflection Buffy had seen.
The icy, hard woman in the mirror was not a Buffy Summers any one from her past would recognize. Physically she was the same...but on the inside...She was whatever that Buffy Summers had evolved into...a shell of the seventeen year old girl from Sunnydale. This woman was a survivor. She could exist by ignoring the past, the memories, the emotions.
Except...that when Spike touched her...instead of bringing her closer to death...he brought her to life. During sex she could exist in the present, but as soon as her body calmed, long dormant emotions threatened to escape. Against her will, Spike was making her feel...and she hated it. The icy woman in the mirror was beginning to melt...
Fear swamped her. Fear of buried emotions. Fear of this strange need she had for a demon. Fear of her memories. The woman in the mirror was shaking, shattering.
Buffy couldn't bear to watch her destruction. Screaming, she brought her doubled fists crashing into the mirror.
*****
When Spike returned to the trailer an hour later, the first thing that hit him was not a frying pan or a stake, as he half expected, but the smell of blood. A bolt of fear went through him as he hurried through the trailer. He didn't want to think about the possibilities.
Relief flooded him when he found the Slayer on her knees in the bathroom, pressing a towel to the bleeding side of one hand. A glance showed him that there was broken glass from the mirror all over the counter and floor.
Sensing his presence, Buffy looked up with dull, empty eyes, and rose to her feet, completely unconscious of her nudity. Spike's eyes narrowed as he saw the ugly red marks on her body. She had scrubbed herself nearly raw in places. Idly, he wondered if she believed she had succeeded in wiping away his touch.
Why did he understand her need to cleanse? Shouldn't he feel pissed that she had felt this need? As Buffy took a step towards him, Spike saw that she was about to walk uncaring on the shards of glass. Shrugging off his questions, he swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
Laying her on the bed, he shrugged out of his jacket, then sat down next to her. Carefully he picked up her wounded hand, unwrapping the towel to examine the cut. "It's already healing," he murmured, then rewrapped it in the clean part of the towel. "How'd this happen?"
Buffy rolled her head away from him. Ever since she had broken the mirror, she felt as if she was moving in slow motion. Her body, her mind, all plugging along at a snail's pace. Now, his presence had caused everything to speed up again. Now she had to surrender the comforting numbness that surrounded her. Now, she had to deal with the enormity of the events of the past twenty-four hours.
But, she didn't want to. Denial was not just a river.
As Spike touched her hand, Buffy's body quivered anew with desire. Somewhere inside her, she wondered why she would want him after trying so desperately to rid herself of any reminder of his touch, but, she was in control enough to realize that she was out of control. She just didn't care anymore. For two months she had repressed all her emotions until she could forget they had ever existed.
His presence in her life had reawakened those emotions past the point where she could deal with them. They were burying her. Love, hate, passion, joy, fear, all were combining to send her flying further out of control of her life. So, she clung to the one thing that made sense...even if the thing she was clinging to was the creature who had set the emotions free.
For a few moments, he could make her forget. He could make her feel physical pleasure to the point her soul would stop screaming. She needed the emotions to go away!
Spike nearly fell over as the Slayer scrambled onto his lap, wrapping her arms and legs around him, clinging like a leech. Her mouth attacked his and he responded, helpless against her sudden, surprising desire.
"Fuck me," Buffy began to babble between passionate kisses. "Just fuck me."
Spike's eyes narrowed and he pulled back from her. This sudden change in attitude was very suspicious. Did she really want him to fuck her or did she want to fall further into denial? After their first time together, neither had wanted to face the consequences. Now...now it was time. He just had to make her understand that. And to do that, he had to get her off his lap before his body took over and told his mind to fuck off.
Buffy latched her mouth onto his throat, nibbling and sucking the sensitive skin until Spike groaned in a combination of lust and regret. This was going to be hard. It took all of his willpower to peel her off of him. "No."
Buffy gave him a wounded look and Spike intercepted her hand going for his crotch, then jumped off the bed.
"Get dressed, slayer. We're going to talk."
Buffy pouted, her mind whirling in a desperate attempt to blanket the emotions raging within her body which trembled with desire. Pouting was going to get her nowhere after one hundred and fifty years of experience with Drusilla's many moods. Spike spun around and left the room, ignoring the Slayer's cry of outrage.
"Come back here, Spike." Buffy couldn't believe he was leaving her. He was a vampire, for God's sake. They'd fuck anything.
Cold anger flooded her. She didn't want to talk. Hadn't she been proving that? Shaking with unfulfilled desire and anger, Buffy rose from the bed and pulled on a t-shirt, kicking the rest of her clothes out of the way and throwing the no longer necessary towel across the room. Almost reveling in the anger--on the theory that, if she had to feel anything, anger was something that she had a chance of dealing with--Buffy stormed out of the room after him.
Spike sat in the easy chair, brooding. The sight of him, lips tight, eyes narrowed, sent a shiver of remembrance through her. It was too familiar...too painful. Wrapping her arms around her suddenly trembling body, Buffy sank onto the couch, her mind whirling with unwanted images of another vampire brooding.
Silence reigned for several minutes, the only sound her rapidly increasing breathing as she fought against the tide of emotions rising in her. She didn't want to feel. She didn't want to feel anything. It was the only way she survived.
"It helps me not think," Buffy murmured, almost to herself. "I can't think, won't think." Her eyes flashed wildly around the room before finding her lap. Drawing her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and buried her face, rocking slightly.
Spike watched the Slayer retreating and knew he had to stop it. She was manic...and it really bothered him.
"Why are you here?" he asked softly.
"Running, always running, have to run," Buffy chanted against her knees.
"But you've stopped."
Looking up at him, Buffy felt a sense of desolation hit her. Why had she stopped? At first, she hadn't had any money, but now...She began to shake her head.
Not getting an answer, Spike tried another question. "What are you running from, Buffy?"
Buffy was silent for another moment, the question racing around her brain. Taking a deep, ragged breath, she tried to ignore the emotions just below the surface, boiling. Anger. She had felt anger tonight for the first time in two months. She had liked it. The sight of him brooding had driven it away. She needed it back. It doused the other emotions...the ones which terrified her.
"Go away, Spike," she whispered harshly, nearly begging. If he went away, she could forget. She could curl up in a ball and stop thinking, stop feeling, stop hurting. If he wouldn't make her angry, she needed him to leave. She would not allow herself to feel anything else.
"If I go away...how long do you think you'll survive?"
Buffy gave him a harsh laugh that echoed with everything but humor. "All I do is survive, Spike."
"Physically, yeah. This evening, slayer, you forgot. You forgot whatever it was that drove you from Sunnyhell to here. You forgot to feel pain and let yourself feel joy...with your friends and in bed with me."
Suddenly furious again, Buffy screamed at him, "GO TO HELL."
"I'm not the one in Hell, luv. HE is."
Just like that, the fury vanished. Buffy began to shake her head, rocking on the couch. "No, I won't think about this. Just go away, go to New Orleans. Please..."
"You're pathetic, slayer. So pathetic that it's actually frightening."
"Fuck you."
Spike replied in a cheerful tone, "You already did that, luv."
Buffy's eyes snapped up, full of the anger that roared through her body. A part of her wondered, how many times she could go from fury to despair. Her mind felt like it was being twisted inside out and her heart and soul ached.
"There's only one answer, slayer. I knew it five minutes after I fled the mansion and the world was still around. He pulled the sword...there was only one way to stop Acathla."
"Shut up," Buffy yelled through clenched teeth. "Get out of my house. Leave me alone." She would not think about this. She would not. She would not. Deny the memories, deny the emotions...she had to or she would go insane.
"You sent Angelus to Hell. Good for you, luv."
Anguish roared through her. The images assaulted her. Desperately struggling to deny them, Buffy focused on her anger. Looking up again, she gave Spike a nasty look, delighting in the renewed fury. If he was going to make her hurt, he was going to feel the same pain.
"Where's Drusilla, Spike? Where's your black goddess? Did she leave you because you betrayed her? Did she run back to Sunnydale to find something you obviously couldn't give her? Maybe she let herself burn in the sun just so she could be with HIM."
Spike glared back at her, digging his fingers into the arms of the chair as anger surged through him. He managed to keep his voice even. "So, the bitch is back."
Swallowing hard, Buffy uncurled herself from the couch and rose to her feet. "Isn't that what you wanted? You couldn't kill the ice cold stranger I've become or the weeping, sobbing twit or the pathetic slut so desperate to be held, to feel the touch of a man, she'd sleep with her mortal enemy. But, you can kill the bitch."
His eyes never leaving the now aggressive Slayer, Spike slowly rose to his feet. He could almost see the fury vibrating from her. The ice queen, the weeper, the slut, the bitch...they were all aspects of the Slayer. He needed her to deal with her ragged emotions, with the past, with her reasons for running. He needed her to make herself whole again...and deep inside himself, he knew why.
If Spike could help the Slayer become whole, show her how to learn to live without Angelus and with what she did...he could learn to live without Drusilla. Maybe then the hole inside him could be filled and he could feel something other than the constant sorrow he hid so very well.
Buffy wasn't the only one in denial. Spike was simply more experienced at hiding it.
"I don't want you dead," he said softly.
Buffy gave him a disbelieving look. "I thought that would be your greatest joy."
"So did I, Buffy, so did I."