The worst thing about living in Europe is that everyone smokes. Which, sure, is a nasty habit and also a really unhealthy one if you're alive and can get cancer. Cigarette butts litter the ground and the smell clings to her hair and one night she catches Dawn with one and has to launch off into a long lecture (and she hasn't missed Mom this much in years). But she'd be able to roll her eyes and bear it if it weren't for the fact that the smell is everywhere and so she can't escape memories of him.
No one in her life ever smoked (except for Faith, but she never really counted, since she was more an episodic presence: show up, cause trouble, piss Buffy off, disappear—which, interestingly enough, is also the pattern Spike followed in the beginning). No one but Spike. Cigarettes were Spike, the white cylinder wrapped in his long ivory fingers, dangling from his too-tempting mouth, littering the roots of his tree outside her house (and when did she start thinking of it as Spike's tree and begin remembering with wistfulness the nights he would lurk there, anyway?). But most of all, the smell—wafting up to her open window as she lay in bed (and no, she would never admit to purposefully leaving it open so that she could smell the smoke drifting up from below his tree), wrapped around that old butter-smooth leather of his duster, lurking in his crypt, clinging to her own hair after a few hours spent with him (and she tries now to forget how she would hurry home after to take a shower, to scrub away the ghost of his touch from her skin and the scent of him from her hair).
Maybe the best memories the smoke stirs in her are quiet nights sitting on the steps of her back porch, silence and smoke bridging the distance between them (more than making love to him or fighting by his side or talking with him, she dreams of sitting in silence with him, knowing she's completely understood and unconditionally loved).
Yes, there are good memories, but she kind of hates that she can't walk out of her apartment door without being hit by waves of smoke (or at least that's the way it seems) and assaulted by memories. And even if the scent is a bit different (a foreign kind of tobacco, she guesses), it doesn't matter.
Every cigarette in Rome is another memory of Spike, burning in her heart.
--
The worst thing about living (unliving?) in L.A. is all the skinny blondes clogging up the whole sodding town. Blondes of every shade and hue, everywhere he goes (bloody Harmony, the original Buffy-substitute, is even answering Angel's phones and bringing him his blood in the mornings).
Before Buffy, he'd always been drawn to brunettes: curls and liquid eyes and dark mystery. Dru, of course, fit that description, and so did Cecily and most of his infatuations before her (and there were many, though Spike never loved until Drusilla). Before Dru, too, most of them were the typical Victorian ideal in body—voluptuous and all womanly curves. Like Angel's Cordelia—before Buffy, before Dru, she would have been exactly his type.
But Buffy transformed his ideal of beauty. Or maybe not. Maybe he still prefers brunettes (he hasn't been a gentleman for over a century), and it's just Buffy he was drawn to, quite against his own nature (Angelus is the opposite: Buffy was a cliché—it's always been about tiny blondes who can kick his ass. Ponce).
So it isn't that he's attracted to these women, it's just that with every glint of moonlight off of golden hair (he saw Buffy's hair once in the sunlight, but that memory is spoiled by the recollection of his cruel blows and crueler taunts as they fought, the light flashing off the Gem of Amara on his finger), he feels a jolt where his dead heart is—a jolt of aching memory. For a moment, he can pretend it's her (before Harm went bleeding-eyes-insane, he could almost pretend it was Buffy he was burying himself in, except that she was so cold and wouldn't shut up), can pretend she's finally come for him instead of making him chase after her on his knees (this is a fantasy: Buffy has never come to him and never will).
Every slender blonde he sees hurls him back to Sunnydale, to the slide of her silken hair through his calloused fingers (that contrast the single sexiest thing he's ever experienced), the delicateness of her in his arms (she always looked and felt so fragile despite her strength, and all he ever wanted to do was hold her and shelter her and protect her and be a man for her).
Every blonde in L.A. is another memory of Buffy, shining in his mind.
--
The worst thing about patrolling is that it never strikes the right balance anymore. The ones she trusts to be strong enough to watch her back—the baby Slayers mostly, or Faith—don't know the right patterns of banter, deep conversation, and silences; and the ones she can count on to say or not say the right thing—Dawn, or Willow and Xander when they're around, which isn't often—aren't strong enough to really be much of a help (more of a liability, though she hates to admit it, after all they've been through).
She can't stand their company, but she also can't let herself go alone (if she does, she falls into hopeless brooding and self-flagellation, and that's the last thing she needs) and so she answers too much chatter in monosyllables and doesn't try to fill up silences that are too awkward to endure.
Spike was the only one who ever got both requirements right. She discovered this during the summer he was gone (getting his soul for her, and she still can't wrap her mind around the magnitude of that), when, for the first time in several years, she went out alone every night (Willow in England, Xander throwing himself into his work, Dawn coming with her only on nights she knew would be slow—Buffy's never going to get over her protectiveness of her little sister). Despite the anger and betrayal she still clung to too fiercely (because surely it made her as much of a monster as he was to want to forgive him, right? Except that she'd already proved that she was a monster, that night in the alley), she found that she missed him so badly that she ached—missed the elaborate rituals of their conversations, missed not having to watch her back, missed him.
Spike and his ridiculous quips and British slang, Spike and his way of coaxing her into talking about her buried feelings (she doesn't know when she stopped being able to talk to Willow, but at some point along the way Spike had replaced her as confidant), Spike and his silences that never seemed awkward. Spike and the way his every move matched hers, Spike and his strength that she could trust absolutely, Spike and his unfailing devotion to watching her back.
And when he came back, she was so relieved that she almost considered verbalizing how much she had missed him while patrolling, especially when they fell back into old patterns (as comfortable as her oldest pair of jeans, as the feel of a stake in her hand, as her mother's hugs or Dawn's smiles). But she never did.
Now, here, missing him terribly and hating every moment of patrolling without him, she wishes she had.
--
The worst thing about fighting with the good guys is that it somehow seems wrong. Which was the last thing he suspected—after all, he's one of the good guys now, and he wants to help people the way he used to crave violence (and yes, his demon still calls for blood, but with every day, its call gets weaker and weaker and he almost considers suggesting to Angel that the Shanshu isn't one moment of transformation but a day-by-day metamorphosis into something better, a road he's been on since he made a deal with a Slayer to save the world. But he doesn't, because his grandsire can be so literal and would never understand).
And they're still good people—sweet Fred, all innocence and brilliance (if it weren't for Buffy, he'd consider falling in love with her), loyal Charlie, fighting demons ingrained in him from years on the streets (he thinks he and Charlie could be friends if it weren't for this god-awful place tainting everyone, which is weird, because Spike doesn't really have friends, not male ones, anyway), Percy with his books and his research (Rupert without the intent to dispose of Spike as quickly as possible), Big Green, who's useless but not so bad when he isn't trying to get you to sing (he swore he'd rip the demon's throat out if he ever spoke about that night right after his corporealization with the Jack Daniel's and the singing of a rather dirge-like version of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"). Even Peaches, golden boy of the Powers (and Spike would never in a thousand lifetimes admit that it's kind of nice to have family around again).
But there's something so off here that even Spike, who got used to the idea of the white hats having flaws (he might not have been there when the big show went down, but he's more than aware of what Red is capable of, and he's seen the darkness in Rupert's eyes, and knows the lack of mercy in the Whelp's heart, and he wasn't lying when he told his Slayer that he'd seen the best and worst of her), can feel it so deep in his bones, an ache like cold, like loneliness (like the way he misses Buffy).
This place is corrupting them, slowly, like upping the dose of poison every day so that the victim doesn't even realize he's dying. The belly of the beast is crushing them alive, digesting them, and they don't even see it. He still can't figure out why the heroes would even come here in the first place (cubicles and recycled air and all those lawyers—sounds like hell to him, or it would have, if he hadn't gotten a glimpse of the real thing) or why they won't leave.
He's lost without Buffy's righteous fury (even if he has a soul, a conscience now to tell him what to do, she's been his moral compass for so long that he almost can't operate without her), without being able to fight by her side. If she were here, she would not stand for this, would descend upon this wrongness with that searing light and the sheer power of her calling, would fight this lurking evil and set things to rights again (this is, after all, what she does, who she is, and that will never change).
Now, here, missing her terribly and hating every minute of being the only one who notices, he wishes she would.
--
The worst thing about going to bed is that he isn't there to hold her. It's ridiculous, she knows, because it isn't like he even held her that many times. At first, of course, neither one of them would ever have thought of touching each other except in violence (except that her brain accepts now what it rejected for years—that their fights were always about far more than mere violence), and after Willow's spell (the only time she ever remembers being purely, totally happy since she was Called, and how pathetic is it that it wasn't even real?), she stayed as far away from him as she could (her subconscious mind knowing that if he touched her again, she might snap, and after that she wouldn't be responsible for her actions…whatever they might be).
Between The Spell and their first real kiss in the alley behind the Bronze, she can remember every single time they touched (that's not true: she can't possibly count all the time she hurt him or punched him in the nose while he was completely defenseless against her, and she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive herself for that). The first time he reached out his hand to help her to her feet (the first time she really trusted him, though she would have denied it); his hand, nearly awkward, on her shoulder as he sat on the back porch between her and a shotgun (and she can't really blame him for the gun after what she said to him that night); that incredibly gentle kiss in his crypt after Glory tortured him (she surprised herself with her own gentleness, something she'd been beginning to think she was incapable of); his hands warm and gentle around her torn ones the night she was raised (and that terrifying look of awe in his eyes that was too much responsibility for any girl, especially one who'd just returned to life).
All those touches tentative (tender) and restrained (barely-controlled) and so, so simple (except they weren't simple at all, and she should have gotten the message he was trying to send her each time: I can be gentle, I can be good, I can be a man for you. But she was so deaf).
Even after they launched into their horrible, self-destructive "relationship" (even after they took possession of each other's bodies, after they did things together she'd never imagined before him and would have been repulsed by with anyone but him), he'd never held her. Oh, he tried (he always seemed to be reaching for her, and he looked at her so wistfully, and it made her so mad. Now, of course, she would give anything to have him look at her like that, just one more time), but she never let him (she rolled away from him after and roughly shoved him away when he tried to wrap his arms around her). Then, that was all over (and the only thing that was in his touch that night in the bathroom was sheer desperation, and she hadn't realized till she felt their absence how much he'd been giving her when he touched her: love and strength and peace and warmth. It was a good thing she'd never known how much his touch was saying to her all along or she never would have allowed it). Then there was that long, long summer, and then nearly a year of him being there but never touching her (and when she tried to touch him, he flinched away, and she'd never hated herself more).
But there were those last three nights (the only good nights of sleep she got that whole year), when she slept in his arms, and it was okay to be weak and let him be strong for her (and she realized that's what he'd wanted all along: just to give her a place to rest and be whatever she needed to be). His uneven breath on the back of her neck, his arms around her waist, the solidness of his chest at her back, the musky, masculine smell of him (and she didn't even feel the hardness of the cot or hear it creak every time she moved or smell any of those damp basement smells, because all there was in the world was him). Three nights of peace and hope and him.
Now, as she lies in her too-big bed and wishes for his arms around her, she wonders how his embrace became so necessary to her so quickly.
--
The worst thing about waking up is knowing he'll have to go through a whole 'nother day without seeing her face or hearing her voice or even talking about her. At first, all he did was talk about her, to remind himself that she was real (she always seemed like some kind of too-perfect dream when she wasn't with him, except for that summer when she really was gone, when she'd never seemed more real to him, and it just made the whole thing worse), to rub it in Peaches' face (the Powers were sick, sadistic bastards to trap him with the love of the love of his life's life) that he had had her again and again where Angel had only been once (even if he'd never really had her at all, not till those last few nights before the end, when she let him hold her, and, for the first time, she accepted his love).
But after a while, it stopped being funny to see Angel's face turn that purple color whenever Spike brought her up (and that time definitely didn't arrive around the time he started to feel a connection to his grandsire again. No, definitely not) and even Fred (who sighed over the tragic romance of it all) stopped wanting to hear about her and Lorne wouldn't listen to him sing anymore ("It's too much for me, sweet cheeks, all that tortured heartbreak. I don't know how you can stand it"). And maybe it was better not to talk about her but to keep her close and safe in the deepest part of his heart where only he can touch her (and he'd wonder when he became such a poncey wanker except that he knows he was one all along).
It doesn't help that he's gotten to the point where he isn't quite certain of details—the exact length of her eyelashes or the precise position of a scar or the specific tone of voice she would use when she was pretending to be annoyed with him (it was the way she would bite the inside of her cheek to keep the smile at bay that gave her away). He always thought that she was so much a part of him that he'd keep her pure and whole inside him always (and he knows that the important things—her warmth, the strength in her eyes when she makes the hard decisions, her righteous fury, the way she seems to shine like an avenging angel when she fights, the look in her eyes when she told him she believed in him—can never be stolen away from him, not by time or distance or despair or the hell that lurks in his future), but he's losing details, tiny things, and that's the scariest thing of all.
One day, though, as he's rummaging through Angel's drawers while the other vampire is in a meeting (he wonders what Angelus would do if he knew that his alter ego was in a meeting with lawyers that didn't involve fulfilling Shakespeare's invitation to kill all of them), he stumbles upon some pictures. The first one shakes him so much that he knows he'll never mention it, not ever: faded sepia and Angelus and his family in late Victorian clothes (Darla's hat has a bird to decorate it, but unlike any of the other ladies of that time, hers is real, if dead; Dru's hair all curled and at its longest, her eyes simultaneously blank and far away; Angelus lurking behind all of them, all forehead and bad hair—some things don't change—and Spike himself, defiant and innocent at the same time, and how on earth did he manage that?), St. Petersburg, 1887.
He tosses the photo away as if it is coated in holy water and then finds a few more: one of Cordelia with a crossbow and another of her holding a baby (he doesn't remember ever hearing about the princess having a sprog, but he shrugs it off), a teenage boy with something about the shape of his eyes and mouth that reminds Spike of Darla (poor kid). He has no idea of who that whelp is, but he doesn't have time to figure it out, not when he picks up the final photograph.
He'd only ever seen Buffy in the sunshine once, and he wasn't in love with her then (though he now realizes he was well on his way), so it doesn't surprise him the way she steals his breath away (thank God he doesn't breathe). The light seems to cling to her, as though all it wants is to touch her (he knows how it feels), to brush against her skin, to tangle itself in her hair, to catch in her eyes (she's smiling, full and clear and pure, and he's pretty sure he's never seen that before). She's gorgeous, perfect, an angel, but it still doesn't do her justice (no photograph could ever capture her pilgrim soul, the sorrows of her changing face).
The next day, when Angel storms in to where Spike is playing Xbox (his face that delightful shade of eggplant again) and demands the picture back (Spike knew that Angel would know that there could only have been one person who would have taken it), the older vampire is suspicious when Spike instantly and calmly hands it over. Spike smirks as his grandsire leaves and then reaches into his pocket to pull out the original copy (amazing thing, the way you can make copies of any picture within seconds these days. Spike loves technology).
Now, as he climbs out of bed and reaches for her picture before anything else, he wonders how he's going to survive one more day without her.
--
The worst thing about dating the Immortal is that every time she looks at him, she sees her future.
She only started dating him to get everyone off her back, anyway (they were all so concerned, and it was almost like the year she came back, all over again, except with no Spike to run to when things got too hard): You should live again, Buffy, they would say, all earnestness and good intentions. Get out there—embrace life—look at this second (third, fourth) chance you've been given! Finally, it got to be too much, and so she gave in to Romeo's seventeenth invitation to go dancing (he is a good dancer, she has to give him that, but nothing compared to the way Spike's wordsfightslife were one long, graceful, brutal, beautiful dance, her perfect partner, her perfect match).
Romeo is the perfect distraction, happiest in loud, public places (all the best clubs, though she misses the Bronze as she might a person), a good conversationalist without ever prying (thought he couldn't banter if his life depended on it, and he'd never listen to her deepest thoughts with endless patience), willing to spend any amount of money to lavish her with the best gifts (she wonders with an inward smirk how he would react if he knew that her only thought as she tries on this dress, those shoes, that necklace is what Spike would think of her in them). She lets him pull her into his colorful, noisy, slightly manic world with no real protest on her part (as long as she keeps dancing, laughing, shopping, she doesn't have to think about all she's lost).
But there are moments (that occur with more and more frequency the longer she lives in his world) when she realizes that this is all life holds for her: relationships with nearly perfect men that don't mean anything (she's known real love exactly twice in her life, and she's under no illusions that she ever will again, not with after all she and Angel have been through, not with Spike gone forever), with gentlemen who could never hope to understand her or the life she lives (she can pretend to be just Buffy, expatriate and party-girl, but she will always be the Slayer, and only a vampire could ever understand that), with strong men who could never match her strength (why did it take her so long to realize that no normal man could ever be strong enough for her?).
She could have the white picket fence (or whatever the European equivalent is), the 2.5 kids and the golden retriever (she's never really been big into animals anyway, never had any desire for a pet—she killed her goldfish!), the PTA and the minivan—the normal life Angel had left her in order to ensure her, the one she played at with Riley, the one she (and everyone around her, everyone but Spike) had been telling herself for years that she should want. It's the last thing she wants now.
But she doesn't want this jet-setting, classy parties world with the Immortal either. She wants her own brand of normal (the one she could have had had all along in Sunnydale and never realized it), the one she was just beginning to work out that last year before the bottom fell out of her world (literally). But she can't have it now, because the only person she would have want to have it with (she realizes now that she and Angel will never happen, not really, not after their roads have diverged so wildly) is dust.
And every time she looks at the Immortal and he isn't Spike, she realizes it all over again.
--
The worst thing about having Harmony around is that she's like an incarnation of his past. Most of his stupidest mistakes (from getting involved with her in the first place to tying Buffy up and threatening to stake Dru—yes, all of his stupidest mistakes except for the stupidest, most evil one of all: that night in the bathroom) were made while she was around. He still doesn't know what possessed him to take up with her in the first place (missing Dru so much, maybe, or the fact that with all that blonde hair and more strength than a normal girl he could almost imagine she was the Slayer), but he knows that the decision definitely warrants an entry on his list of biggest regrets (it's a very long list. And getting longer).
And here she is, always flouncing around in her pink clothes (insubstantial as cotton candy, that one), pretending to be professional (what the hell does she think she's doing playing secretary?), butting her stupid nose in where it doesn't belong (Buffy's nose is adorable, with that odd bump giving it personality and the way she wrinkles it when she's annoyed). She bounces back and forth like a rubber ball, one minute cozying up to him and calling him "Blondie Bear" (he may use nicknames, but he despises it whenever anyone uses one for him. Though he wouldn't mind hearing Buffy call him baby or sweetheart, even if he knows there's no chance in hell that that would ever happen), the next being all cool and aloof and so over him (though he doesn't believe that for a moment, and it's kind of a shame, really; he's probably ruined her for anyone else: for all eternity, no one else will measure up).
Yeah, all she is is memories of her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice and her begging him to go to Paris (of his cruel words ripping Buffy apart as they fought in the sunshine), of all that time he wasted with her (that he could have spent trying to redeem himself in his Slayer's eyes), and, worst of all, of the damned Bot (though she was long gone by then, it doesn't matter: both of the cheap Buffy-substitutes are entangled in his mind).
His life has always been cyclic, his past coming back to haunt him (he can never escape from anything), but he never thought it would be so painful. And every time he looks at Harmony and sees that she isn't Buffy, his past terrorizes him once again.
--
The worst thing about finding out that he's alive is that she realizes she's about to lose him all over again. Giles's words rip apart her carefully constructed world like it's made of tissue paper (he hemmed and hawed and the only words she actually heard him say were, Spike's alive…but he's about to face another apocalypse, and there's very little chance of him surviving. All of his apologies and excuses for not telling her earlier fall on deaf ears), and she knows that as soon as this crisis is past, she will be furious with him, angry as she hasn't been since he tried to kill Spike (and it doesn't matter that it was Robin Woods's hand that held the stake—he, at least, had an understandable reason—she will always hold Giles accountable), since the night he participated in kicking her out of her own home (she hadn't realized till this moment how much pain she still feels at that ultimate betrayal, despite Spike's healing words to her that same night), since the Cruciamentum (she'd forgiven him for that, whole-heartedly, because she had seen the sincerity of his regret, but he has yet to apologize for either of the other betrayals). But right now, all she can think is, I have to get to him before it's too late. Again.
An international flight has never seemed so long (she's hopelessly rude to the flight attendant, snapping at her every time she comes by, and the businesswoman sitting next to her sniffs and lets her know just how disgusted she is, but Buffy just doesn't care), longer than the whole of the year she spent without him (and how is that even possible? She hadn't spent an entire year without him since he barreled into Sunnydale and her life). She doesn't sleep a wink, though she knows she should (she needs to be at the top of her game if she's going to save him, and she's been letting herself slip this year), and she feels no qualms whatsoever about using her strength to push people out of the way so that she can get off the plane first.
The other American Slayers Giles had called meet her just outside LAX, but she doesn't even acknowledge them after a brief nod (the only one there who's seen Buffy on a mission is Vi, and she has to reassure the others that yes, she really is as scary as she seems). Night has fallen and it's pouring down rain, and she barely has time to wait for the call to the nearest coven to find out that the locator spell has placed Angel and his companions in an alley not far away (fitting: their first meeting was in an alley, the night he told her about Slayers and death wishes, their first kiss, the beginning of the fight that turned into the first time they had sex, the time she nearly beat him to death: they've had so many turning points in alleys, most of them for the worse, and now is her chance to redeem them).
The sound of battle tells her that she's headed in the right direction (sounds she hasn't heard since Sunnydale's last day, though she doesn't want to think about that), and she launches herself through the rain, scythe gripped tightly in her hands, and into battle (every monster she takes down is one that won't steal Spike from her again).
She fights as she hasn't fought in a year, when she was fighting to save her whole world, and she isn't even aware of the other Slayers fighting around her, of the moment Angel spares to gape at her before turning back to his dragon (she doesn't even see him, and that's the final evidence that she's moved on), of the young man she's never met before being dragged away to safety (afterwards, they all agree that it's nothing short of a miracle that Charles Gunn survived long enough for the Slayers to arrive), of the strange blue woman with the super strength slaughtering massive demons as Buffy might a newly-risen fledgling.
Because she hears familiar laughter (though with an edge to it she hasn't heard in years) and taunts, and she's fighting her way to him (nothing in her path stands a chance).
And there he is.
--
The worst thing about seeing her again is seeing the betrayal in her eyes. The battle that had been raging thicker than any he'd ever been involved in (and that's saying something) has died down enough that she can stop a yard away from him and meet his eyes dead on. And all he can see is the pain, and, as he always has, he knows exactly what she's thinking (trying to figure out how he could have come back and not returned to her, not even called her, not let him know he's alive, and for the first time, he has to admit that he really has no idea either).
Then she's stalking towards him through the downpour, completely ignoring the hundreds of types of demon blood drenching the ground beneath her feet. You idiot! she hisses, and then her fist connects with his nose (here we go again), and he's stumbling back, nearly tripping over the body of a Fyarl demon behind him. But then her hands are on his lapels, jerking him upright. You idiot! She nearly shouts this time, shaking him till his teeth rattle.
And he has nothing to say, no way to defend himself, but then, he doesn't really need to, not when he's suddenly holding an armful of soaking, bloody, sobbing Slayer (his perfect match, because he's soaking and bloody, too, though he definitely isn't sobbing. He isn't even crying. Not even a little. Really), and he's clutching her to him, ignoring the rain and the sounds of battle, ignoring the way his wounds throb and the blood dripping from hers, ignoring anything but the feel of her skin under his hands, of her shuddering breath against his throat, of her heartbeat pounding against his chest.
She pulls back and stares up at him for a moment, and he knows that he's nearly unrecognizable, with the amount of blood and number of wounds he can feel covering his face, and her small, deadly, gentle hands are stealing up to cup his face, and she's never looked more beautiful to him. She looks like a drowned rat, really, her hair a tangled, sopping mess, her beautiful face covered with cuts and abrasions, her body coated with gore and demon guts, but she is smiling, smiling like she was in the picture he carries in his pocket, and she's come to him, finally, and right before she yanks his head down to kiss him, she whispers, Never leave me again. Never, baby, do you hear me? and he feels like his dead heart is about to explode, and he could never want for anything more than this.
Because here she is.