Becoming Me

20: IT'S ALL COMING BACK TO ME

“Where's Spike?” Willow toweled her hair dry as she spoke.

“He went out. He does that sometimes. You know, to take advantage of his new tannable Buffy skin.” He'd offered to take the car so she could come with, but Buffy had opted to stay in the room with Willow. Spike had seemed somewhat miffed.

The redhead nodded and flopped on the bed beside the vampire. After a minute or two of watching her friend flip through the TV's four channels two of which were clearly intended mature audiences), Willow wrestled the remote from Buffy's hand and asked, “What's it like, being Spike?”

Buffy frowned. “Well, it's really frustrating to have to stay inside all day, and be all sleepless at night, which is when he sleeps. And I have to drink, you know, platelets.” Willow made a face, feeling that Buffy seemed altogether too calm and comfortable with the subject matter. Although she did fidget a bit at her next words: “And I'm, you know…a guy.”

Willow nodded, awaiting the rest of the story. “I have…” she gestured with her hands, appearing to describe something long and very large. “Guy parts.”

Willow's eyes widened. “And do you…you know, are you attracted to girls?”

“Well, no…” said Buffy jovially. Then she frowned. “No.”

“Bu-ffy…” her friend whined.

“Well, you see, I'm not attracted to girls, really…Just one, sort of…” She felt wobbly inside. Nervous. “I'm kinda attracted to Spike.”

Willow if it was possible, appeared even more shocked. “Buffy!” she said, sounding scandalized, “He's you! You mean you're attracted…”

Buffy didn't know what to say. Suddenly she laughed. “It's not that. With Spike, I sort of was…before. But it's not like I love him or anything. It's just that he was there and he wasn't tryting to kill me. And he was really hot.”

“I can see that,” laughed Willow in agreement.

Buffy sighed. “Yeah…You know, until you showed up, I'd kinda forgotten he was the bad guy. But I mean, he is - he's mean and heartless and he kills, both for fun and food, and he's your basic evil…” Buffy explicated all of Spike's shortcomings as a white hat, leaving herself with a mildly uncomfortable vomity feeling. It took two hours and 37 tirps to the vending machine down the hall (the motel's sole source of food) for her to identify the feeling.

Guilt.

Huh. Where did that come from?

* * * * *

“Decided yet, my sweet?”

Spike jumped and turned to look behind him. Across the orange light of the late afternoon sun, a long finger of shadow stretched from the roof of the café. Safely hiding from the sun, but only inches away from Spike's ear, stood Drusilla. “It hasn't been very long, Dru. You talked to me this morning.”

“I knew 'ow you'd choose, darling. I asked 'im to undo it, but then I killed 'im.” Her expression melted into a smile. “It was lovely.” Spike felt his own spirits lifting. Seeing Dru brag of a kill kindled the same fire he'd felt the night of Amber's massacre. “Sounds lovely, Dru,” he told her, pulling a section of her thick dark hair towards his lips. “But I'm still thinking,” he drawled seductively.

Buffy would throw a fit, but Spike really wanted to be doing his things again. Smoking, killing, doing things that did not mesh well with the Slayer image…He wanted to be evil.

The most pressing issue was why did he care? If he was indeed evil, if he wanted to be evil, the least of his concerns should have been keeping the Slayer's public image intact. If he was indeed evil, he should have been doing everything in his power to destroy her image. But the thing was, he wasn't, and he did care about preserving Buffy's Slayer integrity so that when they switched back she wouldn't feel…

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Spike, turning away from Dru. He cared simply for Buffy. So much that it interfered with his thoughts, his behavior, the way he dealt with Drusilla…the love of his unlife, whom he loved more than anything…whom he cared nothing about now that Buffy had infected his mind…”Bloody hell,” he repeated resignedly. He abandoned his milkshake with Dru as he stormed furiously away from the café.

“Bloody hell.”

* * * * *

“So then I was like, no wait that's my foot, and…then he…” Buffy and Willow collapsed into sidesplitting laughter.

“So you were really like…? Wow.”

“I'm having trouble getting over the wow-ness of it myself, actually, but it wasn't bad, and - Spike, what are you doing here?” In less than a second Buffy's sultry British voice switched from fluid and giggly to stern and cold. Apparently something in Spike's ribcage was connected to Buffy's voice, because suddenly his chest felt ice-cold as well.

“My room too, innit?” he countered moodily.

There it was again. That little half-thought that had been tickling the corner of her mind. “You guys share your rooms.”

“Well yeah,” said Spike, implying Willow's extreme stupidity. “Neither of us has got a whole lot of dosh.”

Buffy insisted, “It is cheaper that way.” Buffy seemed uncomfortable, and even Spike showed signs of embarrassment - his cheeks were beginning to color.

Willow glanced suspiciously at the solitary bed. “ I suppose you'll say that you get single rooms cos it's cheaper, too.”

“Well - “ Spike began, making the spontaneous choice to make his speech to Buffy, whether or not Willow was absent. Well not really. You see, the Slayer and I…We've been shagging like mad, actually, and it's been pretty damn nice. Like it a lot, really…Not just the shagging, though, I belive I rather fancy the Slayer…Buffy…

But Buffy spoke. “Exactly. In fact, we used to be at this hotel, but our money's running out, so we came here. Basically everything's about the money, or lack thereof. But I make Spike sleep on the floor.”

Spike met her eyes, but she pulled out of the gaze quickly. As quickly as one would when meeting the eyes of their ex-arch-enemy, who was once threatening but now they just feel a fearless, seething hatred.

Faced with such a blatant lie, Spike didn't know what to say. He tried to speak several times, but no sound came out of his mouth. Finally, he succeeded in shrugging and crossing the room briskly to flop down on the floor. Buffy and Willow got prepared for bed and turned of the lights. Spike watched the reflection of the moon in the sliding glass doors.

Spike was startled by Buffy's whisper. She stood close to him, her bare feet pressing into the coarse weave of the carpet. Moonlight made her pale skin silver. Spike had never felt so confused about so many things, not since he was that wanker, William.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes.

“Blood well better be,” he hissed in response.

“I just…” she glanced at the moonlit courtyard. “Can I make it up to you?”

In seconds Spike had scrambled to his feet and followed Buffy through the sliding glass doors. She dropped a fuzzy brown blanket on the cracked cement. Spike spread it out and reclined on top of it suggestively. “So. What's your plan?” he asked the vampire in front of him.

“Pretty much this.” She straddled his legs and devoured his lips. Spike relaxed, enjoying that she took control. But apparently she didn't know what to do next, because she sat still and looked at him.

Spike laughed quietly at the paradox that was Buffy and slid the black T-shirt over her head. She followed suit and within seconds they were two naked bodies in the moonlight. Keeping her sitting on top of his hips, Spike slowly slid into her, their eyes meeting for a brief, embarrassed moments before looking elsewhere. Periodically Buffy glanced back to the bed to check that Willow had not moved.

As each slow thrust built up her pleasure, Buffy switched her gaze to Spike's naked chest. Even without Spike's usual gusto and confidence, Buffy realized, this was still absolutely the most moving sex - and possibly the most moving experience overall - that she had ever known. The night seemed silent, car and people noises distant, and all she heard were gasps and groans from Spike and herself. Something about lying on a fuzzy brown blanket in the shabby concrete courtyard of a sleazy motel, completely naked under the bright night sky, was beautiful. Buffy shuddered and rested her head on Spike's soft chest, panting in a quiet climax.

Spike twirled a curl of her gel-less, silvery hair around one finger, wishing he could see her face.

His own face. He wanted the swap reversed, so he could fight and smirk and kill.

But he didn't want to lose this. He would stay swapped forever if he could have Buffy. Seeing only the back of her head hurled his entire mental process into a limbo of ambiguity, so he looked past her blonde hair into the courtyard.

Several dandelions struggled against the bleak concrete, valiantly reaching out of the cracks. The gray-green, spiny leaves, together with the dark tendrils of ivy that crept over the wall, created an atavistic picture, wild plants triumphing where concrete tried to shut them out.

Spike suddenly remembered Amber. He felt pity for her now, because she was a fledgling vampire. Completely disconnected from the things she had known and come to rely on, and cast into a place where who she had been meant nothing because she was trapped between worlds, no longer a human but not really a proper vampire.

“Buffy, luv?”

The head did not stir; the ex-Slayer was fast asleep.