Becoming Me

Hi people, sorry for the impossibly long time between updates [insert sheepish smile]. I will make it up to everyone, I promise, and it will involve chocolate and inappropriate things. New chapters will hopefully come soon. But here's chapter 21, enjoy!

Disclaimer: see previous chapters.


21: THE WAY WE WERE
Willow had liked Mr. Brown. In fact, meeting him had reassured her, because she'd been very nervous about Buffy's mental state, post-Angelus. After hearing her friend roomed with Spike - Spike, of all people - Willow had felt uneasy. Then waking up to find Buffy not in the bed, but on the floor covered by a brown blanket, and Spike awake and taking a shower…Well, Willow had been simply distressed. But Mr. Brown was perfectly sensible and good and Willow couldn't think of any plausible ulterior motives. Buffy showed good judgment in trusting him over, say, Amelia (who, according to Buffy's stories, made Spike look like a good guy.)

Mr. Brown had taken Buffy upstairs to talk to her, leaving the two women downstairs. Willow glared at Spike, but his attention was focused completely on scrutinizing his fingernails. Minutes went by without either girl saying anything, so finally Willow forced herself to break the silence.

“What's wrong with you? I mean, any normal, ordinary person would be bored, sitting here for ever and ever - but clearly I'm the only normal one here…Why aren't you trying to kill everyone? Isn't that what normal vampires do?”

At that, Spike finally met Willow's eyes. “Oh, please! You think I'm going to kill you when the Slayer's right upstairs?” Willow appeared rather disconcerted. “But if things were different,” the ex-vamp added, “You better be sure I would.” The red-head nodded with a small frown.

Suddenly Buffy came bounding down the stairs. “Wil!” she greeted cheerfully. “Guess what? Mr. Brown thinks he knows exactly what's wrong, and he wants you to…” her voice died as her eyes fell upon the sullen form of Spike. “He wants you upstairs.”

Willow nodded. “Kay. But Buff, can I talk to you for a sec?” Buffy agreed and Willow popped a very adorable, wide grin. The pair maneuvered their way through the precariously stacked shelves and out the door, sitting down on the dirty LA sidewalk.

“You gonna be OK, alone…with the tension?”

“What?”

“Spike. And his grumpiness? He seems…kinda angry? Really, you could cut the tension with a knife. Not just any knife, but one of those white plastic ones from the cafeteria that bend - “

Laughing, Buffy cut Willow off. “It's ok Wil, I get the picture. But really, it's no big. Spike's always been like that. Big, evil, broody…”

“Really? God, how have you been putting up with him? I mean, with Oz there's quiet, but sitting at that table in there is like the epitome of uncomfortable silences.”

Buffy shifted guiltily. “Oh...yeah, definitely,” she affirmed, in the voice of someone who has recently invented a brilliant alibi. “I, I couldn't stand him, not one bit. So annoying! But we're not hangin' cos we're such big buds - God. I'm stuck with him. And until we turn off this stupid spell there's nothing I can do.”

“Alright, Buff, I believe you,” Willow laughed weirdly, and the two returned to the shop.

Willow waved a farewell to Buffy and Spike and disappeared up the stairs, and Buffy suddenly found herself extremely interested in a strange transparent bauble. As she reached out to pick it up, the stone seemed to take on a green glow from somewhere in the center and it began to hum. The closer she brought her hand, the more violently the sphere shook, until Buffy feared it would break. Sighing, she turned her attentions to some boring, dusty tome, pretending to be deeply involved. Spike, however, would have none of her faux nonchalance.

“Stuck with me, are you?”

Buffy was taken by surprise when his voice came from just behind her; she'd been so preoccupied with looking busy that she hadn't been listening to his approach. Turning around, her eyebrows drawn in an expression of worry, she spoke quietly. “Spike, you know I just said that…Wil, I just didn't want her to know - “

“Know what, the truth?” Buffy winced when she heard her own vocal chords bending to Spike's cockney accent and acrid tone. “The Slayer, deceiving her mates…Fuck, hell must be freezing over! Or maybe Red's not the one you're lying to.”

Buffy felt her face grow hot. “I'm not lying to you, you…stupid bleached idiot!”

Spike had the audacity to laugh. “Now I see why Slayers so often resort to violence. It's nothing to do with your calling, o-oh no…it's only because you twats can't think of halfway-decent comebacks!”

The ex-Slayer gritted her teeth. “Go to Hell, Spike. I hate you!”

“Ha! Now the truth comes out!”

Buffy growled. “I don't hate you!” There was a brief silence when Buffy thought that maybe she'd shocked Spike and he was unable to think up anything to say or do. Time stood still as words pressed in upon her, weighing down on the corners of her mind. And then in a rush she was shoved up against a wall, knocking various hanging ornaments to the floor.

Spike held her shoulders roughly, his hazel eyes boring into hers. “Prove it. If you lied to Red, tell me the truth. What am I to you?”

Buffy snarled as she struggled against the pressure on her shoulders. How dare Spike ask questions she had no clue how to answer? It was so unfair, the way they cut into her for no reason but torment. With a wordless cry she kicked Spikes legs out from under him and shoved the smaller body into a bookshelf. She could hear the wood cracking and the various books and talismans tumbling to the ground. “You honestly expect me to tell you when you're acting like this?”

Groaning as he shakily stood, Spike glared. “You started this, pet.”

“WHAT?!” Buffy stomped closer to the girl in front of her. “I did so not start this.”

There seemed to be a dangerous gleam in his eye. “Denial, luv. You're very good at it.” While Buffy was still taking in what Spike had said, she felt one of Spike's legs trip her and a second later his body landed on top of hers as they hit the floor.

“Oh my God Spike, this is so not the time for - “

“Just belt up, luv.” ((A/N: “belt up” is British slang for “shut up.” This is not some bizarre reference to car interiors, although if for some reason you wish it were, feel free to take it that way ^_^))

An uneven sigh escaped from Buffy's lips. Furious, she interjected, “But - “

“I said, quiet.” Spike pressed his mouth to hers in a gentle, slow incongruous kiss that was so distracting Buffy forgot to protest as she felt her jeans slide off her hips. “You want it as much as I do,” Spike murmured to her neck. “If nothing else, don't lie to yourself.” Buffy didn't want to let her body absorb his comment, but his tongue was in her mouth again, languidly tracing curves on the inside of her mouth.

Spike was right. She wanted…God, there just aren't words… Suddenly Buffy shoved and found herself looking down at Spike's shocked face as she made one fierce thrust after another. “Stuck with you? That means “stuck” with this.” The thought that Spike still didn't understand, that his frown and his wide hazel eyes cut a tunnel of emptiness in her chest and let the cold air run through, flitted across the back of her mind, but the fury of ecstasy tumbled over it and soon it was gone.

Buffy pushed her hands up Spike's moist thighs and over his muscular stomach, pinching roughly and sweaty nipples and feeling like there was no way she could have enough, that even fatal squeezing and shoving wouldn't be strong enough to express whatever she had trapped inside. Buffy pulled Spike's lips into a hungry kiss that lacerated skin, and she felt tongues battling and tangling on fine, pointed fangs as the blood washed between the two mouths.

As the salty-sweet liquid hit her tongue Buffy felt a surge of addiction, a need for the substance that was repulsive and yet also the best thing Buffy had ever tasted.

The only thing in the world was blood. No, that wasn't right...Blood, and Spike, the body right in front of her, smelling irresistible covered in desire and Buffy sank her teeth in and took her first pull, her first swallow of life…

Then with a lurch in her stomach and a whirring spinning dizzy SLAM! Buffy looked up in confusion at the pale-haired, lumpy-faced body above her. A pink tongue reached out to gather the red that spilled onto kissed-pink lips, and quickly, effortlessly, the bones in the face shifted into the beautiful face of Spike, who was pulling away, standing up, and zipping his jeans.

What? Buffy asked. What happened? Where are you going? Somehow she wasn't saying anything, just lying on the floor propped up on her elbows, watching Spike, whose impossible blue eyes were filled with something strong and terrifying.

Buffy managed to stand, to angrily grab his arm and open her mouth. But suddenly, for just a second, the blue eyes slipped back to gold and Spike sent Buffy flying through the bead curtain hanging from the storeroom door.

By the time Buffy gathered her half-naked self to her unstable feet and raced back into the main room, Spike had left, with the bell on the door tinkling behind him.

* * * * *

Willow had been floating through inky darkness, trying to follow a little strand of magic that laced through skies and clouds and deep caverns. Astral projection, Mr. Brown had told her. Find the caster of the spell, because he's the only one who has power over this spell. Help Buffy.

I just hope I don't get stuck here, Willow had thought in frustration. Why, exactly, had Mr. Brown asked her to do the projecting? She was hardly a skilled witch. He'd said something about leaving a detectable trace, something demony, something like that, but Willow didn't remember.

Then an invisible tidal wave crashed over her, raising her up and shoving her back and out of the darkness. Willow crashed into the warm orange light of Mr. Brown's room, all her breath pushed out of her lungs. “What?” she started to ask, but moments after she landed in reality the lights flickered off. Willow froze, sheathed in the darkness, until she heard a loud crash from the ground floor. Buffy!

Willow jumped up and tried to run, tripping over the coffee table and ramming her shoulder into the edge of the doorway. From the top of the stairs she could see a small window of the scene below. Pots and glass merchandise shattered, books turned face-down with crumpled pages beneath them, overturned furniture and jagged parts of bookshelves littered the room that appeared to have been hit by a tornado.

“Buffy?”

Thoughtlessly Buffy struggled into her underwear. Her eyes squinted as she searched for Willow amid the darkness. Was she dreaming? There was nothing, not even shadow, just opaque black clouding her eyes, like a thick veil being raised to cover her vision…

“Oh - Spike…Sorry, I didn't know you were changing…” Willow's voice sounded close, but Buffy heard the echo of many Willow-like footsteps walking away in embarrassment.

“No…” Buffy replied mistily, half-forgetting what came next. Something wet was on her, her neck and her shoulder were wet and sticky… “Nahime Buffy,” she murmured. Her mouth wouldn't follow orders or shape around words. She needed to get dressed, she was very possibly naked, she thought…

Buffy bent over, feeling the uneven floor for her pants, which seemed to slide away from her. Was Mr. Brown aware that his shop was built sideways, falling off a very steep hill? Buffy tried to shake her head in the middle of slipping off a floor that had become nearly horizontal…why? Everything was so dark…

“Buffy? Buff, are you awake? Oh my god, Buffy, are you ok?”

Buffy blinked. Everything she could see looked clear and well-lit, but her past was a blur, completely obscured…Something green…. “Yeah, I'm alright. What…?”

Willow bit her lip. “You…fainted. Blood loss, I'm more or less positive?”

“Blood loss? How did I lose my blood? I've been very careful with it,” the Slayer joked.

Heat…She was unrestrainable…A green flash, a stab of passion, a salty jolt of pain and bliss and silence, like a sharp ringing…ringing

“What is it, Buffy? Buff, did you hit your head going down? Don't go to sleep! Hey, um, um, who's the Mayor of Sunnydale?”

“Richard Wilkins.” Willow looked doubtful still, and asked for the number. “The Third. Or Fourth. Listen, I don't have a concussion, okay?” I'm…just…

“Oh my god! Spike! Buffy, where's Spike?

Cold, impossibly blue eyes…Tinkle of the bell on the door as it slammed…A truffle dangling in front of her face… “You want it as much as I do,” with that cruel glint in those hazel eyes… “You can't deny that there's something between us…” SLAM! The door closes and the bell tinkles… Buffy's mind flitted over Spike in the shower, on the concrete in the courtyard, on the floor of the store, every time and any time they'd been together over the past few days, but each time something started to make logical sense she heard the SLAM! and the mocking tinkle of that fucking impudent bell…

The Slayer suddenly stood and ran to the door, throwing it open and ignoring the terrible sound.

“Buffy?”

She looked out once more onto the dark street, lit by white headlights and orange streetlamps. It looked wet, drizzly, and it smelled like rain. “He's gone.”

Behind her, she heard Willow trip over her words and stammering, “What? Buffy, I think you should lie down…”

But Buffy had broken into a run, her shoes splashing on the wet sidewalk. The bell tinkled as the door closed behind her.

PLEASE review! I really want to know what people think, and there's even a sliver of a chance that it will make me write faster. Next chapter to come...