Tempt Me Not
Chapter Two
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“So wait, tell me this one more time,
because really, it’s not quite sinking in.”
“I did a spell…”
“You did a spell…”
“Yes. To…to stop me from
being tempted.”
“To stop you from being tempted…”
“And, um, I guess it sort of, um…”
“Broke my penis!”
so hard Buffy wondered if it was possible for it to explode.
“I’m sorry!” Buffy yelled back. “I didn’t
mean for it to do anything to you. I…I thought it would just do something to
me. Make me not want you anymore.”
“You bloody stupid bint! Did you learn
nothing from those morons you call friends and their idiotic forays into magic?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Oh, you’re sorry. Well, then that just
makes it all better then.” Spike looked down for a moment, then back up at her,
his eyes flashing. “Except for the part where he still
doesn’t work!”
“Well, this is really all your fault
anyway!” Buffy screamed, taking a step closer to him.
“My…” Spike shook his head. “How the bloody
fuck is it my fault that you used magic to make me sodding
impotent?”
“Because!
temptation, and…and you kept making me want you.”
“Oh, I kept making you…” Spike laughed a
humorless laugh. “Need I remind you, Slayer that you jumped me
that first night. Oh, and I believe it was you who
couldn’t get my jeans off fast enough this afternoon, too. So don’t even try to
make this about me.”
“You’ve been trying to seduce me for years!”
“Yeah, and you’ve wanted me for years! I
still don’t see how any of this justifies you breaking my penis.”
Buffy opened her mouth to respond, but
quickly snapped it shut again. “You’re right.”
“I… Wait, come again on that one?”
“I said you’re right,” Buffy repeated,
though she seemed less-than-happy to be saying it. “I shouldn’t have done this.
I knew better than to mess around with magic, but I did it anyway, and now
you’re…um…yeah.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have done it!”
Spike yelled, his anger flaring right back up. “You of all people should know
you don’t go messing with forces you don’t know a bloody thing about!”
“I know! I… I’ll fix it, Spike. I’ll do
another spell, reverse…”
“No.”
“No?” Buffy asked, taken aback by his
vehement denial. “You don’t want to fix…um…this?”
“Oh, I want to fix this all right, Slayer.
But I want someone who actually knows what she’s doing to be the one doing the
fixing. With my luck, you’ll just end up making it fall off.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed. “But
“Yeah, and I’m sure that’ll turn out just
great for her, but she’s the second-to-the-last person I’d want trying to fix
this anyway. If anyone’s going to be using magic around my dick, it’s going to
be someone with actual sense. Besides, she’s got a bloody big mouth, and she’d
probably end up telling Harris, and I so don’t want him knowing I’m suddenly a
candidate for Viagra. You’re going to take me to see Glinda.”
“
“Yeah, her.”
“She moved out.”
Spike’s eyes closed and his jaw
being really exasperated. “I know that, Slayer,” he ground out. “But I assume
just because she’s getting some distance from your little Scooby group doesn’t
mean she’s dropped off the edge of the bloody world.”
“No. She moved back into the dorms on
campus.”
“So we’ll go there.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“But it’s the middle of the day. You could
end up all extra crispy.”
Spike met her eyes. “In a situation like
this, it’s worth the risk.”
“Wow. You men really are attached to your
penises.”
“Need I remind you, I can hurt you now.”
Buffy swallowed. Spike was looking at her in
a way he hadn’t in a very, very long time. He wouldn’t actually hurt her, would
he? “Get dressed and we’ll head over there through the sewers.”
“You better hope she can fix this,” Spike
growled before he stormed across the room over to his clothes.
Buffy wondered where the Hellmouth
was to open up and swallow her whole when she wanted it to.
***
*** ***
The last thing Tara expected to see outside
of her door when she got back to her dorm was Buffy standing with a very
dejected looking Spike, clutching a tatty, charred blanket. She blinked,
wondering for a moment if she was seeing things.
Nope, they were there, both looking
completely miserable.
what could be bringing them here. Had something bad happened to
She rushed over to the blond pair. “What’s
wrong? I…is…”
“
would put that look of panic in
here because, um…Spike has a problem.”
What kind of problem?”
Spike glanced around and saw the various
college students wandering around. “Um…can we maybe talk about it inside? Where
it’s private?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yeah, definitely an ‘in private’ sort of
conversation,” Buffy concurred.
“Um, okay,”
Spike stayed out in the hallway.
“Uh, Glinda?”
remembered. “Oh, right. Come in, Spike.”
Spike entered her dorm room then, quickly
shutting and locking the door behind him.
Buffy and Spike replied at the same time,
their words coming out in a rush.
“She did a spell.”
“His penis is broken.”
“Wait…huh?”
attempted to fill her in on the situation.
Buffy and Spike exchanged a look, and then
with a sigh, Buffy turned back to Tara. “I did a spell this morning and now his
penis won’t work.”
“You did a spell and now…” Tara glanced
between the two blonds warily. “What kind of spell did you do?”
“One to remove temptation,” Buffy replied,
her voice small.
“And the temptation was…” Tara stopped. “Oh.
Oh, my…”
“Look, it was a really stupid thing to do,
but I was desperate, and I saw the magic stuff that Willow was packing
“She got tempted,” Spike snapped.
“Apparently, she has issues with that.”
Buffy blushed. “I thought it was going to
make me not tempted. I didn’t think it was going to make him all impotent.”
Spike bristled beside her, but bit his
tongue. Buffy assumed that was for Tara’s benefit.
“Buffy, you really shouldn’t mess with
forces you don’t…”
“Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know that
better than anyone,” Buffy interjected, not in the mood for a lecture. “I just
wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Great. She breaks my penis because she’s
having a blonde moment. Terrific,” Spike muttered.
“Oh, like you can say anything about
having blonde moments,” Buffy snipped at him.
“Mine aren’t in question right now, Slayer.”
Buffy opened her mouth to retort, but
it off,” she said with a forcefulness that surprised both of her unexpected
guests. “What’s done is done. If we’re going to fix it, we have to move
forward. Buffy, I need you to go home and get me everything you used in that
spell. Quickly. Spike, you stay here. It’s sunny out
there, and that blanket looks like it’s seen better
days.”
“We had a little incident coming out of the
sewer,” Buffy explained.
Spike turned his attention back to Buffy.
“Hurry, Slayer. This is causing detrimental damage to my ego.”
Buffy had a witty retort, but thought better
of saying it. Instead, she left the dorm room and headed towards her house to
get what
a chair. “You can sit if you want.”
Spike nodded and took a seat, shifting
around for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite get comfortable.
“So you and Buffy are…”
Spike knew Buffy hadn’t wanted any of her
friends to know what had happened, but he figured under these
circumstances, that was just too bad for her. Besides, given the nature
of the spell and what it had affected, it was pretty obvious anyway. “Yeah. We
were anyway. Don’t really know what’s going to happen from here.”
“How long?”
“Not long. A couple of days.”
night she’d stayed over there until the morning with Dawn. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
figuratively anyway. Might as well just go ahead and make it literal.” He
slumped back in the chair, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I…I’ll do my best to fix it,”
powerful. There’s other witches who could probably…”
“No. I asked Buffy to take me to you for a
reason,” Spike replied. “You’re the only witch I trust enough to do anything
that affects me down there. You’re not a half-wit.”
“Thanks,”
“Y’welcome.”
“I’ll do the best I can. And I’ll be
careful,”
“I know you will, pet.” Spike slumped more in
the chair. “This is so bloody unfair. It was working just fine this morning.”
much thought. “Well, I’ll do all I can to have it working this evening, too,”
she said.
“Good.”
to sulk in the chair.
An awkward silence filled the room.
***
*** ***
Buffy burst in through the door, out of
breath and carrying a box. “Okay, this is everything,” she said as she kicked
the door shut behind her. “Here.”
with it. “It’s going to take me a little time to go through everything. I don’t
want to rush it and get the counterspell wrong.”
“Take all the time you need,
isn’t something I want rushed at the expense of getting it done right.”
As
through the box and piece together what it was Buffy had done, Buffy found her
attention pulled towards the vampire in question. She couldn’t remember a time
when she’d seen him look more miserable, even when he’d first gotten the chip.
She walked over to him and ran her fingers through his hair.
“It’ll be all right, Spike. We’ll get this
fixed, and then I’ll…I’ll make it up to you.”
Spike pushed her hand away. “I’m not sure I want
you to make it up to me, Slayer.”
her attention back to the task at hand.
“You don’t want…” Buffy’s voice got small,
her tone hurt. “Why?”
“Why? Why, she asks.” Spike snorted. “I
can’t believe you really have to ask that.”
“I didn’t mean to break it, Spike,” Buffy
said softly. “I didn’t mean to do anything to you at all.”
“Yeah, Slayer, you did,” Spike replied.
“You’d rather use magic to repel me than deal with whatever this is between us.
And that…well, it smarts a bit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
Spike didn’t want her anymore? Did this mean
he was going to stop showing up and seducing her? Shouldn’t that make her
happy?
Only it didn’t. It really, really didn’t.
Instead, she felt…hurt. She wanted to call it simple rejection, but it went
deeper than that. Deeper than she wanted it to. Spike wanting her despite all
the reasons she’d given him not to had been the one constant in her life as of
late, and now…
Buffy refused to let herself think this was
irreversible.
“And then what, Buffy
sleeping with Spike? They’d hold hands and skip merrily into a field of flowers?
Nothing had really changed from this morning. She still couldn’t be with Spike
for more reasons than she could even list. If he didn’t want her anymore, well,
maybe she hadn’t gone about it the way she should have, but it was still
probably for the best.
She pretended the warmth pricking her eyes
wasn’t tears.
***
*** ***
I’m glad to see people liked the first
chapter of this story. I hope you liked the second one, too.
Please review!