Tempt Me Not
Chapter Eight
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Truthfully, Buffy didn’t want to leave Spike
outside any more than he wanted to be left. The idea of facing her friends
alone terrified her – something she realized now probably spoke volumes about
the state of the so-called friendships. However, she also knew that if didn’t
really matter at the moment if she didn’t want to face the issue head on – she had
to. It was the only way things would ever work with Spike.
“You’re not wrong, Buffy. You’re not,”
she whispered to herself before she stepped into the living room. Immediately,
Xander and
“Oh, good, you’re home,”
been waiting for you.” She patted the spot beside her on the couch. “Why don’t
you have a seat?”
“Actually, I’d prefer to stand,” Buffy
replied, her arms folded over her chest. “Just go ahead and say what’s on your
mind and get it over with. I need to patrol tonight, ‘cause Manny Cooper’s obit
– way suspicious.”
absurd. The more she thought about it, this whole “intervention” habit of
theirs bordered on farcical. They treated her like a self-destructive drug
addict whenever she didn’t come away from a difficult situation all smiles or
she had a relationship they didn’t approve of?
What a bloody joke…
Buffy had to suppress a grin as she noticed
her own inner voice was starting to sound like Spike.
“I realize that you’ve got to patrol,”
“More important than Manny rising from his
grave and feasting on the citizens of Sunnydale? Because I was under the
impression that that was pretty damn important,” Buffy replied.
his throat. “This is important, Buff.
had the other night, and…”
“And what? You think she should stop blaming
everyone else for her mistakes and stop freeloading, too? No, wait, that can’t
be it. It’s much more fun if everyone just gangs up on Buffy.”
“This isn’t about ‘ganging up’ on anyone!”
“Yeah, Buffy. We want you to be happy. We’re
your friends, remember?”
Buffy snorted. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”
“We know you’re upset about how you had to
come back, Buffy, but…”
Buffy cut
the forces of nature to bring me back. There’s a difference. But this
isn’t about that. It’s about me being sick of having two complete hypocrites
judging what I do all the time.”
“That’s a bit harsh, Buffy,” Xander snapped.
“No, it really isn’t. The two of you fuck up
royally constantly and think you can just shrug your shoulders and say
‘oops’ and it’s all okay. But me – I don’t follow your little rules of how you
think I should behave and there’s something wrong with me!”
“There is something wrong with you!”
cleared her throat and said more calmly. “Well, not wrong with you.
You’re just not…acting like yourself.”
“Yeah,” Xander chimed in. “I mean,
than, well, Spike. Like he was your special patrol buddy. That…that
isn’t true, is it, Buffy?”
“No, Xander, Spike is not my ‘special patrol
buddy,’” she replied, with sarcastic air quotes.
“Oh, thank god,” Xander said. His relief,
however, was dead a moment later when Buffy spoke again.
“He’s my lover.”
would’ve made Buffy laugh if she hadn’t been so angry.
“I’m pretty sure you heard me. Spike’s my
lover. As in we’re having sex. You know, where two people…”
Xander snapped out of his stupor to hold up
his hand. “We get the picture. No need to draw a verbal diagram.”
“Buffy, I know you’re going through a
difficult time in your life, but turning to Spike for comfort isn’t…”
“Oh god,
making the redhead’s mouth close. “This isn’t open for debate. I’m with Spike,
and that’s all there is to say on the matter. You’re either okay with it or…
Well, if you’re not, you know where the door is.”
“How…how can you say that?”
us?”
“Let me see – would I choose the person who
loves me unconditionally and would support me no matter what over the people
who judge me constantly and try to control me? Yeah, I really think I would.”
“Buffy, this is insane! Would you listen to
yourself?” Xander shouted. “You’re standing here talking about being with Spike
like it’s not sick and disgusting!”
“That’s because it’s not. You have no idea
what goes on behind closed doors with me and Spike. No idea at all – and no
right to make any judgments about it. And hey, some people might say the same
thing about you and Anya.”
“I love her,” Xander snapped defensively.
“Yeah, well, I love Spike. Get over it.”
“Buffy, you may think you love Spike, but…”
That was the last straw for Buffy. She’d had
enough of their judgments, and she certainly wasn’t going to keep trying to
defend her relationship with Spike to them. “You know what,
mother’s room. You moved in here while I was dead, took over the master
bedroom, and now what? You can’t even chip in with the bills? Do you even know
what the mortgage is? No? Get out.”
“You…you can’t throw me out!”
“You’re a freeloader,” Buffy said, speaking
very slowly as if she were talking to a child. “You took over my house when I wasn’t
here, and now you go hang out with your crazy friends and get my little sister
hurt. You can leave.”
“You can’t do this to
the Buffy I know wouldn’t even want to. What has Spike done to you?”
“Okay, you can really leave. Seriously.
You’re not even squatting here.”
“Buffy…”
“Get out of my house! Both of you! I’ve…I’ve
had enough. This is my home, and I don’t want to have to live here with
either of you breathing down my neck. So since neither of you can actually be
my friends and see anything beyond the tip of your own noses, I just want you
gone. I can’t deal with this anymore.”
“I don’t understand why you’re saying these
things, Buffy,”
“No, of course you don’t. And really, if you
don’t get it, I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t even want to try. I just
can’t do this anymore. I’m sick of being depressed all the time. I’m sick of
feeling like I have to please people who can never accept me for who I am. I
can’t do it anymore. I can’t. And unless the two of you learn what it
means to be real friends, then I just want you gone.”
“Buffy, would you listen to yourself!”
Xander yelled. “You’re accusing the only two people who have stuck by you through
all of your problems of being out to get you!”
“I never said you were ‘out to get me.’ I
And as far as being the only people who have stuck by me? Funny, I don’t see
running around in some bizarre psychedelic, magic fog and summoning a demon
from the Broadway Hell as ‘sticking by me.’ It just manages to fuck my life up
a little bit more.”
Both
Buffy held out her hand and spoke over them. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m
acting like children – and stupid children at that – and then expecting me to
bail you out. Both of you have recently endangered the life of my sister. She’s
got her arm in a sling and has to deal with the trauma of almost being taken to
hell to be a demon’s bride. Like she hasn’t been through enough already? And
all you do is apologize and act like that’s supposed to make it all better, but
seeing as you both continue to act like morons, I’m really not seeing the
remorse here.
“The bottom line is that I’m sick of playing
these stupid games and I’m sick of always having to pretend that everything’s
just a-okay. It’s not. It hasn’t been for a very long time, and I don’t think
it’s going to get any better if something doesn’t change. I can’t keep worrying
if I’m pleasing everyone else or what someone’s going to think of me whenever I
make a choice about my personal life. I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s
exhausting. I just want to be happy, and I don’t want to feel alone all the time.
I can’t do it anymore.”
“We don’t want you to be alone, Buffy,”
very healthy thing to do.”
“And I don’t care what you think. You don’t
know him. Neither of you do. And you don’t know what things are like between
us. You don’t know how good Spike’s been to me these past few months. You have
no idea how supportive he’s been or how much strength he’s given me. You don’t
know.”
Xander sneered at Buffy. “Please. You really
think Spike cares about you? If he’s acting like he’s your friend, Buffy, it’s
only because he’s trying to get into your pants.”
Buffy turned and focused her gaze on Xander,
the look in her eyes actually making him shrink back in his seat. “Don’t you
You know as well as I do why you’ve stayed around me as long as you have and
how petty you can be when it comes to
me choosing another man over you. I know you’re jealous. I know it pisses you
off to know I’d rather be with a vampire than you. And if anyone has ever
pretended to care about me as a friend to try to get into my pants, it’s you –
not Spike.”
“That isn’t true! I mean yeah, I may have
had a crush on your back in high school, but that was a long time ago. I’m with
Anya now.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t
dump her if you had a shot with me. Tell me with complete honesty that at least
part of the reason you’re still here is because you’re hoping someday you’ll
find your in.”
Xander opened his mouth, but closed it again
after a moment of saying nothing. Buffy’s eyes were boring into his, daring him
to tell her anything less than the truth. He squirmed underneath her intense
stare until finally, he jumped to his feet.
“Fine. If you’d rather fuck some vampire
than remember who your friends are, well… There’s nothing more I can do to help
you, Buffy.”
“No, Xander, there’s not,” Buffy replied,
her tone even despite the anger that was threatening to overtake her. She
refused to get hysterical or lose control of herself. She knew what she was
doing was the best thing for her to do at this point, and whether or not the
two of them understood her decision didn’t matter. She pointed towards the
door. “You can see yourself out.”
As Xander stormed past her, Buffy turned her
attention back to
mother’s bedroom.”
commotion on the front porch caught both of their attention. Buffy turned
quickly, her heart jumping as she realized her mistake in sending Xander
through the front door.
She ran towards the porch, letting out a
yell when she saw Spike on the ground, Xander holding him down as he punched
him repeatedly, snarling vile epithets at the vampire as he did. Spike was
attempting to defend himself the best he could, but with the chip, he wasn’t
able to do much more than hold his arms in front of him.
“Xander, stop!” Buffy yelled. “Stop hurting
him!”
Xander ignored her, his attack continuing.
Buffy moved then, grabbing Xander’s arm as he brought it back to deliver
another blow and pulled him away from Spike. She’d held back, however,
resisting using her full Slayer strength, hoping it wouldn’t be necessary. She
wanted to diffuse the situation – not hurt Xander, as angry as he was making
her. Buffy knew that her abilities often made her too strong when it came to fighting humans.
However, Xander wasn’t willing to take the
same care with her. He pushed her back, sending Buffy stumbling down the
stairs. Spike roared as he watched her fall, all thoughts of the chip pushed
out of his mind as he struck, hitting Xander in the face, feeling bone smash
beneath his fist as his own head erupted into excruciating pain.
Spike fell back to the ground, clutching his
head. Xander touched his face, saw blood on his hand, and charged Spike again,
this time kicking the vampire repeatedly as he struggled to get to his feet.
From the doorway,
Buffy pulled herself up to her feet and
brushed herself off. The fall hadn’t hurt her, but it had served to royally
piss her off. She started back towards Xander, ready to do whatever it took to
get him off her boyfriend – even if it meant using Slayer strength.
She didn’t have to. Suddenly someone ran
past her, attacking Xander and making him stumble away from Spike. It took
Buffy a moment to realize who it was.
Dawn. She used her good arm to wield her
purse, beating Xander down to his knees.
A moment later, Buffy heard someone behind
her yell out a word she didn’t understand. Xander froze, clearly unable to
move. Dawn stepped back and wiped her brow.
Buffy turned around and saw Tara standing in
the walkway. She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Hi, Buffy. How are
things going?”
“Oh, all fine and dandy,” Buffy replied with
sarcasm, though she flashed the other woman a grateful smile.
“Buffy, are you all right?” Spike asked from
the porch, still clutching his head, though the chip seemed to have stopped
firing.
Buffy ran up the stairs, past a still-immobile
Xander, and knelt down beside Spike. “I’m fine. I’ve taken way worse falls than
that. Are you okay? You’re bleeding, honey.”
“I’m fine, luv. Harris punches like the
loser he is,” Spike grumbled, though his face was already starting to show signs
of bruising.
Buffy didn’t know what to say. Seeing Xander
attacking Spike had terrified her, and her heart was still pounding now. She
threw her arms around him, and Spike held her, whispering soothing words
against her ear as he tried to calm her down.
“Well, that explains it,” Dawn said after a
moment. “I take it Xander figured out you two are together.”
Buffy looked up at her sister then turned
her head quickly towards
“Please, Buffy, I’m not totally clueless,”
Dawn said with a roll of her eyes. “I found your panties stuck in the pillows
of the couch. I mean, I’m totally scarred for life now from that, but it didn’t
take a rocket scientist to figure out how they got there – you’ve only really
been around one guy since you got back.”
“
she was even there. “What’s going on? And what did you do to Xander?”
“Stopped him from hurting Dawn, Spike, or
Buffy,”
“He’ll be fine in a couple of minutes, and hopefully then, he’ll have calmed
down.”
“
dinner,” Dawn supplied. “I left a note…”
“I didn’t think you’d mind, Buffy,”
“No, I don’t mind,” Buffy replied, pulling
back from Spike some, though she kept her hand on his shoulder. “And I didn’t
quite expect this myself.”
about Spike and Buffy?” she asked
voice.
and onto the porch. “How…how could the two of you sneak around my back and keep
this from me?”
“Because it wasn’t about you,”
a friend – something I don’t even think you know how to do.” The image of Buffy
as she’d been the night before, so desperate just to have someone look at her
and tell her she wasn’t somehow inherently wrong was still fresh in Tara’s
mind, and she knew who bore a large part of the blame for Buffy reaching that
point. “You always want to push your will and your opinion on everyone,
how you show them you love them. That’s how you show them you only love
yourself.”
her and didn’t see an ounce of sympathy for her in any of their eyes.
Instead, Buffy turned from her and helped
Spike to his feet. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you inside and fixed up. Are you
staying for a bit,
Dawn, Buffy, and Spike went inside the house
with
turned and looked at
should probably make sure he gets home.”
With that, she shut the door.
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Please excuse any typos – blame the fever I had
while editing this.
Reviews would be lovely.