Blocker
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Chapter Two
It wasn't really any single thing that woke him up. Nothing in particular, that is. Just some vague subconscious notion that something was… different. His sleeping brain didn't register a threat; he didn't hear a sound. He just knew that there was some reason he should be awake.
As he started to come to consciousness, his body told him that it wasn't sunset, wasn't yet time to be awake. But his instincts wouldn't let him fall back under. So he slowly awoke, reaching out with his senses to see what it was that had made him uncomfortable.
After stretching and scratching, he picked up on a heartbeat. Not an excited, ready-to-pounce invader and not the elevated race of the slayer's heart, not a fearful pounding - just a quiet, oh-so-soft beat that shouldn't have been there.
He pulled the sheet with him as he sat up and was stunned beyond words to find Glinda the Good Witch curled up in a ball and sleeping on his floor. What the hell was the silly bint doing here?
His first thought was to roar at her to wake up and state her business but the bluish stains under her red-rimmed eyes halted him.
That's when he remembered last night. The spell, the amnesia, the revelation, the… kissing. The upper-cut punch that followed the kissing just before the slayer ran out on him - again. As if he were taking advantage. She'd come to him. It wasn't that, though, that would have brought Tara to his door.
It had to be the spell - or some consequence of the spell.
While in the Bronze, while waiting for the slayer to make up her mind about what she really wanted, he'd thought about the amnesia and its sudden disappearance. He figured it had to have been Red, messing about again. Why, he didn't know, but he figured he'd hear sooner or later. Looking at Tara asleep on his floor, it seemed that the time had come.
He gently cleared his throat.
She almost jumped out of her skin as she sat up and looked around, trying to remember where she was. She'd been having the nicest dream…
Scratchy wool rugs and packed earth walls and spider webs weren't what she'd been expecting. She felt his gaze and turned to see Spike staring down at her from his bed with a puzzled but interested expression on his face.
The spell - the packing - her mother - Spike. It all came together for her in an instant and she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and yawned and stretched, her brain working frantically to explain her presence here. She didn't think Spike would be all that thrilled about messages from beyond the grave.
"Somethin' wrong, pet?" Spike asked, curious, as he reached for a pack of cigarettes and his lighter from the bedside table. The sheet that covered him didn't move with him and she saw his navel and then a line of fine, light brown hair before she quickly closed her eyes, not wanting to see more. She felt herself flush though and berated herself for it. She shouldn't be looking and Spike shouldn't affect her that way. She hadn't looked at a man since her crush on Ben Haskell in eleventh grade. Not since kissing Beth senior year and liking the softness of a woman more than the octopus-like hands of Ben.
"Tara?" She heard his lighter click closed and figured it was safe to open her eyes again. "Someone in trouble?" he asked. "Is it Red?"
She shook her head, still not sure what to say. He was awfully intimidating sitting there, looking down at her, only half covered by a light peach sheet. He was… bigger than she'd thought: more muscular with wide shoulders and a broad chest.
"Is it the slayer?" He seemed alarmed now and she hastened to reassure him. "N-no. Not Buffy. Nobody. J-just me."
"You need my help with somethin'?" He seemed surprised. The witch was coming to him for help? "Me? You sure?"
She nodded. Then shook her head.
"Yes or no - which is it, luv?" He seemed sincere, not impatient, but gentle.
She took a breath and calmed herself; this was what she had come here for, after all.
"I just needed - needed someone to - to talk to. S-someone," she had to stop stuttering and so she concentrated on her words. She continued, "Someone to talk to who's not - not Willow's friend. Not a Scooby, I mean. Someone on the outside. Like - like me."
On the outside looking in. He could relate. Isn't that where he'd spent his whole bloody undead life?
She was here to talk? With him? Did he look like Dear soddin' Abby? He was incredulous. But then, he remembered, he'd never tried to kill her, so yeah, maybe she did see him a little differently than the others did.
He wasn't a member of the club and neither was she. Maybe they should get Anya and form their own bloody club. He tried not to smile at that as he looked at her.
He took a last drag on his cigarette and then stubbed it out in the ashtray on the table.
She wanted to talk, he'd talk. Not like he had anything better to do. It wasn't like the slayer'd be stopping by for a quick snog anytime soon.
"Mind if I put on my pants first, luv?"
She nodded and he stood, quicker than she'd expected him to, he supposed, because she drew in her breath and put a hand over her eyes. What was her problem? She was a grown woman after all and a lesbian to boot. Not like his goodies were going to stir anything in her. Prob'ly just that repressed side that most humans had. What was it about a naked body that frightened them so much? You looked at them in art museums all the time.
When he had his jeans in place and was zipping up, he announced, "S'alright, luv, I'm decent.
You can uncover those innocent eyes." She took a tentative peek through her fingers first to make sure that his idea of 'decent' was the same as her idea of 'decent'. With Spike she was never quite sure. He sat on his bed and pulled out another cigarette and it seemed so strange to her to see Spike sitting there on his peach linen-covered bed, barefoot and shirtless, looking relaxed and, well… normal. Not all big and bad and swaggering in black leather.
"So, what ya need to talk about?"
"I - I left Willow. I moved out."
"Good for you, ducks."
She was startled by that, but happy too that he thought she'd done the right thing.
"It was the spell, right?" he asked. "Messin' with our minds? What was she after with that, do ya know?"
"She wanted us to forget, me and Buffy. Wanted Buffy to forget Heaven and me to forget -"
He looked interested so she went on. "Me to forget, well, a couple of things. That we'd fought, Willow and I. That she'd promised not to use magic for a week. That I knew she'd done it before, used that spell on me."
"She'd done it before?"
"Yeah", Tara said, relaxing now that he seemed concerned. "She used it on me last week one night when we argued. She made me forget the argument."
"You can't win for losin', can ya, luv?" He blew out a plume of smoke and gazed at her. "Seems like everyone who claims to love you thinks it's all right to mess with yer head. Yer family was the same, I remember."
Tara started to tear up again, even though she thought she was all cried out. "Why does everyone want to control me, Spike? What's so wrong with me - why does everyone think they have that right?"
Spike hated it when women cried. He always felt so helpless and that was a feeling he despised.
"Hey now," he tried to calm her down, "Nothing wrong with you. You're…" he tried to think of a word. Beautiful - pure - innocent - corruptible - incandescent. All true but not the idea he was trying to get across at the moment. "Strong," he finally decided on. "Sure. Some people, insecure people, can't handle that. Need to be in control, they do. Need to feel like they're the strong one in the relationship, so they try to mold you, turn you just as insecure as they are."
Tara wiped her eyes and then sighed, "You sound like you know my father pretty well."
Spike smiled, and then tapped out his second cigarette into the ashtray. He pushed himself off the bed and came and sat in front of her on the floor, legs crossed in front of him.
"Know his kind. I've run into them often enough."
"But what about Willow?" she asked. "She's not controlling." She thought about the spell and added, "Normally."
"But she's insecure, luv. When I first met 'er, was…" he thought back, "'bout four years ago, she was this nerdy little high school honor student. No witchy powers, no boyfriend, never been kissed. No self-esteem at all. Bein' the slayer's sidekick was more than she'd ever thought she'd be. Sittin' next to power was as high as she thought she'd get."
Tara seemed mystified. That wasn't the Willow that she knew. "But Willow's so gifted; she's smart and powerful. Her magic's much stronger than mine."
"Wasn't always that way. Not sure when it happened because I left Sunnydale fer a while, but when I came back, she was in heavy with the magic. Even tried to get her to do a spell fer me once."
Tara frowned at that. "She told me about that. You kidnapped her, Spike," she admonished, but glad in her heart that it hadn't gone the way it could have. "She said your bark was worse than your bite, even back then."
"Hey!" He hadn't liked that one bit, or the half smile that accompanied it.
"Hey, what I did, I did out of love, all right? Dru had kicked me out - said-" his voice faltered but he quickly got himself back under control. "Said I wasn't bad enough for her anymore, after I'd helped the slayer get Angelus. Her bloody 'Daddy' was all she could think about." He sighed. "I didn't know what to do. Wanted to make him pay, wanted to make the slayer pay. Then I saw Red gettin' ingredients for an anti-love spell and I thought, if she can do an anti-love spell, she could do a pro-love spell and get Dru back for me. Never got that far, of course. Why is it that most of my plans never seem to work out?"
One thing he said had caught Tara's attention. "Anti-love spell?" Willow hadn't told her that part.
"Yeah," Spike said absently. "Somethin' about her and the whelp suddenly gettin' all hot and bothered over each other when they both had significant others. She was trying a, what did she call it? Oh, a de-lusting."
"But I thought Oz was her only boyfriend in high school." Tara was confused. Willow never told her that she and Xander had been together.
Spike rocked his head a bit as he thought about it. "Don't think her and the moron ever actually dated or anything like that. Think it was just a little snoggin' behind the wolf's back. They never really confided all the details to me."
Tara's head was reeling. Willow had cheated on Oz? That didn't seem like Willow at all. Why would Willow keep that from her? They'd told each other everything, or so Tara had thought. There had to be a reason! Maybe Willow was insecure about their relationship in the beginning; she hadn't wanted to tell her friends about Tara at first. Maybe she thought Tara would think less of her if she knew Willow had cheated on Oz? Cheated with someone who she was still friends with. Maybe she thought that Tara would be jealous of Xander or hold it against him? But she had to know better now! But after not saying anything for so long, that would be a pretty hard thing to bring up out of the blue. She didn't like it that Willow had held that back, but she could understand why.
She felt the need to defend Willow to Spike, even if it did make her wonder if there was anything else Willow had held back.
"She just made a mistake. I know she loved Oz."
"She did, from what I heard. And he loved her too. Thought the sun rose and set in her eyes from the sound of it." He looked at her. "Same way you look at her. Before last night anyway." He went on. "Then he gave her back some of her own with a she-wolf, from what I hear and went rabid on her. Nearly killed her; would have, if the slayer hadn't got there first. Which is closer than I ever got to ending her life, I might add." He thought that last bit might make him look better in comparison. He didn't stop to think why he didn't want Tara to think badly of him.
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