Sorry, love. Can’t let you do that. For days after, he’d pressed his fingers into the bruises and tried to guess their colour. How she’d swung, straddling his chest. That’s my girl. How the body had dragged in the dirt. He’d never had to hide a body before. Too few stones in the pockets, he figured. Not enough weight for the current. Just ‘cause they found it didn’t mean she had to hold her wrists out for the cuffs. You can’t understand why this is killing me, can you? But he could now. This soul swirlin’ inside was his jailor and his judge. People like that deserved the big lock-up — people who’d done it wrong. She hadn’t been one then and she wasn’t one now. Could they take what he said and put her away? You always hurt the ones.
He never failed.
She was crying. Now she wasn’t. It lingered like left-over radiation, stuck on her skin and in her throat. When she looked at him, her eyes were swollen. No mascara clouds. She hadn’t gotten dressed up for this. Spike looked at the polish on his fingernails. Had she come here to fight? To yell and cut him down? Good show. That low humming in his ears, still: it doesn’t just go away because you’re good now. But he tried to smooth it out, didn’t he? Every day.
He was angry. Now he wasn’t. Nothing but quiet in the space between where her words ended and his struggled to begin, and he wanted to keep the burner on but he couldn’t hear the gas clicking. All the little nasties she’d said, today or ever — think on those. You don’t know what feelings are. There is nothing good or clean in you. If I need someone to get weepy or wailed on, I can call you. Girl had a habit of digging deep. She came to fight, yeah. She came to hurt him. Angel the best she had, and he wanted to spit it up when she shoved it down but here he was swallowing it instead, swallowing because who said anything about jail?
Spike started. ”Xander said—.” He started, quieter. He started and didn’t finish. How could he? Xander said there was a plan. Didn’t matter anymore. She was waiting with the top of her lower lip pulled in, and it made the steam hiss out of his ears. Spike shook his head. ”Forget it.” He put a hand out to guide her, to take her by the arm, but those goddamn eyes — don’t you know he can’t touch her anymore when she’s wet in the eyelashes? Brushed her chiffon sleeve instead. Retracted fingers in a fist. Looked quick at her jeans, his boots, a crack in the floor. She was a clever girl. She’d get it if he just tilted his head a second and walked.
So he did. Past the armchair and the telly, back to the stone coffin by the windowsill where the candlewax made brittle rivers. He sat with one leg tucked under and one foot on the floor. When she took her place beside, he angled to face her. ”Buffy,” he said. ”You’re not goin’ to jail. That what you think? Where you think this ends? We won’t let ‘em. I won’t let ‘em.” He wanted to tuck her hair out of her face, or smooth the shirt over her shoulder. He kept his hands on his knees. ”Lie detectors aren’t any good without vitals, but we’ll figure somethin’ what’ll put the fakes in their place. And, look, if they start staplin’ your mug on all the phone-poles in Ohio, I’m a pretty good harbour for fugitives.” The smile was small and closed-mouthed. It hardly put a dimple in his cheek.
Buffy took in a deep and congested breath, wiping what tears were trying to escape her eyes away before they could get the chance. It was stupid to cry. Spike looked taken aback by what she’d said. But it was true, she’d done things any other person would go to jail for. Hell, in the eyes of “vampire rights activists” she might as well be a serial killer. Her mind couldn’t stop from jumping to that conclusion. From seeing herself alone in a prison cell as the world fell to pieces around her. But she brought herself away from there, back to reality. Back to Spike standing there starting and stopping and generally struggling to speak. He reached out his hand as if to grab hers, and she would have taken it. He was softer now, she could sense it. But he didn’t take her hand. He shied away suddenly, tugging on her shirtsleeve instead. But she couldn’t blame him. Having been pinned to the ground by her only moments ago was bound to make him a little… Skittish.
She would have reacted the same way. She did react the same way, before. When their roles were reversed and intentions were darker. When he’d pinned her down, overpowered her so easily. He’d made her feel so weak, he’d tried to take away her control. He almost did. And for weeks she’d asked herself how she could have let it happen. And when he came back, before she knew about the soul even she couldn’t find it inside of her to be angry. She shouldn’t have let it happen. Shouldn’t have slept with him in the first place. But she still jumped when he touched her, it had been involuntary. It took a while to know, to know that it was safe. And she didn’t know for sure until she found out, and it had been a terrible way to find out, about his soul. But now he was safe. She knew he was safe. And they’d gone through so much since then. She trusted him. She trusted his soul. She trusted it more than any government chip or relative morality fueled by a twisted love. She trusted his soul and she could touch him again. She felt safe with him, even. So when he went to take her hand, or what she thought was hand taking, she would have taken it.
But he didn’t take her hand. He walked on, leading her toward the coffin with a tilted head. She sat down next to where he’d settled himself on the lid. She didn’t want to look in his eyes with tears in hers, so she just looked down at her feet. They were dangling over the edge of the coffin, legs too short to reach the ground the way Spike’s did. One of his knees was beneath him, poking out and almost touching hers. Not quite, but almost. She’d made sure not to, didn’t think he’d want to touch the woman who’d just bashed her skull into his. That was understandable. You’re not goin’ to jail. That what you think? Where you think this ends? He had angled himself toward her, was it an invitation to touch him if she so chose? We won’t let ‘em. I won’t let ‘em. No, his hands were on his knees. That was closed posture. Don’t cross any boundaries. He was all but saying that he would protect her, which she already knew. She knew he would, he’d laid those cards on the table a long time ago. But he was saying it again now and she wanted nothing more than to thank him somehow. To place her arm around his shoulders, they’d be just a little too wide for her to reach. But she would have tried anyways. If she could have. But his hands were on his knees and he didn’t want that.
She stayed where she was, stayed doing what she was doing. A small chuckle escaped her lips at the thought of a vampire taking a lie detector test. And her brow furrowed when she tried to think of anything at all that might be able to actually prove the presence or lack of a soul. And when he told her she could hide with him if worse came to worse, she didn’t even let herself imagine the wanted posters he’d described. The air was silent between them, not necessarily uncomfortable, but Buffy wanted to fill it with something anyways. She looked up to him, into his eyes and said the first thing that came to mind. The truest thing she could think of. “Thank you, Spike. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for not fighting me, even though anyone else would have.” She let out a breath and looked back down again. Suddenly ashamed of the way she’d jumped to conclusions, the way she’d lost control. “I shouldn’t have attacked you that way.” She wanted so much to keep her head hung in shame, to hide her puffy eyes, but she looked up into his again. He deserved to see her face. “I’m sorry.” Apologize with your eyes on his, that way he knows it’s true.
This Is A Test 