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Crossroads
Then.
You're not friends. You'll never be friends "I love you," she confessed, all the color drained from her face, as the words unraveled in the wind naked and bare.
They slayer accepted her weakness, the confession burned in the back of her throat, but she let it out because he deserved to hear it, the dark-twisted-truth. Her sharp emerald eyes scanned over his presently soft features, comitting them to memory, so she could remember him like this, selfless, brave, a champion, not like how he so often portrayed himself before, vicious.
Deep down, it was always there, the slayers lust for him metamorphosed, but she buried it, kicked dirt over it because she was afraid of who she was when she was with him. There were people in the world, in her life, that depended on her, but when she was with Spike he awakened something primal, and selfish inside her, and that person she was becoming would destroy everything that meant something to her. 'Just let me go', she had begged him in the past, even then he couldn't see it, she was enslaved to him, and it made her feel so small.
You'll be in love till it kills you both
'I cant. I love you. You think I haven't tried not to' he replied back then and it took a while before the slayer could grasp the idea of a love so great it worked it's will so assiduously until it compelled every atom in you, even if it was illogical, or wicked, or wrong. Love didn't allow your better judgment to weigh in, love didn't care what plans you may or may not have, it was it's own beast.
A hungry beast, demanding to be fed. Every time she told herself it was the last time she'd give into her urges, another one surfaced, another itch needing sratching. She scratched until she was raw, exposed, and all her friends saw her for whom she was.
Flawed.
With Angel it was different, wrong, but still different. She possessed an excuse to love something cold and dead because Angel had a soul, so her friends judged her less, and Giles's scorn was less scorny. With Spike, she had no excuses, nothing to hide behind in defense. Her friends couldn't understand her and Giles's pride in her diminished.
You'll fight. You'll shag and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be firends
The control she maintained so viliginatly, slipped from her grasp whenever Spike was around. So, she used him, wailed on him, and then abandoned him. All while her need for him evolved, grew, and incompehensibly consumed her.
For a while, weeks, maybe months she practiced discipline, and kept her relationship with Spike strictly slayer related. In the last year they spent fighting the first, Buffy only slipped once, okay twice, but it was different because now he had a soul too. She trusted him now.
It made sense he was reluctant to believe her, how he could look into her eyes and rebuk her every testament to feelings that had been clandestinely surging inside the slayer for months, maybe years behind the scenes of her blank expression. "No you don't, but thanks for saying it."
Part of her wanted to stay and finish the fight with him. The first slayer prepared her for the reality she may not just walk out of the mouth of hell time and time again. Death was her gift, but Spike was adamant she left and Dawn needed her. The tiny blonde locked eyes with the platinum blonde vampire intently, chewing on the bottom of her lip, she accepted his sacrafice.
The school was falling apart and Buffy felt the ground shifting below her. Every step felt like a betrayl to Spike, but she couldn't afford to hesitate, because there were parts of the ceiling collapsing all around her. The slayer had never been one to abandon a soldier, or leave someone high and dry, while she rode off into the sunset . Buffy's short legs sunk in pits of rubble, the remains of Sunnydale Highschool classrooms. She felt a fear expand inside the lining of her stomach as she watched the school bus take off in the distance pass the lobby double doors that flapped open.
Love isnt brains children. Its blood.
Still woozy from the open wound in her abdomen Buffy willed her limbs to scale the closest building before it collapsed, so she could gain some height on the bus and jump down. Now if it would just stop moving. Every tendon in her legs felt like they had caught on fire and muscle contracted as the slayer lept from building to building. before she finally was able to land down on the bus. Her knuckles became increasingly ghastly as she gripped the sides of the bus for balance.
When the gang finally slowed down and veered off the road to stop, the slayer exhaled, and inhaled as much air as her injury would allow. She slid down to the concrete highway and limped down to join the gang. Dawn and her were the first to hug, the blonde flinched as her younger sister clutched her gratefully.
The conversations of her friends faded into the background as Buffy stared out at the growing crater her home once rested over. "How did this happen," was the only thing she heard them say.
"Spike," she murmured softly.
Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous it burns and cosumes. Until there's nothing left.
A fair share of high-fiving and commentary was shared by the gang, but Buffy was distracted by a shimmering light off into the distance, it shined past the cloud of smoke from the wreckage, calling out to her. "Spike," she repeated louder, completely non-sequtur this time.
Her slayer senses started to tickle. She felt a hand nearly pull at her jacket, but miss, as she ventured out over the rubble. The gravel capsized under her, but she forged on, almost entranced, till she reached the light, where a hand shot through the debris. Buffy firmly reached for the hand and tugged hard, grunting in pain. The gang called out for her anxiously unable to thwart her suicide mission. Now
They say there is a quiet before the storm, but Buffy always found the one after the storm to be the most defeaning. Slayers and scooby members filled the seats of the school bus in quiet reflection, some wounded, some traumatized, some still scared. They had every right to still be scared, they may have defeated The First today, but if today proved anything, it was that they were definitely outnumbered in the fight between good and evil.
No matter how many slayers were in the world today, there would never be enough to eradicate the world of demons.
At the back of the bus Buffy held Spikes head in her lap as Willow patched up his burns and abrasions. If Faith hadn't met her in the middle of the caving debris of Sunnydale she would have never been able to carry Spike out of their quick enough before the foundation of rubble further sunk into the core of the earth.
The vampire was in bad shape, his limbs were swollen, black and blue. Buffy couldn't begin to imagine how many of his bones broke in the collapse, already she could count a broken eyesocket, fractured ribs, and broken ankle, and that was just a first assesment from a quick glance over.
Giles had taken control of the bus from Robin since he was the one who had lined up a safe house with an affiliate he had met in England decades ago that had ties to The Council. The gentleman was an outside contractor for The Watchers, but since retired, he had kindly offered up some property in a remote area north of California in Oregon.
It seemed like all their worries were behind them until three black vans pulled up from along side and behind them, at first just tailing, but soon playing bumper cars with them. "Buffy," Dawn called out, her voice childlike, and small, capsulated in fear.
"I see it," she answered. Willow and her exchanged worried looks. Before, she got up she clasped Spike's hand tightly. "I'll be back," she promised, her olive hues glassed over with concerned staring at him.
The slayer walked down the aisle of injured slayers down to Giles's side at the front of the bus. "What do you think?" She whispered, under her breath.
"Don't know," he shrugged, focused on the road and holding the bus steady despite the bumps inflicted by their friends on the road, "Unmarked cars, bad driving, bringers maybe?" Giles pondered. Buffy nodded and glanced over at Faith, together they met at the middle of the bus under the hatch opening.
"We can't afford to stop," Buffy admitted, looking around at the young girls incompasitated by pain. "We have to take them while they're unprepared," the more seniored slayer decided.
Faith laughed and cracked her bloody knuckles. "Real life game of frogger it is then. Let's get this over with. I'm ready to nap." The two girls lept through the hatch at the top of the bus, till they were able to stable themselves ontop. Each slayer took a car beside the bus first, Buffy to the right, and Faith to the left.
In perfect union, they both dropped to the vans roof, swinging the drivers door open, gripping onto the material of their clothes, and throwing them from the sweat. Each slayer slid into the drivers seat, the flat of each foot connecting with the gut off the passenger, till they doubled over unconscious. Faith clocked the heads of both people in the back of her van enough to cause some heavy interal damage. Buffy took a less violent route and tied them up with some free rope that she discovered in the back of them. Both slayers jumped out the back of the van and shot out for the third van behind the bus. The two of them both managed to pry the locked doors off the hinges of the van and pull out the men camaflouged in black, the van slowly halt as it lost is driver. Faith attempted to knock out the last backseat passenger, but Buffy interrupted her fatal blow, "No," she instructed. "Him, we use for answers."
The two slayers dragged the man cloaked in black clothes and ski mask off the van. Faith ripped the mask off, human, Buffy already knew that much. She ruthlessly kicked his body down to the ground. "Talk," the blonde ordered. At first he gurgled, some blood spat from his bruised lips, but then he laughed. "You're a slayer, not a killer. I'm not saying sh*t and you can beat me till I pass out, but thats all you can do," the stranger bragged. Faith laughed with him, pulling a dagger out from her back pocket and holding it to his throat. "So you did your homework. Then you should know who I am and what I do. So talk, or don't talk. I will slit your throat and then ask the next ninja that comes along for answers, until I find one that does talk," Faith whispered in his ear. Buffy looked away even though the mercy drained from her after the days events there was still a distaste in her mouth for Faith's interrogation methods. "Who sent you," Faith grunted, driving her dagger into his shoulder.
"The Iniative," he devulged, in a single cry of agony.
A perplexed frown twisted at the edges of Buffys lips as the soldiers confession registered with her. Faith nudged her hip, "The Iniative. Isn't that your army boy's crew?"
"Yeah," Buffy exhaled, "Yeah it is." Riley was a faint memory to her. A moment of normalcy that felt more like a short experiment than a relationship. The first relationship that she discussed dinner plans more than battle tactics with, yet still even that relationship had its secrets and darkness.
They retreated back to the bus, Faith returned to Robins side, and despite the fact the back of the bus beckoned her, her slayer duties would always triumph over her needs. "It's the Iniative," Buffy informed Giles. Giles finally comfortable enough on the road was able to tear his attention away glanced up at his slayer baffled. "But surely, Riley would have warned us-"
"We don't know that," Buffy shot his trust in Riley down. Buffy had seen in multiple times in Riley, his inability to tolerate things he couldn't explain, and although he truly loved her, she knew he didn't accept what she was. "We need cover, we need to ditch the bus. We'll have to make a pitstop before the next destination," she decided, the exhuastion worse on her voice.
Buffy stood at Giles's side till he could find a place where they could ditch the bus and find a motel they could crash at and hopefully a few cars the could divide into. The scoobies had pooled all their savings for circumstances just like this, there was enough to hopefully get them out of California and to England where they could safely rebuild the Watchers Council and start seeking out slayer's in need.
At the back of the bus she kept Spike waiting, not wanting to share with him more worries, not when he so badly needed a break. Buffy wanted to buy him as much time as he needed before he could be back at her side, in full swing.
Blood screaming inside you to work its will.
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