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A Kind of Blue -- by Luisa
Rating: G
Description: Spike's in a temper.
Note: Dedication - To Nick Brendon and Alyson Hannigan.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Spike was moody. Willow stared at Xander, Xander glanced at Willow and they said nothing. They both wished for something to say but it seemed Spike's edginess was inviting their silence. Or rather, demanding it.
Willow gazed at the vampire's face, feeling unutterably sorry for him. She remembered her own despair after Oz had left. Spike's present feelings seemed very similar to hers at the time. They had both lost something they treasured. She recalled how she'd have given anything for someone to bring Oz back and say "Look, this girl loves you. Do you really want to chuck that away?". But that never happened in real life. Real life followed rules and one of its rules was that people could never have things made easy. Right now, she realised that Spike would have to get over this on his own. With a little help from the "geeks" he so appeared to despise.
Just when she thought Spike was too buried in his own thoughts to notice anything around him, he caught her looking at him sadly. His face made her wince.
"What? You feel sorry for me? I'm pathetic, is that it?!", he shouted, anger etching itself across his every feature. Willow immediately wiped out any shred of pity from her too expressive eyes. "No! You're...terrifying!", she hurriedly offered. Spike snorted in disgust. "Yeah right. As terrifying as Doris Day.", he muttered, turning away. Willow took a few steps forward, glancing rapidly at Xander as if requesting back-up. "Look, Spike...things have changed. But you're none the worse for it. I mean, you can help us! We could use someone like you.", she pleaded, green eyes wide. Spike stopped fiddling with a wrench and finally looked at her, grimness flooding his face. "Help you?! What is this? World's Lamest Part-Time Jobs?!". He opened his arms wide, contempt pouring out from his whole demeanour. "You don't get it, do you? No matter how much you fight, or rather, run away...", he glanced at Xander with a strange smirk on his face, "demons are here to stay. They like to party and Sunnyhell is just screaming for a big bash!", he ended, eyes gleaming in the semi-darkness. Xander looked up at this, eyes flicking over Willow's face for a few seconds. "Well, we're here to make sure the party punch doesn't have too much alcohol in it...and to pick up the pieces.", he retorted in his casual, Xandaresque tones. This made Spike mock him with one of his smirks. "Yeah, you're the caretaker sort, alright. The one the teachers asked to wipe the board clean after class.", he derided, waiting for some sort of Xander explosion. Nothing happened. Xander looked like a patient sheep, waiting for the lion to stop bragging.
"Hey, I happened to be very good at wiping the board, okay? It probably got me a D- minus when nothing else could.", he muttered quietly, even though Willow could hear subdued anger in his voice. She hastened to make peace. "Spike, you gotta look at this with new eyes. You're not alone! You're not ashes or dust or whatever. You're-" she hesitated, looking for the magic words. Spike returned her anxious look with a semi-tragic one of his own. "I wish I were. Bloody hell...", he sighed, stretching his limbs tiredly. He suddenly looked at Willow again and this time, there was something different about him. His eyes scanned her face quickly, travelling through every feature leisurely and then rushing over her small frame before resting on her face again. His voice, when he spoke, was calm. "You know, Red...I don't know what was running through Wolf-boy's head when he dumped you." Willow paled visibly at this and Xander fulminated Spike with one of his rather ineffectual looks. He opened his mouth to speak but instead concentrated on packing his things with a vengeance. He didn't look up to see how Willow was taking it and she didn't speak. She was swaying slightly from the blow, but somehow Spike's words were not the main thing on her mind. <Go ahead. Bash me, if it makes you feel better. I don't care.> She did care, but she preferred to see Spike in attack-mode rather than have him wallow in the quicksand of misery. "I mean, what did you do?", he continued, "Did you deny him what he was dying for? That is, you naked.". His voice held a trace of razor-sharp complacency and it took all of Willow's self-control not to lunge at him with a jagged piece of wood she had tucked inside her jacket. Xander's eyes flashed at Spike all of a sudden. He straightened his back and gave Spike his most fierce glare. "Look, Psycho-boy, don't you think you've done enough damage already? I mean, you're trashing my place, you're wearing my shirts and yeah, that kinda pisses me off, even though I'm the most giving human being in the world, and now you're lashing out at someone who actually wants to help you? Hey, by all means, be self-destructive, but don't drag us all down too, OK? We have a lot of work to do and this ain't helping.", he finished, eyes directly on Spike's face. The vampire's eyes glittered dangerously for a moment, then gradually lost their fire. Willow was almost sorry to see him deflate. For some strange reason, she was starting to like him more than she'd ever imagined liking anyone, least of all a demon. There was something of Oz about him. She could still remember Oz's issues with school and existence in general. Music was all that had ever mattered to him. That and keeping the werewolf caged under the full moon. He had once told her that if it wasn't for her, he'd have done something crazy for sure. Tears threatened to come, but she took a deep breath and decided not to look at Spike's face again. Xander's voice suddenly woke her from her reverie. He was saying something about upstairs. She turned to him with an absent expression. "Will, I forgot my baseball cap upstairs. Will you be OK if I leave you here for five minutes?" Spike snorted at this. "Don't worry, mate, my draining days are over.", he snapped, turning his back on the two friends. When he faced Willow again, she was alone. A door banged. Spike took a few steps towards the young redhead, stopping in front of her, a meter away. She looked up, in spite of her resolution not to do so. Spike was smirking at her, but his eyes remained serious. She wondered how he could do this. "So what did happen with your wolf-friend?", he asked, voice toneless. She looked away and put some distance between them at the same time. "None of your business.", she quietly answered. The silence that followed was filled with something that burned. It bounced on the walls, travelled back and forth, expanded, until Willow could almost feel it cutting through her skin like something sharp. She thought her answer had finally shut him up. She was wrong.
"What, did he leave because he was bored to death? Did he want something *different*?! Did he think you were too soft-", his voice broke at this point. When she looked up, his hands were covering his face. Was it possible that he was sobbing? Willow couldn't believe her eyes. She took a few steps forward and carefully touched him on the back. He didn't react. Next thing she knew, she was wrapping her arms around his frame and pressing her face against his upper arm. He disentangled his arms and enveloped her in a tight embrace, almost crushing her bones in the process. His hand rested on her hair for a few seconds, just before they both heard Xander's voice coming from the first floor. "Hey you guys, hurry up! Buffy just called and she's in slayer-mode! Come on!", he urgently called. They immediately separated, gazing at one another in a mutual attempt to understand. Spike shrugged and smirked sheepishly. This made Willow smile. When he offered her his hand, she took it and they both headed out.
The End
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