Driving to Distraction - Chapter 5

Buffy stared at her open magazine as they sped down the interstate.

She was bored.

She’d read her magazine twice over already and the silence in the car was becoming deafening. Since yesterday evening and Spike’s goodnight, her stomach had felt tense, tied up in knots over the attraction she was beginning to feel toward him.

She kept telling herself that it was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, that she wasn’t really having these kinds of feelings toward him, it was purely a reaction to their situation.

She kept telling herself it but couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

Looking around the car, she sighed as she searched for something that would give her something to talk about in order to break the silence that was beginning to irritate her. She smiled as her eyes settled on something.

She didn’t have to talk in order to break the silence.

Reaching forward, she flicked the buttons on the radio.

Spike frowned as he watched her hand and then swiped it away from the radio as she managed to turn it on and a loud, high-pitch crackle filled the car.

“Bloody hell, woman, you trying to make my ears bleed?” Spike shouted at her as he quickly switched the radio off and shot her a deadly look.

“What’s got you so cranky?” Buffy muttered and shrank back into her corner, cursing his stupid car and its stupid radio for making him angry with her.

“I happen to have very sensitive ears.” He answered in a haughty tone that almost made her smile.

She wrinkled her nose as she looked at him, unable to tell if he was being serious or playful.

“Who told you that?” Buffy stared at his ears and arched one of her fine brows. His ears were small, and kind of elvish.

“Doctors. They said I had nice ears.” Spike grinned.

Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “These docs happen to be female?”

“What can I say? I need a woman’s touch to make me feel better.” Spike purred at her.

Buffy got the feeling he was flirting with her and it only made the tight, confused sensation in her stomach worsen.

“There’s a word for you, Spike.”

“What’s that then?” He looked over at her briefly before settling his eyes back on the road.

“Pig.” Buffy stated.

Spike chuckled softly.

“Thought it was more like ‘irresistible’.” He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and smiled.

Buffy felt the blush start at her feet and sweep up her, her eyes immediately darting away from him and coming to rest on her lap.

Retuning his concentration back to driving, Spike listened to her mumble something unintelligible and saw her begin nosing about his car. He was about to stop her when he decided that it would only cause more friction between them.

Besides, there was nothing in his car that she’d find intriguing.

Buffy smiled as she found a book.

Nothing except that.

Leaning across, Spike tried to swipe it from her grasp and ended up steering his car across to the right at the same time. He quickly straightened up as horns blared at him.

“Ah, ah…ah.” Buffy teased him, holding the book just out of his reach and ignoring the scowl that had settled on his face. “Get the feeling you didn’t want anyone to see this. What could it be?”

She looked down at the green leather bound book and ran her fingers over the imprinted writing as Spike simply huffed. The words on the cover surprised her.

Shakespeare.

Spike frowned, keeping his concentration on the road while a small part of him hoped that she wouldn’t make a fuss over what she’d found.

Buffy was fascinated as she flicked through it. The pages were crinkled, worn with age and a lot of reading, and it had the smell of an old book. As she leafed back to the front of the book, she paused as she found an inscription.

To my beloved William, may your dreams take wing and fly you far away from here. Anne x

She stared at it. It was dated sixteen years ago and she figured that she would have been two, and Spike would have been ten. Raising her eyes, she let them come to settle on his face, silently asking him for an answer to a question she knew she didn’t have to ask.

“It was a present, from my mother.” He said without looking at her.

“You must have read it a lot.”

“Spent hours losing myself in it.”

Buffy read the words his mother had written again. She seemed to be wishing her son away from her. Closing the book and running her fingers lightly over the cover, she decided it was best not to ask since Spike was clearly uncomfortable about her finding it.

“What’s your favourite?” She put the book back where she found it and looked over at him, part of her thankful that they had something to talk about. “I always liked Midsummer Night’s Dream. We read it in school once.”

“Dunno, always liked Macbeth. We used to read Shakespeare in school all the time—Merchant of Venice, Hamlet and the statutory Romeo and Juliet.”

“So…” She smiled tentatively at him even though he was intent on driving and not looking at her at all. “What were your dreams?”

“Acting, music…something in that vein.” He answered her without pausing to think and then frowned slightly as he realised she was the first to ask him what his dreams were, not even Drusilla had asked him that.

“I wanted to sing.” Buffy said in such a small voice that she was surprised that he heard her.

Spike glanced over at her, noting the way she was staring at her knees. “So why don’t you?”

He’d heard her sing, with a little training she could easily be in a band.

“Like do what you’re doing? I envy you for that.”

Spike took a moment to swallow her words—she envied him. It was a weird feeling to have someone who appeared to have everything, envying him, a man who had nothing.

“Why?” He looked over at her again, baffled as to what he had that made her envy him.

“I wish I could do it, just pack up and leave, no job to go to and no place to stay but not letting it worry me. You know? Just decide one day that I was going to take the risks and live the dream. I can’t do that. I’d have to have everything sorted, right down to the contingency plan.”

Spike smiled in her direction. “It’s really not that hard when you have nothing in the world to start with.”

She gave him a little smile. “But the sense of achievement you’ll get if you succeed, if it all pays off. I’ll never get that. I’ll never be able to push myself into taking the necessary risks.”

Spike considered her words for a moment before smiling to himself and staring at the car in front of him as he slowed a little so he could talk to her properly.

“Everyone needs life’s stabilising factors. The sense of security that comes with a place to live and a steady income…but you’re sounding like you feel a little tied down.”

Buffy just frowned as she considered his words and realised it was true—she did feel tied down.

“Here’s a thing…you took a risk with this journey…you didn’t go the safe route, Buffy.” Spike looked over at her and offered her a comforting smile. “See, you are willing to take risks, you just don’t realise it.”

“Guess I did. Maybe I’ve started something. Before you know it I’ll be backpacking across the world and singing at Madison Square Gardens.” Buffy smiled in Spike’s direction as she thought about how she had taken a risk by choosing to drive across the country with a guy she didn’t know.

A guy she was beginning to like a lot now that she was getting to know him better.

Her smile widened as Spike looked over at her and their eyes met.

Spike smiled at her. What he’d said was true—it was easy to take risks when you had nothing left in the world.


A few hours down the road and Buffy decided that it was more like she was beginning to hate him. She sat with her arms folded in the passenger seat of his boiling hot car as he paced around it where it was parked at the side of the road.

She’d said three times that she could call a mechanic.

Each time his reply had become ruder and ruder, to the point where he’d pushed her back into the car and slammed the door on her, telling her to stay put.

She scowled at him as he looked over at her, his brows knit in a similar expression to hers. She couldn’t see what the problem was. All she had offered to do was get a man in who could fix the car.

Spike couldn’t believe the audacity of the girl, offering to bring a man in to fix his car, like he couldn’t do it himself. His baby had broken down enough times and each time he’d fixed her up again good as new. This time wasn’t going to be any different.

He frowned as Buffy smirked at him from inside the car. Bloody woman will be the death of me, treating me like I’m some damn idiot who can’t fix a car. Who the hell do she think she is?

Buffy heaved a sigh and idly flicked through her magazine, ignoring the way Spike was giving her looks that could kill. I can’t see what his stupid problem is. If he let me call the guy already, we could be on our way…but no…Spike can’t have anyone touch his baby but him. Shoves me in this damn death trap, telling me to keep my mouth shut while he works on the car. Who the hell does he think he is?

Buffy watched him out the corner of her eye, following his progress as he disappeared around the front of the car again and looked under the hood.

As the car shook from the force of the kick Spike had obviously levelled at it, Buffy decided that she was safer outside and exposed to his anger. She blanked him as he glared at her, taking out his frustration with his car on her as she walked toward him.

Looking in at the engine, she pulled a face that said she hadn’t a clue what she was looking at but it certainly looked complicated. She just stood mute and watching Spike as he fiddled with bits and pushed wires in, checking they were secure.

Taking out her phone, she toyed with it absently, letting him know that she was ready with the number of the mechanic for when he gave up.

Spike snorted at her and just leaned over the engine again.

“Come on, baby.” He whispered to the car as he checked all the leads on the spark plugs and then looked around for anything else that could be the culprit.

Buffy leaned against the dusty car door as she listened to him talking to his car. He definitely had some kind of relationship with it, the type that bordered on weird, and he kept talking to it as though it was the only thing in the world he cared about and it couldn’t die on him.

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t do this to daddy.” Spike frowned and lovingly patted the cars wing as he stared in at the engine.

Part of him felt as though he was trying to conduct a quadruple bypass with his hands tied behind his back.

Part of him was losing hope.

This heap couldn’t die on him, this heap was the only thing left in the world that he loved.

He glanced at Buffy and then looked resignedly at her phone.

Buffy noticed the look he gave her phone and wondered for a moment if he was going to ask her to make the call. Instead, he just swore under his breath and stuck his head back into the engine.

“God dammit…you stupid bloody bint…work!” He growled at the car and barely restrained himself from levelling another swift kick at the wheel nearest him.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to call the…” Buffy started.

“If you quit yammering for two bloody seconds I could fix this!” Spike shot her a black look and felt a twinge of guilt as she jumped slightly and her eyes picked up a scared edge.

“Fine! I’m giving you two minutes and then I’m calling the mechanic.” Buffy shouted back at him, not wanting to lose her temper over something as ridiculous as this but feeling as though she had no other option left. She’d tried reasoning with him but he wouldn’t listen.

Spike moved around the other side of the car, as far away from the girl as he could get and began checking everything over, only this time a little quicker.

He was damned if he was going to sit back and watch some man fix his car. How the hell could he live that down? She’d be ragging on him about it for the rest of the journey and he wasn’t going to give her the chance to make him look like a complete poof that couldn’t fix a car.

Buffy glanced at her watch and flicked open her phone.

Spike just glared at her and hopped into the car.

Buffy dialled the number in and listened to the phone at the other end ringing.

Spike sent up a silent prayer that someone was on his side for once.

As Buffy began to speak to the man who had answered the call, she watched Spike turn the key in the ignition.

“Come on, love.” He purred at the car as he listened to the engine turn over.

As it kicked into life, he sucked his cheeks into a smirk and revved it loudly so Buffy couldn’t hear the person she was calling.

She flicked her phone shut and took a step away from the engine as Spike continued to rev it and smirk at her. As he stepped out of the car, she just kept her expression blank, not letting the way he was suddenly so cocky affect her.

She watched him as he dropped the bonnet, making sure it was secure before sauntering around the car to her.

Spike smirked and cocked his head to one side as he leaned toward her, letting his mouth get close to her ear.

So close that Buffy could feel his breath on her skin and a shiver ran up her spine.

“Always was good with my hands.” Spike purred into the shell of her ear and then just turned and walked away from her.

Buffy glanced down at his hands as he went back around to the driver’s side of the car and she let her lips part slightly. She’d never realised just how big his hands were. As her imagination ran wild, she couldn’t stop the blush that spread across her cheeks and she averted her eyes, letting them rest on the dusty ground.

Getting back into the car, she sat in silence as he pulled it back onto the road.

She let her eyes roam the wilderness outside the window as they sped toward the next rest stop, her mind wondering just what was around the next corner.

This day wasn’t going well and she got the feeling that things could only get worse.

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