Driving to Distraction - Chapter 6

Buffy was still staring out of the window as they pulled into the gas station a few hours later. They were surrounded by orange sand as far as the eye could see and the heat of the evening was stifling.

Stepping out of the car, she stretched while watching Spike as he watched the dial spinning around on the gas pump. His all too familiar tight black t-shirt had been replaced with a tight black vest that emphasised his muscles, his pale skin glistening with sweat.

As he turned slightly, Buffy felt sick with anger.

He was smoking again.

Not only did he not care about his life but he didn’t care about anyone else’s either. He didn’t care about hers.

Walking over to him, she snatched the cigarette from his lips and took it to the other side of the car to dispose of it. Her heart was beating so hard against her chest as she stubbed it out in the dirt and she knew she was going to pay for what she’d done. Ever since the car had broken down they hadn’t spoken, and she had got the feeling that he was more than a little pissed off at her, just like she was bordering on being more than a little pissed off at him.

“You’ve got some bloody nerve, missy.” Spike growled at her. Who the hell was she to be making his decisions for him? All throughout this journey, she was insisting on attempting a hostile takeover on his life and he didn’t want it. He didn’t need it. He was rapidly growing sick to death of her attitude, always emasculating him.

“So have you! I don’t give a shit about you endangering your own fucking pathetic life but you cross the fucking line when you put mine at risk.” Buffy felt her heart hammering against her rib cage. She was shocked at herself for her outburst but there was no way of holding the words in, they had escaped her lips before she’d even had time to consider what she was saying.

And part of it wasn’t true—she did care about him endangering his own life.

“Care to add a few more swear words to that fucking list or are you quite done?” He sneered at her as he slammed the gas hose back into its cradle on the pump and quietly registered just how hot she looked when she was pissed off.

“No, I’m not fucking done. You’re a moron.”

“Ooh… that’s harsh. Have to do better than that, love.” Spike squared up to her, getting so close to her that he had to look down in order to see her face.

Her jaw set tight and he could see in her eyes she was going to rise to his challenge in a glorious way. He really hadn’t thought she had this kind of fire inside her and he couldn’t even fathom exactly where it was coming from, or what was fuelling it. As far as he could see, he hadn’t done anything wrong, she was perfectly safe with him. If anything, he would have blown himself up, not her.

“I don’t know what your fucking problem is but keep it to your fucking self, brood over it, I don’t care… just don’t fucking kill me because you have issues with yourself.” Buffy spat at him, her eyes narrowed with anger as she leaned toward him, showing him that she wasn’t about to back down.

She was hitting a little too close to the mark now. Spike made a low growling noise in her direction and she looked fazed for a moment before locking eyes with him defiantly.

“You don’t care? Then what’s the bloody lecture for?”

Buffy stumbled on that question. Why was she lecturing him? Was it because she was afraid he would kill her, or because she was scared he would kill himself. His talk of suicide before, and the heavy thoughts she’d seen in his eyes during their journey had stirred a feeing on anxiety at the pit of her stomach and when she’d seen him smoking just a few minutes ago, that feeling had exploded in an ocean of worry.

Not wanting to deal with the idea that she was scared he was going to hurt himself, she lashed out at him, hoping to convince herself that he wasn’t worth all the worry.

“Because you’re an idiot, no… worse than that, much fucking worse. You’re a suicidal abusive bastard and I’m sick of taking shit from you for the sake of a ride across country.” Buffy narrowed her eyes and then suddenly felt like throwing up when she caught a flicker of something in his blue eyes.

And it wasn’t anger.

Throughout her last tirade, his face had grown darker, not with rage but with hurt. It was there written in his eyes as she stared into them. Somewhere, she’d overstepped the mark.

A beat.

Spike chuckled dryly, letting his head fall backward to emphasise it as he tried to put his emotions back into place, but they didn’t fit anymore.

Bringing his eyes back down to hers, he tried to mask the hurt in them, not wanting to give her the pleasure of seeing how closely her last words had hit to his heart.

“Suicidal abusive bastard? Don’t ever call me that again you stupid… little… bitch…” He leaned over her, letting her know just how wrong her last move was as the sensation of hurt in his chest became a whirlwind of pain inside him, a vortex that threatened to consume and break him.

Buffy swallowed hard as her mouth went dry, no matter how much hurt she could read in his eyes she couldn’t let him get her running scared. “It’s the truth, William. Your attitude towards life sucks. You can’t go around mistreating others. It’s wrong.”

“Wrong?” His voice faltered slightly. If she kept pushing him, he was going to do something he’d regret.

“Wrong.” Buffy felt her conviction wavering. He hadn’t been that bad to her. She was pretty sure there were worse people in the world and at least she was still alive, for now.

“I’ll tell you wrong.” Spike dropped his tone so it was soft but laced with anger and his barely restrained thoughts of lashing out and taking out all his hurt on her. “It’s wrong to abuse people. It’s wrong to find someone you love dead in the bathtub surrounded by their own blood, swimming in it. It’s wrong to find your whole life in the arms of another man. It’s wrong to hate the world…” His voice turned to a deadly whisper as he leaned down so his mouth was by her ear. “And it’s wrong to stick your nose in and judge others when you know fuck all about them… Buffy…”

She’d closed her eyes when he’d leaned in close. Keeping them shut, she listened to the sound of him walking away from her and then slowly opened them and sighed, staring at his footprints in the dust as she felt her hands shaking. He’d been so close to her, her toes were barely an inch from where the toe of his footprint started. Buffy felt her stomach bubble at her, telling her that she’d really pushed him too far this time.

Paying for the gas, she stared blankly at the rows of magazines as though she was daydreaming, only it was more of a nightmare. She felt vacant. Never in her life had she pissed someone off so badly and she didn’t even know what had made her do it in the first place. She swallowed hard as a little voice told her it was because he’d made it clear just how little he cared about himself, didn’t care if he lived or died. He should care. What happens to a person to make them not want to live anymore?

Not understanding him any better, she went back outside. The heat was starting to subside and as she glanced at her watch, she realised that she’d managed to pass an hour in the store just thinking over what she’d said to him.

Staring at his car, now parked crookedly near the other cars, she sighed and walked over to it.

“What happened to you, William? What turned you into Spike?” She ran her fingers over the wing of the Desoto as though it were a part of him, her fingertips tracing patterns in the dust.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy looked down at the sand nearby. Heavy footsteps had walked past this spot, probably to go around the back of the building. She’d given him time to calm down and now the sun was setting and he still hadn’t come back to her. Picking up her courage, she headed off to find him.

He wasn’t hard to locate. He was sitting on the back of a bench, with his feet on the seat and his eyes fixed the sunset. She knitted her brows slightly at the sight of his shoulders. They sagged further as she watched him.

Spike leaned forwards so his elbows rested on his knees and took a long pull of his fifth cigarette as he stared at the sun, unblinking.

Buffy stopped about ten foot short of where he sat with his back to her. Chewing her lip, she summoned up every shred of courage that she had. It didn’t take long because she didn’t have that much right now.

“Spike?”

“Piss off.” He blew smoke out into the evening air. Company wasn’t welcome right now.

Buffy sighed and tried again. “You were talking about yourself back there weren’t you?”

He didn’t say anything but she saw his shoulders heave in a sigh as he blew more blue-grey smoke out into the air.

“I didn’t know.” She took a hesitant step forwards. “I wouldn’t have said…”

Buffy paused, ashamed of what she’d said to him. Her mother would’ve killed her for being so horrible to someone she didn’t really know.

“Suicidal… abusive… bastard…” Spike ground out the words slowly, as if trying to come to terms with each one. His voice went quiet as he thought about it. “Following in their footsteps.”

Clasping her hand to her mouth as she caught what he’d said, Buffy felt horrified. He’d been talking about his parents. Oh God, what did they do to him?

“Do you…” Buffy’s voice trembled as she realised she couldn’t ask him if he wanted to talk about it. It was her fault he was feeling this way to start with and she’d only end up making things worse. “…I’ll go…”

Turning to leave him alone for a while longer, she paused as he spoke.

“Stay.” Spike’s voice wavered slightly as he looked over his shoulder at her.

Chewing her lip as their eyes met, she could see his were bloodshot, his face was soft and boyish. It went straight through her like a knife. She’d made him cry, she’d dredged up something so bad in him that he’d cried. Feeling angry with herself, she didn’t know what to do. Half of her said that she needed to go now and the other half screamed that he needed comfort, and she could be the one to give it to him.

“I really am sorry…”

“You didn’t know… no harm done, love…” He tried to smile at her but it hurt too much. No more harm than what was done already.

Buffy swallowed hard as she saw the tiny flicker of pain crossing his face. She turned abruptly.

“Thought I told you to stay?”

Turning back towards him, she resisted the temptation to check him on his possessive tone. She never could stand being ‘told’ to do something.

Moving silently over to him, she sat down on the bench near his feet and stared at the sun sinking slowly below the horizon, burning the sky as it went.

Spike leaned forwards again and idly played with her hair, wondering if she realised just why he was so messed up. He smiled at the fact that she wasn’t stopping him from running his fingers through her golden hair. He’d seen the look on her face that said she was sorry for what she did, seen the look that said she wanted to comfort him. Maybe she thought this was comforting. It certainly felt comforting to him.

Buffy sat back in the seat a little more and leaned against the back of the bench. She could feel his fingers intertwined with her hair and she sighed. It felt nice. He was being so soft and tender with her right now. She let her fingers play with the bottom of his jeans as he played with her hair and a feeling of sedation washed through her, as though he was comforting her as much as she was trying to comfort him.

“Pretty, isn’t it? Makes you forget for a few minutes that there’s so much bad in the world.” Spike stared at the sun as it disappeared beyond the horizon, causing the desert sand to glow a fiery red.

“Yeah.” Buffy’s voice was quiet and she lowered her eyes so they rested on her knees. “World of hurt.”

Spike paused and looked at her. He quickly realised that there were some things in her life that had hurt her too. Two messed up people running away to California. Spike swallowed his pride and indifference.

“Sorry I snapped.” He took his fingers from her hair and as he did so, she looked up at him, her green eyes shimmering with tears. He resisted the desire to touch her cheek softly.

“Sorry I pushed you.” Buffy swallowed her emotions back down and just absorbed how he looked with his skin bathed in warm light. The way he was looking at her right now was beautiful, and she couldn’t help feeling that he really cared about her.

“Think we should go?” Spike pushed her hair behind her ear and smiled slightly at her.

“Yeah…oh…” She paused halfway through standing up and chewed her bottom lip again.

Spike wondered how she had one left with the number of times she bit it.

“What?”

“I moved your car.” Buffy’s eyes widened as he gasped. “Didn’t hurt it, just parked it.”

“The merest scratch and you are going over my knee.” Spike grinned as she blushed violently.

As she scurried off, he walked slowly after her. Something was different now, less painful. He watched her bouncing along ahead of him and realised it was her, some tiny crack in his defences and she’d slipped through. As he thought this, Buffy wobbled slightly on one of her ankles and whimpered.

“Jesus, Buffy, you alright?” He’d never heard a noise like it. She’d sounded as though she’d broken something.

“Ow… stupid ankle.” Buffy bent over and rubbed it.

Spike fought the temptation to look at her ass as he hurried toward her. Crouching down, he watched her rubbing her ankle for a few seconds before placing his hand over hers. “What’s wrong?”

As their eyes met, they both froze.

Spike swallowed hard.

Something was definitely different. He actually cared about her, cared if she got hurt, cared if she was scared, cared that he’d snapped at her. Realising he was just staring into her bright green eyes, he let go of her hand and stood up fast. Stars exploded in front of his eyes.

Spike pressed his hand to his forehead and tried to steady himself.

“You okay?” Buffy felt like she was watching herself from a distance as she saw her hand moving towards him of its own volition, touching his bicep softly.

“Head rush.” Spike smirked and felt a thrill run through him—her touch was electric.

Pulling her hand away, she smiled awkwardly and blushed five shades of red over how the feeling of his skin under her fingers had caused her stomach to flip and bubble like a volcano.

“We should get a move on.” Breezing past her, Spike closed his eyes for a second and frowned. Get a grip mate.

He realised it was futile. She was in his system now, so deep in it that he didn’t have a hope in hell of getting her out again. He walked briskly to his car, pleased to see that she hadn’t dented it or scratched it.

Hopping into the driver’s seat, he waited for her to get in the passenger side before giving her a slight smile and then gunning the engine into life.

Spike looked at her out the corner of his eye.

Something was different.

He cared about her.

And he knew she cared about him too.

He’d seen it in those green eyes of hers.

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