TITLE: Blame

AUTHOR: Cobweb

DISCLAIMER: This is Joss Whedon's world. I'm just borrowing it.

RATING: R

SPOILERS: Season 5 up to weight of the World. Also assumes as true unconfirmed spoilers for The Gift. .

***WARNING: Character Death referenced.

Feedback: Please. [email protected]

SUMMARY: Buffy's grief has blinded her to the grief of another. S/B.

Buffy spun around and kicked the demon, startling it just long enough for her to reach forward with the large knife in her right hand and behead it swiftly. As its brown slimy head rolled on the grass away from her and the body collapsed into a gooey mess, she turned to watch Spike, who was having uncharacteristic trouble with the demon he was fighting. As she watched, the demon managed to get under Spike's defenses, clawing him vertically from shoulder to waist. She ran over, knife in hand to help out, but Spike had regained strength, pummeling the demon with a series of hooks, then reaching down on the ground to pick up the axe that had fallen and swing it around to lop off his demon's head. Spike stood over the demon's dead body for a moment, then fell to his knees.

"Spike, are you okay?" Buffy knelt down beside him, catching him before he fell all the way to the ground. When she was sure he wasn't going to faint, she lit into him.

"What the hell was going on? I once saw you take on a pack of three of these Quijon demons with no trouble. You're in awful shape. You don't look like you could take on a Gachnar demon. I don't need you here if I'm going to have to bail you out every time...."

"Sod off, Slayer," Spike interrupted. "I killed it. It's none of your concern."

"Yeah, well, it is my concern when I have to come save your sorry vampire butt." She sighed. He looked awful. Where his t-shirt had been torn by the Quijon's claws, the blood was welling up.

"Come back to my house, and I'll fix you up."

"Feels like it took a rototiller to me," Spike grumbled as he lurched to his feet.

***

The lights were on in the house on Revello Drive when they walked up. For just a moment, Buffy felt a stab of concern over what her mother and sister would say about bringing Spike to her home. Then she remembered that she no longer had a mother and sister; the lights were on because she had left them on, because she hated coming back to a cold dark house night after night. She looked at Spike's face. He looked almost longing, yearning. Then his lips set, and he looked back down at the ground.

They entered the house. Buffy put down her duffel bag of weapons and pointed to the living room. "Go in there and take your coat off. I'll be back with something to clean out those scratches," she said as she went up the stairs.

Spike did as she said, then collapsed on the sofa and rolled his head back and to the side. His eyes rested on a photograph of Buffy, Joyce and Dawn sitting on a table next to the sofa. He closed his eyes again, in pain, and turned away. When Buffy came back downstairs, he looked asleep. Actually, he looked dead. But Buffy knew her vampires, and so she set the bowl of water, bandages, and antiseptic ointment on the coffee table, sat down next to him on the sofa, and shook him.

"Wake up, Evil Dead. Time to take your shirt off."

He opened his eyes, and they looked surprisingly bleak. Carefully, he raised his black t-shirt over his head and threw it on the floor.

Buffy gazed at his chest a moment, then picked up the washcloth and dipped it in the warm water. He didn't seem to be out of shape much. In fact, he was looking pretty good. She dabbed gently at the scratches the Quijon demon had made. It wasn't like Spike to let a demon get quite this close. She noted some scabbing and some fading bruises under his rib cage. She touched them gently.

"What was that all about?"

"Gak demon. Two, actually. Jumped me in the alley behind the Bronze last Monday," he said.

"You're just the Mr. Popularity of the demon world," she said. "It's just strange to see them doing so much damage. Do you have some sort of sign tattooed on your forehead that says, hey you, please beat me up to an inch of my unlife? Jeez, Spike, you even let that vampire last month whale on you with a lead pipe before you staked him. You looked like crap for a whole week. I've been watching you fight for a long time, Spike, and I've never seen you let demons tear you to pieces like this. If I didn't know better."

And all of sudden she did know.

"You're letting them do this to you. You're letting yourself get beat up by any discount demon that comes along. Why, Spike?"

He wouldn't answer, just looked away, as if he were already bored with the conversation.

She was angry. "What, all of a sudden it's no more fun to kill demons? Getting tired of staking your own kind and need a challenge? You know, I could arrange for you to take a one-way train to Dustville with your old pal Mr. Pointy any time you like." She was applying the antiseptic now, her anger making her a little more rough.

"Hurts," he muttered.
"Well, tough. There's nothing more pathetic than a whining."
"Not the cuts," he interrupted, looking down. "Her. Hurts not to have her around." He raised his head and looked her in the eye. "Dawn."

And all of a sudden, she wasn't annoyed any more. The others--Willow, Xander, Giles. She didn't know what she would have done without their love and support three months ago, when Dawn died to save them all, save the world, from Glory. They'd loved and missed Dawn, and they'd grieved alongside her. But without her mom around, and with her dad still missing, Buffy had felt as if she was alone in the depths of her grief. But maybe she wasn't. She realized Spike didn't look bored; he looked almost as if he were holding back tears. He and Dawn had become close friends. She'd known, at the end, that she could trust him to protect Dawn if she couldn't. And he'd tried, he really had. Just as he had reached Dawn, up on the platform where Glory was performing her hellgod ritual, Doc had appeared and turned on him with his huge reptilian tongue, pushing Spike over the edge, a seven-story plunge. Doc had then slashed Dawn and started the bloodletting, which set into motion the events that would have destroyed the world if Dawn hadn't sacrificed herself.

"Spike," she said gently. "We never talked about. You, you don't blame yourself for losing Dawn, do you?"

"Why shouldn't I?" His voice was rough. "I was the one up there with her. I had her. I almost had her." He broke off. "You trusted me with her, and I let her ." He couldn't even say it.

She was incredibly moved. She had no idea. He was always so cool, so uncaring. Even when he'd come back to consciousness after the fall and they'd told him what happened, he'd just closed his eyes and slipped back into seeming unconsciousness, rousing only to ask to be brought back to his crypt. He'd laid low for several weeks, showing up a month or so after Dawn's death to help Buffy patrol. Since then, he'd helped her out most nights, his same old snarky self. He'd never mentioned Dawn again, and she had figured that it just wasn't in a vampire to grieve much. Since she hadn't expected anything from him, she'd never been upset by his silence on the subject. If only she'd known. If only she'd asked. She felt the tears rise, and welcomed them.

"Spike, I don't blame you. Dawn wouldn't blame you. It wasn't our fault. We were up against a god."

She put her arms around him, gently pressing his head into her shoulder. And then they were both crying. It was a catharsis for them both. He gave up the self-reproach that had dogged him since Dawn had died; she found herself crying for the silent months of pain he'd suffered, the pain they'd shared but never acknowledged. And they'd shared so much pain in the last three years, going all the way back to when Angelus had returned with a plan to bring Hell to Earth, and she and Spike had joined together to stop him. Why him? Why this vampire? She wondered again for what seemed the millionth time. What is it about us that brings us together again and again, for better or for worse? Finally, he pulled away from her shoulder and sighed.

"Still hurts," he said with resignation in his voice.

Their eyes met, hers still glistening with tears, his wide and dark in the lamplight. She let her eyes drop to his mouth, softened by the residue of grief, and her heart clenched. And then she couldn't stop herself. Her hands came up to cup his face, and her lips met his. He froze for a second as if surprised, then he kissed her back hungrily. It felt good to kiss him, to release all the pent-up tension of the last months–the last years? She wasn't sure, and she sure wasn't gong to think about it right now. She moved her hands down the side of his face, his neck, down to his chest, brushing her fingers over the muscles. She felt him shudder, then he broke off the kiss. They were both panting, surprisingly.

"It it doesn't hurt as much when we ," he said.

"No, it doesn't," she replied, and she pulled back just far enough so she could take off her own shirt. She'd barely dropped it on the floor when he reached for her.

Their lovemaking was a competition. All their interactions had always been, but this time the goal was not the other's death, or the other's comeuppance. It was a competition of pleasure. Giving pleasure, receiving pleasure–where pleasure was involved, the pain was absent. They made it last a long time, and finally they found themselves back on the sofa, with her astride him as they enjoyed the afterglow.

She rested her head on his shoulder and waited for her heartrate to slow and for the pain to return. But when it did, it was different. It was no longer a lonely pain. Because now she knew there was someone else who felt it too.