Big decisions

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Continued from here.

"I promised you I wouldn't leave unless you wanted me to," Spike said, coming to stand in front of Wesley and touching his arm with the gentlest of caresses. He wanted to pull him into a tight hug until the pain evident in his every breath was gone, but he was too unsure of the situation to offer. "If you want me to stay, I will. I want to. All right, love?" He could be careful with everything he did so that he didn't ever cross that line again, but he couldn't knowingly break Wesley's heart.

Comments

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley wanted to grab onto what was being offered, but he made one last attempt to do the right thing, to point out the flaw in Spike's plan. "Even if... even if you'd be happier with someone who could give you everything?" he asked brokenly.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"I'm already with that person," Spike said, hoping that Wesley would finally understand.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

His chest tight and aching, Wesley glanced up into Spike's eyes, looking for some sign of... something. Deception, perhaps.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Feeling like he was balanced on the edge of an abyss, Spike waited tensely as Wesley searched his eyes. He could not possibly have retreated behind his usual shields of anger and lack of concern even if he had wanted to.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

When he didn't see anything but love and hurt and concern in Spike's eyes. "Stay. Please." He blinked rapidly, trying not to let any tears spill, then said, all in a rush, "Oh god, please don't go."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"I won't go," Spike promised, a wave of relief washing over him and trailing the terrifying responsibility of being completely in control of himself in its wake. He squeezed Wesley's arm just a bit tighter, all he could do. "I won't, love."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry," Wesley said, unsure exactly what he was apologizing for, even as his tenuous control slipped another notch and he began to tremble.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"You've done nothing to be sorry for." Spike knew that he, on the other hand, had made more mistakes than he could count, nevertheless name. He took a small step back, wanting desperately for Wesley to touch him but not wanting to push. "I think we'd both be happier off our feet, don't you? Come sit." He glanced at the bed, the site of his most recent misjudgment, and said, "Or would you rather the couch?"

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"This is closer," Wesley said, still deeply shaken. He took a tentative step in that direction, then he stopped, finally having absorbed Spike's words. "Unless you don't want to?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike shook his head, the movement a bit jerky with tension. "It's fine," he said and waited to follow Wesley's lead.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley forced himself to start moving again, going over to the bed and sitting down on the edge of it. "I'm sorry," he said, wishing he could think of something else to say, or something he could do to express how much he wished he could give Spike more.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Please don't apologize," Spike said, sinking down onto the edge of the bed a foot or so away from Wesley. He stared at the floor and took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together now that the first burst of horror of the crisis had passed. "You didn't do anything wrong."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"Of course I did." Wesley reached out a hand and lay it on Spike's forearm, feeling the tension in the muscles there. "The last thing I want," he said softly, tears still threatening, "is for you to be unhappy. For you to want something and not have it. You're more important than anything else in my life. The thought that I might not be able to give you what you need..."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike closed his eyes for a brief moment when Wesley touched him, grateful for the gesture. "Why don't you believe me when I say there's nothing I want you haven't given me?" he asked, turning his head to look sadly into Wesley's eyes. "What can I do to prove it to you?"

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Caught in that gaze as he had been so many times before, Wesley wondered why there suddenly didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the air. He deliberately slowed and deepened his breathing. "I don't know," he said helplessly.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"I don't want you to act like a vampire," Spike said again. "I don't want you to be anything you aren't. What I want..." He took a shaky breath, finding the words harder to say than they should be, especially since he had admitted before how he felt. "All I want is to know that you love me. It doesn't matter how you show it."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I do love you," Wesley said without hesitation. "And I'll do anything I can to show you. I'm just... I'm worried that it won't be enough."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Placing his hand over Wesley's on his arm, Spike said, "It is. I promise. You'll see."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley drew a long, shuddering breath. "We have to stop doing this," he said.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"What?" Spike asked, feeling a flash of panic run up his spine.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"Hurting each other," Wesley said, squeezing Spike's arm. "I just... reacted. It didn't even occur to me to think how you'd take it. I'm sorry. Genuinely." He could see now that, although he still believed that there were things Spike would want that he wouldn't be able to provide, he ought to have predicted Spike's reaction to what he'd said.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"It's all right. I needed to know. You needed to tell me." Spike was grateful for what had happened, because at least he hadn't ruined things completely between them. "I'm sorry for everything, love. I didn't mean to get so out of control."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"You weren't. I love you like that." Wesley knew that he was very nearly contradicting himself, but he also felt that both things were true. "I just don't want to disappoint you."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"You never do," Spike said with a faint smile, stroking his thumb over the back of Wesley's hand. He knew that he would have to get Wesley to tell him exactly what was acceptable and what wasn't, since he obviously couldn't figure the difference out for himself, but he could wait until they were a little calmer. He felt shaken to his core, but at least Wesley still wanted him there. He clung to that fact to combat the sense of despair welling up deep inside of him at his basic inability to be anything other than the demon he was.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Trying to think of what he might say that could help, Wesley was struck by a sudden thought. "Can I tell you something?" he asked. "Something that you might not otherwise want to hear?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Go ahead." Spike dropped his gaze, trying to steel himself for the worst but not finding enough strength to do so.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I know you must be aware that we deliberately brought Angelus back last year..." Wesley trailed off, wishing that they were more comfortable.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike couldn't think of any possible reason Wesley would bring that subject up. "Right. Willow went to stick his soul back in."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"But I don't know if you were aware that a few years ago, just after Angel came to L.A., there was an... incident. A woman slipped him a drug that convinced him his soul was gone." Wesley remembered that night very vividly. "He tried to kill us."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like him." It was surreal having this conversation in the aftermath of what had just happened, but if it was what Wesley wanted to talk about, Spike would listen.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I've known since then -- well, I suppose I knew before that, but not on quite the same level -- that working with Angel was always a risk. It was one I chose to take, certainly, but... I knew that there was always the possibility that he could turn on us." Wesley looked into Spike's eyes, hoping that he was understanding. "I accepted it, but I never liked it. I trusted Angel, but I always knew that he might become Angelus again. But with you..." He stroked Spike's arm lightly. "With you, it's completely different. I can trust you."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

All of that sounded to Spike like if Angel had had his soul fixed properly Wesley would have been with him, and that was a thought he couldn't handle on top of everything else. "You shouldn't trust either of us," he said, staring down at Wesley's hand on his arm and wondering if his own skin felt as cold from the outside as it did then from the inside. "We're both evil underneath the soul. You can't forget that."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I don't believe that," Wesley said calmly. "In fact, I refuse to."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Then you're wrong," Spike said flatly, meeting Wesley's eyes once more. "I know what I am. I know I'm going to hell when being dusted finally sticks. Even the big hero himself knows he is, too. We might help some people, even save the world, but we can't change what we are."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"What you are, deep down, is a good person. The fact that you've done terrible things when you didn't have your soul doesn't change that." Wesley wished there were a way to get through to Spike.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike shook his head. He finally understood how Wesley could accept him so easily; Wesley was deluded. "What I am, deep down, is a blood-drinking, murderous monster. The rest is window dressing."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"What about when you were human?" Wesley countered. "Did you ever try to kill anyone?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike laughed, the emotion inside of him needing some way to escape. "I probably would've fainted at the thought. But I haven't been that poor sod for a long time now."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"So when you were human -- your original incarnation -- you never hurt anyone, and yet you still believe that you're inherently evil." Wesley didn't understand how Spike could consider this to be logical.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"I'm not human now," Spike said, frustrated. "If it worked like you're saying, all vampires would be good if the people they'd been were. You know that's not true."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"No, that's not the point I'm arguing," Wesley agreed. "I'm saying that at your very core, you're that person -- the person you were before you were turned. That person wasn't, isn't, a blood drinking, murderous monster. You aren't."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike wanted to believe that was true, and in some ways he did, but experience kept proving otherwise. "You didn't learn that at Watcher school," he said, thinking of Giles' very different reaction to him.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"Maybe not, but then, I didn't learn about souled vampires in Watcher school either." Wesley was watching Spike's face intently.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

It had been far easier to accept Buffy's belief in him, because she had seen him change, than it was to listen to Wesley fool himself about Spike's true nature. "Maybe I was a good man, but I was an even better demon. They're all mixed together now. You can't pick one as more real and toss aside the other. It's all me."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Continues here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/reality_bends/54842.html).