Glass House

Sum: Buffy’s back and out of it. Other people are getting into it besides just Spike and Faith, but that’s all for right now.

Note: This is just the very beginning of this chapter of the fic! There is a lot more to come. I just posted it like this for now because I'm going to be traveling and I wanted to link it to my fic site before I left. So, I could delude myself with the idea that I actually get hits there. BTW the site is Strangebint dot com (but don't spell the dot)

Buffy stared out of the paned glass window at the rain. Did it ever do anything here but rain? She wanted to think she missed Sunnydale, and how it almost never rained, but she couldn’t help but remember how when it rained there it poured. The constant misty grayness of London was more compatible with her moods. But was that a good thing? Maybe going back to Sunnydale and being Sunshine Buffy was better. The problem was when she tried too hard to be Sunshine Buffy her sunshine burnt out- like it did LA a few years ago. Then she became Dark Buffy, and she hurt everyone she loved. Granted, Dark Buffy didn’t come anywhere near hurting people as much as Dark Willow, but still wasn’t it Dark Buffy who let Dark Willow happen?

Of course, she didn’t have to worry about Dark Willow anymore. Will had told her how Kennedy kept her “balanced,” and how thanks to , she was able to do a lot of spells. (But nothing too big like taking over the world, which was okay, because who would want to do that anyway exept an evil person?) Buffy had to admit to herself that she didn’t really get the whole Kennedy plus Willow cancels out Dark Willow thing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t get the whole “this person completes me” concept. (Not that she had lived it herself, as far as she could remember.) But Kennedy as a balancer? Buffy remembered her as someone who could throw the Dalai Lama off balance. There were a lot of new things Buffy had to think about and get used to, even with Will. Willow was Buffy’s emotional rock. She was never disappointed in Buffy. That was why Buffy had only told her (and Spike) she was back. There were new things that set her apart from the people she loved, and she wanted to deal with them on her own first.

So, that was why she couldn’t go back to Sunnydale, not just yet. She could be Sunshine Buffy on the phone with Will once a day, but not all the time. If everyone knew she was back, she would so want to be Sunshine Buffy for them that she knew she would burn herself out. Then being Dark Buffy could lead to bad things, like Klepto Dawn or Judgey Xander.

Great. Now she was metaphor Buffy. Metaphor Buffy would probably get along with Spike the best, just like Dark Buffy had. However, there were new things with Spike she was having a harder time dealing with, which involved pouty lips and a heaving bosom.

“Good day, Sunshine,” Olivia said.

She was wearing the greatest green sweater and a scarf. Scarves were in. Buffy thought it was too bad her and Olivia couldn’t share hair tips, since they had completely different hair. Olivia was starting a fire in the fireplace that Buffy avoided looking at because it reminded her of days with Angel, but those days, like a lot of others, were over. A fire was perfect for a day like today.

“Not that it’s a good day or that the sun is shining, but that’s the status quo around here. You must miss the States--- you’re sunshine state, right?” Olivia said.

“No, I mean, yes. I mean Florida is the sunshine state, and last I heard it was raining in my state, and when it rains it pours… Maybe that’s why I should go back there,” Buffy said thoughtfully as she looked at the orange growing flame.

“Well, if it’s pouring there might as well stay here—I say,” Olivia said.

“You’re probably right,” Buffy smiled as she was just thinking the same thing.

Then she frowned.

“It isn’t like there’s anyone waiting for me. Well, they might be waiting for me if they knew I was ever supposed to be coming back. But the people who do know aren’t waiting for me, and it’s good they shouldn’t be.”

Buffy gave another small smile as the whole log caught fire.

“Oh, is this about your vampire lover?” Olivia asked as she turned to Buffy with a wide smile.

Her perfect white teeth glowed against her perfect black skin.

“I know what’s it’s like to really fancy a fit man that you want like a piece of sweet candy, even though you know he’d make holes in your teeth, and your life. Your friends, your family you know they’d never get it; there are times when you don’t get it, but you have to have it.”

“I’m guessing this is Pre Giles?” Buffy asked.

Something about Olivia’s smile was contagious. Buffy couldn’t remember the last time she had been around a woman who wanted to talk about guys in a non-end-of-the-world way.

“No ducks, this was Ripper,” Olivia laughed, “You look so surprised, you never knew him before he decided to settle down and go into that Watching Academy, I guess. He was the only bloke my parents forbade me to see.”

“I got some of the cliff notes. He was kind of ticking time-bomb guy, right? I really loved a guy like that once. You’re lucky Giles got defused, maybe the Watchers saved him, at least they saved someone,” Buffy said.

She had almost laughed too, thinking about Giles being that stay-away-from-that-boy boy, but Watcher talk made her fold her arms and think.

“Are you kidding? Ripper saved himself, or maybe you saved him, helping him find his balls again to rebel against those people.”

“Well, at least I saved one guy who’s still with me,” Buffy snorted.

“Oh, did the vampire go off? The one with the soul?”

The only concern in Olivia’s tone seemed to be for Buffy, asking her if she had a bad break up. She had said the word “vampire” as if she said any other kind of guy like: “Artist” or “Detective.”

“Both of them went off in a time bomb way, and both of them went off in a leaving me way,” Buffy realized.

“There were two! How deliciously awful,” Olivia said with excitement as she curled herself up on the couch like she was a girl at a slumber party.

“Was the other one as fit as the punk?”

“That’s right, you saw Spike when he couldn’t talk. He does look his best when he’s not doing that,” Buffy laughed.

She had never been able to talk like this about Spike and Angel, but she couldn’t seem to talk about Angel.

“Well, that one couldn’t have gone too far. I could tell you phoned him and had a chat because Ripper wouldn’t stop frowning about it,” Olivia smiled.

“It wasn’t so much a chat, as it was him ripping out pieces of my heart by him flaunting his new ‘relationship’ with my old friend, and when I say relationship I mean her using him for sex, and when I say friend I mean-not-so-much as she’s tried to get hold of every boyfriend I’ve ever had,” Buffy said with false casualness.

“Oh my God! I’d wring her doxy little neck!” Olivia shouted.

“I’ve tried that. She wrings back, and then my exes end up sticking up for her, as the one did today of course. So, for now I’ll just settle for him not telling her I am back in this world. She seems to be doing a fine job pretending I never existed,” Buffy sighed with a smile.

“Well, it seems to me she never forgot about you. She probably made a beeline for him because he was yours. I really hope you handed him his arse

“Ha! A B-line, she would make some kind of joke out of that. That’s the thing; I think she might have forgotten about me. I think everybody might have. Just so they could deal with it, accept for Spike. I knew he wouldn’t. That’s not Spike, even if he--- moved on. He could deal with me being back after losing me. It wouldn’t screw him up like everyone else. That is why I couldn’t hand him his ass over Faith.”

“You couldn’t hand him his ass because he had faith? Faith in you?”

Olivia got up to poke the fire.

“Yeah, he does always have faith in me even when I’m fu—screwed up over something, even when he hurts me--- Oh ‘Faith’ is the name of the other girl. The one he’s with now. The one who’s going to use him for parts and suck him dry I’m sure.”

“Oh, I meant in a figurative sort of way,” Buffy said as she saw the look on Olivia’s face. ”The worst part was, that when I told him she would probably do that to him he was all too happy to remind me it was what I did to him.”

“He said you used you for parts and sucked him dry?”

“Yes, well, actually I said: ‘Be careful with Faith. From what I remember all guys are just a big joke to her, and he said: ‘Well, you’ve been gone a long time, Slayer, and I’d rather be a big joke than a sodding ‘convenience’ any day, at least a joke makes you laugh,” Buffy said in a British accent.

“That bastard!” Olivia exclaimed.

Buffy couldn’t help but smile. She really couldn’t talk to Will about this. She remembered how Will was in high school, with wanting to know about the guy situation. Tell me everything that happened including facial expressions. Not that she could blame Willow for not wanting to hear about Spike’s facial expressions. Who had that kind of time? Buffy felt the heat as the fire grew. She frowned as she looked at it, nice as it was.

“He’s really good at comebacks,” she told Olivia, “I should have expected that. That was far from the worst part of the conversation. I think the worst part was when he gave the phone to her and had her do her phone sex voice while she didn’t know it was me. Oh, speaking of voices, I’m sorry, that was rude doing the accent like that---

“The only thing that sounds rude is him. If he’s the one who can deal best with you returning to this plane and that’s what he has to offer, it is no wonder you want to stay here.”

“Well, it’s not that my other people would be like that to me; they’d be a lot better, nicer, accept for Faith. She would just make some joke about how I couldn’t stand to live in a dimension where I was happy, and she would flaunt Spike. Not that I want him now or ever. But I can’t even be mad at him.”

“Can’t be mad! I’d say you have every right to be bloody mad.”

“Well, the thing is he’s right. I was all throwing the stones in my glassy house. I DID use him. I don't have the right to say anything y if Faith wants to do it,” Buffy confessed.

“Why not just avoid them all together?” Olivia said.

What, no question as to why she used Spike? Buffy thought about Tara. Some people were so good, and they made things seem so simple. But they never were.

“Well, I can’t,” Buffy took a deep breath, but Olivia spoke before she had to explain.

“Right,” Olivia said, “I remember that Godawful place with the monsters and why Rupert says you have to be there and work together and the like, but do you really want to be going to the pub with these people?”

Buffy felt a pinching inside of herself and it had nothing to do with the thought of going to the pub with Spike or Faith or anyone. That was the kind of question Mom would ask. Why couldn’t Mom be here for this? If Mom was here Buffy would be in Sunnydale now.

“Well, right now I guess not, or I wouldn’t be here. But did you ever have one of those relationships where…they make you really tired, but they also keep you alive, they remind you of who you really are, and whoever that is—it’s okay. Even if all they do is fight with you it’s okay?”

Buffy wondered when Olivia was going to realize Buffy was a little crazy. But before she could think about it too much Giles came in.

“God, must you insist on using these awful bloody chemical logs! They’re slowly killing us. God knows what’s in them,” he grumbled and began fussing with the fire.

“Just like all those things you used to smoke,” Olivia said duly.

“Well, at least I’ve stopped. You’ve got to be one of the oldest people who still incessantly listens to The Dark Side of the Moon looking for hidden messages,” Giles said.

“Oh, spin on! If you stopped smoking I’ve turned into Gwyneth bloody Paltrow. Besides, you were the one who turned me on to Pink Floyd and all that, saying that there were projection spells hidden in it,” Olivia said.

“Protection spells,” he corrected.

“Giles, isn’t that magic for personal gain? I’m telling Willow,” Buffy was suddenly smiling so much her face hurt.

“Yes,” he sighed, “Let’s not pass up an opportunity to sully me further in front of Buffy. She’ll never listen to a word I have to say again.”

“You just leave yourself so open to it, being the biggest hypocrite, my love,” Olivia said and she kissed his temple as he sat down in between the two of them.

“I listen to a word you have to say?” Buffy’s face continued to ache.

“No, you throw half of it out the window because you’re a smart girl,” Olivia said.

“Well, I’m glad you two are getting on so well,” Giles rolled his eyes.

“The best,” Olivia beamed, “Buffy is like the little sister I never knew I wanted.”

“I have one of those,” Buffy heard her voice get smaller, “She’s the one I worry about the most, I feel like if I don’t come back into her life just right I’ll screw her up….again. Giles says she’s doing fine now. She takes everything so hard, I know she wants me back but---I’m sorry all I do is talk about me.”

“It seems like you talk about everyone, but yourself,” Olivia said strongly, “Your friends, your sister, your exes, and this doxy who steals them. Maybe it’s time you talked about yourself a bit, and thought about yourself.”

“Faith didn’t really steal Spike, she—“

“Spike, yes.” Giles seemed to lose his relaxed posture on the couch, “That was him you were talking to before. Did he tell you anything about any…misadventures?”

“Don’t worry, Giles,” Buffy sighed as she and Olivia exchanged annoyed looks, “My days with killers are over. Let them go off with each other. The only thing Spike told me was that he was now shagging Miss Adventure herself.”

“Spike and Faith…are…of course this would be the time…It would be what they want,” Giles muttered.

“Did you just say ‘shagging?’” he asked looking at Buffy now.

“Well, I think it’s awful! Do you know that this girl has tried to have a go at every one of Buffy’s boyfriends and she’s still doing it even though she’s not with the slaying anymore?” Olivia said.

“You mean Slayer. Faith is not a Slayer anymore,” Giles corrected, “She’s powerless, of course. It would be the perfect time.”

Giles got wide-eyed and took off his glassed, and sighed. Watchers, gotta love em’ (or at least Giles) but they took the Slayer/Vamp thing hard. Even when it wasn’t their Slayer. Buffy was sort of annoyed. Why was Giles so concerned Faith was with Spike? The only one who was probably going to get hurt was Spike.

“Can you be anymore of an idiot, Rupert?” Olivia smacked Giles’s arm, “There is no perfect time for them to start shagging if this bloke really cared about Buffy and this girl—“

“No, ‘Liv, that wasn’t what I…Why must you always turn everything into a dramatic production?” he sighed.

“I am not turning anything into bad drama,” she insisted.

She wasn’t. It was that way all by itself.

“I know you. There will be a time when you’ll tell Buffy she should go back to that sodding place and work with these people, but rather than try to kill them, I am wondering if she shouldn’t ask herself if they are the people she wants in her life.” Olivia said.

“Nobody ever asked me who I wanted in my life and who I didn’t. It was kind of about who would show up or who would go without any of my say-so,” Buffy said shakily.

“Well, it’s time to fix that, but if you do want someone out of your life I don’t recommend trying to kill them like Ripper did,” Olivia said firmly.

Buffy thought she might cry, she felt the Mom memory pinch her insides again. If it was up to her she'd be in Sunnydale with Mom, but Mom had left her life.

”Try to kill them…”Giles muttered.

Buffy was glad he wasn’t looking at her. She wouldn’t want Giles to think that she was shaken because he had tried to kill Spike that time. She was just missing Mom.

“Yes, yes, Ripper” Olivia chided, “We all know your preferred solution. He really does feel awful about it you know.”

“I know I want my friends, and of course my sister in my life, but I am just not ready right now,” Buffy said firmly. Spike?” she said less firmly, “Do I want him in my life? Do I want Faith in my life? Do I want Spike and Faith together in my life?”

She shuddered and was glad for the heat of the fire.

“Those last three questions remain a mystery. But at least I answered the first one, and I’m through feeling bad about not being ready. I think I’m so worried about people leaving me I don’t think about whether or not I’m ready to be there myself, or if I even want them there. I know I want to be here with you guys,” Buffy said—firm again.

“Yes, and we aren’t going anywhere,” Olivia said.

“I actually have to go away for a bit,” Giles sighed and looked straight ahead into the fire,

“But it won't be a bother; I’ll be back sooner than you know,” he smiled weakly at the two women staring up at him.

“This is all going to end in tears, you know?” Spike said to Faith.

As they stared at the flat screen TV, where the little perky bob-cut blonde spy was falling in love with the spy from the mother country because he was so English and charming of course. Faith wouldn’t like to see the perky blonde get a broken heart as she was Faith’s favorite She-Spy.

“I never got that expression. I mean, doesn’t everything worth doing end in tears. I mean things end, people die—you cry. Well, I don’t but…” Faith said.

“Yes, but there are the kind of tears that are unavoidable and worth it, and then there are the kind that aren’t, like the ones that’ll happen one day because you refused to take this opportunity to learn how to bloody swim,” he said.

Spike knew there was something he'd been trying to get her to do. He'd got tendistracted by the telly, but now he remembered. It reminded him of the days when he was trying to convince her to control the shadow demon in her. Hard to believe that it wasn’t too long ago.

“Sneaky, slipping that in, but I can’t find my bikini. Actually, I can’t find half the clothes I brought,” she said.

“Pfft, If you really wanted to learn you would do it starkers just like you’ve been doin’ everything else around here that you already know how to do. You had a bikini?” he asked.

“It was what I was wearing the first the time we did it. I think you might have ripped it. It doesn’t matter. I was trying to teach myself to swim before you showed up and I almost drowned, so I’m not to keen to start again,” she said.

“Slayers, why do you insist on doing everything yourself?” he grumbled, but he found it was hard to get too angry as she touched his arm.

They were taking a break from shagging because the food came, and he was used to not expecting to be touched unless he was in a bed, or on his way to one, or doing what should be done in one. He knew Faith was different than Buffy in ways no one else could see, but the touching with clothing on with no idea of shagging lurking about still surprised him. Then she jerked away, and looked at him. Slayers. But then he caught Faith’s eyes. They flashed hurt at him before they gave him haughtiness.

“Robin says Slayers are addicted to danger. That’s why he dumped my ass. You gonna do it too?” she asked flatly.

Wood. Spike had all but forgotten about the bloke. He had done a number on Faith with that fancy hold he had on her. He was smooth enough to make his hold look like nothing more than a supportive hand. Spike could forgive the bloke for that, you had to hold on to a woman sometimes. If you didn’t some sod pushed his way in. What Spike didn’t like was the fact that Wood let go of his hold on Faith, right when she seemed to need it most. But he supposed he couldn’t complain about it, as he was the sod who didn’t exactly push his way in, but fell, no, willfully burned into Wood’s place. But Spike was the sod after all. Faith was crazy to think that Spike would not hold her in his own way too, but he would do it the way she wanted it.

“I am danger, love,” he smiled, “and isn’t this the part where you tell me you aren’t a Slayer anymore.”

He pulled Faith into his lap as greedily as he used to do with Drusilla. If Spike was going to have a hold on Faith it would be a hold, and wouldn’t try to disguise it as something else.

“Yeah, you’re danger as much as I’m still a Slayer,” she snorted as she put her arm around him

“What's that supposed to mean?” he huffed, “I am very very dangerous. You just have to be on my bad side,and you will always have a bit of Slayer in you.”

“Okay, fine, but you aren’t dangerous. I am more dangerous than you,” she insisted.

“I could kill a man with one hand; I have,” he said.

“I know all about what you can do with just one hand. There’s ability and then there’s potential action. You may have the potential to commit a deadly action, but it would only

be a reaction to being in danger, and that ain’t really a dangerous action. That’s a defensive reaction,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m not letting you watch the Discovery Channel anymore.”

“Why? Because they have the commercial with the lost dog that makes you weepy?” she laughed. It was like a bell in his ear.

“I was not weepy. I was concerned. I didn’t know it had a happy end like you did. Bloody commercials these days! Whatever happened to ‘Here’s our sodding product. It’s good because we say so. Buy it.’ Now everyone wants to tell an epic as sad as the Velveteen Rabbit,” he said.

“You’re right. You should write a very dangerous letter to the Master Card people,” she said.

“Well, I am more dangerous than a girl who’s afraid to learn to swim,” he said.

“I am not---“ she shot up in his lap but then settled down again, “Okay, that almost worked.”

“Too bloody smart for your own good,” he sighed, “I’m dangerous enough to get your ass in that pool in the next thirty seconds.”

It was true. He could do that. She had no power anymore. He should, for her own good. She rolled her eyes and took off the tank top she was wearing to reveal “the girls.” Yes, they were the most beautiful things, but they were real, so they couldn’t keep her afloat in the water.

“You think that’s gonna work? I’ve seen those perfectly beautiful creatures dozens of times before and I---,” he began firmly and she put his hand on one of the breasts and it was firm too.

Very firm but skin so soft, softer even than the rest of her, how did that happen? You’d think she’d have very rough skin, and he wouldn’t have minded that. She was really a very soft curvy girl. It was the way she carried herself which made her look muscular.

“I am not going to get distracted from whatever it was I was…” he said before she kissed him.

Kissing her was so more than just kissing. Yes, it was soft, but forceful and wet like kissing should be, but it was also…Wet, wait, he had to…

“Swim. Train. We have to train,” he said in between kisses, “It’s hell out there, and you need to use everything you’ve got.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I do. Always have, and I’m really big into sharing everything I’ve got too,” she said as she took off his shirt; the one she'd put on him some time before.

“You don’t seem so hot on the idea of sharing me,” he smiled giddily, “I can’t believe you made me wear a shirt just in case Harm made good on her threat to deliver the food here in person.”

“Yeah, well, I may feel bad she got turned due to my old boss, but if I saw her drooling I’d have to stake her,” Faith grinned slyly as she possessively ran her hands down his chest and stomach.

“A murderously jealous girl, that’s just what I need. Good for the soul,” he beamed as she played with him.

“I didn’t think you’re soul was all hot and throbbing for me anymore,” she said, “Hey wait, this ain’t your soul. I think this is actually something I want to suck dry.”

He laughed and then bit his lip and moaned for a while. He only thought about her lips, her mouth. Everything she did with it. What came out of her and what she took in.

“I do love you so,” he said as he stroked her hair and pulled her head gently up towards him.

“You’re just saying that because I give the best head you’ve ever had,” she said.

WAY MORE TO COME…