Story [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] Hearts Distant (Spike/Buffy ~ Season 6 to post-series, complete)

Author: Abby
Title: Hearts Distant
Setting: BtVS seasons 6,7, post-series/AtS season 5
Summary: Turbulent, tender, full of love, loss, and maybe something more. A look inside Buffy and Spike?s heads as they ponder the ever-changing nature of them.
Disclaimer: I don?t own ?em. I?m just borrowing them for a while. Not for profit and no copyright infringement intended.
Author?s Note: Written for the Live Journal community, seasonal_spuffy?s fall 2009 round. Optional theme: distance.
Beta: alwaysjbj ? thanks bunches! Also, she made the beautiful banner for this fic.
[image=http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d107/townzell/Hearts_distant.jpg]

Hearts Distant

*~*

Distance isn?t the sort of thing I?ve ever really thought too much about. Granted, a lot of the time thinking wasn?t so much first on my list of things to do, you know? But distance. Always was just one of those random words that pop up now and again. Flashed some fang for a laugh and gramps over there? Kept his distance, didn?t he? Rang up that demon who lived in the flat upstairs in Jolly Old back a few decades and still owed me a favour or two? Called him long distance but the ****er wouldn?t accept the bloody charges. And that trip from Prague to New York in a shipping crate, because my loony of a sire wouldn?t be trusted not to blow cover or drift out into the sunlight in her weakened state? A hard bloody distance to travel.

Now it?s all I think about some days. This distance, the worst sort. When the distance between your bodies dwindles to less than nothing but the one between your hearts has never been greater.

I know. I know. Don?t need to remind me how it was with Dru sometimes, when Daddy?s charms were all she could see or when she?d look at me with vacant eyes like she couldn?t grasp what it meant that I loved her more than life. More than blood. Difference is, though, for all her fractured mind and instability, she did love me. She gave me what she could and gave it willingly. Just wasn?t in her to love as I did.

As I do.

I knew that, even when I didn?t want to know it. But her? I know she can. I?ve seen it, from a distance of course. I?ve also watched her fall apart because of it.

She lets me close, she does. Comes back again and again, takes me into her body and moves under me, over me, around me like the beautiful, sensual creature she is. And in the moment I can pretend that it doesn?t matter that her body?s here but her mind?her soul?wishes she were anywhere else.

Far away.

There?s an instant just before her body starts to shudder, a second before she crashes us headlong into simultaneous bliss, when I see a spark, some little light in her eyes that says maybe, maybe, she?s not so distant after all.

But in the afterward?afterglow, when such a thing is allowed to exist, is fleeting at best?it?s back again to the wide-open eyes unwilling to see what a bloody brilliant thing we?d have, if only she?d let me as close to her heart as I am to her body.

She cares. Whatever she says or does to try to prove to me otherwise?to fool herself, I think sometimes?I know it. She?s hurting, feeling too much, so she?s trying not to feel it at all.
You know all that, or at least you should. A blind man could see it.

But I know my girl?my girl?and sooner or later it?s all going to come to an explosive head, and there?s bugger all I can do to stop it.

I keep trying to love her. She lets me sometimes, when she?s fed up with the others but won?t admit it, or when she?s just too knackered to fight it. Those brief windows of time when slow and tender replace hard and fast, I imagine that chasm between us closing just the tiniest little bit.

And in the next breath, she?ll have taken that away, too.

My heart burns for her. My entire being does. So much it?s frightening and I wonder if I?ll turn to ashes waiti

 

Bravo for getting into Spike and Buffy's heads and exposing their inner feelings for each other. You could have left off their names in the title and I would still know who was speaking without you even naming them.

And to do it in First person. That's hard. And this inner speak from each of them paves the way their relationship deepens as season 7 plays out and it perfectly demonstrates the last thing Buffy said to Spike.

"I love you." And his answer, "No you don't. But thanks for saying it."

Very well done.

 

That's exactly what I was trying to do with this, purposely using "he" and "she" instead of names and instead using their voices to tell the readers who they were. I am very glad to hear that I was able to accomplish this.

I almost never write first person stories, but I wanted this to be personal and intimate, and felt this was the best way to do that. It was hard, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm glad the inner speak worked to move their story along...

And yes, this, which was key to their thoughts afterward. Good to know that these words and my impression of their thoughts matched.

Thank you very much! I really appreciated your review.

~Abby~