‘how can I convince you it’s me I don’t like
not be so indifferent to the look in your eyes
when I’ve always been distant
and I’ve always told lies
for love’
~Reservations

The night draped Sunnydale like a shroud, cloaking the dark corners of the town with careful, precise folds; erasing the memories of the light. Every morning she awoke under the ivory folds of her bedspread, her eyes tracing the pale green stripes on the wallpaper above her. Inevitably, after moments of lying awake, staring at the stripes, listening to the sounds of the waking household, the lines would begin to take form and shape and close around her like bars in a prison. A personal prison far worse than anything she could have been locked in. The bars of her prison were light: bars of air placed into reality by the representation of the wallpaper.

Around her the day would begin. Her friends called to her, seeking her guidance, expecting her to do as she always had: Fight the good fight, take out the indescribable evil, stand in the light. Her prison was light and good deeds and righteousness, untouchable to her, as the sunlight was to the vampire she turned toward when evening came. As the sunset, the bars around her would darken and bend allowing her to escape into the night.

Nighttime called to her, in both quiet, seductive whispers and passionate, throbbing moans. Stolen moments in dark alleyways had broken through the blank prison face she slid into as the sun rose every morning. The darkness allowed her to show ecstasy and pain but each morning she would return to step into the world her friends inhabited. A world once hers, but now out of her grasp, caught as she was behind bars of light, walls she’d built a lifetime ago. Each day a different scene in the play that was her life, she walked through each part, saying the right words, in the right tones, at the right time, and nobody seemed to notice that under her clothing was the dingy rags of an inmate awaiting her execution.

She had always walked in two worlds and remained a part of neither. The daylight her friend; it had cleansed her, filled her with hope that one day her duties would come to an end and the path for light would be cleared. Night was the world she tiptoed through: never fully embracing and yet always part of it. At times she feared she was sliding into the comforting embrace of the nether hours. Those were the times her heart slid into a hole as deep as any grave she sat over waiting for the rising evil. Each consecutive night that brought an opening of her daily prison and a momentary freedom from the vacant, empty movements brought greater fear and she felt herself digging further. If only she could place her heart at the bottom, perhaps the danger of something dark rising up, something evil coming out of those depths of her, would be reduced.

And she might be safe.

Until the next nighttime, when he ran his lips over hers and she felt the coverings give way and her heart pushing upwards towards… the light? There was no chance of that. Her heart was pushing up to embrace the darkness and it frightened her more than she could ever admit, even to herself, and yet at the same time thrilled and excited her. Her skin would draw taunt and every nerve ending would sing the same, inevitable song and she would feel again.

Tonight was no different.

As the sun sank low behind the horizon, she’d made her way out of her daytime cell and walked through the gathering gloom, comfortable as only someone with years of experience in the dark could be as she drew closer to the epicenter of her new world. Some nights she would pretend. She would sit beside a fresh grave, pretending she was waiting for evil to rise in front of her until she would feel it behind her, wrapping her in its embrace and she would turn to it—to him.

Other nights, like tonight, she played no charade. Her steps took her past freshly buried bodies, past possible demon haunts, until she came to stand outside the cold façade of his resting place—but there would be no rest for either of them tonight. Together they would waltz the steps they always danced. The door swung open at her touch, and she stepped through the dark stone archway and into the sparsely furnished place she knew so well. The bare minimum of furniture was a welcome change after the MTV razzle-dazzle of her daylight world.

She felt, rather than saw, the door close behind her and she felt cool skin against her and her body warmed at the touch, every square inch singing and whirling. Strange how something with no spark: no fire: no light: could warm her so completely until she could feel the fire against her soul in a way she never could in her prison of cold, unyielding light. She knew consciously that the monster behind her could not give her the spark to light the fire she needed to revive in her soul; but in the darkness they moved in, he could make her feel it.

‘One might mistake you for a vampire, love,’ his voice poured into her veins like she imagined blood might flow into his. ‘You only visit when the sun is down.’

Her body melted against his.

She was a vampire and he was her blood.

‘Cause it’s always got to be blood… blood is life… why do you think we eat it? It's what keeps you going, makes you warm, makes you hard, makes you other than dead.

He was the only thing in her world that made her feel warm, alive—who made her feel at all. And every night she came back to drink again. Someday she would drain him dry and there would be nothing left to return to but she couldn’t think of that day—in fact couldn’t think of anything at all in this room where right and wrong turned upside down. She knew she was wrong; but here, in this dark, nothing else felt so right as his arms around her: touch, rotate, merge.

‘Shut up, Spike,’ she commanded and lifted her lips to ensure that he did.

Across the room, ignoring the worn armchair that was overturned in the process, she was slammed up against the side of a pillar, cool and steady against her back: something more reliable than most things in her life. The dance began again anew.

‘Buffy…’

A husky mixture of desire and something else she was afraid to name swirled into her veins and her heart leapt. Warmth kindled in her innermost being like a spark catching the tiny strands of dried moss and growing into a roaring blaze that threatened to destroy a forest in its entirety.

Destroy and burn and there will be nothing left…

More movement, hurled across the cavern, and this time she was the one pushing, the life in her blood giving her strength to move as she used to, with grace and speed and purpose. Her assault propelled them both through the hole to his basement and they landed on the floor, torn away from each other only seconds before resuming their reckless dance with more strength than before. His chest was cool and solid, as steady as the pillar she’d been wedged against above, strong and reliable.

Yet even as the fire caught and grew, she knew she could not believe that thought. There was nothing steady or reliable in her life anymore. Sooner or later, everything would be stripped away… it always was. And there would be nothing left.

The torch Spike kept downstairs burned brightly, lighting the entire grotto with a golden glow. Candles standing upright in the corner flickered, flames dancing. The warmth inside flamed outward, filling every inch of her with life and blood and heat. Every night it was the same; his words and motions became her life and warmth. His body became the pillar that steadied her. She tensed; as the light around her caught, blazed, and exploded brilliantly and she felt Spike, hard and solid as the cool marble column that steadied her stiffen. The blunt edges of his teeth caught on her collarbone and she tensed then let go, sinking once more into the quiet ambiguity of the night.


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