Title: Conversation
Author: kbk
Disclaimer: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Angel" and all characters are owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and various other people and companies. Not me. I make no money from this.
Rating: PG-13, I guess
Summary: The obligatory "I have a soul now" Spike/Buffy conversation. 500 words. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I'm annoyed at myself for writing it in the first place so it ain't gonna get revised.

"But you have a soul now, so... I guess..." It's kind of an automatic Get-Out-Of-Jail Free Card, she thought, except you don't seem like two different people so I don't really see how that's going to work.

"No. Buffy, when I attacked you, in the bathroom," pain flitted across both their faces as they recalled that fateful night, "that wasn't 'the demon'. That was me. And I don't think we can get past that." He shrugged slightly and took a step backwards.

Buffy instinctively followed, stepping into his personal space to say, "So you're just giving up?" her surprise evident in her voice and face.

"I don't want to hurt you any more," he told her, totally sincere.

"The soul," she said in wonder, "that was for me?"

"Don't be daft, it... well, yeah, but not... you know, not like that, exactly... I wasn't exactly thinking straight for a while there," he said, trying to excuse his actions and negate their implications.

"I noticed," she replied with a dryness stolen from a hundred arguments with him.

He dropped his head and backed off once more, attempting to get himself under control.

"Hey," she continued, this time staying where she was, "you were supposed to ... say something really sarcastic, or... it really has changed you, hasn't it?"

"Oh, hell no!" he vociferously denied. After a short pause, in which she looked at him intently, he started to qualify his statement with, "That is, in a wider context, probably, but when it comes to you: it's all the same."

"Then what's with..." she cast around for a name, and could only come up with "retreat-y guy?"

"Do the words 'the only reason you're here is that you're not here' mean anything to you?" he said, casting his mind back several months and past a lot of pain.

"You're throwing me out?" she extrapolated, indignant.

"I'm just saying that at some point I did... OK, fine, yeah, I'm throwing you out. Never darken my door again. Go on, get!" He advanced on her with a threatening stance, and started maneouvring her towards the door as she backed away from him. "A man's home is his castle, don't you know, and you've invaded mine often enough, so now I'm telling you that your invitation is revoked..."

Buffy stopped backing up, and Spike stopped abruptly to avoid touching her. "In case you'd forgotten," she said, poisonously sweet, "I don't need an invitation. You're the one that does."

Spike wavered between contempt at the cheap shot and despair that it was true and she most likely had warded her home against him. In losing the momentum of his speech, he realised that he was never going to get through to her; and so he turned away and lay down on a tomb, putting an end to his side of the conversation by the simple expedient of pretending it wasn't happening.

Buffy waited for a while, hoping he would explain himself. He didn't.

Eventually, she left.