XL -- voice

[breakmychest]

Anyone want to spar in the gym? I'd also be up for getting very, very drunk.

[Locked from Buffy]

People generally are different during the Breaches, right? Even more so then during floods or ports?

How different?

[Private to Bruce and Elric separately]

Did you speak to Buffy during the Breach?

[In this particular circumstance, "speak" means "have sex."]

[Private to Fred]

You get through the madness in one piece?

[Private to Elphaba]

How goes your quest for friendship?

Comments

[Fred]

[bigbad]

Enough that I've got a right to be upset about someone else sleeping with her.

[Spike]

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

[She understands, but --]

Spike, I was a blacksmith with an overprotective brother....

[Fred]

[bigbad]

Trying to explain to me that she wasn't herself, I shouldn't blame her?

I know that. And god, I wouldn't even be mad if she'd just bloody talk to me instead of acting like I'm the bad guy for not taking it well.

[Spike]

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

[She exhales, considers her words]

If you're the bad guy here, that isn't why.

[Fred]

[bigbad]

So why am I?

[Spike]

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

She's just been twisted up and manipulated, had her body do things she wouldn't have willingly chosen to have it do on its own. At least not in that way.

[She hasn't ever talked to Spike that much about what happened to her before, but that doesn't keep Fred from remembering it now]

And now it's not just that she can't stop thinking about it, or trying to line up all the pieces to see just how they add up to her again. She's probably thinking about you too. How knowing is going to make you feel. What you'll do and say.

I imagine she isn't upset because you didn't live up to her expectations, Spike.

But because you did.

I'm willing to bet you reacted exactly how she thought you would. How you might even have a right to. But that didn't keep her from hoping for something different.

[Fred]

[bigbad]

[Spike's quiet for a moment, considering Fred's words.]

I can't help feeling how I feel. I wish I could. God, I wish I could be the sort of person who takes things in stride. But this is... [He shakes his head, his voice getting softer.] She won't even tell me who it was. I hate this feeling.

[Spike]

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

[For a long time Fred's quiet. The edges of this conversation are touching dangerously with her own experiences in Pylea. And not with the parts with caves or even collars. People with inflict all kinds of casual cruelties on things they equate to little more than an animal. She'd never talked about it, not really. But Fred suspected that Lorne knew, if only because he knew that place.

It clearly wasn't what Buffy had gone through, other than the sense it wasn't anything she would have chosen for herself.

Fred sighs]

You don't have to take it in stride, Spike. It sounds like it's something to miss more than a few steps over. I'm just saying that if you're feeling all this?

Buffy's trying to navigate her way though whatever happened too.

[Fred]

[bigbad]

I know all that too. It's just...

[He looks down, dejected. He's not sure what he wants right now, besides for Buffy not to have shagged someone else and for the fighting to be over. But he's just been cheated on too many times to take it in stride.]

How can I help her if she won't talk to me?