MUSIC TO MY EARS
by perletwo
"I was afraid you weren't gonna show."
Spike considered this while he studied Buffy, settled tensely at a small table in the back room of the Bronze, the same table where they'd once shared wings and tales of dead Slayers.
When she'd invited him on an evening out, he'd wondered if she was testing the waters for a seduction. But she was dressed in comfortable old jeans and a plain, almost threadbare old sweater, and she had her hair skinned back in the chignon she'd taken to wearing lately. She was literally on the edge of her seat, hands gripping the rim of the table so hard he feared she'd break it.
"Yeah, well, there was nothin' on the telly, y'know." He pulled a chair up opposite her with a scrape and helped himself to a Buffalo wing off the platter sitting untouched in the middle of the table. Mugs of draft beer sat untouched on either side of the platter. "So what's this in aid of, then? Bribe to keep me from spillin' to your little friends?"
She shook her head and downed a swallow of beer. "No. I just - wanted to talk to you."
He groaned. "Bleedin' hell. Slayer, didn't anyone ever tell you, first you 'ave the big soulful relationship talks, an' THEN you break up with 'em?"
"No. No! That's not it - at all - I - I just -" Buffy stopped, took a breath and another swallow of beer, and started over.
"You know that thing, the thing you do that I always make fun of, the one where you run your mouth on and on talking about some silly insignificant thing until I have to deck you to get you to shut up?"
He nodded.
"Well...I just...I want you to - to do that. And, and I'll just sit here and listen." Her mouth twisted up wryly. "And not hit you."
"Good to know," he deadpanned. "One condition. I'll talk if you'll eat somethin' while I ramble. An' let me order some'a that spinach dip they do 'ere. You're not eating an' when you do it's that Doublemeat crud. I worry you'll never eat anythin' green again as long as you work there."
Buffy gave him a Mona Lisa smile, nodded and signaled a waitress.
Spike fidgeted and played with a chicken wing, pinned under Buffy's steady gaze.
"I'm 'avin' a bit of performance anxiety 'ere, Slayer, you'll 'ave to 'elp me out. What d'you want me to talk about?"
She smiled and nibbled on a spinach-laden tortilla chip. "Anything. The less significant the better. You were right, by the way - I feel better for having eaten something, and this *is* good stuff." She waved a chip in his direction, and he bent his head in a nod.
They sat in silence for a long, long minute. "Hell, Slayer, I can't just turn this stuff on an' off at will, y'know..."
"Okay. Tell me - tell me about the last thing you read that interested you."
He took a long draught of beer. "H'mmm...all right. The Queen Mum died, d'you see that in the paper the other day?" She nodded.
"I read the wire reports in the local paper, an' then I went out to Barnes & Noble an' got some'a the London papers t'see what they'd written about 'er. 'S funny - I didn't 'ave much use for 'er or 'er lot when she was alive, but now she's gone, I miss 'er. An' appreciate 'er, in a way I didn't when she was Queen. Now she an'er whole clan're sorta afterthoughts, an' it's kinda okay to feel fond'a'er, without the political stuff gettin' in the way, y'know?"
Buffy nodded while Spike attacked another wing. "Yeah. Some things, you don't realize what a comfort they are to have in your life until you lose'em."
Spike's brow furrowed. "You thinkin'a Joyce, luv?"
"No. C'mon. No heavy talk. More Queen Mum, please." She sipped at her beer. "It's funny, to think that you've been alive longer than her, and you watched her whole career, so to speak..."
"Well, the first thing I thought when I read all'a the eulogies was, I never realized 'ow much she reminds me'a you."
Buffy's eyebrow arched skeptically.
"No no, now. You, callow youth you are, 'ave this picture in your 'ead'a the Queen as a li'l old lady in funny hats, doin' that stiff li'l wave at ribbon cuttings an' such. But she was about your age when she married the King's younger son, an' she thought she was all set t'ave Fergie's life - party on an' live in luxury. Then the Prince abdicated an' Bertie became king, an' then he died, an' she got stuck with more responsibility any one young woman should 'ave to bear alone..."
Buffy smiled behind the rim of her beer mug, listening to him warm to the topic.
Buffy listened attentively and fed Spike questions at appropriate moments to keep him going.
He talked about the Queen and the World Wars and how he'd seen what it meant to be an Englishman change over the course of the century. She listened to him talk until she no longer heard individual words, just sounds flowing together through his voice, like listening to an opera sung in a language she didn't understand.
He talked until the platter of wings was empty and Buffy had finally reached the bottom of her beer mug, even with her habit of taking tiny sips. Then he stopped, pushed the plates away and sat back, considering her for a moment.
"All right, luv. Gonna tell me what this is all about?"
"It's nothing. Really. Well, not nothing, but - I don't want you to read too much into this, okay? It is what it is." He nodded. "You know that other reality I was in when I was sick, the mental hospital?" Another nod. "Well, you were there."
His face shifted, anxiety creeping into his eyes, but he said nothing.
"You were a patient. I'd see you sometimes when they moved us around for therapy sessions and such. You had the ce - the room next to mine. And you talked. Incessantly. Literally everything that came into your head went straight out your mouth. That was your symptom, y'see?"
He nodded, face grave.
"And of course it drove me nuts at first, but after awhile I sort of - got used to it. It was just - white noise, like from an air conditioner or something...." Her voice trailed off and she toyed with the remains of a tortilla chip.
"And?" he prodded.
"And. You - he - went on like that for, for a very long time, and the doctors tried everything they knew to fix him, and nothing worked. And one day they came and took him out of the room next to mine, and he was gone for a very long time. And then they brought him back, and he didn't talk anymore. At all."
She looked up from the crumbs and the empty plates, to find shock written across his face. She reached up and tapped a finger in the center of his forehead.
"They went in here and they cut out - everything that made him - you," she said softly. "You thought what they did to you when they put the chip in was the worst, but this..." She shook her head sadly. "Anyway. It wasn't until after the noise stopped that I realized it'd come to seem - normal, and comforting, especially at night when I couldn't sleep - and I missed it."
She sat back and pushed back from the table a bit. "So...that's what this is really all about. I missed hearing you talk. So I asked you out and fed you Buffalo wings and beer, all so's I could listen to you ramble."
Buffy fidgeted nervously while Spike considered all this in silence.
"Well then. Up for another go? I was watchin' the Westchester Dog Show the other night on the telly, did you catch any of it? I swear, that thing that won was really a cat..."
She smiled and signaled to the waitress again. This story called for refreshments.