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Spike didn’t pay for it, but when has that stopped him? He might take it back, anyway.
Doesn’t know why he took it – or, he does, but it doesn’t make him feel much better at the album gripped in his hands. He was meant to be out for supplies: a spot of blood, a light mooch around for something to nab. Which he has done, but his heart is heavier for his cargo.
He’s got none of the other things he came for, but he marches straight home without looking back.
Once inside, he slides the disc from its sleeve. His hands are shaking as he holds it over the record player, hesitating before lowering it onto the machine.
He doesn’t turn it on, not yet. Just watches it, the black plastic staring back at him. He bites his lip, and his eyes burn, but he knows the tide is going to break at some point. Almost wants it to; she warrants it. Can’t turn his back on her. Same reason he took the album, even though the sight of it on the shelf froze him for more minutes than he’d care to admit. It would be worse to pretend he doesn’t care, as if this all means nothing.
He sets the needle on the surface. It spins in silence for a second, before a quiet beat starts to build. The first tear bites in sync with the first chord.
He remembers. One of the times Buffy sent them on some stakeout together. Walking past a bar, Ash perking up and humming along with some airy pop song. Spike ribbing her for her bland music taste. Course, she hadn’t known many songs. Hadn’t had any money to spend on albums of her own.
He talked her round, can’t remember how – he should remember, wants to live every word again – and they’d broken into the mall at night. Sat on the record shop floor, listening to all sorts for as long as they could get away with.
He may not remember the words they said, but at least he can remember her grin as she found the ones she liked better than the pop she’d heard in the shops or at the school games. The stuff her parents wouldn’t let her listen to.
Even after he got her out of there, he’d still nick the ones he thought she’d like. Lost count of how many nights they lazed around, nodding along to Siouxsie or Faith no More or Bad Religion together.
But now she’s gone, and he’s crying over a stupid record store find, because she’s not here to listen with him, because they’ve dared go on making things she can’t hear, because… because she would have loved this.
He shouldn’t be sniffling over a ballsy snarl of guitars, shouldn’t sob when the rocking, singable chorus comes around. But she would have sung to it. He can hear her humming it under her breath, or jigging around the place with it spinning on the record player.
He lifts the needle. The music stops. His tears go on.
He leaves the record there on the player. It won’t turn for a long time.