Last Sundae Before the Apocalypse
by magista
Any moment now she'd get up, take up the scythe, and head to the graveyard to look for ancient pagan burial sites where all the secrets would be revealed. Really. It was only a matter of time. At first she'd decided to wait until after sunset - graveyard matters seldom could be satisfactorily resolved in the light of day. After dark she could waltz in, find the tomb and the convenient book of 'how to defeat misogynist preachers imbued with ancient evil in a single stroke' laid out to the appropriate reference pages on some ornate sarcophagus. Yeah. Right. Things like that only happened on television.
And then Spike had returned with the sunset, and turned her world and her heart over with a confession that a single chaste night with her in his arms was the best night of his life.
She remembered what he'd told her before this was the best night of his life. How he got off on the death of the Chinese Slayer, more than a hundred years before. And the shadows had lengthened and darkened, and still she sat, waiting for who knew what as she turned that thought and others over and over in her head.
"Evening Slayer. Care for a pint before you head out?" And when you speak of the devil... She looked up, confused. A pint was what he and Giles said - though certainly not to each other, these days - when they meant beer. And beer and Buffy? Bad. Very. But what he was holding out in front of him was definitely not malt-based. Well, maybe chocolate malt...
"Tell me that's actually what it looks like. You found some Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the ruins of some store?"
He took a moment before replying, enjoying the way her face opened up like a flower in the sun at the sight of him. The sight of the unexpected treat, he corrected himself. No illusions here. "Well, no. Doubt we'd find anything this good left in this benighted town. Was in the freezer downstairs, actually. One of the young ones turned it up just now as they were trying to reorganize it."
"And they didn't try to keep it for themselves? I'm amazed."
"Guess none of them wanted to fight me for it," he observed dryly. "Too bad. I could have used the workout." Buffy eyed him charily, not entirely sure that he was joking.
"Willow wanted the freezer reorganized for the lot Andrew brought back from his raid on the supie. Supermarket," he clarified at her puzzled glance. "Said that with so many mouths to feed, we should save space for essentials only."
"Willow must not be feeling well. Ben and Jerry's is essential," Buffy declared in the voice of absolute ice cream authority. Actually, it sounded to him quite a bit like the one she used for her long-winded speeches to the Slayer trainees, and he hoped he'd not be on the receiving end of an hour-long lesson on the virtues of desserts in keeping up troop morale. To his relief, she only inquired what flavour it was.
"It's... Fudge Central," he said, brushing away crystals of bright frost with his thumb in order to read the text.
"Oh yum! That's the one with the fudge truffle core. It's not possible to get too much chocolate, you know," she confided with a grin. "Though I'd even be happy to take plain old vanilla."
"Plumb the depths of the glorious core?" He raised a dubious eyebrow as he studied the marketing blurb on the side of the container. "Sounds like they're describing porn, not ice cream."
"Mm. Bad porn."
"No such thing."
"No, there's no such thing as bad chocolate. There's plenty of bad porn. Uh, I think. Not based on personal experience, or anything." She flushed, suddenly shy. "Maybe that's why they say that chocolate is better than sex."
"Who are you trying to convince, love? Because you and I, we both know better."
"Okay, so don't think we want to head down that road right now."
Spike accepted the gentle rebuke silently and passed her down the open container, the handle of the tablespoon he'd stuck into it sitting at a jaunty angle. He watched with unalloyed pleasure her eyes drift shut as she tasted the first heaping spoonful, turning it over in her mouth to better cup the spoon against her tongue. Its pink tip darted out to catch a rivulet of melted chocolate down the handle of the spoon before it could reach her fingers. Chocolate, sex. No difference that he could see in her face.
After long silent moments, she pulled the now shiny clean spoon from her mouth and looked up. "You can't expect me to finish this all by myself. Sit. Eat." She proffered the pint and the spoon.
How could he refuse such an elegant invitation? He swept his coat out from beneath him and settled beside her on the step. "Cheers," he said, taking up the spoon and essaying a tentative taste. "Huh. Not too bad, this." Another, larger spoonful followed. "Though I usually prefer vanilla."
"Funny," Buffy said, "I'd have thought you were more Half Baked. Or knowing you like I do, probably Karamel Sutra," she added slyly, all traces of her former reticence melted away.
"Those are real flavours?" It didn't matter. He was ready to believe that miracles really could come in pint-sized frozen packages. "I don't believe it. Nobody would come up with anything that ridiculous on purpose."
"They are real flavours. Honest. Cross my heart and--" she froze before she could complete the unfortunate oath.
"Here. Open." He held a spoonful of talismanic chocolatey goodness before her, and she accepted it gratefully in place of further fateful slips of the tongue.
Without more words, they traded the spoon back and forth between them for a while, and the level of ice cream in the container dropped alarmingly.
After many turns, Buffy finally waved it away, clapping her hands over her stomach. "Oog. If I keep this up, I'll need someone to roll me to the graveyard," she said with a laugh.
"I'd be glad to oblige, if it becomes necessary," he said. "It's good to hear you laugh again. I've discovered it's one of my favourite sounds. Haven't heard it near often enough."
She looked up sharply, but there was no mocking expression, only simple truth in his face. "Last time I checked, happiness wasn't a guaranteed part of the Slayer package. I seem to recall the brochures mentioning loneliness, no chance for advancement, and the certainty of a short life with a brutal, agonizing death." She snorted with bitter humour. "They really need to work on brightening up their ad campaign, don't you think?
"You should be happy," he insisted, ignoring her sarcasm. "You deserve to be happy, all you've been through. Deserve a chance to rest, once this is done."
"Somehow I'm having a hard time convincing myself that's true, knowing what's probably coming." She gazed off into leafy distance, drawn and thoughtful. "Am I doing the right thing, going to do this alone?"
Spike jammed the spoon back in the container and set it on the step between them. Pale fingertips, cool as ice cream, turned her face back until she had to focus on him. "Do you think you are?" After a moment, she nodded.
" 'S not my place to say then, is it? But yeah, if I have to answer that, I say you are. It's probably not the only thing you could do, but it's right enough. Got a big axe now. Be a shame not to learn how to put it to proper use."
She felt a sudden mad urge to lean over and taste the ice cream from his mouth. Too much water under the bridge now, for both of them, to make that a sensible choice. But Buffy was seized with the desire to be completely insensible. If being sensible meant things like making speeches about how young girls were going to die needless, stupid deaths, then she'd had quite enough of it for two lifetimes, thank you very much. Right now, all she wanted was to see the look on his face if she succumbed to the emotion sweeping over her.
When had she decided that kissing with her eyes closed would be hiding from herself? She leaned forward, searching his face for any sign that he would welcome a return to such intimacies, but his expression remained maddeningly closed. I knew I shouldn't have called him 'shirty' before. It must mean something really awful, and he won't tell me now. In spite of her best intention, her eyes fluttered shut as she moved closer, her breath sighing from between her lips.
The shock of cold on the end of her nose made her jerk back upright, eyes flying open in indignation to see Spike brandishing the dripping spoon between them. "Hey!"
"Just doing my part to keep you focussed on the mission," he deadpanned. "Can't have the head Slayer getting all distracted on the eve of battle an' all."
She wrestled the spoon away from him. "You want a battle? You got it, mister." She dabbed at his nose, but he turned his head at the last moment and ended up with a chocolate smear down one alabaster cheekbone.
He lunged for the half-empty container on the step, but she snatched it up and danced back out of his reach. "You'll have to be quicker than that if you want to make the team, Spike."
He was on his feet and lunging towards her in an instant, but all it got him was a matching streak of ice cream on the other cheek.
"Yes! Two for two!" she crowed. She licked ice cream from her fingers, and then brought another spoonful to her mouth. "Somehow I don't think that Fudge Central is intended for use as camouflage. But on you, it looks good."
Spike growled an unintelligible rejoinder, and Buffy only smiled around the spoon, backing away slowly.
He rushed at her, coat flaring behind him. His fingers caught for an instant in the gossamer of her blouse, but she slipped his grasp as she spun away.
It became rather like a bullfight, how he would charge at her and she would evade him. Only instead of a sword or a lance, she had a spoonful of ice cream with which she marked him on nearly every pass. Though I'm the one that should have the swirly cape thingy, she mused.
Only the last time, she dodged when she should have weaved - or something like that - and Spike managed to snatch the ice cream from her fingers.
And then held it up at arms length, just out of her reach.
"Oh, now that's just not fair," Buffy protested with a sighing laugh, trying to catch her breath.
"Didn't think a little thing like that would stop you," he mocked gently.
"It hasn't." That was all the warning he got before she hooked one leg behind his knee and threw her body into his shoulder, hard. He staggered backwards, arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance. Melted ice cream spattered them both, but Buffy recaptured the ice cream as he reeled and then tumbled onto his back on the lawn.
For a moment she could only stare down at him lying there, his face and shirt liberally splattered with chocolate. But then when he started to laugh, she did too. Soon she was bent nearly double with mirth at the sight of him tugging the neck of his tee shirt up to wipe his dripping cheeks and chin. Tears streamed down her own cheeks.
"Oh please," she begged, still gasping with laughter and clutching at her middle. "No more. I don't think my stomach can take any more."
"All part of my nefarious plan," Spike insisted, with a grin. Would that they all worked so well.
When her laughs finally subsided to no more than hiccoughing giggles, Buffy held out her hand to help him back to his feet. Spike hesitated a moment, then took it and levered himself up off of the ground. He reached with his other for the ice cream. She pulled it back, but it only drew him forward, his hand sliding gently up her forearm to cup her elbow.
Not laughing any more, she simply looked up at him, lost in his intense gaze. Releasing the ice cream to him, she slid both hands up his sleeves to lie lightly on his shoulders as his arms closed cautiously about her.
"Yo, B! Giles wants to know when--" Two heads swivelled to take in the woman looking out at them from the open door. Faith took in their near embrace with a glance, and her scarlet lips curved in a knowing smile. "Never mind. You take care of business. I'll tell Giles you're busy... working out." The screen banged shut again behind Faith's retreating figure.
"Working... something out, anyway," Buffy murmured as she looked back up at him.
"Is that what we're doing, love?" He wasn't going to suggest a thing. He would stand here to the end of eternity, holding her this way if that was what she wanted from him. If that were all she ever wanted from him it would be enough.
"We are. Well, I am, at least. I'm sorry for... running away, earlier. For asking you if it had to mean anything, when it really means everything to me. Knowing that you believe in me." This time, she swore, she wouldn't run, wouldn't turn her face away. "Knowing how much you love me."
He didn't move; didn't even do so much as blink. Couldn't so much as lose sight of her for a fraction of a second, for fear it would mean everything would vanish in that instant.
It was Buffy who drew away at last, taking back the ice cream and dropping the spoon into it. "We'll put the rest of this back into the freezer, and share it afterwards," she declared with bravado, looking down at the semi-liquid contents of the now somewhat battered container. "I'm sure we'll both need a little pick-me-up by then."
"We will," he promised, knowing he'd likely die forsworn some time in the next few days. But he'd go to his grave - again - before he'd shatter the fragile illusion they had built between them. "Heroes like their ice cream, after all."
"Especially when it's chocolate."
This time they both heard the creak of the screen door followed by tentative footsteps on the deck. Neither one of them chose to look up, still rapt in the other. But when no further sound was forthcoming, Buffy reluctantly turned her head. "What's the crisis this time?"
Amanda's long face looked pinched and pale, and clearly she still hadn't found a moment to wipe the dust and soot of the explosion from her face. Or perhaps even a chance to do something as simple as look in a mirror. Vi fidgeted beside her, picking imaginary lint from her blouse, unable to look them in the eye.
"Ah..." Amanda ventured, clearing her throat. "Kennedy said we should come tell you that Andrew and Anya had gone to the hospital to collect some more medical supplies. They thought we'd probably need more than just stuff from the first aid kit, and that the hospital would be the best place to find something, what with it being abandoned and all."
Buffy reluctantly tore herself away from the renewed appeal of Spike's embrace. "I've got the message. Is there anything else?" Nothing seemed to be forthcoming but more foot shuffling. "Go give Kennedy a hand with the wounded, then. I'll be right in."
Amanda looked as though she wanted to ask something, but didn't. Vi only stared at her toes and tried unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle.
She stepped out of the circle of Spike's arms and back into the role of Slayer. "What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Get!" With a wave of her hands, Buffy shooed the girls off the porch and back into the house.
"What is wrong with those girls today?" she groused with more humour than heat as they followed.
"Other than explosions and other near-death experiences?" Spike stepped forward and stopped, poised to open the door for her. "Well for one thing," he said, finally losing the battle against laughter himself. "You've still got ice cream on your nose."
He did manage to dodge the spoon, though. Giles, who picked exactly that moment to open the door from the other side, wasn't quite so fortunate.
BTW, Fudge Central, Half Baked, and Karamel Sutra are all registered trademark flavours of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I figure they won't mind too much, since I'm not getting any money out of this deal, and may actually trigger ice cream cravings in the audience... Hope the same goes for Joss and co...