-Wednesday, July 17th. 6:30am-
When the alarm on Buffy's phone went off, it was more jarring than usual. Whether because she'd gotten so little sleep the night before or because her phone had somehow found itself wedged up directly below her ear underneath her pillow, she wasn't sure. Grabbing a hold of it and yanking it out from under the pillow, she glared blearily down at it, swiping the pad of her finger over to snooze it.
Then she dropped back down onto her pillow with a huff.
The arm draped lazily around her waist tightened a little, tugging her just slightly forward and Buffy glanced away from her phone and up into the swirling, bright blue gaze waiting for her.
"Good morning," she said softly, smiling a little at him as bits and pieces from the night before started to filter their way into her memory.
"Morning," Spike said back, his voice matching hers.
It was a little unsettling, waking up like this. With him. More specifically, waking up with him and not immediately feeling the need to jump up out bed and run for the nearest exit or bury her head in deep, dark shame. Not that waking up with Spike in her bed still wasn't a tiny bit weird. Because it totally was.
Weird, but not unpleasant.
"How long have you been up?" she asked, glancing once more at her phone when her snoozed alarm went off again, hurrying to put a stop to the shrill noise.
This time, she turned the alarm off entirely.
"About forty, forty-five minutes. Give or take." His little smirk widened, his fingers drumming a little rhythm against her back as he said, "You talk in your sleep."
"I know," Buffy admitted sheepishly. She was notorious for talking in her sleep. That's how Dawn had dissevered where she hid her diary when they were growing up, and also how Angel had discovered her deep and abiding fear of marriage.
Buffy could only hope she hadn't said anything nearly so revealing last night.
She'd done more than enoughrevealing while they'd been awake.
-Tuesday, July 16th. 9:09pm-
They were sitting on the floor, side by side, their backs resting against the bottom of her couch. The pizza box was laying open in front of them, her coffee table having been pushed forward to give them room to stretch their legs out. There was some generic, syndicated sitcom playing on the TV, the volume down low.
Spike had insisted on wanting to pay for the pizza, and Buffy had insisted she didn't want him to pay for it. They'd argued over it for a good five minutes before he finally relented, citing it was essentially like he was paying regardless since he was essentially responsible for her having a job. She'd rolled her eyes and proceeded to turn on the TV to try and find something for them to watch while they waited for the pizza to arrive, both of them being just a little on the talked-out side. Of course, the hunt for suitable TV programming had only started them down an entire different road of playful arguing, somehow ending with an equally playful wrestling match over the remote control that had seen Buffy winding up pinned beneath Spike on the ground.
He'd been seconds away from kissing her, she knew. Really kissing her. And she'd been seconds away from letting him.
So she'd been equal parts relieved and annoyed when there'd been a knock on the apartment door a second later.
Ironically, Spike had ended up paying for the pizza anyway since Buffy was short on cash.
"Tell that wanker of a boss to pay you better," he'd teased her as she'd thanked the delivery guy and shut the door, throwing the deadbolt back in place and approaching him with the heavenly smelling box. "Can't even afford take away pizza. 'S a travesty."
"I'll let him know how grossly underpaid I am tomorrow," she teased back, settling down beside him on the floor, legs criss crossed beneath her, setting the box down in front of them.
And definitively separating themselves and their current situation from work.
They'd eaten in comfortable silence for a little while, teasing each other good naturedly every once in awhile about this, that or the other. Buffy had raided the fridge and found a small stash of Faith's favorite beer, which they were sipping on. The whole thing felt incredibly casual.
She was a little surprised with how easy things between them seemed. She didn't think she'd ever seen Spike look so…relaxed. Leaning back against her couch, legs out in front of him, chuckling off handedly every couple minutes at some silly joke from the sitcom.
He picked the pepperonis off his pizza and ate them separately, which Buffy found totally adorable, though she couldn't pinpoint why.
"So…what did you say to her anyway?" Buffy asked after she realized how full she was, tossing the uneaten slice she'd had in her hand back onto the plate and dusting her hands off.
Spike glanced toward her, his own slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. "Who?"
She paused for just a moment, wondering if she should risk bringing it up again. Or if she should just let it go for tonight, bring it up another time when they weren't…well, when they weren't having so much fun.
In the end, curiosity won out.
"Cecily," she said softly, reaching up to grab a throw pillow down off the couch and tucking it into her lap.
"When?" he asked, dropping the crust of his pizza back onto his plate.
Buffy chanced a glance toward his face again. He was frowning, looking genuinely bemused by her question.
When you rescued me.
"When you called her over to talk to you," she clarified, tracing lines over the striped pillow in her lap with the tip of a baby pink fingernail.
"Oh." Spike leaned forward and set his plate down on top of the coffee table. "Nothin' important."
Andthat was a deflection if she'd ever heard one.
"It looked kind of tense."
He chuckled wryly at that, nodded his head and leaned further back against the couch. "Every conversation we have is tense, pet. Just wrap it up in fake smiles and pretentious banter when we're in public."
That's sort of what she'd figured, but it didn't make her feel any less wigged over it hearing him admit that that's all it was.
"I don't get that," Buffy told him honestly, squeezing the pillow tighter into her stomach. "I mean…I get the part about why you don't want to divorce her. And I can kind of even understand why she won't divorce you, I guess. But why does it matter what other people see?" She shifted her eyes toward his, conscious of the vulnerability she was allowing him to see when she shrugged awkwardly and said, "Lots of people have unhappy marriages and they don't all feel the need to give Oscar worthy performances when they're out in public."
Spike's lips curved upward and his eyes sparked, delighted. "You really were jealous, weren't you?"
Buffy frowned at him and shook her head. "Don't do that."
"Don't do what?" Spike asked casually, still twinkling at her, folding his hands together and resting them in his lap.
"Get all avoidy," Buffy told him pointedly, raising her eyebrows. "It's totally obvious. And it only makes me more curious, anyway." She shifted around a little, twisting so that her shoulder was resting against the couch and not her back. "Is it really that important that the employees at Pratt think you're happily married?"
"No, I s'pose not," he conceded, picking his beer up, taking a long sip and setting it back down again. He tapped his finger against it a couple times, then added, "But it makes things…easier. Simpler."
But that wasn't true. She could see it written all over his face, that he didn't really believe that. Like he was simply repeating a lie he'd been telling himself for so long that whatever the truth was had been buried down deep.
But Buffy had a feeling she knew what the truth was. Had seen hints of it in his office that morning, had wondered about it then, too. And she knew now. That it wasn't Pratt's employees he was worried about putting on a show for. It was something much closer to home, much more personal.
And not easy or simple at all.
Quietly, keeping her eyes glued to his, she asked, "It's your dad, isn't it?"
"What?" Spike asked immediately, the reaction instant and jumpy, his eyes widening as he stared over at her.
"Your dad," Buffy repeated cautiously, keeping her voice low. "He doesn't know, does he? About…your marriage. About why you got married in the first place."
The words seemed to hang between them for a long time. For a few minutes the only sounds in her tiny apartment were the sound of hard rain against the windows, distant, rumbling thunder and the quiet laugh track from the television.
Then finally, Spike sighed, glanced away from her and answered. "No. He doesn't."
She already knew that. She'd been gearing up for him to admit it since asking a few minutes ago.
So why it still managed to make her stomach tighten and flip over, she wasn't sure.
"Spike," she whispered, her voice quiet and choked to her own ears as her eyes scanned the side of his face. "How can you keep something like this from him?"
"What good do you think it would do anyone to tell him, Buffy?" He asked her, his own voice low, matching hers. Maybe a little harder.
But he wasn't avoiding the topic, so that was definitely something.
Buffy found herself shifting a little closer to him in the dim lamp light, tilting her head to the side and saying purposefully, "Well, for one you wouldn't have to be all lovey dovey with Cecily in front of him anymore."
Which was the current and most pressing consequence in her mind, thanks in large part to the half a beer she'd already consumed.
Obviously, the same wasn't true for Spike.
"And how do you think all this would make my father feel?" he pressed her, eyes wide and eyebrows raised in challenge. His voice taking on a slight sarcastic quality as he asked, "Warm and fuzzy, knowing the fate of his legacy is in the hands of a woman who's one and only desire in life is to see me miserable?"
It seemed like a teeny tiny bit of an exaggeration to her, logically speaking. After all, if all Cecily wanted was to see Spike miserable, and she could accomplish at least a little of that just by telling Henry about his son's deception…then why wouldn't she just do that? Unless…well, unless Cecily herself genuinely cared about Henry, too. Which was entirely possible.
And kind of made her head hurt.
Buffy shrunk back just a little from Spike, deciding to keep her thoughts about Cecily to herself, feeling like she'd just been scolded. Grip on her throw pillow tightening again, she asked, "You think he'd be mad?"
She watched Spike soften a little as he looked at her. Inhaling deeply through his nose, then letting the air out again through pursed lips. He picked up his beer again and glanced down to the floor, bending his knees to prop his forearms over them. "Worse than that, pet."
Buffy frowned at him, not understanding what could be worse. When it became clear to her that he wasn't going to offer the explanation without being prompted, she shifted closer still and asked, "What do you mean?"
Spike was quiet for another extended moment after that. When he finally looked back over toward her, the expression on his face was soft, almost resigned. Like he'd had this conversation about a million other times and was settling in for the long, entirely expected, haul.
"It'd break his heart, Buffy," he told her plainly, his eyes never leaving hers as he explained. "He didn't give us the money for mum because he expected anythin' in return. He didn't even want us to know Pratt was strugglin' at the time. If he knew what I'd done…" he trailed off and looked away again, eyes focused somewhere between his bent knees. He shook his head. "If he knew what things were like with Cecily…"
"You think he'd tell you to leave her?" Buffy hedged quietly, cautiously, afraid to raise her voice much louder than an exaggerated whisper.
To which Spike laughed, catching her completely off guard.
"I know he would," he said, a small, pained smile curving the corner of his mouth as his eyes found and held hers. "Tell me to let the whole thing burn to the ground if I had to. That nothing is worth bein' this bloody miserable over, that livin' like this wouldn't be what my mum would have wanted."
The quiet pain in his voice threatened to steal the air from her lungs, overshadowed just a little bit with a bitterness Buffy seemed to vaguely recognize. Something she thought she might have felt herself, a long time ago.
"You say all of that like those are bad things," she managed to murmur, a little relieved when he shook his head and glance down to the floor again.
He sighed again and murmured, "They're bloody brilliant things."
She frowned at him, getting the distinct feeling that she was missing something here.
"And yet…" she prompted, raising her eyebrows expectantly.
"You have any idea how many times I've come this bloody close to tellin' him? Least once a year." Spike shook his head again, tilted his chin back until the back of his head was resting on the edge of the couch cushion. "Every time I put it off it just gets harder."
"But…why put it off? He could help you," she told him softly, eyes running over his face, brow furrowed. Still not understanding why he'd keep something this massive away from the one person who had the power to give him peace over it. "At the very least he could maybe give you some advice on how to deal with things."
Spike looked at her again then, azure eyes as soft as his voice, and murmured, "He'd be so disappointed in me, Buffy."
And Buffy didn't know what to say to that.
She'd only met Henry Pratt once, and that had only been what…twelve hours ago? She didn't actually know all that much about him in practicality. Sure, she knew he was the type of man to give everything he could for his family. Knew he was the type to self-sacrifice, something he'd obviously passed on to his son. She knew he had a sharp wit and kind eyes, and that he obviously trusted Spike with his livelihood.
But she didn't know him well enough to say whether or not something like this would disappoint him.
So she looked Spike steadily in the eye and said the one thing she was fairly confident in. "He loves you."
"I love him," he said honestly in response, his voice suddenly lightening as he chuckled, took one more swig of his beer and set it down. "Funny, innit, how we see our parents when we're younger compared to how we see 'em now?" He turned his face forward again, something distant passing in his eyes. "When my parents first split I was so sodding mad at him. Couldn't understand how he could just pick up and leave us. People he claimed to love, you know? I didn't…was too young to understand, and I hated him for a long time because of that."
And if all of that didn't ring just a huge freaking gong with Buffy, she didn't know what would. They were words she knew well. Had spoken herself, had heard her sister say. Spike could have been describing her own childhood to her now, it felt so familiar. Even the look on his face, the thinly veiled anger and mild disgust that she caught flickering over his features felt too real to her.
But then a shift happened, one that had never happened for her. She watched as something different, something softer crossed his face. His eyes shifted and found hers once more. "He'd tried callin' me through the years. Sent me letters, birthday cards. Dru and me, both. She'd eventually forgiven him and the two of 'em kept in touch but me…I was too proud. Too angry. I was a sensitive kid and could never get past feelin' so…abandoned, I guess." He stopped and paused then, taking the time to take a deep breath in. Buffy breathed in, too.
She hadn't even realized she'd been holding her breath.
"The day I called him about mum was the first time I'd spoken to him in ten years. And he was so fuckin' happy to hear from me, Buffy." His voice got a little choked then and he had to pause, covering it with a short, harsh laugh. Shaking his head, rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling, he said, "I was callin' to ask the man for his money and all he wanted to know in return was whether or not I'd ended up studyin' History or English at university. If I had a girlfriend, if I was still playin' football. What my favorite bloody color was."
His voice broke then, and he wasn't able to catch it in time. Wasn't prepared for it in time to hide it from her. Buffy swallowed hard as she gazed at him, felt her own eyes starting to sting and burn a little, wondering at how he could bare himself so easily to her. It was something she didn't understand. Without hardly any prompting at all, he was willing to be this open and vulnerable in front of her.
Not that she hadn't seen him be vulnerable before, because she had. In some brief moments with her when they'd first met. Telling her about his mom that day in his office. The words he'd whispered into her skin the last night she'd spent in his bed. The tenderness he'd shown his sister, what he'd been willing to risk for his dad.
But this was different. More raw, or more immediate, or more…something. She wasn't even sure. Maybe it just felt more intimate because they were in her apartment and not his. Or it might have been the fact that he was obviously trying really hard to keep it all together. That he was so obviously torn, heaping punishment after punishment on himself for some self-perceived sin that she wasn't even entirely sure he'd committed.
"Spike," she said softly, an unfamiliar and not entirely unwelcome urge rising up in her chest. A desire to pull this man into her arms and hold him there until she'd fixed things.
But he just continued talking like he hadn't even heard her, lost in his own thoughts, maybe. "I'd spent so many years hatin' him for abandoning us that I never stopped to realize I'd sort of abandoned him in return. I've spent my entire adult life tryin' to make it up to him. Tryin' to make him proud." One last time, in the golden yellow glow of the table lamps, Spike turned to her. "Guess I'm just afraid learnin' about all this would ruin whatever illusion I've built up."
She reached for him then. Didn't think much about it before hand, just did it. Grabbed a hold of the hand nearest to her and wrapped her fingers around it, squeezing once. Lowering her voice and leaning toward him, she said meaningfully, "You did this to help him, Spike."
"That somehow makes it excusable, does it?" he bit out, a hard, sharp edge creeping back into his voice as he narrowed his eyes at her.
"No," she answered simply, honestly. What he'd done, what he was doing…it wasn't right. But he wasn't the only one not doing the right thing here, and she was most definitely the pot in their scenario of black cookware. Not only that, but he hadn't done what he'd done to be malicious to begin with. All of that and more was what she was thinking when she told him, "But intention matters."
He seemed to actually consider that for a second. The lines around his eyes softened, the hard line of his lips relaxed. And when he asked, he asked seriously. Like he really wanted to know what she thought and not just as some token or consolation to her for listening to him talk.
"You think I should tell him?" His eyes never left hers.
Without a single pause Buffy nodded. "I think you'd feel a lot better if you did."
Spike chuckled at that, softening even more around the edges one more time. He was gentling toward her, but already in the process of walling himself off again at the same time. She could see it happening, could hear it in his voice when he smirked wryly at her and said, "You sound like Drusilla."
"Your sister's a smart woman," Buffy responded, mirroring his casual tone of voice with her own, smiling back at him when he suddenly squeezed her hand.
"S'pose that means you are, too." He picked her hand up, shifting the back of his up underneath her palm and bringing it up to press a teasingly light kiss over her knuckles.
The moment was so easy, so casual and second nature and plainly affectionate that it actually took her a moment to realize what he'd done.
It was over before she could say anything about it, though.
Spike was already sighing and lowering her hand again. "I know what he'd say if I told him now. Know what he'd do. I just don't want all these sacrifices to have been for nothin', luv." His eyes flashed as they searched hers and he said purposefully, "His or mine."
"Well, you and Cecily own Pratt Publishing." Buffy shrugged, trying to make her voice light and casual and not at all like she was secretly hoping he might do just what he thought his father would suggest as she pulled her tingling hand out of his and turned to face forward again. "It's not like he can force you to leave her or to give up the business if you don't want to. You'd just be telling him the truth." Her eyes darted back to his again. "Taking a little of that Earth shaped weight off your shoulders."
"Tell you what," Spike mused after another short silence, and she could hear the smirk in his voice now and knew that the moment before, whatever it had meant, was over. "I'll think about it. In the meantime, though, I have a very important question to ask you."
Her ears perked at that.
Buffy frowned and turned away from the TV screen to face him again, a little surprised to see that he'd bridged the small gap between them and was now very, very close to her. She blinked a few times, swallowed, inhaled the heady scent of his skin.
Her lashes fluttered a few times and she managed to ask, "What's that?"
Spike smirked at her. "Are you…" He trailed off, let his lashes sweep down from her gaze to some indeterminate place somewhere near her collarbone, then back up again. He shifted a half inch closer to her and whispered, "…plannin' to eat that last slice of pepperoni, or is it just gonna bloody sit there and go to waste?"
Buffy shifted backward in a rush and laughed, loudly. Completely and totally disarmed by him…again. He grinned at her, winked, and immediately went to grab the slice of pizza she'd left abandoned on her plate.
Before he could grab it, though, Buffy took the pillow off her lap and smacked him in his laughing face with it.
-Tuesday, July 16th. 11:15pm-
It was getting on just this side of too late, she knew, when the first black and white syndication flickered across her television set. But she'd been so relaxed, and they'd been having so much fun, and Spike's shoulder had basically been the world's most perfect pillow, that she hadn't been ready for the breeziness of their evening to end. Even once she'd glanced at her phone and seen a missed call and text message from her roommate, realized actively how late it was getting, she hadn't said anything.
Faith. 7/15. 10:48pm. Hey, B. Not even gonna try and go out in this storm. Gonna crash on Mel's couch and head home in the morning.
Buffy hadn't said anything after reading that, either.
And now somehow they were standing in her bedroom. She wasn't even sure how that had happened.
Spike was standing just inside the doorway, arms crossed casually. His eyes moved slowly over every inch of her room, a slight smirk on his lips when his gaze finally fell to her hastily made bed, to the little pink stuffed pig resting back against the pillows. He dropped his arms and crossed to it, picking the plush toy up and eyeing it, giving it an experimental squeeze between his hands.
"Little fella have a name?" he asked her, still smirking, clearly amused, as his eyes flitted toward Buffy's again.
She eyed him carefully, her own lips curving upward as she did. He looked so…God, she didn't even know. Out of place and totally in place all at the same time? Still dressed in his work pants and the oversized sweatshirt she'd given him. His hair dry and messier than she'd ever seen it, standing in the middle of her bedroom holding her childhood stuffed animal…and still somehow looking a little bit intimidating, just the right amount of arrogant.
"How do you know it's a 'fella'?" she asked, widening her eyes and crossing her arms.
Spike quirked a knowing brow. "Pretty girls are only ever surrounded by men, pet." He twisted her little pig around so his eyes were facing her and said, "Stuffies included."
Buffy gave him an amused but sardonic look and crossed the room, plucking her toy out of Spike's hands. She squeezed it once affectionately and then told her boss in as serious a voice as she could, "Mr. Gordo."
She'd never felt so ridiculous giving the stuffed pig's name in her life.
But Spike just laughed, sounding genuinely delighted. He nodded his head, azure eyes sparkling in the light of her bedroom, and said, "Mr. Gordo." He grinned at her. "Should tell Dru that, could write a brilliant kiddie poem about him."
The idea warmed Buffy all over, flushing her cheeks with a pleasant heat that she was pretty sure didn't have anything to do with the beers she'd had.
She was going to have to buy Faith more.
"I'll keep that in mind," she said, still half laughing, reaching forward to settle Mr. Gordo back down into his pillow nest.
When she turned around, Spike was slowly making his way around her room. He stopped at her dresser to peek at the framed photos of her high school and college friends, stopped at the decorative hooks that held her jewelry and reached up to finger her necklaces, made a point to stop at the three framed literary quotes that hung on the wall opposite her bed. They'd been birthday gifts from Angel, but she wasn't going to tell him that. She stared at him as he read each of them aloud, smirking at her over his shoulder when he reached the one from Hemingway.
Finally, he finished the short self-guided tour of her bedroom after stopping to peek into her en suite bathroom, teasing her over her plush pink towels and matching striped shower curtain before slowly crossing to her again.
"Not what you expected?" Buffy asked, watching him approach her slowly, unable to pull her eyes away from his.
He chuckled and shook his head. "No, actually, 's exactly what I expected."
Buffy caught herself frowning at him. Is that a bad thing or a good thing?
"Is that a bad thing or a good thing?"
She frowned again, brow furrowing, when the words left her lips almost without thinking. No filter, apparently. Jeez. She really was a total lightweight.
Spike, however, hadn't seemed to notice her slip up...or her question. He was bent over at the waist, looking very closely at the framed photo situated fairly prominently on Buffy's bedside table. She watched him pick it up very gently, cradling it between his hands. He brought it closer to his face as he straightened his back, looking down at it for a while, eyes moving over every detail carefully.
Then he turned toward Buffy and, pointing at the center of the photo, asked, "This your mum?"
Buffy didn't have to look to answer. He was looking at a picture of three of them, her mom, sister and herself, one they'd taken almost a year ago. The day Joyce and Dawn had dropped Buffy off for her last year of college.
"Uh, yeah," she said, glancing down at the frame and nodding. "That's mom and that's my little sister, Dawn."
Spike nodded and turned his eyes down again, studying three women in the frame. For a moment, he didn't say anything at all. Buffy didn't say anything, either.
When he looked into her face again his eyes were dazzling. "You look happy."
Unable to read the exact look in his eyes, Buffy looked down at her own face instead, the image in the photograph reflected back to her. Eyes bright and slightly crinkled around the edges, her smile even brighter. She was laughing in the picture. Dawn had just said something, she couldn't even remember now, and her mom's response had been something uniquely hilarious.
Feeling a little exposed, though not necessarily in a bad way, she responded, "I look young."
Spike scoffed at that. "You're still young, pet. Twenty-two is…incredibly young. I mean, bloody hell." He tilted his head to the side, eyes twinkling a little as he lowered his voice until it was slightly suggestive. "'M old enough to be your father."
"You say that like it isn't just a little bit creepy," Buffy teased him, rolling her eyes and grabbing the picture frame out from his hands. She set it down on her nightstand, angling it back toward her bed.
"Well, you never know," he purred from beside her. "That sort of thing does it for some people."
"Don't I know it," she murmured under her breath. Then, seeing Spike's expression shift from suggestive to downright seductive, she amended quickly. "I'm not one of them. But Faith calls you a silver fox."
Oh, jeez. Filter. Definitely Missing.
But Spike was clearly pleased. "Does she now?"
"Yep," Buffy responded blithely, leaning her hip against the edge of her bed. Furrowing her brow in a show of deep concentration, she continued, "I haven't figured out yet if it's because of your hair or if it's just because she thinks you're old."
Spike gasped, mock offended. Then he grinned at her, folding his arms and leaning his own hip into the side of her bed, his position now mirroring hers. "Can't just be because she thinks I'm foxy?"
Playing along, Buffy widened her eyes just a little. "Gosh, I hope not." She shifted around so that she was sitting on the edge of her bed instead of leaning against it. "Then I'd have to kill her. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good roommate in this town?"
She knew exactly just how much she'd admitted in that single, seemingly flippant sentence. And for whatever reason, in the moment, with his gaze heavy on hers and that twinkle in his eye, she just couldn't seem to muster enough energy to care.
Honestly, she was a little tired of caring.
Spike shifted himself, moving so that he was standing directly in front of her. He put his hands down on either side of her hips and the tips of her knees brushed against his lower stomach as he leaned into her. "I've got a question."
Buffy tilted her head back to keep eye contact with him, smiling a little as she said, "I've got an answer."
"I'm going to kiss you now," Spike told her.
So, technically, not a question. Something she began to point out to him, getting the first two or so words out before she was cut off by his mouth covering hers.
Not that Buffy cared one way or another when Spike threaded both hands up and into her hair, cradling the crown of her head as he did exactly that. This was far from the soft, tentative kiss she'd laid on him earlier in the evening. This was…bone melty. As deep and intense as it was greedy and frenzied, he took possession of her lips and tongue with his in just the way she'd wanted him to all night. Kissing her with what felt like everything he had, she was forced to reach out and clutch at his arms for support. And then things shifted around her, slowing down. Even as he continued to tease her lips and the tip of her tongue with his, the kiss grew more languid. More and more, becoming less urgent, until she was twining her fingers into his hair, twirling the platinum locks around her fingers in leisurely time to the strokes of their tongues.
When Spike eventually pulled away from her, she was breathless. So was he. And when he opened his eyes and met hers, they were glazed, pupils dilated. So were hers.
Hands still cradling her head, he brushed a thumb across her temple. "Sorry," he whispered, his lips grazing hers as he smiled against her. "I interrupted you."
Buffy just nodded against him, murmuring some indiscernible little mmhmph sound and tightening her grip in his hair, tugging his lips back to hers. He moaned into her mouth like he was surprised by her aggression, giving into her barely a second later. Kissing her more deeply, more soundly than before. He used his hips to wedge her knees apart, settling himself between them.
She just breathed him in, inhaling greedily as the lightning flashed and thunder rolled. She rubbed herself shamelessly against him, relishing in the possessive growl that tore from his throat when she did. In the way his hands twisted just a little harder in her hair, pressing himself against her just as wantonly.
Then he was leaning forward, pressing her backward, kissing along her jawline and down her neck, nipping and licking and sucking at her flesh in a frenzy that was making her dizzy in the most incredible way. And just as his body pressed hers fully down into the mattress beneath them, lightning struck again. Something fizzled, sparked and shorted out and all the lights in her apartment went out at once.
Both Buffy and Spike froze, lips still locked, bodies flush together. Then, very slowly, like he was specifically trying not to spook her, he pulled back a little way so he could look down into her face. Hands still fisted in her hair, he asked, "You happen to have a torch handy?"
Buffy blinked up at him, her eyes slowly adjusting in the darkness. She frowned. "No, because we aren't living in 3,000 B.C."
"A flash light, pet." She could see him roll his eyes in the darkness as he chuckled dryly at her. "D'you have one nearby?"
Flash light.
Oh.
That…would be smart.
"Umm, I think there might be one in the kitchen?" She honestly had no idea.
Spike nodded, lifted himself off of her and said, "Sit tight."
And then he was gone. Moving lithely through the darkness, the white blonde of his hair a beacon through the blackness filling the bedroom and on into the kitchen. She heard some shuffling, some open and closing of drawers and cabinets, a grumbled British-y sounding curse. And then his hair appeared through the darkness again as he moved back through the living room and into her bedroom. His face was softly illuminated now by the flickering flame of a silver lighter in his left hand, the candle from the kitchen island in his right.
"No luck?" Buffy asked him, ignoring how extremely obvious the question was even as he quirked a scarred brow in her direction, a smirk curving his lips.
"No luck," he said sardonically, stopping at the edge of her bed again, tilting the lighter's flame over the candlewick and waiting for it to ignite before setting the candle down on Buffy's bedside table. The candle was on the larger side, but it still wasn't enough to emit much light beyond about a three-foot circle, casting the rest of her bedroom in flickering shadow.
It was kind of hard for Buffy's slightly fuzzy brain to ignore just how romantic all of this was. Or could be. Or had been a few seconds ago.
Her lips were still tingling.
Spike set the lighter down and stepped towards her again, eyes down, trailing his fingertips along the edge of her mattress. "Think this little light show might be my cue to cut out, pet." His fingers reached her leg, where he walked them up onto her knee and tapped her thoughtfully. "Any idea when that roommate of yours'll be headin' this way?"
His eyes drifted up to hers, and it took Buffy just a second longer than it should have to realize what he was saying.
"Oh," she finally said, blinking at him. Trying to ignore how her immediate reaction to that was harsh and sharp disappointment. She pressed her hands down into the mattress and scooted back to the edge, preparing to get off. Feeling awkward and guilty. "You don't have to stay until she gets here. Really."
Spike frowned deeply at her, shaking his head like she'd just told him she planned to go skydiving without a parachute. "No bloody way am I leavin' you here alone in the dark, luv." His fingertips still resting against her knee, he tapped her lightly again and said, "When's Faith comin' home?"
Buffy bit down on her lip and glanced toward the ground. Speaking softly, under her breath, she said, "See, that's the thing is she's not."
Spike pulled his hand off her leg and reached up, hooking his index finger underneath her chin and raising her face to his. One eyebrow arched, he looked down at her through his lashes and repeated her slowly. "She's not."
"Yeah. She, uh, she's crashing at her co-worker's apartment, riding out the storm or…whatever." She was telling the truth, so why did it sound like she was lying? Like she had some wiggy ulterior motive going? Buffy cleared her throat, adding quickly, "She'll be home first thing in the morning though, so, I'll be—"
"I'll just sleep on the sofa, then," Spike said quickly, not missing a beat as he dropped his hand away from her chin and took a step back, eyes darting around the room.
Buffy shook her head, frowning, but the protest on her lips was only half-hearted. "Spike—"
"You have a spare blanket?" he asked, studiously ignoring her ultra lame objection, eyes falling to the plush white throw blanket decoratively draped across the bottom of her bed.
"You really don't have to stay here," she said, and again, the words just didn't quite sound convincing.
"Afraid this is non-negotiable, pet." He reached his hand out, eyes darting from her to the throw and then back again. Gesturing with his fingers, he said, "Blanket?"
She wasn't sure if she liked or hated the fact that his whole non-negotiable thing was sort of making her inner thighs clench spontaneously.
"You're not going to let this go are you?"
Spike pretended to think it over for a minute, eyes rolling up to the ceiling, then shook his head. He pursed his lips and said, "Not likely."
Making a face at him, smirking a little, she reached over and gathered the blanket into her hands. Balling it up, she tossed it at his face, watching him catch it laughingly against his chest. "Do you need a pillow?"
"I'll use the toss pillows on the sofa," he said softly, smirking back at her as he balled the blanket into his own hands and tucked it over his arm. His eyes were warm, soft, even in the shadows that flickered across his face in the candlelight.
He gazed at her for a minute, and she gazed back, both of them looking like they might have something to say but neither of them moving to say it. A moment went by in silence. Then another.
Outside the darkened windows, lightning flashed again.
Then finally, Spike sighed and said slowly, "So, uh…I'll just be out here." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and started backing up toward the door. "If you need anythin', don't…try and get it yourself, yeah? Don't want to have to call an ambulance or give you mouth to mouth or something equally as bloody disgusting." His eyes twinkled at her through the darkness as he stepped into her bedroom doorway.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at him, deadpanning, "Alright, funny guy. Off to the couch with you."
Spike lingered in her doorway, pulled his bottom lip into his mouth. Then, slowly, he said, "Right, yeah. Just one more thing." He dropped the throw blanket to the floor and crossed the room in a flash, only stopping at the edge of the bed. He took her face between his hands and kissed her soundly.
Another deep kiss, one that had her toes curling and her hands shooting out to grip him by the hips and tug him against her. After much too short a moment he pulled back a little, kissed her once more, rubbed the tip of his nose against hers and murmured, "Good night."
He was moving out of the room again before she could say anything, scooping the blanket off the floor and disappearing out into the living room without another word, leaving Buffy dazed on the edge of her bed. Satisfyingly light headed, her lips tingling, a pleasant ache starting to throb between her thighs.
She reached up and pressed the tips of her fingers to her mouth. "Good night."
-Wednesday, July 17th. 2:43am-
Buffy awoke a few hours later to a loud banging sound coming from the dark corner of her bedroom. She sat bolt upright in bed, blinking rapidly into the darkness and trying to see into the corner where the noise had come from. Her pulse was pounding, eyes still heavy with sleep. She could hear the storm was still raging outside, wind and rain whipping against the shuttered windows. Groggy with sleep, disoriented, she jumped when she heard another bang from the corner of the darkened bedroom. On impulse, Buffy reached over to click on her bedside lamp, only to have it click and turn over but no light to come on.
Oh.
Right. No electricity.
A moment later, she heard another things-that-go-bump-in-the-night bump, and then the creak of the bathroom door opening. Immediately she relaxed, memories from earlier in the night starting a slow, sleep fuzzed trickle into her brain as she spotted white blonde hair through the blackness. There was a muffled shuffling sound, the cautious tread of feet over carpet. One last bang, the sound of something solid colliding with something equally solid, followed immediately by a muffled, "Bloody hell."
"Spike?" Buffy said, eyeing the beacon of platinum as it came to a stop.
"Sorry, lamb," he apologized instantly, his voice sheepish. "Didn't mean to wake you."
She squinted further into the corner of the room he was standing at, reaching her hand up to rub lazily at her eyes. Wishing she could see his face through the darkness. "Is everything okay?"
"Uh, yeah. Just nipped to the loo," he explained, still sounding quiet and sheepish. Like he didn't want to raise his voice much higher. "Was hopin' to get in and out without…well, doin' this, I s'pose."
"Are you okay?" Buffy asked, still straining in the darkened bedroom to make out his face.
"Right as rain, pet," he told her gently, and there was more shuffling of feet on the carpet, moving toward her. "Go back to sleep."
There was a sudden flash of lightning, making her jump when the room suddenly illuminated fully. Just as the accompanying thunder rolled, Buffy felt Spike collide with the footboard of her bed, stopping abruptly and letting out another muffled curse.
Buffy smiled to herself, saying softly, "If you wanna throw me your lighter I can…light the candle."
"It's on your night table," he told her, and she felt the pressure of his hands on the bottom edge of her mattress as he rested against it. "Left it there in case you needed it."
That was both sweet and surprising. She hadn't even noticed.
Frowning a little Buffy leaned over, feeling for the silver lighter Spike had left on her bedside table. She found it easily, flipped it open, tried three of four times to get the flame to flicker on before lighting the candle there. Setting the lighter down, she turned back around and promptly froze.
He was standing right about where she figured he'd be, only now he was shirtless. He was still wearing his dress pants, though he'd removed his belt, which was really only serving to give her half asleep brain all kinds of twisted workplace fantasies…
It was weird.
Good weird.
And then she noticed that he had an open cut on the side of his forehead. Not a big one, barely more than a tiny scrape, but it was still dripping blood down over his temple.
She frowned. "You're bleeding."
"What?" Spike blinked at her, reaching his fingertips up to the small cut when Buffy indicated where it was. He brought his hand back down. Frowned. "Oh. Bugger."
"Did you hit your head?"
He chuckled wryly at her, nodding his head and raising his hand up to the cut again. "There's a distinct possibility."
Buffy thought about it for a minute, then sat up, tossed the covers off her legs and slide out of bed. "Come here," she said, patting the space near the side of the mattress she'd just vacated. "Sit."
Spike eyed her for a moment, lowering his hand away from his head again. When he didn't move, she raised her eyebrows at him and patted the mattress once more. Smirking a little, he stood up straight and moved around the edge of the bed until he reached her. Then she traded places with him, maneuvering into her darkened bathroom. She could see just enough from the candlelight to grab a washcloth, wetting it with one hand and opening up her medicine cabinet with the other. She pulled down the box of Band-aids, which were open and probably expired…if Band-aids expired, and looked vainly for some kind of antiseptic gel for about a minute before giving up.
It wasn't like he was gonna get Tetanus or something from anything in her apartment, anyway.
Emerging from the bathroom, she found Spike watching her intently, small smirk still in place. Eyeing him, she grabbed up his hand and dropped the wet washcloth into it, setting the past-due Band-aids on her bedside table.
"This really necessary?" he asked her coyly, folding the cloth up so he had a cut-sized corner of it wedged between his fingers.
"You're bleeding," she reminded him simply, turning around and hoisting herself back up onto the edge of her bed beside him.
"Only a little," he countered, but pressed the wet corner of the cloth up the cut on his forehead anyway.
A moment passed.
Then, Buffy's half-asleep brain decided to ask the question that'd been bugging her for an hour before she'd finally fallen asleep, thinking about the man sleeping out in her living room. "Why'd you want to sleep on the couch?"
But instead of giving her a straight answer, Spike just asked her his own question. "Did you not want me to?"
The way he always managed to flip things around so effortlessly on her was astounding. And how even his simplest of seemingly simple questions always seemed to throw her for a loop; also astounding. Had she not wanted him to go sleep on the couch? Well, no. In the moment she definitely hadn't wanted that.
But had she been ready, wanting, to invite him into her bed? She wasn't sure. Story of her life lately, it seemed. Caught between the rock of thinking she might know what it was she wanted and the very hard place of simultaneously knowing she shouldn't want what she thought she wanted.
So when she answered him, she went with honesty. "I don't know what I want."
Spike nodded like he understood.
"Aren't we quite the pair," he said quietly, lowering the cloth from his forehead. He dropped his hands into his lap and sighed, tilting his head back, eyes on the ceiling. "Don't seem to know what I want, either."
Buffy turned to look at him, let her eyes trail over the curve of his jaw, down the column of his throat, watched his Adam's apple bob once as he swallowed. Then down, further still, across his bare chest. Over the curve of his shoulder. He had a faint hint of a scar there, a long one that led from just above his shoulder blade to around the cuff.
She had a sudden urge to lean forward and press her lips to it.
She didn't.
Instead, she decided to press a little. Nothing too out right. She was still planning to play it cool, keep it subtle. But she was also just a little bit tired of always playing things so insanely safe.
Shifting a little closer to him on the bed's edge, she inhaled through her nose and, eyes on his profile, she asked, "Don't you want a chance to be happy?"
And Spike dropped his head level again, turned it to face hers. In the dim light, his eyes appeared almost black as they very steadily met hers and he asked, "Don't you?"
She held his gaze for as long as she possibly could before she had to look away again. And when she did, her eyes landed on the photo frame just behind the candle. The photo they'd looked at earlier together.
"You look happy."
It was a slightly numb, creeping sort of realization. One that had snuck up on her when she hadn't been looking for it, certainly hadn't been wanting it. But it was there anyway, niggling away at the back of her mind now as she looked at the image of herself in the frame.
When was the last time she'd looked that happy. Laughed that hard. The night she'd first met Spike, at the bar? One of those innocuous days in his office during their little pre-4th of July standoff?
Tonight?
Buffy turned around and crawled across the mattress toward the far side of her bed, yanking the covers back and slipping beneath them. She situated herself, then rolled over onto her side to face Spike again.
The empty space she'd left between them on the bed spoke volumes.
It was a wordless answer to his question. A wordless invitation. One that she knew she might, and probably would, regret in the morning. Knowing that the harsh light of morning, after the rain and candlelight and the memory of his kisses had faded, would bring with it all of the reasons why this was so very wrong.
But as she watched him set the washcloth down on the bedside table and lean forward at the waist, pursing his lips to blow out the candle, the only thing she could think was how glad she was that he was there.
And when she felt Spike's weight settle onto the mattress in front of her, felt his fingertips brush over hers in darkness; all she really felt was better than she had in weeks.
-Wednesday, July 17th. 8:25am-
"Spike, stop."
"Stop what?"
"I can't," she gasped, shaking her head. "I can't anymore."
He smirked wickedly at her. "Sounds like a challenge to me."
"It's not," she breathed, falling back onto her pillow, giggling like a crazy person and trying in vain to catch her breath. "I really just can't."
Spike mock pouted at her, resting his weight on his elbow, propping his head up on his knuckles. "But that's not even the best part."
It had all started with her asking him where he got the eyebrow scar from. An innocent enough question, or so she'd figured lying across from him that morning, gazing quietly at one another.
She'd been expecting something…dark. Some harrowing story about being mugged at gun point when he was younger and still living in England, or maybe something more along the lines of a fencing accident while he was away at boarding school, or…well, she'd clearly had a skewed and bizarro view of his upbringing, because he'd laughed both of her scenarios off and asked her teasingly if she'd been watching too much "Britain according to Americans" television.
He'd then proceeded to tell her that he'd actually gotten it in when he was a young teenager in the 90s. All he'd told her was that it had been an unfortunate shaving accident, as part of an ongoing prank war he'd had going with a friend of his. Something about Vanilla Ice…a reference that had simultaneously made Buffy feel young and Spike feel old when she didn't immediately understand what that had to do with his eyebrows.
Once she'd figured it out, though, she hadn't been able to stop laughing, which had seemed to be equal parts embarrassing and pleasing to him. Ultimately it had led him to launch into all kinds of stories about the various pranks and tricks he'd played on friends and family as a little boy.
"No," Buffy warned now, wagging a finger at him even as she dissolved into another fit of giggles remembering what he'd just told her. "No more stories of your delinquent childhood."
"So…you don't want to hear bout the time I put ink in Dru's tea?" Buffy gaped at him, and he curled his tongue behind his teeth smugly. "Turned her teeth black for a month, it was bloody brilliant."
She laughed at him again, turning over onto her side, tucking her arm up beneath her head. She shook her head, saying, "Oh my God, you were an absolute terror."
"Just bein' the little sibling." He stretched his free arm up over his head, arching his back. "It was my duty, after all."
"Dawn was never that bad," Buffy argued, smiling again.
Her cheeks were starting to hurt.
Spike's eyes went wide as he looked down at her, eyebrows raising high. "I'd wager stickin' chewing gum in big sis's hair qualifies her as bein' exactly that bad."
"That was easily fixed."
"So was the tea. 'Sides that, Dru gave back as good as she got. How do you think I got so good at it?" He quirked a brow and leaned a little closer to her, murmuring, "Part and parcel of all the crazy she's got goin' on in her noggin'.
Buffy laughed with him again, which quickly turned into a groan and a grimace. She reached a hand up and rubbed absently at the right side of her face, muttering, "My cheeks feel like they're going to crack and split off my face."
"Can't have that, can we?" he asked smilingly, reaching his own hand out to knead gently at her cheek with his thumb. She relaxed under his attention, letting her eyes flutter shut as he gentle kneading turned to soft back and froth strokes. She sighed, nuzzling her face deeper into her pillow, knowing she needed to get up and out of her bed and go actually…do things.
But she wasn't exactly feeling the urgency.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd had pillow talk that wasn't…well, actual pillow talk. Or…did this count? She wasn't sure. Did it still count as the post sex, giggly, after glow-y chitchat if there hadn't been any actual sex before hand?
Spike's thumb brushed across her cheek bone again, and he asked, "What are you thinkin'?"
"I'm thinking that I need to get up and shower and get dressed," she said honestly, nuzzling deeper into his hand and the pillow in direct contradiction as she did. "I'm gonna be way late already."
Which probably wasn't a huge problem, considering the person she'd be in trouble with for showing up late was currently lounging beside her, but—
"So call in sick," Spike murmured, lifting his hand to brush some stray strands of hair off her face.
Buffy froze beneath his hand's ministrations, opening her eyes again and blinking up at him. "What?"
"Call in sick," he said again simply, looking torn between laughing at the confusion on her face and being confused by her reaction himself.
"I can't do that," Buffy said quickly, pulling her cheek away from his hand and sitting up in bed. Impulsively, she reached for the duvet to cover herself with, then remembered she was still very much wearing her pajamas and didn't need to cover herself up.
Which almost wigged her more.
"Why not?" Spike asked casually, not moving from his position on her bed. Head still propped on his hand, he tilted it a little to the side and, eyes twinkling at her, said, "You afraid you'll get in trouble with the big boss? Have a feelin' he won't mind."
But Buffy was already shaking her head no.
"That's how it starts," she told him, dropping her hands down into her lap, dropping her eyes down to look at them.
Now he looked genuinely perplexed. "How what starts?"
"Well, okay." She twisted around to face him, her hands fidgeting where they rested in her lap. "Today it's all cute and sweet and a one time deal that you want me to call in sick so I can stay in bed with you. And you're my boss, so…it's easy for me to say sure, that sounds great." Like, really, really great. Buffy bit her lip. "But then it'll be a two time deal. Then a three. And before you know it I'm no longer Buffy, your employee. Or Buffy, your…protege." She sighed and let her shoulders sag forward, muttering, "I'm Buffy, your dirty mistress."
Spike laughed at her.
Tossed his head back and laughed, which normally would have infuriated her but she was a little too busy wondering just what exactly he thought was so funny to be properly outraged.
When he finally stopped laughing and dropped his gaze down to hers, eyes warm, he said, "First of all, that's never gonna happen. Even if I wanted to forget that you work for me, you'd never let me. Besides that, if I want you to come work for me full time I need to make sure you're more'n qualified for the job before I offer it to you." She opened her mouth to argue with him but he held up a single finger to silence her, continuing on without even needing to hear her protest. "And I told you before, everything you get from me'll be somethin' you've rightly earned based on your job performance alone. So if you aren't prepared by the end of your internship, all that does is hurt me."
Whoa, bombshell.
Buffy gaped at him, not even sure where to begin with all of that. If he was planning to offer her a job, did that mean he wasn't planning to talk to his dad? To do anything about his situation?
Or was this whole offering her a job thing predicated on him being able to find some way out of the prenup he'd signed? And if that was the case, why even bring it up to her now?
And,God, why did he have to look so pretty in the mornings? Did the man just not ever have bad days?
"And apart from that," he continued smoothly, smiling at her. "Allow me to illustrate the obvious." He swept a hand demonstratively along the very obvious space on the bed separating them, then arched a brow. "We aren't even doin' anything, pet. We're just layin' here having a chat."
Buffy closed her mouth.
He was right. On one hand, he was right. They weren't…doing anything. At least not in the doing anything sense of the word that included making with the physical. But what they were doing was a different kind of damning.
It was one thing to have generic, vague, unidentifiable and sometimes very lusty feeling for the man in front of her. Her boss. Her, albeit majorly unhappily, married boss. Feelings like that could sort of be ignored. Pushed aside. Lust was something that was generally pretty uncomplicated and straightforward.
This wasn't that.
She didn't know exactly what this was, maybe wasn't quite ready to start putting definable terms on it just yet, but it didn't feel straightforward or uncomplicated at all. It felt messy and unmanageable and potentially incredibly hurtful.
"We're just layin' here having a chat."
Buffy looked at Spike with open, earnest eyes, her voice not much more than a whisper as she told him, "That's how it starts."