TITLE:
Darkest Before Dawn #41 "Question"
AUTHOR:
Nmissi
PART: 41/?
RATING:
R (For Series) NC 17 THIS PART!
DISCLAIMER: I own Nothing and No one. Especially not Spike. If I did,
what makes you think I'd share him with you?
DISTRIBUTION: Anybody, just credit me and let me know where it's
going.
Feedback: Please. Nmissi@aol.com
SUMMARY: The way the world would work if I wrote the Buffyverse.
He unlocked the door, and stepped
inside the house to the smell of pepperoni pizza. Buffy sat on the couch,
munching her way through a folded slice.
He dropped his keys onto the end
table, and tossed his jacket over the back of a chair.
"Dinner's ready."
She smiled up at him sheepishly.
He nodded, and retrieved a coke from
the fridge, and a plate from the cabinet. Then he came back in and joined her
on the couch.
"What are you watching?" he
enquired.
She wrinkled up her nose at the TV
screen.
"I don't know. I just turned it on a
minute ago."
He took up the remote, and flicked
through the channels unsuccessfully before flipping it off.
"Friday night television is a
wasteland." He declared, as he chucked the remote onto the coffee table top.
Buffy finished up her pizza, and
stood up.
"Do you think you'll want any
more?" She asked him.
He nodded, swallowing, then motioned
to the opened box.
"Leave me two more."
She picked up the slices and moved
them onto the ones already lining his plate. Then she closed the box, and put
her plate and glass on top of it. Very carefully, she lifted the arrangement
and made for the kitchen.
"Oh, very nice. If the slayin' gig
doesn't work out, you can always waitress."
His only reply was her free hand,
delicately sliding up into the air as she walked, flipping him the bird over
her shoulder.
He finished up dinner while he contemplated.
How should he do this?
He'd like to have been rosy and
romantic- But he had a feeling Buffy might not react well to it. And the whole
soft music and flowers gig reeked of weakness. He was feeling weak and whipped
already these days; he saw no reason to wallow in it.
He got up, carrying his dish into
the kitchen, where she was washing things up.
He slid the plate into the water,
and slammed her with his intentions.
"I think we should get married."
She rinsed her glass, then his
plate. He waited. Finally she turned around to face him.
"Why?" she asked.
His look said, "Are you colossally
stupid?"
But his mouth said, "We just should,
is all. It's not right, this. You're… expecting. There's a child in the house
already. It's not…"
He ran a hand through his curls, as
he struggled to find the right words.
"It's not seemly."
She sneered at him.
"Nothing about us is "Seemly", Spike. Never has been. I'm
sleeping with my ex-mortal enemy. I don't love you. You don't love me."
"I do love you! You know that!"
But she shook her head at him.
"No, you don't."
There was anger in her eyes, he saw, as she continued.
"If you did, you wouldn't have done it like this."
The flowers. He should have done with the hearts and
flowers bit, it was obvious now.
"Ah, hell, Buffy. I'm sorry it's not the proposal of your
dreams-"
"It's no PROPOSAL at all!" she shouted, " You just tell
me we ought to get married. There's no ring, there's no,"
She looked pointedly at him.
"knees. There's nothing but your ego and your nineteenth
century morality at work here."
She glared at him, then added,
"Actually, I think you did better last time."
Spike rolled his eyes at her. She would throw that up in
his face.
"Oh, so NOW you'll talk about that. When I've wanted to
talk about it you won't- But NOW you throw it up at me."
She glared at him.
"Yes, well maybe I could run get Willow, she could wave a
magic wand and you'd be romantic again."
He snorted.
"Yeah? Well I don't recall that it did me much good then,
did it? Soon as the spell broke you acted like I had Leprosy or something. None
of it meant anything to you, you didn't feel anything for me."
"You're implying it meant something to you?" she asked
disbelievingly.
He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah. I'm IMPLYING that. I'm here, aren't I? I've been
in love with you for years. Dru knew it before I did. EVERYBODY knew it before
I did. Don't you ever think about the spell, Buffy? I mean, we were so certain
we weren't under one. Maybe we weren't."
She raised her eyebrows in a look that said, "You're
reaching."
But he went forward with the argument.
"I know we were spelled to get married, Slayer. I'm not
stupid. But the rest of it- Maybe it was real. Maybe the marriage spell made us
deal with things we didn't want to deal with."
She shook he head at him frantically.
"No. I don't see it that way, Spike, I don't."
He raised his hands in a pleading gesture.
"Hear me out. I don't dispute that the whole proposal was
Red's doing. But she didn't spell us to love each other. And we did, Buffy. For
that one day, we loved each other madly. I've never felt like that about anyone
else in my whole life."
She stepped farther back from him.
He went on.
"Try to remember how happy you were, Buffy. I've never
seen you that happy, not before or since. And I made you that happy. I did it
then. I can do it again. I can do it for the rest of my miserable life if
you'll let me. You just have to open yourself up to it. "
She whispered then, softly.
"I'm afraid to, Spike. I'm afraid to be that happy again.
What if the spell breaks, and it stops again?"
He stepped forward and seized her.
"It's no spell, love. It's real. I'm real. You're real.
And this- Us- It's terribly real."
She jerked free of his arms, and he groaned. How the hell
was he supposed to get through to her?
"Look. I'm sorry I'm not doing better at this. I've been
thinking about it a lot lately. And I probably should have been poofier about
it, you birds like that rot."
She started to cry, now, and he felt even worse.
Women aren't supposed to cry when you ask them to marry
you.
He reached for her, but she drew back away from him. How
was he supposed to convince her when she wouldn't let him touch her?
He lowered his voice, and tried to put all his love for
her into it as he spoke.
"Buffy, I love you. You're the reason I wake up in the
morning. But it's not enough to live here with you, it's not enough to love you
and touch you and see you every day. You can call it ego, you can call it
antiquated morality- but I want you to belong to me. You, the baby, Dawn…"
His eyes met hers, full of the love he felt in his heart.
"And I need to belong to you as well."
She brought her hand to the side of his face, sniffling.
But she stroked his cheek gently, and moved close to him.
"You do belong to me, Spike. You always have, in one way
or another. MY enemy. MY partner. MY friend. MY lover. MINE. Always mine."
An unrelated memory drifted into his head at her words.
"I'd rather be fighting you anyway."
He pulled her tightly against him, kissing the top of her
head. Her arms snaked around him, and stroked his back with dishwater-wet
hands.
He lifted her face to his, meeting her lips in the
gentlest of kisses. She was heat and compliance in his arms, melding against
him. His hands caressed her sides, and one wandered to the shoulder of her
blouse, moving it away so he could kiss the warm skin lightly.
Her sharp intake of breath was a welcome thing. It had
been almost a week since she'd let him make love to her. Almost a week since she'd
wanted him, and although his pride smarted, he jumped at the opportunity. She
beckoned, and he went gratefully.
His hands pulled at her blouse. Dimly he realized they
were still in the kitchen, and he decided he did not care. It was daylight yet
outside, and he did not care. There was an open window shade and opened
curtains on the side door. Anyone could come to the door and see- Still he did
not care.
Slowly, reverently, he undressed her, and she returned
the favor. She clung to him liquidly, as his hands mapped her flesh for his
memory.
With my body, I thee worship.
He lifted her
legs, they wound around his hips, and he guided them over to the table top. He
deposited her on its flowered tablecloth, and stepped back to marvel at the
lust in her eyes.
That's for you, mate. All of it. For you.
"Spike," she breathed, frantically. She reached to touch
him, and he closed his eyes, gasping. She stroked him with both hands, and he
struggled not to spill in them.
Finally he seized her hips, and pulled her to the edge of
the tabletop. She lay back on its length, and he stood alongside it, and tossed
her legs over his shoulders. He pushed inside of her warm wetness.
She sprawled beneath him against the flowered tablecloth,
hair fanned out behind her head like a halo. He pressed a kiss against the
inside of her knee as he pumped himself into her. She moaned, needing more than
this. He slid a hand down atop her mound, and pinched her clit rhythmically
until she screamed his name and bucked against the table.
He spilled himself inside her and collapsed atop her. She
giggled beneath him, and he drew back, slightly miffed.
"What? Whatever are you laughing at, woman?"
Through her laughter she answered him.
"I was just thinking that my mother would have a fit if
she knew what we just did on her best tablecloth, Spike. Then I realized she
probably does know, and she just might decide to haunt me over it."
She was smiling a radiant smile that made his heart
dance. He smiled back at her, and lifted his weight off as he stood up. She
slowly stood up after him.
It hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks.
She was laughing. And she was talking about her mother
while she did.
It had been so long since he'd seen that particular
smile. He'd forgotten what it did to him, forgotten the way it melted his
insides and made him ache.
"So, where did you put that tacky little cake couple
anyway?" he asked.