Okay it's finally here. Thanks for the exam luck - I'm sure it helped. :-)
Cheers for the reviews.
Hope it's worth the wait anyhow.
**PART TWO**
CHAPTER FOUR:
Outside, the canvas of the sky was greying in patches and curling at the edges like smouldering cigarette paper, the sun's light dwindling, an amber glow melting over the horizon.
The Desoto was gone from the road. He had moved it onto the drive last night and she couldn't decide whether to be happy about that particular move or not. It was more permanent, safer, a step forward. But was that what she wanted?
She let the curtain drop from her grasp as she felt his cooling fingertips on the strip of exposed skin at the small of her back. His face was in her hair, inhaling her, his lips applying a light pressure against her temple and she leant back into him with a soft sigh.
His hands slid under her top, planing over her waist and smoothing their way up her ribs. He whispered something into her ear and although she couldn't catch the words she shivered at the clear meaning.
(Has it really been only a few days?)
As warmth blossomed throughout her body from the goose-pimpled trail of his touch, she could only think in infinities. An infinite number of eternities since they had last been here, an infinite number of moments had brought them here again, an infinite number of possibilities.
And here they were.
And she wanted it.
Nodding, she turned around in his arms.
The kisses were barely that, a pressing together of slightly parted lips, the excuse to close lids whenever the searing eye contact got too much.
It was all hands and bodies and legs and skin. His hands on her back, cupping her buttocks and pressing her into him; lifting her skirt and softly kneading the muscles in the back of her thighs. Her hands clutching at his shoulders, revealing more skin with each button of his shirt, reaching around his back and pulling him with her by the belt loops as she backed against the wall.
The feel of his body pressing against her and the way she arched instinctively into him. His knee nudging in between hers and how her leg lifted instinctively to brace his hip. The feel of her skin against his, of him mouthing her name against her cheek, and of their eyes burning into each other. The sound of their synchronising gasps, of their ragged attempts for breath, and of:
"Buffy?"
Dawn's voice. (Deja vu.)
They froze, locked eyes and parted forcefully, pushing off against each other and hastily fingering at their clothes. But they were only in the lounge and it only took a couple of all-to-quick seconds for Dawn to find them.
"Bu- Oh." Dawn's eyes widened and a grin conquered the majority of her face. "I'm interupto girl again, it would seem."
"What? Are they having sex?"
(Oh no!)
But there she was. Anya, all with the knowing-looks and bright smiles of delight. And then there he was. Xander, all of the beady-eyes, pursed-lips and -
She couldn't help herself. The laugh bubbled forth and emerged from her in a burst of mocking giggles. "Xander, what *is* that around your neck?"
Xander's hand shot to the large cross that adorned his chest and he sneered in Spike's direction. "Can't be too careful."
Spike's answer was a simple smirk. A smug satisfaction coated his small movements with applied, implied ego. He straightened up and sneered as he looked Xander up and down, his face breaking out into a one-sided grin as he made his assessment and the memories returned to him.
"I know, I told him he looked stupid and not-at-all manly. But that's my Xander."
"Anya!"
"Yes, honey?"
Xander opened his mouth to protest, his vigilant gaze drifting to the evidently amused Spike once more and his cheeks turning plum for the briefest of moments. He let out an exacerbated sigh and shook his head. "Never mind."
"Oh!" Anya's hand shot to her mouth with realisation. "Did I do that emasculation thing again? I'm sorry baby. I know how much you hate it when Buffy does it."
"An!"
"It's OK, snoogles. You're more than man enough for me."
There was a derisive snort of laughter in the air and all eyes turned to Dawn and Spike, wondering which had made the sound. Anya, suddenly remembering her manners, beamed at Spike and eagerly extended a hand out to him.
"Hi, I'm Anya! Xander's girlfriend, fellow 'Scooby'," she even made out the quotation marks, a difficult task with only one free hand. "Ex-Vengeance demon and shop assistant at the Magic Box - *the* place for all your occult needs. Be sure to pop in sometime."
Spike's head bobbed with the rhythm of Anya enthusiastic handshaking, sucking in his cheeks in an effort not to laugh. "That's... you're really something, aren't you? Vengeance demon you say?" At Anya's affirmative response, the barely suppressed humour wavered and he said in all seriousness: "I'm sure Xander doesn't realise how lucky he is."
"Oh, I remind him. Often! Sometimes three or four times a night!"
Spike chuckled, finally extricating his hand from Anya's and running it through his re-styled hair. "Very lucky man indeed."
His glance slipped to Buffy and her eyes fell to the carpet for a diversionary second. When she looked back up, he had settled himself on the sofa; feet kicking heavily up onto the coffee table as he lingered over the task of buttoning up his shirt.
With a roll of the eyes signalling her boredom, Dawn came to sit on the opposite end of the sofa and she switched the television on with a stab of the remote. "You OK with this?"
Spike shrugged with a non-committal grunt and they watched in silence.
"Everything alright, Xander?" Buffy asked, succeeding in turning Xander's stare from the sofa. His eyes settled on her and after a moment the steely glare relented somewhat, but not enough.
"Everything here is beyond my comprehension. But since when has that been a first?" He fixed her with a lip-curled expression so near to disgust she felt her insides squirm at it. "Come on Anya, we should be going."
"But we just got here."
"Anya! *Please*."
-
-
-
-
"Xander, wait!" She caught him with his hand on the car door handle and he turned to her with a dramatic sigh.
"What?"
"Thank you... for bringing Dawn back safe."
He nodded and even produced a thin smile but then his hand was on the door handle again.
"Xander, don't be like this." She pleaded with him.
"Like what? Like I *have* an iota of common sense?" He was glaring now, his eyes jutting out of their sockets and pointing at her like accusing daggers.
"I don't think she means that, Xander."
Buffy's eyes turned to Anya with her mouth open ready to protest at the interruption. But then Anya continued, still with her trademarked literal tone. "I think she means how insensitive and unsympathetic you're being."
Buffy's eyes widened in amazement and gratitude at Anya, who simply shrugged.
"Oh, it's not like I don't see his faults, I *do*. I just love him all the more for having them." She beamed brightly and stroked Xander's arm with reassuring affection.
It did the trick. The defences came down with a shy shrug being offered as a gesture of surrender, a wan smile curving at his lips. (There he is!)
"I'll love you whatever you do, Buffy. *Whoever* you do." He confirmed his words by drawing her into a short but comforting hug and whispering: "Just be careful."
She smiled, remembering Willow's almost exact words.
"I will."
-
-
-
-
"A wall?"
"A very *angry* wall."
"I don't believe you."
"Believe what you like. I don't care."
"Believe what?" Buffy asked, wondering what she had walked in on.
"Spike says he got his black-eye from an 'angry wall'!" Dawn rolled her eyes. "Talk about lame."
(Black-eye?) Her eyes shot to Spike and there it was. A grey sprawl of a bruise where she had hit his eye last night. She didn't know how but she hadn't seen it since last night. She'd forgotten it, looked past it (ignored it).
"Who you calling lame?"
"You."
Spike glowered at Dawn and a low growl of irritation gurgling in his throat, causing Buffy to marvel at Dawn's talent for causing frustration. She smiled to herself decided to stick to the role of an onlooker as the scene continued to play out.
"So let's get this straight. You, with the enhanced-Vampire senses, just walked right into a wall?"
Spike's eyes glinted and his mouth twisted wryly as he looked up at Buffy. "Yep, straight into it, with my eyes wide open."
She smiled and so did he. It was one of those things that could have been defined as a 'moment' if it had lasted longer. But then he was standing up, walking out into the hall and putting his coat on. She followed him, her brow furrowed with the question she didn't need to voice.
"Don't worry, just going for a walk." He shrugged into his duster. "You should spend some time with Dawn. Do the sisterly-bonding bit."
The moment his hand contacted with the door handle, a thought struck her and she spoke before she could stop herself. "You won't -?"
"No." He smiled and smoothed away the worry lines on her forehead with a fingertip before pulling her into a deep, rough kiss that left her glassy-eyed and breathless. "See you soon."
"Uh-huh."
She watched the breeze of black disappear, feeling an involuntary shiver as the door as the door clicked to, and turned back to the lounge.
(Dawn.)
"You do realise I'm gonna need therapy after what I've just been through." Her sister emerged from the kitchen with a plateful of cookies and a glass of milk, a slight smirk playing on her lips.
"Yeah, I know it's been difficult on you, Dawn. But Glory's been held off now... at least for a while."
Dawn shook her head, gulping down her mouthful of cookie. "No, not Glory. I'm mean after witnessing that little 'Welcome Home' display."
Buffy cringed, her insides curling in on themselves with embarrassment. "Er, yeah... sorry about that."
"I'm talking *years* of psycho-analysis to get over that one."
"Years?"
"It's emotionally scarring, like thinking about your parents -"
"Don't go there."
"Exactly! You see?" Dawn's eyes were wide with mirth. It was a great sight to see. "You're not supposed to think about your family like that."
(Family.) Buffy smiled and helped herself to a cookie as they walked into the lounge.
"But if we're talking scale here, then maybe it wasn't as bad as you and Riley. I used to get a crick in my neck just looking at you two."
"So, let me get this straight. On a purely height basis, you don't object to him?"
"Oh, I object... that's my job." Dawn grinned and Buffy felt her own cheek muscles pull back of their own accord.
"Could I get a hug, Dawn?"
Dawn paused a moment, almost surprised at the request, but she relinquished her snacks to the coffee table and walked into her sister's arms.
"It's good to have you home."
Buffy felt Dawn shrug and mumble. "it's good to be home."
Buffy smiled and sighed into the embrace, feeling a calm crawl and linger through her veins. A pacifying, neutralising effect settled within her and she let the relief come, let Dawn earth her, let herself come home.
-
-
-
-
It was saccharine over-kill. So sugary-sappy that it stung at eyes that would be crying right now if she was 15 and could comply with the blatant director manipulation. The inevitability, the trite happy ending - a sweeping score that reached its zenith as the oh-so-right-for-each-other lovers came together in what amounted to no more than an anti-climatic, almost chaste peck of lips.
"Oh my God, I suddenly feel very sick."
Buffy smiled wryly at her sister, who despite being 15, also appeared quite immune to the movie's charms. "You getting cynical in your old age, Dawn?"
"Not cynical, just... rational..." She drifted off, as if she knew how wrong the word had sounded coming from her lips without Buffy's guffaw of a response.
"You? Rational?"
"What? It could happen."
"Yeah, given an infinity or two."
Dawn shrugged, her lips pursing but stopping just short of a pout. "Well, I have a few millennia on you, so you can't judge... or does having an older boyfriend give you a free pass to mature-land?"
Buffy opened her mouth to retaliate, only to stop and consider Dawn's words, or rather one word in particular. She glanced at Dawn and mouthed the word to her before vocalising it with a whisper. "He's my 'boyfriend'."
"Well, uh-huh, it certainly looked that way to me."
"My -"
Her repetition was interrupted as the front door opened. The sisters looked at each other in puzzlement for an instant before remembering. A smile broke free on Dawn's face for a split second before she put it into check and re-applied her teen trademarked nonchalance. Just in time as a black form glided into the room and collapsed bonelessly into the armchair.
"Nice walk?"
He nodded vaguely, his brows furrowing. "Took a tour of good old Sunny-Hell, reacquainted myself with Willie. Wrapped it up with a turn past the High School that... is no more. What the hell happened there?"
Buffy smiled, her mind drifting back to something he had told her, a revelation he had bit out in angry frustration.
"Big snake!" Her grin widened as she spoke and watched the words dawn on him.
TBC
Cheers for the reviews.
Hope it's worth the wait anyhow.
**PART TWO**
CHAPTER FOUR:
Outside, the canvas of the sky was greying in patches and curling at the edges like smouldering cigarette paper, the sun's light dwindling, an amber glow melting over the horizon.
The Desoto was gone from the road. He had moved it onto the drive last night and she couldn't decide whether to be happy about that particular move or not. It was more permanent, safer, a step forward. But was that what she wanted?
She let the curtain drop from her grasp as she felt his cooling fingertips on the strip of exposed skin at the small of her back. His face was in her hair, inhaling her, his lips applying a light pressure against her temple and she leant back into him with a soft sigh.
His hands slid under her top, planing over her waist and smoothing their way up her ribs. He whispered something into her ear and although she couldn't catch the words she shivered at the clear meaning.
(Has it really been only a few days?)
As warmth blossomed throughout her body from the goose-pimpled trail of his touch, she could only think in infinities. An infinite number of eternities since they had last been here, an infinite number of moments had brought them here again, an infinite number of possibilities.
And here they were.
And she wanted it.
Nodding, she turned around in his arms.
The kisses were barely that, a pressing together of slightly parted lips, the excuse to close lids whenever the searing eye contact got too much.
It was all hands and bodies and legs and skin. His hands on her back, cupping her buttocks and pressing her into him; lifting her skirt and softly kneading the muscles in the back of her thighs. Her hands clutching at his shoulders, revealing more skin with each button of his shirt, reaching around his back and pulling him with her by the belt loops as she backed against the wall.
The feel of his body pressing against her and the way she arched instinctively into him. His knee nudging in between hers and how her leg lifted instinctively to brace his hip. The feel of her skin against his, of him mouthing her name against her cheek, and of their eyes burning into each other. The sound of their synchronising gasps, of their ragged attempts for breath, and of:
"Buffy?"
Dawn's voice. (Deja vu.)
They froze, locked eyes and parted forcefully, pushing off against each other and hastily fingering at their clothes. But they were only in the lounge and it only took a couple of all-to-quick seconds for Dawn to find them.
"Bu- Oh." Dawn's eyes widened and a grin conquered the majority of her face. "I'm interupto girl again, it would seem."
"What? Are they having sex?"
(Oh no!)
But there she was. Anya, all with the knowing-looks and bright smiles of delight. And then there he was. Xander, all of the beady-eyes, pursed-lips and -
She couldn't help herself. The laugh bubbled forth and emerged from her in a burst of mocking giggles. "Xander, what *is* that around your neck?"
Xander's hand shot to the large cross that adorned his chest and he sneered in Spike's direction. "Can't be too careful."
Spike's answer was a simple smirk. A smug satisfaction coated his small movements with applied, implied ego. He straightened up and sneered as he looked Xander up and down, his face breaking out into a one-sided grin as he made his assessment and the memories returned to him.
"I know, I told him he looked stupid and not-at-all manly. But that's my Xander."
"Anya!"
"Yes, honey?"
Xander opened his mouth to protest, his vigilant gaze drifting to the evidently amused Spike once more and his cheeks turning plum for the briefest of moments. He let out an exacerbated sigh and shook his head. "Never mind."
"Oh!" Anya's hand shot to her mouth with realisation. "Did I do that emasculation thing again? I'm sorry baby. I know how much you hate it when Buffy does it."
"An!"
"It's OK, snoogles. You're more than man enough for me."
There was a derisive snort of laughter in the air and all eyes turned to Dawn and Spike, wondering which had made the sound. Anya, suddenly remembering her manners, beamed at Spike and eagerly extended a hand out to him.
"Hi, I'm Anya! Xander's girlfriend, fellow 'Scooby'," she even made out the quotation marks, a difficult task with only one free hand. "Ex-Vengeance demon and shop assistant at the Magic Box - *the* place for all your occult needs. Be sure to pop in sometime."
Spike's head bobbed with the rhythm of Anya enthusiastic handshaking, sucking in his cheeks in an effort not to laugh. "That's... you're really something, aren't you? Vengeance demon you say?" At Anya's affirmative response, the barely suppressed humour wavered and he said in all seriousness: "I'm sure Xander doesn't realise how lucky he is."
"Oh, I remind him. Often! Sometimes three or four times a night!"
Spike chuckled, finally extricating his hand from Anya's and running it through his re-styled hair. "Very lucky man indeed."
His glance slipped to Buffy and her eyes fell to the carpet for a diversionary second. When she looked back up, he had settled himself on the sofa; feet kicking heavily up onto the coffee table as he lingered over the task of buttoning up his shirt.
With a roll of the eyes signalling her boredom, Dawn came to sit on the opposite end of the sofa and she switched the television on with a stab of the remote. "You OK with this?"
Spike shrugged with a non-committal grunt and they watched in silence.
"Everything alright, Xander?" Buffy asked, succeeding in turning Xander's stare from the sofa. His eyes settled on her and after a moment the steely glare relented somewhat, but not enough.
"Everything here is beyond my comprehension. But since when has that been a first?" He fixed her with a lip-curled expression so near to disgust she felt her insides squirm at it. "Come on Anya, we should be going."
"But we just got here."
"Anya! *Please*."
-
-
-
-
"Xander, wait!" She caught him with his hand on the car door handle and he turned to her with a dramatic sigh.
"What?"
"Thank you... for bringing Dawn back safe."
He nodded and even produced a thin smile but then his hand was on the door handle again.
"Xander, don't be like this." She pleaded with him.
"Like what? Like I *have* an iota of common sense?" He was glaring now, his eyes jutting out of their sockets and pointing at her like accusing daggers.
"I don't think she means that, Xander."
Buffy's eyes turned to Anya with her mouth open ready to protest at the interruption. But then Anya continued, still with her trademarked literal tone. "I think she means how insensitive and unsympathetic you're being."
Buffy's eyes widened in amazement and gratitude at Anya, who simply shrugged.
"Oh, it's not like I don't see his faults, I *do*. I just love him all the more for having them." She beamed brightly and stroked Xander's arm with reassuring affection.
It did the trick. The defences came down with a shy shrug being offered as a gesture of surrender, a wan smile curving at his lips. (There he is!)
"I'll love you whatever you do, Buffy. *Whoever* you do." He confirmed his words by drawing her into a short but comforting hug and whispering: "Just be careful."
She smiled, remembering Willow's almost exact words.
"I will."
-
-
-
-
"A wall?"
"A very *angry* wall."
"I don't believe you."
"Believe what you like. I don't care."
"Believe what?" Buffy asked, wondering what she had walked in on.
"Spike says he got his black-eye from an 'angry wall'!" Dawn rolled her eyes. "Talk about lame."
(Black-eye?) Her eyes shot to Spike and there it was. A grey sprawl of a bruise where she had hit his eye last night. She didn't know how but she hadn't seen it since last night. She'd forgotten it, looked past it (ignored it).
"Who you calling lame?"
"You."
Spike glowered at Dawn and a low growl of irritation gurgling in his throat, causing Buffy to marvel at Dawn's talent for causing frustration. She smiled to herself decided to stick to the role of an onlooker as the scene continued to play out.
"So let's get this straight. You, with the enhanced-Vampire senses, just walked right into a wall?"
Spike's eyes glinted and his mouth twisted wryly as he looked up at Buffy. "Yep, straight into it, with my eyes wide open."
She smiled and so did he. It was one of those things that could have been defined as a 'moment' if it had lasted longer. But then he was standing up, walking out into the hall and putting his coat on. She followed him, her brow furrowed with the question she didn't need to voice.
"Don't worry, just going for a walk." He shrugged into his duster. "You should spend some time with Dawn. Do the sisterly-bonding bit."
The moment his hand contacted with the door handle, a thought struck her and she spoke before she could stop herself. "You won't -?"
"No." He smiled and smoothed away the worry lines on her forehead with a fingertip before pulling her into a deep, rough kiss that left her glassy-eyed and breathless. "See you soon."
"Uh-huh."
She watched the breeze of black disappear, feeling an involuntary shiver as the door as the door clicked to, and turned back to the lounge.
(Dawn.)
"You do realise I'm gonna need therapy after what I've just been through." Her sister emerged from the kitchen with a plateful of cookies and a glass of milk, a slight smirk playing on her lips.
"Yeah, I know it's been difficult on you, Dawn. But Glory's been held off now... at least for a while."
Dawn shook her head, gulping down her mouthful of cookie. "No, not Glory. I'm mean after witnessing that little 'Welcome Home' display."
Buffy cringed, her insides curling in on themselves with embarrassment. "Er, yeah... sorry about that."
"I'm talking *years* of psycho-analysis to get over that one."
"Years?"
"It's emotionally scarring, like thinking about your parents -"
"Don't go there."
"Exactly! You see?" Dawn's eyes were wide with mirth. It was a great sight to see. "You're not supposed to think about your family like that."
(Family.) Buffy smiled and helped herself to a cookie as they walked into the lounge.
"But if we're talking scale here, then maybe it wasn't as bad as you and Riley. I used to get a crick in my neck just looking at you two."
"So, let me get this straight. On a purely height basis, you don't object to him?"
"Oh, I object... that's my job." Dawn grinned and Buffy felt her own cheek muscles pull back of their own accord.
"Could I get a hug, Dawn?"
Dawn paused a moment, almost surprised at the request, but she relinquished her snacks to the coffee table and walked into her sister's arms.
"It's good to have you home."
Buffy felt Dawn shrug and mumble. "it's good to be home."
Buffy smiled and sighed into the embrace, feeling a calm crawl and linger through her veins. A pacifying, neutralising effect settled within her and she let the relief come, let Dawn earth her, let herself come home.
-
-
-
-
It was saccharine over-kill. So sugary-sappy that it stung at eyes that would be crying right now if she was 15 and could comply with the blatant director manipulation. The inevitability, the trite happy ending - a sweeping score that reached its zenith as the oh-so-right-for-each-other lovers came together in what amounted to no more than an anti-climatic, almost chaste peck of lips.
"Oh my God, I suddenly feel very sick."
Buffy smiled wryly at her sister, who despite being 15, also appeared quite immune to the movie's charms. "You getting cynical in your old age, Dawn?"
"Not cynical, just... rational..." She drifted off, as if she knew how wrong the word had sounded coming from her lips without Buffy's guffaw of a response.
"You? Rational?"
"What? It could happen."
"Yeah, given an infinity or two."
Dawn shrugged, her lips pursing but stopping just short of a pout. "Well, I have a few millennia on you, so you can't judge... or does having an older boyfriend give you a free pass to mature-land?"
Buffy opened her mouth to retaliate, only to stop and consider Dawn's words, or rather one word in particular. She glanced at Dawn and mouthed the word to her before vocalising it with a whisper. "He's my 'boyfriend'."
"Well, uh-huh, it certainly looked that way to me."
"My -"
Her repetition was interrupted as the front door opened. The sisters looked at each other in puzzlement for an instant before remembering. A smile broke free on Dawn's face for a split second before she put it into check and re-applied her teen trademarked nonchalance. Just in time as a black form glided into the room and collapsed bonelessly into the armchair.
"Nice walk?"
He nodded vaguely, his brows furrowing. "Took a tour of good old Sunny-Hell, reacquainted myself with Willie. Wrapped it up with a turn past the High School that... is no more. What the hell happened there?"
Buffy smiled, her mind drifting back to something he had told her, a revelation he had bit out in angry frustration.
"Big snake!" Her grin widened as she spoke and watched the words dawn on him.
TBC