title: Marriage, Sunnydale-Style
author: Heather (heather@hella-good.org)
rating: R
spoilers: none...completely an au/fantasy fic except for things borrowed from the Buffyverse (season 1-7) that are twisted to fit in this universe.
disclaimer: If I actually owned anything, I probably wouldn't be doing this :)
summary: After almost 10 years of dating, Buffy and Spike finally find themselves in the midst of planning a wedding and remembering the long journey that got them there.

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Chapter 13

"Boys are stupid," Dawn lamented as she passed out the take-out to Buffy and Spike.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. She heard Spike make a "pfft" sound and quickly amended it. "Most. Most are stupid, Dawnie. Not all. That would be generalizing and that would be bad. And wrong." She looked at Spike, hopeful that she made up and he just nodded a bit, ducking his head to hide his smile.

"Whatever, boys are stupid," Dawn said again. "Let's take, oh, I don't know, Connor for instance."

"Let's," Buffy said, egging her sister on.

"He's a boy playing at being grown-up and it's annoying."

"Most," Buffy said, making sure she stressed the word, "do that, Dawnie. It sucks, I know. What did he do?"

"He's not good enough for you, Bit. I wouldn't even bother," Spike said, putting in his two cents.

"Have you even met Connor?" Dawn asked and Spike shrugged in response. "Then shut the hell up."

"Dawn!" Buffy yelled. "You are being a primo bitch lately. What is up with you?"

"I'm just annoyed."

"With Connor? Or what?"

"Everything. Isn't it supposed to get better once you get older? Aren't things supposed to just fall into place somehow?"

"Life wasn't meant to be jigsaw puzzle, pet. You can't piece it all together in a nice, tidy package. It wouldn't be any fun if you could," Spike answered.

"But I want the tidy package. It seems everywhere I go, there's some happy person running around, playing naked fun games in, let's say, the bathroom and I'm the one running out to get dinner so people can finish. I'm tired of it."

"Boyfriends do not complete you, Dawn. They don't solve problems. Some of the time, they're the cause of even bigger ones," Buffy reasoned.

"That's the thing. My life is so boring. I'd take the problems of a boyfriend any day of the week to this." She swept her arm out in front of her. "It's like...blah. It's all blah."

"And you think the answer to these problems is Connor?" Buffy questioned.

"Oh, hell no. He's more messed up than me. He's like twenty times worse than I remember Angel being when you dated. I just...I want someone to be with, to find comfort with, I guess. I want a Spike."

Buffy put her arm around Dawn's shoulder, lightly squeezing her arm to comfort her. "You'll get there. Believe me, you will. As ridiculous as it sounds, there are plenty of fish in the sea. You just have to know when to throw the bad ones away. Spike and I didn't have it so easy, you know. It took us a while to admit to what was going on."

"Not my fault you started dating that wanker," Spike added. Buffy shot him a look and rolled her eyes. "What? If you didn't know how I felt about you after that first night in the Bronze, you're dense. You chose not to believe it so you looked somewhere else."

"That is not true!" Buffy said vehemently. "You were all with the 'we shouldn't ruin our friendship' and all that other bullshit. Besides, you started dating Harmony so don't try any of that with me."

"I said that only 'cause I didn't want to lose you completely," Spike told her. "And Harmony? I had to do something while you were off running around."

"Whatever, Blondie Bear," Buffy snidely said with a roll of her eyes.

"Buffy, why did it take you almost two years to get together?" Dawn asked, the curiosity dancing in her eyes.

"Why are you asking me? I was here. I wasn't the only one not admitting it."

"That's not true and you know it," Dawn said, calling her sister on her lie. "I may have been only eleven but I wasn't a sped kid. Even I could tell Spike was crazy for you when you guys used to hang out."

"You couldn't tell anything, Dawnie. You were too busy with your little girl crush on him." Dawn turned bright red and Spike raised his eyebrow, a smile slowly coming over his face. "Oops..."

"S'alright, luv, I'm irresistible. It's understandable."

"I resisted you just fine," Buffy said, indignantly.

"Ha! See? You just admitted it, Buffy. You totally knew what could have happened with you two and you chose to resist it," Dawn said, gleefully, bouncing a bit as if she had just one a prize.

"She's got you there, pet."

"Look the two of you ganging up on me isn't going to help your case. In fact, it just makes me want to get up and leave. But knowing you two, you'll sit here and talk about me and I just can't abide that." Buffy looked back and forth between the people she loved and then she groaned. "Fine, fine. I knew, okay? I didn't want to lose Spike, either. Relationships and me didn't exactly mix. I mean, look how not good the Angel thing went, then that idiotic move with Parker which didn't help in the man department...then there was Riley, who was just a nice, simple kind of guy."

"Boring," Spike huffed under his breath, bitterness on the word.

"Simple, not boring," Buffy insisted. "I thought it was better for Spike to be a friend than to lose him all together."

"You haven't lost him yet and it's been what? Eight, nine years?"

"Dawnie, I needed to get to a place where I could give all of me to him. I had to work through all the Angel issues, which granted, caused some issues because of the way I handled the already established issues, but anyways...I wanted to be comfortable with me before I started anything with him. With Spike it was going to be all or nothing. I was opting for all." Spike put his hand on her leg and squeezed her gently. "Are we good now? Can we not talk about this anymore? Weren't we talking about you and your lack of a life?"

"Hey, I have a life...sort of." Off both their looks, Dawn added, "Shut up. So you're telling me that because Angel screwed you up so badly, you thought to yourself that it was better to have a one night stand and to go out with the boring guy for almost a year than to be happy with Spike from the get go? Wow, that makes all the sense in the world."

"Simple, people! Riley was not boring. Just because he didn't brood or swagger doesn't mean he was boring. God..." Buffy knew she was more aggravated than she should be but Riley tried his best with her and she knew it. She just wasn't ready for him or what he had to offer. "The first time we went to the Bronze, do you remember that?" Spike nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. "Well, Cordy being Cordy said something about how you should watch out for being the rebound guy. Although I took great offense at the time, later on, what she said hit me and I didn't want you to be the rebound guy. If we had started dating right away, we would not be sitting here right now. I know that for certain."

"Then what you're saying, pet, is that soldier boy was the rebound guy," Spike stated, tongue between his teeth, a slightly arrogant expression on his face.

"Now you're just begging for a beating," Buffy joked.

"I do like it when you threaten me..."

"Is this like foreplay for you two?" Dawn asked and watched as the couple became a deep crimson color. "It's funny when you two squirm. Although I have to say it was better the other night when I had the entire gang squirming."

"Oh, yeah, that was a blast," Buffy said, sarcastically. "Are you doing Tuesday dinner with the girls' tomorrow night?"

"No, I have a date with Connor," Dawn answered, smiling.

"Oh, brother," Buffy sighed, shaking her head.

"So much for stupid boys," Spike grumbled. Buffy and Dawn couldn't help but laugh at his ignorance at the girl/boy dynamic.

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