Spinning the Wheel 15 - Interlude
The ten weeks between their date and the opening of the play went by faster then either of them had expected.
After meeting the next day they had been together almost everyday, rehearsing. Buffy's acting got a lot better over the time and after one day of intensive English training she was able to pronounce all the nasty the little words that had made Shakespear the "most crappy crap of all craps since the crap had been invented".
After she'd said that Spike hadn't talked to her for about five minutes but one of her overly dramatic performances had shaken him out of his mock-pout.
But they didn't just rehears together, they spent more time with each other besides the play and going through the text.
By the time, Buffy introduced him to her friends and her mother.
Joyce was more than friendly, which tended to be a little embarrassing. But at the end of that evening, they got along a lot better than before and Spike had told her that he liked her mother. Or fancied her, how he put it.
Her sister had been jumping for joy when she'd invited him over to dinner. They had talked about poetry almost the whole evening and Buffy couldn't deny a pang of jealousy seeing her sister almost devouring the guy she was supposed to hang with.
Buffy was surprised seeing Spike getting along so well with her friends.
Well... except Xander maybe. The carpenter had built a ramp leading up the front stair so Spike could come over to her house once in a while. That had been the most uncomfortable situation between them. He didn't want to use it and he could be stubborn like a baby. But finally Buffy managed to persuade him. After that Spike didn't miss a change to call Xander that most colourful variety of nicknames. The blonde could only shake her head over that. Maybe it was one of those guy things, with the whole masculinity and dignity involved.
She didn't want to get mixed up in it so she just smiled over it. And it was funny seeing Xander turning purple every once in a while and Spike with the plastered smirk on his face.
One night when they were over at his place watching a movie together, Buffy watched him out of the corner of her eyes. He had changed, rapidly. It was as if someone had taken a brush and had started to paint him in brighter colors, making him smiled and even laugh a lot more often. She really liked it when he laughed, it made his eyes sparkle like a sunshiny summer sky.
Although he could get grumpy from one second to the other, they had become kind of friends. Of course, there were things they didn't talk about, things that Buffy didn't want to stir but he had opened up to her about a couple of things like on their dinner that day.
She hadn't realised that Spike had been watching her at the same moment. She thought that the smile on his lips had been caused by the movie. But he was thinking about their time together, too. About the days they had spent together, how much she had warmed up his life.
She was like the bright sun shining down on frozen earth, melting it at the edges, letting the little, vulnerable tips of flowers poke through.
He had gone away from that flower analogy the second he had thought it up, but he knew that it was right. She had changed his life, just by being there with him.
He had been out, had met other people, made new friends. It was nice to have some people around once in a while although he still preferred being alone. Or just with her.
But he also knew that she had changed. When they had met for the first time, she had been like all those other girls who had nothing more on their mind than guys and clothes. She had been the all-American mall girl. But now he saw what lay beyond that.
A young but strong women, with her own thoughts, ideas and dreams. Someone who cared about her friends and the people around her. Someone who could listen when it was necessary.
They had become friends.
More than that but he pushed that little thought that came up once in a while away as best as he could manage. They were friends, good friends who liked to spend time with each other It was nice to have somebody around after all this time alone.
