American Girls
by Sweetprincipale
Set in an alternate late season six. Spike can't believe he's this happy. He can't believe he's changed, she's changed, and that together they have this little bubble that hasn't burst yet. In over a century of looking for the real meaning of happiness and true love, he's found it in the most unlikely of places. It must be these American girls that have won his heart and his loyalty.
Author's Note: For the Elysian Fields Artistic Anniversary Challenge, a story that had a positive family dynamic between Spike, Buffy, and Dawn. Here it is, a story told in Spike's perspective as he reflects on the unlikely pair that have changed his unlife in the best of ways.
Author's Second Note: The music of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers provided the lyrics for multiple sections, they get all the credit.
Dedicated to: Wonder and Ashes, an incredible artist, and to the dedicated and patient readers who still take time to dive into the Spuffy universe with me.
I don't know what else to blame it on, really. I've never felt this way before, ever, in my life, or after it, human or demon. I've had longer to find "true love" and happiness than three blokes put together, and I finally had it body slam me to the ground.
I lug the last box into the corner of the bedroom that used to belong to the wicca set, before they hopped it back to the dorms. I snort in annoyance, seein' as how I just moved all my stuff out of the basement and back to the crypt about three weeks ago, and now, it's gotta come back. Half in the basement, half in this "guest room" and odds and ends in with Slayer. Not too much, because she's worried about the Little Bit seein' us "living in sin."
This time my snort is a chuckle. Kid slept next to two powerful witches in love- I can't imagine what she might've overheard, and she knows what Buffy and I've been getting up to, but no… Can't move all my clothes into the same closet.
My girl acts like an idiot sometime. No, not fair, she's brilliant, really, just not logical.
Which, if you look what I'm doing- I kicked the box roughly into place next to my busted recliner- I'm not exactly logical either.
I used to be passionate. Deadly, dangerous, dark, and passionate, and now-
"Spike? Want to make popcorn? Watch movies?" Dawn's head pops in, long hair shiny and swinging, an excited smile a mile wide on her little face.
My scowl twists into a grin like magic, a spell those two cast, that's the only answer. "Yeah, be right down. That's the last of it."
"Yaay! I'll go put some in the microwave!" Always excited that one, and she peels down the stairs, half squealing as she asks her sister about a movie night.
It has to be the fact that they're Americans, my girls. That's what it has to be. Way they can frustrate, irritate, fascinate, and captivate and all the other pretty words that mean they've got me wrapped to them good and proper. Heart and whatever passes for a soul in this town, it belongs to Slayer and her sister, with all the pouts and shrieks and the endless amount of footwear I trip over as I head down the stairs. My girls. Knocked all the sense right out of me.
Well she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn't help thinkin' that there
Was a little more to life
Somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to
Yeah, and if she had to die tryin'
She had one little promise
She was gonna keep
It's not as though I had never loved a woman before Buffy.
It's easy to let my mind wander when these two are arguin' over what flick to pick. I eat the popcorn and tune 'em out, all bloody white noise. I'll wait for this certain little pitch in either of their voices, which will tell me it's time to actually pay attention.
Do all sisters argue this much? I don't think so, I think it's these two, who act like everything from ordering dinner to picking a video could determine the fate of the world. My snicker is ignored in the shouting match. Not much to laugh about really, since with their history, they've grown accustomed to the "I can save the world or end it" mindset.
But as I was musin'… I've been in love before. Had this gorgeous, poetic, worthy of bloody-Lord Byron-himself sort of thing with a girl named Cecily. With isn't quite the right word. More like "at". Yes, I had been in love "at" Cecily. Unrequited, completely, and in the worst way you could imagine. Think about havin' the most intimate, private thoughts of your tender, virginal heart tossed back in your face, and then laughed at in a crowded party while the blood is ringing in your ears and your heart is breaking.
So. Anguish, burning desire, injustice, rage, broken heart, all that sad sort of tragic love that makes nice readin', I've had that. Almost immediately afterward, I had the best thing ever. I thought. Drusilla. Love that's dark and intense and so thoroughly bad… Still get shivers when I think about how totally she owned me, and how bad I wanted to be hers. And I was. I was hers and when she wanted me it was like I ruled the bloody world, could crush a kingdom in one fist.
And when she wanted someone else- oh God. It ripped the heart right out of me, unbeating as it was. Anger and violence make good accessories when you're a demon in love with another demon, sometimes. But I guess I had too much poet left in me and-
"-never watch what I borrow from Janice!"
There's the tone. The "near teenage tears" tone. "Dawn, I think we can stay up late and watch both!" I suddenly say, having no bally idea what I've just volunteered for.
"What? Spike, we'll be up until midnight!" Buffy turns to me, anger written on that perfect face.
"I don't have school tomorrow!" Dawn holds up her chick flick, with nothing but pink curly letters on the cover and giggly looking girls.
I catch Slayer's eye. She can read me well enough to know that I'll sit through it and I won't really enjoy it. But I enjoy sitting with these two. "How often do you two get to sit and watch a bit of mindless telly?" I hold out my arm, and Buffy flops down on the couch, shoulders under it.
"I totally will be responsible and not sleep until noon, okay? I promise." Dawn turns those big, innocent eyes to her, and I can feel the shoulders under my arm give in.
"You're up by eight and you're going to start studying for your math test."
"Deal! I'll ace it. You're the best!" Dawn trills, flinging herself at the set.
Ah. movie goes in, the bowls and cans of soda go round, and Buffy snuggles into me.
"I'll help with the homework. You can sleep in." I whisper, lips to her ear.
Her smile is hidden under a pout, but her eyes have this way of heating up, in anger or in desire, or just in pure joy. Right now its a simmering mix of happiness and lust. "I love when you do that. The little things?" she whispers. "I don't know… I never figured you'd be so good with her."
"I made a promise to you. You made us promise…" The hardest thing to do in this world… She was wrong. The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it without her.
It all comes flooding back, the horrible way in which we lost her, and the rough way in which we found her again. She and I found something. Dark, hot, wrong… almost lost it right after I got it.
My hand latches onto her shoulder. "I'll always be good to the two women I love most in this world- but you gotta keep livin' in it. Both of you."
Her hip bumps deliberately into mine as her eyes slip away. "You're going to be the one who needs to sleep in." her voice tickles a low frequency, just in the range where I can hear it. I love that. When she speaks to me like that, I know she's fallin' hard for me, the way I fell for her, keep fallin' for her, because it means she's speaking to the vamp in me, the thing that makes me have those superior senses. Something she had no problem hating, now she seduces me with it.
I know I think too much about them. If you had been looking for something for three lifetimes and finally found it, an' it was pretty new, you'd spend a lot of time thinking about it, too.
You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free
Run away, find you a lover
Go away somewhere all bright and new
I have seen no other
Who compares with you
She slides in beside me, all eagerness and quivering this time. I never know how it's going to be, but it always ends up good. She's flawless without knowing it, however she arrives, or leaves, she simply is.
I move to tell her these soft, sweet musings, about her beauty and perfection, and she says-
"You don't get annoyed with her," Buffy marvels in an awed voice, suddenly coming astride, eyes intense, her soft, strong hands on my shoulders, those slender but perfect hips meeting my own.
"Can we not talk about Dawn when you're on top of me?" Tender musings are dismissed, but they'll be back.
"Well, I can't talk about her while she's in the room." Buffy laughs at my expression.
"Fine, but not in bed!" It awakens a very… "protective in a brotherly way" sort of love, which is difficult and distractin' from the "wanna ravage you senseless" love I'd prefer to be focused on now.
"I'm sorry, I can't help it. You know… she was the baby, Mom's favorite, and Tara and Willow always tried to give her special attention, and I- well, I just argue about too much stuff with her because she can act so annoying."
"Your point, Luv?" Please get to it fast.
"You're both annoying. In semi-lovable ways. But you're on my side, and she doesn't, I don't know, 'want' something different from you, that she's trying to take away from me."
I squint. You don't expect the savior of mankind to get into petty jealousy tiffs with a teenager, do you? Then again, I act pretty immature at times, part of the fun of looking young forever. I remember that Slayer is the paradox. Young body, youthful soul, and all the things that'll age you, wrapped in one package. She's allowed to be a bit whiny sometimes, and then blows me away with the strength and grace she can pull out when she needs it.
"When you were gone, we were together a lot. She's a good friend, and she's not my child, and not just your little brat sister, which is how the gang sees her sometimes. She had power and she lost it." Like me. No more bloodlust for the sake of bloodlust, no more fangs for the sake of biting. "She's like me. Not exactly good, but we try to be. For you. Someone we love like mad. That's the difference. She and I want you, and we want each other, in completely different ways. Thank God, so it all works out."
"She used to have a crush on you."
I snarl. I hate when she brings that up. "Slayer!"
"You used to have a crush on me." her voice is teasing, her hips dipping and rising, letting me feel the heat without giving me any of it.
With a whirl, I'm above her, eyes on fire, holding one of her arms trapped between our chest, my other hand under her silky, thick tangle of hair. "Still have a 'crush' on you, Baby."
The heat is wrapping around me, silk and sweet and wet. With a few easy glides, she maneuvers back on top, her hands on my chest, nails digging in enough to leave little claw indents.
"Do you have a crush on me, Buffy?" I whisper.
"Spike." A little moan, breathless and warm on my neck.
"Do you?" I nip her chin.
"No."
Because it's more than that, I know it, and her words don't sting. Her head shakes no as her lips are coming to mine, and our mouths dance, such skillful dances.
"I love you."
My heart hits my ribs, solidly. I swear, it leaps when she confesses it, and she confesses it more and more. Soon I may have my own heartbeat, if she keeps this up. "I love you, too."
Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl
"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my Gooooddd!" Slayer wails and almost stutters at the end before she falls off to the side, slipping down me. "Oh, my God, that was good." She smiles a bit, almost like she's embarrassed that she enjoys it so much.
I look over at her, not needing to breathe, but needing a minute to control the pounding feeling and the rush that she leaves me with, awed and spent and so bloody turned on all at the same time. "Better than good, Baby. You're the best." My fingers find her arm, walking their way up to her flushed pink cheek. Her suddenly hesitant eyes tilt to meet mine. "Love you."
It's a gamble. I'm still learning how she'll react when you combine love and sex. Thirty minutes ago, it turned out perfect. This time she might blush and hide her face in my shoulder. She might call me gooey and girly, but secretly like it.
Or- she might give a little growl that sounds like her feral Sineya counterpart, whom I've heard so much about, and lunge back up for round two.
Which is what she does. Which is new.
"You don't look tired yet. I promised you'd be the one who would have trouble getting up in the morning," Buffy purrs.
Sweet hell. Her hands. Where she hid this side of herself before now I don't know, but I know for sure it's only for me. "Bloody …"
"Not as hard as that, but still. Hard."
I have to chuckle at that. "You have a wicked side, Slayer."
"You bring it out in me, Spike."
"You keep this up-"
"Not me, you have to keep this up." Her hips slam into me for emphasis, challenging my ability to do exactly that.
"You're gonna wake Niblet."
She pauses. Swallows. For a moment, all the playfulness vanishes. She studies me.
"I don't want to wake her."
"I know, Pet. Teasin'."
She nods, but her eyes are still thoughtful. "I don't think it's so bad if she knows. I know she knows. I don't think it's bad. To have someone you love. Share a home with them. Take care of annoying sisters together. Make love for an insanely long period of time."
My heart does that tingly smack into my breastbone again. "Happy to hear you say that."
"Yeah, well. Done talking. And so are you. Let's try to keep it down."
I kiss us into mutual silence, happy to oblige.
Anything for my girls.
Author's Note: I could certainly add more (about two more chapters, but I could also leave it here.