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: The music of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers provided the lyrics for multiple sections, they get all the credit. May I suggest "You Got Lucky" for your listening enjoyment as you read?
Part III
You know, being the Slayer's adversary versus bein' her love interest is vastly different. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way, but it is.
You gotta get under the armor plating first, though.
"You're here?" Buffy rolls over and blinks at me.
"Where else would I be?"
"But…"
Her eyes are fuzzy and her brain must be on a five-second delay. Nightmares, I reckon. She has 'em sometimes and usually I wake up and draw her up to my side and it's all back to normal. Must've been something subtle this time. "Hey." My fingers under her chin. "I love you. I'm always gonna stay right here," I whisper.
It's been months now, living in the house full time, and now the pretense of a separate room has fully gone the wayside. My stuff migrated over to the bedroom. Dawn knocks on our bedroom door if she's looking for either of us and "my room" has somehow started to fill up with flotsam and jetsam of cast-off clothes, weapons, and books that Rupes wants Buffy to study.
Fuzzy eyes blink and she keeps them closed, falling back to sleep. "That's what they said. That's what they said, but they didn't mean it."
"Did they ever promise?" I ask, voice low, just this side of growly. Don't get upset, don't get her upset. "Not the big eternal love stuff, although I promise you that, too. Did they promise the simple stuff? I'll be here in the morning, every morning, forever, amen? I promise to make dinner all during exams' week? I promise not to use all the chocolate chips in the house?" I learned about that one real quick. If there's no emergency chocolate in the house, those little pieces of candy are like tranquilizers to a stressed and hormonal Slayer.
She's already back to sleep. She missed my self-righteous rant, and just as well. Don't do well in comparisons with Soul Boy sometimes. Don't do well in comparisons with Soldier Boy, either.
I'm never gonna get back to sleep now.
"What are you doing? You're not the maid!" Dawn is getting loud right sharpish.
"I'm unloading the soddin' dishwasher, not wearin' some tarty apron and dusting the chandeliers."
"Oh God, there's a mental image. Not before breakfast."
"Why are you down so early?"
"I heard something slamming and bagging. Downstairs, not from your room, which would be normal, so I came to investigate."
Passing quickly over that one. "It didn't occur to you to wake the vampire and the Slayer first? Let us take on the intruders?"
"It doesn't matter now, because the intruder is you!" She slumps down at the table and weakly reaches for a mug.
Damn that girl. Sometimes the words sting worse than any holy water. She doesn't mean any harm. "Sorry, Bit. You gonna have coffee or head back to bed?"
"Coffee? I'll help you unload. It's still dark enough outside… do you think maybe we could do some training? Little bit?"
That's what I call her. My Little Bit. She looks at me like she can trust me not to put a foot wrong, to keep her safe. She never lets me feel left out for long. "Maybe just five or ten."
She doesn't know I hear them talking on the porch when they come home from a late class and quick sweep. I'm not eavesdropping. I'm just auditorily enhanced, let's say.
"How's it going?"
"It's been… a little rocky. But good! All of it is good, Buffy. Tara's so… amazing. Patient. She helps me use magic differently. Like it's still a power, but it's one I can control responsibly, not let it control me. I mean, I still want to sneak a little bit of the big stuff, but I don't. I never, ever want to lose her again. When the Spring Semester is over, we're getting an apartment off of campus."
Smart, I think to myself over the sudden happy squealing. Those two girls… they belong together. Wasn't done in my day, not openly. I liked Red's werewolf, but I like her witch even better. Girl has been Buffy's best mate since they clapped eyes on each other. I guess she has good taste.
Bloody hell. What does that mean about Harris?
My ears snag my brain off that unpalatable train. "How's it going with Spike?"
"I… I shouldn't say this."
What shouldn't she say?
"Look, I won't judge. Non-judge-y me."
"He's… good at this."
"What? Sex?"
I could 'bout hear the shock and the blush in Red's voice.
Wait, why is that shocking? Why shouldn't I be good?
Buffy laughs, "No! Well, yeah, that. Soooo much that. He's good at… being with me. Like, he's good at being with Dawn and being with both of us. He's good at patrolling and studying and… I really…"
"Love him?" Red's voice is coaxing, gentle. I knew she knew.
"No! I mean, yes! But, not just that."
"Did you hear a thud?"
Of course she bloody heard a thud. When she said "no", my knees went.
"I really think I got a good one, even though he's technically an 'evil' one. And all he got is me."
"He's crazy about you!"
"Why, though? This is past obsessions, past sex, even. He brings me floss when I have something stuck in my teeth. I check his chin for blood stains before we leave the house. We know what shades of hair dye the other one uses!"
"Wow."
I can imagine Red's face. Gobsmacked. Like mine. Even with so many decades of Drusilla, I don't think I've ever felt so intimate with someone. It's past the sex, like she said. It was so hard to come by… and now it's almost easy.
How could I have felt left out? I'm bloody ingrained! I want to crow.
If she'd just sound a bit perkier. And if she doesn't rip my ear off for listening in when she finds out- an' yes, she'll prob'ly find out.
"That's… married."
"It is. Kinda."
"You don't sound happy."
"Why would he stay? He's gotten everything he could want out of me by now-"
"Because he wants you! He loves you! If he leaves you, that's the opposite of what he wants. Not to mention you're smart, strong, funny, sexy, pretty, and you have an adorable nose and really great smile."
"Awww, Wills. Well, I think that your eyes are-"
"No! There is no time for that."
"Oh no. Resolve face?"
"Yes! You stop being all… all Willow Circa 1997! You are powerhouse of sex appeal and love appeal and Spike is lucky to have you! You trust him with your life, and Dawn's life, and your heart- whether you want to tell us. Also, with much fear and trepidation I'll add that- that you are lucky to have him."
"Okay, this time I definitely heard a thud."
"It's me!" I call out. "I heard the tail end of what Willow said. I fainted. Come and rescue me!" I say, touch of cheek in my voice.
The door springs open and my head thunks against the threshold. "Ow. Hello, Ladies."
"Were you listening at the door?" Buffy demands, hands on hips.
"No! But, when I did pass by the door, I happened to hear the lovely compliment Red paid me. Ta, Red."
"You didn't really faint?"
She's earning eighteen buggering degrees, but… "No, but I did fall over in sheer shock."
"Willow was just leaving."
"See you, Red."
"See you, Spike."
The door shuts. There's tension. "Truth?" she asks, eyebrows arching as she looks down at me.
"I heard a bit, but not at the door. Luv, I want to be with you. I want to be with Dawn- in a different capacity, obviously. You two are what I want, for the rest of my life! You're the goods, Slayer. All you gotta do is be you, and that's enough. You do trust me, don't you? I've got your back. Bloody cavalry, here."
Her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow. The distance closes, I sit up, she kneels down."Yeah, well… I'm glad about that. I'm glad it's more than … than what we started out with. And I'm glad Dawn is with Xander and Anya and won't be back until around nine. They were playing Monopoly. Dawn and Anya are scarily competitive when it comes to tiny silver shoes and hats and colorful stacks of fake money."
"Did you and Red eat between class and patrol?"
"Enough. I'm still hungry." She pulls me up, the gleam in her eyes glinting in a whole new way.
Good love is hard to find.
Good love is hard to find.
You got lucky, babe.
You got lucky, babe, when I found you.
This doesn't feel exactly new, but it feels different. Appreciation between us is sort of a private affair. Dawn knows the full score. The others get glimpses, probably assume a lot more. Buffy's squirmy about showing open affection to the object of their disapproval, even if the disapproval is pretty nearly dead by now.
I'm careful about it, because there's a way that your heart stings when she'll reject you in public and cling to you in private. Had my fair share of that, I have.
"Maybe… maybe can we go away for a weekend after school is done for the year?"
"Yeah, Dawn's been saying-"
"No. You and me. We'll ask Dawn to come with us later in the summer." Her eyes are bright, her body is like gold silk, moving across me, curling so desperately, but without the hurry.
My girl is a sprinter, a marathoner, an Olympian, right from the heavens, literally. I like to give as good as I get, and this time she won't let me.
Her whole body pulses on me, her hands on my wrists at first, then trailing down to rest on my shoulders. She didn't like when I would run my hands up and down her at first, like she was afraid too much touch meant too much knowledge, like she could relegate cock and pussy into some other sort of thing. Fucking, not loving.
"Look at me?" she breathes.
You put a hand on my cheek,
And then you turned your eyes away.
"I never stop looking at you." She's always painted somewhere in my mind's eyes, and that ponce, William, sits and gazes at her portrait and writes page after page.
"You ever feel like you're going to wake up soon?" Her voice is raspy, exertion and emotion making her breathless much faster than usual.
"All the time."
She stops and swallows before the rest of her thoughts come out.
If you don't feel complete,
If I don't take you all of the way then go...
Yeah, go...but, remember…
Good love is hard to find.
Good love is hard to find.
You got lucky, babe.
You got lucky, babe, when I found you.
"I don't want that feeling ever again. A dream is better. Heaven. Not losing people. Afraid to wake up comes because you want to stay in the dream."
"I get it, Buffy. I know those dreams." She's the star in those "wish I didn't wake up" ones, or used to be. Then, one day she was back, and dreams came true.
"You won't laugh?"
"No." My hands on her ribs, breasts against the sides of my thumbs, her sweet molten mound pressed onto me, all of her soon pressing onto me as she flattens, trapping my cock so deep inside of her that we both shudder and spasm.
"When I wake up, you're here. I look forward to waking up. For the first time in years. Really, it's been years, Spike, since- I was seventeen, I think. Do you know how many people in my- in our- line of work have that?"
"We're lucky, baby."
"No. I'm lucky. I found you. The real you. And the real you likes the real me." Eyes are wide and close to mine, like she's actually awake for the first time in all those years she mentioned. "I don't even have to pretend. I can't be perfect. You don't care if I…"
Oh, she's a hot rod. A firecracker. An unexpected bloody miracle. Those wide eyes that I felt sure would overflow just crinkle up in joy and a huge, deep laugh rolls out of her. Happiness. Pure happiness.
I make her that happy? I get to see this side of her, laughing, bouncing away, devouring me with kisses and nips and squeals as everything starts all over again, much faster.
She's happy and free and in love with me.
"I'm the lucky one," I whisper.
To be continued…