Warm
By Sweetprincipale
California has a cold snap and it's freezing in Spike's crypt. Buffy has a fever and she's burning up- not to mention that she's a little bit delirious. But just because you're loopy doesn't mean you're wrong. Maybe if you rub a frozen vampire against a boiling Slayer, both of them will get warm in more ways than one. Takes place amid a Slightly AU Season Five, Joyce is out of hospital and doing fine, Glory's lurking, and Harmony and Riley are already gone. Short, smutty, and funny, I hope you enjoy!
Part II
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but put your clothes back on."
"No. I'm hot. Too hot. The bed is too hot. We should lay on the floor, but it's too hard and my back hurts."
"Exactly. Luv, you're sick, properly ill, muscle aches and all. Even if you put it in writing, if I lay down with you, you're gonna hate me." Especially if you're wearing nothing but a long white shirt and purple knickers.
She stubbornly refused to put on the pants he held out, plucking nervously at the neckline of her pajama top. She went to the window and pressed her face to the cool glass. She considered opening it, her fingers dancing on the sill and then she glanced back at the painfully chilled vampire, standing stiff, blue and black veins visible under skin that was snow white. "I know! You can take yours off, too?"
"No! That doesn't solve anything." Spike refused to entertain the idea- at least out loud. It would be worth standing starkers in a blizzard if a naked Slayer was going to slide her body up and down his. And consequently end up all hot and bothered in a way that would later end up lethal, signed bit of paper or not. "What in the world is the matter with you?" he demanded, half to himself, half to the figure practically gyrating against the window.
She suddenly burst into tears. "I don't know!"
Oh, sod! Shades of engagement spells and Drusilla's tantrums flooded back to him. He crossed the room in two strides and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her. "I don't know, Precious, I'm sorry. I'm a bad, rude man. Shouldn't have said anything. Nothing is wrong with you but a nasty fever. You do whatever you want to make you feel comfy. I'll take my coat off. Boots off," he spoke as he followed through on his words, still feeling as though ice was painted across his skin.
Buffy nodded gratefully, wiping her eyes. "You know, Slayers aren't always all hard and cold. I feel like that sometimes. I can be warm. I'm super warm."
"I can see that." He could also see that the frosted windows had at least had an effect on one part of her. Hard little nips poked from soft hills through faded, worn cotton. Those hills unceremoniously plastered into his chest and her bare feet slid on top of his with delicate little steps, cautious, then uncaring. She sighed. He fought for a split second and sighed back. "Very warm."
"Fever. But also, nice. You must think I'm nice. Or not. You dated Drusilla. Harmony. Oh my God! Am I like them?"
He chuckled at her horrified tone and patted her back reassuringly. "No, Luv. You're completely, wonderfully different. Why I love you, even though I don't want to."
"You don't want to? Because I'm cold? A bitch?" she sniffled as cloudy, conflicted emotions scraped at her recently broken heart.
"No, because I'm supposed to be some tough demon and all I want is to make the Slayer happy so she'll give me a crumb, a hope, a split second where I can pretend that one day she might love me back."
A long pause as body temperatures adjusted for the better, hers dropping and his rising. Spike was just thinking that the arrangement was oddly nice when her head lolled back and the form in his arms started to slide down. "Slayer!"
"I'll get it!" Buffy gasped, waking up. "Did I fall asleep?"
"For a second."
"My head is too big. So much too big. How does my hair still fit?"
Spike bit down a smile and let out another sigh. Back to barmy. "It's not literally bigger, Pet, it's just the fever talking. Let's get you to bed. How's the throat?" He deposited her on her tangled, rumpled sheets and she pulled him along for the ride.
"Wants something cold. It feels like it's scalded. All of me feels scalded. Can I have an ice pack? Oh, wait. I have you."
"You can't swallow me, Luv." Well, she could. Images of her warm mouth slipping up and down his cock as she moaned in relief and he moaned in pleasure, culminating in freezing drops that she'd be glad to receive- Shit. He went hard without a second's thought.
Buffy blinked up at him myopically. "Is vampire blood cold?"
"Uh- mine is right now." I guess her mind went to a different liquid.
"Is vampire cum cold?"
Maybe not so different."What?" He fell off the bed and scrambled back up, wide-eyed.
"Angel- it was once, and I like- was seventeen and it was my first time. I was sad. It was your fault, you know. Your stupid box of Judge parts!" She randomly hit him with a pillow and then a stuffed pig and continued talking as if nothing had happened, "I know he came, but I don't know if it felt warm because I was warm, or is it naturally warm."
"It's warm. Enough," Spike answered hastily, wishing to get the hell off of this subject.
"Would yours be, right now? Because you're so cold?"
"I don't know. I've never nearly froze to death since I've been dead. Or alive, come to think of it."
"Poor you." Buffy patted his head and sat herself in his lap, bare thighs to his jeans. She shifted uncomfortably and then growled. "It's not as good like this."
"What? Face to face is better?" Bloody hell, that turned to sex in my head. It was perfectly innocent when I started, I swear!
Buffy shook her head and yanked her hair off her neck. "With your pants off. Your clothes aren't as cold as your skin. Pants off, please?"
"Sweetheart, again with the fever and you not havin' a damn bit of sense."
"I do so too have sense!" Buffy petulantly told him. "I am sick. Possibly supernaturally sick. I need a supernatural cure. I need an ice bath- and maybe someone who can stop me from going outside. Was I outside? I was outside, that's how I met you. Anyway…" her hands suddenly were squarely on his shoulders. "You are helping me. You do that. You do that more and more. I like that. I don't know if I like all of you, but I like parts of you. Right now, I like your skin. And you have to play fair. I'm in my underwear, so you get in yours."
There was an acre of babble that needed sorting and what did he choose to say? "I don't wear 'em, Luv."
"What? Not at all? Like, never?"
"Not at all. Ever. Although believe me, today, I wished I had the warmest woolies in the universe. Would have worn eighteen pairs of thermals if I'd had 'em. Not that it would bloody help. The wind out there- that ain't normal wind. It cuts through flesh like a silver blade."
"Pretty words, poet words," Buffy leaned back, tugging on his pants again.
"Oi! We just established that-"
"I'll take mine off, too!" Buffy said peevishly. Stubborn vampire who couldn't understand simple things. Skin equaled better for both. Ergo, more skin. Also, Giles would be so proud of her for using the word ergo. Unless that was French for snails?
"Don't!" Spike gripped her hands hard as she moved to follow through on her idea. The position they arrived in was- compromising. Speaking of warm and wooly- Slayer's tight little panties left nothing to the imagination, must be made of spider silk. He could see a dark triangle of curls, thin line between lips, even the obscured color of her pink flesh as she rocked back, thighs still spread over top of his.
"Is it because I don't love you?" Buffy asked. "You want me to love you back, and then you'll help me?" she whimpered, shaking him off and nearly falling backward. He grabbed her again and she gave up the struggle, his cold fingers soothing her hands, which throbbed with pain as well as fever.
"Oh, no. No, no, Slayer, no quid pro quo here. I'd do anything to help you. I'm not sure us rubbin' our naked bodies together would help you in the long run. I'm pretty sure that later you'd hate my guts, more than ever, an' worse, hate yourself." But really, this is more about avoiding a lethal round of "Kick the Spike."
She pushed off, fell, and rolled to her hands and knees, whimpering as her fingers bore the brunt of her weight. She crawled away, off to the vanity where Spike had left the pad and pen. She started scribbling while talking aloud. "I do solemnly swear that I'm sane enough to understand that people don't usually get naked together but I think I'm going to boil over inside and you feel good and I promise not to hate you unless you -" she stopped and looked nervously at him.
"What?"
"Are you afraid that I'll think you… did stuff to me while I was fever gal?"
"Yep. In one. And then you'll yell at me that I should have stopped it, that I should have known better, that I let it all go wrong and then- poof. Hoovers-one, Spike-zero." He mimed an explosion of dust from the heart out.
"What if I loan you some of my underwear?"
"In my opinion, the only English bloke who can properly pull off ladies' lingerie is Tim Curry."
"Damn. My fever is worse. I can't understand what you're saying now." She rubbed her head, then tried squeezing it. No good. Wouldn't shrink. Stupid, puffy brain.
"I'll translate. No thanks, you keep your pretties."
"Shirts off? I'm all nice and toasty?"
Okay. All right. Can't rightly get into too much trouble with my shirt off. Or hers. "Sign the paper. Give me the bloody pen, and be quick." He yanked his shirt over his head and she squealed, doing the same.
He'd hoped it would be somehow romantic. Torrid. Tender.
It was like being humped by an overeager puppy. She slid her chest to him with a thousand thank yous and then spun on her back, putting her spine against his sternum with another warble of delight. "You feel so good! Are you feeling better? Am I making you feel good?"
"I feel better," he admitted tersely, trying not to put fevered words into sexual context. No good. His imagination had a little tropical vacation while his body was stuck in Siberia.
Topless Buffy, writhing, wrapping around him, moaning in his ear, breathlessly panting as she wrapped her hot body 'round his, hearing imaginary breathless moans that related to sex, not shivering, "Is it good for you, Baby? Am I making you feel good?"
Of course, she sounded nothing like the siren in his head, but his imagination took over his mouth, letting him reply in a decidedly passionate tone of voice. "Ohhh, yes, Slayer. Yes, Luv, so good." Bless her fevered brain, she didn't seem to mind or notice. He wasn't trying to sound like that. Not trying to sound like he was about to cum all over himself, trapped in these too tight jeans, skin burning in that painful way as feeling returns to frozen flesh. Actually- "Ow."
"'S wrong?" She rolled back to face him, head directly over his. When had they ended up lying down, not sitting?
Wait, how did I end up flat on my back? More importantly- pain. "Arggh, fuck, frostbite's a bitch. You can't feel it until you're out of it, you know. Least I don't have blackened bits. I hope." It occurred to him he hadn't checked the contents of his trousers. He wouldn't have unzipped for anything short of- well, short of Buffy, and now he wasn't unzipping for that, either. "I'm having a very effed up day. An' so are you, Princess."
"What do you do for frostbite? That's surprisingly not covered in California first aid class in high school health."
"Should be if you go to school on a ruddy Hellmouth." He suddenly blinked. "Is this Hell freezing over?"
She stared. Giggled. Snorted. Giggled some more and laid her head on his chest, shaking with laughter. "Maybe," she wheezed. All at once, she stopped, eyes looking focused for the first time since Spike had encountered her. "Wait. Isn't Glory a hell goddess? Of a hell dimension?"
"B'lieve that was the intel from Tweedy."
"Could she actually be doing something to the Hellmouth?"
"I don't know. Is the Watcher looking into the weather?"
She reached unceremoniously over top of him and snagged a slim white phone from the little bedside stand, tits shoved into his face as she dialed the Magic Box.
"Magic Box, how may we assist you?" Giles answered the phone.
"Can Glory freeze hell over?"
"I- no. I don't think so."
"Isn't she trying to open a doorway?"
"Yes… Buffy, have you taken your temperature lately?"
"No, but I'm burning up. I'm serious, though. Glory came to town and she tried some rituals and they didn't work and now… icy Sunnydale. And I started feeling sick when I fought her scabby little goons."
"All of this could be coincidence, but I'll look into it. In the meantime, your mother and sister are safe. Willow and Tara went to the hotel with them. The college is closed for the day, apparently. The boiler hadn't been used in several decades and it burst this morning trying to match this unnatural weather, so they tell me. Our central heating is barely keeping up. Are you warm enough?"
"Don't make sick jokes." Buffy grunted and propped herself up on one elbow- which happened to be in the vicinity of Spike's forehead.
Spike jabbed her pointedly in the ribs, mouth muffled and unwilling to open unless he be accused of trying to suck on her nipples- which he was trying very, very hard not to do. She looked down and gasped. Spike's face was nestled between her breasts and he looked at her with tortured eyes, as if to say, "How much temptation to you expect me to resist in one day?"
"Sorry," she mouthed, sitting up. As soon as she removed her warmth from him, he shivered again and she felt the raging burn set back in. "I'm not better, yet. Also, my throat is killing me. Killing me."
"Well, stop talking," Giles ordered sensibly.
"No! Everything is very, very clear when I'm sick- when I'm not delirious." A break from the blistering temperature had cleared her head enough to put some things together. "I think Glory screwed up a ritual to find the key and open a door to her hell and whammied our Hellmouth. Or maybe this is on purpose, maybe this is part of a ritual, I don't know. Also, I think evil energy zapped me and gave me the Hellmouth flu. Because… because I'm the Slayer and the local Big Good. She's trying to take me down. I wonder if those little minions were supposed to die, or at least get hurt enough to bleed on me, just so I could get infected with something."
Giles was quiet. "All of that has the potential to make sense. I'm not saying that it does, but… some things you said do line up. I must call the Council. Buffy, if she is trying to weaken you, you must take extra precautions."
"Like a bodyguard?"
"The idea seems laughable, I admit, but under the circumstances-"
"Spike. He'll do it."
"But-"
"He doesn't want Dawn to get hurt. Or me. He's twisted, but good twisted."
"Dear Lord, I'm calling an ambulance. Wait there."
"I'm serious. He loves me."
"He's obsessed with you.'
"Isn't that love, twisted?"
Giles put his glasses on the register and bowed his head. "Back to the ambulance. Put your shoes on and pack your toothbrush. I'll call your mother."
Spike stood up and paced, silently raking hands through his hair. "Tell him I'm here and I'll look after you until he's off work. Tell him to bring blood, I'm starving."
"Spike is already here. He says he'll Slayer-sit until you get here, and he wants blood, he's hungry."
"What?" Giles yelped, startling several customers.
"You heard me." The cloudy feeling came back the longer he left her presence, the fever unmitigated by his cooling touch. A thought was there, but it wriggled free as her temperature soared. "Oh! Oh, right, Giles, what if this flu is supernatural and it is meant to weaken me? What if Glory got me sick so I'd be too sick to fight her and maybe the whole cold snap is a link in the chain, like, no one will think twice about someone coming down with the flu in chilly, arctic weather?"
"Don't mention arctic," Spike rubbed his bare arms.
Buffy watched the corded muscles flexing, a blue-black spider-webbing of veins showing through his skin. "Pretty spiderwebs."
"What?" Giles asked in her ear as Spike hissed it across from her.
"Nothing. Will you bring him blood?"
"Yes, yes. If he tries anything-"
"He can't hurt me. He helps."
"Yes, he has helped in the past, in his own best interests."
Buffy cocked her head, sinking back into the grip of the fever as she watched him walking in a tight circle. "But… he loves me. So isn't helping me in his own best interest?"
Spike's head jerked up so fast that he was afraid his frozen muscles would snap. His clear blue eyes met her puzzled ones.
Slippery thoughts. She tried to hold onto that one. Thought-y eels. She snagged it with an effort that drew her brows together. "Helping someone is what you do… when you love them. I'll be safe with Spike until you get here."
He came over to her, hands on her shoulders as she murmured goodbye to her sputtering, semi-protesting Watcher.
She nestled into his touch like a cat looking for its master's palm. The phone slid from her fingers and clunked onto the floor.
"You get a lot of things when you're spaced out. Why's that?" Spike asked quietly.
"No filter. No hang ups. Not a lot. I met the first Slayer. There was someone with both the most and least hang ups. She sure never checked the mirror."
"How'd you-"
"A spell-induced-post-Adam killing dream."
"Your headspace really gets around."
She giggled weakly, then winced and rubbed her throat.
"Here. Lemme do it." Spike placed his hands on the back of her neck, situating himself behind her. Fingers rubbed and kneaded the soft cartilage and sinew of her throat. Hands around the throat he'd once dreamed of slicing into, sipping from, neck he'd dreamed of snapping. "It's all twisted," he breathed against her.
"I know." What do I know? I don't remember what I know.
I know Spike. I have Spike here and when he touches me, it's better. I like that. I like him today. I could like him tomorrow, too.
He hummed in contentment, which she shattered.
"Do vampires catch colds?"
"No." Here we go again, back on the merry go round.
"What about infections?"
"Not unless they're of the supernatural sort, spells, curses, poisons… "
"I might be inecting you, then. You're a - a creature of magic, like me."
"Creature of magic. Now who's the poet?" he pressed his lips unthinkingly to her shoulder, and it seemed to be exactly what she wanted, to his surprise.
"You're kissing me."
"I- not exactly."
"You could get what I have."
"I guess."
"It's terrible."
"I get that."
"So, don't you want to run away? Leave? Things are tough. This is when the men leave."
"Not this man. I never leave. They leave me, Luv."
"I never leave them. They leave me, too."
Silence. Turning. Kissing, her hot lips on his icy ones.
"We stay." She ordered it, no questions.
"We stay." He nodded, kissing her back, gently, in case the first one was a fevered fluke.
It didn't seem to be. She pulled him back to the bed. "When you cool me down, I think more clearly, not less. I'm more sure of what I'm doing, not as confused."
"Not to doubt you, but what is it that you want to do?" Spike queried, hesitantly following her lead.
She prawled back on the bed, naked but for the nearly-sheer lavender panties. "Make warm. Help me think. I'll help you, too. What do you need?"
Her. I need her. No, I want her. What do I need? Blood, I s'pose. Warmth. To stay alive. "Blood, but that can wait."
A long, slow, solemn nod. "I don't have any. I mean, in me, yes, but you shouldn't bite me." She blinked. "They scratched my hands with something so they bled and then- they bled. The demon guys. I got their blood in my cuts. They did give this to me. On purpose. So, you can't drink me. It's blood-spread."
"Wait, wait. Are you telling me that the only reason you're not feeding me is to protect me from Hellbitch's minion's germs?"
"Pretty much."
"But if you weren't sick like this, if it were just the bog standard flu?"
"You need it. The truce is about what you need."
"I can live without food for a bit. I need to warm up. There. That's what I need."
"I can do that." She held out her arms to him. He hesitated. "I'll take the rest of my clothes off if you don't."
He sighed and let himself be hustled into her embrace. "All your threats are backwards, Luv."
"Shhhh. Nice, cold vampire. Pretty spider vampire."
"Pretty? Spider?"
"Shh." She absently kissed his ear and nuzzled her cheek into his. "Can you just hold me for a little bit? My brain'll clear up and maybe my head will even shrink back down to normal." She massaged her hands into his back, more for the pain-relief than his pleasure.
Could hold you forever, especially if you do that. "That I can do." What the hell? He kissed her forehead and sat down under his mostly-nude hot water bottle and nuzzled her right back.
To be continued…
Author's Note: Thank you to those who are reading my Spuffy-inspired erotica series, CrossRealms by S.C. Principale. The first two books of the CrossRealms Trilogy are out and a stand alone book should be released in late February!