Boots off and just home from work, Spike sat down at the kitchen table as Joyce put a coffee cup of blood nicely heated to body temperature in front of him while the Niblet, sitting beside Tara who was eating buttered toast, whined bitterly about having to eat something healthy for breakfast.
"Listen to your mum." He said in between sips of blood, which was not only the right temperature but fresh, not thawed. "No more Cap'n Crunch, you just had two teeth filled yesterday." Tara, her mouth full of buttered toast and red current jam, nodded in firm agreement.
Dawn whined but complied as he passed her the Wheat-a-Bix and Tara confiscated the sugar bowl.
Barefoot and bed-headed, Buffy padded in wearing one of his shirts as a nightgown, yawned, kissed him on the back of the neck and sat down across from him at the table as Joyce handed him the morning paper.
Spike pulled out a pen and shuffled to the crossword. He was in luck, he'd gotten there before Dawn, who always filled out the easy ones before she inevitably managed to spill orange juice all over it. He got to work trying to figure out 8 down, pizzaria fixtures, sipping absently at dinner.
His mother, carrying a basket of clean clothes up from the basement and wearing a red jogging suit and matching sneakers, which looked odd against her old-fashioned hair style (he still hadn't managed to convince her to get it cut to something more updated, like Joyce's), paused, and picked up his pay envelope from beside the crossword puzzle he was working on. Joyce, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee over by the kitchen sink in a white jogging suit, joined her. The two women exclaimed in delight over the large amount that spilled out. Hugging him, his mother exclaiming over how proud she was that he'd finally found a job that suited his unique abilities– she'd have to mention this in her next letter to crabby old Aunt Bertha, while Joyce handed him a freshly poured pint of Thornbridge Wild Swan as Tara smiled quietly at him from across the table, a bright dribble of red current jam glistening on her chin.
Thanking Joyce, he stirred the beer into his dinner and went back to the puzzle trying to remember another word for "miscellaneous", 13 down. He looked up grinning as Buffy put her small warm feet on top of his larger, much colder ones while giving him a flirtatious look, tipping her head towards their shared upstairs bedroom. Tara smiled again, blushing as Dawn rolled her eyes at them both before asking, "Can I have $50? I need more paintbrushes and nail polish!"
"Yeah, yeah. Wotcha think I'm made of, O+, money?" Still, he pulled a fifty from his pay envelope and handed it to Dawn, who took it from him with a big hug, "And I WANT the change back!" he called after Buffy's little sister as she ran past his mother, who was folding his clothes while watching the vultures eating out of the bird feeder hung outside the pantry window, and out the back door with her schoolbooks. Out in the back yard, Drusilla, mowing the lawn in full Victorian garb, burst into abrupt flame as the sun peered over the horizon. Carrying the last piece of toast, Tara paused, looking over her shoulder at him, brows wrinkled in silent concern and chin coated in red jam, gave him a nervous smile before vanishing into the next room.
Spike looked back down at the puzzle he was working on as Buffy, still drinking hot cocoa with little marshmallows in it, came over and sat down on his lap. She picked up the discarded front page of the Sunnydale Times and giggled, leaning into him, "Look, how sad! Riley and his wife got caught up in a bad drug deal in Mexico City – authorities found the bodies all hacked to itsy bitsy pieces and half eaten by wild dogs all over the Colonia Centro neighborhood and nobody saw a thing– isn't that terrible?"
"Well, isn't that just too bad!" Trying to look like he gave a shit, Spike leaned back in the chair smirking before giving the Slayer a snog, which she returned with lingering interest. "Now pet, give us a 9-letter word for "bad dream" before I finish this so we can go to bed…" he murmured suggestively into her ear, her sleep mussed hair tickling his face.
Smiling brightly, Buffy pulled away from Spike, locking eyes with him as she groped around on the table. Her fingers connected with a red-hot steak knife that he hadn't noticed before. "Oooooh, I know that one. Nightmare!" she said happily as she stabbed him in the face with it.