Spike fishes in his pocket for the front door key. Takes a moment, looking at it in his palm to just feel the weight of it in his hand. Of the weight of it in his heart, gorging on the enormity of the gesture as though starved before he shakes himself out of it. He's still dazed, and if he's not careful he could spend all night staring at the key until the sun came up and roasted him.
The lights are still on in the living room, a monotonously droning voice coming from the TV, lecturing on the hunting habits of cougars.
He shuts the front door and finds Tara asleep in front of a nature documentary, her neck at an uncomfortable angle that exposes her jugular.
Spike cocks his head, studying her throat for a moment and finding no desire whatsoever to sink his teeth into it—Huh…really have changed—before waking her up with two hard flicks on her arm. She flinches and opens a bleary eye.
"Ugh," she mutters, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and pulling at her neck. It cricks unpleasantly.
"Gripping bit of telly, was it?" Spike smirks as she unfolds herself from the sofa, still stretching the muscles in her shoulder.
"Mmhmm." She yawns behind her hand as he hangs his coat up on the hook by the door. "Did you get the books sent okay?"
"Yup. Whizzing off to the Watcher's outstretched hands as we speak."
"Great," Tara sighs, not really listening. "M'going to bed."
"Probably best."
He switches the TV off as she trudges up, turning off the lights before ascending the stairs himself.
Unsurprisingly there's a strip of light underneath Buffy's door. Either asleep with the lights on or waiting for him.
Music filters through from the other side, and as he opens the door it surrounds him gently. A soft bassline with snatches of guitar solo that is familiar but unplaceable.
He pauses with the door handle still in his hand as he takes in the scene.
Obviously caught a little unaware, Buffy leaps up from the bed like she'd been waiting for him. Candles light a few of the surfaces; her dresser, reflected in the mirror, and her bedside table.
His eyes linger a little too long on what she's wearing. A strappy aubergine-colored velvet dress ends mid-thigh, beautifully golden skin the rest of the way down, and bare feet. He's no fetishist but he'd be delusional to pretend the sight of her bare feet didn't stir something in him.
Out of place on the bed is a second comforter, folded neatly.
He offers a confused half-grin, still not letting go of the door as she twists her hands nervously. "Uh…" he manages, finding his voice. "If you're expecting company, luv, I can make myself scarce," he says with a flicking gesture to the candles.
Buffy offers a gracious smirk, tugging the hem of her dress down as if self-conscious."I-it all went okay with your mail friend?" she asks, bashfully.
"You're implying what exactly?" Spike smirks, the pair of them hearing it as male friend and Buffy's cheeks turn a soft pink.
"Your postman guy?" she clarifies with an embarrassed smile.
Spike grins, charmed by it. "All good. Done and dusted," he replies, shutting the door. "The sending-the-books part, not my boyfriend, I mean."
"Right." Buffy nods with a chuckle. They stand awkwardly far away from each other, smiling shyly for a beat or two as the music winds on.
"You wanna explain the setup here, Slayer?" Spike prompts, refusing to let his always-far-too-optimistic heart flare at the implications filling the space between them.
"Right." Buffy nods again, re-flustered. "Okay… so… right." She straightens her dress for the third time and intentionally meets his eye, vibrating a little from nerves. "I've been thinking a lot about… about all this and… us-"
Spike bites back the us? that's suddenly burning the back of his throat, his unbeating heart missing several beats regardless.
"-and about that time, um-" her words are littered with cautious pauses as if she's testing each word for stability before putting her full weight on it. She swallows audibly and Spike strains to listen harder as though he might miss something important all of eight feet away. "About… that time after The Bronze, you and- the you and me-ness-"
"Our goodnight kiss?" Spike asks, without any swagger to the words, simply stating a fact. He hopes he's helping by filling in the gaps as she seems like she's fumbling around the words without landing on them.
"Yes," she confirms quietly, and her voice sounds dry. "And I was thinking… hoping… we could try it again? Without all the magical peer pressure or daytime TV amnesia or…" she gestures, a little hopelessly.
"Or moment-ruining teenagers?" he suggests, because that almost kiss, that half a moment they'd had before Dawn thumped on Buffy's door still holds some rapture for him, and he needs to know whether… if he'd got to hold her just a couple of seconds longer…
Buffy nods in agreement. "Exactly."
Spike lets out a shaky breath that he doesn't need, rubbing his chest to ease the tension before she says-
"But—"
"But?" He flinches. Of course, there's a but.
Why is there always a 'but'? Why can't it just be easy-
"But," Buffy takes a deep breath in before continuing, her words a little less tremulous now that what she wants is on the table and hasn't been met by any vehement objections. "I want to do this, I do. Not out of any… curiosity or because I think I owe you anything after… after everything-" she stutters, glancing towards the bed, their days and nights together written in exquisite clarity over her worried face.
"It's because I want to," she continues, her voice determined, "-it is, but I… I don't want to go further than that. For now."
Spike waits, sensing there's more and that he shouldn't interrupt as she holds her wrist in her other hand, clearly to have something to ground herself with and to stop her hands from continually fussing with her dress.
Buffy shifts her weight from one foot to the other, worrying her lip between her teeth as her gaze slips to the extra comforter on the bed, neatly folded over into a puffy omelet shape. Once she sees his eyes flick to it she continues.
"I think we both have very intense feelings, right?" she says quietly like it's a question she's scared to ask, and Spike's stomach drops at the thought that she could possibly have any doubts at this point.
He nods in agreement and she lets out a small huff of breath that sounds relieved. "And I think…if this happens… after this happens you should sleep somewhere else. I-in the house, obviously," she adds in a rush, nodding to the comforter. "I just… need to take it slow. And sharing a bed after that… it might not end up being so slow, you know?"
Her implication stuns him, and Spike tries to summon words to tell her of course he understands. That he wouldn't rush her, demand anything from her, that she doesn't need to worry and they can take this all at her own pace. That he's beyond lucky that she's even considering a pace with him at all. His mouth moves but words don't come out.
Say something!
"'Course, luv," he croaks and inwardly kicks himself. Smooth.
Buffy nods, relieved. "So… uh…" she tries not to wipe her hands down the skirt of her dress as they're clammy from feeling so nervous. "Thoughts?"
"Thoughts?" he repeats, looking pale, but only a shade or too more so than usual. "Thoughts…" Fuck, too many of them, sweetheart. You don't know what you do to me… "Well, aside from the bleedin' obvious, mainly dwelling on how I drained a blood pack after two-thirds of a pizza about an hour ago."
Buffy purses her lips but the held-back laugh ripples her stomach. "Moment ruined?"
"This one? Completely."
Somehow that takes the tension down a notch enough for Buffy to be able to clear her throat. "I can wait while you…?" she gestures to the door.
Spike nods, nervously. "Alright…"
He leaves her room, feeling shaky and bewildered, and slips along to the bathroom. The toothbrush he'd used earlier is in the little glass with the rest of the family's: Dawn - green. Buffy - red. Tara - white. Unfortunately, his is pink. It was the only color left in the pack.
As he did that morning, he strips off his layers before brushing his teeth. Without a reflection, he can't catch toothpaste stains, and to avoid embarrassment he washes his whole face and neck afterward.
He's been without body heat for over a century and yet Buffy's proposition has made him feel hot all over. Feverish and…
…and terrified.
He splashes the water over his face, and the back of his neck to cool off. Hypothetically, as he has no actual fever.
Come on, mate, pull it together.
Just a kiss. When did a kiss ever have you quaking in your boots?
Just a kiss with her though. A real one…
…bloody hell.
A few more deep breaths bring a sliver of enforced calm, and he towels his face and upper body before redressing.
Outside her bedroom, his hand shakes and he squeezes it into a fist and out again before opening the door. This time she doesn't bounce up like a startled rabbit, and he's honestly grateful for the lack of sudden movements. She raises to meet him in a much more fluid motion, tugging the dress back into position over her thighs, and he's unable to stop his gaze lingering there.
He stays waiting on the other side of the room for some action or word to start this whole thing off, stationary as they stand like two opposing pieces on a chess board.
Without the liquor or the mystic smoke to bolster and unwind their inhibitions the pressure is palpable. A fleshy weighty thing that sits between them
The only consolidation is that she's obviously feeling the same way.
She lets out a nervous sigh and that little noise does something to him. Makes the situation more real somehow, and pulls him back out of the spiraling hypotheticals he can't stop himself from envisaging.
The candlelight flickers soothingly, though he feels far from soothed.
He takes a few steps closer as she does, meeting at the foot of the bed but still with a chaste amount of distance between them. A just-friends distance, until she reaches out and cautiously, tenderly, places a hand over his heart.
Spike rests his hand on top, thumb caressing her skin in light, gentle strokes, and in the freefalling couple of seconds before their eyes meet it feels like he's falling in love with her for the first time. Without the lurching dreams that felt like an invasion, or the sucking empty lust that consumed him for days after he finally gave into it, but a deeper, aching love that fills every vein with a gold glow. The feeling is profound, and sacred, and near painful in its intensity.
You have to walk away afterward, Spike cautions himself, his throat constricting as he swallows hard. You're not gonna crawl into bed with her after this, you get a little piece and then you stop. You're not gonna make her think she can't trust you again. Never ever again…
Buffy's eyes flick to his from where she'd been gazing at their connected hands and he feels the second when his pupils blow wide, dilating wantonly as her lips part subtly.
He raises his free hand to cup her jaw and is endlessly grateful it isn't shaking as he brings her closer, grazing her nose with his before dipping closer, stalling for as many seconds as possible in case she wants to call the whole thing off.
When she doesn't, and instead brushes her lips over his—persuasion and permission naturally intertwined, making the nagging doubtful voices snap silent—-he sinks his mouth down over hers.
She melts against him, the tension easing out of her arms and shoulders and the neck muscles under his hand as she presses closer, her lips dancing with his. As he widens the kiss instinctively she lets go a soft sigh, a thrum of vibration at the back of her throat that's almost the first swell of a moan and he curses it. Curses that he can't stay here in her bedroom for the rest of the night and elicit more sounds like that with his actions. With his hands and his mouth and his tongue. It's the only sound he wants to hear for the rest of his unnatural life.
He squeezes the hand over his heart before dropping his arm to wind around her waist, pressing her flush against him with a hand at the small of her back. His fingers stroke over the velvet, and as Buffy obligingly lets him dip her backward he raises a leg to the mattress to lower them both gently down on the bed.
She moves further up along with him, their kiss only broken for a moment so she can lie next to him, half underneath him as he props himself up on an elbow.
Gonna have to stop soon… he pleads with himself as her hands hold him close by the back of his neck, stopping any retreat he might persuade himself into.
Really gotta stop soon.
His hand runs down from her jaw to her neck to her shoulder, brushing the strap of her dress and she moans again, parts her mouth so his tongue can twine around hers, and like a traitor his body tenses, stiffens uncontrollably in all the wrong, bad, specifically forbidden places.
She recognizes the sudden tension for what it is, and her eyes open half-lidded to meet his, intentionally slowing the kiss so he can pull himself back under control. The new rhythm feels more like breathing, kisses that give and take in an easy, addictive tempo, winding down further until they can pull apart.
He keeps his face close to hers for a few more moments, softly brushing his nose against hers and occasionally receiving a chaste, sweet kiss against his lips until she leans her forehead against his to tell him they're done.
His heart breaks at having to stop, but he kisses her just once more on the cheek.
"G'night, sweetheart," he whispers and she nods, handing him the comforter as he raises himself off the bed.
With her bedroom door closed he leans against it, breathing deeply in calming exhales until the habit eases him enough to head downstairs.
AN: Thank you infinitely to my betas RavenLove12 and forxfaceinthewindow, I am much improved by your concrit and encouragement!
This chapter is dedicated to Emily, CD85, and violettathepiratequeen and if I don't get essay length comments here I'll be heartbroken, and assume you're dead.