A/N: This chapter's dedicated to my mega-beta RavenLove12, some of it is hers too (I kept your stuff, it was better than my stuff). For anyone bothering to read the author's note for God's sake go read Bound already.
At around five in the morning the pitch darkness at the windows starts to edge to a deep deep grey. Daylight no longer a night away.
Buffy hasn't stirred since her last twitching moan, sleeping peacefully underneath him. Spike hasn't moved in hours either, and a deep ache is settling into his shoulders.
I should go.
Wanting me here at night is different from wanting me here all day... Don't want to be pushy. Been pushy enough with her, it backfires every time.
Slowly, regretfully, he starts to unwind himself from around her, slipping his arm out from underneath her head, easing his feet out from underneath her legs. She groans, repositioning herself, and he thinks for a moment she'll wake up, but she only wraps the covers around her tighter.
Outside the bed the warmth she's distilled in him evaporates quickly, making him shiver as he pulls his jeans on as quietly as he can, carefully re-buckling his belt so it doesn't clink.
He casts a glance back at her. It feels wrong to slip away without saying goodbye. It feels rude.
Her desk is littered with family pictures, mementos, notes and bits of paper. Something singes his fingers and he yanks his hand back with a hiss, sucking the tips. A wooden crucifix is buried under the debris.
Bloody death trap, trying to be a gentleman around her...
He finds a blank bit of paper and a pen after a little more careful prying.
Dear Buffy-
He rolls his eyes, swears under his breath. Scratches the Dear out but it's still visible. He scrunches the paper and tosses it in the waste basket, finds another.
Buffy,
Buffy what...
He wants to write how much last night meant to him. How much it meant that she asked him. That she could always ask him. That even if she never asked anything of him ever again he'd still be there. For her.
For Dawn.
That he'd do anything for the both of them no questions asked.
That he'd do anything for her, and that he needed nothing in return.
That he hoped she'd slept better tonight than she has been.
That she should eat, she's looking too pale and she still needs to look after herself.
That she should get better taste in nightwear.
He sighs. Too much to say. Always did have too much to say. Could never be concise... even his poems would ramble on and on, never hitting the nail on the head. Words on words, obscuring his meaning, rather than revealing it.
He bites down on the end of the pen.
Keep it short then.
Buffy,
If you need me again tonight leave your window open.
Doesn't bother to sign it.
He folds it in half and leaves it on his side of the bed.
Something's missing.
Buffy blinks, rubs hard at her eyes to dislodge the grit that's collected under her lashes.
What's missing?
Not what, who. She rolls over and her arm connects with the empty side of the bed.
She lies there for a moment, trying to process the hollow empty feeling at realizing Spike left.
It's stupid, she knows. What did she expect?
More importantly what did she want?
To wake up next to him? And what, make breakfast together? Swap sweet smiles over steaming mugs of coffee? Playing make believe at happy families...
I did want that a little. I can't help being attracted to normal. To average.
To simple.
She sighs, smoothing down the quilt with her arm.
Something rustles underneath it. She pulls out a note. The elaborate cursive takes some deciphering from a sleep addled state.
There's a quiet knock at the door.
"Buffy? Are you awake?" Dawn's voice drifted in softly.
What time is it? She checks the bedside clock, just gone 9am. Wow... actually slept 8 hours. What're the odds? She hauls herself up against the pillows.
"Yeah, Dawnie, I'm up."
Dawn slips in, still in pyjamas, settling herself at the foot of the bed.
"I just wanted to see how you were feeling. I woke up last night and you weren't here, I just thought maybe—"
"I went on a late patrol after you went to bed."
"Yeah, I figured…" Dawn hesitates, "Buffy you know you can talk to me if you need to right?"
There was no way that was happening but Buffy nods, "I'm alright. It's just going to take some time I think. Just getting back into the swing of things."
Dawn carefully arranges an understanding look across her face.
"Want to do some lame sister bonding stuff this afternoon? Shopping and cappuccinos? I'll even spring for the doughnuts?"
"I told Willow I'd meet up with them at The Magic Box later."
"So, we'll do sister things and then go there after. Please?"
Buffy holds down a exhausted sigh. She needs this. A lot.
I've got to get a grip for her whether I'm up to it or not.
"Sure, sounds great. Give me a half hour to shower."
Dawn beams, and catches sight of the note lying across Buffy's pillow.
"That's Spike's handwriting."
Buffy's eyebrows raise.
"How can you tell?"
"He went through a couple of book reports when... while..." she winces, deciding not to bring up the months Buffy had missed. "Had to get him to rewrite his notes, all that loopy cursive, it's impossible."
Buffy nods, still mulling over the fact that Spike, of all people she could have turned to, was the one to provide her with comfort. He had held her and hadn't asked for anything in return and had even offered to be there for her tonight if she needed him. She hadn't expected that. For him to be so oddly dependable and ultimately selfless.
Clearly he had been that for Dawn to.
"What's it say?" Dawn asks nonchalantly. Excessively nonchalantly.
"Oh, just asking if I wanted to patrol tonight. Must've left it with Willow."
They had spent the day wandering around the mall. Dawn kept up an incoherent stream of teenage prattle the whole time and Buffy felt drained. She was exhausted from trying to keep up with Dawn and pretend she was having a good time. And now she was standing in the middle of The Magic Box with her closest friends and no escape.
The sad, pitying looks. The concerned glances every other heartbeat. It was unbearable.
They just want to see me happy.
The words sprang out of her mouth faster than she thought they would. And she only half heard herself talking.
Was in hell... pulled me back...
Gave me the world.
The lies stung her throat. Tasted like acid on the way down.
I can't do this.
She chokes a little as she thanks Willow, keeping a tight tight hold on a sudden bright spark of anger that came out of no where, as Willow hugs her and Xander welcomes her home and oh God she wanted to scream, she wanted to kick the whole fucking shop to splinters, and break every single little piece of trinkety magic GARBAGE that they'd used to pull her back through. Like children playing with chalk on the sidewalk and summoning something unspeakable. They were like children, just messing about with what they didn't even understand and she had to pay for it, ALWAYS it was HER that had to pay for it. It bit, and burned, how unfair it was, how they'd managed the impossible and now she was trapped back here, TRAPPED ALL OVER AGAIN AND FOREVER-
In a never ending grave that wouldn't release her.
There's a horrifying moment where the hold feels like it's going to slip. She swallows hard, and feels Willow rub her back, mistaking her panicky torment for gratitude.
Got to get out. Out. Outoutout I've got to get out.
As slowly as she's able she unwinds herself from the group hug.
"I have a few things to do before patrol tonight, you guys got everything here?"
She barely waits for an answer before she's yanking open the door to the alley. It takes a few dredging deep breaths to stop feeling like everything is spinning. Let the red mist pass, and get the cold hard shell of numbness settle back in to place.
Everything is so bright.
Everything is so caustic and painful.
Her feet pound the pavement, nearing a run, as she heads downtown towards the cemetery.
The crypt is blessedly cool. And empty.
She leans against the door, shutting out the stinging light of midday, breathing in the cool smell of stone. The slightly mossy musk.
The stone covering the hole to his lower level is askew and she moves it further back. She hovers over it, biting her lip, peering down into the darkness.
If he's down there looking up I picked the wrong day to wear a skirt, she smirks and startles herself that there's at least some humour still left in her head.
She lowers herself down into the gloom, feeling her way down almost blindly.
At the bottom she waits, letting her eyes adjust to the dark, practically feeling her pupils dilating to giant black pools to let in the light. There's light down at the back, the soft glow of a bedside table lamp. Tattered but casting a warm yellow hue across the cave walls. She heads towards it.
He's sleeping, sprawled across a bed, one arm thrown out to his side, the other flat against his bare chest. Buffy gaze takes in the full length of him. White skin over muscle. Black nails, gently curled in on one hand. The way he's lying it almost looks like he's waltzing in his sleep. The cave of his ribs makes a shadow over his stomach, drawing her eyes to a fine line of dark hair disappearing underneath the sheet draped across his hips, low enough to make it perfectly clear he doesn't dress for bed.
This is really crossing a line now...
She sighs, thinks about waking him up. Thinks about leaving.
Decides against it.
She pushes her shoes off, shivering from the feeling of the icy chill of the crypt against the soles of her feet before she slides up onto the bed. She's careful not to touch him, just curls up on the expanse of the bed on top of the covers.
I'll just stay here for a little while. Just rest. Be gone before he wakes up...
It's not long before she's drifted off next to him.
His dreams used to be inconsequential. Flickering memories from the last century, drifting figures that would evaporate like smoke.
The only ones that stick with him now are the ones that revolve around her. They're always so much brighter, so much stronger. So full of detail. Things that shouldn't be in dreams at all, the way she smells, the way she feels... they're always so disturbingly real.
Always have been.
He used to dream of ripping her to pieces. Of drinking from her in a way he never did with the other two Slayers. Devouring her. But in the dreams she'd want it. Beg for it. And he'd beg for the same. He would let her tear him limb from limb until the dreams morphed and changed, obviously giving up on the subtext and outright shoving the truth in his face.
The first damning dream of her on the other side of his hate. Of his passion. Of his need. It had changed everything. And once they'd started they hadn't stopped. Night after night he'd drown in her, his mind dissolving completely. They made his waking hours without her a fresh hell each time.
This one was a strange one. Unusually simple. Just her. In his bed, sleeping next to him, curled up against him in the soft glow of his cave. Simple but vivid. More vivd than usual.
In his dream he turns to her, running a single finger across her temple, smoothing the hair back from her brow. She's wearing a thin silk top and a skirt, and her skin is cold to the touch from the chill of the crypt. The bed sheet has tangled down around her bare feet, and he pulls it up over her, slowly so as not to wake her, resting a light hand on her shoulder to feel her warmth return.
I like this dream... I don't want to wake up from it...
She stirs a little in her sleep, reaching out for him, and because it's a dream he doesn't hesitate to move into her embrace, pulling her in as close as he can until her arms are wrapped around his torso.
For a brief moment her eyes open, meeting his. And because it's only a dream, and frankly one of his more tame ones, he catches her mouth with his. A slow sweet kiss to send her back to sleep. She stiffens momentarily before relaxing into it, letting him trail a couple more kisses down her cheek as she buries her face in his neck.
He holds her until she's purring against him again, slipping back into a deeper unconsciousness himself.
When he wakes she's not there.
Just a dream.
Buffy shivers. The sun is setting, sinking underneath the horizon and despite it's warmth she hasn't managed to shake the cool of Spike's crypt. She'd woken up underneath the sheets, with Spike wrapped around her, and climbing out of the bed had solidified the chill further.
Hot shower. Hot shower and maybe that's all.
Can't seem to get any energy any more. Doesn't matter how much I sleep now I'm always tired.
Her feet plod on the porch, lights are on. Dawn must be home.
Hopefully she's eaten. I don't want to do another pretend performance of stuffing my face while hiding my food...
She turns her key in the lock and opens it to find everyone gathered in the living room. Her heart plummets.
Oh no.
"Hey Buff!" Xander beams, but it doesn't quite change the anxious expression his face had a second ago. "We thought movies and pizza night? Are you in or are you in?"
There's pizza boxes already stacked on the coffee table, alongside bowls of popcorn. Dawn, Tara, and Willow are already spread out on the sofa, Anya's taken the armchair, leaving half of it free for Xander.
"We thought comfort movies only." Nods Willow approvingly. "We're talking feel good musicals and Disney extravaganza."
The night is already stretching out ahead of her in a torturous slog of fake smiling and playing at happy families. She wants to cry.
"Sounds great. I'll... I'll just get changed, you guys get started."
It takes every single thread of will power for her to climb the stairs instead of bolting back out the door.
Once started it doesn't feel like it'll ever stop. The evening winds on in tiny splintered seconds. She finds herself glancing at the clock anytime no one's watching her. Watching her like she's a ticking bomb about to go off. She swears at one point the minute hand had gone backwards.
That can happen! We live on a hellmouth, I'm not insane, I SWEAR it was ten passed a second ago, I SWEAR!
She makes it through two movies and manages 3 slices of pizza, chewing obligingly. Smiling hard. She waits a little longer, taking a handful of popcorn because everyone keeps glancing at her until she does, before she begs off for her bed. It wasn't a perfect performance, no Oscar's to be won here, but they all looked slightly less taut as she made her way up the stairs.
Slightly. If you ignored the tense looks she catches behind her back and the uneasy smiles that slip hurriedly into place anytime she catches someone's eye.
We're all just acting. And none of us are very good at it...
She brushes her hair out, changes into pyjamas, keeping an eye on the note he'd left.
Elegant Victorian handwriting. It's strange to think he writes the same as he did before being turned. Little pieces of the human he was left over. Tiny flecks of his humanity that catch her off guard.
She never used to pay attention to it before. The way all the moving parts of him equal something more than just a monster.
The night before is sort of hazy. She knows she dreamed something, but mercifully can't recall it. Remembers briefly resurfacing from it to feel his arm wrapping tighter around her before slipping back under.
Almost a full night's sleep. For the first time in... well, in even before coming back.
In what feels like a lifetime.
She picks the note up, turning it over in her hand.
There's a knock at her door and she tucks the note underneath a book before Willow slips inside.
"I saw your light on."
Buffy smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"Just about to turn in."
"Yeah, us too."
She's holding something behind her back, fidgeting in the doorway. Not really meeting her eye.
"What's up, Will?"
I'm so sick of that look people keep giving me. The Broken Buffy look.
Just makes it true-r.
"No, nothings up. I just- I made you something, uh Tara and I made you something."
She hands out a pouch and Buffy takes it gingerly. A deep herby earthy smell permeates the room.
"What is it?"
"It's just a charm. A sleep charm. Anya said you'd probably be having bad dreams. Should help you... y'know."
It reeks. The smell of earth growing stronger. It makes her stomach turn. She swallows what she hopes isn't the minimal amount of pizza she managed to eat trying to force its way back up her throat.
God that smell. Like a freshly dug grave.
No way I could sleep with that...
"Thanks, Will." Buffy smiles, putting more effort into it. She desperately wants to put the pouch down, wash her hands of it.
"You're really alright, Buffy?"
"I will be."
Will smiles, nodding.
"Well, put it under your pillow. You'll feel like a whole new Buff after a good sleep. Guaranteed."
"Guaranteed." Buffy nods back.
Please go, Will. I can't hold this disgusting thing away from me any longer.
Out.
Pleeeeease.
"'K. Goodnight."
"Night."
As soon as the door clicks shut behind her she levers the window open and drops the pouch out into the garden, letting the night air rinse its stink out of the bedroom. She retches, takes a few deep breaths in and out. Cold night air filling her lungs.
It's ok... it's ok.
The need to hurl passes after a few more shaking breaths.
She rests her fingertips on the window.
Leave open, or not to leave open?
She bites her lip.
Options.
Disgusting smelling charm pouches.
Buried alive dreams.
Emotionally charged nights sleeping next to Spike, and what is rapidly becoming the most bizarre ...friendship? Something-ship in history...
She taps her nails on the windowsill. After a few moments she slips into bed, turns out the lights, leaving the window open.
She hears him slip inside, near silently despite his heavy boots and coat. She doesn't move, tracking his movements with her eyes as he walks to her side of the bed, and kneels next to it. Their eyes meet in the gloom.
"Were you asleep?" He whispers and she shakes her head.
"Do you want me to stay?" She bites her tongue, closes her eyes. Nods.
She takes a breath at the sound of him shrugging out of his coat.
"I left the pyjamas out for you," she whispers with a smirk.
He snorts, and picks them up from the chair. He'd considered buying something, something black, or red, in a silk or satin. But had decided against it. The small amount of mockery made her smile, however minutely. The minor humiliation is worth that a thousand times over.
He slips between the covers, and she rolls to face him, the pair of them on their side facing each other in the dark. Without her desperation of the night before the tension feels like a solid marshmallowy lump between them. Tangible. Neither one sure how to climb across it.
Buffy sighs slightly, her warm breath brushes his arm.
"Do I snore?" She whispers. There's no need to but the hush feels too heavy to break.
She can just make out a slight smile on his face in the dark.
"No."
"...I don't drool do I?!"
He chuckles softly.
"No, pet. You do talk a bit. An' get a bit twitchy if it's a bad dream."
She chews this over.
"Do I keep you up?"
"I'm nocturnal, darlin'. I'd be up anyway."
"Not exactly what you had in mind for your night out on the prowl?"
He laughs quietly, keeping the hush with her.
"Helping the Slayer get some kip? Can't honestly say it ever crossed my mind as a new pastime, no."
Lying here in the dark with you... I never imagined us doing much sleeping.
"Am I getting in the way of your evil plans?"
"You always did. This is a particularly successful new tactic though."
She smirks, tucking her hand underneath her head. His brow creases, nostrils flaring slightly. He leans in and she stiffens.
"Why do you smell like Linden root?"
She blinks.
"Oh! Uh, Will made a sleep charm thing. It smelled awful."
He raises an eyebrow.
"What did you do with it?"
"Threw it out the window."
"Good." He takes her hand, pulling it towards his face, inhales gently.
"Valerian and Linden root. Not what you should have in a sleep charm if you've got nightmares. You'll sleep like a bloody rock, but you won't be able to wake up if you need to."
Buffy catches his eye, and he can see the fear shot through hers like raw gold through a mine wall.
Not being able to wake up. Terrifying thought... trapped in a coffin trapped in a dream.
That witch never bloody stops to think it through... Dangerous, with a side of reckless.
He rubs his thumb across her hand, feeling the bumps of her scabbing knuckles in the dark.
"Don't think about it, pet."
She nods. His thumb moving across her knuckles is hypnotic. Dreamy.
Could fall asleep from just that. Better than a charm.
Buffy can still slightly smell the dirty dank odour of the pouch, but the deeper she breathes the more than scent seeps away. Replaced by the scent of night air coming in through the window.
The scent of Spike too. His leather duster and cigarettes. The smell of cold stone from his crypt.
She chases it, closing the gap between them until she's resting her head on his shoulder, breathing him in deeper.
He catches himself just before he lets out a groan from the heat of her face pressed into his neck. He repositions himself carefully so that his arm can wrap across her shoulders, pulling her in closer.
It doesn't take as long this time for her breathing to lengthen out. Muscles relaxing, tensions loosening. He moves the hair off her face, tucking it back behind her shoulder, moving as slow as he can so as not to disturb her.
She sighs, deeply. Easing further into him.
Her hand is curled on his chest and he takes a chance, carefully sliding his fingers underneath hers, lacing their hands together.
So warm.
He can't stop himself from squeezing her fingers gently, a little something to pretend with later. Build a fantasy around when he's by himself.
It steals the stale air in his lungs when she squeezes back.
Spike wakes in the night, but it takes a moment to realize he'd actually fallen asleep. Their hands are no long twined together, the hand that was on his chest has moved to his neck, her thumb resting gently against his jugular.
She's draped herself near fully across him, practically hip for hip, with her head nuzzled against his jaw, her leg tucked between his.
He can't help but lean into her deeper, wrap his arm across her waist. Her top has risen up, leaving the curve of her hourglass bare. The skin underneath his hand is so soft. So warm.
It's not taking advantage, is it? She asked me here. I might have a blind spot with her but I know she thinks she's the one taking advantage of me...
She's so close. God how I want her.
Unbidden the words he spoke to Riley nearly a year ago prickle in his head.
"Sometimes I envy you so much it chokes me. And sometimes I think I got the better deal. To be that close to her and not have her. To be all alone even when you're holding her. Feeling her beneath you... Feeling her surrounding you."
How much he'd wanted even just this tiny little fragment of her. Just to touch her without causing loathing. Just to have some tiny crumb. Would take any scrap she'd offer. But now it's here he wants more.
Bloody hell I want more.
Her face is so close to his, each breath out spilling warm air over his neck.
He runs his lips across her temple.
If I do this and nothing more... just to pretend she's mine. That I'm hers. That we've spent the day together, and we'll spend tomorrow the same way, and at the end of it I won't have to sneak out in the dark. That she'll still want me in the morning.
But it's not enough.
Her face is upturned towards him slightly. Gentle features framed with slightly mussed hair. A slight blush to her cheeks.
He can't help himself. With barely any pressure whatsoever her runs the tip of a finger across her mouth. Her lips are like silk. She parts them slightly at the feel of the microscopic friction, a soft sigh escaping her.
A thumb this time, running the length of her bottom lip.
She'd given it freely once. A sweet gentle kiss, just a taste of her for less than two heartbeats, with no magic forcing them into it. It had been worth letting Glory nearly tear him to pieces for it. He would do it all over again if she asked him to. Commanded him to.
He runs his thumb back along her lip and her eyelids flutter. Her eyes open a little and he freezes. Drops his hand back from her face.
Bollocks. Don't wake up, precious. Didn't mean to wake you up. Bloody idiot that I am...
Her eyes find to his, still and glassy from sleep, but she doesn't look away from his.
Slowly, torturously, her hand moves to cup his jaw and she runs a thumb along his lip as his had.
She wasn't completely asleep.
The thought clenches a bundle of nerves in his stomach, and he has to force himself to lie still, not to bend upwards towards her, as every cell in his body is begging him to. Hips aching to push into hers a little more, find a bit more of her under the covers with both hands. Run his fingers through the tangles of her hair.
It takes all he has to just lie there, letting her move over him, no sudden movements to break the spell of the moment. Everything he's got to let her run a thumb over his lips and not catch it with his teeth. Taste her with a swirl of his tongue over the gentle pads of her fingers.
She removes her hand, laying it back down on his chest.
"What time is it?" She whispers.
"About 3 am." He whispers back around a croak in his throat. Bloody hell the power she has over me. Does she even know it? "Go back to sleep, luv."
"...Are you leaving soon?"
The question catches him off guard.
"Not if you don't want me to."
She winds an arm around his chest, deep deep heat sinking into his cool skin. And this time he can't stop the groan.
"Stay." Buffy whispers and he nods.