Buffy stops dead in her tracks behind Dawn, before pushing her fully inside the room and shutting the door behind them, it being obviously too late to try and drag her back.
"It's- Dawn it's not- it's not what it looks like," she stammers, wincing at the horrendously guilty expression on Spike's face and the obvious cliche of the statement. Unstoppable dread folds around her as Dawn notices the still rumpled sheets, the closed blinds, and maybe most damning of all, Spike's bare feet.
Dawn blinks, the can of soda still gripped in her hand. "Did..." her eyebrows furrow even as Spike's corded muscles tense even further, looking all but ready to bolt if he could. "Did you sleep here?" She asks, eyes widening impossibly.
"Sorta-" He replies just as Buffy shout-whispers-
"No!"
He flinches, eyes meeting Buffy's and she sees him swallow back a curse, a thousand pleading looks cutting her heart to ribbons. She answers them with a shake of her head and he rolls his eyes. It's a bit late for all-out denial at this point.
"I-" Buffy starts at the same time he does.
"It's not- it's complicated, alright?" He answers, feeling like he's suddenly walking out across quicksand, waiting for catastrophe to swallow him up. Dawn however looks completely unconvinced.
"So yes, then?" Dawn says, raising an eyebrow at their pathetically inadequate protests. "Are you two- I mean I don't think I actually need to ask." She nods to the rumpled bed and Buffy's face flushes a deep scarlet in the shadowy half-light of the bedroom.
"No, God- no!" She insists, a bit too forcefully. She misses the hurt that rises for a second on Spike's face.
Dawn doesn't.
"Look, it's just- I just-" She burbles, interrupted suddenly by Willow's voice on the other side of the door.
"Hey, Buffy? Can I talk to you for a sec?"
Buffy deflates, falling back from the high-strung explanations that had filled her throat. "Uh... Sure, Will." She runs her hand through her hair, shooting a last pleading look at Spike as she leaves. Don't make this worse.
She slips out into the corridor, leaving Dawn and Spike alone. A little click signifying she's been whisked off to the witches room.
Dawn watches him cooly, eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"You gonna tell me what's going on? Or are you gonna treat me like a little kid too?" She tak-taks the tab of her soda with her index finger, holding it by her thigh. The sound makes him wince, a little headache of stress starting to wire his jaw shut.
The way Buffy had shut down any notion that maybe this could be more than just... than just whatever it is... it burns at the back of his throat like cheap booze that stings on the way down.
It doesn't seem to matter what he does or what he says, it's always the wrong thing.
I'm so tired of it...
"It's really not what it looks like," He states, trying not to sound dejected. Dawn raises her eyebrows, disappointed at another lie. Even from where she stands she can see him practically shivering with tension.
"Right, sure," she says sarcastically.
"It's not!" He bites back quietly, aware that Willow is only a room away.
"How long have you- have you-?" Dawn averts her eyes from his. Somehow that's worse than her accusing glare.
"We aren't!" His throat feels tight with anger. With grief. With accusations hurled, and for once he has no bravado left to laugh them off. No swagger to claim a victory where there isn't one.
"Why are you lying?!" Dawn hisses back, eyes suddenly fixed on him again.
"I'm. Not." He hisses back. He can hear Buffy and Willow murmuring in the witches' room. A smell of incense floats underneath the door, and it's distracting him from the look of betrayal on Dawn's face.
What's that bloody witch up to now?
"Why wouldn't you tell me that you two are together?! I thought we were friends!" Dawn whispers angrily, her eyes shining even in the curtained dark of the room. Spike groans internally.
"Dawn, I'm just- I'm just helping her get some sleep. I swear."
Dawn blinks, her face betraying her obvious disgust. "So what? You're just wearing her out so she'll sleep?!" Her head whips to the bed and her whole body recoils at the sight of the twisted sheets. "God, that's so gross!-"
"No! Not like that! Bloody hell, your teenage brain, Bit!" He whispers back just as angrily. If he could blush he would. "She's been having bad dreams, is all. The... coffin and stuff. Was getting burnt out from it and just needed some company. That's all."
The tone of his voice and the look on his face feels like he's taken her by the shoulders and shaken her hard. She casts a last calculating look over him and the shivering misery he's doing a horrible job of hiding.
Her eyebrow cocks. "You're like, having sleepovers so she doesn't get nightmares? Seriously?"
Spike flinches, plenty angry at the sneer in her question. The things he'd done with Dru. With Harmony. Things to actually feel guilt over. God, if he was Angel he could brood about it for at least a week. And yet somehow a horrid little knot of shame has tied itself up in his guts over the last couple of nights. And he can tell Dawn can see it like it's on the outside not the inside.
It's cus you still think you're taking advantage of her. He thinks to himself. She's suffering, but you're getting something out of it. When push comes to shove, would you really want her all happy and shiny again like a new penny if it means having to crawl back to your crypt? Alone in the dark again?
"That's... Spike-" Dawn's voice softens minutely and his hackles rise at the sudden gentle tone.
"It's fine," He growls, pulling his temper back at the last second. If she pities him he's going to lose it. "She just needs some sleep. It's fine."
He hates the look on Dawn's face. Hates it.
It's not fine, of course it's not fine, nothing has been fine not since she bloody jumped, not since that dream of her after I tried to get the pissing chip out, not since that witch's goddamn will-be-done spell went wrong, not since I fucking came back!-
Dawn eyes him skeptically, and he can see the sympathy glittering in those ridiculously huge eyes she always seems to spotlight him with.
"Is it?" She asks after a little while, as if she can hear the thoughts pounding in his skull. His fingers twitch. His nerves are worn thin.
Shit, I could do with a smoke.
Dawn looks like she's going to say more, but the click of Willow's door shuts her mouth. The glare of her eyes promises that this isn't over, but she's not going to interfere. Not right now.
She takes one more look at him, alone in Buffy's room like a dirty secret, and leaves him there. Still tak-tak-ing her soda can as she shuts the door behind her.
"Ok, so... what exactly is this for again?" Buffy asks as Willow waves a smoldering bowl of herbs over her whilst she perches on the edge of her bed. White smoke and embers spill from the lip of the bowl and waft gently down over her.
"It's a cleansing spell," Willow lies, waving some of the loose embers away from Buffy's skin before they singe her. "It'll help with the bad dreams."
Not technically a lie.
The lavender might.
The rest- the silver birch bark, the bay, and the rosemary- is to lower her internal defenses minutely. No point knocking her out only to find a big old barrier hindering the spell underneath. Just a little easing of her inhibitions is all. Should last a day or so. Better to do it now before they take Dawn to the movies, let the smoke really seep in good and deep for tonight.
Willow glances down at the bedsheets Buffy is sitting on, mentally adding a note to change them later so Tara doesn't smell the smoke. Air out the room too.
Although... lowered inhibitions... Not the worst thing ever-
Willow shakes her head hard, pulling her mind off Tara, away from those heady spiraling thoughts of gorgeous blonde hair spilling across the mattress, the way those soft thighs quiver as they cradle Willow's shoulders, the way she practically purrs when- Stop it! Jeez, this smoke is strong!
"Well, at least it smells nice." Buffy says, shutting her eyes under a waft of smokey fog. Not like the sleep charms. She thinks bitterly. Hope Will doesn't find them in the yard... Might have to get Spike to put them in the garbage...
"Yeah." Willow replies, a little dryly. She makes one last sigil and then wafts the smoke out of the way. "Ok, you're done. Go forth and nap."
She drops the herbs into a new bowl on her dresser and pours clean cold water over them. The water turns a dusty mauve and she relaxes minutely, relief at a spell well done easing her shoulders into a second-long slouch.
"Thanks, Will," Buffy says. Her voice sounds a little far off and tired. "Enjoy the movie."
"Want me to bring you back some popcorn?" Willow calls after her as she opens the window, sucking in a deep lungful of clean air to clear her head.
"Sounds great." Buffy replies as she makes her way back to her door.
Somehow Spike feels instant relief even as a whole new tension rushes to fill the space, pulled in two opposing directions as Buffy slips back into the room, bringing with her a softly acrid smell of smoke and herbs.
"What happened to you?" He asks as she leans against the door. The stress lines across her forehead have vanished, and the strained look on her face has eased minutely.
"Cleansing thing," Buffy murmurs, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, looking like a little kid up way past her bedtime. "Gets rid of bad dreams."
"Oh." Spike nods sharply.
Shoulda thought of that myself. He pulls at the muscles of his neck, jaw tightening. But then our little late night club would've dissolved chapters, wouldn't it? Shit, I'm such an asshole.
"What happened with Dawn?" Buffy asks, tripping over her own feet. He reaches out to steady her and is more than a little shocked when she ducks around his arm to move closer, wrapping her arms around him in an embrace. Did she misread his intentions and just went with it? He's certainly not going to probe…
Her head rests against his neck, and he thinks dimly if his heart was beating it'd deafen her.
God, I've got it bad. I've got it worse, even.
And yet she seems so relaxed in comparison, like the worries have floated right out of her. Maybe Willow's spell got rid of the bad vibes lingering over her too. A catch-all, not just for bad dreams…
"I put her straight, pet. Don't worry."
He can't help breathing in, taking a lungful of the smoke lingering in her hair, even as his arms wrap across her with a mind of their own. It's nice. Sweet. Sort of unwinding like tobacco. Like maybe something a little stronger.
Potent stuff, he thinks, his eyes flickering closed just for a moment as the fumes climb higher into his brain. Buffy lets out a little sigh underneath his chin and his arms pull her gently closer, giving her a squeeze to remind her he's there. To remind himself too. To remember he's here with her, and hasn't just broken into her bedroom to wrap himself up in her scent.
He feels her eyelashes fluttering against his skin.
"Tired?" He asks, fingers of one hand trailing up to her neck underneath her hair, grounding her there against him. It sends another jolt of the sweet smokey scent straight through him. The taut plane of her stomach is warm against his. Where his hand has come to rest just below her hairline is the thick low pulse of her heartbeat. Steady. Steadying. A beautiful melody of solitary percussion that pounds in his ears.
"I guess a little," Buffy murmurs, her head heavy against him. There's a bewitching tickling touch at the base of his spine, and he swallows. Her fingers have found the edge of his t-shirt. Are caressing the skin underneath in light, slow circles. Barely there. Could it be a mistake?
Whatever is in that smoke has unwound him enough not to fixate on it too fiercely, for once simply calm and not preoccupied with how long the moment will last before some new horror obliterates it.
She's swaying against him, back and forth like they're dancing to the music that isn't playing anymore, and Spike bites the inside of his cheek to keep control of his emotions.
This is what I wanted… God this is what I wanted…
She leans against him harder, holding him tighter. It takes every molecule of his concentration to not clutch her back, to relax his fingers even as they wind into her hair. Every movement feels like he's walking along a tightrope.
"Do you want to get into bed, luv?" He asks, feeling dizzy himself, pondering at the miracle that he even has the ability to ask such a question.
Her head turns slowly toward him, her gorgeous green eyes meet his in the dim light. Spike's throat closes like he's being choked.
She has to kiss me first. Then I didn't take advantage of all this. Then I'm not such a-
Her eyes flicker to his mouth for just a second and if it had been another her, in another time, he'd be leaning in without a second thought.
God but I want to. When did I start caring about chivalry and all that bollocks again?
They're practically nose to nose, just a minuscule movement of his head to one side provides enough room for her to slide a hair's breadth closer. Lips parted, her warm breath fanning his cheek-
They jump as Dawn thumps on the door.
"Bye Buffy! See you later!"
Like a shot she's out of his arms again, looking like she's been caught in the act.
They watch the door to see if it'll burst open with any more unwelcome visitors, both holding their breath until the front door clicks shut.