It's just past midnight when they stumble out onto the street, heading back to Revello Drive, leaning on each other for support. Two shadows in the night hobbling home, tripping over each other's feet.
Buffy has her arm around Spike's waist, underneath his coat, as his arm drapes over her shoulders. Intimacies falling between them like spilled change until neither can remember who wrapped an arm across whom first.
The dares have trailed off, replaced by truths as the alcohol and the spell sinks further into their bloodstream. Neither one particularly wanting to let go of the other.
It's her turn again.
"Ok, truth; what did you say to the girl you kissed?" Buffy says, pointing a finger almost into his cheek.
Spike snorts, trying to remember the beginning of the evening but it's a slippery thing to hold on to. All the moments have bled together like a melting oil painting, and the only recognisable figure in the whole mess of it is Buffy.
What did I say?
He thinks harder.
…He'd made his way over unhurriedly, feeling Buffy's eyes boring a hole through his shoulder blades. It was a gamble, but he'd been buzzed enough to take it. Edging towards tipsy from the whiskey and Willow's spell. He'd caught the surprise on her face when he accepted her challenge. Could feel those cool green eyes on the back of his neck as he brought his lips closer to the goth's ear.
"'Evening, gorgeous. Need to ask a favor of you," he whispered as Wednesday turned her head towards him, a thinly plucked eyebrow rising in curiosity.
"You see the girl over my shoulder?" He asked and Wednesday's eyes flicked to Buffy for less than a millisecond.
"The one who can't handle her whiskey?" She murmered back and Spike smiled, tight-lipped.
"That's the one," he said, bringing Wednesday closer with a hand on her hip. "I'm madly, painfully in love with that girl." Wednesday smiled humoredly, leaning into him just a little more. "See, she's dared me to interrupt your evening to see if I can get a kiss out of you. What do you say, luv? Think you can help me show her what she's missing?"
Wednesday smirked but didn't pull away. "Want me to lay it on thick?" She asked and Spike grinned in reply.
"Real thick," he purred. A tinkling giggle spilled out of her as if he was the most charming man in the world, just a touch louder than necessary, and he could all but feel Buffy flinch in her seat.
The kiss was bitter, the taste of the gin on her tongue more than enough to stopper his ability to pretend it was Buffy in his arms, but Wednesday played her part perfectly regardless, arching her back as he pressed in, and slipping an arm around him at just the right moment.
"Cheers, sweetheart," he squeezed her hip as they pulled apart.
"Invite me to the wedding, yeah?" Wednesday smiled ironically as he turned away to face the cold draught pouring out of Buffy's eyes…
"I think I invited her to a wedding" Spike says after a while, not sure if that's the correct answer at all.
Buffy snorts and he swings his head to take in her expression, almost missing a wriggling uncomfortable look flitting across her face before she can tamp it down.
"Why do you care so much?" He grins, knowing exactly why. There's a glittery little spark behind Buffy's eyes, and he's certain it's jealousy.
At least he thinks it is. After a century spent at Dru's uncaring, un-noticing, un-everything shoulder, he isn't the most apt at reading emotion.
"I don't care," Buffy huffs, but her hand tightens a little at his side.
"You like me," Spike mocks, his dead heart flaring at the pah! she answers with, the grin threatens to stretch all the way around his head. "Alright; truth or… truth," he mumbles, holding her head tighter in the crook of his arm, a snicker pulling at the corner of his mouth. "What was your most-" The snicker turns into a laugh. "Most satisfying-"
"If you say 'fuck' I'm going to kill you," Buffy says back, but she's laughing too.
"I was going to say fight." Spike grins, clearly lying, as they cross the lawn in front of Buffy's house.
"You're the worst liar, Spike," she says, turning to face him when her foot catches the root of the enormous tree in her yard. She thumps back against the bark with a groan, accidentally pulling him with her.
Spike levels himself up with a hand above her head.
"Don't want to admit it's me?" He asks, savoring the nearness of her. That her proximity to him is bourne of a good night together, not from fear or desperation, feels miraculous.
Buffy cocks an eyebrow.
"My most satisfying-?"
"Fight, Slayer," he clarifies and she rolls her eyes, then stops when the whole world spins with them.
Ooh no, not with the eye-rolling when everything's already very spinny.
"Definitely not satisfying, I only got to stake you once and there was no-" she gestures vaguely, motioning a poof of exploding dust.
It's poorly mimed.
"Climax?" Spike practically purrs even as Buffy shoves him hard.
"No! Gross!"
He laughs harder.
She leans her head back against the bark as she tries to get planet Earth to just slow down for a second and the scabs across his knuckles catch her eye. She'd pointedly not asked about them the last few days, but she can't hold it back anymore.
"What happened to your hand?" She asks, trying to sound nonchalant. Just another truth. Just part of the game. She has a suspicion she already knows the answer, but wants to hear it from him. Needs to.
He stills. His hand clenches and unclenches as he meets her eyes, cheek ticking in an almost smile, but there's not enough bravado in him to really make it happen.
"Lost my temper," he says gruffly after a while as he pulls away from her and leans against the tree beside her.
She nods carefully.
"At what?"
He puffs out a short burst of air through his nostrils that implies she's being deliberately oblivious.
"At your little group."
Buffy swallows. "Why?"
There's a slow hiss of air as he takes a long breath in, graciously ignoring the fact she's just asked three truths in a row.
"...They kept us in the dark about what they were doing. Me... and Dawn. Could've..." he pauses, jaw working overtime as he tries to will his voice not to crack, "could've told them they needed to dig you up first. Guess they had their heads full thinking about the hell they were pulling you out of-" he shrugs his shoulders. "They weren't thinking of the hell they were pulling you into."
Buffy blinks, hard. The hell they were pulling me out of... Tears pool in her eyes and she tries to swallow them back down as quietly as possible. One escapes down her cheek and she wipes it away hurriedly. Just a quick flick of her fingers under her eye but he catches the motion.
"Slayer?"
"Mm?"
"Buffy."
"...What?"
She jumps a little as his hand brushes hers. It's too late now to wipe away the rest of the tears that are spilling in an unstoppable torrent.
He rolls to his side against the tree and hooks a finger under her chin, angling her eyes to meet his. A crease darkens his brow like he's starting to put two and two together.
Something from the first night inches up from the fog in his head, resurfacing now that he has the focus for it.
Don't make me go back.
Not the words you'd be thinking if you were trapped in a hell dimension with no way out…
"Truth, yeah?" He asks and he sees the misery in her eyes, a sudden pleading look that he pointedly doesn't give in to. "Where were you? Really?"
There's a small shake of her head. Almost not there at all, but he knows that look. That please don't ask me look, but he's going to dig it out of her regardless. Pull it from her like a shard of glass out of a bleeding heel, whether she likes it or not.
"No more dares," he says and she breaks eye contact, pulling her chin out of his hand.
She takes a breath holding back the sob underneath it. Trust it to be Spike to be the one to figure it out.
Never could keep anything back from him. Nosy stupid vampire…
She clears her throat and focusses on a clump of grass underneath her boots. Anything not to have to be connected to the words she needs to get out.
And they do have to get out.
For a moment Spike thinks she'll simply walk away from him, that he's finally found the limit of her tolerance, but a strange sour smile infuses her delicate features.
He feels frozen to the spot. Knowing this is the last second before finding out something he really doesn't want to know. Some monstrous truth that neither of them can dance around any longer. He feels trapped in it, wishing it could all just be undone. Let the clock turn back, back to where he's madly in love and she's madly in loathing as long as she isn't filled with all this dark misery pulling her down.
Please don't let it be what I think it is… please…
"…Somewhere warm," she says eventually, and the resignation in her voice breaks his heart. "Somewhere good." Those two words are even quieter, but it's more than enough. Enough to reignite the miserable desperation at himself for not getting Dawn off that tower faster, for not being at the right place at the right time…
"You were…" His cheek ticks and he grits his teeth hard as his eyes pinch shut. "You were… in…"
"I don't know-" she cuts him off with a hard shrug. "I'm not…Not particularly religious or-" Her voice is bland, and quiet, no emotion under her words and he knows fully that if she lets any in it will engulf her like a flood. A silent tear spills out of her eye and Spike feels full of vengeance at the sight of it.
"I mean there was no… you know… white light and pearly gates and Mom on the other side but… but I was done. And I could rest." She's crying quietly now. Quietly because if she sobs she won't stop, and she will drown in it until the misery steals her last breath all over again. "I didn't want to come back."
He wants to be angry. He does. He knows he should be furious. Furious that again, once again, those peppy moronic dullards hadn't thought a single thing through with their one tiny brain cell shared between them.
She could've come back wrong. She could've come back as some slithering demon that would've made a mockery of the hero she is.
Or come back dead. Rotting away piece by piece. And maybe she is. Maybe the loss of something so profound is festering away in her heart.
He should be livid. But it's so hard to feel much around the booze and the smoke and the smell of Buffy that keeps brushing over him every time she moves and stirs the air his way. Tears are still drying on her cheeks but she's staring back at him, unblinkingly matching his gaze with her own.
Buffy's head rests against his and he can feel the end of the evening hurtling towards them like a train in a tunnel, bearing down on them oppressively and all too fast.
He leans in a little closer even as her arm winds around his back under his coat. Her forefinger slips from the waistband of his jeans up onto the sliver of bare skin above. It burns, his full attention drawn down to that one digit at the curve of his back, as he closes his eyes to feel it more.
His forehead on her forehead, lips so close his words are practically her own.
"Come back to me." He's not sure if he says with or to. A pleading for her to come to his crypt, away from this sad house with its overstretched smiles and nightmares. Or a pleading for more than that. For her to stay here with him. Perhaps simply a statement. She came back to him, and that's enough…
"How drunk are you?" Buffy asks, intimately aware of the windows of the house watching them, intruding on the tenuous intimate moment.
"Drunk," Spike says with a sad chuckle, his nose sliding back from hers. "Very drunk."
"Too drunk to climb a tree?" She winces at the question, at the way her lip wobbles a little, needing to be bitten to keep it in line.
"Oh-" Spike pulls back, a relieved smile washing his features clear. He'd thought-... never mind what he'd thought… "No, not that drunk."
"Quietly?" She persists and he grins.
"Not making any promises."
Buffy slips in silently, shrugging off her denim jacket when she hears footfall coming back from the kitchen.
Dawn stops in her tracks holding a bag of marshmallows that nearly bursts under her clenched hand as she gasps.
"Jeez, lurker," she says after the initial shock of finding Buffy standing in the dark wears off. She flicks on the living room light and Buffy blinks painfully. "Did you just get in?"
"Right this second." Buffy mumbles, trying to rub away the bright spots of light infecting her vision.
"From patrol?" Dawn asks opening the bag of marshmallows and offering it to Buffy. She takes one and pops it in her mouth.
"From the Bronze." She says around a marshmallow mouthful.
Dawn nods pensively, chewing her own slowly as she mulls that over. "With Spike?" she asks eventually.
"Mmhmm," Buffy confirms, taking a second marshmallow. She looks buzzed, heavy lidded and slow moving, and Dawn almost opens her mouth to ask if she's high… she's definitely not sober.
Questions fill her teenage head but she pushes them back. She might not always have the firmest grasp on tact, but she knows her sister well enough to figure out that the Spanish Inquisition isn't going to be good for her right now. Or for Spike.
Hope bounces off and away uncontrollably like a ball in a pinball machine. If whatever weirdo sleepover buddy thing they have going on can blossom into something else… and maybe Spike could move in… and maybe Buffy could be happy… actually happy…
The potential for some sort of stitched together half family is more than enough incentive for Dawn to keep her mouth shut around the barrage of curiosity trying to explode out of it.
"I'm sorry about earlier," she mutters around half chewed marshmallow goo, pondering the next sentence a little before deciding it's worth the risk. "I'm glad you guys are friends now."
Buffy's eyebrows furrow, her slow sluggish brain ricocheting off that word, as Dawn trundles upstairs.
Spike's my friend. The thought is bizarre. And yet…
She hasn't thought too hard on the strange and elusive truce between them, purposely not dwelling on it lest the power of it fractured, but now it's out of the box it won't go back in.
He's my friend.
That's…
Huh.
Her foggy brain feels about as held together as the marshmallows in her stomach but one ray of though manages to break through mist.
He doesn't make me feel like my other friends.
There's no… lingering guilt. No expectations. I don't have to be Super Buffy. I don't even need to be Buffy… I can just be.
There's a muted barely-there thump from her bedroom and Buffy's stomach does a backflip, turning into an impressive feat of somersaults as she mounts the stairs.
After the living room's caustic bright lights the bedroom feels all the more comfortable, her bedside table lamp lighting the room in sweet honey tones that pulls anxiety off her even as Spike's gaze fills her with a taut nervous energy.
He's sitting on the bed like it's his too, propped back on his forearms with his legs crossed at the ankle.
"Made yourself at home?" Buffy asks quietly as she toes out of her shoes.
Spike makes an appraising pout, casting an eye around her room as if weighing the benefits of it against his crypt.
"S'got potential," he says with a careless shrug, before flicking a wrist to indicate the posters on her walls, "though I'd probably redecorate."
Buffy snorts, rolling her eyes at the fresh banter, as she rummages through her closet to find him some nightclothes. "With what? Some of the nicer pieces of broken furniture and old coffins?"
He's suddenly at her back and she straightens up almost into him.
"If you're offering," he smiles, tight lipped and challengingly, as she turns to face him.
Buffy doesn't reply, but thrusts pajamas into his chest with a friendly shove.
The yummy sushi pajama bottoms have been discarded into the laundry hamper. In their place is Snoopy and Woodstock.
Spike raises a withering eyebrow.
"Don't you have any sleepwear that isn't an embarrassment?"
Buffy bites her lip, shoulders shaking a little as she coughs to hide her laugh.
"I have other nightwear. It's just not designed for your... uh.. build."
His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. It takes a considerable amount of force to push the image of her in something lacey and skimpy out of his head.
"Sounds like a challenge." He grins, turning away from her to give her privacy as she pulls her top over her head, shimmying into an old T-shirt before undoing her bra underneath the fabric.
Buffy smiles, watching slyly out of the corner of her eye as he pulls off his duster, pulling his own shirt off his shoulders.
"Can you pass me a pair of shorts?" she asks, turning her back to him as the buckle of his belt clinks from being opened, pausing to unhook the hoops in her ears, missing the soft clunk of her dresser drawer closing. "They're in-"
She stops, as his hand appears in her sight holding a pair of shorts in a happy sunshine yellow.
"How did you know where they were?" she asks, looking over her shoulder at him.
Spike stills. If he had any blood pumping in his veins, he'd most likely blush.
"I- uh... I-"
"Relax." Buffy interrupts, uncomfortable with how guilty he looks. "Riley told me about the time he found you in my room."
He grits his teeth as shame creeps up over his shoulders. "I didn't have a lot of... self-control. Back then."
"You don't say," Buffy says with a forgiving smirk. The scars across his stomach are still haunting her. The starburst over his heart practically shouting in her face. She's not about to make him suffer further. They both turn their back, struggling out of and into clothes. "It was more than once?" She asks. She suspected it was but is curious now to hear it confirmed.
"Couple of times." He says with a sigh.
Buffy nods glancing over her shoulder. He turns back around as she tightens the cords of her shorts.
She hadn't been too concerned, even in the way back when, what with having so many other things on her mind. Spike snooping in her bedroom barely hit the top 10. Riley. Her mom. Keeping Dawn alive and un-dissected by Glory. Slaying and school. On and on.
Riley had wanted a bigger reaction from her at the time but she just hadn't enough of herself left to care.
And now it all seems rather inconsequential and historic.
Oh crap… except…
"You... er…" Her eyes dart to the bottom drawer of the bedside table he's standing in front of. "You didn't look in…?"
Spike's eyes narrow a little before his lips purse in a delighted, barely controlled grin.
"You ever been told that you'd be the worst poker player?"
Her eyes widen, horrified.
"You looked?!"
"No, but judging from how beet red you've gone I don't think I need to." He chuckles, running his foot along the handle of the drawer. "Can't say I'm not curious though…"
"Spike!"
He cracks the drawer open a millimeter. "Dare you to let me look."
"Don't you dare!" Buffy whisper-shouts, "Spike, I mean it-"
He widens the gap an inch and she launches across the room, crashing into him.
Spike hits her bed with a thud and a grunt as Buffy pins him by the wrists.
He flexes underneath her, reveling in the dilated green eyes glaring down at him.
"Mm, compromising." He says, straining underneath her as her hands tighten. "Go on, show me."
"No."
"I'm just going to imagine the worst if you don't." He leers, running his tongue across his teeth. Her pelvis is sitting across his hips. It takes everything in him not to flex up just a bit further towards her.
"I'm not going to be blackmailed by your frankly revolting imagination." She releases one of his wrists so she can smack him gently round the head.
"You owe me a truth then, luv." He says as she climbs off him, her yellow short-covered thigh grazing his face for half a second. She kicks him in the side as she shimmies up towards the pillows.
"That wasn't a real dare, you pervert."
He ignores her, shifting around so his head is against the pillows next to her, lying on his side so he can look at her eyes.
They've never looked greener…
"Did you get whatever's in that drawer before or after Riley Finn, America's answer to a question no one asked?"
Her cheeks tighten as she tries to hold back a chuckle, and his grin widens as her tongue brushes her lip to answer.
"…During."
"Reeeally?" He purrs maliciously as she rolls her eyes, pushing the covers down with her feet so she can wriggle underneath.
"It was a birthday gift," she says as she turns to her side, tucking her arm underneath her.
Spike tallies her friends quickly in his head. "From Anya?"
"Who else?" Buffy smirks, "she said orgasms are the best present."
"She's not wrong," he laughs, settling in next to her, his head resting propped up on his hand so she has to look up at him.
The way she does makes his chest ache. All heavy lidded with a wry smile like she knows he's up to no good but is eager for mischief too.
Under the covers her foot finds his calf and slowly, slowly slowly slowly, she pulls it in between her legs. He keeps his face neutral, careful not to spook her with how desperate he is for more. He shifts his hips and shoulders in, bringing himself another inch closer to her.
She tucks herself into him, letting him cradle her as he moves down into the pillows with her. Every movement is so minor and careful, neither one wanting to admit to what's happening lest it all evaporates. Her friend is in her bed and he wants more and… and…
Buffy's skin prickles as his hand strokes her back.
…and so do I.
If she doesn't think too hard on who they both are and how they both got here then maybe what they both want can be just an atom more possible.
Spike swallows. It's all so close, she's so close, and each new bridge crossed would freeze the blood in his veins if his heart was beating. He can taste treacherous needy words in his mouth but is incapable of stopping them.
"Buffy," he says, brushing a strand of her hair out of her eyes, "can I kiss you goodnight?"
He feels the telltale uptick of her heartbeat where his hand is resting against her back. Her eyelashes flick just once as her gaze flits down to his mouth and away again.
Buffy very deliberately doesn't bite her lip, and lets the air out of her lungs slowly so it doesn't seem like she was holding her breath, trying her hardest to be less readable.
He's still wearing a T-shirt, and thank God he is or she wouldn't be able to stop herself running a hand across his scarred chest and stomach.
The image of him and Wednesday locked together for a full minute still has her by the throat. Maybe if he'd declined that dare she wouldn't be thinking about the way his lips would move over hers. How his hands would tangle in her hair. How his mouth would taste of the vodka she made him drink and the cigarette he smoked on the way home…
Her body makes the decision for her, leaving her reservations and apprehensions far behind.
"…Alright." She says, more breathlessly than she means to.
His eyes dip to her mouth and there's still enough distance between them for Buffy to catch a flutter of his chest as he lets out a shaken sigh.
Her head is already in the crook of his arm, his free hand coming up to cup her jaw and tilt her face a fraction upwards as his lips meet hers. Her stomach melts, her spine arches without permission, closing the scant milimeters left between them. It's simple, and sweet, and careful to start with. Full of first kiss tension, hyper awareness making every movement of his mouth burn her. Buffy's hands find their own way to his hips under the duvet and as if he was waiting for it Spike widens the kiss and slowly pulls her underneath him.
Her tongue meets his, arms weaving around his back as his thigh splits her legs. Her ankle locks over the back of his leg as he entwines himself around her.
"God, Buffy-" he murmurs between kisses as she whimpers from the pressure of his leg at her core-
There's a sudden smell of burning flowers, sharp and heady and suffocating. A dark rich scent like a burning forest. It stings but only for a second.
And the world goes black.