TANGO
Author: 1stRab-id/Rabid/Raeann
Characters: Buffy/Spike/Roscoe(aka Rocko)
Valenti
Rating: R
Beta Babes: Unavailable…so you can
just imagine…the horror…the horror…
Synopsis: This is the story of
Buffy’s attempt to return to dating and put her
craving for Spike behind her and how that plan
goes seriously awry…because
well…it's just SO wrong <eg>
Spoilers: Up to the Season 6 Eppy Bargaining…well not really…more like to “The
Gift”
because after that I went all AU…
help and there were all kinds of ramifications but
not the same ones we have in
S6! So…other different Ramifications…and I went
totally off canon and then I
got all depressed and quit. Actually this fic
was part of the B/S history that
led to the events in my fic
Cuore Della Notte…but I
wasn't able to finish the
massive thing (which also includes my version of
the Buffy resurrection)…Still,
I
liked this bit and wanted to resurrect IT!
Even if it's lame.
Disclaimer: Obviously everything
belongs to Joss because if it belonged to me I
would be in the bloody loop wouldn’t I? Anyway, all
hail the genius of Joss
Whedon and Co. and don’t sue me for being insatiable
in my longing for B/S
interaction.
“Though
I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.”
William
Shakespeare from “A Winter’s Tale”
PART
FOUR
Buffy
reached the second story of the house and turned into her room. She
ripped off her clothing, throwing each piece at the
hamper. Kicking free of her
shoes, she grabbed her pajamas in one hand and headed
toward the bathroom.
Leaning
into the shower, she savagely twisted the cold tap to full blast,
moderating it only slightly with hot. While the water was heating up to barely
warm, she scrubbed a make-up remover cloth over her
face.
With
all of the stomping and slamming, Buffy didn’t hear the front door open and
softly close behind Spike. The vampire went through to the kitchen. He
carefully selected a bottle of wine from the few
choices in the countertop rack.
Pulling the cork with his teeth, he cocked his
head to listen. He could hear
the shower running.
He spit the cork into the sink, smiled and started for the
stairs. Pausing
on the second floor landing, he drained a good third of the
bottle down his throat.
Cautiously,
Spike crept down the hall toward the open bathroom door. He had
almost reached it when the shower cut off. He dived for cover as Buffy ripped
the curtain aside with a clatter of plastic
rings. Pressing back against the
wall, Spike turned his head to listen and noticed
the Slayer reflected in the
bathroom mirror.
Her short shower had barely fogged the glass. Spike froze,
watching as Buffy stepped out of the tub. With unconscious grace, she twisted
her hair up into a towel, squeezed a generous
portion of baby oil into her palm
and rubbed herself down. Plucking another towel from the stack on the
vanity
table, she blotted off excess water and oil, sliding
the sky blue material along
her skin.
The vampire ran his own hands over his body in imitation of her.
After
she was sufficiently dry, Buffy stretched up, tossing both towels over the
shower rod.
Naked, she leaned over, shaking out her damp hair and combing
through it with her fingers. Spike squirmed with pent up desire. Red wine from
his forgotten bottle splashed onto the floor and he
cursed in distraction.
Buffy
looked up. She reached for her
pajamas. Spike looked around, wildly,
but
before he could find a place to hide, she had slipped
into her PJ shorts and
top. She was
buttoning the front of her blouse closed with deft fingers as she
came out into the hallway.
“What
the hell are you doing here?” she asked in a soft, almost conversational,
tone.
Feeling
totally busted, Spike sagged against the wall.
He turned to face her,
leaning into his left shoulder. Closing his eyes, he clonked his head
sideways
hoping to beat a sensible answer out of his foggy
brain.
Finally,
he said, “I got a key,” as if that was a sufficient explanation for
lurking about watching her shower. Seeing the glint in Buffy’s eye, he added
brightly, “And I wanted to use the bathroom!”
“Yeah,
Right,” Buffy snorted. She held out her
hand palm up, and ordered, “Give
me the key.”
“Left
it downstairs,” he replied, nice and cocky. “On the kitchen
counter.”
“Okay,
then,” Buffy said, swinging him around by one arm and propelling him
toward the stairs.
“Let’s go get it, Brewery Boy.”
It
took all of Buffy’s herding skill but they made it to the kitchen. Spike
glowered at her like an unrepentant little boy as
she scooped up the house key.
She
pocketed it, wondering, how long he’d had access to her home. As she
thought about Spike freely wandering about, she
absently plucked a couple of
glass shards out of his platinum curls. He gave her a fuzzy look but didn’t
comment.
Sighing in resignation, she picked up a dishtowel and dusted more
sparkling pieces off his shoulders. Then with quick efficiency, she set about
cleaning and dressing the oddly complacent
vampire’s head wound. That task
completed she decided to see about cleaning the
rest of him. But first she had
to make him stop guzzling alcohol.
“Spike,
give me the bottle,” Buffy said, making a grab at it.
“No!
It’s mine,” the vampire said, holding it over her head. She reached up
toward it and he lowered it behind her. They kept at
the game for several
minutes.
“Gimme that!”, “Mine”, “Stop”, “No”, “Will you just…”, “Got
to jump for it”, “I
said GIVE ME THAT BOTTLE”, “NO, NO, NO, NO-OHOWW!”
Buffy
slammed the bottle onto the counter top, splashing Chianti up in a red
fountain.
“Now,
take off your shirt,” she commanded, in a no-more-nonsense tone of voice.
“Yes,
ma’am,” Spike said, saluting
He
tried to comply but after some time, he was still struggling with the
task.
He was having trouble coordinating his elbows.
He kept pulling the tee up his
body, stretching the soft material out of shape but
he couldn’t seem to get
his arms out of the sleeves.
“Hands
above your head,” Buffy, finally, snapped.
She slapped Spike until he
listened and did as she asked. With one swift yank, she wrenched the tee
shirt
up and off before roughly shoving the vampire
down onto one of the barstools.
“Sit!”
she ordered. “And stay sat.”
“You
are so cute when you take charge,” Spike grinned. “Like a…fluffy
bunny…fluffy…fluffy…Buffy…fluffybuffy.”
He
kept repeating his nonsense phrase as the Slayer wiped the excess alcohol off
his chest with the back of his wadded up
shirt. When she’d finished, she leaned
in and sniffed at him.
“Yuck,”
she grimaced. “You still reek.”
Tossing
his tee unto the counter next to the wine bottle, Buffy went around to
the sink.
She turned on the taps to wet a dishrag.
After wringing out the excess
water, she walked back over to Spike. He was eyeing her with unadulterated
suspicion.
“What
you planning?” he asked; shrinking away from the wet rag as if he
suspected it was drenched in Holy Water.
“YOU,”
Buffy clarified, handing him the cloth, “are going to wash up a bit.”
“I
want to go to the bathroom,” Spike announced, trying to get up from his seat.
Buffy pushed him back down.
“Will
you quit that?” she said, exasperated. “Vampires never have to use the bathroom,
Spike. It’s
physically impossible.”
“Not
innposshibile,” Spike slurred, as he started washing,
“jus’ unlikely. All
it takes is conshentrasshiii…uhm…consentrashhhhuhm…careful
thinking about,” he
said, tapping his temple with one finger.
“What?”
Buffy asked, absently. She was lost in
her own thoughts as she watched
him rub the washrag over his extremely well defined
chest.
“Bodily
funcshions,” Spike attempted to explain. “Everything
still works…’cept
the ticker…can’t make the heart beat again…it can
break…but it can’t beat.”
“Actually,”
Buffy said, talking mostly to herself and not really listening to
his inebriated little speech, “I’ve always wondered
how you guys ever sober up.
You
can’t eliminate the alcohol through sweat or urination or anything so where
does it go?”
“Evaporashion,” Spike replied, showing he was listening to
her. “Booze just
dishappears. Poof!” He handed back the rag in a sodden lump and
then he
giggled, repeating, “Poof!” He grinned. “Jus’ like Angel,” he said, making a
limp-wristed motion with one hand. “Poof! And he evaporated, too.”
Buffy
was walking toward the sink to rinse out the dishrag but she turned around
at this statement.
“What
IS your problem with Angel anyway?” she asked, as if really interested.
“Is
it all about what happened with Drusilla?”
“Not
about Dru,” Spike pouted. “Not my fault he’s a soddin’ chutney ferret, is
it? And you
making cow eyes at him all the time…even when he’s up and
e-vamp-o-rated.”
“Okay,
fine, whatever,” Buffy sighed, wondering why she even bothered with the
civilized conversation. She draped the rag over the sink edge to dry
and walked
back to Spike. “Let’s just get you downstairs.”
She
tried to lever him out of the barstool but Spike wasn’t ready to move. He
had the Slayer’s ear and he wasn’t finished
expressing himself on the subject of
his Grandsire.
“He
got himself a nice piece of you didn’t he?” Spike purred, softly, giving
Buffy
a look designed to liquefy her insides. “Then he goes and pisses it away.
Prancing around town terrorizing your pals. Sending you gag gifts.”
He snorted.
“Fish on a sodding
string!
Wouldn’t catch me doing that…not in a thousand,
million years.”
“Yeah,
I am sure YOU wouldn’t have been nearly as insensitive,” Buffy said,
sarcastically. She gave a hard yank on his arm, bringing him
to his feet.
Spike
staggered and grabbed at her.
Instinctively, she threw her arms around
him for stability, pressing into his chest. The light material of her pajama
top left very little to the imagination, in their
current position.
“Not
sensitive,” Spike returned, gripping both of Buffy’s shoulders to steady
himself and looking down into her upturned face.
“I jus’ wouldn’t waste time
tauntin’ tha’s
all.”
“Angelus
told us everything, you know,” he continued, “me and Dru? How you
walked right in on him while he was all hot and fresh
from the shower. How he
made you cry.
He was so puffed up about how he crushed your delicate spirit.
So,
I says, ‘If the Slayer didn’t know you were a changed man, why didn’t you
jus’ shag her a few more times?’ and the divvy
idiot stands there looking at me
all slack jawed…like he never would have thought of
that.”
Buffy
was looking up at Spike with a tightly clenched jaw, as he recalled her
painful past from this new perspective. She was
definitely not amused. If he’d
been sober, Spike would have backed away, as it was
he just rambled on.
“Me?
That’s what I would have done,” he confessed, with drunken sincerity.
Releasing
his hold on her, he straightened up and declared, “None of this
poncing about trying to drive
you mad. Drive you mad in bed…tha’s the ticket.
Make
no mistake, Luv.
I would’ve finished you off quick just after. But,
first, I would’ve given you a right good seein’ to.”
“You
really are a pig, Spike,” Buffy snarled.
Lashing out, she pushed into his
chest with both hands, propelling him backward.
He
staggered and sat down, hard, on the barstool.
He flowed with the movement,
reaching one hand back to reclaim his bottle from
the countertop, all the while
nodding his agreement with the Slayer’s
assessment. “Tha’s me, the other white
meat,” he admitted, before taking a hardy swig of
Chianti. Swallowing, he
brought the bottle to eye level and peered
suspiciously at the label before
announcing, “Which means this wine is all wrong for
me. Let me speak to the
manager.” He started laughing at his lame joke
and in his giddiness nearly slid
from the barstool to the floor.
Buffy
smiled in spite of herself. He really
was the outer limit, she thought.
“Okay,
Okay,” the Slayer soothed, propping Spike up with her shoulder and
divesting him of his bottle for the second time. “I think that’s about enough
of that. We just got you cleaned up and it really
is time for bed now.”
Meek
as a kitten, Spike leaned into her.
Wrapping both arms around the Slayer,
he let her guide him toward the basement
stairs. Burying his nose in her hair
at the curve of her neck, he murmured, sweetly,
“Bed, yeah. Tha’s
the ticket.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After
a certain amount of wrestling, Buffy managed to get Spike down the cellar
stairs and safely curled up on the family’s folding
cot. A Peppermint
Schnapps’’
bottle clinked underfoot, as she turned to leave. Buffy looked down.
There were several more empties next to the
washer. Spike’s duster was tossed
across the top of the machine. By the look of things, he had cleaned out the
Summers’
family liquor cabinet. He must have been
down there for hours.
Waiting,
she realized, for her to come home.
Yanking
on the overhead chain, Buffy cast the basement into darkness. She did a
quick check for light leakage, and noticed the open
casement window. The noise
she’d heard earlier must have been Spike’s Southern
Comfort bottle clinking
against the windowpane as he pulled himself
outside. Standing on a metal milk
crate, Buffy closed the window again. Reminding herself that the neighbors
already thought she was odd, she hunted up foil,
tape and black plastic garbage
bags to complete the sun block.
When
she was sure the basement was secure from stray rays of death, she went to
work on the empty bottles, piling them into a
trashcan. She brushed against
Spike’s
duster and it spilled to the floor.
When she leaned over to retrieve it, the texture of the leather gave her pause. It was as soft as a first kiss.
She wondered why she'd never noticed it before. Intent on the puzzle she shook the long coat
out and then carefully blanketing it over Spike’s half naked body. She
immediately felt foolish for the gesture. Buffy knew vampires were heat
sensitive but she had no idea if Spike could
suffer from the cold. Nor did she
have any idea why she should care if he did shiver a
bit.
Thinking
about the concept gave her pause and for a short time she simply stared
down at him.
Then, shrugging off her inexplicably conflicted feelings, she
turned away, hefted the garbage can and headed for the
stairs. After toting the
trash up to the kitchen, she sat it by the back door
to be carried out in the
morning.
Almost as an afterthought, she wiped off the counter with Spike’s
glass impregnated shirt before throwing it in the
garbage as well. A bit of
sweeping and a little more trash collecting and
the kitchen was presentable
again.
desperately grateful she was off duty the next day. She tossed and turned in a
vain effort to get comfortable but eventually, she
fell into a fitful slumber.
A
soft thumping noise woke her up about twenty minutes later. She lay in the
pre-dawn darkness, listening to the sounds of the
house. Someone was in the
hall. There
was another bump and then she heard the shower running. Buffy
didn’t want to investigate. She told herself, she really didn’t want to
know
what the hell Spike was up to now.
What
did she care if he took a shower? Let
him take half a dozen showers! After
all, Buffy thought, it wasn’t like he could drowned
or anything. And small
loss if he did, she thought bitterly. She snuggled back into her pillow and
started to drift off again. Of course, her subconscious mind prodded her,
he
could always flood the bathroom, or totally destroy
it trying to peroxide his
hair, or create a plumbing nightmare for the entire
neighborhood or…. Groaning,
Buffy
rolled out of bed, conceding defeat.
Half asleep, she padded out her door
and down the hallway.
The
bathroom light was off. The shower was
definitely on. Warm steam wafted
against Buffy’s face as she stood in the doorway
looking toward the tub. After
a minute or two, her eyes adjusted to the dim
glow of the blue nightlight over
the toilet.
That illumination coupled with the moonlight from the overhead
windows lit the scene just a little too well.
The
first thing she noted was the shower curtain pushed back. A spray of water
was swamping the floor, but the resulting mess was
the last thing on Buffy’s
mind. Spike
was in residence, leaning against the shower’s tile wall, eyes
closed. The hot
water beat down on him. He was naked, of
course, and almost
asleep, it seemed, except for the steady sliding
motion of his soapy hands.
A
tingle of adrenaline washed the last trace of Morpheus
from Buffy’s eyes. She
blinked in wonder and had a sudden clear
recollection of the Buffybot’s
extra-perky voice saying, “You should see him
naked."
“I
mean really,” Buffy whispered, unconsciously completing the robot’s sentence.
The
Slayer wasn’t much of a voyeur. She
hadn't even watched too many racy
movies. The
one time she had ventured into the “Adult” section of her local
video store, she had departed within ten minutes,
stifling a fit of giggles.
Not
that she was a prude. She was down with
the nakedness of men. It was just
that she was usually naked herself when said
nakedness occurred. Also,
generally, she was engaged in other
activities. Buffy, as a rule, tended to
keep busy during the naked parts.
But,
suddenly, she was content to stand back and enjoy the view. Blue light
danced in the water coursing over Spike’s body giving
him a quicksilver shimmer.
His pale skin looked luminous in the
half-light, almost translucent. Buffy
let
her gaze wander over him. His ethereal beauty mesmerized her. It wasn't right,
she thought, for something so wicked to be so
perfectly formed.
As
she looked on, Spike continued stroking his hands across his abdomen and then
further down.
He swirled soapsuds back and forth in random patterns. Gradually,
his movements became more rhythmic, more
concentrated. He arched against the
tile wall, muscles tensing, until he was drawn tight
as a ready bow. Gasping,
he mouthed Buffy’s name, rubbing his cheek along
the edge of the towel she’d
used earlier and left on the rod.
"Breathing
me in," she thought and her heart lurched.
She could feel it
thudding in her chest.
The
enormity of what she was witnessing hit her and her mouth went dry.
Masturbation,
as she understood it, was a very private thing.
It wasn’t
something she’d ever imagined she could enjoy
watching. But, in the throes of
self-induced passion, Spike was
wondrous, like a dynamic work of art.
She
couldn’t make herself look away.
The
vampire’s eyes were still closed as, quaking, he pushed past the brink of
release.
He moaned out her name, his voice louder than the rush of the shower,
"BUF-FFY…oh…GA-AHhgghd!"
She
responded with a tiny, unconscious whimper in the back of her throat and his
seed pulsed up, spilling back along his skin in a
glistening stream.
Buffy
told herself he had no way of knowing she was watching. But somehow all
of this seemed staged for her eyes. It was as if Spike wanted her to see him;
wanted her to understand the pleasure he took in
her. There was a deep sense of
intimacy between them as he sighed into sated
relaxation.
Neither
of them moved. Buffy had no idea how
long it took for her to notice
Spike's
eyes were open. He was staring at her,
as she stood there outlined in
the doorway, his steady gaze full of the knowledge
of what she had seen him do.
Buffy felt a hot blush prickle under her skin. She darted back into the
hallway, pressing tight into the wall beside the
bathroom door. Her position
was identical to the one Spike had assumed earlier
in the evening. Praying for
the floor to open up and swallow her, Buffy
listened to Spike twist the
shower taps, ending the drone of water. She heard the whisper of her
towel coming down from the rod and the creak of
floorboards as he stepped out of
the tub. She
turned her head, eyes instinctively seeking the steam-clouded
mirror. She
imagined him drying off.
After
what seemed like an eternity to the waiting Slayer, Spike came out of the
bathroom.
Her blue towel was wrapped around his waist. He
stopped just beyond the threshold, glancing over
at her. The scent of her body
wash mixed with cheap whiskey, teasing at her
nose. Spike was swaying slightly
on his feet.
Still drunk, Buffy thought, as she concentrated on not meeting his
eye. Darn
clean though, she conceded.
“I
told you,” he whispered, with sexy softness. “I needed to use the bathroom.”
“Oh,”
Buffy said, nearly swallowing the sound.
Her mind failed to supply any
further comment.
She remembered his earlier insistence but she had, quite
frankly, never imagined 'using' to
mean…well…what it now meant.
Without
saying another word, Spike turned and wandered down the hall toward the
stairs. Buffy
stayed put, watching and waiting to see what Naked Vamp did next.
The minute he hit the ground floor the Slayer
planned to scamper into her room
and bar the door.
Sacred prophecy, be damned, some things she didn't have to
face in the dark.
Holding onto the banister for balance, Spike leaned down to
heft the wadded tangle of his jeans from the top
step. Straightening, he
continued on along the hallway and entered Buffy’s
bedroom. After a beat or
two, the Slayer followed.
When
she reached her room, Buffy stopped in the entrance. She took a moment to study her uninvited
guest.
Spike was sitting on the edge of her bed, searching the pockets of his
jeans. After a
couple of circuits of the pants failed to turn up whatever he
was hunting, he tossed them aside with an
exasperated sigh. Leaning back, he
stretched across her bed, grabbed the handle of
her nightstand drawer and pulled
it open.
“HEY!”
Buffy yelped, surging forward. “That’s private!”
And
it was, excruciatingly private. The
drawer held her personal stash of
self-gratification essentials as well as
the necessary equipment left over from
her time with Riley. There were condoms in her nightstand and
flavored
lubricant and explicit literature…. and…Spike’s
cigarettes. The Slayer's mouth
dropped open as the vampire fished his pack, his
lighter and an ashtray out of
her personal, private, nightstand drawer. Ignoring her shocked sputtering, he
lit up and drew in a lungful of blue smoke.
“How
long…" she began and then choked and had to start over, "How long
have you
been…?"
She was afraid to say the next word in the sentence.
But
Spike seemed to take her meaning.
“Since
I got the key from Niblet,” he said, arching his body
like a contented
cat. He ran
one hand negligently along his torso as he considered her question.
“Since
you died, I guess.” He took another long drag and released it, saying, “I
come here to feel close to you.”
It
was hard to stay mad after such an intimate confession but Buffy gave it the
old college try.
“And
when you come here you…what?” she asked, making a vague gesture toward the
hallway. “USE THE BATHROOM?!?”
Spike
gave her a squinty-eyed look before dipping his head in acknowledgement.
He
slid down further in her bed, studying the patterns of blue smoke swirling up
off the red-ember of his burning cigarette. Buffy
thought back on the number of
the times she’d caught the faint whiff of tobacco
in her room.
She
blushed again, as she said, "I can't believe you just go into my bathroom
and…"
“Sometimes,”
the vampire interrupted, in a sleepy voice, “and sometimes I do it
right here…in your bed.”
And
that was just a little too much information.
Buffy strode over to the
bedside and slammed her nightstand drawer
closed. She snatched the cigarette
from Spike's hand.
Throwing it to the floor, she ground it under her bare heel,
as she growled, "Get out."
Spike
yawned and sat up, tensing his abdominal muscles as he swung his feet to
the floor.
His eyes were half closed, his movements
seductively languid. But
as Buffy started to turn away, his hand shot out
at her like a striking cobra.
He
yanked her into his arms, flipped her onto the bed and pinned her in less
than a second.
Buffy
squeaked in surprise. She squirmed and
Spike shifted to capture her
wrists. He
pulled her arms up over her head, holding her down with the weight
of his body.
She twisted beneath him, which loosened his towel and brought her
into intimate contact with his intimate parts but
failed to accomplish anything
in the way of retaliation or escape.
The
Slayer silently cursed her complacency. Over the past year or two, she'd
grown accustomed to thinking of Spike
as bumbling or chip-whipped. She had forgotten, in their easy familiarity,
how
brutally strong and quick the vampire was. From her new perspective, of
personal jeopardy and professional humiliation,
Buffy suddenly found it easy to
remember that Spike had killed two Slayers.
He
was, in fact, closer to her physical equal than anyone else she'd ever
encountered.
But brute strength alone would never conquer a Slayer. Spike,
also, needed to be clever and resourceful for the
task. Unfortunately, he was.
What
he wasn't was sober.
Buffy knew his physical state gave her the edge. She decided to surrender. Drawing in a deep,
cleansing breath, she forced herself to relax.
She
focused on Spike’s mouth, very close to her own. She noticed he was
breathing in sync with her. He had white, sharp, slightly crooked teeth,
the
product of Victorian England's lack of
orthodontics, but the curve of his upper
lip was flawless.
His bottom lip had a pouty fullness she
remembered from their
one real and innumerable spell-induced kisses.
She
avoided looking into his intense stare as she asked, "Okay? Now what?"
"I
won’t have him touching you,” he snarled. "I won't have it."
"Roscoe?"
she clarified, though she knew very well what he meant. She almost
met his eye but a panicky flutter in her chest made
her glance away.
Spike
ignored her attempt at innocence. He reiterated his
point. “You're mine," he insisted, his fingers digging into both of her wrists. He shook her. "You understand
me? He
goes.”
“Understand
me,” Buffy returned, as her icy gaze caught his squarely. “You don't
own me. We
aren't one. And your opinion means nothing to me." She paused for
emphasis, before amending, "Less than
nothing, actually.”
Amazingly,
Spike’s lower lip started to tremble.
His beautiful eyes clouded
over in hurt confusion and a single tear splashed
against the Slayer’s cheek.
Then
with a desperate little moan the vampire buried his face in the curve of
her throat.
He was a dead weight against her, no longer actively restraining
her at all.
Buffy slid her wrists free of his suddenly slackened grip. His
shoulders were shaking slightly as he murmured
something close to her ear.
She
strained to make out his words, "Please,” he was saying into her hair,
“Please,
Buffy, don’t do this…please…just make him go away.”
The
Slayer tried to process the sound she was hearing. "Spike?" she queried,
softly, not trusting her ears. “Are you…uh…crying?”
"-no-” Spike replied, in a small tight voice that said, “Yes, but I’d rather
you didn't notice."
Buffy
couldn’t believe this was happening.
She’d made the “Big Bad” cry. It
should have been funny…but it hurt.
Hesitantly,
she raised her right hand letting it fall to the nape of Spike's
neck. When he
didn’t move, she slipped her other arm around his waist, shifting
himinto a more comfortable position. Snuggling closer, he gave a contented sigh
against her skin. She began working her fingers through his
hair, petting him
and soothing them both. Slowly, the tension between them bled
away. Buffy
didn't think about what she was doing or why. She let her mind enter a
meditative state, concentrating on the repetitive
motion of her right hand as
she loosened Spike’s damp curls, swirling the
strands of hair between her
fingers.
They
held their intimate position for some time, both at peace, until at last,
Buffy
whispered, "Alright…I’ll tell Roscoe it's over.”
Spike
didn’t respond. Buffy pulled back until
she could look at him. His face
was relaxed in sleep. She rolled over carefully, taking him,
gently, to his
back. His
towel was no longer secure but it still covered the essential bits.
Not,
Buffy reminded herself, that she wanted him naked. She pinched his
shoulder hard.
He didn’t even twitch.
“Out
cold,” the Slayer murmured, with a tiny shake of her head.
She
sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around her childhood room, seeing
it for the first time through adult eyes. She wondered why Riley in her bed
hadn't given her a similar insight. What was it about Spike, Buffy mused, that
made her feel more like a woman than a girl?
The
sky outside was growing light. She
padded over to close the shutters,
drawing the curtains as an extra
precaution. Looking back at her undead
companion, Buffy gave a small sigh. She knew the intelligent thing to do was to
go into her mother’s old room, lock the door and
leave Spike here to sleep it
off. But,
she told herself, he could so easily wake up and get into mischief
again. Plus,
she needed rest and her own bed was the best place for getting
sleep. After a
bit more soul-searching, Buffy drew back her bed covers. Spike,
lying on top of the comforter, didn’t stir as she
slipped in beside him.
Six
hours later, Buffy woke to the sound of a loud choking cough. She peered,
through sleep blurred eyes, toward the person
standing in her doorway. Dawn,
her foggy mind supplied, home from her
sleepover. Buffy made a mental note of
the fact and closed her eyes, again. Then she moved on to note the arm wrapped
snuggly around her waist and the cool body
spooned up against her back, flesh on
flesh. She
came, instantly and completely awake.
“Boy!”
Dawn grinned, wiggling her brows at her sister. “I guess I missed one
really INTERESTING party last night.”
Buffy
started to get up, noticed a towel on the floor halfway to the door, and
settled back quickly. With exaggerated caution, she peeked under
the covers at
Spike. He was
buck-naked. He must have heaved off his
towel some time during
the morning.
Probably, the same time he'd crawled in beside her to cuddle up
close.
Carefully, Buffy tucked the blanket down between them, shielding her
sister from the more interesting parts of the previous
night's party, and eased
out of bed.
“Buffy?”
Spike muttered, sleepily. Sliding his
hand along the sheets searching
for her, he murmured, “Don’t go, Baby.”
Dawn
made a gurgling noise and Buffy hastily pulled underwear, pants and a
blouse from her bureau. Clutching the clothing against her chest, she
hurried
out the door.
Dawn was doubled over with pent up glee, bouncing up and down in
giddy abandon, as Buffy joined her in the
hallway. Pulling the bedroom door
closed behind her, the Slayer put a warning finger to
her lips. Dawn started to
speak but Buffy shook her head and pointed silently
down the stairs. They made
it all the way into the kitchen before Dawn could
no longer contain herself.
“Oh,
my God," she announced, in a delighted, if sotto voce, shriek as she
clutched at her sister's arm. "You slept with Spike!"
“I
did NOT sleep with Spike,” Buffy huffed, disengaging her arm. Dawn pulled a
clearly skeptical face and the Slayer amended,
“Well, okay, I DID sleep with
him. But strictly in the non-sexual sense of the word. As in we were both
tired and needed a little rest. And there was a bed…and…”
“So,
then,” Dawn asked, crossing her arms and leaning back slightly, “why was he
naked?”
"How
do you know he was…" Buffy began and then sighed,
shaking her head. “Dawn,
I
really can’t explain about last night."
She took a bowl from the cupboard and
filled it with cereal as she said, “You are just going
to have to believe me
when I tell you it was nothing like it looked."
But
despite her ready denial, Buffy was painfully aware of the truth. It was a
whole Helluva lot like it
looked between her and Spike. Something
was
definitely going on between them, something
irresistible. It made the Slayer's
blood run cold and then very hot. She just wasn’t sure what the nature of that
something was.
Or even what she wanted it to be.
Part of her wanted these new
and frightening feelings to just go away. The problem was another part of her
couldn’t help remembering the way Spike looked in
the shower and how right it
felt holding him in her arms.
END
THIS PART