Author: 1stRab-id
Cast: Buffy/Spike
Rating: Not even PG
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, I understand that anything I write using these characters becomes the exclusive property of the rightful owners.  I, also, acknowledge the lyrics of Edwin McCain are owned exclusively by him.
Continuity: This scene happens about three weeks after “Red Leather Day”
 

“copulation is no more rank to me than death is….”

Curled on the Summer’s living room sofa surrounded by books, file cards, floppy disks and notepapers, Buffy read the line aloud again with a puzzled tone, savoring the syllables.

“copulation is no more rank to me than death…?”

She turned the book over and looked at the cover.  She read the title, “The Erotic Imagery of Walt Whitman”.  She shrugged and spoke to the empty room.

 “Boy, those Civil War babes really didn’t bathe much…” She said, “either that or old Walt wasn’t the death magnet that I am.”

She wrote the line on a 3x5 card with a flourish and tossed it onto a growing stack on the coffee table.  A theme book was open, half buried in the cards with the title “Death as Lover in the Poetry of Whitman” by Buffy Summers.  The page was depressingly blank under the title and date.   A curled strip of paper with the assignment typed on it was paper-clipped to the top of the theme book.  Buffy had scrawled “I hate all poets” across the neatly typed letters.

After a few more flipped note cards, the mantel clock chimed 9:30 pm.  Buffy glared at it for a few moments before deciding it was a sign that she should put on some tunes.

“To help me think poet friendly thoughts.” She chirped with forced optimism.

She sat her book on the table, rose and stretched.  The movement felt so good that she lost herself for a few minutes in the working of her muscles.  Eyes closed she ran through a brief Tai Chi series.  The exercise ended with a roll of her head that looped down into her shoulders, hips, knees and ankles.  She exhaled opening her eyes.  Spike stood watching her from the hallway.

He was carrying a small brown bag under his arm.  A huge white towel was tossed over his shoulder.  He wasn’t wearing his coat, just a tee shirt and jeans. His feet were bare.  Which struck Buffy as noteworthy for some reason.  She refused to be embarrassed by a barefooted Vampire in her own home.

“Spike” She said casually as if she had been expecting him.

“Slayer” He said just as casual.

“Studying” She said nodding toward the coffee table.

“Shower” He said pointing up the stairs.

Buffy nodded affably at the news before turning away from him to flip on the CD player.  Spike shot a hostile glare at her icy profile but after a moment he shrugged and bound up the stairs.  Buffy, blessed with great peripheral vision, grinned wickedly as she dropped the latest “Counting Crows” cd into the changer next to a greatest hits compilation.  She rummaged through several jewel cases before remembering that “Misguided Roses” was in the portable
player in the kitchen.

As she went out into the hallway, Buffy, heard a depressingly familiar noise.  She strode quickly to the basement door and jerked it open.  The blare of an unbalanced washer assaulted her.  She slammed the door shut on the irritating buzzing and bellowed toward the stairs.

“SPIKE!”

No answer.  She tried again louder, thankful that her Mother and Dawn were enjoying a girl’s night out.  Movie and Ice Cream.  That was the main reason she had picked Wednesday as one of Spike’s washdays.  All the Summer’s women went out on Wednesday.  Except for the
ones who had papers due in two days.

Buffy took the stairs two at a time but when she reached the up-stairs landing she hesitated.  The
sound of a shower came to her clearly.  Her mind went back to Spike’s bare feet and the guest bathroom seemed to recede down the hallway like a cheesy horror movie effect.  Bursting through the bathroom door in righteous indignation seemed far less of a good idea now that she’d reached the second floor. She was suddenly afraid that if she saw Spike naked she would
be imprinted for life like one of those newly hatched ducks her Behavioral Psych. Professor was always going on about.

She slouched back downstairs and plopped onto the sofa.  She picked up “Leaves of Grass” but the words scampered about on the page making no sense at all. She could still hear the washer alarm, subliminally.  After a moment, she got up and turned on the cd player.  After another few minutes, she remembered the cd in the kitchen.  She sat the book down in her place on the couch and went to retrieve the cd again.  The basement door seemed to be mocking her.  She went back
in to the living room, loaded the cd and stood looking at her homework, tapping her nails on the top of a speaker.

With a slew of dark mutterings, Buffy stomped down the basement stairs.  She yanked up the washer lid to cut off the grating buzz.  A glance at the gauge showed it was at the start of the rinse cycle.  She began to untangle the mass of  waterlogged jeans, shirts and tee shirts.  Spike’s clothes were bunched up around something heavy and white.  Grimacing in disgust,
Buffy dug down until she reached the center of the knot.  She pulled out a sopping stuffed unicorn.  Glass eyes winked at her whimsically as she strode to the garbage pail and slam-dunked the offensive creature.

Having restarted the washer, Buffy considered leaving Spike’s clothing to its inevitable fate.  After three weeks, she had learned that there was no apparent end to his inventive ways of raining havoc in a laundry room.  Mountains of suds, floods, and appliance fires were just the beginning for the Prince of Non-Colorfast Darkness.  Her “Victoria’s Secret”, Buttercup-colored sleep set was now prison-wear gray.  Not for the first time, Buffy wondered if it was all a
ploy to make her stay close to home.  A quick peek in the dryer convinced her to surrender the battle.  Her Mother had forgotten to unload the family whites again.

It was a good twenty minutes before Buffy finished folding the Summer’s clothes.  Spike’s wash cycle ended and she began transferring his things to the dryer.  A light scent of sandalwood, dark amber and sage wafted around her.  Spike’s modified Victorian concoction of glycerin soap, baking soda and essential oils.  He used it as shampoo and bath gel and now laundry detergent.  Having been defeated by “Tide”, Spike was now baking soda boy all the way.  He even
used baking soda as toothpaste, mixing it with orange oil and stevia leaves.  What she didn’t know about Vampire ablution just wasn’t worth knowing, Buffy thought.

She set the dryer on medium and gathered up her basket of whites.  Then with an air of the hero’s return she went back up to the kitchen.  As she sat her basket down in the hallway next to Spike’s boots, she could hear the final song of the “Counting Crows” cd starting.  She looked up the stairs as she passed and said something derogatory about some people wasting other people’s hot water.

Entering the living area, she saw the towel first.  It was draped on the back of a chair along with his black tee. The brown paper bag was curled up next to one of his bare feet.  He was sprawled in her place on the couch.  Her gaze traveled upward from Spike’s feet, along his black clad slightly spread legs, over his naked torso and stopped on the tousled curls of white hair that fell across his brow.  He hadn’t gelled his hair.  That struck her more forcefully than the bare
expanse of rock hard abdominals he was displaying.

Buffy cleared her throat pointedly and Spike peered at her over the top of “Leaves of Grass”.

“What the hell are you doing?” She asked.

“Fairly obvious ain’t it?’ He replied waving the book at her.

“I meant, up here, slouched on my sofa, instead of in the basement cleaning up your own disasters” She clarified. “As you can see I have more than my share of headaches without your Excedrin moments added in.” She nodded at the scattered file cards and other evidence.

“Yeah…well….this IS pretty pathetic!,” He acknowledged looking at the unorganized mess she had created. “Tell you what…I’ll give you a hand with it.”

“’Cause you’re so down with the poetry?” Buffy said, sarcastically, “You can’t even unravel the hidden meaning in the instructions for detergent.”

“Just so happens, Missy, that I wrote, what you would call, my graduate thesis on Whitman, back in the day.”

Buffy frowned at him and then tilted her head sideways to read the notes she’d made on Walt Whitman’s life.  Okay, so the dates matched up with what she knew of  Spike’s becoming.  It could have happened. But she doubted it.

“So” She said skeptically,  “You were the big scholar guy in your former life?  And I supposed you aced the paper and were graduated with honors.  All hail William…insert last name here!”

“Not exactly” Spike snorted, “It was more of a slink off and avoid the scandal kind of thing.”

“Just the kind of help I was looking for” Buffy quipped, “You sure are handy to have around.  Not satisfied with ruining most of my evenings now you want to extend your sphere of influence to undermine my future.”

“Your future, Slayer”, Spike growled his eyes steady on her own, “Can not be made or unmade by your college G.P.A..”

Depressingly true, Buffy thought.  She crossed to the sofa and sank down next to the half-naked vampire.  She leaned forward and unclipped the topic strip from her theme book.

“I just thought it was such a perfect assignment for me…Easy A.” She said passing the strip to Spike, “I bet I’m the only girl in the whole class that’s actually had a dead guy as a Lover.”

“Well, you’re probably the only one still breathing, anyway!” He acknowledged with a grin. Then he leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes and began quoting…

“Death is beautiful from you (and what indeed is finally beautiful except death and love?)
 O I think it is not for life that I am chanting here my chant of lovers, I think it must be for death. For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers,  Death or life, I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer,  (I am not sure but that the high souls of lovers
welcome death the most).”

Spike opened his eyes and waggled his brows at her.  Buffy snapped her mouth closed.

“Okay, so you can quote from Whitman" Buffy said then hesitated, “That was Whitman, right?”

“Yeah!” Spike nodded, “From Calamus….’In Paths Untrodden’”

 “Consider me suitably impressed!” Buffy said as she clicked her pen, folded over her notebook and looked at him expectantly, “In fact,  I am rapt attention girl, lay that poetic insight on me.”

“First of all” Spike said quickly before she had time to reconsider, “Your topic is too broad.  You need to narrow your focus to one poem or stanza even.  Or maybe contrast and compare two different works.  Then you have to consider the context of the time…we are talking about Victorian mores here literally.  What you would find quaint or abstract they would find
shockingly bold.”

Buffy took notes and Spike annotated the text.  He illuminated passages for her with tidbits of
historical reference.  The time slipped by and the “Misguided Roses” cd began playing quietly in the background as Buffy pushed the file cards around.  Her hand fell on the “copulation” one and Spike seized upon it.

“Perfect!” He said, “Compare this to the awaking Adam.”

“I remember it had something to do with bowels” Buffy said in distaste, not seeing the connection.

“Not before the line but after….” Spike said impatiently, “Now, how does it go again.”  He bit down on his black thumbnail as he considered and then quoted…

“’I do not press my fingers across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, copulation is no more rank to me than death is. I believe in the flesh and the appetites, seeing, feeling, hearing are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.  Divine am I inside and out and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from.’”

“Okay!’ Buffy nodded seeing the connections, “The reference to touch again.  Victorian profanity…the workings of the flesh as miraculous…the body as Holy.”

She glanced down at her notes before quoting from Children of Adam…

 “’Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass…”

Spike smiled at her and they concluded the passage, speaking the final line together.

“’…Be not afraid of my body.’”

Buffy laughed and lay her palm flat against Spike’s bare shoulder. He met her glance.  His eyes were filled with poetry.

“William!” she thought and her hand moved up to push the soft curls back from his forehead.

Spike leaned into her movement and their lips brushed together.  It was the kiss of a Victorian gentleman subtle and soft.  Buffy didn’t even think about pulling away from it.  Nor from the second kiss which lingered but did not assume.  Spike tilted his head slightly and her hand moved through his hair to cradle against his cheek.   His hands remained in his lap.
Buffy took a shudder of breath in and opened her lips to the barest flicker of his tongue.  Spike’s mouth tasted of oranges.

Buffy wondered abstractly about the taste of him and about the lyrics of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” which was playing as they kissed.  She turned the ironic words over in her mind.  “My love is alive and not dead.  Tell me that we belong together.  Dress it up with the trappings of love.  I’ll be captivated, I’ll hang from your lips instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above.”

“’I’ll be love’s suicide’” Buffy thought as she took another breath and sank into Spike’s kiss.  His hands, finally seeking her out, were buried in her hair as the kitchen door burst open to a trilling of voices.  Her Mother and Sister entered the house, talking excitedly, shattering the delicate moment.  Spike growled in his throat as she leaped away from him.  He bristled with hostility, like a dog denied his favorite toy.  Buffy wondered what she had been thinking.  There was nothing gentle in the look that he shot toward the voices.  For a split second, all that stood between her family and the cold grave was a slender slice of silicon.

Snatching up his supplies, Spike stalked from the room.  Dawn nearly bounced into him as he headed toward the basement.  He didn’t respond to her chipper greeting.  Buffy heard the basement door slam shut behind him.  She touched a finger to her lips. Sweetness not savagery lingered there.

Her distracted eye fell on the concluding statement of her rough draft.  She read it aloud…“Death, finally, for Whitman is ‘the key of softness’ that unlocks love.”

In her mind, Buffy could hear Spike’s voice intoning the entire passage…

“With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper set ope the doors O Soul!
Tenderly! Be not impatient! (Strong is your hold, O Mortal Flesh! Strong is your hold, O Love!)”
 

--End Scene--