It had been two hours.
In two hours, twenty eight cars had driven past his front yard.
In two hours, he had ‘inconspicuously’ risen from his place on the living room chair to look out the window and see if it was her. Twenty eight times, it hadn’t been.
In two hours, he had completely lost his mind.
By the time the twenty ninth car drove past, he was almost ready to drive down to that movie theatre and drag her home, whether she hated him for it or not. When he heard the twenty ninth car slow down, breaks squeaking as it did so, and saw the reflection of head lights peaking in from under the living room curtains he breathed a sigh of relief. As he heard her soft foot steps on the pavement out front, and listened to her girlish giggles and indistinguishable whispers he knew that the poncey wanker was walking her to the front door and trying to be ‘subtle’ about it. He snorted at that thought. Boys that age had no subtlety. Only tiny cocks they used to govern all of their thoughts and actions.
As he listened closer, he realised the giggles and the whispers had stopped. That couldn’t be a good sign. With a resigned sigh, he lifted himself from his position on the living room chair and subtley walked to the front door. Pulling it open without so much as a warning, he caught her in a seemingly intence lip lock with aforementioned poncey wanker, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and his likewise draped around her hips, centimetres from grazing her arse.
“Get inside. Now”
At that, the petite blonde jumped away from the wanker and turned to face him, her face showing a mixture of embarrassment and outrage.
“What the hell are you doing?!” she screamed at him
“You heard me; get inside”
“Excuse me? In case you’ve forgotten, you’re not exactly the boss of me, you can’t tell me what to do” she fought back, placing her hands on her hips in defiance, her date shrinking into the background.
“Uh, Buffy, If I’m causing trouble, I can just go...” the date said, taking a step away from her as if to add emphasis to his suggestion.
“No Angel, you’re not going anywhere.”
“Actually mate, I think that’s a brilliant idea, the best you’ve had all night. Toddle on home now, and we will see you around.”
“I’ll, uh, I’ll catch you later Buffy” Angel said, turning around and practically running for his car without even so much as a kiss on the cheek goodbye. Buffy watched him go, her mouth slightly agape in shock, before turning back around. She sighed.
“Spike, what is your problem?” She practically spat his name
“You had a curfew, you said you would be home at eight. It is way past eight. I have been worried sick. If you can’t learn to be responsible, then you just wont be allowed to go out at all. And who is this Angel? Sounds like a ponce to me. And he looked older than you. I don’t think he’s right for you Buffy, there’s just something about him”
Spike rationalised without taking a breath, using all of his will power not to start pacing. Didn’t want the girl to think he was completely hysterical after all.
Buffy’s only response was to look at him incredulously. At this, Spike got nervous.
“So, yeah, that’s what we will be doing about that” He said. Almost sounding like a question.
“Are you being serious right this second?” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “My curfew is eight pm. It is ten minutes past eight. And that is including your last seven minutes of pure insanity! And as for Angel, yes he is older than me, by TWO YEARS Spike, it’s not that big a deal. Maybe if you took two seconds to speak to him, instead of acting like a complete space freak, you would know that he is actually a descent guy.” Her voice was rising in anger as she spoke, and Spike knew he has pushed her too far, deciding the safest option would be not to respond to her outburst with one of his own. Seeing that she was going to get nowhere with this, Buffy rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“I’m going to bed.” She pushed past him and stormed up the stairs. Spike sighed. He was really bollocksing up this whole parenting thing. As he heard her slamming doors and stamping her feet upstairs, he knew he was in trouble.
It wasn’t his fault. He really was trying his hardest. And to be fair, he was new to all of this, and his current situation wasn’t exactly the most ideal one he had ever heard of.
He had met and, consequently fallen in love with, Buffy’s mother Joyce eight months prior while she had been on holiday in England. Their romance was a whirlwind one, and when she had to leave for home several weeks later, he had followed her and moved right into her home at Revello Drive. It was there that he had met Joyce’s daughter, Buffy. After the initial, ‘you’re new, and you are dating my mother’ hatred she had felt towards him, Spike and Buffy had begun to get along really well. She had even started calling him dad during their rare moments of father/daughter intimacy, something that, Spike had to admit, was still quite odd for him. Although Joyce had only been 35 and ten years his senior, having a seventeen year old daughter when you were twenty five wasn’t something you got used to overnight. Despite this, however, the two had become close, quickly.
It was roughly three months after he had moved from England that they received the bad news. Joyce had cancer. Cancer that was spreading rapidly through her body. When they had been told after various attempts at chemotherapy and radition that nothing more could be done, Spike had married Joyce at a dusk ceremony on a beach in LA and had changed both their wills to make sure that the house was in Spike’s name, and Buffy would be properly cared for. Joyce died in her hospital bed on a Saturday morning, her husband and her daughter by her side. It was at that moment that Spike said goodbye to his lady love and hello to full time parenting.
It wasn’t as though he resented the job at all. In fact, he couldn’t even call it a job. He loved being there for Buffy. He loved Buffy full stop. But, things were... difficult. He had never been a parent before. And trying to manage a seventeen year old girl who had just lost her mum wasn’t an easy task. And if people had thought his relationship with Joyce had been wrong due to their age difference, they certainly would not approve of the feelings he was currently harbouring for her daughter. His step daughter.
Spike flopped back down into his arm chair and sighed. This was so wrong. How had things got so messed up? He ran his hand through his hair and borrowed down further into the chair. He had loved Joyce, with all his heart. And he had never, ever once looked or thought about Buffy in that way . At least not until Joyce had passed. It started innocently enough. He had put his arm around Buffy at the funeral as her mothers’ coffin was lowered into the ground. They had never really been the touchy feely types, unless in rare intimate family moments, so it had shocked Spike when Buffy had turned around in his embrace and buried her face in his chest, silent sobs wracking her body. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have come as a shock to him that she needed comfort at that particular time. God knows he needed it. It was then that he swore to himself that he would never see Buffy hurting like this again. That he would be a good dad and take care of her, make her happy, teach her things, give her a curfew, and all that stuff that came with the title of parent.
His heart, however, had other ideas. It was a few months before he started noticing Buffy, but when he did it hit him hard. He noticed how incredibly beautiful she was. How good she smelled. How, even though the death of her mother had shaken her to her core, she was still so full of life, and spirit. He found that simply being around her filled him with that same life and that same spirit to the point where it was intoxicating and he needed to be around her. That was why, when on the very rare occasions that she would go on these ‘dates,’ he would be driven mad. Mad with worry, with jealously, with the sheer wrongness of the situation he had unintentionally put himself in.
He was in love with his dead wife’s daughter. His step-daughter. How fucked up was that? How fucked up was he? Resigning himself to the fact that tonight he would lose another eight hours sleep torturing himself and praying to any God that would listen to cleanse his soul of his sins, Spike sighed and lifted himself from his chair and began making his way up to bed.
Hours later, as predicted, Spike was lying on his back in bed, far from sleep and just watching the shadows dancing on the ceiling. His thoughts that begun downstairs had completely overtaken him: In the past several hours he had gone from a state of confusion, to anger, to self loathing, to insatiable desire back to self loathing. He didn’t know what he was going to do. What’s more, he didn’t know what he could do. It wasn’t as though he could just pack up and move away from the object of his desire until his lustful feelings weren’t as strong. Not that he wanted to. He had made a vow, he had taken an oath, he had signed a contract, and he had sworn to himself to never leave Buffy. Yes. He was royally fucked.
A soft tap on his door brought him out of his revelry. He almost asked who it was before shaking his head at his own stupidity.
“Come in.”
“Spike... are you awake?” Buffy’s sleep dishevelled head popped itself in his door, her body leaning against the frame
“Nope, not at all pet, why’s that?” Spike grinned as even in the darkness he could feel her rolling her eyes at him. She entered his room, closing the door behind him and walked forward until she was sitting on the edge of his bed. Spike turned on his bedside lamp in order to see her better and had to swallow, hard. Her hair was a mess from sleeping, obviously tossing and turning, and her eyes which were lined with the faintest touch of mascara that hadn’t been washed off were squinting in the sudden attack of light. Spike thought she had never looked more beautiful. What’s more, she had never looked so sexy. As her eyes took a second to adjust to the light, he took a second to adjust to her; wearing a pair of barely there pink boxer shorts with a ribbon that was undone and brushing again her bronzed thigh it took everything Spike had to not groan in desire. As his gaze travelled upwards he noticed the matching pink camisole she was wearing, clearly sans bra as her tiny peaks of nipples were hard underneath the shear fabric. Spike swallowed again.
Right, time to snap himself out of this.
“What’s wrong luv?” He asked her, smiling at how cute she looked when she scrunched up her nose, clearly unsure of how to begin her side of the conversation.
“Buffy...” he prompted
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for earlier tonight. I know I was late home for curfew, the movie ran late and I should have called you, I’m sorry. I know you worry about me since mum left”
Inwardly, Spike sighed, his previous feeling of self loathing quickly returning. If worrying about her was the only reason that caused his little outburst earlier, everything in his life would be ok. But no, it wasn’t worry, more so it was barely controllable jealousy at the idea of another man touching his girl. No, touching his step-daughter .
“It’s ok pet. I’m sorry I acted like a ‘space freak’ as you so eloquently put it. Just lose m’ head sometimes, you know?” he said, running his hand through his hair.
“I know, but I couldn’t sleep until I knew we were ok”
“Of course we’re ok luv, you should know that. Little disagreement isn’t the end of the world” He smiled at her in reassurance, an action to which she replied with her own matching grin
“You should try and get some sleep luv, its late”
“Yeah, I should be able to sleep now that I’ve come and disturbed you from yours” She grinned again and began crawling up the bed towards Spike in a way that, had he not known better, he would have sworn (hoped, wished) was predatory. Before he even had time to think, Buffy had wrapped her arms around his neck and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. Before he even had time to process what was happening, she was up and off the bed, bouncing towards the door. When she opened it, she turned back around to face him.
“Thank again Spike” she told him sincerely
“No worries pet, now get some sleep”
“Ok, I will. Goodnight Daddy.” With that, she turned and walked from his room, closing the door behind her. Spike flopped back down on his pillow, covering his face with his hands and groaning. He hated it when she called him daddy. Dad, on the rare occasion, he was ok with. But not daddy, he was far too young to be a daddy. And not only that, but he hated it even more because he liked it. He really, really liked it.
He was a bad, bad man.
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!