II
It was late when the Scoobies left that night.
The reaction had been fairly generic. Xander freaked and blamed Spike, Anya shrugged and asked if the new situation meant that she and her boyfriend could leave, and Willow started rummaging through her list of spells for one that could come in handy. No luck to be had in any regard.
And so night was upon them, as was the almost assuredly catastrophic discussion involving sleeping arrangements. Up until that evening, it was Buffy’s custom to take the bed and either chain Spike up or allow him to sleep on the couch.
Tonight, rules were up for grabs.
“Okay, here’s how it’s going to work.” Buffy bit her lip in thought. “I’ll sleep with my hand dangled over the side of the bed?”
Spike arched a brow. “What ‘f I roll over? You come tumblin’ outta bed, an’ then blame me for bein’ asleep while sleepin’. Don’ think so, luv.”
“I wouldn’t blame you for—”
“Think about it.”
She did. She did and he was right. Rats. “Well, do you have any suggestions other than the one you’re not going to suggest because you know how utterly dusty you would become as a result?”
The vampire heaved a sigh and threw his hands up in the air; something that wasn’t quite as effective as it could have been, since hers followed. “What do you want from me, Slayer? ‘S not like I bloody planned this.”
“And how do I know that?”
He gave her a look. She pouted and nodded her concession without a word.
“Okay,” she said after a minute, voice conspiratorially low as though someone walking along outside might overhear. “Say I…say we do…sleep in the same bed. Me under covers, you above. And if there’s any hanky panky—”
Spike barked an incredulous laugh at that. The kind that reeked of condescension and aimed appropriately for the heart. “Well, well,” he drawled. “Someone seems to think a pretty lot about herself.”
“I’m just saying. You in bed, me in bed, hands glued together. How should I know how your sick mind works?”
“Well, you seem to be havin’ fun makin’ guesses.”
“I—”
“’m not gonna touch you, all right? Other than this.” He shook their hands demonstratively. “We sleep on opposite ends of the bed, hands in the middle. That permissible, your highness, or should I start buildin’ a mote around your side?”
Buffy glanced down. “Yeah. It’s fine. But you’re above the covers.”
“What’s it matter?”
“I want you above the covers. It’s not like you feel the cold, anyway.”
“True, but a man does like havin’ somethin’ soft against him.” He wriggled his brows. “Whatsa matter, luv? Afraid you’ll succumb to temptation an’ wake up with the sudden impulse to shag me silly?”
Her eyes widened in insult. “As if!”
“Oooohh, valley girl now, are we?”
“I am this close to just sawing your hand off.”
“Frightenin’. Really, it is.” Spike’s eyes twinkled. “Seems I hit a sore spot.”
“Get over yourself.”
“That’s it, innit? You can’t trust yourself with my hot, tight li’l body walkin’ around like eye candy for the starvin’ sorority girl. Well, gotta tell yah…” He must have really been confident, for he leaned in very close, eyes level with hers. Staring her down. “You wake up hankerin’ some of that hanky panky you proposed earlier, you jus’ give yours truly a tug, right?”
Buffy’s temper flared and she released some sound between a scream and a growl, backhanding him hard with her left hand. Which, naturally, resulted disastrously when she sailed across the room with him at the impact of her own clout. Sailed across the room and landed securely in his arms.
“Ow.”
Spike winced and sat up, shifting his left arm to relieve the tension where she had fallen on it awkwardly. “Always told you that you pack quite a punch.”
Her sentiment still seemed the best. “Ow.”
“Yeh. Smarts like a bitch. Maybe you won’ do that anymore.” The vampire rose to his feet with a slight wobble and shook his head. “Right. So…you sleepin’ in all your goods?”
Was he asking her if she was going to strip?
“What?”
“You have PJs or what all?”
“I’m not getting naked in front of you!”
A slow smirk crossed his face. “Now, that’s not what I asked, is it?”
Buffy flushed and her scowl deepened. “You’re asking me about my clothes—how the hell am I supposed to take it?”
Spike shrugged. “Right. Don’ really care, either way. I was jus’ offerin’ to lend you a hand if you needed it.”
“Oh yeah. You’re here to be helpful.”
An aggravated sigh tickled the air. “Really, Summers, you’ve got to do somethin’ about that ego. What? Do you walk around thinkin’ of the various ways different men are tryin’ to shag you? I hadn’t noticed your dance card havin’ that many marks.”
Another low blow to her sex life. Buffy took the salt and flinched but refused to let it grain her too deeply. It was, after all, Spike. Whatever he said now was minimal compared to the verbal abuse she had sustained after the Parker ordeal. “I’m not taking anything off.”
“Pity.” The word was short and cold, coinciding with the sudden lack of warmth in his eyes. “Get under the covers, then. An’ don’t try to sneak a peek while I’m takin’ off my trousers.”
The Slayer’s eyes went wide. “What?!”
The look on her face inspired a grin. “I can’t bloody well sleep with my bits confined, now can I? Man needs a li’l comfort room.”
“No.”
“Usually sleep without a stitch. Makin’ a special exception.”
“Spike, I swear to God…”
“Figure Rupert left some boxers I can—”
“No. No. Stop.” Buffy enforced use of her grip on him and yanked. “No. Jeans stay on. Clothes stay on. Okay?”
The vampire rolled his eyes. “Look, ‘m evil, not desperate.” There it was again. That wicked tongue of his. He stopped abruptly when that barb hit the mark and released a wealth of hurt to flood her eyes. An inward curse. With however irritated he was with her lately, there was something about seeing his Slayer upset that rubbed him the wrong way. His shoulders sagged in defeat. “There’s absolutely no way I can get out of this conversation?”
Ah. There it was. The hardness set in her face again. Back to business.
“Lie down. Shut up. Leave me alone.”
“Buffy, I—”
Her head reeled at the blatant use of her given name and she stared at him for a long, cold moment. One of those moments that genuinely surprised when it had passed and there was nothing left but the cold afterwards. She had climbed in bed before he knew it, arm outstretched inelegantly as he situated himself beside her. Lying atop the covers as she had requested.
It wasn’t until the silence had stretched to the utmost levels of discomfort that he decided to speak again. Quell the fire between them. Make up for some, even if it didn’t make sense.
What was this strange power she held over him?
“Buffy?”
There was nothing for a few seconds. She was unaccustomed to her name in the air, just as he was to having it on his tongue. It was pleasant, though. Liberating. The knowledge that the Slayer could be Buffy, too. “Yeah?”
“’Night.”
A pause. “Goodnight, Spike.”
And silence.
*~*~*
It really wasn’t possible to get comfortable under the covers while wearing jeans in Southern California.
Buffy groaned and shifted position for the twenty-third time in a half hour. Beside her, Spike slept like the dead, taking an occasional breath and murmuring something unintelligible every now and then; otherwise the picture of comfort.
All too typical for him.
Didn’t make any difference either way. She wasn’t in the position to do anything about it.
Another twenty minutes past and she gave up. This was pointless. If she couldn’t sleep, it didn’t really matter what she was wearing. She would be the walking dead tomorrow, and that was the vampire’s job. With a defiant sigh, Buffy threw the blankets off and turned her left hand to the clasp on her jeans. It took some fancy maneuvering, but she was free in seconds and feeling better already.
Shimmying her pants down her legs? Different story. At least not without making her movements overtly obvious and disturbing her bedmate. A sigh of concession hissed through her lips, and with a cautious glance in the vampire’s direction, she lifted her right arm and lowered it awkwardly to her waist.
First contact surprised her. Spike’s gentle touch on her skin, her hand splayed across its back. Tender in that moment. Almost reassuring.
Small shivers tickled her skin. Her feelings separating common sense with hidden, naughty little cravings of forbidden desire. It would have been better had his hand been glued atop hers; at least there would have been an additional barrier between his skin at the present and her pelvis.
Even with the help of two hands, having her superior appendage seized by handicap was not working to her benefit. Her fingers couldn’t maneuver to any degree of success around the intrusion of the vampire’s hand, and if she was too forceful, she feared jarring him awake and then facing the impossible scenario of explaining herself.
Only now one of those gaudy rings that he couldn’t seem to part with had managed to catch itself on her zipper.
Buffy’s eyes widened in horror and she began shaking her wrist in earnest, desperate mewls clawing at her throat. God, this was worse than dying of discomfort. Discomfort over humiliation always. Now Spike would wake up with his hand caught in her pants—literally—and the jags and barbs he had sent her all night about her reeking of desperation and her obsession with getting ‘shagged’, as he called it, would come full circle. And he being the current source of her crush, however strange and very wrong that was, it would be an act of supreme devastation.
“Oh for sodding…”
Spike sat up abruptly and Buffy shrank back in embarrassment, astutely avoiding his eyes and preparing herself for the larger burn.
It never came. Instead, the vampire moved over her and hooked his thumbs under the belt loops of her jeans, glanced to her face once for permission, and yanked her trousers down when she refused to meet his gaze. Then his presence was gone and the mattress to her right moaned with the reapplication of weight. And then silence.
She waited for minutes for him to start in on her bizarre fixation. For him to ridicule her for hypocrisy. For him to say anything that would align correctly with his character. To jar, to poke, to barb, to belittle; to be Spike. But it never came.
There was nothing but the occasional sound of a slumbered moan. Nothing at all.
The other never came.
*~*~*
It was a strange sensation—knowing the first minutes of morning while snuggled in a man’s arms.
Buffy blinked numbly with the stretch of reluctant wake, her head pillowed softly on an unfamiliar chest, cool but far from unpleasant. Her arms were outstretched; the right at a particularly gauche angle—the other wound around the body that lay beneath her. The feel was different but spectacular: never had she felt so thoroughly secure. And other things were coming into perspective. A hand was at her back, stroking absent and subconscious caresses into her skin; her legs were straddling one foreign thigh with betrayed intimacy. It didn’t even occur to her until five minutes or so of stolen time had passed that one hand blatantly refused to move, and that she was curled with gentle poise in the embrace of her enemy. Her enemy that was holding her with such delicacy, she could have easily mistaken his regular animosity for affection were it to always feel this good.
Especially with the sudden swell of palpable desire that tinted the blankets and nudged her hip.
Heat flooded her cheeks at that, timed perfectly with the sudden racing of her heart. She didn’t know what, but something about the vampire stripped her of all measure. Crept and chipped at the impenetrable wall left behind by the last of the Aurelius clan to break her heart. Broken and mended. All by a man who could never love her.
Of course, love wasn’t a discussion she was about to have. It was a crush and that was that. A crush left over from some stupid spell. If she knew what was good for her, she would forget the Will Be Done spell had ever taken place, go to Riley, smile sweetly, and become the epitome of perfect girlfrienddom.
Except with the random killing of demons, of course.
The other wasn’t possible. The other that nagged at her with a vengeance. It just wasn’t possible. And yet, despite all probability, it was there. In the span between dusk and dawn, she could admit how easy it would be if she allowed herself. How painstakingly easy.
And regardless of his feelings for her, he couldn’t possibly find her repulsive given the enthusiastic reaction her proximity was receiving. The temptation to reach down and take him into her hand was egging from a naughty thought to a place of actual contemplation. As was the drive to pucker her lips and give him a Christmas present never before given by her to anyone else.
The Slayer caught herself at that and almost recoiled in horror. He was right. All his reprimands the night before—she was the horndog. She was the one that couldn’t prevent a foray of crude thoughts, the one that assumed he felt and thought the same because she couldn’t shake the impression of him from her system. And that was what she had to remember. Just because she wanted him gave him no reason to reciprocate. Point of fact, he would likely be disgusted if he knew some of the inappropriate scenarios her mind had entertained as of late. He hated her; always had, always would, and there was nothing more to it.
And it was just as well. Because it was a crush. A stupid, idiotic, I-can’t-believe-you’re-going-there-again crush. A crush sparked by a spell and fueled by adhesive. Once they were separate again, she wouldn’t be surprised if he left town just to wash away all hint of her from his system.
That didn’t explain why she was curled in his arms, though. Or why every time he turned, his erection nudged her with aching persistence.
Well, the last one wasn’t so much a mystery. He was asleep. He was a vampire. He was male. And he was probably dreaming of his lost ladylove, which she would have assumed initially had she not been so thoroughly egocentric.
An ironic, humorless grin tickled her lips. She truly was living with the shadow of Drusilla over her head.
And oh my god Spike was waking up.
Buffy’s eyes went wide and her body clamped down, hand subconsciously squeezing his as he yawned against her throat and released what had to be the most sensuous purr she had ever heard.
Vampires purred? Spike purred?
It was definitely time to roll away. With a frown, the Slayer cautiously lifted her weight off the vampire and made to resume the position she last remembered—a good four feet of distance between them. She didn’t get far. Within the first hint of motion, Spike’s eyes snapped open and the hand at her back shot to her arm.
“Jus’ where do you think you’re going?” She blinked at him dumbly. He smirked in turn, eyes traveling the length of her, flexing beneath her experimentally. “I was jus’ gettin’ comfy.”
Buffy licked her lips. In the motion, her leg had inched away from the evidence of his comfort, and she tactfully opted to not demonstrate how well aware she was of his situation. Right now, her eyes were caught in his. It was strange seeing him so up close without the safety of a fight to declare as an excuse. True, the spell had granted more than enough time to grow familiar with such tight immediacy, but there was no spell now. Just them.
“Getting up,” she replied shortly. “Using the…” Every fiber in her being froze and her voice broke off. Oh God. Her eyes met his. Oh God. “Oh God.”
It didn’t take much for Spike to discern her sudden panic. “You need to use the loo, don’ you?”
She nodded miserably. “Human. Kinda happens.”
“Right.” His brow furrowed in thought, and she was oddly touched that he seemed genuinely embarrassed for her. Even if it was a charade, it was sweet of him to pretend.
Spike? Sweet? Oh god, we need the solvent. Now.
“Here.” The vampire slowly sat up, bringing her with him. “I’ll stand in the tub with the curtain drawn. All right?”
“But you’ll—”
“Sweetheart, we might have to get used to not bein’ modest around each other.” He stopped, frowned, shook his head, and revised. “You might have to get used to not bein’ modest around me for the next few days. Got it? We have no bloody idea how long we’ll be like this. Might take Rupert to—”
“Oh my God.”
“Well, come on ‘f you need to go that badly.”
“No. No, that’s not it.” Buffy’s face fell. “I just remembered something.”
A few seconds of silence. “Have at it, luv. Don’ leave me in suspense.”
“Tonight was the Bronze Christmas party. Ugh, this blows!” He looked at her as though she had lobsters crawling out of her ears. And that didn’t seem to help. “Would you stop?!”
Spike blinked, then set his face with expected resolve. “What’s your problem, Summers?”
“I have no problem!” Yeah. Okay. So, lying now. Buffy’s shoulders slumped and she expelled a deep sigh. “I just really wanted to go to the party. Since my mom’s out of town for Christmas, it was really the one holiday-centered thing that I had going for me this year…other than the ritual exchange of presents and all. I was just—”
“So let’s go.”
Now she was doing the lobster-staring thing. “What?”
Spike shrugged as though he hadn’t realized what he had said. Or to whom he had said it. “We’ll go. Don’ rightly see why this’d effect your going to a bloody party. ‘F anythin’, you’re guaranteed your date won’ run off on you.” He held up their joint hands demonstrably. Then caught the look in her eyes. “Jus’ tonight, for god’s sakes. We’ll play your mates for fools. ‘S not like there’s another option here!”
“Did you just say date in reference to us?”
“Do I look like I’m proud of it?”
No. No, he didn’t. Buffy fought the urge to scream her frustration. Oh well. At least he had used the d-word before anyone else. Before she did.
He looked seconds away from rebuking the suggestion when she finally managed to summon a smile that was neither humorless nor cynical. One that accurately portrayed her feelings rather than guising them in a shield around her heart. Despite all else, Spike had been a wonderful sport. With what happened last night, even including their spat, he had done everything possible to make her comfortable. Something she would have never thought him capable of. Just something.
“Thanks,” Buffy replied earnestly, warmth embracing her heart when he smiled back. “I really appreciate it.”
And then something amazing happened. Spike became shy.
Spike became shy. He glanced down, muttered a few unintelligible things, offered a nervous laugh, met her eyes again and sealed it with a nod.
In a moment of pure abstract, Buffy realized her jeans were curled on the floor and that she was sitting on the bed, under the blankets with her archenemy—wearing nothing but the shirt she had adorned yesterday and panties. Spike’s shirt had gone missing sometime in the night as well—well, more or less bunched as far off his top as he could afford—and when he had invited himself under the covers, she did not know. But here he was. Here they were. And it felt as natural as anything else.
Oh God.
Which, inadvertently, took her back to where she had begun.
“Oh God.”
That was all it took for the sweet look to vanish with a façade of annoyance. “Now what?”
“Bathroom?”
The fire in his eyes died just as easily and he offered a small grin. “Oh, right.”
It was strange seeing him like this. His face came to life when he smiled; she remembered thinking that when they were under the spell. Spike so rarely smiled around her—well, he never smiled around her, but she loved seeing it. He had a gorgeous smile.
At that, she frowned. Bad Buffy.
It wasn’t as though anything would come of it. Thinking along these lines would do nothing more than prevent her from getting over something that needed to be gotten over.
And yet that didn’t explain for the gentlemanly posture he performed while she indulged a moment that was supposed to be intimate. Or how he helped her wash her hands while manifestly not caring too much for his own regard—not that it mattered, anyway.
No. That did not explain that at all.
TBC
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