Setting: Early season 7 Buffy, although it's completely AU
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Nothing in this story is mine, other than the order of the words. The characters, the show, and everything else all belong to someone else.
Summary: Spike keeps Willow company while she tries to vote
A/N: This story is an early birthday present for Angel S, who not only writes wonderful stories, but also gives me feedback that makes me smile. So thank you, Angel S, and please keep writing.
A/N2: This is the NC-17 version of this story. Only the first half-dozen paragraphs are the same, so you might want to read them both. I kinda had one idea to start with, and then the story went in two different directions, hence the two versions. Hope you like one of them, at least. If you do, let me know. It's kind of like voting...it's you, giving your opinion on what you like. And it lets me know what direction to head next time I sit down to write.
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"Who ya votin' for, Red?" Spike asked mischievously, grinning as the redhead started in surprise. He liked scaring her. Truth be told, there wasn't much about her that he *didn't* like.
Circumstances had made them roommates-when Willow returned to Sunnydale after her brief bout with the dark side-Xander referred to it as her 'Vader Days'-things between her and the others had been strained, at best. Willow had decided that it would be easier for everyone if she gave them time and space to heal. Spike knew that the decision had hurt her, but she said time and again that it was for the best, and that she didn't regret it.
A couple of weeks later, when the Slayer had pulled him out of the basement of the old high school, mad as a hatter, Willow had immediately offered to take him in. It had been some time before the others were convinced that she could take care of herself, and Spike, but in the end Buffy had been relieved to have one less thing to worry about.
And Willow had had a chance to take care of someone else. It turned out to be a much-needed distraction, and one she didn't mind in the least. And as Spike's sanity had returned, they had begun to build a tentative friendship.
"It's none of your business who I vote for, buster," she insisted, turning in her dining room chair and looking up into the face of the vampire standing before her.
Refusing to take 'no' for an answer, Spike looked at the mail-in ballot on the table and leaned over, trying to see what she had marked. When he realized that she hadn't yet marked any of the boxes, he snatched the paper away and held it teasingly in front of his roommate.
"Give it back, or you're a dead man," she threatened, trying hard to suppress the grin that threatened to tug at the corners of her lips. As a roommate, Spike could be trying at times, but he could also be a lot of fun. She never knew whether to laugh or get angry when he teased her like this.
"Could too!" she insisted. "Dusty vacuum fodder is pretty damned dead, even for the likes of you!"
Spike merely continued to smirk at her, knowing her threats weren't serious. She couldn't even kill the wayward fly that had made it into their kitchen last week. He had watched her for half an hour as she tried to shoo the insect out the front door.
"Ya gonna give your vote to the party boy or the far-out liberal?" he teased, his smirk widening into a grin as Willow jumped to her feet and tried again to snatch the paper out of his hands.
"None of your damn business! Now give it to me."
"I wouldn't vote for either of them," Spike proclaimed. "They didn't do one damn thing to court the undead American vote. They jetted from New York to Arizona to Florida to Oregon, but did they ever once stop and talk to a vampire? No! They just ignored us entirely."
Hands on her hips, Willow let out a mock sigh. "You're not even an American, Spike. You're British, remember? Even if you were alive, you wouldn't be able to vote."
"Well, yeah," Spike admitted, his smirk changing to a pout, "there are some minor technicalities. But still, would it have hurt either of them to take a moment from their busy day and come tell me about their policies on the whole 'blood stamps for the unemployed undead' issue?"
Willow couldn't help it; she just had to laugh. His whole 'woe is me' act got her every time. This was a vampire who could have killed a bus full of nuns without blinking an eye, and yet he was indignant over the lack of a blood allotment in the government's food stamps program. The incongruity of it tickled her fancy, and she dissolved into giggles, falling back into her chair, her ballot long forgotten.
"Spike," she gasped between giggles, "sometimes you're just too much."
"Yeah, I am, aren't I?" he agreed, his expression turning soft as his eyes lingered on the curve of her lips. She was so young, and even beyond that, so very innocent, and it always amazed him.
"What?" she demanded, feeling his eyes on her. Was he laughing at her? Playing with her, simply because he was bored?
"Nothin'," he said softly, his gaze shifting, refusing to meet hers. "Here ya go, luv."
Willow contemplated the ballot he held out to her, grabbing it quickly. He changed his mind often, his moods mercurial at best. Better to grab the paper now, while she could.
Sometimes she felt like there was just one missing piece, one bit of information she was lacking. If she could find that, or figure it out, then everything about him would make sense to her. Until then, his moods, and Spike in general, would remain a mystery to her.
Spike seemed to lose interest in their game, wandering into the living room to watch some TV cartoon with a talking dog. His occasional chuckles still reached Willow's ears as she bent over the table, writing earnestly on her ballot.
It was silly and she knew it, but once the idea had struck her, she couldn't resist. In race after race, she put a name into the write-in candidate's spot, spurning the Democrat and Republican challengers for someone not on the political radar at all.
"All finished, Spike," she called out, smiling when his head popped up from behind the couch.
"Ya gonna let me see?" he asked curiously.
"I'm telling you, aren't I?"
Before Willow had a chance to blink, the vampire was standing at her chair, his face alight with inquisitiveness.
"So let's see it then," he insisted, curious to see who she had chosen.
Willow laid the piece of paper in his hands, waiting nervously as Spike read the name of the write-in candidate. It was the same name, over and over. His name. He chuckled softly, affection lighting his eyes as he looked at the redhead.
"Interesting choice, pet. Mind telling me why?"
She blushed enchantingly, refusing to meet his eyes. "Wanted to give it to someone who mattered to me, I guess."
"I matter?" he asked softly, his hands grasping her shoulders, urging her to her feet. She faced him now, although she still refused to meet his eyes, as though afraid to give away more than she wanted to.
"Course you do, Spike." Willow could see that he didn't quite believe her. "You're my friend. My best friend." It seemed odd to have a best friend who wasn't Xander. He had been everything to her for most of her life. But they had both grown up and had chosen different paths. Although her path had been long and circuitous, it had eventually led her to Spike.
"You're mine, too," he admitted softly. Then he had to go and put his foot in it by adding: "Then again, I don't have too many friends."
She smiled at both admissions, wishing she had the courage to say more. To tell him exactly how she felt about him, and how badly she really wanted to kiss him, right now, at this very moment.
"What is it, Red?"
"What is what?" she asked shakily, pulling her gaze away from him with some effort, her eyes roaming the room without purpose.
Spike shrugged, kicking himself for ruining the moment. "Just looked like you wanted to say something. Maybe wanted to do something?"
'Wanted to screw your brains out,' Willow thought to herself, then felt her face turn crimson with embarrassment. Good girls didn't have thoughts like that about their *platonic* friends. Plus, it was just so unlike her. But Spike, looking the way he did, acting the way he did, he seemed to bring that coarse, base, sexual response out in her.
"Um, no, nothing. Not wanting to do anything-nothing. Nope." The babbling reply left her feeling like a stupid, naïve schoolgirl talking to the object of an age-old crush. She had so hoped she was beyond that kind of thing with Spike.
The vampire watched her as her face flushed and a hint of her arousal wafted in the air, wondering what had caused such a response in her. His eyes narrowed slightly as a possible reason occurred to him. Could it be? Did she have feelings for him that went beyond the realm of roommate/best-friend territory?
Hope flared in his heart as he considered the idea. Certainly they had grown close over the last several months. They had shared confidences and feelings, staying up into the wee hours of the morning, and sometimes later, talking about everything and nothing.
Willow had told him how it felt to lose Tara: the absolute emptiness inside of her when she knew that her lover would never return to her. She had cried in his arms as she explained how the darkness had filled up those empty places until nothing was left except grief and rage and the need to punish those who had hurt her.
And in return, Spike had told Willow about his relationship with Buffy. Not about the sex; she was aware of that already. But about the way the slayer had built him up, made him feel like he was a man, only to tear him down again, piece by piece, with cruel words and meaningless, cold sex. He had wanted to kill her, to rend her from limb to limb, until she told him she loved him.
He had gone away, seeking to get his chip removed. But instead, he had received a much more meaningful reward: his soul. And because of the soul, he now had Willow.
Only he hadn't shared that last bit with her, because he knew she didn't feel the same way. But now, he wondered if maybe she did.
'Carpe diem,' he thought to himself. For better or for worse, this was his chance, and he was going to take it.
"Willow?" he asked softly, his hands coming up to frame her face.
Her gaze shied away from him, but he didn't let it deter him.
"I want to say something to you. And you may not like it, but if you do, then maybe it might be something really great." Damn it, I'm fucking this all up. Just do it, you damned idiot.
So he did.
Spike's lips descended slowly, the space between them getting less and less by the second. He waited for her to say something, or do something, give him some sort of a sign.
His lips found her cheek first, the blush that still remained there searing his lips with its heat. He felt her hands on his shoulders, then his back, pulling him closer, their bodies pressed tightly together. He smiled into her cheek as his soul soared. She wasn't pushing him away.
"Spike," the whispered word loosened something inside of him, and then broke it open altogether, and the next thing he knew, she was kissing him back.
"Willow," he answered in kind, taking in a sharp breath as her teeth found his earlobe, nibbling gently at the flesh. "God, I love your mouth."
She giggled happily, her mouth moving down to his chest, the feeling of her laughter against his body strange, yet welcome.
With quick, economical movements, her hands unbuttoned his shirt, pushing it back away from his chest to fall to the floor. She examined and explored, her fingers dancing enticingly over his nipples, their touch promising to be a prelude to other pleasurable things.
"Wanna see you," he mumbled, reaching for her shirt. She hesitated a moment, nervous, but the lust in his eyes had her raising her arms so that he could pull the shirt over her head and toss it to the floor.
His eyes roamed her body, and the nervousness made a brief reappearance, but the affection and appreciation she saw on his face made the nervousness disappear until all that was left was an urge to knock him to the ground and have her wicked way with him.
Willow's fingers moved to her skirt, her hips shimmying slightly as she wiggled her way out of it. Spike watched in bemused silence while she attacked his pants next, her fingers catching on the buttons briefly, before pulling them down to his knees. She let him take care of the rest.
Once she decided to do something, she jumped into it whole-heartedly, Spike realized. She might be nervous, but she certainly wasn't going to let that stop her. He liked that about her.
Spike knelt before her, his hands framing her hips. His lips started at her bellybutton, and inch by inch, he kissed his way down to the barrier of her underwear. Pale fingers pulled the blue cotton down slowly, his lips following the flesh it revealed, kissing and nipping his way into her hair, until the underwear lay forgotten at her feet, and his lips were at the entrance of her sex.
Willow joined him on the floor, lying on her back and looking up at Spike. The trust and affection that he saw in her eyes warmed his body and soul, and he moved quickly to cover her body with his own.
"Spike, now! Please?"
His cock in hand, he moved it against her vagina, pushing gently into her. The warmth of her brought a groan to his lips, the heat almost too much for him. He watched as a look of relief flew across her face, then felt her legs come up to circle his hips, pressing him more deeply into her. Contentment shone in her eyes now, as if this was something she had long needed, but hadn't had the words to ask for.
As he began to move within her, his lips returned to her perky breasts, teasing the nipples with both lips and teeth, until they became stiff and erect. The soft moans and cries Willow emitted were clues, telling him what she liked, what she loved, and what she didn't want to live without. He followed the signs, and soon her body was writhing beneath him with excitement.
"Almost there, Willow. Just hang on a little longer," he beseeched, feeling his own orgasm quickly approaching as the walls of her pussy caressed his penis.
They came together, crying each other's name as the pleasure became overwhelming.
"Love you," Willow confessed drowsily as she dropped off to sleep.
"Love you too," Spike whispered, holding her tight and snuggling against her.
The end.