Summary: Spike has a snit-fit, which leads Buffy to some very interesting
conclusions. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to writing B/S
fluff... Just a warning for you B/A fans.
Spoilers: Through Wrecked.
Disclaimer: Joss is da man.
Rating: PG13
Angel used to call her Beloved, sometimes. Mostly it was when he was still
on the verge of sleep and his eyes would flutter open and see her there and
he would whisper that word to her. It made her heart pound, made her feel
good inside, but it also made her sad.
Because as much as she *was* his beloved, she never could be. Not really.
Spike had taken to calling her 'Luv,' when he wasn't calling her one of
another thousand things. And as much as she'd hate to admit it, she softened
when she heard it roll off his tongue, so easily, so... Sincerely. Which is
precisely the reason she hated to hear it. She doesn't like softening toward
him.
But she did, too often.
Buffy shook her head, clearing her mind of those thoughts while waiting for
the doctor to finish bracing Dawn's arm. No actual cast because it wasn't a
break, only a small fracture, and Dawn complained a little about this, saying
that a cast would be more fun. Buffy smiled faintly at her, glad that her
good mood was returning, even as slowly as it was.
Through Dawn's complaints came a soft whimper as the doctor fondled her arm a
little too roughly and Spike bolted to her side, pushing the doctor out of
the way. His hand touched her hair. "You okay, Little Bit?"
She looked up at him with big eyes and blinked back tears, managing another
smile. "Yeah. It just hurts some."
Spike glared at the doctor who was looking a little frightened even though
the push Spike had given him was nothing more than a gentle shove. "Isn't
she supposed to not feel it anymore?" he growled.
Buffy watched the scene play out in front of her with a sort of detached
amusement.
The doctor shifted. "The medication should be taking affect any minute now."
The vampire looked to Dawn. "Is it hurting any less? Do you need anything?"
"I can't tell," she finally murmured after a thoughtful moment. Then she
offered, "I'm getting kinda sleepy."
"Yes," the doctor said with relief. "It's starting to work. Soon the
discomfort will ease."
Spike nodded and returned to petting Dawn's hair as she fought back a yawn.
The doctor-- Buffy suddenly wondered how old he was, because he looked barely
older that she was-- turned to her and handed her a prescription. "You can
get this filled at the pharmacy at the end of the hall before you go home.
Give her two every six hours for the pain. Place an ice pack over the brace
to reduce the swelling."
"Thank you," Buffy said automatically, still eyeing her little sister and
Spike. "You ready to go home, Dawnie?"
"Yeah. I- Is Willow going to be there?"
Buffy paused for a moment, noticing how Spike's expression darkened. "Not if
you feel at all uncomfortable," she finally settled on saying.
"No..." The word came out as a whisper. "I'm the one who said you should go
back to talk to her. She needs help, I guess. I'm not uncomfortable.
Just... Worried about her, I guess. About all of us. You don't think she's
going to try something like that again, do you?"
"I don't know," Buffy said honestly. "I hope not. Because if she does, then
I can't be her friend until she gets it under control and I really don't want
that."
"Yeah... I'm kind of sorry I hit her." She winced as she moved her arm and
then shook her head. "Not too sorry."
"Come on, kid," Spike interjected, his voice rough, "Let's get you home."
He lifted her into his arms and she snuggled easily against him as though it
were perfectly natural to be held by an evil vampire in such a tender manner.
But, Buffy reminded herself, a lot of things had happened over the summer.
Maybe it *was* perfectly natural.
Not to mention that she herself had been in several similar positions the
previous night.
Spike seemed to catch her blush and he sent her a soft grin before walking
out with Dawn, leaving Buffy no choice but to follow.
* * * * *
Buffy picked up the phone on the fourth ring. "Hello?"
"I want to talk to you," Spike grated out, not bothering with a hello.
"Is this about the garlic? Because I think it speaks for itself."
"It's not about the-- What garlic?"
Buffy sighed. "Look, Spike, I don't have time for this. You want to play,
I'm sure can do it by yourself... That didn't come out how I meant. Just...
Go away."
She started to hang up, but his voice, sharp and commanding caught her
attention. "Don't flatter yourself!"
Slightly amused, she put the phone back to her ear. "Pardon?"
"This isn't about you and me, Luv. It's about your little sis. I want to
talk to you, in person. Come to my tomb tonight after patrol," he
instructed.
Her mouth tightened. "This is sick. Now you're using Dawn to get to me? I
can't believe how *low*..."
His voice was as soft as it was suddenly threatening. "This has nothing to
do with you. Nothing at all. The Little Bit and me, we do okay by
ourselves. I just want to talk to you about her."
Buffy was silent, surprised, and after a moment heard herself consenting.
"Fine. But I swear to God, if you try *anything,* then--"
"I've heard this before," he said, disgust in his tone. "Can't you find
something new?"
"Whatever. I'll meet you in an hour."
With that assent, he hung up on her and Buffy stared at the phone in
confusion.
* * * * *
She slipped quietly into his tomb, not surprised to see him waiting for her.
He stood from the ratty couch. "Hello, Luv."
"Spike," she said warningly, and he sighed, gesturing for her to sit down.
She complied warily, shooting him another glare.
He began pacing. "Thing of it is, I don't think Willow should be living with
Dawn."
Buffy's mouth opened in disbelief but for a moment, she found it impossible
to figure out what to say. After a minute she settled on, "Huh?"
"I don't think Willow should be around Dawn right now," he said again,
nodding definitively. "She's a bad influence. Dawn nearly got killed
because of Willow, and I think that, for the time being, Dawn should come
stay here."
Buffy snorted. "You actually think I'm going to let my little sister come
live with you in your crypt?"
"You know I can't hurt her."
"Spike, that's not the point!" she burst out, still unable to believe what
she was hearing. "Well, actually, that's part of the point but I'll get to
that later. It's a crypt! She's a fifteen year old girl! She deserves to
be living in a house with central heating and television and lamps that she
can study under!"
"I have electricity," he pointed out. "So what if I didn't come by it
legally? And I have a television, and lamps, and a nice extra bed
downstairs. If you wanted, you could come check on her every day."
Buffy started laughing. "So you're saying you'd allow me to come into this
dungeon to see my own sister? That's very big of you."
"You know what I mean," he growled. "And there's a simpler solution if you
don't want her to move in here... You could find Willow some other place."
Her laughter faded. "I'm not kicking Willow out. She's going through
something bad right now and she needs my support."
"Even at the risk of Dawn's safety?"
"I would never let anyone hurt Dawn!" Buffy snapped. "Remember who was the
one who died to save her. You apparently got knocked off the tower before
the first round!"
He stared at her and she flushed.
"Okay," she said, her voice softer, "That's not true. I'm sorry for that. I
know that you tried to keep her safe. Really, I'm sorry. But Willow needs
me, and you have to know that I would never let any harm come to my sister."
"I know that," he said under his breath. "And yeah, the witch just might
make it. In fact, before all this, I liked her. She was one of the more
decent ones in your bunch. But this is out of control, and if you'd bother
being objective, you would see that she's probably not going to make it
without magick for long."
"And you call yourself objective?" Buffy shot back heatedly. "She *will*
make it. She's going to kick this... Addiction or whatever and I'm going to
help her. We're *all* going to help her. She doesn't need whatever kind of
sick power trip she gets from magick. She's fine just being herself and
she's going to realize that soon."
His head tilted slowly to the side as he watched her. "So that's what this
is about," he said slowly.
Buffy shrugged irritably. "What do you mean?"
"You think you *are* her," he clarified. "Overcome with a sick addiction
that's ruining-- or could ruin-- your life and hurt everyone around you.
Let me tell you something, Kitten, even if I am an addiction, I'm not
planning on hurting you or the ones you love."
"I've seen how you treat kittens," she muttered, "So don't compare me to
them. And you could hurt my family and my friends just by being a part of my
life. They'd feel betrayed. Hell, *I* feel betrayed by myself."
"Maybe they would," he acknowledged, "At first. Maybe they'd wonder what the
hell you were doing, but when they saw that I made you happy..."
"You *don't* make me happy! You... You disgu--"
Before she could finish the word, he clapped his hand over her mouth. "I'm
stopping you before you say something just to hurt me, Pet. Because you
don't really mean it. I'm pretty sure you don't make it a habit to sleep
with men who disgust you."
She yanked away from his hand, which was stealing heat from her skin and
feeling better that she would ever admit. "Exactly. Which is why I'm not
going to do it again, because I'm *not* going to make a habit of it."
That slow smile returned on his face and, against her will, Buffy found
herself staring at his mouth as he answered confidently, "Yes, you will. And
you know why?"
She shook her head mutely.
He leaned close, his lips brushing her ear. "Because I make you feel good.
And you like that. You need that." He pulled back and looked her in the
eyes. "I'm not above admitting that I need it too. What happened between
us, Buffy, that was just the beginning. We haven't even gotten to the good
part yet."
Striving to keep her tone clipped-- and failing miserably-- she asked, "And
what's the good part?"
"The insanely, happily in love thing," he said, waving his hand dismissively.
"Once you're in love with me, really in love with me... That'll be the good
part. I'll treat you in a way you've never been treated before. You won't
have to go around for years frustrated because I can't..." His eyebrow lifted
suggestively, "Satisfy you. And you won't have to worry about me in a fight
because we both know I can hold my own against demons."
Suddenly his voice lowered to almost a whisper, became rough and tender.
"And I'll love you. I'll love you as much as you let me. I won't hurt you,
not ever. Maybe I am a demon, Luv, and maybe I don't have a soul but that
doesn't mean I won't do everything in my power to make you happy."
Her legs weakened for a moment and her eyes blurred as she forced the
promises he was making out of her mind, the temptations that were almost too
hard to bear. She opened her mouth but he cut her off.
"But we're not supposed to be talking about this." His tone was once again
agitated, and he stepped back, giving her relief with his distance. "We're
supposed to talk about Dawn."
"Spike," she said quietly, pulling her eyes away from his, "I want to ask you
something and I want you to be honest."
"I always am," he smirked.
She dipped her head in wry acknowledgment. "All right, then. Do you really
think Dawn would want to come live with you when she has a house, has a
*home* where her friends and family take care of her? Where someone is there
to make her dinner every night and chat with her and where there are photos
on the wall of her mother? Where her teddy-bears are, and her phone and her
favorite purple sheets? Do you really think she'd want to leave all that to
come live here?"
His shoulders slumped and he stared at her for a long moment. "I don't want
anything to happen to her," he muttered. "I was with her all summer, Buffy.
I know you think that most of it was Willow and Tara and Giles and... Some of
it was. But I was *there.* I took care of her because I promised you. I
saw her every night. I helped her with her homework, took her to the movies,
told her stories about what it was like in the world when I was human. She
likes me. I... I like her."
"Spike," Buffy whispered helplessly.
"I promised," he said again. "And I don't break my promises. Not even now
that you're back. I said I'd take care of that girl and 'til the day I turn
to dust, I will. She's a good kid. She deserves better than to be scared of
someone livin' in her own house. She's not scared of me. She trusts me. I
feel good when I make her laugh and I've never-- not *ever*-- made her cry.
Is it really such a bad thing to ask her to come live with someone like
that?"
"I'm not going to do it," she finally said, "But no. It's not such a bad
thing to ask."
There was a long, pregnant pause as Buffy looked at him. Her breath caught
in her throat as she saw him, broken and bloody again, telling her that he
couldn't tell Glory about Dawn because it would kill her. She saw him at the
bottom of the stairs, saying that she made him feel like a man. She saw him
taking her hands the night that she rose from her grave and leading her to
the couch, so gently, so tenderly. She saw him on top of a coffin, laughing
easily with her as he poured her another drink and, later that night, sending
her winks as he cheated at kitten poker.
She saw him singing about loving her, and felt his kiss at the end of that
endless night almost as if it were happening all over again.
She felt all of the other kisses that followed, and saw the look of shock and
pleasure on his face when she wrapped her legs around his hips and lowered
herself onto him, so slowly. The moments of that night played like clips of
a movie in her mind; his fingers sliding down the indentation of her spine,
cupping her bottom; rolling on top of her, managing not to break the contact
of their mouths even for a second; tangling his hands in her hair and
breathing an unneeded breath just to take in the scent of it, even though it
was filled with dust from the house collapsing around them.
He must have told her that he loved her a hundred times that night.
And then the next morning she had said it was a mistake.
"Bollocks," he'd thrown back, "It was a bloody revelation."
And now, he was saying that he loved Dawn too, that he would take care of her
until he died and no matter what she did to dissuade him from being in her
own life, his relationship with her sister was going to stay intact.
Because, while she was gone, he was right... He really had taken care of her
like he promised.
"Buffy?" His voice snapped her out of her thoughts and brought her slamming
back into reality, the revelations of the passed few seconds making her feel
like she'd been flattened by a truck.
"Yeah?" Her voice was faint.
His eyebrows drew together and he watched her closely. "Are you okay?"
A laugh bubbled out of her throat and caught it, surprised, realizing that
she hadn't really laughed at all since she'd come back. "I... I think so."
"What's going on?"
She approached him until they were inches apart and his eyes narrowed
suspiciously. She touched his chest with her fingers lightly. "I'm having
my own 'bloody revelations.'"
"What kind?" he asked warily.
"How is it possible that you really love me?" she asked, deflecting his own
question. "You don't have a soul, so how--"
"You don't need a soul, Luv, you just need a heart." He placed his hand over
hers, flattening it against his chest. "It doesn't have to beat. And it
doesn't hurt if the person you're in love with is hot," he finished,
shrugging.
She giggled again, and a smile of delight edged around Spike's lips as he saw
her eyes twinkle merrily up at him. The moment seemed, strangely, even more
intimate than three nights ago, when he had been buried inside her.
"Buffy," he said quietly, not wanting to break the spell but unable to not
ask, "What revelation did you have?"
"You," she said simply. "I had you."
His smile tried to grow but he tightened his lips and stamped down his hope,
positive he was somehow blowing what she said out of proportion. "Care to
elaborate?"
"Sure," she said easily, and then kissed him.
It was warm and sweet and all too brief, unlike their other kisses where
passion and fear and even gratefulness had reigned, and she pulled away
before he could respond.
"You care about my sister," she said, still a bit too close to him for his
mind to focus properly. "Which means that if you really thought being with
me would hurt her, you wouldn't. Right?" She studied him for affirmation.
"Well..." He licked his lips, trying to wrap his mind around the question.
"I don't think she'll understand it at first but... No, I wouldn't hurt her."
"And if my sister can gradually learn to accept you, then so can my friends,"
she said. "But that's not really what I mean. What I mean by revelation is
you," another small kiss punctuated the word, "loving me like you do. I saw
it. I wouldn't let myself see it before because I was scared... I felt
nothing but when I was around you, I felt everything and that freaked me out.
I can't promise to love you forever because *wow* sometimes you can get on
my nerves, but I can promise you that right now I do. God, I do."
"What the hell?" he growled. "How did you come to this decision?"
"You risked me staking you-- me who you've professed to love hundreds of
times-- so that you could ask me if you could take care of my sister." She
smiled. "That's something special."
Suddenly alarmed, he objected, "I didn't bring you over here so that I could
manipulate you into..."
"I know. That's the beauty of it." She lifted her eyebrows and considered.
"And the strangeness. But we all know I like the paranormal." Her hand
slipped up and she began dancing her fingers lightly over his collarbone.
He swallowed hard.
"You wouldn't lie to me, Spike," she continued. "You haven't ever lied to
me, not even to protect me and I like that. I need that. You're right, too,
about making me feel good. It makes me feel good that I don't need to worry
about you in a fight... Although I'm probably going to from now on," she
added with a resigned sigh. "But not so much that it's not a really big
help. And the... Well, I have to admit, the ending to the sexual frustration
is a part of it. But not all. You'll protect me and I'll protect you and we
have a weird sort of fun. I like fighting with you. I like even hanging out
with you, although a year ago I never would have said that or even con
templated it. We have chemistry. And you care about my sister."
"I do."
"Good. Plus, you'll be faithful to me." He started to nod emphatically and
respond, but she shook her head, a dark grin gracing curving her mouth. "Not
because you love me so much, but because you know I'll kick your ass to high
heaven if you aren't."
"That too," he chuckled.
"You and I make a good team," she said thoughtfully.
This time he leaned down to kiss her, caressing her lips slowly, lightly.
The kiss deepened and became moist and hot and Buffy clutched at the front of
his shirt. He peeled her hands away and placed them around his neck and was
pleased when she obeyed his silent request and locked them there, pushing
herself closer.
"That we do, Luv."
"Spike?" she asked dimly through the haze of thoughts and emotions as he
nipped harmlessly at her neck.
"Yes?" He didn't bring his head up, preferring to continue tasting her skin,
hearing her little pants of delight.
"You know how you said that night was a revelation?"
Finally he looked up, half afraid she was going to claim that this whole
thing was a mistake again. "Yeah?"
She took his hand and led him to the hole in the floor, dropping quickly and
expertly down, landing on her feet. He followed, a grin tugging at his mouth
and when they were both there, she pulled him quickly to the bed and gave him
another long kiss.
When she pulled away, she smiled.
"Let's make tonight an even better one."
The End
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