Chapter Twelve
“Mmm…” Spike hummed as he sucked gently on the tip of Buffy’s tongue. He kissed his way across her jaw line to suckle a spot just below her ear that he knew she liked, whispering, “You taste like sunshine.” And she did.
They had been out in the fields all day, bringing in the last of the hay. She tasted of sun and salt and dust and something warm and distinctly her own. He savored the intoxicating mixture, brushing his lips down the column of her neck to her collarbone.
“And you taste like cigarettes. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: yuck.” She made a breathy little noise and stroked the back of his neck, which turned him on immensely. “You’re good at that,” she sighed as he tongued the hollow at the base of her throat.
He grinned against her and murmured, “I’ve had practice.”
Buffy made an inquisitive noise and asked, “Oh, yeah? How much?”
Snorting, he continued his attentions, sucking on her pulse point. She crooked a finger und his chin and made him look up at her, intense curiosity suddenly written across her face.
“No, really, Spike, how much practice are we talking, here? How many girls have you done this with?”
“Enough,” he mumbled.
“Just tell me.”
He looked at her as though she were crazy. “Does it really matter that much to you?”
“No. At this point, I’m just bent on getting my way,” she replied brightly.
“Funny; so am I, pet.” Spike leaned in hungrily to capture her lips.
She pulled back, though, leaving him frowning, but with his lips still puckered, making her laugh. Looking him in the eye, she squeezed his face between her hands, making him look rather like a frustrated fish. “Just tell me,” she repeated.
“Seventeen,” he mumbled through his unnaturally pursed lips.
Buffy blinked at him once. It didn’t register right away, but when comprehension dawned on her, she shoved him away and nearly yelled, “Seventeen?”
“Well, yeah. Why? I thought you said it didn’t matter,” he said, rubbing his chest where she’d shoved him. “How many is it for you?”
“What, me?” she asked needlessly. “Two.”
Spike was nonplussed. Two? She had only ever snogged two blokes? He couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t believe it,” he said stupidly.
“Well, too bad, ‘cause it’s true. Seventeen? Really?” She seemed to have gotten herself under a little more control.
“Cross my heart, pet. Not something I’d forget.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she mumbled, half under her breath. “Pushing yourself on poor, innocent girls…”
“Oi! I’ve never in my life done anything that wasn’t completely consentual! What do you take me for, anyway, a bleeding—“
Upon meeting her eye, he stopped. She was teasing him.
“Nosy li’l chit,” he growled, yanking on one of her braided pigtails.
“Manwhore,” she retorted, swatting his hand away.
“Shut your gob.”
“Make me.”
He did.
After a frenzied chase around the porch, consisting of more tickling and kissing than actual running, they collapsed heavily onto the porch swing. Buffy laid her head in his lap, slipping a hand under the hem of his shirt, tickling the skin of his abdomen lightly, but quickly dozed off. He couldn’t blame her. Work around the farm was only getting more exhausting as the summer neared its close. He couldn’t remember ever being so consistently tired as the time he had spent here.
Spike was used to humidity, but the cool, grey mists of London were a world apart from the heavy, muggy August nights in Iowa. The air was dense and still, and things seemed to move more slowly through it, like figures through water. He pulled a deep breath in through his nose, savoring the thick scents of the grass and hay, the musk of the animals, and the sweet scent of Buffy.
The climate wasn’t the only thing that had changed for him. He let his mind wander again to how different this summer had turned out to be from what he had expected. In May, summer had seemed nothing more than a few months with which to find a job to finance a bit of travel; a means to an end. And yet, here he stood—or sat, rather—only a short while from school starting back up, and wondering how on earth he could bring himself to go back, to leave this place. Or more importantly, to leave Buffy.
Spike had never really had a family, save his ailing mother, and with her loss, he felt as though he had been set adrift, lost his anchor in a rather stormy sea. But with Buffy, he had found shelter, a place where he felt he belonged and, he hoped, a place that belonged to him. She had become a part of him; wrapped herself so tightly around him, heart and soul, that the line distinguishing them as separate entities had begun to blur and bleed. By now, he was quite sure that, were they to be separated, huge parts of him would go missing, attached to her inexorably.
He had expressed this notion a few nights previous, though in not so many words. (What he actually had said was, “It’ll be a pain in the arse to go back to school without you.”) She had replied by stating airily that she was sure he would survive, somehow. But even having buffered his sentiments as he had, something moved behind her eyes when she had looked at him. A wall raising, he thought.
And so it went every time with Buffy. Whenever their conversation became too emotional, or their touching too personal, she would pull back. A blockade would suddenly stand between them, and he would know to go no further for the time being.
He understood, of course. The wounds of loss and loneliness, that drifting feeling, were still very fresh for her.To push himself on her, take advantage of her in any way, was something he must absolutely avoid. He cared for her enough that, unbearable as the need to have her and give himself to her sometimes seemed, he would wait. He loved her. He could wait.
Contemplating how much he wanted her was a stupid thing to do, as it made his longing that much more urgent. He had to touch her. For the moment, he contented himself with gently unplaiting her hair and running his fingers through it, delighting in the soft, sensual slip of it over his hands. He wished he could wake her, whether to finish what they had started earlier, or simply to be in her company, but he knew first-hand how burnt out she was.
In the mad scramble to complete the myriad tasks that lay before them in preparation for fall, Xander, Willow, Spike, Buffy, and even Clem had worn themselves ragged. And surveying the area around him, Spike felt more of a sense of pride and contentment at what they had accomplished than he ever had before.
1630 Revello drive was practically a different place than when he had first arrived. Gone were the overgrown yard and peeling white paint of the neglected house. They had laid new sod and painted inside and out, built a new fence, put the barn and chicken coop in much better repair, and generally made the place a regular Sunnybrook.
“The best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” Spike had read Teddy Roosevelt’s words in his U.S. History 104 class, and was now grateful for it, recognizing the truth in it. The changes that he had seen in himself in just a few short months were surprising, to say the least. There was just something about hard physical labor that grounded him, connected him to the earth and crops and sky all at once, as well as to himself.
Initially, he had refused Willow’s offer to even come, thinking a summer couped up on a farm would be a waste of precious time he had meant to spend experiencing the States. Now, he couldn’t imagine any other scenario in which, in one summer, he could ever learn so much about himself, the world, life. So it was work worth doing. For Spike, for Buffy, and for him. For Riley.
Spike would never meet Riley Finn. Knew of him only through pictures and the fond reminiscing of those who loved him. But while there was a part of him that was vaguely jealous of the man—jealous of the part of Buffy that belonged solely to his memory—he felt an odd sort of kinship with him, a sense of indebted gratitude at sharing what had been Riley’s.
*Thanks, mate* he thought, as he continued to thread his calloused fingers through Buffy’s hair. *I’ll take care of ‘em for you.* Spike smiled to himself. He talked to his mum all the time. Why discriminate between deceased persons?
“What are you thinking about?” Buffy’s voice suddenly broke through his thoughts, startling him a bit. He hadn’t realized she was awake.
“What makes you think I was thinking? Not much going on in a young adult male brain, after all,” he said.
She stretched and turned her body so she could see him better, keeping her head in his lap. “While ordinarily I’d agree with you, fact is, you were playing with my hair. You always have to do something with your hands while you’re thinking.”
It warmed him inside a bit to know she had noticed such a thing, but he merely shrugged. “Sorry to have woken you, luv.”
Buffy sighed, her eyes fluttering in sleepiness, and curled into him a little more, despite the damp heat of the night. “No worries. Usually when you think, you smoke, and I’d much rather you pet me than do that.”
He grinned, watching her fall back into a deep sleep more quickly than he had thought possible. The thought caused a sudden wave of exhaustion to roll over him. Scooping her up as gently as he could—Lord, he could swear she weighed more when she slept—and, not having the energy to heft her all the way upstairs to her bed, laid her on the couch in the living room, which wasn’t much cooler than the porch, but was at least indoors.
He slipped off her shoes, stepped out of his own sandals and removed his shirt, and spooned himself tightly against her. She curled her arm back behind his head, molding herself to him unconsciously. Spike laid a kiss against her ear and, laying an arm over her slim waist, fellt promptly asleep. He dreamt of shimmering golden things—soft hair and wheatfields.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm still here. I promise. Thanks again to my amazing beta, Flibble, and to Bree. And to all of you who are somehow still reading this. All y'all blow me away.