“So Angel was Scottish,” Buffy began.
“Irish” Spike corrected, idly twirling a strand of her short blonde hair around his forefinger.
“And Drusilla was Polish”
“British,” Spike corrected dryly.
“Okay. So Angel was Chadian and Drusilla was Armenian-“
“-Irish and British. Angel was Irish and Drusilla was British.” Spike had stopped caressing her hair and was straining his neck to get a view of her face, currently hidden from his view as they were spooned on the firm mattress of the bed in the lower level of his crypt.
“Are you teasing me?” He asked. “I can’t get a good look at your face but I think you’re teasing me.”
“I might be teasing you,” Buffy smiled.
She was in a playful mood, Spike noted with satisfaction. They had finished making love-er, um, fucking, as she would probably call it (his girl had quite the mouth on her), over an hour ago.
Yet, she had remained lying in his bed and had made some attempts to strike up a conversation. She had told him how Dawn was doing, talked about Xander and Anya’s approaching nuptials, and had even mentioned that she was thinking of taking some classes at UC Sunnydale (poetry, specifically).
Unfortunately, her attention had shifted and she was now grilling him about various aspects of his family history with a single mindedness and focus he thought she reserved for nagging him and shoe shopping.
“But I’m also serious,” Buffy said, returning to the conversation, “I want to know this stuff. You know all about my family. I want to know about yours.”
“We weren’t a family, pet. There was no love between us.”
Silently, Buffy considered the man behind her. He was…well, she didn’t exactly know how old he was-but he was old. One hundred twenty something, maybe? She should ask Giles. The Slayer chuckled silently to herself. Oh yeah, that would be an interesting conversation.
“Giles, I was just wondering how old Spike was.”
“Why ever do you want to know, Buffy.”
“Well, since I’m fucking his brains out almost every night for hours at a time I thought it might be the responsible thing if I knew what number to write on his birthday card.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Still, she was curious about his history. He knew people from Ireland and England, China and Africa. He had traveled the world, spoke more languages than she knew existed (Fyarl and D’orvarkan among them), and could recite every one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, from memory, in English and Latin. To never have to think of him as anything other than a vibrator with legs, who happens to love you-her traitorous mind reminded her-seemed wrong. She needed to know about him and about his family for reasons she refused to try to comprehend.
“…and she was an even bigger bitch in real life than she played on the stage, I’ll tell you that.” Spike’s ranting about some actress he had eaten in the 1940s brought Buffy back to the present. She stopped his tirade with a gentle squeeze to his right hand.
“Please,” She pleaded softly, “I want to talk about this.”
Spike would have been content to lay silently, his lips brushing her neck and shoulder (he loved her shoulder). Post-coitus cuddling was one of-scratch that-post-coitus was the only time Spike was content to lie silently.
There was something so intimate about allowing his demon’s heightened senses free reign and taking in the altered scent in the air, the feeling of mellow satiation that traveled through his limbs, her thunderous heart beat. Those were things that were worth staying silent for.
But the Slayer wanted to talk. And, he reasoned, after a performance like the one she just gave…Spike smiled. Not a smirk. Not a cocky I-just-ate-the-canary-or, in his case, I-just-had-unbelievable-sex-with-the-slayer-and-ate-her-pussy-grin. A real smile. She had called out his name as she came, the first time she had done so since their “relationship” began.
He trailed a line with his lips from the underside of her ear to the base of her neck. If she wanted to talk, they would talk. “Ask me anything.”
“Why do you still have your accent if Angel doesn’t?”
Spike noted the conspicuous lack of any mention of Darla. But, he reasoned, he was even less eager than she to rehash Darla’s colorful role in his family history. The matriarch of his order could give the Slayer a run for her money in the Biggest Bitch in the Whole Wide World Contest. Spike smiled slightly at his comic train of thought.
“What do you want to hear, love?” He asked, returning to the present. He turned Buffy’s pliable body in his arms so they were facing each other. Uncomfortably close he could see the flecks of gold in her eyes.
“I could tell you that I keep the accent out of loyalty to my country.” Spike feathered a fleeting kiss to her lips before sliding further down her body.
“I could tell you that I haven’t been in this country long enough to lose the accent, yet.” He bestowed a kiss upon both her breasts and then continued his descent.
“I want the real answer,” Buffy insisted.
“Or,” Spike continued, as if she had never spoken, “I could tell you the truth.”
“Which is...” The Slayer prompted.
Spike kissed the soft spot on her stomach and then rolled onto his back. He fumbled in his top nightstand drawer and produced, a few moments later, a single cigarette. He toyed with it between his figures, enjoying the feel of the rough paper but resisting the urge to light it.
“Secondhand smoke kills,” Dawn had reminded him time and time again in that I’m-in charge-don’t-mess-with-me-voice. Yeah, his ‘bit was going to grow up to be a fine woman.
Still, he had taken her words seriously. Especially considering the multiple schoolhouse rock reruns Spike had watched dealing with the dangers of smoking- all viewed during his newly-chipped days chained up in Giles’ bathtub. He would never-scratch that-no self respecting vampire would ever watch school house rock of his own free will.
Plus, there was his vow to consider.
He had taken an oath to himself never again be the cause of the Slayer’s death. Not after the tower. He was training harder, getting quicker, packing more power behind his punches, reading up on more types of demons. No hell Gods, vampires, or other nasties (lung cancer included) were going to take her away from him.
Putting aside that morbid train of thought in favor of more pleasant reality of the very naked Slayer sprawled out on the bed next to him, Spike grinned ferally before rolling the Slayer onto her back. His hands pressed her forearms into the bed with strength that he knew she found exhilarating. His face hovered only inches above hers.
“I never lost my accent…” He lowered his lips to hers so they were pressed lightly together and then whispered, in a scratchy, though unmistakably British accent, “…Because the girls find it dead sexy.”
Buffy freed a hand from Spike’s grasp and placed it on his chest, holding him back from deepening their almost-kiss.
Images flashed through her brain. The first time the word “love” or “pet” or, God help her, “Goldilocks” rumbled through his lips. The way he spoke as he pounded into her. Those sinfully delicious words that he whispered in her ear and screamed out as his climax neared played in her ear in his rough accent.
The Slayer looked the Vampire square in the eye. “The “girls” really, really do.”
And then their lips met in a kiss and there was no more talking for a long time.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Why did Spike retain his accent?