Chapter Four
Spike awoke with a smile curling his lips. Muscles popped satisfyingly as he stretched like a cat, sweeping a hand casually across his chest and abs. He was alone, and while the knowledge lent him pause and made the wakeful happiness slip a little, the belief he was making headway had it zooming back up there in no time. He wanted to sing, get up and do his nudie dance of joy, but he was the Big Bad again—or as much of one he could be with slivers of Initiative technology still keeping him tame and leashed on the mouth of Hell—and Big Bads didn’t shake their goodies on the side of good fortune, or not when every bloke and his dog could come crashing unannounced into his home.
Though sleeping alone, spending the night celibate with Buffy had cranked out emotions in him he’d never known he could muster. She was soft and good, and as easily as he thought he could read her, she always ended up surprising him.
The picnic idea had been an over-romanticised, ill thought out manoeuvre that was only just saved in the nick of time with the lure of nightly violence. He should have guessed that any semblance of a normal date would be too much for either of them. He wasn’t normal, and the few times Buffy had treated him like the man he sometimes thought himself to be, it didn’t actually make him one. Pity. He liked that look of approval in her eyes, even if it came but rarely. And as normal as he wasn’t, Buffy was even less so but with the added complication of being at least human enough to give the ruse a passing shot.
The girl never handled failure well. Internalised the pain until she was punishing the few who could bear to be singed by her erratic light.
He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever give the ideal up or if it would be one of those lasting impression things, that Angel’s parting words would always be with her.
She’d looked stunning last night. He’d stared at her with an emotion hardly mustered by him in over a century. Appreciation for her efforts had blindsided him. He’d not been expecting her to make such a deep impression—not when she’d made so many on him during the past year. Still, she’d dressed up…for him! She’d groomed herself for a date with him and Spike was still reeling—despite the grin he couldn’t wipe from his face. Never before had someone given him the chances Buffy was trying so hard to freely hand to him—no ties.
Pity it was all so bleeding problematic.
Somewhere along the way what he’d wanted from her and what he’d accepted had become all twisted. Not that he didn’t revel in being twisted. He was a vamp and he’d always strive for the chaos of the thing before anything else. Always want to hold the broken in his hands and try to mould it into the most comfortable wearing coat. No matter how much he’d given to Buffy, the intensity of what she’d given back had been an overload for his system.
He had a horrifying prediction that this softer, more agreeable Buffy was going to kick his lovely existence in the teeth. Alter the playing field even further so he was left with a world that he barely recognised anymore—not that it was much of a stretch from what he had now. Everyday was a minefield to him—would he get through the night without a newly broken nose, an undamaged crypt, a night of glorious, sadistic sex?
His girl kept him on his toes, and while that made him happy for the most part, he couldn’t help but think he should be burdened with nerves now that she was trying to take them to a level of respectability. Acceptance.
It was something her crowd had never given him and despite her professions that she was going to tell them the truth about her secret lover—the truth about her time with him—Spike seriously doubted it would reward them with little more than an earful of pain for the trouble.
With a grimace, he rolled off his cold sarcophagus and shook out his bedraggled and singed blanket. It was all he had left since the lower level had been baptised with fire and demon guts. Not that he was complaining. Well, not loudly at any rate. He should have known he’d end up buggered with that plan, one way or another. He was poking the Slayer within feet of a dangerous breed of demon. He’d been bloody stupid to not expect that to blow up spectacularly in his face.
It galled him that he had to pull on the shirt he’d worn the day before. He was a vamp who took pride in his appearance and losing his whole bleeding wardrobe in one upsweep of Captain bloody Wanker really pissed him off. And if he up and swiped an armful of black tees from the local, he’d have the Slayer breathing down his neck—and not in a way designed to get him hot and heavy.
Not that a thought of the Slayer breathing on his neck did anything but have him jut out hard and aching. He’d had many absences from Dru’s lean body in the many years he’d escorted her around the globe, but very rarely had it caused so much blistering pain to have his cock deemed off limits to certain zones. To not be able to sink deep within Buffy’s scorching depths almost felt like death. And not the kind of death he’d been enjoying for the past century. This was the kind that made him not want to face another new day. So he was superficial. He was evil for God’s sake!
He was being melodramatic. She’d offered him the kind of relationship he’d only ever dreamed about, if he had the courage and the will to try and earn it. Bloody hard to wait for the thing he’d been awarded so freely just days ago. Bloody hard—but worth it. If he couldn’t have her in the dark—and he was under no illusions that she’d meant to dump him from her life for good after his home’s rapist choppered off to parts unknown to Spike—he’d have her any way she’d offer. If it meant keeping his hands to himself for a time, he could do it.
As much as he’d always wanted Buffy, this almost truly having her felt more than a little surreal. The possibility of being her lover—and recognised as such by all that daily criticised her choices—seemed outside Spike’s natural abilities of comprehension. He’d seen some wondrous things in his time, but a soulless vampire dating a slayer had to rise above every single one of them. Still, if he didn’t wrap his head around the reality of it soon, he’d fuck it up and lose her for good, and that would never do.
Right, well tonight seemed the perfect opportunity to test out her resolve—and her word. He’d heard a few rumblings around The Magic Box that tonight was to be for ‘dancing and making with the fun,’ and Spike planned to be right where his girl would be. By her side, ready to see if she’d admit to all of them that he was truly her boyfriend.
As lame as that sounded.
As bloody brilliant as that sounded.
His coat settled over his shoulders and Spike stretched and cracked his neck, indulging in the usual routine of rehearsing his most menacing moves to help reassure him he hadn’t completely lost his touch. It was more like going through the motions now—hard to feel confident in his Big Badness when he couldn’t frighten a fly anymore, and he was just as useless. The leather was more than a prop, though. Just like silicon tits made some women more confident in their allure, Spike allowed the coat to soothe him into the rebellious, evil persona that had become as familiar as his skin.
That Buffy had succumbed in no small part to that side of him proved that he’d not been far from the point he’d shared with the Iowa idiot all along: girl liked a bit of monster in her man. That it was Spike’s monster was all the better.
With a new spring in his step, Spike strutted across town, snarling occasionally at the weak and revelling in their startled squeaks and trails of fear as they ran. It was a small thrill, but thrill it did, and it made him feel a little less whipped than he knew he really was.
The Bronze fairly pumped with blood, excitement and sweat harnessed by a hundred horny and clueless patrons. And Buffy was in there, still within the influence of her oblivious mates while he waited and worried about how far he should push her to deliver what she’d promised. How much he should forgive her when she didn’t.
He swung the door open, stepped through, paused, and surveyed the darker interior for a glimpse of his golden girl. She wasn’t too hard to find. Even if he could sense her with his age old slayer-radar, he’d have seen her immediately just from the strength of her smile. Buffy nursed a coke in a cup between her palms and she giggled and talked animatedly; in short, a Buffy that had been absent from this place for at least a year. A quick glance placed them all except Nibblet—she must have got her way and was planted firmly within the bosom of Janice’s family home as soon as night fell so that big sis could have a night off from responsibility.
She needed it. Hell, as much as the gits she hung out with cheesed him off, they did too. Wasn’t easy keeping on top of an active Hellmouth and despite himself, Spike found himself swelling with admiration for the whole bunch of them. He’d helped them this last summer, even though his reasons for doing so confused him. There were the obvious ones of course—keeping the world safe, keeping Dawn safe, keeping Buffy’s mates safe. But then there was the insidious one that kept perking up in his conscience and never allowed him to sleep. He did it for Buffy—plain and simple. And he did it for himself. No matter where she was, he was convinced she could see him, and if she could see him, he wanted her to be proud of him. To trust him to take care of those she’d left behind.
If she’d seen, she’d forgotten the second she’d plummeted to earth and ended up locked in a wooden box too many feet below the surface. Spike shook off that thought quickly. Every misguided recollection or thought of Buffy digging herself out of her grave was enough to spiral him into despair. As much as reason told him that Buffy’s trauma was completely laid at the witch’s door, it never stood up against the guilt that it was really his fault she’d died in the first place.
No one at the table seemed aware of his entrance—not even Buffy—and that bugged him unreasonably. She should be able to feel him—just like he could feel her when she was anywhere near. It was disappointing to not see her face before he strutted up to the table, spying an empty chair and drawing it in closer to her and the table.
As soon as he sat down there was silence. It was an insulting hush and Spike wasn’t stupid enough to imagine it meant anything but the pure disdain the majority at the table held for him. Well, presumably not Buffy, and hopefully not Tara, though that bird was twistier than most. He was undecided about the ex-demon that obviously needed her brain refunded with hanging with the wanker on the stool beside her, but for now he’d add her into the Switzerland category. All right, so that made half the table. Harris and Red were looking at him with shock and subtle revulsion, and he was sure they thought he’d done it just to piss them off. They were only half wrong, because as much as he loved Buffy, that reaction was always just neat.
“Evenin’ all,” he drawled, searching his pockets for his packet of cancer sticks and smirking in satisfaction at the shared expressions of horror around the gathering. Buffy’s face matched those of her friends and he felt a shard of irritation pierce his throat. It wasn’t tears. No fucking way was he going to let her contrary nature make him weak in front of this pack of wolves.
“I strongly object to your smoking. I have newly human lungs and letting them get cancer from second hand smoke is the very last thing I will allow them to do. Put it out now,” Anya demanded, her frown etching deeper lines into her face the longer he ignored her. In a fit of pique, she stood on the stool’s wrung, leaned over the table and plucked it from his lips, throwing it into Xander’s fruity looking cocktail, despite the brunette’s panicked attempt at diverting her to a napkin.
“Oi! That was bloody uncalled for!” He fumed at the girl and then felt the hard, pointy toe of a boot connect with his leg and struggled to reign in the demon that wanted to bite their heads off, possibly starting with the feisty blond who still hadn’t said a word about his presence.
“Besides,” Willow said as she barged into the conversation, her eyes glittering with suspicion and dislike. “You can’t smoke in here. So there.”
Spike let his gaze roll leisurely around the club, making it obvious to the power-hungry redhead that no such sign betrayed itself on the club’s walls and that he knew she was talking out her arse and the end result wasn’t pretty. “You the new management then, pet? ‘Cause if you are, I’ve got a bone to pick with you. How about bringing the flowering onion back to the sodding menu? Only thing worth scarfing, it was!”
Willow looked very unattractive with her lips thinned in anger and her body turning away from him. The attitude was relatively unexpected for Spike and he looked at Buffy to try and get some explanation for the Wiccan’s animosity. The Slayer shrugged, showing that she was as much in the dark as Spike often was. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, knowing he’d unwittingly pissed off a witch capable of awakening the dead. Still, she could only dust him once—he hoped.
“Why the hell are you here, Fang Breath? Did it look like we were lonely?” Xander glared at him and not for the first time Spike wondered why the boy didn’t just let some of the anger out before he earned himself a heart attack.
“Whelp, you always look lonesome. Probably on account of all the girlies wanting to run as soon as you open your bigoted mouth.” The end of the sentence came out on a tempered growl, Spike’s bumpies rippling below the surface of his face. Buffy clasped his hand beneath the table and it was enough acknowledgement to stop him losing control and causing himself a powerful headache in front of a crowd. For that second that the molten heat of his demon violence flashed behind his eyes, he was grateful to her.
“Spike’s here to…for…” Buffy looked wide-eyed at her friends and then blanched at the expectation on Spike’s face. She was making the difficult impossible by denying the words to even form in her head and Spike felt himself stand, prepare to take that first definitive step away from the table and her when she grabbed his hand—out in plain view—and hopped off her stool to stand beside him. Her eyes pleaded with him and Spike was torn between being patient and pissed. “Spike, wanna dance?” She tugged him away from the group and into the throng of energetic bodies getting their Friday night groove down and funky, and all it did was confuse him more.
The second she was in his arms, she buried her face in his neck, her warm breath rapid and terrified against him. “I’m so sorry, Spike. I will tell them. I promise.” She looked so miserable when she looked up, and the tears blurring her eyes were enough to tell him how sincere she was. The girl was just scared and he should know that better than anybody. He knew her better than her watcher or her friends combined, so he could cut her some slack.
Buffy curled her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck and tugged him down, bestowing on him the first kiss since she’d decided to give them a chance. His blood flared at her proximity, at her taste and he could feel every cell of his body reacting to her closeness. This was a dream—one so unnaturally coming true and for the moment he didn’t care that she hadn’t told them all. He’d put her on the spot and it hadn’t panned out—but maybe it had earned him the result he’d wanted.
A glance through the crowd saw a table full of gaping Scoobies and Spike felt a shudder rip through his body. Buffy made him feel like he was the Prince with his Princess and he couldn’t help but fear when this fairytale would end, but in the mean time, “Wouldn’t worry about it, luv. They’ll get it soon enough.”
And he went back to caressing her plump lips.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you SO much to rosie, Sam, kw and cordykitten for reviewing the last chapter. I hope you enjoy this next one! :D And the next one is written so it shoudl be up soon.