It started with a shopping trip...
Buffy had just bought shoes. Pumps, to be exact. She didn't predict much use out of them, seeing as she rarely had an opportunity to wear something so impractical for slaying, but just having them made her beam. She passed the bag off to Spike and stretched.
"Okay! Now I need to find a blouse to go with that skirt that I bought last month. I'm thinking something cream colored but maybe with a pattern," Buffy said.
Spike rolled his eyes. "Tell me again why I came along?"
Buffy kissed his cheek. "Cause you're the best boyfriend in the world?"
"Yeah," Spike said, though his attention paused on a pair of stomp-y boots in one of the shop windows. Buffy held onto his arm and rested her chin on his shoulder.
"Like them?"
"Could use new boots."
"Wanna get them now? I can forgo the capris I was planning on getting."
Spike shook his head. "Nah, you get what you want. I don't need the boots now."
Then he started walking again, pulling Buffy along.
"Well, maybe for your birthday..." Buffy said.
That's what had done it. It was an awkward thing to say, and Spike didn't respond. Instead, the subject wandered to which sub-par mall cafeteria eating establishment they should stop at. However, the comment stuck in Buffy's mind because it struck her: She didn't know when Spike's birthday was.
She could say that she'd get him boots for his birthday, but if his birthday never came? It wouldn't mean anything. And in all the years they'd been together (three, to be exact), Spike had never celebrated a birthday.
Maybe it was a vampire thing? Once they got turned, having birthdays was passe?
The idea burrowed in her head, though, and wouldn't let go. Buffy decided she had to prod around a bit to see if she could get Spike to spill about his birthday.
So one day, they were relaxing at home. Spike was watching soccer on TV, and Buffy was browsing through her carefully preselected woman's magazine.
She waited for a commercial break to laugh, otherwise Spike would just ignore her.
As predicted, he tore his attention away from the ads and looked at her. "What's funny?"
"Oh, my horoscope. 'You will meet someone who will change your life. Don't pass him or her up!' They're always so silly, don't you think?"
Spike shrugged. "Dru was into all that sort of stuff."
"Big surprise. What's your sign?"
"Why'd you want to know that?"
"So I can read your horoscope. Come on! It's fun!"
He scoffed in that Spike way he had. Buffy felt her plan breaking apart.
"Load of rubbish, if you ask me. Course, that whole magazine isn't much better. You really need to learn ten ways to please your man in bed, luv? Cause as your man, I can tell you you're doing just fine."
Buffy glared at him. "You're changing the subject. When's your birthday?"
Spike tilted his head. "Thought we were talking astrology, not birthdays."
"Well, I'm talking birthdays."
"Uh huh."
"I just want to know when your birthday is."
Spike stared at her for a long moment. The commercial break ended then, and the game started back up. Spike turned back to the screen.
"Birthdays are for the living."
That was the end of that conversation. It was a setback, Buffy had to admit. Spike was being bad-moody stubborn in that undead way. She didn't know what, exactly, his beef with birthdays was. She was determined, however, to celebrate his birthday somehow.
The next week found Buffy presenting the brand new boots to Spike after work. She hadn't bothered wrapping them. Instead, she just dropped the box in Spike's lap.
He put his book to the side and looked up at her. "What's this?"
"Boots."
He opened the shoebox. Indeed. They were boots.
"Why?" He looked back up at her.
Buffy sat down on the coffee table across from him. "Spike, we live together. We work together. We both bring home a paycheck. You are my lover and partner and I hope you will be for as long as I live."
"So I get boots?"
"I'm going somewhere with this. Hold on." Buffy leaned forward to place her hands on Spike's knees. "You are - okay, technically, you are dead. But in every other way? You're alive. I couldn't love you otherwise. So you get a birthday. And yeah, I don't know when your birthday actually is, but I want to get you something for it. So since you won't give me the date, I'll just give you your present now and consider myself good for the year."
She waited for his reaction. His normally expressive face was closed off.
"This is a birthday present?" he asked.
"Uh huh." She nodded.
His silence stretched on as he began to closely inspect the boots. The Jeopardy jingle played in Buffy's head, and she had to restrain from prompting him for a response.
Then she was knocked over backwards by a wiry mass of muscle-y vampire. She tumbled off the coffee table with Spike on top of her, his lips crushing hers.
She was too dazed to do much more than recover her breath when Spike ended the kiss.
"You're an amazing woman," he said.
"So you like the boots?"
"That not obvious?"
"Well, not until now."
He kissed her again. This time, she had the presence of mind to respond enthusiastically.
In mid-kiss, the swung her leg around and flipped them so she was on top.
"If it's your birthday," Buffy said. "Then that means it's my turn to take care of you."
Spike gave an appreciative moan, and Buffy leaned forward to press her body fully against his. She dropped soft, teasing kisses on his lips.
A thought came to her, then, and she raised herself up slightly. "So, when is your birthday?"
She knew Spike was so eager to get to the sex, he'd happily give her the answer to any question just to move on. "Honestly? Don't remember. Now let's get that shirt off."
His hands were at the hem of her shirt, pulling upwards. Buffy frowned. "You don't remember when your birthday is?"
"Nope."
"You're not that old!" Buffy's voice was muffled as she helped tug her shirt over her head. Once that was discarded, Spike's hands flew to the clasp at the back of her bra.
"Yeah well. Not much call to remember it after I died."
"Oh." Bra off. Buffy shrugged her arms out of it.
Spike grabbed her arm and tugged her back down so her breasts smushed against his chest and her nose touched his. His fingers combed through her hair. "It's alright, though. From now on, my birthday is today, yeah?"
He kissed her before continuing, "I'm okay with my life starting now."
fin
