Help Yourself in Seven Days by Sotia
Summary: Mid-Season Six.



Buffy has a tiny little accident during patrol. She accepts Spike's offer to help her, but doesn't realize that offer encompasses much more than her wounded ankle until she is already chained up to the ceiling of the lower level of his crypt. It is now up to her to decide if she’ll help herself, or not.
Categories: General NC-17 Fics Characters: None
Genres: Angst, Romance
Warnings: Adult Language, Sexual Situations, Violence
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 9 Completed: Yes Word count: 24978 Read: 16912 Published: 11/13/2010 Updated: 01/22/2011

1. Day Zero – Realize you Have a Problem by Sotia

2. Day One – Delegate by Sotia

3. Day Two – Shirk responsibility by Sotia

4. Day Three – Relax by Sotia

5. Day Four – Let people know how you feel (Part A) by Sotia

6. Day Four – Let people know how you feel (Part B) by Sotia

7. Day Five – Stop thinking the world will end if you aren’t there to spin it by Sotia

8. Day Six – Live a little (and stop trying to seem so proper!) by Sotia

9. Day Seven – Don’t be afraid to be yourself by Sotia

Day Zero – Realize you Have a Problem by Sotia
Author's Notes:
The fact that this exists is a major blow to my credibility, which is why it was only being posted on my LiveJournal up to now. It seems I'm not completely done with Spuffy after all, although I'm not back on the Spuffy-train either--sadly. Still, it was exhilarating writing one chapter and having an idea for a fic.

Half of this chapter had been in my work computer for four months, named Spuffy Something, when on a slow day at work, I thought I'd see if it could at least become a one-shot. It wouldn't. It would only settle for being an eight-parter fic.

Seven out of eight parts have already been written now, and betad by the wonderful Marilyn and Mari, whom I can't thank enough.

I hope you like it. Updates will be weekly.
Day Zero – Realize you Have a Problem



I was going to go to Spike and give him a piece of my mind.

I was.

I was going to barge into his crypt, bang the door extra hard, for emphasis, and tell him I wanted him out of my life for good. I wanted to stop our sick and twisted rough-and-tumbles. I would go back to my life and try to make the best of the extra time Willow had forced on me. I’d be happy. Maybe being brought back wasn’t the worst thing since my hairdresser moved out of town. Maybe it was a second chance at being normal—and letting a soulless demon touch me was as far from normal as slayerly possible!

I would give him a deadline to leave town. If he didn’t, I’d just do what Xander and Giles kept telling me to: my job.

A stupid rock appeared under my foot out of nowhere—I definitely would have seen it if it’d been there before I stepped on it; Slayer here—and I stumbled.

Meh. I should have known better than to walk with my hands in my pockets. Especially when one of them was holding a stake. I didn’t end up with said stake jutting out of my stomach, as was entirely possible, but I didn’t get to hold my hands out in time to stop my fall.

I would have cracked my head open on Mr. Worthington’s headstone, if arms made of steel hadn’t wrapped around my waist a split second before impact.

“Steady there, Slayer,” my savior whispered in my ear. Oh, great. Now he’d make a big deal out of saving my life, and I’d never manage to get rid of him without being an ungrateful bitch.

I found my footing and pushed him away. “I’m fine,” I said flatly.

He shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Just didn’t want you bloodying up my neighborhood. It’d draw in all sorts of nasties.”

Yeah, right. That was all he worried about, not my wellbeing. All the better. Made it easier to be ungrateful. “No need to worry about that.” I held my hands out, twirling the stake in one for emphasis. “See? Not a scratch. You can enjoy your peace and quiet.” And I’d made a mistake. The line I’d just given him wasn’t exactly the perfect opening for me to issue my ultimatum. “For the short time you’ll be around,” I added hastily. There. I’d fixed it.

Tilting his head, Spike looked at me. There was no question, no calculation in his eyes, and it bugged me no end. It was like he only looked for the fun of it.

“What?” It’s possible I sounded defensive.

He shoved a hand in his back pocket—I did not stare at how that stretched the denim over his front—and fished out a packet of his cancer sticks. “Why? Am I going somewhere?”

Caught up in watching how he used his lips to pull a cigarette out of the packet, I forgot he’d asked me something.

He used his Zippo to light his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke out in rings. “Hello? You with me, Goldilocks?”

His phrasing pissed me off more than it reasonably should have. “No, Spike. I’m not with you,” I spat out. “I could never be with you. You’re a monster.” To stress how little I thought of him, I stomped my foot. The rock that had tripped me didn’t have the decency to move out of the way, and I felt more than heard my ankle snap. Ah crap. Instead of yowling in pain, I said through gritted teeth, “And stop calling me Goldilocks!”

The menacing effect of my hissed tone was ruined by the way I hopped around on one foot, trying to regain my balance. I wasn’t looking at him. If I even caught a glimpse of a mocking smirk or sardonically arched eyebrow, I’d stake him.

His hand on my shoulder caught me unawares. So did his other arm folding behind my knees. He hadn’t even put out his cigarette and the smoke seemed to wrap around me and choke the fight out of me. I plucked it out of his mouth and threw it to the ground with a grimace of disgust. Before I could protest the way he lifted me, he looked into my eyes and said, “I’m just going to put some ice on it. Prevent the bruising. You can be on your merry way after that.” He smiled ruefully. “Or send me on mine.”

That didn’t change my plans, I told myself. He’d take me to his crypt; I’d tell him we were over; I’d send him packing.

Of course, I’d have to skip the door-banging.

Not allowing that to make me gloomier than I usually was those days, I curled my body closer to Spike’s. The night was cold, and for all they said about vampires, he was warm enough to be used as a windbreaker. To be used. Well, I wasn’t the only one doing the using, so there was no lingering on that thought. I tried to ignore the hard muscle under my cheek and the goose-flesh that rose on his arms when I shifted enough to loop an arm around his neck—only in an effort to keep myself steady.

He paused in front of his door, seemingly considering something. I cursed my non-vampiring hearing for my inability to make out something he muttered to himself, and then he kicked the door open and walked over the threshold with me in his arms.

“You can put me down there.” Arching my back, I pointed to his couch. He acted like I hadn’t spoken, bypassed the couch, and continued to the hole that served as an entrance to the lower level. Oh, yay. He’d try to take advantage of my pain. Why did that surprise me? I knew whom I was dealing with.

I masked my disappointment under a thick layer of anger. “You will not take me downstairs. I’m not here for that. You’re not touching me again!”

I hadn’t expected him to drop me on my ass. In retrospect, I guess I deserved it.

My tailbone hit the cement floor hard enough for the cracking sound to make my teeth rattle and my eyes water. For the second time in only a few seconds, I felt stupid for being disappointed in someone I shouldn’t have expected anything from, anyway. He was soulless. He was evil.

What did that make me for having let him inside me, time and again?

“You didn’t have to do that.” Did my voice tremble? It had to be the physical pain. It certainly couldn’t be the emotional one; I couldn’t possibly be hurt by something so small after the trauma I’d suffered being torn from heaven.

“I’m either allowed to touch you, or I’m not. Decide.” His tone was harsh, emotionless, but his eyes held a softness I couldn’t associate with the idea of him I was trying so hard to maintain. I needed Spike to be the worst kind of demon. I needed him to be all I had been trained to destroy. If he wasn’t, if I was hurting someone who felt, who cared, who loved, wasn’t I the monster?

I had to get up. I wanted to lie down and sleep. I had to go home, check on Dawn. I wanted to let Spike take me to his bed and do to me all those sick and twisted things that made me forget there was a Dawn. And a Willow. And a Xander. And a Giles. I had to drive Spike out of town or stake him. I wanted to let him comfort me and convince me I wasn’t wrong, that everyone else was.

I started crying. I let my face fall forward, into my hands, and cried for everything that had been taken from me, for everything I had no right wanting, and for everything I knew was coming my way.

“Sod this.”

Through my spread fingers, I saw his boots retreating. Had he finally had enough of me? I didn’t think of him as the kind of guy who’d be afraid of a few tears. My soaked shirt let me know there had been more than a few—a torrent of them. As with everything else except for what a mess I was, my mind refused to focus on it for long. When put into perspective, nothing mattered. I let my body curl in on itself until I was a tiny little ball. Maybe I could roll down a hole, get lost, become even smaller… a speck, a puff of air…

***

“You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re worth the effort.” I blinked until Spike came into focus. He was standing above me holding what looked suspiciously like chains in his hands. A smile blossomed on his lips, and he added, “Then I remember you really, really are.”

True to Slayer fashion, I was completely alert by the moment he got to “are,” but it was already too late. The chains he was holding—because they really were chains, didn’t just look like them—held shackles that were attached to my ankles on their one end. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst of it was that their other end had matching shackles, closed snuggly around my wrists.

“You are the Slayer, Buffy. The fucking, ass-kicking—” Spike paused and swung the chains hard over one shoulder, so that I was lifted off the ground and plastered on his back like a backpack “–one in every generation, here to slay what goes bump in the night, Slayer. And you don’t even bat an eyelash while a vampire hog ties you in your sleep? Why were you sleeping on the floor anyway?”

His little stunt shocked me and sent jolts of mind-numbing pain to every single joint of my body, but once that wore off, I started kicking, hitting and even biting him, in an effort to get free. He didn’t let it faze him even a little bit. Carrying me like he was extra-kinky Santa and I his duffel-bag of goodies, he jumped to the crypt’s basement.

The way Spike dumped me on his bed wasn’t any more delicate than his previous manhandling had been. Gone was the man who’d picked me up when I’d fallen in the cemetery. Part of me felt like mourning him, but the rest insisted that man had never existed; he’d just been a front, someone to make me vulnerable, so the demon could get close enough to attack.

Do you trust me?

Yet, I’d been vulnerable before, in Spike’s hands before, in handcuffs for him before while he plowed my body, his hands squeezing down on my throat, and he’d let me live. It hadn’t been to make his betrayal sting more; he wasn’t Angelus.

The thought of my former lover didn’t cause even a little bit of ache in me, and I wondered if I were that dead inside, or if I was finally over him.

“Can you Please. Just. Focus? I’m trying to help you here.”

Right. Spike. Talking. “Help me?” I snorted and looked pointedly to where he was hovering over me, looping the chains in their middle around a hook that hung from the ceiling. “Help yourself more likely.”

“If I were to help myself,” he said, testing that there was enough slack to the four ropes of chain arching from the hook to my limbs, “you would be buck naked and on all fours. Not that that wouldn’t help you, seeing as I’d be replacing that stick up your ass.”

I waved my arms forcefully, trying to unhook at least one of the two lengths of links, but he grabbed the chains and stilled them. “Don’t. You may bring the whole thing down on your noggin, and, useless though it may be to you these days, there’s no reason to bust it.”

I thrashed, but he looked at me sternly. “Don’t be a child. I can help you. Give me a week, and if nothing’s changed, I’ll leave. Hell, I’ll take a morning walk, if that’s what you want. In the meantime, though, you’ll have to do what I say, when I say it.”

I arched an eyebrow and pursed my lips. “Like blow you?” Where brute force failed, female guile had to succeed!

“This isn’t about sex, and it isn’t about me, Buffy. It’s about what’s best for you.” He smirked. “If you’re in a life-threatening situation, where vampire semen is the only thing that can save you…”

“You’re a pig.” I was pretty certain I’d turned beet-red, so I turned away from him.

His smirk widened for a brief moment, then vanished as he climbed down to perch beside me. “Let me help you. I won’t make you do anything you don't enjoy—or anything you do enjoy but find wrong. No, wait. You probably think eating ice-cream is wrong for you. I won’t… touch you in a way I shouldn't. Stay here and let me help you.”

I could have put up more of a fight, I admit it. I could have said there was nothing wrong with me, I could have started pulling until I’d wrecked the entire ceiling and buried us both under the rubble; we’d already brought down a building, albeit in a more pleasurable manner. There was something wrong with me, though. Really, very wrong, and his words—I’m just trying to help you here—had managed to reach deep down inside me to the little grieving girl that craved peace, and give her a sliver of the next best thing: hope.

My fingers closed around the chains but didn’t tug. I just wanted to feel the cold metal ground me when I asked my question, and most importantly, when I got the answer I knew he would give me. “Why would you help me?”

“Because. I. love. you.” He said it the same way he’d once told me he was Out. For. A. Walk.

Bitch.

I nodded reluctantly, but couldn’t outright accept his offer. “If I can’t escape, I guess I might as well make the best of my stay,” I said with a sigh.

He left me alone for as long as it took him to go to the nearest takeaway and get me a cheeseburger. There was lots of grumbling on my part, but he all but force-fed me every single bite of it including the fries.

Satisfied I hadn’t missed out on any errant calories, he tucked me in bed as well as he could with the torture device hanging from above, and read “Beauty and the Beast” to me, until the sound of his voice was nothing but a hum that lulled me to sleep. Something cool and soft touched my forehead at some point, and a sense of safety I hadn’t felt in a while enveloped me.

That night, lying in a vampire’s bed, sleeping in a demon’s crypt, chained up, I dreamed of puppies and rainbows.

For the next few days, I’d have to tell myself several times that I only did what he told me because I’d promised to.
End Notes:
I would appreciate it a lot if you took a couple of minutes to tell me what you thought of the chapter :)

PS. If you've been following this on LJ, I've made a change in this version: OMWF has taken place, and so has Tabula Rasa, so some things will read differently.
Day One – Delegate by Sotia
Author's Notes:
Thank you so much for your response to the previous chapter. You reminded me why I keep coming back, and why Spuffy is like home.

I hope you like this chapter, too.

Thank you Marilyn and Mari for all the work you've put into making this fic read-worthy!
Day One – Delegate



I woke up like I usually did post-death: terrified.

I could feel my heart thudding inside my chest, like a startled bird flying against the bars of its cage. My pulse pounded in my ears, and my breathing was labored. I tried to bring my right hand to my throat, but felt a weight on it.

Buried. I was buried again. I’d have to dig my way up through the dirt. My other hand and my feet were weighed down as well. A whimper escaped my lips, and I felt my heart-rate speed up even more. How many beats per minute before a Slayer’s heart decided it had too much?

“Shhh…”

My eyelids flew open—or perhaps they were open already. Not like I could tell the difference; the darkness was thick around me, pressing down on me.

“Slayer, you’re having a panic attack. You’re okay. Listen to me.”

I knew that voice. Spike. What was he doing in the darkness? Couldn’t he leave me alone even here?

“Draw in a long breath—five seconds.” Α fizzling sound, and then the darkness was slashed by a sliver of soft yellow light. It was weak and sickly, but I focused on it, my mind wrapping around it and using it like a lifeline to pull itself out of the murky waters of panic. What had he said? Inhale. Five seconds. One. I wasn’t in my grave. Two. I was in Spike’s bed. Chained up. Three. He was holding a candle. Four. I was dressed but shoeless. Five.

“Good girl.” Spike hadn’t come any closer. I could see him by the foot of the bed, looking at me with almost fatherly worry. “Now hold your breath for another five. You’ll be okay.”

I nodded. I could already feel my heart slowing down to normal. He remained silent while I counted the seconds, but I could see him mouthing the numbers in the faint glow of the candle. His skin looked paler than usual. I wasn’t certain the whitish hue was a result of the flame shining right below his face or his seeing me in such a state for the first time since he’d known me. Wondering about Spike’s feelings again—when I should be considering him incapable of having any—was bad for my mental health in general, but helped steer my thoughts to someplace other than my panic over my waking up in a grave.

“Now let the air out slowly. Five seconds again.”

Once more he counted with me, this time out loud, and by the time the air had cleared my lungs, my brain was clear, too. Clear and in denial. “Take the chains off.”

“We’re not done with the breathing exercise.” He sounded so much like Giles telling me training wasn’t over, I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “I’m going to turn the light on now, okay?”

I squinted against the assault of the light. “Take them off, Spike.” He’d had his fun and a Slayer tied to his bed for a whole night—maybe more, I didn’t know what time it was—but the charade was over now, and I had to get back to being miserable at my own place.

He approached me slowly, cautiously, like he would a wounded Tyrannosaurus Rex. “You will not leave before the week is over, Buffy. You said you wouldn’t, and I have every intention of holding you to that. If you white-hats don’t stick by your word, what is this world coming to, after all?”

Low blow. I had no ethical responsibility towards a demon, but with self-doubt gnawing at me on a daily basis, I couldn’t afford to back out on a promise, no matter whom I’d made it to. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though.

“I can’t spend a week in these,” I said, lifting my arms so he could see the manacles. I was going for whiny, but seeing the red welts where they’d dug into my wrists brought tears to my eyes. I’d thoughts of creating such lines myself recently… only deeper…

It might have been the tears or something else he saw on my face, Spike was always too perceptive for my own good, but he was by my side in a second. “You’re not leaving for another six days,” he said sternly. Still, he produced a tiny key out of his front pocket and undid the shackles on my wrists. “Don’t make me fight you.”

His voice said he would if he had to, and I had no intention of trying to escape with my legs still captive. I waited in place while he began rummaging in the drawer of his bedside table. And how stupid is it for a vampire to have one of those?

I really wanted out.

I’d been stupid thinking he could help me.

I’m lying.

I wanted out because I didn’t want him to be the one who could help me when I couldn’t help myself.

I had been waking up the way I had that morning for weeks. Weeks of spending minutes staring at my ceiling and wondering if that would be the day I’d finally return to heaven. Or if maybe that time I’d be going to a whole different place for being a coward on my second time around. Spike had calmed me down in fifteen seconds.

Maybe he’d used thrall. I scowled at him.

His fingers, cold on my inner wrist, made me flinch.

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t planned this in advance and didn’t have them padded.” He rubbed ointment into my skin, looking seriously contrite. I had no clue what he was talking about until he pointed at the shackles.

It was funny, really. He’d kicked me, punched me, driven me through more than one wall, choked me, spanked me, whipped me, fucked me in various positions and orifices, and was apologizing for having inadvertently scraped my skin. A bark of laughter that could have easily been a sob clawed its way out of my throat, leaving it dry and sore.

Having taken care of my insignificant injuries, Spike freed my left leg and passed me the ointment. “Put a thick layer of this on. It’s aloe vera. Takes the sting away fast.” Getting up, he added, “I’ll be right back.”

“What about this?” I waggled the toes of the right foot and gave him a watery smile. Truth be told, three-quarter-free-Buffy could probably hurt fully-free-Spike enough to get him to hand over the key, but I’d rather turn that probably into a definitely if I was to make a run for it. Which I still wasn’t sure I wanted to. I had said I was staying, after all.

He gave me a look that was one part amusement and two parts incredulity. “You really do think I’m stupid, don’t you?” Turning on his heel, he started toward the stairs, giving me a perfect view of his ass. If a swagger could be mocking, his was.

I sat up, did what he said with the aloe, and managed to push some of the stuff between the remaining shackle and my right ankle. Minutes ticked by, and I began wondering if his idea of helping me consisted of letting me wallow in misery. I was bored.

The chain clinked when I tried to get more comfortable, and I reassessed it. The links were thick, but I could probably break them if I put my heart into it. Then what? I could hide behind the makeshift staircase and take him down when he showed up again.

It seemed like too much effort. I let my gaze wander idly around the room until I noticed something I hadn’t before. The armchair in which Spike had sat and read to me the previous night had a pillow and a bunched up sheet on it. Like someone had spent the night in it. Standing guard over me.

A wave of emotion washed over me—an emotion I hadn’t felt in such a long time, I couldn’t put my finger on it for a handful of seconds. It felt foreign.

Affection.

The moment I figured it out, it was replaced by shame. Of course I felt affection. For my sister. For my friends. For Giles.

Did I?

I knew I loved them, but had I felt it since my return? I’d felt the obligation to protect them, to keep them safe, to make sure they had their friend back, but I’d never wanted to just give them a hug.

Did I want to give a vampire a hug? Oh God, I’d come back wrong. I knew it!

Spike bounded down the stairs holding a tray. It looked like one I’d gotten Xander as a housewarming gift, and close inspection showed it was that exact one. Instead of lecturing Spike, I felt like giggling.

The smell of bacon made my lip curl. “Spike, I really don’t feel like eating this.”

“What I say, when I say it.” Why had I agreed to that? “You’re skin and bones. Eat your breakfast, and then we’ll start with Lesson the First.” He balanced the tray on my knees and climbed on the bed to unhook the chains from the ceiling.

“Is Lesson the First how to make Buffy rotund-shaped?” I grumbled. “Hey! You’ll topple it over!” I barely managed to save the orange juice from spilling when the bed dipped and the tray followed its movement.

“I suggest you start with the liquids.” Jumping to the floor, he wrapped the chain that was attached to my ankle around one of the bed’s massive legs and secured it in place with a padlock. After a moment’s thought, he tore a strip of his sheet and covered the metal cuff, to stop it from digging into my ankle. “There. This should be more comfortable for you.”

I was touched and impressed, so I shoveled food in my mouth to avoid showing it. His eggs were a bit runny, and he’d gone a bit overboard on the pepper, but the toast was good, and I was sure if I finished that he wouldn’t mind me skipping the bacon and going straight to the fruit-salad.

He did mind it, but I ignored him. As soon as I was done with everything I was planning on eating, I held the tray out to him and said, “I should call Dawn.”

“That is actually part of our lesson.” Looking at the leftovers disapprovingly, he took the tray and went to the nook that served as his bathroom.

“Oh, really?” I called out to make sure he could hear me over the running water.

“Yup. Name of the lesson is Delegate.”

“That’s not a name; that’s an order.” I threw the covers off me and began patting my pockets, but couldn’t find my cell-phone.

“Yeah, well, works for me.”

The water stopped running and, looking up, I saw him leaning against the opening that led to his sort-of-a-bathroom, my cell in his hand. “Looking for this?”

“Gimme.” I didn’t like that he had it. How long had he had it? Had he gone through my texts? Had he sent texts, pretending he was me?

“Lesson the First: I’ll give this to you, and you’ll call Red and tell her you’ll be going away for a week. She’s to take care of Dawn and the house during your absence.”

Yeah, okay. And then pigs could start flying. I turned so my legs were hanging down the side of the bed. “Spike…” I was using my most reasonable, grown up voice. The one of the young woman who had been through a lot, but not enough to snap, who still had it together. “I know I said I’d stay for a week, but Dawn needs me. And I have to patrol. I can come by here afterward, and we can—”

He came closer until he stood right in front of me. “I’ll take over patrolling, you’ll delegate the house and the Bit to Willow, and that’s that.” It was a good thing that he interrupted me, because I have no clue how I would have finished that sentence. We could talk? Do what we usually did?

What wasn’t good was that assertive, non-pussy-whipped Spike was extra yummy.

Ever practical—except for my younger years, when I used to go patrolling in mini-skirts and high heels—I tried to combine business and pleasure. “Maybe you should convince me…” I let my knees fall open and wrapped my legs around him. “Or punish me for talking back to you. Either way, I’m not delegating!”

He tucked his tongue behind his teeth. Couldn’t he just use his tongue another, more productive way, so we could both be happy campers? That would help me immensely. Then I could go back to hating him and myself, and being a responsible mom for Dawnie and friend for the Scoobies. It sounded better when I played it in my head.

“Call her. Tell her you’ll be away. Lie if you have to. They’ll manage without you, I promise.”

Grumbling, I took the phone and pressed “2” to call home. When nobody picked up, my call went to the answering machine. I briefly considered saying Spike had kidnapped me, then sitting back and waiting until they burst in to dust him.

“Hey,” I said instead, “it’s me. I decided I need to be alone for a while, so I’m going away for a week. I’m okay, honest. I’ll call you. Wills, please take care of Dawnie, and Dawn, please don’t be too much of a brat, okay?” After a moment’s pause I added, “I love you.”

Spike’s hand was already outstretched before I’d disconnected. I handed him the phone back, and he put it in his back pocket.

“Now can we play?” I waggled my eyebrows.

His eyes held pity in them, which infuriated me. I planted my palms on his chest and pushed as hard as I could. He flew back and landed on his ass. It didn’t give me half the satisfaction I’d hoped it would.

He stood, came back to me, and slapped me in the face.

I punched him.

He slapped me again. “Are you going to cry now?”

I recoiled like I’d been bitten by a snake. “Why are you doing this?”

His jaw clenched, relaxed, clenched again. “You have an addiction, Buffy. Need something to numb the pain. I wish I cared little enough to keep being that addiction, but I love you. I hope if the pain goes away, you’ll want me for me. Until then, I’m cutting you off.”

Cutting me off? Who did he think he was? I so wasn’t addicted to him.

I kicked at him with my free leg, but he grabbed it midair and flipped me on my stomach. Before I could do anything, he sat on my thighs. “You’re trying to replace one addiction for another: violence for sex. Doesn’t work. Alcohol won’t, either. The emptiness inside?” His voice rose at the last word, like he was waiting for me to acknowledge that emptiness, and I caught myself nodding. “You’re the only one who can fill it.”

“And I do that by delegating?” I spat the words out with all the venom I could muster, but I really, desperately, wanted the answer to be yes. I wanted it to be that simple and that fast, because if it wasn’t simple and fast, there was the possibility I might just give up.

“You have to get rid of the clutter to put in the good stuff.” It sounded stupid. He was stupid. He might have used his most serious tone with me, the one he had used to tell me he saved me every night, and which made me cry every time I remembered it, but it didn’t make sense.

“My sister and my friends and my Calling aren’t clutter.” My voice was shrill because right then, that very moment, they were exactly that.

“They are when you’re sinking.”

I guess that made him my lifejacket. That was beyond bad.

I don’t think we said more than ten words to each other for the rest of the day. He left me alone a lot. The chain was long enough for me to roam the room and go to the bathroom by myself—although not long enough to make the latter not awkward. He took me upstairs at some point, shackled to him, and let me watch TV. My phone rang, but he didn’t give it to me, or allow me to see who it was. He didn’t let me lift a finger to help him when he cooked pasta aglio oglio in his very basic kitchenette.

I didn’t feel the need to protest once through it all.

If anyone else knew where I was, I’d have done nothing but protest or try to fight my way out of there.

I didn’t know which of the two should scare me more.

That night he read me “The Ugly Duckling.” Again the nightmares stayed at bay.


Tbc.
End Notes:
Reviews are muchly appreciated :)
Day Two – Shirk responsibility by Sotia
Author's Notes:
Thank you so much for your reviews. They mean the world, and I am really sorry I didn't reply to them yet, but I will by tomorrow.

I'm sorry the chapter is late, but it's not that late, right? *bats eyelashes*

I hope you like. A million thanks to Mari and Marilyn for helping me so much with their editing!
Day Two – Shirk responsibility



I woke up gasping for air again.

This time I knew where I was at once, and there were already a couple of candles speckling the darkness. Spike was holding my hand and didn’t say a word when I dug my nails in his palm before starting to regulate my breathing like he’d shown me the morning before.

I emptied my lungs slowly and was about to refill them, when he placed his free palm, fingers splayed, over my chest. “Don’t. Count to five again.”

It went against every instinct I had not to inhale, but I kept telling myself the burning in my lungs was a figment of my imagination. I couldn’t really be suffocating, not within five seconds.

I sucked the air in with an audible whoosh the moment he said, “Five,” then let it hiss out.

“Better?”

“Yes.” Why was that little word so hard for me to say out loud? I really was an ungrateful bitch. At least I felt a little bit bad about it—and boy, was I a study in paradoxes. I felt dead inside, yet I could go on guilt trips at the drop of a hat. I used a vampire so I could feel something, but the thought he was the one making me feel, lead to self-hatred. I wanted normalcy, still I’d had the only two good nights of sleep when in my nemesis’ bed. Can Dr. Freud come to Spike’s crypt? Dr. Freud to Spike’s crypt. We have a case for ya.

Spike was studying me, and I studied back. His eyes were tired, I noticed. “Did you get any sleep?”

His eyebrows did that funny squiggly thing they always do when he’s surprised and believes he can hide it. His face says even more than his mouth most of the time, and that really is a feat. “I patrolled,” he said. “Nothing to write home about: dusted a fledgling, scared a couple of high-school kids macking where they shouldn’t.” He didn’t answer my question. He also hadn’t let go of my hand, and I only just noticed I was brushing his knuckles with my thumb.

I tried to stop doing that without making it look like I was stopping just for the sake of it, which meant I had to find something else to keep my fingers busy. My hair provided the perfect excuse. “I’m a mess. I should take a shower.”

He smirked. “Didn’t wanna be the one to suggest it, but you do smell sort of ripe.”

“Hey! Some of us aren’t blessed with undead pores, you know. We sweat.” I sat there watching as my hand batted his shoulder playfully. Was I flirting with him?

He looked as incredulous as I felt. “Um... There’s no hot water,” he offered a second or two later.

Something dawned on me just then. “It’s Monday. What time is it?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Morning? Midday. Dunno.”

“I am supposed to be at work by noon.” I had to go by the house, get my uniform. Had I ironed it? Spike would tell me not to go, but I’d already taken the weekend off, and doubted I could ask for more days.

“You’re not going.” His very eloquent face was asking, “Are we back to that again?”

“This is serious, Spike. I can’t call in sick, I need the money!” I was already fighting the covers off, but he trapped my body with his.

“Lesson two is about shirking responsibility once in a while,” he said calmly.

“You’re pulling stuff out of your ass,” I said haughtily. “That’s the same as delegating.”

“No it’s not.” He was all Giles-like again—teacher-mode: on! “You’re not actively transferring responsibility, you’re saying, Who gives a fuck if this gets done?”

“Who gives a fuck? I give a fuck!” There was one emotion I’d been handling well lately and that was anger. I knew how to manage it and felt more than a little relieved when it began to rise inside me. “And of course you know all about shirking responsibility, don’t you? What have you ever been responsible for? Whom have you ever been responsible for? If I don’t work, we lose the house. I lose Dawn. This isn’t a game.”

I shoved him, and he shoved me back, the fury shining in his eyes matching mine. “I’ve been responsible for a dying mother, a crazy lover, four grief-stricken kids—three of whom I didn’t even like—and now a self-destructive, passive-aggressive bitch, so don’t give me the holier than thou attitude, Slayer.”

“Passive-aggressive bitch? Nice bedside manner, Spike!” I spat his name out like an insult.

“Tough love, baby. That’s the kind you need. Now, you’re staying here whether you like it or not. And you’re not calling in sick. You’re not calling in at all. If they call your place looking for you, let Red step up and bring home the bacon for a change.”

He was shaking me while he yelled in my face, but his words rattled me more than his hands did. I started to say, “But the money—”

“I have money. You can have as much of it as you need. Say an aunt died and left it to you.” He let go of me and ran both palms down his face.

I wanted to ask why he stole stuff if he had money and also tell him I certainly didn’t want his money, but was too shocked by his outburst.

“You don’t always have to choose the hard way. You don’t. Unless you realize that, you’ll never be happy. Why don’t you want to be happy?”

I opened my mouth to retort with something undeniably witty, only nothing of the kind would come out. Snapping my lips closed, I mulled the question over. Why don’t you want to be happy? I knew it was an important question and it was essential that I answered as honestly to him as I would to myself. With Spike I could be alone; I’d said so before, but he hadn’t gotten what I meant, and I’d been too self-absorbed to explain. Back then, before we’d become my sordid little secret, he’d been the only one who didn’t crowd me, the only one who didn’t expect things from me. When had that changed?

I looked at him and realized it hadn’t. I was the one who’d distorted it. From what he’d had to offer, I’d taken the things that I could later blame him for... blame me for. So I could be unhappy. Why didn’t I want to be happy?

“I want to,” I finally whispered. “I just don’t know how.”

He slid under the covers with me, his boots still on, and gathered me in his arms. He held me while I cried once again, rocked me and caressed my back, and all the while he promised he’d teach me how.

***

It’s entirely possible Spike was afraid I’d cry again if he pressed the matter, but that day, breakfast consisted only of toast with butter and jam, and orange juice. My phone rang as I was downing my last gulp, and he let me have it, a warning look in his eyes.

“Home” blinked on the screen.

“Hello?” I hoped it was Dawn.

“Buffy? Where are you? I called last night, and you didn’t call me back. Angel said he hasn’t heard from you. Are you all right? Double Meat Palace people are looking for you, too.” It was Willow, and she managed to say all of that in one breath.

“You called Angel?” Yay anger boiling again! “Why did you do that?”

“You said you’d be gone for a week, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d go.” She didn’t sound even the tiniest bit apologetic. Fuel to the fire. It felt good being mad at someone other than myself or Spike.

“Who gave you the right, Wills? I said I was fine and needed some alone-time. Did the house catch on fire?” The question sounded as snappish as I’d meant for it to, and I saw Spike smirk. I tossed a pillow to his general direction.

“No, but—”

“Did you have a life or death situation?”

“No...”

Her whiny tone was grating on my nerves. I didn’t want to hear whatever excuse she had coming; I didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. I wanted to hang up and shirk responsibility, like Spike’s plan was.

“I’m just worried for you, Buffy. We all are.”

There it was again. They were worried I wasn’t happy after all they’d done for me. To me. That was my opening to set things straight and get her to let me deal with things my way. “Don’t be,” I said instead. The Chosen One was a big fat coward. “I’m fine.” The fight was sucked out of me, and I just wanted off the phone. “I need a few days to unwind, a room by the sea, no slaying. Just to relax, you know?”

Both of Spike’s eyebrows were arched in amusement—I guess at how easily the lies rolled off my tongue. I glared at him. “Spike said he’d take care of patrols, so you don’t need to bother with that.”

“Okay.” She sounded reassured. “You just want to do girly stuff. I get that. After everything you have been through, a little coddling-the-Buffy is of the good. But you could have done it here, or I could have come with you. And you didn’t pack any clothes. What about work?”

So I could possibly scrounge up some urge to fight with her. She’d gone through my wardrobe? And what business was if of hers if I went to work or not? Spike’s presence steeled my resolution, and this time I didn’t back down from an argument for the sake of friendship. “I am the Slayer. I don’t need babysitting. I also don’t need to flip burgers for a living. Not anymore. I’m sorry to be telling you this over the phone—”

I really wasn’t

“—I meant to tell you when I got back—”

It really hadn’t crossed my mind before she’d pissed me off

“—but you are going to have to start paying rent and chipping in for food and stuff. I can’t pay for three people any longer. If you want a job, I think the Double Meat Palace may have an opening starting today.” Before she could voice any objections, I added, “Forgot to pack my charger. Have to save battery. Talk in a few days. Take care.” I pressed the “Off” button and kept pressing it until my phone was deactivated. I might have just been petty instead of openly talking about how things weren’t okay between us, but I felt guilt-free.

Tossing it to Spike, I said, “If you don’t stop smirking, I’ll kick you somewhere you never ever wanna be kicked.”

“If you talk to the whelp like that too, you can stake me if you want. Bloody worth it, it will be!” He started chuckling, and his chuckles soon turned into guffaws. “It was like I could see her face, when you said that burger place would be hiring.”

“Shut up, Spike.” I could feel a grin tugging at the corners of my lips. I pushed him, and he must have been too relaxed or off balance, because he rolled off the bed. That, in turn, brought about a new round of laughter. It was cathartic laughing like a loon with my vampire ex-arch-enemy. We seemed to get alone great when we weren’t fucking or trying to kill each other.

Once I’d caught my breath, I looked down at him over the edge of the bed. “You know, being on your ass becomes you.”

His fingers curled around my bicep faster than I could blink, and he pulled me down on top of him. I’m sure he only meant to remind me he was still the Big Bad, fast and dangerous, but the way I ended up lying on top of him, our lips inches from each other, our bodies pressed together in all the right places, reminded me of much more than that.

I bit my lip and let my fingers trail up his stomach. My face tilted upwards, and our gazes locked. I wanted him. I was sure I wanted him that moment. Not the dirtybadwrong sex we had, not the way he filled the void for a few hours, not one more chance to hate both him and myself. I wanted him.

He ghosted his thumb over my cheek. “Buffy... No.”

I craned my neck. Just a little more, just a hairsbreadth, and our lips would touch...

“Hey, Bleached Wonder, you here?” The wrongest of wrong voices to hear just when you’re about to have a make-out session with the hot vampire set on saving you from yourself: Xander’s voice.

Suddenly the cuff around my ankle started bothering me, chaffing the skin. I hadn’t even been feeling it until then; all I’d been feeling had been Spike’s presence under and around me. I climbed off him and stood by the bed, my brain unable to give further orders to my body as to how to react. Footsteps sounded above us, coming closer to the opening between the two levels of the crypt.

Spike stood, fast as lightning. All his movements have a feline element, but the way he gets up from even the worst fall is the most graceful sight. His body seems almost fluid. He looked from me to the staircase, then back to me. “Don’t,” he said. His tone was flat, not pleading, warning, or demanding.

I didn’t reply. I did, however, follow his ascent up the stairs with my eyes. Best. Ass. Ever. I think the fact I could appreciate that showed some progress in my mental state.

I didn’t hear everything Xander and Spike talked about upstairs, but I did hear the alarm in Spike’s voice when he said, “That’s really not necessary.”

“I’m here, you have no hot water. Take advantage of my abilities while you can.”

I could hear their feet stomping closer and closer and began panicking. If Xander found me there, he’d stake Spike before we could explain. Hmmm... A couple of days earlier my only worry would have been that Xander would realize I’d been having sex with Spike. I was either growing up or losing my mind.

I fell on all fours and crawled under the bed, scrunching my nose in disgust over what I was about to do. Happy to find no creepy crawlies, I turned so I faced the way Spike and Xander would be coming from, and pulled the covers down so they hid me but left an opening big enough for me to scope out most of the room.

It was extremely funny seeing Spike’s boots do a couple of pirouettes when they reached the floor. Don’t know what he’d expected me to do, but it probably involved using Xander as a means of escaping.

Once Xander’s sneakers had disappeared through the hole in the wall, aka bathroom “door,” I waved a hand at Spike.

He leaned down and whispered, “If I untie you, will you leave without dusting me?”

I frowned and replied at the same volume. “I don’t want to dust you.”

“You sure?” When I said I was, he replied, “Your friend might.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.

Xander called out, “Just as I thought. I’ll be done with this in two minutes. Don’t even need my tools.”

“Why do you think I’m under the bed?”

He sucked in his cheekbones that way that makes his smile look sinister, then asked, “You didn’t feel dirty enough?”

I didn’t get to reply, because Xander came out right then, barely giving me time to hide again. “A hundred plus years and you haven’t learned how to turn on a water valve?”

Spike let out the most fake, forced bark of laughter ever. “Guess I had a Harris-moment, eh?”

There was some more insult trading, and Xander was finally out of there.

Spike helped me out of my hiding place. “There’s hot water now. Harris had good timing. He came by to ask if I needed help patrolling,” he said before kneeling by the foot of the bed. “I’m going to unlock these, so you can move better. Can I trust you?”

“Xander wanted to help you patrol?” I didn’t even dignify his question with an answer.

His lips quirked in a half-smile. “Crazier things have happened. Maybe.” He didn’t undo the padlock until I pinky-swore I wouldn’t make a run for it.

***

A fresh pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt were waiting for me when I came out of the shower. Spike wasn’t. I was just as disappointed as I’d been that he hadn’t joined me under the water jet, despite the fact I’d taken my time lathering and rinsing my body and hair twice. The clothes didn’t fit, exactly, and I would die before letting anybody else see me in them, but they were comfy.

I wrapped a towel around my wet hair and went upstairs to find him. He wasn’t there.

There was a note on the door of the crypt saying, “Went for pizza and kittens. Stay.”

I did. I channel-hopped until he got back, and then he taught me how to play poker.

My bedtime story was “The Princess and the Frog.” I was beginning to see a pattern in his choice of readings. I hid my smile in the pillow and let him bring the characters to life with his magical voice. When I felt too drowsy to keep my eyes open, I said, “This bed is huge, you know. I promise not to try anything.”

He found it funny a Slayer would be protecting his virtue, but he lay over the covers.


Tbc.
End Notes:
Care to tell me what you think so far? :)
Day Three – Relax by Sotia
Author's Notes:
Again I'm late with posting, and I'm really sorry. Had sixteen people over for dinner last night, so had to spend most of Friday and all of Saturday cooking. That's the reason I still haven't replied to reviews, but I will; I promise. Your reviews mean more than you know to me, and I appreciate each and every one of them. Thank you!

Thank you Mari and Marilyn for the betaing and for being generlaly made of pure awesome. You rock, ladies. Thank you Andrei for not whining that I'm posting instead of watching Californication with you!
Day Three – Relax


Something was missing when I opened my eyes.

Two somethings: Spike and the sense of dread I’d grown accustomed to first thing in the morning.

What was very-very present was what had woken me up. More precisely, a loud screeching that felt like someone was set on scraping my brain out with an ice-cream scoop. I hopped off the bed and assumed my offensive position—shoulders square, fists clenched at hip-level, knees slightly bent, feet at shoulder-width—while assessing the danger. It had to be a demon; no human and nothing human-made could make so much noise.

“Spike?” I had to find him. If he’d already engaged the enemy, I had to help him, and if not, he should be warned. “Spike, where are you?”

“Hold your horses; I’m coming. This fucker’s stuck.”

Huh? His voice was muffled and came from the entrance to the sewers. I approached slowly, carefully, my senses on alert. Whatever the threat was, Spike obviously had it under control for the moment, although the lack of verbal assault on his part indicated he had his work cut out for him.

Ducking my head through the hole, I saw what Spike was fighting with, and my breath got caught in my throat. At first glance, it looked like a giant porcelain white whale had swallowed him whole except for the boots—because, really, who would want to put Spike’s DocMartens in his mouth? When I looked again I realized it was... a bathtub.

A huge-ass, clawfoot bathtub, to be exact.

“What are you doing?” The answer was obvious: he was carrying a ginormous tub through a not so roomy tunnel and scraping it along its walls.

“Preparing for today’s lesson.” The effort had killed his snarkiness. How far had he dragged that thing, anyway?

“What’s today’s lesson? Next time remember lube?”

He snorted—a sound that sounded extra gross amplified by the contours of the tub. “No, luv. It’s Relax. I know, the word’s not in your vocabulary, but I think I have a dictionary upstairs, if you wanna look it up.”

So the snarkiness wasn’t dead, just resting. Good.

“You want me to relax, so you got this monstrosity from God-knows-where and expect me to use it?” I couldn’t have put more “eww” in my tone, although I was enjoying myself. Spike’s plans are generally not famous for their rate of success, but they always get brownie points for wackiness.

He bucked and shoved, and twisted, and the thing had the decency to slide a couple of feet forward. I couldn’t wait to see how he’d round the corner to get it in his bathroom. “No. I expect you to go upstairs and make yourself breakfast. I promise to scrub this clean before having you anywhere near it.”

So I wouldn’t bear witness to his futile efforts? Bummer. And hey! “Make myself breakfast? What about relaxing?” I felt a giggle try to break free. I let it. The sound echoed in my ears undeniably more natural than any semblance of laughter I’d made an effort at up to a couple days earlier.

“Relaxing starts in an hour or so. Bugger off. Eat. See if there’s any teen-drama on the telly. I’ll call you when everything’s ready.”

I bounced upstairs. Bounced. Me. I’d giggled and bounced within only a few minutes, and it wasn’t because of chocolate or mind-blowing sex. Woah! Just for that, after I had a cheese sandwich and some OJ, I reheated some blood for Spike and took it down to him.

The screeching had stopped, but I hadn’t expected to find the tub where I did. Which was in the bedroom.

Spike was wearing just his black jeans, now strewn with blotches where the bleach must have splashed on them, and scrubbing the tub furiously with a piece of black cloth. His t-shirt. I stared, mouth agape. I still don’t know what stunned me more, the fact that he was so intent on doing a chore, or the flexing of his muscles that our hurried—okay, they hadn’t exactly been hurried—trysts had never let me fully appreciate.

His skin was almost as pale as the porcelain, but he was nowhere near as lifeless. How could I ever have thought of him as a thing? He was buzzing with life, much more so than I was. There was so much energy surrounding him that I could almost see an electric current flowing. His brow furrowed in concentration; a clenched muscle in his jaw; his neck stiff; his shoulders tense; his arm pumping; his hands, one curled tightly around the lip of the tub, the other fisted in his shirt, rubbing the smooth surface clean—all of him screamed life. I wanted to touch that life.

I cleared my throat, suddenly feeling like a peeping tom.

“Did I call for you?” His utter lack of surprise let me know he’d already been aware of my presence.

Instead of answering, I approached and held out the mug of blood to him. He didn’t reach out for it.

“Thought you’d be hungry, too.” I gave it a little twirl, mindful not to spill. “It’s warm.”

He looked at me like I’d grown a third boob.

“What? Can’t I do something nice?” I looked at where my hand hovered, mug still firmly grasped, and brought it closer to my body.

Spike rounded the tub and stood so close to me that, if I took a deep enough breath, our bodies would touch. “Are you the Buffy-bot?” he asked, his face serious.

I glared, took a step back, and all but shoved the cooling blood into his stomach. “Drink. It’ll clot. I can finish up here.” Putting some distance between us was of the good; it cleared up my head.

He downed the yucky stuff like it was the tastiest thing ever, but didn’t let me take the shirt-turned-rag from him. “You’re relaxing today. I’m almost done anyway.” Returning the empty mug to me, he went back to rubbing the tub vigorously.

I took his breakfast’s leftovers to the bathroom to wash them. I was turning the faucet off when a sound behind me made me jump. “What are you doing, exactly?” Stupid question. I could see what he was doing: he was replacing the shower hose with a longer, plastic one.

“I know the original bath experience calls for a bucket, but this will fill it faster,” he replied, “and wash the bleach off more efficiently.”

I followed him out as he uncoiled foot after foot of the mile-long tube and at last held the muzzle over the tub. “Here, you want to help? Go turn on the water.”

“Won’t that just fill the tub?” I was honestly impressed by the thought and preparation he’d put into his plan, but I wouldn’t be Buffy if I didn’t find something wrong with it.

He tapped his boot in lieu of an answer. I looked down, by his foot, and saw a second, wider tube running from the bathtub to the bathroom.

“Made myself a drain for the day.” His smirk showed he was proud of himself.

I decided to let him have his victory. “Wow. You’ve thought of everything!”

“That I have. Now run along, and stay in there until I tell you to come out. The fumes aren’t good for you breathers.”

When he was satisfied with the results, he told me to turn the water off and wait. He joined me long enough to get some bath salts and left me sitting on the cover of the toilet seat.

“Turn the water on again. Make it hot. I’ll tell you when it’s enough,” he yelled.

I was seriously bored and about to go out anyway, when he finally told me my bath was ready.

The scent of jasmine filled the candle-lit room and stopped me in my tracks, before I even noticed how gorgeous Spike looked in that light. He had his back to me, but the sight was breathtaking, nonetheless. I could see his tension in the way he held his shoulders, and I wanted to massage it out of them. I took a step closer, planning to do just that.

“Tell me when you’re in the water. I won’t peek.”

Whu-huh? “Spike, there’s nothing I have you haven’t seen before.” Or touched, or licked, or nibbled on. And please feel free to do so again!

“Bath. In. Now.”

Not negotiable, then. Great. I lost the sweatpants and t-shirt like my life depended on it, and slipped inside the hot water with nothing of the grace you usually see in movies. It was too hot, and the bottom was slippery, and did I mention hot?

Naughty parts fully immersed under the bubbles, I said, “You can turn now.”

His fingers on my shoulders startled me, but I didn’t let it show. When had he closed the distance between us?

“Dip your hair in.”

I didn’t even think about thinking about protesting. Moving forward a bit, I let my head fall back and my hair soak. Spike poured some shampoo in his palm, worked it into a lather, and began massaging it into my scalp. I didn’t realize when my eyelids drifted shut, but I was fully aware of the appreciative moans that escaped my throat from time to time as his skillful fingers worked from the top to the base of my head and back again, taking the tension away.

“You’re so good at this,” I told him when his thumbs dug into the knots that had long ago replaced the muscles at the base of my neck.

“I used to do that when...”

Welcome back, tension! “With Dru?” I tried to sound casual.

“My mom had severe migraines. I didn’t give her baths, but I did give her head and neck rubs. She always said they helped.” I couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded sad, and I was sure his eyes would be misty.

“Talk to me about her?” I had no clue where that came from. Still, for about two years, Spike had been attuned to my needs, and some part of me sensed that he maybe needed that now.

“She was strong, smart, kind. Joyce reminded me of her.” He stood, and I thought maybe that was it for both the bath and the conversation, but when I opened my eyes I saw he was just getting something from the chest at the foot of his bed. It was a small towel, which he soaked in the tub when he returned to my side.

“My mom had to practically raise me by herself, too,” he went on. “She had too much responsibility for a woman back then, but more than managed.” Taking my right hand, he began scrubbing from wrist to shoulder with the towel, using circular movements. “She ran the estate with an iron fist, yet the workers loved her. I loved her.” Done with one arm, he moved to my other side and repeated the process. “She is responsible for the man—” His voice didn’t so much linger off, as he suddenly stopped talking.

“The man you are?” I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d do next, with the safest parts of me all soaped up already, but any thoughts of wild sex had fled my mind. Spike was exposing himself to me more than he’d ever done in the past. More than I’d ever done, even counting the times he’d been inside me.

“Was,” he said. “The man I was. That man couldn’t have turned her. The man I am did.”

The piece of cloth moved to my breasts and down my stomach, like they were nothing more than forearms or elbows, like they held no significance to him. I didn’t blame him. I barely registered the fact he was touching me there; what he’d just said had stunned me. “You turned her?” The lack of accusation in my voice must have surprised both of us. “Why?” Placing my hand on top of his when he didn’t answer, I managed to meet his eyes. “Why?”

“She was dying. Tuberculosis.” He heaved a tremulous sigh that sounded suspiciously like an effort to keep a sob at bay. “When I—when Drusilla turned me, I felt I hadn’t changed. Thought my mom wouldn’t, either. Thought I was saving her.”

Freeing his hand from mine, he moved to my foot and began rubbing there. He’d gone all the way to my hip before I realized that was all he was going to tell me. What could I say in return? There were no words that could make it better; he’d killed his mother, even if he’d done so believing he’d save her. My heart ached for him, and I felt so small, so insignificant for my inability to take his pain away.

“I killed Angel,” I said.

Angelus,” he retorted. “I remember that whole destroying-the-world deal.” It’s possible that his relief at the change of subject was all in my head. “I was there, remember?”

“Angel,” I repeated. “I killed Angel. Sent him to hell. That last minute, when the vortex had opened and I held the sword at his chest, it was him. He had his soul back, and he was looking at me, not knowing what was wrong, expecting me to help him, and... I told him to close his eyes.” The memory of how I’d betrayed the man I loved should have hurt; it always had in the past. The way Spike’s blue eyes were locked on mine now made that old, lost look on Angel’s brown ones nothing but a distant echo of an ache.

Spike’s hand was resting on my lower belly, the towel forgotten, the bath forgotten.

“We both did what we thought was right,” I whispered.

He nodded. I smiled. Somehow, those little things acted as absolutions.

***

Rinsing me without looking at me was impossible unless Spike didn’t mind getting his entire room wet. It turned out he minded, so he pulled the plug off the tub and went to the bathroom to run the water while I rinsed myself.

I swear I don’t know how on earth he’d sneaked into my house, but he gave me my own bathrobe to wear. What was more, when I was dry and warm, he handed me an overnight bag and said, “This is all I could find. I’m sure it all fits.”

When I looked through it, I saw its contents had come from my closet!

I put on my pink terrycloth shorts and a tank-top and was amazed all over again when I discovered my flip-flops at the bottom. Piling my hair on top of my head and securing it with a scrunchy, I followed my nose to where Spike was shooing away a green-skinned pizza guy.

“Was that—”

“Utterly harmless family guy in the service industry, Slayer. Pipe down. I tipped him less than I would a human.”

Meh. I was “Slayer” again. “Do I get my nails done after pizza?” I asked, refusing to come out of relaxed-mode.

“Yeah.”

“Do I also get to know how you got your paws on my clothes?”

He gave me the first honest smile since talk about his mother had started. “I have my sneaky ways.”

“Dawn let you in, didn’t she?”

He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know?”

I hadn’t until just then, but knowing made me feel better. At least Dawnie knew where to find me, and Spike wasn’t as cool as he played it.

I rolled my shoulders. “Pizza. Gimme.”

The pizza was way too good for something that fattening. At least Spike hadn’t gone overboard with the meats. We ate and then he painted my nails. Black. Because he couldn’t have smuggled a bottle of pink nail-polish from my room. Insert eye-roll.

I declared I’d be doing the story-telling that night, and that he had to lie in bed beside me. He didn’t give in very easily, so I had to tickle him. I think he only conceded when I climbed on his lap and bounced, though I swear it was completely innocent at the time.

I went with “Cinderella.”

When I started telling the story, he narrowed his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe I had cracked his super-secret code.

“You weren’t all that subtle with your choices,” I told him. “Although, come to think of it, most fairytales have one transformation or another brought about by love.”

There was that awed look in his eyes again, the one that made me want to kiss him.

I didn’t hold back. I abandoned Cinderella right where she sat among the ashes, never having met her fairy godmother and cupped Spike’s face with one hand so I could touch my lips to his. It wasn’t a demanding kiss. I didn’t, wouldn’t, press for more. “You’re a good man, William,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

I pretended not to see the tear that escaped his long eyelashes, down his sharp cheekbone. Lying back on my pillow, I closed my eyes. “There was a whoosh, and Cinderella was shocked to see a chubby lady, dressed in layers and layers of silk, and with wings sprouting from her back, standing before her,” I began.

“Fairy godmother wasn’t chubby,” Spike grumbled. He acted like the kiss had never happened, but I could hear the secret smile in his tone.

“Are you telling the story? No. I say she was.” I went on all the way to the happy ending. Then I turned and spooned behind him.

Naturally, I was freaked out in the morning to wake up and find we still lay the same way.


Tbc.
End Notes:
Would you please take a minute to let me know what you thought of the chappie? Pretty please?
Day Four – Let people know how you feel (Part A) by Sotia
Author's Notes:
A great big thank you to all of you for reading, and a thank you with a cherry on top for those who review :D You rock!

Thank you Mari and Marilyn for the great beta job. Love you, ladies!
Day Four – Let people know how you feel (Part A)



Like I already said, waking up equaled freaking out that morning.

It wasn’t my usual brand of freaking out, which I associated with that period of time; it was more the I’m-cuddling-with-a-vampire kind.

Spike’s legs were tangled with mine, one of my arms was pinning him against my body, and my face was buried in the crook of his neck.

I rolled away hard enough to make myself light-headed and jumped off the bed.

“Where are you going?” His voice was clear, like he’d been awake for a while.

“Home,” I replied, blinking rapidly. The sooner my eyes got used to the lack of light, the sooner I could find my way out of there. “I’m cured. I’m a new Buffy. Game over. You can stay or leave town, but I’m going home.” I knew I was hyperventilating and that it had nothing to do with being afraid of the darkness. It had everything to do with the wrongness that was me. And boy, was there wrongness. Spike had gotten to me. I’d lied to my friends, had treated my best friend like dirt, and had spent the night cuddled up with a bloodsucker. That was worse than sex. Sex was physical, it was a way of letting off steam, it was… exercise. What I’d done was—Gah!

His fingers closed around my wrist like a vice, and he pulled me back to bed before I could react. An irrational fear that he’d attack me, take advantage of me the way he hadn’t the whole time we’d slept in each other’s arms, overcame me, and I forgot all about my training as I tried to free myself by slapping and clawing at him. His grip was soon replaced by something colder, harder. A shackle.

“Spike, let me go.” What had I been thinking, agreeing to stay with him? Of course he’d turn against me. He was my natural enemy. He should be my prey, and I’d offered myself to him at my most vulnerable. “I have to… You have to let me go.” My voice wavered between being pleading and shrill. What if he didn’t unchain me? What if he didn’t let me go? What if…

“Slayer, do I have to slap you again?”

He probably did, because I didn’t feel like quieting down.

“What the bleeding hell is the matter with you? How do you go from a sleeping angel to a wailing banshee in a split second?” His hands were on my shoulders, holding me to the mattress, but he kept the length of his body from touching me. “And breathe before you answer. You’re turning blue in the face.”

“Don’t you see this is wrong? This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be the one to make me feel comfortable.” If I teared up again, I was hanging up my Slayer-credentials that very day. Seriously.

“Says who?” He opened his mouth, and I could tell he was about to launch into one of his speeches that were infuriating in how much sense they made.

I didn’t want him to make sense.

“Everyone: my friends, my watcher. All the watchers. You can’t tell me so many Brits, who’ve read billions of slaughtered trees worth of books are wrong. I should be fighting you.” I wasn’t sounding very fighty any more. I was sounding whiny. And sorry for myself. I felt like both.

“They the same wise men who say Slayers should be alone? Buffy, you’re the longest-lived of your kind—”

My snort only interrupted him momentarily.

“You were the longest-lived one even before—” I saw him grasp for the right word “—your fall.”

My fall. How perfect a term.

Spike, not privy to my self-flagellation, went on. “You wouldn’t have been that if you played by the book and had no friends. And not to toot my own horn, but I’m not your garden-variety vampire, either. You’re comfortable with me because we’ve seen each other’s worst, but we know that’s not who we really are.”

“And who are we, Spike?” I really, really wanted him to tell me. I needed to know.

He smirked and winked. “Two deeply fucked up people who have the balls to go against their nature, the brains to worry about what that will mean for them, and the hearts to say to hell with it.”

“I don’t have that,” I said.

“What? Heart? You’re full of hear—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because I kicked him. In the balls.

I really was a bitch back then.

Needless to say, he didn’t unchain me after that, no matter how I insisted I’d only kicked him as a joke. What was worse, though, wasn’t that he wouldn’t free me, but that he wanted to talk. Sure, we’d talked lots of times, but that was usually because I felt like it or when I could just get out of there. This time it was different.

“What do you think we are?” he asked. He was sitting opposite me on the bed, a pillow on his lap. The lights were on, and his eyes wouldn’t leave my face.

“I agree with the fucked up part.” I ha-ha’d—that faker-than-fake laughter that got on my nerves when my mom did it on the phone with an acquaintance she was trying to get off the line. “We’re sorry excuses for what we represent. You think you’re in love with a Slayer, and I fuck vampires.” His face hardened at my last remark. Well, tough. It wasn’t like he was the first vampire I’d slept with; he knew that already.

“I don’t think I’m in love with you.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he tilted his head to study me even better, see into my brain if possible. “It’s funny how I’m the soulless one, but I know what I’m feeling and have come to terms with it, and you’re the Champion of good, but are scared shitless of acknowledging you fancy me and are pissed off at your posse.”

“I so don’t fancy—I want alcohol. Do you have alcohol?” I looked at the sheets, the walls, the ceiling. Anywhere but at him.

“You’re a lousy drunk,” he said, waving a hand dismissively.

“That’s why I don’t drink in public.”

He ignored me. “Lesson the Fourth: tell people how you feel about them and don’t be afraid of the consequences. Be absolutely honest.”

I didn’t have to think about it. “I despise you.”

“Be honest. I promise I’ll have Red put another forgetting spell on me if you want, after all’s said and done. Right now tell me the truth.”

I blinked at him.

His reaction was an exasperated sigh. “Okay, let’s start with someone easier. How do you feel about Harris?”

“He’s my friend,” I replied automatically. Even I could make out the defensiveness in my voice.

“That’s a feeling if I ever heard one. How do you feel about him, Buffy? Like him? Love him? Hate him?”

“I’d be sad if something bad happened to him,” I heard myself say, “but right now, I don’t feel close to him. I don’t care how his day is, how his life is, if he’s happy.” Burying my face in my hands I added, “And if I overhear him and Willow talking about how I’m not myself since I came back one more time, I’ll wring both their necks.”

“I guess that covers the Wiccan, too.” He stretched his legs and wiggled his toes. “Dawn?”

“She’s—I still feel connected to her. More than to the others. She and...” I almost said you, but caught myself. “When I’m around her I’m more Buffy-like. Not completely, I’m not all big-sis like I know I should be, like I used to be...” I couldn’t put it into words. By that time, I wanted to talk as much as Spike had said he wanted to listen. Talking about my feelings could help me make some sense.

I was mulling that over when he asked, “And me?”

“I like you, okay? I liked you before my friggin’ fall, but that was okay because you were trying to be a white-hat and a friend, and you’d helped with Glory. But now I like you as a man, and you’re not a man.” I expected some reaction there, a flinching maybe, since there had been no self-satisfied smirk when I’d admitted I liked him. He just kept staring. “You’re a vampire, Spike, and the other vampire I liked, I let myself more than like because he was strong, and he was like me, and he could be someone I could count on. But he wasn’t. And then all hell broke loose. Literally.”

My words were choked, but I wasn’t crying. It was a textbook case of a bottle-neck: things that should have been said in many different occasions were trying to spew forth and clashing against each other, clogging my throat. “I was wrong to let him in, and I’m wrong to let you in, only this time I know better. Which makes it even more wrong. It makes it stupid, and sick, and—and you don’t even have a soul! I let you in, knowing you don’t have a soul. And if you really care for me despite that, then the soul means nothing, and I’ve been wrong all along, and I’ve hurt you so much, and what does that make me?”

He was telling me something, trying to answer my question most probably, but I wasn’t listening. “And if you don’t care, and I’ve let you in already, despite trying not to, then I’ve been duped twice and gone against everything I stand for, and... and...” The hiccup was because of sobs now, sobs that bounced against Spike’s chest because he was by my side and had gathered me in his arms.

“Shhh... I’m here. I’m not going anywhere until you dust me, and for the record, you’re not wrong.” He caressed my back, but the fact that his fingers soothed me like they did only scared me more. I had let him in much too much.

“That I have no soul only means there are no surprises in store for you,” he whispered. “What you see is what you get. You’re my compass when it comes to good and evil. When I want to do something I’m not sure is right, I ask myself, will it piss Buffy off?” He chuckled. “I admit that for a while I wanted the reply to that to be yes.”

I sniffled and wiped my nose against his t-shirt. “You’re terrible.”

“I am. I’m the big bad. And you’re the great good. We balance each other out.” He lifted my face to his. “And so you see how truly evil I am, the rest of the lesson says you have to call your friends and tell them what you really think about what they’ve done to you.”

His light tone retracted nothing from the horribleness of what he’d just suggested. As far as my two best friends were concerned, I’d hated having been ripped out of heaven, but was coping. I certainly didn’t blame them, in the alternate universe that existed in their heads, and I wasn’t feeling up to correcting that. “Funny, Spike. Very funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be. You have to tell them. If you’re ever to have them in your life the way they should be, they have to know. They deserve the chance to make amends. And I can’t believe I just said that.”

He only gave me ten minutes to compose myself before handing me my cell. I prayed its battery would be dead, but the stupid thing was more than half-charged, and the battery sign mocked me the moment I switched it on. “Can I at least tell Dawn up close?” I asked, my finger hovering over the speed-dial button.

He seemed to consider it. “Dawn knows you’re not all right,” he finally said, eyes downcast. “I had to tell her when I explained what I needed your clothes for. She wants to wear the witch’s guts for garter belts, but agrees that you have to deal with this your way. And she’s waiting to see you when your week is up.” He looked like he expected me to lash out, but I was too shocked to do anything. I was mostly shocked at the relief I felt. Dawn knew.

I called home and held my breath when Willow picked up. “Summers residence. Neither of the sisters can come to the phone right now,” she chirped.

“It’s me,” I said drily.

“Hey, how’s vacation treating you? Are you tanned yet? Xander and I staked a vampire yesterday! He didn’t even see it com—”

“I was in Heaven.” There was no way of prefacing that little tidbit, no introduction adequate. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Spike leaving the room. I knew he could hear me from the bathroom, but I appreciated the semblance of privacy he offered me.

Willow was still in Willow-land. “That good? Was it a spa? Are you back? When will you be home? I’ll cook and I need to talk to you about Tara.” Now, did I attribute her reply to denial or stupidity?

“Where you pulled me from, Wills, it was Heaven, not Hell. Remember?” My anger, my resentment, seeped out of me the moment the truth was out there hovering on the line between us. “We—I have been acting like it didn’t happen. But it did. I know I told you I’m fine, but I lied. I was done. I’d fought my fight, and I was resting, safe. Then you brought me back and every day has been torture.”

“Buffy, I thought things were better now. If I knew—”

I couldn’t let her sidetrack me with another apology or, worse, an effort to placate me. “I’m not blaming you with the logical part of my brain, but... No, I guess I am. I'm very logically upset and hurt and miserable. Nothing feels real and I'm trying to figure out my place in the world, establish my connections to things—to people—all over again."

She started crying. Typical! My problem, my pain, was all about her. “I’m sorry, Buffy. I’ll fix it, I promise. I’ll—”

“You’ll do nothing, you hear me? No. More. Magic. You can’t send me back, and I don’t want another forgetting spell. Swear you won’t try to fix this again, Willow.” The thought of her meddling more made me sick to my stomach.

She was full of eagerness. “But I can—”

“Nothing! If you want things to get back to how they were, just give me some time.”

“Okay, I won’t do anything.” She sounded more than a little dejected when she asked, “But why did you tell me if you didn’t want me to make things right?”

“Magic isn’t the only way to make things right,” I said with a sigh. “Gimme a few more days, and lemme handle this my way. I’m the Slayer; I got moves.” My joke got a half-hearted laugh out of her. “Talk soon, okay?”

“Talk soon.”

I hung up and made a mental note to call Tara and ask her to keep an eye on Willow. She’d given up way too easy and had sounded way too eager to begin with.

“Oh Spikey,” I called out, “come here and grovel for forgiveness for talking to my little sis behind my back.” Truth was, I wanted breakfast, and for the first time in ages felt like having bacon.

Taking things off my chest felt good. It was about time other people felt bad for a change.


tbc.
End Notes:
I'd love it if you took a moment to let me know what you think.
Day Four – Let people know how you feel (Part B) by Sotia
Author's Notes:
Thank you Mari and Marilyn for the betaing. You're too good to me, and I love you both!

Thank you for reading and letting me know what you think. It means the world, and you're awesome for doing so!

I hope you like the chapter!
Day Four – Let people know how you feel (Part B)



Telling Xander was a whole different story.

Somehow, having seen him at Spike’s, I’d expected him to own up to his part in my unfortunate resurrection and accept my need to be alone. I was even tempted to tell him the truth about where I was. I reconsidered in the end; Xander sucks at keeping secrets, and I didn’t want to add any pressure to him, especially the pressure that would result from his having to withhold something from his best friend.

Of course, I was planning on calling him later in the day. I needed to wait until the guilt that had settled in once the initial wave of elation over telling Willow what I felt had worn off.

Spike insisted I do it before the grease of the bacon had even cleared my mouth. “You have to strike while the iron is hot. If he hears about it from Red, it’ll be harder for him.”

Was it possible he was concerned for Xander’s feelings?

He must have read my question in my eyes, because he graced me with the most scornful of scornful looks ever to have been seen on a hot, blond vampire’s face. “The harder this is for him, the harder it’ll be for you in the long-run,” he said. “Take your time if you want, see if I care when he doesn’t talk to you ever again, and you go from wronged party to Wicked Witch of the West.” He frowned. “No, wait. That’s Red. You’d be Zombie Buffy with a Grudge.”

I shoved the tray he’d brought my breakfast on against his stomach and dialed Xander’s cell number. That was all the acknowledgment the blond menace was going to get from me.

“Buffster,” Xander said, with what I could tell was false cheer. “To what do I owe this pleasure? Decided none of the hot bods on the beach can hold a candle to mine?”

I was at a momentary loss before I remembered I was supposed to be vacationing by the sea. So Willow hadn’t told him yet. I gave a noncommittal answer. “Actually, the fresh air has cleared my head a lot, and I’ve been doing some thinking… I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Xan. About how I’ve been—since you brought me back.”

His voice turned completely serious. “Where are you? I can come over right now, if you want to talk. I was waiting for you to bring it up; you’ve been acting weir—”

“There’s a reason for that.” My voice was low, like when I’d told my mom there were monsters in the world. He wouldn’t like what I was about to say any more than she had. “You know that.”

“I know. I’m just happy you’re over it now. Talking about it means you’re doing better.”

Over it? Doing better? I didn’t break my arm, Xander, I was taken out of Heaven!” It wasn’t the best way for me to react, not by raising my tone, but I was suddenly all defensive. “I don’t know why you’d think someone who’d dedicated years to fighting evil would end up in hell, but the thing is, I didn’t. I went upstairs, to the great beyond, and everything was perfect and peaceful and quiet, until you all decided to fuck it up for me. You wouldn’t let me just be done! And now you want me to be happy, and all I can think of is what you took away from me. I said it was okay, but it’s not.”

All the resentment I should have aimed at Willow—who should have known better, because she was the brains after all—spewed out and showered Xander, who amazingly didn’t sit back and take it.

We fucked it up for you? ” If I’d been a little loud, he was shouting. “You were our friend, and we tried to keep you with us. You went and jumped, when all it would have taken for the prophecy to be fulfilled was for the blood to stop flowing. Do you know of another way to do that? I do. A couple: like putting stupid band-aids on the wounds, or having your friendly neighborhood vampire lick the cuts closed. You didn’t even think of those solutions, did you? You just decided to die and be a hero and leave us behind. Well, we decided to be heroes too, by saving you.”

My jaw hurt, and touching it, I realized I’d clenched it so hard I had to put conscious effort into relaxing the muscle. One look at Spike, who hadn’t gone the gallant way and left the room this time, revealed he was paler than usual, slack-jawed, and his eyes were wide with something akin to shock. Neither of us, none of us, had thought of those alternatives. I had just decided to give my life for the world—Chosen-One-style. I scowled until Spike turned away and pretended to be busy staring at the wall.

“You didn’t save me,” I hissed into the receiver. “I didn’t need saving. I was perfectly happy, and now I’m miserable.” Okay, so I’d never been perfectly happy and I was no longer all that miserable, but that wasn’t the point.

Xander wasn’t done. “Boo hoo, you had to come back to this imperfect, un-peaceful, noisy place, for a while longer. At least you know where you’ll be going in the end. Or where the person you used to be was going. Don’t know where this ungrateful thing you’ve become is heading.”

“Ungrateful, because you made a choice for me, without asking me? Another one? You needed the saving, you couldn’t do the job, and you didn’t care to check what that would cost me.”

A choked sound reached my ears, and I realized that, for all his anger, Xander was sobbing. “Ungrateful because you don’t see what it costs us to be your friends. We’ve always been too little for you, Buffy, but this one time we tried to be what you deserved. Maybe we did it for us, too, but we thought we were giving you a chance to have what you wanted. If you’d bothered telling us you wanted to be done, we’d have tried to manage without you. If you’d tried to be our friend and not our general, you’d have shown us you were hurting before it came to this.” He paused long enough to catch his breath. “But you lied. And you kept lying. I don’t know if we can come back from this.”

I didn’t know how I’d gone from plaintiff to defendant. “Maybe we can’t.”

In my mind’s eye, I could see him nod, shaggy hair bobbing. It was ironic that his mental image made me smile, made me feel some affection for him after so long, when things were at their worst between us. “I have to go,” he said finally. “Take care.”

The line went dead on me, and I realized what people meant by saying the silence was deafening. The lack of sound felt palpable, like something had stuffed my ears, painfully blocking everything out.

Spike stalked to my side in his usual graceful manner, his feet stirring no echo without the heavy boots. “Didn’t see that coming,” he muttered in lieu of an apology, and I sighed in relief that the silence could be broken.

I hadn’t either, so I couldn’t blame him. “It’s okay.” I felt drained and told him so. He suggested daytime television, which I guess acted as one of his cure-it-alls. “I’ll pass.” All I wanted to do was wallow in self-pity for a while. Telling my friends I hated what they’d done was supposed to act as absolution to me; they were the ones supposed to be guilt-ridden at the end of the day. Xander’s rant had wormed its way to the part of me that felt useless and wrong and made all the doubt resurface.

Spike, with his uncanny ability to see right through me and throw my innermost feelings in my face so I would have to deal with them no matter how I loved my denial, shook his head. “He’s hurting, pet. First he’d been thinking he was your hero, then he’d convinced himself you’d forgiven him and the witch for what they’d done, and now he found out you resent him. He’s always put you on a pedestal. Realizing he failed you so miserably made him lash out.”

“You think he’ll come around?” I chewed on the inside of my cheek—a habit I knew Spike despised, but I honestly wasn’t doing it to irk him.

“He will. If there’s hope for you, there’s hope for him. And stop that!” He tapped my cheek with his forefinger. “Do you care if he comes around?”

I thought about that. I generally didn’t like people disapproving of me. Was that why I cared what Xander thought? “I’m not sure. I think I do.”

My little drama-queen threw his arms in the air. “All hail honesty at first try!” He was beaming. “By the time you figure that out, he’ll be as pussy-whipped as he usually is when he’s around you.”

I grinned despite myself. My fingers sought out Spike’s waistband, found it, and tugged him closer. “He was right about many things, you know.”

He allowed himself to fall on the bed, not breaking eye-contact. “He was.”

“But I’m not ungrateful.”

I don’t know if he saw the glint in my eyes or felt the miniscule movement of my fingers towards his fly—I was trying to be discrete—but he arched an eyebrow and gave me a disappointed look. “Are we going to have to go over this again?”

“You said that if I’m in a life-threatening situation and can only be saved by sucking you off…” Why couldn’t he respond humorously and let me strip him? I needed something to take the edge off. “I’m life-threateningly depressed.” It didn’t have to be about me, and I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted to make it all about him. I was going to be grateful to him, show him I realized he cared, and that his caring was welcome. That was all I could allow myself to give him for the time being, but it was more than I’d offered him so far.

I’m really lame at expressing feelings. Always have been.

He snorted. “You’re not life-threateningly anything, except possibly spoiled.” Stilling my hand with his, he let his head fall back. “I wasn’t going to suggest this until tomorrow, but maybe you need it now.”

I knew he was building anticipation on purpose and didn’t let him see I was itching to hear what he had in mind.

“We could spar.”

Humph. Not my first choice of a physical exertion method.

***

Sparring turned out to be a great idea. Spike had made me promise I wouldn’t make a run for it or go for the family jewels, and unchained me. Then we’d exchanged punches and kicks until every muscle in my body was tense and aching.

Then he’d drawn me another bath.

By the time I went to bed, I was more in touch with my body than I’d been since I’d jumped from that tower.

And I still wanted to be in touch with Spike’s body.

Having showered, he came out of the bathroom, jeans already on. His chest was gleaming with water and his hair, still wet, was plastered to his head. I wondered if he’d bothered to towel dry the part of his body that was covered by the denim, and how he’d pulled his jeans up his thighs if he hadn’t. He started rummaging through his trunk for a t-shirt, offering me a view of the rippling muscles in his back and arms.

“Don’t.” I couldn’t say more than that; my voice was caught in my throat.

He looked at me over his shoulder.

I gave speaking another try. “Don’t put a t-shirt on.” It wasn’t a demand, more a suggestion that I have to admit sounded like a plea. I didn’t care—not as long as he didn’t cover up his torso.

“I’m wet,” he said.

So was I, but wisely chose not to divulge that little bit of info.

He faced away again, stayed slumped for two long seconds, then straightened and turned toward me. He walked to the bed, his swagger faltering when I flipped back the covers on his side of the bed. I rolled so my back was to him. “I’ll be good,” I promised and meant it, despite my topless state already belying my words. “I just want to feel you.”

The mattress dipped behind me, and then his arms came up around me. He was careful not to touch anything he shouldn’t according to the rules he’d imposed on us. His chest covering my back made my skin break into goose-bumps. I didn’t think it was because of the difference in temperature.

“Tell me a story?” I asked. My body fought to melt back against his, yet I forced it to remain rigid, afraid he’d see that as betrayal of his trust and maybe leave the bed.

He told me a story I’d never heard before, that of the Mermaid of Zennor, Morveren, who was drawn to land by a human’s singing.

Morveren had dressed in everything the sea had to offer, so she could hide her fish-tail, and had managed to find her human, Mathew, by walking on said tail. When Mathew laid eyes on her, he fell instantly in love and tried to keep her from leaving.

“I cannot stay. I am a sea creature and must go back where I belong,” Spike said in a higher-pitched tone than his normal voice. I was, naturally, wondering when he’d get to the part where Morveren would get a pair of legs to stay with her man.

“But it didn't matter to him,” Spike continued. He used a huskier voice for Mathew, heavier than his own. “Then I will go with ye. For with ye, is where I belong.”

To my astonishment, Mathew carried the mermaid to the sea and sank in the water with her, never to be seen again. Legend has it, however, that he’s still singing to her and to the other mermaids—or that’s what Spike said.

“Those two weren’t concerned with the mechanics of fitting in each other’s world,” the vampire holding me pointed out, in case I’d missed the moral of the story. “They jumped right in.”

I’d done enough jumping for a couple of lifetimes and wasn’t up for any more of it.

Falling, however, was beyond my control.

“Goodnight, Spike,” I whispered, caressing the back of his palm. “Sleep tight.”

I knew I would.

And I forbade myself to have another freak-o-sode in the morning.
End Notes:
Any thoughts you want to share?

I'd like to share something of my own, if that's okay :) Despite what readers on my LJ thought, this chapter doesn't have Xander-bashing in my opinion. He's proven in canon that he can lash out when he feels threatened, and that's what I thought he did here. Plus, for the most part he was right!

And please don't hate me, but there will be no update next week. I'll be in Bucharest, visiting the inlaws for Christmas, so I want to wish you now a Happy Whatever You're Celebrating. May this holiday bring you joy!

*huggles*
Sotia
Day Five – Stop thinking the world will end if you aren’t there to spin it by Sotia
Author's Notes:
I hope you all had a wonderful start to the new year, and that 2011 is everything you need it to be! *hugs*

Thank you for reading and reviewing, and I'm sorry for not having had the time to reply to the reviews you've left for the previous chapter. They honestly mean a lot, and I will get to them!

Thank you Mari and Marilyn for your mad betaing skillz! You rock my world!
Day Five – Stop thinking the world will end if you aren’t there to spin it



There really was no freak-o-sode in the morning.

What was surprising was that I didn’t have to make an effort to calm myself when I rose to consciousness snuggled cozily against Spike’s chest. His smooth skin was cool under my cheek, its stillness calming me instead of wigging me out.

Hoping against hope that he was still asleep and wouldn’t feel me move, I softly touched my lips above his left nipple. There was no ulterior motive to that gentle kiss; I simply felt like it.

Doing what I felt like, first thing in the morning, made me grin.

Maybe I could see what else I could get away with, just because I felt like it…

My arm was wrapped around Spike’s waist, my fingers dangling tantalizingly close to the small of his back. I knew he had the softest down in that spot above his waistband; I’d come across it by accident one of the few times I’d allowed myself to caress him after one of our savage fuck-sessions.

That was in the past.

I moved my fingers infinitesimally, ghosted them over the fine hairs, and Spike arched his back.

The movement was probably involuntary, but I liked the way his front stretched against me, relished the feeling of hardness that poked at my stomach through the denim he wore. Letting out what I hoped sounded like a sleepy mumble, I raised my leg and folded it over his thigh.

I caressed his back again, and this time when his body bowed, I pressed back, only barely ashamed that I was rubbing myself against him when he’d told me he didn’t want us to go there again. I knew we couldn’t go there; we were way beyond there. We were in the here, and the now, and things would never be the same again because I…

His hips rocked against mine once more. And again. And again, until the rocking became rhythmical. Something about the languidness of the rhythm, however, showed me he still wasn’t aware of what we were doing. It was his body taking over, his cock, hard and seeking friction, that dictated his movements. I could feel my wetness sleek inside my shorts, my nipples hard, aching to be touched as they grazed his stomach—if I moved up a bit, pulled my shorts a little to the side, undid his fly...

It would be so easy to roll him on his back and sink around him, have him impale me before he realized what was happening. I could have Spike inside me again in a few short moments. He wouldn’t stop me then, even if he woke up.

So easy…

I stopped.

A low, whining sound rose from his throat, and his hand cupped my ass, pressing me to him. His body wanted it as much as I did, and that would have been more than enough for me a few days ago.

It wasn’t any more.

I slid my leg off him and rolled on my stomach. When I was sure there was no boob peeking out at him, I said, “Spike?”

No answer.

I elbowed him in the ribs and feigned sleep when he jumped awake.

“I can hear your heartbeat, you know,” he said to my back. “I know you’re up. What’s the matter?”

Gathering the covers to me, I turned to him, half-ready to say I knew he was up, too; maybe we could continue from where I’d stopped. Seeing the concern in his eyes, I mentally scolded myself for being a horn-dog. “Nothing. I woke up a while ago and was bored.” I beamed at him, hoping he’d see it as reassuring despite the fuck-me-now glint in my eye. “What are we doing today?”

He returned the grin and—unless I’m completely delusional, which I haven’t been since high school—his own eyes were hooded with something more than drowsiness. If he ran his tongue over his teeth, I’d jump him. Maturity is good and all, but suggest-y Spike is irresistible.

He must have noticed how my gaze zeroed in on his lips, because he smacked them playfully, breaking the spell. “Tonight,” he corrected, “we’re going on a field-trip. You’re going to see that the world keeps turning even if you’re not spinning it with your own two hands!”

Pfft! I knew that already! Right then, my brain caught up with what he’d said first. “Field-trip?”

He nodded. “And we’re going under cover.”

I so wasn’t going to like that. “And what’re we doing till then?”

Again I thought I saw something on his face. It was the look I imagine the Big Bad Wolf had on, just before he ate Little Red Riding-hood.

“What?” I shoved one hand under my pillow and crossed my fingers that he was thinking what I was.

He wasn’t, naturally. Or, if he had been, he changed his mind.

We ended up sparring. Again.

Meh.

***

“A baseball cap and a leather duster? That’s how you’ll camouflage me?” I snorted. I guessed it was better than having to paint my face in shades of green, but seriously? “Am I going dressed as you?” When he didn’t reply, I amended, asking the most important question. “Where am I going?”

“You’re not going dressed as me, because I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this.” Spike flicked the visor of my cap with his index finger. “Besides, this isn’t all.” He rummaged in his own duster’s pocket until he came up with a pair of sunglasses. “Here.”

At least they were Prada. Hey! “Where did you get these?”

“We’re going home.”

“Right! Now you answer my previous question. Figures. You want to save yourself the tongue-lashing you’ll get if you admit you stole these!” I put the offending item on and ducked into the bathroom for a look in the mirror. They weren’t bad. Still. Taking them off, I graced Spike with a full-force glare. “Home? My home?” He was honestly going to dress me up as a clowny version of himself and take me to my house where I could—would, most probably—run into the people I wanted to see the least?

“I’d never try to avoid a tongue-lashing from you, Slayer.” It was a lie, but before I could say so, the beast waggled his eyebrows and did that thing where he sucks his cheeks in.

Sigh!

I forgot what I was yelling about.

***

First off, leather dusters are not for warm nights. I felt like I was brewing Buffy-stew on the way to my house and dreaded the thought of what I’d smell like to Spike’s sensitive nostrils. Oh, and I didn’t wear the glasses.

Secondly… I really didn’t know what to do with the information our field trip provided me.

For a couple of hours, I stood outside my own house and watched from the shadows while other people lived a life of which I should have been a part, but from which you could barely tell I was missing.

Tara made dinner, and Dawn first did her homework and then helped Willow set the table without bitching about it. She always bitched about helping me, but there was a small tilt to her lips as she put each plate in place, then framed it with cutlery. I noticed Tara and Willow weren’t talking much, and when they crossed paths by the stove, in front of the refrigerator, Tara averted her eyes. So Tara still hadn’t forgiven Willow and her controlling tendencies. I didn’t think she’d have moved back in so soon, and maybe she hadn’t. Good for her, if that was the case; she deserved better. Funnily enough, I hadn’t for one minute blamed her for my resurrection.

Xander came in the kitchen, tossed a horrible plaid shirt on the back of the chair at the head of the table, and kissed Dawn’s forehead before patting Tara’s shoulder and messing Willow’s hair.

Seeing them like that made me want to patch things up with my friends. I wanted to have the Scooby Gang on my side again. I wanted family dinners. Family. They were a family, and I was the outsider.

I looked at Spike, unashamed to let him see the tears about to spill down my cheeks. “Why did you bring me here?” They weren’t tears of sadness, but of anger. I was livid with him. “Is this another way to show me how they don’t need me? How I belong with you, in the dark?” That same morning I’d felt so close to him that I wasn’t willing to risk what was developing between us for my own pleasure, yet now I was wondering if maybe all his efforts had been a scheme not to fix me, but to break me to his own mold.

“They don’t need you.” His tone was serious. “Not to be their protector. They can eat without you reminding them to—even without you bringing home the bacon.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

I glanced into the kitchen again. They were sitting around the table now, my own seat taken by Anya, whose entrance I’d somehow missed. I could have been in there with them if it weren’t for Spike turning me against them. I narrowed my eyes and fisted my hands, ready to honor the memory of the bad-old days and beat him into a pulp. At the back of my mind I knew my anger had nothing to do with Spike’s making me face my issues with my friends. That had been long over-due, and I realized he’d done me a favor by urging me to confront them. No, my fury stemmed elsewhere. If he’d made me trust him, if he’d made me open up to the possibility of… something between us so he could lead me to this, if this was another betrayal—

“They do love you, you know. Despite everything, they need to know you’re well.” He lowered his head to look up at me through thick eyelashes that I couldn’t achieve even with tons of mascara. “You don’t belong with me,” he admitted with a sigh that made me itch to reach out and touch him. I clenched my fists tighter on my sides. “They are your world. But, like I said, you don’t have to spin it for it to keep turning. Your people worry about you, but they’re not your responsibility. They shouldn’t be. You stretch yourself thin trying to be everything to everyone, when they can make do by themselves. Does it scare you to not be needed?”

Eyebrows arching in disbelief, I asked, “So this is them worrying? I’d hate to see them not giving a crap.” I pretended not to hear his last question. It terrified me not to be needed, because all I knew was how to be the people's champion. What was I if they didn't need me? Could I be just Buffy? Would they love me then?

Spike closed his hands over mine and worked my fingers loose before tangling them with his. “Your friends act cool so as not to worry your sis, and Nibblet knows we’re here. I have to report to her daily.” Seeing my eyes widen in shock, he added, “I omit the parts where you sexually assault me, grope me forcefully, and beg me to make a sex slave out of you, of course.”

A chuckle caught me unaware. “Of course.” My sister wasn’t happier without me. My sister still loved me. And there was still hope for things to be worked out with Xan and Will. Our friendship would have to be rebuilt from scratch, on a new basis, but there was hope. If we managed to reconnect, I’d be their friend, not their leader. Dawn’s sister, not her mother. Accepting that made me happy, really happy. I inhaled deeply, the oxygen reaching and rejuvenating every fiber of my body. I winked at Spike. “So what is there left to tell her?”

His joking mood disappeared. “I tell her you’re doing better and that you’ll be home soon.”

“So when my week is up, I’m out on my ass?”

He turned the visor of my cap to the side and leaned closer to whisper, “And I’m out of town. Like you wanted it to be from the start.”

Using just as hushed a tone, I said, “You don’t have to go.”

His nostrils flared, his jaw tightening. “Why would I stay?”

It was my opening. My moment to show him things had changed between us.

My lips tingled with the proximity of his. I could kiss him with the slightest tilt of my head.

“Why would I stay?” he asked again, and his face was begging me to give him the right answer.

If I told him I needed him, I made it all about me. What was more, he might think I meant sexually or to keep me from going self-destructive again—if I was completely out of that phase yet. Saying I wanted him would have the same ring to it, and I couldn’t utter something more than that, not without leaving both him and myself to wonder if I really meant it.

“Stay because you want to,” I finally managed. “And you should have what you want.”

“Why?”

To that I had an answer, one that had been brewing in the back of my mind since I’d overcome my need to hate Spike in order to tolerate myself. “Because you’ve earned it.” Because I wanted him to have it.

Closing the distance between our lips, I kissed him the way I had when he’d thought I was a robot, when he’d saved my sister from a crazy, murdering bitch of a God. In a way, it was our second first kiss.

The look he gave me now held the same measure of amazement and awe as it had then, but I was sad to see the hope in it was squashed. Spike knew what I needed better than I did, but he really wasn’t all that sure about what I wanted, despite his cocky assurances to the opposite.

It no longer mattered. He’d been my rock and had held me steady while I’d rediscovered who I was, among other things. I finally knew what I wanted.

He blinked, blinked again, opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again to say, “Right. Friends, then? Once this is over?” Not the wittiest thing to have ever left his mouth.

I was about to answer him when out of the corner of my eye I noticed Dawn standing by the sink, giving me the thumbs up. Before any of the adults in the kitchen could spot us, I waved at her, grabbed Spike’s hand, and sprinted out of there.

***

He didn’t tell me a story that night. I didn’t mind. I didn’t need a fairytale to go to sleep.

Plastering my front to his side, I whispered, “What if I’m not completely cured day after tomorrow?”

“You will be,” he said. “I don’t know what sort of state I’ll be in, though.”



Tbc.
End Notes:
Please take a moment to tell me what you thought of this chapter *bats eyelashes*
Day Six – Live a little (and stop trying to seem so proper!) by Sotia
Author's Notes:
Thank you all so very-very much for reading and taking the time to let me know you like!

Thank you Mari and Marilyn for beating this. You're made of win!
Day Six – Live a little (and stop trying to seem so proper!)



I remember the sixth day like it was yesterday.

I remember not wanting it to end.

It was just Too. Much. Fun.

Also, I wasn’t all that eager to get home, after all.

***

It was the second day in a row that Spike and I were arguing over my attire. Only this time, I wouldn’t back down.

“You so have the wrong Slayer! If you got a hard-on for slutty Chosen Ones, you should have said so. I could have hooked you up.” Um, no I couldn’t. Or rather, wouldn’t. Not that he was Faith’s type, anyway. For such a wild girl, she had a weird tendency towards clean-cut guys.

He tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes. “I think I’ve met her. Wouldn’t call her slutty; girl knew what she wanted and how to go about it.”

He’d met her. Right. When she was me. The irrational thought that maybe what he’d brought for me to wear was because of some leftover crush on her brought about some even more irrational jealousy. Annoyance—I mean annoyance! “Whatever. I’m still not going out looking like fetish-Barbie.” I didn’t grace the short leather skirt he’d brought me by actually touching it; I glowered at the thing and waited for it to hide under the weight of my steely glare, like a demon would.

The skirt didn’t move, naturally, its shiny zippers glinting at me like naughty winks.

“You won’t be fetish-Barbie,” Spike said, holding up a crimson thing that could have passed for a shirt if it wasn’t full of slashes where it was supposed to be covering stuff. “You’ll be badass Buffy.”

“Badass Buffy wears pants,” I muttered under my breath. My curiosity got the better of me and I took the sort-of-a-shirt from him hoping to decipher which side of it was front. Neither had enough material. “I can wear these here for you,” I conceded, “but no way I’m actually socializing in them.”

“It’s not up for debate,” he said conversationally. “You’ll wear these and we’ll go out for drinks. You will have fun, flirt shamelessly, get plastered, and be carried back by yours truly.” He thumbed his chest, in case I didn’t know what that meant.

I considered him a bit through lowered eyelids before turning away with a toss of my hair. “Yup, you want Faith. Hand me my phone, and I’ll find her number for ya!” I was just messing with him, semi-sold on the idea already. Flirting shamelessly in front of him might finally get him to bend his there-will-be-no-fooling-around-between-us rule!

He raised the skirt and shook it at me. “You used to wear little numbers like this all the time. I still remember how I enjoyed that round-house first time we fought.”

I grinned. “It wasn’t that short.”

“You’ve gone shorter,” he replied with a shrug. “And tighter!” Shoving the clothes into my arms, he added, “Besides, you don’t put these on, you don’t get to see the boots I got for you.”

***

I looked like fetish-Someone. Someone who wasn’t me. And I looked badass. Even if I hadn’t seen the ensemble in the mirror, the result was obvious in the admiring once-over Spike gave me when I managed to climb the stairs to the top level. The ascent wasn’t easy in the high heels and tight leather wrapped around my hips, but it was worth it when I saw his jaw clench almost imperceptibly and his hands push further inside the pockets of his jeans.

He liked what he saw, and the smirk my glossy red lips formed no doubt showed him I knew.

I’d gone all the way with my transformation and had emptied half his hair gel to give some boost to the natural waves of my hair. My efforts had resulted on a wild, wind-blown, bed-head look, which I’d enhanced further with smoky eyes and a lipstick I feared belonged to Dru. Who cared? It looked better on me!

Spike was uncharacteristically quiet in his perusal of my attire and coif. No comments on how long my legs looked, nothing about the black bra that showed through the slashes on my top. It unnerved me, but this version of me wouldn’t stand for insecurities.

“Yeah, I’m hotter than fire. Now let’s get this show on the road.”

He nodded and opened the door of the crypt. I was barely outside when he popped a cigarette in his mouth.

“Light me one, too.” It would work with the look.

He passed me his own without my having to ask a second time, and watched how I made a show of wrapping my lips around the thing and sucking on it. I was smart enough not to inhale, thinking that would save me the coughing. It did, though I couldn’t pretend the taste didn’t disgust me.

Spike reached out and took the cigarette back. He drew on it hard, once, then tossed it to the ground and crushed it with the tip of his boot.

I held out my hand.

He stared.

“If we’re going with erratic-Buffy behavior, let’s go all the way,” I said, imitating his usual brow-waggle. “Let’s pretend this is a date.” I wiggled my fingers impatiently. “Going on a date with you must be pretty erratic for me, right?” I winked to show I’d meant that to be a joke.

He took my hand and gave it a tiny squeeze before pulling me all the way to where he’d parked his bike. Bike. I could write a four-page essay on how wrong the idea of me riding the bike in that outfit was. I would, under normal circumstances. The Buffy I was that night was adventurous and didn’t give a rat’s ass about right and wrong—as long as wrong didn't include larceny or murder—so I hopped on behind him, closed my eyes, and held on tight for the ride.

I wished I hadn’t done that, when he stopped right in front of the Bronze.

It wasn’t that I minded the idea of anyone noticing I was there with Spike. Well, it was that, but not because it was Spike. Actually, especially because it was him...

Okay, I’ll try this again. By that time I knew I liked being with Spike and I didn’t like being with my friends. I knew I didn’t want to lose him. I knew their judging me wouldn’t change that.

Still, I wanted to have told them I was seeing him before they found out for themselves. It wasn’t to protect them; it was so they’d know I wasn’t doing it out of spite or because I was screwed up.

I tried not to let him see my reluctance, but he noticed how I faltered as he helped me down from the motorcycle. “If you’d rather go somewhere else...” He made the offer without looking at me. “But we don’t have to stick with the date scenario. If the Scoobies are here, we can tell them we’re here undercover. Some demon thing—”

If the Scoobies were there on a week night, and while they should be taking care of my sister, they could kiss my well-muscled, perfectly rounded ass. “What? You’re ashamed of me?” I linked my arm through Spike’s and pulled him toward the entrance, trying to swagger like he did.

“We have to set a couple of rules, though.” There we went with the rules again. Would he say no kissing? But this was a date!

“I better like them rules,” I replied.

“I don’t think you’ll mind them much. Rule number one: we’re doing it right. I pay for the drinks, pull out chairs, hold doors, etcetera, etcetera.”

I shook my head with a smile. “That’s a given, it doesn’t need to be expressly stipulated.”

“Had to make it clear, in case you started whining about where I got the money.”

I wouldn’t do that. He’d said he had money, I’d chosen to believe it. Naturally, I’d grill him about it when we weren’t on a date. “What’s rule number two?”

“I don’t remember.”

I laughed and let him get the door for me. I had a rule too, but wouldn’t let Spike know until later.

***

“But I like it!”

“That doesn’t mean you should have more of it.” Spike pushed my glass out of my reach.

“But it’s sweet!

“Exactly why you don’t realize how much alcohol is in it. Sugar helps absorb it faster too, so you know.”

Well, big stupid deal. Hadn’t he said he wanted me to get drunk? “Didn’t you say you want me to get wasted tonight?”

He didn’t have an answer for that.

I pressed on. “Wasn’t that the plan?”

“It was. Initially. Now we’re on a date, I’d rather you knew what you were doing.” He looked at the table pointedly.

I scrunched my nose. Maybe he was trying to look under the table, where the toe of my boot was trying to wedge itself under his thigh. “I know what I’m doing,” I said defensively. “And I know what I want.” My hand was on his knee. When had it gone there?

“Is that right?” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “And what do you want?”

With enough alcohol in my system to boost my courage, I said what I prayed was the right thing. “I want this date to be real. I want it to be the judge of whether there will be more dates. I want this to be the first chance we get to know each other. I want to never have been a bitch to you.”

He grinned, which made me decide I’d stroked his ego enough.

“And I want you to have never been a jerk. Can you manage that?”

His grin widened instead of wilting. “Dance with me,” was his only answer.

We had already danced, and talked, and laughed, but as nothing more than friends. This time, when Spike took my hand and pulled me against him, his touch lingered. It lingered on my wrist and it burned at the small of my back when his fingertips touched my exposed skin. I couldn’t hear the music over the sound of my heart beating but I could hear his breath, unnecessary and reassuring, by my ear.

I looped my arms around his neck, glued my body to his, and let him guide my steps like he’d been doing for close to a week, in the dance that we’d both wanted for a long time now.

***

“I can’t believe I let you stuff me with blooming onions.” That sounded a lot worse than it was supposed to, so I tried to cover it up. “Or that you growled at that frat boy.” I giggled despite the faux-scolding.

“I couldn’t punch him; I was holding our drinks.”

We were holding hands again. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d done the hand-holding bit. Or the strolling with a cute guy bit—even though the strolling was through a graveyard.

“You didn’t have to do either. He was just talking to me.” Yeah, yeah, I’d loved the possessive way Spike had inserted his body between me and said frat boy, nonverbally staking his claim over me. Seeing we’d reached his crypt, I tugged at his hand so he’d stop and look at me. “Besides, I was supposed to flirt shamelessly, if I remember correctly.”

If he could blush, I think he would that moment. He seemed almost bashful. “That was before the rules.”

Ah, the rules. I cornered him against the door of his crypt. “Did you ever remember the second one?”

He looked somewhere behind me. “Is that a demon? I think it’s a demon. We should chase after him.”

I saw right through his ploy. “Spike.” I fisted the lapel of his duster and shook it once, to get his attention. “Second rule?”

“It was a stupid thing,” he said with a roll of his eyes. When I insisted, he begrudgingly confessed, “I didn’t want there to be a kiss at the end of our date.”

It felt like a punch in the stomach, even though the possibility had crossed my mind. “Why?” I managed breathlessly, taking a step back to put some distance between us. My fingers were still clutching his coat, but more to hold me upright in case of a rejection. Maybe he didn’t want me any longer?

“Because I wouldn’t want to stop at that, and I don’t think more would be a good idea. Not yet, at least.” He was avoiding my gaze still, but I’d been answering a lot of questions the past six days; it was his turn.

“Why did you pretend not to remember it?” A lot depended on his answer.

“Because... Can’t we leave the matter be and just go to bed?”

No. I had to know what we were going to bed as. “Tell me.”

“Because I got tired of being strong, Buffy!” He threw his arms in the air with such force that he ripped the leather from my hand. “I want you. Sleeping next to you every night and being unable to touch you is torture. If you wanted me tonight, I wouldn’t stop you.”

He was so, so adorable! A vampire or not, soulless or not, he was an insecure man opening his heart to the woman who’d already stomped on it more than once.

“I had a rule, too. For tonight.”

It seemed like I was changing the subject. Spike’s face fell as he reached behind him to open the door. “Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? You always have rules. Hell, you have rules about rules. Most of them don’t even make any bloody—”

I had to interrupt him, or he’d probably go on a full-blown rant. “I wanted this to be the last day of my... therapy.”

“Is that so? Feeling all better, then? Ready to go home?” The questions were asked with an eyebrow arched, and all of Spike’s usual bravado behind them. I could see right through him; he didn’t want that to have been our last day together anymore than I did.

I shook my head. I wanted to spend that night there. The next night, too. And possibly many nights after that. Just not as his project. I wanted to stay as his lover. His girlfriend. I was about to say that and see which sounded better to him, when his eyes focused somewhere over my left shoulder.

“Come on, Spike; I didn’t fall for that the first time. Why would I fall for it now?”

“Because this time it’s true.” He grabbed me and pulled me to his side, keeping his arm protectively in front of me even after I’d turned to face whatever threat he was pretending to have spotted.

It turned out he wasn’t pretending.

The nerve of the fledgling swaggering toward us pissed me off. How dared he try to swagger—and fail miserably—when in the presence of the best swagger-er ever? And secondly, what was he thinking, targeting a Slayer and a Master Vampire, just when they were about to get groiny—er… completely honest with each other?

I covered my anger under a thick layer of bubbliness. “Hello there, handsome,” I told the newly turned vamp, pushing Spike’s arm aside with a huge grin. “Out for your last walk?”

He seemed surprised that I didn’t shriek in terror at the sight of his bumpies but recovered quickly. “It’s gonna be your last walk, bitch,” came his unimaginative reply. I was about to comment on his lack of wit, when Spike growled.

“Nobody calls the Slayer a bitch and survives.” Well, he had, but he was my special little snowflake.

The fledgling wasn’t taken aback by the revelation of my Chosen One status. “I just did,” he said, making a lurchy grab at me.

I ducked under his arm and landed a punch to his side. “I think the key concept of the sentence was survives,” I pointed out, avoiding his knee that was flying toward my face.

Survives is not a concept, love,” Spike interjected, leaning back against the door and shoving a hand in his pocket. “Survival is.” He found what he’d been looking for, and brought a cigarette to his lips.

“Whatever.” Leather dusters? Not the best attire for a fight. Trying to sweep my opponent’s legs from under him and getting the toe of my boot tangled in the tail of my coat gave me a whole new level of respect toward Spike. “Are you gonna analyze my structure or make yourself useful?” Truth be told, I could have dusted the fledgling ten times over already, but I hadn’t fought someone intent on killing me in about a week.

“Oh, I’d rather analyze your structure.” Stealing a glance at him, I saw him punctuate that statement by a waggle of his eyebrows. My skirt was riding high, I noticed. I made no effort to pull it down. Spike had seen everything before—and would again soon, if I had my way—and the guy now trying to grab my hair wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy the view.

Said guy apparently only just realized that Spike too was of the undead variety. “Why aren’t you helping me?” he asked, in a way too entitled tone.

I threw my duster to the ground and barely kept his kick from connecting with my face. I wanted to hear Spike’s answer.

Spike didn’t disappoint. “She looks better than you do, and I’m not helping her, either.”

That sounded like something I should take offence at. Nah. “You’re not helping me because I don’t need you to.” I said lightheartedly. And why wouldn’t I be lighthearted? I was having a good time.

“That too,” he noted seriously.

The fledgling wouldn’t shut his mouth. “Why is he with you in the first place?” he demanded, right before I managed a chokehold on him.

I smiled. “Because he loves me.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, achieved the miracle of miracles: it rendered Spike speechless. That was the first time I admitted the validity of his feelings toward me aloud.

He stood there, gaping at me. I didn’t know whether to bask in the moment or kiss him.

After a moment’s thought, I dusted the fledgling and went with the latter.

I’d lived a little. Now I wanted to live a lot.

Tbc.
End Notes:
There's only one more chapter left... and I'm not done writing it yet *hides* Good news (well, I guess it depends on your perspective) is that Andrei is leaving on Monday and will be gone for twenty days. On second thought, this is so NOT good news, but it means I'll have more time to write and hopefully post the last chappie on time. Meantime, please let me know what you thought of this? *bats eyelashes*
Day Seven – Don’t be afraid to be yourself by Sotia
Author's Notes:
Thank you Mari and Marilyn for betaing this whole story for me. You're made of win!

Thank you all for reading, reviewing, and making me happy! I'd expected I'd have some more free time with Andrei being out of the country, but I barely have time to sneeze after all, so I haven't managed to reply to your reviews. I'm truly sorry, and I will try to reply to all of them as soon as possible.

Hope you enjoy the final chapter. I know some of you were hoping for heavy smut, but while writing this, it somehow felt wrong to focus on that. I'm sorry if I let you down :(
Day Seven – Don’t be afraid to be yourself



“So you finally accept that not all soulless vampires are evil?”

I groaned. I should have known Spike wouldn’t let the matter rest, but I’d decided not to tell him about my I-want-to-be-with-you revelation before my seven days were up. “I do.”

“And that I love you?”

“Yes, Spike.”

“All right.” He was flustered, and I still had enough darkness in me to enjoy it. “As long as we’re clear on that.”

“We’re clear.” I nodded. “Now, can we sleep, please?”

“Quite.”

Quite? I had to fight all my instincts to maintain a straight face at that. “Then, do you want to maybe take off your boots? And come under the covers?”

I was muttering under my breath that he could come anywhere, when he finally kicked his boots off. “I heard that!”

“My bad.” I smirked. The man is so weird! I’d thrown myself at him time and again while staying at his crypt, and he’d reacted with anything but shyness, yet one little kiss—and the admission I believed his declarations of love—had destroyed his defenses. Tossing the covers back carefully, so nothing showed under the tee I had on, I asked, “Will you get in already?”

He shifted upwards in the bed and dragged on top of him. “This doesn’t mean I said yes to your rule,” he said, his eyelids already drifting shut. “You have one last lesson tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow,” I complained half-heartedly, trying to make myself comfortable. Hard abs: good for sexy times, bad as a mattress.

“Get some kip. Tomorrow starts after we’ve rested.” He kissed the crown of my head, and I raised my face to his, to capture his lips one more time before sleep claimed me.

***

I thought he was talking to himself when I opened my eyes. Then I realized he was talking to me.

“This is the most important lesson. You have to remember it no matter how things go now on.”

I blinked hazily and reached to pull him back into bed, but he evaded my fingers and kept pacing.

“You will always have to fight. Always. Be it for your beliefs, your wants, or the safety of the world. But you won’t always have to let that cost you your soul.”

Huh?

“You have to learn to stand by your choic—” He stopped suddenly and spun on his heel, facing me with wide eyes. “This isn’t about me. You have to believe this; I’m not trying to get you to choose me.” I had no idea what on earth he was talking about, but the panicky edge in his voice, the pleading in his eyes, made me nod. I believed him, whatever it was he was saying.

“You are a leader, Buffy. A warrior. But you’re also a girl, and girls need other girls—or whelps and watchers—to tell them they’re doing things right. You don’t have that luxury. Second-guess yourself, and you’re lost.”

Now I was getting it, and my head was still nodding, so I assume I was agreeing with him.

“You have to have the courage to stand by your decisions, your mistakes, even. Don’t let the disapproval of others make you hide yourself. Tomorrow, next week, years from now, you may have to make a decision your friends disagree with. Their accepting now that they don’t get to mess with your head may end up saving their lives!”

He was obviously passionate about it, and I couldn’t find it in me to stop him and tell him I now knew he was right. It didn’t hurt that I might get to hear him sing my praises in the meantime.

“They may not always agree with what you do, and yes, some of your actions have consequences that may hurt you, but it’s those actions that help you grow.”

And then he went where I didn’t expect him to.

“Like when you dated the poofter.” I saw his jaw clench, both at the memory and at the effort to keep talking about something he knew I wouldn’t like. “I don’t think any of your little posse approved of that, but had you not dated him—”

“The world wouldn’t have found itself tilting into the abyss?” I smiled ruefully.

“No! You wouldn’t have seen that you can bounce back from anything. If you hadn’t been forced to send the love of your life to hell, and survived it, you wouldn’t know how strong you really are.” He approached the bed and looked at me as if asking for permission to join me.

I patted the mattress beside me and burrowed into his arms when he sank down on it. He was right. Almost completely right. Except for one thing.

Angel wasn’t the love of my life.

I wouldn’t tell him that last bit, however. Not when I was only now timidly coming to grips with it.

“And what do I have to do for this lesson to sink in?” I asked against his sternum.

I felt him shrug. “Call one of the Scoobies and tell them something they won’t like.”

You know me; I can’t give in to a suggestion immediately. “Isn’t the fact they tore me out of heaven enough?”

He gently clasped my shoulders and pried me from his embrace so he could look me in the eye. “No, that was something they did wrong. Today you have to tell them something they’ll blame you for. Call Anya and tell her you stole ten dollars from her cash-register, or ring up Giles and tell him you’ve not trained in a month.” He caressed my cheek with his thumb. “Deal with it knowing they’ll get over it. I promise you they will, and you can live with disappointing them once in a while, because you know you’re better than their expectations.”

I was misty-eyed. His confidence in me was overwhelming. It was his expectations that I aspired to live up to just then. I wanted to be the greater good that he believed me to be, and I wanted to do it my way, screw the world. I gave up enough for the world every day; I would stop giving up myself. “Gimme my cell.” It was now or never.

He handed it to me and stepped back, not checking whom I decided to call.

If he had, he’d have seen me dial the first name on the phonebook.

“Hey, Angel. It’s me.” Spike froze instantly, only the twitch in his jaw indicating he’d like to grab the phone, throw it to the ground, and stomp on it.

“Buffy! Are you all right? Willow called—”

Yeah, yeah, he was worried. Was I okay? Did I need anything? Maybe he could drop everything and come save me?

I glanced at the man standing before me and knew I had already been saved, and I had what I needed. “I’m fine. Just wanted to tell you that things have changed around here. I’m with Spike.”

“What’s he doing there?” Macho-territorialism at its finest.

“I’m at his crypt, actually, but I meant I’m with Spike. We’ve started seeing each other.” I heard both vampires gasp at that, and I smiled as I continued. “It’s not a spell, I’m in my right mind, and he’s not blackmailing me.” Hey, I had to cover all angles! “I’m not saying things are perfect,” I added, ignoring his protests once my declaration had sunk in. “But I’m happy. And I want all of you to respect that.”

“Buffy, you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s the resurrection; it’s messed with you. You’re not thinking clearly. Stay away from Spike. He’s evil!”

“He wants to change, and I can help him. Don’t come near us, or I’ll make sure you regret it.” I could have tried to defend my choice, tell him how Spike had been there for my friends while I’d been gone, how he’d cared for my sister. Instead, I hung up while Angel was still ranting about soulless vampires being unable to change, and turned to Spike. “Was that what you had in mind?”

He just shook his head, awe and incredulity warring on his face.

“Okay,” I said, “I think we have a little more than two hours before he gets here. Care to make it count?”

He bobbed his head. That was all the consent I needed to pull him back into bed with me.


***


I used to think lovemaking had to be slow and tentative. In my mind, it always included soft sighs and whispered promises, gentle touches and slow languid strokes. Fucking was the one what was base and wild, with the grunting, and the biting, and the scratching.

That night Spike showed me how wrong I’d been.

We were on the floor, where I’d made us fall while trying to roll on top of him. We hadn’t even bothered with undressing before he’d entered me. On the outside, it was nothing different than our first time together. We almost brought the crypt down. There were no tender caresses; only hands clutching desperately at flesh, bruising in their need to hold our bodies together. There were no soft sighs, only my panting, interspersed with pleading for him to take me even deeper, harder, faster. Nothing was languid.

It was lovemaking, though. I knew he loved me, and I had finally accepted the possibility that I loved him. No—I knew I loved him. I’d finally accepted the possibility that that was all right.

His kisses were as filled with urgency as they’d always been, but I could tell it wasn’t because he was afraid I’d leave this time. Our passion was raw, animalistic, desperate, yet it took away nothing of the emotion I could feel binding us together.

I asked to see his demon and made love to him too, relishing his superhuman strength. He was the only lover that could take everything I dished out, though I’d known that already. That night I found out he had also been holding back.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk without wincing the next day, the muscles in my thighs burning already, but nothing compared to the burning I felt in my soul. Having at last let my mind and heart go, had lit an all-consuming fire inside me.

We reclaimed the bed and didn’t stop until we broke it. And we laughed. God, how we laughed, while he was still inside me, still pulling pleasure out of every fiber of my being.

By the time Spike withdrew from between my legs, I was feeling exhausted but happy—thoroughly shagged, as Spike would put it, loved, and safe in my lover’s arms.

Too bad we had to get up and face Angel and the Scoobies.

I’m sure that would have all gone down better if we’d been dressed when they barged in the lower floor of the crypt, demanding explanations.

None were offered. None had to be offered. And I didn’t have to make up excuses when Spike moved into my basement. The only one who had to agree to that was Dawn, and she was the one who made up the sofa bed down there for him.

For us.

My friends will get over it eventually.

Angel may not, but then again, it really isn’t his business.


The End
End Notes:
My love for the fandom seems to have been renewed, and I want to tell you I love you all for helping me return to it. I don't know when my next fic is going to be, but I now know there will be a next one. Spuffy doesn't seem to be something I can quit after all, and I'm rather happy about it :)

Hope you liked this fic, and I'd love it if you let me know what you thought of it!
*hugs*
Sotia
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