~*~
Spike had been enjoying the fight. Despite the fact that every time the bint’s fists hit his face it felt like a load of cement crashing into him, it was one hell of a dance.
But it became a thousand times better when she pressed her sweet, plump lips to his.
His hands immediately grew tighter on her waist, pulling her down, forcing her legs to part as far as they’d go. One hand skimmed up her back, stopping at the nape of her neck to cup her head as he kissed her back, fiercely.
It was like the meeting of fire and ice, like the clash of thunder. Overblown, clichéd metaphors they might be, but it was exactly what it felt like. A second ago he’d been ready to kick that hot little body of hers halfway across the school. Now all he wanted was to keep it firm against his, forever.
And the best part about it—aside from the eager way her lips moved over his, as though she wanted to swallow him whole—was that he didn’t have to be careful. He didn’t have to make sure that she was okay with how hard he was gripping her, didn’t have to worry that he was hurting her when he crushed her to him, his hand digging into her back. She was a Slayer, same as he was. She could match him strength for strength.
And God, she was doing her damnedest to surpass him. He didn’t think he’d been in quite such a violent kiss before. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing, he mused as their tongues clashed and twined together, matched in their frenzy.
Like all incredibly passionate kisses, he had no earthly idea how long they lay in the hallway. What he did know was that he hadn’t had near enough when she suddenly wrenched away and stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Oh, God.” Her eyes were wide, her legs stiff where they imprisoned Spike’s torso. “Oh God oh God oh God—“ She lurched back, scuttling across the floor like some kind of demented crab.
Spike was not happy. “Why the bloody hell did you stop?” he demanded angrily.
She stared at him in disbelief. Funny how even when she was sitting on her (rather dirty, actually) school floor, looking at him like she hated him right after they’d shared the hottest kiss of his life, she was still completely adorable. “Are you kidding? That was insane!”
“But fun,” he countered, trying to ignore the fact that fun didn’t exactly cover what he’d been feeling a minute ago.
“Fun?” Buffy repeated. “You call that fun? What about, about responsibility, and duty, and God I’m such a slut!”
“’s not like you’re the only one,” Spike pointed out, fighting to keep calm. “Bleeding hell, Slayer. Shit happens. Doesn’t make it the end of the world.”
“Shit happens? So me kissing you was shit?” Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”
Spike was starting to recognize this as one of those times when no matter what he said, it would be the wrong thing. Not that I can ever say anything right ‘round this bird, he thought, annoyed at the whole situation. “Not shit, exactly,” he said finally, “Just…a mistake.”
“Wait.” Her brow furrowed. “I thought you said it was fun?”
“Mistakes can be fun, pet,” Spike pointed out, trying to keep from smirking. He may not have known the other Slayer for long, but he knew that the smallest sign of smugness from him would make them start fighting again.
“This wasn’t fun! This was bad. Very very bad.” Buffy licked her lips; Spike’s gaze was instantly drawn to them. Whichever ponce decided it was smart to make Slayers teenagers was a sodding idiot, he thought, standing up before he lunged at Buffy again.
“Look, I don’t really give a piss whether ‘s right or wrong,” he informed her flatly. “I came out here t’ stop you from bein’ an idiot an’ running away from our Watchers. You gonna come back inside or not?”
Luckily she seemed to grasp was he was trying to. She nodded. “Um, yeah. Sorry for the outburst.”
Curtly, he replied, “Apology accepted.” He was just a few feet from the library door when she added, “And the thing back there? The kissing thing? Totally hormones.”
So that was the game they’d be playing, eh? Spike was smiling when he replied, “’course love. It’d have to be a pretty damn heavy dose ‘f hormones to make me wanna touch you.”
He had the pleasure of seeing her eyes light up with fury. “You stupid, nasty, idiotic, Billy Idol wannabe!” she snapped before, quite literally, tackling him.
They fell through the library door together. Buffy’s little fists were punching at him, and Spike couldn’t help himself—he was laughing uproariously.
They were both so occupied that they didn’t notice Jenny and Giles spring apart, guilty looks on their faces. “Well—I suppose they haven’t resolved much,” Giles commented, running a hand through his hair in an uncharacteristically Spike-like gesture.
“Really? Looks like they’re getting along fine to me,” Jenny joked, smoothing her own hair down and surreptitiously wiping the corners of her mouth.
“I am going to kill you!” Buffy yelled, her hand flying toward Spike’s face for what felt like the thousandth time that morning.
Spike’s laughter only escalated when he caught her wrist, holding her fist inches from his nose. “Now, now, Slayer, none of that,” he teased, giving her a lascivious look. “Don’t wanna damage the merchandise, do you?”
“Ooh!” Now she was kicking him. Dammit. Spike’s laughter faltered when one of her flailing feet made contact with his shin. Could’ve just let her have the last word, but no, had to start a fight again…nice job, mate.
“Little help ‘ere!” he called over his shoulder to the Watchers.
“Actually, I rather think this is a valuable part of your training,” Giles replied, a slight smile on his face.
“Yeah, you guys need to learn to get along,” Jenny called.
“If he keeps being such a butthead, I’ll kill him!” Buffy declared, emphasizing her declaration with yet another swipe at his face.
“Right,” Spike drawled. “’scuze me for thinkin’ you’re only fighting me right now to get your hot little hands all over my body.”
Both adults rolled their eyes in tandem—but the insinuation made Buffy freeze. Spike watched in amusement as her face turned magenta, then crimson, and then a rather interesting shade of maroon. He knew heads tended to explode with alarming regularity around the Hellmouth, but this was a phenomenon he hadn’t foreseen. “Sorry.” She rolled off of him for the second time that day, but this time she stood up and walked over to the table the Watchers sat at, taking a seat resolutely.
Spike took his own sweet time getting up, careful to make a show of straightening out his duster and running a hand through his hair. When he was done he sat down opposite of Buffy, smirking triumphantly. Granted, he had quite a few bruises from the morning’s insanity…but damned ‘f it hadn’t been interesting. His leg brushed up against the table leg, and he winced. Well, it’d been interesting when she wasn’t kicking him.
“Right, then.” Giles sounded weary. “Are we quite finished with the morning’s hormone-driven insanity, or do you two need to have it out again?”
“Nah, I think we’ve fulfilled out violence quota for the—bloody hell, Rupes, is that lipstick?”
Giles’s reddening face was his answer. Spike’s and Buffy’s eyes met in a display of mutual disgust. It was fine for them to kiss, but their Watchers? “Teenage hormones, my arse,” Spike said, at the same time Buffy exclaimed, “God, Jenny! That’s gross!”
Jenny just raised an eyebrow at her Slayer. “The library door has windows, you know.”
Buffy looked down, chastised. “Right. Sorry.”
“Anyway, if the morning’s insanity could kindly be forgotten, we could get back to the matter at hand,” Giles said pointedly. “I would like to point out that the two of you are still Slayers, and as such, you have certain responsibilities.”
Spike snorted. This was an avoidance maneuver if he’d ever seen one…but he could play along. “Right. What does Sunnydale’s own Slayer generally do with her Saturdays?”
Buffy shrugged. “Torturous training for, like, ever, and then Bronzing with Wills and Xander at night.”
The life of a California bimbo cum world-class warrior, Spike thought wryly. It was truly odd how well she blended the two personas. “Doesn’t fightin’ for a half hour count as enough training?”
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know how they do it in England, but over here, training isn’t just beating on each other. Now that you two have gone completely insane over each other, you need to meditate.”
“Jenny? Really not following the logic of that,” Buffy informed her. The small blonde’s nose was wrinkled; Spike could tell she didn’t like the idea of meditating anywhere near him.
Well, neither was he. So they were even, in a third-grade, immature sort of way.
“Sorry, Buffy, you know the rules. You lose control, you have to regain it through meditation. That’s the one part of the Handbook that I’m sticking to.”
“I’d like to throw the frickin’ Handbook at your head,” Buffy muttered.
“What was that?”
She sighed. “Nothing. Fine. I’ll meditate.” She got down on the floor, barely sparing Spike a cursory glance. “I’m guessing you know how?”
Spike copied her position. “You kidding? Rupes has made me do this shit for hours.”
“I think I actually feel sorry for you,” Buffy said lightly, their earlier animosity apparently forgotten.
“Same here.” He closed his eyes. They sat very close together, their knees almost touching, mirror images of each other. He placed his hands palm up on his knees and inhaled deeply, clearing his mind of the various thoughts and emotions that currently clogged it.
Buffy couldn’t help herself—she peeked. She knew it was a bad thing to do. Meditation was almost if not just as important as having good fighting skills, as a Slayer she needed to maintain internal balance, blah-bitty-blah and a bag of chips. But seeing Spike sitting still, inhaling deeply, with that serene, oddly Buddha-like look on his face? So more interesting than uniting herself with the universe.
Unfortunately, Jenny was smart enough to predict her Slayer. “Buffy,” she said in a warning voice.
Spike didn’t even twitch. Wow. Had Giles hit him with a cane or something until he learned how to meditate?
“Sorry,” she said hastily, and closed her eyes.
Breath in, breath out. It was a pretty simple routine, one that she’d gotten used to a long time ago…stop, Buffy. You’re supposed to be clearing your mind, remember?
In, out, in, out…clear you mind, steady your emotions, open yourself up to the world outside….in, out, in, out…endless rhythm, swinging, singing, rhythm of breath, rhythm of the stars….in…out…in…out…
Out…
And all of a sudden it gripped her. One second she could feel her mind opening, could feel her soul melding into her surroundings—and then she was falling, falling through endless time and space. She wasn’t sure if she was screaming, or if the sound was just air rushing past her—wasn’t sure if there was any air, or sound, or her, for that matter…
Blackness. Deep, terrifying blackness. And then images that made her wish for that unadulterated evil dark again.
Teeth. Tearing into her, tearing into him…blood spurting, screams echoing, death, terror…smoking structures, worse than destroyed…desecrated…touched with evil, unable to ever be rebuilt again…
A moment of horrible hopelessness overwhelmed her, made what was left of her sob. What she was doing, what she’d done, it was all useless in the face of the inexpressibly terrible maelstrom that now beat down upon her.
A sharp keening sound—her own voice, gibbering in utter terror. And then the unrelenting shower of images began to waver, shaking—shattering—
Suddenly her ears existed again, and she could hear screaming—no, she was screaming, and someone was yelling at her, screaming her name…Jenny…Jenny was screaming for her…
Buffy opened her eyes—and the illusion, or vision, or whatever it had been disappeared. She was sweaty, terrified, and lying on the floor of the library. Jenny was staring at her; the older woman had stopped screaming when her Slayer’s eyes opened. A few feet away from her, Giles was doing the same to Spike, just staring at him, trying to understand what had caused the two Slayers’ mutual screaming fits.
Spike was the one who got his voice back first. “What the bloody hell was that?”
~*~
A/N: I’m starting to think that I’ve officially lost it with this chapter…I’d meant for it to be some harmless, amusing fluff, and then it up and got a plot on me…ah, well. Thoughts? I really appreciated all the reviews I got for the last chapter--they were amazing! Thanks so much!!!
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