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~*~

Since her uncle lived right in the middle of LA, Spike insisted on her staying close to him the whole time. It was both a blessing and a curse; she loved being close to him, of course, but if she drooled any more she’d probably end up slipping on the sidewalk.

They’d kept the chatter light, talking about inconsequential things—Doyle’s odd choice of a girlfriend, Kennedy’s stupidity, even the freaking weather. Buffy was ready to jump out of her skin—this whole charade was driving her nuts.

When they ran out of things to talk about, they settled for walking side by side in silence. Occasionally one of them would stop, but no words managed to be said.

So when Buffy stopped dead and shattered the silence, it shocked them both. “Can’t we just—never mind,” she said quickly, starting to walk again.

“Oh, no you don’t.” She felt his hand on her bare shoulder and immediately shivered before pulling away from him.

“Tell me what you were going to say,” he demanded roughly. She looked into his eyes, glinting from the streetlight above them, and found that she couldn’t look away. Here, tonight, they’d already lied to each other enough. She’d had it drummed into her head since she was very young that best friends didn’t lie to each other, and now all those lessons came to the fore.

“I want us to be together,” she said bluntly, looking him straight in the eye. “Isn’t there any way we can be together without…you know…being together?”

It was a stupid hope and she knew it, but it didn’t stop her from looking up at him hopefully—and, she saw, it didn’t stop the same hope from coming into his eyes.

“You really think we could do that?” he asked, reaching out with an almost trembling hand and brushing a strand of her hair back. “Think we could avoid…for a year?”

“Do you love me?” A quiet question, blunt, but she was determined to have an answer.

He closed his eyes and she saw the muscles in his neck tighten: typical Spike expression. “You know I do,” he said finally. She wished it didn’t sound like she’d dragged the confession from him.

“Fine.” She sounded more brisk than she’d intended to—but then, nothing was really going the way she wanted it to tonight. “I love you, okay? I’ve loved you for…God, I don’t even know how long. Way longer than I should have. And I know we both think we’re making with the wrongness, and hey, it probably is, but right now, I’m beyond caring. All we every do is lie, and get all innuendo-ey, and then occasionally we kiss, which just makes things worse, and I’m tired of it,” she finished plaintively, just barely stopping herself from stomping her foot petulantly.

“You don’t mean it,” he said, still staring at her.

She blinked. Huh? “What do you mean, I don’t mean it?” she demanded. “Of course I do!”

He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “You’re sixteen, Buffy,” he said, as though that was supposed to explain it. “You can’t know—“

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said fiercely. “If you even try to rationalize this into some teenage crush-type thing, William Kingston, I will make you sorry you were ever born—even if it was ten years before me!”

His eyebrows went so high that for a second she thought they were going to fly right off his head. “Gettin’ a bit violent, don’t you think?”

“I’m getting impatient,” she said firmly. “I’m tired of this, Spike. I can’t stand all the not knowing and the stupid tension. Just give me a yes or a no—I’m not going to do this any more.”

For a second he stared at her, seemingly lost in thought. Then he shrugged, pulled her close, and kissed her.

She meant to struggle—she really, really did. On some level she recognized that he shouldn’t be doing this, and that if anyone else had just grabbed her like that, they’d have left half a man.

But this was Spike. Funny how that could make it seem okay.

Her hands came up to his shoulders and then to his neck, gripping him so tightly he’d probably have finger-sized bruising the next morning—but then, given how tightly he was holding her, she’d walk away from this a little black and blue, too.

When they finally parted they were both half-gasping, half-sobbing.

“Think you can put up with that, day in an’ day out, for more than a year?” he asked harshly. “Think you can deal with the secrets, the wanting—“

He was cut off when she pressed her lips to his for a kiss different than the one he’d given her. It was deeper, sweeter, but just as intense.

“Think you can?”

The look he gave her made her shiver…and then, as abruptly as he’d been serious, he smirked and the mood lightened.

“Baby, anything you can dish out, I can take.”

~*~

They couldn’t walk back to the apartment holding hands like sweethearts, although Spike knew that they both wanted to. They settled for walking close together, their shoulders touching, laughing and sharing glances when they were relatively sure that they were safe from observation. Their secret burned in their chests almost tangibly, warming them, buffering them from the criticism they both knew they’d receive when it was eventually revealed.

When they were about a block away from the apartment, Buffy slipped her arms around Spike’s waist. “So…I guess we have to act normal now?”

Spike’s thoughts strayed to Buffy’s parents, and he remembered how hostile they’d been when he had just started to get to know her. Understandably, they’d been suspicious of the man who their daughter called a friend. They’d come to like him since then—enough to tell him how they felt about Angel, and how much they worried about Buffy. He winced. “Yeah. I get the feeling your mum an’ da aren’t going to exactly welcome the information.”

His girl shrugged. “They’re pretty cool. Who knows, they might go for it.”

He grinned, unable to help himself. “You’re a sweet girl, Goldilocks, but a tad delusional,” he teased. “You think Hank and Joyce will like this little development in our relationship? They’re more likely to kick my arse all the way back to England.”

She grinned at him cheekily. “We’d better call and warn England, then, because they’re bound to find out sometime.”

“Very funny.” He smirked at her, that old smirk that had made her melt so many times before.

“Seriously, though,” Buffy continued, “Don’t you think that maybe they’ve kinda figured it out by now? I mean, I’ve been mopey for weeks, and you’ve been Sir Broods-A-Lot.”

“’ey! I am not broody!” Spike exclaimed indignantly. That label belonged strictly to her poof of an ex.

But he was mollified by her laughter—anything that put such a sparkle in her eye couldn’t make him all that mad. “And you’re a baby,” she said, bringing her face closer to his.

“Oh, really?” He sidled closer, wrapping his arms around her. “Guess you can’t kiss me, then. Cradle-robbing and all that.”

In response, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. His entire world tilted, and by the time he pulled away, he was gasping just as much as she was.

“Cradle-robbing, my ass,” Buffy said throatily.

It was wicked, it was wrong, but now he knew that if he was damned, then she was, too. Spike slid his hands down to the globes in question, fondling her and delighting in the gasp she gave him.

“I happen to like your ass,” he informed her, leaning down and nipping her ear.

“Are you sure this isn’t illegal?” she asked as her hands slid down his arms and across his stomach.

“Do you care?” He shuddered as her fingers caressed his stomach, luxuriating in the feel of her fingers caressing him, inwardly celebrating that she wanted this—wanted to be close to him, wanted to touch and be touched, wanted all the simple little things that constituted a relationship. He’d been desperate for this for so long, hating himself even through his want, that now that it was actually happening…

To say that he was overwhelmed would have been a massive understatement.

“Can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered. “I wanted—and I thought—“

“Shh.” Her hands slid around to his back, pulling him closer. “I know. I wanted it, too.”

He looked down at her, at those hazel eyes, so young and yet so very old. They shared that, old and young at the same time—children playing at being adults, and adults playing at being children.

“I love you,” he told her.

She shuddered; when her knees grew weak, she gripped his shoulders, and he held her up.

She kissed him one last time, sweetly, before they let go of each other. Time to go back to the real world.

“I love you, too.”

~*~

A/N: Thank you so, so much for the reviews--I'm having a rough time with RL crap right now, so they really helped =) Keep it up, pretty please? Because I gave you the fluff...and there's more faster if you're good and review ;)





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