“So, you two *finally* decided to come up for air?” Dawn smirked at the slightly disheveled blonde couple from her seat in the middle of the sofa, as they made their way down the stairs, still hand in hand, looking much better rested than they had been when they had gone upstairs.
And that fact alone should have disproven Dawn’s little theory.
Still, she continued, “Finally! I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with a convincing story to tell Giles when he gets here, about where you two were – one that won’t give him a heart attack and make me throw up at the same time…”
“Shut up,” Buffy replied immediately, without any anger, the words obviously a second-nature sort of response to her sister’s usual teasing. “And move your bony butt over,” she ordered as an afterthought, as she and Spike reached the couch.
“What if I wanna sit right here?” Dawn objected with exaggerated indignation. “I’m already sitting here! You can’t just make me move just because you feel like it – just because you two feel like getting all touchy feely in the middle of semi-public…”
“What do you think, Honey?” Buffy gave Spike a speculative look, pulling him a bit closer to her by the hand in a suggestive manner, while at the same time edging nearer to where her sister sat on the couch. “Think we can work around her?”
“*What*?” Dawn’s eyes widened in disbelief, and she found herself unconsciously moving slightly away from her sister.
Spike shrugged, going along with Buffy’s act, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “She’s tiny – she’ll barely even get in the way…”
Their hands still joined, they sat down very deliberately on either side of her – and judging by the looks they were giving each other, Dawn was suddenly afraid that they might very soon be doing much more than holding hands.
“Oh, Spike,” Buffy sighed in a ridiculously breathy voice.
“Yes, love?” Spike’s eyes were locked worshipfully on hers, as both of them leaned in closer to each other – right across Dawn’s lap.
“All *right*!” Dawn objected finally in an outraged tone, pushing their joined hands apart and scrambling up from the sofa and away from the deranged lovers. “Fine! Take the whole couch! You guys are *so* gross!”
“Wow. She really *is* bloody fourteen years old, isn’t she?” Spike observed dryly, looking after her for a moment as she flounced off toward the kitchen, where the busy sounds of Joyce’s preparations for the meeting could be heard. “She seems so grown up sometimes – I’d nearly forgotten…”
“Yep,” Buffy agreed as she shifted contentedly closer to him, snuggling up against him and making herself comfortable. “Just when you start to think she’s really mature for her age – she shows you very clearly that she’s obviously *not*…”
Dawn’s head suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway through which she had just disappeared, as she retorted, “Yeah -- and you guys are just the perfect examples of adulthood and maturity in this particular situation! *Right*!” Without waiting for a response, she disappeared into the kitchen again.
Spike looked down at the couch beneath them – the prize won by their little game – before giving Buffy a little half-shrug and a smile. “Bit’s got a point, love,” he remarked.
“So what? Maturity’s highly over-rated…” She pulled him closer to her, meeting his eyes with undisguised desire in her own, as she continued in a low, husky voice, “Long, slow kisses, on the other hand – absolutely *everything* they’re cracked up to be…”
She leaned in closer to him, her lips falling gently on his, relishing a slow, tender kis before moving across to his cheek, and then slowly downward to his throat in a series of tender caresses of her warm mouth that made him draw in a sharp breath at the physical sensations her touch sent coursing through his body.
“Long, slow kisses…” he repeated, his arousal clear in his voice as he raised a hand to rest at the back of her neck, pulling her mouth nearer to the mark on his throat that was by now throbbing, aching for her attention. He was quiet for a moment before she heard him go on in nearly the same tone of voice, “…in – front of your Watcher…”
Buffy’s head jerked up to stare at him in absolute horror. “*Ewww*!” she exclaimed. “Spike – I’d rather think of just about any mental image you can come up with than that one right about now!”
“Buffy…”
“I mean, really! You could have said just about any kinky, crazy thing, and I would probably have been into it – but why the heck did you have to bring *Giles* into it?” Her tone was incredulous – absolutely flabbergasted at his choice of words.
“Buffy…”
“I mean, come on, Spike – it doesn’t get any un-sexier than Giles!”
The look of dismay on Spike’s face as he glanced over her shoulder anxiously, before meeting her eyes again, finally clued Buffy in to the situation. “And – he just walked in the front door and is standing right behind us – right?”
“Uh…huh.”
Buffy closed her eyes, feeling her face flame with embarrassment, as her mind instantly flashed back over every word she had spoken in the past few seconds – not to mention the lust-filled ho-bag routine she had carried out only moments before *that*...
Oh, well – there was nothing for it now but to face the music.
And that was something she was getting much better at than she had ever wanted to be.
She took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself before turning around to face her Watcher – who looked every bit as uncomfortable as she felt – and perhaps just a bit offended, as well.
“Hi, Giles,” she said in a small, hesitant voice, as she drew her eyes up to the older man’s for just a moment – all she could manage before she had to look away.
“Hello, Buffy,” he replied, as a matter of habit and propriety – though the silence that filled the room after that made it clear that it was a false sense of normality.
“Well, come on!” Buffy blurted out when the silence was suddenly too much to take. “It’s not like you’d *want* me to think you were sexy! I just meant to say that...”
“Buffy, *please*,” Giles cut her off urgently, his eyes widening with horror at the thought of the various atrocious things that could be about to come out of her mouth. “Please, I implore you – spare me the explanation, I am quite satisfied to know that you do not find me the slightest bit attractive – that I am still every bit the old and stuffy bore that you originally thought me to be…”
The mild sarcasm in his voice faded to something more serious as he continued softly, “As a matter of fact I’m here to discuss with you something of much greater importance…”
The shift in his tone brought about a shift in the mood, and suddenly Buffy found herself able to return his firm, arresting gaze, as she steeled herself for whatever he was about to reveal, not consciously aware of what Spike had just noticed – that she and Giles had just slipped into Watcher/Slayer mode, as opposed to the father/daughter mode that they so often fell into without even realizing that they did it at all.
“What is it?” Buffy asked, leaning back on the couch and nestling into Spike’s arm around her instinctively, her eyes focused on her Watcher’s face.
His frown at her unconscious action took her somewhat by surprise, as he opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again – and finally, decided that what was on his mind, while not what he had come here to say, nevertheless had to be said.
“Buffy – I realize that this claim you are under may make you – behave in certain ways that you – well, that you might not ordinarily – however, I would be incredibly grateful if you would at least *try* to refrain from such behavior – at least while I’m forced to be within sight of you?”
Buffy frowned; she understood her Watcher’s feelings about seeing her easy affection with Spike – it had to be very difficult for him as a Watcher to accept her closeness and easy trust of any vampire – but still, it bothered her to see the look of barely covered disgust on his face, as if by letting Spike touch her at all, she somehow became something low and dark and ugly.
*He doesn’t like me much, pet,* Spike observed, an almost apologetic note to his mental voice.
And *that* lack of confidence in her mate’s voice bothered Buffy just as much as Giles’ reaction had. She retorted emphatically in her mate’s mind, *Well, he’s just gonna have to get used to the idea, because…*
“I’ve been doing some studying into possible ways of breaking the claim – without much success, I’m afraid,” Giles was going on, oblivious to their mental conversation. “And I’m about to turn my attention rather to the – effects it might have on you to – to lose someone with whom you share such a bond.”
The look of rising shock in her eyes made the Watcher look away, as he went on, “If – if there are to be no lasting repercussions for you by so doing – we may have no other choice, Buffy…”
“No other choice but to do what?” Joyce broke in as she walked in from the kitchen, carrying a tray that held several coffee cups, a small pitcher of cream, and a freshly filled sugar bowl.
Dawn walked behind her, carrying a large plate of cookies in one hand and a carafe of coffee in the other.
“Well,” Giles immediately became nervous as the Summers matriarch entered the room. He remembered very well the telephone conversation they had had, in which she had made it very clear how she felt about Spike, and the way that Giles and the Scoobies had treated him. “What I mean to say is…”
The sudden surge of violent fury that Spike felt, coursing through his mate, as all at once, Buffy got what it was that Giles was suggesting, would have been utterly terrifying to him a mere day ago. Of course – a day ago, it would have been directed at him, and not at the man who had just suggested staking him as a solution to the “problem” of the claim he shared with Buffy.
Giles had spoken of his death as casually as he might have commented on the weather.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” the Slayer demanded, her voice low, and deadly calm, as her piercing eyes, darkened to jade, searched her Watcher’s expression.
“Buffy – I know it’s not what you want…the entire reason we set out to do this in the first place was to avoid it…but there may be no other way…”
“No other way to what?” Buffy cut him off sharply, and something in her voice kept the Watcher from attempting to answer the question. After a moment, Buffy continued, with all the authority of her calling in her voice, “I am failing to see what the problem is at this point, Giles. The Slayer demon is back under control – the Council issue is taken care of for the moment – so what exactly is it that you think we need to fix here?”
The Watcher stared at her for a long moment, apparently aghast at her words. “Buffy,” he replied finally, shaking his head slightly, “you cannot possibly think that this – this forced *relationship* between you and a master vampire who has killed two Slayers before you, can possibly be an *acceptable* situation…”
“It’s more than acceptable!” Buffy interrupted him angrily, leaning forward slightly in her seat. Spike’s gentle hand at her shoulder, soothing and calming her, was all that kept her from jumping up and getting right in her Watcher’s face. “It’s my *choice*, Giles! Spike is my mate now – and I *want* him to be!”
“Buffy – you can’t possibly mean that,” Giles insisted, his expression horrified. “It’s *not* your choice – it’s the claim talking. You – you think you love him, because of the blood bond – but you don’t, Buffy – and he may act as if he worships the ground you walk on – but again…it’s only due to the claim.”
The Watcher paused, his eyes downcast for a moment before he looked back up at her, his gaze earnest and piercing, and some part of her that was not consumed with fury at the very suggestion he was making recognized that his words *were* spoken out of concern for her well-being.
“He’s a vampire, Buffy – that claim you have on him might keep him under control – but it doesn’t change the facts of what he is…”
At that point, Buffy momentarily tuned out the rest of what her Watcher was saying, as she was too startled by the words he had just spoken to focus on anything else.
*He doesn’t know you let me claim you back,* Spike spoke the words in her mind that she had been thinking already. *He thinks I’m still under your control…thinks it’s a one-sided claim…*
*How does he think we beat the Slayer?* Buffy asked him, disbelieving that her Watcher was still so clueless as to all that had happened.
*I suppose he hasn’t had time to wonder – it’s all been going so fast, love…* Spike was quiet for a moment before adding softly, *None of them have a clue – what all we had to do, love…I only told you, Mum and Bit about my idea, when I first came up with it in the mansion – none of the others have a bloody clue…about how we beat her – or – us…not a clue, love…*
The hesitant, uncertain sound in his voice only served to make Buffy’s mind up more firmly. She could tell by Spike’s voice, as well as by the intense emotions she could feel coming from him through the claim – he was terribly nervous about how she would react to her friends’ and Watcher’s inevitable disapproval.
In spite of everything, he was still afraid that she was going to change her mind and reject him when faced with the outspoken opinions of her friends.
And she was determined to prove his fears wrong.
The knock on the front door, indicating the arrival of the rest of the Scoobie gang, coincided exactly with her next firm declaration in Spike’s mind.
*Well, it’s about time they *got* one.*
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