Chapter Five
“Stop that!” Xander glared at Buffy, his left eye twitching as he rapidly glanced back and forth between where she sat on Spike’s knees to the vampire with the missing arm up the back of Buffy’s powder blue top. He knew because—despite it being a tight top—he was seeing too much of the exact shape of her breasts as Spike pulled the fabric taut. And nipples. He was being stared down by very hungry looking nipples—and tragically he was not on the menu.
“Stop what?” Buffy asked, her face blank and concentrated on something other than her miserably confused friend.
Xander blanched, thinking his objections should be more than obvious with the almost stabbing out of his own eyes. Giles should think himself lucky he missed the prelude to this horror story.
“Stop letting the freaky undead touch you.”
Buffy froze and struggled with the overwhelming impulse to bop her friend in the nose. Not because he was insulting Spike—because she totally was on the same page there. Wasn’t she? But shouldn’t he want her to be happy? No matter whom she was with? He didn’t know that this engagement was a farce. Willow’s timely spell removal should have been the point where Buffy received at least one full platter of guilt cookies—in his eyes at least. He didn’t know, and yet he was judging her. Admittedly, the concept of her and Spike joined for eternity in the eyes of God was a little far on the side of overwhelming—and hilarious. Buffy could accept that, but still…what if it was real and she really had discovered something incredible in Spike?
What if having a night of amazing sex had been backed up by real emotions and possibly even…love?
Buffy shivered and quickly reprimanded herself for wandering back along that path. The sun had risen on her returning conscience that morning, and she’d been horrified—though blissfully satiated like she’d never imagined possible. But it was bad to keep remembering the little details—like how frenzied coupling had eventually given way to tender kisses and touches that Buffy would have believed only possible between two people deeply in love with each other.
The last few times he’d gazed deeply into her eyes. The movie cliché words were absent, but something burned into her soul with the flashing blue and amber and the soft lips that somehow began the process of melting her heart.
So when she woke, her body buzzed and her mind was screaming while Spike’s overly-bleached head rested below the pillow of her breasts. He hadn’t appeared heavy at all. He didn’t consume her like Angel—nor did he spit her out the morning after. Instead he’d sleepily consumed her nipple until she’d been screaming for him to release her in all the ways possible to women.
His fingers were teasing the skin of her back even now and more often than not, Buffy had to strain to focus on something other than the tingling sensation of his touch. Like Xander. Who was gawking rather unattractively at her overly prominent boobies.
Buffy leapt from Spike’s lap like a scalded cat. If there was one place she really had no intention of visiting right now, it was the school library, particularly while wearing a sexy and obscenely short black coat with nothing underneath.
“You said Willow made cookies? Wow, she was industrious yesterday, huh?” And she tore into the kitchen before she died of embarrassment.
Willow was shaking against the bench, her back turned toward the entrance and Buffy. It was probably too much to hope for that she was laughing, but suddenly Buffy didn’t care if she was sobbing. Best friends didn’t do things like this to each other. Nobody had really been there for her when Angel left. All she’d received was an overly enthusiastic command to consider the rat-fink qualities of Parker. And look where that had landed her. She could have just continued grieving and never even considered the guy and her reputation and pride would still be in place.
She could have waited for Spike.
Which wouldn’t have happened if Willow had thought before using magic to heal her pain.
Crap. And she was right back where she started from.
Was she grateful for the spell then? It was hard to know whether having the experience of Spike had been a good thing. In the short-term, it had cured her of wanting physical intimacy with anyone—but him. Each hour she alternated between marvelling how Drusilla could give him away so easily—and hating the bitch for holding his heart. Which was way too confusing. Did she want Spike’s heart to be free?
Ignoring Willow and her possible epileptic fit, Buffy peered through the nook window and watched Spike. He was in a stare-down with Xander and it almost made her giggle. It did make her smile, though it froze in amazement for what happened next.
Xander leaned forward in his chair, glared hard at his enemy, then thrust out his hand. Spike stared at it like it was a snot-covered and oozing demon appendage, then sneered. Just as Xander was about to pull his hand back with renewed disgust, Spike seized it and pumped it twice before letting it go and wiping his hand on his pants.
“Congratulations,” Xander said. “So…when’s the big day?”
Oh boy.
Spike whipped his head around to catch Buffy in mid-panic and raised a perfectly scarred brow. Had he always done that? And did he know how sexy it looked? Buffy didn’t know, but vowed it was something she—as his fiancé—had to find out.
“That—all depends.” Whoa, it was kind of hard to ad-lib the details of such life-altering and yet untrue occasions.
“On what? On when you come to your ever-loving senses?” Xander joked, though he hiccupped and looked ready to burst into tears.
“On when everyone’s available, silly.” Buffy attempted what she hoped would pass for one of her sappy grins of yesterday and sagged against the counter as soon as the attention bounced from her and back to her vampire.
Her vampire? Oh God. This was turning into a nightmare.
“I don’t know how to fix it, Buffy.”
Buffy held her breath before turning to face Willow, cringing when she finally witnessed the tears in the redhead’s eyes. She so wasn’t going to feel guilty for making Willow feel worse. She brought this on, and first and foremost Buffy had to take care of what could potentially kill her—and she had to ignore that her best friend was the one who wielded the weapon of knowledge. She’d always suspected Willow’s intelligence would do some damage one day.
“Fix what, Will?”
“The reversal spell cured Giles and Xander. Why didn’t it cure you?” Her green eyes were huge with guilt and disappointment. Buffy had no clue why her friend was disappointed, but she was choosing to believe it was because it appeared part of her spell was useless—and she’d failed…yet again.
“It didn’t cure me, because there’s nothing to cure.” Good, she’d got that out without barfing, and if the words actually felt honest, Buffy was going to ignore it.
“A-are you saying that you…you really love Spike?” The incredulous tone actually broke off bone fragments as it grated down her spine. She had no understanding of why, but the disbelief that it was possible seriously annoyed her. Was Willow dictating who she could love now, too?
One look back at the intense vampire and Buffy was struck dumb. What brought him back here—to her? What was going on around them that had brought them to this?
Yesterday she’d brought up her lunch after realising she’d been kissing Spike all afternoon, and within hours she’d manufactured a reason to kiss him some more—and other, more hands on things. Her reality had shifted and while she may still tell herself she hated him with the fire of a thousand suns, the truth was he was kind of likable—sometimes.
But what kind of explanation would Willow buy without making her think Buffy was still under the influence with the only solution being more of her wonky magic?
“Not love,” Buffy mused aloud, but it was enough to spark something. “Are you kidding? We still hated each other yesterday.”
Spike was watching her intently, no doubt wondering what tale she was about to spin now and Buffy sucked in a deep breath in hopes she could get a story out without him blowing it.
“When I went out to find him—remember Giles called to say Spike had escaped? Well, I found him outside the building on campus. He was looking for where they’d chipped him and, well—” She paused, wondering just how much was made up and how much could have been the truth if she’d ever been open to him before. “Something changed.” There seemed no need for more words. The witch either got it or she didn’t—but Buffy believed Willow would get it. She was a smart girl after all.
“I know it did,” the redhead whined. “I wished you guys to be married.” She stopped suddenly and Buffy turned in time to catch the blush spreading across her cheeks. Willow was embarrassed and it just annoyed the Slayer more.
“That was later,” Buffy stubbornly admitted. “I thought it was weird when Spike suddenly blurted it out—because whoever would have thought a slayer and a vampire would do something as conventional as get married? But once I thought about it, it kind of made sense, you know? So I said yes.”
“You said yes?” Willow repeated slowly, obviously struggling with the concept while she gawped at Buffy disbelievingly.
“Indeed,” Giles confirmed, entering the kitchen behind them. “I rather understand, I think. A-and concur—possibly.” He turned to Buffy, understanding and support shining in his eyes as he opened his arms and welcomed her relieved hug. “Are you still wanting me to give you away?”
She laughed. If there was one thing not influenced by the spell, it was wanting Giles to do daddy-duty at her wedding.
“Absolutely!” And she giggled, sagging into his embrace in relief that she didn’t have to hide everything she was feeling because at least one person loved her enough to see beyond the surface.
“Well, I guess we have a wedding to plan.”
She could feel the heat of Spike’s stare the instant the word ‘wedding’ hit the air and Buffy gasped as she looked up and clashed with the blue of experience and desire. She could see no disappointment, instead encountering a blistering suggestion of encouragement as his lips curled around a sweet smile.
Happiness had never felt this powerful.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
My apologies for the delay. I've spent the past four or so days being very angry about a misplacement of my son into an intervention program and fighting to have him put into a program that might actually benefit him. Wish me luck!