Chapter 20
**
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Previously:
“Oooh…ooh…” Willow stammered. Her excitement at her sudden epiphany had her jumping up and down on the spot.
“Could the slayer claim him as her family?”
**
“Oh, absolutely; as family or a mate,” Anya succinctly informed them.
“Claim who?” the vampire asked with deceptive calmness. His ingrained insecurity caused him to immediately think of Angel. He guessed the slayer wasn’t serious when she said she wanted a relationship with him.
Buffy carefully watched the vampire. He was outwardly nonchalant when he asked his question, but Buffy could see the flashes of emotion that his expressive eyes could not hide. Realising it was way beyond the point of time that she and Spike talk, Buffy offered a suggestion rather than an answer to his question. “Spike, why don’t we grab some food and go into the training room? I think we need to talk.”
~*~*~
“What?” Angel asked in confusion. Why was everyone looking at him as if he’d just grown two heads?
“Obsessive?” Cordelia repeated to the vampire, incredulous. “That’s all you got out of that whole speech?”
“Well, no,” Angel mumbled, embarrassed. “She said some other stuff.”
“Some other stuff?” Wes squeaked in disbelief. “Among other things, she called you a pedophile, Angel!”
“Well yeah, but she wasn’t serious,” Angel hastily assured the ex-watcher.
Cordelia stood back and waited for the explosion to come. She didn’t have to wait long.
“She is right here, people!”
~*~*~
“So, slayer, what’s all this about a claim?” Spike kept his eyes carefully averted as he asked the question that weighed so heavily on his mind. He had held off for as long as he could. He had waited for the slayer to get comfortable on the floor and start her meal before pressing her to let him know what was going on.
“I was serious you know,” Buffy stated, ignoring the vampire’s question.
Spike’s head shot up and confusion danced over his features. He'd been so concentrated on the question he had asked that he'd failed to make the conversational leap when Buffy changed the subject.
Noting his confusion, Buffy quickly explained, “About dating you? I was serious.”
“You didn’t just say it to upset the poof?” Spike’s inner William was doing the I-told-you-so happy dance, but the demon was still suspicious.
“Nope,” Buffy replied, popping her ‘p’.
“Are you talkin’ a couple of dates, or actually tryin’ for a relationship?” Spike persevered. This was far too important to him. He wasn’t about to allow technicalities to get in the way.
“I wanna see where we can take it, Spike. I’ll try to be a little less bitchy and you try to be a little less defensive. We try to talk to each other and not at each other. I’ll try to let you see more of Buffy and you can stop protecting William. I want to know all your history. I don’t want any secrets. I never again want to find out something about my boyfriend by accident. I don’t like surprises, Spike; they don’t inspire trust. I need to trust you, but you have to trust me to let that start happening,” Buffy tried to explain everything clearly.
She wanted to make this work, but they had to have ground rules. She wanted to try something she’d never done before; build a relationship from a solid foundation, one of mutual respect, trust, and friendship. She already knew she was attracted to him, but she wanted more than that.
“So, you want us to take it slow, to get to know each other proper like, yeah?” Spike sought to confirm what he thought he was hearing. William rejoiced at the thought of building a solid relationship with the girl he loved beyond measure. Spike’s demon was calculating how long he would reasonably have to wait before the snogging commenced.
Apparently Buffy had a pretty good idea what Spike’s demon was thinking, ‘cause she smirked at him before replying, “Yummy boyfriend snuggles are of course part of the package.” She had no intention of waiting for those. She still thought about their time together under Willow’s spell.
Inching around the food to get next to the shyly smiling blond, Spike lifted his hand to ghost over her cheek. Leaning in, his lips a hair’s breadth away from hers, his husky voice played havoc on her nervous system as he softly asked, “Is that so, luv?” His nostrils flared as the scent of her arousal hit him. Spike grinned. He could wait, because he honestly didn’t think he would be waiting that long.
Kissing her soundly on the cheek, he leaned back on his hands. “So does this mean I’m the boyfriend then?” he raised an eyebrow, his expression cheeky.
Slapping him playfully on the forearm, Buffy pouted as she grumbled, “Keep teasing me like that and you’ll be the dusty boyfriend.”
Catching sight of her protruding bottom lip, Spike sat up straight. He inwardly groaned, helpless to stop himself from whispering the words of another time and place. “Look at that lip.”
Buffy looked up at him through half closed lashes and smiled slightly as she breathlessly responded to the demands of her memories. “Gonna get it?”
It would have been easier to stop the Titanic from sinking than it was for Spike to stop himself from kissing her at that point. Cupping the back of her head with one hand, he slowly brought her lips to his.
~*~*~
As Buffy and Spike talked in the training room, Xander was getting caught up with the discussion that Penny had instigated with the others.
“Um, hate to be the one to throw water on the party, but Spike’s pretty proud. Would he want Buffy fighting his battles for him? Especially against Dead Boy, senior.”
“Oh Goddess, I didn’t think of that,” Willow sighed in dejection.
“Knowing Spike, he’s gonna be pissed that we even suggested it,” Dawn felt it necessary to add.
“Language, miss!” Joyce admonished her youngest before adding her own concern’s. “Spike can be very sensitive; this could hurt him.”
Giles thoughtfully patted the arm of the worried woman. “If we explain to him the circumstances behind our discourse, perhaps he will accept that we mean him no disservice.”
“You do know this is Spike we’re talking about, right?” Dawn lifted a disbelieving eyebrow in response.
~*~*~
“Don’t ever make the mistake of telling me what I think or feel again. You don’t know me, and the only thing you achieve by doing that is to make yourself look like a fool,” Penny angrily chastised the vampire. “For that matter, just get over thinking that you know what anybody may think or feel. You don’t have the right, the insight, or the moral fibre to be making judgement calls for anyone. You have enough problems just keeping yourself out of trouble.”
Derisively giving the vampire a contemptuous once over, Penny continued, “Lesson number one Angel; just because you believe something, does not make it a fact of life. You are not omniscient, and this superiority that you seem to feel over the rest of the world is a delusion that you have created. Get over it. You want redemption? Try humble on for size.”
~*~*~
Pulling away from Buffy’s well kissed lips, Spike rested his forehead against hers and sighed in contentment. A memory niggled at his subconscious and as much as he wanted to indulge in the moment, he knew he needed to bring their conversation back to the place it had started. “What was the business about the claim, luv?”
Buffy sat back with a sigh. She silently contemplated the vampire before finally replying to his question, “Okay, this is either gonna make you really happy, or seriously piss you off.”