“Don’t need anyone getting the wrong idea,” he told her.
She smirked, “What if I want them to?”
He gave her a look and she shrugged. He got the distinct impression she thought he was just being paranoid and overly protective.
Well, yeah he thought as she lay on her belly, getting in position for the funky tattoo she was getting on her back. He couldn’t even describe what it was. All he knew was that it meant ‘tranquility’ and it was to be all in black.
Holding out her hand, he grasped hers and allowed her to use him as her rock. He watched her face contort in all sorts of expressions from pain to uncertainty to calm back to pain. He squeezed her hand, lending her strength and she sighed.
Talk was minimal for a while, most of the time was spent with the both of them discussing the rag he was flipping through and making commentary on it. Then the subject of sky diving was somehow brought up and the tattoo artist jumped in, having a wealth of knowledge on the subject – including where to go, what the prices were and how ‘safe’ it was. Spike glared at him. That’s all he needed. For her to get it in her head to go skydiving. He was hoping that was an idea that had been firmly uprooted. Apparently not, he wagered as he watched her talk animatedly to the tattoo artist about it.
“Buffy, luv, feet on the ground, yeah? We agreed?” Spike interrupted, feeling he needed to remind her.
She broke off and looked at him. “I didn’t agree to anything.”
“Buffy…” Spike muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.
“It’s a rush,” the tattoo artist gushed.
“Maybe you could come with me, Mike,” Buffy told him. She was now inviting tattoo guy to go skydiving with her?
“Buffy, you’re not bloody going skydiving!” he exclaimed.
“Spike, you’re not my father.”
“No, but I’m the guy you’re staying with and clearly the only one thinking here!”
“Hey!” she exclaimed.
“Your boyfriend is kind of rude huh?” Mike muttered sympathetically to her.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Buffy said a little too quickly for Spike’s liking. “But he is an ass apparently.”
“Dude, it’s totally safe,” Mike told him. “You know, as long as your chute opens and that’s like a one in million chance that that doesn’t happen.”
“Knowing her luck, it would be that one in a million,” Spike nearly hollered. “Don’t help, Mike. Just don’t help.” An image of Buffy’s body lying in a broken heap on the ground did not settle well with him at all. It gave him the chills.
Buffy turned her head from him, and he could see the tell tale signs of a pout. Christ, he hadn’t wanted to upset her.
Kneeling by her side, he tilted her head up and made her look at him. The unshed tears in her eyes tore at him. “Buffy, luv, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
“It’s not that,” she whimpered.
“What?”
“It kind of hurts now. Hold my hand?”
Dumbly, Spike reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. She smiled softly at him and shut her eyes tight. He wanted to stave off her pain, but was also hoping this meant she would call off her sky-diving idea. Maybe she’d see the bad in that, the way she hadn’t seen it in this one.
When she was done and had a brand spanking new tattoo and a sore lower back, Buffy was grinning from ear to ear, the pain apparently forgotten. While she paid, she kept looking over her shoulder into the mirror behind them at the cash wrap and staring with a smug grin at her back.
Spike had to admit it was sexy.
“Do you like it?” she asked him excitedly.
He wanted to say no so that she’d stop on this train of –train of whatever she was on, but couldn’t bring himself to dampen her mood. She was so excited about it. “Yeah, luv, I like it,” he told her honestly, smiling tenderly at her.
“You should so get one,” she told him, nodding adamantly.
“Oh, but I’m so not,” he said, mocking her. “You think I want to get one after you nearly cried getting it?”
“Well…it goes away after a while.”
“That’s what they all say. I wager you’d get your tongue pierced and try to tell me that didn’t hurt?”
Her eyes widened with growing excitement.
“Forget it!” he exclaimed, pointing at her warningly.
Buffy grumbled and looked away from him.
“I can tell you that really does hurt,” Mike said behind the counter. “I got it done and my tongue swelled so bad, I just took it out. I mean, they jam a needle through your tongue!”
Buffy and Spike stared at him, the irony not lost on them. The man had a zillion tattoos and an eyebrow ring. How did that not hurt any less? they both wondered.
Shrugging, Buffy glanced at Spike, “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think it’d be my thing anyway. Though I hear it’s great for blow jobs.”
Mike handed her her cash back with a kind of loving reverence and Spike waited until her money was in her purse before he grabbed her arm and nearly pulled her out of the tattoo parlor.
“You’ve got a lot to learn about men, sweetheart,” he drawled, trying to tamp down his own growing fantasy of Buffy with a tongue ring going down on him.
“What do you mean?” she asked innocently.
“I mean you don’t talk about blow jobs like that so casually, especially with a guy like that who was just waiting for an opportunity.”
Buffy grinned slowly, her smile much like a Cheshire cat. “I know, that’s why I did it. Guess I’ve still got it.” And she sauntered away slowly, swinging her hips from side to side.
“Mother of God, help me,” Spike muttered, casting his eyes to the sky before running after Buffy in case she found something else to do that was going to give him heart failure from the distance of the curb he was standing on to the car, twenty feet away.
“How’re you doing, luv?” Spike asked later on that evening handing Buffy some ibuprofen. Her tattoo had started getting itchy and sore as the day went on. It was evening now and all she seemed inclined to do was lie on her belly on his living room floor, whine to him occasionally and flip through the channels.
“I’m okay,” she said, sitting up and taking the proffered ibuprofen. Washing it down with her water on the coffee table, she looked up at him. “What are you doing in there?” she asked, pointing to the study.
“Trying to write some.”
“Write what?”
“Lyrics.”
She raised a brow. “Lyrics? I thought the band, well, disbanded.”
“It did, but I’m thinking of using this time to see if I can write some new material and maybe start another one.”
“Why?”
His eyes narrowed, “Some of us didn’t get our dreams realized,” he snapped and stomped off. Bloody chit.
“Spike, no, I didn’t mean it that way!” she called after him, her tiny feet running to him. She put a hand on his arm and tugged him to look at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It just surprised me. I thought you liked writing and I know that you had a dream for making it big with your band once upon a time, but I thought that was over. I didn’t know--”
“How could you?” he snapped. “You’ve been lost in your own little world doing your own little thing, rubbing elbows with celebrities and shacking up with one. How could you know possibly anything of what I want anymore?”
Buffy stepped back, releasing him. “Ouch. That hurt.”
He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did. I’m glad you got that out though. I would hate for you to have all this anger toward me all this time. But you know Spike; you’re not exactly innocent either. There were times I did try to get in touch with you and I never got anything in return.”
“Oh, how many times did you try? Twice?”
“More than that and you know it! I thought we agreed that it was both our faults!”
“More so yours than mine,” Spike muttered.
“You’re such an ass!” she shouted, glaring at him.
“You’re such a bratty bitch!” he shouted back. Never had he wanted to kiss a woman more. This was what he loved about Buffy. They were the best of friends, but man, they could argue. And when they argued, it never failed to excite him. She never backed down, she always gave as good as she got.
“Well, fine! If that’s the way you feel then I’ll just leave!” she hollered, stomping toward her bedroom. He had to bite back a grin at how glorious she was when angry. “Mike slipped me his number this afternoon, maybe I’ll just stay with him!”
Spike froze, Wait, what? “He did what?” he nearly roared stomping after her.
She turned to him, “He slipped his number in with my money. Clever huh?”
“You are not staying with that oaf. No fucking way, Buffy.”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
“Oh yes, I am. God knows someone needs to be while you’re out of your bloody tree. You stay here, you get me? You don’t go anywhere unless I’m right there with you, you hearing me you daft woman?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Give me a break, Spike. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I am an adult.”
“You’re an adult all right,” he muttered. “You’re bent on getting into trouble wherever you can and driving me round the bend while you’re at it!”
Buffy smiled suddenly and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Spike, I have missed you. Even arguing with you. No one has ever made me feel quite so loved and protected as you have.”
Tentatively, Spike hugged her back, mindful of her sore tattoo. It proved to be his downfall though, wrapping his arms around her. Her scent surrounded him, her body was pressed against his and he felt whole, complete – aroused.
Pecking his cheek, she parted before his arousal got to be noticeable. “I—I’m sorry I yelled at you, Buffy.”
“Don’t be. I deserved some of that.”
“And I deserved what you gave me.”
“Then I guess we’re even then?” she asked and stuck out her hand. “In the past?”
He took her soft, delicate hand in his and nodded. “In the past.”
A song, a bloody irritating 80’s pop song kept running through his head at that point… Catch me I’m falling…falling in lo-ove!