Not only had she had drunken sex, but she’d had it with a vampire. Worse, she’d had drunken sex with Spike. No amount of bathing could rid her of him or the fuzzy images in her mind. She still wasn’t sure if they were of what had really happened or if she’d just imagined them, since she could only vaguely remember what actually went on.
She let the darts of warm water hit her, wash over her, and hopefully wash away the smell of Spike that certainly lingered on her skin. She didn’t want a certain broody vampire to smell him on her. Suddenly, she felt a tingling sensation on her neck. Her hand flew to it, examining the cause of the sting, and then she felt something resembling a bite mark.
It must have been a dream, or a nightmare. It definitely had been a nightmare. That or she was going insane.
She stumbled out of the shower, slipping and knocking over the can of hair spray and her toothbrush into the sink. She hurriedly wiped the mist off the mirror and quickly lifted herself up on her toes to look at what was on her neck.
Oh my God.
“I’m never drinking ever again,” she mumbled contemptuously to herself as she descended the factory stairs, being careful not to step into the hole that Cordelia had fallen into. “Stupid vampire,” she muttered again as she watched Spike sleep. He seemed different though; less annoying definitely. It most certainly had something to do with him lying there all peaceful. Spike? Peaceful? She had definitely gone insane. She glanced around, searching for something to poke him with, but then settled for the scrap of wood right beside her foot. She picked it up and haphazardly threw it at him, hitting him right on the side of the head.
Spike woke up with a jolt, sitting up quickly. “Too fast,” he grunted while he held his head in pain. He couldn’t remember when he had last been this drunk. He had been so busy chatting with the Slayer that he hadn’t even noticed how much he had drunk. Not that talking to her was interesting.
Buffy stood a few feet from the foot of the bed, knowing exactly what lay under the covers. The thought alone gave her shivers; what more could she make out through the thin fabric draped over him?
“What the hell did you do to me?” she shouted, forcing herself to feel something other than the tingly sensations she was getting from seeing Spike almost nude.
Spike glanced up at Buffy, who he had just noticed. She had her arms folded across her chest and was tapping her foot impatiently. “What?” He had barely coped with his splitting headache, and now the Slayer was asking him questions that he had no idea how and what to answer.
“I said, what the hell did you do to me?” she gritted.
As if repeating the question angrily would make me have a bleedin’ answer, thought Spike.
“You’re the one bursting in here and waking me up from my much needed shut eye.”
“You bit me,” she stated in a softer voice. It clearly wasn’t a question, though.
Spike couldn’t remember biting her or doing anything to her for that matter, only that they went back to the factory, said a few silly things and then might have had sex – which was impossible. He must have been hallucinating or dreaming. Now he truly regretted not offing her when he’d had the chance because she was annoying the hell out of him.
“If I did, you wouldn’t be talking to me, now would you? You’d be dead.”
“But you did,” she insisted. She walked closer to the bed and pulled her hair back, exposing her neck to him. He could see her jugular throbbing as blood was pumped through it and if he hadn’t bitten her, he sure would have wanted to now. But she was right. On her very succulent neck was a bite mark. “See?” she asked, her voice waning from worry.
There were tons of other explanations though and it wasn’t necessarily his bite mark. For one, the Poof might have been the one to bite her. Two… So there was one other explanation. “Are you sure it was me ‘cause-”
“It’s you, okay! It’s fresh.”
She sighed with exasperation, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. She’d been too worried from the minute she woke up that morning to even notice her throbbing head. But Spike and his usual annoyingness reminded her that she was hung over.
“Don’t get testy, Slayer. I barely recall anything that happened after we left Willy’s.” He shifted to the side of the bed, drawing the covers back and exposing his nudity. Buffy immediately shifted her gaze to the ceiling. As much as she wondered how Spike looked naked, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
Spike’s nostrils flared when a scent not his own filled him. He hurriedly stood up and pulled on his pants. “Did we…” he started and Buffy glanced back at him, thankful that he’d already put his pants on. When she shifted nervously and averted her eyes, her usual snappy comeback missing, he knew that what he was thinking was right.
“Oh, bloody Hell!”
“It’s not like I wanted it to happen,” she quickly defended.
“Not like I wanted it either!” He turned to the bed to get his shirt and grumbled, “Now I have to scrub extra hard to get your Slayer juices off me.”
“You’re a pig, Sp--what’s that?”
“What's what?”
She moved closer to him and slapped him a bit to make him move his head to the other side so she could have a better look at the right side of his neck. She bit her lip as she tried not to smile when Spike growled at her gesture. “It's a bite mark,” she squinted. “Doesn't look like a vamp did it. Seems like human teeth.” She shrugged nonchalantly and pulled back to see Spike’s jaw-dropped expression.
“Did you do it?”
She grimaced and though the thought of biting during sex would be sort of kinky for her, it was still gross. “Gross, Spike! Why would I bite you?”
“Bloody Hell,” he muttered.
Buffy sat at the edge of the bed, her elbows propped up on her thighs and her face buried in her palms. Spike sat beside her, looking as worried and disgusted as she was, though both of them seemed to be less disgusted than they should be.
“It’s called a claim,” he started and paused when he heard a muffled ‘Oh, God’ from Buffy. “I haven’t even explained what it is yet.”
She brought her head up to face him. “Yeah but ‘you’, ‘me’ and ‘claim’ in the same sentence? Doesn’t sound too good,” she said and then propped her chin on her elbows again.
“It’s like a marriage,” he continued, completely ignoring her. “I don't know much about it since I've obviously never done it before.” Buffy turned her head to face Spike at the sound of his bitter tone. She wanted to ask why he’d never done it to Dru when they’d been together for over a century. But realizing that such serious conversations could lead to a sort of closeness between them, much like when they had been drinking, she knew the smart thing to do was fix their problem and distance herself from Spike before things got out of hand again.
She jumped up abruptly, startling Spike. “I have to tell Giles.”
He stood up, placed his hands on his hips and took a few steps forward so that he was face to face with Buffy. He was close. Too close, Buffy thought.
“You're not telling anyone, missy! My reputation is on the line here.”
The only thing that Buffy was wondering about while Spike yammered on about why she shouldn’t tell anyone was how it must have felt to have sex with him. He was pretty good looking, and the usual Spike bravado could be adorable at times, if not annoying. He also had that British accent and deep sultry voice that, truth be told, made her knees weak. The fact that he still hadn’t put on his shirt also wasn’t helping; it made it worse. Her eyes began wandering down to his pecks, all alabaster and muscle-y and…
“You’re not listening.”
Buffy glanced back up at him and was surprised by the cocky grin on Spike’s face.
“Ablah..?”
At Buffy’s apparent loss of coherent thought, Spike moved closer to her, smiling even wider when he smelled her arousal.
She tentatively placed her hands against his chest and pushed him away. An instant’s touch driving her crazy enough that she just had to get out of there or else risk an encore of last night’s performance.
“If we want this fixed, I have to tell them,” she quickly retorted, before taking off.
Spike smiled smugly to himself as he watched the completely flustered Slayer run. Yeah, this could get pretty interesting.
“Giles!” She burst into his apartment, startling Giles just as he was about to take a sip of his tea that burnt his lip. “Ooh. Sorry,” she chuckled apologetically.
“It’s all right. Is something wrong?” he asked as he turned to Buffy.
“I sort of claimed Spike,” she got out quickly. The cup slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor. “I’m guessing you know what a ‘claim’ is,” she said, smiling innocently as Giles’ mouth hung open in a shock-stricken expression.
“Why…” He stood up and paced as he thought of the words to say after such a declaration. “Why on Earth did you do that?”
“I don’t know!” She walked past him and into the living room, flopping down onto one of the chairs. “I was drunk and--”
“This is serious, Buffy. This…” Giles paused as he uncharacteristically couldn’t find the words to describe how severe claiming was.
“I know, I know,” she sighed. “But I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t even remember that I did.”
“Hold on… Does this mean you… and Spike…” When Buffy recoiled, realization came over Giles. “Dear Lord, not an image I wanted in my head,” he muttered as he took his glasses off.
“Giles!” she chided.
“Right, right,” he said, focusing again on the problem at hand.
“I can’t be married. More importantly, I can’t be married to Spike,” she whined.
“Yes and there could be effects.” Giles sat on the armrest of the sofa as he tried to recall what he had read about vampire claims.
“Effects?” Buffy frowned.
“Yes,” Giles answered her as he snapped out of his thoughts. “It’s best that we keep calm.”
“Calm? Keep calm?”
“Buffy, do not panic.”
“Panicking? Who’s panicking?” she said sarcastically, standing up and pacing back and forth across the living room. “I’m not panicking. Watch me not panicking.”
“Does Joyce-”
“Oh God, Mom.” She stopped pacing when she realized that if they couldn’t do anything about the biggest mistake of her life then she’d have to tell her mom everything.
“Let’s not tell her just yet. We will fix this Buffy,” he reassured her though he wasn’t too sure himself. “I hope so,” he mumbled as he knelt down to get books for research.
“What’s this?” Spike picked up the thick blanket that Buffy had thrown him. “A wedding present? For me? Sweetheart, you didn’t have to.” He was grinning like a schmuck, and if it weren’t for the goose bumps his calling her ‘sweetheart’ gave her, she would have kicked it right off.
“Shut up. Come with me.” Her voice was commanding; a far cry from how she had been when she had left.
“Where are we going?” He leaned back further into the chair, crossing his arms over his chest and giving no sign that he was going to move.
“To Giles’.”
There she was again with the short answers. Maybe if I’m annoying enough… “Why can’t we go through the sewers?”
“Not happening.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“No,” she said firmly as she took the blanket from his hands, flung it over his head and pulled him out of the chair.
Spike frowned. When the Slayer wasn’t at a loss for words over his hotness, or throwing snappy comebacks at him, or fighting with him and making him hard, it was no fun. “What’s with the attitude change?”
“Could ask you the same thing.”
He peeked through the blanket. “What?”
“You should be repulsed that you are sort of married to a Slayer,” she said, still pulling him by the arm up the stairs.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he chuckled. “I am, pet. Just love seeing you all weak in the knees for me.”
“I am so not all weak in the knees for you,” she snorted. She then swallowed hard at the thought that Spike could feel her desire for him.
“Whatever you say, pet.” He chuckled. “Whatever you say.”