Buffy sighed. Yet another valentine’s day at home alone, flopped in her sweats watching sickeningly romantic films, all the while thinking about a guy who probably wasn’t thinking of her at all.
Spike. God, how did he manage to have such an effect on her? Even thinking about him had her getting uncomfortably hot.
The first time she’d ever met him a flash of raw desire shot through her, desire as she’d never known it before. He was just standing there, in his stupid tight jeans, and a stupid tight top which showed off an unnaturally perfect body.
No,she hadn’t actually noticed his body at first, because she’d been captured by his eyes. Saying they were blue was like saying pizza is nice- a massive, gross ridiculous understatement. They were a thousand shades of blue, a thousand variations of tone and shade. Emotions ebbed and flowed through them like foam on the sea. She could have lost herself forever in those eyes. She nearly did. Dawn broke the spell, calling for their mom to come greet their guest.
It was only then she noticed the rest of him, and guh was pretty much the only thought her brain could form.
He’d just stood there, and run his hand through his hair in such a naturally sexy way she’d unconsciously licked her lips. He must have seen, because a smirk twitched at the corners of his ‘come kiss me’ mouth, and then he’d winked at her. Actually winked at her. It took all of her strength of will not to throw herself at him then and there. Dawn went off to hurry their mom up and get them drinks and Buffy barely noticed.
She wanted him. Wanted him so much she had to physically restrain herself. Her reaction wasn’t normal, wasn’t natural. At least it wasn’t normal or natural for her. She had a boyfriend fo crying out loud! And ok, maybe Angels tall dark and handsome looks seemed to pale a little in contrast to the chiselled perfection that was Spike, but he was her boyfriend. And she loved him. So why the hell did she want to rip off Spikes shirt, rake her fingers across his undoubtedly sexy chest and bite that damn tempting bottom lip? She hated her body for betraying her so badly, hated her heart for racing so much, and hated her brain for flooding her with images of a very naked Spike. Bad Buffy. Very bad Buffy.
Through her ogling she hadn’t realised Spike had been ogling her back. All she saw was the highly suggestive way he’d hooked his fingers through his belt loops and deliberately highlighted a very prominent bulge she should definitely not be staring at.
“See something you like pet?”
Those were his first words to her; and god how her head replayed them. That stupid accent would be the death of her one day. YES her head had screamed back. Luckily she didn’t engage her mouth at the same time, unluckily the wittiest response she could come up with was a very unladylike snort and the oh so not cutting words, “A Billy Idol wannabe in desperate need of a hair cut? Yeah I like that not so much.”
Spike had just laughed, a rich, delicious laugh that had shots of fire racing all over her skin. Dawn returned then and raised an inquiring eyebrow at Spikes laughter. He tugged on a strand of Dawn's hair and Buffy was floored by the wave of jealousy she felt at him touching her.
“Hey bit, why didn’t you tell me I was ‘desperately in need of a haircut?’”
Dawn raised her other eyebrow, “Uh, cos I didn’t think you were? I can cut it for you again, if you want. But I only did it a couple of weeks ago”
Dawn had had her fingers in his hair?? Now Buffy was really jealous, and really annoyed with herself for feeling like that.
Spike just grinned, “Nah, s’ok bit, I like it like this. And you do. And really those are the only opinions that matter right?”
So began their years of baiting each other.
Buffy wasn’t sure why she and Spike wound each other up the way they did. She sometimes wished she could be nice to him, wished she could say something which would have him looking at her with the same affection and laughter he had when he looked at Dawn, but once they’d got into their routine of bitching it was very hard to stop. What if she said something nice to him and he just made fun of her back?
She hated admitting it but she wouldn’t have been able to cope with letting him get to know the real her, and finding out he didn’t like what he saw. She was never sure if he actually liked her at all, or whether he just liked tormenting her. When he was around though the UST was impossible to ignore. For her anyway, she had no idea if Spike was affected by the same inexplicable desperate lusting she was.
She had to constantly remind herself that he was Dawns best friend, not really anything to do with her at all. And she had a boyfriend.
If she sometimes thought of Spike when getting hot and heavy with said boyfriend that was not her fault. It was the fault of her incredibly traitorous brain.
Inevitably though Buffy found that she couldn’t continue her relationship with Angel. It wasn’t just because of Spike, it had been coming for a long time before that. When she’d met Angel she’d been so young, so inexperienced and impressionable. He had been older, worldly and sophisticated, with a self assurance she just didn’t have. His serious, brooding and mysterious nature captured her teenage imagination. He caused her plenty of angst through their relationship, gave her plenty of reasons to indulge in ‘true romance’ despair. But gradually she had come to realise that wasn’t a good thing. He was so controlling, so possessive. It stopped being a sweet sign of his love and became an annoyance, a constant source of irritation. And he’d never really made her happy, not in a giddy ‘it’s a wonderful life’ kind of way. When she was with him she still felt unfinished, incomplete. Like cookie dough that wasn’t done baking.
He didn’t take their break up well. He tried to change her mind. A lot. But once he realised she wasn’t backing down he tried to turn it around, take control as usual, make their break up him breaking up with her. Buffy could care less by that point so she let him, let him think that he’d helped her ‘grow, and become a strong independent woman’ that he’d helped her ‘flower into the woman she was now’ that he ‘couldn’t do anymore for her’ and he should be with someone ‘more in need of his guidance.’ Self righteous moron.
In the end Buffy had said goodbye to her first love without a backwards glance. Her mom was overjoyed, she actually couldn’t have been happier about it, especially as Buffy didn’t seem to be suffering in anyway. Buffy did draw the line at throwing a ‘bye bye Angel’ party though, she thought that might be a little much.
Spike seemed pleased too, when he heard the news. Though Buffy didn’t get her hopes up thinking that it was about her in any way. Spike and Angel had taken an instant and deep rooted dislike to each other. Their verbal sparring had none of the suggestive lightness that characterised her own dealings with Spike. They’d almost come to blows several times. Buffy was very glad it had never actually come to that, she figured cheering while Spike pummelled Angel would probably have given away her feelings a little.
She told herself that the fact Spike dumped his latest ho bag of a girlfriend, this time an actually crazy woman called Drusilla, in the same week she dumped Angel had nothing whatsoever to do with her, and everything to do with the fact Drusilla was a few slices short of a pizza. She actually carried a freaken doll with her for crying out loud.
So Buffy was single, and she stayed that way. The unfortunate and annoying thing she’d begun to realise was that nobody compared to Spike. No one. As much of a pain in the ass as he was she’d rather be trading insults with him then making with the smoochies with anyone else.
Their relationship didn’t change after that. No. It took her mom dying for that to happen.
When her mom died it was literally the worst time of Buffy’s life. She felt as if a bit of her died that day too. Her mom was more than just a mom, she was everything. She was the heart of the family, the life and the laughter. And she was suddenly, horrifically gone.
If it hadn’t been for Spike Buffy didn’t know what would have happened. He consoled her and Dawn when consolation seemed impossible. He helped them to laugh through their tears and feel something other than the deep dark clawing of pain. How he managed to pull them through it Buffy never knew, but he did. He pulled them out of the darkness. It took a long time, but he did it. The whole time he was hurting too. You would have had to have been an idiot not to notice how much affection Spike had had for Joyce. His own mum had died suddenly when he was younger than Dawn, and Joyce had filled that hole in his heart. He was eternally grateful to her for letting her be part of her family, and giving him the greatest friend he’d ever had in Dawn.
The stabbing jealousy Buffy felt over the closeness Spike and Dawn shared subsided a little when she realised just how much they needed each other, how much they got from the friendship. Buffy loved her beautiful little sister fiercely and it touched her in an unexpected way to know that Dawn had someone other than her who would give up anything to see her happy.
Gradually Buffy became admitted into their previously special world of two. She saw how much it cost Dawn to do that, to share the only person who had ever been wholly hers, and she was so grateful for it.
She saw a different side to Spike then, a side only Dawn, and maybe their mom, had seen before. He wasn’t just funny, he was thoughtful and gentle and so considerate of those he cared about. Buffy fell deeper, and she was powerless to stop herself.
She began to crave his company as much as his touch. She missed him when he wasn’t around, couldn’t stand to be away from him when he was.
She saw the artless way he would hug Dawn, or stroke her hair, or kiss her forehead, and she wanted that affection for herself. No. She wanted more than just brotherly affection. She wanted all of him, she wanted him to devour her.
Sometimes she wondered if maybe, just maybe, he felt the same. There was one time he seemed to forget himself. They’d been playing Pictionary, mucking around and having a good time. Buffy had messed up her hair a little but before she’d had time to straighten it up Spike was there, smoothing it back into place. His fingers danced across her skin, burning her. She couldn’t move, her heart had frozen and every fibre of her being was crying out for more. She couldn’t help herself, she leaned into his touch. He’d stepped closer then, and the god smell of him, the feel of his breath just brushing against her parted lips almost made her groan aloud with want. What would have happened next she never found out. Dawn coughed and the moment was gone. He’d stepped away from her with an embarrassed and completely gorgeous blush. They’d got back to the game and it seemed the moment was forgotten. But it wasn’t, not for her.
Things changed a little more then. Buffy seemed to have an even more super charged awareness of him then before, she could feel him without touching him, sense when he was close. She longed for him so much it was physically painful, and the look in his eyes almost seemed to scream that he longed for her too. But nothing happened, nothing other than unbearable sexual tension, heated looks and the occasional, far too fleeting touch.
Buffy loved him. She couldn’t deny it anymore. She loved him so much she thought it would burn her up inside.
But he was Dawn’s best friend. He belonged to Dawn, not her. As much as a person can belong to anyone else anyway.
The pain of knowing he wasn’t hers was with her constantly now, and would occasionally bring her to annoyingly unstoppable tears. He didn’t love her, he couldn’t. If he did then why was she sat at home on Valentine’s Day, eating her weight in icecream and feeling more horribly alone every minute?
Huh, that was weird. Buffy suddenly realised Dawn (a fellow sad singleton) had gone to the kitchen for a drink almost an hour ago. The fact that she’d been so caught up in wallowing over Spike that she hadn’t noticed made Buffy feel even worse. She padded into the kitchen to find out what was going on, only to find it Dawn-less.
At that moment Buffy felt an almost crippling flash of awareness. Spike. Spike was here. Then she heard voices coming through the partly open window which confirmed it.
Buffy wasn’t eavesdropping. She really and truly wasn’t. If some of their conversation happened to reach her ears then it was just because she happened to have exceptionally good hearing. It had nothing to do with her being pressed against the glass of the window. Nothing at all.
She heard Spikes voice and her heart called out in response to it. She knew every timbre of it by now, knew the way it expressed every emotion, and what she heard him saying caused her heart to literally explode in her chest. Well, not literally, cos hello, messy, but that’s what it felt like.
Spikes voice sounded a little shaky. “Who would have thought it eh? That insufferable chit, with all her bitchy ways, and stupid, bouncy shampoo commercial hair. Most the time I feel like strangling her. Or kissing her to death.”
Buffy didn’t know whether to be affronted, or just seriously aroused. He had to mean her, he'd commented on her 'stupid hair' more than once in the past. Then he started speaking again, and she lost herself in amazement, and painful hope.
“And yet I dream about her. She’s in me, a part of me. A part I didn’t even know I was missin. She’s the thorn in my bloody side... but she’s a hell of a woman... she’s the one.”
The fact she wasn’t hyperventilating after hearing that seemed almost miraculous to Buffy. Her head, her heart, both of them were screaming at her, “I’M THE ONE! I’M HIS ONE!” Buffy wanted to wrench open the door grab him and never let him go. Then she wanted to beat him for letting her think her love was unrequited for so long. She managed to stop herself when she realised Spike wasn’t done talking.
“Reckon I was destined to meet her too you know. If I hadn’t I think part of me would have known she was out there somewhere... I would have missed her even if I’d never known her. I would’ve been less of a man for not loving her. Loving you. Don’t reckon I could live without my girls now. And... and you’re sure she loves me?”
Buffy was torn between melting into a big pile of Buffy shaped goo, imploding with happiness, or exploding with annoyance. He felt exactly the same as she did! Like they were destined, meant for each other. Two halves of a weirdly perfect whole. She almost felt too happy, it was almost too much. But wait, Dawn had told Spike she loved him?? How did Dawn even know that? Buffy thought she’d been so careful at keeping her feelings a secret, but clearly she wasn’t as sneaky as she thought.
And now Spike knew she loved him, and he loved her. God he loved her. He loved her. Buffy never thought she’d get tired of knowing that. The only thing better would be him coming inside and telling her himself. And then pounding her into the ground.
Yes, yes. Spike inside. And shirtless. And... crap. Buffy looked down at herself with almost comical despair. She was wearing her most comfortable, and therefore her most ugly, pair of sweats. She wasn’t wearing a scrap of make up, and... double crap, her underwear didn’t even match!
She hadn’t prepared for this, she hadn’t prepared for having all her dreams come true that night.
Buffy had been waiting so long to tell Spike she loved him, had given up on hoping that he would ever say it back. She was damned if she was gonna look like trash on the best night of her life.
Dragging herself away from the window, and Spike’s voice, with very great difficulty, Buffy ran back through the house and up the stairs.
Buffy wanted Spike so badly that even the thought of him running a finger over her body had her coming undone, she needed him to want her as badly.
She’d waited so long for him, too long. These extra passing moments, which she could have spent consumed by his touch, were killing her, but they were necessary.
She ripped open her underwear drawer, and stared in panic at her choices, what to chose??
Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for taking the time to read this! Before the prequel to this I'd never written an all human fic, I've found that (though I miss the fangs) I quite like it! Hope you do too :)
Chapter End Notes:
Don't worry guys i'm not leaving you hanging! I'd thought i'd complete the circle, or triangle actually, and do the last part from Spikes POV. Will be picking up from when he enters the house. coughtherewillbesmutcough Hope I didnt disappoint you, and hope you enjoyed!