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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for the delay, lovely readers! I couldn't upload sooner, as I've been writing a story for the auction over at the Elysian Fields. But hey, an update, so I'm forgiven, right? Please?

Previously: There was cuddling followed by late night admissions of 'maybe caring a little bit'.

All4Spike beta'd because she's lovely.
Chapter 12

It was the end of the world. That was the only explanation for the sight that greeted her once she came downstairs, still bleary-eyed and dressed in the other Buffy’s pajamas. It’s not as though anyone was there to judge her. Spike would most likely only encourage her laziness, evil vampire that he was.

“What are you doing?”

“Curling the Bit’s hair, what does it look like? Got to get her all prettied up for the tea party, haven’t I?” They both sat on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace, half of Emma’s hair already done, her eyes glued to the TV.

“I’m having a tea party with my teddy bears,” Emma supplied, the very picture of seriousness.

“They’re a demanding lot,” Spike added, equally serious.

“This really shouldn’t surprise me anymore.” Buffy sat down on the sofa, hugged a throw pillow to her chest. “How do you even know how to curl hair? I know Xander doesn’t. I’d probably end up half-bald if I let him anywhere near me with a curler.”

“’S not rocket science, but I wouldn’t trust the Donut Boy with painting my nails.” The fact he was talking about painting his nails while he expertly twirled another lock of Emma’s hair around the curler had Buffy torn between laughing and sitting there in stunned disbelief. She decided on the latter. “Besides, I’ve had practice. Used to do Dru’s hair all the time.”

“I’ve just realised this, but… you’re totally like someone’s gay best friend.”

“That’s it,” Spike said haughtily. “Don’t expect to get your hair done.”

“I don’t even curl my hair, so the joke’s on you. It’s naturally perfect.”

His eyebrow twitched as he gave her ratty, out-of-bed hair a critical once-over. “Your roots are showing.”

She gasped. “When did you get so mean?”

“Is this flirting?” Emma asked guilelessly.

Spike stopped mid-curling.

Buffy gaped. So this is what a heart attack felt like. She didn’t want to live long enough to reach twenty anyway.

“Aunt Willow said it’s called flirting when you play fight,” Emma said. “Why do you and Mommy flirt? Is it because you love each other?”

“I need to cook!” She jumped off the couch as if it had been lit on fire, tuning out Spike as he tried to fumble his way through a response.

That had not been flirting. At all. Those were mean jibes aimed to… oh God, it hadn’t really been mean at all, had it? They had been flirting and this was most definitely Bizarro world.

Cupboard doors banged. The pan landed on the stove.

This just kept happening. With the touching and the snuggling and the whispered conversations deep in the night. He was just constantly underfoot, with those eyes and cheekbones and general everything-ness. She couldn’t escape him if she tried, and if she was being honest, maybe she could have tried much harder.

She cracked three eggs open, hunting for a stray bit of shell that had fallen in.

They were starting to act like a couple without the benefits, the line between a convincing act and something else so blurry now that she had trouble remembering when the banter had turned into an almost friendly routine. When it had become teasing instead of digging deep to dredge up each other’s insecurities.

She scrambled the eggs with too much enthusiasm, a bit of it splatting on her top. Just… breathe out. It wasn’t so bad. It was fine. All cookies and fuzzy little kittens and Spike who went out in daylight to buy her tampons. Spike who was curling Emma’s hair. Spike whom she’d kissed under the mistletoe and liked it a lot more than she probably should have. Spike whose tentative hand was currently lightly rubbing her between her shoulder blades in a way that spoke without words.

“Think the eggs are done.”

“What?” She looked down as his hand vanished. The eggs were starting to get past the point of well-done. “Oh.”

She turned the stove off, remembered what he’d said at night, about how this didn’t really count. That it was okay to touch and just be them and the world wouldn’t collapse around their ears.

“Emma’s in her room playing. Want to blow off some steam after you two are done eating?”

“No blowing!” Of any kind.

“Oh, come on. ‘S snowing and I’m going stir crazy in here. Need to go out for a bit. I’ll even risk getting singed.” When she finally turned to face him, he was bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he was the child in the house. “We could fight.”

“You can’t fight me.”

“Snowball fight,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You too chicken, Slayer?”

Bastard. He knew she couldn’t say no to a challenge. “If your chip fires, don’t come crying to me.”

He uncrossed his arms, closed the distance, breathed against her temple. “You’ll be the one crying after I’m done with you.”

She fisted the front of his T-shirt, resisted the urge to bite his jaw. “We’ll see.”

*******

He’d missed this. The adrenaline rush. Facing off against someone good enough to give him a challenge. Late night smoking sessions on the porch and occasional treks through the woods were not nearly enough to keep him from going stir crazy, all locked up and without a bottle of bourbon to keep him occupied.

“Okay, the rules,” Buffy said, putting on her woolen gloves. What a sissy. “There are no rules.”

“I like your style,” he said. Their eyes met for a second too long, assessing, two predators in their element. Then they were both off, gathering snow, palming it into deadly snowballs. One whizzed right by his ear before he could straighten up.

He prepared to flinch the second he let his own impromptu ammunition fly and watched it connect with her left shoulder. The chip didn’t fire. Fuck yeah, it was on.

“Is that the best you can do?” he taunted as she hit him in the chest, right above his heart.

“My aim is impeccable, you big… dumb guy.”

“Ooh, burn. Your threats make me shake in my boots.” He pelted three snowballs in a row, didn’t hit her once. Didn’t care either, because this was fun.

“Well, I already knew that. Run and catch me if you can, slowpoke!” When she stuck her tongue out at him and ran into the woods, he lost sight of her. The snow crunched beneath his soles as he trailed after her, the black of his attire giving him away. So she had an advantage. Didn’t mean he’d let her get the best of him. “Here, kitty, kitty…”

Not a sound. She could be silent as a shadow when she wanted to be and he wished he had all his vampire mojo just so he could hear her heart pound like a drum.

A branch snapped to his left. He spun on his heel, smirked, headed in with a snowball in his grasp.

“Is the big bad Slayer afraid of little old me? Tsk, never pegged you to be a coward.” Almost there. Just a little closer. He was sure that once he ducked behind that tree, she would be… not there at all?

“What the—”

“Up here, Spikey.”

He instinctively looked up right as an armful of snow showered down on his head. Sputtering, he spat the snow that had got into his mouth, shook it out of his hair. Meanwhile that little wench had jumped off the branch above and was bent over, dying with laughter at his expense. He’d show her. She wasn’t the only one who could play dirty.

“You should have seen your face,” she said, pointing at him, her smile so big it looked as though it almost hurt.

“Let’s see how you like it, pet.”

Her eyes widened, the smile sliding off her face like melted snow when he pounced and tackled her to the ground. “Not laughing now, are you?” He cupped a handful of snow and smirked.

“Spike, no.”

“Yes.”

“Sp—”

Her indignant shriek as he lifted the collar of her coat and stuffed the snow down her front had just become his new favourite sound.

“I’m going to kill you!” She shoved him off, but he tangled his legs with hers and pulled her on top with his arms holding her hostage, cackling. “Ahh, cold! Cold! Let me go!

“Not until you admit I won.”

“Never.” If her arms weren’t trapped between their chests, she’d probably smack the grin right off his face. Oh, well. Too bad. “I got you first. I won.”

“Seems like we’ve reached an impasse.”

Her warm breath puffed against his throat and she was so ticked off; he could see it in her face, in the way her legs tightened around his as if she was trying to crush his bones to dust.

“Ugh, you make me so mad I could just—”

“You could what…”

Her hands gripped his collar and then her teeth were sinking into his bottom lip, nipping and tugging. Something inside him stretched and roared to life as his hand slid into her hair to pull her closer. Her lips were dry and cool from the wind and he shouldn’t be loving this, but he was, couldn’t keep from slotting his lips to hers and licking the sizzling hot insides of her mouth as if she was crème brûlée sprinkled with O negative.

Doesn’t count, doesn’t have to mess everything up. It’s just us and we’re both on the same page.

The increased thudding of her heart told him she knew; was aware they were lying on the outskirts of the woods with snow beneath his back and lips gliding wetly together with desperation that bordered on pain.

“So mad,” she breathed into his mouth before diving back in, turning his brain into mush.

“Yeah,” he managed as she pulled away to draw in a breath. “Lay it all on me.”

She kissed him again, hips wriggling in a way that made stars burst behind his eyelids. He was trapped between hot and cold, frustrated hands roving down her coat-clad back. He just… he couldn’t get close enough.

“This is so wrong… bad.”

“So bad,” he echoed, rolling them over so he could latch onto her throat. Her hips ground against his with a filthy drawn-out moan he’d never known she could make. Maybe he could see it now, how his other self got himself trapped in her web, why he couldn’t keep himself from coming back for more. He could still do this though, without needing her, without falling in love.

He sucked the droplets of water off her silky smooth skin, licked up the long elegant arch of her throat until he reached her jaw. He suckled until she was gripping his coat so tightly the leather might bruise. And he didn’t even care; not when her blood was rushing right beneath his lips, right beneath the paper-thin tissue of her skin. He wanted it, but no more than he wanted the rest of her right now. And he’d be buggered if it wasn’t wrong and perverse to want to strip her bare and find out if she tasted like honey and melted candy everywhere.

“Buffy,” Spike said as if he knew it was her weakness. The ground was hard and cold and the clothes beneath her coat were uncomfortably damp from the snow Spike had dropped down her front. She should be shivering. She should be beating Spike up for doing it in the first place. She would be, if he hadn’t turned her white hot to the point she was surprised the water hadn’t sizzled off her skin.

How is it that he gets you hotter just by making out with you than Riley does when you’re getting your sexy on?

She loved Riley, she… couldn’t breathe when Spike hooked her leg over his hip, squeezed her ass and sucked at the sensitive spot right behind her ear. It wasn’t fair that he could turn her so needy when they weren’t even naked. And maybe it was a pride thing, but she wanted to see him surrender, even more helpless than he was now.

She spun them around, straddled his hips and swept down to kiss him again. His face was damp and his mouth tasted like icy mint. Yet it wasn’t enough, not the way he was clutching at her hips or breathing shallowly as though he had to. All she wanted was to get closer and just moremormore. Her lips trailed down his chin, licked over his Adam’s apple, paused to hover over the curve of his neck. She wasn’t thinking, she just… bit down with blunt teeth, right over the scar on his neck. When his hips bucked, a low growl rumbling through his chest, she thought that’s it, you’re mine.

“Oh God,” she said, jerking back, meeting his hazy eyes. They stayed like that for what felt like forever, just staring at each other, panting like thirsty dogs.

He’s not mine. I don’t want him to be. I just… want him. But I can’t. I can’t.

She bit me. Right over Drusilla’s mark, and I didn’t even stop her. I almost got off on it. I want her to do it again. What’s wrong with me?

“Maybe we should… head back,” she said, climbing off him, her knees shaking.

He nodded and swallowed hard, resisted the urge to lay his hand over his mark. As they trekked back to the house, he wondered if they were both going stark raving mad after all.

*******

It wasn’t awkward being around her, not nearly as much as it could be, he figured. They ate and talked and watched telly while Emma built a blanket fortress in her room. But it was prickling at him, that desire to have Buffy again. She was worse than a nicotine habit and the more of her he tasted, the hungrier he got.

He had to keep away for a bit, just to simmer down, and so he went up to the loft and took the book out of the nightstand, picked up right where he’d left off. It didn’t make him feel all that much better, but he couldn’t put it down anyway.

“I knew she was coming undone on the inside, no matter how hard she’d try to hide it from me. As I pinned her wrists to the bed and made her look up, she whispered, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Nothing more. Just that, and then she silenced me with her kisses, touched me until there was no blood left in my brain. I didn’t see her for a month after that.

It happened when I’d least expected it, as we bumped into each like in a bad chick flick. There were dark circles under her wide eyes and her hair was tied in a messy ponytail as if she couldn’t be bothered to fix it up. I’d rather have seen her on his arm and smiling than alone and miserable, because it was worse than being crushed to death by stones to see her so unhappy and be unable to do a thing to change it.

‘You haven’t returned my calls.’ I said, imagining taking her hand and bringing her home with me. Imagining she’d stay and kiss me with eyes that weren’t dull and hopeless, looking at me as if I was the only one on her mind, the one who’d made her happy.

‘I couldn’t. I can’t… can’t keep doing this. It’s not right.’

‘Buffy—’

‘Spike, no. I just need… need to work this out on my own. I can’t have you confusing me with your eyes and your words and… just let me go. Let this go. Please.’

She wouldn’t look at me at all, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. I’d known since the moment I’d met her that getting pulled in would be the end of me. I’d known but I’d done it anyway, told myself it was no big deal. That I could turn my lovesick, pounding heart off whenever I liked. ‘Is this it then? You’re ending this? Because I’ve heard it all before and you always come back.’

She met my eyes then and the sneer on my face died the moment I saw her chin wobble, the moment she said, ‘I’m sorry,’ as if she meant it.

I watched her go, feeling sick to my stomach, knowing that letting her go would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.”

No matter where or when or which version of him, he was always the one left behind. He wouldn’t let this get out of hand, let himself plunge into a chase after a bloody fairy tale like his other self had. He was better than that. Lust is better than love; lust doesn’t tear you in half. And that’s all this with Buffy will ever be.

TBC





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