Chapter 13
She dreamt of them again that night; the other them. Couldn’t help but notice how easily they touched, how fluidly they moved together as if they were two parts of one whole. How well they fit as, when they finally stopped running, the other Buffy’s face nuzzled into the curve of his neck, his arm curled around her waist.
When she blinked, they were standing in her living room, her mother staring at them as if they were a foreign species, especially when the other Buffy enfolded Joyce in a bear hug that looked almost painful. She couldn’t hear a word, the sounds distilled through a thick fog in her brain until they turned into gibberish.
The dream flashed forward and she felt a tug at her stomach, like an invisible hook yanking her forward. Her mom was there and Xander and Willow, whose cheeks were flushed, her eyebrows drawn together in that stubborn way she got when she was hacking into the hospital database and it wouldn’t let her in at the first try. They were arguing, surrounded by a stack of books that were slowly but surely building precarious little towers.
When the dream changed again Buffy almost tripped over Tara’s quiet presence. The living room was filled with the acrid smoke of a spell gone wrong. The other them were there too, eyes locked in a silent conversation as they followed the rest in a mad dash out of the polluted room.
And it was insane, that fleeting moment of jealousy Buffy felt about the way they seemed to talk without speaking at all, the way they seemed to just get each other, because as much as she’d loved Angel she never really understood him. She didn’t think he’d ever understood her either. She’d have given up everything to make it work and he’d given up before they could try at all.
Maybe he’s never been right for you.
Maybe love wasn’t supposed to hurt all the time, wasn’t supposed to feel like she was punching a wall and not getting through to what was on the other side.
Like Spike’s right for me?
She closed her eyes, scoffed, because he couldn’t be more wrong if he tried.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing at the foot of her bed back in Sunnydale, the other Buffy smiling at her, sadly almost. But… no. Not at her. Spike just came stalking right through her as if she was made of air, see-through. He crawled towards the other Buffy inhaling her from pelvis to throat like a wild animal. Her fingers tangled in his hair, yanked him up until their lips lined up.
Look away.
She couldn’t.
“Are you okay?” he asked, sagging against her when her nails scratched down his naked spine, not in passion. In comfort. Somehow, that made Buffy feel even more as if she was intruding on something not meant for her eyes.
“Not really. You?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“I’m worried about her,” the other Buffy said, lips resting against his temple. It was so instinctive and gentle she had to look away.
“I can’t help but think of her all alone, hungry, and,” he hid his face in her shoulder, “fuck.”
“Don’t. It’ll be fine,” she said, voice shaking. “They said… us, the other us, they’re in our place. They must have found the cabin. Must have.”
“How did this even… it’s not possible.”
“I don’t know.” She rolled them on their sides, her thigh settling over his hip. “It did in your book. I mean, not this exactly, but…”
Spike snorted, smiled a little. “It’s called fiction for a reason, love.”
“I hate feeling this way, like everything’s out of control.”
“I know,” he said, because he did, and then he kissed her, hands gliding everywhere. “I know.”
“Don’t want to think about it.”
“I’ll make you forg—”
She cut him off with a kiss, pushed him back and straddled him. “I will too. We’re in this together.”
“Always,” he said, eyes rolling back as she moved down his body and… oh boy. Gross! And why am I still looking?
She was most definitely a pig now, a perverted voyeur who just stood there and stared as he stroked the other Buffy’s hair away from her face, dragging in a lungful of air, teeth catching in his bottom lip when she sucked him in even deeper.
Okay. Wow. Didn’t really need to see his sex face on top of everything else.
She definitely wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye now. Or at herself in the mirror, for that matter. How had the other her even learned how to do that? Which, okay. Spike probably wasn’t all about slow and soft missionary and mouths above waist all the time.
My sex life is great. Brilliant, in fact.
Spike pulled her up, rolled her over and returned the favour in a way that made a heat wave roll all the way down to her toes. It was indecent and dirty and… hot. Kind of. Maybe. And if it was just sex she might have a better chance of leaving this nightmare unscathed, but it was more than that, in some intangible way. It was the way her calves rubbed over his shoulders as she whispered his name as if she was losing herself completely, the way his eyes would crinkle at the edges, hands stroking a smooth path down her flushed skin, hungry for all of her all at once. The way he made her come undone and make her giggle right after when he blew a raspberry against her still quivering belly.
They smiled against each other’s lips, teasing with words just as well as they did with their hands until thoughts became half-cut moans and stifled gasps.
This is what we look like together. It shouldn’t look so right.
She was spared the shattering finale by the door ringing.
Only it wasn’t the door. It was the tinny sound of the phone and now that she opened her eyes, only to find Spike looking right back, she kind of wished she hadn’t woken up.
“W-what’s—”
He was making that face again. The one she knew never meant anything good. “Had any nice dreams, pet?”
Yup. There he goes. She blushed to the roots of her hair. “No.”
“Really?”
The phone kept ringing down in the living room. Why didn’t he just go pick it up?
“Because it sure smells like you did.”
She, the queen of banter and timely pun-making, could only squeak.
Spike smirked and her skin went all goosebumpy when his fingers danced over her bare shoulder. Not good. “Bet I was in it, wasn’t I?”
It’s not like he was wrong, exactly, but he was a smug bastard and she wouldn’t stand for it. “You’re so full of yourself it’s embarrassing.”
His knuckles stroked down the length of her arm. It was distracting. “Were you though? Full of me.”
“Pig.” She slapped him on the shoulder hard enough for it to sting, but not nearly as hard as she could. She was tired, okay? And it was… cold outside. It made her all lazy and un-ragey. “Full of annoyance, yes.”
“Is that right?” He lifted his eyebrow, the one that wasn’t squished against the pillow. “So, you’re telling me that,” his fingers crawled up her ribcage, spanned right beneath the curve of her breast, “I don’t make you all hot and bothered then?”
“Not even a little bit.” She vaguely noticed the phone had stopped ringing, and the renewed silence made her heartbeat sound too loud in her ears.
“Mmm… fancy that.” Then he cupped her breast, the pad of his thumb rubbing over her hard nipple back and forth as if they weren’t breaking an unwritten law. She whimpered into the pillow like some brazen hussy and caught his wrist. She didn’t know whether she wanted to push him away or pull him closer.
“Spike…”
“Buffy,” he replied, mildly amused. And what was wrong with him? Was this who they were now? Taking liberties with touching each other as if they’d never done anything else?
“We shouldn’t—”
“Why not?”
She realised her grasp had gone loose, fingers trailing up his forearm. “I… I’m not a cheater.” And why was it so hard to remember the colour of Riley’s eyes? Why had she never hungered for him the way she did for Spike right now?
“But you want me,” he said and it wasn’t a question. But he was still holding back, eyes intent on her face. “It’s just us, Buffy. We’re all we have.”
She wouldn’t have done this back home; the home that felt more distant and vague the longer they stayed here and blurred the lines between Slayer and vampire, turned them into Buffy and Spike instead.
“Tell me I’m not alone in this,” he said, gaze dropping between them, eyelashes sweeping over vulnerable skin. “In wanting this.”
“You’re not alone,” she admitted, softly. When she met his eyes she realised that she wasn’t the only one who was freaking out, the only one with this desire crawling beneath her skin.
He shuffled closer, nosing at her jaw, playing with the neckline of her top. There was too much of his bare skin begging to be touched and maybe she’d given in a little bit, couldn’t hold back from sliding her palm up to his shoulder.
This is insane, she thought as he pulled the neckline down and teased his way down her chest with the tongue she was convinced was the work of Satan. And when she threaded her fingers through his messy bed hair, she realised something she’d known for a while now.
She couldn’t keep dating Riley. She’d tried so hard to make it work, to pretend he was what she wanted, needed, that the fire between them was anything other than a smothered spark. Even without Spike in the picture, they’d never have worked out, no matter how much Angel wanted her to have ‘normal’ in her life. Maybe normal was overrat—
“Stop thinking so much,” Spike said, stroking up her spine, his mouth hovering over her nipple, and if he could just… “Can hear the gears turning from here.”
“I’m here. Thoughtless. Please—”
“Please?” He smiled impishly. “Please what, Buffy?”
She pinched his earlobe, gave him her best bitchy face.
“This?” He swiped his tongue over the tip of her breast, and it was good, so good, but— “More.”
“If the lady says more,” he closed his lips over her nipple and suckled it into his mouth, teeth grazing the tiniest bit, “she shall get more.”
*******
Spike wondered if she was conscious of the way she’d arched into him, the breathy moans she couldn’t hold in when he’d barely even touched her. She was so responsive. More responsive than Dru had ever been. He could imagine her right now clear as day, as he pushed Buffy onto her back, could hear Dru telling him he’d gone all soft and sticky on the inside.
I’m not. I’m just adapting. Taking the next best thing when the top prize had been snatched away.
And since when had Buffy become the next best thing?
“What are we doing?” he asked, rolling her top up to her breasts anyway, eyes eating up the way golden skin stretched over toned muscle.
“I don’t… I don’t know.” Her heart was pounding and for a second he just wanted to rest his ear over it so he could listen closely and pretend his was beating in synch. “Do you want to stop?”
“No.” He laid his hand over her stomach, all warm and silky, trembling for him. “Feels right.”
A beat.
“I know.”
She caught his gaze, held it, told him without words this is terrifying but I want it anyway.
“This isn’t as repulsive as I thought it would be,” he said.
Buffy snorted, fingernails scratching the nape of his neck, hesitant but doing it anyway. He wondered if they were both knee deep in shit creek, if she just couldn’t help herself the same way he couldn’t stop himself from breathing her in. “Stop. Your sweet talk is getting me all tingly.”
“Don’t need sweet talk when I’ve got my hands.” He teased the hem of her pajama pants. Sodding flannel. He liked the knickers and tee combo much better.
“Umm… wait,” she bit her lip, “I’m still… you know.”
“Trust me, I know.” As if he could forget. It was like waving a red flag in front of a chained up bull. “Makes my mouth water.”
“Eww.”
He was just about to argue his case when a teddy bear flew right to the edge of the loft, followed by a cry of, “Get up! Get up! I’m hungry!” A pause, in which he and Buffy sprang apart as if they’d been caught in the act by her mum rather than a flying piece of fluff.
“Please?” Emma added.
“Be right down,” he yelled back, flopped on his back, tenting his boxers like the miserable, sexually frustrated git he was.
“You should take care of,” she gestured at his lower half with flaming cheeks, “that.”
“Mind giving me a hand?”
There was a moment of silence a beat too long before she shook herself out of it and dashed out of the bed, stammering her way through an excuse before she scurried down the ladder.
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” So she’d gone back to being skittish Buffy. Well, it’d been worth a try anyhow. He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it all, so he wrapped his hand around his cock instead, thinking all I’m after is a good shag, and so is she. Nothing more. Nothing less.
And if it didn’t sit quite right with him, well, that was a cross he was not willing to bear. Not when he could break it into tiny splinters and burn them to dust instead.
*******
It was a disaster. Not only had she been actually considering handling Spike’s junk, the food she’d been cooking had somehow caught on fire while she’d got sidetracked by working up the courage to call Willow back. Because it had been Willow who’d woken Emma up. And Buffy wasn’t proud of it, but when Emma had told her Aunt Willow had called, she’d freaked out. Fought the urge to hide inside the coat closet with a pillow over her head, because it had felt as though the outside world was forcing itself in past the front door.
I can’t deal with this right now.
Emma was screaming and Buffy’s eyes stung from the smoke. And the glass of water she’d splashed over the pan in a moment of panic? Yeah, definitely didn’t agree with the oil that had already been there. Apparently, she failed at dealing with anything these days.
I’m being punished for my lusty thoughts.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Spike skidded into the kitchen, dripping water everywhere, a small towel around his hips. This was not helping. At all.
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, woman.”
“You said a bad word!”
Spike vanished and was back in a second, ordering, “Off with you.”
Only she couldn’t move fast enough, all her survivor instincts clearly non-existent, just like her culinary skills. Then Spike was dousing the pan with a fire extinguisher, the foam stuff spraying everywhere, including all over her.
“There. Crisis averted.” He set the extinguisher down with a clunk. “Let’s not burn our only shelter to the ground, shall we?”
“It’s totally not my fault. It was… squirrels. Barging in and… being arsonists. It’s what they do.” Buffy wiped the specks of foam off her face. This was what happened what she tried to do her best Martha Stewart impression. She’d almost set the cabin on fire.
“Right. Maybe they shouldn’t be trying to cook next time then, eh? Or making up lame excuses.” He grinned, wiped a bit of foam off her nose. “You look like you’ve gone a few rounds with a snowman.”
She wanted to hate him right now. Now if he could only stop being half-naked and wet, it would be so much easier. “And you look like someone who’s gonna get kicked in the butt if he says another word.”
“Wouldn’t I get kicked in my balls instead? Unless I’m backing towards you, which—”
“Both,” she decided, drying herself off with a kitchen towel. She might look like roadkill, but she still had her dignity. What was left of it anyway. “I’m very limber.”
“Don’t know if I trust your word,” he said, and could he just put some clothes on already? “Fancy showing me?”
“Showing you what? The kicking you in the butt thing?” Was that like a kink or something?
“How limber you are, you daft cow.” He waggled his eyebrows, tweaked her nose before turning on his heel and swaggering off without waiting for her reply.
“Why do I even put up with you?”
“Because you like me,” he yelled over his shoulder, Emma hopping after him.
“Asshole,” she muttered, definitely not checking out his towel-clad ass.
Someone give me a break.
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm updating a bit later than I would have otherwise, because I was writing that story for the auction. You can find it here, if you're bored and want something short-ish to read: http://auction.dark-solace.org/?p=835
Speaking of short stories, mine was published in a collection titled Fall. You can download it for free on Amazon, until Monday (February 18), I believe. Just in case you want something non-fanfic to read. :) Mine is called Top of the World.
Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Collection-Stories-Contest-ebook/dp/B00BCSY8B6
A big thank you to All4Spike for betaing! Any mistakes you see are all mine. :)
Speaking of short stories, mine was published in a collection titled Fall. You can download it for free on Amazon, until Monday (February 18), I believe. Just in case you want something non-fanfic to read. :) Mine is called Top of the World.
Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Collection-Stories-Contest-ebook/dp/B00BCSY8B6
A big thank you to All4Spike for betaing! Any mistakes you see are all mine. :)
Chapter End Notes:
Hope you liked! I'll try to update the next a bit sooner.