[Reviews - 127]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 1657 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
Previously: Buffy and Spike had a nice little talk. They admitted to liking one another and the world didn't explode. Fancy that.

Beta'd by the amazing All4Spike. All mistakes are miiine. All mine.
Chapter 16

Buffy swept her hair out of her face and put it up in a ponytail, wondering why all the crap seemed to multiply the minute she decided to dust the furniture. A small radio with the time permanently stuck on 2:16am, a leather wallet with its thinning wad of cash and a photo she definitely had not looked at again before she threw the wallet on the bed, an empty vase and a mysterious bobby pin all cluttering one tiny nightstand.

She was gaining a whole new appreciation for Mom having to clean the entire house, including all the times Buffy had destroyed the downstairs area in the line of duty.

“Cleaning sucks.”

Emma jumped up and down on the bed with a spare rainbow-coloured duster in her hand, completely and utterly unhelpful.

“Hey, you should be helping me. All in favour of child labour. Go!”

“Will I—” a jump, “get a,” another jump, “puppy?”

“If you feed it and pick up the poop,” Buffy said, and now she’d officially become an old, boring person who wouldn’t get a puppy unless it included a whole list of stipulations. The five-year-old Buffy would be so disappointed in her.

“Poop is gross!” Emma said, short of breath as she flopped down on the bed, cheeks flushed.

Buffy refrained from saying that so were demon guts. Especially once they splattered all over her hardly-worn designer jeans she’d got on sale. “Well, no poop picking, no puppy. That’s what my mom always told me.”

“I will, I promise! I’ll do anything!” Emma pouted, the little liar.

Buffy knelt on the bed and tickled her until she was shrieking and squirming away. “Ask me in about a week, okay?” Hopefully, they’d get switched back by then and the other her could deal with the longing glances and hard-to-resist pleading.

“But then you’ll just say the same thing,” Emma said with a sigh worthy of an eighty-year-old man tired of everything and everyone.

“I promise I won’t. Scout’s honour.” She got to her feet again, retrieving the broom from the floor. No vacuum cleaner at the cabin for Buffy. Yay. “Now help me? Please?”

Emma sat up and thrust her duster towards the ceiling as if she was wielding a sword. “Let’s fight the dust bunnies!” She paused. “They’re not real bunnies, are they?”

“Nope. These are far less cute.” Also, not as horny. She wondered whether this meant that Spike’s spirit animal was a bunny. Because hello to the horniness. When he wasn’t being a jerk, cuteness too. Sometimes. Not to mention the nostril-flaring thing Spike did when he was holding back a biting retort. He was definitely the vampire version of a bunny.

“Okay.” Emma hopped off the bed with an expression that meant serious business and proceeded to dust with enough energy to power an entire house. And although she got under Buffy’s feet more than she actually helped, it was the thought that counted.

Buffy knelt down, prepared to vanquish the clouds of dust gathered under the bed when she found even more stuff to put away. Great.

She pinched a stray sock between her thumb and forefinger and flung it towards the clothes-that-need-a-wash pile. There was a book too. If Giles was here, he’d get heart palpitations. Keeping books in dust-infested places ranked on his very long list titled Former Librarian’s Insan-o Book of Rules, probably somewhere below not letting Xander anywhere near the Watcher’s Diaries after he’d eaten a jelly donut.

She pulled it out, the hard cover well-loved, but clean. “Hey, I know this one.” She’d caught Spike reading it a few times, mostly because she’d made fun of him for being a boring bookworm.

Emma popped her chin over her shoulder. “Is it daddy’s? Daddy writes all the books.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She’d discarded that bit of info the moment Willow had told her, but as she read William Pratt on the spine, a doubt crept in. William was Spike’s human name, wasn’t it? Too bad the book didn’t say William the Bloody, because that would have cleared it right up. There were plenty of writers named William anyway. She doubted it was him.

“Read some!”

She put it in her lap and let it fall open where the bookmark was, skimmed it in silence and snapped it shut again. “Not Daddy’s. Just some old, history… stuff.”

Emma shrugged and went back to cleaning while Buffy sat there, clutching the book to her chest, blinking the words away. But it was right there, that nagging little whisper inside her head tempting her to take another peek.

She was weak.

“She hovered in my bedroom doorway with the too long sleeves of my shirt grazing her knuckles, hair falling limply past her slumped shoulders. I froze, squinting through the darkness at the streak of street lights slanting over her bare thighs, painting her skin light blue.

She opened her mouth, closed it with a sigh. I didn’t let her know I was awake until she turned away, tugging at the hem of the shirt.

‘Buffy?’

Her back stiffened. It felt as if hours had passed before she finally faced me again.

‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to wake you,’ she said quietly, as though confessing a secret.

‘You didn’t.’ I sat up and rubbed a weary hand down my face, grateful that it was too dark for her to see into me as though my skin was made of glass. Angry that she was always there lurking around in some nook or cranny anyway, even if she wasn’t physically present. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her, as she stood here a few feet away, an unspoken secret like a leaden cloak draped over her shoulders. ‘Can’t seem to get much sleep.’

‘Me neither.’ She toed at the doorway as if the inside of my bedroom was forbidden territory now. As if we hadn’t been tangled in the sheets soaked with sweat and her juices too many times to count. ‘I was thinking… maybe I should leave.’

‘Now? It’s the middle of the night.’

‘In the morning,’ she amended, arms wound around her middle. ‘This is stupid… I should never have come here in the first place. Shouldn’t have expected you to—’

‘What? Help you?’ I ran a hand through my hair, propped my elbows up on my bent knees. ‘I’m not heartless, you know.’

‘No.’ She smiled a little. ‘No, you’re not the heartless one here.’

‘Hey,’ I said, hating her just a little bit for twisting my heart into knots every single time she let herself be vulnerable. ‘You’re not heartless. You just… you lock yourself up worse than bloody Alcatraz.’

She snorted a laugh then couldn’t seem to stop, bending over at the middle, hardly making any sound.

‘Why are you here, Buffy?’ I asked after she regained her composure, for the second time since she’d showed up at my doorstep with dark shadows of unrest under her eyes and a beaten old duffle bag slung over her shoulder. Later, she’d said. Well, later was now.

She sucked in a breath, her mouth tightening in that familiar way that told me that getting her to be honest would be like skiing up a grassy hill.

‘Does it matter why I’m here? I’ll be gone in a few hours. There’s no point.’ She dropped her head, shadows shifting.

‘Yes, it bloody well matters!’ Her head snapped up, my hand fisting around the sheets. ‘You come here knocking late at night after avoiding me like a sodding plague for weeks, after breaking things off, and now here you are, asking me to let you stay. I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m not your whipping boy. I won’t just let you… let you take everything when you never give anything back.’

‘You’re right,’ she whispered.

‘What?’

‘I’ll—I’ll leave right now.’

She wasn’t supposed to agree with me. This wasn’t how the game was played. But when I saw her breath hitch in her throat just before she turned away, I wondered if this was a game at all.

‘Buffy, wait—’

She wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t look at me, so I jumped out of bed, stark bloody naked, and caught her arm. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong. For once in your life… let me in. I think I’ve earned it.’ Couldn’t she see how much I’d changed? For her? To be the kind of man who deserved to be loved? That I’d give her everything I am just to have an ounce of her back?

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ she said, voice breaking on the last syllable, her eyes welling up.

I wouldn’t let her go. ‘I’m not letting you go until you tell me what’s wrong. Did he… did he do something to you?’

She shook her head, pulling her arm out of my grasp. ‘It’s not him. I don’t… I left.’

‘You left,’ I repeated, the words not making sense.

‘Two months ago.’ She took in a shaky breath, her eyes pleading. ‘Tell me… tell me you love me.’

I wanted to fucking hate her for doing this, for wrapping my heartstrings around her fingers and yanking hard. I couldn’t. ‘You know I do.’ I grabbed her shoulders. ‘What’s wrong with you? Does it make you happy to kick me while I’m down?” She was shaking her head frantically now, biting down on her bottom lip. ‘Then what? Just tell me!’

‘I’m pregnant.’

The world stuttered to a standstill and exploded behind my eyelids. My hands slid off her trembling shoulders as I stepped back, trying to make sense of things.

‘I’m not here… I’m not asking you for anything. I wasn’t trying to hurt you,’ she said, visibly shaken but trying to smother it all as she always did. ‘I just… I needed someone t-to know and you’re… I just needed to feel… okay for a while. To stay somewhere for a night.’

‘You’re pregnant,’ I repeated, and there was terrifying conviction settling in my bones. It wasn’t his. It was mine. MineMineMine. ‘If you’re not at home anymore… Where… where are you staying?’

‘Sunnydale Inn,’ she admitted, not meeting my gaze, wiping her face with the sleeve of my shirt.

‘Bloody hell, Buffy. That’s a right shithole.’ I knew she was too proud to say no, but I had to say it anyway. ‘You’re staying here.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do! I can take care of myself,’ she said, nodding. I wondered if she was trying to convince me or herself. ‘I have a job and I’m saving up and it will get better.’

‘Buffy—’

‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’

The minute I touched her shoulder and squeezed, she burst into tears and fell into my arms with enough force to make me stumble back. I held her, her words muffled against my pounding heart. ‘I’m sorry. I’m s-so sorry. I’m selfish and I shouldn’t have c-come here… but I can’t stay… at the Inn t-tonight, because… someone next door got m-murdered, and I was scared and my job sucks… and the smell of grease m-makes me sick and I… I can’t do this, Spike—’

‘It’s fine. You’ll be fine,’ I murmured into her hair, rubbing her back and trying not to fall apart along with her.

‘I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Stay here. Please. At least for a while. Please.’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t. Can’t.’

‘I’ll never forgive myself if I let you go back there, you know. I’m doing this because I’m selfish,’ I said, knowing that I had to get her to stay, no matter what. Even if I’d never get to touch her again, even if the child would turn out to be his. I just needed her to be safe. ‘I’ll chain you up if I have to. It’s not just you now. You have to think what’s best for… both of you.’

She clutched me harder.

‘Let me help you.’

She nodded, slowly, her breath shallow and ragged. I knew then, knew that I had a chance to prove that we could change, that we could let each other in without tearing everything apart. It wasn’t just us anymore.”

*******

She wasn’t like that. Was she? So closed off to everyone, so stubborn that she’d rather live at a dingy motel than ask for help?

“You are,” Spike whispered in her ear from behind, making her jump, “looking very lovely today.”

When she turned around he plucked a mote of dust from her hair and blew it to the floor. Very helpful. “Tackled the dirt, love?”

Yes, with the side of ‘I read your doppelganger’s innermost thoughts and now I can’t stop thinking about the way he could love, wondering if you can too, if you can feel it in the place where your soul used to be’. “Everything’s squeaky clean.”

“Except for you. You’ve got,” he wiped her cheek with his thumb, “a bit of dirt right here. Maybe you should take a shower.” He ducked his head, kissed her right below her ear, on the edge of her jaw. “I could assist. I’m good at getting all the hard-to-reach places.”

“I noticed, Mr. Wandering Hands.” Noticed and didn’t mind nearly as much as she should.

He pinched her butt.

“Hey! Stop it.”

“It’s payback for hogging the covers. You had it coming.”

It was hard to think with his hands rubbing up and down her back and his hips pressed against hers. “I don’t hog. The covers just like me better than you. They come to me on their own.”

“Is that so?”

“The pillows too,” she added, let her head loll forward to rest on his shoulder. She wished being around him wasn’t so easy, that they didn’t fit so well in all the wrong ways.

“You like me though,” he said with an unvoiced question mark, leaving barely-there kisses on her temple. She was afraid she was starting to like him a bit too much.

“It’s implied. If I didn’t, there would be blood spurting out of your broken nose right now.”

“My nose appreciates it then.”

“It better.”

On a scale of one to ten, the realisation that she could touch him, in any way she liked, was at least a hundred. That as she licked the hollow of his throat and scraped her teeth over his Adam’s apple on her way up, he wouldn’t shove her away and look at her as though she had rabies. And as he claimed her lips and pushed her against the kitchen counter with his hands slipping under her shirt, he wouldn’t get her elbow in his face for his trouble.

“Is the little one napping, by any chance?” he asked, rubbing his cheek against hers like a cat.

“Playing in her room.”

He groaned, winding the untied strings of her shorts around his fingers, knuckles brushing against overheated skin above her waistband. “I just want to bend you over this bloody counter and—”

She smacked her open palm over his mouth, and he licked it, of course. “There will be no… we put food there!”

“So we do,” he said, picked her up as if she weighed nothing and set her down on the counter. “I’m a bit peckish myself. Could go for something sweet.”

“Too bad we ran out of chocolate bars.” She tugged at his pouty bottom lip with her teeth, hooked her calf around his thigh to pull him closer.

“Guess I’ll have to settle for something else then.” He kissed her long and hard and deep and the fresh scent of his aftershave was making her dizzy. That or the way he was grinding his pelvis against hers in a filthy imitation of sex. It was a toss up.

“We shouldn’t be… getting all worked up.”

“A bit too late for that,” he whispered, guiding her hand right over the bulge in his jeans. God, he was so, so bad. So perverted and… hot. She squeezed, felt entirely too proud of the way he bit down on her shoulder in response.

“Mmm… later,” she said on a shaky exhale, letting go. “Later.”

“You’re a tease.”

Funny how hard he was breathing when he didn’t need to breathe at all. He could act so human sometimes that it was easy to forget he wasn’t. “So are you.”

“I’m praying to bloody God that Pidge doesn’t have a tummy ache tonight,” he said, absentmindedly stroking her knee. “Want to have you all to myself. Gonna spread you out and have a little taste.”

“I might let you.”

“Bloody hell.”

The minutes on the kitchen clock never ticked down more slowly.

TBC


Chapter End Notes:
You know you like being teased? ;) *ducks for the cover just in case*



You must login (register) to review.