Chapter 5: One last night
Buffy opened the basement door and crept her way down the stairs. She was surprised when she got to the bottom to see Spike standing close-by, holding the amulet. He looked up at her – her dressed in what obviously was Dawn’s, or maybe even Willow’s, pajamas.
“Hi,” he smiled, then nodded towards her with a smirk and a head tilt in that sarcastic kind of way as he noted her choice of clothing.
She smiled back, walking over to him as she looked down at herself. Maybe she should’ve searched for something a little less evident. “They’re Dawn’s. Her room was easier to get into,” she explained, stopping in front of him.
“Figured as much.”
“So – what’re you doing?”
“Just trying to figure this thing out.” He held the amulet up to her, his eyebrowns drawn together questioningly. “You think maybe this is the jewel that old lady tossed off the boat at the end of Titanic?”
“Don’t think so,” she answered back, favoring him with a smile.
He snorted, shrugging his shoulders. “So you didn’t wake anyone up then? Crisis averted?” he asked, turning around as he walked over to his cot.
She followed him. “Check. Crisis averted,” she noted with a nod.
“That’s good, then.” He stopped at the foot of his bed, staring at it briefly. Not knowing what to do next, he awkwardly laid the amulet back onto the dresser.
Buffy walked up to his side, placing her hand on his arm. “Spike?”
“Yea, pet?” he softly asked back, trying hard to keep his gaze locked with hers and not with the fingers curling around his wrist, pulling him towards the bed.
“Let’s sleep.”
He let her drop his hand then, easing himself down onto the bed. He scooted over, pushing up against the wall like before, and settled himself into a comfortable position. He looked up at Buffy, half expecting her to leave again, or to not have been there in the first place. Instead she leaned forward and crawled in beside him.
He lay on his side – back against the wall, facing Buffy. Buffy got in, laid on her side, facing Spike. She smiled as she pulled the covers up over them. He grinned, staring back. They were inches, centimeters, apart. Just being that close to her warmed his blood.
She reached over and grabbed his hand. Surprised him, she knew. That was the last thing he expected, but there it was. It was cold, like always. How did he deal with that? With Spike, she knew, she couldn’t just say something meaningful, because he wouldn’t hear the truth in it. If she’d have told him, “I like to hold your hand”, he would’ve laughed it off, would look at her like she was crazy – he wouldn’t have believed it. Funny, before, when she’d tell Spike she didn’t love him – could never love him – he’d be all insistent that she did. Now when she tells him she believes in him, he doesn’t believe it. Maybe he’s still crazy from the soul-getting/school basement-living thing.
“You know, Spike…” she started, looking into his eyes. “I meant what I said before,” she finished softly.
“Which ‘before’?” he asked, his own voice low and throaty. There were a lot of “before”‘s between them.
“How about all of them?” she grinned.
He returned the smile. He could live with that. She was still holding his hand, so he took advantage of it and started to gently rub her hand with his thumb. She didn’t seem to mind – actually might’ve murmured in approval. And a smile? Sometimes he didn’t trust what she told him. He didn’t know why, he used to beg her to admit having feelings for him – now she’ll tell him something – “I believe in you, Spike” – and he wouldn’t buy it. Would like to think it was true, but when it came to the Slayer and her feelings for him, the words “evil” and “soulless” rang around more in his head than “belief” and “Champion”. Something was there though, between them. He could feel it. Always felt it. That connection. So why did he get so disappointed if Buffy was doing something short of declaring her love for him with a plane and a cloud message of “I love Spike!”? She had enough to worry about without having to feel guilty over the lack of reciprocating feelings she had for him. Assuming she felt guilty about it. Bloody hell. There he went again with the self-depreciation, the mind games he played with himself. Buffy didn’t hurt him anymore than he hurt himself.
He noticed she was the one rubbing his hand now. When he stopped and she started he didn’t know. But it felt nice. Maybe he would never believe she loved him – never love him like she loved that bloody ponce anyways – maybe not, but at least he could enjoy this for what it was. One last night, one last chance to make things right.
He closed his eyes, tilting his head back in comfort. “Thank you,” he whispered, overwhelmed. Validation never felt so better, acceptance never felt so calming. He felt it then, inside himself what she’d seen in him.
Buffy smiled, rubbing his hand a little more forcefully. “For what?” she asked quietly.
Her face so close to his – her breath so warm against his skin.
“For this,” he answered, opening his eyes and smiling. For believing in me when no one else would. For giving me more than my share of second chances. For forgiving me. For giving me a place to go. For being down here with me. For seeing me.
She knew by the “Thank you” what it entailed. She knew he wasn’t thanking her for just tonight, but for all they’d been through the last few months.
“You’re welcome” she whispered back. He stared back at her, his eyes saying for him what he couldn’t. And she smiled. Smiled because, well she didn’t know – because she was there and happy, and because for as long as she’d been laying there beside him she’d forgotten all about The First and his legion of Ubervamps. Something like that.
She pulled herself closer to Spike – she felt like she was so far away, even though they were right up against each other. She wanted to be closer to him. For him to wrap his arms around her and for her to be able to hide her face in his shirt, for there to be no space between them.
He understood her implications and untwined their fingers, scooping her up in his arms. He wrapped his left arm around her back while his right arm served as Buffy’s pillow.
She smiled at him, “mmm”ed a little, and lifted her face affectionately towards him. If Spike didn’t believe anything she told him before, he would believe her now.
He looked down at her, with that unmistakable look of wonder and disbelief in his eyes.
She pulled him closer to her, and kissed him. Brushed her lips up against his, just barely. Just enough for it to be considered more than an accident. Then, she pushed harder into them – really kissed him. She reached her hand up to behind his ear, cupping the back of his neck.
He leaned into the kiss passionately, but then hesitantly pulled back, not sure if this is something that they should be doing. The times he had kissed her – just kissed her – he could count on two fingers. This usually lead to that, or most times they had just skipped thethis in general…
“What?” Buffy whispered. He could hear her heart racing, feel her blood pumping.
“This.” Spike answered just as quietly. He brought his hand up to her face, brushing her hair back gently. “You sure this is something we should be doing on account of our impending Apocalypse? I didn’t get you down here to re-kindle what we last had.”
“First of all,” she started, backing up a little while keeping eye contact with him. “You didn’t ‘get me’ down here. I came on my own – asked to stay even. And secondly,” She moved back closer to him, clutching his waist tight as she drew him into her. “I’m not ready to start up where we started off.” Then, looking up at him, she smiled. “But this? The kissing? Goooood.”
“Good?” he smiled back, raising an eyebrow in amusement.
“Goooood,” she repeated, snuggling closer up against him.
He laughed softly, pulling her into him obligingly. “It’s just – this thing between us, it’s never been right.”
“Says the guy with the newly aquired soulful feelings,” she teased.
“Hey now,” he smiled, pausing to place a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m just saying. Tomorrow’s big, Buffy. Me wearing that necklace, I don’t know what it does, but I do know that it probably won’t be shooting out rainbows and puppies…”
She peered up at him,”Oh, you think it’ll like zap the Ubervamps? You hold it in your hands and point it at the Legion o’ Big Bad and it shoots out destructo rays that wipe out mass amounts of Ubervamps?” she smiled.
“Could,” he answered thoughtfully. “Or maybe I put it on and it magically flings out perfectly aimed stakes. Shoot through the heart and I move onto the next.”
She shook her head, dismissing his idea quickly. “Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, you don’t, then?” he grinned playfully.
“Well, no. Do you know how long that’d take? We’re talking an entire Hellmouth of Big Bad here, Mr. One-Death-At-A-Time. I like my theory much better.”
“‘Course you do, pet – it’s yours.”
“It’s much with the effecieny, whereas yours is much with the lengthy dust-y ending.”
Spike paused, thinking it through. “You’re right, yours is the much better weaponry. Let’s hope it does that.” He smiled, lazily stroking her arm.
She breathed in deeply, looking up at him, her eyes shadowed in doubt. “You think it’ll be safe, wearing that thing? Angel didn’t know…”
Spike snorted, “Right. Because he’s all-knowing. Do we remember Acathla?” he asked rhetoricaly.
Buffy glared up at him, “Do I remember sending my ex-lover to Hell by running him through with a sword? Yea, vaguely,” she replied dryly.
“Right. Point is, he didn’t even know how to get that big stone thing to work. Had all these, ‘we’re sending the world to Hell!’ plans and had no follow through, at all. He needed blood to open it, and the Poof thinks it’ll work on just anybody’s blood. Right,” Spike laughed, pulling back a little. “Which is why it’s been opened so many times,” he told her sarcastically, casually looking down at her, not noticing the tiny ice daggers of annoyance she was sending him through her carefully constructed glare. “Turns out, thanks to the information by Rupes himself, it’s Angel’s own blood. The most obvious bloody thing, and he’s too thick to get it. He’s all, ‘Oh, yea. Of course.’, and I’m just laughing to myself at how daft he really is. If he wasn’t so big with the torture and the killing, with that lack of knowledge, there’s no way he’d made it as long as he has…” He stopped, finally registering the silence with equation to Buffy’s annoyance.
She raised her eyebrows at him, pulling back a little. “Right, not important,” he continued. “Let’s get back to the other more important stuff, like say the possibility of our untimely demise tomorrow,” he joked.
Buffy pulled back even farther. “Let’s not and say we did. Isn’t it you that said we need sleep? How about we do just that?” she asked thinly, her voice laced in annoyance. She squirmed out of his arms, leaving him silent and shocked, and moved as far away from him as she possibly could without falling off the bed, turning her back to him in a huff.
Spike sat there beside her, feeling the warmth in his skin being replaced with the ever-present cold now that her body wasn’t pressed up against him. He sighed, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her back against him. “Look, Buffy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bad talk Angel, I was just saying stuff, meaningless stuff. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Buffy whirled around, pushing his hand off her in frustration. “Spike, I’m serious. Didn’t you say we needed to sleep before, what was it you just called it, our ‘untimely demise’?” she asked, her eyes glistening with the threat of tears.
He sighed evenly, getting it. “So that’s what this is, then?” he asked, pulling her closer to him again. This time she allowed it, snuggling herself back up in the comfort of Spike’s arms. “Buffy, again – I was only just saying it. I didn’t mean it, just trying to lighten the mood some.”
“Right, because talking of death is so lightening,” Buffy said sarcastically, the words muffeled as she spoke them against his chest.
“Well techinically one of us is already dead,” Spike reminded her matter-of-factly.
She looked up, smiling. He brought his hand up, brushing away a tear. “We’re going to make it, you know,” he told her, swallowing away his own pain, keeping his voice intentionally even.
“All of us? Even you?” she asked quietly.
“Especially me,” he breathed out. “You think I’m gonna leave your side now that you’ve decided to start up this dance of ours again? Not a bloody chance, Slayer. I’m gonna be there, whether you want me to be or not. You can’t just string a bloke around and then expect a little thing like the threat of a dusty death scare him off.” He paused, lowering his face to hers, grinning. “‘S not like I’m that Nancy Boy ex of yours,” he whispered teasingly.
Buffy returned his smile with her own playful one, inching her face closer to his. “And which Nancy Boy ex are we talking about here?” she whispered back.
Spike feigned consideration, voice dropping lower. “How about all of them?” he asked her, as the logical thoughts were becoming less rapid with her lips so close to his.
“Including you?”
“Not including me,” he growled, pulling her up to him.
She smiled, bringing her hands up to his head. She wrapped her hands around his neck, leaning into his lips. “I didn’t think so.”
A/N: And, ok – admittedly? The most schmoopiest thing I have ever [and will ever *cleanses self*] written 😀
The End.