Chapter 8: Closer
“Come on closer/I wanna show you/What I’d like to do/You sit back now/Just relax now/I’ll take care of you…Gonna take it slow babe/Do it my way/Keep your eyes on me/Your reaction/To my action/Is what I want to see/Rhythmic motion/Raw emotion/ Infiltrating through/Sweet sensations/Hot temptations/Coming over you/And now you’re satisfied/A twinkle in your eye/Go to sleep for ten/And anticipating/I will be waiting/For you to wake again…Hour after hour/of sweet pleasure/After this I guarantee/you’ll never want to leave…” ~Jem, “Come on Closer”
Buffy gently extricated herself from Spike’s arms, smiling when he murmured sleepily. She closed the blinds and shut the curtains, hoping that it would block most of the sunlight. Slipping back into bed, she allowed him to pull her closer, one cool, strong arm wrapping securely around her waist.
She probably should have woken him, shooed him down to the basement or back to his crypt. Buffy should have sent him away last night, no matter how right it had felt to wake up to see his concern.
No matter how good it felt to wake up with him this morning.
She wasn’t inclined to over-think it at the moment, however. This morning had been the first in weeks that she hadn’t felt the weight of depression settle in on her again. It was always the waking that was the most difficult. That moment of transition between the dream world and reality hit her hard every day. When she realized that she had another day to face where nothing felt good or right, when she found it so hard to believe that she’d ever be happy again.
When, upon waking this morning, wrapped in Spike’s arms, she felt some small sense of peace.
All Buffy wanted was a little peace.
“You should go back to sleep,” he muttered into her hair. “’s early.”
“Dawn’s getting up soon,” Buffy whispered in reply. “I have to make sure she gets off to school. She’s already been late three times this year.”
He grunted. “You gonna make me wait ‘til after she’s gone?”
“Wait for what?”
“You know what.” Spike propped himself up so she could get the full effect of his leer.
Buffy rolled her eyes, ignoring the heat that had suddenly blossomed in her midsection. It wasn’t fair that Spike had to be so damn sexy after he’d been sleeping. She always woke up looking like a hag. “Do you ever think about anything else?”
“After spending the night without copping a feel, can you blame me?” he shot back, the twinkle in his eyes telling Buffy that he knew exactly what he was doing to her. Spike’s hand splayed over her abdomen, playing with the top of her pajama bottoms. “Tell me you’re not in the mood.”
“I’m not in the mood.” Her gasp when his hand dropped lower still belied that answer. “Spike—”
“Tell me you don’t want this,” Spike said, his eyes challenging.
Buffy swallowed hard. It was so hard to think when he was doing that . It was harder still to remember that she had responsibilities. She had a younger sister to rouse, and errands to run, and things to take care of. Things that responsible adults didn’t get out of just because there was an insatiable vampire hanging around.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I have to get Dawn off to school.”
Spike glanced at the clock. “You’ve got time.”
“Fifteen minutes!” she hissed. “It’s not enough.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Wanna bet?”
Buffy had a feeling that she’d lose that bet. She’d already discovered that Spike was very, very good at what he did. She touched his cheek. “Not for what I want.”
“What do you want?” Spike asked.
Buffy didn’t have a name for what she wanted. She didn’t dare call it making love, because that didn’t seem quite right. She couldn’t call it having sex, because that sounded too clinical. And she didn’t want the quick and dirty sex that qualified for another term altogether, at least not this morning.
Instead of responding verbally, Buffy pulled his head down, deepening the kiss, keeping it long and slow and oh, so sweet. It was the kind of kiss that could go on all day because you didn’t need anything else.
At least until the heat made you both spontaneously combust.
When she finally broke it off to breathe, she heard Spike chuckle. “I can do that, luv.”
Buffy wasn’t looking at him, which meant she didn’t have to meet his eyes, which meant she could speak the truth in the dim light. “I missed you.”
He held her just a little tighter. “Same here.”
~~~~~
Spike stayed in Buffy’s room, listening to the sounds of her chivvying Dawn out of bed and into some semblance of readiness for the day. He could hear the sounds of cereal being poured, coffee being brewed. Eventually, there was the sound of Xander’s car pulling into the driveway and the front door slamming.
There was a part of him that had wanted to go downstairs and just let whatever fallout was going to come, come. Buffy hadn’t asked him to stay behind, but she hadn’t asked him to come downstairs either.
It had been simpler to stay in her bed and wait for her to come back up.
Well, wait to see if she would. Spike still didn’t know if she’d rabbit off on him or not.
Buffy entered the room a few moments after he heard the car pulling out of the driveway. “Hey.”
“So you just goin’ to stand there, or are you going to come join me?” Spike asked.
She hesitated, although it was mostly because it seemed so decadent to go back to bed when the rest of the world was up and being productive. Her sister and friends were all at school or at work, and what was she doing?
Planning on having sex. Or something along those lines.
Spike watched her. He could see the wheels turning in her head, and he sighed. “We don’t have to do anything, Buffy.”
“Is this wrong?”
“You an’ me?”
“Us being here in the middle of the day,” Buffy clarified. “I feel like I should be doing something. I don’t have any idea what I’m doing with my life or my time.”
“You’re thinkin’ too much again,” he accused her. “Don’t.”
Buffy pouted. “Then what do you want me to do?”
“Don’t think.” Spike rose. He had taken off his shoes, but he’d yet to get undressed further. “Just feel.”
“I have things to do,” Buffy protested, but it was weak, and she knew it.
Spike nibbled on her neck, right above her jugular. “Do them later.”
“I can’t be doing this all the time.”
“We haven’t seen each other in three days.”
For some reason, those were the magic words, because Buffy suddenly had a justification. She hadn’t seen Spike for three days. It was natural for two—whatever—who had been apart to want to jump each other’s bones. It was right.
Their clothes were gone so quickly, Buffy wasn’t even quite sure how it happened. Once it was skin on skin, though, everything slowed to a crawl. She’d wanted to take it slow; Buffy had wanted all the time in the world to lose herself .
There was no time, in the end. No thoughts except for the sense of skin and heat. It was just them and the moment and the rhythm of their moving together.
And when Buffy finally surrendered, she felt complete.
~~~~~
“I really need to shower.”
Spike stroked her back. “Go on then.”
“I don’t want to move. Do I have to move?”
Buffy was cute when she pouted. Spike nibbled her lip. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“But I have to.” Her eyes begged him to understand. That was the hardest part of waking up every day—the constant pressure to do, to be, to act. All things she hadn’t needed to worry about when she was dead. Maybe that was a cliché, but it was true. As nice as being with Spike was—and it was nice—Spike really didn’t have to worry about the same kinds of things.
And Buffy needed him to. At least, she needed him to understand that while his world might revolve around her, her world couldn’t revolve around him. It just wasn’t possible.
Even if she wished it could. Even if it was hard.
“We all have to do things we don’t want to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like not meetin’ the sun after the woman you love dies because you made her a promise.”
Buffy roused herself enough to meet Spike’s eyes, and the pain she saw hit her hard. “Spike—”
“Look, I know you don’t feel the same way, alright?” he said impatiently. “But you can’t expect me not to say anything, not to act like—”
She interrupted him. “I know how you feel.”
The silence stretched out between them like a rubber band pulled too tight, and they both knew that it could go either way. “Do you really?”
“I do.” Buffy struggled for the words. She wasn’t sure what to say, or how to say it. It was odd, but it was easy to be honest with Spike. Maybe at first the reason was that he didn’t matter—or that he was outside her immediate circle. Now, it was different. She could be honest because he accepted that from her in a way that no one else did. Because she’d already taken the first step, and it was easier now.
“I know that you love me.” Buffy took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
Spike softened slightly. “What you’re doin’ is fine, Buffy.”
“I want to give you more,” she whispered. “I want to tell you that if you stick this out long enough, I might be able to give you what you want, but most days—most days it’s hard for me to believe that it’s worth the effort of getting out of bed.”
“’s okay, luv,” he said. “Long as you don’t tell me I don’t feel what I do, I think we’ll be okay.”
Buffy sighed. “I really do need to shower.”
“Go on then.” This time, Spike put his words into action, gently nudging Buffy out of bed, surprised when she caught at his hand. “What?”
“Come on,” Buffy insisted. “We’ve been trying to cut down on the water bill.”
Spike decided not to mention that Buffy wouldn’t have to worry about money again for a while. It never hurt to pinch a penny. Not in this case, anyway. “Far be it from me to disappoint a lady.”
~~~~~
Dawn decided that it was a lot like walking into an episode of The Twilight Zone . Not that she minded coming into the kitchen after school to find her sister and Spike arguing amiably over which was better—crunchy or creamy peanut butter. Spike, apparently, wanted crunchy. Buffy didn’t have anything but creamy.
It was just strange, Dawn decided. Like going out to dinner the other night, when the three of them had actually felt like a family. Seeing them in the kitchen like this now, it was almost like walking in on her parents when they were together and happy. Dawn got the same warm, comfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She hadn’t had that feeling since before her mom died.
“Hey, guys,” Dawn finally said from the doorway. Dawn didn’t see Spike watching Buffy intently to see her reaction to her younger sister finding him in their kitchen, and probably coming to the obvious conclusion.
Buffy smiled. “Hey, Dawn. How was school?”
“Good.” She hesitated. “So how long have you been back, Spike?”
“Got in last night,” he replied. “Been behaving yourself?”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but, yes.” She was busy trying to do the math. “So when did you come over?”
“Spike spent the night.”
Both of them turned to look at Buffy with equal surprise—Spike because she’d actually admitted to it, and Dawn because Buffy had allowed him to stay. “Spike stayed?”
“Is that okay?” Buffy asked. “If you’re uncomfortable with it—”
“No!” Dawn said quickly. “No, I mean, it’s great.” She beamed at them. “Wait, so you guys are dating? How long has it been going on? Are you going to tell anybody? Does this mean Spike’s going to be living here?”
“Slow down, Dawn,” Buffy cautioned. “We haven’t really talked about any of that.”
“But you guys are dating?” she pressed, looking from one to the other.
Buffy hesitated, looking over at Spike. He shrugged, as if to say that she could say what she liked, and she rolled her eyes. “Yes, we’re dating.”
“That is, like, so cool!” Dawn said. She frowned. “You haven’t told anybody else, have you?”
“ Tara knows,” Spike said.
Buffy grimaced. “And I think we should probably keep it to just the four of us for now. Who knows what Willow and Xander would say?”
“I think I could guess,” Spike mumbled.
Dawn nodded. “They’ll be stupid about it. I think it’s better if they don’t know either.” Actually, Dawn was thrilled to know something that the other Scoobies didn’t know. She could even forgive her sister for telling Tara about her and Spike first.
“You’re okay with Spike sleeping over, then?”
“As long as I don’t have to hear you guys having sex,” Dawn clarified. “I mean, eww. Unless you guys aren’t having sex yet. Maybe you’re not at that stage, and—”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Niblet,” Spike said with an amused smile. “We’ll try not to scar you for life. How’s that?”
Dawn grinned at him. “Good.” She glanced between the two of them. “I’m just, uh, going upstairs now to do my homework.”
“We’re staying in for dinner tonight,” Buffy called after her. “Spike swears he can cook.”
“He can!” Dawn called back.
Buffy turned back towards the vampire. “Okay, what just happened? Because I swear that my sister just went upstairs to do her homework without being asked. Are you sure she’s not possessed, or some strange demon or something?”
“She’s happy,” Spike said softly, a smile playing around the corners of his lips.
Buffy looked puzzled, then her face cleared. “Because of us?”
He shrugged. “You didn’t have to tell her, you know. Could have just said I showed up uninvited earlier today.”
“Why?” she asked. “There’s no point. If you stay the night again, she’d find out then. Or we’d be forced to keep sneaking around. I told you that I couldn’t keep sneaking out.”
“And I said you didn’t have to sneak,” Spike reminded her. “You didn’t have to tell her we were dating.”
Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Do you not want to date?”
“Didn’t think that’s what we were doin’.”
“What would you call it then?”
“I don’t know,” he shot back. “Thought you were the one callin’ the shots.”
“What is up with you?” Buffy demanded. “You’re so touchy all the time!”
Spike glared at her. “I’m touchy? What about you?”
“What about me?”
They were nose to nose now, and it was definitely a fight, but so far no blows had been exchanged, either verbal or physical. They were just words, and both of them started to snicker at the same time, realizing exactly how ridiculous they sounded.
“Sorry,” Spike muttered, smiling sheepishly. “Was a long few days. ”
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I didn’t even ask if you wanted anything. I did get you some blood.”
He nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’m a bit peckish.”
“That would explain the short temper,” Buffy replied, but the teasing note in her voice prevented Spike from taking offense.
Spike snorted. “Is that why you’ve been short tempered?”
Buffy started to make a sharp retort, and then stopped herself. “I haven’t been that bad, have I?”
“Not the last little while,” he admitted. “But before, yeah.”
Buffy poured Spike’s blood into a mug and stuck it in the microwave, keeping her back to him. It was easier to be honest if she didn’t have to look at him, she’d found. She could pretend she was talking to herself. Because Buffy and honesty were mostly unmixy things.
“I got scared. With the kiss, you know.”
“Could have fooled me,” he murmured, causing Buffy to turn and glare at him. Spike chuckled. “I figured that, luv.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, you weren’t helping out much.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
His admission startled her, and it made it easier for Buffy to go forward. “I just didn’t know what to do with it. Or us, I guess.”
“You got a better idea now?”
“No.” Buffy pulled the warmed blood out of the microwave, setting it in front of him without even making a face. Spike noticed it; he wondered if she realized what that said about the change in their relationship. He decided it might be better not to comment on it. “I just know that I like being with you.”
“And on that note…” Spike reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a much-folded sheet of paper.
Buffy took it, smoothing it out on the counter. She stared at the numbers, but none of them made sense to her. “I don’t understand.”
“Sorry,” Spike said, pointing out the pertinent line. “The real paperwork is in a safe place. That’s just my notes.”
“Your notes?” she asked, squinting as she tried to make out his handwriting. “I don’t—” She stopped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not. It’s real, Buffy.”
“Spike, you—”
“I didn’t rob a bank,” he said, a little hurt that she’d question him after he’d already told her the money wasn’t going to be stolen.
She shook her head. “I know you didn’t, but this is—a lot.”
“It’s the treasure that came with the Gem of Amara,” Spike replied. “It’s not all of it, but I went back for as much as I could haul out in one trip.”
“They said the tunnels collapsed!” Buffy objected. “It was all over the news back then.”
He waved it off. “I got through. Doesn’t matter anyway. I took it up to L.A. , to someone I knew who could fix it up. Won’t matter what the social workers dig up. To anyone looking, it’ll appear that some old aunt died and left you her trust. Dawn’s is set up for college, but yours will pay out a monthly income. Won’t be a lot, but it should be enough to get you by.”
“What about you?” Buffy demanded. “I can’t take all of this, Spike.”
Spike shook his head. “I’m set up, luv. I’ve got enough, and if I have to, I can go back. Didn’t clean the place out by a long shot.”
Buffy touched the crumpled paper as though it was made of something precious, and maybe it was. It was a tangible reminder of the lengths Spike was willing to go for her.
Like she’d needed another reminder.
“I wish I could say that I can’t accept this,” Buffy said quietly.
“Buffy—” The hurt was evident in his tone.
She stopped him with a hand on his. “This is big, Spike. This is more than I would take from anyone, but…”
“You need it.”
Buffy didn’t reply. She couldn’t say that what she really needed was him , but she was thinking it.
“It’s just a way to make up for it,” Spike said quietly, sincerely.
“A way to make up for what?”
“Not doin’ my job.”
It took Buffy a moment to figure out what he was referring to. “Spike, that wasn’t your fault.”
“I told you before. I should have—”
“No.” The single word silenced him. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
The funny thing was, when Buffy said those words to Spike, she meant every single one.
~~~~~
Willow had mostly been focusing on taking her finals for the last couple of weeks. She hadn’t had the time to think about what she should do for Buffy. Although she probably could have managed to come out with A’s the same way she’d managed to get her dorm room, there seemed to be something vaguely wrong with that.
After all, the living quarters had been an immediate need. The grades she could handle on her own.
She had lied to Buffy about making other plans for the holidays. There had been a retreat for the on-campus Wicca group, but they were all still a bunch of wanna-blessed-bes. After the things Willow had seen and done, she had even less of a taste for their company. Xander and Anya were out of town, and Willow still didn’t have any interest in talking to Buffy.
The more she thought about their fight, the colder Willow ‘s anger got. She just didn’t understand how Buffy could blame her. She’d thought she was doing the right thing. Willow certainly hadn’t meant to hurt her, or Dawn. Couldn’t they see that she was just trying her best?
And the more Willow thought about it, the more certain she was that all of it had something to do with Spike. Buffy had been hanging out with him more. She had been spending more time alone or out on patrol, and less time with her friends. Spike had probably been telling her how horrible they all were.
Not that Willow could prove it, of course. She knew that it was probably better to wait until she could expose Spike for the troublemaker he was. But she could be prepared.
Willow planned on spending her winter break wisely.