Chapter 44: Blue Skies
For the third time in an hour, Buffy pounded of the bedroom door. Their bedroom, now. Or it would be as soon as Spike consented to let her see what he had done to it. She had agreed to let him transform it. Not agreed, really, he had blackmailed her until she accepted. He could be quite persuasive when he wanted something. She had only managed to retain two conditions. No black, no red. Granted, they were his favorite colors, but they weren’t hers.
The door finally opened, just enough for one blue eye to look at her through the crack. An annoyed blue eye.
“Slayer, the more you interrupt, the longer it will take to finish.”
She tried to look through the opening, but he was blocking too much of it with his body for her to see anything.
“I just wanted to make sure your remembered the terms of.”
“No red, no black,” he interrupted her. “Anything else?”
Before she could think of anything else, he was closing the door again. Irritated, Buffy crossed her arms and stared at the door, seriously thinking about just kicking it open. He had been working in there for four days already. Or rather, four afternoons. He was out late every night, patrolling with her first then going around demon bars by himself, trying to find any information about having the chip removed. It was useless, Buffy had accepted it by now, but he hadn’t, and he kept looking. And kept coming back home just before sunrise. Never too tired to wake her in delicious ways, it seemed, but too tired to crawl out of bed before noon.
The Scoobies had looked through every single book at the Magic Box, with no success. Willow was still looking on the internet, but with no more results. Their last hope to find anything was Giles, and Buffy was beginning to believe he had changed his mind about helping Spike.
Buffy realized she was still scowling at the closed door, as if he was going to notice her irritation through the thick wood, and abruptly turned away and stormed to the first floor. Maybe she could get him to open the damn door by offering him some nice warm blood.
Dawn was in the kitchen, eating a snack. She grinned as Buffy strode in.
“Tried again, uh?”
Buffy only gave her sister a nasty glare. She had been allowed in, supposedly to help him. And she refused to say anything! Dawn giggled, unperturbed by Buffy’s scowl.
“Don’t you have any patience at all? He told you he would be finished tonight!”
Buffy had the sudden urge to stick her tongue out at the teen. It would have been utterly childish, but oh so satisfying. Both Dawn and Spike were having way too much fun with her impatience. She wasn’t afraid of seeing the result of Spike’s work, really. Just anxious. After all, what could she expect, decoration wise, from someone who had spent the last few years in a crypt?
Pleased with himself, Spike gave a last look to the room, making sure everything was perfect. He had removed the mirror panels from the wardrobe, useless reminders that neither of them had a reflection now. The walls had been painted blue with the Nibblet’s help, a nice shade of ocean blue, deep but not too dark, that made the room feel more intimate. The broken window had been changed, and he had installed heavy drapes in front of it, just a touch lighter than the walls. The cotton bedding was gone, replaced by shimmering sensual silk. The candles that had lit his crypt had found a second home, disseminated around the room in a carefully planned randomness. But what he was the most proud of was the ceiling, which had taken two complete days to finish. His only hope was that Buffy would like it.
He had never been before very interested in decorating the places in inhabited, knowing that the next day he could be heading to another town, country or even continent. Darla, Angelus and Dru had been pretty keen on traveling, and he could admit that he enjoyed it too. Still, he had already spent a few years in Sunnyhell, and it looked like he would be there for a while, so he might as well make himself comfortable.
He had another reason to want to remain busy. If he had had nothing to occupy himself during the long hours of the day, he would have spent his time thinking about the chip and the lack of results in his research. A few weeks back, he would have remained in his crypt and drowned himself into cheap bourbon. But that wouldn’t do now. Not with the Nibblet and Buffy around. Dawn’s presence was also the reason why he wasn’t spending his time shagging his Slayer senseless. After all, he didn’t want to traumatize the kid by making her sister scream too much. An evil grin rose to his lips at the thought of how he would make her scream later, and how he would muffle her cries.
He grabbed a length of black silk that was laying on the bed and stuffed it carelessly into his jeans back pocket. He would need it later, but now was time for patrol. School had ended for Dawn, and she had extorted from Buffy the promise that she would patrol with them once a week. In preparation of that, the Slayer had been showing the kid a few moves, though Spike didn’t plan to let anything get close enough for her to try to fight. He knew he would have to be cautious, though, and not protect her too obviously, or else she would use the most dangerous weapons of all on him. her puppy eyes.
He joined his two girls in the living room, where Buffy was giving a few last minutes tips to an overexcited Dawn. As hard as she tried to hide it, he could tell that Buffy was worried, and he had to admit he was too, just a little. With both the Slayer and Spike with her, Dawn really wasn’t going to be in any danger. Of course, anyone living on the Hellmouth knew that Sunnydale was never completely safe for anyone.
That night, as most nights, the town was especially unsafe for its undead denizens. Because of Dawn’s presence, the Slayer staked vampires even faster than usual, not bothering with a bit of fight beforehand. After five unexciting dustings, Dawn started to look bored, and Spike’s lips curled in a smirk around his cigarette. After a couple more dull patrols, he thought, she would beg to stay home. Leaving her home alone didn’t make Spike particularly happy, but she was old enough not to need a babysitter.
At last they were back to Revello, having decided beforehand that they would make it a short patrol. The kid looked at him quizzically as he shed off his duster.
“How can you do that every night?” she asked, clearly dumbfounded. “Buffy does everything and it’s really boring to watch.”
Spike chuckled softly, passing a hand in his hair. How could he explain to her how much he loved the way the Slayer danced with her preys? She wouldn’t understand, however he phrased it.
“Just making sure she’s ok,” he said, smirking. “The one time I didn’t go with her she came back all bruised and.”
“Hey!” Buffy interrupted him. “I don’t need a babysitter! If that’s all you’re coming for, you can stay.”
His lips pressing hard against her mouth stopped her, and she gave in to the kiss, her hands instantly locking at the back of his head, pulling him closer to her.
“God! Get a room!”
Dawn’s mildly annoyed remark was followed by her noisy steps going toward the living room and the tv being turned on. Spike pulled away from his Slayer’s lips and gave her a mischievous smile.
“You heard the Nibblet. Let’s get a room.”
With that, he followed her up the steps. However, he stopped her before she entered her bedroom, sliding the black silk length in front of her eyes. She stilled instantly, and he delighted in the small shiver that ran through her body as he caressed the back of her neck with his lips. Taking her hand in his, he guided her to the master bedroom, locking the door behind them.
“Wait,” he whispered into her ear as he left her by the door.
He moved around the room quietly, lighting candles and making sure she wasn’t moving or peeking. When he was satisfied that the room was bright enough, he returned to her, rewarding her patience with a fierce kiss that left her panting. It always made him smile when her breathing instincts came back, reminding him how he used to make her truly breathless.
He led her to the bed, peeling the clothes off her body before making her lie flat on her back. As he watched her caress the silk under her, he quickly divested himself of his clothing. Her skin had started to lose its golden tan already, and her paleness on the dark blue sheet was striking. He laid next to her on his side, leaning on his elbow, so that he could see her face. His hand hovered above her body, just tracing her form without touching her, and yet she seemed to feel him, quivering under his gaze. Gently, he tugged at the blindfold, giving her her sight back, and waited for her reaction.
Freed of the blindfold, Buffy blinked several times, trying to focus her eyes. As she took in the sight above her, her mouth opened in a silent O. She knew it was only the ceiling, knew she could stand up on the bed and touch it, but it still looked like the sky. A light blue sky, with a few fluffy clouds that she was sure would move any second now. She managed to pry her eyes away from the vision to look at Spike. He was smiling softly at her obvious delight.
“After I was turned,” he whispered, “I thought I would miss the sun, and I did. But I missed blue skies even more.”
Her gaze returned to the painted ceiling. She missed blue skies too. She had begun catching careful glimpses of it through the windows every time she had a chance. Dimly, she realized that he must have noticed, although he had never said anything about it.
As she gazed at the piece of sky he had created for her, for them – and where had he learned to paint anyway? – she felt his lips caress her skin, trailing along her collarbone, coming to rest on the marks where her neck and shoulder joined. His marks. He just nuzzled against them, not making any move to open them again. She shivered at the contact, the scars having become particularly erogenous.
“Spike?”
“Hmmm?”
Again, his lips were moving, mapping her skin as if it was unfamiliar territory.
“‘Want to make this Heaven?”
He stilled against her for a second, then his face came up to hers, and he looked at her questioningly.
“Make love to me,” she whispered, closing the small distance between their lips.