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On a scale of 1-10, Buffy’s idea for her Halloween costume this year probably fell on a precarious 5. It could be great, doing everything she hoped and more for both she and Spike. On the other hand, it could easily fall down the wrong side of the slippery slope into majorly bad, rehashing things best left demolished in the past. Also, recycling ideas was not the best look. But, if it worked the way she envisioned, with a hope and a prayer…it would eclipse that concern.
So, on October 31st, she had Willow and Dawn carefully help her get dressed and make any last-minute adjustments before she met Spike at his new apartment.
Coincidentally, this year, Halloween was also Spike’s Official Housewarming Day, and that created even more incentive for Buffy to make sure this all went to plan. After all, he’d worked so hard to find a new place that made them both comfortable, and he had already started making plans for how to make it a—their—home.
The soft rustle of her skirts in the chilly autumn breeze while dry, crackling leaves swirled around her feet brought about a sense of calm as she came to a stop outside his door.
She only managed one knock before it swung open to reveal a living room awash in light made of nothing but golden candleflame and the soft rainbow fractals it cast from the little chandelier. Spike, who had been standing just beside the couch with a small wrapped parcel in hand was just…staring at her. Worry sat heavy on her chest, and she felt for a moment like all her air had gotten trapped before it could come or go. “Um… Happy Samhain?” she managed, feeling suddenly trapped by his gaze.
Spike finally moved after another beat of silence, letting the parcel slip gently from his fingers to the coffee table before slowly approaching her with one hand extended. “I… You… Why?”
Buffy gulped and picked nervously at the fabric of her skirt. “I thought it might be a nice surprise? I know you saw me do this before for Ang—um, a person who doesn’t matter at all now for us, but I was, you know, younger then? Also it wasn’t quite the right time period for you. And I get if you’re feeling kind of wiggy about it; I was too at first, honestly, and if you hate it, I—”
Finally, Spike touched her, with his fingers pressed ever so gently over her mouth to quiet her rambling.
“Thanks for that,” she whispered against them.
He rolled his tongue over his bottom lip slowly, then said, “Buffy… My love, you look ethereal. You’re—you’re extraordinary.” He moved his hand from her mouth to gently trace his fingers down the loose strand of hair that trailed down to her collarbone, and from there, he used her bones like a roadmap and her skin like a million detours to a final destination.
“You actually like it?” Buffy asked quietly, feeling the warm blush in her face starting to cool. “Because if you don’t, it’s really okay.”
Spike’s hands were suddenly at her waist, gripping her tight enough that she might have bruises shaped like his fingers in the morning. “Don’t you dare say those words again,” he teased with faux-hostility, nipping at her earlobe. His teeth striking against her diamond studs made a gentle clink sound that, for some reason, made her shiver in excitement. “How did you do it?”
“Well, I’ve been working on it bit by bit for about eight months now. It’s basically my baby; it took blood, sweat, and tears to create this little twelve-pound, five-ounce bundle of joy. And trust me when I say labor was definitely involved.” She ran her palms down from her overskirt at the base of her ribs to the spot at her upper thighs where the skirt was lightly gathered to add dimension to the silhouette. The corset was probably her favorite part, made of creamy ivory fabric and lace, and held together with beautiful gold clasps and silk ribbon tied intricately, but it was currently covered by the bodice and overskirt in pale pink with gold lace trimming and small imitation-pearl accents, which was tied in the back with a neat bit of knotting made with gold fabric. Beneath was the corset, tightly laced for optimum positive result, petticoats, and a thin ivory shift. “I wanted it to be kind of a gift. You’ve done so much to become…a kind of man for me. For yourself. But I think I’ve kind of neglected to treasure the you that all of this comes from.” Buffy pressed her hand flat to his chest above his silent and still heart.
A smile grew on Spike’s lips, and before she knew what was happening, he had swept her up in his arms. “Dessert first, then. I’m not going to leave it out to spoil.” He backed through the open door of the master bedroom and set her down in front of the full-length mirror he’d gotten exclusively for her use. “Look how absolutely breathtaking you are, an angel fallen from heaven all for a dirty soddin’ blasphemer like me.”
Buffy moistened her lips nervously, turning in his arms to face him. “It’s a gift for William,” she murmured carefully, hoping that Spike could understand what she just couldn’t find the words to explain. God knew she had tried. And tried, and tried, and tried. Her bedroom floor was littered with crumpled and torn paper that had half-written speeches on them.
And somehow, miraculously, he did. Just as he knew her in every way that one could. There was nowhere she could run and nothing she could hide that he would be kept at arm’s length by. Lowering himself to his knees, Spike kept his eyes on her with unwavering intent. “You honor me, lady. I’m nothing more than the ghost of a poet, a man yet to find purpose, yet you offer me such a gift.” He brought her palm to his lips to kiss at it languidly, from the bottom of her hand near the bone of her inner wrist to the base of her fingers.
“You’re more than that,” she breathed, squirming faintly in his grip as his mouth moved at the hollow on the inside of her wrist up by the vein where she was so inexplicably sensitive. A soft little whimper escaped unbidden as he laved over it with a broad, flat lick of his tongue.
A rumble of laughter from Spike’s throat made her fuzzy head clear a bit. “God, I can hardly imagine he would survive meeting you. Too much woman for him to bloody stand. You’d’ve had yourself a loyal little puppy dog, I think, brought to heel with a song in his bloody heart. Would have humped your leg and everything.”
Buffy rolled her eyes at that, reaching down to tug at his blond curls that were softer and looser than usual. Just how he knew she liked it best. “Pretty sure polite society wouldn’t have stood for that back then.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered,” he said dismissively, leaning into her grip hungrily. “He would’ve made himself a sodding pariah with a smile on his poncey little face for you.” Spike was starting to lean even heavier against her, and his fingers ghosted along the hem of her skirt and just underneath to feel along her ankles and calves with reverent touches.
Carefully, Buffy reached down and started to gently drive him back towards with bed with her hands on his shoulders.
Spike followed on his knees, eyes still on her, until he hit something solid. Getting to his feet, he took her in his arms and easily flipped them so that she fell gently to the mattress and he landed above her with his hands braced on either side of her head.
Her wandering fingers crept across his abdomen to the waistband of his pants, then slipped beneath, down to the first knuckle. Sometimes when he was lost in her, panting against her neck and close to the edge, she would press her hands into his low back to luxuriate in the feel of his muscles flexing beneath his skin. He was obviously turning her into a total perv because more than once she had had the errant thought that a mirror mounted on the ceiling above their bed would let her see as well as feel them. After all, she’d only just learned after an unintentional quickie in a mirrored hall closet that he had cute little dimples on either side of his spine at the base that stood out in relief with each powerful thrust.
“Ah, not now, sweet thing.” Shifting his weight, he captured her hands in his and maneuvered them down and back. “I’ll hold those for you.” With a wink, he inclined his head towards her neck and traced the tip of his nose along the curve.
“What a gentleman,” she managed to reply even with him hovering close by her mouth to tease her with a kiss that barely grazed her lips.
Spike laughed gently, nuzzling her cheek. “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite…” A thrumming sound resonated deep in his throat like a purr and his fingers grew more curious beneath her skirt. “The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—” His tongue trailed along her neck to the hollow of her throat, then explored her chest to the soft curves of her breasts. “No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.”
“K-Keats?” Buffy guessed breathlessly as the blunt drag of his human teeth against her skin made her squirm with pleasure.
“Very good, love.” Her reward was an open-mouthed kiss above her heart. “Maybe I should recite poetry while I make love to you more often. I’ve got plenty of material; it could last us a good long while.”
She had planned to reply, she really had, but her brain had gone all happy-fuzzy, and all she could muster was a gentle tug on his hair to let him know she was here, with him, more than she could say.
As he continued to explore what bare skin was available to him, trailing across scars and bruises, her breath hitched. For so long, this body hadn’t felt like hers. She resented it for feeling more like a burdensome layer of clothing she didn’t want, something that she was trapped beneath. It was marred and damaged with time and worn away by entropy, and at worst, it had decayed in the ground only to be remade with dark magic, but it was hers. Hers to learn to make home. Spike knew what that was like, to be wholly remade in a body that wasn’t his own but for time. She’d never thought to ask him how he managed, how he healed from that, and maybe she should sometime. Maybe he could help. She was trying that now, asking for and accepting help without shutting people out. And she could always use more practice.
Spike’s fingers started feeling out the raised lines of her corset that hid beneath her outer layers, following the pattern of the lace with a curious finger. “William used to imagine what it might be like to undress a lady. All those underthings to undo… They were so delicate and pretty. Bet yours are too.”
For a moment, she considered just shedding all her clothes and feeling him touching every inch of her bare skin. It was an enticing diversion, but she had spent too much time on this plan to let a little temptation ruin the treat.
Instead, she murmured “What would William do for me?”
“We’ve established he’d be a right slave for you, baby. From the moment he laid eyes on you, he’d be a bloody mess, stumbling over his words and desperately trying to appear casual in his requests for your company.” Spike moved further down her body, his chest now anchored against her knees while his fingers teased along her sides with soft touches. “He’d have determined you were the one woman in all of space and time for him, and resigned himself to courting you proper so as to win your heart the right way. He’d write you a million little dozy poems in the hopes you might know just what he felt. Probably bring you flowers every day, even if it would appear imprudent. He’d bring you gifts every time he saw you so that you would never doubt that you had him ensnared like the helpless creature he was. If your standards were low, maybe you would have accepted his proposal, even if it was premature. The sight of you wearing his ring like he was something you were proud of, something you treasured, would drive him mad.”
“And I would be his first?” Buffy’s voice wavered, and it made a heated blush rise in her cheeks.
Spike’s eyes lost their hungry edge in favor of turning soft and open in a way she suspected mirrored her own. He never let her venture into the dark alone, after all. “First everything. Only everything. William wanted to marry for love, to touch and kiss and know a woman for love. There were fantasies, though. Sometimes. When hope wore thin.”
“Of what?”
“A beautiful woman who brought him into her bed and let him take his time undressing her piece by bloody piece until they were near crazed for more. And she invited him to touch her in places he could hardly imagine touching.” His palms ghosted down her ribs to the curves of her hip bones. “But once, there was a filthy little dream—a lady who brought him somewhere they wouldn’t be seen, tugged up her skirts just for him, and let him taste her like that. I swear his bloody heart almost beat through his chest as he let himself see it through, even if only in his head.”
Gently, Buffy pushed Spike back with a firm hand on his chest, and he looked at her in confusion for a moment before she collected some of the soft fabric of her skirts and underclothes between her fingers and slowly gathered it at her knees. Revealing herself to him.
“The sodding perfect woman, you are,” Spike breathed, lowering himself down with his chest to the mattress in supplication as he drank in the sight of her. “No knickers in the way.”
“I figured, with all these layers, panties were negligible.” She tried very hard to make her shrug look blasé.
He started to reach for her, but she pressed her thighs together abruptly. “No tearing or ripping these clothes, Big Bad. It took me two hours just to get properly in. And remember the long, grueling labor of love I mentioned? Majorly with the effort.”
Spike’s nod was frantic, and the curl of his tongue behind his teeth didn’t look quite so cocky a gesture as it was meant to in most cases.
With his agreement to her terms established, Buffy relented and opened her knees for him slowly. His cold fingers on her heated skin made her jump in surprise, and he kissed the rounded bone of her right ankle in apology before trailing those kisses up. They did nothing more than tease her, but for once, it didn’t seem like that was the intended outcome. She didn’t expect, though, that he would simply duck beneath the little overhang her hitched-up clothing made to make his way closer to her. Like a shark in the water, he was little more than a fast-moving shadow on the fabric as he traveled up, and she flinched in surprise when his lips abruptly pressed a kiss to the hood of her clit. A low, rumbling purr emanated from him, tickling the sensitive skin at the uppermost point of her inner thighs.
She could feel it skittering through her bones and across her entire body, and it made her back arch slightly. When he gave her another kiss, this one open-mouthed, with wet, gentle suction, she breathlessly cried out, “William!”
Spike made a wounded kind of sound and abruptly pulled back and out from under her skirt to look at her with eyes that blazed with hunger and an almost-crazed longing. “That was what he was waiting for; a cry of passion born from the real kind of love that turns your blood to fire. He didn’t want anything less than a love and desire with the strength to drown him in its depths. That sound, that call… He—I needed it, for so long.”
“Take it. I’m giving it to him. To you,” Buffy whispered, drawing her forefinger down the sharp cut of his cheekbone. He was Adonis made of marble—cold and smooth beneath her hands, priceless and perfect.
And that was all it took for him to be back between her legs. His mouth was at worship; that was the only way to adequately describe what it felt like when he touched her, loved her, with his tongue, lips, and teeth like this. She was utterly unprepared, however, for the unadulterated eroticism of watching her clothing ripple with the movements of his head and the rolling of his shoulders as he poured his all into her.
She had always been privy to seeing his face between her legs, watching her like he was enchanted by the knowledge that she was alight with pleasure by his own hands. She knew intimately what he looked like when his expression went slack with pleasure, or when his eyes widened slightly before drifting closed in contentment. Even the little scrunch of his nose when he pressed in so close that she almost couldn’t bear a second more. Comparatively, she would have expected not seeing him would feel distant in a way, but now all she felt was fire beneath her skin and a crazy kind of fluttering in her stomach that she’d only felt a handful of times in all her life.
Out of habit, one of her hands went to hold his head, her fingers slipping against fabric rather than tangling in his hair. Spike’s left hand drifted up her calf to snag it, sliding their fingers together and wresting her hand back down. He made no move to let go of it, though, continuing his ministrations with vigor.
There was a fire like the sun burning in Buffy’s chest, nearly breaking her ribs apart as it grew. She squeezed his fingers so tightly she worried they might break, but he held tight and made an encouraging noise in his throat.
That was all it took.
Her mouth dropped open but no sound came out as she pressed into him insistently while also feeling like she might die from the fact that it was too much to bear. It didn’t really surprise her that a single tear escaped her eyelashes and slid down her cheek. “Spike,” she finally managed to say, scrambling to grab him and pull him against her chest. He was still fully dressed too, so her fingers tore little holes in the shoulders of his sleeves as she clung to him.
He let her manhandle him, his body laying against hers with his hips cradled between her thighs which squeezed him lovingly. He could probably feel how hot her skin had gotten, radiating warmth into his cold bones.
“God I’m…I love you like sodding mad. Every man I’ve ever been is yours,” Spike hummed as he laid his ear against her heart and closed his eyes contentedly. After pressing a lingering kiss to the crown of his head, Buffy wriggled a hand between them and tried to maneuver it down to the front of his jeans. She didn’t make it far, though, because Spike’s fingers were around her wrist, holding her still. “No need. You already got me off. Twice, as a matter of fact, because you’re a soddin’ goddess.”
A rather giddy giggle escaped her, and she pulled him up further so she could kiss him properly. His soft eyelashes brushed against the apples of her cheeks like butterfly kisses as he pulled away, and she realized that she had never loved anything like she loved Spike, and never could again. “I love you so much I think it might kill me,” she admitted in a whisper. “It’s like my body just doesn’t know how to live with this much…happy inside me.”
“It just takes practice, Slayer. You know all about that,” he replied simply. “One quick question, though: do I get to unwrap my bloody present now or are you gonna hold out on me still?”
Buffy pretended to be deep in thought, tapping her forefinger against his chin to make him squirm. “Well…you were a good boy. I suppose you can. But the no-destructo rule still stands. If you rip anything, you’re in big trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a touch more sincerity than she felt was necessary—though it definitely made her stomach all fluttery—before pulling her to her feet. He turned her in his arms and started with the first layer of ribbon to undo, pulling with gentle fingers and tugging carefully to loosen each knot as he went.
His fingers moved with a graceful familiarity, and she thought about asking him how, but she figured she knew the answer already in a way. The past was a natural disaster that would upend everything they had so carefully built, and they didn’t need that tonight of all nights. They’d spent too much time already on trying to fix things that could never be what they once were.
Once her bodice and overskirt were shed, the other layers came off a bit quicker, even though Spike made a mournful noise as he freed her of the corset he fingered with a kind of heated desire. “Promise you’ll keep these somewhere safe,” he breathed in her ear huskily after dropping the last scrap of fabric to the floor, and at her nod, he nibbled at the soft spot behind her earlobe gratefully. “You’re so beautiful in it, but god, if I don’t fucking love you this way best of all.” His wide palms pressed in on her naked lower abdomen to lovingly trail the indentations left behind by the tight lacing of her clothes with careful fingers.
“Can you… Will you make love to me now?”
His gaze was soft, even though his smile was predatory and wolfish. “Of course I will. I’ll give you a right proper seeing-to, baby.”
They fell back onto the bed in tangles of limbs, and for an indeterminate amount of time, they reveled in the odd kind of peace that came with being lost in the bedsheets, clinging to one another with a starving kind of desperation.
It was so new to Buffy to want someone so badly that she ached even when she had him right where she needed him. It was this strange, bitter-sweet feeling in her chest that made her wish Spike would swallow her whole while she consumed him herself. Ouroboros, her brain somehow supplied in its sex-drunk haze. That was what she wanted, what felt so close but so out of reach. Chasing the resolution she yearned for, she dug her nails hard into his upper back and felt the skin break. Cool blood, thick and syrupy, oozed out for a moment, and she wondered what might happen if she licked it away.
But then, she saw the supernova of release, of relief. A strangled cry left her lips, and Spike responded in kind as he followed. He hid his face in her neck, panting softly and kissing at every bit of her skin he could reach without moving, and she reached up to hold him tighter to herself. Maybe she would never let him go.
At some point, she had drifted off into a gentle, satiated sleep, and when she opened her eyes, Spike wasn’t laying against her. She could sense him nearby, knew that he hadn’t left her, but she pulled the sheets tighter around her chest and sat up. “Spike?” she rasped, running a hand through her hair to push it away from her face.
“’M here, sweet.” Spike was leaning against the doorjamb, watching over her with a cigarette in his teeth as he turned the parcel from earlier over in his hands.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Buffy held her free hand out to him, beckoning him with a crook of her finger. He grinned and shucked off his shirt and pants at the foot of the bed before walking on his knees up the mattress to meet her. Carefully, she plucked the cigarette from his mouth and set it in the ashtray on the bedside table, then wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him in close. “What’s that you’ve got there? Something for me?”
“You know I love to shower my lady in pretty things,” Spike murmured in her ear, his tongue flicking out to trace along the soft cartilage. “This is something a bit more special though, and I’ve been a soddin’ ninny about it too many times.”
Buffy leaned back in surprise to look at him. “What do you mean?”
He looked nervously hopeful as he put the gift in her hands. “When you open this, don’t say anything for a minute. I want to explain and if you talk, I’ll lose my bloody nerve again. Promise?”
“Promise.”
Carefully, she ran her finger beneath the wrapping to peel it away and reveal underneath a small, hand-carved jewelry box. She lingered on the intricately-etched surface for a moment before opening the lid. Nestled into soft velvet was a ring—a delicate gold band that got wider at the top to accommodate three sapphires set within it and spaced with tiny diamonds. It was clearly an antique, kept in pristine condition, and the way Spike was watching her reaction so intently that it made her wonder if he was the one who had been looking after it all this time.
“I’m not daft enough to think that we’ve ever been conventional, you and I,” Spike began shakily. “Once upon a time, we both thought we’d be tying the knot and living the happy little dream. But even without the license and the blood tests and the holy matrimony, I can still make vows to you that will hold true until I’m dust in the wind. I’ve been yours since before I even realized it, and that’s one of the only comforting truths I have in the world. I’ve loved you with everything I am for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like not to, and I don’t even sodding care. We’re not good at normal, but I think… We deserve to have a bit of this kind, don’t we?” Remembering the request he made at the start, he looked down as though to brace for the impact of consequence. “You can say something now, I’ve done my bit.”
There were a million things she could say. A million things she might say. The first thing Buffy wanted, though, was to take his face in her hands and press a kiss to his forehead. He let out a breath that ghosted across her chest and left her skin tingling in its wake, and just let her hold him close.
Finally, he pulled away from her. “So? Don’t leave me like this, Slayer.” He smiled halfheartedly as if to convince her that the mask he’d put on was real. He should’ve known that she could see him too, just like he saw her.
Taking the ring from the box, she slid it onto her left-hand ring finger and admired it thoughtfully. “I think I’ll keep it,” she teased, then looked at him with a bright smile. “And you.”
Spike gripped her hand tightly in both of his. “Tonight, what I said about the past, it’s another part of me I want you to know because nobody else does, but you have to know that this life with you is all I ever bloody want. A happy, simple little life where we get married young and have a couple kids and die at the ripe old age of 40 from something like the common cold, or a happy, simple life where you’re not the Slayer and I’m just a regular guy you married and we make an apple pie life with 1.83 kids and a white picket fence doesn’t mean anything to me. We wouldn’t be us like that, and I don’t need or want anything but you. As you are.”
When Buffy put her hand to his cheek, he leaned into her touch eagerly. God, she loved him. Loved him to the end of the world and back. And in fact, she had, many times over and probably many more to come. “Good thing we’re on the same page then. No reading ahead, no trailing behind.”
“Good,” Spike echoed. “I love you, Buffy.”
“I love you too, Spike.” Patting the empty spot on the bed next to her, she coaxed him over and pulled the duvet up over them once she was settled in against his chest in the comfort of his arms. “And I love your new place. Very home-y. Must be that decorator you ate.”