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Stakes had to have serious power. That was Buffy’s reigning conclusion on patrol that night.
Technically, she supposed, she already knew this. Her school years had been frittered away spending hour after hour in training sessions with Giles driving home the unique qualities of each of her tools. Stakes were made of wood. They held power linked deep to the earth, a power that was whole millennia older than the rest of her and her watcher’s arsenal. In short, even non-vampires didn’t want to mess with their pointy ends, which explained why it had taken a near age, pseudo-date with Spike and all, for her accidental stake puncture to mend itself last year, but hey a demon shoves his spear deep into her belly mid-fight and look at that! Presto, all healed again.
“My blood is majorly of the ook,” Buffy mumbled to herself, her hand ghosting the spot where last night’s demon had struck.
Despite her grumbling, she knew she was grateful for her body’s strangeness. It wasn’t like the DMP approved of those who called in sick, and she didn’t want to imagine how today’s double shift would’ve gone wandering around with a grave wound pitched at the same height as the kitchen counters. No, she’d been saved that ordeal and had instead clocked off in one piece to face her quietest patrol since, well, the whole being dead thing.
It was a close night, far warmer than yesterday. Buffy had smiled when she’d woken to the cosiness of it all that morning. The sun was yet to peek through the clouds properly, but the lack of a February chill was enough to get her humming a little. Spring was spring-ing. The nights would be getting shorter from here, meaning more sleep and fewer beasties. She’d even been able to pull a favourite summer dress from her wardrobe when getting dressed today — light cream with pink florals. Granted she had still had to stick a jumper and coat over the top but, to Buffy, the whole thing held potential. Who knew, maybe some sense of her old aliveness would finally return with the spring too.
It sure was taking her long enough. She could see the disappointment in the Scoobies’ eyes whenever she stepped out looking just as desolate as that first night back. Of course, Buffy always curved her lips up as far as she could muster in response — she could’ve sworn the eyes from Willow were actually growing physically bigger with anguish as time went on — but, at this point, she wasn’t sure who she was kidding. She was as impatient as the rest of them for things to click back into feeling right again. If she had to be in this world, she wanted the one she remembered back: the one with balmy summers and cute dresses.
A bead of sweat rolled along her spine as she made the left turn into Restfield, and Buffy began to wonder if she’d gone overboard with the layering. It felt as though someone had stuck her blood in a microwave and injected it back into her, sending it coursing through her body like lava, and all her energy started to thrum within her in desperation at the lack of things to kill.
Maybe she could take a break. Work it off another way. Stop in at-
No, that would be bad. Bad Buffy. No more going to see the sexy-but-evil-except-sometimes-actually-super-thoughtful-with-a-really-nice-smile vampire on a mid-patrol whim. She needed to rewrite her mental map of this place. Erase his crypt and stick a big old “there be dragons” slogan in its spot.
Still.
Crypt.
Buffy wouldn’t say no to a chilled interior right about now.
She began to shimmy out of her coat, feet moving of their own accord toward the other side of the cemetery. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a bell was ringing that March definitely shouldn’t be warm enough to be sudating through layers like this. She tried to make a mental note to ask Willow about whether weathercasting had any double meanings as a word when she got home – it felt like the sort of thing a witch could specialise in, after all – but her body pushed the thought out of her head as soon as it entered, insisting that logic was out , air-con was in .
The familiar sepulchre came into view and Buffy picked up her pace. He’d be busy, she reasoned. Maybe ruffling a few feathers at kitten poker, or down the Bronze securing some new floozy to mack on after the exit of whatever wedding girl’s name was. It wouldn’t be like when she used to kick in his door for a quickie and get scolded for interrupting Passions . It was nighttime. His hours, as he so often reminded her. And besides, she could be discreet, damn it! She’d open the door delicately this time. Maybe sneak a snack or two from the store of human food he’d taken to keeping in his fridge during their dalliance. It’d only take a minute. Heck, he might even still have some of that ice in his freezer…
Yes, she decided. Spike would never need to know.
~*~
The first thing Spike noticed was that his crypt’s door had been kicked in again. The second was the smell: dank, heady, with a hint of burger. Sod it, more than a hint. The door-kicking culprit stank like she’d started bathing in the DMP’s grill grease. He was raring to give her an earful for it, if only he could work out where she was.
“Buff- Slayer?” he called, shifting into game face as he entered in order to let his eyes search the dark more fully.
A faint moan answered him from the shadows. Intrigued, Spike followed the sound, a leer playing at his lips as he rounded the sarcophagus only to find a limp vampire slayer at his feet, on her front and breathing shallow. Spike dropped to his knees. His gut dropped with him. Please God say you’re conscious.
“Slayer?” he tried, helplessly. “Come on, Slayer, look at me.”
Buffy emitted a dull noise and swatted blindly at him. She was pressing herself into the flagstones like they were her bloody saviour, a single tanned leg hiked up in a lopsided embrace with the floor. Spike lifted a hand and succeeded in nudging her face so that he could assess the situation. Her eyes and mouth were open, the latter drooling a little, but chasmal dark had erased any sign of her usual irises, leaving glassy pupils rolling wildly from side to side.
“Buffy?”
Suddenly focused, her eyes snapped to his and a soft whimper escaped her lips.
“Alpha?”
“Oh fucking hell.”
Spike had barely got the words out before Buffy was up and launching herself into his lap with enough force to near bowl the both of them over. “Mm cold,” she murmured, plastering her frame against him like an excitable limpet. “Love when you’re cold.”
Blunt teeth nipped at the tip of his left ear, as if to emphasise her point, and her hips jerked as she began to grind against him. “Alpha,” she hummed. Spike groaned.
“Listen to me,” he panted, trying to ignore how her frantic ministrations were drawing the rapid attention of his lower half. “You’re not a canid demon and if you were, you sure as hell wouldn’t be a sodding omega, all right?”
He shook himself back to his human visage as he spoke, praying it might bring her to her senses. Instead, he earned hard nipples thrust against his chest and another nibble at his earlobe.
“Come on, snap out of it,” he muttered. His hand reached to tuck her stray hairs away from her face but Buffy ducked from his grasp so he settled for taking up her arm instead, stroking a thumb down the inside of her wrist. She stopped in her tracks at the motion, collapsing into his neck with a happy sigh.
“Like that do you?” He felt her nod against him. “More of that if you tell me what’s happened.”
He pulled back so that he could look her in the eye again, accidentally eliciting a pained noise of discontent as Buffy stubbornly tried to chase his neck. He caught her by the shoulder, straining to keep the space between them and cueing another small noise before warm fingers closed around his own, drawing them to her cheek in compromise. Spike’s lips twitched in amusement at her boldness. He silently wished she would go after what she wanted more often.
“Why’d you come here, love?”
Buffy cocked her head to the side. “I wanted ice.”
Her tone indicated it should’ve been obvious but, as she spoke, her face morphed into one of consternation. Distracted, she turned his palm to face away from her, fussing over the exact position before settling and smiling up at him again, content with her newly-flipped pillow. Spike frowned.
“You’re burning up, pet.”
His tone was as gentle as he could make it. Buffy burrowed further into him and breathed deep. “Take care of me?”
Spike faltered. The tone she’d used typically had his face at her core within seconds. But the real, non-nympho Buffy was in there somewhere. The one who had looked at everything between them and chosen to walk away, barely a fortnight ago. Spike’s eyes flickered down to where his left hand was now cradling her right one. For a beat he saw bloody knuckles and earth crusted beneath her nails all over again. He shook his head. She had come to him for a reason. The real Buffy was in there. She needed help and she remembered. She remembered he was someone she went to for help and, right now, that was all that mattered.
Ice. He could do ice.
“Come on then. Freezer’s downstairs.”
He motioned for Buffy to detach herself from him but swiftly learned she was extremely opposed to the idea, so he settled for awkwardly manoeuvring them up whilst still entwined as one. He was sure it would’ve been a comical affair to an onlooker — Harris would definitely have got a jibe in — but Spike figured he was doing pretty well in the circs. He had even managed to get them part way down the ladder when suddenly a hot tongue swiped a trail of wet along his jugular.
“Fuck-“ he panted, swinging an arm back to brace himself against the metal as his legs stuttered beneath him. “Oi. No licking on the ladder ‘less you want your neck pretzeled.”
Cool air hit his flesh as her tongue left it. Good , Spike thought. However mixed up her brain was, she still seemed able to remember which injuries her powers couldn’t bring her back from. That’s something, at least.
Once his feet had hit the earthen floor of his tunnels, however, Buffy was quick to resume her actions, forcing Spike to tote her hastily across to his newly-sourced bed. He set her down atop the covers and began trying in vain to extrapolate himself from a knot of Slayer strength limbs.
“You’ve got to let me go, Goldilocks. The ice is over there,” he reasoned, jerking his head towards the battered fridge freezer in the corner. “Will only be a tick, I swear it.”
Buffy demurred, swiping for his wrist as he pulled away and catching the cuff of his duster instead. Spike shrugged it from his shoulders and placed the soft leather into her hands. “Hold onto that for me, yeah? Won’t be long.”
She nodded and buried her face in the coat. Spike took the moment and ran, moving as fast as he could to his freezer and praying that what he knew of canids was accurate. The lack of a wailing Buffy trailing him suggested as much, and he was granted a firm answer when he threw a look backwards to find her working fervently at shaping his bedding into some sort of circular affair. His duvet and blankets had been rolled to form a barrier, and what he could only presume was every pillow he had ever owned piled in the centre. He even saw a few singed ones he swore he’d chucked after her most recent visit to the crypt’s downstairs.
He would have spent more time lingering on the ache of that memory if Buffy hadn’t managed to shed her dress at that exact moment, leaving her in cotton hiphuggers and a distinct lack of bra. Spike’s eyes flickered down to where the junction between her thighs was darkening with slick. His teeth itched.
With a forcible wrench of his head, he turned himself back to the matter at hand. Ice. That was something he knew how to handle. He’d gone as far as to steal a bucket from the local motel after realising the meagre trays he had stored for blood cocktails were no match for how often Buffy needed the stuff. Spike paused for a moment to light a couple of candles, then hauled the bucket to his side and began his approach. For fear of losing his focus, he kept his eyes fixed on his boots beneath him as he walked. Slowly, his scuffed toes drew him forward. He could hear Buffy eagerly rearranging herself within her new nest as he neared her. Up close, he glimpsed a small patch of black peeking through the soft assembly, and something in him twinged as he belatedly realised that she’d placed his coat at the heart of it. Spike gathered his strength and looked up.
She looked like a sodding angel. Her hair was now loose from its fixings, golden waves framing her face as they skimmed her shoulders and, unlike the exposed presenting position he’d feared the canid would bring out, she was still in those knickers and facing him, kneeling upright with a stuffed pillow surreptitiously pressed between her thighs. Her hips were thrusting in sharp, purposeful little movements, matched by sharp, needy little breaths, and all the while her eyes stayed fixed on him, following his trajectory as Spike closed the gap between them and placed himself and the ice on the bed behind her.
He cleared his throat. “Gonna need your hair up for this, pet.”
Buffy obediently gathered her tresses and pulled them to one side, shivering as Spike ran his hand along after hers to smooth the more stubborn strands away. Slipping into old habits with ease, he picked a smaller ice cube first and thumbed it a little until the surface was glossy and wet so that it would not shock her skin, then brought it to her neck. He moved with care, applying solid, steady strokes from nape to the divet between her shoulder blades and back. Buffy shivered again.
“More?” he asked.
“Mm,” she hummed.
Buffy’s hips lost their rhythm as he continued his quiet work and her breath slowed to something deep and meditative. Part of him wondered if she’d fallen asleep until, between cubes, she unexpectedly dismounted her pillow and spun to face him. Spike hesitated, unsure of what she was expecting, but she took his hand and silently guided him into the hollows of her throat and clavicle, and across the heft of her sternum. The ice was gone in seconds, but still she kept him moving down, his wet fingers tracing her breast, up and around in cool circles before settling at her peaked nipple.
“Again,” she instructed. Spike retrieved another cube and repeated the path she’d laid out, attending to her other breast and marvelling at the slopes of her body turning to gooseflesh as he passed over. He reached for a third, but she caught his forearm on the approach and left his hand hovering just above her heart. “Not there,” she whispered.
Spike licked his lips. “Where’s hottest?”
He had a feeling he already knew the answer but he asked anyway. Buffy shifted and tugged his hand down to her centre, holding him to her. Together, they felt the ice become water again, until only his bare palm was left resting atop the soaked cotton and the sensitive bud it clung to. Spike pressed his forehead into hers, closing his eyes and breathing raggedly as the light, almost imperceptible pressure coming from her hand above his began to increase. He let it happen — just for a moment (a moment too long, but still a moment), feeling how she wanted him to cup and squeeze her mound, pulsing and ready and warm again — then pulled away with a jolt.
“Don’t need me to touch to make that feel better,” he explained, reaching beneath the bed and rummaging a little, before his hand reappeared grasping a small lacquered chest ornate with Chinese cranes. Its contents barely touched the surface of his collection, but Spike reckoned it was probably best to stick to the Fisher Price level of kink when trying to get your ex to return from the land of sex-obsessed demon druggage.
“Here, you can have free rein of the toy box,” he nudged the chest towards her. “Play all you like, pet.”
Buffy pouted. “They’re not you.”
Spike swallowed and selected a plain black dildo. “Try this one,” he closed her reluctant fingers around the girth. “Should be closest in size.”
“I’ll touch here instead, yeah?” he said, taking her left wrist in his hand again. Not giving her time to answer, he slipped to the floor, a pillow or three falling with him, followed by the soft thud of her just-flung underwear hitting the far wall. Spike shuddered and kept his eyes trained on the small limb between his fingers that held more strength in it than his whole body put together.
She had four freckles right there on her pulse point. She used to have three. He knew because one night he’d insisted on licking every damn freckle on her body, and it had definitely only been three on this wrist back then, but now there was a fourth, right at the edge, where the tanned expanse met the pale underside of her palm. A desperate part of him wanted to lick that one too.
Instead, he focused on stroking a soothing square between the four dots, jaw clenched at the wet sounds now coming from behind his head as he willed his dick to calm the fuck down. Not for you, he reprimanded himself. He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that — him stroking, her fucking, neither looking at the other — only that when she broke their silence, she sounded reedy and frazzled, as if her vocal cords were threadbare.
“‘S not enough.”
Spike frowned. She wasn’t usually interested in going any bigger than him when it came to toys. He knelt up to pull the discarded box toward him and began digging, rifling between butt plugs and ball gags with practised precision.
“Spike,” Buffy begged.
“Give us a minute, I’ve got the inflatable one in here somewhere-”
“No,” she cut him off. “I need you .”
He shook his head. “Not sure that’s a good idea, love.”
“I can be good. Please,” Buffy looked at him plaintively. “You said you’d take care of me.”
Spike felt the bed dipping with his weight before he even knew he’d moved. Eyes boring into hers, he placed his fingers at the hilt of the toy, steering her movements until her hand fell away for him to take over.
“Need skin,” Buffy rasped. He let his thumb trail upwards to her clit, stroking in rhythm with the toy’s work on her swollen hole.
“Please,” she pleaded. “Feels so empty.”
Spike glanced to where the thick, black silicon was buried deep amidst a soft thatch of hair as dark as her roots. He eased it out gradually, doubling the efforts with his thumb in the hopes of distracting from the loss. Curiously, she didn’t even seem to notice until his hand slipped back between her folds to replace it. The intrusion was met with a small cry, gentle ecstasy playing on her lips as he dipped two fingers inside her. “That what you wanted, pet?”
Buffy’s eyes fluttered closed as she keened in answer.
“There you go,” he encouraged, adding a third digit as he picked up the pace. Her whole body seemed to undulate in response and she began to chant breathily to a deity he was sure she didn’t even believe in.
“Oh god, please,” she begged, arching her back. “Please please please.”
Spike curled his fingers inside her — “oh yes, there !” — and Buffy snapped. A string of curses broke free from her mouth as her eyes slammed shut and she shuddered through her orgasm. He continued to knead at her as she crested, waiting until the heaving of her chest and jerking of her limbs had subsided before he withdrew his fingers.
He watched her come down from her high with bated un-breath. Part of him wanted to pause time there, to take a moment to bask in her sated afterglow before she sent something sharp and woody his way, but the louder, more reasonable part of him knew better. He needed to make sure she was all right.
Finally, her eyes opened and his heart leapt. Spike had never been so relieved to see that piercing stare of hers.
“Back with us?” he asked carefully. He received an equally careful nod in answer before Buffy cast her gaze down in sudden recognition of her nakedness. “Right. I’ll let you- um. Yeah.”
He stood and busied himself with returning the bucket of now-tepid water to his freezer.
“Um, Spike?” Buffy asked quietly from behind him. “My jumper…”
“Think you um- took some things off before I got here. Be upstairs, I reckon.”
“Right,” she said, taking a beat to process what he’d said. “Oh god.”
Spike whirled round to face her, alarmed at the pain lacing a phrase that she had used so euphorically just moments before. She was dressed again — though a shameless part of him delighted in noting the hip huggers were still hanging unnoticed on an unlit sconce — and was now curling into herself at the edge of his bed.
“I used you again,” she mourned before cringing. “God, I basically jumped you!”
“You got demon roofied.” He tapped his temple lightly with his finger. “Wasn’t you in there.”
Buffy frowned at him, uncomprehending.
“Alpha venom,” he explained. “‘S a canid demon thing. Not exactly the kind of aphrodisiac old Rupes dealt in, more Hellion territory. Makes you not you until you’ve-” He waved a hand to complete his sentence. “Cowards sell it down the sewers.”
Buffy grimaced. “Just when I think I’ve seen all the pits of this place, it digs down even further.”
“You’re doing grand, pet.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I could be doing better.”
“Rot. The only person needing to do better here is Harris guarding your drinks down the Bronze.”
“God, I haven’t made it to the Bronze in forever,” Buffy lamented. Spike raised his eyebrow in question and waited for her to elaborate.
“Demon fight while I was tracking those bonehead nerds in the ‘burbs. I won but the sucker stabbed me on his way off of this mortal coil,” she said, grimly. “Guess we now know what with.”
Spike’s mouth went dry. Not the dilute black market stuff, then. Pure alpha venom straight from the spear. Fuck .
“Where’d he get you?” he pressed, straining to keep his voice level. Buffy pulled a face and gestured to her belly. Double fuck .
Spike moved to retrieve his duster from the bed. “We need to get you help.”
“Spike, I’m fine,” she maintained, fingers working at the zip of one of her fancy new leather knee boots. “All healed up, see? And your um- sleight of hand worked its mojo so we’re good.”
“Slayer, you went into heat.”
“You don’t have to lay it on. My face is red enough already.”
“I mean it,” Spike countered. “That was a demon heat back there. Think of your human monthlies on steroids-” Spike stopped himself, distantly remembering a conversation between them months before where she’d quietly admitted to preventing all periods since she’d been called. Fuelled by whiskey, she’d told it as a funny story — a gentle mocking of her younger self for thinking her cramps could act as some kind of early warning system for vamps, only to realise later it was the smell that had been attracting them all in the first place — but Spike had seen the sadness in her eyes at another of life’s mundanities lost to her destiny. Typical really. Only Buffy Summers could get wistful about the pain of menstruation.
He tried again, voice soft. “Your body’s not made for it, love.”
It was the wrong approach. Buffy drew herself up from the bed. “My body,” she said tightly, “is made to heal itself. That’s kind of its whole MO.”
Spike’s nostrils flared. “And that clever blood of yours is probably fighting tooth and nail to keep you lucid.”
“Great! I can use it to get home.”
“Fine. I’ll walk you, then.”
He shoved an arm into his coat, double-taking as he noticed the distinct puddle the addled Buffy had left behind on its sleeve. God, he was never going to escape the smell of her.
“Spike, I don’t want you anywhere near my home right now.”
He looked up from the distraction. “If any of that venom’s still in you, it could kick in any second.”
“I was roaming around for a whole day before it had any effect on me. That’s plenty of time to get back and ask Willow and Tara to make sure everything’s out of my system before I go all horndog again,” she reasoned, turning on her heel and marching back towards the ladder. “There has to be some kind of tests they can run. Something nerdy that lets Will mess around with her test tubes…”
“And if it doesn’t give you that long?” he called after her.
“I’ll take my ch- ances .” Buffy’s face contorted and she stumbled. “Shit.” She righted herself, trying again to walk the final few steps to the ladder’s base. The scent of fresh slick hit Spike’s nose, duster slipping off his arm and onto the floor. “Fuck.”
“Buffy,” he warned as she pitched sideways again. “Buffy, stop.”
“No.”
“Let me get someone,” he begged. “Please. I’ll get bloody Peaches if I have to.”
“No! I can handle thi- Fuck!” She clung to the rail and doubled over.
Spike approached slowly. “Hurts?”
Buffy nodded, her eyes screwed tight as she slipped to the ground, panting. He crouched to her level.
“Slayer, I’m not larking about. I’ve seen vamps dust from this stuff.”
A cautious hand came to rest on her back. Buffy leaned up into it, the tension slipping from her bones. She looked back across her shoulder at him.
“Do what you did before?” she whispered.
Something guttural left Spike’s throat in affirmation. He tried to pull her back toward the bed, but Buffy shook her head and dragged him down to the floor instead.
“Here,” she said, grabbing his hand and placing it back at her centre. Spike dragged the hem of her dress up and sunk two fingers inside her without hesitation.
“Oh!” gasped Buffy, as he crooked them a little to find that spongy spot all over again. “More?”
The angle was tricky, what with him behind and craning over her like this, but he took the cue to reposition slightly and slip the rough pad of his thumb round to rub against her clit. Buffy jerked against him in approval causing the thin straps of her dress to fall askew, the silky material slipping forward to reveal the dusk of her right nipple once more. “Yeah like that.”
Spike nodded into her neck, relishing where the scent of delicious sweat had begun to engulf the one left over from her work. He flicked a repeat of the motion, thumb now tracing frantic figure of eights as her moans pitched upward in chase of the overwhelm, but it wouldn’t come. He wanted to kiss her. To pull her hair and make even dirtier promises for later, voice like gravel in her ear. To cover all of her with sweet caresses then let her mark him up just how she liked.
Instead, they continued on with his fingers, Spike switching rhythms now and then, but keeping the assault on both of her sensitive spots constant. It was baffling — he wasn’t trying to keep her on edge, but each time he seemed to land on the right movement, he’d lock in, only to find her teetering forever, never quite reaching her climax.
“‘M so close,” she whined, somewhere around the sixth attempt to get her across the finish line.
Spike puffed at her neck in frustration. He was going to rub her raw if they kept at this.
“Tell me what you need,” he directed. “Tongue? Teeth?”
”You.”
His hand tightened on her hip. “I’m here.”
“Want you inside. All of you.” She ground back against his hardness. “Need it, Alpha. Need to be full.”
Spike swore under his breath. The universe had a sick sense of humour.
“I’ll fill you up, love, but I need you to use my name, yeah? Show me you know who’s here with you.” He tackled his belt and zipper whilst awaiting her reply. When none came, he paused and pressed his forehead into the base of her neck. “Love?”
“Spike, please .”
That was all he needed to hear. Spike lined himself up and drove forward in one thick stroke. Once fully seated in the heat of her, he used the last of his willpower to still himself. Whatever she needs , he told himself. Whatever she needs to get through this, and no more .
It took Buffy a moment to cotton on to the fact he wasn’t planning on pumping, or thrusting, or any of the other thrilling movements she’d clearly had planned for them. Experimentally, she rocked herself back onto him, sobbing a little as she went.
“That’s my girl,” he praised. “Just like that, sweetheart. Put it all on me.”
Gradually, she began to find her own desperate rhythm, a chorus of primal grunts leaving her with wild abandon as she buried her face in her hands and worked herself on and off his cock in sheer, animal want.
“That’s it. Take what you need,” Spike let the encouragements fall from his mouth like silk. “No holding back.”
He could feel her beginning to pulse around him before he heard her. This time, her moans came low and slow as she peaked, muscles quaking as they tensed for what felt like forever then slumped dramatically.
Spike fell back on his haunches, erection bobbing angrily at the interruption as it slipped from her warmth. He swiped at his mouth. “Better?”
“Not done,” she replied, brusquely.
That was all the warning he got before she tilted herself and molten heat swallowed him all over again. He bucked at the sensation and Buffy’s hand stroked down his side, insistently pressing at his hip for a repeat. “Need all of you,” she murmured.
Spike finally got the message, hips snapping forward at a punishing pace. He worked one arm around her middle to press into her lower belly and returned the other to making featherlight strokes against her clit. If she needed him to come to get out of this, he was going to make damn sure she got another round in too.
She was like a geyser incarnate when it finally ripped through her, clenching and making a sound so heated that, within seconds, he could do nothing but fall across the line alongside her with a reverent “ Buffy… ”
Together, they collapsed, boneless — a messy pile of monster and mot. Spike lay there a minute then eased himself up onto his forearms to take one last look down at her, dress now rucked to a strip across her still-heaving middle and gold tresses distinctly bedhead-ified, before accepting he needed to preempt the inevitable and roll himself away. In his absence, a trail of sticky white began to ooze gently from her entrance.
“Should get you cleaned up,” he offered as he tucked himself back into his jeans.
“Buffy can’t come to the phone right now,” she groused back at him, looking decidedly fucked out. “Try again later.”
The tightness in his chest unfurled itself a little; something in her tone said they had entered one of those rare pockets of time where she didn’t plan on haranguing him for daring to continue existing post-sex. He stood and swiped a clean rag from beside the bed, soaking it with a bottle of yesterday’s water before crouching at the join between her thighs.
“Gonna be cold, pet,” Spike warned, allowing the corner of his mouth to curve as, in spite of her earlier statement, she willingly flipped herself seal-like onto her back in order to ease his access.
“Mm,” Buffy sighed, as he swabbed diligently between her folds. “That feels nice.”
It was kind of her, really, to gift him this one last tenderness. When things were strong, she’d only allowed it on the better days, the ones where her worries quieted long enough for her to linger in his bed or on his floor or whatever strange place they’d ended up. She’d let him tend to her that final time too; the one before he’d known it would be the last time. He supposed it only made sense to repeat it in this strange coda they’d found themselves in.
An ugly open-mouthed snore interrupted his thinking and Spike looked up to find the night had caught up to Buffy; she was out like a light.
“Suppose I should take that as a compliment,” he grumbled, tossing the rag to one side. He took a moment to shuck her dress to make her semi-decent again before placing a hand at her knees and tunnelling the other beneath her shoulders.
As he lifted her to him, the concerning lack of weight sparked the worry of what her and the bit had been eating now that she wasn’t raiding his fridge on the daily. He prayed it wasn’t pure DMP schlock. He wasn’t sure how the rare human that got resurrected and stayed human was meant to restore themselves without the option of nutrient-rich blood to feed in, but he was sure as hell that cellulose junk was not the answer.
Now back by the bed, Spike wrestled with whether it was a good idea to destroy the nest she’d put so much effort into. There was always the chance she’d wake up in a fix and want it back. Then again, she could just as easily wake and be so grossed out by the whole thing that she staked him right then and there.
He settled for wriggling an arm out to pull apart the nest on one side, doing his best to restore it to the standard one might expect of, well, an actual bed. Satisfied that he had at least achieved in nudging some of the pillows back to a normal position for one’s head along with creating enough space for her to lie down comfortably, he flipped up the duvet and laid her sleeping form against the sheets.
The boots took a couple of tries to slip off and he was sure that, after he’d tucked the cover over her, Buffy made a quiet, muddled noise that sounded close enough to “miss you” to draw that hopeless part of him that always sought crumbs to the surface. Spike shook his head. He knew better than to entertain such thoughts nowadays.
The candles were now burning low and dripping wax into his laundry, so he stood again and walked to them. He stared down the flames flickering into themselves, and wafted a finger through once. Twice. Three times. Finally, he took its tip to his tongue and snuffed the cavern into darkness.
“Miss you too, ducks,” he rumbled into the black. A fool for love, indeed.