Spuffy. PG-13. Written for Spikes_sway and fondly dedicated to her.
Proofs
The door of the crypt banged shut behind Spike, and the loud noise
was fitting for his mood. He felt very much like shouting, but was
afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop if he started, and he couldn’t
afford that. Buffy would come to him, he was sure of it, and yelling at
her when she did would help nothing. It wouldn’t convince her to tell
her friends about them. He knew it; he had already tried that road. She
hadn’t spoken to him for nearly a week after that, and they hadn’t
talked of it afterwards.
Spike had tried not to ask too much from her, tried to let her take as
much time as she wanted, as much time as she needed, but as weeks
passed and he remained her little secret, he couldn’t help wondering –
would she ever tell them? The Scoobies had been decent to him since he
had taken that plunge down Glory’s tower to save Dawn. He was sure – or
at least, he hoped – that they could come to accept his relationship
with Buffy, if she only told them about it. But Buffy still balked at
the idea, and tonight had been a painful reminder of that.
They had been patrolling together, bantering between kills, challenging
each other with kisses for rewards. A perfect evening, one of many of
the same kind, that had come to an abrupt end when they had stumbled on
Xander and Willow. The two friends were still mopping over their
respective lost loves, each of them having broken up with their girl a
few weeks earlier for reasons that, as far as Spike was concerned, were
ridiculous. Harris had proposed to Anya, only to back-pedal when she
had demanded to set up a day for the wedding, apparently realizing he
wasn’t ready. As for Willow, she and Tara had progressively argued more
and more about Willow’s use of magic over the last few months, until
Willow had gone too far and scared Tara away.
The two Scoobies had clearly decided that joining Buffy on patrol would
make for a better evening than crying over their girls at home. Their
surprise at finding that Buffy wasn’t alone had been the first blow for
Spike; clearly, Buffy hadn’t bothered to mention to them that she and
Spike had been patrolling together ever since he had recovered from his
fall. The way she had avoided his eyes for the rest of the patrol,
practically ignoring him as she talked with her friends, had been the
second blow, and Spike had gritted his teeth for a while before
deciding that he had had enough. He had stormed away with no more than
a glare at Buffy.
“OK, I get it that it runs in your family, but the brooding act? So not your style.”
Stopping his pacing, Spike threw a dark look at the Slayer who was
leaning against the door she had just closed much more calmly than he
had earlier.
“And apparently, humor isn’t for you either tonight,” she sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry…”
“Are you, now?“ he cut in abruptly, flicking what remained of his
cigarette to the ground and stomping on it angrily. “I might have
believed you the first couple of times, but I’m not sure I still do,
Slayer. What am I, to you? A dirty little secret? A game? Someone to
pass time with until you find the guy you won’t be ashamed to introduce
to your mates?”
She took a few hesitant steps toward him, shaking her head. “I’m not ashamed,” she said calmly. “And you’re not a game to me.”
He couldn’t help snorting at that; she would need to be more convincing this time.
“I’m not playing with your feelings, Spike,” she insisted. “You do mean
a lot to me. And I’ll tell them, I will, just… not now. I’m not ready.”
She had reached him and her hand cautiously came up to rest on his
chest. Somehow, the touch seemed to drain the fight out of him.
“You know what it felt like, to be with you and your mates tonight? It
felt like everything that happened between us was just a fantasy. That
it happened only in my head. I could have told them, I could tell
anyone, and none of them would believe me. None of them would believe
you’d ever lower yourself…”
Two fingers pressed to his lips stopped him from spilling his thoughts
even further, and he was grateful for the gesture. For long minutes,
they remained silent, the only contact between them her fingers on his
lips that slowly slid across his cheek and up to his scarred eyebrow.
“You want a proof?” she asked at last, her voice so quiet that he could
barely make out the words. “A proof that it’s not just in your head,
that you’re not dreaming all this, and that you mean more to me than I
can express with words?”
He tilted his head into her touch. “Yeah, I want that,” he replied, wondering where she was headed.
She nodded once, and shrugged out of her jacket, letting it fall to the
floor behind her. Next came her top, discarded as easily to leave her
clad in her boots, jeans and bra. He followed her hand as it came to
her neck, and as usual, something clenched inside him when his eyes
fell on the scars there.
“You hate these, don’t you?” she said as her fingers brushed against the scars. “You wish they were yours.”
Before he could catch himself, a quiet growl had passed his lips. He
still didn’t know where she was going with that, but he wouldn’t have
expected that her torturing him like this would be part of it.
“I trust you,” she continued, offering to him her gaze that held
nothing more than truth. “I care for you. I…” She gulped, clearly
struggling to let the words out, and Spike waited as patiently as he
knew how, hoping that this time, maybe… “I love you,” she finally
finished, and Spike blinked, now sure that he was dreaming because
never in the few months they had been together had she ever said…
“I love you,” she repeated, a little more easily this time. “And I want
to prove it to you. I… I want you to bite me. And next time you think
you’re dreaming because I’m too much of a coward to tell my friends
about us, you’ll know it’s not a dream because the mark will still be
there you’ll know that and so will I and…”
It was only with her increasingly faster words that Spike realized she
meant it, all of it, and was scared as hell by what she was saying.
Scared, but still ready to go through with it to give him this proof he
needed. He stopped her ramblings by pressing his mouth to hers, hard
and demanding and thankful all at once.
“So, will you do it?” she asked, a little eager, a little anxious, when
they broke off the kiss after a few instants. Fingers tangled into her
hair to hold it back, he looked at the scars that marred her skin. She
was right, he had often wished they had been his, but that didn’t mean
he wanted to bite her, or even could.
“I can’t,” he reminded her with a slight shake of his head. “Chip, remember? Can’t lay a fang on you any more than…”
“But it’s not about you hurting me,” she interrupted him gently. “It’s
about… something else. And I’m asking for it, I want it, so the chip
shouldn’t react, just like when we…” Her voice trailed off and she
blushed brightly, giving him a small embarrassed smile.
It was hard not to believe her, not when she had plainly said she
wanted it, and still Spike was hesitating. The idea was tempting, of
course, he was a vampire after all and she was all but offering her
neck on a platter. And that was what was stopping him. He didn’t want
to start craving her blood any more than he already did. He didn’t want
to think of her as of a tasty snack. And he was afraid that was what
would happen if he went ahead and did what she was suggesting.
“You think too much,” she informed him when after a few seconds he
still hadn’t moved. “I’m going to start believing you don’t want me.”
“Of course I want you,” he immediately replied. “It’s just… I don’t need that kind of proof, Buffy.”
She observed him for a moment, her gaze unreadable, before she finally
said: “OK. You don’t need a proof. But I do. I want to know it’s not
just in my head. I want something I can see, or touch when you’re not
with me. Will you do it for me?”
There really wasn’t a way for Spike to answer no to that.
(direct sequel coming soon)
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The characters and names used in these stories do not
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