Written for Poetlover's birthday, and fondly dedicated to her.
Sweet Dreams
Willow had left a little while before, closing the bedroom’s door
behind her. Alone now, Buffy buried herself under the covers. Yet
despite their warmth, despite the fact that she was still clothed, she
was freezing. She could feel the cold down to her bones, down to her
soul, and she doubted anything could make her warm again. She was
aware, dimly, that time passed, that morning would soon come and the
house would awaken too many girls pretending to live while only waiting
for the big fight. She hadn’t been able to find sleep at all. Every
time she closed her eyes, she could see them, thousands of ubervamps
waiting for the First’s command to attack. Thousands of them, and she
had refused the power to fight them.
The soft creak of her door
warned her of an intrusion while her Slayer sense tingled in warning.
She raised her head enough to squint at the shadow standing by her
door. They had told her that Spike had been the one who had found and
brought back the demon, allowing her to return to this reality, but she
hadn’t talked to him. His eyes had been ice, and she had easily seen
that he had taken her words at heart. Once more, he had changed for
her. She wasn’t sure anymore which version of him was the real one. She
wondered if he even knew.
“What do you want?” she asked gruffly,
unhappy at his presence in her room at night. If anyone noticed, she
would never hear the end of it.
He pushed her door closed before answering, quietly enough that no one outside of the room would hear. “Why are you crying?”
She
started shaking her head, ready to deny she was doing any such thing,
and felt the trickle on her cheek. The realization that she was indeed
crying triggered a fresh flow of tears, and she pulled the cover above
her head, refusing to let him see her like this and at the same time
afraid that someone would hear her muffled sobs. She had to be strong,
they all counted on her, and it would be the end if she showed the
smallest weakness, she was sure of it.
She heard the soft steps,
almost hesitant, coming closer, but the tentative touch to her shoulder
still surprised her. The gentle patting became soft stroking along her
arm, soothing shushing noises accompanying it. Only when her sobbing
had calmed down did he pull the cover to expose her face.
“Tell me?” he requested as he brushed the tears off her cheeks with his fingertips.
In
broken whispers, she told him. Her vision. Her refusal. Her fears. He
never said a word as she talked. When she was finished, he was sitting
on the edge of the bed, his back against the headboard, and she had
found shelter in his arms. A year too late, she realized how good he
could have been at making her feel better, if she had only let him.
When he answered, quiet words against her brow and fingers tangled in
her hair, he didn’t promise sunny tomorrows and the magical end to all
their problems. He didn’t tell her things would get better. He simply
said that if anyone could do it, it was she. It wouldn’t be easy, but
he had faith in her, and he’d guard her back until he was dust. The
pledge was sealed with lips gently brushing together.
She wasn’t
sure which of them suggested it. Forget the battle, put their past
between parentheses, take no vow that anything would be different in
the morning, and just find comfort in each other one last time. It
didn’t matter who said it. It only mattered that they both wanted it.
Clothes
disappeared, and with cool skin sliding against her, Buffy found at
last the warmth she had craved all night. She had forgotten – made
herself forget – how well he knew her body. How his touch could be the
shadow of a whisper one moment, teasing her until she was ready to cry,
and almost hard enough to bruise seconds later, almost but never quite
that much. Attending to every inch of her body, he stroked her and the
embers deep inside to full flames, until she was suffocating and
nothing, nothing but the coolness of his flesh on her, in her, could
make things better.
At that first instant when he slid into her,
barely there yet, a promise of pleasure soon to be fulfilled, she
guessed in his eyes the doubts, regrets and pain. She soothed them,
soothed him with a slow, languorous kiss, her tongue pushing past his
lips to make love to his. Her legs, locked at the small of his back,
pushed him, pulled him, deeper into her heat. When she broke the kiss
in a gasp, he rolled them over, guiding her to kneel over him, letting
her set the pace of their union as his hands trailed over her thighs,
waist, breast. She had to bite her bottom lip not to moan aloud when he
teased her nipples between thumb and forefinger until they shot
pleasure straight to the apex of her legs. And then he was there, too,
his touch all at once soft and steel as he stroked her clit with his
thumb in the same rhythm his hips thrust to pierce her. Not a word
passed his lips, but she could see it in his eyes, on his face, feel it
in the tenderness of his touch on her, in the way he reacted to her
hands on him. He loved her, he had never ceased, and it was with this
knowledge that pleasure took her, shook her, until she was panting for
breath in the safety of his arms and slowly giving in to sleep.
She
awoke alone. Buried under the covers. Clothed. More disappointed than
she would acknowledge to herself that it had only been a dream.
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The characters and names used in these stories do not belong to me. All copyrights remain with Fox and Mutant Enemy. No profit is made from this fanfiction.
