This Kind of Lonely

Disclaimer

I own NOTHING (except for the plot*smile*)! Anything in this story that falls under existing copyrights belongs to their respective owners.

A/N
Hey, I’m back after two days full of work. So today finally real life cut me some slack and I could finish the next chapter. But I also have to tell you that it’s going to be the last one until after Christmas as I am going home to visit my family. And due to the fact that it’s the “Christmas-Chapter” I kept the cliff-hanger I had planned for this one out of it. But don’t think it is forgotten, you will have to deal with it in the next one. *laughs* Thank you again for all the lovely reviews I appreciate every single one of them. Enjoy the chapter.
Hugs to all!

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Previously on “This Kind of Lonely”:

Spike wakes up in the morning and finds Buffy in deep pain. He tries to comfort her but soon realizes that it won’t get any better without medical attention. So he calls his personal doctor Rupert Giles to take care of her. Later Buffy and Cordelia meet the physiotherapist. Riley Finn.

This Kind of Lonely


Chapter 6: Melting Ice

Cordelia left Buffy’s room shortly after Riley Finn, Buffy’s physiotherapist, arrived but not without taking some real good looks at the nicely built man. She winked at Buffy smiling before she finally closed the door and Buffy had a hard time wiping a satisfied grin from her face. She also couldn’t stop herself from eyeing the well-built young man from toes to hair and had the decency to blush furiously when she finally met his eyes and saw that he had recognized his staring.

“So what is your name, Miss?” Riley asked her after she was finally able to look him in the eye again.

“Buffy…Summers” she stuttered “just call me Buffy” a bit steadier now.

“Okay Buffy” he still smiled at her “I’m Riley, but I think I already told you that.”

“So why don’t we start on your exercises and afterwards I’ll take you outside for a drive in the wheelchair to give you a bit of training on how to work this thing” the smile never left his face. Buffy somehow suddenly thought it could have been glued to his face, but dismissed the thought when she saw him taking of his sweater, revealing a tight T-Shirt that definitely left little to the imagination on what well-formed torso laid underneath.

So Riley started to work on Buffy’s still immobile legs and although she still couldn’t move them out of her own will she definitely felt the skilled touch from Riley’s big hands every time. Not that she had any romantic intention or even naughty intention, but the skilled touch definitely felt good in the “I am getting a professional massage” kind of way not in an “I am so horny” kind of way.

After one and a half hour of massages, special training for motor skills and motion exercises Buffy felt a bit exhausted. Not that the training itself was too stressful but in her momentarily state of mostly lying in bed over the days her circulation didn’t seem to get out of it’s dozing state. So she was more than grateful when Riley finally announced the exercises were over. What she forgot was that she still got a trip to the outsides of the house in the wheelchair in front of her and so she had to bite back a small groan when Riley lifted her out of the bed and into the wheelchair. Somehow she suddenly remembered the night before when Spike lifted her out of the bed and her subconscious decided that Spike’s arms definitely felt better around her body. She immediately channelled her inner hatred for the blonde Brit and her subconscious had to make a run for safety to escape its impending extermination at the stake.

And although she would have wanted nothing more than just stay in her bed and sleep some more she found herself gawking at the beautiful gardens surrounding Spike’s house as Riley pushed her down the small path dividing the nice arrangement of flowers and small bushes. She still couldn’t get a grip on how huge the property actually was. The flower beds seemed to be endlessly running into the horizon and somehow Spike earned another quarter or even half of a point on the scorecard. He definitely knew how to life.

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Cordelia entered Buffy’s room sometime in the early evening only to find her dozing in her bed. She went straight over to the closed curtains and pulled them open to let in the rest of the beautiful sunny day. Buffy groaned loudly when Cordelia also opened the windows. The room was definitely too well lit for her liking at the moment and so she tried to hide herself under the comforter. But no such luck for her as that was the next thing that felt the definitely good mood of one Cordelia Chase.

“Come on Buffy, lying around in bed all day won’t do you any good. You need at least some activity over the day to keep your motor running” Cordy announced in a cheery voice.

“I had enough activity for one day. Riley made me run a marathon while lying in bed” she grumbled at the brunette standing next to her bed. Somehow she got the sneaking suspicion that whatever excuse she would bring up at that moment wouldn’t do anything to stop Cordelia from whatever she had planned.

“Come on you whiny little girl, nothing better than some good old fashioned pampering to lighten the mood” Cordy’s voice never lost the amused touch.

“I am NOT whiny” Buffy now growled at the brunette intruder.

“See, one well placed comment and you’re all awake again” Cordelia laughed at her “come on I prepared you a nice bubble bath. We’ll give you a good soak and get you all nice and comfy.”

Buffy knew she had lost the game and so she let herself be helped into the wheelchair with some reluctance and went into the bathroom with Cordelia rolling the chair. When she saw the huge marbled tub filled with delicious smelling water and a huge amount of foam her opinion towards some early evening activity seriously changed. She somehow couldn’t remember seeing the tub the evening before when she had to use the toilet but she dismissed it to the black marble and the room not being fully lit last night.

A few minutes later after losing her clothes with help from one brunette girl she slowly slid into the tub and let the hot water envelope her bruised body. Cordelia was right, that definitely was a good idea and she felt her mood change into a better one. When Buffy was finally securely seated in the tub Cordelia fetched a sponge from somewhere and started to rub down Buffy’s back. She had to bite back a moan every time the sponge made contact with her skin. It just felt too good and she couldn’t remember when her body had been treated that well last time. After she had been given a good and complete rub down with herself actually taking care of the more intimate areas of her body Cordelia started to manicure her hands and Buffy leaned backwards in the tub and rested her head on a nice little pillow mounted to the edge of it.

“So, as I have plans tonight” Cordelia started to talk “what are yours for tonight?”

“I don’t know” Buffy answered, her eyes still closed “I think I will spend the rest of the evening in my bed hoping to get a night full of sleep and not a repeating performance of this morning…pain wise.”

“Sounds kinda boring to me” Cordelia continued.

“Yeah…maybe, but what else is there to do for someone in my state at nights” Buffy relied.

“Well according to his calendar Spike hasn’t anything to do either tonight. Perhaps he could keep you some kind of company…” no, she wasn’t trying to move somebody in a certain direction, no never…

“How do you know that?” Buffy queried prying one eye open.

“What kind of personal assistant would I be if I wouldn’t know my bosses calendar from my mind?” Cordelia let that rhetorical question stand in the room for a moment before adding “although I have to admit that I spied on him typing in his password into the computer, so that’s where I actually got the information from.”

That comment got both girls giggling. Buffy never recognized that she hadn’t at all thought about Spike in a hating way over the whole conversation. She hadn’t even declined the idea of her and Spike spending the evening together. Actually she now thought it could perhaps be fun. It definitely would be better than spending the rest of the evening alone in her room mulling over some nothings.

She was stopped in her contemplating the possibilities for the evening when Cordelia announced that she was hungry and that they should definitely order something. Buffy stomach commented that idea with a resounding ‘Yay’ although one could have had a hard time decipher the word from the grumbling it did.

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Spike entered his house shortly past nine o’clock. He dropped his keys onto the small table in the hall right before he hung up his black leather duster on the wardrobe. He didn’t know why he still wore that piece but he had it since he had been around nineteen and old habits die hard. You could say there wouldn’t have been two following days where he hadn’t worn it and so he still did.

He went straight into his study to check on his emails and phone calls he had gotten since he had been gone. He found a small note in the middle of his desk and he instantly recognized Cordelia’s swung handwriting. He read the message that told him that she had to go due to some appointments she had this evening but that Buffy was fine in her room. He started to lay the note to the side when he suddenly recognized the small white sheet attached to the note.

“Bloody Hell” he suddenly yelled through the room “the stupid bint spent one hundred and thirty five dollars for dinner. I can’t believe it. I am seriously going to deduct that one from her salaries.”

After ten more minutes of well needed cursing he had finished going through his emails and missed calls and finally felt calm enough to go and check on his housemate. So he left the study to see her and stopped in front of her door to knock. She called him in and he gave her a small smile when he saw everything was okay.

“So” he started “Queen Cordelia left you all on your own?” he smirked.

“Well if you wouldn’t have been gone all day she wouldn’t have had to” she countered “where have you been anyway?”

Spike didn’t miss the still not so warm tone in her voice but was just glad that she still talked to him and hadn’t gone back to completely ignoring him.

“Well, although Time magazine wrote I didn’t have to anymore, I still go to work” he tried to joke and gave her a small smile again.

“Uhu, I see, so although you are probably the richest person in the United States of fucking America after Bill Gates you still have to go out every day and destroy the dreams and lives of other people entering your territory?” she totally misinterpreted his joke and her anger was back.

“Wow, sorry, you got that one completely wrong. I just made a silly joke. I am sorry if it came out wrong. I didn’t want to upset you” Spike lifted his hands in surrender and tried to safe what was still there to safe. With his head bent slightly downwards he hoped that this wouldn’t be the end to the still more than short conversation.

Buffy suddenly realized that she had made a mistake and he had just wanted to make some light conversation although the hating part of her brain screamed that he deserved every word she had just said.

“I… I’m sorry” she suddenly stuttered “I overreacted. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“Now that is definitely a change for the better. Now she’s already apologizing to me” Spike thought to himself and was just more than glad that this one didn’t end in another Armageddon.

“It’s okay Buffy, if…if it’s alright with you for me to call you by your first name as you are still calling me by my last name” he suddenly seemed a bit shy. Just like a little schoolboy without friends trying not to insult the other kids and to somehow make contact with somebody.

“Okay” Buffy drawled “now it’s getting awkward. How about we call each other by the first name and start planning the rest of the evening, as we both seem to have some free time at our hands.” Buffy had finally decided that she didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening alone in her room and so she tried to melt some of the ice inside of her surrounding her behaviour towards Spike.

“Should be alright with me” the small smile returned to his face and he silently thanked all the Gods that he didn’t make an even bigger ponce out of himself than he already had.

“So” she queried “what’s there to do in the house as I am kind of bound to it.”

“Well, after I saw the bill Cordelia left me, I know that dinner won’t be an issue anymore so we can get straight to the fun” he smirked.

“Sorry, if…if it’s too much – well, I actually haven’t seen the bill so I don’t know – I…I can pay for it” she stuttered suddenly embarrassed.

“Don’t you start to worry about that, luv” the smirk never left his face “I know exactly who is going to pay that bill” a knowing glimpse in his eye.

“So after we answered the food question” he continued “we have exactly two options. Number one would be video games which I have to say are serious fun, and number two would be a movie. And because you are the guest to my house, you get to decide” he finished.

Buffy seemed to really contemplate her decision before she finally answered the question.

“What about if we play video games first and afterwards finish the evening with a movie?” she asked a tiny little smile, almost unnoticeable graced her lips.

“Should be fine with me” Spike answered on his way out into the living room to retrieve the needed items. And so it was done like it was said. They spent the evening playing video games against each other which led to some serious arguments about fairness or unfairness of certain contestants but in the end both of them sat in front of the TV and watched a movie as planned.

When the credits finally rolled down the screen Spike got up from the big comfortable chair next to Buffy’s bed to switch off the TV. When he returned he found Buffy sound asleep lying in her bed and he had to smile. She looked so fragile when she laid there unprotected by her sharp tongue and Spike felt something tugging at his heart. He felt bad for what he or more his firm had done to her in the past and he promised himself to make it up to her somehow.

So he tucked her in a bit deeper in the huge comforter and she let out a small purring sound. Spike couldn’t stop himself from stroking the back of her head ever so slightly. He finally was able to tear his eyes from her and started to leave the room when suddenly he heard her whisper a ‘Thank you Spike’ in her sleep. He smiled to himself and entered the hall way leaving the door to her room a crack open.

“Better be safe than sorry” he thought before he entered his room also leaving the door open.


Upcoming: Chapter 7: What the…