The roses and the ring

Buffy twirled the ring uncomfortably between her fingers as she patrolled. Something would have to be done about it, she wasn't sure what, but something. And soon. She couldn't just keep the ring without a good reason. Her friends would start to think - Spike would start to think, and she couldn't have that. Could she?

She sighed as she trudged through the wet grass, the hems of her jeans already sodden. She needed to get home and change. And decide what to do about Spike's ring. And Riley.

Riley was a nice guy after all. Maybe not the kind of guy who'd ever set the world on fire, but still - he was a nice, steady, safe guy that she felt she could have a nice, steady, safe relationship with; and he was definitely interested in her. And at least he wasn't a vampire. Her mind drifted first to Angel, then to Spike. She grimaced; it seemed as though she was collecting rings given to her by vampires - Angel's ring was still in its box in her bedside table.

She headed home. It was a quiet night, she was tired, she needed a shower and a hot drink. She shivered slightly in the chill breeze. Yes, it was time to head home.

She sighed as she caught sight of the bleached-blond terror smoking nonchalantly outside her house. What the hell was he doing there, anyway? It wasn't as if he actually cared about her after all. He'd been the first to pounce on the excuse of the spell for all his chocolates-and-roses, marry-me-and-make-me-happy crap. She scowled, and made as if to walk past without acknowledging him.

"Slayer". The tone was quiet, even, and unignorable.

"What?" she snapped.

“Just passing the time of day,” he said mildly.

It irritated her even further. “Whatever”. She really didn’t want to deal with him right now.

He noticed her fiddling with something in her pocket, and grinned. “’What has it got in its pocketses?’” he quipped.

She glared. “None of your damn business,” she said hotly, knowing it wasn’t true. It was his ring, after all. He’d given it to her as an engagement ring, and now that was over... well, she should give it back. She couldn’t quite work out what was holding her back from doing it. She turned away from him, towards the door.

“Buffy,” he said, voice softening, “why are you so mad at me? I may be a vampire, but I can’t fight against magic any more than you can. Why are you lashing me for it? Lashing yourself for it?”

She tossed her head up defiantly. “I’m not.”

“Then why are you mad at me?” he persisted.

Because I hate you, she should have answered, she knew that. But the same thing that stopped her from returning his ring stopped her from saying it. She couldn’t think of anything to say that would answer his question well enough for him to drop the subject. “Do I have to have a reason?”

“Well, yeah. You’re more pissed off than you usually are, and that’s the only thing that’s happened different as far as I can see.”

Don’t flatter yourself, she wanted to say. She cursed herself that she couldn’t. Finally she sighed. “Because I seemed to have everything I ever wanted - and it was taken away from me. It was all a lie. It didn’t mean anything. All the pretty lines, the roses, the ring...” she held it out on the palm of her hand. “it meant nothing, do you understand? Everything I ever wanted, and it meant nothing. How do you expect me to feel?” Her eyes were burning with fury and hurt.

He wished he could pull her into his arms and make it all better. But he really didn’t want to get staked. “What makes you think I don’t feel like that, too? To have a wonderful girl loving me, wanting to marry me - me, of all people - to have someone to hold, to shower with gifts and treat like a princess, someone that seems to make the sun shine. And then, poof, all gone, and she hates me again, and it was never real, something that had meant so much, so much. All gone.” His voice had acquired a bitter note. “It’s not easy for me either, you know.”

It hadn’t occurred to her that he might feel something similar. “I don’t hate you,” she said sadly. “I just hate - that it ended. That it’s no more than a memory. I hate that I have to go through life knowing what it was like, and not finding it with anyone else - because how can real life compete with magic?” Almost under her breath, she murmured, “it wasn’t even like that with Angel.”

It tore at his heart that she felt like that - that she was hurting so much inside. Unable to stop himself, he reached a hand out, passing it gently over her gold hair. “I don’t hate you, either,” he whispered, just loud enough for her to hear it. “I do care, Buffy. It hurts me that you’re hurting.”

She let herself be eased into his arms, wanting to cry. Being there felt so right, even now, even though the spell was over, and Willow assured her there were no residual feelings. So where did these feelings come from, then? From that lonely, empty place deep inside her where she was utterly the Slayer, and couldn’t let anyone close to her? Something about Spike touched her coldness, her loneliness, her emptiness, and warmed her, cheered her, soothed her. She wriggled her head into the crook of his shoulder and neck. ‘If only this could be real,’ she thought. ‘If only he could care the way I do.’

He sighed. “I wish I could make it all better.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No. I mean it. I...” ‘love you,’ he thought to himself, stopping the words before they popped out. “I do care. I wish you weren’t hurting like this. I wish we could go back to being the way we were. We were happy... so happy. I’ve never been that happy before.”

“Yeah... me too.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Huh?” She squinted up at him.

“Well,” he stammered, wondering if he’d gone too far, “we both felt we had something good, we’re both upset at losing it, so why not...?”

“It was just a spell.”

“Was it?” he held her eyes with his own. “Then why do I still feel this way?”

“But - you said -”

“Yeah, well, I panicked. Blokes do that, you know. Especially when their girl’s little whelp-friend looks as though he’s thinking of sharp pointy wooden objects to plunge through their heart.”

She considered this. It was true; Xander hadn’t been exactly welcoming of the idea.

“I do care about you Buffy,” he said softly, the sincerity in his voice supporting the statement. “A lot. More than you know.”

“Why, though? What have I ever done...?”

He smiled. “I saw a softer side to you under the spell. It helped me understand the toughness - what it’s protecting. I got under your guard, and you let me right into your heart and soul. And what I found there shone like the sun, untarnished by all the kills you’ve made, the horror and violence you’ve seen and been through. I finally saw you for who you truly are. And I loved you for it.”

“Loved? In the past tense.” She said baldly.

“That was when I first loved you,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t any more.”

“Well, do you?”

He bit back his exasperation. “’S what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Oh. Oh, right.” The idea wasn’t actually as appalling as she thought it would be. In fact, some fluffy little warm feelings seemed to be tickling their way through her like pink feathered fairy wings. She wondered where the thought about pink feathered fairy wings had come from, more horrified at the weirdness of her mind than Spike’s declaration of love for her.

“What’s so funny?”

“Pink feathered fairy wings.”

His mouth twitched as he tried desperately to keep a straight face. “Been a long day?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah.” She suddenly realised. “Oh my God! Did I just say that out loud?”

“Say what? About the pink feathered fairy wings?”

She groaned, embarrassed. It was true; she was so tired her mind wasn’t really functioning. And she really hadn’t intended to let that slip. “Maybe I should go to bed. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you round.”

“You haven’t told me how you feel,” he chastised gently, not letting her go.

She yawned. “Tha’s cos I don’t know. Night, Spike.” She shook him off gently and stumbled inside. Man, was she tired. Exhausted, in fact. She’d let herself relax into Spike, and the adrenaline had stopped a while. She crawled gratefully into bed, and slept till the sun was high in the sky.

part 2

Buffy woke up with a groan. Her conversation with Spike the previous night came crashing around her like a tidal wave, making her feel monumentally stupid and small. She'd encouraged him, without intending to, and without figuring out what she really felt about him, about Riley... about anything, really.

But it had felt so right, being there in his arms, hearing him say that he cared, that he loved her, feeling the way he held her so gently, tenderly. So, yeah, okay, he cared. But did she? Enough to date him? Would she go that far... again? After Angel... could she trust anyone enough, after that, let alone another vampire... especially one of the same line? She trembled. Could she even trust Riley? She hardly knew him, after all. He might have some dark, hidden secret that would freak her out completely when she found out. At least with Spike she knew he was a vampire, had no soul, had tried to kill her and her friends... she realised it wasn't looking good for him as far as her argument was concerned.

But that brought her back to the fact that - well, there was something there. She wasn't sure what, exactly. Chemistry, certainly. He was good-looking after all; she noticed that the first time she laid eyes on him, and that had always freaked her out a tiny bit. A small smile escaped her as she remembered Willow's spell, and her engagement to him... damn, he was hot. In a non-body-temperature kinda way, obviously... but still, damn sexy. Way sexier and cuter than Riley. Just... not as safe.

She sighed. Was safe what she really wanted? She'd always dreamed of the white picket fence, but was that what she really wanted? And as the Slayer - was she ever going to get it, anyway? There was a reality check for her. Why keep pretending she was normal, trying to have a normal life, when she was anything but?

In the moment she realised it, Buffy grew up a little. Sadly, she looked at her girlish dreams, and realised she was unlikely to live long enough to attain any of them.

So why not live for the moment - do what made her feel good, made her happy? She toyed with the thought. What really made her happy? What made her feel good?

She chewed her lip, frowning in thought. Being in Spike's arms last night, just being held - that made her feel good. Actually, patrolling made her feel pretty good, too. And - the banter between her and Spike, trading jibe for jibe, that was - well, it turned kinda flirty sometimes, and, though she'd never dared to admit it before, even to herself, that made her feel ever so slightly buzzed. Well, fighting him had always got her like that, truth be told. He was matched evenly to her in strength, and wasn't afraid of using that strength.

She snorted. Angel had treated her like some kind of china doll that might break if not handled with kid gloves. Spike had never done that - mostly because he was usually trying to kill her. Well, not so much now, but he used to. Even now, though, he didn't treat her like some fragile butterfly. He treated her like - like - well, like a Slayer. As his equal.

She lifted her head, surprised at the thought. It was true, though. Spike treated her as his equal, with a certain amount of well-hidden respect behind the bickering and insults. He knew what she was capable of; after all, he was the only vampire known to have killed two slayers, and he'd come close to making her his third on more than one occasion.

In a sneaky sort of way, she respected that in him, too. Okay, so he'd been chipped and could no longer hurt humans, but he had been quite a threat in the past - more so even than the Master, in some ways. She shivered, remembering how scared she'd once been of him. Part of that, she knew, was because of her attraction to him - the fact that fantasies involving throwing him to the ground didn't usually end up with him getting staked. Far from it.

Okay, so there was sexual, physical attraction, and lots of it. But, she asked herself, could she date him? What about other stuff she wanted from a relationship? Could he offer her support, companionship, any real feeling other than lust?

She knew there was only really one way to find out. It wasn't an entirely comforting thought. He said he loved her, and she wanted to believe it - but was he really capable of it? Okay, so he'd loved Dru. He'd been gentle with her, kind, tender. He'd taken care of her when she'd been ill, he'd been completely faithful to her till she upped and left him for a gross, ugly demon covered in slime, the idiotic, crazy vampire that she was... Buffy shook her head to refocus her mind.

Okay, so he could do the kind and gentle thing. That was a good start. Of course, her friends would freak out completely at the thought of her going out with another vampire, especially Spike. They all hated him. Well, he had tried to kill them, and he'd made their lives hell in the past - he was still a bit of a pain now, sometimes, with his snarky comments and jibes. But he seemed to offer all the things she really wanted from a guy. He could match her in strength, but be gentle and tender when necessary. He loyaloyal and faithful, good to the woman in his life. He was also hot, and an extremely good kisser. They hadn't done anything else, but she wouldn't mind finding out if he was as good at other things. She guessed he probably had plenty of experience after over a hundred years as a vampire. She smiled.

She thought of Riley. She realised how dull the prospect of going out with him was. Safe, yes, but nothing earth-shattering. She wanted earth-shattering before she died, and Riley simply wasn't the guy to give her that. Simple as that. Riley wasn't man enough for her.

What she had to do had suddenly become clear.

Part 3

"Not the only technique I'm good at," he smirked, recovering quickly, tongue curling behind his teeth. "Want me to show you?"

She tossed her hair back. "Maybe. If you show me where you're living now."

"You want to know where I live?"

"Yeah... gotta keep an eye on you, y'know. Make sure you're not doing something... bad."

"Well - guess you'd better come with meen."en."

He made an extravagant gesture at the door of his crypt. Buffy stepped inside; a lamp, slightly ragged round the edges, lit it. "You have electricity, then?

"Oh, yes. All mod cons," he grinned. "I need the leccie for my TV and microwave and fridge. Might as well use it fightighting as well."

"I guess." She shrugged off her coat. It was surprisingly warm. Or was it just her body temperature playing tricks on her?

He eyed her appreciatively. "Drink?"

"I don't drink blood," she replied sweetly.

"I have other drinks. Scotch, brandy, wine... what takes your fancy?"

You do, she thought once she'd grasped his meaning, but replied, "a glass of wine, then." It seemed like the least likely option to get her drunk, she thought, watching him open the bottle with ease, pouring her a large glass of the ruby-red liquid.

"So... what brings you here, then?" he asked carefully, handing her the glass. "Just paying a neighbourly visit?"

She ignored the hint of snideness in his voice. She didn't want to fight tonight. Instead, she batted her eyelids. "Of course... why else would I come by your crypt?"

A slow smile spread over his face. "Well, you never know. You might have been intending to stake me."

"Was kinda hoping that you'd be doing all the staking tonight, Spike," she said huskily.

It was all he could do to stop himself from whisking her off to his bed and shagging her senseless. "Yeah?"

She licked her lips sensuously. "Yeah."

He took the glass from her hands and set it down on the table. "Well... let's see what we can do about that, then..." he murmured, brushing his lips against hers. She shivered in response, and looked up surprised when he lifted his head again. "Cold?"

Well, there was a surprise - she hadn't expected him to ask. "uh, no, no..." then she wondered if saying yes would end up in greater comfort. Like, in bed. "Well... a little, maybe," she fibbed.

He smiled, took her hand, and drew her towards the bed. "Best get you warmed up then, hadn't we?"

She wondered which of them was actually seducing the other. She'd come here with every intention of seducing Spike, but he seemed equally intent on seducing her. Well, that suited her down to the ground. She hopped into thd, pd, pulling the covers over her with a saucy smile at Spike as he slid into bed beside her.

"Now... let's get you all tucked in," he murmured, reaching around her to tuck covers in, so she was cocooned in his arms. "Warmer?"

"Yeah... a bit. Thanks."

"Now... where were we...?"

She reached up to pull his head down for a kiss. "About here, I think," she murmured against his mouth.

"Yeah... think you're right." He nibbled gently on her lower lip, before sucking it gently, and repeating the action on the other lip, pleased when she responded in kind, flicking her tongue out to touch his lips. He tightened his arms around her as she slid her tongue into his mouth, and began to kiss her with more fervour and passion, one hand buried in her hair.

She arched against him, rifling her hand through his hair, amazed at its softness. The other hand strayed under his t-shirt, across the muscular back and shoulders, letting passion guide her. She gasped as she felt his free hand caressing her breast through the fabric of her dress, and decided that at least one of them was wearing way too much. Before he had a chance to register what she was doing, she broke the kiss, and wrenched her dress over her head, positioning his hand back on her breast.

He rolled on top of her, and she could feel how aroused he was, rubbing against her as he kissed and teased her. She wrapped her legs around his to intensify the feeling of him rubbing against her, feel him closer to her. "God... Spike... yeah..." she managed to gasp, shocked at how turned on she was when he growled and reared up, pressing even further, harder against her, as he pulled his t-shirt off, and ripped her bra away.

"Much better," he rasped, ducking his head to take one already-hard nipple into his mouth and suckle it, growling in pleasure as he felt Buffy's hips almost jump off the bed, and turning his attention to the other breast, before kissing all the way down to her panties. His eyes darkened as he slid them slowly off her silky-smooth legs, smelling her arousal. He couldn't help but rove a finger through the curls between her legs, seeing her face contort with pleasure.

"Oh - God - yeah - that feels - so good..."

"Yeah? How does this feel, then?" he asked, sliding a finger into her, slowly and deeply.

"Ng... yeah, good..."

"This?" he asked, adding another finger, reaching deep into her to find her g-spot.

"Yes! Yes, yes, there! Yeah, baby, yeah, feels good..."

"More?"

"God, yeah, more..."

He smirked, teasing her. "Maybe later."

"Huh?" He dipped his head between her legs and licked and suckled, grinning as she grabbed his head, holding his head firmly in place until her entire body was jerking into his touch. "Yeah... fuck, yeah, Spike... yeah... oh, God, Yes!"

He smirked, moving back up the bed, as she lay there, eyes closed, breathing shallow, a flush covering her entire body. "Guessing you liked that, then?" he teased.

Breathless, she just managed to nod, rather than anything more coherent.

"Still want more?" he whispered in her ear, the words tickling and making her squirm against him.

"Yeah."

"Guess I'm over-dressed, then." He slid his jeans off, and threw them onto the floor, turning back to the slightly limp body lying beside him. "Now we're equal." He kissed her again, touching her wherever he could, hardly daring to believe it was any more than a dream.

She wrapped herself around him as much as possible, rubbing her entire body against his. "I wanna feel you inside me," she whispered.

He almost came there and then. When the hell had the Slayer loosened up enough to come to his bed, and ask to be fucked? He decided it wasn't the time to be asking questions, and sucked gently on her earlobe. "Sure?"

"Yeah." She positioned herself ready, using her legs to pull him closer, until she could feel him pushing into her, deeper and deeper. Her eyes closed in pleasure. "Yeah... oh, baby, that feels so good..." 'so big', she added mentally.

"Yeah... Buffy... so good, so tight... God, Buffy..." he panted, eyes flashing as he thrust into her. "God, you feel so good, taste so good..." he caught her lips with his own as she thrust upwards to meet each stroke. "Made for me," he murmured ascamecame, feeling her quivering around against him, her body tensing completely, then going completely limp in his arms the moment after.

He was surprised she hadn't complained about the slip he'd made, but she simply lay there in his arms, her head on his chest, breaths coming in shallow gasps. He dropped a gentle kiss on the top of her head, stroking her hair with all the tenderness in the world. "You okay?"

He felt her mouth press against his chest briefly as she nodded, holding tighter onto him. He relaxed, lying back down against the pillows, pulling up the covers. He felt her smile against his chest, her eyelids flutter drowsily. She snuggled closer.

He realised he'd never loved anyone as much as her. Not even Dru. He wrapped his arms tighternd hnd her, hoping he'd be able to do this again, the sooner the better. It felt amazing just to be holding her in his arms. "Love you," he whispered.

She lifted her head to look at him, amused at the shocked look in his eyes, realising that he'd thought she'd been asleep. She toyed with the idea of saying she loved him, too, but thought that, maybe, that was a bit too soon - for her, anyway. "So... does that mean you're gonna be my boyfriend?"

He grinned, rolling on top of her and kissing her thoroughly. "You just try and stop me," he chuckled.

~The End~