Pitching Woo

She didn’t really care if she invaded his personal space.  Well, not much, she did a bit--trying to be respectful. But when she had awoken on the sofa some hours later head on a pillow quilt tucked around but sans Spike.  She got up bleary eyed and like a little girl gone looking for a drink of water she found his bedroom, the door was partway open and she heard his voice saying from far away--

“Ssctch.  Now, now Buffy luv, go on back to sleep--“

She nodded assent, yes she was tired...and walked sleepily to his bed, pulled up his covers and without a word, tucked herself next to his chest and fell promptly asleep.

Something happens when a man a woman sleep together.  When you’re asleep, the body speaks a sorta ‘truth.’  The etheric body reaches out to protect and assess the information coming in from the world, and when sleeping with someone, the energy patterns interlock and hold hands like.

Well, that’s the science but in fact when Spike woke he felt himself bonded back to Buffy.

Helplessly he sniffed her hair just short of nuzzling her neck.

Impossible woman.  Simply impossible and now impassable.

When she left him again, he might die. 

Too much of his life force was now reinvested with hers, and now hooked as he was with the smooth cushion of her loving aura...

He shook his head.  Never say never...but being with her now in whatever way this would be; might be it.  His last burst of speed in this human race.

He smoothed her hair, gentle not to wake her--and saw the single forefinger and thumb remaining on his right hand.

He had forgotten. Somewhere in the night--she had made him feel so good, just to be--he had forgotten.

*

He didn’t know he had fallen back asleep until he woke up.  Of course he knew right away that she was gone.  That little vacant feeling, a small minus sign and there was a ping in his heart at the subtraction and he thought.

“I’m in trouble.”

It disturbed him, more than a little at the thought of her studying him while he slept, as he knew she must have.  He would have.  The perfect opportunity to assess the damage without being accused of staring.

She had left the bed...but she was still here.  That soft feeling was in the air. The cushion of her honey self.  Her true nature.  The truth was people loved her because she was so full of love.

He would never forget how she had taken him in newly ensouled and dangerous indeed...and took care of him.  Maybe it was an investment in a soldier, but he liked to think it was because she was at heart...kind.

He had omitted that little factoid from his harangue and it egged at him now.   

And now she was cooking something?

What had he in the flat that you could cook?

He vaguely remembered something about catsup and beer...but that can’t be right...that couldn’t smell like...

*

He leaned against the doorjamb and studied her.  As his gaze swept over her body he felt that softness begin somewhere deep inside whenever he saw her. 

She had her hair pulled back in a high ponytail and had donned one of his white t shirts and those were definitely his sweat pants.  She floated in the clothes a bit but still her nipples found the time to rub up against the fabric of the ‘t’ until they looked right perky undercover of cloth.

He suddenly remembered Dawn’s Scott and stifled a choking laugh.  Ah that’s right--it’s not just any breasts...it’s her breasts, the twin peaks of your beloved.   

She looked around at him and smiled (even while she choked inside it was terrible it really was--the face, the partially melted face and destroyed body meant...pain...to see him was to see pain.) She turned back to her task taking in a deep breath and blinking her eyes in order to clear them before he saw.

“Buffy, what are you doing?”

“Kippers.  Frying little fishies...yucch really, but I read in a magazine, it’s supposed to make all Englanders go all weak knee’d or something.  Fish in the morning.  Really.  Must have something to do with running around and around on a small island surrounded by the sea.  Makes you a little stir crazy, fish in the morning, fish for tea, fish, fish, fish...poor fishies...”

“Uh yup...”  He couldn’t help but smile.  “I mean, what are you doing?”

“Aren’t you hungry?  I heard your stomach growling all night.”

“I’m very hungry; won’t deny it and where did this all come from by the way.”

“When I ordered the food last night, that Italian place, I asked if there was a store..:

“A grocer’s...”

“Yeah, that delivered and here you are.”

Spike picked up a bill and studied the return address...”oh yeah...right.  You mind this bloke Buffy...he’s got a thing for American birds.”

“Don’t talk, butter scones...” She instructed.

He said nothing but got a tub of butter from the fridge and took it to the counter and set up shop to butter toasted bread bits.

“What are you doing Buffy?”  He asked with his back to her as he buttered bread.

She turned to look at him.  Looked at the strong clean lines of his back sweeping down to his round firm backside. 

Spike.

Sometimes, it just struck her, like right now...here...here he was... this was his back...back of Spike...she felt a warm glow grow in her heart that she felt flow to him.  She felt him find it, pick up the thread dangled but instead of grabbing it like a lifeline he turned to stare her down with almost tears in his eyes.

A silent but insistent:  ‘Well!’

She spoke softly. “I’m making breakfast Spike, You’re gonna eat till you’re not hungry anymore and while you do we sit and talk and eat and talk...it’s a bonding thing.”

“What you want to know?”

“Well...for starters...seeing as how I’m going to find you a replacement amulet...you gotta tell me everything you know about this one.  Side effects...unusual properties...how it works all that stuff...”

“Already told you...don’t want your help, or your mates--“

“NO!”  Buffy stepped up close to him her voice low but with a sense of deep emotional urgency in it. “No, you said, I could...you said I could help...you already said...” 

She used the argument of a child, but children use this argument for good reason. It contains the power of spoken word...of oath and all from the innate wisdom that words are binding.

“You said...it was o.k....that I could help...that I could find you an even better one...you said...and...and your word is good Spike.  Your word has always been good.”

He looked into her eyes and oh this is what this was about then.  guilt.

He sighed.  Alright. Truth was, he was playing it down...but he was more than a little worried about loosing the amulet.  It meant loss of freedom of course...of being in the world...but also there was this issue of being this hungry.  Of having to combust this much food to have energy.  It was a caution.  He needed to talk to Ted Rainwater.

“Alright Buffy.  O.K.”

She turned back to the skillets and with a spatula, started to remove the fish from the pan.  She took the kippers out of the frying pan, draining them on a paper towel--refusing the traditional English way via news paper with the extra special treat of blood poisoning--and she felt his eyes on her...of course she did--didn’t she know the pressure of his look trying to find his way through something?

Through clothes for instance to the nakedy nude skin underneath.  Oh yeah she remembered that look.

He spoke.

“You know you’re confusing me right?  I don’t have to say that, cuz you already know, right?”

“You’re watching me.”

“You’re in my kitchen.”

“You’re staring at me.”

“You have a supreme arse.”

“I...I work out.”

“Uh huh.”

She heard him take a breath and move around for a different view.

“There’s a beautiful woman making food in my kitchen after sleeping in my bed almost all night.  And I want to know what’s this all about Buffy?”

“Does it have to be about something?”

“OH YES, oh yes it really does.  Last time you said anything remotely like that, I got my heart ripped out and diced for good measure.  Oh yes I think we should be very clear on that, you should be very clear with me.”

She paused and went inside herself to see what there is and how to possibly say it.

“I...I’m glad you’re not dead...”

“So you’ve said...” He answered softly.

“I’m going to replace the amulet...”

“O.K.  Help me fix what you broke--“

“--I am.”

“You’re gonna fix what you broke by cooking food and sleeping in my bed?”

If one considered hearts as a broken thing too then...yeah...that sounded...just about right.

“I...I can try...”  She breathed without looking at him.

Pause.

“Buffy...what if I was to tell you...it’s all O.K.  Everything is as O.K. as it’s gonna get and there is certainly nothing you owe me, nothing whatsoever...and that by being here, you may be hurting me more than helping.”

Beat.

“You...you want me to leave?”

“I want you to tell me what you’re feeling.”

“It makes me sick to think of you going through all that...pain...alone--“

“--T’wasn’t alone”

“I would have dropped everything to come help you.”

Silence.

“I would have.”  She repeated simply.

Spike hung his head and spoke softly:  “Buffy...you keep telling me what you’re thinking...not what you’re feeling...what do you want?”

She wiped her hands a towel and began as best she could.

“It feels good to be near you...It calms me down.  I feel better...”

“So you’re here cuz it makes you feel good.”

“I...yes and...”

“And?”

“And I don’t want you to be alone...”

“What do you feel...what do you want Buffy for you?”  His voice was soft but relentless as moving water.

She swallowed, she was going in...

“I want to be with you...”

They regarded each other in silence.  In peace.

“Well, all right then...”

That social task completed (only to raise more questions but Spike could table them for now. Buffy could only bear the burden of a few questions at a time and there was still the BIG one.  The Angel one.  But she was here wasn’t she?  Here and not wherever he was and surely that had to mean something,) Spike reasoned.

Anyway Buffy was talking again.

“I mean, I want to help you...I will replace the amulet--“

“--Well that’s a relief...damn irresponsible, that...”

“Yeah.”

Spike looked at the food.

“Almost ready? Oh no you don’t--don’t toss that grease, oh no...see we fry the eggs in that lot.”

“Ew.”

“Not ew, ah!”

“Since when are you the culinary queen of England...”

“Never...never...and neither are you...lets face it you and me cooking is like the blind leading the blind...so to speak...no I discovered this by accident...”

“Kind of like America.”

“Oh yeah definitely a land mass.”

He had heated up the oil and it started to sizzle and pop.

“Be careful...” Buffy warned “Don’t burn yourself...”

Spike just turned and looked.

“uh...more?”  And she grew quiet.  Hard knot in her chest--quick, duck and cover; she stepped over to arrange the toasted bread on a plate.

Spike cracked eggs and dropped them one by one into the sizzling pan.

Plop. spat.  Plop.  Sizzle spat, spat, spat...

“It’s just killing you seeing me this close to an open flame isn’t it?

“hmm...”

“Just about want to ‘rest me to the ground and roll me about in a fireproof blanket designed by NASA, don’t you?”

“Just about.”

“Buffy.”

“Don’t you Buffy me.  You wanted my feelings to come out well here they come.  Blaaagh!  Just don’t you dare oversimplify my life or how to deal with the world with a simile or metaphor or whatever about what’s done is done or...or burning your boats.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that one...but it’ll do.”

She walked to him to where he stood at the stove and leaned her head against his back and he sighed, just breathed her in and sighed.

From where she stood behind him, she wove her arms around his waist and made two extra human puppet arms for him and said

“Here let me fix that..”

And she played with the buttons on his shirt as if she was tidying him up for the day.

His laugh was pure and fine and it sent a thrill through ear drums, to brain, to body, to soul...

She kissed his back; just one warm sweet kiss that rippled his flesh and hers.

It felt good.  It felt really good to just be in the same room with each other.

Love and touch was the best, bestest healer and how cliché but it clinched the deal. 

With one simple act of kindness; and he would never say it, not now not ever but from inside he thought it; he prayed this:

please stay, please stay, please stay...     

For me, for you, for ever.      

*