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She hadn’t thought about what it would be like. There had always been such electricity between them. Hatred and danger and violence. Passion and power and... more violence. From wanting to kill her to wanting to keep her, her relationship with Spike had always been fierce and intense, unquenchable, uncontainable. They’d fought; they’d been mortal enemies. They’d bickered; they’d been mutual adversaries. They’d talked; they’d been friends, of a kind. They’d screwed until they brought the house down – quite literally. Then they’d fallen together in a desperate passion, born of sacrifice and redemption and forgiveness and the bonding of two tormented and equalized souls. A sincere and honest love.
But she’d never really thought about what it would be like. Not when it all became real.
To wake in the morning, (late morning, sometimes even afternoon, because they worked or patrolled until late at night, and didn’t go to bed until nearly dawn) and there was Spike – shirt off, looking like a pale god, a tray in his hands, toast and tea ready for her. “Marmalade, pet?” She had to admit, he could make a wicked cup of tea. Couldn’t make coffee for beans.
Piles of laundry, loads and loads of it black. Don’t dare wash any of it in hot, or it turns grey, and he pouts. Believe it or not, there are dress t-shirts, and home t-shirts, and only he can tell the difference between them. “This one has a stain.”
“It’s black.”
“It’s stained. Can’t you see the oil? I can’t wear this outside, it’s only for working out, or cleaning.”
“But it’s black.”
The Sex Pistols. She’d come home, and find her home pulsating with the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, sometimes loud enough to annoy the neighbors. “Do you have any favorite bands from this century?”
“Come on, love. This is a classic!”
“Can you turn it down?”
“Come here. Oh, come on, slayer. You know you wanna dance.”
The music extended into the car, too. She still didn’t really drive, so Spike usually had control of the radio. Classic rock stations were always on the pre-set, and Spike sang along. All. The. Bloody. Time. “Anybodeeey! Find meeee! Somebody tooooo... loove!” Queen wasn’t bad. She gave up arguing and just took to singing along. She also just accepted the dent in the ceiling where he kept pounding the roof at the crescendoes. The poet had a thing for great lyrics.
Blood in the fridge. Jars and bags and bottles of blood in the fridge. Pig... veal... where the hell does he get otter from? It’s not like it’s a frequent finder at the butcher’s. “Ew! Gross, Spike. The bag’s leaking!”
“I’ll clean it.”
“Yeah, but it’s dripped pig’s blood all over my endive!”
“Really? Mm. Not a bad salad dressing.”
“And I say again. Ew. Gross.”
“Hey, I don’t bitch about your blue cheese dressing.”
“Because that’s normal. This is blood.”
“Blood is normal. Blue cheese is a sodding crime against nature.”
He couldn’t really cook, either. He ate a lot of human food along with the blood, but his idea of making dinner was to order in Chinese or a pizza. It wouldn’t have been a problem, except Buffy couldn’t cook, either. She’d never realized how important it was to have someone in the household who was capable of simply making an omelette. They spent a lot of money they didn’t really have on pre-made foods.
He’d never change the thermostat. Ever. No matter what was going on outside. Vampires weren’t designed to care about ambient temperature – only the body heat of victims (or lovers) – so she’d come in and the place would be freezing, or broiling, and he’d be sitting there cool as a cucumber, completely baffled by her discomfort. “What? Come on, what’d I do?”
And he’d break things. Buffy had been known to do that, too – vampire and slayer strength were not conducive to nice things. Something would make him angry and a glass would shatter in his hand, or he’d sit down too heavily and a chair would snap. He did his best to fix things, but destruction, more than creation, was a vampire’s forte. They both knew that.
The way he’d get caught up the television, as if the characters could actually hear him. “Come on! You know better than that! Can’t you open your bleeding eyes?”
“Spike, I’m listening.”
“He’s not!”
“He’s fictional.”
Movies. She knew he liked campy horror flicks, and complained about the inaccuracy of period pieces, and they both joked about the impossibility of certain choreographed fights, but his careful deconstruction of death scenes was sometimes a little too disturbing. “Arterial damage usually doesn’t spurt that far.” Or, “Oh, please! You’d have to twist the neck lots further to actually break it! They expect us to buy that? She’d have a pulled muscle, not a severed spinal cord.” Or, “It would take longer for him to die. Why do they never add the muscle spasms?”
“Spike?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s supposed to be a movie. Please let it go.”
“Sorry, love. Get lost sometimes.”
“I know.”
He always looked so sad when he realized he’d gotten caught up.
Then the other times he’d get sad. She’d never know what would bring it up. Sometimes it was a movie. Sometimes just something she’d say, or the way the light would catch on something. Sometimes a child would laugh outside, or a dog would bark, or a car would rev its engine, and melancholy would cloud his features. What he was remembering, she very rarely asked. When she did, she regretted it. “There was this girl, in Milan,” or, “This family, just after I was turned.” He almost never gave more detail than that, but she could tell he was staring at the horror in his head. She couldn’t touch him until it passed. She couldn’t comfort him through the regret. She couldn’t make the dark memory into something pleasant, her soft warm hands soothing it away. All that did was poison her touch – they’d both realized that early on. Distraction was all that worked, not sympathy.
Sometimes, the only thing that worked was for him to go away. He’d vanish for hours, and come back quiet, and often quite drunk.
Also the sheer amount of money spent on booze. “Really? How much bourbon do you need?”
“More than you do, if I’m actually going to feel it.”
“How much does it take to get a vampire buzzed?”
“A vampire, I have no idea. This vampire, a fifth might do it. Maybe.”
She couldn’t tell him he drank too much. It wasn’t like it was going to destroy his liver or stop his heart. And sometimes, he really did need it. But it cost so damn much.
So did his cigarettes. “Do you really need those?”
“Buffy, I’ve been smoking for eighty-seven years. I’m not going to stop now.”
“Yeah, but it’s annoying. And expensive. And–”
“And it takes the edge off the blood-lust.”
She never said another word about it.
But getting out of the shower, he’d have a towel ready for her. He’d put it in the dryer, just to fluff it up and make it warm. It would make her hum with pleasure as he caught her up, wrapping her warmly, his lips on her throat. Then he’d set her up and brush her hair dry, stroke after stroke after stroke, not a chore, but a privilege.
And she’d find little flowers in surprising places – as a place holder in the book she was reading, or in the fridge on a diet soda, or on a pile of her folded laundry.
And when she pulled a muscle, or had gotten a bruise, he’d rub her shoulders, or make a compress of witch hazel, or just hold her, easing the pain in whatever way he could. He’d rub her feet while they were watching tv, or take her hand as they were walking down the street, or hug her from behind as she was washing dishes, just a moment, a squeeze, a kiss on the shoulder as he walked past, and then it would be done.
The sound of his voice, surprising sometimes, as he folded laundry, or answered the phone, just hearing him from the other room. The masculine tones, the quaint accent, the deep hum of him as part of the household. Every once in a while, it gave her shivers – in a very good way.
And late at night, even when they were too tired to make love, the cool certainty of his arms as he pulled her close. Sometimes begging her to keep him warm, the tenderness of his fingers as he caressed her hair, her shoulder, the gentle wonder of his lips just brushing her forehead. The clean musculature of his chest under her hot fingertips. The gentle purr of his whisper. “Goodnight, love.”
In amongst all the violence and all the passion and even all the love, she’d never thought about what it would be like. It was strange, and silly, and dark, and awkward, and tender, and very real. It wasn’t anything she’d ever considered until it was actually happening.
And she never wanted it to end.