The Good Fairy – Chapter 1

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Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Timeline: Spike and Buffy are living together in Rome, Spike having ditched L.A. as soon as he emerged corporeal from the big, sparkly gew-gaw.
Summary: Big scary baby!fic, be warned.
Warnings: See summary.
A/N:Thanks to the incomparable beanbeans  for much appreciated encouragement and now betaing! I started a fic of the same title and have rather expanded on it. My apologies to folks who have seen bits and chunks of it before.

The Good Fairy – Chapter 1

Spike shifted into a more comfortable position against the stone, still a little warm from the morning sun. Not so warm that any human would notice, but he did. It felt like a year, not just six months, since he’d stood here in just this spot. He’d been fresh from L.A. then too, waiting for Buffy to come home so he could lighten the Sunnydale death toll for her a little, and passing the time by lowering the tone of the neighborhood and practicing his exit line.

He peered up the street. What had it been?

“Can’t stay, pet. Places to go.”

It was just as well he’d never got to use it. He was starting to think it was all a crock, instead of just the half a crock he’d known it for then. Anyway, it had been harder than he’d thought, settling in to life number three (or four or five). Turned out, once you stopped moving, things caught up with you, and he was glad now that he’d come to rest where there were people that knew him. Some of ’em that he’d swear liked him a bit.

Buffy.

Her faith in him, in them-it had seemed like an airy, off-hand kind of thing at first, spun of sex and nostalgia, with maybe a nice fringe of pity. He’d tried to brush it off, and promptly bruised his knuckles on Buffy’s iron-clad faith in herself. That confidence, and the living warmth of her in their bed, had offset more dark moments than he was ever going to admit to.

Spike shifted again, and looked up the street. Again. It was stupid waiting out here like this. He fingered the keys in his pocket. She wouldn’t remember, and even if she did remember, it was stupid. If anything, she’d rather he waited for her in bed.

He was about to put that plan into action when he heard her round the corner. Almost immediately her pace quickened; he was caught. Damn hair, he should let himself out as a beacon… a beacon that was grinning like an idiot. God he’d missed her.

“You’re back!” Smiling, Buffy took the steps with a few athletic strides, her big, black bag sliding off her arm, and then she was against him, cupping his face in her warm hands.

He closed his arms around her hard and breathed her in as she kissed him. The longer he’d been gone, the more it seemed like this life couldn’t possibly be real, but here she was, as solid as the stone she was pressing him into but wonderfully alive. Her heart pounded under the hand he splayed between her shoulder blades, and her excited flush brought a bouquet to his nose. He’d grown edgy as the scent of her and home had begun to fade from his clothes, now he found himself moving his whole body against her in a slow rub.

She tipped her head back and laughed, rubbing back. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

He rumbled some sort of affirmative, dipping his head to kiss and lap his way down the side of her throat. She was sweaty from work. He knew just how to help her take care of that. He slid the heel of his hand down her spine until it caught in the hollow right above her hips. He flexed all of his fingers hard just as his mouth reached the place where her neck met her shoulder. He bit down. Buffy gasped and went loose against him in a way that made him anything but soft. Then she groaned and her head fell forward against his shoulder. She turned her head and whispered something against his neck; it sounded like…

“Dawn will be home any minute.” She took a deep, unsteady breath and pushed back in his embrace with an apologetic smile. He took a deep breath of his own and smiled back.

“So, did you, uh, just get in?” A line formed between her brows. “Why are you standing out here?”

“I-” He looked down into her expectant, oblivious, rather flushed face. “It’s-” Stupid. New plan, Spike. Think.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He asked politely.

Buffy’s eyes went wide. She blinked.

“I don’t know-what-” What she ‘didn’t know’ soon had her wriggling with the effort to look him in the eye.

He raised an eyebrow.

She closed her eyes briefly in defeat. “All I did was point out that you’d done your suicide mission for the year. That’s all.” Her expression darkened. “He swore he wouldn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, well, give the broody Boy Scout a merit badge, but that pet empath of his kept calling me Private Ryan when he wasn’t calling me some-frothy confection or other, and you should have seen the nancy assignment they gave me!”

All traces of remorse, and there hadn’t been much, vanished from Buffy’s expression at the first hint of justifiable outrage in his tone. It seemed her brain misinterpreted it as whinging, a sorry affliction that he strove to overlook. She ran a gentle thumb over what was left of his shiner and raised an eyebrow.

He gave her a dirty look. “I didn’t lay so much as a finger.” If Gunn hadn’t muttered a lemon meringue addendum to one of Lorne’s sugary pet names, he wouldn’t have seen any action at all hardly. He should probably send the man a fruit basket.

“Hey Spike, looks like you’re still in one piece.”

“Hey Dawn.”

Dawn climbed the steps, stopped in front of the door and frowned at them while she fished her keys out of her purse. “Are you guys fighting already?”

“No!” Buffy said, and then ruined it by glancing up at him as though she weren’t quite sure. He gave her his best smirk.

“It’s really not fair. I mean, the PDAs or the fighting would be bad enough, but with you guys it’s always like-” Dawn scrunched up her face, “both at the same time.”

“Dawn, we’re not fighting. Just because Spike and I don’t always agree-” He choked, and Buffy gave him a clandestine poke in the ribs, and then a thump for good measure.

Content with this minor mayhem, he looked over at Dawn, tuning out the rest of Buffy’s speech with the ease of long practice. A wave of fondness came over him. He’d missed her too, his little nest of vipers. Dawn had been happy enough to see him right at first, but her attitude had taken a decided shift when she’d discovered that Buffy had moved him in, and not into the basement either. She hadn’t said a word, at least not to him, but her eyes made it clear that she knew where he slept. He wondered, what would she think if she knew he found that comforting.

Dawn glanced over at him, arms folded, the very picture of teenage skepticism. She caught his eye and as he watched, her expression shifted just a little, just for a moment. He went still, his attention caught. The little minx. He might have a chat with her later about winding Buffy up like that.

Just at that moment though, he felt like he’d been given a gift. Not taking his eyes off his new partner in crime, he leaned down and snagged the bags with his fingers. On his way up he snaked an arm under Buffy’s ass, picking her up mid-speech. Ignoring her hissed, ‘Spike!’ and assorted blows, he shifted her onto the crook of his arm like a sack of groceries.

Dawn looked away, biting her lips.

Keeping his face deadpan, he gestured toward the door with his head.

“After you.”

 

Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/143600.html

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