Just a short ficlet from me today. I took a bit of a risk with the decidedly unsexy subject matter; I hope you like it anyway. :)
Bed Wrinkles In Time
By: caia
Rating: PG
Setting: 2030
Genre: Humor/Schmoop
Warnings: mentions of medical stuff, but nothing graphic.
Standard disclaimer: The characters aren’t mine, just the story.
Blurb: Buffy is fifty, and not pleased about some of the indignities that go with that.
Feedback: Yes, please.
She came in the door looking like a puppy in the bath: droopy and pathetic, but in a non-life or world-threatening sort of way.
Spike suppressed the smile until she’d plonked herself against him; though he enjoyed cosseting her, it wasn’t often that she needed or allowed it. Over the years he’d learned not to initiate these sorts of hugs; that she was more likely to settle into them if he just faced her head-on and let her thunk into him like a skiff running aground.
Then, and only then, could he put an arm around her and cosset, though he took care not to show his enjoyment.
“What’s this, then?”
A second thunk. Thankfully not a full Slayer-strength headbutt, which would have sent him staggering into the dishwasher. He petted her hair. Eventually she spoke, but even his hearing could make out only a muffled, “‘noscopy.”
“What?”
“They want me to get a colonoscopy.”
A tendril of worry wormed it’s way into his heart. “You’re not sick, are you?” He took her by the shoulders and pushed her back just enough to search her face.
“No.” She looked… embarrassed? “I’m just old.” He laughed, relief and delight making him, for the moment, unable to play his part. “It’s not funny! She said it’s standard because I’m fifty.” She spoke her age like it meant ‘decrepit.’
She was, indeed, fifty. Had been for months. She’d taken the big party and the teasing with outward good cheer; although, the cards in the shape of gravestones from her non-supernaturally aware friends had made Dawn and the Scoobies wince. But she’d been a bit squirrelly off and on since.
He’d been waiting for her to fess up to whatever it was. Long experience had taught him that his Slayer was a vault when it came to matters she didn’t want to discuss.
“What’s this really about?”
“This isn’t bad enough? Willow had a colonoscopy last year. Do you know know how gross the preparation is?”
“Like it’s news to me that humans are disgusting. You’ve puked on my boots, you’ve snotted on my shirts, there was that incident with the Splinthar demon — ” She gave his shoulder a punch, hard enough to sting. “And as you’ve pointed out a time or two, I drink blood and am a walking corpse. All couples have to make allowances.” He rubbed her shoulder in lieu of rubbing his own.
After a few moments, she spoke. “I’m fifty.” She looked positively morose. “I’m in my fifties. Any minute now they’ll ask me to join the AARP.”
There was no arguing her age. “You are.” In a purr, he added, “A very sexy fifty.” He moved to take her into an entirely different sort of embrace.
“But that’s just it!” She was clearly gearing up for a tantrum or a crying jag. “Fifties equals menopause!”
Now he was truly mystified. “You’re not in menopause.” He’d certainly have noticed that.
“But I will be, and then…” He waited. “What if I don’t enjoy sex anymore?”
“Then we won’t have sex.” He said it as if it were perfectly obvious, because it was.
“I don’t want to not want sex. Sex with you is really good.” The last was a quiet whine. He grinned broadly. “Oh, like twenty-five years of, ‘Oh! Yes! Spike!’ hadn’t tipped you off.”
“Still nice to hear.” He took her hand, and was pleased when she let him.
He sussed the truth of her worry now, could see it in her eyes. Their relationship had survived the wrinkles conversation, the ‘we all know you’re colouring your grey hair’ conversation, the ‘I still want you regardless of the perkiness of your breasts’ conversation. Over the decades, they’d even had several of those horrible conversations about how some day she would die, and the day was getting closer.
This was different. She wasn’t worried about whether time would change him wanting her. She was worried the day would come, and maybe soon, when she wouldn’t want him anymore. Strangely, it made him feel cherished.
And when he felt cherished, it tended to make him feel amorous. “So, you’re saying we might be on a deadline.”
She nodded.
“Best make the most of the time we’ve got, then.”
There was that smile, still girlish and willing to be charmed.
Spike followed his instincts, and went for the throat.
“How do you — oh! — how do you take a conversation about the unsexiest topic ever and turn it into a shaggable moment?”
“Just talented, I guess.”
“Talented, yes, mmm.”
[End.]
This fic was nominated at the Wicked Awards, and now has a prequel: The First of Those Horrible Conversations.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/506879.html
