Title: Wholesome Home
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Spike/Buffy, Joyce, mentions past Spike/Drusilla and past Angel/Buffy
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Spike adjoins his wife on a very special visit.
Word Count: 1,683
Written For: Nekid Spike Mod’s Choice: Moonlight and Seasonal Spuffy Spring 2023 Free For All
Warnings: Slight AU, Post-Series, Future Fic, Cannon Character Deaths
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
He watched her carefully as she studied the grave before them with sorrow and grief still lurking in her beautiful, hazel eyes. She had her mother’s eyes, he thought as the moonlight filtering in through the thick leaves above them played over her face, her mother’s eyes and much, much more. His voice was gentle yet still managed to seem to pierce the night air. “You look like her, you know.”
She glanced up at him, and then back down to the carvings on her mother’s headstone. They had changed it up a little since having it moved here to England, on the Watcher’s ground so that it would never be disturbed again. She had had an Angel added, an Angel whose wings wrapped around two hearts, until someone had come and added a third one. She had her suspicions as to who that person had been — she was almost absolutely certain of it –, but she had never called him out on it. Tonight, though, she shifed uncomfortably underneath his gaze and mumbled, “You never met my Dad.”
“Don’t have to,” he said with a quick shake of his bleach blonde head. “You look like her.”
He observed as Buffy reached a hand up and tentatively felt of her own blonde strands. Dawn had been on her lately to dye her hair again, reminding her that he wouldn’t do for the Slayer to show her age, not that every evil creature didn’t already know exactly how long this particular Slayer had managed to aggravate them by staying alive and thwarting all their plans to beat her, to defeat her and her allies, and to just generally take over the whole damn world. She’d never allowed that to happen, and she never would as long as there was breath left in her body with which to fight, something, she knew, aggravated her enemies to no end. No other Slayer had lasted even a tenth of the time she had, which was why, in part, there were now gray strands mixed in with her platinum blonde do. The last dye job had not exactly taken well, and Buffy didn’t really have the time to waste playing with her hair these days. Besides, what did it matter if she was turning gray? It was a sign of triumph, a sign that she was still here to fight rather than just a sign that she was getting old, as her sister constantly nagged at her.
“Not just your hair,” Spike said, moving closer. “You have her eyes.”
“I do?” Buffy asked, looking up in surprise.
If he’d had a heart, it might have well stopped beating right then and there on the spot. She was so beautiful, always had been, always would be, yet somehow, every time he saw her, really gazed at her as he was doing now, she seemed even more beautiful than any time before. He reached out, gently touched her cheek, and drew a thumb across her tender flesh. He didn’t know what arsenal of beauty products she used, didn’t know even how she had the time to do so with the way she was constantly saving the world and everybody else’s asses, but somehow, her skin still felt so very soft after all these years.
“I mean I know they’re the same color as hers — ” Buffy was flustering, beginning to babble as she’d always had a tendency to do.
“You do,” he said softly. “Your mother was the kindest soul I’ve ever known, luv. Joyce saw more in me than anybody else ever had, including me. Yeah, I fell in love with you ages ago, but she was the one who gave me the strength and belief to start actually trying to better myself. Hell, I was still an evil, sodding bastard when we used to hang out, but I enjoyed those times. I… I always doted on my own mum, you see, but came to find out that she’d been using me all along.”
He had had a hard life, and such a tragic one too. He had not sought out being turned, and he’d not wanted it for the power it had offered. Buffy knew his story now, after all these years, almost as well as she knew her own. She reached up a hand and lovingly placed it over his hand that was still softly stroking her cheek. A moonbeam broke through the canopy of the special, oak tree Willow had planted behind her mother’s grave and gleamed on their joined wedding bands.
“Joyce… Well, she… I think… I kinda feel like she might have been trying to make up for all the harm me own mum did to me, always trying to make me into a proper courtier so that she could live on me coat tails.” He didn’t realize his British accent was growing thicker as he reminisced. Despite the many years Joyce had been gone, this was the first time he’d spoken these words aloud, the first time he’d actually admitted how deep their friendship had ran, or how thankful he’d been for it and for her. “I think, in your mum’s own way, she’d been trying to make up a little bit, what with those little marshmallows and hot cocoa, for what all me own mum did, and Drusilla too. I don’t miss her anymore, Buffy, Mistress or not. She played me like a fiddle all those centuries, but I do miss your mum.”
Buffy wasn’t certain rather the person he no longer missed was the Vampiress who had turned, or his own blood mother, or perhaps even both. It didn’t matter. She’d had a Hell of a time giving up on Angel, and he’d been remarkably patient with her throughout most of it. At least he had the bond between Master, or Mistress, and fledgling to explain away his feelings for Drusilla, and he’d also offered to dust her that one time to prove his love and loyalty to her, but she’d had no such excuse where Angel had been concerned. He’d borne patience with her throughout all of that mistake, and so, she, too, would have patience with him. Besides, there were actual tears in his sweet, dark blue eyes now as he talked of her mother, not his own, and the fond memories he had of them sharing hot cocoa, Passions, and long talks. She’d known about the first two, but never of the latter and had not realized, until long after her mother’s death, just how much she had come to mean to Spike.
“Anyway,” he said, sniffling and forcing himself out of the emotional reverie, “you do look like her. You’ve got her eyes, and you know what they say about the eyes. They’re the windows to the soul,” he said quietly before she could interrupt. “From everything you’ve told me about your da, it had to be your sweet mum who you got your courage from, and your good heart, your passion and your kindness and your ability to love and give a bloke strength before everything else he’s ever felt in his entire life, no matter how long that existence.” He shook his head. “And like her, you’ve got the ability to make a man actually want to be a man, want to do better and be better and provide for you. Not that I’ve ever been much of a provider — “
She kissed him suddenly, hushing up his tirade before he could turn on himself as he so often did. “Spike, hush. Let’s go home.” She turned, took his hand in hers, and tugged him along behind him. He glanced one last time for the night at her mother’s grave and the flowers they’d chosen together and laid on it upon arrival tonight.
They walked in silence for a pace, out of the cemetery and away from the Watchers’ lands. He could hear many sounds in the night, but none of them mattered tonight, not even the far distant cry of a Werewolf. There were others to fight their battles now. The amazing woman beside him had formed a bloody army, she had, only one of many, many reasons why he knew Joyce was proud of her. He’d seen enough of the Spirit World to know that she was undoubtedly watching over them, or at least checking in from time to time, and found himself wondering if she might actually be proud of him as well.
He’d beat the curse, after all. He’d fought for his own soul and stood beside her daughter in ways no other could have. ‘Course he’d gotten plenty of great sex from it, but that had never been why he’d done it, why he’d stood beside her no matter what she had done to him, why he would always stand beside her, now that she’d finally chosen him. He smiled as he thought of the little church here in London where he’d finally gotten her to say nuptials. After all these many hundreds of years, this city was finally beginning to feel like a home to him, but he knew that it was not her home. He knew further, too, that they could never stay in one place for too long.
His fingers twined around hers more tightly, and he squeezed her gently. “Buffy?” She glanced up at him but kept walking. “How long are we going to stay this time?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Long enough, I guess. Why?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” It truly did not for his home was with her, as it had been since the early days, long before he’d been ready to admit his true feelings for her, and always would be. “I love you, pet.”
“I love you too, Spike,” she said. There were such simple words, but nothing had ever made him feel more whole than she did every time she spoke them. He swung their hands together and beamed as he quickened the pace to their little flat. It may only be temporary, but their love, and his home beside her, were forever.
The End
Originally posted at: https://seasonal-spuffy.dreamwidth.org/984599.html
