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Lapdog by Sigyn
 
Wild Things
 
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    Spike slept in the lower chamber while Buffy watched the boy. He was quite cuddly after the trauma of his morning, and Buffy spent a lot of time feeding him cookies and string cheese, and sippy cups of juice, while watching daytime television. It was actually pleasant. He was warm and snuggly and his demands were concrete and easily met. Clean pants, food, drink, companionship. It was very simple – unlike with everyone else. Spike only napped for about four hours. When he came up out of the lower chamber, he took over the boy while Buffy went home to make sure Dawn had something available for dinner.

    Buffy came back two hours later with a quart of milk for the child, and a couple of children’s books salvaged from a box in her basement. They fed the boy dinner – or actually, more cookies and some milk, while he ignored dinner – and watched television until Buffy saw him yawn. “I think he’s tired. Were you serious about putting him in a coffin?” Buffy asked.

    “It’s not that bad,” Spike said. “I’ll make it up with pillows and stuff, you’ll see.” He took the boy and headed down to the lower chamber. Buffy followed with one of the kid’s books in her hand.

    While Spike dug out a pillow and blankets and an old stuffed bear from one of his trunks, Buffy settled the child on Spike’s bed with her and pulled out the book. The boy looked overjoyed at the prospect of being read to.

    "Bok, bok," the brat said happily. "Weed bok."

    "Okay, okay," Buffy said. She pulled the boy into her lap. "Where the Wild Things Are," she began. "By Maurice Sendak. The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind... and another... his mother called him, 'Wild thing!' And Max said, 'I'll eat you up!'"

    "Sounds like my kinda kid," Spike interjected.

    Buffy's eyes flickered to him. Then she continued, pointedly, "So he was sent to bed. Without. Eating. Anything." She cast her glare at Spike for another second, long enough to catch his wink, and she was hard put not to laugh.

    Spike refrained from comment during the rest of the book, but he leaned against one of his coffins, watching her with a strange little smile on his face. "And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely, and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."

    The brat demanded that she read the book again when she was done, and she agreed twice more before putting her foot down. "No. That's enough."

    "Wild ting. Wild ting!" the brat announced.

    "Wild thing, I think I love you," Spike said, his voice affectedly husky. He turned to his turn table and changed the record. "But I wanna know for sure!" he added. A second later, the distinctive riff of The Troggs' "Wild Thing" echoed from the speaker. "Dun na na – duh na – duh na na," Spike sang along, and scooped the kid off Buffy's lap. "Wild thing!" he sang into the kid’s face. "You make my heart sing... you make everything groovy." He swung the kid along with the music, and the brat shrieked with laughter. "Wild thing!"

    Buffy was unexpectedly drawn to the reckless abandon of the two, and after the first verse she stood up, joining in their little impromptu dance party. "Wild thing, I... think you move me!" Spike and Buffy growled at each other along with the music. "But I wanna know for sure!" Buffy took the boy back and squeezed him. "So come on and hold me tight!" The boy had figured the song out already, and hugged Buffy affectionately around the neck. "You move me!"
 

***

    They'd managed to get the kid to settle down after a while, though it included another three run throughs of Wild Thing, and two renditions of Beat on the Brat. Finally they got him settled into the open coffin, the blanket over him, and sort of falling asleep. Buffy had to sit with him a bit longer, but when he finally seemed asleep, she stood up and climbed back up the ladder to Spike's upper chamber.

    Spike had ascended a bit before, to provide fewer distractions, as he said, "In the hope the wretched kid will finally get the hint and shut up." The words were harsh, but the tone he'd spoken them in wasn't. Buffy found him with a beer in front of the television, turned down quite low, so as not to discourage sleep in the lower chamber.

    "He out?"

    "Just about, I think," Buffy said. "Still twitching, but I don't think he's getting up again."

    "You want them twitching," he said. "Not twitching is usually a bad sign." He tensed as if about to get up. "You want a beer?"

    "I'll get it," Buffy said. She went to his fridge and pulled a bottle of beer out from beside a mason jar of blood. Spike turned off the television and regarded her. "So who's on night shift?" she asked.

    "I can take him," Spike said, “if you’d rather patrol. One more night to check on those new graves, wasn’t it?"

    "You sure?"

    "Hey, he's sleeping, how much trouble could he be?" They both stared at each other as Spike realized he'd said the worst possible thing to tempt the fates. "Can we forget I said that?" he asked.

    Buffy laughed. "You're really settling in to this father role."

    "Call me that one more time, I dare you. I'm sure I can find a dog kennel for the brat somewhere."

    "Okay, okay," Buffy said. "Bad boy uncle."

    "Marginally better," Spike said. He shrugged. "Brat likes music." The truth was, he found it much easier to translate the affection that he wanted to show to Buffy to the boy, particularly while Buffy was around. It wasn’t that he wanted her to be impressed by it – he just had many more instincts to be tender if Buffy was anywhere near, and she’d never accept it from him. It seemed to be working, too. She seemed to feel a little better than usual, with the kid around. He regarded her, his head tilted. "I haven't seen you cut loose like that in a while," he pointed out.

    Buffy sighed and perched on the edge of Spike's sarcophagus. "Life's felt... kind of heavy, lately. I don't know. He's young, it seems to rest pretty lightly on his shoulders. It's nice to see."

    "Yeah, it is," Spike said. "It's nice to see you smile. You don't smile so much as you used to." Buffy rolled her eyes, and Spike quickly added, "I mean, he seems to bring it out of you. Kind of lighten whatever it is you're carrying." He shrugged. "That can’t be a bad thing, can it?"

    "It's not him, it’s here,” Buffy said. “It’s easier here.” She looked around. “I guess once you’ve died, some part of you feels you belong in a crypt. I always used to wonder why you didn’t just get an apartment or something. It makes more sense now.”

    “I can’t get a normal job,” Spike said conversationally, lighting a cigarette. “They don’t issue social security numbers for people born in England in the eighteen hundreds.” He gestured at the spacious crypt. “Keeps the rain off, and I intimidate the groundskeeper into staying out, keep the electricity on, the watering spigot available for me. It’s not like I need central heating. And I agree to keep the other vamps out of the cemetery, for the most part, and he hates them. He thinks they’re moles.” Spike grinned. “Or he pretends he does. I can’t afford a human place, love. I have to stay kind of underground, as it were, avoid the wrong kind of human attention, and I don’t have enough to pay law enforcement off. A hundred and twenty-some years, enough angry mobs or bigger baddies get hold of you, they take all you got. I’ve had to pick up and move so often, it’s not like I have a fortune hidden away. If I needed something, I used to just steal it, take it from my victims. I never had to keep anything. Angel kept a secret fortune, but I was always too wild for that.” He cocked his head at her. “So it’s the crypt, huh? Just the crypt?”

    “You mean not the company?” Buffy asked. She shrugged. “It’s easier with you, too. You're not watching my every move, demanding I go back to my old self. I wish they'd just let me be... but they're always just right there, and I have to put on a happy face and bounce up all perky. How did I do that all the time?" she asked. "I remember when it was so easy, it all seemed natural." She closed her eyes. "God, I'm just so tired. I'm always so tired."

    "You have a right to be," Spike said quietly. He stood up. "You know what? Kid's asleep down there. You go take a nap, I'll check the new graves."

    "That's not right. I'm the slayer."

    "You've got to be slayer, mum, and head of the household at the moment, with two college kids, a high schooler, and a toddler on your hands. I can stake a bunch of newborns. I've been itching to kill something all day."

    Buffy shook her head, but a small smile crept onto her face. "This is just an attempt to get me into your bed, isn't it."

    "Not really worth it if I'm not there, too," Spike said, "but the idea doesn't repulse me, no."

    Buffy was extremely tempted. "You'll wake me when you get back? I should... really check in on Dawn."

    "I can check on Dawn before I head back."

    "No, that's–"

    "She's with the birds, she'll be fine. Me, or the kid, we'll wake you before first light, you can be back to see she's off to school okay."

    It sounded incredibly logical. Sleep while the kid was sleeping, wake up in the morning. It sounded normal. "You patrol," she said. "I'll think about a nap."

    Spike set his beer down and shrugged on his coat. "Sleep!" he commanded her, pointing at her like an errant puppy. "I'll be back before dawn." He paused at the door. "If you do nap, keep a stake in the bed," he said. "If he turns while you're out..."

    "I'm pretty sure I'll wake up if I'm bit by a vamp, even a tiny one," Buffy said. "And I survived a bite by the Master, I think I can survive him. I'll smell pretty good, right? He'd want me more than to run away."

    "Yeah," Spike said. "Yeah. Just to be safe." He did not sound flippant. The door clanged as he left.

    Buffy realized this was getting serious. If the kid had changed that first day, neither of them would have been too bothered. It would have been disturbing, but not heartbreaking. But the brat had a personality now, and interests, and affection for both of them. He'd brought something out between them all that Buffy didn't even want to name. He'd...

    He'd had her up, dancing and singing to sixties rock with Spike. Where the hell had that come from?

    Buffy went back down the ladder with her beer and looked in the satin lined coffin at the sleeping toddler. Did he look paler than before? She didn't even want to contemplate it.

    She took a swig of her beer, and looked over at Spike's bed. It looked quite inviting, actually. She was always wanting to sleep. She hated it when Giles called her in to discuss training during the day. She usually forced herself awake to get Dawn off to school, and then once Willow and Tara left, she'd sneak back into bed and let the world go away again. Facing it was just so damned difficult...

    She was drawn to the vampire's bed like to an illicit drug. She didn't quite have the abandon to snuggle in under the covers, but she grabbed two of his pillows and dragged them down to the foot of the bed. Spike's pillows smelled of residual peroxide and Spike. It was a surprisingly comforting scent. She lay a stake on the edge of the bed, and stuffed the pillows under her head as she lay on her stomach, her eyes ostensibly on the coffin and the sleeping child.

    They didn't stay open for long.

 
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