Spike’s motorcycle rumbled into the driveway at 1630 Revello Drive early the next evening. Even he wasn’t crazy enough to try riding a motorcycle around town during the day, and besides, the vampire had needed a little time to get his thoughts in order.

Not that the intervening hours had really helped. He had left town to get a few days by himself, without people prying into his life and thoughts on a whim, and returned to face who knows what kind of deranged Summers plot to make him even more insane. Then again, Dawn had mentioned the oh-so-human, oh-so-intimidating G word.

Girlfriend.

It sounded so... mortal. And silly. And frivolous. And it made him nervous just thinking about it.

He had barely swivelled out the kick stand when he was grabbed by the teenager and drug into the house, line of thought effectively broken. Dawn must have heard him pull up, or been waiting for him, or been possessed by a time warping demon, because nothing else could explain how she managed to sneak up and abduct a century old vampire before he realized what was happening. The next thing he knew, he was seated at the counter in the kitchen with a piece of stationary paper in front of him and a pen in his hand.

“’Bit, what the hell...”

Dawn scowled fiercely at him. “No time, Buffy’ll be here any second. Just write what I say.” She cleared her throat and waited until the pen touched the paper’s surface. “Dear Buffy, I’m going out of town to get you a birthday present...”

Spike’s hand stopped dead in its tracks. “What?!”

“Just shush and keep writing!” Dawn squealed, casting alarmed glances towards the front of the house. “Ask Anya for my cell phone number,” she nudged him pointedly when he didn’t start writing immediately. “Cell. Phone. Number if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few days. Love, Spike.” She looked over his shoulder and snorted when she saw his defiant name scrawled alone at the bottom of the paper. “Like you’re fooling anyone even if you don’t write it. Here, g’me that.” She snatched the paper. “Where’s Meret?”

“Asleep back at the crypt.”

“Good, she always gives you away when you’re lying,” Dawn continued, blithely unaware of, or blatantly ignoring, his angry scowl. “Did you bring the mirror?” When he produced the little silver compact from his pocket, she grabbed it unceremoniously and looked it over. Apparently satisfied, she opened her mouth to comment, but a pair of headlights flashed through the kitchen’s window from the driveway. “Crap, she’s here.” She looked at him critically with her hands on her hips for a moment before making that high pitched squeeing sound that only teenage girls can achieve, twirling around, and running for the front of the house. She popped her head back around the corner for a moment. “Just, you know, play it cool until I get back,” and with that she was gone, fleeing up the stairs and into her room. Spike sat at the kitchen counter, pen dangling forgotten in his hand.

The tingle that told every vampire “Slayer!” but was honed in Spike to say “Buffy!” ran feather light fingers up the back of his neck. He heard her call a farewell back to the driver, probably Harris, as the car backed out of the driveway. Once the headlights were gone, the front door opened and Buffy slogged into the house, dropping a coat and stuffed bag on the dining room table wearily. She made it as far as the kitchen before she realized that she had company.

Spike winced when her lips narrowed into a thin line. “So you’re back,” she said, tone flat, unreadable.

He ran an awkward hand through his hair. “Yeah, uh. See I was just gonna...”

“Buffy!” Dawn’s voice called from the second floor. The slayer turned towards the sound of her sister’s voice, the delinquent vampire obviously forgotten for a moment. Pounding footsteps heralded the younger Summers’ arrival in the kitchen moments later. “Hey, I just remembered,” she paused and looked at Spike with feigned surprise. “Oh, hi Spike. Gee, I guess this isn’t important anymore.”

She started to turn around to leave again, but Buffy’s voice stopped her in her tracks. “What’s not important anymore?”

“Oh, um.” Dawn shuffled her feet and managed to look very embarrassed. “Well, Spike asked me to give you this a couple of days ago,” she brandished the paper, fresh ink glistening under the kitchen’s fluorescent lights, “but I stuck it in my algebra folder and forgot about it.” She flipped her hair and looked innocently back and forth between the slayer and vampire. “But, you know, he’s back now, so never mind.”

She tossed the sheet of paper into the waste basket and flounced back out of the room, followed by two sets of disbelieving eyes. After a moment, Buffy fished the paper out of the trash can and looked at it critically. “She made you write this.”

Spike tried to look affronted while discreetly slipping the incriminating pen into his pocket. “No, it must’ve just slipped the Nibblet’s...”

“The ink is still wet.” Buffy held up a stained index finger and arched an eyebrow at the vampire.

Spike deflated. “Um, yeah. About that...” he started, but trailed off. His well of clever defences seemed to be running dry. Slow drying ink didn’t sound terribly plausible, even on the Hellmouth.

Buffy dropped the paper back into the trash can and walked to the sink. The silence stretched out as she washed her hands and dried them on a ragged kitchen towel. Spike watched her warily. She leaned against the counter and her shoulders slumped a little. She looked so defeated, and it was heartbreaking.

Spike panicked. “I’m sorry!” he blurted, and was even more surprised when he heard the slayer say the same words over his own.

She turned around and looked at him, lips twitching for a moment. Spike smiled his lopsided grin and they both lapsed into rueful laughter. “Hot chocolate?” she offered.

“God, yes.” The vampire relaxed with another self deprecating laugh. Maybe he’d make it out of the house alive, or you know, undead, after all.

Buffy pulled a mason jar out of one of the cupboards. It was half-full of a light brown powder, and a little card was stuck in the side bearing the list of ingredients. Joyce had apparently spent years mixing and matching different hot chocolate recipes until she had found a blend that met with her approval. Set to simmer with a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips and served with some of those tiny marshmallows: to the vampire, it tasted like a little piece of heaven.

When Buffy reached for a bottle of skim milk, Spike had a sudden flash of memory. “Wait, use the half and half.”

Buffy looked at him quizzically. “Huh?”

“It’s how your mum used to make it,” he said in a quiet voice.

Buffy looked at him for a moment, face perfectly still, before a tremulous smile graced her face. “You can remember that?”

“Well yeah, but she also, uh, told me,” he said in a rush. He looked down at his fidgeting hands at her disbelieving stare. “The dream?” he finally said, voice uncertain.

“Oh.”

When massive water works didn’t seem to be immediately following, Spike continued. “She said you were skimpin’ on the cream and that’s why it’s too thin.”

“You had a slayer dream about my mom’s hot chocolate recipe?” Her voice held, but it was brittle and small.

Spike looked up and met Buffy’s eyes, glistening with unshed tears, but twinkling as well. “Um. Yes?”

“Okay then,” she said briskly, turning and wiping a hand over her eyes when her back was turned away from him. “Fattening goodness it is.”

When she finally joined him at the counter, cups cradled in their hands, the drink was as good as he remembered.

Buffy spoke first. “So what’re you sorry about?”

Spike cringed into his drink. Buffy apparently hadn’t figured out that apologizing in the face of imminent female tears was an ingrained response, drilled into the male mind from the moment of birth. “For not telling you I was leaving,” he said hopefully.

“Liar,” Buffy said, but the weak smile on her face took away the word’s sting.

“And I suppose you can do better?” the vampire asked harshly, irritated at her reaction.

It was Buffy’s turn to cringe. “Maybe.” She buried her nose in her mug, hiding behind the cocoa for a moment. “I crossed the line at The Bronze, and I’ve been told,” there was another wince, “that I owe you an explanation.”

She looked as if she was expecting him to say something. Maybe a smart assed rejoinder. Maybe a gloating, haughty demand for grovelling. He didn’t know... Hell, this was such uncharted territory that Spike was just barely managing to maintain his passive mien when the slayer finally continued.

“So yeah, um, making with the ‘splainy now. See, um, it’s kind of a not-so-secret girl secret that if we could figure out a way to learn a guy’s deepest, darkest secrets, especially a guy who, you know, seems interested, we’d jump on it like triple mochachinos.” Her eyes were focused on the mug in her hands, and was she blushing?

“Tried that once, thanks to a minor case of telepathy.” That at least earned a tiny, nostalgic smile. Spike wondered what the story was behind those words. “As Willow would say, that went all kerplewy. I should’ve known that clever Buffy plans involving stealth and espionage always end with badness.”

Spike couldn’t help himself, and his amused snort was met with a baleful glare.

“Do you want to hear this or not? ‘Cause these whole soul baring slayer confessions are usually a one-shot chance,” she snapped in irritation.

He loved it when her eyes flashed like that, full of anger and life. Spike swept an over dramatic hand gesture for her to continue and hid his own smile in another gulp of hot chocolate.

Buffy grumbled something that sounded like “Stupid vampire” before taking an exaggerated breath and continuing. “So yeah. Kerplewy. Again. And then you ran off, and Anya started treating me like a social leper and lecturing me on the etiquette of mind reading, and Dawn started acting like I killed her puppy. Like I had this whole thing planned out in my Big Book of Nefarious Slayer Plots. Except this time I wasn’t really trying at first, and Meret was so open, and that was something I really needed at first, and bleh! This is all coming out wrong!” The slayer slouched over the counter, the very picture of frustrated dejection. “I’m making you sound like a crutch. Or, you know, not a crutch because I can walk on my own, so more of a cane. You know, one of those fancy ones that everyone seems to carry around in their music videos, and oh God, stop me. I’m babbling.” She dropped her head on her arm, golden hair splaying across the counter and hiding her rising blush.

The vampire couldn’t help himself. “Slayer?”

“What?” she asked, even if her voice sounded a little squished from where she had her face pressed against the faux marble.

“Are you callin’ me your pimp cane?”

Buffy snarled, but her soprano rumble was made even less threatening by the fact that she still hadn’t raised her head from the island.

“Because I think you would look simply smashing in nothing but a big fur coat and a bolero hat with a feather.” That got her to look up at him, hazel eyes glittering like an angry jungle cat's through the mane of her mussed hair. Spike grinned in return, and pushed a little farther. “Oh, and stilettos. But not the gold teeth. Those’d just make you look like a...”

“Spike!”

“Sorry, just a sec. I’m trying to get a good mental image here.”

“Gah!” she shrieked. “Why do you have to be such a pig when I’m trying to be all serious and honest and stuff?”

Somewhat chastened, the vampire relented. “Sorry, ‘s not like serious conversations have ever been a staple of our relationship in the past.”

“See, and that’s another thing. Maybe they should be, seeing as how you’re going to be swooping into my dreams, or I’ll be swooping into yours, or whatever. Mutual swoopage.” She abruptly stopped shouting and bit a corner of her lip, suddenly nervous again. “Are you okay with that?”

The vampire blinked, caught off guard by her quicksilver mood changes. “Are you?” he asked, turning the question around on her.

She looked back down at her cocoa and fiddled with the mug’s handle. “I don’t think that’ll be the last time it happens. Not from what the wonder twins were saying. And there’s the feather-gram.”

Spike eyed her warily, remembering his more recent run in with his half of the plumed pair. “That’s not an answer,” he said, but his voice was a little softer, a little less confrontational. He sighed in resignation. “How ‘bout this, I’m a little thrown by wakin’ up and findin’ a memento on my pillow. I don’t like being played, ‘specially when it involves crammin’ stuff in my brain, and the conversation with the deadite, I coulda done without.” Spike paused for an unneeded breath, watching the slayer’s downcast face. Her restless fidgeting had stopped, and the stillness of her posture let him know she was listening to every word. “But maybe the fringe benefits aren’t so bad, and I’m not sorry ‘bout the other stuff.” There, that was comfortably vague.

When he finished, Buffy looked up at him, hazel eyes ancient in her young face. “Why are you so good at this stuff?”

“Took rhetoric in university. Makes me good at pullin’ flowery crap out of my arse.” At Buffy’s disbelieving stare, he grinned wickedly. “What, a vampire can’t have layers?”

The slayer quirked a little smile in return. “Like an onion.”

“Maybe onions of the beer fried variety.”

“Yuh huh.” Buffy took another sip of her hot chocolate. “So we’re good, right? I’ll stop prying and/or blurting out your personal secrets.”

Spike raised his mug in a toast. “And I’ll try to not assume that you’re the raging bitch I know you to be,” he ducked away from the slayer’s half-hearted slap. “And if I do decide to skip state for a few days to get away from your wicked ways, I’ll tell you first.”

She glared at him, but her scowl was undermined by the amused slant to her lips. She raised her glass. “Deal.” The rims of their mugs met with a dull tink and they drank the rest of their cooling cocoa, sealing the bargain.

After they had both wiped the remnants of their foamy drinks away, Buffy on a towel, Spike on his sleeve, the slayer looked up at him and batted long lashes at the vampire. “So, what’d’ya get me for my birthday?”

Point to the slayer. He was well on the way to going bug shagging nuts.