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Wake Up, I Love You by slaymesoftly
 
Three and Four
 
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Part Three

Unable to wait any longer, and knowing that if there had been any way for Spike to hear Dawn, he would have responded to her, Buffy entered the room and walked to the bed. She stared at the body lying there; only the slight trembling of her hands giving any indication that she was affected by the sight of the vampire she had been mourning for months.

This is my fault, isn’t it, Spike? If I’d told you sooner, if I’d been able to make you believe me, you wouldn’t think the only way to have me was to stay unconscious.

She stood beside the bed, every fiber of her being wanting to throw herself on top of the sleeping vampire and tell him how much she loved and missed him. Instead, she sat sedately in the chair Dawn had just vacated and calmly reached for one of his hands. She flinched at the way it felt in hers, so much like a corpse that she almost dropped it. Spike had always seemed so alive that she had never given much thought to the fact that his body was actually that of a dead man. She spotted the scar around his wrist where the insane slayer had sawed off his hands, and she stroked it gently, shuddering to think of what he’d gone through.

Of course, if the insecure ass had bothered to call me...

Her internal rant was interrupted by her sister who said with some asperity, “Are you just going to stare at him, or are you going to try to talk to him?”

“Huh? Oh...oh, yeah.” She sat up straighter and leaned toward him while muttering, “I was talking to him...sort of...in my head...”

“I think into his ear might be more useful, Buffy,” Angel said gently. “Why don’t I show Dawn where you will be staying and leave you here to tell him to get his ass back in gear?”

He ushered the protesting teen out of the room, and walked her to the main lobby in front of his office. Dawn froze when she spotted the vampire behind the desk, her eyes narrowing dangerously and her hand producing a stake from a pocket he hadn’t even noticed.

“What are you doing?” he growled. “That’s my secretary!”

“That’s Harmony! She kidnapped me and tried to kill me! She’s evil.”

“Not anymore,” he whispered while Harmony began to wave timidly. “Be nice.”

“Be NICE? To Harmony? You’re joking, right?”

“I am NOT joking. This is my office and there will be no staking of anyone who works for me. Now put that away and tell her ‘hello’ before she waves her hand off.”

“Dawn!” Harmony’s squeal caused Angel to wince in pain. “How are you? It’s so good to see you. Are you visiting your father?”

“We’re here to help Spike,” Dawn said stiffly, hiding the stake behind her back.

The blonde vampire’s face fell. “We?” she asked stiffly. “You mean the Slayer is with you? Where is she?”

“Where do you think she is, airhead? She’s with Spike.” Dawn rolled her eyes and put the stake away. “You know Spike, right? Bleached blond hair, blue eyes, in a coma...”

“I know my Blondie Bear,” she sniffed. “I just don’t know what the Slayer thinks she’s going to be able to do if he wouldn’t wake up for me.”

Dawn stared at Angel with wide eyes, but he just shrugged and said quietly, “She’s surprisingly good at her job. Really.”

Completely oblivious that her IQ had just been questioned and found wanting, Harmony turned back to her desk and sat down, no longer interested in talking to Dawn or being reminded that either one of the Summers sisters was more important to Spike than she had ever been.


~~~~~~~~~~

“So,” Buffy began experimentally, “You came back, huh? I guess you had your reasons for not telling me about it. Of course, if you don’t wake up, you won’t get a chance to tell me and I’ll just have to go on thinking that you didn’t care enough to call me and tell me to stop...to stop crying over your undead ass! Spike, how could you do that to me?” Her voice had risen to a shout and she clasped a hand over her mouth in horror.

Oh my god, I’m here five minutes and I’m already yelling at him. No wonder he didn’t want to tell me he was back! Oh, god, Spike, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...

“It might be better for you to apologize out loud, dumpling.” The kindly voice coming from behind her and breaking into her self-scolding caused her to jump slightly. She turned around to find a large green demon gazing at her with such empathy that she had no urge to attack him.

“Wha—what?”

“I’m sorry, sweetcakes. I didn’t mean to startle you. Let me introduce myself. I’m Lorne. I’m an empath demon,” he added when she continued to stare at him blankly. “Usually, I ask people to sing for me so that I can read what’s going on with them, but your feelings are just pouring off you – sort of the way short, blond and gorgeous there used to be.”

“My...my feelings?” Instinctively, Buffy tried to smother the anxiety and guilt she was feeling.

“Yes, your feelings – that worry that you’ve found him, only to lose him again; your guilt over getting angry at him for letting you mourn longer than you needed to; and the love that he thinks he isn’t worthy of....those feelings.”

“Oh,” Buffy muttered in defeat. “Those feelings.”

“Tell him, Slayer,” Lorne suggested gently. “He might hear you – and if he doesn’t, you will at least have said it. At least one of you will feel better.”

Buffy looked back at the vampire that she hadn’t stopped missing since her race to outrun the city crumbling around his head, and stroked his face softly.

I love you, Spike, she began, then cleared her throat and said clearly, “I love you, Spike. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just...I missed you so much, and when I found out you were back and didn’t tell me...” She stopped, sure that if she continued, she would be yelling at him again. She shot Lorne an apologetic glance and admitted, “I don’t think I know how to talk to him without yelling.”

“Ah well,” the empath demon said as he turned to leave, “then he’s probably used to it and he’ll recognize it for what it is.”

“For what it is?”

“Yeah – your way of saying that you love him so much it makes you mad.”

He waved his hand gracefully and left the room, leaving a very subdued slayer behind. She moved closer to the bed and leaned down, putting her cheek next to his and whispering softly, “I love you, Spike. Please come back to me and I promise that I will learn how to say it without yelling. Please?”

When Dawn and Angel came back later, she was on the bed beside the inert vampire, her head resting on the same pillow and her hand stroking his arm. She looked up when they entered, then reluctantly sat up and said, “I want to go in.”

“Buffy—“

“It’s not up for discussion, Angel. I want in there. If I’m already part of whatever is going on in there, then maybe I can find a way to work myself into one of his memories and get his attention. It’s worth a try.”

“All right. Why don’t you get some rest and we’ll do it in the morning?”

“Now.” There was nothing in her tone but command from a slayer and he nodded his head.

“All right.” He gave a resigned sigh. “Let me call the doctors.”

While she waited for the medical staff to follow Angel’s muffled instructions and bring the required drug, she lay back down beside the vampire and resumed stroking his arm softly. Dawn sat in the chair on the other side and held that hand, squeezing it periodically, then waiting with unconsciously held breath for any response. When none came, she would release the breath in a sigh, and resume squeezing.

Angel studied the two girls as he waited for his staff to arrive, noting the care with which they touched Spike, and the sad affection on their faces. With a start, he realized that, in one way or another, his annoying grandchilde had been a part of their lives longer than he had. Yes, he had known Buffy (and, by extension her sister) longer, but he had not been a part of her life since he walked away from her tear-stained face five years ago. Five years in which Spike, on the other hand, had been very much a part of their lives in one way or another. He remembered how Spike and Buffy had joined forces to defeat Angelus, years before they had ever considered any kind of relationship other than bitter enemies, and he wondered if that truce had sown the seeds of the incredible connection that he was seeing now.

Wouldn’t that be the height of irony? If Angelus was responsible for the two of them spending enough time together to fall in love? The love of my life and the bane of my unlife – together because of me.

He was jostled out of his thoughts by the arrival of the medical team that had monitored his own trip into Spike’s brain, and he resolutely pushed his memories aside to assist them. The doctor quickly explained to Buffy that she needed only to be touching and concentrating on Spike as the drug entered her system, and that they would monitor her vital signs, ready to step in with the antidote if they needed to get her out.

“Hey! You didn’t do that for me,” Angel complained, then coughed with embarrassment when they just stared at him until Dawn pointed out dryly, “You don’t have any vital signs, doofus.”

“I knew that,” he mumbled, moving closer to Buffy and away from her intimidating younger sister.

Dawn rolled her eyes and Buffy had to smother a smile, a quick flash of how much Spike would have enjoyed hearing his Bit taking his grandsire down a peg making her want to giggle.

She lay back down next to Spike, clutching his hand tightly and staring at his immobile face as she obediently held out her free arm for the drug. She was close enough to the vampire that their legs were touching as well as their arms and shoulders and she concentrated as hard as she could on him while feeling the drug pull her out of her body.... And into her body, which was now lying next to him, but in his old crypt, in the large four-poster bed that he had installed for her – a lovely thought, even if they were often too impatient to wait until they got to it, tearing off their clothes and coming together for the first time on a table, the floor or against a stone wall.

This time, they appeared to have made it to the bed, as she was curled up next to the equally naked vampire and was idly running her fingers up and down his taut stomach. He gave a little hiss every time she seemed to be planning to dip lower, growling when she then giggled and trailed them back up his chest. She watched his cock twitching and swelling as she continued to play with him, and the memory of what she was seeing and participating in came back to her. It was one of the few times that she had allowed her desire for his body and her appreciation of it to overcome her innate need to flee as soon as he had satisfied her. She remembered that there had been a weekend when everyone was busy or gone away somewhere – including Dawn – and she hadn’t had to worry about anyone wondering where she was all day.

They had spent the entire day in bed, getting up only for quick meals upstairs and Buffy’s occasional trips to Spike’s makeshift bathroom. From her new perspective, she could see and appreciate all the things that he had done to make his home more comfortable for her – the space heaters for cold nights, the smooth sheets on the comfortable bed, the running water that was somehow warmed before it came out of the cobbled-together shower. He had even installed an old toilet in the sewer cave behind his crypt – putting down a wooden walkway so that she could get to it without stepping in the flowing water. His refrigerator was always full of her favorite snacks and drinks, and he had even filled one dresser drawer with underwear and sweats in her size for those nights when her clothes suffered from their impatience.

With the knowledge that came with hindsight, she understood why this would have been one of his favorite memories. It was one time when she relaxed and treated him like a lover, rather than a machine to be used for her satisfaction. She felt herself growing warm as his hand came around to stroke her flank and she allowed herself to fall into the memory without regard for those who might be watching her.

As Buffy’s pulse went up, and her cheeks reddened, the doctor frowned and looked at the readings from the instruments that he had attached to her arm. He was reaching for the antidote when Angel cleared his throat and said with a cough, “She’s okay. She’s not in any trouble.” Without the vampire’s sensitive nose, which had told him immediately why Buffy’s blood pressure and temperature were increasing, Dawn and the doctor were left puzzled until suddenly the teenager said, “They’re...ewwww! Why are we watching this?”

“A very good question,” Angel muttered. “I think we should all leave for awhile.” Even though neither the slayer nor the vampire had so much as twitched, the knowledge of what was going on inside the Spike’s mind was too much like watching to suit him.

The doctor tried to argue. “What if he attacks her? What if not all his memories are as...happy...as this one?”

“He won’t attack her,” Angel said with sad finality. “He loves her. She’s perfectly safe with him.”

“And if he does, she’ll just kick his ass,” Dawn said brightly, rising to her feet and following the two men out of the room.

Part Four

On Spike’s bed, Buffy had stopped teasing the vampire and was now allowing her fingers to glide gently up and down his firm erection. She lowered her head and nibbled her way down the smooth skin of his stomach, rubbing her nose in the light brown curls that led from his navel to his sac. She giggled when his eager cock bumped against her face, then gave it a small nip and blew across the tip.

“You’re killin’ me here, Slayer,” he groaned – desperate for what she seemed to be planning, but afraid to demand it lest she change her mind.

“You’re already dead, Spike,” she responded cheerfully, running her tongue up the thick vein on one side. “What could I possibly do to a dead man?”

“You could cause me to spontaneously combust,” he growled, giving in to impulse and grabbing her legs, putting her damp warmth within easy reach of his mouth. “Two can play at this game, pet,” he added, barely tickling her folds with his tongue.

“I’ll bet you give in before I do,” she challenged, blowing her warm breath across him and eliciting another groan.

“Oh, we’ll just see about that,” he growled, even as he was arching his hips toward her mouth. “We’ll just see about that, Slayer.”

“You...oh!...might as well give up now, vampire. You know I—“

The rest of Buffy’s response was lost as she began to pant, trying to maintain her focus on teasing Spike’s cock while he used his arms to lift her up and down, keeping her from settling onto his talented mouth. He used his powerful tongue to tease her, while never allowing enough contact to build up the friction needed for her release. She could tell from the roughness of his tongue, and the way it could reach inside her, that he had gone into his vampire face. The thought turned her on even more, and she moaned in frustration before suddenly seizing his cock in her mouth and running her teeth over it. His sudden cry and the way he clenched his hands on her thighs told her that she’d got his attention and she put her mouth to work.

“I thought...” he gasped, pushing into her mouth, ‘that we were going to see who lasted the longest before they begged?”

“I changed the rules,” she mumbled around the mouthful upon which she was sucking. “It’s who makes who come first.”

She filled her mouth with his eager flesh and began to suck in earnest, holding herself up on one arm so that she could caress his sac with one hand. She squeezed his balls, wringing another groan from him when, in reaction to his pulling her clit into his mouth, she accidentally squeezed too tightly. There was no sound but the pants and moans of the two strong beings as they worked to see which one could bring the other to a powerful orgasm first.

Buffy distinctly remembered that Spike had come first – she remembered swallowing him down and then shuddering all over when he nicked her clit with his fang and sent her over the edge. Knowing what was coming, she softened her movements, waiting for the tremors to shake her body before plunging down onto him and pushing his cock into the back of her throat. She allowed the scream of her release to vibrate against him, bringing him off with a snarling roar.

There was silence again for a long moment, both of them collapsed in sated exhaustion, her head resting on his flat stomach and his mouth ghosting kisses over the inside of her tanned thigh. Suddenly she felt him stiffen and he moved her legs off his head, tugging her back up to nestle beside him again. He was quiet, stroking her bare arm absently, a small frown creasing his brow.

“You won,” she said softly. “Congratulations.”

“No,” he said suspiciously. “I didn’t win. This isn’t right – something’s wrong.” He sat up, staring down at her, his eyes fearful. “Something’s happening to my memories. They shouldn’t change---“

Buffy reached up and touched his face gently. “Maybe it’s time to stop living in your memories,” she said softly. “Maybe it’s time to come out and start making new ones.”

“Buffy?”

She could feel the bed tremble with him as he gazed at her, realization beginning to set in. She allowed her hand to slide down his cheek, cupping it briefly before moving to his shoulder and down his arm to clasp the same hand that she knew her real body was holding.

“Come back with me, Spike,” she whispered. “I love you. I miss you. I want you to come back to me.”

“No,” he shook his head fearfully. “I’m happy here. You love me here—“

“I love you everywhere,” she insisted. “Even if I am really mad at you for not telling me you were alive, I still love you. I still want you.” She pulled away slowly, leaving their hands clasped, but sitting up and smiling at him. “I’m going to go now – please come with me...”

She opened her eyes to find herself in the same position in which she’d been laying when she entered his mind. There was no change in the vampire, except that his mouth, which had been fixed in a small smile, was now twisted into a worried grimace. She sat up and leaned over him, whispering against his lips, “Come with me, Spike. Please come back to me.” For long, agonizing seconds, nothing happened; just as despair was beginning to fill her eyes with tears, she felt the slightest pressure against her lips. She quickly pressed back, then darted her tongue out to trace around his now noticeably mobile mouth. When she felt the rumble of his growl and his own tongue beginning to caress hers, she couldn’t hold back the tears. The kiss quickly became a lost cause as she gasped her joy into his mouth, soaking his face with the tears that she couldn’t seem to stop. When she felt his arms banding around and pulling her into a powerful embrace, she quit trying and just sobbed her relief into his chest until she was spent.

With a final, shuddering breath, she stopped crying and picked her head up to look into his eyes; finding them also moist and filled with wonder as he gazed at her happily.

“You’re really here,” he breathed. “It’s really you.”

She nodded vigorously. “I’m really here. And I really love you and when we get over this emotional meltdown, I am totally going to kick your ass for not believing me!”

She the sound of his happy laughter was sweet music to her ears; she enjoyed the feeling of it shaking his body as he gasped out, “Just say when, pet. My arse is all yours.”

“Really?” She reached an arm around him and pinched his muscular buttock, rubbing the pinched spot immediately in apology. Her mouth became dry as she watched his eyes darken with desire, and she couldn’t prevent the little moan that left her throat when he pulled her against his suddenly-erect cock. It was very obvious that he had nothing on under the thin hospital gown and she couldn’t resist running her hand under it to squeeze him lightly.

“Got any other body parts that belong to me?” she murmured, beginning to caress him.

“Oh yeah, Slayer. I think you found one of them...” He shoved the sheets off and shrugged out of the useless gown, smiling at the way she ran her eyes down his body. She caught the smirk on his face and tried to appear innocent and offended.

“What? It’s been a long time since I...I mean I was just checking you for...like wounds or scars or...”

“Yeah? And what new scars might you have acquired, hmmm?” His hands made quick work of her shirt and bra and were working on the fastening to her pants when she remembered the big window into the room and that there had been three other people in it when she went under.

“Window!” she squealed, squirming away from his busy hands. “There’s a window – and people – there might be people!”

“Sod the window, and sod anybody stupid enough to look in here.” He growled in frustration when it appeared that she might actually be planning to thwart him, and, picking up a heavy book beside the bed, he threw it unerringly at the overhead light, plunging the room into darkness in which only the sound of glass pattering to the floor was evidence of what he’d done.

“Well, that was just---“ Before Buffy could complain about his method of seeking privacy, her pants had been tugged off and she was pinned beneath a very amorous vampire.

“Do you know what else it’s been a long time since?” he asked rhetorically, already nudging at her entrance. Without waiting for an answer, his mouth dipped to hers and she lost herself in one of the kisses that had haunted her dreams for so long.

“Mmmph!”

Unable to reply – what with her mouth being held hostage by his soft lips and eager tongue – she acted in typical slayer fashion, wrapping her legs around his hips and pulling him in until he was filling her completely and they were both sighing. Spike took his mouth off hers long enough to murmur, “Missed you so much, Buffy. Thought I’d never—“

She squeezed him gently, smiling when he groaned his pleasure. “I missed you too,” she whispered. “I missed you and I cried and I wanted to die again, thinking that I would never--“

Lips found lips again and their hips began to rock in a timeless rhythm that built gradually until her gasping whimpers told him that she was close. She felt
his face shift against hers and with sudden understanding, she pulled away from his mouth and turned her head.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Do it. Let me prove how much I love you.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, love,” he said, maintaining his rhythm, but meeting her eyes intently. “I didn’t mean to change – it just happened.”

“I want you to,” she insisted, even as she climbed towards the ecstasy she knew was coming. “Make me yours, Spike...do it now!” Her voice rose as she clenched around him, her body arched into a bow as she shook with the force of her orgasm. He struck, his fangs slicing easily through the soft skin of her throat and letting the powerful slayer blood flow into his mouth. “Mine,” he shouted as he exploded within her. “Mine.” His voice was softer, even though he was still pumping into the quivering slayer, the feedback from the bite and the claiming keeping them both in a repeating loop of sensation.

“Yours,” she sighed, finally recovering enough to be able to speak. “I am yours.... And you are mine!” she added with her own version of a growl, sinking her teeth into his neck until she drew blood. The reciprocated claim was all it took to send them both into another quivering orgasm that continued until they were lying, totally spent, and gasping for air.

They remained still for several minutes, the magic of their actions still reverberating in the air around them, until Spike suddenly sat up and pulled the sheets and blankets over them.

“I’m not cold,” Buffy protested, bringing a chuckle from the vampire.

“That you aren’t, pet. But I don’t really think you want whoever’s making those footsteps I hear to get an up close and personal look at the goodies, do you?”

“Somebody’s coming?” She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest and staring at the lighted hallway just visible through the window. When she saw Angel’s thunderous face, and Dawn’s bright red one, she groaned and fell back onto the pillow.

“What the hell happened in there?” Even his grandsire’s bellow couldn’t smother Spike’s happiness, and he replied cheerfully, “Nothing that can’t wait till the morning for clean up. We’ll be needing a little privacy for a while longer, so if you’ll just post a ‘do not disturb’ on the door...”

Dawn’s excited squeal of “it worked!” wasn’t able to drown out Angel’s disgusted growl, but he obediently shepherded Dawn and the doctor away, instructing the night nurse that she wouldn’t be needed anymore and to be sure the ward was closed and locked before she left.

With a happy sigh, Buffy snuggled into Spike’s side, unable to hide her yawn.

“Bored already, love?” he teased.

“More like been up for most of the last twenty-four hours and sleepy,” she murmured into his chest. “If I take a little nap, you won’t go back into a coma will you?”

“Not going anywhere, Buffy. Not leaving your side, ever again. You have my word on it.”

“’kay, then,” she whispered, her lips moving against his skin. “I love you, Spike.”

“I love you, too, Buffy. Always have and always will.”

His only answer was a soft snore and he smiled down at her as he settled back to wait for the morning and the inevitable conversations and explanations.


The End

AN: There could obviously be more here, but I felt that all snuggly and after-glowy was a nice way to leave them.



 
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