The rest of Christmas Eve passed like a dream of the sort that Spike had been denied for years. He helped hang the stockings, though perhaps not with care. He doused the lights. He saw the Slayer safely off on her sugarplum dreams with a helluva lot more care than he’d shown the stockings.

Right up in her sweet, fluffy bedroom.

He didn’t even mind keeping things quiet, and found himself captivated by her gasps and sighs. They were just as satisfying in their way as the groans and screams he coaxed from her when they were in his crypt. She even giggled loopily and rubbed her face against his chest like a kitten as he pulled the covers snuggly up to her neck and settled them in for their not-so-long winter’s nap.

He lay there savoring her luxuriant heat and her body’s perfume as the dark night slid by with nothing stirring except a few errant brain cells. The quiet meant there was nothing more to occupy him, and that led to thinking, which was usually when things started to go awry. Sure enough, after running through it a few times he began to believe he was an imposter in this tidy domestic scene.

He knew a little about how these wish scenarios went. He’d listened to Anya, even if nobody else wanted to. Seemed like sometimes the wish led to a simple evisceration or an application of the pox. But with the more complex cases, like this one, another dimension might be created or somehow entangled. Which meant that somewhere out there could be a Spike who was used to the sort of treatment he’d been enjoying the past couple of days. The acceptance. The easy affection.

Spike might just hate this other him, who no doubt didn’t appreciate his good fortune nearly enough. What had the lucky bastard done that he hadn’t? Or, more likely, what hadn’t that one done that he had?

And what of Buffy? The one he remembered calling the “not so pleasant” Buffy. The Buffy who was afraid of her own heart. He was worried about her trying so hard to subsist on thin, sour gruel, emotionally speaking. If he wasn’t there to pull her away from her rigid plodding back into the grave, who would do it?

Was the other him with her right now? Would he be too soft with her, too sweet, and end up making her sink further into her morass of hopelessness? Or would he figure out the puzzle of her and make her whole? He seemed to have managed it here.

He looked down at the golden head of the Slayer, mussed and pillowed on his shoulder. Her nose crinkled in sleep as a stray hair tickled it.

He hoped he didn’t fuck it up with this one.

+++

Spike was going to snap like a candy cane if he didn’t get away from the overstuffed house with all the overstuffed people in it.

Today, as the Summers’ home filled with people, he felt like one of those frogs in gradually warming water that found itself boiled alive before it ever noticed. The events of the day marched along as Buffy had predicted: stockings, breakfast, presents, dinner preparations. Carols played in the background, the phone rang, the Scoobies arrived and dashed about, all busy with some task or other.

Dawn roped him into playing board games.

He refrained from snapping at the lot of them, even as their constant cheeriness began to bang away at his skull, reminding him that this was not natural. Even Harris was being less obnoxious than usual, and gave Spike an extra dollop of brandy in his nog. It just added to his feeling of being a cuckoo in the nest. Especially after a brief but alarming tête-à-tête with Anyanka. If he could get a moment alone with Buffy, he might be able to settle himself. But she was in full hostess mode, and a passing squeeze of the hand was the extent of the PDA she’d allow.

As soon as the sun was low enough, he headed for the back porch, ostensibly for a smoke. One fag turned into two, two turned into five. It was full dark when Buffy came out to sit with him.

“Kinda hard to take all that Christmas spirit, huh?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“If it makes any difference, I think half of the merriness is sugar induced. Also: alcohol.”

“I’m just happy the little bit is having a good Christmas, in the bosom and all.”

“You didn’t slip her any booze, did you?” Buffy lowered her chin and regarded him with narrowed eyes, but her twitching lips gave her away.

“Didn’t spike her punch, vamp’s honor,” he replied, holding his hand over his heart. “Might’ve encouraged an extra helping of pudding, though. Won’t make that mistake again in a hurry.”

“Yeah, well, I think you’ve already paid the price. I didn’t know she could still get so shrill.”

He grimaced, gingerly fingering the ear that had got the most direct blast.

“I’ll unlive.”

They sat quietly, breathing in the crisp December air.

“It’s getting to be movie time in there. You want to get in on that, or do we patrol?”

“Christ, Slayer. Let’s get out of here.”

“I thought the words went ‘Christ...is born in Bethlehem’,” she said.

“Very droll, pet.”

She shrugged. “Not my best, but it’s seasonal.” She stood. “I’ll get my stuff. Go tell Dawn goodnight.”

“Oh, bossy.” He stood and pulled her into his arms before she could go marching off. “I like it.”

He looked down into her smiling face and brought a hand up and swept her hair back. He cupped her cheek and brought her lips to his. His previous agitation melted away and he felt her relaxing into him.

When they broke apart she blinked up at him. “I guess I needed that. I might even need some more.” He bent to kiss her again, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. “After patrol. Is that okay?”

“I can work with that.”

She grabbed his hand and tugged him into the living room. She announced they were going a-slaying and dragged him out the door, duffle in hand. Spike barely had time to throw Xander a mocking kiss. Dawn’s giggles followed him down the front steps.

+++

Spike ran his tongue along Buffy’s spine from tailbone to neck, capturing droplets of perspiration as they slipped down her back.

“Bloody ambrosia,” he murmured into her skin. She hummed and allowed him to settle her lax form on her side among the disarranged bedsheets of his bed. He tucked a pillow under her head and pulled the duvet up around them. When he couldn’t find the other pillow, he dangled over the side and probed under the bed with one hand. His fingers skated over crisp paper a moment before they hit soft puffy cotton. He pulled up the pillow and reached back for the paper object.

“Oh, right,” he said, pulling up a flat oblong wrapped in butcher paper. “I’ve a present here for you.”

“Present?” His previously shagged out Slayer sat up with bright eyes and outstretched hands. “Gimme!”

“Greedy thing.” He chuckled and handed over the package, enjoying the view of her uncovered breasts. He loved that she was unmindful of her nudity when they were together. His indomitable warrior queen.

She ran a finger under the tape at the bottom and swiftly removed the wrapping, revealing a charcoal drawing of Joyce and her daughters smiling out at the viewer. Buffy stared at the picture with wonder.

“Oh, Spike. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.” She dragged her suspiciously moist eyes away from it to look at him. “Did you make this?”

He scratched the back of his head and sniffed. “Not the frame. Snaffled that. Did the sketch, though.” He looked up at her from under his lashes. “Do you really like it?”

In answer, she launched herself at him, knocking him back into the mattress and peppering his face with kisses. She paused to look him directly in the eye.

“I love it. It’s the best. You’re the best. God, I think I love you.”

Time slowed as her words registered in his brain. Far off, he could hear the Mission bells begin to peal, counting down to midnight. She smiled down at him, her big eyes shining. His heart might be cold and dead, but at the moment it felt fuller than it ever had.

He rolled her under him and kissed her with every ounce of feeling he had. She clutched him to her more firmly and moaned into his mouth.

Dimly, he registered the last toll of the distant bells.

She began to struggle beneath him, and he moved to suckle her neck, leaving her airway free. Her struggles increased.

“God, Spike! Would you just get off me, already?” She shoved him aside. He landed in a sprawl halfway off the bed. She crossed her arms over her chest and ran her eyes over the carpets, presumably hunting for her clothes.

“What’s the problem, Slayer?”

“The problem is you, Spike. I’ve got to get back to Dawn, and you are, as usual, getting in my way.” She stood and turned her back to him, bending to pick something up and skinning into her shirt.

Spike gave his head a sharp shake, trying to square her words of a few minutes ago with her current actions.

“I’m what, now? Thought we were having a moment.”

“The ‘moment’ was over five minutes ago. Stop trying to drag it out.”

She spied another item and bent again to pick it up, giving him yet another unimpeded look at her delectable arse. It was distracting. It was also a bit less plush than he remembered it being earlier this evening.

Her arse and the rest of her disappeared as she dropped down to feel around under the bed, if the scrabbling and bumping noises were anything to go by. A hand popped up holding one of her boots. Then the rooting sounds stopped.

“What’s this?” She brandished the picture frame in the air.

Spike sighed. “It’s your sodding Christmas present, Buffy. We’ve been through this.”

She stared at the drawing with horror.

“Oh. My. God. This obsession of yours… This is just crazy. I will not have you stalking us like this.” She held up the picture like it was Exhibit A.


“Oh, that’s rich! Have me over for tea and crumpets and then tell me I’m stalking you? Get over yourself, Slayer.”

“What are you talking about? You know what? Nevermind. Just stay the hell away from us.”

“Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before.” Spike reached for his cigarettes with one hand and made shooing motions with the other.

Somehow, she’d managed to get dressed and shod while she berated him. She spun on her heel and stormed out of his crypt, banging both doors on her way out.

He sighed and lit a fag.

Couldn’t claim to be surprised, could he? “Merry sodding Christmas,” he muttered.

+++

At around 1:30 AM, Spike sauntered into the Alibi Room with a bounce in his step. He spotted his target sitting in the same place he had been a few days earlier. He slid onto the seat next to the horned blue demon and signaled to the bartender for a drink.

“Anya tells me you’re D’Hoffryn. Says you’re a big smell in vengeance,” he said. “I don’t get it. Aren’t these wish deals supposed to be some sort of punishment?”

D’Hoffryn didn’t bother to look at him. “That is a vast oversimplification.” Then he regarded Spike with curiosity. “Do you not feel the pain of having your happy home, your perfect love, stripped from you in the blink of an eye? Perhaps your affection doesn’t run as deep as you believed?”

“That last bit’s a load of bollocks, mate. Stings a little, sure,” Spike allowed. “But I’ve sussed it out. I’m better off than I was before. Now I’ve seen what we could have, if she’d let it. I know she loves me. Nothing she can say or do to make me believe she doesn’t.”

“Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase ‘sometimes love isn’t enough’?”

“It’s enough for me.”

“I see. It seems as if your suffering is just beginning, then. I wish you the very best Gurnenthar's Ascendance, William the Bloody. As if anything could help you now.”

D’Hoffryn vanished from the spot.

Spike drained his drink as soon as the bartender put it in front of him. He turned on his stool and smiled at the room, enjoying the way his apparent happiness made some of the smarter demons flinch.

Without a doubt, this was the best Christmas in ages.

Fin