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November

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“What do you think?”

He looked around the apartment.

It was clean; perfectly located; large enough to act as a benevolent host to two individuals such as them; she couldn’t see that there was anything to create dislike. She had stumbled upon it by accident. They hadn’t even officially started looking yet, but once she was shown into it, she fell for it instantly. It was of an older model, and wasn’t as strict as some of the newer apartments she’d been in.

She waited anxiously as he took another turn around the room they were in, which was the largest of the four making up the place.

Finally he faced her, and smiled.

“It’s perfect.”

She jumped slightly on the spot before skipping up to him, hugging him tight in her growing excitement.

“Isn’t it, isn’t it?” she kept repeating and he started to laugh.

She took a step back, looking at the room and breathing it in. She knew they’d be able to make a home out of it. It was comfy and had a sense of history to it, a certain recline, as though it had seen its share of tenants and would welcome them accordingly. She adored the windows, which were narrow, but high. She’d buy nice drapes for them, heavy, to keep the light out when he was awake.

“A few buckets of paint,” he was saying, looking around as well. “Some nice pieces of furniture.”

“A big bed,” she smirked, her arm snaking around his waist and his placing itself around her shoulders before he kissed her temple.

“We’ll read the newspaper together,” he said and her smirk turned to a smile as she looked up at him. “Play footsie under the table. Because we’ll have a table. In the kitchen.”

She hit him playfully in the chest.

“But are you sure?” he wondered.

“I like it here,” she replied. “England’s been good to me. Are you sure, with the rain and the memories.”

“The rain I can handle,” he said. “And memories... I’ll make new ones.”

“Good ones.”

“Yeah; and you’ll bloody well have to help.”

She laughed, hugging him again.

“Besides, the slayer machine won’t stop grinding us everywhere, so we’ll still get a change of scenery when we need it,” she nodded. “Now, let me show you where the library should be.”

“Library? There’s no room for a library.”

“A small one. It’ll be like a sitting room, too.”

“When do you read, anyway?”

“Watch it.”

¤

Two weeks later all the paperwork was gone through and they could start moving in. She could hardly believe it. Two months ago she would never have seen herself doing anything even remotely close to this. She had been a drifter for three years and not worried too much about it, finding places to stay and people who wanted her with them wherever she went. And here she was, with a boyfriend – wow, he actually was her boyfriend now; an apartment and a life which was straightening itself out for the first time in a very long time; allowing her to see at least partially where it was headed.

“What about this one?” he asked, holding up a color sample to the wall and she sat back in the new couch they had gotten, sipping her wine and shaking her head.

“Too light. Something a bit darker,” she said.

He held up a new one.

“Too dark. Try the number seven.” He did. “Uegh. No. Try... ten.” He did. “God, no. No, no... Try...”

He threw the samples at her and she laughed, parting her legs as he kneeled before her.

“What should I try?” he asked, kissing her neck and she closed her eyes.

“Mh,” she mumbled. “Try a bit higher.”

¤

“If you can’t make up your sodding mind, don’t expect me to bloody do it for you!” he yelled at her.
“I’m not asking you to make it up for me; I’m asking you to tell me what you think!”

“Every time I tell you what I bleeding think, you say ‘oh’ and then do the exact opposite!”

“I do not do the exact opposite!”

“What color did I suggest for the living room?”

“Blue.”

“What did we go with?”

“Gray! That’s not the exact opposite; it’s a few pegs down on the color scale. And you can’t put blue in the living room! It’s for the bedroom. Or the bathroom!”

“What color did I want in the kitchen?”

“Yellow! Yuck!”

“There, right there!”

“What?!”

“What?! What? You just yucked my suggestion.”

She clenched her fists together, her face hot with anger.

“You can’t seriously want yellow!”

“I’m as bloody serious as I’ll ever get!”

“Our kitchen should be light and inviting!”

“Like ‘lettuce’.”

“Don’t mock my metaphor!” she exclaimed. “Green is a perfect kitchen color.”

“Were you born with the bloody rules of color in the home? Is this something women genetically come with, because I’ve never heard of any bloody perfect kitchen color dictionary.”

“Oh, you’re so funny.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

“I’m starting to understand your choice of clothing.”

“What? When did this spin around to be about what I bloody choose to wear?!”

“Drusilla must’ve gotten tired of the clown outfits you kept walking out of the crypt in, so she decided you should go all black!” she barked.

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” he got out between tight jaws, “I don’t wear all black anymore. And don’t act like you don’t like the black, Slayer. I know you do.”

“Fine, what color do you want in the bedroom?”

“And we’re back with the apartment.”

“What color?”

He glared at her and she glared back.

“Blue,” he finally said.

“Alright. Fine,” she nodded.

“Or maybe yellow.”

“Spike!”

He smirked and she was on him the next moment, her tongue gliding in to meet his as he started jerking her clothes off. The couch tripped them and they fell onto it, half naked and writhing with growing eagerness. He licked his way down her belly, two fingers sliding inside her and she gasped.
Would she always have this reaction to him? The build towards climax began and she groaned as she rolled with it.

She would always have this reaction to him.

¤

“And the final stroke,” she said, reaching up toward the ceiling and putting the finishing touch to the living room walls’ paintjob. She paused, then turned slowly on the fold-out ladder, meeting Spike’s gaze. “We’re done,” she said, eyes wide with wonder.

“So’s the food!” Willow called from the kitchen.

Spike smiled widely, reaching out his arms to help Buffy off the ladder. She slid down with her chest to his and his lips met hers before her feet landed on the floor.

“We’ll be able to move the furniture in,” she said, arms still around him. She was still in utter disbelief. “We’ll be able to hang pictures and watch TV and...”

“...live together?” he asked, a sudden petrified expression in his eyes.

She stared at him, swallowing.

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“You’ll kill each other within a week,” Giles stated cheerfully, coming into the room with a glass of wine for them each.

The both accepted theirs with a glance at the other, Giles turning and walking back into the kitchen.

Buffy thought about going to bed with this bleached menace that always knew what she was thinking or at least how to get to it, she contemplated sleeping next to him, waking up in his arms every morning, or evening or whenever they chose to get up. She smiled. He saw it, and returned it, clinking his glass with hers in a silent toast.

“It’ll be a month, at least,” he promised, her smile broadening as she sipped the chilled liquid.

It was sweet, and she licked it onto her lips before stepping close to him again, putting one arm around his neck before kissing him deeply. She felt him grow weaker and smiled as he leaned against her.

“But I’ll love you forever,” she then stated, pulling back and looking at him.

“I believe you,” he smirked and she giggled, kissing him again as Willow entered the room.

“Hot plates,” she warned, putting the objects in question down on the sheet covered table.

Within a few minutes the lighting of the room had been dimmed. Candles had been lit and the table was set more nicely than Buffy would have thought doable. They kept the sheet on the couch, Willow and Giles having a seat on it as Buffy and Spike sat down on the floor, the table being low enough for it to be comfortable.

“Alright,” Willow said. “Let’s eat.”

¤

Buffy moved her leg, bending it so she could pull it up and rest it practically across his waist. They lay in each other’s arms, nearly asleep.

“It was a nice evening, wasn’t it?” she murmured.

“Yeah, it was.”

“They’re not so bad. Are they?”

His fingers splayed themselves behind her head, making her move it to rest her eyes in his. He was frowning questioningly.

“Well, once upon a time you didn’t like them so much,” she said tryingly.

“Once upon a time I didn’t like you so much either,” he pointed out and she smiled brightly.

Putting her cheek back against his chest she closed her eyes.

This was how it was gonna be from now on. What a beautiful turn of events her future had granted her.

“We’ll move the furniture in tomorrow,” she said and he hmh-ed sleepily. “The bed’s heavy, think we’ll manage, just you and me?”

“We’ll manage.”

She was quiet for a short while, then said:

“Should we get a car?”

“Buffy,” he grumbled. “Go to sleep.”

“Maybe we should get a motorcycle.”

There was a lapse of silence, then he said:

“It’d make it easier to visit Giles. ...Willow, too. Go to London whenever we want. Bristol, Liverpool, see the country.”

She started laughing, moving her head to look at him again.

“You’re too easy,” she smirked teasingly.

¤

She sat back in the couch. It was white, simple, but perfectly fitted for the room. They had had incredible luck when scouring the furniture shops, practically having everything they wanted, and needed, landing in their laps. Though the interior design had been left mostly to Buffy, Spike admitted freely that she had done a very good job. She had incorporated both of them into the rooms, no matter how much a stickler she had been with the colors – as he also freely pointed out. But she’d smile at him, and he’d smile back, and she knew he wasn’t really serious.

“Did you ever think we’d get here?” she asked, turning her head to him.

“What, finally finishing this place?” he asked back, but seemed to notice something in her face because he smartened up, reaching out a hand and linking his fingers with hers before he said: “No. I didn’t.”

“But here we are.”

He smiled a little.

“Here we are.”

¤

“Where do you want to spend Christmas?”

He looked up from the book he was reading.

“I don’t know. Are there options?”

“We could go see Angel and Isabel.”

“We’re not scampering around the globe for Christmas. I know you want to be with Dawn.”

She smiled.

“I do. And she’s usually at Giles’.”

“Giles’ it is,” he said.

“You don’t mind not being here?”

“Buffy, would you stop acting like I hate your friends. I don’t mind them.”

“Do you... like them?”

He gave her a look and she stretched out a leg, giving him a puff on the knee with her socked foot.

“You like them, don’t you?” she smiled. “You even like Giles.”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” he muttered, then smiled as well when she gave him another puff. “I respect the old git, alright?” he said. “There. I admit it.”

Her smile grew as she observed him. He rolled his eyes, going back to his book.