Title:  Pillow Talk

Author:  Miss Murchison

Rating: G, possible PG for off-scene violence to Andrew

Disclaimer:  All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.  Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Setting:  During “Dirty Girls,” after Faith talks to Spike in the basement, but before Buffy decides to go searching for Caleb.

Notes:  Written for aphroditesflesh as part of leftofmyheart's Spuffy ficathon. The request was for late S7, with Faith as a character.

Thanks: To Keswindhover and revdorothyl for the beta.

The quiet of the back porch was broken by the rasp of a lighter striking, and a moment later Buffy smelled the harsh tang of cigarette smoke.

“Spike—” she began, turning to face the figure that had just emerged from the kitchen. She stopped, and felt her expression harden as all her emotional defenses slammed into place.

Faith shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint; it’s the bad Slayer girl instead of one of your soulful vamps. Gotta admire your skill at collecting them, by the way.” She stepped forward, waving her cigarette with a nervous, almost jittery gesture. “And sorry to interrupt your broody time, B, but I had to get out of there. Your new houseboy is singing a tragic opera because Amanda sloshed water on his custard.” Faith plopped down on the step next to Buffy and wiggled around. “So I thought I’d make myself comfortable out here.”

“Comfortable” apparently involved rubbing her thigh and upper arm against Buffy’s and flipping her hair in the other girl’s direction as she ostentatiously blew cigarette smoke away towards the driveway.

Buffy stared out into the yard. After a moment, she said, “Okay, Faith, you’ve got me.”

“Really?” said Faith in mock-delight, scootching even closer.

A few long heartbeats later, Buffy scootched away and added, as if Faith had not spoken or moved, “I just let the ‘five by five’ stuff and the other things you say roll over me, but this time I have to ask what the hell you mean.”

“Huh?” Faith tossed a long lock of hair out of her eye and frowned, as if replaying the conversation in her head.

“Sloshed water on his custard?” prompted Buffy.

“Oh, that. No, B, it’s not an expression. There’s real custard and real water.” Faith flung her right leg over the left, hands gesturing as she talked. “Little Andrew is making crème brulée, and he convinced some of the brats to help him by saying they’ll have to go to bed without dessert unless they clean berries and whisk eggs. For a while, that was more fun than watching The Osbornes, especially since the girls were all thumbs and Andrew seemed even more likely to boil over than the cream.” Faith wriggled around on the step some more, uncrossing her legs, and then crossing them again with the left one on top. “Andrew has this really cute little baby flame thrower, and he’s trying to get them to burn sugar, but they’re not doing it just like he wants, and his voice is getting higher, and higher, and—”

“I get the picture,” said Buffy.

Faith was carried away with her story. “He’s running around, flapping his oven mitts and getting himself into what I think is called a tizzy.” She cocked her head to one side and regarded Buffy. “Come on, B—”

“Lighten up,” said the two girls together. They eyed each other resentfully.

“Now how did I know you were going to say that?” Buffy’s voice was harsh.

Faith stood up, flung her cigarette on the ground, tossed her hair back, and slammed her way back into the house.

Buffy ground the cigarette out with her heel. Her eyes were tearing. It must be this damn smoke.



Five minutes later, Buffy’s senses registered the scent of burning tobacco before the sound of the kitchen door opening. “Faith—” she said, exasperated, as she turned to face the newcomer.

“Sorry, Slayer,” said Spike. “It’s just me, not your other half.”

“Don’t call her that,” said Buffy coldly.

He hesitated, standing behind her. “It’s just that this dense male brain of mine keeps trying to decide exactly who she was trying to make jealous about who earlier, down in the basement.”

Buffy wrapped her hands around her knees, not looking at him. “Don’t waste too much time wondering, Spike. Faith’s an equal-opportunity brain teaser. And other types of tease.”

“As I observed.”

“And Faith and I were never a whole for there to be halves of. I did really try to be her friend once, though.”


She forgot about Faith as he settled himself down on the step next to her, just a few inches away, carefully tucking the skirt of his coat away from her jeans. A phrase ran through Buffy’s mind. “Not worthy to touch the hem of her garment.”

Spike had gotten much of his old swagger back, but the care he took not to impose on her convinced her he that still felt guilt for one attempted crime, at least.

She wanted to tell him it was okay, he could relax, that her days of flinching away from him were gone for good. That a casual touch from him felt like comfort, not threat.

She spent too long searching for words. Before she spoke, he turned to her with his lips and scarred eyebrow twitching in a way she knew meant mischief. “So, Slayer, do you know why Kennedy would be running about the kitchen chasing Andrew with the smallest bloody flamethrower I’ve ever seen, or why Amanda is threatening to douse him with boiling water, or why there’s a bushel of berries coating the kitchen floor?”

“Yes,” said Buffy without moving.

He bent his head slightly to peer at her intently. “I don’t see you rushing to do anything about it.”

“You’re not exactly a blaze of movement either.”

In fact, he was sitting perfectly still, his cigarette in danger of burning down to his fingers. “Well, you know, being flammable and all, I wasn’t much thrilled with the idea of being a blaze of anything.”

Buffy responded to this excuse by staring pointedly at the cigarette and ostentatiously waving the smoke rising from it away from her face.

He just shrugged. “I thought I’d let someone else deal with this crisis.”

“Me too.” Buffy tossed her hair back and stared out at the yard. “We keep telling these girls they have to step up, take care of problems without always running to us.”

“Like Andrew and the dessert menu?” Spike’s voice was dry as dust.

“If they can’t handle this—” Buffy’s voice trailed off. “Well, if they can’t handle this, at least Xander’s made sure there are fresh batteries in the smoke alarm. I’ll know about it right away.”

Spike took a long drag on his cigarette. “Think they’ll be ready for the real battle?”

“They have to be.”

“You’ve got more help now, with another full-fledged Slayer about.”

Damn. He really is jealous. Buffy responded to the comment and the slight bitterness in his tone with an undignified snort.

“You don’t think she means it? That she's the Slayer and she's here to help?” Spike sounded more relieved than surprised at her dismissal of Faith.

“Oh, she means it. Now. But who knows what she’ll be thinking or doing two days—or two hours—from now?” She looked at her hands. “You know that saying? Once burnt, twice shy?”

“I thought it was ‘once bitten,’” said Spike. “But that may just have been in my social circle.” A loud yelp sounded from the kitchen. “Besides, I’m thinking Andrew’s learning about your version right now.”

Buffy choked.

“There,” said Spike with satisfaction. “I almost got a laugh.”

“Go, you,” said Buffy. But she was smiling now. Even as she saw his pleasure at her momentary happiness, she felt her grin fade.

“Look, if you’re really worried about that lot in the house—” He moved to stand up.

“No,” said Buffy, laying a hand on his sleeve.

He sat back down, staring at her fingers.

“Spike, Faith volunteered. She wasn’t forced to come back to Sunnydale. Of course, she may unvolunteer and decide to go grizzly hunting in Alaska, or do something even crazier within the next five minutes. But—”

She was silent for a long time, and he finished for her. “Those other girls didn’t.”

“What?”

“The other girls in there. They didn’t volunteer.”

Buffy let go of him and sat back, staring. “No, I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about you.”

“Me?”

She thought he couldn’t have sounded more astonished than if she’d announced she was thinking about trying out for American Idol. “You offered to go, but that was when we were afraid the First could still use you. I told you I wasn’t ready to let you leave and—and I’m not. As the Slayer, I can’t let you go, because I need you in this fight. But as me, as Buffy, I need to know—I need to know if you want to go. If you want to leave Sunnydale.”

There was a long silence, in which he ground one cigarette out beneath his boot heel and lit another.

It was Buffy who finally spoke. “This is my fight, not yours. I feel like I’m doing what the First tried to do, turning you into a weapon in this battle.”

The new cigarette was burning down against his fingers, unattended. He hadn’t even been breathing; she heard him drag air into his lungs before he spoke at last. “No, I want to stay. And not just because it got personal for me when the First decided to carve me up in pretty patterns like a Halloween pumpkin. Not even because it crawled into my mind, pinched the memories that would hurt the most, and used them against me.”

The tip of the cigarette blazed bright and dangerous as it arced across the yard and came to rest on a patch of trampled and dry lawn. “This is my battle too, Slayer. Don’t take it away from me.” He turned to face her at last, his eyes so bright it almost hurt to look at him. “Because I know it’s the only part of you that can ever belong to me.”

There had been no bitterness in his tone.

Buffy wanted to respond, but her throat was suddenly sore and dry, and she found herself standing up and walking away from him. A moment later, the sole of her boot came down on the still glowing cigarette butt, grinding its treacherous brilliance into ash.

The wisps of smoke merged into the dusk, and she felt as if she could speak at last. She turned. Spike was gone.

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