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"Are you watching me sleep??"
"What, and that's some big surprise? A tip, luv: if you're squeamish about that sort of thing, perhaps it's not best to take up with the evil undead. 'Creepy' kind of goes without saying."
"There's evil undead creepy, and then there's you creepy. Whole different ballpark."
"Oh, come on. 'S not like you've never had a bit of how's-your-father with a vamp before. What, when Angel watched you catch your z's it was all string quartets and boxes of chocolates? Please."
"Angel only watched me sleep when he was evil. And -- and he drew creepy pictures of me sleeping and left them around afterwards to freak me out, so at least he was accomplishing something. Not just being all stare-y for stareiness's sake. And how's-your-huh?"
"You know. How's-your-father. Slap 'n tickle. Just ask Giles next time he phones, hmm?"
"Ew, no." Trust Spike to resort to dorky British sex synonyms and Giles when they're supposed to be ... well, whatever the depressing, wrong, this is so the last time this is happening version of afterglowing is. "What's so great about sleepy Buffy, anyway?"
"Same thing that's great about normal Buffy," he replies, and kisses her shoulder; it reminds her of Riley and lazy weekend mornings and she wants to hate that, "but less punching me in the face."
"I like normal Buffy better," she decides, moving as casually as she can out of Lips of Spike range. "She sounds like a gal with her priorities in line."
"I like seeing you peaceful," he says, undaunted, and runs a slow hand up and down her hip. She wishes he wouldn't look at her like that. How has she not beat that look out of him yet? What's it going to take to make him stop--
Whatever.
"Why?" she snaps. "I thought you were so into Came Back Wrong Buffy, tormented creature of the night, so you could try to recruit her into your Spike's a Lonely Loser Gang of One. Which, by the way, I wouldn't get your hopes up. So what makes peaceful look so good on me, exactly--?"
"Because you look dead," he interrupts harshly; poof, look gone, replaced by something that's all anger and sex, love nowhere to be found, "or good as. And that makes us two peas in a pod, wouldn't you say?"
"I hate you," she says, standing up, ready for the clothes search; she's gotten way too used to postponing this part.
He chuckles, a low warm sound. She feels it all over.
+
His thoughts go a little iambic, looking at her with her eyes closed, her face calm and breathing steady. It takes him back to summers in the countryside. Everything kissed by gold and full of light. He's penned his share of sonnets to dark-haired beauties over the years, sonnets in determined ink for Cecily and pulsing through reverent hands for Dru, who was never much of a reader. But Buffy -- he thinks of her dressed in white, hair long again and dancing in a July breeze. (He knows she hacked it off on his account; he's not an idiot.) There's this brook on an old uncle's estate, lined by trees and a green grass sea. He'd used to sit there scribbling away for hours. He'd take her there, he thinks; watch the worry and the wanness leave her face, watch her loosen and glow. She'd hold up her skirts and step into the water, cry out at its coldness but wade on in anyhow, all bold and valiant, tossing smiles back at him. God knows he'd catch them, every one. He can't quite shake that one inescapable truth -- her walking away, away from him and into the sunlight where she belongs -- but he can turn it nicer for them both. Even if it's just in stupid half-dreams like these. Ghost impulses from a life he's never exactly been broken up about leaving. He's not taking her sunbathing anytime soon, that's for sure, and it's not like she'd want him to. She'd laugh herself sick if she knew; that wouldn't be so bad, so long as he could laugh along with. He thinks of her laughing, really laughing (with him, and not the merry band of morons who've already got dibs on all her happy moments).
Doesn't seem so impossible, when she's sleeping. God, she looks young. Beautiful. Strong enough to take on the whole world with just the strength she's got in one pinky. Girl's good with her pinkies. You can't say that about everybody. She looks sweet, too, and not just in the to-eat sense. Sweet enough that she'd laugh if he kissed her awake, that she'd stay even if he stopped making her hurt so bloody good, that--
"Are you watching me sleep??"