abelina

My first Spuffy fic, Whispers, has never been posted to my journal (it’s at seven_seasons ), so I am doing that now. If you’ve already read it, there isn’t anything new. I just wanted to have all my stories available on my journal.

Title: Whispers
Chapter: Three ~ You Say You Want a Revelation
Rating/Warning: NC-17 for sexual situations and blood play.
Summary: After Spike endures torture at the hands of Glory to protect the identity of the Key, Buffy is forced to reconsider everything she ever thought she knew about the vampire, leading to some startling revelations.
Setting: Season 5, immediately post-Intervention.
Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. They are being used out of respect and admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: This story is self-beta’d and I know that there are errors and other things that could be fixed to make it better. However, this is the way it was first posted and I am leaving it be. Chapter three is posted in three parts (A,B,C) due to it's length.
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Previous Chapter: Chapter Two, Part C

Chapter Three, Part A

You Say You Want a Revelation

*~*

The air in the crypt sparked with electricity, and the space between them crackled with palpable energy. Buffy’s every nerve ending tingled and her fingers, still tangled with Spike’s, burned with invisible flames. Spike’s one open eye bored into hers, impossibly blue and wholly astonished. For the second time that evening, the Earth screeched to a sudden, gut-wrenching stop, stalling in its orbit and rendering time and space and everything else meaningless. Nothing existed in that moment outside of Buffy and Spike.

“What...did...did you just say what I think you said?” Spike’s voice, a wavering, halting, audible representation of the bewilderment on his face, jolted the world back into motion.

Buffy blinked and broke eye contact while she struggled to make her mouth work. This time Spike waited, wide-eyed and holding his superfluous breath, for her response. “I...did,” she managed, and when their eyes met again, a surge of energy coursed through her.

The way Spike gasped as she did told her he’d felt it too.

“But you didn’t intend to say it,” he added after a long moment of weighty silence.

“No, I...I didn’t even intend to think it,” she admitted, unable to tear her eyes from his. “But...I meant it.”

Silence befell them, heavily laden with everything that lay unspoken between them. Whispers of possibility, of anticipation, of desire hung in the air, and every deep, shaky breath she drew into her lungs spread the sensations like fire through her veins. The crypt was cool but Buffy only felt heat, the warmth of Spike’s intent gaze and the incredible heat blooming in her chest. Desire was only part of it; it was there, no doubt, but this heat was different, both strangely soothing and wildly exhilarating, and it took up residence inside her with a sense of belonging, of inevitability. Her eyes widened with comprehension, even as Spike continued to stare at her with mingled expectation, trepidation, and longing.

And with undeniable, profound certainty, Buffy understood that this was the moment, the place in time where the last of her walls crumbled to ash beneath the inferno raging between them. She had not said if. Her unintentional confession dealt in absolutes, and no part of her offered any hint of denial that she had taken that giant, final step over the edge of the precipice. That inevitability of one day had become this day. Buffy was falling hard and fast and headlong, but the prospect of winding up so far gone she’d never get out failed to frighten her. Instead, it filled her with blissful serenity so immense she wanted to cry from the sheer rightness of it.

She had done epic and messy. She’d been tricked into the one-night-stand and had settled for the so-called normal relationship. Buffy knew heartache, and thought she’d understood love, but she hadn’t, not fully. It wasn’t drama and misery; neither was it pretty, empty words nor safe, reliable tedium. Love was real, raw and visceral; it was unpredictable, undeniable, full of pitfalls and shining highs. It was acceptance, pride, and passion, earth-shattering, mind-blowing, and breath-taking. Love was fire and ice, hate and lust and blood, and no matter what, it was home. It was belonging. No wonder Angel and Riley left; she had never truly belonged to either one of them. Looking now into Spike’s broken face felt like a long awaited homecoming.

Some of this must have shown in her expression, because the furrow of Spike’s bruised brow lessened, and all that shone from his face now was renewed astonishment and overwhelming love. He continued to regard her with this blatant awe for countless minutes, before his expression sobered.

He leaned toward her to trail the tips of his fingers down her cheek. “When the sun comes up, this ends, doesn’t it?”

Buffy leaned into his caress, and Spike’s hand cupped her face, his thumb moving over her cheek in a feather-light circle. “No. . .” she breathed, eyes drifting shut as she submitted to his touch.

His other hand rose, brushing through her hair and skimming over her shoulder. He tangled his fingers into the golden strands, and the fluttering dance of Buffy’s heart, echoed by that of the fireflies in her belly, quickened as Spike leaned toward her. Buffy held her breath, waiting, but the anticipated kiss never came. Spike’s lips instead brushed lightly along the line of her jaw and his cheek came to rest against hers.

His breath as he spoke tickled her ear and sent tingling shivers through her brainstem and down her spine. “You sure about that?”

She wanted to be, more than anything. She wanted to assure him that his fears lacked validity, but she could not, and a sudden heaviness settled in her heart with that realization. Best intentions easily fade into nothingness, and he deserved more than a promise she was unsure if she could keep.

Spike moved to rest his forehead against hers, one hand still playing in her hair, the other resting again on her thigh. “The truth, Buffy,” he whispered.

Buffy inhaled a shaking breath. Spike’s attentiveness had her feeling lightheaded, making coherency difficult, but she forced her mouth to work. “I...can’t ignore what you did...but it...things won’t be this easy, when tonight’s over,” she admitted, and felt Spike’s emotional exhalation breeze over her face.

When he pulled back to look at her, Buffy offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “But I’ll try,” she added, and Spike waited with rapt attention for her to continue. “Try like you’re trying...Spike, this is, what I’m...God, you’d think I didn’t grow up speaking this language.”

The warmth in his answering chuckle lifted some of the heaviness from her heart. “Butchering it’s more like it,” he teased. His fingers tickled her leg and he cocked his head to the side and tipped it up in a brief nod. “You’re doin’ fine, sweetheart.”

The endearment brought a grin to her face. Before tonight, if anyone told her that Spike calling her sweetheart had the power to turn her insides into mush, Buffy would have either laughed them to death or knocked them unconscious. The obvious internal squishiness, suffused in tingling warmth, effectively ripped apart that theory and gave her much-needed encouragement to keep speaking in spite of her inherent difficulty with expressing herself verbally.

“Today...tonight...a lot of things started changing for me,” she began, trying to maintain eye contact but finding the directness intimidating. “What I thought I knew is gone, and things I never wanted to consider are staring me in the face. I’m confused and I’m terrified and I...I want to know what can come from all this.”

Buffy met Spike’s eye again, and set her hand atop his where it rested on her leg. “But this, it’s...monumental. Not a leap I can take overnight. There are factors...endless things standing in my way. I want to give you something more, I really do, but I can only try.”

Spike was nodding slowly, taking everything in with barely contained hope. Already, she knew, she had given him more than he ever thought he’d receive, but it still didn’t feel like enough — not after tonight, after everything.

Buffy reached out a trembling hand to cup his cheek, mirroring his earlier gesture. “I think...no, I know. I just stepped over that ledge, Spike, and I’m falling. I think I’m falling hard. I just don’t know when...I’ll land.”

It was as close as she could get, but Spike understood immediately the meaning behind her confession. His gaze softened and turned inward, a love-struck parody of his hunger-trance. When it cleared, he pressed a kiss into her palm, then took her hand in his.

Spike leaned toward her again, and this time when his lips touched her jaw, he trailed along it a line of kisses toward her ear. Blunt teeth nibbled on the fleshy lobe while the hand on her leg migrated to her hip. His fingers pressed into her flesh, insistent but gentle as they tugged her toward him. Buffy’s head swam and the fire in her belly roared tenfold as her body met the cool expanse of his chest. The position was awkward; too many legs and not enough space to accommodate them, and she was wary of leaning too heavily against his wounds. Of their own volition, however, her fingers curled into the firm muscles beneath them, and Spike’s hand, moving from her hip to rest low on her back, seemed intent on keeping her there.

The unbelievably soft lips now focused on her neck, vibrating deliciously from the rumbling in Spike’s chest. “When you do, whenever that is,” he murmured into her flesh, “I’ll be waiting there to catch you.”

Buffy let her head fall to the side, one arm snaking around Spike’s neck, and breathed a soft sigh. “I never thought for a minute that you wouldn’t be.”

“Well, that’s something,” he answered, between moist kisses. “That’s more than something.”

Buffy stroked the back of his neck with her fingers, surprised at the softness of his hair beyond the reaches of the ubiquitous lacquer. “It’s not as much as you deserve,” she whispered, “but it’s all I’ve got.”

The next instant saw her bereft of Spike’s attentive lips as he pulled his head up, guiding hers with gentle fingers on her chin to meet his eye. “Buffy, you’ve just given me more than I ever dared hope for,” he told her, then smirked. “Well, can’t say I never hoped, but I certainly never thought...”

“That makes two of us,” she finished.

A shared smile flitted between them. With gentle hands on her shoulders, Spike eased Buffy back, and stretched his leg out beside her along the back of the couch. His other dangled over the edge, leaving an open space in the middle waiting in clear invitation. Without hesitating, Buffy untucked her legs from beneath her and sat down on her backside, slowly shuffling forward as she draped her legs overtop his.

“C’mere,” Spike said softly, slipping his hands around behind her to pull her into his lap, scooting toward the middle of the couch to make room for her legs behind him. “That’s better.”

Buffy’s breath quickened as she settled onto him, acutely aware of the hard bulge of his erection nestled between her legs. Ever so slightly, Spike tilted his hips forward as if to say, see what you do to me? Beyond that, he made no further moves, did nothing to indicate that he expected anything of her, despite undoubtedly realizing the extent of her own arousal. Though the evidence of his desire continued to press into her through the thin fabric of her pants, Buffy felt incredibly un-pressured. There was no smugness, no demands or expectations, only the tenderness of a man who loved her unconditionally.

Buffy draped her arms over his shoulders and let her head fall forward until her forehead came to rest against his. Spike combed his fingers through her hair, one hand wrapping around the nape of her neck, the other drifting back down to hold her in place.

“Of course we’ll be great together, Buffy,” he whispered, his lips lightly brushing over hers as his words ripped through her with lightning intensity. “We’re already bloody fantastic.”

She barely had the time to take in a shuddering breath before Spike’s lips descended upon hers with feverish speed. Buffy threw herself into the kiss immediately, one arm tightening around his shoulders while her other hand moved to cup his cheek. As if encouraged by her enthusiastic response, Spike tugged her even more tightly against him, ignoring his own physical discomfort as he plundered her mouth fervently. A rumbling growl rose in his chest as Buffy swept her tongue over his bottom lip. Accepting her invitation, Spike’s lips parted, his tongue joining hers in its eager, intimate exploration.

Buffy hadn’t known it was possible to drown while simultaneously forgetting the need to breathe. There had been sparkage when she kissed Angel. With Riley, something like fluttery butterflies that stopped dancing somewhere along the way. Kissing Spike, there were flames — bright, blazing, and eternal. The inferno consumed her, cocooned her in warmth so fulfilling, so sensational, that the mere thought of her lips ever leaving his shot pangs of loss straight through her thundering heart. How could a being who generated no body heat feel so breathtakingly warm? It didn’t matter. Breathing didn’t matter. This was it.

Though she had sworn off oxygen, when Spike broke the connection, Buffy sucked in great, needy breaths, dizzy from the lack of air and the intensity of the kiss, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She did not know what it was about kissing Spike that made her feel as though all her previous kisses amounted to nothing more than practice. Was she simply caught up in the moment, the excitement of her changing feelings and the thrill of the forbidden? Or did the energy she felt surging between them originate from something more, something deeper they were only starting to discover? Again, that sense of anticipation, of standing on the cusp of something incredible, tingled in the back of her brain and broke her out all over in goosebumps.

Spike pressed his brow to hers, chest rising and falling in the same frantic pattern as Buffy’s, and a powerful shiver tore through her. “Buffy...” he breathed. The fingers of the hand holding her in place tucked beneath the hem of her shirt, drifting over her pebbled flesh of her back in light circles, and his other hand moved from her neck to trail up and down her arm. “Cold?”

“Warm,” she corrected, stoking the back of his neck and shivering again beneath the tenderness of his caresses.

“You feel it too, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied breathlessly. “I—”

“Shhh,” Spike interrupted, the flicker of air tickling her face. “Told you, love...fantastic.”

*~*

>>Chapter Three, Part B