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TITLE: Eden in the Afternoon
AUTHOR: Nico
E-MAIL: stoprobbers@hotmail.com
DISCLAIMER: Pfft. If I wrote the show...
TIMELINE: Future fic, around 5 or 6 years after the present season.
SPOILERS: I guess up to now. I kinda created my own future for them.
SYNOPSIS: Sunsets and vampires and happier future than we thought.
DISTRIBUTION: LoD, obvious. If you want it, just tell me where it's goin'.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This fic has B/A AND B/S in it, but its a B/A ROMANCE FIC. The B/S is PURELY platonic, because I think that if B/S were friends, it'd be hella funny and quite cool. So yes, Spike is portrayed in a good light. I like Spike. But it *IS* B/A. Also, it's ALL told from Buffy's POV.
FEEDBACK: I take feedback out to dinner and put out on the first date. Oh, yeah.
RATING: PG
Eden in the Afternoon
It's wierd how different the two of them are. He still sleeps in the afternon, while his wayward childe runs around like he's had three hits of speed shot straight into his blood. He dances between beams of sunlight, and throws things at windows, despite knowing he'll be bruised for it later. You wanna know something? I think he likes it.
God, I don't even know how Spike and I came to be living with Angel in his hotel. Well, I know how I did. I was lost, I was scared, I was alone, I was confused, and Angel's never had anything but open arms for me. As for Spike.. Well, I do know one thing. Angel has never had open arms for Spike. Which was why it was like a fight to the death to get him to let him live here. After Dawn died.. I can barely even talk about it anymore, those dark months. And he was all I had; this rude, disgusting, annoying, and pervertedly charming bleached out idiot vampire who was as heartbroken as I was. You'd have thought he'd lost his own sister. He cried his nonsoul out on my shoulder every night for almost a week. At the time I couldn't figure out how someone without a soul could feel such grief. After all, he couldn't love, right? But I think in those weeks he proved to me that not only could souless demons love, but they could do so quite well. I remember Drusilla telling me that once, when Spike had us both tied up. She said that they could love quite well, if not wisely. Who'da thought the nutcase would have been right? And Spike *was* capable of love. Oh, not of me. That was twisted, sick, and perverted love. That was anger and lust and admiration that he didn't know how to handle. I know it, because I felt it too. But he loved Dawn like the litter sister he once told me that he never had but always wanted. When she died, he lost family too.
So when I came to Los Angeles, he insisted on coming with me. And when I showed up on Angel's doorstep, he was promptly thrown out.
Oh, it was hilarious. Not then, but it is now. Angel opened the door, already frantic from my tearful phone call, and turned white as a ghost when he saw Spike standing there next to me. That's damn impressive for someone who hasn't seen the sun in over two centuries. I actually never thought he could get that white. I also never thought he could get that red either, but there he was, bright as a cherry tomato, vamped out, and outright growling at Spike. I've never heard Angel growl at *anyone*, not even the Mayor. He usually has such a hold on his temper. And, of course, Spike had to poke at him. Which he did. And all that earned him was the most impressive punch to the jaw I've ever seen, and his ass tossed out in the sun. That was funny. I laughed like hell. Spike woke me up with three pitchers of ice water the next morning. Asshole.
It was twisted in the beginning, with Angel doting over me, Spke doting over me, and the two of them getting into fistfights every ten minutes or so. I've never given so much first aid in my entire life. Not even in that final battle that took my friends, and my sister. A few months after we moved in, Willow came to stay with us, but she left a little later. Oz and Tara had both perished in the battle, and she couldn't stay witnessing are weird little family. I don't think I could understand more.
It was Drusilla, of all creatures, who finally made peace with our house. She came back - I don't know why, maybe to avenge Darla's death by Angel's hand - and found us all living together. Enraged doesn't cover her reaction, and I think whatever was left of her sanity flew out the proverbial window. Spike was the one to stake her. He and Angel holed up in a room together for the next three days, and didn't come down. When they finally did, relieving me of several anxiety-related headaches, there were no more fistfights, and much fewer arguments. Angel took to slapping him upside the head when Spike looked at me in a way he deemed "wrong", and Spike took to doing it purposefully to piss him off. I said we were peaceful, not in a state of homeostasis. But it was different from then on. Spike stopped trying to goad Angel about our relationship to piss him, stopped getting into real brawls with him in the kitchen. He became very sullen for a while, but when he emerged from whatever funk he was in, it was all for the better. He was almost cheery, and way to hyper for me to deal with most of the times. Part of that twisted charm, I guess.
Angel and I.. Angel and I were a much harder, longer story. We walked the fine line of awkward attraction for almost a year before we finally gave in. And when we gave in, *boy* did we give in. Lucky for us, somewhere along the lines the curse got fixed, removed, changed so that his soul seemed to be quite permanent. There was a long, tearful argument after that night, with him waking up with his soul. Not that it wasn't a good thing, but it didn't do much for my sexual insecurities. Was I not good enough to make him happy anymore? He assured me that perfect happiness was quite a good definition for the night before, and we just kinda took it on faith. It's been almost three years now, without incident, so I'm pretty sure it's a permanent fixture. Which is good. Because if I'm sharing a room with him, there had better be no out-of-bounds.
We got married last year. We made up a fake name for him, which was his real name. Liam O'Flaherty. Spike provided me with that tidbit of information, much to Angel's ire, and after several minutes of intense giggling (which didn't do anything to assuage his anger), I managed to convince him to use it. We got him fake birth certificates, fake drivers liscences, and fake lots-of-other-things that I didn't know you needed for a marriage liscence, then got married. In a church of all places. Trying to convince the Catholic (did you know Angel was a Catholic? I didn't) priest to *not* bless us with holy water was interesting, but we managed to do it. We also managed to avoid communion and other potentially deadly situations. And, somehow, it worked. So we're married, coming up on our first anniversary. Anyone who tells you marriage is bliss is dead right, especially if you've finally managed to marry your soulmate.
There were a lot of times I wasn't sure it was worth it, wasn't sure my happiness was alright in the face of all I've lost. There were a lot of times that I wondered if Dawn was looking down on me, angry and jealous of my happiness when she had been robbed of life so early on. Whether Xander and Anya watched my wedding and cursed me because the End of Days fight had taken place before their own. If Cordelia still harbored feelings for Angel, and if she thought I had stolen him away from her when she had finally had the smallest chance. Sometimes I thought I heard Riley, accusing me over and over of never loving him, and always loving Angel. I wonder if he was looking down on me and considering my life as proof. It drove me nearly insane, sparked numerous fights between Spike and I over stupid things, and Angel and I over big long-unresolved issues. Sometimes we didn't talk for a week. It was long, and it was hard, but it was worth it. God, was it worth it.
The garden I'm sitting in is full of mist and dew and the orange light of setting suns. Spike is running around, dodging rays of bright tangerine, and generally acting like a five year old. I'd tell him to stop, because he's making me dizzy and kinda nauseous, but I don't have the heart. He's like the brother I never had and never knew I wanted. So I watch him, and I laugh when he catches fire by accident, and I laugh harder when he curses at me. I smile when cool arms wrap around my waist and I'm pulled back against a hard, cold chest, and a pair of soft lips gently kiss my ear. Spike makes a rude commet, Angel and I flick him off, and it's like perfection. My own Eden.
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