Title: Birthdays and First Dates (1/2)
Disclaimer: I own absolutely NOTHING! Joss and M.E. own all. I just like to borrow and play.
Spoilers: Through "Life Serial" Anything after, didn’t happen. These are my dreams here! =)

Part 1

"You’re drunk!" Buffy claimed after spying all the empty liquor bottles around the room.

"No, I’m not! I’m juss a lil’ wobbly," Spike grinned. He grabbed a fifth of very cheap whiskey and tipped it back. Since he didn’t need to pause to breathe, he drank the entire bottle at one go. "Oh, I need to sit." He flopped down on his sofa. "You sure your don’ wanna lil’ drink?"

"I’m sure, Spike!" she snapped. She really did want a drink. She wanted to cut loose and get sloppy drunk for once, without turning into ‘cave slayer’ or having a giant snake-guy try to eat her. "Even if I did want a drink, it wouldn’t be any of that rot-gut."

"Yeah, you prolly drink somefing all fru-fru," he laughted. "Somefing all creamy and sweet with one of those cute lil’ umbrellas in it. I could make you one. A drink, not the umbrella."

Buffy just glared at him, finally saying, "No, I don’t want anything, except for you to go to sleep, Spike."

"You gonna go to sleep wiff me?" he asked as he tried to stand. "I’ll go to bed if you go wiff me." He weaved his way across the room to her, kicking empty bottles as he went. He got as close to Buffy as he could, without touching her, and whispered soberly, "I love you, Buffy." Then, he turned and wobbled to his slab, stripping off his shirt and tossing it back over his shoulder. Buffy just stared at Spike, her jaw dropped, marveling at his moment of lucidity in the middle of his drunkenness. She snatched the black T-shirt out of mid-air, before it landed on her head. It reeked of alcohol.

Spike sat cross-legged on his slab and stared in Buffy’s direction, trying to get his eyes to focus. "Buf-fy!" he sing-songed. "Could you bring me my pillow?" He sounded like a child needing his teddy bear.

She sighed and picked the pillow up off the floor. Buffy walked over and handed it to Spike. "Now, GO. TO. SLEEP." She said pointedly. "When I come back tomorrow evening, you’d better be sober." As she walks out, Spike mumbles incoherently, lays down and falls asleep.

Just before sunset, Buffy silently slipped into Spike’s crypt. It was a little early for her to patrol, she just wanted to check on him. He was no longer on the slab where she left him. Instead, she found him asleep on the sofa, still clutching an empty bottle of cheap gin.

She decided to let him sleep longer. Buffy went on patrol, determined to come back.

After an hour and a half of patrolling, dusting only one vampire, Buffy decided she’s had enough and headed to Spike’s crypt to torment him for a while. She flung the door open, trying to be especially loud. Spike was still asleep on the sofa where she left him the last time.

The bottle had dropped from his hand to the floor. She had hoped he would wake when she slammed the door shut, but he only twitched a little, then whimpered. She couldn’t help but giggle.

Buffy walked around and lit the multitude of candles. Although Spike had electricity in the crypt now, he didn’t have electric lights. He prefered to use candles, torches and lanterns. A throwback to when he was human. As the light grew brighter in the crypt, Spike finally started to stir. Moaning, he tried to cover his eyes.

"Wake up," Buffy said in a loud voice. "You promised that you would spar with me tonight."

"Go away," he grumbled, glaring. "I feel like shite, and you bloody well know that...Slayer!" He stressed the last word because he knew she hated to be called by her title.

Buffy tried to hide her disgust, but knew she couldn’t. "Why do you try and make things more difficult?" She walked over to the refrigerator, opened it and looked inside. All he had was several pints of blood in bags that he had stolen from the hospital, a few beers and the diet sodas she had left the previous week. She grabbed a soda and a bag of blood, closed the door and sat on the sofa, next to Spike’s feet. "Here. I don’t think you need a beer after last night." She tossed the blood to him.

"Why do you hang out here?" Spike asked. "We both know that you don’t love me. Yet, you show up, night after night. Even after you leave, I can still smell you here. Is it just to torture me?"

"Ummm..."

"Skip it," he sighed and sunk a tooth into the blood pouch and drained it quickly. He didn’t like feeding that way in front of her, but he was starving. "Sparring, huh? Well, you’ll have to give me some time. I’m not fully awake yet and my sodding head is throbbing." He scanned the room, looking at all the empty bottles and questioned, "How much did I drink last night?"

Buffy started picking up the empties and answered, "I’m not sure. You were pretty drunk when I showed up. You drank these," she showed him a half gallon of tequila, two half gallons of vodka and a fifth of whiskey, "while I was here." She grinned.

"I guess I’m lucky I don’t have to worry about my liver or getting alcohol poisoning," Spike quipped. He looked under the blanket that was covering him and saw he was only wearing his boxer-briefs. He grabbed his jeans and slipped them on silently, as Buffy had her back to him.

She clanked the bottles together as she picked them up. Spike glared at her as if she were making extra noise on purpose, which was true. "Why were you drinking so much anyway?"

"It was my birthday," he said solemnly.

"So, you were drinking because you couldn’t go kill someone to celebrate Dru turning you into a vampire? What a lame reason to drink yourself into unconsciousness."

"No, you don’t understand. That night I usually spend wandering around, watching people. Searching for the perfect one. One that is in the same state of mind I was on that night and I kill them. Not turn, just kill. Well, not in recent history, but for over a hundred years. No, last night was my human birthday. The day that William came into being." He looked so depressed. "This is the first time since I died that I’d really thought about it." He put his hands on his face for a moment, then stood. Finding his shirt where Buffy had dropped it the night before, he sniffed it and felt queasy.

"I think you need a different shirt."

"I KNOW that, Slayer!" he snapped. "Ugh! I’m sorry. I still feel like someone is stomping on my head." He found a clean shirt and put it on.

"It’s OK. I remember the hangover I had when I drank the enchanted beer and turned into Cave Buffy…and when you took me to watch you play kitten-poker," she said. "So, yesterday was your birthday, huh? Why didn’t you tell me?"

"You never asked, Pet." As he lit a cigarette and walked over to her, he asked, "What would you have done if you’d known? Baked a cake, maybe had a party that no one would come to? Got me fresh blood? Shagged me?" They just looked at each other. "No, you wouldn’t have done anything different, except have pity for me. I don’t need your pity."

"It still doesn’t explain why you drank so much."

He thought. How could he, a vampire, explain to this relative child, what it was like for him? "Sit, Luv. Let me try to explain. I see you and Little Bit and all your friends every night. I watch you grow older. You age, all of you. I’ve been this age for over a century." She could see the pain in his face. "I used to celebrate my birthday, like anyone would. Now, all I can think of is how everyone around me gets older and eventually gets to leave this world. It’s agony. I drank myself unconscious, so I wouldn’t take a stroll in the sun. Because as painful as it may be being here, year after year, spending eternity in Hell without you would be worse." He looked at her, hung his head and stood. "I know you don’t like it when I tell you how much you mean to me. I know that since I don’t have a soul, you think I can’t truly love you, but that’s how I feel."

She was speechless. Torn between wanting to kiss him and wanting to bust his head open. Maybe she’d do both. "Look, I’m sorry you feel like this about your birthday, but what do you want me to do? If I treat you any different, you’ll think I’m pitying you and if I treat you like usual, you’ll think I’m trying to trivialize your feelings. What do you want?" Buffy waited for an answer. He gave it to her. Spike picked up her plastic stake, the one that wouldn’t dust him, and tossed it to her.

"Let’s work out!" he grinned. "Stake me if you can."

"You just remember, this is sparring, no game face, or I’ll dust you for real," Buffy warned. Spike knew she always kept her wooden stake handy, even when he was near. She was a wise one.

As they kicked and punched, dodged and blocked, they talked of the mundane things in life and unlife. Occasionally, when one would start to slack, the other would say something to pull them back in the game. Buffy said how good Spike would look with a tan or how cute he was when he was stuck in that wheelchair. Spike talked about Buffy’s awful taste in men and how sweet it was to kill those two slayers.

The workout had lasted a good hour when Spike fell on his back and Buffy was about to issue the final blow. This time, however, when she straddled his hips, instead of ramming her stake through his heart, she leaned in and kissed him. Spike lay stunned for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her and kissed back.

"Why," was all he asked?

"I…I…," she stammered. "I think I love you."

"Am I dreaming? Did you really just say you loved me?" The joy in Spike’s voice was overwhelming. "This isn’t just a new way to torture me, is it? Please let this be real!"

"Yes, it’s real. I think I’m falling in love with you," she smiled, happy and relieved to finally admit to Spike how she felt. "I figured I could tell you, since you admitted something so personal to me. It’s been slowly hitting me for a while now."

Spike touched Buffy’s face and slowly let his hand trace a line down to her breast. After a brief touch, he stopped and whispered, "Buffy, Luv, as much as I want to take you here and now, I think we should wait. I want you to be sure this is what you want. I don’t want you to regret anything in the morning. I love you."

She looked into his eyes and smiled, "This is what I want, but you’re right, we should wait. If for no other reason than I don’t want to be all sweaty and smelly before we get intimate." Buffy climbed off the vampire and helped him up.

"So," he asked, "do we want to have an actual date? We could have dinner at a nice restaurant, go to a movie, stake some of my friends." He chuckled.

"I’ll let you plan for tomorrow night, but for now, let’s go get some chicken. I’m starving," she grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. "You coming?" Spike slipped on his duster and followed her out the door. He put his arm around her shoulder and they walked out of the cemetary.

Part 2

Spike rang the doorbell at Buffy’s house. He wore a pair of black dress pants and his blue button-up shirt, which was actually buttoned, for once, his boots and duster. Dawn answered the door, "Spike, why didn't you just walk in? Did Buffy do a de-invite on you again? Come in, I’ll re-invite you."

"Hi, Dawn," Spike said as politely as possible. "Is Buffy ready?"

Dawn smiled happily, "You? You’re the guy she’s going out with tonight? I knew it!" She giggled with delight, then called upstairs, "Buffy! You’re date’s here!" Dawn looked back at Spike and said, "She wouldn’t tell me who her date was, said that I’d find out soon enough. I was hoping it would be you!"

Buffy came down the stairs, smiling. She wore a short, simple, yet elegant black dress with spaghetti straps. Her hair fell lightly on her shoulders. She had on a gold chain, from which she had removed the cross pendant and placed in a small black purse, and black high heels. From behind his back, Spike produced two long stemmed red roses, one for Buffy and one for Dawn. "Both Summers girls deserve flowers," he said, smiling. Dawn handed Buffy her leather jacket.

Spike and Buffy walked out, arm in arm. They talked and laughed as they walked to the restaurant, they were in no hurry. During dinner, they continued to talk and laugh, and occasionally exchanged longing, lustful looks.

By the time they finished dinner, neither one could wait much longer. Having thought ahead, Spike chose a restaurant close to the cemetery. They rushed off to his crypt and down to the rooms below. He had two rooms set up, one had a chair and sofa, along with a television and stereo. The other room was the bedroom. He switched on the stereo and romantic, sensual music poured out. Spike extended his hand, "May I have this dance?"

Buffy smiled and took his hand, "Of course." They pressed their bodies together, looked into each other’s eyes and kissed passionately. They couldn’t tell if the kiss lasted a minute or an hour. He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, without breaking their embrace. Although Spike could see, thanks to his vampire eyes, Buffy could not. He placed her gently on the bed and lit several candles that were around the room, one by one. Meanwhile, Buffy had taken off her jacket and shoes and watched Spike light the candles.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his duster already off, and took off his boots. Buffy climbed on to his lap and straddled his legs. They kissed again, allowing their hands to roam over each other’s bodies. Spike caressed her waist, hips and buttocks. Buffy slowly unbuttoned his shirt and caressed his chest. He reached between them and touched her breasts. She moaned softly into his mouth.

Her moans of pleasure caused his member to twitch, which she felt and, in turn, made her wriggle in his lap. She reached down and unzipped his trousers, worked her hand inside and stroked his rigid cock. He lifted her dress and moved her silky panties to the side. He rubbed her clit with his thumb as he slowly slipped a long finger into her hot, moist core.

"Dear gods, you are so wet, Lover!" he groaned. All she could do was grind into his hand and kiss his lips. The pleasure he gave was exquisite. Her orgasm washed over her in waves. She was panting and screaming his name.

As her orgasm subsided, he unzipped and removed her dress gently. Then, he lifted her up and laid her on her back on the bed. Quickly, Spike removed his own clothing and snuggled up beside her. Light kisses on her face, combined with the teasing lines he drew on Buffy’s naked body excited the couple more than either one though possible.

"I want you so much, Spike," she whispered, her voice dripping with lust and love. She pulled his body on top of hers.

"Call me William," the vampire pleaded.

"William," she sighed with pleasure. "Oh, William!"

At the sound of his lover moaning his human name, Spike slid the full length of his shaft into her hot, wet center. They both gasped as the mixture of hot and cold. He started moving in and out of her, reveling in the heat of her body. Their lovemaking was slow and sensual. They kissed and caressed for hours. Suddenly, when Spike could take it no longer, he asked apprehensively, "Can I bite you? Not enough to do damage, just a little bite?" She was terrified for a second, remembering how Angel’s bite put her in the hospital. This was different. She forced Angel, to cure him, Spike was making love to her.

Sensing her apprehension, "Oh Luv, if I had wanted to kill you…or turn you…I would have done it by now. The chip hasn’t worked in months. Shortly after you died, it quit working. I still haven’t fed off anyone. I knew you wouldn’t want me to." Buffy looked into his shining blue eyes and knew he was telling the truth. He’d been able to feed, yet had refrained. He didn’t want her dead, just to fully experience her body.

She swallowed hard and heard herself say, "Just be VERY careful." And careful he was. As his face changed, he whispered, "Thank you." In order to help her hide it from her friends, and to stake his own claim on her, he bit down exactly where Angel had a few years before. The vampire’s teeth sunk into the slayer’s neck and her hot, salty blood shot into his mouth. After a few seconds, he released his grasp on her neck and licked her wound to help the healing process. Her orgasm rose inside and exploded with such force, that Spike did what he could to hold on. He finally released his orgasm.

They collapsed together in a heap of spent flesh. After a few minutes, when Buffy caught her breath, Spike purred in her ear, "I didn’t think you would let me bite you."

She kissed his still bloody lips and replied, "I knew I could trust you. You may be over an hundred and twenty years old, but you are a lousy liar," she giggled. He nuzzled his nose into her neck and inhaled deeply, breathing in her scent. She smelled of vanilla and coconut, her natural musk from their vigorous lovemaking, and blood.

"Oh, Pet, you must be about to pass out. I tried to take as little blood as possible. Are you OK?

"William," Buffy tried to calm him, "I’m fine. I’m a little light-headed, but that could be from the sex, too. I probably shouldn’t get out of bed for awhile, but then again, I don’t plan to," she smiled. They kissed gently and fell asleep in each other’s arms. Finally happy.

The End