Summary: Spike is Buffy's swimming coach. He has been hateful to her since day one, a fact that hurts her because she is in love with him. Little does she know that his behaviour only serves to hide his own feelings. Tragic circumstances bring them closer together.
Buffy’s nose twitched. It wiggled around, sniffing out a delicious scent wafting through her bedroom. Was this still a dream? One eye cracked open to peer at the glowing red lights of her alarm clock. 7.30am. Hmmm. Another sniff. Nope, something definitely smelled good. Maybe she was so desperate for normalcy her brain was sending false signals to her nose. Whatever it was, it smelt delicious. She could almost believe that there was some sort of food in her house, that her stomach wouldn’t be growling all day. Well, positive thinking never hurt anyone.
Plodding down the stairs the smell seemed to be getting stronger. And was that a noise coming from her kitchen? Oh Jesus, she had burglars. Burglars who…cooked? Buffy peeked her head around the corner to see Spike standing at her stove, flipping a piece of bacon in a frying pan. She took in the sight of her kitchen bench, usually completely bare, now laden down with orange juice, fruit, toast, eggs, pancakes and what seemed to be small sausages. Did mirages usually involve mouth-watering smells as well as visions?
“Spike?”
“Jesus Christ! Oh, Buffy, you scared the bleedin’ hell out of me.” Buffy could tell he certainly did look shocked. But then he just stood there, staring at her. What was he looking at? Was her morning hair that bad? But no, his eyes seemed to be fixed at a point below her neck…as if… shit. She forgot she was wearing a tiny lace camisole with her pyjama pants. She had bought it from Victoria’s Secret on a whim one day imagining what it would be like to wear it in front of her boyfriend…oh fuck. Her boyfriend. Riley. She had kissed Spike when she was going out with Riley. They really needed to talk about that. But first she needed to put on another top. Not having one handy at that moment, she settled for crossing her arms over her chest.
Bloody hell. Bloody fuckin’ hell. The chit was trying to kill him. As if jumping out at him wasn’t enough, forgetting for the moment that he had technically broken into her house, now she was standing there in almost nothing. It wasn’t like he didn’t see her everyday in a swimsuit, but this was different. Silky pyjama pants hung low on her hips, leaving a gap of tanned, toned stomach before her top started. A top that was, well, barely there. It was a lacy, frilly thing that he could clearly see her hard nipples through. Her breasts swung freely under it in a tantalizing motion. He wanted nothing more to rip the singlet off and feast on her. His daydreams were interrupted by a cough and her arms coming up to cover her chest. Shit, busted. He glanced up at her face.
“What are you doing here? In my house? In my kitchen?”
“ ’m makin’ you breakfast kitten. No… swimmer… of mine is going hungry at such an important time of the year. I used the spare key.” Phew. He had just managed to stop himself from saying ‘no girl of mine’. He wasn’t sure how well that would have gone down.
“You just run upstairs, have a shower and do whatever it is you do then come on down and it’ll be ready.”
Buffy simply nodded without argument and disappeared up the stairs. What could she say? Reappearing less than fifteen minutes later she plopped down on the stool he had allocated to her. God, everything looked so good. How could he have hidden this sweet part of his personality for two years?
“Spike, this is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time. Thank you so much. I won’t let you down at the swim meet, I swear.”
Spike’s eyebrows rose. She thought he was only helping her out so she’d keep up her swimming standards? Hmm, maybe if he didn’t correct her she’d let him keep helping. She obviously didn’t like to accept anything she thought was borne from charity or pity. But at the same time, he wanted her to know how much he really did care for her.
“I know you won’t Buffy. You’re a great swimmer. But that’s not the only reason I’m doing this. You don’t deserve all the bad things that’ve happened to you, and I’m happy to do anything I can to make things a bit easier for you ok? Don’t worry about getting to the hospital from now on, I’m happy to drive you.”
“Oh no, please, I couldn’t ask you to do that, its too much.”
“Well you didn’t ask me, did you kitten? I’m telling you that’s how its going to be from now on. And when your mum gets all fixed up I’ll be the one driving the both of you home. So no arguments.” Spike tried to fix a stern look on his face, but the corners of his mouth lifting up gave him away. He was rewarded with a little giggle from Buffy.
“Okay coach, I know by now not to argue with you. I didn’t know you were such a good cook though, this is delicious!”
“Well, you know what they say. Breakfast is the meal of champions.” He smirked at her.
“Oh, and you’re a champion are you?” Buffy asked laughingly.
“You know it baby.”
They sat and ate breakfast silently for a few moments, enjoying just being together. Buffy finally built up the nerve to approach the subject of their kiss and Riley. She was worried that maybe she had it wrong – did their kiss even mean anything to him? Would he think she was making a big deal out of nothing? Well, she had to know either way.
“Spike? I just wanted to ask you about…last night.” He looked up at her in interest.
“What about it pet?”
“Well, I guess, about what we do now.”
“Buffy, I know me being your coach is a problem, but I’m sure we can work something out. And you’re nineteen now.”
“But, its just, well there’s Riley for one and…”
“Oh, yeah, him. Forget about it Buffy. He doesn’t have to know what happened, no one does. As long as we don’t tell anyone and nothing else happens it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Fuck! How had he forgotten about that simpering idiot Finn? How the hell did he forget she already had a boyfriend she probably loved, and didn’t want some guy who’d been an asshole for the past two years pawing at her on the front porch. Okay, next step was to get out of this with some dignity in tact. Play it cool. If he could. Fuck.
Buffy’s quiet whisper startled him; she sounded so hurt. Her eyes were trained on the bench in front of her plate. “Is that what you want? To forget about it?”
“Well, what else can we do? You’ve got your boyfriend yeah?”
“I’m sorry, I just thought…I guess, well I was just being stupid. I wasn’t going to push for anything you didn’t want…so, well, thank you though for everything you’ve done.” Buffy’s voice trailed off miserably. So she was right, he didn’t want anything more. He wanted to forget it even happened.
“Buffy, what do you mean ‘push’ for something? Did you want something more?”
“Not if you don’t.”
“Buffy, this isn’t a tit-for-tat session. I need you to tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I guess I just thought you meant we were going to figure something out, as in, be together. I know Riley and I are together but I really don’t like him like that. I just meant that I’d have to tell him it was over before anything else happened but…”
Buffy was cut off by Spike sweeping her up in his arms and kissing her breathless. She squealed and hung onto him tightly.
“Baby, that’s what I did mean. We’ll work something out. I do wanna be with you.” Buffy smiled brightly and leaned down to kiss him again. He placed her up on the bench and stood between her thighs as they kissed passionately, hands running freely over eachother. Eventually Spike broke away and pressed his cheek to her chest, panting heavily. Buffy lay her own cheek on top of his head.
“Sweetie, we better go yeah? A quick visit to your mum before your classes? I’ll drive you then see you at practice this afternoon okay?”
“Yeah, you’re right. We better go before it gets too late.”
Spike easily lifted her down to the ground, smoothing the fabric of her shirt that had been pushed up during their mutual groping. He led her to the door, hoping that his argument for leaving had sounded convincing. Well, it sounded better than the truth anyway. The real reason he needed to get out of there was that another few seconds of kissing and he would have dragged her up to her bedroom and not let her leave for several hours. He failed to realize that at that point in time, Buffy wouldn’t have objected one little bit.