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"You know, I think it's polished," Dawn said from the doorway of the dining room.
Buffy jumped, the spoon in her hand clanking against the table. She shot Dawn a glare as the younger Summers ran into the other room.
It was Mom's fine silverware, made from actual silver, that she used to pull out for Christmas dinner every year. An extra thorough job taking care of it shouldn't be a problem at all. Buffy wondered how long Dawn had been standing there, and had to wonder how long it actually was that she was rubbing the same spoon.
"Everyone is supposed to be here within the hour, you know," Dawn trilled from the kitchen. Like she was excited that Buffy had lost track of so much time.
Brat.
"Yeah, and they're always late anyway, so it's not like it matters," Buffy said back and moved on to the next spoon.
Dawn teased her again, reminding her to wipe more than one piece for the next thirty minutes, and Buffy scowled. At least Dawn hadn't wondered at what had Buffy so lost in her head about that nearly rubbed a hole through the spoon.
Who had her so lost in her head.
…
There he is.
Sitting on her couch, joking with her sister, harassing one of her scoobies.
This can not be happening.
He'd waltzed right in the back door, grinned at the shocked silence of the room, and happily accepted a hug as Dawn gleefully squealed that he'd actually accepted her invitation and actually shown up like he promised he would.
And then, Spike just melted into the rest of the party. Buffy nibbled angrily at her cookie. He was invading her territory, and that was not how they did things.
A loud bark of laughter reached Buffy's ears. She looked up to see Spike clutching at his stomach as Dawn chased Xander around the living room. She wondered why they all looked so cozy.
"They used to do that over the summer," Anya said. Buffy jumped, not even realizing the girl had been grabbing a cookie beside her. "Spike and Dawn, gang up on Xander and laugh at him. He would never admit it, but I could tell he liked being able to make Dawn smile, even if it was embarrassing."
"Spike and Xander spent time together?" Buffy asked skeptically.
Anya nodded emphatically. "Spike was always around before you came back. He was the one Dawn wanted when she was sad."
And Anya walked off, like that revelation wasn't sending Buffy's world into a tailspin.
Had Spike become a Scoobie without her?
…
Spike stepped outside for a cigarette when it was time for them to pass out presents. Buffy wasn't sure if the strange feeling in her chest was sympathy or vindication at the thought of him having to go out there so he wouldn't be in the room while everyone was handed gifts but him.
Mark her surprise, then, when Spike reentered the room just as Willow had finished handing out the gifts from under the tree. In his arms was a massive cardboard box filled with smaller, wrapped boxes. Spike smugly set down all of the small and medium boxes in the piles that had been established while he was outside before pulling out the last present: a large, messily wrapped monstrosity that he set right in front of Dawn. She smiled slyly back at him, and pulled a tiny box from behind her back and handed it to him too.
Buffy looked around the room, waiting for the out cries and exclamations. Her friends have never let Spike skirt by about anything. But as she looked around the room, all she saw was quite confusion. She felt like she had shifted into a parallel universe.
Tara awkwardly ushered the scoobies onto the normal routine, each person opening all of their gifts at once in age order, oldest to youngest. Buffy smiled, thinking about how that had started, them all wanting to see Giles' face when he opened their matching teenage-sleepover survival kit. It was outfitted with everything he could possibly need, from face cream to sleep masks to how-to guides on braiding hair. The memory hurt in the wake of his absence.
Anya went first, receiving jewelry and cash and a strangely vintage mirror. Buffy noticed the challenging look between Spike and Anya as she unwrapped the mirror, and it made her uncomfortable for some reason she couldn't explain. No one else seemed to pick up on it, which did little to calm her nerves.
Spike announced he was the next oldest, delicately opening the pretty red box Dawn had given him, his one and only gift tonight. His eyes sparkled as he pulled out the smallest laser pointer Buffy had ever seen. Spike nearly giggled as he pointed it between Xander's eyes, making an obnoxious sniper noise.
"Dawn!" Xander shrieked. "You seriously got him another one of those things? It took weeks for the battery to die on the last one."
Dawn's shoulders shook in her attempt to taper down her snickers. "You'd lost your edge, dude. We have to keep you on your toes. You never know when the government is going to come assassinate you for stealing that rocket launcher."
Everyone chuckled, and Buffy thought she hadn't been so hurt by feeling left out since before she jumped off that tower.
"Your turn, Glinda." Tara opened her gift from Spike first, a stack of books on witchcraft that made her blush, then moved on to the shoes and herbs and hair care products. She thanked them all sincerely.
"Me now!" Buffy grabbed up the gift closest to her, an impressive dagger from Xander and Anya. Next was a whole ensemble from Willow and Tara, from the shoes to the trendy hair clip. Last was from Spike. Buffy held her breath as she took the paper off the tiny rectangle.
A Zippo. Exactly like his, same size and same silver, but this one reflects green in the light. It was almost beautiful.
Spike took his own out of his pocket and twirled it. "Surprisingly efficient at lighting vamps on fire."
Buffy's cheeks burned at the memories she had of that lighter.
Buffy hardly noticed as Willow opened her gifts, or when Dawn opened her first few. But when her hands grasped the gigantic box Spike brought, Buffy's attention was drawn to the obnoxiously large present. And to her sister's excitement as she tore through the wrapping paper.
It took an explanation from Spike for anyone to understand exactly what it was, once it was opened. "Three dimensional, correct to scale puzzle of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Figured we could take our skills to the next level."
Dawn clapped her hands together in excitement, reading aloud the history of the building from the side of the box. Her sister liked this present even more than she had liked the one Buffy gave her this morning. Apparently, Spike had gotten her sister interested in puzzles and architecture and learning about famous fires.
Buffy felt like she might cry.
…
The blonde's sadness festered into anger as she washed the dishes. And of course, after taking all of the discarded wrapping paper to the trash can outside, Spike found his way into the kitchen. He fished a dish rag out of the drawer they'd always lived in. His familiarity and helpfulness in her home stoked Buffy's anger further.
"What were you even doing here tonight?" Buffy whispered harshly as she roughly set the dish in the drying rack. "Dawn didn't ask if she could invite anyone. You could have easily said no and gone on with your evening somewhere else."
Spike picked up the plate she'd set down and dabbed at it with a dish towel. "I’d rather be surrounded by people who hate me than be alone with the one and only person who hates me most."
Spike bumped his hip into hers before stepping away to set the dish in the cabinet. "You're the exception, of course. Allowed to hate me as much as you damn please when we're alone."
Buffy bristled. She had thought he did mean her. That she hated him more than anybody else and he didn't want to risk her slinking off to his crypt on Christmas, of all nights. So if he hadn't meant her, he must have meant himself. That didn't seem to click with the version of Spike she understood.
"Besides," Spike picked up and dried a cup Buffy had already washed before he came into the room. "The Bit's lonely. Feels left behind from how much attention has to be given to everything else. Bills, resurrection, uptick in the baddies that need slaying. She's…"
Buffy stopped scrubbing the pan in her hands to watch Spike's face as he struggled to speak. "I haven't been great about checking in lately, either. Preoccupied with other things and let myself forget about her, I suppose."
Buffy felt the hot stab of guilt. Not only was she neglecting her sister, she was keeping Spike away from her too. The man who somehow knew her sister and what she wanted better than she did these days.
But wasn't that what she wanted, to push them apart? Buffy had told Spike before to stay away from her house, stay away from her sister. She felt threatened and confused about the time Spike spent with her family and friends while she was gone. How much of the distance between her sister and the vampire was actually Buffy's doing? Was she hurting Dawn by not wanting him around her?
"Know you don't like it, slayer," Spike said as he put away the last few items on the rack. "Want to protect kid sis. But I care about her, yeah? We can protect her together."
Buffy just gaped at him. Spike sighed and turned to throw the rag over the faucet, like Buffy's mom always had. The gesture made the tension flood out of Buffy almost instantly. She looked at him again, eyes tracing his jaw before speaking. "Thank you for the lighter, Spike. The way it looks green sometimes is really pretty."
Spike nodded, his eyes tracing the curve of her lips. "'Welcome."
Buffy smiled coyly, not bothering to stop herself at being happy about the first seemingly romantic look he'd thrown at her all day. They finished tidying up and wiping down the kitchen together in a compatible silence before joining the others in the living room to say goodnight.
Dawn asked Spike to stay another hour to watch a movie with her, and he said yes. Buffy went upstairs to put her gifts away, unable to stop herself from putting the Zippo in her jewelry box. It sat right next to the stupid, gaudy ring that came from the same man so long ago.
When Buffy came back downstairs, a cartoon Grinch was attempting to save Cindy Lou Who from falling down a cliff side along with his sleigh. Dawn was asleep, her arms strewn haphazardly across Spike's legs and her head tucked into the crook of his knee. Spike smiled at Buffy as she rounded the corner, but kept watching the climax of the movie. Buffy gathered their candy wrappers and hot cocoa mugs from the coffee table.
"I'll get that, love," Spike said, attempting to disentangle himself from the sleeping girl without disturbing her.
"I got it," Buffy said. "You get her up to bed and we'll call it even."
Spike nodded and watched Buffy as she moved to the kitchen.
When she returned to the room, Spike was already carrying her sister to her room. Buffy waited in the entryway for him to come back down.
Spike stood in front of her for a little too long. "Suppose I've overstayed my non-welcome for the evening. Be seeing you, pet."
"You could stay," Buffy whispered, eyes locked to a spot of gunk on the hardwood across the room.
"Buffy?" Spike asked, confusion and anger and hope on the face she was too afraid to look at.
Buffy shrugged. "Dawn doesn't get up until around noon on winter break, and you can say you came early to get the puzzle ready."
"Alright," Spike said slowly, trying to take in the expression Buffy was wearing. It was twisted, an almost pained look, but soft somehow. She wasn't asking for a bit of cold comfort while her sister was passed out on junior eggnog, and she wasn't forcing him as far away from her as he could possibly get like was their new normal. This Buffy was so distant from the one he'd been dealing with since her friends found out where she really was while she was gone that he wasn't sure what it was that she wanted from him.
Spike took off his duster, spreading it out across the chair he always used to sit in when he came around for a chat and a cuppa with Joyce. "I'll be on the back porch for a smoke, can lock up when I come in."
Buffy shook her head, the silent no making Spike attempt to decipher her face yet again. "Okay," he said slowly, waiting for Buffy to let him know whatever it was he was supposed to be doing by staying.
Buffy took a few shaky breaths before approaching Spike's side. She meekly took his hand in her own, intertwining their fingers as a blush creeped up her neck. The slayer still refused to look at him as she gently led him up the stairs, through her home and into her bedroom.
Buffy brought Spike to her bed, sitting him down at the foot of it and letting go of his hand. She placed her arms on her shoulders, her gaze finally meeting his. Buffy seemed to look for something in him, and seeming to have found it, nodded and stepped away from him. A nervous energy radiated off her as she gathered things from different drawers and made her way to the bathroom down the hall.
Spike was completely frozen, sitting on the edge of Buffy's mattress. He could hardly hear the sounds of her getting ready for bed mere rooms away from him over the buzzing in his ears. What was she thinking? What was she doing? Did she know what she was doing to him, with these small touches, with this invitation into her childhood room in the home she protected?
His spiraling mind halted when Buffy reentered. She was smiling shyly at him, fuzzy Christmas pajamas hanging loose and her hair tucked behind her ears. She walked over to him with a gentle determination, kneeling on the ground once she reached her bed. Quietly, she untied Spike's shoelaces and slid his boots off his feet, setting them neatly just under the edge of her bed frame. Spike's throat constricted, and he felt foolish for the overwhelming urge to cry. He took a shaky breath as she peeled away his socks and placed them inside his shoes.
Buffy stood, her hands wringing nervously now that they didn't have anything to do.
"Spike?" Buffy said. "When I first came back, you were the only one who didn't expect something from me. Who just let me be. And I liked being around you more than I liked being around anyone else because I didn't have to try."
Buffy studied the expression on his face, the one she'd seen a handful of times before. When she pretended to be the bot, when he looked at her on the staircase before the big battle, when their fight turned into something else in that abandoned building. It was a look her mind could only describe as in-awe. "I'm sorry I changed. Maybe you dropped the ball with Dawn, but I dropped the ball with you. Everything was just… Can we go back to that? At least for tonight? Can you just hold me?"
Spike swallowed thickly. "Of course, Buffy."
The slayer folded herself into his lap, tucking her face into his neck. Spike held the breath he didn't need as he began to stroke her hair, sometimes smoothing over the top of it and sometimes raking his fingers through.
"Merry Christmas, Spike," Buffy braved to say, her face still hidden in the crook of his neck.
"Merry Christmas, pet," Spike whispered back and placed a lingering kiss on the crown of her head.
Spike lazily traced patterns up and down Buffy's back until he felt her limbs slack and breathing slow.
He held her a moment more before lifting both of their bodies towards her mountain of pillows. Spike slid them seamlessly under the covers and waited for Buffy to settle in her sleep before running his hands through her hair again.
She was so soft. Her hair, fluffy from being pinned up all evening. Her face, easy in her slumber. He hand, resting beside her head on his chest. He's forgotten just how beautiful she could be while she slept.
Spike wondered if this was just for tonight. He didn't know if Buffy would get up tomorrow like nothing happened and pretend that he was still the most horrible person to be around. He didn't know if she would wake up tomorrow and try something new, something that helps more than it hurts and makes a man out of his monster yet again. All Spike does know is that this moment, this girl wrapped up in his arms is real. So, totally, completely real.
And he is irrevocably in love with her.