All About Spike - Plain Version

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Chapter: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  Epilogue

Present Tense
By Miss Murchison

Sequel to A Glorious Morning Have I Seen

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Notes: This is a sequel to A Glorious Morning I Have Seen, as I continue my mission to give Joyce a fun storyline of her own. And, of course, lots of sex with Spike.

Setting: A mildly AU early Season 5. Dawn doesn’t exist, and instead of falling for Buffy, Spike has discovered the attractions of an older woman.

Thanks: To DorothyL , Keswindhover, and Devil Piglet for correcting my errors and for all the encouragement. And to Keswindhover and Devil Piglet for the great manip of Spike and Joyce.


Epilogue

Joyce pulled her warmest robe tightly around her as she sat on the couch and regarded her company. She wasn't cold; if anything the room was too warm, with all these unwanted bodies milling around. She was only trying to forget that underneath the robe she was wearing the horrible housedress her sister had sent her a few months ago as a birthday present. Thanks to the painkillers that the nice nurse at the hospital had encouraged her to swallow, the dress was bothering her a lot more than the stitches in her leg.

Buffy had laid the hated article of clothing out on the bed when Joyce had insisted on cleaning up by herself in the bathroom. She hadn't the heart to say she wouldn't wear it, even though the moment she'd opened the package, she'd vowed it would never touch her skin. Now she was paying for her failure to remember to drop it off the last time she'd made a donation to Goodwill.

The ugly, cheap cotton dress had a Peter Pan collar and metal snaps up the front. It was covered with crude drawings of cheery teapots and flowers, and the fabric scratched her skin. The nasty little garment bespoke frugality, middle-aged dowdiness, and utter sexlessness. It also shouted devotion to motherhood and good housekeeping.

Joyce knew that image of her comforted Buffy. So she wore the housedress. And hoped none of the men in the house had noticed it.

She hoped even more that all the men and women in her house would shortly take themselves off and leave her in peace. Hank was sulking in an armchair across the room, Giles was paging through yet another one of his ancient tomes by the fireplace, and Willow was investigating something on the laptop she'd propped open on the desk. More people were moving around the other downstairs rooms.

At least Xander and Anya had made a quick exit earlier, and Joyce didn't anticipate their return. Xander in particular was certain to keep a low profile, at least until Hank was out of town.

Hank's departure couldn't come too soon for Joyce either. It had been some time after she had regained consciousness before she'd fully understood the enormity of what Xander had done to Hank. But after that, it had taken no time at all for her to lose patience with his laments.

"His foot slipped on the accelerator," Hank was muttering over and over again. "He said his foot slipped, but he must have floored it to do all that damage. I mean, the airbags deployed! How could any man get that distracted when driving?"

Joyce stared at the ceiling. You left Xander, the boy who can't say 'no,' alone with his perpetually horny, uninhibited girlfriend, and you're wondering what distracted him? Somehow, I think the accelerator wasn't the only thing that got whacked in that SUV.

Of course, Hank had always been hard to distract that way, so the idea might not occur to him. Joyce remembered now how shocked he'd been on the one and only occasion when she'd suggested that a vehicle might serve as something other than either transportation or an object of adoration.

Fortunately, not all men were so prudish. Hank's voice faded into the distance as she drifted into a daydream about certain events that had occurred recently in the back seat of Spike's De Soto.

"It's just a truck, Dad." Buffy's sharp tone roused Joyce back to full consciousness. She saw her daughter standing in the doorway, holding a tray of food.

Hank continued to lament. "If only he'd hit the front bumper. It might have scratched the military-style retrieval loops, but it wouldn't have caused as much damage. But he backed right into the driver's side."

"It's not that bad a dent. You can take it back to Hummers 'R Us and they'll make it good as new. I messed Mom's car up a lot worse than that last year and she just made me pay for the deductible. She didn't go on and on about it." Buffy set the tray down on the coffee table with an air of triumph. "Just like she's not complaining about her leg now."

Hank shut up then, slumping back into his chair and watching his family resentfully. Joyce sat up straighter and regarded the contents of the tray with some trepidation. She picked up a spoon and sniffed cautiously at a bowl of thick, red liquid.

"Tara helped me with the tomato soup," Buffy confessed. "But I arranged the crackers on the plate."

Much relieved, Joyce tucked into her invalid's meal. She had to admit that she was pretty hungry after her busy night. But it did bother her that Hank's visit was turning out to be a disaster all around. He was upset, and Buffy was more disillusioned with him than ever.

Riley came into the room then. "I finally got through to my insurance agent," he said in a doleful voice.

Hank's nod of greeting to his daughter's boyfriend was only polite. He was less pleased with Riley this morning than he had been the day before. Not only had Riley failed to protect the Hummer; it was Riley's SUV that had crashed into it, damaging the glowing yellow fenders, denting the driver's side door, and sheering off the power-folding, heated rearview mirror with the curb assist feature. Although the SUV had been under Xander's command at the time, it had been the agent of destruction. And Riley had entrusted Xander with the keys.

And since the SUV had been nearly destroyed in the impact itself, Riley was less than pleased with the situation as well. Riley went over to the couch and regarded his girlfriend earnestly. "Buffy, I need to go to the body shop now."

"Okay," said Buffy, glancing up briefly before returning to monitor her mother's soup intake.

"Do you want to come with me?" asked Riley plaintively.

"Uh, why?" asked Buffy. "Cars. Buffy. These are not things that have a lot in common. Besides, Giles wants me to help with research later."

Riley grumped a bit and made his way out the door. "They may decide it's totaled, you know. It may be the last time I see it." Joyce noted the abrupt, formal quality of his farewell to Hank. I think this is the ending to a beautiful friendship.

Also, Riley was clearly annoyed that his girlfriend hadn't rushed to hold his hand in his moment of grief. And Buffy was less than pleased with Riley for being so annoyed. Now, there's a silver lining.

Joyce hadn't forgotten that now that she'd taken care of the jaguar, she needed to get rid of Riley. She just hadn't decided how to do it yet. She'd have to be careful, and of course she wasn't planning on using anything as crude as a dagger. The situation was much more delicate because, when the affair was over, she didn't want Buffy to feel like she had been stabbed through the heart.

Because Buffy was such a dear child, really. Look at her now, sitting on the couch next to her mother, watching to make sure Joyce ate all of her soup.

Joyce was roused from her plotting by the sound of Giles' voice. "You look better now. But you seem tired."

"No, I'm all right," she said automatically, then thought better of it, and dropped her spoon back on the tray, collapsing against the pillows. "Actually, now that you mention it, I am sleepy."

"In that case," said the Watcher, standing up and gathering some papers together. "I'll continue my investigations at the Magic Box and let you rest. But there is one thing I wanted to ask you before I left."

"Oh?" Joyce asked in as faint a tone as she could manage.

"It's just that I was writing up my report on this latest demonic activity, and one point didn't seem clear. I was wondering what brought you to the park last night," Giles shrugged into his jacket and regarded her expectantly.

"Well—" She responded slowly and thoughtfully. And as truthfully as possible. Because, of course, lying would be very, very wrong. "I was worried about Buffy, you see—" She hesitated over her next words.

"Mom, were you bringing me hot chocolate again?" Buffy demanded. "Because you know I've told you not to do that. It's dangerous." She grasped Joyce's hand and held it tightly.

Joyce smiled. "But I like helping, dear." As usual, it had been unnecessary to utter an actual untruth. She really couldn't be responsible if other people insisted on perceiving her in a certain way. And came up with their own explanations for her actions.

Buffy gave her a hug. "That's my mom," she said. "But I want you to be more careful from now on."

Willow looked up from her laptop. "That's funny, Joycie," she said. "I don't remember seeing your thermos. Maybe we should go back and look for it. Ow!" She glared up at Tara who had just passed unnecessarily close to her girlfriend's chair on her way to hand a pile of papers to Giles. Tara frowned at Willow.

Joyce frowned too. "I don't think you'll have much luck finding anything I lost out there. I was running around a lot." But if you do come across a pair of pink panties with the cutest little bows on the side . . . She half-closed her eyes, hoping she looked too much like a confused invalid to be subjected to more extensive questioning. Thanks to all those lovely painkillers, it was easy.

"Poor Mom," Buffy said.

"Shouldn't you be going to class?" Hank asked his daughter with a resentful glance at Giles.

"Later," said Buffy. "Once Giles has made sure this jaguar thing didn't travel up here from Central America on a package tour with a bunch of other things I'll have to kill or something like that." She smiled warmly at her Watcher before turning back to her father. "Willow and Tara and I are heading over to the Magic Box with him. Come on, Dad. I'll help you with your suitcase."

Through slitted eyelids, Joyce saw Hank glare at Giles before following Buffy to the front door. She also noticed that Willow was finally powering down her computer and slipping her belongings into a backpack. Tara picked up the tray with its empty bowl and carried it off to the kitchen. Joyce smiled wanly at the various occupants of the room as they paraded past her on their way to resume their own busy lives.

Then they were all gone at last. She was the only living soul in the house. Which was just the way she'd come to like it.

From the floor below came the sound of a foot scraping on a stair. Then another, and another. Joyce sank back into the sofa cushions and smiled as the basement door slowly creaked open and a demon emerged into the hall.

"All right, love?" said Spike as he came into the living room.

"Yes, I'll be fine. They put in a few stitches at the hospital, and the doctor thinks there may be a small scar, but that's all. Were you downstairs the whole time?"

"Yeah. Was about to go hunting you down when they finally brought you back home. Then I thought that bloody circus would never leave." He sat down on the couch next to her, his eyes scanning her face. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, because his features relaxed into a smile.

"I'm sorry I couldn't let you know I was all right," she said, smiling back.

He leaned forward. "What's this?" The index finger of his left hand hooked onto the neckline of her robe.

Remembering the horrible housedress too late, Joyce squeaked in dismay and tried to pull the robe closer around her.

"Shy all of a sudden, pet?"

"No—not exactly." She squirmed over to the other side of the couch.

"I knew it!" He lunged after her, tugging harder at the robe. "You're hurt worse than you let on, aren't you? What did that bloody beast do—" He stopped, staring at the housedress in horror. "Balls! Where did this little nasty come from?"

Joyce pulled the robe closed again, blushing hard. "My sister sent it. Buffy found it for me to wear." She added apologetically, "I think it makes her feel safe to see me dressed like this."

"The Slayer doesn't know what you are," said Spike, his anger fading slowly to exasperated amusement. "Come here, pet. Let me get you out of that disaster." More gently this time, he parted the folds of the robe, and his fingers moved to undo the top snaps as he bent to kiss her.

Joyce opened her lips, kissing him back vigorously before protesting, "Yes, she does. She knows I'm her Mom. She's just having trouble accepting that I can be other things sometimes too."

He muttered something that sounded like, "Another crazy Summers woman."

She was enjoying the way his fingers were slipping inside the dress and making her nipples stand to attention too much to be offended, but she couldn't let that comment pass. "Are you implying that insanity runs in my family, Spike?"

As she'd anticipated, he couldn't resist the line she'd fed him. "Love, it practically gallops," he chortled as he popped open a few more snaps.

"Maybe," she agreed, "But Buffy has a lot to deal with. She needs to think of me a certain way so her entire life doesn't seem out of control."

"Then it's a good thing you have me around to appreciate your finer points." His lips had moved from hers now, and were busy inspecting her breasts. "Like these."

Joyce couldn't argue with that, especially since when she opened her mouth the only thing that came out was an involuntary moan. He was worrying the aureole and nipple of one breast carefully with blunt human teeth, while strong fingers caressed the exact spot on the underside of the other that drove her a very special kind of crazy. "Just don't be so hard on Buffy," she gasped at last. "She's only trying to take care of me."

"I've got the same goal. Just a different method." He ripped the housedress open all the way down the front. "Here's looking at you, kid."

His hands slid down her body, slipping across her ribs, belly, thighs. . . Then he was on his knees before her, gently spreading her legs apart, and she shivered in exquisite anticipation, as he . . . took her calf in his hands and carefully examined the bandage covering her stitches.

"Never mind that," she said, sitting up straighter. "I told you it'll be fine."

"I'm not so sure," he said, sitting back on his heels and gazing up at her earnestly, one eyebrow quirking upwards. "You're an invalid, that's what you are. Need lots of rest and tending to."

"Precisely," said Joyce, reaching for him. "And I know just where I need tending."

But he moved backwards, away from her, sliding around the coffee table towards the television. Now one corner of his mouth was twitching too. "I think you need to avoid overexcitement, love. You want to be taking things slow. Let me find something relaxing for you to watch. The home improvement channel, maybe?"

"Spike!" She glared at him in exasperation, realizing she was being paid back for teasing him during her last trip to his crypt. "All right, then. Please!"

But he only picked up the TV Guide and started thumbing through it. "Now, if I wasn't a rude, mannerless demon, that word might have an effect on me," he said. "But since I am—"

Joyce bit her lip, stopping herself before she could start to sputter and plead. She reminded herself just how incapable Spike was of denying her anything she really wanted. So she wriggled her shoulders back more comfortably and took a deep breath, pulling the housedress open even wider, splaying her fingers and sliding them sensuously down her body. "Too bad. I may just have to take things into my own hands. At least until my guy remembers he promised me to hunt down some pussy." She began to suit her actions to her words.

As she'd guessed, this teasing was something he couldn't resist. His eyes glowing first blue, then amber, then blue again, he dropped the magazine and stalked towards her on hands and knees, the muscles in his shoulders and back moving smoothly under his black t-shirt as he crossed the short distance to her. She slouched further down on the couch as soft lips caressed her calves and her thighs, moving slowly but surely towards the right goal at last. Eyes closed, her head flung back against the sofa cushions, she disarranged his platinum curls with her fingers. Her growls and purrs of pleasure grew almost catlike as one strong hand slipped under her, cupping her ass, and the thumb of the other moved to her clit, while his tongue—

There was a sudden, discordant, choking noise. Joyce's head snapped up. She turned to see Hank standing in the doorway. As he stared at her incredulously, his clunky key ring slipped from his hand and landed on the floor with a clash that echoed sharply in the suddenly quiet room.

The impact jogged the keyless entry pad on the key ring and drew an answering shriek from the central power, anti-theft security system of the wounded yellow monster that had pulled back into Joyce's driveway while she was busy with Spike.

For once, Hank didn't answer the call of his Hummer. "I—I left the owner's manual on the kitchen counter when I called my insurance agent earlier, and when I came back for it, I heard these noises—"

Joyce was too stunned to move, but Spike was on his feet before the wail of the Hummer faded into silence. Quickly, he pulled her robe around her and moved to place himself between her and Hank's fascinated gaze. "Stop looking at her, you pillock!" he roared.

Hank took a step backward and stammered. "I didn't mean—that is—" His natural sense of entitlement kicked in and he added, "I was married to her for eighteen years, after all!"

"Was!" growled Spike. "Past tense. So keep your eyes off her!"

Joyce stood up, pulling the belt of her robe tight, and took Spike by the arm. "Don't," she said. "It's not like he meant to."

"Joyce, I think you owe me an explanation," Hank said stiffly.

"Hank, I'm sorry—" Joyce stopped, silenced by that long-standing promise she had made to herself never to lie to her ex-husband.

Because after that horrible day when she had realized her worst fears by finding Hank nuzzling his secretary in a darkened office, she had occasionally indulged in daydreams about producing a handsome boyfriend to show him up. True, her fantasy had not included Hank interrupting her while an apparently-much-younger boyfriend had his face buried in her crotch, but that may have merely been a deficiency of her imagination.

She had been shocked and embarrassed to find Hank staring at her and Spike. But—sorry? That might be a bit of a stretch. It wasn't as if she'd been doing anything wrong, although she did feel a bit of guilt over the satisfaction she was getting from the look on her ex-husband's face. "I never intended you to find out this way," she said sincerely. "But I don't have to explain anything to you." She added candidly, "In fact, I really think you should be able to figure it out for yourself. Considering what was going on when you came in here."

Hank attempted to demonstrate his grasp of the situation. "You're having an affair with this—this—"

"With this," snarled Spike, switching to game face for a moment.

Hank demonstrated a surprisingly good vertical jump and scurried back a few feet towards the door. "He—he's one of those things Buffy told me about. Demons, or vampires, or something. And you're sleeping with him?"

Joyce rolled her eyes. "Sometimes. But I usually don't get all that much sleep."

"Joyce! How could you do such a thing?"

Spike was growing bored with the continual exclamations of outrage. "Well, for one thing I'm a lot better at it than you are."

Hank's face grew redder. "Oh, really? I suppose she told you that!"

Spike sneered and slouched back confidently, hands on his hips. "Didn't need to say a word, mate. The first time I had her I could tell she'd never really been given what she needed. And listen to you! You came in here because you heard strange noises, eh? You don't even know what she sounds like when she's really enjoying herself!"

Forgetting his fear of a few moments earlier, Hank moved forward, stabbing an angry finger in Spike's direction. "You—you stay out of this! Joyce, you are being completely irresponsible!"

Joyce stepped between the two men, shoving Spike behind her and pushing Hank towards the door. He staggered back, almost as surprised as he had been when Spike switched to game face. Before he could protest, irate words spilled from Joyce's mouth. "No, Hank, I am not irresponsible! A married man running off with his secretary when his family needs him is irresponsible. Breaking promises to visit the daughter who adores you is irresponsible. Spending six figures on your own personal tank when your child needs an education is irresponsible." Joyce panted, uncertain if she were moved by overwhelming righteous anger, a painkiller-inspired lack of self-control, or some combination of the two. "A divorced woman having sex with her boyfriend is just having fun."

Hank was clearly unsettled by his ex-wife's unusual rage, but he continued to sputter from the safety of the hallway. "It's just like you to act like this is nothing to be ashamed of! But if you're so proud of yourself for playing the slut with this—this thing, why haven't you told Buffy? You can't tell me you're not hiding this from her."

Spike lunged forward, but Joyce pushed herself between him and Hank again. "I most certainly am not! I tried to tell her, but she didn't want to listen."

Hank snorted incredulously.

"It's true. It was like she wasn't able to hear what I was saying. It bothered me, but then I read an article about it in Working Mother. Sometimes a child just isn't ready for certain information about sex, so they block it out. You just have to wait until they're more mature and ready to listen. So that's what I'm doing with Buffy."

Hank stared at her, openmouthed. "You read a parenting magazine for advice on how to tell your twenty-year-old daughter you're having an affair with a vampire?" Involuntarily, his gaze slid to Spike's.

Spike shrugged. "Don't look at me, mate. That one's floored me too."

Hank shook his head in bewilderment. Slowly, he bent and picked up his car keys, trying to regain his dignity. "After what I've seen today, it doesn't surprise me that Buffy is the way she is," he said stiffly.

"Thank you," said Joyce even more haughtily. When Hank blinked in astonishment at this response, she added, "I'm proud of who Buffy is. So, thank you for implying that I helped make her that way. Although I don't think I could have made her any different, even if I'd wanted to. And, Hank, you'll never be a real father to her again until you learn to be proud that your little girl is the Slayer."

Hank shook his head as if in disbelief. Spike stood back, relaxed now, a smirk of satisfaction on his lips.

Joyce shrugged. "That's too bad. Buffy could have used you in her life." She walked over to the front door of her house and held it open. "Good-bye, Hank."


"It's not fair to blame people for accidents," Anya was saying. "Especially when they're completely accidental. And not caused by contributory negligence." She ticked off some items on a clipboard and frowned at a display of candles.

Buffy, who was scanning the contents of one of the bookcases near the back wall of the Magic Box, responded impatiently. "Xander backed Riley's truck into my Dad's Hummer, Anya. Dad's not getting over that any time soon. But, the good news? He doesn't live in Sunnydale. Which means Xander will probably get to live."

"If he avoids Riley," said Willow sotto voce. She smirked up at Giles and Tara, who were seated with her around the table in the middle of the room. They looked down, hiding smiles.

Anya picked up a candle, looked at the tag on the bottom, and made another checkmark. "I'm just saying that it's not as if I was doing anything that could cause a thing like that to happen. Because Xander has explained to me many times that having sex while driving is dangerous, so we would never do that."

Giles hunched over the tome that lay open on the table in front of him and looked as if he were considering stuffing his fingers in his ears.

Anya stomped back to the counter and set her clipboard down with a thump. "I don't want certain pieces of evidence to be misconstrued. Because it's not unusual for a man to forget to zip his fly, you know. Just because he's hanging out a bit doesn't mean that someone was—"

"Anya!" Giles dropped his head on his hands and kneaded his brow as if he were in pain. "Can we never convince you that there are some things people simply don't want to know?"

Anya looked confused. "I don't understand. Because I was saying that there is nothing to know—"

Before she could continue, Tara rose, took her gently by the arm and led her to the back of the room, offering softly worded advice.

The phone on the counter rang and Willow picked it up. "Uh, yeah," she said in a startled tone. She held the instrument out to the Slayer. "Buffy, it's your dad. He sounds kind of upset."

Buffy took the phone from Willow, and said, "Dad? What's wrong?"

Giles and Willow waited anxiously as Buffy listened to the voice squawking through the receiver.

But after a few minutes, Buffy gave a confused laugh. "Dad, are you sure? Because in a list of unlikely events, that's got to come somewhere between the Ice Capades performing in hell and Christina Aguilera learning to sing."

Giles shrugged. Whatever was bothering Hank didn't seem to involve an impending apocalypse. He commented, a bit snidely, "Perhaps there's been yet another Hummer-related incident."

"Maybe he got a disk jammed in the CD player," snickered Willow. "Did you find anything in that codex?"

"I finally tracked down that text I was looking for last night. It contains what purport to be instructions on how to kill the sacred jaguar."

Willow blinked. "Purport to be?"

"Considering that Buffy destroyed it with a simple arrow to the heart, I have to classify this as meaningless mumbo-jumbo. Unfortunate, because it means I can't trust any of the rest of the information here, and some of it looks quite interesting."

"Why, what does it say?" Willow leaned over the table, squinting as she tried to read the tiny, ornate text upside down.

Giles adjusted his glasses and scanned the page. "First of all, that the jaguar can only be destroyed by a special warrior who has completed a lengthy ritual. All nonsense of course. Fortunately."

"What's nonsense?" asked Tara, coming back to the table, with Anya at her heels. Both Giles and Willow eyed the ex-demon warily.

"It's all right," said Anya, a bit resentfully. "Tara's explained to me that it's considered rude to discuss having oral sex in moving vehicles, so I'm not going to mention it any more."

Tara sighed and looked apologetically at Giles and Willow. "Well, I tried," she said, pulling up a chair. "What's fortunate?"

"Giles found a bogus ritual," said Willow.

"Yes, mere legend, apparently," said Giles. "Destroying the jaguar was supposed to bestow special powers on the killer. But any warrior who could get this power would have had to be very strong in the first place, most likely some sort of demon. Before the ritual steps could even begin, it would have spend years in self-denial and sacrifice for the sake of its home and family. Then it would have to prove itself a fearless fighter in defense of those it loved, and use a special weapon to slay an enemy in battle. Then there's the ritual—a rather unpleasant one, using the blood of the warrior's deceased beloved to infuse the consecrated weapon with the power to kill the sacred jaguar. But the warrior also has to be ready to let its own blood be shed by the beast. An immense combination of strength and sacrifice." Giles stopped peering at the book and looked up at the others. "It's hard to imagine something that strong and determined existing in Sunnydale without us being aware of it."

"Well, it's a good thing the jaguar was killed before some big, strong whosis came along, looking for all this special power," said Willow cheerfully. "Because the last thing we need in Sunnydale is to have something like that wandering around loose. There's no telling what it might decide to do to pass the time."

As Buffy hung up the phone and came over to the table, Giles closed the book and dropped it on a pile to be shelved. "Is everything all right with your father?" he asked.

Buffy sat down on the chair next to him and crossed her arms over the pile of books. "He's wigged out completely, I think. He says he saw something at the house, but it was kind of hard to get him calmed down enough to describe it. And he left the house before me, so I don't understand how he could have seen anything at all."

"Magic, Sunnydale-style stuff?" asked Tara.

"I'm not sure." Buffy looked puzzled. "I can't remember everything he said, but it sounded like he thought my mom was having an orgy with a demon." Willow made a choking noise, and Buffy began to laugh in response. "Yeah, Will, you're right. It's just funny. Poor Dad, the whole thing with me being the Slayer and his big yellow tank getting dented up has got him so upset he's imagining things. I mean, we're talking about my mom here! The only time there's any excitement in her life is when some demon breaks into the house and smashes up the furniture."


Spike's naked foot caught on a cord and brought a lamp crashing down in the middle of the living room. Joyce moaned and cried out, but she didn't seem to be aware of the destruction of her property. Considerately, Spike rolled both of them away from the broken shards and closer to the front door.

"That wasn't Hank coming back, was it?" she asked a few seconds later, when other sensations stopped reverberating sufficiently for her brain to register the noise.

"Don't worry, pet, we're all alone here," he assured her. "Just you and me, and the rags of that bloody awful dress."

She giggled, glancing around at the scraps of clothing lying all over the floor, and vaguely noticing the disaster of the lamp for the first time. Spike had vowed she would never be in danger of wearing the hated symbol of dowdiness again, and had vamped out for the sole purpose of tearing it to shreds with his fangs.

"Your ex must be a hundred miles from Sunnydale by now, love," he was saying now, as he leaned over her, supporting his upper body with his hands palm down on the floor, and moving his hips smoothly as he thrust hard into her. "With his knickers still in a twist, most likely."

"Not Hank," panted Joyce. "He's probably rationalized away everything that happened here. I'll bet he forgets all about it by the time he gets to LA."

"How any man could forget you, how any man could leave you—" he muttered. "I couldn't."

"But you're different," she said, lying back and glorying in the feel of his body moving over hers. "You're different from anyone else. Wonderfully different."

Suddenly, he caught her wrists up and held them over her head, leaning his face close to hers. Her eyes snapped open in surprise as he asked, "I need to know, pet. What is this to you? This thing we have?"

"This thing?" Her hips shifted, impatient with his sudden stillness.

He didn't move. "Yeah. This thing. Where do you think it's going? Where do you think we're going, you and me?"

"Going?" Joyce's eyes focused clearly on his now, and she stopped thrashing beneath him. Her lips relaxed in a long, slow smile. "I have no idea."

"Doesn't seem to bother you."

She bucked her hips against his and rolled him over again, pulling her wrists away from his grasp and taking hold of his forearms instead. She held his arms up over his head now, smiling down at him. "Let me tell you a story, Spike. About my marriage."

He opened his mouth to object to hearing anything that had to do with Hank Summers, thought better of it, and lay quietly, eyes fixed on her face, listening intently.

"When I married Hank, I was sure I was making the right decision for my future. I had everything all planned. We'd have secure jobs, at least one perfect child, and a nice house that I'd have fun decorating. And we'd love each other forever. For a long time, that all seemed to be coming true, at least on the outside. But I didn't like working for someone else, our beautiful daughter was obviously troubled in a way I couldn't understand, and a nice house didn't seem like much compensation for the things that were going wrong. And I used a lot of energy refusing to admit to myself that Hank didn't turn me on much any more, and that he'd never really satisfied me in bed."

Her face was sad, as she recalled that time, and her grip on his arms relaxed. He reached up and traced the frown on her lips until the corners quirked upwards again. She continued her story. "So, the more I planned, the more carefully I tried to map out my family's future, the more miserable I got. Then my marriage fell apart completely, and I was forced to move and start my own business, which isn't nearly as fancy as the place I worked before. And not only is this house not as nice as the one I had in LA, it keeps getting damaged by marauding demons. And, hardest of all, I found out my daughter was the Slayer and risking her life on a nightly basis."

She shuddered a little at that memory, and he pulled her down toward him. She snuggled into his chest, holding onto his shoulders for reassurance. "And I got you. All unplanned. All scary as hell. And completely crazy. I know you think I don't realize how scary and crazy this is, but I do."

She raised her head and he saw tears on her cheeks. He rolled them over again, as if to place his body between her and the scary things in her world, as he kissed those tears away tenderly. Slowly, gently, he began to thrust inside her again, and she spread her legs wider, opening to him, accepting him as deeply inside her as she could.

Before he could think of any words of comfort to match his actions, she spoke. "But, you know something else, Spike? All this scary stuff has made me happier right now than I've ever been. I'm my own boss, and not only do I get to redecorate this place all the time, I can buy most of the supplies I need at cost. And my little girl is an amazing woman who makes me incredibly proud. I'm terrified for her all the time, but I also know there's no perfect safety for anyone."

One of Joyce's hands was caught between their bodies, and she pressed it hard against the place where, on a real man, she would have been able to feel a beating heart. "And my undead boyfriend makes me feel more alive than I'd ever thought possible." She was tracing the line of his right cheekbone with her other hand, and he turned his head to catch her little finger in his mouth and suck on it.

She caught her breath, and her eyes half-closed, her voice trailing off dreamily. "So I've decided I'm not planning for the future any more. I'm not even thinking about it much. I'm just living now, in the present tense. Right now, I'm content—"

"—to take things as they come?" he finished for her.

Her eyes opened wide, sparkling with sudden mischief. "Or to take whatever makes me come."

He roared with laughter. "Well, love, I think I have something that can help with that."

Before he was done proving it, the day was considerably older, and several bits of Joyce's furniture were considerably more battered—to her complete lack of dismay.

And down in the basement where Spike had hidden it behind the washing machine, the Guecubu's knife glowed dimly, patiently waiting to be claimed by the hand that had earned the right to wield it.


A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh . . .



No matter what the future brings, as time goes by . . .


That's the end of Present Tense, but I've linked in this snippet, most of which was posted on my Live Journal a few months back. It should help answer the question I've been asked most often in feedback about my Spike/Joyce stories.

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Read Spoyce snippet, the sequel to Present Tense.

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