FIC: Seraph (24/26)
Nov. 30th, 2009 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupStory begins here. All parts may be found here.
Beautified by my fabulous betas,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hello_spikey, phoenixofborg, and penny_lane_42. Thank you, ladies!
A/N: Almost done! I expect to post the last two chapters within the next couple of weeks. Hooray! *\o/*
~~~~~
Now it was just a matter of time and gestation.
A long consult was had with Dr. Einjarl, who huffed through his tusks and whiskers all the while. A date was scheduled for the surgery, during which Spike was going to give birth, more or less, and in all the oddities that was possibly even more boggling than the fact that there’d be a baby when it was over. Discussions were had about formula and feeding, and the question was raised -- and, to Spike’s relief, immediately laid to rest -- of whether the Initiative had equipped him for that, too. They had not, so bottles it would be.
Meanwhile, he swore vengeance on the ghost of Isaac Newton for those two inexorable facts of physics: gravity and inertia. It felt as though he were fighting them at every turn.
“I can’t move properly,” he complained to Joyce. “The strength I’ve still got, but speed, balance, reflexes -- they’re all buggered to blazes.” She gave him the smile of sympathetic superiority reserved for those who’ve been through it all before and managed very well, thank you.
He waddled. He, Spike, who’d spent over a century perfecting the swagger, waddled.
Now when Dawn came down to the basement for improvised darts, they switched off, she with her special walnut-bladed knife in her foam target, he with the steel blades on wood. Dawn won as often as not. If his center of gravity would just quit shifting with every ounce gained, Spike’s aim might have stood a chance; as it was, he found himself consistently over- or under-compensating.
They were at it one day, a week and a half before the day. Two hundred and forty-six hours. He lobbed a knife off in the general direction of the target, graceless but with enough force to make a satisfying thump in the wood anyway.
“It’s like watermelon ballet,” Dawn said suddenly.
“What is?” He flicked the other knife.
“You.” She grinned at him, preening with mischief.
In the half-second of deciding whether to grin back or snarl at her, it came to him: The melons shall dance and the turnips shall sing opera.
Dru.
He huffed a disbelieving laugh. Of course she’d known.
Hadn’t seen fit to tell him in any words he might understand, but she’d seen him like this -- what had she made of it, him so heavy and sow-bellied? -- and heard Dawn’s cheek. Dared he wonder what the bit with the turnips was about?
He slumped on the futon bed as it all rolled over him, the awkwardness and the aches and every single indignity, and the gasps of laughter that followed came accompanied with tears. If some of those tears were less for the comedy of it all than for Dru and the buggered ridiculous wondrous future she’d sent him off to, well, it seemed fitting enough.
“Spike?” Dawn sat on the bed next to him, blue eyes huge with earnestness. She picked at his blanket for a minute. “You’re still sexy,” she blurted.
He twisted to stare at her and regard the sudden flush. “What’s that?”
She hunched up, arms folded awkwardly. “That’s what people worry about when they’re pregnant, right? That they’re not sexy anymore? And then their boyfriend -- or girlfriend, I guess -- laughs and gives them a big sappy hug and tells them of course they are.” She stared intently at the floor. “But you don’t have anyone to tell you that. So.” Deep breath. “Still sexy.”
Not that this wasn’t amusing, but he’d obviously missed the train of thought. He thought back… oh. “This about the watermelon thing?”
Her apologetic grimace was answer enough. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Then Dawn flung herself in his arms, apparently to give him the aforementioned big sappy hug.
“So,” he said into her hair, “Is this a proposition?”
A snort. “Whatever. You’re like my older brother.”
Since she wasn’t looking at him, she couldn’t see his face. Or his smirk. “You were just saying it, then. Didn’t really mean it.”
She pushed away and looked determined to reassure him without giving him any more ideas. When she saw the smirk, she slapped at his arm. “My pregnant older brother.”
“Ow! Careful, I’m fragile.”
*~*~*
An hour later, he was occupying his time by bleeding on the kitchen linoleum. “I don’t know why it won’t close,” he growled to Buffy, who was wrapping his hand with a gauze bandage after he’d bled through the Band-aid that he shouldn’t have needed.
“But shouldn’t it...clot, or something?” she asked.
“Yes, Slayer, it should. But it’s not.”
“It’s not even a big cut!” said Dawn. “It’s teeny-tiny.” And it was: just a quarter-inch slice across his palm from edge of the shelf he’d stumbled against, putting the knives away.
Buffy finished taping the cloth and said, “I think you should go to the clinic.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Hardly even a paper cut.”
“But it’s a really drippy paper cut!” said Dawn. “And Dr. Stacey said...”
“Fine.” He jerked his hand away from Buffy. “And seeing as your mum’s run off with the car for the next three days, you were thinking to get there how?”
After some wrangling with the slurred male voice on the Harris line, they finally got Xander, who reported that yes, he could play Chauffeur of the Dead for the evening. Again.
Spike had called ahead, and gotten lucky -- Stacey had a spot open, which saved explaining the whole sordid fiasco to someone new. After a few minutes of Xander squirming in his chair and whispering too loudly about nothing, Stacey called Spike in. Buffy and Dawn followed, leaving Xander casting furtive glances over a magazine at the reception area’s other, less human inhabitants.
After hefting himself up on the exam table -- two hundred and forty-three hours -- Spike thrust his bandaged hand at Stacey. “I can’t stop bleeding.”
She cut the now-damp bandage away and examined the cut, still welling crimson. She made him tell over again exactly how he’d gotten the cut. She asked about magic, but Buffy assured the shelving was 100% non-mystical Ace Hardware, on sale. After cleaning the wound, Stacey sealed it shut with medical glue. Then she swiveled and tapped on a laptop for a bit.
Finally she turned back. “I can’t be sure, but I think there’s some...friction between your mystical and natural physiology.”
“‘Friction,’” Spike said. “That’s highly technical, right there.”
“I can’t be any more specific; I’d need to do some fairly invasive tests to find the exact cause. But vampires aren’t whole creatures to begin with. You’re human and demon, natural and supernatural stitched together with some old-fashioned blood magic.”
“Half-breeds,” Spike suggested.
She winced, and he recalled that that term likely struck rather closer to home for her. “If you like. The point is, I think your hosting apparatus is starting to burst those ritualized seams. I’d guess it has something to do with how it’s redirecting the blood you ingest. Maybe the filtered blood lacks some mystical nutrient, or maybe your metabolic system is finally reacting to all this foreign matter you have in you. I’m not really surprised. I think the fatigue and the tremors you talked about are probably symptoms, too.”
“So I’m falling apart,” Spike said carefully, and wondered how the words could sound so steady. Vulnerability to sunshine and toothpicks was one thing, but this disintegration from within? “Today I’m not healing, and tomorrow I’ve got bits dropping off.”
“Possibly,” she said. “But not if we stop things in time. I suspect your biomystical system will repair itself once we extract the hosting apparatus and contents.”
It took longer to process that than it should. “You mean, get her out.”
“I do,” she said. “Ten days early isn’t considered premature. It’s not even terribly unusual. She should be fine.”
A deep breath; a glance to Dawn, who was wide-eyed with blooming delight, and then to Buffy -- and when had he started looking to Buffy for reassurance?
“When?”
“As soon as we can manage it. Give me a few minutes to call around -- I’ll see where Dr. Einjarl is on his circuit. If he’s not available in the next day or two I’ll send you into L.A.”
She left, and the three looked at each other.
“So, you’re going to have her soon?” said Dawn. “Like, tomorrow?”
“I guess so,” he said. This was good news and not bad, and he was having as much trouble getting his breath now as before. He gripped the edges of the exam table and began recalculating the hours.
Stacey strode in a few minutes later. “Dr. Einjarl will be at the Oak Hollow clinic tomorrow, and I’ve scheduled you for a post-sunset surgical appointment. They have a few beds, so you’ll be able to spend the day and they can keep an eye on your healing, in case it doesn’t improve right away after everything is removed. They’ll also handle the birth certificate and all the usual documentation.”
“So she’ll be legal and everything?” Buffy said. “A U.S. citizen?”
“The papers are legal papers,” Stacey said. “I wouldn’t look too closely at the ruling that allows the clinics to issue them. But yes, legal and everything.”
“Figures,” said Spike. “Go to all this trouble having a baby, and she winds up a Yank.”
~*~*~
When they got home, there were calls to be made. It turned out the witches wanted to come, over Spike’s protests, and of course Buffy and Dawn were, too, which necessitated a discussion of whether another car was needed or if all those tiny females could squeeze in the back seat of Xander’s rattletrap. By the time it was done Spike still wasn’t sure what the conclusion had been. Then a call to Joyce, during which she admonished and scolded -- for his gall at having a baby without her -- and reassured.
Buffy made a meticulous inspection of his hand. The glue Stacey had slathered it with seemed to be holding.
Group project. That was him.
But finally the what-abouts and what-ifs slowed to a trickle. “I’m going to bed,” he said. Dawn’s mouth cracked open. “Alone,” he added, too knackered/edgy/everything to care about softening the words. She frowned, but Buffy gave her a Significant Look and she quieted.
He shut the basement door and stumped down the stairs. By the glow of the nightlight he passed a last glance over the crib, at the tidy stack of sleepers in their shelf, at the diapers Joyce had helped him choose. Then he stripped down to a fresh pair of sweatpants and sat unsteadily on the mattress.
He breathed slowly, deeply, taking in the faux-lemon of Joyce’s all-purpose cleaner and, beneath it, the rich taste of earth on the air, dulled though it was by the newly installed humidifier. The part of him that had never quite escaped the grave was soothed by that fragrance of stone and soil. He was glad his girl would grow up knowing it.
He slid his hands over the broad, impossible swell of his belly. Uncomfortable, yes. Bloody inconvenient. Give him six months, and he’d surely be repulsed by this memory of himself, swollen and misshapen and stripped of the comfortable masculine certainty that such a thing could never, ever happen to him. But for one more night -- twenty-two hours -- this was where his little girl was, and much as he wanted to see her he couldn’t begrudge them both these last few quiet moments before the world turned over.
The door above creaked. Footsteps descended, slow, irregular. Shoes appeared: not Dawn’s sneakers, but a pair of Buffy’s heeled leather slaying boots. Her head ducked around the frame and her gaze found him in the semi-dark. “You’re awake,” she said softly. She trotted down the rest of the stairs and came to stand before him, arms crossed awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No?”
She didn’t appear certain that she’d meant to come at all. “I was about to go patrol. I came to, um, see if you needed anything.”
He gave that a long moment’s thought, and then planted his hands behind him and said, “I don’t suppose I do.”
A pause, while intently regarding a possible scuff on her shoe. Then, facing him, “This is never going to stop being weird, is it?”
“‘This’?” His girl was waking up; he could feel her starting to squirm.
“You, with a baby, in my house.”
For a bare instant he let in the whole view at once: him under the Slayer’s roof raising up a human chit of a thing he’d carried himself. “Doesn’t seem likely, does it? Expect you might quit noticing after a while.”
“I guess.”
“And you’ll be back at university any week now, yeah?” He braced against a half-hearted kick to his spine.
“Well, but I have to come back and visit the Spike-baby, don’t I?” She reached out and gave his stomach a furtive pat.
“Wouldn’t have figured you for the squalling infant type.”
She considered. “I’m not, really. But I feel sort of responsible for this one. Especially if she’s a--”
“No,” he said sharply. “She’s human, and that’s all she is.”
“But if--”
“No.” He stared her down until her gaze dropped. She licked her lips, her weight shifting to turn, and he said, “Do you want to feel her?”
She stared, a Slayer caught in the headlights. “Not really,” she muttered.
“S’not like you haven’t touched us before -- what was that bit about saving her from the dorkiness?”
“That was different,” Buffy said.
He arched an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t thinking about it then.”
He swallowed a laugh at this girl who’d faced down any number of the world’s more revolting demons and yet was spooked by him. By this. “I’ve seen your fingers twitching at your sides when you’re trying not to look at me.”
“They do not twitch!” She hid them behind her. “No twitchiness here.”
“Give us your hand,” he said, offering his. When she still hesitated, he added, “ S’almost your last chance, you know.”
She stared a moment more, and then she abruptly took the one step between them, settled next to him on the bed, and held her hand out, hovering uncertainly just above his stomach. He pressed it flat against himself and heard the sharp intake of her breath -- just from the heat of him, he supposed, since his girl had chosen that moment to fall still.
“You know,” Buffy said, eyeing his stomach critically with just a hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth, “You felt way different when we were engaged. ”
He stiffened against the reminder of those few mawkish, treacherous hours he’d put determinedly behind him.
“Oh,” she said, and a startled giggle snuck out.
“What?” he snapped.
“I was going to marry you, and you were already pregnant with some other woman’s kid.” A string of giggles burst from her. “I didn’t...” Snort. “I didn’t even ask if there’d been anyone else.”
Relaxing, he started to grin. “Well, you know. Harm.”
“Harmony!” That seemed to make it worse. “Do you think she’d make an honest vampire of you, if you told her?”
“Suppose she might.” Straightening, he said gravely, “Didn’t you know? It happens this way sometimes, with vampires.”
“Oh, God.” She had a joyous sort of beauty when she laughed like this, with abandon. He chuckled with her until the breathless mirth fell silent.
It was then that Buffy apparently noticed where her hand was still lying. She tensed to pull away, and it came: a drowsy shove against her palm. “Oh,” she breathed. “Hey, kid,” she said, stroking his skin with her thumb.
Then came that deep, full movement that felt like a boulder rolling over inside him. Buffy glanced up, wide-eyed. “Does she do that a lot?”
“Less now than she used to. Not much maneuvering room in there anymore.”
She withdrew and planted her hands on the edge of the bed. “And the weirdness just doesn’t stop.”
He paused for one of those now-necessary breaths. “Slayer?” She glanced up, and for one single moment he loosened his white-knuckled grip of certainty. “Slayer, if she is...”
She looked him in the eye, solemn. “We’ll deal.”
“Right.” He sighed, looking down at the mound that was his little girl. No one would bother her as long as he had her inside. But once she was out...
He felt a touch: Buffy’s hand, warm against his arm. “We’ll figure it out. Okay?”
This time he nodded. “Okay.”
next part
Beautified by my fabulous betas,
hello_spikey, phoenixofborg, and penny_lane_42. Thank you, ladies!A/N: Almost done! I expect to post the last two chapters within the next couple of weeks. Hooray! *\o/*
~~~~~
Now it was just a matter of time and gestation.
A long consult was had with Dr. Einjarl, who huffed through his tusks and whiskers all the while. A date was scheduled for the surgery, during which Spike was going to give birth, more or less, and in all the oddities that was possibly even more boggling than the fact that there’d be a baby when it was over. Discussions were had about formula and feeding, and the question was raised -- and, to Spike’s relief, immediately laid to rest -- of whether the Initiative had equipped him for that, too. They had not, so bottles it would be.
Meanwhile, he swore vengeance on the ghost of Isaac Newton for those two inexorable facts of physics: gravity and inertia. It felt as though he were fighting them at every turn.
“I can’t move properly,” he complained to Joyce. “The strength I’ve still got, but speed, balance, reflexes -- they’re all buggered to blazes.” She gave him the smile of sympathetic superiority reserved for those who’ve been through it all before and managed very well, thank you.
He waddled. He, Spike, who’d spent over a century perfecting the swagger, waddled.
Now when Dawn came down to the basement for improvised darts, they switched off, she with her special walnut-bladed knife in her foam target, he with the steel blades on wood. Dawn won as often as not. If his center of gravity would just quit shifting with every ounce gained, Spike’s aim might have stood a chance; as it was, he found himself consistently over- or under-compensating.
They were at it one day, a week and a half before the day. Two hundred and forty-six hours. He lobbed a knife off in the general direction of the target, graceless but with enough force to make a satisfying thump in the wood anyway.
“It’s like watermelon ballet,” Dawn said suddenly.
“What is?” He flicked the other knife.
“You.” She grinned at him, preening with mischief.
In the half-second of deciding whether to grin back or snarl at her, it came to him: The melons shall dance and the turnips shall sing opera.
Dru.
He huffed a disbelieving laugh. Of course she’d known.
Hadn’t seen fit to tell him in any words he might understand, but she’d seen him like this -- what had she made of it, him so heavy and sow-bellied? -- and heard Dawn’s cheek. Dared he wonder what the bit with the turnips was about?
He slumped on the futon bed as it all rolled over him, the awkwardness and the aches and every single indignity, and the gasps of laughter that followed came accompanied with tears. If some of those tears were less for the comedy of it all than for Dru and the buggered ridiculous wondrous future she’d sent him off to, well, it seemed fitting enough.
“Spike?” Dawn sat on the bed next to him, blue eyes huge with earnestness. She picked at his blanket for a minute. “You’re still sexy,” she blurted.
He twisted to stare at her and regard the sudden flush. “What’s that?”
She hunched up, arms folded awkwardly. “That’s what people worry about when they’re pregnant, right? That they’re not sexy anymore? And then their boyfriend -- or girlfriend, I guess -- laughs and gives them a big sappy hug and tells them of course they are.” She stared intently at the floor. “But you don’t have anyone to tell you that. So.” Deep breath. “Still sexy.”
Not that this wasn’t amusing, but he’d obviously missed the train of thought. He thought back… oh. “This about the watermelon thing?”
Her apologetic grimace was answer enough. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Then Dawn flung herself in his arms, apparently to give him the aforementioned big sappy hug.
“So,” he said into her hair, “Is this a proposition?”
A snort. “Whatever. You’re like my older brother.”
Since she wasn’t looking at him, she couldn’t see his face. Or his smirk. “You were just saying it, then. Didn’t really mean it.”
She pushed away and looked determined to reassure him without giving him any more ideas. When she saw the smirk, she slapped at his arm. “My pregnant older brother.”
“Ow! Careful, I’m fragile.”
An hour later, he was occupying his time by bleeding on the kitchen linoleum. “I don’t know why it won’t close,” he growled to Buffy, who was wrapping his hand with a gauze bandage after he’d bled through the Band-aid that he shouldn’t have needed.
“But shouldn’t it...clot, or something?” she asked.
“Yes, Slayer, it should. But it’s not.”
“It’s not even a big cut!” said Dawn. “It’s teeny-tiny.” And it was: just a quarter-inch slice across his palm from edge of the shelf he’d stumbled against, putting the knives away.
Buffy finished taping the cloth and said, “I think you should go to the clinic.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Hardly even a paper cut.”
“But it’s a really drippy paper cut!” said Dawn. “And Dr. Stacey said...”
“Fine.” He jerked his hand away from Buffy. “And seeing as your mum’s run off with the car for the next three days, you were thinking to get there how?”
After some wrangling with the slurred male voice on the Harris line, they finally got Xander, who reported that yes, he could play Chauffeur of the Dead for the evening. Again.
Spike had called ahead, and gotten lucky -- Stacey had a spot open, which saved explaining the whole sordid fiasco to someone new. After a few minutes of Xander squirming in his chair and whispering too loudly about nothing, Stacey called Spike in. Buffy and Dawn followed, leaving Xander casting furtive glances over a magazine at the reception area’s other, less human inhabitants.
After hefting himself up on the exam table -- two hundred and forty-three hours -- Spike thrust his bandaged hand at Stacey. “I can’t stop bleeding.”
She cut the now-damp bandage away and examined the cut, still welling crimson. She made him tell over again exactly how he’d gotten the cut. She asked about magic, but Buffy assured the shelving was 100% non-mystical Ace Hardware, on sale. After cleaning the wound, Stacey sealed it shut with medical glue. Then she swiveled and tapped on a laptop for a bit.
Finally she turned back. “I can’t be sure, but I think there’s some...friction between your mystical and natural physiology.”
“‘Friction,’” Spike said. “That’s highly technical, right there.”
“I can’t be any more specific; I’d need to do some fairly invasive tests to find the exact cause. But vampires aren’t whole creatures to begin with. You’re human and demon, natural and supernatural stitched together with some old-fashioned blood magic.”
“Half-breeds,” Spike suggested.
She winced, and he recalled that that term likely struck rather closer to home for her. “If you like. The point is, I think your hosting apparatus is starting to burst those ritualized seams. I’d guess it has something to do with how it’s redirecting the blood you ingest. Maybe the filtered blood lacks some mystical nutrient, or maybe your metabolic system is finally reacting to all this foreign matter you have in you. I’m not really surprised. I think the fatigue and the tremors you talked about are probably symptoms, too.”
“So I’m falling apart,” Spike said carefully, and wondered how the words could sound so steady. Vulnerability to sunshine and toothpicks was one thing, but this disintegration from within? “Today I’m not healing, and tomorrow I’ve got bits dropping off.”
“Possibly,” she said. “But not if we stop things in time. I suspect your biomystical system will repair itself once we extract the hosting apparatus and contents.”
It took longer to process that than it should. “You mean, get her out.”
“I do,” she said. “Ten days early isn’t considered premature. It’s not even terribly unusual. She should be fine.”
A deep breath; a glance to Dawn, who was wide-eyed with blooming delight, and then to Buffy -- and when had he started looking to Buffy for reassurance?
“When?”
“As soon as we can manage it. Give me a few minutes to call around -- I’ll see where Dr. Einjarl is on his circuit. If he’s not available in the next day or two I’ll send you into L.A.”
She left, and the three looked at each other.
“So, you’re going to have her soon?” said Dawn. “Like, tomorrow?”
“I guess so,” he said. This was good news and not bad, and he was having as much trouble getting his breath now as before. He gripped the edges of the exam table and began recalculating the hours.
Stacey strode in a few minutes later. “Dr. Einjarl will be at the Oak Hollow clinic tomorrow, and I’ve scheduled you for a post-sunset surgical appointment. They have a few beds, so you’ll be able to spend the day and they can keep an eye on your healing, in case it doesn’t improve right away after everything is removed. They’ll also handle the birth certificate and all the usual documentation.”
“So she’ll be legal and everything?” Buffy said. “A U.S. citizen?”
“The papers are legal papers,” Stacey said. “I wouldn’t look too closely at the ruling that allows the clinics to issue them. But yes, legal and everything.”
“Figures,” said Spike. “Go to all this trouble having a baby, and she winds up a Yank.”
When they got home, there were calls to be made. It turned out the witches wanted to come, over Spike’s protests, and of course Buffy and Dawn were, too, which necessitated a discussion of whether another car was needed or if all those tiny females could squeeze in the back seat of Xander’s rattletrap. By the time it was done Spike still wasn’t sure what the conclusion had been. Then a call to Joyce, during which she admonished and scolded -- for his gall at having a baby without her -- and reassured.
Buffy made a meticulous inspection of his hand. The glue Stacey had slathered it with seemed to be holding.
Group project. That was him.
But finally the what-abouts and what-ifs slowed to a trickle. “I’m going to bed,” he said. Dawn’s mouth cracked open. “Alone,” he added, too knackered/edgy/everything to care about softening the words. She frowned, but Buffy gave her a Significant Look and she quieted.
He shut the basement door and stumped down the stairs. By the glow of the nightlight he passed a last glance over the crib, at the tidy stack of sleepers in their shelf, at the diapers Joyce had helped him choose. Then he stripped down to a fresh pair of sweatpants and sat unsteadily on the mattress.
He breathed slowly, deeply, taking in the faux-lemon of Joyce’s all-purpose cleaner and, beneath it, the rich taste of earth on the air, dulled though it was by the newly installed humidifier. The part of him that had never quite escaped the grave was soothed by that fragrance of stone and soil. He was glad his girl would grow up knowing it.
He slid his hands over the broad, impossible swell of his belly. Uncomfortable, yes. Bloody inconvenient. Give him six months, and he’d surely be repulsed by this memory of himself, swollen and misshapen and stripped of the comfortable masculine certainty that such a thing could never, ever happen to him. But for one more night -- twenty-two hours -- this was where his little girl was, and much as he wanted to see her he couldn’t begrudge them both these last few quiet moments before the world turned over.
The door above creaked. Footsteps descended, slow, irregular. Shoes appeared: not Dawn’s sneakers, but a pair of Buffy’s heeled leather slaying boots. Her head ducked around the frame and her gaze found him in the semi-dark. “You’re awake,” she said softly. She trotted down the rest of the stairs and came to stand before him, arms crossed awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No?”
She didn’t appear certain that she’d meant to come at all. “I was about to go patrol. I came to, um, see if you needed anything.”
He gave that a long moment’s thought, and then planted his hands behind him and said, “I don’t suppose I do.”
A pause, while intently regarding a possible scuff on her shoe. Then, facing him, “This is never going to stop being weird, is it?”
“‘This’?” His girl was waking up; he could feel her starting to squirm.
“You, with a baby, in my house.”
For a bare instant he let in the whole view at once: him under the Slayer’s roof raising up a human chit of a thing he’d carried himself. “Doesn’t seem likely, does it? Expect you might quit noticing after a while.”
“I guess.”
“And you’ll be back at university any week now, yeah?” He braced against a half-hearted kick to his spine.
“Well, but I have to come back and visit the Spike-baby, don’t I?” She reached out and gave his stomach a furtive pat.
“Wouldn’t have figured you for the squalling infant type.”
She considered. “I’m not, really. But I feel sort of responsible for this one. Especially if she’s a--”
“No,” he said sharply. “She’s human, and that’s all she is.”
“But if--”
“No.” He stared her down until her gaze dropped. She licked her lips, her weight shifting to turn, and he said, “Do you want to feel her?”
She stared, a Slayer caught in the headlights. “Not really,” she muttered.
“S’not like you haven’t touched us before -- what was that bit about saving her from the dorkiness?”
“That was different,” Buffy said.
He arched an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t thinking about it then.”
He swallowed a laugh at this girl who’d faced down any number of the world’s more revolting demons and yet was spooked by him. By this. “I’ve seen your fingers twitching at your sides when you’re trying not to look at me.”
“They do not twitch!” She hid them behind her. “No twitchiness here.”
“Give us your hand,” he said, offering his. When she still hesitated, he added, “ S’almost your last chance, you know.”
She stared a moment more, and then she abruptly took the one step between them, settled next to him on the bed, and held her hand out, hovering uncertainly just above his stomach. He pressed it flat against himself and heard the sharp intake of her breath -- just from the heat of him, he supposed, since his girl had chosen that moment to fall still.
“You know,” Buffy said, eyeing his stomach critically with just a hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth, “You felt way different when we were engaged. ”
He stiffened against the reminder of those few mawkish, treacherous hours he’d put determinedly behind him.
“Oh,” she said, and a startled giggle snuck out.
“What?” he snapped.
“I was going to marry you, and you were already pregnant with some other woman’s kid.” A string of giggles burst from her. “I didn’t...” Snort. “I didn’t even ask if there’d been anyone else.”
Relaxing, he started to grin. “Well, you know. Harm.”
“Harmony!” That seemed to make it worse. “Do you think she’d make an honest vampire of you, if you told her?”
“Suppose she might.” Straightening, he said gravely, “Didn’t you know? It happens this way sometimes, with vampires.”
“Oh, God.” She had a joyous sort of beauty when she laughed like this, with abandon. He chuckled with her until the breathless mirth fell silent.
It was then that Buffy apparently noticed where her hand was still lying. She tensed to pull away, and it came: a drowsy shove against her palm. “Oh,” she breathed. “Hey, kid,” she said, stroking his skin with her thumb.
Then came that deep, full movement that felt like a boulder rolling over inside him. Buffy glanced up, wide-eyed. “Does she do that a lot?”
“Less now than she used to. Not much maneuvering room in there anymore.”
She withdrew and planted her hands on the edge of the bed. “And the weirdness just doesn’t stop.”
He paused for one of those now-necessary breaths. “Slayer?” She glanced up, and for one single moment he loosened his white-knuckled grip of certainty. “Slayer, if she is...”
She looked him in the eye, solemn. “We’ll deal.”
“Right.” He sighed, looking down at the mound that was his little girl. No one would bother her as long as he had her inside. But once she was out...
He felt a touch: Buffy’s hand, warm against his arm. “We’ll figure it out. Okay?”
This time he nodded. “Okay.”
next part
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 04:12 pm (UTC)I always love reading this, seeing how you've changed things since the draft. You always make things stronger. You have a gift for analyzing critique and knowing what not to listen to. ;)
*sniffle* So sweet and warm and awww.
Harmony making an honest man of Spike is genuinely funny, and also feels very much an in-the-moment joke for them to share.
*warm fuzzies*
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 10:59 pm (UTC)Wow. Thank you! I always worry a little when I'm revising that either I won't fix the draft enough or I'll break it irreparably. It's comforting to hear that that's generally not the case. :)
Harmony making an honest man of Spike is genuinely funny,
I... may be unduly fond of that little exchange. Because Harmony is inherently funny, I think. *g*
*warm fuzzies*
Warm fuzzies! *snuggles the warm fuzzies*
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 08:23 pm (UTC)“It’s like watermelon ballet,” Dawn said suddenly.
As always, I love the Spike/ Dawn moments. And that's a great visual; late pregnancy really is kinda like a watermellon ballet!
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 10:51 pm (UTC)Aww. That's pretty much the best praise a writer could hope for. I'm so glad you're enjoying.
As always, I love the Spike/ Dawn moments.
As may be evident in this fic, I am a total sucker for Spike/Dawn moments... :)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 08:30 pm (UTC)I loved how intimate Buffy just touching Spike's stomach was and then the two are laughing and joking like old friends. The baby's movement brought back that feeling of connection and Buffy's sweet Hey, kid put a smile on my face. She and Spike are on the way to becoming friends, and I think this baby is going to quickly bridge that gap.
This, as always, was a vivid, entertaining chapter. I can't believe I fell so far behind, but it was a real pleasure playing catch up.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 11:08 pm (UTC)Eep! So true. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet, and I'm in a whole lot more control of the situation than Spike is. *g*
I can't believe I fell so far behind, but it was a real pleasure playing catch up.
And as always, I very much enjoyed your comments as you did. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 09:34 pm (UTC)Heh. He must be feeling okay, to tease Dawn that way.
You did make up the Dru quote/prophecy, right? I don't remember it.
“Figures,” said Spike. “Go to all this trouble having a baby, and she winds up a Yank.”
I remember someone saying that patriotism is the desire for the foods your grandmother served. Well, isn't that nicer than the "last refuge of scoundrels"? Anyway, I'll bet Giles can have enough wheetabix and marmite shipped over for them to raise the sprog properly. Heh.
Buffy must be feeling somewhat in control of things, if she is able to bring up the engagement, and to tease him about carrying "another woman's" child. Lovely banter.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:50 am (UTC)I did. It actually first showed up in chapter 4, when Spike is flashing back to a conversation with Dru. I didn't really expect anyone to remember it from then, though.
Anyway, I'll bet Giles can have enough wheetabix and marmite shipped over for them to raise the sprog properly.
Hmm. Methinks a Spike/Giles reconciliation is in order, then. :)
Buffy must be feeling somewhat in control of things
Yes. Despite what she says, I think she's had enough time now to get used to the idea of her and Spike being something other than antagonists. She might even decide, with more time, that she kind of likes having him around. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-30 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:52 am (UTC)And I'm always thrilled to cause anyone's heart to rejoice.
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Date: 2009-11-30 10:47 pm (UTC)ETA: I was so happy to see it and loved it so much I even forgot to deny I was reading it!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:56 am (UTC)Hooray! Certain relationships are getting more time than I expected *coughSpuffycough*, but I've enjoyed writing all of them.
I was so happy to see it and loved it so much I even forgot to deny I was reading it!
HAH! Wiktory! I win.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 01:24 am (UTC)I love how smug Joyce is about her prior experience with pregnancy.
Is Drusilla's turnip opera referring to the baby herself and her (presumably) loud wailing?
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 02:39 am (UTC)Hey, she's already done this twice, and is probably pretty confident that she won't have to do it again. Can't blame her. *g*
Is Drusilla's turnip opera referring to the baby herself and her (presumably) loud wailing?
Er. Yes! That's it! My brilliant symbolism at work!
(I actually haven't the foggiest idea what she meant by that. Some of what she says is prophetic, but some of it's just insane, yanno?)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 02:41 am (UTC)Yay. I really had no intentions of Spuffifying this fic when I started it, but I guess my natural inclinations are making themselves known. Plus, I really love those Spuffy moments in canon when they're on relatively equal footing and are actually treating each other with respect, the way they do here.
I'm so glad you're enjoying. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 05:24 am (UTC)The nerve of him, having a baby while Joyce is out of town. Though really, as a two-time mother herself, she should have known due dates -- even scheduled Cesareans for male vampires -- are always guesses. I do hope some of that reassurance was aimed at him.
I like how Buffy's gotten attached to the Spike-baby, despite herself. And how Spike, perhaps rightfully, is frightened at how much more vulnerable his daughter becomes once she's out. I'm glad Buffy got to do the belly-feeling before it was too late. And I hope she's ready to protect her from more than just the dorkiness. *g*
P.S.
Date: 2009-12-01 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 12:53 am (UTC)Oh, I think the scolding was entirely good-natured, and the reassurance was all for him.
And I hope she's ready to protect her from more than just the dorkiness.
Actually, I suspect that Buffy is much comfortable with baby as something-to-be-protected than baby as brand-new-(extended)-family-member. You know how in S5, the Buffy/Dawn friction dropped radically once Buffy realized that Dawn was one of her Slayer responsibilities? I think that might be a key to Buffy's character: as the show goes on, her view of the world contracts more and more to a purely Slayer perspective. There are the things she kills, the people she kills with, the people she protects, and... everyone else. Who, since they don't fit into any of those categories, become progressively more difficult for her to relate to.
I dunno. I'm kind of thinking as I type here, and it's a fairly depressing view of things; I hate to think of Buffy really being that isolated. Anyhoo... *g*
Plus, laughing-with-abandon Buffy is one of my very favorite Buffies.
Oh, yes. Mine, too. And there aren't nearly enough instances in canon.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 05:18 am (UTC)There are the things she kills, the people she kills with, the people she protects, and... everyone else. Who, since they don't fit into any of those categories, become progressively more difficult for her to relate to.
What's fascinating about this is, it very much mirrors treatments I've read about soulless-but-trying Spike.
And I think you have a point about Buffy, too. In a way, I'm not sure whether it starts out as being unable to relate to others, as much as not having time. Starting in S5, they really pile on the responsibilities and the uber-suck and basically don't let up with that until the end of the show. (Yes, there was uber-suck in S2, but they let her bounce back from it in S3 and S4 somewhat.) And then, coming back from the dead means she really can't relate to even her friends anymore.
But I certainly think that having these categories of people helps Buffy make sense of her world -- particularly when her world involves former-mortal-enemy-pregnant-male-vampires living in her house. As
no subject
Date: 2009-12-04 12:10 am (UTC)Huh. I hadn't thought of that, but you're absolutely right. I suppose in those two treatments, Spike and Buffy are meeting in the middle from opposite directions? Spike starts out with zero empathy, and expands it by putting people in categories; Buffy starts out the series with empathy towards most everyone, and adopts the categories later on as a sort of coping mechanism. Because, as you say, she gets the world dumped on her shoulders by the end of S5, and doesn't have the time or energy to empathize with much of anyone.
(Also, I adore
these all put Spike as well as his baby in the "people Buffy protects" category.
Exactly. And it occurs to me just now that, even if for no other reason, she can relate to Spike better here because he fits in a nice neat category now. Before, chipped!Spike was an anomaly and surely the cause of some cognitive dissonance on Buffy's part.
Hmm. Veddy interesting. Thanks for the thinky thoughts!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-01 12:10 pm (UTC)I've just read this fic in pretty much one sitting. I apologise for not leaving a comment on every entry but I just had to rush on to the next chapter.
I actually started reading before I realised it was an mpreg fic so that came at me out of left field, but since mpreg isn't a kink of mine, and I don't like fluffy baby fics either, that's probably just as well because if I'd read the blurb properly I might not have read this at all, and that would have been a crying shame, because this is one of the best fics I've read all year and anyway barely skirts the borders of fluffy.
The first thing I like is that you've set up the mpreg thing in a way that makes sense within the parameters of the 'verse, giving the story a solid, grounded canon feel. But added to that, you have wonderful character voices all the way through and believable reactions from everyone involved, especially from Spike himself.
I'm so glad I found this fic and can't wait to see how you end it.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 01:07 am (UTC)As for fluff, well, I must have disguised it more cleverly than I thought. 'Cuz I'm pretty sure there's a bunch hidden in here somewhere. *g*
Thank you so much for commenting! It's always nice to know who's reading. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 02:20 am (UTC)A few of my favorite things in this chapter:
The watermelon ballet lines.
Dawn telling Spike he's still sexy.
Buffy patching Spike up.
All the well-thought-out details about why Spike's body is reacting like this.
Spike's baby as a Yank.
Harmony making an honest man of him.
Buffy feeling the baby.
Gorgeous chapter!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 11:53 pm (UTC)Well, it's certainly been an organic process, since when I started the fic I had no plans for promoting Spuffy friendship. It just... happened. From those occasional canon moments, especially in early S6, it's clear that quiet friendship is a possibility for them, if they can get away from distractions like hellgods. Besides, I'm all for friendship as a prelude to romance, and I like the idea of watching it play out between these two who are so often thrown together in fic via Uncontrollable Sexual Urges (tm).
Harmony making an honest man of him.
I... may be unreasonably fond of that exchange. Then again, I'm unbecomingly fond of most of this chapter. Like, I love that last scene to itty bitty bits. (And I'm tickled that you like it, too.)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-04 12:11 am (UTC)"Melius abundare quam deficere"
(Better abound wich short supply)
Ciao!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-04 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 07:46 pm (UTC)1. Loved the conversation between Buffy and Spike, and not even in a shippy way.
2. Word to everything in your exchange with
no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 10:23 pm (UTC)And
no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 09:58 pm (UTC)They're not? Oops. Turns out I've been doing it wrong the whole time...
no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 12:21 am (UTC)I'm so glad you're enjoying the fic! And thanks for commenting - it's always nice to know who's reading. :)
FIC: Seraph (24/26)
Date: 2009-12-22 10:59 pm (UTC)Bad development about the not healing, though. Hopefully it will fix itself later.
No clue but wouldn't the baby be a U.S. citizen makes it possible for Spike to stay? If he ever gets in trouble for being a British citizen (not sure about the law).
Again, loved the Buffy/Spike scene. (Wonder if the baby will a slayer.)
Indeed, last chance for Buffy to feel the baby move.
Re: FIC: Seraph (24/26)
Date: 2010-01-02 12:19 am (UTC)Hee. Yes. This is an idea I'd really like to play with more sometime - Dru's foreknowledge and response to Spike's change in family circumstances. *g*
No clue but wouldn't the baby be a U.S. citizen makes it possible for Spike to stay? If he ever gets in trouble for being a British citizen (not sure about the law).
I'm not sure what the law would be if Spike were human. However, seeing as he's legally deceased and pretty much below the bureacratic radar, it doesn't seem too likely the issue would ever come up. *g*
no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-11 03:21 pm (UTC)