Chapter Text
When Buffy barged through Giles’ front door with a tied-up vampire in tow, she could so do with a nap. Preferably on Willow’s shoulder while they bemoaned the inevitability of Steel Magnolias. (And tell her friend that at least she didn’t have diabetes.)
But instead she had Spike. Yay.
“Hey! Watch it!”
Buffy pushed him away. “One more word out of you and I swear—”
“Swear what?” he interrupted her, leaning in. “You’re not gonna do anything to me. You don’t have the stones.”
“Oh, I got the stones.” She leaned in as well. “I got a whole bunch of … stones,” Buffy finished lamely.
And now he was raising an eyebrow!
“Yeah? You’re all talk.”
Okay, that’s it! Not looking away from him, she yelled up the stairs, “Giles! I accidentally killed Spike. That’s okay, right?”
“I mean, I'm going through something. You'd think every once in awhile Buffy would make best friends a priority.”
“You know, Will, it’s not like she could just let Spike go.”
Back in Giles’ living room, Buffy pushed Spike into a chair.
“I get this spell reversed, they’ll be finding your body for weeks,” Spike sneered.
She leaned in closer. “Oh, make a move. Please. I’m dying for a good slay.”
Willow was pacing in front of her bed. “Spike’s more important than me. I get it.”
“Buffy's gotta find out what's up with those commandos. Right now she needs Spike.”
“Well, fine. Why doesn’t she just go marry him?”
A mere second ago, Buffy could swear that she was about to bite Spike’s head off for his cheek! Making promises he couldn’t deliver on, typical! And then making her promise things, she couldn’t deliver on as well! Because a dusty Spike meant that they wouldn’t bicker anymore and what’s a girl without her arch nemesis whose nose she can casually punch?
But then, Buffy just had the most brilliant thought ever: what if she married Spike’s cute-y little butt? They already got that ‘bickering like an old married couple’ down to a T and for a vampire, Spike wasn’t that bad looking. He was kinda bone-y in a way that’s sexy. Totally loveable! Because that was that feeling in her tummy! Butterflies! Love! Love butterflies!
So there was only thing that Buffy had to do: pop the question. And lucky her, she was already wearing a ring. Perfect timing! An omen of the goodest and truest intention if she might say so. The Powers That Be were definitely on her side. (Like, she also could have only been wearing her bracelet and she couldn’t do a marriage proposal without a ring. She had standards. Buffy could also have hardly proposed to Spike with one of his rings because that would have just made her look like she wasn’t invested in their relationship and a cheapskate!)
She knelt down in front of her vampire and tried to grasp his right hand in both of hers. Key word being tried. His long, sexy hands were still bound behind his back! Which was of course a good look on Spike, like, him in Giles’ bathtub? Straight out of her fantasies. Straight!
So Buffy crawled with grace (hear that! Grace! She was most certainly not wiggling her butt while doing so, no sir!) to the back of the chair and ripped through the rope. Then she quickly returned to her original position and was now able to take his hand into hers. She rubbed a thumb along his wrist, where the rope had left slight markings on his skin, and giggled when Spike immediately melted into the gesture and placed his other hand on top of hers. Naughty vampire!
She grasped his fingers tight. Here goes nothing.
“Spike, honey, I know that we are kinda skipping several steps of the relationship ladder but I cannot let you spend another second of your undead life on earth without knowing how I really feel about you.”
He melted even more (at what point could she consider him ice cream?) and lifted her hands up to his mouth to press several (!) kisses on them. “Buffy...”
She giggled. “Silly Spike, how can I confess my undying love if you keep being so sweet?”
“That what you were doing, pet?” he smirked.
Buffy pouted. How unfair of him, he was very well aware of how devastatingly handsome he looked when he smirked. “Well, I was until someone interrupted me!”
He pressed one more kiss onto the back of her hand before dropping them back down to his lap. “Go on then, Slayer.”
Her mouth formed an even bigger pout. How dare he bring up sexy nicknames when she’s about to propose! Hello, now’s the time for ‘sweetheart’, ‘love’ and not foreplay!
He grinned down at her, unapologetic. God, he knew what he was doing. Evil. “Sorry, love.”
“No, you’re not.” She glared at him. The nerve!
“Not really.”
Buffy huffed and turned her face away from him.
Spike clearly wasn’t having that and placed a finger under her chin, turning her back towards him. “Finished looking pouty?”
“I don’t know. Are you done being an ass?” she retorted back.
He licked his lips and went for another smirk. “Never.”
Buffy would like to say that she of course held fast and had not wavered in this moment, no, not even a little bit. Well, wrong! They made out for several long minutes and she was pretty sure Spike had vamped out at least twice. God, did he look hot with sharp teeth.
“Back to my original point, honey.” Here she glared at him for good measure to remind Spike whose fault the interruption really was! “You are the love of my life and I cannot let you walk around Sunnydale without something to show you my forever kind of love. So, Spike, Spikey, William the Bloody,” she pulled off her own ring and presented it to him, “will you marry me?”
And Buffy could feel herself melt as well (they were two scoops of melty ice cream!) as his pretty blue eyes widened in awe. Spike squeezed her hands real tight and kept opening his mouth before closing it. (He looked like a fish. A very pretty fish.) Then he did the silliest thing! He pulled on her hands, causing her to land in his lap and kissed the living daylights out of her.
She laughed in between kisses and half-heartedly tried to shove his head away. “Is that a yes?” she giggled.
“Of course it bloody is, pet.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek, and then her other cheek and then her forehead! Wow, spa treatment much? “Now, where did you drop my ring? Gotta put it on, show everyone what a gorgeous bird I bagged and who bagged me.”
She moved to leave her very comfortable seat on his thighs but he put a stop to that.
“Nuh-uh, you can do that from up here.”
Buffy went back to being pouty. “Fine but don’t complain when I, like, throw an elbow into your— your lap area.”
And then Buffy winded her legs around Spike’s neck, ignoring the very smug purr that erupted from his chest and the way he nosed at her inner thighs, and placed her hands onto the floor and surveyed. Ah! There! She just needed to stretch just a bit more and—
“I got it, honey!”
With a quick detangling, Buffy unwrapped her legs from his neck and plopped herself right back into his lap. There she grabbed his left hand and pushed the ring on his ring finger.
Or, well, she tried to but it didn’t even go past the first knuckle. She felt another pout coming.
“It doesn’t fit,” Buffy mumbled to herself, disappointed.
Spike lifted his hand to admire the silver ring bedazzled with pink stones before wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Not all of us can have such dainty fingers, love. How about we try the little finger?”
She gave him her best pout. But that’s not the marriage finger...
He sighed as if he could read her mind. “It’s either that or we’ll get a chain and I’ll wear it around my neck.”
“Fine,” she replied reluctantly. Before Spike could do it himself, Buffy had grabbed his hand again and pulled her pretty ring off and stuck it on his little finger. Which did look better but it seemed to be a bit too tight and she quickly yanked it off again. The symbol of their love should not squish his finger so!
“Chain it is then,” Spike said.
She looked into his oh so blue eyes hopefully. “You don’t think we could get one from the shops today, could we?”
“Could do that. Or,” he smirked at her and oh my, naughty thoughts were definitely playing in her head, “we go to your dorm and we get one of your necklaces for it, pet.”
“Even better!” she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.
Marriage was so easy!
After indulging for a moment by kissing her fiancé (!) silly, Buffy pulled away and put her head onto his shoulder. She discretely sniffed at his duster and closed her eyes when the leathery scent hit her nose. And no, no matter what Spike would later say about this, she did not wrinkle her nose at the stench of cigarette smoke (which, ew) that also clung to it.
Barely a moment later, she heard feet coming down the stairs and she opened her eyes to see Giles staring at her and Spike. Oh my god, first person to share the news with!
“Giles, you’ll never believe what has happened! Spike and I are getting married!”