Fic: Like the Sands of Time (one shot)

[veronyxk84]

Title: Like the Sands of Time
Author & Banner artist: veronyxk84
Era: post-series
Rating: PG-13
Beta: marinaeulalia

Summary: It’s been over twenty years since Sunnydale turned into a giant sinkhole, exactly fifteen years since Buffy and Spike got hitched, and about five years since Spike got unexpectedly shanshued.
A Spuffy anniversary with little trips down memory lane.

∞ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ∞



It was the dead of winter in San Francisco, and the flames crackling in the fireplace spread a warm, cozy glow in the living room.
Spike sat on the couch, flipping through a photo album with a content smile on his face. Fifteen years had passed since those pictures were taken at the “Fire & Ice” wedding that Dawn had planned for him and Buffy. To their delight, they’d shared the date with little Joyce’s naming ceremony, making it a celebration of the Summers family. A family he’d married into without hesitation and of which he’d “unofficially” taken the name, going proudly as Spike Summers until an unexpected trick of fate had turned his former unlife upside down.

The Shanshu verdict had hit him about ten years later like a thunderbolt, forcing him and his found family to deal with heaps of paperwork in order to make his human existence official once again after his previous life in Victorian England. Before long, he had been legally registered as William Pratt-Summers but was still informally known as Spike by the large majority of people.
Thankfully, everyone who could lend a hand had helped a great deal with the bureaucratic side of his vampire-to-human transition so he could work on the aspects that were closer and more personal to him, and not at all easier to navigate.
Buffy had been his rock for the entire duration of that trying time, going above and beyond in her support and understanding. She’d powered through the mood swings, the anger fits, and the self-pity parties with outpouring love and little to no complaints. At least until he’d resorted to trying his old cure-all remedy, which consisted in drowning his sorrows in bourbon, and she’d decided that it was time for a little bit of tough love.

∞ ~~~~~~~ About five years earlier ~~~~~~~ ∞

“I don’t think drinking is the solution, Spike,” said Buffy when she found him in the kitchen, pouring his second—maybe third—glass of bourbon before breakfast.
“Worked like a charm before,” he replied, staring at the swirling, amber liquid for a moment before downing it in one go. “Might be worth a try.”
“So what’s your plan, exactly? To spend the rest of your life—our lives—drifting in and out of a drunken stupor?” she spat. “Not to mention that your human body cannot possibly tolerate the massive drinking-binge habit you developed as a vampire.”
Spike scoffed. “And the fun just never ends, does it?” he said with a tinge of scorn, pouring himself another glass.
“Numbing your pain won’t make it go away! It’s only going to make it worse and I will not just… stand here and watch you destroy everything we’ve built so far.”
With a provocative demeanor, he stood up and lifted the glass to his lips. “Then you’d better look the other way, pet.”
“Oh, I won’t.”
In a couple of strides, Buffy was before him, snatching the glass from his hand and slamming it into the empty sink. The liquor sloshed out as the sturdy glass rolled around, miraculously not breaking.
“Bloody hell, woman! Will you leave me alone?” he barked.
“No!” she yelled back. “I don’t want to lose you because of a stupid prophecy. I don’t want to lose us.”
He snorted bitterly. “Well, that’s unfortunate ’cause I’ve already lost myself. So there’s really nothing left for you to lose.”
“That’s bullshit! Maybe you would see that if you talked to me instead of pushing me away.”
“And tell you what?” he shouted. “You couldn’t understand what I’m going through. What it feels like to…” he trailed off, lowering his gaze to the floor. “I don’t even have the words for it.”
Buffy hugged herself, hurt by Spike’s words, but she found the strength to talk past the lump lodged in her throat. “You’re right. I couldn’t understand what it feels like to have a peaceful existence ripped from you while you’re being violently slammed back into a life that you were done living,” she said softly. “Or to be trapped inside a body that suddenly feels foreign to you, as if you were walking around in someone else’s skin. Or to stand in front of the mirror and see a total stranger looking back at you,” her voice cracked and her eyes welled up, recalling the dreadful feelings that had followed her resurrection for months, but she blinked back her tears. “How could I possibly understand?”
Spike stared at her with a mix of awe and disbelief, connecting the dots between their past and their present into an intricately intertwined pattern. “God, Buffy… I’m a total wanker, ain’t I?”
“That sort of came with the original package,” she smiled. “But lately you’ve been outdoing yourself in that department.”
He shook his head. “And you keep putting up with my shit. You shouldn’t have to.”
“Well, I kind of do,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “We vowed to weather every storm together when we got married, remember?”
“Yeah. Except I’m the bloody storm now.”
Buffy stroked his head with affection. “Spike, I love you. Believe me when I say that I know what you’re going through, because I’ve been through all that too. And you know better than anyone that I’ve dealt with it in every possible wrong way.”
Eyeing the bottle on the table, Buffy folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, leaning against the counter next to Spike. “You were my bourbon, Spike, and it nearly destroyed me. It nearly destroyed us both. I don’t want to go through that again. Do you?”
“No. God, no…” he muttered, holding his head in his hands.
“Then let me in. I know you can’t see that right now, but there’s a way out of this, I promise,” she said, taking his hands and holding them between hers. “You don’t need to shield me from your pain, I can take it. Share it with me, let us carry this burden together.”
He lifted his misty eyes on her. “Seems hardly fair, considering that when it was my turn I only made your burden heavier.”
“We’ve already established that I wasn’t entirely blameless in everything that went down between us, so no need to rehash that,” she said, squeezing his hands. “But if you still feel like making amends, you could try doing that by not making it heavier now.”
“I don’t think I know how.”
“Well, if I were you, I’d start by losing the alcohol,” she said, taking a deep breath. “The smell of whiskey on your breath tends to make me uncomfortable more often than not, and I’d rather not see you in a drunken state ever again.”
Spike nodded silently, turning his gaze to the floor, while Buffy guided his arms around her waist, pulling him into a hug. “Hey, it’s all right. We’ve got this,” she murmured, listening to the sound of his heartbeat that still felt so foreign to her ears.
He placed a feather kiss on her head, rubbing soft circles on her back. “I’m a bloody wanker. I’m sorry.”
Buffy looked up at him. “Why don’t I call Dawn and make plans to have breakfast with her?” she asked. “We’ll have her weird-shaped pancakes if Joyce doesn’t eat them all before we get there.”
He agreed with a smile. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Be right back,” she said, with a quick peck on his lips, before sauntering out of the kitchen.
Letting out a heavy sigh, Spike grabbed the bottle, uncorked it, and set it upside down directly on the drain in the sink, watching the liquid flush down to the very last drop.

∞ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ∞

The familiar touch of Buffy’s hands sliding down his shoulders to his chest brought him back to the present.
“Hey, handsome,” she whispered, just before nibbling on his earlobe. “I hope you have a good reason for leaving your wife alone in bed on our anniversary.”
Spike turned his head, capturing her lips in a quick but passionate kiss. “Sorry, luv. Got lost in the memories,” he said with an apologetic smile, showing her the photo album in his lap.
She straightened up, crossing her arms. “Oh, I see. So you’d rather spend our anniversary with pictures of thirty-year-old Buffy?”
“Come on, I just lost track of time, pet.”
Buffy took a step back, turning slowly on her feet. “Tell me, don’t I make forty-five look pretty good?” she asked, pulling the hem of her nightie up to her thighs and scrunching her hair at the nape of her neck.
Spike licked his lips, letting a lustful gaze drift over her body. “You make it look like I’m the luckiest bastard alive.”
She winked and smirked with satisfaction. “Good answer.”
“Come, sit with me,” he said, patting the space next to him on the couch. “Let’s take a look at your formerly hot husband.”
A frown creased Buffy’s forehead as she sat beside him. “Formerly? What are you talking about?”
“I’ve lost everything that made me Spike, and not just the vampire features,” he said, holding a close-up wedding portrait next to his face. “See? I look nothing like this bloke anymore.”
Buffy raked a hand through his brown curls. “So you need reading glasses and have a different hair color. It’s just looks,” she said, placing the photo album on the coffee table and straddling him. “You still feel very much like Spike to me,” she said in a sultry whisper, running her hands down his torso and gyrating her hips with purpose.
Spike slid his hands under her nightie, giving a vigorous squeeze to her backside which earned him a giggly yelp. The feel of her bare skin mixed with her rocking movements and playful bites down his neck, didn’t take long to trigger his reaction. “Hmm… thank god for small graces, then.”
Buffy smirked. “Not that small, either.”

With a husky chuckle, he flipped their position so that Buffy was lying on the couch on her back and he was hovering above her, propped up on his arms. “I’m sorry about earlier, pet. I know it’s silly to worry about how I look… It’s taking me more than I expected to get used to, well, everything.”
“Well, you’re going through a great deal of changes,” she said, taking his glasses off and placing them on the coffee table. “Besides, I don’t really mind your grumpy complaints. You still got Spike’s rare ability to make grumpiness look sexy. And a bunch of other skills as well.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, do I?”
“Yes, sir,” she confirmed, unbuttoning his shirt. “So take all the time you need, honey. I’m here for the long ride.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Take all of me.”

∞ ~~~~~~~ About five years earlier ~~~~~~~ ∞

Spike sneezed loudly and blew his nose. “I’m telling you, it’s the plague! I’m dying.”
“It’s a common cold and you’re not dying,” said Buffy patiently, handing him a new box of tissues. “Will you please quit being such a dramatic big baby?”
He snatched a bunch of tissues and coughed into them. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one going through this feverish hell of mucus and snot.”
“What a lovely picture,” she commented dryly. “Look, I rarely get sick thanks to my Slayer perks, but I had the flu a lot of times until I was fifteen. It’s not as bad as you’re making it sound.”
“My lungs hurt, my throat stings, and my nose is clogged. I can’t bloody breathe!” he blurted out with a sharp intake of breath from his mouth. “Guess what? For almost a century and a half I didn’t even need to breathe. I want my vampire perks back!”
“Spike—”
“Don’t ‘Spike’ me!” he spat, before blowing his nose again. “I’m nothing but a wretched human being with a runny nose, watery eyes, and a sodding fever. I think it went up again, pet. My head feels like it’s about to explode.”
Buffy placed a hand on his burning forehead. “Oh, drat… I guess it has gone up.”
“What if it goes up so high that I burst into flames?” he asked. “It wasn’t pleasant as a vampire. I don’t want to find out what that’s like as a human.”
She ran a hand through his hair, which already had dark roots, and smiled at him. “Spontaneous combustion is not a common problem for human beings,” she said, then frowned and shrugged. “Well, unless Sweet is around, anyway. But there were no reports about sudden singing outbreaks in the city, so we’re probably safe.”
“How do people go through this for their whole existence?”
Buffy heaved a sigh. “Maybe some of them have lovely wives who take care of them with endless patience,” she said.
“And with ginger lemon tea?” he asked, making puppy eyes.
“That, too. I’ll be back with tea and some ice for your head.”
Spike sneezed and coughed in rapid succession. “Thank you. I love you.”
“I love you too. Now lie down, you need to rest.”

∞ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ∞

The steady sound of Spike’s heartbeat lulled Buffy into a sleepy bliss, relishing in the comfortable warmth spreading from the fireplace in front of them to their bare bodies.
“We missed the couch,” observed Spike, reaching for the blanket dangling from the armrest.
She raised her head, beaming at him. “See? Some things never change, vampire or not. Our aim for comfortable furniture during sex will always suck.”
He chuckled, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Me neither,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the lips. “Hey, happy anniversary, Mr. Pratt-Summers.”
“Happy anniversary, Mrs. Summers.”
Buffy sighed. “Wow, fifteen years. Can you believe that we’d been on the verge of breaking up just months before our wedding? What if we’d actually gone through with that?”
Spike shuddered. “I don’t want to know. And thanks to Dawn, now we don’t have to. Remember her little intervention?”
“How could I forget?” she laughed. “My very pregnant, mood-swingy little sister sat us down, called us idiots to our faces, and made us tell each other about what our relationship meant to us.”
“Smart move. By the end of the day our break-up plans lay forgotten on the floor, under the pile of our discarded clothes.”
“And a few months later she was secretly encouraging both of us to take the big step.”
Spike let out a loud snort. “Yeah, and idiot that I am, I let you beat me to it.”
“But because of that we both have our engagement ring,” she said, lifting their left hands above them. “Aren’t they cute? The almost-exact replica of the skull ring you proposed with under Willow’s spell, and my mom’s ring that Dawn took to our fight against The First, unwittingly saving it from the fall of Sunnydale.”
Spike gazed at their fingers, adorned with their engagement rings and wedding bands, then brought her hand down to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Thank you, luv,” he whispered, caressing her head.
Buffy smiled. “What for?”
“Everything,” he said. “Ever since we met, my existence has been a bloody roller-coaster ride. You turned my unlife upside down so many times that I don’t know which way is up anymore. Feisty little thing, you are. Always been.”
A frown creased her forehead. “Is this one of those confusing speeches of yours that you mean as a compliment, but doesn’t really sound like one?”
He laughed heartily. “I s’pose, yes.”
“Well, thank you, I guess. You’re not that bad yourself, you know?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Wait, I wasn’t done!”
“Oh, my bad. Go on,” she said, making a zipping gesture on her lips.

“I was looking at our pictures earlier… and I realized that I wanted to thank you for the thirty years in which we’ve known each other. Well, give or take, since we haven’t always been tog—”
“That’s not right!” exclaimed Buffy, interrupting him. “We haven’t known each other that long. It can’t be.”
“You were about sixteen when I first came to Sunnydale, pet. That’s almost thirty years overall, with a few periods in between where we’ve been apart.”
Her eyes widened. “Get out! That’s like… two thirds of my entire life!”
“Uh… yeah. Are you telling me you didn’t know that?”
“I guess I never stopped to do the math,” she said, rolling off of Spike to lie beside him. “I’ve known my husband for most of my life. That’s freaky.”
He clasped his hands above his head. “Well, we weren’t exactly on good terms at first, though. I s’pose we could say that we were acquaintances. Of the unfriendly kind.”
Buffy turned her head toward Spike, waiting for him to do the same before saying, “Maybe that’s what allowed us to last so long.”
“What’s that?” he asked, wearing a bewildered look.
“The fact that we spent the early years of our… acquaintance, either trying to kill each other or getting on each other’s nerves at every turn. That makes for a boatload of pent-up sexual tension.”
Spike looked unconvinced. “You think?”
“You don’t?” she scoffed. “Come on, we brought down a building, for crying out loud!”
He rolled on his side, propping his head up with a hand. “Huh. I know that fighting you has always felt titillating, I had no idea that you’d ever felt the same about it.”
“I think Willow’s ‘My Will Be Done’ spell blurred many lines there,” she said, with a little shrug. “Boy, did I have some disturbing dreams after that one.”
Spike’s lips curved into a cheeky grin. “Did you, now? How come you never told me before?”
“Because I knew you’d be all smug about it if you ever found out. And look, you are!”
He sucked in his cheeks, licking his lips. “Had dirty hot Spike dreams while you were going out with your Cap’n Cardboard, didn’t you?”
“Okay, now you’re reaching.”
“Oh, am I?”
She let out a heavy sigh. “All right, fine. There might have been a little overlapping there. But then it all went away naturally when the side effects of the spell wore out.”
“Give me a break,” he snorted. “We’ve been married for fifteen years, Buffy. You don’t need to keep blaming the soddin’ spell. You had the hots for me; you just didn’t want to accept it.”
“Ugh, you wish.”
With that, she rolled on her side, turning her back to him.
“Are you mad now? Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Yes, you are.”
“If you say so, Spike.”
He scooted closer, just short of spooning her, and twirled a strand of her golden locks between his fingers. “Is this where you pretend to be mad at me so I bend over backwards to woo you and make you forgive whatever heinous crime you want me to believe I committed?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t do that,” she said, stifling a smile.
He smirked. “Sure you don’t. So I guess I’ll take advantage of your fake silence treatment to finish my speech, which you’ve already interrupted twice, by the way.”
“Good. I could use some help falling asleep,” she mumbled.
Spike ignored her remark, knowing it was all part of her ruse. “As I was saying earlier, before you so rudely interrupted me, I wanted to thank you for all our years together. I mean the fights, the thorough ass kickings, the misunderstandings, the trust, the apocalypses. But also for the many second chances, for holding your hand out to me when nobody else would and you certainly had no bloody reason to,” he said, still playing absently with a strand of her hair. “Most and foremost, I want to thank you for believing in us fifteen years ago. For choosing us that day, and every other day that followed. I promise that I will keep choosing us as well, every day, until my last day on this earth and beyond. Whenever that is.”

When some time had passed without any apparent reaction from Buffy, Spike let out a huff. “Bloody hell, you didn’t really fall asleep, did you?”
She rolled over to her other side, facing him and wiping the tears from her face. “Gosh, I hate your speeches. And that stupid poet streak of yours.”
He took her hand in his, kissing the tips of her fingers, one by one. “Liar. You love my inner poet. You’re the only reason I stopped fighting it.”
Buffy sniffled, giggling. “Fine, I do love it, but just a little. And only because it comes all wrapped up in this hot package,” she said with a playful smile, running her finger all the way down his torso.
“You’d better take advantage of it, then,” he said, grabbing her hand and rolling over on his back, pulling Buffy on top. “Rumor has it that this hot package is doomed to become all wrinkly and saggy.”
She grinned. “Good.”
“Good? How’s that even remotely good? I’m going to get bloody old!”
“Yeah? So am I,” she observed, rolling her eyes. “We’re going to get wrinkly, saggy, and toothless together! Isn’t that romantic?”
Spike blinked at her. “I have no soddin’ idea what to say to that.”
“There’s really nothing to say, it is what it is. We just buckle up and prepare for the ride.”
He caressed her cheek. “That, I can do. I’m prepared to face any ride if you tag along.”
“And I promise I will. Every day, until my last day on this earth and beyond. Whenever that is.”

THE END

∞ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ∞

Author notes:
This story is set in my “A Life That’s Good” ’verse: a post-S11 alternate reality where Buffy and Spike are an established couple and live in San Francisco in the same neighborhood as Dawn, Xander, and their daughter Joyce.
I wrote this one shot to be read as a standalone, so there’s no need to know what happened in earlier stories.

But if anyone’s curious, here’s a list of references mentioned in this story:

• The “Fire & Ice” wedding and Joyce’s naming ceremony were planned and mentioned at the end of “Autumn in San Francisco”
• Spike taking the Summers family name was discussed in “A Very Summers Winter”
• Dawn’s intervention that stopped Buffy and Spike from breaking up is at the core of “The Alphabet of Spuffy”
• Buffy and Spike proposed to each other toward the end of “Autumn in San Francisco” with Dawn’s enthusiastic encouragement

∞ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ∞

Thank you for reading!

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Haven't read the fic yet but just wanted to say what a delightful banner that is.

[veronyxk84]

Thank you! I appreciate it 🥰

[all_choseny]

Lovely fic! Lovely banner!

The flashback scene were a delight and I am a fan of human Spike whichever way he gets there. I can't wait for you to share it on SAD.

[veronyxk84]

I'm going to wait for the round to close and then a few more days before cross posting, but it's definitely going to be on SAD. ☺

I had never considered the possibility of shanshu before. It hit me when I was thinking about a story for this round, and I went for it.
I'm happy you liked the flashbacks.

Thank you so much for reading! 💕

[slaymesoftly]

I loved it. Both that they've managed to stay together, and the flashbacks to how difficult it was sometimes.

[veronyxk84]

Thank you! 💕

I figured it wouldn't be so easy for Spike to re-adjust to a human existence. But at least he had Buffy and a whole support network to help him through that. He's going to be all right (because I'm a HEA/HFN enthusiast). 😉