One more for the open posting -
I'm looking for shorter and/or older fics that may not have made it to LJ or to this community. First one on here is an inbetween s4 and s5 between the lines kinda thing:
Title: It Must Be Love (6/21/08)
Rating: PG
Spike, Buffy (just friends at this point)
Summary: set between season iv and v.- a Fourth of July ficlet
It Must Be Love
“The things I do for you, Slayer.”
“What do you mean, the things you do for me?”
He shook his head and pointed at the loud bursts of color overhead.
“That!”
“That’s beautiful. Don’t tell me don’t think those are pretty, Spike. Even you have to admit that fireworks are pretty.”
“A, I don’t- Alright, yes, they’re pretty - but the sounds that go with them? A mite hard on a poor old vamp’s ears.”
“Oh.” She was quiet for a second or two, making no sound except an “Ah!” when a particularly brightly colored flower bloomed above them. Then, when the accompanying loud booms echoed through the night and she noticed Spike’s flinch, she gave a sympathetic wince and said, “Oops? I’m sorry, Spike.”
“ 'scuse me? I think I’ve lost my hearing completely. Did you just say you’re sorry? To me?”
“Asshole! There’s just no sense in… Yes, I apologized for asking you to sit up here with me to watch the fireworks. I just thought… nevermind. You can go back inside. They probably won’t sound so loud if you go down to your lair.”
“You want me to leave? And that is my NOT a ‘lair’! It’s my bedroom, my inner sanctum, my- ”
“I said you could go. If you want to. I…I didn’t say I wanted you to go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay, then.”
“Fine.”
After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Buffy muttered with uncharacteristic concern, “Did we just have a fight?” She raised her head and waited for his reply.
“Uh… let’s see. You’re still here, my nose isn’t bloody, and I haven’t had to remind myself that I can’t hit you. Nope! I’d say we’re alright, Slayer.” He waited for her to respond, then added, “Did you want to have a fight?” He couldn’t keep the disappointment from his voice, and she answered with a quick shake of her head.
“No, I didn’t want to - I just thought… So, we’re still good then?”
“We’re fine, pet. Just enjoy your noisy celebration.”
Without responding, she relaxed onto her back again and stared up at the brightly lit sky.
“Oh! Spike, look at that one! This must be the grand finale - they’re everywhere! Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
“Don’t believe I have, luv.”
“You’re not even looking! Up there, dummy. That’s where the fireworks are. You’re not… you’re not... looking in the right direction...”
“Yes, I am.” He visibly shook himself. “You’re right, pet. It’s very pretty. Worth almost losing my hearing for.”
They lay, side by side in silence for several minutes. Finally Buffy rolled her head to the side to meet his gaze.
“I guess that’s it. It’s over.”
“Seems to be.”
“I should go home, now.”
“Prob’ly should.”
They remained still for several more minutes, then Buffy asked abruptly, “So, what was ‘B’?”
“Huh?”
“Before… you said ‘A - the noise hurts your ears’. What was ‘B’?
“What exactly is all this noise celebratin’, Slayer?”
“You know what it is. It’s the Fourth of July. Independence Day!”
“Independence from….?”
“From… from…. Oh.”
“That’s ‘B’, luv. My side lost the bloody war you lot are so busy celebrating.”
"Sucks to be you, then, doesn't it?" She tried to control her laughter, but his impotent snarl was all it took to send her rolling around on the moss-covered stone, giggling uncontrollably.
His snarl tapered off to a reluctant chuckle and he finally sat up and smiled down at her laughing face.
"Happy Independence Day, Slayer."
The end
And the next one is a s4 Spike/Willow ficlet:
FROSTY THE SNOWVAMP
"Frosty the snowman was as alive as he could be..."
"Talking to yourself, are you, witch?"
"Eep!" Willow whirled around, blushing from her hairline all the way to her warmly wrapped toes. "Don't do that, Spike!"
"Do what?" He frowned at her with genuine confusion, glancing around to see if he'd accidentally stepped on something belonging to her.
"Sneak up on people! Creep around in the... hey! It's daytime. What are you doing outside?"
She grabbed one hand from his pocket, checking his fingers for the Gem of Amara.
He pulled his hand back before she could comment on how cold it was. "It's snowing, you stupid bint," he growled. "The sun couldn't shine if it wanted to. As long as I stay covered," he gestured to the hat covering his brightly colored hair, "I'm fine."
"Huh. Like that time it snowed and saved Angel, I guess?"
"Don't know anything about snow saving the big poofter, but if it snowed before in this bloody state, it would have done." He kicked at the various uneven lumps of snow that she had been accumulating. "So, you're what? Storin' it up for when you want more?"
"No, dummy. I'm making a snowman. Those are just the body parts... some of them are, anyway." Willow frowned dubiously at the unrecognizable piles of snow. "I think... "
"Don't know how to do it, do you?" He grinned, leaning against a nearby fence.
"What? Of course I do! I mean, not that I've ever... but how hard can it be? Little kids do it all the time."
"Not in sunny southern California, they don't," he said, still grinning. "You don't have the first clue."
"Oh? And I suppose you do, Mr Smarty-vampire?"
"Grew up in England, pet. Back in the day when it was cold every winter and there was always snow. Mini ice-age they call it now. We just thought it was the way things were."
"Oh." She studied him for a minute, so intent on trying to grasp the idea of Spike as a child, building snowmen, that she failed to notice the way he was studying her back. Bundled into as many winter clothes as she could find, her body wasn't visible to anything but his memory. Which was working just fine. He remembered what was under those layers. The slender, but curvy body that she'd long since stopped hiding under unflattering clothes, the creamy pale skin that looked like it would be so soft to the touch....
"Spike? Spike!" With a start, he realized that she'd said something to him and he tried to recover.
"What?" Alright, maybe not his most intelligent response, but a vamp couldn't be blamed for where his mind wandered when something so delicious was staring him in the face. Literally staring him in the face, as she'd moved closer to get his attention, letting him hear the thudding of her heart and smelll the warm, human scent of her.
"Were you listening? I asked you if you would help me build the snowman?"
"Why would I want to do a daft thing like that? I'm a bloody vampire! I don't build snowmen."
"Oh." Willow's lip crept out and her face fell. "I guess not. I just thought maybe-”
"Where are all your little do-gooder friends? Why aren't they helping you?"
"Nobody wants to come outside in the cold." Willow was in full pout now, waving her mitten-covered hands in the air as she explained. "They all think we should just stay inside drinking hot chocolate until the snow goes away. They're no fun," she concluded. "Bunch of no fun poopheads."
Spike cocked his head at her. "This is really important to you, isn't it?"
Willow's shoulders slumped. "Well, it was. I mean how many times am I going to have a chance to do something like this? I guess I should just give up…."
"Let's not be hasty, pet. Say I did help you make a respectable snowman, what would be in it for me?"
"I don't have any money, Spike. I guess I could-”
Don't want money, luv," he purred.
"What do you... oh no. No, you don't. We've had this conversation before..."
"Yeah, but I was trying to bite you then." He stepped even closer, backing her up against the fence. "What if I'm not tryin' to bite you?" He brought his face closer to hers, rubbing their cold noses together before brushing his lips across hers so softly that she wasn't sure she'd really felt it.
"I-” Before she could decide what she was going to say, Spike's lips were fastened on hers and he was kissing her with gentle intent. His lips, as cold as the snow around them at first, quickly warmed up and Willow's head was sent spinning as he worked his tongue into her mouth and showed her what 125 plus years of experience could mean when matched against that of the only two boys she'd ever kissed.
Telling herself it was only because she really wanted to build a snowman, and that the fact that Spike was an amazing kisser had nothing to do with it, she began to kiss him back with enthusiasm. It wasn't until his growls of frustration as he tried to pull her body against his became so loud that they penetrated the lustful fog into which she'd been lost. With an "eep!" of realization, she understood that the only things standing between her and a very cold bed were the multiple layers of clothing that she'd put on. In spite of his best attempts, Spike was unable to get his hands all the way under all the layers and onto her bare skin.
She pushed against his chest, knowing she wasn't going to be capable of pushing him away, but hoping that his chip wouldn't allow him to continue if she was obviously unwilling. Finally, he noticed that she was no longer participating and he leaned back to frown at her.
"What's wrong?" he asked, licking his warmed lips. "I thought we were having fun?"
"We were - I mean, you were. I mean... Look, it's too cold for this out here - and we have a snowman to build. Remember?"
"Huh?" He had totally forgotten her original reason for being outside in the snowstorm.
"Snowman? You were going to help me build a snowman." She bent over and picked up a plastic bag. "Look. I have buttons for his eyes, a carrot for his nose, and a fake mouth left over from Halloween-”
"It has fangs!"
"Well, yeah. Halloween. Vampire teeth. It was somebody's stupid idea; we didn't go with it." She waved it in his face. "But our snowman will be a vampire. Probably the only vampire snowman in... okay, it's Sunnydale... so maybe not the only one in the town... But the best one! We can build the best one."
He laughed, captivated by her excitement and enthusiasm in spite of the ache in his balls.
"Alright, luv. Let's build your snowman, and then we're going someplace warm..."
Pretending she hadn't heard the last part of his comment, Willow quickly went to her biggest lump of snow.
"Here, this was supposed to be the bottom part, but it keeps falling over."
"You didn't roll it properly," he said, taking one of her less lumpy clumps and beginning to roll it through the new snow. Willow watched him intently, making mental notes of everything he did. Spike smiled in satisfaction when he had accumulated a large, round base for the snowman. He patted a level spot on the top and smiled at her. "Now you try," he said.
Biting her lip and frowning, Willow took another clump of snow and began to roll it, doing her best to imitate Spike's every motion. When she had a ball almost as large as the one he'd made, she felt a hand on her arm and Spike's warm voice said, "That's good, luv. Now let's set it in place."
Willow struggled to pick up the heavy ball of snow, starting in surprise when Spike's arms went around her. Even through her layers of clothing, she could feel his hard body pressing against her back and she bit back a whimper. He effortlessly lifted the ball of snow, walking awkwardly behind her as she make her way back to the snowman, pretending that she was actually helping to carry the burden. Leaning forward, Spike helped her set it atop the flattened place on the lower body. Willow was pretty sure that it was unnecessary for him to have his mouth so close to her ear while he did so, but the non-cold-related shivers that his breath was causing silenced any complaints she may have had.
When he straightened up, instead of stepping away, he wrapped his arms around her bulky body and pulled it back against him, nibbling her ear with lips that were rapidly cooling down again.
"We... we're not done yet!" she squeaked.
"Fine," he said, smothering a sigh of impatience. "You should be able to do the head by yourself. Let's see it."
Feeling strangely bereft when he let her go, Willow held her head up and settled on one of her shapelier lumps for the head. She knelt down and carefully rolled it around until it seemed to her to be the right size and shape for a head. When it was safely settled on the snowman's body, she ran to her bag and pulled out the items she'd rounded up for his features. She also pulled out an old fedora that she'd found in the top of her father's closet.
While Spike watched with a critical eye, she inserted the carrot when a nose should go, pushed two large, black buttons in for eyes, and carefully pressed the rubber lips and fangs in place under the nose. She settled the hat on the head and stepped back frowning. Before she could identify what was missing, Spike had tugged her scarf off and thrown it casually over the snowman's shoulders. He glanced around the yard, spotted an old rake and brought it over to stand next to the snowman.
"He needs arms," he announced with great authority. "Go break off some branches. Mind you, they need to be about the same size and shape."
Willow scampered - as best she could in boots and deep snow - to a nearby bush and carefully measured and broke off two branches with twigs on the ends. She pushed them into the snowman's middle and stood back to look again. When she turned to face Spike, her face was wreathed in a smile.
"He's perfect!"
He smiled back, pulling her closer and putting his arms around her again.
"That he is, pet. And I'll wager so are you under all these layers of wool."
Willow blushed and dropped her eyes, not sure of how or if she should respond to his suggestive flattery. She was just raising her eyes back to his face when she heard the door of the Summers' house open. Spike's arms dropped quickly and he took a step back, even as Willow tore herself away and whirled to face Buffy.
"Willow? Aren't you ready to come in yet? Did you build your silly snowman? And is that Spike with you?"
"Y... yes. And yes, and he's not silly, he's perfect! And...." She turned around, but Spike had disappeared behind a tree, barely visible to her through the still heavy snowfall and obviously invisible to Buffy. "No. Spike was here for a minute, but he's gone now."
Buffy peered around suspiciously, but could see nothing but Willow and the large snowman already being dusted with a new layer of snow. When Willow approached her snowman to brush the newly fallen snow off his hat and scarf, Buffy shivered and said, "Okay, well, come on in and get warm. Mom 's worried about you out here by yourself."
"Wasn't by myself," Willow muttered rebelliously, even as she nodded her agreement. She waited until Buffy had closed the door again before looking over her shoulder to see if Spike was still lurking behind the tree. Glancing back to be sure Buffy hadn't come out again, she quickly ran to where Spike had stepped out to meet her. Before she could lose her courage, she went up on her toes, kissed him on his once-again icy mouth, and whispered "thank you". She whirled to run back to the house, but found herself held tightly while Spike put his lips next to her bare neck and pulled the skin there into his mouth, sucking gently.
"We're not done, little red-headed witch," he purred. "I'll be back tonight. Leave your door unlocked..." With a final nip from his still-human teeth, he ducked behind the tree and disappeared into the blowing snow. Willow stood in place, holding her hand to her neck and watching until the snow crusting on her eyelashes forced her to blink, and startled her out of her daze. With a final admiring glance at their snowman, she went onto the porch and into the warm kitchen where Joyce fussed over her and helped her take off the outside layers that were now soaked with melting snow.
May have a few more later tonight, or at least the links to them if they are long.
Title: It Must Be Love (6/21/08)
Rating: PG
Spike, Buffy (just friends at this point)
Summary: set between season iv and v.- a Fourth of July ficlet
It Must Be Love
“The things I do for you, Slayer.”
“What do you mean, the things you do for me?”
He shook his head and pointed at the loud bursts of color overhead.
“That!”
“That’s beautiful. Don’t tell me don’t think those are pretty, Spike. Even you have to admit that fireworks are pretty.”
“A, I don’t- Alright, yes, they’re pretty - but the sounds that go with them? A mite hard on a poor old vamp’s ears.”
“Oh.” She was quiet for a second or two, making no sound except an “Ah!” when a particularly brightly colored flower bloomed above them. Then, when the accompanying loud booms echoed through the night and she noticed Spike’s flinch, she gave a sympathetic wince and said, “Oops? I’m sorry, Spike.”
“ 'scuse me? I think I’ve lost my hearing completely. Did you just say you’re sorry? To me?”
“Asshole! There’s just no sense in… Yes, I apologized for asking you to sit up here with me to watch the fireworks. I just thought… nevermind. You can go back inside. They probably won’t sound so loud if you go down to your lair.”
“You want me to leave? And that is my NOT a ‘lair’! It’s my bedroom, my inner sanctum, my- ”
“I said you could go. If you want to. I…I didn’t say I wanted you to go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay, then.”
“Fine.”
After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Buffy muttered with uncharacteristic concern, “Did we just have a fight?” She raised her head and waited for his reply.
“Uh… let’s see. You’re still here, my nose isn’t bloody, and I haven’t had to remind myself that I can’t hit you. Nope! I’d say we’re alright, Slayer.” He waited for her to respond, then added, “Did you want to have a fight?” He couldn’t keep the disappointment from his voice, and she answered with a quick shake of her head.
“No, I didn’t want to - I just thought… So, we’re still good then?”
“We’re fine, pet. Just enjoy your noisy celebration.”
Without responding, she relaxed onto her back again and stared up at the brightly lit sky.
“Oh! Spike, look at that one! This must be the grand finale - they’re everywhere! Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
“Don’t believe I have, luv.”
“You’re not even looking! Up there, dummy. That’s where the fireworks are. You’re not… you’re not... looking in the right direction...”
“Yes, I am.” He visibly shook himself. “You’re right, pet. It’s very pretty. Worth almost losing my hearing for.”
They lay, side by side in silence for several minutes. Finally Buffy rolled her head to the side to meet his gaze.
“I guess that’s it. It’s over.”
“Seems to be.”
“I should go home, now.”
“Prob’ly should.”
They remained still for several more minutes, then Buffy asked abruptly, “So, what was ‘B’?”
“Huh?”
“Before… you said ‘A - the noise hurts your ears’. What was ‘B’?
“What exactly is all this noise celebratin’, Slayer?”
“You know what it is. It’s the Fourth of July. Independence Day!”
“Independence from….?”
“From… from…. Oh.”
“That’s ‘B’, luv. My side lost the bloody war you lot are so busy celebrating.”
"Sucks to be you, then, doesn't it?" She tried to control her laughter, but his impotent snarl was all it took to send her rolling around on the moss-covered stone, giggling uncontrollably.
His snarl tapered off to a reluctant chuckle and he finally sat up and smiled down at her laughing face.
"Happy Independence Day, Slayer."
The end
And the next one is a s4 Spike/Willow ficlet:
FROSTY THE SNOWVAMP
"Frosty the snowman was as alive as he could be..."
"Talking to yourself, are you, witch?"
"Eep!" Willow whirled around, blushing from her hairline all the way to her warmly wrapped toes. "Don't do that, Spike!"
"Do what?" He frowned at her with genuine confusion, glancing around to see if he'd accidentally stepped on something belonging to her.
"Sneak up on people! Creep around in the... hey! It's daytime. What are you doing outside?"
She grabbed one hand from his pocket, checking his fingers for the Gem of Amara.
He pulled his hand back before she could comment on how cold it was. "It's snowing, you stupid bint," he growled. "The sun couldn't shine if it wanted to. As long as I stay covered," he gestured to the hat covering his brightly colored hair, "I'm fine."
"Huh. Like that time it snowed and saved Angel, I guess?"
"Don't know anything about snow saving the big poofter, but if it snowed before in this bloody state, it would have done." He kicked at the various uneven lumps of snow that she had been accumulating. "So, you're what? Storin' it up for when you want more?"
"No, dummy. I'm making a snowman. Those are just the body parts... some of them are, anyway." Willow frowned dubiously at the unrecognizable piles of snow. "I think... "
"Don't know how to do it, do you?" He grinned, leaning against a nearby fence.
"What? Of course I do! I mean, not that I've ever... but how hard can it be? Little kids do it all the time."
"Not in sunny southern California, they don't," he said, still grinning. "You don't have the first clue."
"Oh? And I suppose you do, Mr Smarty-vampire?"
"Grew up in England, pet. Back in the day when it was cold every winter and there was always snow. Mini ice-age they call it now. We just thought it was the way things were."
"Oh." She studied him for a minute, so intent on trying to grasp the idea of Spike as a child, building snowmen, that she failed to notice the way he was studying her back. Bundled into as many winter clothes as she could find, her body wasn't visible to anything but his memory. Which was working just fine. He remembered what was under those layers. The slender, but curvy body that she'd long since stopped hiding under unflattering clothes, the creamy pale skin that looked like it would be so soft to the touch....
"Spike? Spike!" With a start, he realized that she'd said something to him and he tried to recover.
"What?" Alright, maybe not his most intelligent response, but a vamp couldn't be blamed for where his mind wandered when something so delicious was staring him in the face. Literally staring him in the face, as she'd moved closer to get his attention, letting him hear the thudding of her heart and smelll the warm, human scent of her.
"Were you listening? I asked you if you would help me build the snowman?"
"Why would I want to do a daft thing like that? I'm a bloody vampire! I don't build snowmen."
"Oh." Willow's lip crept out and her face fell. "I guess not. I just thought maybe-”
"Where are all your little do-gooder friends? Why aren't they helping you?"
"Nobody wants to come outside in the cold." Willow was in full pout now, waving her mitten-covered hands in the air as she explained. "They all think we should just stay inside drinking hot chocolate until the snow goes away. They're no fun," she concluded. "Bunch of no fun poopheads."
Spike cocked his head at her. "This is really important to you, isn't it?"
Willow's shoulders slumped. "Well, it was. I mean how many times am I going to have a chance to do something like this? I guess I should just give up…."
"Let's not be hasty, pet. Say I did help you make a respectable snowman, what would be in it for me?"
"I don't have any money, Spike. I guess I could-”
Don't want money, luv," he purred.
"What do you... oh no. No, you don't. We've had this conversation before..."
"Yeah, but I was trying to bite you then." He stepped even closer, backing her up against the fence. "What if I'm not tryin' to bite you?" He brought his face closer to hers, rubbing their cold noses together before brushing his lips across hers so softly that she wasn't sure she'd really felt it.
"I-” Before she could decide what she was going to say, Spike's lips were fastened on hers and he was kissing her with gentle intent. His lips, as cold as the snow around them at first, quickly warmed up and Willow's head was sent spinning as he worked his tongue into her mouth and showed her what 125 plus years of experience could mean when matched against that of the only two boys she'd ever kissed.
Telling herself it was only because she really wanted to build a snowman, and that the fact that Spike was an amazing kisser had nothing to do with it, she began to kiss him back with enthusiasm. It wasn't until his growls of frustration as he tried to pull her body against his became so loud that they penetrated the lustful fog into which she'd been lost. With an "eep!" of realization, she understood that the only things standing between her and a very cold bed were the multiple layers of clothing that she'd put on. In spite of his best attempts, Spike was unable to get his hands all the way under all the layers and onto her bare skin.
She pushed against his chest, knowing she wasn't going to be capable of pushing him away, but hoping that his chip wouldn't allow him to continue if she was obviously unwilling. Finally, he noticed that she was no longer participating and he leaned back to frown at her.
"What's wrong?" he asked, licking his warmed lips. "I thought we were having fun?"
"We were - I mean, you were. I mean... Look, it's too cold for this out here - and we have a snowman to build. Remember?"
"Huh?" He had totally forgotten her original reason for being outside in the snowstorm.
"Snowman? You were going to help me build a snowman." She bent over and picked up a plastic bag. "Look. I have buttons for his eyes, a carrot for his nose, and a fake mouth left over from Halloween-”
"It has fangs!"
"Well, yeah. Halloween. Vampire teeth. It was somebody's stupid idea; we didn't go with it." She waved it in his face. "But our snowman will be a vampire. Probably the only vampire snowman in... okay, it's Sunnydale... so maybe not the only one in the town... But the best one! We can build the best one."
He laughed, captivated by her excitement and enthusiasm in spite of the ache in his balls.
"Alright, luv. Let's build your snowman, and then we're going someplace warm..."
Pretending she hadn't heard the last part of his comment, Willow quickly went to her biggest lump of snow.
"Here, this was supposed to be the bottom part, but it keeps falling over."
"You didn't roll it properly," he said, taking one of her less lumpy clumps and beginning to roll it through the new snow. Willow watched him intently, making mental notes of everything he did. Spike smiled in satisfaction when he had accumulated a large, round base for the snowman. He patted a level spot on the top and smiled at her. "Now you try," he said.
Biting her lip and frowning, Willow took another clump of snow and began to roll it, doing her best to imitate Spike's every motion. When she had a ball almost as large as the one he'd made, she felt a hand on her arm and Spike's warm voice said, "That's good, luv. Now let's set it in place."
Willow struggled to pick up the heavy ball of snow, starting in surprise when Spike's arms went around her. Even through her layers of clothing, she could feel his hard body pressing against her back and she bit back a whimper. He effortlessly lifted the ball of snow, walking awkwardly behind her as she make her way back to the snowman, pretending that she was actually helping to carry the burden. Leaning forward, Spike helped her set it atop the flattened place on the lower body. Willow was pretty sure that it was unnecessary for him to have his mouth so close to her ear while he did so, but the non-cold-related shivers that his breath was causing silenced any complaints she may have had.
When he straightened up, instead of stepping away, he wrapped his arms around her bulky body and pulled it back against him, nibbling her ear with lips that were rapidly cooling down again.
"We... we're not done yet!" she squeaked.
"Fine," he said, smothering a sigh of impatience. "You should be able to do the head by yourself. Let's see it."
Feeling strangely bereft when he let her go, Willow held her head up and settled on one of her shapelier lumps for the head. She knelt down and carefully rolled it around until it seemed to her to be the right size and shape for a head. When it was safely settled on the snowman's body, she ran to her bag and pulled out the items she'd rounded up for his features. She also pulled out an old fedora that she'd found in the top of her father's closet.
While Spike watched with a critical eye, she inserted the carrot when a nose should go, pushed two large, black buttons in for eyes, and carefully pressed the rubber lips and fangs in place under the nose. She settled the hat on the head and stepped back frowning. Before she could identify what was missing, Spike had tugged her scarf off and thrown it casually over the snowman's shoulders. He glanced around the yard, spotted an old rake and brought it over to stand next to the snowman.
"He needs arms," he announced with great authority. "Go break off some branches. Mind you, they need to be about the same size and shape."
Willow scampered - as best she could in boots and deep snow - to a nearby bush and carefully measured and broke off two branches with twigs on the ends. She pushed them into the snowman's middle and stood back to look again. When she turned to face Spike, her face was wreathed in a smile.
"He's perfect!"
He smiled back, pulling her closer and putting his arms around her again.
"That he is, pet. And I'll wager so are you under all these layers of wool."
Willow blushed and dropped her eyes, not sure of how or if she should respond to his suggestive flattery. She was just raising her eyes back to his face when she heard the door of the Summers' house open. Spike's arms dropped quickly and he took a step back, even as Willow tore herself away and whirled to face Buffy.
"Willow? Aren't you ready to come in yet? Did you build your silly snowman? And is that Spike with you?"
"Y... yes. And yes, and he's not silly, he's perfect! And...." She turned around, but Spike had disappeared behind a tree, barely visible to her through the still heavy snowfall and obviously invisible to Buffy. "No. Spike was here for a minute, but he's gone now."
Buffy peered around suspiciously, but could see nothing but Willow and the large snowman already being dusted with a new layer of snow. When Willow approached her snowman to brush the newly fallen snow off his hat and scarf, Buffy shivered and said, "Okay, well, come on in and get warm. Mom 's worried about you out here by yourself."
"Wasn't by myself," Willow muttered rebelliously, even as she nodded her agreement. She waited until Buffy had closed the door again before looking over her shoulder to see if Spike was still lurking behind the tree. Glancing back to be sure Buffy hadn't come out again, she quickly ran to where Spike had stepped out to meet her. Before she could lose her courage, she went up on her toes, kissed him on his once-again icy mouth, and whispered "thank you". She whirled to run back to the house, but found herself held tightly while Spike put his lips next to her bare neck and pulled the skin there into his mouth, sucking gently.
"We're not done, little red-headed witch," he purred. "I'll be back tonight. Leave your door unlocked..." With a final nip from his still-human teeth, he ducked behind the tree and disappeared into the blowing snow. Willow stood in place, holding her hand to her neck and watching until the snow crusting on her eyelashes forced her to blink, and startled her out of her daze. With a final admiring glance at their snowman, she went onto the porch and into the warm kitchen where Joyce fussed over her and helped her take off the outside layers that were now soaked with melting snow.
May have a few more later tonight, or at least the links to them if they are long.