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[not_that_spike]

A few weeks ago, standing on a hill looking out at the lights of Paris in the distance, Beth told him what she missed about not being here. It was something so simple and so perfect that it made him yearn for this place like he hadn't in months.

The way you smell.
Especially after a shower.
Especially after a shower I took with you.It broke his

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[stbethadettes]

"I wish you would."

She plans to enjoy a cigarette herself in a minute, while the baby's still napping.

But for the moment, before she touches a cigarette and before he lights up his own, she takes the edges of her drooping towel in her hands and, like it's suddenly a pair of blue cotton wings, curls her arms around him, and the simple act of wrapping her towel around the both of them fills her with no small amount of long-denied satisfaction.

"In a second or two," she adds, practically speaking to his collarbone, and after a moment in which she just stands there as if she could physically soak him in and then finally plants a kiss so far back on the side of his face that it nearly gets lost in the hair near his ear, she keeps to her word and releases him to light a cigarette.

[not_that_spike]

Just one more kiss, one more embrace. One more, one more: every day a honeymoon, every moment the only moment. These are lessons he's learned slowly and over the course of time, but he's not too old to learn a few new tricks. Patience has been one of them, not that they wasted any damn time at all once they got back here and saw Junior safely into her crib. All the... everything of the past half year can finally be put aside for a moment or two. Now they can just breathe. Now they can just be Spike and Beth, not the woman with Yorick's baby and the invisible other last man on the planet and while being the other invisible last man on the planet has been a hell of a weight to bear, it's probably nothing compared to what Beth's been carrying the whole time.

He's got such respect and admiration for her. He also happens to love the hell out of her in this way he can't define, can't quantify, can't put his finger on. All he knows is that when she's at his side, his whole body's electric and when she's not at his side, his whole heart

[stbethadettes]

The smile she gives him is half flirtation and half lazy contentment but all appreciation.

"I thought you might. I love you, too."

Leaning in, she steals a faintly smoke-tinged kiss, and then props herself back on one hand, her towel secured around her.

She'd barely gotten to enjoy living here before she went out to Kansas with Hero, and even though it's familiar and she's lived here and so many of the things she's collected since finding this place are at home here, it feels a little bit alien right now.

Not unpleasantly so, just... a little bit alien.

The good thing is that she feels more relaxed already, and it's probably all because of the shower but fuck if she's complaining.

"It feels strange, doesn't it? Being back, I mean."

And though she's never been accused of thinking with her stomach all that much before, already she's starting to think with mild excitement about all of the possibilities there are for dinner before they have to go back.

[not_that_spike]

Strange is kind of an understatement. "It's like walking back into a dream, but a really nice one." When she leans back he does the same, because his fingers tell him they're not done tracing the length and breadth of her skin. He doesn't really give a damn when his towel slips off: this is home. It's the one place he doesn't have to cover up