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One eye opened, then flopped shut again. The room was too bright.
Ten minutes later he tried again, with the other eye. No, still too bright. Bloody silly to paint ceilings white if you asked him. Far too much glare.
He concentrated hard on not feeling sick. If he had to throw up he’d have to move and, as Buffy might say, that was so not a good idea. Perhaps trying to remember the dreadful event that had made him this unwell might help.
And he both eyes snapped open at the same time. Last night. Spike. Whisky and beer chasing each other endlessly. Had they really downed a bottle apiece? And how many pints. He would have groaned, but the thought of that much noise was scary. He let the lids drift closed again to shut out the glaring whiteness.
Not far from him there was a groan. Damned timing. Yes, it hurt every bit as much as he’d expected. Despite his intentions, he groaned back. More of a moan, really.
“Stop that sodding noise. Ow!” said an all-too-recognisable voice far too close to his ear. Oh good Lord, they were together and last night really did happen then. Giles rubbed a hand over a temple, very gently.
The sound of a door slamming open alerted him to the presence of an intruder. Then the rattle of the curtain rings on the pole. He covered his eyes, just in time. Not so his partner in misery, though. “Hey! Watch the bloody sunlight, Slayer. Some of us are sensitive, you know!”
“Some of you are lying on the floor behind the couch, and a sunray couldn’t find you there even if it wanted to.” Ah. That explained the proximity of the voice. “Giles, sit up. It’s late afternoon and you need to stop being all hungovery and O poor me.”
Sacred calling or no, there were some things asked of a Watcher that were just too much. Giles shifted position, rolling so his back was to the door and his face was to the sofa’s back.
Buffy yanked on his left shoulder, rolling him off the couch and onto the rug. Lying there was tempting, but unlikely to be a long-term option, so he half-sat, half-rolled to rest his back against the seat. He noted with mild interest that he had lost his tweed jacket and tie at some point.
More very quiet but obscene complaining announced the arrival of the vampire, slumped next to Giles in the patch of shade. A wrathful goddess stood in front of them. There was glaring and foot-tapping.
“Giles, Spike. I would like some explanations. Why did I have to drive you home after carrying each of you out to the car?”
She drove? Giles winced at the thought of the damage almost certainly caused to his beloved little motor.
Buffy swooped in on that reaction. “Giles, I can so drive perfectly well now, thank you very much, even in this stupid country with the driving on the wrong side and the roundabouts and the jay-walking and my reactions were perfect thank you very much and there is only the tiniest scratch which will totally rub off. The important point is why were you so drunk? And why and what were you singing all the way back?”
With the sort of awful clarity that usually only comes in examinations you didn’t revise for sufficiently, Giles remembered. I’m Getting Married In the Morning, followed by The Look of Love, The Meaning of Love, And Then I Kissed Her. Worst of all, Spike had returned ad nauseam to a song of his youth. He was bloody welcome to it.
“Love.” Spike’s voice was low and expressed something of the pain that with any luck he was feeling. “Love, I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have had to see us like this. Or hear us. It’s just. Well. I was scared. Old Rupes here was helping me.”
Slumping his head to the left, Giles noted that, against all logic and theory, vampires actually could blush. He supposed it went along them breathing when they chose, too. It was an astonishingly bright flush against the normal pallor of his skin and ludicrous hair.
“Scared of what, Spike? Is there an apocalypse due nobody’s mentioned?”
Vampires gulped, too. And that was a ridiculously deep breath for a creature with no need to respire. And did he really need to put so much pressure on Giles’s shoulder in order to stand up?
The standing up phase didn’t last long. Spike dropped, incredibly, to one knee. “Thing is, pet, I was asking his advice. Needed a fair bit of help to start with, hence the less than sober state I was in. It’s the second time I’ve done this, I know, but I promise there’s no spell now. I really mean it. Would you consider… Is it at all possible that you would… I mean, will you make me the happiest man on earth?”
One look at Buffy’s face and the flashback ended. This was real joy. Spike even had a diamond ring in good taste to offer her. This was the real thing.
And about time.