DATE: 5/30/02
SUMMARY: What, you want a summary for a piece that's 326 words long?!
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Through "Grave"
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Response to the Redemption Party Week Challenge (write Buffy and Spike doing something totally normal).

"Why are we doing this again?"

An exasperated Buffy huffed, then turned toward the vampire. "Because! Melissa challenged the writers, that's why."

"And why do we always have to do what they say? Don't we have free will? Can't we just tell them to buggar off already?"

Buffy's response was short and to the point. "Nope."

Spike stopped folding a dingy, green bath towel to stare daggers at her. "You know, I would never really do this with you. Me. The Big Bad Spike. Folding bloody laundry." He made a little, rude sound.

Her face sported a grin from ear to ear. "Yeah. Big Bad Soulful Spikey. Shut up and fold, you noble vampire, you."

"Take that back! I am not!"

"Are too."

Spike finished the green towel, then went for the holey blue one. He did not looked up from it as he meekly continued his protest. "Am not."

Buffy politely giggled. "Hand me that sock, soul-boy."

He did just that, but none too happily.

Several minutes passed without a quip, a comment, an insult, nor a command. Not even a sigh. Buffy matched several pairs of socks, finding three that had forever lost their partners. This somehow made her sad. Spike, on the other hand, noticed Buffy's flat,
misshapen bras, and somehow felt kin to them…deflated and formless without her to fill him.

They each spontaneously took a deep breath in synchronicity.

"I missed you, you know."

Neither knew who had spoken it first. Just all of a sudden, their own words seemed to be coming out of the other's mouth. Buffy smiled, while Spike grinned and returned to his floral pillowcase.

"So." Buffy forced the sounds out of herself. "Where do we go from here?"

"Your bedroom, I suppose. Then the little bit's."

Buffy stared at his with saucer-wide eyes, appalled at what he was suggesting.

It didn't take him long to realize that she had misunderstood. "To put the clothes away?"

"Oh."