gryfndor_godess | Fic: Bedtime Stories (Reply)

To anyone searching my LJ today for a "Hey There, Blondie Bear" update, I’m sorry, but it’s not ready yet! I got distracted this weekend by Game of Thrones and some unexpected family obligations. Have some short domestic!Spuffy schmoop instead? It works for either far-in-the-future post-NFA Spuffy or far-in-the-future comics!Spuffy.

Title: Bedtime Stories
Summary: Baby!fic. Pregnancy!fic. DotingDaddy!Spike!fic. Schmoop. Fluff. “Domestic porn.” Call it what you want; it’s one of many random family!Spuffy images in my head, and I felt compelled to turn it into a 660-word vignette.
Rating: PG

She falls asleep much earlier these days than she did a few months ago; more nights than not she’s deep in sleep rather than simply dozing by the time he gets home from bartending. He doesn’t mind, though; it gives him some alone time with his little girl.

He curls up halfway down the bed so his head is right next to Buffy’s stomach. “Hi, sweetheart,” he whispers with a kiss, and then he listens for her tiny fluttering heartbeat; that’s another reason he likes these nighttime interludes, because it’s easier to hear when everything else around them is quiet.

Buffy had laughed the first few times he slid down the bed; “Are you going to sleep down there?” “Maybe,” he’d said playfully. Later, reverently: “I can hear her heartbeat.” She had quieted, amusement turning to awe and wistfulness in equal measure. “I wish I could.”

When it doesn’t disturb Buffy he likes to talk to her; sing to her. His girl is going to grow up with a proper ear for music, no matter how much Buffy groans; if she hears Glee in the womb (“I know the show’s ridiculous, but the music’s really good!”), she is damn well going to hear Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten, too.

He hums lullabies, too, of course- no need to give her too much of an attitude- and he reads to her; the usuals that Buffy was weaned on, like Green Eggs and Ham and Good Night, Moon, but also grown-up books, the kind he won’t get around to again until she’s, oh, at least five or six. He doesn’t know much about children’s literature besides the famous ones, but Dawn has compiled a list of her old favorites for him.

The first chapter book she gave him was Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock, because “Nancy was my first female role model. She’s smart and ridiculously brave and great for little girls,” and he liked it well enough; filled him with all sorts of unexpected nostalgia for decades past. They read during lazy weekend afternoons (Buffy’s fingers playing gently with his curls) and late, late evenings (quietly, so as not to wake Mama, and with a little book light). When she’s awake, Buffy usually reads her own book, but sometimes she listens, too; that was the case for The Westing Game, which he suspects enthralled Mama and Daddy far more than their tiny daughter (he trusts she won’t remember its secrets a few years from now).

At the end he always kisses Buffy’s stomach again (“I love you, sweetheart”), and if it’s day his gorgeous, luscious slayer usually pulls him into a scorching embrace (“Mm, do you know how sexy you are in Daddy mode?”); if it’s night he kisses her cheek, too, and nestles against her, fingers light on her belly, his head next to hers.

Tonight he has one of his favorites and one of the famous ones- one of Dawn’s favorites, too, come to think of it; she started him on them a few years ago after he lost a bet, just before the last one came out, when the whole world was stark raving mad. He’s glad for it now, of course, that he started in time to taste the mania, before it faded, and sorry that for his daughter, the ubiquitous anticipation and solidarity will just be a memory, and not even hers.

They won’t finish the series before he can hold her in his arms (a thought almost as terrifying as it is exhilarating), but they’re moving quickly, given that he doesn’t yet pause to explain difficult vocabulary. They finished the first one last night, around five. The spine of the second doesn’t crack anymore as he opens it; the pages are soft and slightly yellowed. He tilts the little light and softly begins to read.

“Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive…”