The dawn was rapidly approaching as he made his way through the slowly lightening streets. Ordinarily he would be seeking refuge at this point, seeking the safety and security of four walls and a roof to guard him from the certain death due to rise above the horizon within the next hour or two. 
 
Tonight, however, he had heard something that filled him with a far greater dread than even the golden orb from which his every instinct was screaming at him to flee. Buffy, his Buffy, had been seen in Willy’s of all places, only the night before. He could simply not understand what his beautiful girl would be doing in a place like that… but he intended to find out. And so he made his way through the early morning Sunnydale streets to the quiet house on Revello Drive. He made his way up the familiar path from branch to branch, stopping only once he had reached the roof outside her window. A deep frown creased his brow when he found that the window, heretofore always open to allow him access to her bedroom, was for the first time closed. His frown became a glower when the window proved to be not only be closed, but also locked. 
 
Why Buffy would have locked her window he could not comprehend. Was she angry with him? He had arranged to meet her and her friends at the Bronze the previous night, but he had refrained from keeping his word at the last moment. The company of her friends was not something he enjoyed—particularly the company of the annoying boy who was obviously obsessing over the slayer, harbouring fruitless dreams that one day he could possess such a rare flower for himself. How could the boy not see that Buffy was far above him? She was radiant, an innocent beauty and the champion of the light, a precious treasure to be worshiped and adored—not to be sullied by the filthy hands of trash such as Xander Harris.  
 
Angel knew that he, himself, was also unworthy of Buffy’s love; the fact that she bestowed it upon him regardless was a treasure he cherished.  
 
He tugged at the window in frustration. Why was it locked? The question continued to plague him. He needed to talk to Buffy, to find out why she had been in a demon bar, to explain to her the many reasons that she did not belong in places like that. 
 
He leaned against the window, trying to see in, but the curtains were pulled snugly closed against prying eyes. He was about to give up, to turn away until the next night and seek the safety of his home away from the deadly glare of the sun’s rays, when a familiar tingle ran down his spine. Spike! The bleached pest was here somewhere, lying in wait for the slayer, no doubt. His grandchilde had an obsession with slayers, had killed two and now sought to kill his third, but Angel was determined that that would not happen. He would rid the world of his own kin, the childe of his childe whom he had always despised, before he would allow one hair on Buffy’s head to be harmed. 
 
Spike had been a thorn in his side since the day Drusilla had brought him home; oh, she had been so proud of her new toy. Angelus had quickly seen him for what he was—an interloper, arrogant and cocky, who showed none of the appropriate deference due to Angelus as both his elder and the male head of their small family. Worse yet, the boy had believed he had some right to Drusilla, as if her momentary infatuation with her new plaything lent him some status far beyond that due to the worthless fledgling. It had taken many a beating to knock some semblance of respect into the younger vampire, and even then it had been grudging, the ever-present streak of defiance remaining stubbornly in evidence regardless of any outward show of humility. Spike’s defeat of the Slayer during the Boxer Rebellion had cemented the relationship between grandsire and grandchilde in open hostility and barely suppressed enmity as the younger vampire revelled in his achievement, believing that such a conquest raised him to a level of equality with if not superiority over the Sire who had subjected him to twenty years of abuse and cruelly enforced domination. Had Angel not been souled, he would’ve beaten the boy past survival for attempting such a coup; ill as he was over his own past deeds, however, he had been forced to merely bow his head and mouth platitudes of grudging congratulation. 
 
Angel dragged himself back from the mire of reminiscence to the present danger threatening his slayer. Stretching out his senses, he searched for his rebellious get, reaching for Spike’s familiar signature.  
Every sense he so carefully focused told him that the object of his search was within—inside the slayer’s house, and more specifically, her bedroom. Common sense told him that he must be mistaken, that Spike could never gain admission to Buffy’s home, but the overwhelming terror that gripped him and clutched at his unbeating heart drove him to a frenzy of fear that overrode any semblance of rational thought. His terror found him driving his fist through the glass and climbing rapidly through its shattered remains, oblivious to the deep gashes the clinging shards rent in his clothes and flesh. 
 
Nothing in his life or unlife could ever have prepared him for the sight that awaited him. There, in the Slayer’s perfect virginal bed, a furious demon with golden eyes flashing and fangs bared prepared to defend his mate from the unexpected intrusion. Buffy clung to him in shock and fear, obviously naked beneath the sheet she clutched fiercely to her chest. The scent of the couple’s passion hung heavily in the air, drowning his senses in her sweet perfume while tormenting him with the overriding scent of Spike’s essence. That the pair had been having sex, a considerable amount of sex if his nostrils were to be relied upon, was blatantly obvious. 
 
Angel knew that he was standing, mouth opening and closing like a landed fish gasping for life; he knew this but was yet unable to make his body respond in any way. Instead he remained frozen; neither fleeing the scene nor advancing to do what he should have done over a hundred years earlier—rid the world of the contagion that was William the Bloody. 
 
Buffy recovered before either of the vampires, assessing the situation and acting quickly to stay any further violence. She knew that the tiniest escalation would most likely lead to a dusty end for one or the other of the vampires and would also draw her mother from her slumber to investigate the disturbance.  
 
“Angel! What are you doing here? No, never mind that. Just… just leave. Now!” The last was spoken not as the mortified girl whose bedroom had been invaded by her former sweetie, not by the recently-deflowered innocent caught in the arms of her new lover, but with the full and firm authority of a fully brassed-off slayer. The joy that she had shared with Spike was still so new, but it was something she knew she was in no hurry to give up; while she was aware that Spike had as good a chance of dusting his grandsire as he did of becoming dust himself, it was not a risk she was willing, at this point, to take. 
Angel opened his mouth to protest, to point out that the vampire in her bed was a soulless demon who lived to destroy, to murder, and to maim. A creature whose greatest delight was claiming the lives of Slayers—her sisters in a never-ending war against the darkness that Spike so clearly represented. The furious glare from flashing green eyes, the set of her jaw and the determined lift of her chin, however, forestalled any protest he might have thought to voice. 
 
The low warning growl from Spike set his nerves on edge, calling upon his demon to discipline this rebellious fledge who dared to touch that which was his. But Angel knew that it had been a long time since Spike had been a fledgling, and as much as he detested his grandchilde, the fact that Spike was the youngest master vampire in known history spoke volumes as to the strength, power and tenacity of the defiant youth. 
 
He sought Buffy’s eyes, locking them with his own sad brown pools and finding in them no remaining trace of the love he had believed would always be his. He saw only a determined woman ready to fight to protect not only the man she loved, but also her right to have those feelings in the first place.
 
Somehow, despite all possible odds and circumstances which decreed that the two before him could never be more than mortal enemies, his love and his errant childe had found something in one another that he had no choice but to recognise that he could never overcome. 
 
With this overwhelming realisation, he turned and without so much as a word slunk through the remnants of the window and out into the rapidly approaching dawn. Despair guiding his feet, he found himself carried to the heights beyond the town’s outlying suburbs. As a heartbroken tear fell to the earth below, he lifted his face to welcome the warmth of his first sunrise in over two centuries.  
 

The end. (and I mean it this time… no more sequels!!!) lol.

Original challenge requirements: : Buffy getting a tattoo in an unusual place. Spike finding it. Smut. And bitey!!

Note: the tattoo described is based upon the official merchandise Spike tattoo.. which, like the gorgeous vampire himself, does not belong to me.