Title: Open All Night
Author: kindred
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns these characters lock, stock and profitable
barrel.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Yes, please! I am happy to receive it.
Summary: Sequel to "No Vacancy". It takes place in S3 in Sunnydale.
Have-itch-will-travel Spike visits Buffy...they enjoy an entrée of
truth, but it comes with a side order of consequences.





6.

Buffy took her time in the bathroom. Spike heard the toilet flush and
then the faucet activated on and off about eight times, then silence,
some quickly aborted humming and then more sounds of water running.
Spike tried for patience but resorted to drumming his thumbs against his
thighs. What was it with her, simply nervous energy or some water
related compulsion? After what Spike decided was an extraordinary amount
of time he decided to knock. Just at that moment Buffy emerged from the
bathroom. Now was the time to pounce. Spike had her against the wall in
the hallway as soon as she switched off the light.

"Your enthusiasm could become annoying," she tried to sound blasé but he
buried his mouth deeply in her neck and sucked on her skin. Nonchalance
left and skittered out the door. He mumbled some reply but the wordless
vibrations only trickled down her spine. This allowed her to showcase an
uncanny impression of human pudding. With little urging her legs wrapped
around his waist and he walked her back into the bedroom.

Spike set her on the bed and stretched out beside her. Buffy pried off
her shoes instantly and reclined on her pillow. "Did you have a nice
time at school?"

"It was just school."

"Did you think about me at all?"

"Nah," she lied, "too busy."

"I thought about you." Spike opened her cardigan and traced up the mid
line of her camisole. He lightly circled a hardening nipple with the tip
of his finger before tracing the lace neck edge of her garment. Buffy
took a deep breath. "Thought about this," Spike circled her other
nipple. "And this," his middle finger found the hollow at the bottom of
her throat followed swiftly by his tongue.

"I-Is that so?" Buffy failed to sound aloof. Her heartbeat accelerated.

"Yeah. You've got a lot of interesting nooks and crannies, Slayer."
Spike dove into the small indentation below her ear. This got a gasp in
reply. "I've have been paying attention, you know. I've made a few
notes." He moved back to the planes of her neck, tracing the ligaments
and veins with his tongue, working his way down to the curve of her
collar bone and further down toward her sternum.

With slow deliberation and whispering fingertips, Spike gently teased
down the front of her camisole, exposing her bra. A brief flick of his
fingers and the front clasp was unhooked. Buffy thought momentarily of
removing her cardigan and camisole. Spike's palm on her belly stopped
those thoughts. He swept her camisole up over her breasts and bent over
for a taste.

"Your skin," he whispered as his cool lips kissed her tanned sternum.
"It's like honey, like glowing honey." Each touch of his lips and tongue
pushed thought and word further from Buffy's mind. Her hands found his
back and shoulder. The situation was a little unequal. He got skin and
she got fingers full of black cotton fabric. She tugged at his lower
back.

"Yeah love," he encouraged, "give it a good yank." Buffy pulled the
garment up and over his head. It was a fairly snug fitting item and
further mangled his already messy hairdo. Skin or hair? Her fingers
itched for both. While her brain was deciding her fingers found their
way to the skin on his back.

"I like your hands on me," he hushed and swept a waiting nipple into his
mouth. Buffy's breath caught in her throat. "You like my mouth, pet?" He
looked casually into her softening face.

She nodded and had to admit that his mouth was okay. When he wasn't
talking and saying something idiotic or menacing or--

"Like my tongue?" He curled the tip of his tongue around her nipple and
pulled on it. Buffy nodded in a daze. A prehensile tongue? That must be
a Spike thing because Angel never... Her thought dissolved into the
sensation.

"Unh, yeah. Tongue." She wasn't sure if she said that aloud. Her lips
thickened with desire. Spike switched nipples but maintained his light
teasing touch. His hand trailed down her torso to the top of her jeans
and undid the snap.

"Wanna try something new, pet?" The zipper opened slowly, tooth by
tooth. Buffy looked at him nearly cross eyed from his proximity.

"Uh huh," she answered dumbly, holding his head to her breast. Spike
took a last lazy pull on her nipple and broke from her to stand up.
Buffy propped herself up on her elbows to watch him. Once more he
retrieved the bag and dumped its contents on the bedside table.

"Ooooh, butterscotch candies. You are one kinky kitty." He winked at her
tender blush. She lay open before him, with soft liquid skin beckoning
his return. Was this blushing something new? He remembered an indignant
adversary with lightning moves and a sharp tongue; not much actual wit
to recommend her, but she was quick with a comeback. Peppy and perky,
that was the Slayer, complete with a cotton candy wardrobe.

She was a know-it-all school girl with an inexplicable need to reinvent
the King's English and slather her lips with the most perfect shade of
pink lip gloss he'd ever seen. Usually those sweet girlish lips would
blast him with one nasty insult after another. It used to infuriate him.

In her absence he'd studied her makeup selection with interest. From
what he figured, Buffy Summers' color palette should have been filled
with dangerous shades with names like Vixen, Seductive, Fleshy, and
Harlot. Instead he found that she opted for soft pastel shades with
outrageous names such as Shy, Relax, Mellow and Dulcet. Dulcet made him
snicker. The Slayer was a lot of things, none of which could be
described as dulcet.

How often had he dreamt about a scenario such as this? The two of them
together skin to skin. Those dreams had mostly revolved around his hands
on her annoying neck, strangling the quips out of her while he told her
how stupid and infantile and useless she was as a fighter and a slayer
and a human being in general. Strangling dreams were satisfying, once
upon a time. Spike had a detailed mental manifest of dead slayer dreams,
all hands-on arias to her destruction. There were innumerable biting
fantasies and some highly satisfying evisceration scenarios, but that
was before. New scenarios tickled his fancy as well as other more
sensitive areas.

Lately his dreams revolved around the sound of her breathy orgasm. One
favorite involved spirited combat, fighting tooth and nail with the
Slayer while their clothing inexplicably dissolved from their bodies.
There were also some assorted high heel fetish dreams, and one that
involved braiding her hair. There may have been some poetry recitation
in that one, but he'd never admit it. Anyway, all recent dreams ended
the same: Buffy begged for him...his attention, his time, his affection.
Him.

"Kitty wanna play?" He rolled his shoulders and slowly undid his jeans.
He could practically taste her heart pounding in her chest signaling a
clarion call to action. He did that. William the Bloody: denizen of the
night and wicked gentleman of shadows made the Slayer pant with
anticipation. He made her mouth water for his kisses and her skin sizzle
with a need yearning for expression and satiated in one word: Spike.

Buffy's gaze dropped from his down the shallows of his chest, past the
symmetrical grooves of his lower abdomen to the thickness in denim,
cupped invitingly against his palm. His growing erection angled sideways
under the fabric toward his left thigh. Coarse pubic curls appeared like
a downy bouquet at the opening of his zipper.

She watched with interest as he slipped the fabric down his legs, still
amazed at that revealed sight: the length of a man, the sweep of his
yearning, his whispers made flesh and slightly reddened in his hand.
Pleasures aplenty promised in skin and gathered blood.

Sticks and stones, wasn't that what the old rhyme said? Was that what
little boys were made of? Or were they the weapons that could take her
heart? No, it's snips and snails and puppy dog's tails. Yeah, that's
what little boys are made of. But vampires?

They are made of conceit and hunger and the scent of the hunt. Fearsome
adversaries they may appear, but they are eternally vulnerable. The
world was a lonely place for the Chosen, Buffy knew this intimately. But
what must it be like for the damned? A life on the run or the hunt. A
life folded into tunnels and crevasses and subterranean pockets. Each
turn of a corner could be their last. What was awaiting them? A blood
feast or the sudden swift kiss of a more permanent death?

Seeing his pale silhouette before her Buffy could not imagine Spike
scattered to the winds. He wasn't much of an adversary -- she had to be
honest with herself about that -- but he'd stayed alive, or less than
dead for over a century. That had to mean something. Perhaps it meant
only that he was lucky. Buffy tilted her head to gaze at his unashamed
form.

Maybe Spike had some lucky to spare.

Raising herself to a seated position, Buffy watched with curiosity as
Spike walked to her weapons chest and knelt down.

"Let's find a nice pile to put your clothes on, yeah?" He smiled at her
and opened the lid. Buffy didn't even feel her clothes on her own skin.
She pulled off her dangling cardigan, camisole and bra swiftly. She
moved to the edge of the bed and wriggled her tight jeans from her body
just as Spike brought out a double headed battle ax.

"Tell the truth Slayer," he teased, "does this get you hot?" He waited
with an expression of mild inquisition on his face as confusion turned
to panic on hers. She shook her head vigorously.

"NO. N. O. No."

"Me either," he sighed and considered the heft of the sturdy weapon.
"Although there was a time--"

"Shut up!" she shouted quickly, a visible shudder flowed down her body.
"God, don't say that." Spike laughed heartily at her indignant response.
Too often in the past he saw the stone faced resolve. The slayer was not
just a costume she wore; no, the slayer self went bone deep. To the
marrow. It was a treat to see the other one, the Slayer's other self,
this sweet girl. The one whose eyes raked over his flesh before settling
decisively on his cock. He was pleased he could make her jump and
squeal; make her show an honest response.

"Slayer, it was a joke. I'm a vampire, not a bloody degenerate."

"I'm not familiar with the distinction there, Spike." His low warning
growl reverberated through Buffy's pelvis. She fell back on the bed
covers gasping for breath and rubbing her legs together.

"How can you do that? I felt that." What was that connection crap he was
spouting only that morning? Buffy tried to comprehend this latest
development. She was effectively incapacitated by a growl. Granted, a
sexy, earth trembling growl; but still, it could qualify as a
potentially slayer proof offensive weapon. Several thoughts of warning
and distress casually ambled across her mind, only to be captured and
subdued by her growing desire for a certain slim hipped villain with
killer thighs and deep hip indentations.

"I know," Spike smirked, pleased that he could achieve that, bring her
almost to climax by the sound of his snarl alone. Buffy stood and
removed her panties. Spike walked to the bed and sat down, placing a
couple of stakes on the bedside table.

"Come here," Spike held out his hand. He maneuvered her legs over his
own until she was perched on his thighs, straddling him. He bucked his
thighs a couple of times, opening them wider and in turn Buffy's legs.
She linked her fingers together softly behind his neck. He caught a firm
nipple gently in his teeth and tasted its contours, causing her to arch
her back in an automatic response.

His fingers found her already damp cleft and caressed her before
reaching back to circle her sphincter. She clenched convulsively in
reply.

"Ready for some nasty delights?" He whispered into her face. "Ready to
howl at the moon?"

"That's just a cliché, right? You don't really do that, do you?"

"Bloody wolves can't have all the fun now, can they?" Spike looked
brazenly into her flushed and expectant face. Her hands did not move
from their position.A/N: This chapter contains sexually explicit material which some readers
may consider objectionable. It is meant for an adult audience. In case
there is any lingering confusion regarding the enema references, that is
simply a cleansing preparation for anal sex and Buffy completed this
procedure in the privacy of her bathroom at the beginning of part 6. If
you think you may be squicked by anal activities, perhaps you should
reconsider reading the next two chapters.


Title: Open All Night
Author: kindred
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns these characters lock, stock and profitable
barrel.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Yes, please! I am happy to receive it.
Summary: Sequel to "No Vacancy". It takes place in S3 in Sunnydale.
Have-itch-will-travel Spike visits Buffy...they enjoy an entrée of
truth, but it comes with a side order of consequences.





7.

Buffy felt her heartbeat assaulting her face. She felt hot and delirious
as if she had cried for the longest time. Spike observed her lazily.
Splayed out on his thighs, soft and fresh and ready for anything. But
was he ready for anything? For what might come?

At times like this he remembered the faint echoes of his classics
training. Women were archetypes, not just in his preferred reading list,
but also in his personal experience. He'd known the Bitch and the Whore
and even glimpsed that rarer of the breed, the Madonna. A few of his
acquaintance had been elevated to pedestals, there to be worshipped.

Cecily was one, now only an undeserving bitter memory. Drusilla had been
a worthy object of awe and affection until their unceremonious and
decisive split. Even Darla, as dangerous as she was, fascinated Spike.
Above them all was his own mother, sweet and devout but also tainted by
his darkness. He forced all thoughts of her from his mind whenever they
roused. One day that may be reconciled, but not soon. He deserved that
anguish.

The Slayer occupied no elevated position with him. She was not a Venus
nor a sprite of earth, air or water. She was like him: a wolf, a
blade...a beast of the night. She answered his questing touch with her
own. Fingers, lips and body followed an unspoken behest. A wordless
decree. Spike felt some small yet willful acknowledgement spread through
his mind in her arms. Was it a sense of belonging? Permission? Welcome?

Buffy said nothing but he could hear her calling to him, beckoning him
over a distance of mere inches, though it felt like a century. It made
his dead heart stagger at the weight of this reckoning. He felt love for
this girl; not the endless debaucheries of old nor the gluttony of blood
swilling in his gut, but genuine sweetness and sincerity. What wordy
William might well have swooned over.

Pushing those thoughts aside for the present, Spike grabbed a bottle of
lubricant from the pile of items on the bedside table. "We'll go slow."
Instead of proceeding he merely dropped the bottle beside his thigh and
scraped his blunt finger tips down her back. Up and down. He then leaned
in and brushed his lips against hers softly and slowly. A brief nibble
followed and then a secret whisper. "How's that sound?"

"Is this gonna take all night?" She hid her anxiety beneath bravado.
That's the minx he understood: the pushy, impatient, too soon bored
slayer. Yeah, she was just like him. Of a kind.

Spike swallowed a nasty response and instead leered at her with a
curling lip. He staved off throwing her to the bed and fucking her into
a coma. She inspired that level of animosity in him, but he wanted
something other than perpetrating an act. He wanted an accomplice. A
willing accomplice. She was a mouthy little chit, this slayer, but he
trusted his instincts in all things.

Buffy looked at him with impatient expectation. Being this close to
Spike unnerved her. He smelled really good. Not exactly like chocolate
but close enough so that cocoa like vibe of exhilaration bubbled through
Buffy at his nearness. He'd kept his natural vampire assholishness to a
minimum and merely assaulted her with what he was: one hundred per cent
male.

One physical attribute annoyed her from this proximity. He had the
longest eyelashes. Wasn't that always the way? Some stupid guy got the
killer lashes, pimple free skin, and girlish hips. Bastard. Cosmetics
companies made a killing selling the latest micro fiber technology
whatsits to females far and wide by convincing them that facial
perfection should be their one and only goal. Girls can be such sheep.
Mascara manufacturing was a demonic conspiracy, Buffy was sure of this.
Still, it gave Buffy the extra edge of elongation that nature gypped her
out of, so why complain?

Of course Spike would get the good eyelashes genes, all the better to
piss Buffy off. It was the weirdest thing. Separately his parts were
okay; maybe even quite nice. She'd never say handsome or lovely or
beautiful because that would be evidence of a genuine mental disorder on
her part. But for a vampire he was okay looking. He didn't look dead.
Again...bastard. Why the hell was that? Buffy could trowel on under eye
concealer some days and still not cover the tell tale circles.

To tell the truth, Angel didn't exactly look dead either; pasty for
sure, certainly unwell, but not dead. Now Angelus looked dead and his
hellish giggle curdled her spine, and not in that pleasant way. At all.
Spike had a similar giggle but all it did for her was trigger the
release of fluid from deep inside her body.

Tricky, tricky bastard.

Spike refocused his thoughts and brought the tip of his middle finger to
her puckered entrance again. What he had planned required careful
preparation. "I need to warm you up cause this way's a little different
than your pussy."

"Well, duh." Buffy quirked the corner of her mouth at him. Stupid
vampire. She knew a thing or two.

"Right, less sex ed; on with the doing." He squirted a small amount of
lube onto his fingers and they returned to her tight sphincter. "Relax,
pet. It's gonna be good." Spike kissed her softly and beckoned her
tongue into his mouth. She was a delicacy to him, the sweetness enhanced
by the forbidden nature of their union. In between tender tongue sucking
kisses he whispered a challenge. "Gonna make you come like a blast
furnace."

"So you keep promising. Look, thanks to that little pit stop in the
powder room, my insides are sparkling, so what's the-- Anhh!" Spike
pressed the tip of his lubed index finger through her muscled opening.
It was a bit of a surprise. "That's...that's...that's..."

"That's one finger." Spike rotated his digit slowly, showing her the
pleasure possible. It didn't have to be about slamming and pumping,
planting flag poles and all that territorial crap. Ecstasy could be
tasted in teaspoons, tenderly teased from the uninitiated body of a
vexatious and irresistible slayer.

"Tell me how that feels." Spike slowly worked the tip of his finger,
undulating it in a slow beckoning manner.

"Um, kinda weird."

"Maybe you need some more lube, yeah?" Spike grabbed the bottle with his
free hand and squirted more of the slick substance onto his fingers
beneath her. "Too yucky for such a good girl?" His words were gentle,
but the meaning was sharp.

She met him with her standard slayer indifference. "Hardly. I squished
this spongy demony guy this week. And I do mean squished. Now THAT was
yuh--" Spike slipped another finger into her body and started stroking
smoothly in and out. With the added sensation, Buffy's fingertips bit
into Spike's shoulders.

"Mmm, got your attention now, don't I?" Buffy nodded and eased her grip
on his flesh. "That's two pet, you like?" His fingers moved into and out
of her body with a growing urgency.

The weird part was the pleasure. There was pleasure. Her body reacted to
that intrusion by opening and allowing. Buffy arched her back in an
effort to elongate the sensations. Her tongue curled unconsciously in
her mouth. The sensation was an exquisite naughtiness that made her chin
tremor.

"Unhh...Unhh...Uh huh," she spoke from a distance, lolling in this new
found pleasure.

"Move your hips," he encouraged. "Show me that you like it." His voice
had a subtle edge of goading to it. This was necessary. Buffy had a
competitive streak in her that was unconsciously responsive to such
challenges. The fact that she liked a bit of kink was no surprise to
Spike, but it had to be drawn out with care and precision. It had to be
a game, a dare. Something to risk. A reward to claim. A summit to
conquer. She was so young, so green and yet so much like him: impulsive,
brazen, and cunning.

Buffy began moving against his fingers, finding and accentuating her own
experience. Fully flushed cheeks revealed her arousal and the edges of
color trailed down her throat. Spike crossed his fingers and added the
tip of a third. She gasped at that sensation.

"Too much," Buffy stopped her hips and opened her eyes wide with
protest. Spike stilled as well, but didn't remove his fingers.

"It's not too much," he soothed with soft treacherous eyes. "It's
getting good. Give it a minute. You're tight is all." With that
pronouncement Buffy squeezed her muscles against him. "Oh yeah, you feel
that? Feel how you're reacting? Give in to it Slayer." Buffy leaned
forward and dumbly licked his lips. He had no idea how deeply she wanted
to give in to it.

"How?" A barely articulated word. A request. Her eyes met his, clear and
focused. Spike grinned at her with sinister approval. He removed his
hand and grabbed the condom box. He ripped it open and took out a foil
sleeve of wrappers, tearing off two segments.

"Let's see if you can learn the luxury of surrender, Slayer." It was a
heady challenge and he wasn't sure if she would comply. Perhaps her
slayer instincts were wound too tightly to ever give in. He had an
inkling of what she'd be capable of. He'd felt that deep connection with
her, even tasted her blood. He wanted that again.

They were both well acquainted with sex as a perversion of combat, but
as an act of communication and intimacy? That was still new for them,
and sexual surrender was all about intimacy. Giving over to the other,
having faith and believing. Spike knew that mindset well. Everything in
his existence had been a surrender: to the bullies at school, to his
parent's wishes, to Cecily's rejection and then to the darkness of
Drusilla's fractured mind, Angelus' unrelenting allure and Darla's
glacial indifference. And now Buffy.

Yes, surrender flowed both ways.

For Buffy, being the slayer meant having to grow a thickened emotional
skin. The continuing mess with Angel confirmed it. She needed to be hard
to be effective as a slayer. Beyond the reach of temptation.
Impenetrable. But could that even be achieved? Trying for that
detachment took a toll.

She didn't know how other girls had done it, sustain a barrier between
themselves and the world. Certainly it helped with the nastier aspects
of her job. She could tell Giles and Xander and Willow the details of
her exploits but no one knew her inner truths. How hard it was to
swallow her fear sometimes and face the unknown. How quadratic
equations, "Hamlet" and the molecular formula for water weren't likely
to figure prominently in her predestined future. Well, maybe the water
thing could come in handy if there was demon made of fire.

Some kids at school were already talking about college preferences. Long
term goals were dangerous for a slayer and being the slayer was
dangerous for the ego of a teenage girl.

Spike made her feel things differently than Angel did. Spike was easy to
figure out. He wasn't interested in mind games or murky communications.
He wanted flesh and action. His voice vacillated between cold cajoling
and the heat of an electrical storm across her flesh. Sexual need
stretched taut within Buffy like a parched plateau begging for rain.
Spike was the thunderhead, and the driving rain.

Spike was refreshing.

"W-What are you doing?" Buffy surfaced from the loss of sensation.

"Something naughty," a single eyebrow muscle flared in exclamation as
Spike grabbed for a stake. He opened the condom wrappers and slipped
them over the blunt end of the stake. Again with the waggling eyebrows.

"No," she said abruptly.

"Why?" A straight face now, not giving an inch.

"Because that's perverted and wrong."

"Funny time to get righteous, Sister Ignatius," Spike slapped her with a
deadpan glare. "We're two consenting adults."

"Not so much with the adult thing yet, you know. Legally they could
spank statutory all over your ass." Birthday number eighteen was still
weeks away.

"Hmm. I wonder what the scales of justice would say about your abiding
interest in necrophilia."

"What?!"

"Technically speaking of course...unless you've got some other nasty
little philias you're just biding your time telling me about. Is that
it?"

"What. Ever." Buffy rolled her eyes and refocused her argument. "But
THAT'S perverted." She pointed to the wickedly alluring and strangely
antiseptic looking stake.

"Say's who?"

"ME!" Spike couldn't control his chuckle. "Hey!" Buffy's mouth fisted
into an indignant scowl. "I know perverted when I see it." The great and
powerful Slayer had spoken. Spike laughed harder at that statement. She
had a way with words, this girl.

"Slayer, what do you think they used for dildos before plastic or rubber
was invented?"

Her face widened with incredulity and the certainty borne of an impulse.
"What? They didn't have dil--" she stopped speaking abruptly and turned
an attractive shade of tomato red.

Spike's laughter subsided into narrowed eyelids. Entertaining little
twit, she was. Such arrogance in such an alluring package. What this one
knew of the world could fit into a thimble with plenty of room to spare.
Wait, she probably wouldn't even know what a thimble was. This was the
way of the world and Spike knew it intimately. Absolute power often went
hand in hand with blissful ignorance. It was a good thing her flesh
package was so diverting, she might become seriously annoying. He held
her gaze and wrinkled his nose at her.

"Ew," Buffy spoke with an authoritative frown to cover her
embarrassment. That wasn't something they covered in history class or if
they had, she'd been absent that day.

"Not 'ew', pet. More like," Spike snuggled his mouth to her ear, "ahh,
ahh, ahhhh." He mimicked the slow sounds of her orgasmic sigh.

"It will hurt," she countered, arguing from his lap but not moving off.
Spike held up the smooth blunt instrument. He could plainly see the cogs
turning in that puzzling slayer brain.

"Right. See all the sharp thorns? Try it. See if its perverted. I know
you're already thinking about it." He paused and caressed her hips
softly. "Look, if you don't like it we'll stop. We can always watch the
telly." Buffy snorted a response at that statement. She relaxed a little
but was still apprehensive.

"Slayer," he looked at her calmly. "It's for fun, not anything else.
Games, I know how you like to play." He tickled a finger down her spine
and his lips thickened with the tease. A slow sensuous rumble started in
his chest.

"You want to be a naughty girl? It's only me and you here. I can keep a
secret, 'specially one as juicy as this." The feather light touch of his
lips swept across her cheek. "I'll make you come so sweet. I want you to
know how you can feel. How free you can be."

His eyes had a magnetic quality and Buffy knew if she didn't punch that
look off his face she'd agree to anything he wanted. Her skin buzzed as
if it were charged with a current. Instead of forming a fist her palms
found his biceps and then slid to his shoulders. Buffy swallowed heavily
and relented.

"I want to know," she whispered.


tbc...

A/N: This chapter contains sexually explicit material which some readers
may consider objectionable. It is meant for an adult audience. If you
think you may be squicked by anal activities, perhaps you should skip
this installment and wait for part 9 :)


Title: Open All Night
Author: kindred
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns these characters lock, stock and profitable
barrel.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Yes, please! I am happy to receive it.
Summary: Sequel to "No Vacancy". It takes place in S3 in Sunnydale.
Have-itch-will-travel Spike visits Buffy...they enjoy an entrée of
truth, but it comes with a side order of consequences.





8.

A thick snarl of encouragement vibrated at the back of Spike's throat.
Buffy wanted to know and Spike was ready, willing and able to supply the
required tuition. A sweet little girl she was and wise to the dark
truths around her; but still, there was the scent of freshness and
exuberance about her. It was an intoxicating mix: deadly slayer malice
sprinkled with alluring school girl charm and served up in such an
unfettered manner.

No wonder Spike was getting light headed.

He figured she'd acquiesce since she remained perched so wantonly on his
thighs instead of kicking his ass down the stairs and out the front
door. Besides, the nose always knows. It was a precise barometer of all
things sexual and most things slayer. Some slight negotiation was all
that was needed, just a sprinkling of tried and true badass charm; a
little seduction spread sweet and thick like blood on a warmed
croissant.

"What a brave girl." His words barely broke the atmosphere of the room.
Spike slathered the condom covered stake with lubricant. Her eyes
fluttered shut as she felt the careful insertion. His soft non-stop
verbal onslaught continued.

Buffy was not prepared for the psychological dimension of being staked
in such a way by a vampire. She held fast to his shoulders as she
climbed an unknown summit. He soothed, coaxed and coached her higher as
he thrust the stake slowly and shallowly inside her all the while busily
working her clitoris toward orgasm. She soon climaxed with a strength
that stunned her. Patches of numbed, reddened skin on her face tingled
from her tumultuous orgasm.

After that unexpected but delightful success Spike moved quickly. He
positioned her kneeling on the bed leaning forward against the metal
bedstead. He moved behind her with a few knee strides and saturated his
neglected cock with more lubricant, eschewing a condom for this virgin
territory. Nothing was going to separate them now. Her breaths scratched
the air with a need she was startled by but not ashamed of.

"What did you think?" His voice was heavy with what was to come.

"Um...that was...interesting." She approached indifference although her
shaky voice betrayed her. Interesting? It was a start. Maybe she needed
a bit more experience. Spike smirked with admiration. Sly kitties don't
give an inch.

"Just interesting? I don't think my work here is done." Spike slid his
erection up and down her cleft. "Shall we try something a bit
more...personal?"

"Yeah." Buffy nodded.

"Tell me."

"I want you...here," she reached back and indicated her bottom.

"In your lovely arse, pet? You want me to fuck you there?" God, that was
what she wanted. She nodded her assent. He placed the head of his cock
against her opening.

"But maybe you're too big," she added hastily, looking back over her
shoulder, the haze of her orgasm lifting. Spike's grin nearly split his
face.

"Don't worry," he consoled smoothly. "You can take me. We'll soak the
bed in your come, we will." Blatant hyperbole, but Buffy was biting. A
cloud of acrid slayer arousal hit his nostrils.

"That's right, the Slayer's a naughty girl, such a lovely rude girl--"

"What do I do?" There was a tinge of trust in that voice. The demon
howled from deep in the recesses of Spike's being; howled for blood and
for the fucking to commence. It wanted to make its mark. The Slayer's
skin was too perfect, too clean; it needed the adornment of his personal
tattoo. His stamp of ownership. The blasphemy of the Master's mark had
to be obliterated. That was an outrage Spike could not abide.

"Lean back. Lean on me, and breathe. Breathe deep." Spike braced his
cock and pressed slowly into her yielding sphincter. Buffy leaned back
and did not hesitate.

"Oh god...ohgodohgodohgod," Buffy chanted breathlessly as she felt his
girth stretch her muscled entrance.

"That's it beauty, stay with it. We're almost there." Spike controlled
the timbre of his voice with non human precision, offering her only calm
assurance. He grimaced soundlessly and bit his lip, struggling against
his own nature. The startling sensations were overwhelming.

"Oh FUCK!" she exclaimed when she felt his hips flush against hers.

"All the way in, feel that?" he caressed his knuckles down her spine and
fought a thundering impulse to slam into her mercilessly.

"Yeah," Buffy released a long exhale of pent up tension. Unfamiliar but
not unwelcome sensations radiated spirally through her entire pelvic
region. There was some retreating discomfort but mostly a delicious,
tingling pleasure.

"Does it hurt?" She turned toward him and shook her head. Spike raised a
corner of his mouth in relief.

"You like it Slayer? Hmm? Like my cock there?" Slowly Spike rolled his
hips into her.

"Unhh," Buffy clenched reflexively around his shaft.

"Fuck, Slayer! Breathe! Breathe!" Spike gasped and winced, nearly losing
control. "Don't want me coming too soon, now. That'll spoil all our
fun." Deep, concentrated inhalations resulted in a loosening of her
internal grip.

Spike held his hips still and waited for her to relax. "Mmm, that's
right." Spike whispered into her ear. "So far, so good." He caressed her
hips and belly. Buffy moved slightly in response, trying to replicate
his subtle hip movement.

"I need to move. Can I move?" So polite. It took him by surprise.

"By all means Slayer, do your stuff." Her body led the way, moving
tentatively with his, finding a slow sensual rhythm. Their bodies rolled
together in a tender undulation, mindlessly knowing how to activate the
necessary circuit of flesh and sensation.

"Like this. I like it like this." Buffy was unsure of where to put her
hands. They traveled a haphazard route of their own: gripping the metal
bed frame, then palms flat to the wall, grasping his hands and reaching
behind to touch his hips and thighs.

"I know, love. I know what you need, just like this is perfect."

Her fears of a punishing assault disappeared as Spike led her gracefully
to a plateau of remarkable pleasures with skill and restraint. He held
off his body's harder impulses to pierce and tear and dominate. He
wanted her to like this, to want it; to want everything he could offer
her.

He didn't need to pummel her body with his unrestrained ardor. He wanted
to be with her as she blossomed in his arms. There would be time for all
sorts of games. Spike would take her everywhere, but slowly. He wanted
her to float in his embrace and know the gentleness he could give her.
That he wanted to give her.

The demon grumbled his discontentment; waiting was never a strong suit.
The current inducements to patience however were compelling enough.
Buffy's slow exertion stimulated the veins and arteries in her neck.
They swelled in concert with her knotted forehead. Spike knew better
than to stare exactly there. His fangs twitched from their hidden
moorings. Soon. Soon enough for all things. Uncensored gasps of lust
burst from her throat, telling of a need she'd not realized was there.

"Spike." Soft and bleating, a golden fleshed lamb.

"Yeah baby?"

"Touch me."

"Yes, ma'am."

Buffy straightened her sweating body and reached back to grab him. She
wanted their bodies sealed together. He obliged, nuzzling close to her
ear. His fingers found her clit and started a firm rhythm. His other
hand laid claim to her breast and tugged gently at her elongated nipple.
Spike smiled as he listened to her soft vocalizing: mewls, paeans,
oaths, and promises tumbled from her lips. He was drunk on her unadorned
words, beseeching him to continue. To lead the way. It was a heady
invasion past undefended borders. His mind clicked as scenario after
scenario flew by his consciousness, only to be neutrally acknowledged
and discarded.

Reality was far more intriguing than anything he could have imagined.
Just the thought of this slayer -- his perfect enemy and preferred
entrée -- tight in his arms, holding him, moving with him, against him,
inside him... Cooing as he fucked her. Wanting more. Begging for it. It
was enough to turn a fellow's head and stimulate some sinfully
inappropriate ideas. It was all he could do not to start making plans
for a little crypt for two.

Companion, consort, lover, opponent. This girl was a match like no
other; as if made for his exacting specifications. Burning flesh for his
cool tongue. A hedonist's furnace for him to drown in.

She was his.

Buffy was past denial, past modesty, past a timid reticence toward
sexualized language. She was surging ahead, unashamedly embracing the
fullness she felt. The fullness of sensation provided by Spike. And she
wanted it. Him. Sucking and stroking. In and out. Cock full. His words
teased her mind while his free fingers slithered over her perspiring
contours. Her mind flooded; undiluted with this ravishment.

A brief thought fluttered among the fields of her rapture: did Giles
know? Did those dusty men on the Council know this possibility existed?
It didn't matter. She knew. Spike knew. No more pretending. She was
primed for the taking. All this and more.

"Kitty likes?" Their bodies moved as one.

"Yes." Her voice came from somewhere else, in the vicinity of her
uterus, deep and resonant.

"You like how I fuck you, do you?"

"Mmm."

"I'm inside you, so deep."

"Deep..."

"There's no hurry, none at all."

"None..."

"I could stay in you like this..." he paused to hear her reaction.

"Forever."

"Give you everything you want, everything you need." His voice bled with
his promises.

"Need this, you."

"You need me, do you?" Buffy turned her head but from her proximity she
couldn't see his eyes. Spike spoke into her temple. "Tell me that you
missed me." That's what he wanted to hear.

"I did." No more avoiding that truth. Buffy craned her neck obliquely
for a kiss, open and soft but awkwardly positioned. "Missed you."

"I know, Slayer. I can taste it."

Despite the erotic languor of their coupling, internally Buffy was
racing toward dangerous levels. She was not even aware when she started
to growl. It was an instinct she could not control. An unconscious
awareness of what communication was needed between them. There would be
words too of course, because Buffy couldn't help herself. She'd open her
mouth and step all over this perfection soon enough. That was an
inescapable certainty. But until then they had this wordless landscape.
The wet muscle music of hip against hip. The faint lubed echoes of a
steady driving rhythm bounced between them. He responded in kind.

What happened next was blur of instinct. With a growl, Spike pushed
Buffy forward against the bed frame and took her hips in his hands. He
angled her sharply for his release. A furious ejaculation triggered her
orgasm. Spike morphed and fell forward, piercing the meaty muscle of her
shoulder blade near the crook of her neck. Buffy cried out at the
sensation of sexual repletion and the touch of the demon on her back.
She looked around wildly, unable to see his face.

Spike held her tightly to his chest, his hips heaving in stuttered
muscular coughs, spurting out the remainder of his come. His voice
sounded deep syllabic sentinels. Then a soft press of tongue and lips
covered her wound, accompanied by a sound of hushed satiety. Tender
vibrations of deep affection flowed straight from a demon's heart. The
wound stung briefly but his studied attentions helped eliminate those
uncomfortable sensations.

Buffy's chest heaved over and over, as if trying to inflate a punctured
tire. Her face calmed slowly and returned to its normal coloring. The
bulbous veins in her neck eased as the tension drained outward, beyond
the confines of her room. She covered his arms surrounding her torso
with her own.

At last he softened. Spike eased his spent cock from her relaxed body.
Buffy turned in his embrace and the tired combatants flopped down upon
her quilted coverlet, now besmirched with vampire spunk and errant gobs
of lubricant. Her grandma made that coverlet. Buffy should have blushed
but there was no blush left in her, only deep relaxed breaths and arms
akimbo.

He had bitten her after taking her so sweetly she could weep. Something
was happening; she could feel it to her bones. That last easy orgasm was
more devastating than the previous night's wild and voracious ones
combined. Spike was far more dangerous to her smooth than rough, gentle
than animal. He was one diabolical fiend.

Why then was it that she wanted him again?

Shit.

tbc...

Our story continues with more naughtiness and blood play. This story has
been nominated in the latest round of the Love's Last Glimpse Awards for
Best WIP and Best Angst. *Squee!* To the kind reader who nominated me, I
say thank you! It's a tremendous thrill.

Title: Open All Night
Author: kindred
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns these characters lock, stock and profitable
barrel.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Yes, please! I am happy to receive it.
Summary: Sequel to "No Vacancy". It takes place in S3 in Sunnydale.
Have-itch-will-travel Spike visits Buffy...they enjoy an entrée of
truth, but it comes with a side order of consequences.





9.

The base of Buffy's neck tingled with a sensation she could have sworn
hummed in her ears. She stretched out her arms and legs across the bed
and collapsed with repletion. Thoughts floated beyond her ability to
care. Now, was that such a bad thing? Was she supposed to be all tense
with the mystical balance of the weight of the world every damn minute?
This felt so much better.

Carefree was definitely the way to go.

Supernatural tenseness always upset her tummy and she suspected that it
was the culprit behind her dry skin patches as well. She purchased a dry
skin formula moisturizer now. She used to be normal to oily, but lately
she'd been flaking. Joyce suggested a visit to the dermatologist. Yep,
that's what she got for saving the world on a regular basis: a
dermatological imbalance.

She rolled onto her side. He'd bitten her again. Was that the secret to
this decadent feeling? If biting was so bad why did she feel like this?
Unraveled. Soft and slippery. Sinfully exquisite. This needed to be
addressed. Perhaps biting should be off limits. She'd give him a talking
to when she figured this out. Maybe she'd need to use her fists. Another
round of fucking wasn't going to be ruled out either, because she needed
answers, damn it! This felt so good. Floppy Buffy puddled on the
bedspread wasn't such a bad thing. Buffy mentally evaluated her options.

Spike floated in a glut of sensation. Every dead nerve in his body
chimed in response to his exertion and his continuing hunger. Buffy's
breaths lengthened beside him, coming down from the heights and
returning to the solid ground. Lazy with the taste of her blood in his
throat, Spike lay painted with the sheen of her sweat burnished on his
body. The demon also lay quiet for the time being, his soft belly
exposed, open for anything.

Was this contentment? Warm pleasures for a cool, dry body made parched
over decades of inventive perversions. Spike thought he'd reached
contentment with Drusilla a few times. When she was stuffed with fat
children and wearing some new shiny dress he'd stolen for her she almost
reached contentment. But what was that but a shadow play in a charnel
house?

This slayer afforded him a feast of gluttonous pleasures. Just being
near her like this was decadence itself. What did she know of true
impiety? Of sin? She would never be damned; sullied perhaps, because her
path was a difficult one, but never damned. This girl held a flame in
her eyes as well as her body. She made him think of dangerous things.
She made him reconsider love. She made him want it.

Afterglow is a bitch. It seduces a mind to wander down hazardous avenues
best avoided. No man or vampire should be held responsible for the
random thoughts that trickle through his fuck addled mind.

"Spike--" Too soon. Conversation was not welcome.

"Not done yet."

With a snarled interruption he swept down her body and off the edge of
the bed to his knees. Spike reached over and grabbed her hips bringing
her toward him. Before Buffy could even squeak in protest his face was
wedged between her spreading thighs; his mouth covering her dripping
aperture.

A soft rumbling rose from his throat and vibrated through her tissues.
Buffy's head rolled on the bed as she grabbed at the bedspread. This was
a perfectly viable option too.

"Slayer." Buffy struggled to her elbows, looking windswept and drowsy.
It was an arousing sight to look down her body and see that face between
her legs. "Watch me." Spike held her gaze and swept his tongue the
length of her vulva. He added a tiny muscular pulse to her overly
sensitive clitoris. It made her knees jump. "You watching?" Spike stared
at her, his chin smeared in her juices. Shiny chin Spike was adorable.
It was all she could do to nod. Blinking was stalled for the time being.

"I like how you taste." Another slurping lick lolled over warm, living
skin pulsing with blood and oozing salty secrets from deep inside her
body. His eyes returned to her tissues. Buffy's eyes did not waver once.
Her unruly knees wandered wide open and then closed again, opting for
motion instead of stasis.

She watched his progress with fascinated self interest. Her hips started
their own response curling a steady tempo into his mouth. Soon her
fingers sliced into his hair, holding him in the preferred position as
her mound ground against him.

Another climax accelerated and burst. Buffy's shaky voice rose and
shattered into gasps and pleas. "Yes! There! That's it. Right
there...unghh...Spike..." The tone of her sexual release was too much.
Spike would rather have had a shower before anything vaginal commenced,
but he couldn't wait. He tore open a condom and rolled it expertly down
his length.

With a groan he swept Buffy's hips upward and her weight onto her upper
back. "Hold your bloody knees," he ordered roughly and plunged his cock
between her swollen folds. Deep, merciless strokes produced a steady
tempo of breathy responses as his intensity pushed the breath from her
lungs.

Spike stood with his thighs against the bed. He didn't dare get any
closer. The taste of her blood mixed with her come was an overwhelming
aphrodisiac. His eyes bore into her throat as surely as his fangs would
have. He held back his demon with inhuman fortitude. The beast foamed at
the mouth in his mind, wanting his connection again too, needing it.

"Like this," he spoke with growling agitation holding her knees together
firmly. The tightness of the new position was plenty diverting. Buffy's
experimental squeezing of his demanding cock brought Spike's attention
back to the point of their joining.

"That's right...yeah...squeeze me. Oh...just like that." A hard,
determined glint shone in his eyes. "I'm gonna fuck the daylights outta
you."

"I'd like to see you try." Her saucy response was unexpected to say the
least. His attention flew back to her face and her remarkably defiant
smirk. The girl was flirting with danger. In other circumstances that
expression would have demanded he fly at her with a full fanged assault.
These circumstances demanded alternative methods and weapons.

"Think I can't do it, do you?"

"Talk is cheap, Spike...anhhh!"

"See who's all sassy now. Congratulations, Slayer. I think you've gone
and bloody well motivated me." Spike stood by the side of the bed
plowing into her body. He was particularly good standing up. His own
rising climax dissipated into a hip churning resolve.

No one out-fucked William the Bloody -- not prancing Angelus and his
laundry list of kinks, liquid Drusilla with her relentless pursuit of
pain, nor even the whore to end all whores, Darla, who praised Spike's
abilities lavishly for Angelus' sullen ears -- certainly not this wispy
chit of a slayer with her kittenish allures and velvety, vice grip
furnace of a pussy. He would not be defeated by her whimpering mewls nor
her rasp of naked need.

He would not be defeated, period.

Buffy struggled for breath. Constrained as she was with her thighs
against her chest and his not inconsiderable weight bearing down,
Buffy's breath thickened in her suddenly crowded throat. His oratory
continued at a furious pace as she concentrated on filling her lungs
with air. Words that should have shocked and angered her did neither.
They did fuel her desire for exactly what he was doing, taking her with
raw, near brutal intensity. Buffy's senses shook with the extreme
activity. Sight and sound careened together. His words collided in her
ears, assaulting her.

"Should have done this months ago. Taken what I wanted, what I knew you
wanted. Thrown you up against the nearest crypt and fucked you
senseless." His hips churned now with demonic purpose. The bed frame
began to squeak in protest.

"Sweet, tasty little Slayer. I thought about this, you know. Dreamt
about it. Drove Drusilla to distraction over it. She knew I wanted you
like this...knickers off, feet in the air..." Spike grabbed the back of
Buffy's knees and spread her wide for his furious and continuing
onslaught. Buffy cried out at the pace of this pummeling assault. His
voice took on a deep, gravelly intensity.

"Yeah that's right, fucking just like this...like the right savages we
are. Take no prisoners, ain't that right, Slayer? We take what we want,
you and me. What we need."

"Spike!" Buffy could not fathom how Spike could talk and fuck at such a
frenzied pace. All she could do was blast out a syllable or two. She
raised her hands to his shoulders, clawing at him, wanting him nearer.
Something was surfacing within her, the strongest urge, a near
insatiable compulsion...but for what she wasn't exactly sure.

"You like it, don't you? Like this...raw and rough and pure. You like me
deep inside you, stirring your darkness. Making you face it, making you
scream..."

His words sank into her mind like knives through warmed butter. Her
darkness? Merely a witness to what was happening in her body, she felt
him stirring up the sediment of her slayer soul. An urgency beyond
sexual need seeped into her gut, flooding her body with sensory sparks.
Incongruent thoughts swirled in her mind. Unlit passages opened before
her. Left or right? Did the direction even matter? Buffy plunged through
darkness, accelerating toward an unknown destination.

Spike's voice bled into her own thoughts. Suspense boiled over into
fevered anticipation. His voice, her thoughts. Taking what she
wanted...what was hers for the taking...Yes! That was what she felt.
Spike. She wanted Spike. Deep, dark and driving...taking her someplace
she desperately wanted to go.

His musculature danced in her sight, twisting and turning, giving her
such pleasure. Buffy looked into that blue eyed abyss and wanted nothing
more than to fall and fall and fall. That was no longer the face of an
enemy but her own determined reflection. Spike's gaze receded from the
tumult. His eyes spoke straight to her soul.

Whispering yes. Wanting yes. Waiting for...

"Yes!" Buffy wailed a primal blast and sank her fingertips into his
biceps, pulling him off balance and onto her. Again instinct overruled
and the beast took his prize. Spike sank his fangs into the spot where
the Master had desecrated his Slayer, replacing that abomination with
the insignia of his urgent regard.

At that moment the fractious cacophony within them both suddenly ceased.
Buffy felt a faint tickling as she held him tightly. Her heartbeat
thundered on his tongue, through his body and then echoed back into
hers. A blood connection. A blood recognition. This felt right. No
shoulds, or ifs or maybes; inexplicably, this felt right. For right now
and right here, for these two beings tempered by an unspoken isolation
and loneliness, it felt right. Dizzying exhaustion spread through her
mind. Buffy concentrated on merely blinking. Two heavy and uncooperative
eyelids hindered her.

Spike ground out his own desperate orgasm. Deep hard thrusts accompanied
her shrill gasps of waning energy. He gave her his all, exhausting
himself into the bargain. Finally he rotated half off of her. She saw
the rise and fall of his hard chest. An unnecessary movement for a
vampire, but Spike was scrambling to make sense of his teetering
thoughts. It was completely understandable. The damned aren't meant to
reach the summit and taste the promised land or even look upon its sunny
shores. The sweetest of nectars are not meant for them.

Buffy turned her face and gazed at his demon profile with neutral
fascination. He looked wicked to be sure, but no longer cruel. When had
that happened?

Spike lay in a daze, failing to expand long dead lungs with each halting
breath. Spiraling thoughts with no fixed destination navigated a lazy
path through Spike's mind. A spontaneous giggle was not what he was
expecting.

"That was neat-o!" Buffy gushed with breathless glee. It was a childish
but sincere response. Spike rose slowly to one elbow and with care
licked away the traces of her blood and watched the small wound close,
too content to even contest her school girl reaction. His mark now. Not
the Master's. His. On her flesh. On her soul. His. Neat-o? Was that the
best she could think of? It was sublime and majestic and intimate and
just what he'd been starving for. And yeah, he'd have to admit, a bit
neat-o too.

Spike slumped onto the bedspread with a sigh of exhaustion. Buffy turned
on her side and propped her head up on her palm. He was still in full
face, blinking dumbly at the ceiling. Buffy's gaze draped down his body,
limp and boneless now except for one spot. His cock was still hard,
still clad in a condom, yet listing to one side. What was the name of
that famous leaning tower? Buffy thought it was Pizza. Pizza? Yeah, the
Leaning Tower of Pizza, right here on her bed.

Soon the reality of the situation reasserted itself. Drawing her
fingertips over his not one, but two bites sent shivers of pleasure
through her. Okay, time for the talk. There's no way she was going to be
Swiss cheese Buffy.

"What's going on, Spike?"

"Fun, pet. A bit of fun." He tried to sound calm, to cover the truth.
She was marked. Easily identified. It was a done deal. "What? You don't
like having the daylights fucked out of you?" There was the smirk right
on schedule followed by its dancing partner, the incredulous eye roll.

"Fun? You bit me. Twice." She had some inkling of this behavior. Giles
pointed her in the direction of a few relevant texts when she inquired
about this in a round about manner. Giles saw it as step in the right
direction, her return to Sunnydale and a new interest in research. Giles
did oblivious quite convincingly.

"Yeah, um...kind of improvising there, pet." He lied with embarrassed
ease. Overly zealous would explain it. Buffy wasn't buying.

"Spike. I know what it means when a vampire does that during..." She
paused as a shadow of modesty drifted across her face, "you know...the
sex." Smart little kitty. She read Giles' book. There were three
carefully annotated chapters on bonding, marking and mating with
extensive footnotes regarding the differentiation of bites.

"Well this time it didn't mean anything." Spike stuck with lying. For
the moment it was easier. He didn't want anything to crowd the
unadulterated joy of this feeling. A dedicated hedonist, Spike knew the
depth and breadth of every physical sensation invented and quite a few
still unimagined. And yet, this girl left his head spinning in a tangle
of lust, greed and gluttony. She left him washed ashore and gasping on a
new and uncharted frontier. He had no compass or map. It would not
surprise him if the stars themselves had reconfigured in the
impenetrable silken sky.

"Just chalk it up to annoying enthusiasm." His smile was quiet and
assured. No need to muddy the waters with foolhardy leaps off golden
skinned precipices.

"Spike," Buffy tried again. Spike silenced her with a feathery soft
kiss. Smooth, creamy custard Spike lips. Soft as goose down lips. "We've
kinda gone beyond the planet of hate, huh Spike?" He looked at her with
a half grin and kissed her nose in response.

"You need a shower. And don't you have to patrol? Aren't the streets of
this town choked with all manner of evil creatures? Because that's the
way I remember things. Lots of villainous wankers up to no good I'd
reckon, what with the Slayer late for her appointed rounds..." Buffy
glanced at the clock, 9:36 p.m. Didn't she just get home from school?

"I suppose, but you need a shower too. You're leaking." Buffy pointed to
his slowly descending shaft. Seminal fluid trickled out at the base and
pooled in his pubic hair. "Hey, you want to come with?" She missed the
double entendre in her earnest attempt at an invitation. Patrolling,
however, wasn't exactly uppermost on Buffy's agenda. A game of tag among
tombstones sounded wonderful. They stood up from the bed and wandered
around the corner into the bathroom.

She was easy with him now. Spike could hardly believe it. They were
actually having a conversation. It was a sobering development for them
both.

"Sorry, love. Got some business to take care of." He followed her into
the bathroom to clean up.

*

Buffy was half way through the cemetery cheerily whistling and bouncing
with animated delight when she stopped. Her thoughts careened into a
brick wall with a resounding splat. Some business to take care of? Yeah
right, and she just fell off the turnip truck. She knew exactly what
kind of business Spike had to take care of. He was feeding. Some
innocent person was under his fangs at that very moment.

Never before had she been so happy to see such an apparently healthy and
well muscled vampire. It jumped out from behind a large crypt and tried
to scare her with a gaping fang snarl. The stench from its breath was
staggering.

Buffy looked up at the neckless wonder. "Hi there. I'll bet you've
played some football in your time, huh big guy?"

"MVP three years running, Slayer." It slobbered the words with arrogant
resolve. This one reeked of that God's-gift-to-women strutting peacock
crap that the football team at school took for social élan.

"Good. I hope that means you'll at least give me your best effort."
Buffy eschewed her stake for now. She was pissed and primed for a fight.
Unfortunately, Mr. MVP wasn't much of an opponent. She was still
unsatisfied when the dust formerly known as vampire billowed into the
air. The coughing fit that accompanied her triumph did nothing to
improve Buffy's mood.


tbc...

10.

Willy's bar was just as seedy a hell hole as Spike remembered. Dark,
dank little crevasses marked it's internal perimeter. It had ambiance
you could scrape off the wall. A thick treacle of demon fluids of
varying textures and hues mixed effortlessly with smoke, something akin
to sawdust and droplets of souring pomade from Willy's anachronistic
hairdo.

It was a good thing breathing wasn't a requirement for Spike. The air in
that establishment was ripe with countless bacteria of demon and human
origin alike. A few grunts of wary recognition met Spike as he ambled
toward the bar. This was a place where a demon could go and disappear
for a while. Some patrons looked as if they hadn't left their tables
since the last time Spike frequented the poxy establishment. A few
female demons sat amongst the brethren, always looking for fortuitous
alliances as well as opportunistic sexual encounters.

Spike took a long look at an engaging specimen. She half oozed at him
from her bar stool, all tits and tentacles, wearing what looked like a
length of fringed duct tape clinging to her engaging and ample curves.
She was advertising for sure. At another time Spike might have been
interested in what she had to offer. If he was piss drunk maybe, but
banging demons wasn't his thing. The tentacles were an alluring draw,
but he shook his head at her come hither eye glare. She elevated herself
high on her stool, made a strange gurgling huffing sound and shifted her
body, clearly showing her displeasure at his rebuff.

It wasn't meant unkindly. Spike had other plans. He had a bartender to
intimidate and a sexy little slayer to stalk. Maybe later he'd make
those 'bend Buffy over a tombstone' fantasies come true.

Willy glided through a door at the side of the bar carrying a large box
of booze. He didn't see Spike until he set the heavy box upon the bar.
By then it was too late to try to hide. His weasel-like nose twitched as
if sniffing out the nearest escape route.

"Now there's a friendly face!" Spike announced, "and the presents? I'm
touched." Spike stood up and opened the box to see what treasures it
held. "Just like Christmas morning, this is." Spike pulled out a large
bottle of Scotch whiskey with a flourish and unscrewed the cap.

"Spike! Golly, it's been what? A few months...and here you are, drinking
the good stuff-- I mean looking good! You're looking good." Willy could
always be depended upon for the full dressed obsequious onslaught. "So,
what brings you back to our fair city?" He bounced lightly on the balls
of his feet. Running wasn't an option. Spike would just catch him, make
him hurt, probably mess up his hair and then have some more annoying
conversation.

Spike downed half the bottle in a long swill and then came up for
unneeded air. "Whaddaya say Willy?" His gaze alone cut through the
smaller man's bravado.

"I say stay off the streets, Spike." Willy's voice rattled in a nasally
percussive manner, as if parlaying a news bulletin. "Take it from me.
The Slayer has been thinning out the weeds lately, if you get my drift."

"Busy little bee is she? Give me a shot of the sweet stuff." Spike
jerked his chin at Willy. The disgruntled barman took a step backward
and reached behind him, blindly opening a small fridge along the wall.
He brought out a container of blood and poured Spike a shot.

"She's been unstoppable. Believe me, you're no match for her now." Willy
gestured grandly, figuring he'd aim for the ego. Spike was always easy
to snag when his ego was called into question. It wouldn't bother Willy
one bit if Spike became one of the weeds the Slayer hacked down. "She's
got one hell of a boner on. That bitch needs to get laid like yest--"

"What the BLOODY HELL do you think your pulling here?" Spike choked down
the shot of...whatever that was. Unfortunately, regurgitation was not
found among a vampire's abilities. He was glad to have the whiskey to
wash it down with. Whatever it was, it was foul. "I should rip out your
worthless throat for serving me a shot of that piss. What the fuck was
that?"

"Whoa, Spike, relax man." Willy raised his hands in a gesture of
conciliation. It was time to become the diplomat he was born to be.
"That was vole. It's imported. A delicacy I'm trying out for my more
discerning customers. What? You don't like?" His face held the sincere
expression of a seasoned hustler, a little greasy around the edges, but
as honest as Willy got.

Forget the apocalypse, this was the sign of the end of everything sane
and reliable: Willy was trying out an uppity designer bar drinks menu.
Who did he think he was going to attract with that swill? Upwardly
mobile vamps?

"VOLE?!" It was a pity Spike couldn't throw up on Willy. His shiny
tri-color bowling shirt was nearly as insulting as the swill he passed
off as a beverage. "Who the FUCK would want vole?" Spike's mouth hung
open in shock. "That's a bloody fucking rat, that is. Digs in the ground
for fuck's sakes. Bloody unhygienic."

"It's an acquired taste, I'll give you that, but some of your younger
vamps go for the weird stuff." Willy rhymed off his selection on his
fingers. "I got alpaca, ostrich, raccoon--" His grating voice ended as
he was crushed against Spike's chest. A menacing snarl indicated Spike's
prejudicial intent. Tendrils of sweat trailed down the sides of Willy's
jaw and disappeared into his five o'clock shadow.

"Hey man, watch the threads. This is silk." Ballsy was the word. Held in
the tight clutches of a pissed off vampire, Willy remained his
uncompromising and demanding self.

"You're an inventive little tosser, I'll give you that," Spike spoke
slowly and softly as Willy's upper lip curled back, readying him for the
inevitable. "But if you ever, I mean EVER attempt to serve me swill that
could understudy for a rat, I'll put a spigot into your worthless neck
and put you on tap. Got it?"

"Yes sir, the customer is always right. Nothing but universal donor for
you, Spike."

"Right. In a clean glass."

"Well, that's the thing, Spike," Willy winced but continued. "I'm kinda
between suppliers at the moment." Spike shook his head with disgust and
let out a sigh. "Try the raccoon. I'm told it's got a subtle nose--"

"FORGET ABOUT THE FUCKIN' RACCOON!!"

"Okay, okay. It's forgotten. Nada on that. Zip. Zilch."

"That's better, now where's my money?"

"W-What money is that?"

"First installment on your debt repayment. A few tenners ought to do
it." It was always a good idea to have a few dollars in one's pocket.
Vampires didn't have much call for cash, but it was always handy to have
some around for poker stakes and certain necessities. And kittens just
didn't grow on trees.

A few pointed glares and the flash of a fang and Willy was good for a
few bucks. Willy's was an institution known far and wide in the demon
world. He could listen to your hard luck story, further your world
domination fantasies, help get you laid, and stay out of sight during
the frequent and quite enjoyable brawls that regularly trashed the
joint. He had tact, connections and a pair of cast iron balls.

Willy was a full service fellow, as close to a demon concierge as Spike
had ever come across.

"Yeah, okay." Without looking Willy reached over and opened the cash
register. He grabbed a fist of paper and brought it up to eye level. A
quick glance revealed a thin wad of twenties. "Take it."

Spike released one hand and pulled out three bills. He wasn't too
greedy. Willy was a useful ally as long as he stayed cooperative, which
pretty much meant scared shitless. Sixty dollars wouldn't break the bank
and Willy would live to pour vole another day.

"You're a prince Willy, a bloody prince." Spike released the
squirrel-like man and gently patted his cheek. The newly acquired funds
found a home in his pocket.

"Anything for you buddy." Willy relaxed somewhat and even managed to
sound almost sincere. Spike downed the rest of the bottle and strode
toward the exit. "Hey! You back for good Spike?" Willy's plaintive
question was met with a dismissive wave as Spike walked through the bar
door and off down the alleyway.

"Fucking psychopath," Willy breathed with resentment. "I bet Angel will
have something to say about pretty boy being back in town. And where is
that skanky slayer when a vamp needs dusting?" He shook his head and
started restocking the bar.

Images rolled through Spike's mind as he felt the pavement drumming a
satisfying rhythm beneath him. Sunnydale wasn't such a bad 'burb. It had
all you could drink at Willy's, the percolating eau de Hellmouth, which
was the closest thing to homey goodness for a demon and a tasty little
Slayer primed and ready for anything. Spike's preference for a robust
shag on a daily basis might at the outset seem a bit too optimistic.
Perhaps a fuck one day, fight the next alternative would be more to the
lady's liking. He would be up for some spirited negotiations.

Spike smiled as his predator gaze swept before him. When was the last
time he felt optimism instead of near blind desperation? He and the
Slayer had the same itch in common, that much was true.

Steadily, his mind became preoccupied with the recent fleshy past: the
curve of Buffy's back, the modulations of her hips, and her mouth
trembling whispers of "yes...yes...yes" as he swept solidly inside her.
Spike stopped by an overhanging tree and lit up a cigarette.

Images of an orgasmic slayer crowded his head. She was a demanding
little vixen but he was certainly a worthy match for her stamina.
However, the energizer bunny he wasn't. To say that Willy's all hooves
and paws beverage list did not hit the spot was an understatement
indeed.

His ears picked up a sound, the distinct drone of some percussion heavy
disaster from the shoulder pad past of the music industry. Was it Pat
Benatar? Sheena Easton? Some such pathetic twaddle. Spike took a final
deep drag on his smoke and threw it aside. His quarry was now in view, a
jogger with a near neon outfit and earphones.

As easy as pulling a chocolate off a candy assembly line Spike plucked
the jogger from the university bike path. His fangs pierced the sweaty
expanse of neck and as the first squirt of blood met Spike's taste buds
he stopped. It didn't taste right. Another pull of blood. Spike dropped
the groggy victim and reassessed. What was happening? Perfectly good
human, but what was that stuff in his veins? Thin, dishwater soup with
not even a pinch of adrenalin. Something definitely was amiss. Blood was
blood, wasn't it?

Spike licked the residue from his lips and then it hit him. It didn't
taste like hers. This was a troubling development. He'd drained the
bodies of two slayers before, but this one was different. Her blood was
pure, decadent sin and didn't taste of defeat. The Slayer couldn't have
soured his taste for blood? That was not possible. Not. Possible.

Fuck.

Soon the quiet path filled with the sound of voices. Spike slipped
behind another tree as his would be victim crawled onto the path. Two
joggers stopped and helped the young man to his feet. He said he'd been
mugged. A cell phone appeared and a call went out for assistance.

It was not Spike's finest hour. He certainly wasn't known for leaving
his lunch alive. The only plus was that there was no witness to his
performance difficulty. Distracted by this unprecedented event, Spike
strode swiftly off through the trees, leaving his aperitif to the
paramedics. After a brief interlude of mindless wandering and muttered
cursing, Spike looked up to find himself in familiar surroundings.

The old mansion was near. He could see it's faint outline against the
inky night sky. That's all he needed, thoughts of that awful place and
Angelus taking Drusilla loudly and often elbowed their way into his
mind. Not one to tempt nostalgia, Spike picked up his pace. He needed to
be somewhere else and fast. A quick shortcut through the adjacent
cemetery and he'd start sniffing out his slayer.

The Buick sized fist that smashed into his face and knocked him back on
his ass was an unwelcome nightcap to a most enjoyable day.

"Hello...Spike." A tall menacing figure in a brown leather coat and dark
trousers pivoted from behind a tree. Spike squinted upwards into a face
of bitter familiarity.


tbc...

11.

The dimensions of that fist were all too painfully familiar. So too was
the tyrannical silhouette looming over Spike and leering at him with a
look of pitiless repulsion. Angel stood over Spike's sprawling body with
fists clenched at the ready. "Fancy having your sorry ass back in town,
Spike." He spoke with murderous neutrality.

"Ditto, mate," Spike brought his fingers gingerly to his face. "Fuck, I
think you broke my nose."

Angel reached down and grabbed Spike by his lapels, dragging him to his
feet. Angel punched him hard in the gut, sending Spike flying backward
into an old spruce trunk.

"Hey! Watch it. What is your bloody problem?" Spike roared in protest,
shaking off the opening salvo. He spread his feet to gain some balance
in readiness. He knew that face well, that blank, slightly squashed,
Charlie Brown in a bad toupee look. Angel appeared as wound up as
Angelus ever had, hungry for a beating and ready to lay it all on Spike.
It was the same old hackneyed two-step.

When Angel spoke again his voice was pure Angelus venom, poisonous silk
from the tongue of a devil. "Do tell me, William," Angel cooed in velvet
tones. "How is it that you reek of Buffy, hmm?" He cracked a knuckle for
emphasis.

"Just lucky, I guess." The giggle was as evil as Spike's eyebrow flare.
He was enjoying this. Spike hadn't anticipated running into Angel so
soon but he felt a sudden saucy need to gloat and crow. He might just
dance a jig. The result was painful and predictable: Angel rushed him
like a mad bull. Vampire instincts are an odd mix of self preservation
and a compulsion for conquest. Unfazed by Angel's initial attacks, Spike
threw himself at his opponent with equal abandon.

It was not pretty.

Snarling, brutal strikes and counter strikes followed a flash of fangs.
Focused animosity is a lightning rod for unpredictability. Needless to
say, the Marquess of Queensberry would have frowned upon the
opportunistic and unregulated tactics employed by these two aggressive
pugilists. Leather flew in a frenzied duet, sloppy and fierce. The air
filled with growling sounds of a struggle and the scent of blood.

With an acceleration of gritty determination, Spike foisted Angel into
the air and sent him skidding across a patch of grass. Upon righting
himself again, Angel checked his trousers for the telltale grass stain.

"FUCK! Forget your bloody image for once, Narcissus," Spike spat the
words. "Pay attention while I kick your pampered arse!"

"I think you forget who you're dealing with...William." Spike's initial
successes subsided as Angel gained the upper hand. Angel had superior
strength because of his size but Spike was a scrapper. He would not
relent. Long ago he vowed never to be beaten down by Angelus again. From
Spike's perspective, soul boy did a passing Angelus in the hands-on
department.

Angel's large fist smashed into Spike's cheek; an elbow intersected with
his shoulder, and a knee invaded his side. There was little finesse in
such a display of contested dominance. Spike got in a few more good
belts of his own. Punching Angelus was like slamming a dead carcass hung
in a butcher shop. Heavy compressions of fists to flesh slowed with each
subsequent exertion. The resulting damage ricocheted back on Spike as he
merely injured his hands on Angel's brick wall of a body.

Steely emptiness gave Angel the advantage. Spike felt loose from his
lengthy encounter with Buffy, but he hadn't fed properly in the last
twenty-four hours and it began to show in his laboring defenses. As the
fight progressed, Spike dodged fewer blows while more found their mark.
Soon Angel picked Spike up by the throat and slammed him hard against
the stone wall of an abandoned outbuilding of the great mansion.

"What did you do to her, you animal?" Angel's eyes glowed an icy yellow.
Unable to temper his delight, Spike curled the corner of his lip into a
lascivious grin.

"Take a whiff," Spike taunted and wriggled in Angel's meaty hold. The
scent was unavoidable and already deeply imbedded in Angel's nostrils,
burning through his brain and fomenting an accelerating fury. Angel
already knew. Permeating every pore on Spike's body was the distinctive
and recognizable aroma. There was no mistaking the singular sweet smell
of consensual sex. It was the foulest air Angel had ever scented.

"Didn't hurt her, you daft wanker." Spike wriggled, straining to form
the words through Angel's punishing grasp. "Let go!"

It had to be a trick. There was no way it was true. With his mind
swirling in incomprehensible thoughts, Angel dropped Spike to his knees
and towered over him, growling. Vampire instinct kicked in. It had been
an age, but time did not dim the knowledge of how to deal with an unruly
fledge. This needed to be put to rights immediately. Spike would pay
dearly for usurping the territory of his elder.

Time also did little to dim the memory of being disciplined by such an
enthusiastic hand. Spike's eyes widened. He knew that vicious stance,
the look of primal dominance. He'd been on his knees before Angelus
plenty but those days were long gone. He was no one's dog anymore.

"You can bloody well forget it, mate." Spike's jaw drew taut with
muscular rage. He wasn't Angelus' whipping post anymore. A thought
surfaced in Spike's mind. Wasn't Angel supposed to be all soulful and
reformed? Didn't he give up homicide in order to join the pep squad and
do the old remorseful soft-shoe?

There was a distinct scent present that wasn't Angelus, but it wasn't
exactly not Angelus either. The old bugger was just beneath the skin of
this one, a piranha in a paper cup, clamoring to be released. Maybe that
soul wasn't as good a tether as those gypsies thought.

Angel kicked him aside. Scuttling backward to get a bit of distance,
Spike crouched in a defensive posture. The demon fluctuated on Spike's
pained face. Angel's demon receded but his eyes still flamed.

"WHAT FUCKING GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?" Volume gave him away. Angelus was
never loud or hysterical. He was never out of control. That's what made
him so dangerous. Angelus never took anything personally. His excesses
overflowed with the stale breath of ennui and the slow, dry cadence of a
weary and corrupted emptiness.

Angel, on the other hand, was scrambling for footing, trying to make
sense out of the incomprehensible; trying to get the flesh images
floating in that scent out of his head. Buffy and Sp-- He could go no
further. Anything beyond that first sound just wasn't possible.

It was a spell, the Hellmouth, some enchantment, a demon borne
infection, an incantation, sinus congestion; some delirium designed to
drive him insane. Angel's mind whirled with a myriad of nefarious
possibilities. There had to be an explanation, some answer other than
the one tugging at the edges of his brain, trying to assert the plain
old smelly truth. No. That was impossible. She couldn't-- Wouldn't.
Buffy would never-- Not with-- Not ever.

Angel couldn't complete the thoughts let alone the sentences. For the
first time since he stepped to the dark side over two hundred years ago,
Angel doubted the veracity of the one thing that had never betrayed him.
His nose must have got it wrong, confused fighting with...something that
started with an "f".

Spike looked on with wary curiosity. This sideshow was something new.
Rabid, raving, and reckless? Definitely not Angelus. He was precise,
glacial and easily affected a detached air one might foolishly and
fatally mistake for apathy. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Angel was nothing more than a grasping prat slicked up in hair gel and
grass stained trousers. The situation would have struck Spike as far
more hilarious if it wasn't so immediately perilous. Spike moved to
stand and Angel kicked him hard. The snap of breaking ribs filled the
air. With stubborn defiance, Spike stood up.

"It's none of your bloody business, Peaches," Spike sassed with hardened
resolve. Another heavy uppercut and Spike went down again. His inner
resources were waning and he knew it.

"You don't have the sense of a stone, Spike," Angel spoke calmly as his
heel came down solidly on Spike's left hand. "At least a stone knows how
to stay down and stay quiet."

"Fuck you," Spike gurgled, unwillingly to give Angel the satisfaction of
seeing his pain. Again Angel grabbed Spike by his lapels, pulled him
upright and roared into his face.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Playing her? Toying with her? Trying to get to me?"
There it was. Angelus may be all corked up, but that ego shone like a
demented beacon. Whatever he was calling himself, the bugger had cheek.
A giggle wasn't the best response perhaps, but it couldn't be stopped.
Angel dropped Spike in a heap.

"That's it, innit?" Spike shook his head. Bloody, annoying, egomaniacal
bastard. Giddiness gave way to narrowed eyes and a look of abject
disgust. A century came and went and still that monster ego remained as
pompous and overbearing as the first day of their acquaintance. "It's
all about you. Every bloody, fucking thing in this sorry cesspool has to
be about YOU. The great and glorious Angelus-- Oops, sorry, it's sad
sack Angel now, right? Give me a FUCKING break."

"What do you want from her?" Spike could almost pity the bastard. Angel
was totally clueless when it came to women; always was, always would be.
He was too busy polishing up the old ego to see anything beyond the
scope of his own dusty navel.

"That's none of your bleedin' business."

"She know you're feeding?" That blood scent was also unavoidable.

"That bloke's alive, mate." Spike coughed up a little blood at the force
of that retort.

Soon Angel paced a groove in the grass in front of Spike. "How dare you
even look at her. Just the though of you and-- Unhhh! It sickens me."

"She's a big girl. She made up her own mind."

"You're gonna tell me, you sorry sack of shit." Another kick. Spike
groaned and held his arms to his ribs as a shield.

"You're not getting squat from me Angel," Spike spat the words. "You
wanna rip my head off? Stake me? You can bloody well try...but I'm not
telling you jack shit, mate. And this little dance here? It's getting
boring." Spike knew Angelus' repertoire cover to cover. Funnily enough,
boring never made the top one hundred.

Spike's reluctance to brag openly to Angel's face was the most
disturbing and significant piece to this puzzle. Buffy meant something
to Spike. If she hadn't, Spike would be spouting off the candid play by
play tidbits of their sexual escapades. Angelus had done that very thing
himself, torturing Spike over Drusilla, who sadly had only been a pawn
in a wider game of macho strategizing. Buffy was important to Spike.
Angel's fear was that the reverse was also true.

"She's mine, you idiot. MINE."

"You don't bloody own her."

"Oh, you know better than that, William." There was that icy, dark coo
again. What daddy wanted, daddy got; so shall it ever be. Spike looked
into Angel's face, strengthened now by an expression of swaggering
entitlement. That pissed Spike off to no end -- that fucking pansy arse
prerogative -- like Spike was obliged and Angel was due, and no amount
of time or distance would ever alter it.

Soul or no soul, the smirk was one hundred percent Angelus.

"Well then, you'd better not let her off her lead then, huh?" Spike
couldn't help but sass Angel. If he was going to die, he'd do it with
saucy style and fuck up Angel as much as he could. "Or maybe you should
just put her in a warm terrarium with some nice turtle friends so she
can't scamper off and get into mischief." Spike snickered with contempt.

Spike owed Angel pain. Not for himself, but for what Angelus did to
Drusilla. It was difficult for Spike to reconcile that he never really
had a life with Drusilla. She had some phantom life with Angelus, even
when he was absent for decades. It was a tough reconciliation. Just as
Drusilla had been everything for Spike, Angelus was everything for
Drusilla. It was simply the law of hierarchy, the ancient creed of sire
and childe. Drusilla loved Spike like a puppy or a shiny toy, but not
like the storms on the horizon she was always wandering toward. Not like
Daddy. Not like Hurricane Angelus.

It was odd that neither of the vampires sensed Buffy's approach.
Especially since she was the topic of their animated conversation. The
potency of bitter testosterone on full display drowned out even the
sweet scent of the Slayer.

Angry voices caught her attention and she left the quiet cemetery to
investigate. With the last few exchanges ringing in her ears she
quickened her steps. Buffy stepped into the moonlit clearing to find
Angel towering over an injured Spike. The look on Angel's face gave her
pause and then steeled her backbone. Buffy folded her arms across her
chest and spoke with a chilled reserve.

"Oh yes Angel, please tell me how you get to decide my life for me,
because you, um, how did you phrase that? 'Own me'?" That voice held a
razor's edge. Buffy's face hardened to stone.


tbc...


12.

Impeccable timing can be a beautiful thing.

Spike winced as he recognized Buffy, none too happy to have her witness
his current predicament. Although, the deer caught in the headlights
look on Angel's face was well worth the price of admission. Spike was a
gambling man and the odds of surviving the evening looked pretty
favorable at the moment.

Buffy stood in a haughty pose, fists tight to her sides, bristling with
agitation. She wasn't impressed at the spectacle before her, nor the
preposterous words she had heard, still echoing in her ears. Both
vampires displayed injuries. Angel's cheek was bloodied and his knuckles
battered. Spike looked the worse for it with a swollen eye, a gash on
his cheek, what looked like crushed bones in his hand and most likely
broken ribs. He sat in a crouched position up against the stone wall.
She'd heard him mouthing off pretty forcefully, so she figured he wasn't
too badly injured.

"Buffy--" Angel pivoted quickly, surprised by her sudden appearance. His
facial features convulsed reflexively as he tried unsuccessfully to
force the grim reaper expression from his face.

Spike shifted sideways to get that much further away from Angel.
Punching bag was never one of Spike's favored roles. He licked blood
from his upper lip, unable for the time being to move from his knees.
Buffy recognized the look of masked pain on his features. Despite his
bravado, Spike was hurting.

"Very nice Angel," Buffy praised with calculated sarcasm. "Very mature
and soul worthy behavior."

"That's Spike, Buffy." Angel spoke through clenched teeth as the scent
of Spike radiating off of Buffy broke like a wave and silently singed
his nostrils.

"Oh, I know Angel, and I know how much fun it is to reduce him to a
spongy paste--"

"Oi!" Spike protested strongly. "Open all night agony here, Slayer."

"Shut up, Spike." There was little sting in that rebuke; Buffy's sting
was reserved for Angel.

"He's feeding," Angel spoke up defensively, hoping that an emphasis on
Spike's activities would shift Buffy's pissed off expression from its
current focus. "Killing."

"Bloody hell! That guy is alive. How many times--"

"What part of 'shut up' is the problem for you?" Buffy glanced briefly
at Spike and returned her gaze to Angel. She was more angry with him and
his outrageous presumptions. All she could think was that Angel thought
of her as his property. At some fundamental level he viewed her as an
object for him to possess.

This was going to stop tonight. Buffy couldn't believe she'd let it
linger this long. Angel couldn't or wouldn't end it and she'd been a
fool to think otherwise. Despite the anger rising within her, Buffy
managed to keep her conversation calm and on target.

"You said you wanted me free to live my life, Angel."

"Spike is not your life."

"Don't change the subject," Buffy's lips contracted into a knot. Angel
was so good at controlling the course of conversations. Buffy plowed
onward. She wasn't going to be deterred. "Was it a lie? Hmm? Or does
your plan for me include a long list of exceptions. Maybe you should
give me the rule book so I can study up on how to live up to your
expectations. Or maybe you do want me in a nice sterile terrarium where
you can feed me lettuce leaves." Her clipped words, brittle and precise,
rattled toward him like bullets. Angel wavered uneasily on his feet.

"No. Um, I-- Buffy-- It's just--" Angel sputtered, his easy way with
words abandoning him. Images of Spike and Buffy drifted in to his mind,
naked limbs, writhing bodies and one hateful, horrible word: consensual.
Focusing on that unhelpful image caused his speech to stumble. Forcing
his thoughts toward Spike alone, however, managed to clear out the
cobwebs.

"THAT IS A MONSTER." The words stabbed the air as Angel's finger stabbed
in Spike's direction. "RABID...SOULLESS...DEMON..." His eyes flared
wildly as he struggled to make his point with the right words.

Spike spoke up quietly in the voice of a true agitator. "Yeah, that
seems to be going around. Tell me the truth, have you quite recovered
from your recent nasty bout of Angelusness? Hmm?"

"Stop it!" Buffy winced and brought her fingers to the bridge of her
nose. Another headache crowded into her skull, right on schedule.
"You're making my head hurt."

"See what you've done, you moron?" Angel accused.

"Me? You're the one who's over the edge, mate. Screaming up a bloody
storm--"

"SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU! You're BOTH giving me a headache." Buffy folded
her arms, bunching up her warm coat as the chill of the night air
suddenly made its presence known.

Angel blinked slowly looking from Spike to Buffy and back again. He
could feel it. There was something in the air resonating between these
two. His desperate attempts at denial evaporated to dust. "Buffy. How
could you-- I mean-- How could you?"

There was no use denying anything. Buffy knew enough about the accuracy
of a vampire's sense of smell to know that the cat was not only out of
the bag, the bag itself was now a small pile of shredded fibers. Angel
probably knew she'd changed her brand of dental floss as well. She let
out a labored sigh.

"It just sorta happened." There was the impulsive verbal shrug of
teenaged ambiguity when faced with the sting of authority. She wasn't
trying to be cute or make excuses. It really wasn't any of Angel's
business. Buffy regretted her words as soon as they left her mouth. Why
did she need to justify anything to him?

"WHAT?! Just sorta happened? What the HELL does that mean?" Angel shook
his head trying to realign his thoughts. This was Buffy: sweet, innocent
Buffy, midnight kisses Buffy, ice cream cones and coffee for two Buffy.
Not fucks Spike Buffy. A shudder of revulsion slithered down Angel's
spine.

Buffy looked into Angel's face, ashen now with the unwelcome and
repulsive news. Icy fingers gripped her stomach. She felt the familiar
pang of judgment. What the hell did he want from her? Angel kept talking
about making a break, starting fresh yet he stayed in town; another
unwanted albatross around her neck.

Buffy opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. She didn't want to
blurt something out in haste. Why was she even rationalizing herself to
Angel in the first place? Angel took it as a sign of regret. He could
still save her, from herself if need be.

The corner of Buffy's mouth quirked imperceptibly. Spike saw her subtle
reaction as well. Was that regret? More icy fingers gripped his stomach,
wringing it with a muscular twist and signaling the return of an all too
familiar dull ache. An Angelus initiated dull ache.

"Just what I said," Buffy raised her chin with defiance. "It happened."

"What the hell were you thinking? No, you couldn't have been thinking.
How could you..." Angel's eyes darted about, searching for the least
offensive phrasing.

Spike added the unnecessary completion of Angel's thought. "The words
you're reaching for, your Peachness, are 'fuck Spike'."

"Spike--" Buffy was interrupted by a soft and deadly voice.

"I should have dusted you the first time I laid my eyes on you." Angel's
eyes glowed with an unearthly flame.

Buffy continued speaking. It was better to ignore the testosterone
cinders flaring up again. "It's my life, Angel. I don't see how this is
any of your business."

"Spike IS my business. I've cleaned up his messes more times than I care
to remember." That didn't go over very well. Buffy's eyes went cold. She
was a mess to be cleaned up?

"Don't do me any favors." Spike snarled sourly from his crouched
position.

Never much of a talker, Angel's tongue was finally loosened. He released
a weighted and bitter sigh. "It's true...you really...fucked him." An
unrepentant Buffy faced his look of blistering disappointment. At that
moment Angel's condescension infuriated her.

"Yeah, so what?"

"So what?" Angel's mouth twisted. Who was this girl and what had she
done with his Buffy? "Spike's a killer. He'll turn on you Buffy, it's
what he does."

"HEY!" Spike roared a dry cough. "You don't know the first fuckin' thing
about me anymore."

"You're a vampire Spike. A demon. That's all I need to know." Angel's
dismissive tone always fueled Spike's defiance.

"Et tu, Nancy?" Spike looked up at Angel with a face full of false
sweetness.

"That does it," with a snarl Angel advanced, ready to finish it for
good. Buffy stepped sideways and blocked his access to Spike. Angel
stopped and looked at her with stunned disbelief. "Buffy?"

"No." She shielded Spike from Angel's simmering wrath. This maneuver
wasn't lost on Spike either. Kick the Spike was over.

"You'd protect him...from me?" An incredulous eyelash flutter. "You do
still believe in the eradication of evil, right? Or is this some weird
parallel dimension where Spike merits your time and consideration?"

"This isn't about Spike, Angel."

"Oh yeah? What, you been fucking some other demons too?" The explosive
smack of Buffy's palm to Angel's cheek reverberated through he quiet
night. He shook off that blow as regret for his ugly, impulsive
statement sunk in.

"That was brilliant!" Spike cheered from the sidelines. "Smack 'im
again, Slayer!" Buffy blinked slowly and cleared her throat.

"Shut up, Spike." Why did that suddenly seem to be her mantra? She
continued speaking, her voice clear and firm. "I already have a father
to look at me with disapproval, Angel. I DON'T need it from you."

Was that all she saw? Clearly he wasn't saying things correctly. It was
Spike's fault. His presence alone threw Angel's game plan into flux.
Plus, Buffy wasn't thinking straight. This was just stick in the mud
adolescent rebellion.

She was supposed to go for a normal guy. The quarterback or president of
the student council or even some harmless dweeb from the chess club;
that's what Angel wanted for her, somebody human and warm. Somebody with
a heartbeat and a future. Not another vampire. Not a demon. And
certainly not Spike. Spike was dangerous. Angel knew just how dangerous
Spike could be. After all, Angelus had taken precise steps to ensure
that Spike would be just as warped and depraved as he was.

"Buffy, you're not--" His arrogance was really too much. Buffy
interrupted quickly.

"We're not together Angel, your choice, remember?" Her words vibrated
with anger. Angel stared at her. "And still you have this whole list of
rules and regulations set out for me that determine the way I'm supposed
to live my life? How extra oppressive of you. Lucky me." The sarcasm cut
deeply.

Angel changed his tack, back to smooth sugar daddy. "I care for you
Buffy." His voice hit her like a fist. "I care what happens to you." His
concern met only a steely gaze.

"Okay. Let's get real clear about that one, Angel." Buffy spoke in tones
of a somber confession. "Death is what's coming for me. I've got a long
list of previously dead slayers to confirm that destination." Spike
looked upon the spectacle with interest. He knew this slayer had grit
and nerve. It made him proud to see her putting the screws to Angel, and
about bloody time too.

"Buffy--" Angel persisted but she plowed on, ignoring his argument.

"I've got this huge weight looming on me and you're actually trying to
tell me how to balance it and tap dance at the same time? Take a number,
Angel. I've got my parents, Giles, Principal Snyder and my friends. Why
not one more person who knows better than me how I should live my life."

"I love you Buffy." Blunt force trauma in four words. She looked
implacable, but her edges were wavering. He offered her the lost puppy
look. Of all the roles Angel had played out in his long, long life,
abandoned puppy was among the most effective and least believable. It
used to work like a charm. She snickered dryly to try to control her
mounting rage.

"You love me." The words were flat and dead on her tongue. "Good
justification, Angel. That's great. Go ahead and love me. Bully for
you." It was a manipulation, pure and simple. Coercion. How could she
have not seen it? He pulled her every which way as if she did have a
leash and the worst thing was knowing that she had let him. Angel may
truly believe that what he felt was love, but for Buffy it looked like
control and it felt like control, and she was nobody's puppet. She
turned toward Spike only to have Angel draw near and grab her elbow.

"Spike will never love you." There was a measure of desperation in his
words and a touch of cruelty.

"Get your stinking paws off of her, you bloody great lout!" Spike's
tongue still had the strength to defend. Buffy looked blankly into
Angel's eyes and struck her own devastating blow.

"Love is highly overrated."

Buffy pulled her arm decisively from Angel's grasp. She was through
living in a hermetically sealed fantasy bubble on Angel's shelf. This
was her life. Her decisions. Her mistakes. She stopped believing in
fairy tales and knights on white horses a while back. She didn't need
Angel to protect her or blow her nose or give her his blessing. She
didn't need Angel, period.

Romance with a capital R totally sucked. Star-crossed lovers never fared
well. It made for an okay Leonardo DiCaprio movie -- maybe -- but in
real life? No thanks. Buffy put away those silly fantasies. Wishing on
stars and rainbows didn't alter her reality, or her expiry date. Real
life was harder, but it had greater depth and texture than any of her
anemic fantasies ever had. For good or ill she was going to choose real
life now and leave those girlish fancies behind.

"You don't mean that." Confusion spread on Angel's face. Spike looked
upon him with incredulity. Angelus was often blind to exactly what was
in front of his face. Did he even know this girl at all? If he'd paid
attention, Angel would have known that the anachronistic father knows
best attitude wasn't going to wash with this one. Spike knew she wasn't
a child to be told what to do, not by a long shot.

Frustration broke through Buffy's demeanor. "Angel! Sometimes I feel
like we've never even met. I would have preferred you never found out
about Spike and me but that's not an option now and contrary to what you
may think this is MY BUSINESS -- MINE. Not yours. So, I fucked Spike.
Yep, I did that. Me. St. Buffy. And if I want to fuck Spike again then
I'll bloody well do it." That sentence got Spike's full attention.
That's the Slayer he knew, coming out swinging, jumping off into the
unknown.

Buffy was beyond caring at this point. She wasn't going to live her life
according to anyone's dictates, Angel included. He glared at her in
shock.

"What? You're going to look at me like I'm Buffy the Wonder Slut now?"
Her body practically crackled with frustration and anger. "I can see it
in your eyes, Angel. Disappointment. Well you can forget it. You be all
broody. I can't live on your pedestal anymore and I won't. It's not my
sacred duty to make you content or less gloomy or anything. It's hard
enough making it through to dinner most days."

"Buffy, please--" Spike never imagined he'd hear a voice like that come
from the throat of his grandsire. It was small and pleading. Pathetic.

"Angel, I'm not having this conversation. I don't need to justify or
explain myself to you or anyone. Spike, can you walk?" Spike lurched to
his feet with a groan and the clicking, painful sound of shifting bones.

"I'll bloody well walk away from this fucker."

"Then do it," she rasped. "Just get out of here." Spike took the
opportunity offered. He staggered away through the trees. Buffy turned
toward Angel once more. "Don't follow him and DON'T take this out on
him."

Mercy for Spike? "What's happened to you Buffy?" Angel whispered, unsure
whether he wanted the answer. Almost at tears Buffy let out a bitter
laughing gasp.

"How dare you ask me that. I sent you to hell Angel, remember? I
wandered through the wilderness and was nearly killed because I thought
it was preferable to the pain of losing you. Then you come back and it's
been all hugs and puppies since." Her voice soured and quickened.
"You're gone, you're back. We're together, we're not. I can't take it. I
can't adjust. I haven't had a couple of centuries to figure things out
and get perspective. I am not so resilient. I can't have this in my head
any more." She wasn't the golden princess Angel loved, nor was he the
enchanted boy she could free with that perfect kiss.

They were poison to each other.

Angel took a step toward her. This would be the part where they hugged
and reconciled. They'd done it before. He could be her Prince Charming
again. He could make Spike go away and it would all be better. "Don't
say that," his voice soothed as he attempted to embrace her. "Let's go
back to the mansion and talk about this." Buffy growled in exasperation
and broke away.

"ANGEL! STOP IT! Are you even listening? Have you heard anything I've
said?" Buffy looked up at Angel with a defiant gaze. "You've told me
there's no future for us so many times and now you're...what? Shocked
that I actually believe it?"

"And you think there's a future with Spike?" Angel chuckled darkly. The
sound caused the hairs to rise at the base of Buffy's skull. "Think
again little girl."

"Maybe Spike can't give me what I need, but that's for me to find out."
Buffy steeled her voice. "And I'm going to find out, believe me. I'm
gonna live my life for me."

"Don't be a fool, Buffy. You think you can be..." Angel struggled for
the contemporary euphemism, "...fuck buddies with him? Make him mind his
Ps and Qs? Clean him up for dinner with mom?" His dismissive tone of
voice chilled her to the bone. The last time she'd heard that mocking
derision, Angelus was in the driver's seat. "It'll never happen. I know
this. I know him. He's an animal. Spike's a killer, through and
through." Angel had dealt with obstinate children before, he knew he was
right. She'd see.

"Yeah," she said blankly, extinguishing the verbal accelerant Angel
lobbed at her with her next sentence. "I can see the family
resemblance." It was an unexpected final comeback. Buffy didn't rise to
his bait. The argument died instantly. Bile foamed at the back of
Buffy's throat. She was going to be sick. Buffy hadn't realized the
depth of anger that had been churning inside her, anger and bitterness
and the withering yoke of guilt. The truth of the moment hit her with
stark clarity. There was nowhere left to go but here.

This was good-bye.

There was no immediate feeling of loss or torment, only an empty place.
Buffy wanted it done and over with. This had nothing to do with Spike,
either. She knew she couldn't fix Angel and that she no longer cared to
try. It was a hard and stunning truth.

Turning sharply on her heel, Buffy stumbled beyond a clump of shrubs and
then her legs answered the call of her heart. The pavement beat an
accelerating pace beneath her boots. Cool, clear night air fought its
way through her constricted throat to her lungs. Ever deepening
inhalations eventually quieted the nausea boiling within her gut. Only
when she was beyond the city limits did she slow down, eventually
falling in a heap on the sand. That's when the tears arrived, heavy and
potent with sorrow.


tbc...

Author: kindred
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns these characters lock, stock and profitable
barrel.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Yes, please! I am happy to receive it.
Summary: Sequel to "No Vacancy". It takes place in S3 in Sunnydale.
Have-itch-will-travel Spike visits Buffy...they enjoy an entrée of
truth, but it comes with a side order of consequences.





13.

Just before dawn Buffy walked the length of Revello Drive. Her sand
encrusted jeans rustled stiffly against her weary legs. A few houses had
lights on in small upstairs windows; no doubt early risers going to
work, facing the new day. The sky stretched out overhead in wispy
chevrons of muted pinks and blues. The darkness of the night sky always
broke into a riot of colors before dawn. The speckled swath of the Milky
Way dimmed as competing cloud vapors chased each other across the vast
expanse, racing toward the glowing horizon and the burst of a new day.

A faint chorus of bird songs reached Buffy's muffled ears. She plodded
onward, one foot in front of the other, past homes and yards that seemed
subtly transformed. The street looked different, or was it that Buffy
hadn't ever given much thought to the layout of her street before? When
did the Wallaces paint their front door that putrid shade of orange?
Surely there was a municipal bylaw in place to protect innocent
neighbors from such repugnant color choices. Shit, had the trees rotated
on their moorings? Was that hedge always there?

Thoughts tumbled clumsily through Buffy's mind. Saturday mornings used
to be her favorite. Cartoons as far as the eye could see and breakfast
in her Little Mermaid cup and bowl. That all seemed so long ago, like a
bedtime story she remembered about some other little girl's life. Before
vampires and demons, before the fate of the world was tipped into the
palm of her small, yet mighty hand, before the night lengthened into a
twisted parody of forever in her sights; Buffy Summers was a normal
girl.

She liked drawing horses and begged her parents for riding lessons. She
loved to read and sang into her hairbrush in front of the mirror to her
New Kids on the Block cassette tapes. Everything was so simple then.
Buffy knew the future that was in store for her.

Buffy was going to marry Jordan Knight. She was sure of this. He was so
cute and the best singer and he had the most dreamy dimples. They would
live at the beach and she would be a marine biologist because she could
hold her breath the longest underwater. She even had a ribbon from sleep
over camp to attest to this singular skill. It was going to happen
because she wanted it so much. Joyce had even taken her to a New Kids
concert once and Buffy was positive that Jordan had smiled for her
alone.

Sometimes crushes die a horrible death. Sometimes they just drift away
like sand through your fingers. It's often not even intentional. It just
happens.

Unfortunately for Buffy, normal girl couldn't stick around. She was
pushed out by the trouble between Joyce and Hank. The move to Sunnydale
sealed the deal forever. Despite the nostalgic New Kids poster Buffy
taped to her wall and the dated pop tunes she sometimes still sang in
the shower, normal girl wasn't going to return. Ever. Normal girl was a
memory she kept on her bookshelf with the perfect, tiny dried starfish
she kept tucked inside tissue paper in the miniature porcelain tea pot
grandma had given her.

After overhearing her parents arguing over the fragile state of her
sanity, Buffy bid normal girl a fond farewell. That's when she became
the keeper of secrets, a flesh chalice of dark truths in an unflappable
smile. Monster talk stopped and birthday party and sleep over
invitations resumed. It worked for the most part. Hank and Joyce so
desperately wanted to put that unpleasantness behind them that neither
thought of the possibility that it was all a mask. Buffy learned to
juggle a new and complex social etiquette as she shielded the world from
the beings that slithered through the shadows.

Becoming an adult isn't like passing driver's ed or placing first in a
track meet. There's no license to be issued or ribbon involved, no
secret handshake or membership card. No one taps you on your shoulder
and tells you that you're an adult.

Being a grown up is about taking responsibility and facing up to the
consequences of your choices. It's an everyday, exhausting and thankless
endeavor trying to look forward with hope instead of backward with
weighted regret. Negotiating the fear and the pain and the boredom. But
it's also about letting go. Letting go of wishes and fancies and most
importantly, the dream that the past can ever be different.

There is a point when the do-overs dry up; a time when you stand up for
yourself.

The blissfully chaotic and seemingly uneventful normal life of Buffy's
neighbors would never be hers, but she'd be damned if she'd live a life
of quiet desperation either. So she got apocalypses on her plate instead
of a mortgage and an electrical bill. There was some good stuff too. She
had friends and family, necessary connections to the world beyond
shadows. She had a sense of humor and still felt that good things were
possible. Being the slayer hadn't squashed everything.

And there was Spike. Whatever was happening between them felt...okay.
Well, better than okay. If Spike wasn't at the house then she'd check
some of the old crypts. Buffy hoped that Angel hadn't pushed Spike into
leaving town. Not yet. Not when she hadn't figured out what 'better than
okay' meant. Not when she hadn't told him.

1630 Revello Drive loomed in welcome ahead of her; that was home,
belonging, and safety. Buffy turned up the front walk and hurried up the
stairs. A pitiable sight greeted her on the porch. Spike lay in the
shadows, tucked up tight to the house. He looked beaten and raw. His
eyes swam to focus at the sound of her approach.

"All in all, I thought Peaches took it quite well." His voice sounded
bizarrely chipper considering the ragged condition he was in. With slow
and deliberate movements, Spike stood, bracing himself against the side
of the house as his head lolled with incoherent half thoughts.

"You need a muzzle." Buffy didn't want to think about anything right
now. She dug into her front pocket for the house key, the lock clicked
and the door swung open. Buffy walked inside.

"Let me mend a bit first, pet." Spike quipped breezily, managing an air
of sexual arrogance. He followed her inside. A lightning fist greeted
him as soon as he closed the door. That nose was definitely broken now.

"OW! Bloody hell. What the FUCK was that for?" Spike fell back against
the door. His sudden yelp of pain hit Buffy in her gut.

"You're FEEDING?" So she did hear the poofter's news flash after all.

"Gotta keep my strength up, don't I?" He had the nerve to wink at her.

"Did you kill?"

"No." Buffy grabbed his shoulder and held up a stake. "NO! I didn't,"
Spike turned sideways, there was a relentless snare drum in his head
beating out an aggressive rhythm. That was never a helpful sign. He
should be dead drunk to feel this rough. No such luck. His voice shrank.
"It wasn't the same." Buffy wrinkled her brow.

"What?" she scrutinized his silent face. The result was inconclusive.
She couldn't read that dazed look at all. "WHAT?" she demanded with a
snarl, her fists tightly clenching his leather. Spike winced at the
returning pain and gripped her shoulders in an effort to stay upright.

"Didn't taste right." He paused and twisted his mouth. She was going to
make him say it. "It wasn't your blood."

Puzzlement and horror crept over Buffy's face. What did he mean by that?
Did he want to drain her completely? She paused with uncertainty. This
was a vampire she was dealing with. Spike and blood were a matched set.
Forever bound.

For his part, Spike didn't want to feed from her at all. Well, not too
much. The decadent high he experienced from tasting her soured his
attempted kill and that failure to perform rattled him to the core,
leaving him wide open for Angel's attack.

"Oh God, that's some kind of vampire compliment, isn't it?" As if on cue
both bites tingled in unison.

"It's what I am." Spike looked at her. No apologies. "It's what you
want, innit?" The words fell drowsily from his lips.

"What I want?"

"'Cept I come..." He smirked at the word and failed to meet her gaze,
"curse free."

"You think I want an...Angel substitute?"

"Don't you?"

"No." She didn't want that misery compounded by a repeat performance.
Spike focused on her face, trying to gauge the truthfulness of that
statement. She was a puzzle, this one. No matter how much he despised
the thought, Buffy once loved Angel and probably still did. But did she
feel anything for Spike? Could she be capable of feeling for him? Could
they ever share anything beyond the moment of physical release?

"Honestly pet? I don't think you have a bloody clue what you want. Don't
matter anyway, you know what you need. And so do I."

"Spike, if you don't want a detachable nose, I suggest we end this
conversation right now."

In the blink of an eye Spike had Buffy pinned against the wall. It was a
supreme effort given his weakened condition and the extent of his
injuries. Spike leaned heavily into her not quite sure whether he was
awake or dreaming. His strength ebbed away as it appeared to Buffy that
she alone was keeping him on his feet.

"Sweetheart," he spoke in an affectionate mumble with eyes closed. He
wanted to hold her and tell her. His feelings were developing and
deepening far faster than he could control. Could she accept that from
him? Would she? Buffy looked into his poor, battered face. It hurt her
to know that Angel did that damage, most of it anyway, and that Spike
took a beating because of her. Words swam to the surface. Spike chose as
carefully as he could, wanting to convey something important. Some of
the words slurred as his concentration flagged, but he was determined to
tell her.

"I'm not like him, Slayer. Never was, never will be. No matter what
bollocks he's told you, 'm not what he thinks...I'm my own man." He fell
forward, his head awash with dizziness. Buffy grabbed his arms.

"Spike?" He collapsed into her embrace.

"Won't let him...hurt you...tosser likes to hurt little girls...make
'em...cry." The words barely reached useful articulation.

"Sofa." Buffy wedged herself against his side and swung an arm around
his back in support. Together they lurched toward the sofa.

"He's...bloody...liar. Don't...trust..." Spike's words collided in a
slowing, staggered rhythm. Buffy managed to angle his limp body as he
dove face first for the cushions. She tried unsuccessfully to remove his
coat so she opted for the boots instead, unlacing them and then removing
them from his feet.

"You rest. I'll..." Buffy paused. She certainly was a complication
magnet these days.

Had she just been mouthing off to Angel? Making a show of adolescent
defiance? Or was there some genuine determination behind her contentious
statements. I'm gonna live my life for me. That's what she said. That's
what she meant. Maybe Spike could be a real part of that life, whatever
it was going to be. Maybe not. Either way she'd decide. And it wouldn't
be to spite Angel either. That would just be ricochet childishness.
Frustration rose again in Buffy's gut. Ugh. Men-- Vamps and their egos.
It was excruciating being on the receiving end of that amount of ego
fueled bullshit.

"I'll go to the butcher's when it opens and get you some blood." Buffy
amazed herself with that sentence. One thing was true, Spike would need
blood to heal properly from Angel's attack. She looked at Spike to see
his reaction, but he was already dead asleep. Buffy reached for the sofa
throw and spread it over Spike's prone body. Asleep, without his
requisite smirk and eyebrow arch, he looked young and vulnerable. There
was definitely a look approaching kindness in that sleep expression.

With a sigh Buffy turned on her heel and made her way upstairs. She
needed to wash her face. Crying always did nasty things to her
complexion. At the top of the stairs she slid off her jacket and tossed
it into her bedroom. Another round of laundry was needed. Her bed looked
wind tossed. Thoroughly used. Later. There would be time for that later.
First the face. Buffy twisted her wrist around the edge of the bathroom
door and flicked on the light. Time for the truth.

Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror stilled her. Puffy
eyes, swollen lips and smudged tracks of dirt and mascara sullied her
face. That girl had been through a battle. She bore the ravaged signs of
defeat. Only a few hours ago she applied lip gloss and mascara and
giggled at Spike's silly one liners and nuzzling kisses. When was that?
Three hours ago? The time difference stretched out like an eon in her
mind. Truly, she looked like she had faced a cataclysm of geologic
proportions.

The truth shone clearly in her haggard pupils. The silly girl who loved
Angel was gone and she wasn't coming back. Clarity shone a brilliant
light in her sober mind. Put away childish things. Stop living in the
past. Each new journey is begun with a single step. At one time her
refrigerator was littered with these slogans. Joyce had needed those
words once upon a time. Buffy took in a skittering breath. It was a new
day.

There were no tears left to shed but her face folded in sorrow. There
was no sound, no heaving histrionics, just a quiet acknowledgement of a
mindset passing into history.

This was the end of innocence: not her resolute acceptance of the
legacy, not the theatrical emergence of Angelus and his bag of horrific
tricks, not even the operatic anguish of sending Angel to hell; but
here. Innocence ended in the bathroom mirror, with bluish fluorescent
lighting shadowing her face. The truth was evident in Buffy's own
reflection and the certain knowledge that it was over for good. There
was no going back.

Buffy felt older.

Title: Open All Night
Author: kindred <alp@magma.ca>
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns these characters lock, stock and profitable
barrel.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Yes, please! I am happy to receive it.
Summary: Sequel to "No Vacancy". It takes place in S3 in Sunnydale.
Have-itch-will-travel Spike visits Buffy...they enjoy an entrée of
truth, but it comes with a side order of consequences.

14.

Buffy's mind was too crowded with conversations and confrontations to
sleep. Instead, she had a bath and then set about gathering up her
bedding for the laundry. An exhausted Spike heard nothing of her
nocturnal activities, nor did he stir when she left the house in search
of blood.

A ringing telephone entered Spike's dreams followed by the voice of
Joyce Summers on the answering machine. "Hey, sweetheart. I guess you're
out, huh? I'll be finished here earlier than I thought. Just so you
know, I'm hoping to catch a flight later tonight after the symposium,
instead of tomorrow. Did you eat the lasagna I left in the freezer?
Well, I can figure something out for myself later. Hope everything's
okay on your end. See you soon honey. Bye."

The turn of the bolt in the front door roused Spike again a short time
later. His heavy eyelids opened to a dated stucco ceiling. He closed
them again. Soft footsteps trailed from the front door to the kitchen.
He heard the microwave click open. A series of faint beeps indicated a
program selection.

Buffy had no idea how one prepared blood. It wasn't like microwave
popcorn. There weren't any helpful or easy to follow instructions. While
waiting for the program to end Buffy put another pouch of blood in the
fridge. Then she saw the message indicator light on the answering
machine. Buffy listened impassively to the message.

Joyce always sounded so cheery on the phone. Coming home early was a
sign that things went well in San Francisco and all her mom's hard work
in preparation was paying off. But Joyce coming home also meant Spike
had to go. The last thing Buffy wanted was her Mom's trouble radar to
start flashing like an emergency siren. Finding an injured or worse, an
amorous vampire in her living room would destroy what they had built
together.

At last the piercing beeps of the microwave rang through the quiet
house. Buffy pressed the door opener and put her hand on the bag of
blood. It felt sort of warmish. Maybe a little longer was necessary. She
chose a medium heat level again and punched in twenty more seconds.

Spike struggled to sit up when she entered the living room. He failed,
just managing to turn onto his back and lean his head against the crook
of the sofa arm. Buffy brushed the angora sofa throw off his body and
lay the warmed blood on his chest.

"They had pig or beef. I picked beef." Buffy thought of it in terms of
steak versus pork chops. The butcher, however, didn't bat an eyelash at
the request. Discerning Sunnydale customers had a wide range of exotic
requests for a discrete and well connected butcher. He merely filled her
order and slipped his business card into her bag with the receipt and a
thoughtful nod.

Instantly Spike morphed and moved the bag to his lips. With a crushed
hand he couldn't get a good enough grip on the bag to puncture it.
Sensing his mounting frustration, Buffy sat on the edge of the coffee
table and secured the bag over his mouth. A hungry growl accompanied his
forceful piercing of the bag. Spike soon sucked the contents with gusto.

It was an odd scene. The Slayer ministering to a wounded vampire and
that vampire staring at the source of his sustenance with wonder. Spike
could feel the life sustaining flow of warmth seeping through his
battered form as the needed healing began. Cellular strength returned
gradually as broken bones, torn ligaments and damaged muscles knit
themselves back together. Injured flesh slowly returned to Spike's
version of normal.

There was no shame either in showing himself truthfully to her. Spike
lay on her mother's sofa and revealed the truth of his continuing
existence to Buffy. Blood. It was all about blood for a vampire. Blood
for strength. Blood for sex. Blood for another day. Buffy heard the
blood swirl and gurgle down his throat as he eagerly consumed it. Why
didn't that sound sicken her?

Golden eyes stared at her without blinking. There was a glint of
compassion in her eyes that puzzled him. It did not compute. Spike had
little experience with such a reaction. Disgust was nowhere to be found
in her sweet face. That realization in itself was a healing balm.

One other automatic response activated during his feeding. Spike shifted
his reclining position to ease his strengthening erection. It wasn't
something he could have prevented even if he'd thought about it. Warm
blood always did that and animal blood was no exception. The pain of
Angel's fists returned, accentuated by the activated healing. The
pleasure of arousal was present as well, made even more acute by Buffy's
nearness to him. Pleasure and pain existed as one with Spike.

He slid his less injured right hand down the length of his torso,
drawing back the side of his bunched leather coat and cupping his palm
snugly over his erection. It howled for attention in his jeans. Buffy
followed the path of his hand with her eyes and slipped the empty bag
from his lips. His low rumbling growl hit her hard between her legs. The
sensual tenor of the scene aroused her. Golden eyes held her gaze and
suddenly she wanted him like that.

Buffy released a sigh. Shouldn't she be mad at Spike or annoyed or at
least somewhere in the vicinity of pissed? Spike's return to Sunnydale
upped the ante in the complication stakes. Strangely, no feelings of
hostility visited her. Angel's interference still chimed in her head,
the ample evidence of which lay prostrate before her on the sofa.

An insistent hand cupping his denim held her spellbound. What kind of a
deviant was she? He was injured and in need of rest, not whatever
debauched scenario was accelerating through her imagination with added
sound track. More frustration soon surfaced. Spike's one handed efforts
proved acutely unsatisfying. Buffy swallowed the enlarged knot in her
dry throat. She set aside the emptied bag of blood.

"I'd like to do that," she spoke softly and slid tentatively down the
coffee table. Her hands moved to his belt and unclasped it. Spike
relented and moved his hand aside. She opened his pants completely and
slipped them down, off his hips, much to the relief of a warmed and
fully engorged cock. Buffy curved her hand around his girth. A look of
amazement crept over her face.

"You're warm." There was a touch of astonishment in her voice. She
looked up at him.

"For a little while, yeah," he said and nodded. His forehead started to
wrinkle. Pain and pleasure stood shoulder to shoulder inside him.

"Is this going to hurt you?" Buffy suddenly registered the evident
bruises that had not faded. One grotesque splotch seeped down from his
rib cage toward his hip.

"No," Spike lied. Nothing was going to make him stop her. He was
practiced at handling pain. It was a matter of focus, of putting it
aside. With the anticipation of pleasure, the pain shrank away faster.

Inching closer, Buffy moved to her knees. She paused and mentally
assessed just how this mysterious task was to be accomplished. There was
apprehension but also a thrilling excitement as well. She could do this
for him and to him. Make him feel something other than beaten. Offer him
some warmth he wouldn't have to steal.

"He had no right to do this to you." Buffy bit her lip, feeling deep
shame for Angel's actions.

"He loves you." Spike surprised himself by uttering those words without
a trace of the bitter animosity he felt.

"Love is a misery." Buffy's mumbled reply ended as she kissed the tip of
Spike's engorged shaft. Sweet bloody Christ. Warmth and softness.
Buffy's mouth there. Uncontrolled reactions flew through Spike's body.
He buckled and winced as his musculature reacted in concert to her warm
lips. With concentrated effort he pushed the pain into a corner of his
mind, containing it. An unneeded breath whistled softly through the air.

"I'm through with pain, Spike. I want to feel good. I want you to feel
good. Should I be licking? What?" Spike looked at her with a stunned
expression, idling in anticipation. "Spike, help me out here. What do I
do?" She wrinkled her brow with uncertainty.

"Go easy love, tongue and lips is fine, but no teeth, yeah?" That earned
him an incredulous stare. Like, duh. Buffy knew enough to keep her teeth
out of it at least. Unfortunately, all those illicit Cosmo articles she
read once upon a time fled from her memory. This was real. This was
Spike, and from this particular angle he looked huge. How was she going
to be able to proceed? Feelings of inadequacy and determination elbowed
each other in her mind. Spike had given her such unrestrained pleasure.
She wanted to give him the same.

"Tongue and lips, okay, here goes." Her personal pep talk was so
endearing. He was going to love this girl. She had no idea how he would
love her.

Her initial innocent attempts were stop and go. Spike's cock flopped
around rather inconveniently, as if playing tag. Once he showed her how
to support it and lick at the same time, things improved.

Up and down his length her tongue slid, tracing the slick skin and
prominent veins. Certain angles worked better than others. Teasing down
the foreskin to tickle the glans was a definite hit. It was actually
okay and the look on his face was beyond amazing. When Buffy suddenly
shifted position and licked his balls, Spike jumped. That sounded like a
yelp.

"Is that okay?" She needed some confirmation. Glazed and wandering eyes
found hers. Spike tried to smile.

"Bloody better than okay, love." Spike spread his legs in a conscious
attempt to be doing something other than ramming himself into the
farthest reaches of her throat. It was a good bet that urge would not be
appreciated. He held back as if his life depended upon it.

"I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"Fuck no. Put it in your mouth," his soft voice constricted with need.
Buffy pursed her lips over his glans and obeyed, sucking him into her
mouth a couple of inches. Her tongue met him and pulsed against the
underside of the head. Spike groaned in response, far beyond sense and
reason. She surfaced quickly and released his shaft. Her lips held their
suggestive position as she stared at him.

That was a sound she wanted to hear again. He brought his palm tenderly
to the side of her head, encouraging her. "Keep doing that. I liked
that." Half a grin surfaced on his lips. Okay, she definitely wasn't
hurting him. Buffy sank down his length again.

There would be time for instruction and technique later. The sweet
earnestness of her desire to bring him pleasure was a gift he chose to
savor. She experimented with varying depths, pressures and tongue
positions. Spike did not disappoint. He elicited sounds she had never
heard before. Sounds of trust and surrender.

Emboldened by her success, Buffy continued. It wasn't that hard to
coordinate and she could tell she'd sent him someplace marvelous. Not so
long ago the thought of this activity was extremely unappealing, even
dirty. Now in the throes of something illicit and thrilling, Buffy
thought only of Spike. She was doing this for him. Giving him something
no words could convey. Suddenly she felt very sexy.

The weirdest thoughts entered her mind. The old cheer leading rhythms
she practiced so diligently sang through her head. Buffy pushed away a
goofy compulsion to jump up and whoop in triumph. It was entirely too
silly to be seriously considered and Buffy wasn't a total maniac. Plus,
Spike's ego was already in critical condition and any additional
boosting may result in outrageous behavior. She didn't want to encourage
crowing, or strutting, or any other potentially annoying and prolonged
displays of manliness. Buffy preferred him like this, possessed by
surrender. All contusions aside, he looked calm and serene. He looked
magnificent.

For his part, Spike was blissfully oblivious. This was a luxury he had
not often enjoyed. Drusilla didn't enjoy this act; well, not with him
anyway. She was not particularly talented in the 'giving of pleasure'
categories. Especially if the recipient was not Angelus. All thoughts
fled Spike's mind but one: Buffy. Buffy's mouth. Buffy's warmth.
Buffy...

He tasted salty and tangy but there was something else besides. There
was an underlying coolness that was present as a flavor. Buffy
remembered tasting snowflakes at Grandma's house one Christmas. He had
something of that refreshing essence as well.

"Yeah, like that. Suck me." His breathy whisper reached her ear.
Encouraged by her success so far, she took him in further and
concentrated on sucking. He gasped in helpless ecstasy as she increased
her pressure.

"Like that?" she paused and then sucked harder, all the while watching
his blissful face. At last Buffy achieved a steady rhythm of engulfing
and releasing him that satisfied. A small muscular tick touched his
lips. When he spoke again the words were so soft she thought as first
they were in her own mind.

"Buffy..." he sighed, lost in the ether of her mouth.

The shock of hearing him say her name was matched by the sudden presence
of his cool, milky semen on her tongue. She swallowed quickly, trying to
handle the frothy volume. He spurt in wave after wave and she swallowed
it without flinching. Her description of the flavor wouldn't have been
'yummy', but it wouldn't have been 'yuck' either. 'Better than mom's
organic yogurt' would have been more accurate.

Spike's hips jerked helplessly into her mouth until the last of his
fluid was expelled. When that ceased, Buffy scooted across the carpet on
her knees and looked into his face.

"Say it again!" she demanded.

"What?" Spike looked into her animated face and wiped some errant
ejaculate from her cheek.

"My name. Say my name." She stared transfixed at the wonder of his lips.

"Buffy..." he whispered. In response, she covered his swollen mouth with
hers. The care she took to kiss lightly was soon ignored as Spike
growled and deepened their kiss.

tbc...

15.

The pain Spike felt from the beating was no great impediment to
pleasuring Buffy thoroughly and tenderly. His crushed left hand would
need some time to heal but his right hand was ready, willing and able to
take up the slack. Her soft flesh and arching breaths healed Spike more
than time or the balm of blood.

After a while, Buffy warmed the other bag of blood and served it in a
huge mug with miniature marshmallows. It was an impulsive request on
Spike's part and it received an initial incredulous stare from Buffy.
There was that bag of marshmallows stuffed behind the coffee filters and
Spike made himself look particularly pathetic, so she relented. Buffy
was never much of a fan of marshmallows and seeing those sugary blobs
floating cheerfully in that velvety liquid moved them into the 'foods
that will never touch my lips again' category.

Later they lay in an easy embrace, naked and wrapped in the angora throw
on the living room carpet. A soft sated hum wandered up from Spike's
chest. That's when the bubble burst.

"I could love you, Slayer." Soft fragile words tumbled from Spike's
tongue.

Buffy opened her eyes in shock. Love? No, no, no. She didn't want that.
She wanted what they already had, good feelings and orgasms and no soul
slicing fighting. Love was pain and hurting and headaches from crying.
Love was hopelessness. She didn't want to plummet from the rapture she
felt to that misery. She wanted skin and salt and the sound of thunder
from Spike's throat. Love would destroy that.

"No Spike, don't love me," her voice echoed in an empty monotone. "You
love Drusilla. I love Angel, and we're all miserable. Let's keep it at
that. No surprises. No confusions. I don't want it anymore. I'll never
hurt like that again. Ever."

The girl had some weird ideas. Spike turned on his side and stared at
his mark on the base of her neck. He lay his palm against her collar
bone and lightly stroked the spot. Contrary to her supposedly more
modern views, Spike didn't go in for casual relationships. From day one
he knew it would be serious business with this one. Even when all he had
in his mind was her destruction, it was serious between them.

He didn't do casual.

"Buffy?"

"I'm serious." She turned her head, set her jaw and looked him square in
the eye. He was a lost man. What was he supposed to say?

"Okay pet, fine by me."

"Say it then." She removed his hand from her skin in an effort to make
her position more serious. The seconds ticked by as he tried to figure
out what it was she wanted to hear. More lies.

"I won't love you Slayer." The words rushed from his lips along on a
bitter sigh. It wasn't very convincing. Spike wasn't the best liar, that
was Angelus' department.

Drusilla always said that Spike was made to smash and bash. It was true.
She responded to him best when he was soaked in destruction. He wrote
poems for Drusilla with his fists and fangs. Chaos and ruination were
the masterpieces he carved for her. However, Drusilla's riotous
pandemonium never erased a deeper truth that predated her entrance into
Spike's life.

William was born to love, to feel it and be tortured by it. Spike loved
as deeply and madly as William, but with the added zeal of a hellion.
Spike's love was all consuming fire and brimstone, rain and sorrows,
flesh and bone.

Love was his required respiration.

For her part, Buffy was not completely blind to this truth, to what she
did to him. She felt the truth of his desire and the weight of it. She
wasn't just a body under him, that much was clear. She also was not just
fucking blindly. It was Spike. His body. His touch. His kiss. His
whispers. It was all Spike.

It was Spike at her neck, tickling her skin with his nose and tongue,
torturing squeals of pleasure from her and tracing the contours of his
insignia with microscopic precision. It was Spike between her legs,
teasing her to one orgasm after another, giving her waves upon waves of
boundless pleasure. His touch was raw or soft or electric or hypnotic,
but it was always honest.

His fingers returned to her throat and softly stroked over his mark. Two
tiny punctures indicated that they had gone far beyond barriers and
games. No words were needed. Inexplicably, Buffy snuggled closer to him.

"Good." She seemed pleased. Spike quirked his battered eyebrow.

"Good?! You don't want love? Is that it?" He furrowed his brow in an
attempt to understand the situation.

"Never again."

"Um, one question if I may?" This girl was definitely an enigma.

"Sure. What?"

"You do know what this means...don't you?" He leaned forward and licked
the tiny puncture marks.

"Sp-i-i-ke." His name caught in her throat as her body and mind argued.
Spike stroked the side of her cheek, focusing her attention to him.

"This means...I belong to you and you belong to me..." Buffy pursed her
lips together. She'd read the fine print, every last annotated footnote.
She knew that kind of behavior wasn't like a handshake. "Forev--"

"Don't say that." She interrupted quickly. Her voice held pain. Buffy
swallowed heavily and refused to meet his eyes. She didn't need the
specter of forever dangled in front of her face. Why be tempted with
what never could be? Forever wasn't in the fine print. Not with Spike.
Not with anybody. The clock was ticking. Her mom was coming home
tonight. Angel was out there and he knew the truth. The truth. It was
high time Buffy figured out what the truth was.

Spike paused, waiting for some sign. She merely tightened her arm across
his waist. That's what he wanted. Forever. All previous fantasies of her
death were hollow compared to what was passing between them now. A real
conversation. Real feelings. Real possibilities. She lay her cheek
against his breast. His deep rumbling voice filled the quiet room.

"Why shouldn't I say that? It's the truth."

"No. It's not." Buffy paused before pushing the thickened words out of
her throat. "I don't get to have forever."

"Doesn't change a thing. Not for me." Buffy looked into Spike's eyes,
grateful for the honesty she saw reflected there.

It was a doomed and sorry mess. Anything that gave him this much
pleasure was, by definition, short lived. And Angel knew. That poxy
faced, bloated bucket of bollocks was incapable of letting anyone else
be happy if he couldn't be. It didn't matter, Spike would take this
sweetness and lick every delicious drop of pain from it. He'd take it
because he wanted it more that he could ever remember wanting anything
before.

"This isn't going to end well," Buffy whispered, acknowledging the murky
path ahead.

"Not thinking of the end just yet, love."

An unwanted throb began to make its presence known behind Buffy's right
eye. Slayer and vampire? Again? That never led anywhere peachy keen.
When Giles found out he'd put a stop to it. Or a stake. Buffy started
feeling small again. Constricted. The worst part was thinking that it
would end.

Suddenly, Giles' voice entered Buffy's mind. Inconceivable.
Unconscionable. Reckless. Careless. Thoughtless girl. Even imagined
Giles-speak could really be a downer. Buffy sat up with a shudder and
pulled the woolen throw tightly around her shoulders, leaving Spike
sprawled and naked beside her. She attempted a common sense approach.

"This is wrong Spike. You must see that." She turned toward him for
emphasis. "Wrong and bad and, shit...what's another word for wrong?"

"It's bloody fantastic is what it is," a gasp of mirth bubbled from
Spike's chest. "Can't argue with that now, can you?" Spike had the
uncanny ability to stay in the now. The what ifs could get stuffed.
Buffy looked askance at him, eyebrows and self-satisfied smirk at full
volume. Two of his fingers walked up her spine while a blush crept
across her cheek.

"Spike...there's rules and regulations--" In the blink of an eye he was
behind her, cradling her to his chest and nuzzling deeply into her neck.

"Really? You don't strike me as the rules and regulations type, pet.
That's what gives you the advantage. You've got instinct and
imagination...which you put to good use. You'll probably live to be a
cranky old biddy--" If he had anything to say in the matter, she would.

"Spike, listen to me. We need to be-- Ohhh..." The tip of his nose
nudged a feather light insignia over his mark. There was no mistaking
that connection. It buzzed between them and strengthened with each
touch.

"What, love? What do we need to be?" Spike shifted her in his arms and
turned her around, swaddling her to his chest as one would an infant.
The soft light in the Summers' living room highlighted the side of
Spike's face. That was an expression of love and acceptance. Beatific
splendor.

Buffy knew full well the color of Spike's eyes, but what amazed her was
the life she saw in them. Not just agony and the endless dirge of death
and stolen lives, but the riot of a life lived. Or unlived. There had to
be a glossary in Giles' books that could help with those tricky
vocabulary difficulties. Spike's eyes exploded with experience and shone
with a panorama of mischief. He'd already seen first hand more actual
history than Buffy could ever even hope to read about.

"Spike..." She studied the creamy contours of his face, made soft in the
diffused light.

"Tell me, sweet." Spike too was enrapt in a study of Buffy's face.

"Maybe we should stick to being enemies." Buffy chanced a brief look
into his eyes and then went back to the safety of his jaw.

"Enemies, hmm?" Spike kissed her temple.

"Yeah, you know, you vampire, me slayer? Like it says in Giles' books.
Enemies." Sticking with the familiar was a safe alternative to belly
flopping into whatever unknown depths surrounded them. Fraternizing with
the slayer wasn't likely to win Spike any popularity contests and Giles'
resolve face was something Buffy could do without.

"Is that what you want?"

"It's what I know." Her voice was flat again.

"You want me to take this back?" Spike tantalized the tiny contusions on
her flesh with the tip of his finger. "Pretend I never tasted
you...never wanted to?" It was a ridiculous request. Genies don't fit
back into bottles and vampire bites cannot be unbitten. "Sorry, love.
Can't do that." Buffy flexed her abdominal muscles in protest and
struggled to sit up. Spike held her firmly and drew his thumb across the
mark he left on her neck. "I can't take this back Buffy and I won't
pretend I don't feel what I feel."

"Spike--"

"Buffy. This is me." The flesh of his face rippled to reveal the demon's
visage under the human mask. His voice roughened, but remained calm and
controlled. "I don't have any other face I've kept from you behind door
number one, two or three. I'm not going to go after your mom or your
friends. I don't play games." He quirked the corner of his mouth into a
sly smirk. "Okay, I do play games, but not mind games. Not with you.
Contrary to what you may have been told, that's not exactly my style."

Buffy looked deeply into Spike's contorted face. Whatever else he was,
Spike hadn't proved a liar. Not that he was good or anything, but that
he was true to his word. Spike had done horrific things, but so had
Angel. If she could turn a new leaf, why couldn't Spike? Yeah,
yeah...big evil dude. Wily vampire. Dedicated black hat. Maybe he could
take a holiday from that stuff. Hadn't he vacuumed her room and ironed
her pillow cases for crying out loud? Maybe he was capable of something
else.

What was that damn destiny again? To rid the world of vampires and
demons. Who's to say that always meant with a stake? Buffy's thoughts
expanded. She couldn't make Spike good, but what if he chose not to do
evil? What if he tried? What is a man but the sum of his deeds?
Yesterday could never be changed, but today was another matter
altogether. It was an intriguing proposition.

"We can have something here, Slayer. Something good." She looked into
his yellow eyes, the cruelty in them now fled. "You just have to want
it."

"But we..." Buffy's tongue stumbled. What had Spike done except go after
something he desired? Buffy should have known better; after all, she'd
listened to Giles' soap box sermons often enough. "I broke the rules--"

"Fuck the bloody rules and regulations. Fuck those pencil pushing
wankers and their soddin' decoder rings."

"Spike." His name wafted on a strained whine as if from the edge of a
cliff. Her lips trembled with growing anxiety. He calmed her with a
gentle kiss.

"Turn off your mind love, listen to your body." He cuddled her closely.
"Tell me," he whispered in a dreamy tone. "Tell me that you want it.
Wrong, bad, against the bloody rules...but you still want it. I want you
to tell me...tell me Buffy..."

"I...I...Spike..." Her voice left her throat. The intimacy of the moment
made it difficult to breathe.

"The truth, Buffy. Speak it. You feel it...just say it."

"I want..."

"I'll catch you...I'll catch you." He mouthed the words tenderly with
the barest volume, drawing his lips over her cheek. She fought against
breathlessness to speak her inner most wish.

"I...want it." These words accompanied a tear from the corner of her
eye.

"I know love, I know."

Spike eased Buffy into a reclining position beside him and proceeded to
kiss her. Soft, easy lips and the tips of tongues tasted and teased,
enjoying the breath of affection passing between them. It was a sweet,
playful duet known unto lovers, for that's what they were now, lovers.
They embraced with the totality of their being, closer and closer,
closing a door to the world for a time; for a space they alone would
occupy.

The shadowy living room soon filled with the soft mewled tones of
Buffy's parched pleasure as Spike's fingers slowly traced the pathways
of her body. He inhaled the sweet incense of this new Xanadu -- a slayer
shaped pleasure dome opened before him, a perfect surrendering fortress
of bliss.

Buffy took what Spike offered her because she wanted it. Time would
alter this delight soon enough and make it seem sallow and wicked. Other
voices would crowd into her head and make their feelings known. Everyone
would have an opinion and a pronouncement on just what should be done
to remedy the situation. Giles might well rub a hole in the lenses of
his glasses over this one.

But that hadn't happened yet. That future was not now and not here. That
future did not exist. It wasn't in this room, made soft and sheltering
by the kisses and deliberate caresses of a dead man and a girl who
wanted to stay alive.

Buffy had only her opinion in her mind. Not Giles' or Xander's. Not
Willow's. Not Joyce's. It was a refreshing change. Buffy's fingers
followed their own direction as they navigated a meandering path across
Spike's bruise mottled skin. She traced the major muscles on his
shoulders and neck, his arms and back, all the while careful of his
still tender rib area.

Buffy dared a fantasy in which Spike stayed in Sunnydale, a future where
they could have something between them other than the mere cadence of
agitated respiration. After several minutes of silent mutual exploration
she tentatively broached the subject.

"What's next?"

"Well, we haven't tried the kitchen, love. Your island looks sturdy
enough and plenty inviting."

"Spike." She rolled her eyes at him.

"I think I could manage the stairs and your bed makes the most
interesting chirp. Did you happen to notice?"

"Would you stop it with the one track mind, already? Geez."

"Make me." Spike's tongue was a dangerous exclamation point.

"Spike!" Buffy let out an exasperated burst of air and continued. If
there was going to be an arrangement negotiated, there was one
iron-clad, non-negotiable point. "If you're thinking about staying in
Sunnydale, the killing is over." There, she said it, plain as day.

He tilted his head and countered with an indisputable truth. "Vampire,
pet. Gotta eat." Spike never actually thought through the logistics of
continuing this situation. He always lingered in the fleshier aspects of
their arrangement, in the sense memory of being covered by the molten
cream of the slayer's liquid body.

"The butcher shop always has blood, Spike."

"Bugger that. Animal blood is foul." He risked a swat, but his indignant
taste buds demanded to be heard.

"Will it keep you alive-- um, here?" She circumnavigated his Adam's
apple with the tip of her middle finger.

"Bloody hell, I'm actually considering this." His bluster and
exasperated scowl were merely for show. He already knew he'd do it.
Nothing was worth more than the continuation of this bliss. The Slayer
was more delicious than any of his evil schemes had ever been.

"You could supplement..." her voice trailed off. She'd been thinking
this through.

"Hang on!" Spike's eyes widened. "Yeah, that guy! He walked away. I
could do two or three a night like that--"

"No Spike," Buffy interrupted firmly. "NOT civilians."

"Then what?"

"Me." She lowered her eyelids. Spike felt a living beat within his body.
He was speechless. "I'll do it." Buffy felt a new kind of bravery as she
voiced her desires. "I want this to continue. If you're interested, that
is." If he was interested? Spike swallowed heavily but continued to look
dazed.

"My mom's coming home tonight. That means you've got to go. And no more
middle of the night visits. My mom's a light sleeper and..."

"And you're a tad loud when properly motivated."

"Something like that, yeah. I was thinking that after dinner we could
find a nice-- I mean nasty crypt for you to move into." Buffy sighed
deeply and went on. "Angel already knows and it's no one's business what
we do. Angel doesn't own me Spike, and neither do you. No one does. No
one will ever own me." Spike understood the emotion behind that
sentiment completely. He chose not to bring up the finer, technical
aspects of his bite, but he knew full well what she meant. She'd never
be an object to him, something to posses. He nodded and kissed her
shoulder.

"Who knows how long I'll--" Buffy forced herself to continue. This was a
difficult certainty she could not evade. She was the Slayer. Death was
always in the picture. "I think I deserve something for doing a dirty
job." Once upon a time all she wanted was a date out to the movies or
dinner. Now she wanted rapture in the arms of this vampire. Nothing else
would suffice.

"Okay, if we're setting out the ground rules then I've got a couple for
you." Spike's tone of voice changed. Time for some bargaining.

"And that would be?"

"Henceforth, my schnozz is off limits. There will be no punching or
grabbing of the nose and nostril area. Whatsoever." He sounded deadly
serious.

"That's it?" She liked his nose. It had a definite lived in quality to
it.

"Oh, and no more calling me a pig."

"Um. What if you're being a pig?"

"Non-negotiable terms, Slayer." He glared at her with a serious
expression.

"Anything else, Mr. Not-a-Pig?" Spike pursed his lips to avoid his
creeping grin. He counted his terms on his fingers.

"Nasal respect...no more pig references of any kind," he raised an
eyebrow at her menacingly. "And, oh yeah. No more saying I can't love
you."

"Not very demanding at all, are you?"

"Not a jot. Well?"

"I won't love you, Spike, but I do kinda like you. And we both like
this." Spike smirked at her girlish blush.

"This is good," he pronounced plainly. Buffy swung a leg over his waist,
moving over him carefully.

"So...permanent truce?" She wiggled herself against his hardening shaft.
"Pinky shake?"

"Ask me again in a few minutes." Spike flipped them and plunged back
into her body. He sank his fangs into her welcoming neck. A growling
exclamation of sated passion rose between them.

Yours. Mine. Ours.

"Mmm, ask you what in a few minutes?" Buffy's breathy voice floated on a
tidal orgasm she'd yet to register.

"Truce, love?" Buffy drifted toward sleep, dumbly unaware of what had
just occurred.

"Truth?" she mumbled with her eyes closed. "I think I could love you..."
Her respiration elongated into a restful sleep rhythm.

Spike smiled with satisfaction at her disclosure. He pulled out of her
body and spooned her tenderly, pulling the warm sofa throw over them
once more.

"Sounds like the beginning of something good." Spike nuzzled his nose
into her neck and joined her in sleep.


The End.

A/N: That's it folks...some smoochy, some truths and a little
open-ended. I have no plans for further sequels to this story. Thank you
for reading and for sending me feedback. I am appreciative of your time
and attention. :)

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