By Fojiao2

While she wouldn't admit to enjoying the time she spent with Spike, Buffy had to admit that there were some things she liked doing with him. There was the thing she wouldn't talk about and which made her blush just to think about, of course. There was fighting. There was patroling. It was even okay drinking with him as long as they didn't indulge too often. But best of all was betting.

They wagered with each other all the time. About who could kill the most vampires in an evening. About who could leap the highest and do more flips before landing. About who could keep the bleach in their hair the longest before washing it out (a secret almost as embarrassing as the sex thing). Even about who could climb the tallest tree in the cemetery, jump off without even bothering to cushion the fall, and then walk away with the fewest bruises. Needless to say, it was the type of thing they did when a long patrol turned out to be vampire-free and they were both bored.

But Buffy enjoyed betting with Spike. Because it had rules, definite boundaries she could use to hem him in. It was one of the safest ways she could be around the sexy vampire, so naturally she used it to her advantage. Spike never welshed on a bet, never refused to abide by whatever torture came with a loss. Buffy couldn't say the same. It might have been unfair, but it was hardly the worst of the little cruelties she dealt out to him. He never called her on it and she continued to get away with it. Though secretly, she knew that she owed Spike 342 kisses and a backrub. Maybe she'd let him collect in her old age.

Spike always came back for more, of course. Wagering was one of the first things he did when Buffy returned to life, in an attempt to get her to display some real emotion. He bet her that he could think of more people who loved him than she could think of those who loved her. He began with Dru, of course, but she disqualified that, since she'd been there the last time he'd seen Dru and knew that that particular relationship was dust. So he said "Dawn," and Buffy had to accept it.

She returned with "Willow." He nodded and tried not to let her see his panic. He'd suddenly run out of people. So he unhesitantly began to invent a string of women he'd slept with during his long trip from Brazil to Sunnydale.

"Rosa."

"Xander."

"Consuela."

"Um. Angel."

Spike grimaced. "The twin sisters, Luba and Esperanza. I'll count 'em as one."

"Are you sure all these women love you?"

"It's what they were screaming all night, Slayer," he responded. "I was too polite to question it."

Buffy gulped at that. Only days back from the dead and she'd already started to notice that Spike was a lot sexier than he'd been before. Why was that? "My mom," Buffy said, giving him a hard look. "She counts."

"Oh well, in that case, my own mum. She loved her boy Will, she did."

Buffy's eyes wandered. "Dawn."

"Didn't I take that one?"

"She loves me, too."

"Given. Let's see--what was her name? At that rest stop in Bakersfield? Oh, yeah--Sandy! Tried to stow herself away in my car, that one. Just crazy about me."

"Giles."

"Lydia." A questioning eyebrow from Buffy. "That girl from the Watcher's Council, when they came to test your worthiness to fight Glory? She snuck back to my crypt while her mates were sleeping. Bit of a wild one, but it was good to hear my name screamed in an English accent again."

"Riley," Buffy growled at him.

"Oh! Fairly wounded I am! Halfrek," Spike said, deciding to throw in a real name just for the hell of it. She'd never find out who Halfrek had been to him, not in a million years.

"Um . . . Tara?"

Spike blinked. "If you say so, luv. Next, I'll say Liza. Of Lambeth." He knew Buffy would never catch the literary reference. "She's long gone now, but I yet had her heart while mine still beat." Then he grimaced. "Bloody hell, you got me talking like a Victorian again."

Buffy suddenly seemed very lost. She wanted to say Anya, but she was trying to be honest here. Love? Not really. Faith put more emotion in one of her letters from jail than Anya did toward Buffy. Desperately she said, "My-- my father!" They both frowned at that one. "Okay, okay, I'll say Anya. She certainly seems to care more than Dad."

"There you go, Slayer, I knew you'd think of another one! Me, I have tons of other selections. Why, there's-- there's--" He blinked and looked at her in wonderment. "Cor, Slayer, I can't think of another person that loves me. We're tied!" He paused for a moment, then caught her eyes again. "Unless you can think of one more person. That'd put you over the top."

"Um. Can I say the rest of the world? 'Cause I died saving them?"

"Nope, sorry. You failed to collect 12 apostles before exiting, luv, so the world doesn't notice." He tried to keep his banter going, pushing the words past the lump in his throat at the thought of her sacrifice. His anger at a world that bloody well chose to ignore the sacrifice of such a strong, beautiful, incomparable sun ruby of a girl pretty much removed his sadness.

Buffy was panicking now, showing some definite emotion. Faces kept flashing through her mind, and she kept reviewing them and rejecting them for the word "love." Now that she reflected on it, it was amazing how many enemies she could recall, all with the mental word "hate" stamped across their faces. Maybe she should have bet Spike on the number of enemies she could think of--but then again, that might not be such a good idea after all, considering how many people Spike had pissed off in just the few years she'd known him. Imagine who he could dredge up from a century of being annoying as hell! But thinking of him had given her the answer she sought. Spike loved her! Of course! She looked up, just about to say his name, when she caught the expectant look in his eyes. So. This had been his plan all along.

Before she knew what she was doing, she growled out, "Spike," as a warning.

"Spike!" he shouted, jumping up. "One other person who loves you! Dammit, Slayer, I guess you beat me." He had his arms lifted dramatically, then his entire figure slumped. "So I'll have to patrol for the next three nights all on my lonesome. Ah, you play for high stakes, Slayer! You're a killer at these wagers."

Buffy rose from her seat in his crypt and dusted her pants off. "Yeah, I guess so," she said, her anger having melted away. "So I'll see you in a few days." And with that she left, smiling to herself.

Now they were both months away from that initial wager. They were entirely different people than they'd been then. Their intimacy had grown, but at the lack of their friendliness. Buffy felt a definite pain when she considered that it had been months since she could talk like that with Spike, just have a conversation that didn't end in tears or violence or a panicky need to run. They still had their wagers, but that was about as comfortable as she got around him these days. At least with their clothes on.

Now she was patroling on the evening after her birthday party--the day after she was freed from the party. She thought of it as the first real day that she was 21. All grown up now, she thought. So why is that the last thing that I feel? I'm not in control of anything in my life. How will I get through the next few years on my own, much less the rest of my life?

As if on cue, she heard Spike's voice over her left shoulder. "Can I help you, pet?"

Buffy closed her eyes and stood in place. "No. No, I'm doing fine. I have to get home soon, I promised Dawn I'd be back on time."

"No worries there, I didn't mean to keep you. I just wanted to say thanks."

Trust him to surprise her. She spun around and glared at him. "What?"

She caught him in the middle of taking a drag from his cigarette. He was as beautiful as ever in his dark clothes and the grey shirt he wore on her first night at Doublemeat Palace, like a well-dressed Greek sculpture that had decided to leave the museum and check out the cemetery. He couldn't quite look her in the eye. "Well, I didn't get to say this at the party. But I saw what you did. When that wanker Xander brought wanted to get you a drink, you could have easily told him yes. It wouldn't have meant a thing, really, but you knew it'd hurt me something terrible. And you didn't. So I just wanted to say thanks. Because I don't think I say that enough. Thanks." He put his palm to his forehead. "Cor, I'm starting to babble like Red now." Spike then stayed quiet, trying to see how his words affected Buffy.

Buffy let out a deep sigh. "Oh, Spike, why do you have to do that?"

"Do what, luv?"

"Act all sweet when I'm trying to figure out the ways you're BAD for me. Where's all that 'You belong in the shadows with me' talk now?"

Spike snorted. "That's still true," he said. "Just not the kind of thing I thought to bring up tonight. Unless you're in a mood to join me in the crypt?"

"Ah-ha!" she said, pointing at him. "That's the Spike I know. The one with the mouth! God, y'know, out of the HUNDREDS of problems you have, the biggest has to be that smart mouth of yours! We might not have half the difficulty we do relating if not for your mouth! Like that morning after--"
Suddenly her voice caught. Spike was completely immoble and silent. This was the first time she'd spoken of that morning to him, and he wasn't going to interrupt her now.

Buffy spoke through a voice obviously on the edge of tears. "I-- I was so close to staying. And then you have to make that STUPID remark about 'the only thing better than killing a Slayer.'" She had to stop, then tried to continue, knowing she'd never be able to say this again and wanting to get it behind her. "It didn't have to end that badly. None of this needed to go as badly as it has. But you can't make it work. And I won't. So why the hell should we continue?"

Spike felt his legs go numb and almost dropped, but years of working through pain and other injuries helped him keep his footing. His eyes reflected a deep injury, though. "Cor, Slayer. Can't you just go back to threatening to stake me?"

"You just can't shut up, can you?" she said, a few tears already spilling down her face. "Why not? What does it take?" Suddenly a thought sparked in her, and she looked hard at Spike. "Spike! I'll BET you can't shut up for even a day."

The vampire looked back with a new flame of hope burning in him. "It's a wager you want, Slayer?" he asked. Thank God for old routines they could fall back on! "Why not tell me the stakes?"

"Everything," Buffy said. "I win and you give up. I don't care how you FEEL, you just don't get to act on it. You leave me alone forever."

"And if I win?"

Buffy's throat was so tight she could barely croak out a reply. "I'll try," she said. "I'll tell everyone that we're going out, let them infer what they will. And you and I will actually work at this THING we have." She shook her head, trying to clear away the tears. "But for stakes this big it has to be more than a day."

"No arguments here," Spike replied. "How about this? I will stay silent until the day you BEG me to speak again."

Buffy stared at him. NO WAY was he going to be able to do that. And have her beg? Was he giving her an out? Ready to accept defeat? A small part of her hoped not. "You'd do that?"

Spike nodded. "That and more. You never have really believed that I'd do anything for you. And I've just been waiting for you to really challenge me, luv. Now I get to show you what I can do with a little inspiration." He took three large steps forward, his right hand extended. "Do you accept?"

She took his hand and they shook, solemnly, both looking at the interlocked hands. She heard him whisper, "I love you," then he looked up. He mimed a zipper being drawn across his lips, then smirked at her. He had to actually tug his hand out of her own--something told her that she might not get to touch him again for some time.

But Spike appeared joyful, with a laugh almost ready to burst from him. He actually had a bounce to his step as he turned and walked back to his crypt.
Buffy watched him leave, then suddenly looked to her watch. "Dawn!" she squeaked, and set off for her house at a dead run.

*************************************

Spike went missing from Buffy's life for five days. It was strange how little that affected her routine. To Buffy it was almost like a part of her day was gone, like the mail stopped coming for a week. But no one else commented on it--he was never mentioned at the Magic Box, or at home, either. Dawn, wrapped up in the punishments she was facing for her shoplifting, was too busy damning everyone and everything in existence for the horrible deal she'd gotten in life. She'd taken Spike for granted for a while anyway, and a week without his presence at the house was nothing new. But Buffy felt his absence, and reflected on the fact that he fit into those little spaces in her life where nothing else did. The job, the friends, the slaying, the family, the housework, the time she spent sleeping--it all added up until there were just bits and pieces of her week that weren't full. And those pieces were where she usually placed Spike. Each meeting was only at her convenience, as if he weren't worthy of disrupting her normal life at all. God, when he'd chained her up on his wall, hadn't he begged her for just a crumb of affection? It seems that that was just what she'd been allowing him for weeks now: crumbs of her precious time.

For Spike's part, he spent those days practicing. He knew that he could control himself enough not to speak in the presence of Buffy or her friends, no matter what they did to get a rise out of him. But what if someone surprised him, or made him shout after receiving a hit on patrol? The stakes were far too high for something like that to happen. So he practiced being completely silent with himself alone, never letting a sound out as he puttered around his crypt or walked around at night to dust a few of his pesky brother vampires. On the third day he went to Willy's Bar for a new supply of blood and stayed a while to see what the demons were talking about these days. He got into a satisfying bar fight and tore a souvenir horn off a Sarnath demon, all without speaking once. His greatest test came on the fifth day when he was fixing a bookcase in his crypt. He let the hammer slip and smashed his thumb good and proper. For a full second he felt sure that he would scream--but a second can stretch out in intense pain, as he well knew. In that second he was able to weigh all options, gather strength he usually didn't use off the battlefield, and clench his jaw. He didn't even grunt as he looked at the poor thumb, throbbing in waves of pain.

He was ready. Time for the Xander test.

As soon as the sun set Spike was out of his crypt and on his way to the Magic Box. He knew they were researching, trying to find some way to locate the Nerds of Doom. Willow, now that she was relying on her mind more than magic, was once again super-research-girl (to use Buffy's phrase). She'd hit upon the idea of locating the trio through the demons they'd summoned, most recently the R'Sindi demons whose time-shifting had confused Buffy. They were so rare that the components used to summon them had to lead the Scoobies to their new lair. Tracking down those components was the hard part, though, and required research time not only through books but Willow's Internet skills.

The little bell announced Spike's arrival in the shop, and everyone at the table looked up to see who'd entered. All eyes then turned back to their books or computer screen--except for Buffy's. He held her eyes and gave her a winning smile, the whole world disappearing for a moment except for them. Then his smile became a smirk, and he loped forward and took a chair at the table beside Xander, lounging indolently there.

"Great," growled Xander. "So much for my plans to spend a day free of undead cooties."

Spike just sat, looking at the ceiling, or silently counting the books on the shelves. Buffy was squirming in her seat on the other side of the table but she kept her eyes locked on the pages in front of her.

The fact that Spike hadn't responded was starting to grate on Xander. He looked to his right again, making sure that the vampire wasn't making some silent obscene gesture in his direction. But Spike was simply watching Anya as she danced around the inventory with a feather duster.

"Why are you even here?" Xander groused to Spike. "To help in research? Or just drive us nuts?"

Spike shrugged, then reached into a pocket of his duster.

"No! Don't you try to smoke in here!" Buffy said, when he pulled out a thick notepad. He looked at her, an eyebrow raised, then took out a pen and began to write on one of the pages. He tore off the note and passed it to Xander.

Xander read it out loud: "How can I be of service?" He noticed that Spike's handwriting was nothing like the vampire he knew--it was elegant and highly stylized.

"So what's this?" he asked, waving the note. "Has your throat seized from drinking cold blood?" Now everyone--Willow, Dawn, Anya, and Tara from a seat apart from the table--was looking at Spike.

"It's a bet," Buffy said, and all eyes turned to her. She sighed deeply. "It was last week. I bet him that he couldn't shut the hell up for a while."

"What's 'a while?'" asked Dawn.

"Until I ask him to talk again," she responded, not looking up.

Xander now looked at Spike with wide eyes. "So we can count on ten or twenty years of blissful silence from you, eh?" A growl issued from Spike's chest, but Xander only chuckled. "Please! We both know you can't do anything to me!" He leaned forward, looking at Spike like a zoo animal. "So I could say anything to you--anything!--and you can't respond?"

Still wearing a harsh look, Spike nodded.

"Well, there's something I've wanted to say for a while," Xander said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"Xander--" Willow warned, but he waved her off, concentrating on Spike.

"I want to know why the hell you're still here," Xander said. "I mean, the only good you ever did was to help us and Buffy on patrol. But things have been pretty quiet recently. There hasn't been anything in months that the ol' Buffster couldn't take down herself. So why are you still hanging around, Spike? What possible good could you do for us? Why haven't you found some new town to haunt?"

"Hey! He's my friend!" Dawn protested.

"He's evil, Dawn," Xander countered. "He's just using the fact that you still care about him to sucker us for blood or protection from some nasty that he can't handle himself. The fact is--" And now Xander leaned forward, saying this directly into the vampire's still blue eyes, "You're not really a friend to anyone here, Spike. We're all just a means to an end to you, aren't we? I don't know what sick goal you have, but I'm sure it's there somewhere. You don't have a grain of real caring in that heartless, soulless chest, do you? You're nothing but a neutered, drunken, obsessive, pathetic leech. Why haven't you put yourself out of our misery yet?"

"Xander, stop!" shouted Tara. "God, I never realized you could be such a bully!"

Spike's face hadn't moved through Xander's entire tirade. When Tara spoke, breaking the spell of hostility flowing from Xander, he looked down. Now all eyes in the room were on Spike as he looked up once more. And everone saw a single tear running down his cheek.

Xander, wide-eyed, backed away. It was the last thing he would have expected from Spike. Buffy and Willow, equally surprised, gave each other worried looks.

"Xander!" said Dawn, getting up and rushing over to comfort the vampire. "You made Spike cry!"

"I-- I--" was all Xander could say.

The tears kept flowing from Spike. Dawn had her arm around his shoulder, trying to calm him. With shaking hands, he fumbled for the notepad and wrote something quickly, then passed the note to Dawn. She began to read it with a troubled expression, then broke into a quick smile that she tried to cover with her hand. Finally she pointed at Xander and said, "Ha!"

"What?"

She then read triumphantly from the note Spike wrote: "A true warrior uses every weapon in his arsenal."

As soon as she said the words, Spike's whole body language changed. He wasn't huddled in on himself, weeping. Now he was the arrogant, confident Spike that everyone knew so well, one arm thrown over the back of the chair, legs stretched out, his face beaming from a smirk and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Tears were still sliding down his cheeks, but they were so obviously fake now that they didn't have nearly the same power.
Tara hid her own smile. Willow just rolled her eyes at yet another Spike maneuver that was distracting everyone from research. Anya went back to her dusting, silently grateful that someone else could see that Xander could sometimes be a bully. Xander became introspective, wondering how once again his own words were used to bring him down. Buffy shook her head and stood up. "C'mon, crybaby," she said, "You wanna patrol?"

Spike shot out of his chair, nodding eagerly.

As they walked the sidewalk toward one of Sunnydale's twelve cemeteries, Buffy said, "I don't think that was funny, y'know. You've always been good at manipulating people's emotions. It's one of the reasons I find it so hard to trust you."

Spike nodded behind her. He'd known it wouldn't earn him any brownie points, but he really had to see if Harris' comments would force him to explode. As it was his anger was still firmly in check, under his control for once. His own eyes went wide as he realized something. Maybe Buffy was right, maybe his mouth really was his biggest problem. It was always a surprise--and at the same time a warm little bit of reassurance--when he found that, while he knew Buffy better than she knew herself most times, she could also see into places in his heart that he didn't know were there.
"You can never just play nice," Buffy continued, not once turning to see if Spike was following, knowing full well that he was. "You come to my party--bringing a demon, no less--and end up threatening a guest. And the little side-jokes that you made ALL evening! I know what's going on, you know about it--why would you need to make those jokes? Oh, you just-- you just--!" She was swinging her fists in the air in front of her.

Spike spun her around, and she looked at him in shock. He took one of her tiny fists and brought it to his chest, miming a punch. She stepped back. "No. No, I won't hit you." His mouth dropped open in hurt at that. "I didn't say I'd NEVER hit you," she corrected, and Spike calmed down. "I just won't use you to take out my frustrations. That's . . . so of the wrong I won't even go into it." He began to pantomime something else, and she stopped him. "And yes, I will stop shouting. So are you okay?" He nodded, and they continued to the cemetery.

Buffy was still in a mood to verbalize, though, so when an errant breeze brought some of Spike's cigarette smoke to her face, she took her involuntary coughing as a reason to vent. "Smoking," she growled out, and stopped them both. "Why the hell do you smoke?" she shot at Spike, who stood with eyebrows up. "It can't be an addiction--back when we had you tied up in Giles' apartment you didn't say one word about needing to get cigarettes. In fact, I think I only saw you smoke all the time after you got the chip in your head. So what's the deal with them anyway?" She leaned her butt against a bench at a bus stop and crossed her arms over her chest, obviously expecting an answer.

Spike looked around for a moment. Because they were still in the downtown district, they were beside a fence that was covered in posters--the large smiling doughy face of a politician and the commentary AVERY FOR CITY COUNCIL. Spike took the lit cigarette from his mouth, held it up so Buffy could clearly see this was a demonstration of something, and brought the lit end into the eye of a poster's face. It sizzled and burned a hole in the eye. He then held it up again for Buffy's inspection. "So it's a weapon," she said, "part of your 'arsenal.'" He nodded emphatically, the cigarette returning to his mouth for a reassuring puff.

He then took his lighter from his jeans pocket. The little silver beauty had taken on a special significance for both of them recently--Buffy's hand involuntarily went to the shorter ends of her hair at the sight of it. He held it up demonstrably, then switched to his game face with an expression of utter menace, his hands curling into claws and raking the air. He then let his human face slip back into place, and held up the lighter. "What?" Buffy asked. He tapped the lighter against his chest, then held it up again. "It's from your heart?" Spike rolled his eyes. He tapped his forehead with the lighter, then his chest, then held it out and showed his gameface again. "It makes you feel? It makes you feel dangerous?" He smiled widely in his human face once more and nodded deeply. "Okay, that makes no damn sense. How can having a lighter make you feel dangerous?"

He looked at her through half-lidded eyes and lit a small blue flame on the lighter. He then stepped back and calmly set the corner of one of the campaign posters on fire. He let it burn for a minute before Buffy rushed over and put it out with the sleeve of her jacket. The air was still filled with the acrid stench of the fire and she looked at him in annoyance. He looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah," she said, "so you can start a fire. That makes you dangerous?"

Spike waited for her to get it, and a few seconds later her eyes flew wide open in alarm. "Hey! You started a fire! And your chip didn't go off at all!" He nodded. "And you could do this all along, couldn't you?" Again, he nodded. "You could've burned down half of Sunnydale. Could've done it for years now." Again, he waited for her to get it, and once again she was a few seconds in realizing his point. "But you didn't."

He smirked at her and began to slowly walk toward the cemetery once more. He knew that she'd follow. He hadn't walked a half-block before she tapped on his shoulder, turning him around. "What else?" Buffy asked. "How else are you dangerous, even with the chip?"

He thought about this carefully. Then he took out his lighter once more and took his shortened cigarette in the other hand. He made a light and brought the end of the cigarette to the flame. Then he hissed between his teeth, parting his lips only slightly. "Ssssssssssss."

Buffy's mouth dropped open. "A fuse," she breathed. "You could light a fuse, couldn't you? And the chip wouldn't be affected."

Spike threw the cigarette into the street, then pantomimed one of his painful attacks rocking him. Then he stood straight and threw a punch, then mimed the exact same pain from his head.

Buffy got it. "Throwing a stick of dynamite wouldn't cause you much more pain than throwing a punch," she said. Spike nodded slowly, watching her eyes, wondering how she would take this. It wasn't exactly a secret--if any of the Scoobs gave more than a damn about him and had tried to ask him these questions even two years before he'd have been happy to tell them. But he saw no reason to give them reasons to stake him when they spent so much time finding reasons of their own.

Buffy's mind was racing. He'd told them for years that he was still dangerous, that he was something to be respected rather than ridiculed. They hadn't gotten it, or rather, none of them had wanted to get it. They had enough dangers leaping at them all the time, there was no need to create new ones in avenues they had assumed were safe. Realizing all of this created a paradox within her, like most of her thoughts about Spike. This knowledge made him less trustworthy--yet at the same time made her trust him more, made her depend on him more as an ally. Because he'd been able to do this with explosives even before he worked with them, she was sure. He could have done this when he was working with Adam. Strolling up to Giles' place and tossing in a grenade would have changed the entire balance of power at that time. But she also knew that that just wasn't Spike's style. She'd known that from the first night she fought him, when he threw away a perfectly good weapon so he could fight the Slayer on an even footing. Winning was not always important with Spike, never had been. The way he won, or the way he lost, was uppermost in his mind. And if he was fighting on her side, then the right way--the Buffy way--was what he would commit himself to.

Such a big answer from such a small question! Buffy hadn't expected this at all. But it seemed like, without words to hide behind, Spike not only wasn't giving her his usual attitude but was giving her the whole unvarnished truth. And that led to all kinds of possible questions.

She looked into Spike's eyes. "Okay, here's another one. How would you answer Xander's question? Just why have you stayed in Sunnydale when you could have been out lighting fires and causing chaos in Non-Slayerland?"

Oh, that was easy. He bent forward and took her hands, making them cup together. He then cupped both of his hands on his chest so that they looked like a heart. He detached this heart and put it into her hands. Just that simple. He stepped back and put both his hands into his duster pockets, looking for the telltale signs of repulsion on her part.

But Buffy had only one thought: Wow. Even without words he was capable of those annoyingly sweet things that she would never forget. No one she knew could make her furious so quickly, or make her forgive him just as swiftly.

She looked up and grabbed Spike's shoulder. He knew what was coming, then, and his worried composure turned into a smile. She brought him forward for a deep kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck, losing all thought in the feel of skin on skin and tongue against tongue. He put his arms around her waist, letting her push him back against the wall of a restaurant. It was the most public thing she'd done with him since kissing him in The Bronze some months ago, so a part of him knew that it wasn't going to go beyond this, at least not now. So he relaxed into the kiss, not wanting it to end, just feeling every breath and movement and wave of heat that she gave him. She rubbed herself up and down against him, the points of her nipples drawing matching hieroglyphics on his chest.

Buffy pulled back minutely, her lips still on his own. "Spike," she whispered. "Tell me you love me."

His only response was a smirk, which Buffy could feel instead of see. She giggled. "You're not gonna fall for that one, are you?" He didn't even chuckle, just leaned forward for another kiss.

The wager, it seemed, was still on.

*****************************************

Two more weeks wrapped in his cloak of silence saw even greater changes in Spike. He found that he spent a lot more time thinking when he couldn't circumvent his thinking processes with a shouted "Bloody hell!" He turned problems over and over in his head, sleeping a lot less but getting more done. He cleaned both floors of his crypt every other day, so that it was all in better condition than Buffy had ever seen it--he only wished that she'd visit it and register that fact. He could do the same for Buffy's place if she'd let him. She didn't have the money for home improvement, but he knew enough to hang her front door correctly, and repair some damage that that old house's walls had collected over the years. If he really thought about it, he could even build some furniture for her. It would take supplies he couldn't very well get until he could speak once again, but he still spent wakeful days making grand plans.

Thinking about Buffy forced him to think about Dawn. He considered ways to make her schoolwork easier, ways to get her more friends, ways to teach her that stealing was wrong (not that he believed that himself, but he could put the fear of God into her whenever she considered swiping something, sure enough). And that made him think about Buffy's friends. About what he could do to help with the wedding. About how he could help Tara and Willow relate better. About the various ways he could teach them all to REALLY eliminate the demon element in Sunnydale.
It was crazy, all of it. HELP the Scoobies with their pathetic little problems? This useless pack of mortals who'd barely scraped past their second decade? As he'd noted already, if he could just shout at himself and hear his voice echoing from the walls this line of thought would be broken. But he couldn't do that. Even drinking couldn't give him sufficient release, since he couldn't sing to himself anymore. The same with his punk rock music--if he couldn't sing along, what was the point? He'd been trapped in a wheelchair for months and it hadn't had such a huge impact on his spirit as this eternal silence was having.

He stumbled across an idea for locating the Nerds of Doom and wrote it as a note to leave at Buffy's house. On the way over, though, he considered that Buffy might not appreciate it at all. She normally reacted with hostility whenever she perceived that he was telling her how to be a Slayer. Someone else, then. He walked around Buffy's house and selected a new tree to climb to the second floor. While climbing, he thought of a few more useful notes he might leave.

*******************************************

Willow woke up groggy and ill-tempered--situation normal for the once-perky redhead these days. The morning sun was always the worst, like cold water dashed in her face. She just wanted to rest in the comforting darkness, let the dark carry her like waves, let it sink into her, filling her heart, her blood, her eyes--

And then she remembered. Can't let that happen anymore. It was a bitter, bitter way to start the day and it happened every single morning. One day at a time, my ass, she thought. Funny how those words never even crept into her thoughts in the old days. Now she could work up a string of curses in her head that would make Spike blush. If dead people could blush.

She finally dragged herself up into a sitting position and swung her legs off the bed. Her first action every morning was to cross to the window and close the curtains, blocking out the sun for just a few more minutes. Just as it was her duty every evening to make sure those curtains were open, because by then she'd remember again how necessary that hard morning slap of sunlight was in driving away the seductive dreams of magic that filled her sleep.
Willow took a curtain in each hand, preparing to close them like usual, when she noticed something out of place. This morning there was a note taped to the window, something definitely not routine. And it was taped to the outside! Someone must have climbed a tree or walked on the roof to put it there! Leaning down, she read the brief message.

The last time I saw the Nerds in their HQ they had lots of gaming material. Won't these guys have a Dungeonmaster somewhere?
==Spike

The fact that it was a message from Spike kept her from understanding what it said. She had to read it three times before the importance of the words rang within her. And then she was suddenly very awake and moving like lightning to get ready for the day. It was a Saturday so the gang should have been gathered at the Magic Box. Now they had a real lead!

Hours later at the Magic Box Buffy and Xander were researching at the table while Anya argued with someone on the phone in what sounded like Fiyoral. Finally she slammed the phone down and shouted, "Victory!"

It was her first word of English in an hour. Both Xander and Buffy looked up. Anya was only too eager to explain.

"I got this note this morning from Spike and--"

"Whoa, whoa," said Xander. "A note from Spike? I thought he didn't even know where we lived."

"Apparently he does. Now--"

"But I've made specific insults on the basis that he doesn't know where we live!" said Xander. "And now you're telling me that he could find me at any time while I'm all asleep and vulnerable? Oh, this is no good."

Buffy reached across to take his hand. "Jeez, calm down. It's not like he's invited into your home or anything." She looked to Anya speculatively. "He's not invited in over there, is he?"

"Oh no, of course not. He taped the note to our car window," Anya explained.

"He knows my car?" Xander squeaked. He looked at Buffy imploringly. "Please, tell me that Deadboy doesn't know where I live."

"If you mean Angel, no, he doesn't. I'd be surprised if he could find his way to my house after all this time," Buffy replied, with more than a little bitterness in her voice.

"Does anyone want to hear my story?" Anya complained.

"Of course, baby," Xander said, taking her hand and drawing her to a seat at the table. "So what did Spike threaten in this note?"

Anya rolled her eyes. "He didn't threaten anything," she said. "He left a suggestion about the catering, which has been plaguing me for some time, let me tell you. Apparently there's this half-demon caterer who's been serving the demon community for a few months, but he's also trained for human food. So I just spoke to him, and you'll never believe the deal we've gotten! It's the same amount of food at half the actual outlay of cash! He'll accept a third of his pay in kittens! Isn't that wonderful?"

Both Buffy and Xander sat frozen. "Wonderful?" Xander whispered.

"Of course! Monetarily speaking, buying a few dozen cats and kittens from the pound will be much less expensive than the money we would have been spending. Oh, Xander, I'm so happy! The wedding is finally going to be a reality!" She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Xander, kissing him as if the room held no one else.

Which isn't a bad idea, Buffy thought. She quietly slipped away from the table and went to the training room, leaving the door open in case anyone needed her. Dawn was on the room's couch, her nose buried in a small paperback book. Now Buffy could spend time with Dawn and avoid the spectacle of Xander and Anya groping each other. Two positives in one little room-shift, she told herself.

"Hey Dawnie, what's up?"

The teenager didn't appear to even hear her--her eyes were flying back and forth over the pages in her hand. Curious, Buffy leaned down to see the title from the cover. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess. Buffy had to put her hand over the open pages to get Dawn to look up.

"Are they making freshmen read this these days?" Buffy asked.

Dawn looked down, clearly embarrassed. "Um, it's not required. Someone suggested I should read it."

Sometimes Buffy was quicker than usual. "Let me guess. A note on your window."

Dawn looked up with wide eyes. "How'd you know?"

"It seems Spike is fast becoming everyone's good samaritan."

"Uh, whatever. He just wrote that I should read this. So I checked it out from the library this morning."

"And you like it?"

"Are you kidding? I can't keep my rookers off it!" She pulled Buffy down onto the couch next to her. "It's about this kid, see, like my age. They have their own slang, which is, like, Russian. And he and his buddies like to wreck stuff and beat people up and even rob them when they can get away with it. They're just-- they're angry at everything around them, and they don't have the power to change it, so they'd rather destroy it all. But they're so stupid, Buffy! It's like they don't have anything to believe in and no fight to join, so they're fighting whatever's in front of them! It--" She stopped her rambling for a moment to look down at the book in her hands and then caught Buffy's eye again. "It sort-of makes me see how stupid I've been. I mean, I know that evil exists, I've seen it up-close and personal. I know that there are real good-guys out there that I can join, and that we can actually make a difference. I don't have this guy's excuse," she said, waving the book. "I've been stealing and blaming everyone else for how I'm feeling. When all the time I've got a real-life hero living right across the hall. One who wasn't always living, but who I was lucky enough to get back in my life."

The sisters hugged each other tight, burying their leaky eyes on each others' shoulders. How many moments of real love had Buffy and Dawn expressed since she came back to life? Too few, obviously. But that was among the things that Buffy was going to make sure she stayed on top of from now on. As well as giving Spike an extra-special thank-you tonight.

Then they heard the sound of the store's front door bell and a cry of "Victory!" from the other room, this time obviously Willow's voice. It seemed to be the word of the day. Buffy and Dawn wiped their eyes and rushed into the next room to see what was happening.

Willow was already at the table, opening her laptop and connecting it to the store's phone line. She was excitedly babbling, and started over when she saw Buffy come in. "Buffy! I got this note from Spike this morning, it was like it cleared everything out of my head! It said that the Nerds of Doom did role-playing games, so they had to have a Dungeonmaster around to run games for them. And that reminded me of--"

"The Dungeonmaster!" Xander exclaimed, and Willow nodded at him, grinning, already typing something into her laptop.

"Uh, explanations please?" Buffy asked.

"Oh yeah, you probably never met him," Xander said. "Listen, Buffy, if you can imagine it, there was this guy in high school who was so dorky even Willow and I wouldn't be caught dead with him."

"Wow," said Dawn. "He must compete at the Nerd Olympics."

Xander gave her a momentary glare, then continued. "Anyway, everybody just called him The Dungeonmaster. A tubby kid with bad skin and thick glasses and a head full of useless info, you know the type."

"I think I work next to him at the Palace every day. But continue."

"Let me," said Willow. "We lost track of him since high school, that was understandable. But I knew I'd seen him around campus, so I got his real name and tracked him down. Sure enough, he works as an R.A. in Kingston Dorm, and he's still 'one with the twenty-sided dice.' When I asked him about Jonathan, he said sure, Jonathan and Warren and Andrew played with him every week. He didn't have the location of their new place, but he had their phone number. I'm looking them up as we speak."

"Wow!" Buffy sat down, grinning at Willow. "You mean we could find them tonight?" She made a fist and imagined plowing it into Warren's smug face.

"No problem," Willow said. "They may have put up some tricks to hide themselves, but I'm a hacker of the first rank, y'know."

"Yeah," Dawn said, "and Warren invented the Buffybot."

"Dawn!" Buffy lightly slapped her arm.

"Sorry. Just trying to be realistic here."

"Not the best attitude on the Hellmouth, I've found," Xander said.

After typing furiously for a half hour Willow looked up from her screen to see three still-expectant faces. She sighed heavily, any hint of a smile having fled long ago. "Guys, this is not gonna happen right now. Warren seems to have covered their tracks really well. I have some stuff on ZIP disks at home, so I'll go back. Dawnie, wanna come with me?"

Dawn shrugged. "Sure, since it's already dark."

"Yeah, I guess I'll patrol," Buffy said. "Do you think you'll have it by morning, Wils?"

"I have to decrypt a few things," Willow said. "I'm lucky there's just one number and it's in one area code. I'm also working within the parameters of this ZIP code. But if they're outside of Sunnydale it could take a lot longer. If I stay up all night I should have it sometime before noon."

"We appreciate it, Willow," Buffy said, happy to see her friend perk up at the compliment. "Look, I have to do the ten-to-six shift at the Palace tomorrow and I just pray that they won't double-shift me. So how about I get home, take a shower to remove my daily layer of grease, we collect Spike at his crypt, then we all go take down the SuperNerds."

"Spike?!" said Xander. "Why do we need him?"

"Hey!" said Willow. "If not for his idea we wouldn't have found this number!"

"No duh!" Dawn joined in. "I'd certainly want him in a fight before you, Xan-man."

"Even though they're human and could beat him easily?" Xander countered.

"So we won't use him that way," Buffy said. "They've always gotten away in that van. I was thinking of having him steal it before we even go into the house so they can't escape."

Xander looked silently at the women around the table. Then he looked to Anya, but she just watched the scene with her arms crossed, finding some pleasure in Xander's discomfort. He sighed and admitted, "You're right. That is a good plan."

As Buffy walked to the front door she waved at everyone behind her. "I'll be on patrol. Willow, Dawn, see ya tonight. Anya, Xander, see ya tomorrow."

********************************

By the time Buffy reached Spike's cemetery she could hear the sound of battle: bodies being thrown against tombstones and even blades clanging. She took off at a dead run toward the sounds and arrived in time to see Spike fighting three demons by himself, with two dead demons lying at his feet. Spike was wielding a longsword in one hand and a shortsword in the other, using the long one for its reach and the short one to block incoming blows. The demons were a foot taller thanSpike, dressed in leather armor and using broadswords. Their faces were ant-like, with huge pincers at the front of their lozenge-shaped heads, but the rest of them looked humanoid enough. As Buffy watched, Spike swung up and cut an antenna from one of the creatures while its sword clanged against his shortsword. The demon instantly lost its balance and seemed much more confused. The vampire took advantage of that and leaned in to take off its swordhand with his short blade. He then brought the longsword forward and skewered the demon, having to leave the blade in the body as he dodged the advance of the two remaining demons.

Buffy rushed forward and launched herself in the air, bringing both feet down on a demon's head. It went down like a bowling pin and she used its confusion to tear both antennae off its head. The monster flopped around as if it had suddenly gone blind, dropping the sword and any thought of attack. She grabbed the head, careful to avoid the pincers, and twisted until it snapped off. She then looked up in time to see Spike jump two feet in the air and bury his shortsword between the gigantic eyes of the last demon. It squealed and fell to the ground beside its dead brethren.

Buffy was picking herself up from the ground when one of the demons that both Spike and Buffy had assumed was dead picked itself up and loped in her direction. Her back was to it and the thing moved in complete silence. From thirty feet away Spike saw it move, but there was no way to bring it down for sure from his position and he couldn't shout a warning to Buffy. But she was standing next to a tree. He quickly pulled his switchblade from his duster, flicked it open, and threw it at the tree beside Buffy, missing her face by ten inches. She spun around to look at Spike, and he motioned frantically to the monster approaching her. She turned to see the ant-headed demon dragging a broken leg but advancing steadily, its sword just rising to cut through her. She looked the thing up and down, then from a standing position brought her foot up to slam into the demon's pinching face. The force of her kick knocked the head right off its shoulders, and the body dropped.

Spike looked around for any other combatants, then approached Buffy. He gave her a silent nod of gratitude, still full of seriousness and bloodlust. She just shrugged, then considered the move he'd made to kill his last demon. "Have we ever played basketball?"

Wondering where the hell that subject came from, Spike shook his head.

"We should try sometime," Buffy said. "I usually don't have any competition at things like that. You could probably give me a run for my money." She looked up at Spike, and he was smirking and raising his eyebrows suggestively. She snorted. "Not like that, you perv!" But she didn't lose her smile. In fact, she took his arm and leaned into his chest while they walked back to his crypt. On the way she talked about how her day had been, about the impact his little notes had had, and the plan for the next day's assault on the Nerds of Doom. He expressed his customary disgust that she had to work on a Sunday, but she just shrugged: it was the way things were. She was lucky that she got Saturdays off. He agreed with her about his position as official car thief for the Scoobs--after all, hadn't he secured the Winnebago for their run from Glory? But he made her understand that he could come to her house rather than require them to come pick him up. She nodded.

When they reached his crypt Buffy found his door kicked open, barely hanging from one hinge, and the bodies of three more ant-headed demons inside. It looked as if his battle with them had started here and then carried out into the rest of the graveyard. Spike seemed much more upset at the state of his crypt, which really looked no more wrecked than after one of their marathon sex sessions. Just thinking about that, and the fact that they hadn't indulged in it for more than three weeks, caused a delicious heat to flow through Buffy. Maybe not tonight, because she had to get her sleep. But tomorrow? After taking out the Nerds of Doom a suitable release of tension might be called for.

Spike certainly didn't seem to be in a sexy mood. The frantic gestures he was making over his turned-over fridge were as close as he could come to shouting these days. Her heart went out to him at that moment. This strong, brave man--and she didn't hesitate to think of him as a man--was held in a prison of her own devising. He could break it at any moment if he chose, if he just stopped caring for one minute. But that wasn't Spike. He couldn't turn off his feelings, even if they were feelings that he didn't like, even if they were feelings that put him through hell and changed his entire unlife. So much of her life was about suppressing what she truly felt, about putting her own cares aside to fulfill her duty. She was a good soldier in that respect, and not a day went by when she didn't dream of the day she'd be released from that duty. How would it feel to live like Spike, to be a warrior instead of a soldier, a predator instead of "part of the team?" It would be freeing in one way, sure, but she'd also be a slave to her emotions. She'd seen what that had done to him, the indignities and torture Spike had put up with--was still in fact suffering--in the name of love. She had to admit that she never would have done it. If Angel had treated her with just a drop of the cruelty she'd dealt out to Spike her own feelings would have dried up and she'd have moved on. But then, she was a soldier, a worthy part of society: a human being. Spike lived on the periphery, existing by the laws of the jungle, allowing instinct to substitute for a conscience, a wild boy raised by wolves. There was no safe place they could meet and really share a life. She'd read Kipling's THE JUNGLE BOOK when she was little and knew that it didn't have a Disney ending. While Mowgli came in from the jungle for a while, he eventually returned to it rather than try to fit into a society that was insane compared to the clear rules of jungle life.

All this thinking had carried Buffy out of the crypt, so that she now stood looking up at the stars, her arms wrapped around herself. Spike came up from behind her and put reassuring hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. His face was an open question.

Buffy asked what was uppermost in her mind. "Will you ever speak again?"

He responded by pointing to her. Of course. She held the key to his prison of silence, but it was a key that would free more than his tongue. (Ooh, bad Buffy, don't think about his tongue. Or what it can do.) She'd have to admit things to her friends and admit them to herself as well. It would mean an end to hiding, the ultimate risk of her heart and soul. God, facing Glory had been child's play compared to this! Why didn't she ever get the easy fights? Rather than think further about this, she buried her face in Spike's chest and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her as well, his hands making slow circles on her back.

The feeling of her warmth in his arms was indescribable. Not one day in his century-plus affair with Dru matched this. He sometimes wondered if Buffy thought he compared her to Dru, but in fact there was no comparison. He found more bliss in one of Buffy's hugs than the decades of cold congress he'd found with vampire lovers, and sex with Buffy was like being bodily transported to paradise. No wonder he couldn't stop thinking about it when he was around her, and let those stupid remarks slip from his mouth constantly. Well, at least he used to. He had a feeling that his time in the cage of silence would give him a lot more control over that in days to come. And he had to believe that there would be days to come, that he and Buffy would get past this and eventually be open and caring with each other, no matter what obstacles arose. He had to believe this because to admit anything else was too painful to contemplate. If Buffy was a champion at denial, then he was at least a gold medalist in that event himself--it was one of the reasons he understood her so well.

Finally Buffy pulled away. She couldn't quite meet his eyes, knowing that they would entreat her to stay. "I have to get home," she said, and Spike merely nodded. "Can you take care of--?" She waved her hand in the direction of the pile of five corpses.

Spike smiled and made a swooping gesture with his hand, indicating that he'd dump them in the river like usual. She understood. She had gotten very good at understanding his pantomiming, enough that she'd continued asking very big questions of him and he kept giving her poignant answers. Still with her head turned down she waved, said, "Bye!" and made her way back home.

********************************

The next evening Xander's car pulled to the curb a block away from the house they sought on the other side of Sunnydale. Willow sat next to him while Buffy and Spike took the back seat. As they neared their destination Buffy and Spike held hands, unseen by anyone in the front. One final squeeze from both of them and then Spike was out of the car.

He knew the mission. He was to take the van and bring it back to Xander's car, at which point they'd sneak in and take the SuperNerds out. Sounded easy. They all knew it wouldn't be so. Even Harris had looked happier when he knew that Spike was going into the house with them. He knows I might be useful as cannon fodder, Spike thought. The vampire himself was more than a little nervous about what these childish fools might be hiding in their lair. Going against magic required one kind of resolve, going against technology required another. Facing a combination of both put a nasty new spin on the sour feeling in his gut. At least his blood supplies in the fridge hadn't been disturbed last night, and he was full of blood and power at the moment.

He knew that their enemy had sent those demons to his crypt last night. He didn't know why they wanted him out of the way, but he'd had a wonderful time dispatching their little attempt. Sending eight demons was usually a large threat--sending eight Apiana demons, especially to a vampire with his experience, was just a joke. He'd figure out their game after he defeated the whelps.

He crossed three lawns and then his target was clear: the black van that he'd seen on that night Buffy got drunk with him. Spike crept up to it and found no infrared detection system. He popped the door lock no problem, but once he sat in the driver's seat he got his first shock. Twin spikes shot from the seatback, driving through his torso where his kidneys were. Painful, sure, and he was now leaking blood into his new shirt and his lap, but not even debilitating for him because they hadn't broken any bones. Still, it proved that there were booby traps in the van, and this might not be the only one. He reached under the dash for the wires that would allow him to hotwire the van--and did not find them. He would have liked to have bent down under the steering wheel to see what they'd changed in the vehicle's wiring, but there was a little impaling to consider. He thought frantically. These three wankers were a combination of brilliance and amazing stupidity. The spikes they used would have taken out almost anyone, even a demon. So they wouldn't be stupid enough to--

He checked the sun visor, and sure enough, the keys were there. He started the van up, one hand on the wheel, and got another gift from the auto's owners. Electricity arced up his arm, causing his entire body to jerk and spasm. It seemed to last about forever, but in fact only shocked him for ten straight seconds. They weren't kidding around, these blokes! Spike's teeth were rattled, his hair slightly smoked, and large burns covered his arm and torso, but for the most part he was okay. He looked himself up and down to make sure some small part of him wasn't on fire, because vampires combusted like a bag of dry leaves. Reassured, he put the van into first gear, made sure not to turn the headlights on, and turned left onto the street. In a minute he was at Xander's car, deciding to park the vehicle nose-to-nose.

Now for the hard part: getting out. Pulling himself off the spikes and out of the van was easier said than done, mostly because there was a steering wheel in the way. From his position he didn't have the best leverage to tear the steering column out. Maybe Buffy . . .

Just as he was thinking this Buffy and the two Scoobies came up to the passenger window. "C'mon," said Buffy, "Let's go."

Hmm, how to say this? Even more difficult, how to mime it? With no options left, Spike turned on the cab lights in the van, making his situation very visible.

Buffy clamped both her hands over her mouth to keep from shrieking. There were two horrible iron spikes sticking out of his gut, and blood was literally pouring out of him. But Spike gave her a reassuring smile and waved it away, signing that it was nothing. He did put her hand on the steering wheel and made motions like he wanted her to pull it, though.

Of course! He couldn't get off the spikes! She yanked the van's passenger door off, discarding it next to where Willow and Xander stood, then grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. Bracing a foot against the doorframe, she tore the entire steering column out of the floor and tossed it behind her. Spike grinned at her and slowly eased himself off the spikes, jumping down from the van with no problems. Now Xander and Willow could see that he was wounded and stood in shock.

Spike, very businesslike, just took off his duster, ripped his shirt off himself, and used it as a makeshift bandage around his torso. He held up the duster against the light from a streetlamp, seeing how it came through the two large holes in the back. This seemed to really disgust and anger him for the first time, and he had to be restrained from rushing off to kill the Nerds of Doom by himself.

"No," Buffy said, speaking above a whisper but trying to stay quiet. This close to him she saw that he'd also sustained some burns, yet they weren't slowing him down. "We can't have you going in there while you're hurt. We don't know what we'll be facing inside, so we'll need you to guard the exterior in case they get past us. Can you do that?"

Pouting, he nodded his head. He put his duster back on and instantly looked more like himself, rather than the gang's personal wounded vampire. There were so many layers to him, Buffy thought, each one a cloak to hide something different. A woman could spend a lot of happy years just getting to know every facet of his personality. Sweeping these thoughts aside, Buffy turned to face their destination and her team fell in behind her.
Fighting humans brought new requirements to the Scoobies. Buffy carried a sword, mostly because her skills could find so many uses for the thing. Willow carried a crossbow in her arms and another slung around her back, since they'd be as useful against regular opponents as against vampires. Xander carried a 9mm Browning Automatic, more for show than actual use, but his soldierly instincts were known to come into play in the middle of battle and it was best to have him armed. Spike carried his own dangerous self, his hands already clenching and feeling the imaginary throats he could twist with them. And across town, in the house on Revello Drive, Tara was maintaining a protective barrier around herself, Anya, and Dawn, should the Nerds of Doom try to attack them through that avenue. Buffy highly doubted that would happen, but she never forgot the lesson Angelus taught her when he used her need for a showdown to lead her away from the library, an action that had gotten Kendra killed and Giles tortured. That was not going to happen again.

When they reached the house, Spike stood in the driveway while Buffy and the two Scoobs went around the back. A part of him hoped that the Nerdy Three would somehow slip past Buffy so he could give himself a nice headache pounding some sense into the wankers. After waiting five minutes it seemed he got his wish. The pathetic losers snuck around the house in the darkness exactly along the path Buffy had taken inside. When they reached the driveway, however, they were struck dumb by the absence of their vehicle.

"The van!" Warren shouted, then turned to Andrew and slapped his head. "Where'd you leave it?"

"It was right there, I swear!" Andrew protested.

Jonathan was the first to spot the vampire as he stepped out of the darkness, his duster swinging about him like batwings, wearing the most bloodthirsty smile the boy had ever seen. His blue eyes sparkled with menace in the yellow glow from streetlights and he wasn't saying a word as he advanced on them. Jonathan began to slap his co-conspirators until they paid attention to him. Then he pointed at the approaching form.
Warren gaped. "Spike!" he shouted. "He'll kill me! We-- we have to get out of here! Jonathan, prepare your teleportation spell! Andrew--we need something big summoned. Pull out all the stops. Make sure no one's alive to follow us!"

"I-- I--" Andrew stammered, fumbling in a pouch at his waist.

"Do it!" Warren shouted.

Spike noticed the boy reaching into a pouch for something. Before he could get there, he saw the wanker lift the thing up and say a few words in Greek. Oh bloody hell! Spike thought, recognizing the thing in his hand and breaking into a run. It's a dragon's tooth!

Andrew jabbed the tooth into the lawn beside the driveway. Spike arrived just in time to dive onto the ground over it and bowl over both Andrew and Warren. He'd found some time ago that if he tried to hurt himself, but his momentum happened to hurt humans around him, that his chip wouldn't go off. He referred to it internally as Bowling for Poofters.

But his gambit hadn't incapacitated either young man. They both scrambled up and ran toward Jonathan, who was standing in a circle pre-cut in that side of the lawn and already starting to chant. Spike would have loved to have gone over and broken up their little party, but he was already facing the first of the warriors to erupt from the dragon's tooth.

It was as he expected. It was a short human skeleton dressed in ancient Greek armor, which meant a chestplate and helmet with a shortsword and small roundish shield. Not a terribly frightening opponent, but Spike knew that when he brought it down there'd be two more after that, and four more after that, and sixteen more after that. The geometric progression would become very frightening very soon. Maybe when Warren had said to leave no witnesses he hadn't meant "destroy the town," but that was exactly what would happen if Spike didn't get that dragon's tooth out of the ground.
The short skeleton was already facing off with Spike, darting its little sword toward him, then it decided to charge. Leaving itself completely open, Spike merely ducked under it, grabbed the spine with both hands, and tore the thing into two pieces. He threw the torso one way and the legs the other and dove for the dragon's tooth, his fingers digging into the earth it was slowly sinking into. But two pairs of skeletal hands dragged him off it, and when he was thrown down by the two new skeletons one of them didn't hesitate to dig its sword into his gut, exactly where he already had a wound. As if the pain from that electrocution hadn't been enough! He started to miss the days when the greatest pain he felt was from his own chip.

If that wanker put another hole in my duster, Spike thought to himself, I'll feed him to a kennel. He grabbed the blade buried inside him and yanked it out of the skeleton's hand, then took it by the hilt and pulled it from his gut. He swung it hard to the right and lopped off a skeleton's leg. The one on the left now brought its own sword to play, and hacked away purely defensively as he got back to his feet. Once he was standing the advantage was all his once more. He lopped off both the thing's arms and let it run around uselessly kicking him while he took his captured shortsword and dug into the ground around the dragon's tooth. He'd gotten it in and was starting to lever the tooth out of the hole it was burrowing when he heard a brief *woosh* behind him and instinctively ducked his head. The blade that had swung for his head still took some hair, but that was all. It seemed the one-legged one had grabbed the other's sword. In total frustration, knowing that he was just ten or twenty seconds from victory if he concentrated on this, he swung out, intending to tear apart the one with the sword. Unfortunately, he got both skeletons, his fist smashing through the chest of one and shattering the spine of the other.

And suddenly there were four fresh skeletons standing around him, three swordsmen and a javelineer. He looked up in despair--and that's when he saw Buffy come around the corner of the house.

Buffy was amazingly tired and a little out-of-focus, but she was ready to fight. As soon as she and Willow and Xander had entered the house's basement they knew that they had fallen into some kind of trap. And she should have known it would be a temporal kind--that was the favorite method of these three wastes of life. Any attempt to go back up either of the two staircases that led out of the basement caused that person's subjective time to slow to a crawl--meaning that it could take hours to put one's foot up one step. And those not on the staircase could do nothing but sit and watch their friend trapped like a fly in amber. Finally, Willow came up with the brilliant idea that the device causing this effect had to be somewhere inside the time bubble with them. Since they had nothing but time ahead, they searched the entire basement from floor to ceiling, looking in every corner and shadow, and finally came across a tiny glowing thing like the one Buffy had found attached to her sweater on that day she'd attempted to return to classes. They used every weapon they had to destroy it but nothing worked. Xander became so frustrated that he picked the thing up and threw it into the time field on the staircase. They heard a tiny explosion immediately after and Buffy tried the stairs. When they turned out to be regular stairs they all raced up and breathed the night air with relief.

But they hadn't expected it to be night. According to their subjective time--which they'd all counted by their digital watches--they'd spent a day-and-a-half in the basement with no food or water and very little sleep. Xander and Willow were pretty much wiped out, but when Buffy heard the sound of swords clanging in the front yard she figured that time had been traveling differently outside. And she instinctively knew that Spike was in trouble. So she picked up her sword and ran to the front, only to see the Nerds of Doom standing in a glowing circle preparing some sort of spell. As they were the most lit thing in the yard, she rushed toward them.

Meanwhile, in the shadows of the front lawn, Spike was being dragged off the dragon's tooth by the three skeletons with swords. He looked helplessly at Buffy racing toward the Nerds and saw that the javelineer had noticed her as well. Seeing where she intended to arrive, the thing was already lifting its javelin and preparing to throw. The vampire could barely believe it: he'd been ten seconds from victory, and now not only was he in trouble, but Buffy was about to be killed. He was out of options. He dodged an incoming sword, shook a skeleton off his right arm, and shouted, "BUFFY! DUCK! NOW!"
Buffy grabbed Warren and was pulling him out of the circle when she heard Spike shout. She instantly hit the ground and a javelin flew through the space she'd been in half a second before. It buried itself in Warren's chest, and he pitched forward into the circle without a word. Buffy stared at the two remaining"villains" and noticed something interesting. While Jonathan was horrified to see Warren killed in front of them, Andrew looked down at the body with an expression of pure satisfaction. If Spike had seen the same thing he'd know why the demons sent to kill him had been so ineffectual; Buffy merely filed the information away for future pondering. Before she could drag the living guys from the circle their teleportation spell activated and everything within the circle disappeared.

"Buffy! Get over here!" she heard Spike shout again, and was already moving when the thought hit her: Spike's talking. But if he hadn't warned me I'd be dead. The implications of what his shouted warning must have meant to him washed over her but she couldn't really think about it. A walking skeleton in brass armor was menacing her in the driveway. It punched her with a weak skeletal fist, and she responded by knocking its head off with a single punch. The ringing sound from its helmet was very satisfying after just watching two foes escape. Then she was able to see that three more skeletons with swords were holding Spike down.

"Don't destroy these things, Slayer," Spike said. "Toss 'em around if you like, but if you break 'em we'll be up to our ears in more."

"I already killed one," she responded, approaching cautiously. One of the skeletons noticed her and stepped onto the driveway boldly, its sword ready to meet her own.

This left Spike with just two combatants, and he had no more time for niceties. He launched himself from the ground and grabbed one skeleton by the arm. He tossed it thirty feet behind him, onto the next lawn, and popped the head off the one left to menace him. "Just don't kill 'em all," he told her, dropping to his knees by the dragon's tooth, once more grabbing the sword he'd jammed next to the tooth. He had to dig it further into the ground, but once more came into contact with the tooth and was levering it back up. "Keep 'em off me and I can end this in ten seconds."

She whipped her sword forward, trying to knock the skeleton's sword out of its hand. Instead she removed its entire arm. The thing then dropped to its knees and tried to grab the sword with its other hand. "They aren't very tough," she commented. "What's the threat?"

"They don't have to be tough," Spike grunted, using all of his strength to pull the dragon's tooth up. "Kill these four and we'll have sixteen. Kill them and we'd have 256. Kill THEM and the math gets kinda scary."

"Wow," she said, watching the skeleton rise again and wave its sword at her. She dropped the point of her own sword and leaned on it. When the skeleton appoached she put out a foot and kicked it to the ground. When it staggered up she kicked it down again. The night was just starting to get fun.
Spike wasn't quite so amused. He felt some muscles tearing in his abdomen as he brought the base of the tooth out of the dirt, but he didn't stop. He kept straining until the dragon's tooth popped out of the ground and flew up to land on the driveway at Buffy's feet. Spike cried out, "Destroy that thing, pet! Use your sword or whatever, but mash the thing into pieces!"

Buffy brought her sword down on the 8-inch-long fang, splitting it. Instantly the skeleton in front of her disappeared, as did the one that had been approaching Spike from behind, having returned from its trip to the other yard. She then ground the tooth's remains under her booted heel until it was powder. Spike, meanwhile, gave himself a much-deserved bit of rest.

By the time Xander and Willow made it to the front yard they could see Buffy re-applying Spike's shirt as a bandage to deal with his new wounds. He was able to stand, however, and anyone could see the tenderness with which Buffy helped him put his duster back on. The Scoobs looked at each other in wonder, then back at Spike's bent posture with suspicion. "What's going on?" Xander asked.

Spike smirked at him. "I got a bleedin' hernia, Harris, what's it look like?"

Willow's mouth dropped open and Xander pointed in alarm. "You're--! You're talking again! Buffy, did you beg--?"

"Nah, nah," Spike said, waving off any accusations. "I lost the bet, whelp. Slayer wins, like usual." He breathed a long sigh. "Still, I have my devilishly handsome face, that's sure to get me through this."

Buffy chuckled. "Same old mouth on you, huh, Spike?"

She couldn't see his eyes in the lawn's shadows. "Yeah, that's me, luv. Born a loser and I'll die a loser." She didn't detect the sadness in his voice, as she suddenly rushed forward to meet Xander and Willow in the driveway, pointing to the circle and telling them everything that had happened and what Spike had explained.

Willow was especially fascinated to hear about the dragon's tooth, since it was something she'd only read about, and wanted every detail. Buffy didn't often get a chance to describe monsters shorter than her, so she was happily engaged in describing the skeletons' armor when she looked around. "Hey! Where'd Spike go?"

Xander pointed. "Back toward the car. I guess he didn't want to wait for a ride. Looked like he took losing that bet really hard."

Buffy's eyes went wide and she spun around, trying to see Spike in the darkness of other yards. "That idiot!" she said. "He doesn't think--? Why would he--? Dammit!" She slammed a powerful fist into her palm, making a smack that was heard for blocks. Both Willow and Xander stepped back in alarm. She looked at them with eyes on the edge of panic. "Uh, you can get home all right, right? I'll catch up later."

"Where ya going, Buff?" Willow asked, though she knew as well as Xander did.

"To get my man," Buffy answered simply.

"Your MAN?" Xander erupted. "That's a vampire, Buffy, he's not a man! He's a thing that kills men!"

Buffy gave him a hard look that would brook no argument. "Jeez, Xander, how many times does he have to save my life before you catch a clue?" With that she spun around and sprinted into the darkness.

Three houses away Spike was slowly making his way across the nicely-mown grass, not really caring where his feet were taking him. Buffy was alive. The world would go on. But his own world had just gotten a serious hitch. She hadn't forbid him from feeling, but now he could never act on it. Looked like being neutered once wasn't enough for the world--it wanted a second chance to rob him of everything that made him want to leave the crypt in the evening. Maybe he wouldn't leave it anymore. Too bad it'd be hours until sunlight. Maybe he could find a bonfire somewhere to throw himself into.
Spike was so caught up in thoughts of his end that he was completely unprepared for the attack from behind. Buffy tackled him at the thighs, tumbling them both onto the grass. They settled themselves with him on his back and her straddling him. She was careful to sit on his pelvis so she wouldn't hurt the wounds on his abdomen. This meant she had to stretch out on his torso to get face-to-face with him, a position neither of them minded at the moment.

"You're not going anywhere, mister," Buffy growled through a smile, then locked her lips to his for a deep kiss.

Spike actually broke away first. "B-Buffy!" he exclaimed. "You're welshin' on the bet!"

"Yep," she said, in a copy of her undead boyfriend's smirk. "Not the first time, and not the last. It was just a game, Spike. And I'm a little tired of games, aren't you?"

His response was to wrap his arms around her and pull her into another kiss, rolling them both over so that he was on top. When he allowed her to breathe he continued to stare at her face, pulling a few strands of hair out of the way so he could see her more clearly in the streetlights' illumination.
Buffy giggled up at Spike and the look of awe dancing in his eyes. "You're allowed to talk now, Spike," she said. "Don't you have some terrible line to ruin this tender moment?"

"Nuh-uh," he replied. "I've learned my lesson, pet. If we're going to TRY to make this thing better between us--and I assume we are--" Buffy gave a solemn nod to his questioning countenance--"Then you're not the only one who'll have to change. I'll be pulling my share o' the load, and that includes shuttin' my damn mouth when you think it's best."

Buffy reached up and caressed his face, her heart overflowing once more for her silly vampire. Maybe he could come in from the wild and live a civilized existence after all. Just as long as he didn't become so tame that he forgot how to take her into the jungle with him and show her the pleasures of the night.

Spike's face suddenly took on that awed expression again and he said, "Cor, Slayer, do you realize--?"

"What, Spike?"

"My voice. It's flippin' beautiful!"

Buffy's laughter could be heard through the night several houses away.

 

~Fin~

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