Fifteen: In the Harsh Light of Day

By Annie

2003-04-04

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Day Ten.

3.16 p.m.

"Buffy!" Willow exclaimed happily as she entered their dorm room, putting her books on her desk before turning to her friend - seated on her bed.

"I cheerfully exclaim your name back," Buffy mumbled, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them as she glanced up at the redhead.

Willow frowned.

"Hey," she said, walking up to have a seat before the Slayer, "what's with the gloomyness? I thought you were in a state of round o'clock midst-of-in- love glow... What happened?"

Buffy sighed.

"Nothing 'happened' per say... It's just that Riley told me professor Walsh wants me to see the inside of the Initiative in a few days and it kinda caught me off guard. I'm just...nervous," she replied and Willow smiled. "And then Giles told me that Spike - of all demons - was helping him out the other night. For money, of course," she added, moving to the edge of the bed and getting to her feet. "Not that I actually expected him to do it 'cause he had the sudden urge to," she muttered, more to herself than to Willow, who was having a small and questioning frown grow on as Buffy began to pace.

"Are you sure nothing's going on?" the apprentice Wicca inquired, shifting where she sat so that she could face Buffy.

"It's just this thing with Riley - it's so new, you know?" she answered and Willow observed her, seemingly wanting an elaboration. "What? It is, isn't it?" was all of that that Buffy could give her and Willow smiled tentatively.

"Yeah, but a week ago you would've been voted miss Sunshine," Willow remarked. "Now half the time you go around with a wrinkle between your eyebrows and I kinda don't like it... Wanna tell?"

Buffy hesitated. Her best friend, her confidant through so much, her companion through even more...and now the Slayer actually felt reluctant, felt doubtful that this best friend this time would be able to understand. She didn't like the feeling. Another thing to absolutely loathe about this situation.

"No," Buffy now answered Willow with a small shake of the head, her pacing coming to a stop and she forced on a genuine smile; adding: "No, there's nothing TO tell."

***

4.17 p.m.

She stopped outside the doors of the crypt allegedly hosting a certain bleach-head, rolling her eyes at his sense of irony. The sarcastic touch of once more crowning himself evil, dark and rotten as he created a home for himself at such a cliché-y, two-dime-novel sort of place.

She didn't bother knocking as she entered his abode for the first time. Stepping into a small foyer, heavily decorated with yard long threads of spiderwebs hanging down from the ceiling.

Bet you he put those up himself, she muttered in her head before she pushed the second door open.

It took her into a fairly large room, which the crypt consisted of. Looking around her there was more cobwebs, heaps of dust - making her wonder if she'd been here sometime before, cleaning out a nest of some sort - and to her right a large sarcophagus, on which lay a crumpled blanket.

"You have good taste," she said outloud and there was a brief pause as silence once more slithered into her surroundings; then his voice asked to her left:

"A compliment?"

"A sarcastic one," she replied, turning to him as he stepped out of the shadows.

He smiled a small smile.

"Didn't sound like it," he pointed out and she cocked an eyebrow.

"You think I'd actually say anything good about a place that smells of dead rat and looks like it was the only surviving building of a war?" she retorted and his smile grew into a smirk.

"Between who? Charlotte and those nasty little buggers in 'Arachnophobia'?" he shot. Tilting his head a little to one side he then asked: "Was that a smile?"

Her face grew cool at that question, and whatever hint there had been to lead him to ask it was swiped away sufficiently. Turning from him she walked into the middle of the room, her hands brushing aside the evidence of the fact that there once had been life inhabiting the depressing space.

"I guess you didn't come to discuss litterature and old movies," he mumbled, following her and stopping a few feet behind her. "Did you?" he added and she turned around.

She wondered for the hundredth time what had compelled her to walk here this afternoon. She must be seriously on the verge of a melt-down, she couldn't even remember the reason for her visit. Sticking her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket as she searched for an answer to his question her fingers clasped what she had put in there half an hour earlier, and the reason came back to her with full force.

"I came to make you an offer," she said and he cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm listening," he replied, bringing out a cigarette from his back pocket and putting it in the corner of his mouth as his left hand dug up his infamous lighter.

"I'll give you this," she said, bringing her right hand out of its pocket and showing him the thick wad of bills which it held. His eyes lightened up slightly and she felt encouraged to end her sentence, which she did with: "if you leave Sunnydale for good."

He frowned, and the obvious surprise in his gaze took her off guard. Slowly removing the fag from his mouth and snapping his lighter shut before retrieving both of them into one of the back pockets of his black jeans he narrowed his eyes. Then his face softened with what seemed like a realization and soon after that the infuriating self-assurance came back into his posture.

"How much is it?" he asked and she observed him for a few seconds before she answered:

"A thousand dollars."

His eyes grew.

"A thousand sodding k's?!" he barked and she took a step back. "Are you outta your bloody mind?!"

She blinked.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand wh-..." she began, only he cut her off as he asked:

"Where the bleeding hell would you get your manicured little paws on that kinda money?"

Buffy glanced at her nails for a second, cocking an eyebrow, and then she looked back at him.

"That isn't important," she replied, voice chilled to subzero degrees as she wanted him to just take the money and leave, not keep on with his insistent bickering. "What's important is that they're yours - if you agree to the proposition."

"That I get the hell outta dodge and don't even glare over my shoulder," he stated and she nodded, wiggling the wad slightly.

Spike felt a strong tug at simply taking the money and doing what she was asking of him. Scratch that - demanding of him. She was practically commanding him out of "her" city, wasn't she? Well, there could only be one real reason why she wanted to get rid of him so badly that she took to means so low as this. Was he going to go away while he had all the aces at hand? No. No, he didn't believe that he would. It wasn't his style. He only left when he had burned all his bridges and it seemed to him like he was just about to finish building one here, though he was at a loss as to where it was actually wanting to take him.

She could almost hear his thoughts move. They crackled and moaned at her for making them work like this. At that analogy she couldn't help but smirk to herself and she quickly got rid of it as she waited for his answer. Something told her that she wasn't exactly convincing him as he kept eyeing her. She swallowed. Perhaps she wasn't really convincing herself either.

A part of her prayed he'd disappear, while another in a trembling and self- doubting way hoped that he would stay - completely blaming doing so on the fact that what she held in her hand was every last dime and nickle of her savings account; and she knew she could find a better use for the money than this.

"You know, I think I've underestimated you severely," he mumbled and she was brought back to the harsh light of day as she remembered with whom she was currently in company. "I thought you to be one of those buggering stabs- you-in-the-back type of fighters - but you're a warrior, aren't you?" She swallowed again, ignoring the fact that her palms were growing sweaty as she slowly lowered the hand holding the cash, her eyes dead centered in his as she listened to him speak. "You're fearless. You walk straight into the den of the lion though deep down you bloody know there's always the chance of being ripped apart."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Don't you mean the den of the wolf?" she quipped and he chuckled as he took a step closer.

Her heart began to pump and she couldn't control it this time. She was already too far gone as she tilted her head back to look up at him. He was a short, excrutiating inch away and her fingers tingled to feel him.

"I thought I had you figured, love," he said and she felt her legs grow weaker, the need to grab him for support was overwhelming and she had to fight every fiber of herself not to give into it. "I thought all there was to you was a sheep in wolves clothing... I'm actually shocked at how sodding wrong I was."

"Don't think that just 'cause you try to..." she started, but he reached out a hand and the touch of his cool skin against the burning one of her cheek made her words run into the sand of time and she drew a breath, shaking her head unnoticably.

His thumb slid over her lower lip and he took a step forward, his body carefully fitting itself into hers.

"I'm not going anywhere," he stated, voice lowered as his left hand moved to the small of her back, pulling her tight against him.

"Spike," she tried, her hands placing themselves on either of his upper arms and her fingers grabbing a tighter hold than she had intended as she at the same time pushed to get him away from her.

Her whole body was beginning to ache with wanting and her attemtps were weak and fruitless.

"Tell me what you really want," he whispered and she shook her head again, closing her eyes and feeling how she was folding. "Tell me why you came."

"No," she practically whimpered. "Let me go," she then pleaded. "Spike, please..."

"Look at me," he demanded and she slowly raised her gaze to his again. "You're not the begging kind...remember?" he asked gently and she felt how her last bits of defense was crumbling at her feet.

"Let me go," she repeated.

"I can't do that," he replied simply. "I still have to claim my prize."

"Well, I'm not something to be had," she retorted with her gaze hardening and he smiled.

"Why did you come?" he asked again and she shook her head at him.

"You are so stupid. I came 'cause I can't stand to have you in my life..."

"Didn't know I was in it," he filed in and she tore lose from him as her strength came back to her, holding on tightly to the simmering anger with him; with how he thought that the world was his playground and everybody his own personal toy.

"And I wanted to offer myself a way to get you the hell out of it," she added to her former statement, causing him to arch an eyebrow. "It's clear that I failed. Miserably at that. And somehow I made you believe that I actually..." she trailed off.

"Came here for a royal reminiscence of old glory days?" he helped with a devilish grin and she took the step dividing them, clenched her right hand into a fist and brought it up to strike when he caught it in his left palm and grabbed it in a hard grip.

She didn't relax her arm, but kept pushing it forward, digging her nuckles into his hand with her eyes raging at him. He didn't flinch, his gaze growing icy as well.

"Why did you slap me like that?" he then suddenly asked and she pulled her fist out of his grip as she took a step back.

Her face had calmed down and now she merely looked at him.

"'Cause you insinuated that I'd actually let you touch me," she then spat, turning from him and walking up to the door.

He was on her the next moment, spinning her around and pushing her backward harshly. Her back slammed into the old wood of the door and she gasped at the suddeness of it the moment before his body pressed her roughly up against the matter behind her and held her there. His face was so close that the tip of his nose barely managed not to touch the tip of hers and her eyes grew involuntarily as she stared up at him.

"I didn't 'insinuate' anything," he murmured. "If you feel like you can't admit the sodding truth to your friends, to soldier boy...fine. But while you're here, with me, alone - you WILL stop with this bloody pitiful charade. I KNOW you remember, Slayer."

Her gaze was once again controlled and she gave him a look at that statement.

"I don't care what you know," she then replied. "I don't care what the hell you want me to do around you 'cause the fact is simple: I take orders about as well as YOU do. So you can just..."

His tongue interrupted her.

His lips were against hers before she could even react and his tongue met hers a fraction of a moment later, causing the muffled interruption and her eyes growing huge with surprise at the feel, at the taste. And then they slowly closed themselves.

She wasn't sure if her heart was pounding or beating so slowly that she could hardly feel it. She wasn't sure exactly what was running through her head or what should be. But she knew that she had wanted him to. Had wanted him to take control and make her... This was why she had come. She knew he knew that, and it terrified her, but to deny it now was impossible.

She had known he would never leave. She had known he'd never take the money. Deep down she had known this because nothing would make him leave Sunnydale when he still had no clue as to what made him the way he was now. He would never leave until he had gotten it out of him and was restored to his full strength. And so making him the offer had been safe...hadn't it? She had known all along that she wouldn't be rid of him that easily.

Somewhere inside her something rational was asking her what the hell she was saying, but the morepart of her was so lost in him that it didn't listen, couldn't reply.

Her hands were somewhere indistinct - her right was in his hair, her left on his cheek...or was it the other way around? And her heart was pounding, no, hardly beating, no, pounding... And his mouth was hers and she owned it with every last breath of her and...

"No!" she exclaimed, pushing him away from her with a shocked, angered, disbelieving glare at him.

He found his balance after taking three steps back and he rested his blue eyes in hers with a look of silent exultation.

"Why did you do that?" she asked and he furrowed his brow, then he huffed, a smirk slowly displaying itself onto his features.

"Why the hell do you think I did it?" he asked back. "Not for the pleasure of it, that's for bleeding sure."

"I could kill you right now," she breathed, the stance she took being very close to pre-fighting and he cocked an eyebrow.

"I just proved you very wrong, cuteness," he replied matter-of-factly. "I just turned you from picture-of-honesty into raving-liar... From self- reliant into self-loathing... From blushing virgin into..." he trailed off and she took a stale step forward.

"I really do hate you," she said and his smile broadened.

"You say those words so often I'm starting to think you might be trying to make yourself hear them - and not me," he retorted and she swallowed, shaking her head.

"Here's something new - you're a bona fide lunatic."

He laughed at that, then nodded.

"You're right! I just bloody called YOU a 'virgin'! When you've always been darkness' whore, haven't you?"

Her face looked as though he had just hit her and he stared at her, too fired up with his anger at himself for feeling things when she touched him that he knew weren't real - that couldn't be real - to care if he was hurting her, if he was battering her. He didn't care.

"What...did you just call me?" she demanded, voice lowered and quivering.

"I put it too plainly? It didn't get through? Then how's this? You fight the darker part of you with every last ray of that shiny light within you, don't you? You battle it back every bloody day, but when you dream, Buffy. When you dream I know you let it out to play with your head as it pleases. In the shadow hours of night you feel completely sodding safe from yourself, from your needs, and you dance. You're so bloody lost, Slayer," he stated, shaking his head bitterly. "Sleeping with me was the best thing that could've happened to you - 'cause it made you have to face yourself, didn't it? You've been in bed with darkness for a long time, love... Not acknowledging it while awake makes you the whore."

She stood in statued silence, her eyes shining with something that could have been tears, but he knew shock and depredation when he saw it - he had witnessed it too many times to mistake it for anything else - and he came to the understanding that what he had just said had not gone by unnoticed.

"In light of that I'll have to take back my previous offer," she finally mumbled. "I'll have to tell you to leave, instead of trying to find a way to get you to leave. I'll have to make you leave, instead of just sitting back and wait for you to. You see, you're right. Sleeping with you made me see a side of me that I don't want to know - not ever. I don't walk into the lion's den knowing I might die, Spike. I walk in there certain that I will. That's why I win. Every time I fight, I fight for life or death. That's what makes me a warrior. If you don't leave, I will have to take that personal. This is my territory you're invading, and even though you might be harmless - you're still the enemy, and you can't be trusted. So if you don't leave I'll kill you. If you're not out of here by tomorrow morning, the next time we meet each other will be the definite last."

"Promise?" he asked and she smiled a humorless smile.

"I promise," she nodded, turning and opening the door.

He watched her walk through it with a stone forming somewhere near his heart. It was heavy and gray and filled with numbing remorse. He wanted to claw it out of his chest, but knew that it was there to stay.

The actual need to tell her that he was sorry, that what he had said hadn't been how he had meant to say it, was what had him walk up to the door and slam it shut with an enraged snarl. The anger took hold of him and he welcomed it with open arms, embraced it, patted its shoulder, invited it in. He let it consume him and had it chase out any other thought.

She had finally admitted it though: she remembered.

"Sodding bitch," he murmured, feeling her mouth against his again and swiping at the memory with the flaming sword of fury.

But it wouldn't be cut through. It wouldn't bleed and fade. It wouldn't die.

Why couldn't he stop his toughts from drifting back to her? They did that on their own, as of late... just made him lose track of time as he closed his eyes and remembered all the slightly changing facets of those few days they spent together... So much hate and anger. So much disdain and rueful distruction between them. So much hunger and passion. Too much need. Too much ravishing, breathtaking, careless, idiotic, blinding, incredible sensation... Too much her.

"Damn you, Buffy," he grumbled, closing his eyes yet again and cautiously being washed over with her scent and touch. "Damn you."

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

Sixteen: Nowhere Near

By Annie

2003-04-05

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

Day Ten.

4.54 p.m.

Damn him. DAMN him!

Damned be this attitude that everything about her could be used against her. She WASN'T the bull's-eye of an easy target and he needed to learn that. He needed to see that so that he would climb off that laughable excuse for a high horse he was on and come back down to earth. He was crazy to think that she would ever feel gratitude towards him for leading her to do the absolute most indecent act she had ever done.

"Sleeping with me was the best thing that could've happened to you - 'cause it made you have to face yourself, didn't it?"

'Face myself' my butt! she thought to herself as she stormed across the cemetery hosting his crypt, continuing on her way toward the college. The only thing I've had to face has been the fact that some twisted, nauseating need has been triggered for some inexplicable reason and now...

Her thoughts trailed off as she slowed herself down to a stop. She was breathing heavily as she tried to calm herself down.

The feel of him was still all over her body. Teasing her senses and revving her up again.

Getting herself moving she huffed with annoyance. She couldn't calm down. She could never have an emotion such as that inside her in any situation that boiled down to having to do with HIM! She needed to hit something and she needed to hit it hard or she would explode. Or implode. Or just vanish from the earth without a trace!

That'd make him happy, she grumbled in her head. That'd make him build a fire and do a victory dance around it. That'd make him... You don't know what that would make him do, Buffy. Don't presume to know. Don't kid yourself that you know. You. Don't. Know. Him.

She clenched her jaws together at the low mumble clouding her mind as a response to that. It whispered its words and she wanted to ignore them, but was forced to listen.

But I know his chest, it sounded. I know every curve of his face. I know the slight slant of his lower lip and I know the taste of his mouth. I know how his hands can move me, how they crave me and lets me know it... how they rule my skin...

"Stop," she interrupted herself.

He had been wrong in what he had said. She had never not dared to face the darker part within her. She had been thrown into the fact of it when Faith came into spice up the boil of the former's already mixed up life. Back then she had seen the power of that darker side of herself, she had seen it in Faith's eyes the night she killed a human and never gave it a second thought... That moment had been when the Slayer had made the final decision, outruling any other, that she would never let herself come to that. Not ever.

But with him inside of her... something roared. Something clawed at her. And so he had also been right, because once again she was standing face to face with a side of herself that she had written off as retracted, overcome. A side that was weak before temptation, which didn't frown upon the wrongs of what being with him dredged up, which felt no sorrow or regret and which kept falling into pure surrender in his presence.

Once again she had to beat it down within herself.

She was so sick of it. So tired of it. She wanted it gone already. She couldn't let it get any stronger, it had already made her give in once and if it happened one more time she was certain it would take that as encouragement to fight for its existence.

I'm creating some kind of pseudo-schizophrenia in my mind for myself, she mused, shaking her head at herself. I think it's time we made this official and just dragged me off to a padded cell. Well, it might be a good solution... she added with a sigh, reaching campus grounds and starting toward her dorm.

And why was she so sensitive to what he said anyways? It wasn't like she needed to put any weight to the words. He was just some shell of a vamp that had tried to kill her a few times, nothing more. So, she had screwed that shell until she almost could have sworn that she had sensed its heart beating in perfect sync with her own. And that shell had been able to...

Buffy, she warned herself. Buffy. It's Spike, is what it is.

As if she could ever forget that...

She walked over the lawn stretching before her dormatory, her pace had slowed down and she stepped up the few steps there was as she reached the front door. Putting her hand on the chilled knob she tried to get her head back on straight.

"Buffy," his voice sounded to her left and she spun around, ready to take a blow and even more prepared to deliver one.

"Spike, what the hell?!" she exclaimed as he took a hesitant step forward.

The shadow which the large obelisk - in which they were standing before the doors - created was barely enough for him not to be burned by the golden rays of the sun, but it seemed to be enough since he made no effort to pull back into the darker parts again.

He looked at her and felt a wave of insecurity wash over him. He never felt insecure and the fact that he did made him feel even more uncertain as to what he had come to do being what he actually should be doing. She'd think him nuts for sure after this.

She was growing impatient, he could see that on her posture, and so he should probably make it quick and painless. Though he didn't know where to start and so he simply eyed her in search for a way to begin.

Her brow slowly furrowed.

"Well, did you come to ogle me and stand there gaping or did you have some evil scheme in mind? Am I in on it this time, are you trying to put thoughts in my head now or what? Pictures? Vivid ones of my pending doom? Trying to scare me?" she asked and he blinked, getting a hold on the excuse for a wanker that he was becoming - shuddering at the mere thought - and about to answer when she added: "God, could you BE any more aggravating?!"

Turning from him she put her hand on the knob of the door and was just about to clear her way inside when he spoke.

"I'm sorry."

It was a hushed murmur, but she picked up on it as though it had its very own beacon and her eyes grew slightly. Her motion was put on hold and she stood very still before she carefully turned back to face him.

"What?" she asked, tone incredulous as she observed him and he let hear a very low growl, resting his eyes in hers.

"I said: I am sorry," he developed his sentence and she could detect the undertone of sarcasm this time, which made her irritated again.

"For what?" she wanted to know and he gave her a look.

Knowing that he might as well go the whole nine yards now that he had bloody well begun to trot down the first few he humored her.

"I was out of line," he replied. "And I wanted to...apologize."

She smiled, seemingly very unimpressed.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"What I 'want'?" he asked back and she nodded.

"Yes," she answered slowly. "You didn't think I'd actually believe that you came here purely for the enjoyment of hearing me grant you forgiveness for something I'm not even sure what it is, did you?" she then inquired and he sighed, rolling his eyes to the sky above and shaking his head.

"What is it with you, Summers?" he wondered, turning his gaze back in hers. "No matter what anyone ever does, it's never sodding enough, is it? You just want a bigger piece and when you can't get it you try to slice it off the only way you know how: with violence. Doesn't matter to you if it's verbally or physically, as long as it gets the job done."

She smiled a bitter smile at that.

"Why did you come here?" she demanded and he took another step forward.

"I came to say that what I said back there..." he trailed off as she looked up at him.

Her eyes caught his and something swirled deep down within him that made him draw a small breath of the evening air. He felt the on the brink to maddening need to just reach out and touch her, she was so close. Not able to fight the urge he reached up his left hand and slid it over her blonde locks.

Her eyes grew a little.

That touch was too soft to be him... What was he doing?!

His hand seemed to grab a tight hold on itself as it folded into a fist and dropped to rest at his side instead. She stared into his eyes and felt her heart beat a tad harder at the twirl of emotions she thought she could read in them: the surprise he felt himself at what he had just done, the anger that rose at the action, but also - somewhere deep down in those pools - a burning warmth of something hidden.

She took a small step back.

"You need to go," she said.

"Buffy..."

"Just go," she shook her head.

"You realize you completely blew this whole oh-I-sodding-forget act you've been pulling, don't you? With what you said to me back there," he asked and she closed her eyes for a short second and then opened them to look at him.

"Yes," she then replied. "Yeah, I do."

"So?" he wondered and she raised her eyebrows.

"So what?" she shot. "So, I remember. What does that change, Spike? Nothing. I still can't be around you, I don't want you around me, and as far as I'm concerned what happened down there... Well, it never happened."

"What about the kiss?" he asked and she took another step back as he took one forward.

"It was..." she tried, but he cut her off.

"I kissed you," he said and she swallowed, then pressed on an indifferent expression as she nodded. "And you definitely kissed me back," he added and she drew a breath as he stopped much too close to her. "And I'm still here."

"I've asked you to leave, you won't," she defended and a small smile graced his lips.

"You said that this was supposed to be our very last encounter," he pointed out and she sidestepped him before walking down the steps and onto the grass shadowed by the building. "You promised," he added, coming up to stand behind her and she once more turned to face him.

"Is it what you want?" she asked, reaching back and bringing out her stake. "Is that what you want?" she demanded as she stepped up to him, raising her arm and his body grew rigid tough he didn't even blink.

"You know what I want," he replied.

"No," she disagreed, lowering her arm and turning from him. "No, Spike. I don't know what the hell you want. You bully me, you ridicule me, you hate me, you seduce me..." she trailed off as she threw the stake in the grass before swirling around and beginning to pace before him.

He watched her.

"You're doing that Slayer walk again," he remarked and she glared at him. "Doesn't bode well."

"Shut up," she growled. "You think you're so smart, you think you're just the cleverest little vamp around, don't you? Then WHY can't you get it through your thick skull that I don't WANT this?!"

"Then what the bleeding hell DO you want?!" he suddenly burst out, taking the steps dividing them and she looked up at him as he stopped before her, his gaze ablaze with impatient fury. "You say you don't want this, that you don't want me - but everytime I look at you I can see what I do to you. Buffy, how you just kissed me... THAT isn't NOT wanting. That's being so bloody starved for it that you..."

"Don't even start!" she interrupted him. "It's not like that. This, you and me, it's nothing. Understand?! I'm in love with Riley! I love him!"

"Do you think I want your LOVE?!" Spike retorted with a snarl.

"I don't give a damn what you want!" she yelled, suddenly remembering where she was and lowering her voice as she added. "What I have with Riley is something you could never understand! He makes me happy and more importantly - I make HIM happy. And I can't keep doing this to him..."

"Doing what exactly?" Spike cut in and she bit her jaws together hard before she ignored his input and continued with:

"This is over. Right now. And I mean it, I don't wanna see you again."

"If that's what you need to tell yourself," he mumbled as she turned from him, walking back up to the double doors. "I know better," he added and she glanced at him before she pushed the right door open and proceeded inside.

***

5.23 p.m.

"What was that all about?" Willow wondered curiously as Buffy carefully closed the bedroom door behind her back.

The Slayer spun around at the sound of her voice, looking rather busted and Willow - seated on her bed - grew quizzical at the defensive posture the former was adopting. Then Buffy relaxed and shook her head.

"Never mind," she muttered, pulling her jacket off and walking up to her own bed to sit as well.

"I saw Spike," the Wicca said and Buffy threw herself backwards with a sigh.

"Mh-hmh," she murmured.

"And I saw you arguing with Spike," Willow continued.

"Yes," Buffy breathed tiredly.

"And I saw you taking a stake and almost poofing Spike," Willow finished her recap and Buffy grumbled.

"Almost," she then agreed silently.

"Buffy, is something going on that...?"

"I can't talk about this right now," Buffy cut her off, getting to her feet again and walking back up to the door. "I'm sorry, Wills. I just... I have to see Riley," she added, opening the door and stepping through it.

As she disappeared Willow sighed.

"Of course you do," she grumbled.

***

Day Twelve.

8.30 a.m.

"So, you really went through with it?"

Buffy looked up as she heard his voice, questioning, and the vamp took a step forward - the shadows slipping off him as though the ground was the floor of a stage, and the former were the curtain revealing its contents. His eyes glittered, blue and deep - the actor was stripped off him, he stood before her without any mask on, center stage before his one-woman audience. She stared at him in astonishment.

"Went through with what?" she finally asked and he smiled a small smile.

"I just wanna know, Buffy... Was it his touch you felt? Or was it mine?"

Her eyes grew.

She looked down at herself and realized that she was naked, that she was seated on a bed. Spike slowly approached her, slipping his duster off his shoulders as he went and then he stopped before her. His torso was bare and the moonlight sculpted his chest lovingly with its rays.

"I'm in love..." she tried, wanted those words to make the situation sensible to him, make him understand once and for all.

But her enemy's eyes, those hated orbs with their chilling gaze, softened beyond recognition at her words before he reached out his left hand and gently let it slide over her blonde locks.

"So am I," he whispered.

The dream slipped away the next instant and before she knew it she was slowly opening her eyes. She frowned, finding herself feeling misplaced and unable to conclude where the heck she was. Then it came to her: she was in a bed. The same bed that had been in her dream and...

Turning around with her heart in her throat she rested her gaze in Riley's.

"Hey," he said gently and she stared at him, at first not sure who he was, and then the pieces quickly created the puzzle of what had happened the night prior. "What's the matter?" he then asked, a small smile spreading over his lips as he added: "Weren't expecting to see ME?"

She smiled back, tentatively. Trying to battle back the lump in her chest as the dream seemed set on playing itself over and over in her head.

'I'm in love...'

'So am I...'

"I never know what to expect," she mumbled, still smiling a little, keeping the rumble of confusion within her off her face.

She looked at Riley, and ultimately succeeded in her quest. Pausing the dream she pushed the visual of it as far down as she possibly could get it. It didn't matter. It was her subconscious playing some warped prank on her. It was only a dream, for crying out loud. Nothing to get herself worked up over. No, nothing at all. Growing slightly serious she bent forward to give her lover a kiss.

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Seventeen: A Place Where He Belongs - Part One

By Annie

2003-04-09

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Day Twelve.

10.04 a.m.

He couldn't sleep.

Since the first rays of sun slipped through the cracked windowpanes of the crypt he had been lying on the top of the sarcophagus with the old blanket over his head, relaxing his mind as well as his being as much as he possibly could and just as the small sense of sleep crept over him, splaying its fingers across his temples and making the drowsiness a fact - there was her face.

Bam.

Wide awake. Yet again.

Now he growled and threw the blanket aside.

Something was wrong. With him, with this...sleeplessness, with her infecting him like a virus. Contaminating his cells, his blood, his brain, his eyes until the only thing he could see was her face. He had struggled with her for days now and she wouldn't leave him be. Why?! Sodding, stubborn BITCH that she was - telling him that she never wanted to see him again, why couldn't she grant him the favor of keeping herself out of his bloody head?!

And what was this game she was playing? She had said she wasn't one to play games and what was she doing now -with him - if not playing? Like a cat with a mouse she tossed him in the air with her claws and caught him between her teeth without a second thought to his crackling neck bones or breaking spine.

Was he actually painting himself out as the victim in this scenario?

Getting to his feet with a graceful jump he began to pace.

What was she doing to him? Twisting his mind around like this, making him think and feel things that... No, it had to end now. All of it. All that was her had to just go away. She didn't wanna see him, eh? Well, that suited him more than absolutely sodding perfect 'cause he sure as hell never wanted to see her ugly face again! He never wanted to kiss her deformed mouth - yu-bloody-k! - again! He never wanted to feel her body grow hotter beneath his hands as the adrenaline of the state he put her in pumped through her - uh, horrid thought! And he NEVER wanted to have HER touch HIM in any way, shape or form EVER!

Running his hands through his short strands he nodded to himself, drawing a breath.

She'd come to him. He knew she would. But he'd have none of it. No more of this leniency. He was still bad to the core, after all; and she was still his Charlie number one, so what should he do - let her close? Preposterous! Or more like: hell, no! Whoever said "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer" obviously had no bloody idea what that statement actually meant. What it involved in action and speech. No, he wouldn't keep her on arms length even. He'd keep her on barely-visible-in-the-horizon length.

No. That was too close.

He'd keep her where he couldn't see her. Deep down somewhere... where she wouldn't disturb him anymore. Where she couldn't reach him...

He closed his eyes.

The sense of growing loss had him numb with anger towards her. Who the hell did she think she was? Doing this to him, to HIM! She was a girl. A child. A human. She'd seen his world, but he had seen infinitely more of hers than she ever would - and he knew that. He was her superior in a thousand bloody aspects and yet she captured him and held him like no other before her.

Her scent. The way she moved. How her voice sounded as she spoke, or yelled, or screamed, or nagged, or bickered... it didn't matter, that sound was her own and it was in the back of every word she uttered. He couldn't get enough of it. Her smile... And those eyes showing how old her soul was. He could label her a girl to try to push some sense into his short- circuited thoughts - but he knew that in her rested knowledge she herself wasn't even aware of. A woman ready to bloom. She had shouldered a heavier burden than any other of her sex on the earth, and she was growing up fast. Perhaps even too fast...

He had a feeling that before her journey was over she would have to endure worse things than she could imagine, and she would have to face them by herself. What he had said during their caged state had been what he knew was the truth: in the end she would always fight on her own, for the lives of her friends and family - and they wouldn't be able to help her.

And once again he was drifting into musings about HER. About HER life. About HER future.

Shaking his head at himself he grumbled, brushing his hands over his face and trying to wake himself out of this dream he seemed to be having where a part of him actually told him that the reason for these thoughts were... No.

He smiled now.

No.

No, not ever would he even think it. Blasphemous thought, cursed feeling... No.

He would get this thing out of his head, and then he would leave this damned place for good. He didn't need her money, and he didn't need her threats. He wanted nothing more than to go as far away as he could get and never look back.

Not once would he look back.

He'd find that place where he belonged and when he did he'd never let it go, he knew it. He'd been searching for so long...

The sound of soft treading outside made him narrow his eyes.

When the doors of his crypt was knocked in he was already gone. The military-clad commandos entered the room with their instruments tracking the H.S.T. in firm grips as they scanned their surroundings, exchanging looks to signal that all was clear and then one of them nodded to a trap door in the floor. The others seemed to follow what he was telling them by the small movement, and they all silently moved up to it. It took the combined strength of two of them to get it open and they looked down into blackness.

The bleeping dot on the screen of the tracking device was fading and they swiftly got themselves moving, down into the unfamiliarity of the dark and further into the sewers of Sunnydale.

***

3.16 p.m.

He had just swallowed the last of his well deserved lunch - after shaking those bloody G.I. Janes for two bloody hours and then undergoing rather painful surgery by the unskilled hand of the bloody poof he thought it was very well deserved - when he heard the front door being opened, followed by the loud bang as it hit the wall. Turning his head in the vicinity of the inner door, leading into his beloved home, he wasn't surprised as it too was opened so harshly it almost lost its connection with its hinges.

"You sure do know how to make a dramatic entrance," he scoffed, putting the emptied jar down on top of the small fridge and turning fully to face her.

"I'm not here to play war-of-the-tongues with you," she stated coolly and he put on a coy expression which had her exterior waver for a short second before she regained ground and glared at him.

He had known that she would come. He had felt it that very morning, he had felt it before he saw her at the Watcher's place, and he had been even more sure when he left that apartment. She had seemed a bit thrown when the soldier boy was upset that she was "keeping information about the H.S.T's whereabouts" from him. Hah! Trouble in paradise.

Stop that, he instructed himself. You don't care, remember?

Seeing her now wasn't good, he concluded. Seeing her made him... No, he'd better not even go there. SHE was the one who should go. Leave. The way she had come. There was nothing more to say between them.

"Then I'm not interested," he now replied to her former statement. "Go away," he added, turning from her and walking up to the telly standing to her right.

She followed him with her gaze as he bent down to flip it on, frowning.

"I want to know exactly WHAT you thought you were doing at Giles'," she demanded and he shook his head at himself for believing that she would actually just leave him alone, straightening his posture again and letting the screen remain black as he turned back to her.

"I wasn't 'doing' anything," he answered her. "I was having things being done to me. Bloody uncomfortable things too, I'll tell you."

"I know why you were there!" she exclaimed and he rolled his eyes.

The anger was taking over and she stepped inside the room to walk up to him.

"Then why do you come here sodding asking me 'bout it?!" he demanded, raising his voice as well, as she stopped before him.

"I know WHY you were there, but I don't know what the hell you were thinking going there! Are you completely brain dead?! Did you think I'd just relax after you weaseled your way in there like that?!" she barked and his eyebrows rose high in indignation.

"Oh, that's rich! I walked out last night HOPING that I'd get shot - in the BACK, by the way - by some good-for-nothing frickin' STATE EMPLOYEES, just so that I'd be able to get myself CLOSE to YOU?!" he asked and she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I didn't say that," she replied and he shook his head at her.

"What then?" he wondered, calming down slightly as he looked at her.

"Okay, so maybe that's what I said," she admitted and he threw his arms out in a frustrated gesture, turning from her and beginning to pace before her. "Oh," she nodded. "You're doing my thing right now," she added and he glared at her with as much detest that he could muster. "Hmh," she merely muttered, "doesn't bode well."

"Summers, I swear on my mother's grave, you are the most sodding agitating creature on this whole planet!" he exclaimed and her eyes widened slightly as she suppressed a smile.

Remembering why she was there she found the retracting annoyance, firing it back up as she narrowed her eyes.

"I came here to say ONE thing and ONE thing only," she now said with her voice hard. "If you EVER try to come between me and Riley again I'll..."

His eyes grew huge at that before he interrupted her with:

"What do you MEAN 'again'?!"

"You were the one who came with all those stupid accusations about him being in on whatever professor Walsh has been conducting!" she yelled back and he stared at her.

"You are unbelievable!" he exclaimed. "Now you go blame me for making a perfectly good judgment of the buggering situation?! How the hell do you know he's NOT in on it?!"

"Riley's not like that," she defended and Spike cocked an eyebrow. "He's good, unlike YOU!"

"Oh, right, I'm the color of hate and deceit, isn't that right?" he shot. "There's nothing clean in me, am I right?"

"That's right!" she retorted.

"And you don't think capturing creatures and using them for bloody experiments, putting them in cages like they're animals without any sodding capability to think for themselves... You think that's all clean, wholesome goodness?!" he shouted and she looked at him in clear disbelief.

"I am SO not having this conversation with you that I'm already out the DOOR!" she then shouted back and he tilted his head to one side before replying:

"So leave!"

She blinked, raising her eyebrows and huffing.

"Now you expect me to just leave?"

"You said you're not even here anymore already!" he retorted and she looked around her before shaking her head a little.

"You never give up that easily... What's the catch?"

He squinted at her.

"Catch?" he asked and she nodded.

"Ulterior motive," she elaborated and he began to grow frustrated again.

"You said you weren't here anymore and so I thought you might wanna actually leave to follow up on the sodding statement!" he answered and she cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I think I'm gonna stay."

"Stay?" he asked, incredulously, and she nodded once more.

"Yeah. Hang," she replied and his eyebrows shot up.

"From your neck in a noose?" he then inquired with a hopeful yet sarcastic expression seeping into his features and she gave him a look.

"Oh, you kill me," she muttered and he smirked.

"I try," he quipped and she glared at him before narrowing her eyes, seemingly trying to remember something before she gave him the responsibility as she asked:

"What were we yelling about?"

"The sodding git!" he replied, voice growing loud again.

"Right," she nodded. "If you think that you have any right what so ever to put any amount of effort at ALL into breaking us up..."

"I won't," he interrupted her and she looked at him, clearly skeptical to that.

"Huh?" she then asked and he nodded.

"I'm thoroughly happy for you," he assured and she blinked, narrowing her eyes again.

"Happy? For us?" she wondered and he smiled.

"What - you don't think I can 'feel' joy?" he wanted to know and she shook her head.

"I just didn't think you could 'feel joy' when it came to ME," she replied and his smile broadened.

"Shows just how little you know me, doesn't it?" he wondered and she clenched her jaws together at the playful look in his blue eyes.

Something she recognized swirled in the pit of her stomach and she brushed at it as she didn't want anything to do with it. It was too frightening. To strange. Too unfamiliar in its familiarity.

"Ah, but I don't wanna know you," she heard herself retort and she was brought back to span her full attention over the scene taking place - with him.

"You know, there could be parts to me you might like," he remarked and she looked at him with an expression that was so meaningful that his smile turned into a smirk. "Oh, sorry," he murmured. "Guess you've already befriended those parts, eh?"

She rolled her eyes at him - and at herself. She needed to do what she had come to do, or rather SAY what she had come to SAY, and then leave. Immediately.

"Pig," she grumbled and he laughed.

"You're so cute when you're mad," he teased and she glared at him with as much steel that she could muster into her gaze. "Especially when you're mad at me," he continued fearlessly. "'Cause then your eyes kinda glaze over with this irresistible need for destruction... It's quite enchanting."

She raised her eyebrows at that.

"You've just used 'cute' and 'enchanting' in a speech you were preaching concerning me... THAT was scary."

He smiled again and she swallowed, staring at him and feeling the pictures from the dream she had had tugging at being let out from their prison. She refused to hear their calls, merely double checked that their confinement was as tightly locked as ever.

"Oh, what do you think of me?" he now asked, turning from her and walking up to the sarcophagus, leaning against it as he turned back to face her. "That I don't have an artistic vein in my body?" he added and she smirked, following in his footsteps.

"Spike, I KNOW you don't have an artistic vein in your entire body," she answered him, stopping a few feet away from him and crossing her arms over her chest again. "Unless you consider murdering and maiming something that has to do with art," she added and he put a hand by his heart as though she had just wounded him.

"You make me shudder, Slayer," he murmured and she took a slow step back as she rested her eyes in his. "Well... Let's see," he then added, pushing away from the stone behind him and then saying: "I do not like you on a boat... I do not like you with a goat... I do not like you in a car, I do not like you near or far... I do not like you here or there, I do not like you anywhere."

She simply shook her head.

"Poetry! Be still my heart," she said sarcastically and he tilted his head slightly to one side as his eyes grew much too observing for her taste. She smiled humorlessly to cover up the shiver of something she would NOT label as pleasure ran down her spine before she added: "And the irony, of course, is that in the end that old grouch actually likes green eggs and ham."

"But I can't eat you, love," he pointed out with a small smile to return hers. "So there goes that likeness. But - if it's poetry you want - how's this? I'll hate you 'til the day you die; I'll hate you, hate you endlessly; the sight of you does scorch mine eye...and you appear so carelessly. So go away, you stupid bint. I don't want you this sodding near," he moved the few paces dividing them, she kept from drawing a small breath as she tilted her head back, and he finished: "Can't you take the bloody hint? I do not like you ANYWHERE!"

She fought the urge to slip her hands up his arms and into those bleached locks of his. Fought the urge to stand on her toes and press herself against him. Fought the need to feel his lips glide over her ignited skin, lighting fires as they went.

Oh, God! Why did he do this to her?! How could she be like this?! She couldn't!

"That wasn't poetry," she said, taking a step back and getting herself away from him. "That was awful," she added, looking into his eyes defiantly and he smiled once more.

"Did you think I conducted it outta the un-beat of my heart solely for your listening pleasure?" he wondered and she huffed.

"It was terrible and above that - completely unfair!" she replied and he stared at her.

"Unfair?!" he then exclaimed and she nodded.

"Yes! I'M not the one 'hanging' around - pun very much intended - playing with chipped nail polish and smoking like a broken chimney!" she yelled back and his eyes grew again.

"No - 'cause the day YOU'RE the one doing that I'LL change my wardrobe!"

"Into WHAT?!" she shouted.

"Hawiian Sunday - tribute to the sodding whelp," he replied and she glared at him.

"Hah! I'll believe THAT when I see it!" she stated and he tilted his head to one side as he asked:

"Will you ever paint your nails black and play with the chips when it starts to come off?"

"I doubt it," she muttered.

"And will you EVER smoke like a broken chimney?" he now inquired and she met his gaze.

"Not while I live and breathe," she replied and he gave her a meaningful look.

"Then I guess you'll never believe it," he stated and she opened her mouth to say something, pausing in the middle of the motion and then she sighed.

"Point taken," she grumbled.

"It WAS an exceptional one," he commended himself and she gave him a look.

"I do so enjoy our little chats," she said and he smirked at the drip of everlasting sarcasm in those words. "I find them...illuminating."

"Are you working at having me laugh?" he shot. "Or was that comment about to be followed by 'And by the way, I desperately, like-a-bug-about-to-be- crushed, in the crawling way am here to seek your advice and hopefully - pleasepleaseplease - your help in a pressing, earth-shattering, apocalyptic matter'?"

"Hah-hah," she grumbled and his smirk widened, then it died as he said:

"Yeah, I thought you might find that funny - I sure as hell do. You want me out of your life, right?" She nodded, looking insecure as to where he was going and he decided that he would let her know. "And still you storm in here saying - yelling - that I'd better not show my face around you anymore or you seeing it just might break up the bond of love that you and Captain sodding Cardboard are tying!"

"That's NOT what I said!" she exclaimed, unfolding her arms and taking a step forward in sudden fury.

"What DID you say then?" he asked.

"That...I don't want you to TRY," she answered and his eyebrows rose.

"So I could break it - if I TRIED?" he asked and she shook her head, then suddenly eyed him before asking:

"Why? Would you want to?"

He cocked an eyebrow.

"Would you want me to want to?" he asked back.

"Would you want me to want you to want to?" she retorted and he smirked.

"Would you want me to want you to want me to want to?" he wondered and she rolled her eyes at him. "You giving up already, love?" he asked now. "I could do this all day."

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