Crash

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Crash

Part I

Friday night.

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My sister is a mystical Key and all our shared history is an illusion implanted by a bunch of monks. My mother is recovering from a brain tumour. My boyfriend has run off to South America because I threatened his masculinity to the point that he was getting suck-jobs from vamp whores. My best friend is stronger with the witchy abilities every day and freaking us out with random spell casting. My other best friend is in love with an ex-demon who drives us all crazy. My surrogate father, who apparently swore actual sacred oaths to protect me, is still occasionally in league with the same Council of Watchers that tries to kill me on a semi-regular basis, and now has a guilt complex that he didn't train me in Japanese like I'm some cheesy girl power samurai. There's a dangerous new vampire in town who slaughtered everyone on a train and is still on the loose. Oh, and best of all? We're up against Glory, a hell god who can kick my ass without even smudging her lipstick. I'm the Slayer, all called and Chosen and destined to save the world, and what am I doing tonight? I'm on a mission to tell a vampire that I don't have feelings for him. Because my mom and my best friend told me to.

I kick a lot of things on the way to Spike's crypt. I wish there were something to slay, but over-efficient patrolling this week means a peaceful cemetery tonight. If Spike tries to say he loves me again, I'm gonna dust him ... tell Giles that Spike's chip stopped working and I had to put him down like a rabid dog. To save the world. Because it's my job. Die, tree stump! Die, headstone!

Okay, I'm at the crypt now. Maybe there's an official samurai thing I can chant for extra courage and determination. I could run round to Giles and ask. Yeah, right. Just open the door, Chosen One.

No Spike. Oh well, too bad, better luck next time. But I can already hear Mom's disappointment. Mom said she was proud of my decision, and I'm not letting go of that in a hurry even if my decision was to bow under the pressure of Willow's resolve face. Better than a Japanese chant thing any day, picturing Mom's tired expression ... way to go, Buffy, give your stressed mother something else to worry about. Bowing is kinda Japanese, though. And since when am I so hung up on the Japanese thing?

No Spike. No Harmony either, thank all that's holy. No sounds, no movement. There's a trapdoor in the floor towards the back, though ... I'll drop down, have a quick look around, and make it home in time to work on my English paper. Things have to be pretty bad before homework is the favoured option.

There's a whole network of caves and tunnels down here. Spike's big with the ambience. Caskets, blazing torches, tree roots in the ceiling, piles of bones. The whole rough-hewn rock walls Nosferatu theme is so angsty goth I'm gonna mock Spike for weeks ... except I won't, because if hitting him is third base then teasing him is probably second, and if I tease him he'll tease me back and we'll be at third base in a heartbeat.

I take a torch and explore. Part of the wall is covered with a sheet. In a place where open coffins spill human remains, what on earth could Spike want to cover up?

Oh, my god ... a wall of pictures of me ... and my hairbrush ... and a mannequin with a blonde wig ... and ... drawings of me. That Angel did? That's my blue sweater! I've been yelling at Dawn for two days over that! Are those my stakes? Have I been doing extra whittling duty because Spike steals my stakes? What sort of vampire collects stakes sharpened by the very hand of his sworn enemy?

I'm out of here. This is sick. Not flattering. Not an indication that he really is in love with me. Just sick. Up the ladder, and home to my English paper like a normal person who is not the subject of a freako shrine in a cave decorated with human bones. Spike's not here and I'll just have to live with Mom being disappointed. When I tell her about the sweater she'll understand.

Gah! Spike is crouched by the top of the ladder, and something is badly wrong because he's changed from the soft grey and green clothes he wore to the warehouse earlier and he's back in black. And there's blood on his mouth. And his voice is cold and menacing. And he hasn't been this scary since forever.

Damn right I saw something interesting, but tonight's mission now consists solely of getting the hell out of here.

I climb up the ladder, and all I can look at is that smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. I start to ask him about it, and he's walking towards me. It's not in Japanese (surprise!) but I have a mantra which goes 'he's chipped, he can't hurt me, he's chipped, he can't hurt me' that I recite to myself every time I see him. The worst that can happen is I'll fall down the hole in the floor and make a fool of myself.

I'm almost stammering because I'm chanting the he-can't-hurt-me thing in my head and it's hard to concentrate on feeling safe around Spike when he's stalking towards me like a big, hungry cat. Or, looking at the blood, a cat that's maybe not quite so hungry because it recently killed and ate something.

Falling through the hole in the floor is looking pretty good all of a sudden. Certainly better than turning around and seeing Drusilla with a cattle-prod. But I don't get a chance to choose because she zaps me and I collapse on the floor, and the only people who know I'm here are Mom and Willow and I've gone to a great deal of trouble to convince Mom I'm Supergirl so she won't have a panic attack every time I go on patrol and sure I asked Willow to revoke Spike's invitation to my house but that's not a whole lot of use to me right now.

I try to get up, pushing against the sarcophagus, but this is agony. My hands and feet are numb, and my heart is either beating a thousand times a second or it stopped beating altogether, but it must be beating because there's this intense pain in my chest. Spike and Drusilla are saying things, and he's got his arm around her, and they're grinning like ... well, like two vampires who have incapacitated the Slayer. And I remember what Spike said to me a few months ago, that every vampire is looking for their One Good Day, and Spike's chip is irrelevant now that Drusilla's here to do the dirty work, and she's obviously the one who killed all the people on the train, and now she's leaning over me and I know why she can see the skies bleeding and the cherubs burning because I can see them too, in her eyes ... and ... and oh shit the cattle prod is coming at me again ....

I'm standing up. I can feel my feet on the ground. My head is throbbing with a dull ache, and every nerve ending in my body is jangling.

I open my eyes and I try to get into combat stance, but my arms are absent without leave. I have to stop with the commando jargon. And can we concentrate on the current problem just a little tiny bit instead of picking at the Riley-shaped scab?

My wrists are in manacles. I'm chained to the wooden supports of a doorway in Spike's basement. Basement ... I think I'm going to laugh out loud. As if he's going to have a furnace and a washing machine down here, bicycles the kids have grown out of, and boxes of old clothes no-one has bothered to take to Goodwill. Taking a couple of hits of high voltage electricity does not facilitate higher brain functions. But hey, I'm up to four-syllable words, so things are looking up in the brain department. Get it together, Buffy.

"Beginning to think you'd sleep the night away," Spike says, like we're having a conversation, like he's concerned, like his ex wasn't the one who induced the potentially night-long sleep. The blood's gone from his mouth and the gloat from his voice and his expression is sneer-free, but I'm not exactly feeling secure in his affections right now.

Spike twitches his eyebrows and stands to one side, and there she is ... tied to a pillar about eight feet away from me. She's wittering something about musical chairs and Spike is saying something back to her. He must be used to her ravings after all those years scourging Europe together.

This is how I know for an absolute fact that Spike isn't in love with me, because how can someone be so faithful and so loyal to such a dribbling lunatic and then suddenly decide he's interested in me? I'm reasonably attractive, and I fight well, and there's that Slayer/Arch-rival bond we've got going that I never want to examine too closely. So I have some assets, but not enough to override his obsessive-compulsive enslavement to the fruitcake.

"Simple. I'm gonna prove something," Spike says, and moves right up close to me. "I love you."

I realise I said it out loud when he gets all cranky and says "No, look at me," and forces me to look at him by grabbing my chin.

Like it's the magic formula for making me believe him. I twist my head from his grasp. But it's Spike, so it's not like he's going to shut up.

"You're all I bloody think about. Dream about. You're in my gut, in my throat. I'm drowning in you, Summers, I'm drowning in you."

Oh! Lies and crazy, yes, but ... oh! His voice is so deep and raw I almost believe him.

He doesn't mean it, of course. Since he got the chip he's limited to torture of the mental variety. He lashes Xander into a seething testosterone fury, and turns Giles into Ripper on sight, and he flirts with lesbians, and this love declaration is just his latest evil plan. I'm about to laugh at him when Drusilla gets there first, giggling something about pixies. But Spike is in my face again.

"You can't tell me that there isn't anything there between you and me. I know you feel something."

I do. It's that bond. It's respect for an adversary I never managed to defeat, and admiration for his fighting skills and his general coolness, and a wacked-out sense of comradeship that we're in the same business even if we're on different sides. Except since he was chipped last year we've been mostly on the same side and he's always there when I need him. And it's that dense, humming sensation I get every now and then when I can't take my eyes off him because he has those cheekbones and that arrogant, hip-shot slouch. But I'll chew off my own leg before I admit any of this to him.

"It's called revulsion," I say, proud of my cutting disdain. "And whatever you think you're feeling, it's not love. You can't love without a soul."

For the first time I really listen to Drusilla. "Oh, we can, you know. We can love quite well. If not wisely."

A few hours ago, in the stinky vamp nest, Spike had a melty glow in his eyes and his face was ... is now ... yearning. But I'm not giving an inch here. I can only guess at what he hopes to achieve by this, but I'm not going to feed into it, and he's looking at me and he knows I'm shutting him out.

"You still don't believe. Still don't think I mean it. You want proof, huh? How's this?" he asks, grabbing a stake from the High Altar of Buffy. I figure I'm in for something nasty, but he's holding the stake to Drusilla's breast and saying "I'm gonna kill Dru for you."

Drusilla's cackling again and I have to agree with her. Spike dust his sire. To win me. Yeah, right.

"That doesn't prove anything," I sneer in disbelief. "Except that you're a sick, miserable vampire that I should have dusted a long time ago. And, hey, already there."

If Spike wasn't offended before, he certainly is now. "This is Dru, girl! You have the slightest idea what she means to me? It's the face of my salvation!" He goes to his salvation and touches its face, and she gazes doe-eyed at him. I can't see his expression, but Drusilla seems pretty happy with it and the words flowing around her.

He walks towards me, and the hammer falls. "Here's why. If you don't admit it, that there's something there, some tiny feeling for me, then I'll untie Dru and let her kill you instead."

Drusilla is smiling and nodding, and if her hands weren't tied to the pillar she'd probably be clapping. Right up until she slashed my throat with those vicious fingernails. Then she'd sit on the floor and smack her palms in my blood like a toddler in a paddling pool.

Spike ignores her. "Just give me something. A crumb, a barest smidgen. Tell me maybe, some day, there's a chance."

There it is ... the same look he gave me in the warehouse a few hours ago. The look he's been giving me for months, perhaps longer. And that passionate speech to Dru was mostly in the past tense.

Spike just isn't this good a liar. He doesn't have the patience for it. I'm not ready to analyse the situation, but I can turn it to my advantage. I have a plan: lead him on a bit so he stakes Psycho Queen, lead him on a bit more so he unchains me, then go home. Simple, elegant.

He leans in and his eyes are gleaming with ... hope? I look down, and he moves closer.

"Spike," I murmur again, and his cheek is almost touching mine. Saying his name is going over well, so maybe I can just keep saying it until Mom mobilises the rescue squad.

I'm praying that this will work, that he won't roar with victory and untie Drusilla, and they won't laugh themselves into hiccups while they drain all the blood from my body.

"Buffy, please," he says, so quietly and sincerely that if he's faking I'll be relieved when they kill me because Option B is to die of embarrassment, and I'm sure that's more painful than being drained by vampires no matter how long they take to savour their meal.

What on earth do I say? I haven't memorised a poem for the occasion. I'm not going to spill the beans about the Slayer/Arch-rival bond that ... okay, I invented the bond as an excuse for not having killed him and for being turned on by him. It's not enough to tell him he's hot. He knows what he looks like despite being reflection-impaired because even Xander sometimes stares as though Spike's a statue of a Roman god. I just want Spike to kill Drusilla and let me go home. The more I say, the more complicated I make it, the sooner he'll call my bluff.

So I whisper "yes," and he calls my bluff immediately. He's kissing me and his mouth is so soft and the kisses are baby kittens of kisses brushing against my lips.

I can't believe I said it, and obviously he can't believe it either because he stops kissing me and leans back a little to look at me, his head tilted to one side as if the world doesn't make sense straight up and down. So I say it again, a bit louder this time, looking into his eyes and showing feelings I've been struggling against since I met him.

He's a blur of black. Even in combat together he never moved this fast. He whirls around, whirls back, and is holding my face in his hands and gently stroking my cheeks with his thumbs. The vampire who abducted my friends is tucking my hair behind my ear. The monster who brought a shotgun to my back porch has one hand at the back of my neck and the other hand feathering my temple, and he's kissing me so tenderly that I know he's telling the truth. He loves me.

This is the point where I'm going to talk my way out of the chains and run home. I'm not stupid. I remember the plan. As soon as he stops kissing me I'm gonna get the plan going. Just as soon ... as he stops ... kissing ....

Confessions of a former romance novel junkie, inspired by Spike on drama overload. Really bad romance novels, with pirates and tavern wenches and heaving bosoms. Even the pre-teen me knew they were adolescent fairy tales, sentimental socio-sexual ideals that warp women's expectations of true human interactions. I didn't use those words when I was eleven years old - they come from Psych classes and literary criticism texts - but I knew in my California mallrat soul that swooning was a made-up thing ... a character motivation to move the relationship from repressed attraction to bodice ripping, and a plot device to get the heroine horizontal. Real historical swooning happened because women used to be so tightly corseted that the slightest emotional or physical strain would impair the blood-flow to the brain, causing the brain to make the body collapse and thus relieve the emotional or physical strain. No-one has swooned for decades. Yay clothing evolution.

Spike's tongue sweeps across my lower lip and I'm not swooning but my knees go weak and I'm dizzy and I'm not even wearing a bra. We've been kissing for maybe ten minutes, and it's only been lips and little breaths and his hands fluttering around my head and neck. Going with the romance novel comparison again, he hasn't thrust his manhood against me or plundered my mouth, or even touched me below the collarbone.

I slump into him. He puts one arm around my waist and the other up my back so his fingers are splayed between my shoulder blades, holding me steady, and he's still gentle and not plundering or thrusting anything. I open my mouth because I have a plan and this is stage two and I have to open my mouth because stage two is talking, but instead of talking I'm touching my tongue lightly to his and now we're really kissing and oh, god, he's so good at it.

My breasts are rising and falling against his chest as I try to breathe, and it isn't bosom heaving it's just needing more oxygen. He's gasping too, and he breaks contact to press his forehead against mine while we pant. Does he know that the forehead move is as sultry as the kissing and panting? His mouth is trailing from my temple to my cheek and along my jaw, and I look over his black leather shoulder to Drusilla and she isn't there. I knew he must have either staked her or let her go, because otherwise what was the mid-kissing whirling all about, but it doesn't sink in until I see the small heap at the base of the pillar.

He steps away, his eyes moving slowly between me and the heap of dust, and he turns his back to me and his head is down. My arms are aching to touch him because I know exactly how he's feeling and I wish someone had been there to hold me when I was feeling that way. In fact my arms are generally aching, what with being chained to the wall.

That last part isn't for me. It is for her. He's not struck down with grief, as far as I can tell. No tears or anguish, and his hands are steady as he unlocks the manacles. But when he finally looks at me there is a blankness in his eyes. He has the same smell of defeat I had when I stuck that sword into Angel and shoved him into Acathla's vortex, and now I know all my rants about Spike not having real feelings were sanctimonious garbage.

I'm hugging him. There's no swooning or heaving or any moving at all, just a long hug between two people who have done the unthinkable.

Spike is walking me home. Our arms keep brushing together, and sometimes it's more than brushing, but we're not holding hands. We're numb, with an emotionally exhausted anticlimax curtain between us, and I have no idea what happens now.

What did I just say? "I have no idea," I repeat, as if I'd said it out loud the first time.

He stops walking, and I stop walking, and we stand facing each other with my fingertips resting lightly on his.

"Not between you and Dru. I tried to tell you about it before, at the warehouse. A choice between man and demon. Between being worthy of you and being beneath you."

I wince. I did say that to him, and it wasn't very long ago, and I meant it. I think it's going to be a long time before I stop meaning it altogether because staking Drusilla is a really big first step but the thing about a first step is there's lots more steps afterwards. Or maybe it wasn't the first step, but it's certainly not the last step, and at most it's a plateau between a series of steps. And I have my own steps to deal with, and I'm not sure what sort of step Spike is yet.

I just blink at him and congratulate myself for not having said all that out loud.

We're walking up to my house. I open the front door and go inside, and he tries to follow but comes to an abrupt halt at the invisible barrier of Willow's brand new Spike Be Gone spell.

"No, no, it makes sense. Knew you were scared in the car, and in the vamp nest. Even before I chained you up."

I have a lot to say about being chained up, but he's so close. I'm standing just this side of the barrier, and Spike's standing just the other side, and the barrier should make me feel safe but it doesn't. All the unsafe is inside me, in my head and my heart, and maybe I've been clinging to an ideal of safety that's even less realistic than the socio-sexual plot devices of romance novels.

I walk through the doorway and touch his face, and we're kissing like kittens again. He nudges me backwards, leaning me against the door frame, and the kisses are getting deeper and hotter only this time I can move my arms. My hands run up between his coat and his t-shirt, across his chest, down his sides, around his back. It's a while before I realise I'm searching for something that's not all muscle and sinew and snide remarks and violence, something non-Roman-statuey, something vulnerable. His belly gives a little beneath my fingers and I caress the thin layer of pliable flesh over muscle, and this is it. This part belongs to me.

Spike's hands are exploring under my jacket while he's kissing me so intensely that I understand why Drusilla talked to pixies when she was deprived of Spike's mouth. His palm cups my breast. I arch my back and moan, and the sound, the first either of us has made since we stopped talking, shocks me back through the door and into the hall.

"I have to tell Mom I'm home," I gasp. "It's really late. We'll ... I'll see you later, okay? Tomorrow night ... at your crypt."

He nods. He stands there. His eyes are naked with love and desire and hope, and now I know that all of Spike belongs to me if I choose to claim him. He puts his hands in his pockets and wraps his coat around himself, and stands there looking at me as I close the door.

Mom wanted to debrief me (out, Rileyspeak, out!), but she interpreted my shellshock as extreme fatigue so I was excused to my bedroom almost immediately. She was right, though, because I was out to it for the rest of the night and quite a lot of the next day, dreaming about Spike and cranking up the Slayer/Arch-rival bond several notches in my sleep.

When I woke Mom and Dawn were off doing Saturday afternoon things together. Their return was the occasion for much admiring of consumer goods, and it was well after dinner that Dawn went to her room and Mom sat me in the kitchen for the big talk. I danced around the topic for a while until I eventually said I didn't know exactly what was going on between me and Spike, which is mostly true but led to difficult questions about why there's suddenly a 'between me and Spike' at all and a lot of motherly advice about relationships. It says much about my life that Mom's relationship advice has a regularly featured vampire component.

Mom allowed me to escape upstairs after we had the 'I'm an adult now' argument that gets shorter every time because she knows the 'I'm still your mother' ground she stands on is shrinking daily. She didn't ask if I'm going to see Spike tonight, and it was good not having to lie to her and even better not having to tell her the truth.

I'm not getting dressed up for this. I hope there'll be kissing and more, but first there will be lots of serious talking and nothing says 'serious talk first' like jeans and a heavy jacket and sturdy shoes. Especially with no jewellery and minimal makeup. I can't resist sensuous silk underwear, though, because if he gets to see under the serious talking clothes we'll be done with the serious talking and on to the kissing and more.

My brain drivels on like that the whole time I'm showering and drying my hair and getting dressed while I wait for Mom to go to bed. She finally has, and I'm swinging down off the roof very quietly because Mom's only just turned off the light, and because Dawn's a light sleeper and a heavy blackmailer who spent her whole bank balance today at the mall.

Spike's sitting at the entrance to his crypt, smoking a cigarette, with an expression that scuds from sad to surprised to pleased to nervous as he gets to his feet. I stand on the grass in the moonlight and we have to choose between talking and kissing.

I raise one eyebrow, partly to prove he's not the only one with eyebrow skills, set my mouth into a firm, kiss-repelling line, and cut directly to the chase. "If I'd stuck with the Spike Revolts Me approach, would you have let Drusilla kill me?"

"No! God, no!" He's so horrified he takes a step towards me, hands extended, but I fold my arms across my chest. "Never! I had to show you how I feel, make you believe me. You wouldn't listen before, and I ran out of ideas."

"You ran out of ideas? After only one? Fake a stakeout date, and then it's straight to electrocution and death threats?"

"Flowers and chocolates and walks on the beach were going to work?" He does his own eyebrow thing, snorts, and flicks the cigarette butt into the night. "Didn't think so."

"I've been trying things like that for months. You didn't even notice me when you weren't punching me in the nose or wanting me to do something for you. Besides ... some women like being chained up."

Another round of mutual eyebrow action. And it suddenly hits me ... Spike's sources for romantic relationships are Drusilla, and tv soap operas, and whatever he got up to as a human in the Victorian era. Unmixy things much?

The wind picks up and I rub my arms, so Spike opens the door and we go inside. The crypt looks different ... cleaner? ... but I'm preoccupied with recasting things he's said and done over the past few months into courtship rituals. And wondering if punching him in the nose and asking him to do things were my courtship rituals.

"I can sort of understand the chains," I admit. "Although it was very very wrong, and I can't believe you did it, and if I ever see that cattle-prod again it's going up your nose."

I check to see if he's laughing, but he heads for a sarcophagus and sits quietly.

"But, Spike ...." I don't know how to start this. I pace around for a while and he watches me.

"You had things there ... clothes, photos ... things you took from my house ... from my bedroom. Some of them have been missing for a long time. And drawings Angel did three years ago."

Spike nods. I'm waiting for him to defend himself with the usual babble of lies and justifications, but he's waiting for me to continue.

What do I need to know? What do I need him to know? What will happen if I open up to him? What won't happen if I don't? There's no going backwards, but forwards is ... I have no idea what forwards is. I've spent the past five years trying to stay safely in one place. There's no safety here ... whatever Spike is or could be, safe is not on the list. Do I still want safety? Look where safe, reliable Riley got me. Samurai Slayer time ... courage and determination.

"How long has this been going on? Did the Buffy memorabilia collection start out as a Know Your Enemy thing? And is it still partly that? Is Harmony still around? When did you stop being in love with Drusilla? Why did you stop? Or are you still in love with her? Why are you in love with me? When did you know? Why did you have blood on your mouth last night? Does your chip still work? Are you killing again? Is this your latest evil plan?"

He just sits there, listening, until Samurai Slayer runs out of courage and determination. Suddenly I don't want to talk any more, and I sure as hell don't want to listen because I know I won't like some of his answers. So I run to him and we kiss each other senseless. I'm reacquainting one hand with the delicious layer of fat on his stomach and my other hand is circling up his thigh, and Spike groans and grabs my wrists and pushes me back a little.

I like to think I am a disciplined person. Giles has invested years training me to be alert and focused, honing my concentration skills through meditation and visualisation exercises. But now I'm breathing erratically and trying to pull my hands free and visualising Spike naked, and things are pretty screwed up when the vampire with the attention span of a three year old has better impulse control than I do.

"Especially before that," he reprimands, letting go of my wrists and pulling his coat around his front. "This means too much to me, Buffy. I want to do it right."

"Can you repeat the questions? In order?" he twinkles at me. Spike reprimands and twinkles and pushes me away when I throw myself at him. It's disturbing enough to work.

"Yeah, all right. Here's the thing. I've been falling in love with you since we met, since I first saw you dancing in the Bronze. Since I ... uh ... threatened to kill you. The first time." I snort, and he ducks his head but persists. "Not all the way in love in the beginning, obviously, but it was there and it burned into me a bit more every time I saw you or thought about you. Which was constantly. It's why Dru left me."

I start to ask about Drusilla, but he waves the issue away. "Not ready to talk about that yet. Or Angel, either," he warns. "This is just about us now."

"I didn't know I was in love with you, but I was always thinking about you and trying to be near you. I took up with Harm because she looks like you ... "

"You bastard!" I lunge at him and he fends me off. "You're so gonna pay for that!"

"See? Exactly what Harm would say," he smirks, and I lunge again and kiss the smirk right off his face. I summon enough discipline to move away from him and enough concentration to realise that a day ago I'd have punched the smirk instead.

"I knew I could never have you," he says, tilting his head and holding my hands to his chest. "So I took little bits of you ... your clothes, some things from your room ... because I knew that's all I would ever get."

"But I'm here," I say, and ask the only question I really care about right now. "What are you going to do with me?"

The doorway I was chained in leads to a bedroom. It's a bit too Harmonyised for my taste, especially given the recently acquired and highly alarming knowledge that Harmony was a substitute me, but there aren't any coffins or spooky gargoyles (or spookier unicorns), and the tree roots have been cleared from the ceiling. It's surprisingly warm and dry, and the candles give an intimate light that makes the stone walls recede into flickering shadows.

We did talk for a lot longer. It must be one or two in the morning now, but neither of us wears a watch. I asked most of my questions and Spike answered most of them, and things were uncomfortable for a while because we drifted into dangerous Angel and Drusilla waters. Then the talking became flirting, which led to kissing, and as we moved together and apart and together again we were both heading inexorably to the trapdoor.

I thought being back in the lower level of the crypt would be creepy, what with all the happy memories from last night, but the bones and manacles and Drusilla's dust were gone. My peripheral vision briefly registered that the Buffy Shrine had been packed into a box, but by then my legs were around Spike's waist and he was squeezing my ass, and now he's lowering me to the bedroom floor.

Spike lights more candles with his Zippo, and I kick off my shoes and wriggle out of my jeans. I never knew how fiddly motorcycle boots could be, though, and he only has one off by the time I'm down to my post-serious-talking camisole and panties, and I'm losing patience and tugging at his coat.

"Mind the leather," he warns, and I bite him on the shoulder as I pull the damn coat down his arms. He takes it from me and places it far too worshipfully on a chair, so I drag him onto the bed and untuck his t-shirt because I'm determined to claim his stomach.

He sits up a bit, wrestling with his knotted laces, and I'm lying half off the bed kissing his belly and the line of soft hair that trails down into his pants. My head's in his lap because he's jack-knifed for footwear removal purposes, and he's breathing heavily as my cheek presses into his crotch. He throws the boot triumphantly against the wall and lies back with his hands behind his head, clearly expecting me to proceed to jeans duty. I give all my attention to sucking a hickey on his stomach, so he tries to unbuckle his belt but my head and hands are in the way.

I laugh, and lick along the skin just above his waistband, holding his hips. "No, this is my favourite part of you."

He hauls me up the bed so I land on my back with my head on the pillows, and his voice is a low, smouldering growl. "I'll show you what you came for, hellcat, and you will come for it til you scream."

I have a witty retort but it flies out of my head because he's standing at the foot of the bed taking off his t-shirt unbelievably slowly and flexing every muscle, and he's absolutely right ... I hadn't seen the rest, and now that I'm seeing some of the rest I'm reconsidering the swooning concept.

He kneels on the mattress, bends over, and crawls up to me on his hands and knees ... like a big, hungry cat. He's probably done this a thousand times, at least some of them in this very room, but now he's lying alongside me, and his face is above mine and he's grazing his lips along my cheek to snuffle in my ear, and I'm trembling with anticipation and not caring about his thousands of times. I turn to his mouth and kiss him wildly, incapable of carrying out my plan to play with his stomach til he begs for other things. I'm all with the plan-following lately. I'm on Spike's bed. I'm on Spike's bed with Spike. I'm molesting Spike on Spike's bed.

"Buffy, slow down. It'll be better this way," he breathes into my ear, running his fingers through my hair.

I nod and try to calm down, but I'm panting and biting his shoulder and fumbling with his belt and he's rolling me onto my front and holding me down with a sharp elbow. My squawk is muffled by the pillows.

Discipline Girl takes charge, and the elbow is removed. He lies on his right side and continues playing with my hair. His voice is gentle again. "I've been dreaming about this for years, and I want to enjoy every ... long ... minute," he explains, kissing the hand I have tucked under my chin and stroking my hair until I take a deep breath and relax.

The kisses move up my arm, Spike's mouth open and wet and getting warmer as he draws heat from my skin. His hand caresses my back and he leans forward to scissor the camisole strap with his teeth. He slides his arms around my waist and turns me onto my back, kissing my neck, stroking my arms, and he severs the other strap. Fingertips trail over and under my breasts, tracing ever decreasing circles until his thumb briefly brushes a nipple.

His mouth returns to mine for one long kiss while his hand teases the curve of my breast, and he's nibbling along my collarbone to bite neatly through the camisole neckline. I want to ask him how he's doing that so precisely, but now his hands rip the silk slowly down, barely disturbing it from my body, and his lips follow the tear to my navel and his tongue on my skin drives the question from my mind.

Spike nips through the hem and, grinning wickedly, gives me a hickey to match his. I curl one hand through his hair and tickle his neck as he licks down my stomach and bites the narrow band of my panties at the hip, kissing across the middle to sever the other side. He tugs the ruined camisole away with his hand and the panties with his teeth, the silk dragging across my nipples and my crotch in one slow, breathtakingly erotic movement.

He leans back, his left hand caressing lightly from my shoulders to my knees. He gazes at me so intently that I feel more than just physically naked, and I'm bringing one leg over to conceal my crotch between my thighs and my right arm to shield my breasts without conscious thought.

Spike lies alongside me, kissing my face, his arms hooked under my shoulders and his hands in my hair, his chest covering mine.

"No!" I refuse to admit I'm embarrassed, and now I'm embarrassed about being embarrassed. "A little."

He smiles at me. "You're so beautiful," he says as he kisses my eyelids and nose and chin.

His lips touch mine and I relax again. My arms go around his back as he leans in to me, sucking gently at my lower lip and licking with just the tip of his tongue. The kisses deepen and I want to taste and touch and see more of him. I push him onto his back, rolling with him so we're still pressed together, and pull up his arms and tuck his hands behind his head.

"Close your eyes or there won't be any this," I insist, and he reluctantly complies.

I wriggle my way across his chest, kissing and licking, watching his muscles shudder under my touch. He tastes so good! It must be all the non-blood food he eats, because the other vampire who shall remain nameless didn't taste of anything. I suck his nipple and glance up to see him looking at me, so I bite him and he closes his eyes with a groan.

"A little payback for the Harmony comments." I pinch his other nipple. "And you owe me a new set of underwear. While we're on the subject, how did you do that?"

He's probably right, because the underwear biting was very impressive and if he didn't have something to hide he'd be showing off like a peacock with two tails.

"How bad could it be? I know you didn't go bumpy. Were you hiding a razor in your mouth? Did you do some tacky thrall thing to hypnotise me while you used a knife? It's something with your teeth, isn't it? Please show me."

Spike is wary, but he lifts his head and obediently opens his mouth. His sharp fangs descend briefly and his eyes turn yellow, but he's human again before the rest of the transformation begins. I make him do it again to show it doesn't bother me. And I tell him it doesn't bother me, just in case. And I tell myself it doesn't bother me, which sounds a lot like the old 'he's chipped, he can't hurt me' but wrapped in torn silk.

"Then you have to be naked too." I kiss down his chest, and he hums in approval.

I unbuckle his belt and pull it slowly out of the loops. I undo the top button of his jeans and he breathes heavily as my mouth joins my hands. How long would it take human teeth to chew through boxers or briefs? I open another button and discover he isn't wearing either. Does he ever? All that time we were fighting and arguing and flirting, was he naked under his jeans? This is so distracting! My fingers twirl aimlessly at his waistband as I stare into his crotch and imagine him being hard while we fought ... hard and tormented by the friction against his jeans. Was he turned on by me then?

"Yes what?" I freeze. I try to keep my voice level, but am fully prepared to panic if he really can read my mind.

"Yes more? Yes please? Yes now!" His hips jerk up, bumping my nose, and I mouth him through the faded black denim.

"Are we taking turns being impatient? When do we swap? How do I know when it's my turn? Is there a bell?"

Spike's hands fly down and I swat them away and he groans with frustration. I'm so merciful. I open the last buttons and tug his jeans down to his knees. He kicks them the rest of the way off. Mercy has its limits, though, and I curve my body over his stomach and around so all he can see is my back.

"I'm a bad, bad girl," I agree as I take his penis in my hand and explore it with my fingers, watching his thigh muscles twitch.

My shyness has fled because we're both naked now and his body is entrancing, and the verbal sparring is familiar territory. Seductive, sophisticated Spike is intimidating and reminds me of his thousands of times again, but this is the snarky, demanding, fidgety Spike I've known for years.

He lies back against the pillows, one arm stretched tautly across the bed clutching the sheet. I poise my mouth over him, and his other hand twists into my hair. I turn my face to address him.

"Please don't tangle my hair," I ask politely, stalling because that bit there must be his foreskin and I have no idea what to do with it.

Spike thumps his heel on the bed. "Put my dick in your mouth!" he howls. "Right now! I fucking dare you!"

We're laughing so much that he's bobbing around in the air and I can't make my lips the right shape, but I look at the intended target and my mouth automatically descends and he lies back with a hoarse grunt. I lick in circles down to his balls but the foreskin is making me nervous so I'm still stalling with tentative licks and kisses that I know aren't satisfying despite his encouraging moans.

I suck on his fingertips and lick down his fingers to wetly kiss his palm. I'm about to ask if this is some kinky vampire fetish that's better than a blowjob, but he's being psychic again and he strokes himself a few times to draw the foreskin down.

"Buffy, please," he says tenderly. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but if you keep teasing me I'm gonna have a wank and come on your face."

How can he be crude and charismatic and funny and sweet about my insecurities all at the same time? Spike looks at me so lovingly that I get all merciful again. I stroke his thighs with one hand, hold his penis firmly in the other and, making sure he can see me, push my lips over and down. I'm not particularly experienced at this, but I know enough to swirl my tongue around liberally and vary the sucking and licking and the pressure. He lets go of the sheet to clasp his hand over mine at the base, showing me how to compensate for not being able to take the whole thing in my mouth, telling me to scrape my teeth gently against the head and guiding my fingertips around his balls.

It doesn't last long, compared to the preliminaries. I'm so aroused by the murmured instructions and his fingers twined with mine and seeing him touching himself that I play with different techniques. I've only just found a rhythm he really likes when he gently disengages me, lifts me up the bed and lies half on top of me with one leg between mine. He supports his weight on his forearms and kisses me slowly.

"Oh." I wince. "I haven't had much practice," I explain, although I'm not about to go into Riley-related details.

"You drive me wild. Another minute and I'm going to explode so hard it'll come out your nose. But I don't want to come yet."

"What!" I shriek. "All that and you didn't want to come? Were you planning on stopping right from the beginning?"

"More fun to wait sometimes. Besides, I figured you were going for a medal in the longest delayed headjob finals," he laughs. "In the gifted amateur division."

"You're a pig, Spike." But I've found a new, affectionate tone for the old insult.

He dots my face and neck with tiny kisses. "It's our first time and I want it to be special."

"It was getting special," I retort defensively. "I was gonna swallow and everything!"

Spike grunts and holds me tightly, hard against my leg. "It was heaven. You have no idea how much I want to fuck your luscious mouth. But I want it to be special for both of us."

I graze my nails across his ass. He moans my name and thrusts into my hip, but clenches his jaw and pulls back. His hands are snug under my shoulders and I know he's cooling us both down.

"What do you want? We can do everything eventually but only one thing first, and I want it to be really good for you. What do you like best?"

I'm dizzy with lust despite the relatively chaste kisses, and it's not difficult to know or even say what I want even though he's looking directly into my eyes. "I want you inside me," I purr seductively.

I only know three. And he's going to make me say it, so I might as well get it over with. He no doubt knows a hundred.

"Doggie," I mumble, knowing he's mentally translating my meagre descriptions into technical porno jargon.

That's all I need ... some difficult feat of acrobatics where he'll have to spend half an hour explaining it to me, possibly drawing a diagram, and I'll do something out of sequence and lose my balance and my dignity. If I have any dignity left after this abominable sex quiz that I'm failing badly. Then again, the laughing and the talking have definitely controlled the passion, so he's a pig but a smart pig. And a persistent pig, because he keeps going. That being the definition of both persistence and piggyness.

"Accessories? What, like jewellery? I'm not getting anything pierced!" I lurch sideways in alarm.

I think of Lego blocks even though I know he doesn't mean Lego blocks and I certainly hope he doesn't mean Lego blocks because ... ow! But he's elaborating, and I'm looking for the emergency exit.

"Sex toys. You know ... well, maybe you don't. Candle wax, strap-on, inflatables, riding crop, handcuffs, edible knickers, nipple clamps, ball-gag, flavoured lube, buttplug, copper wire ... oh, but no batteries. Blindfold, shaving gear, studded collar and leash ... there's a box around here somewhere ...."

He's fishing under the bed with one arm and I'm smacking him and he's laughing so much he can barely get the words out, but I kick him in the shin anyway and it's going to bruise.

"Tell me," he demands, poking me repeatedly in the ribs. "Tell me what you want, or I'll make it up as I go along."

Oh god, anything but that. I close my eyes. "I want you inside me, in the basic missionary position, with nothing weird, and if you make fun of me for not being more exotic I'll never forgive you."

"That will be perfect," he says solemnly, trying to not so much as smile, and another piece of my heart locks into his like a jigsaw puzzle. But the interrogation isn't over yet, even though he's much less hard against my hip.

"Do you want me to go down on you? You can have a sharp, intense orgasm now, and a deeper one later. Even in the basic missionary position," he adds, and he's smirking himself silly but I don't care because surely this will be the end of this godawful conversation and we can go back to at least kissing.

"Do you want oral sex first?" he asks, enunciating each word very slowly and carefully like I'm foreign or retarded or both.

I squirm, and not in a good way, but it's a fair question and he's being far more patient than I would ever have dreamed possible.

"Um. That's ... nice and all, but ... you don't have to. I know everyone else raves on about it, but .... It doesn't do anything for me, and I know it's not ... not nice for you."

Spike's eyebrow nearly dislocates itself, it shoots so far up his face, and it's a few moments until he speaks again.

"I know we agreed not to mention past experiences, but honestly, Buffy, didn't Captain Ca... Finn do the full tour of duty?"

Poophead Parker gave it a go too, and I think I faked it very convincingly, but one ex in this discussion is already one too many and I'm certain Spike will know I'm faking if he goes ahead with this.

"Riley was very attentive," I tell Spike with great indignation. "That doesn't work on me is all. I'm good with, you know, just fingers. In fact, only with fingers. And usually ... my own ... fingers."

Spike is even more indignant than I am, which is intriguing. "We'll see about that," he mutters, and pulls me up so I'm lying higher against the pillows. He tugs the sheet partly over me and I know it's so I can cover myself up if I get shy again. Is this really the same man ('vampire' mumbles a tiny part of my brain) who I've been so relentlessly bitchy to all this time?

But he's kissing me, long and deep and wet, and my concentration wanders off. His hands stroke from my ears to my stomach, caressing my shoulders, tickling down my sides, trailing his nails across my ribs. He slides gracefully down my body, his hand cupping one breast and tweaking the nipple while he sucks the other. I squirm again, in the good way, as he nibbles down my belly and gives me another hickey. He kisses across my hip and down one thigh, gently pushing my legs apart and lifting himself over so he lies between them. He bends my knees up a little and pushes them back against the mattress, my legs spread even wider. I tense, feeling like I'm about to get a Pap smear, but he's stroking and kissing my inner thighs and running his palms hard along my hips and ass, and already this is way more interesting than Captain Ca... Finn ever made it.

Spike feathers the backs of his fingers across my pubic hair and strokes lightly downwards, and I whimper with unexpected need. His palms flat at the top of my inner thighs, he spreads me open with his thumbs and his tongue licks slow and hard in wide circles that circumnavigate everything before stroking up and around my clit, and why am I putting circumnavigation in this context?

I'm very glad I didn't have to tell Spike what I wanted in detail because the technical words make it sound like a medical procedure, and the romance novel words are even vaguer than I am, and he'd tease me for not knowing or not being able to say the dirty words. Also because I would have said something lame like 'um, licking, I guess' or 'circumnavigate me' and he'd be too busy laughing to do anything 'down there' and I'd never know what I've been missing. Luckily I can just lie here and enjoy it, and I do and I am.

But soon his fingers and tongue and lips and teeth are working together in a complex pattern, dipping from place to place so perfectly that the rhythm has me moaning and panting, pulling his hair into curly tufts, rubbing my feet along his sides and writhing in spastic pleasure. Now I know why he wanted to watch when I was doing him, but all I can see is the top of his head between my legs. He's nibbling my clit, and then sucking, and then licking quick and light, and when he does all three things together I suddenly cry his name and spasm hard into his mouth. He's pushing one hand firmly against my quivering crotch and sucking kisses on my stomach and legs. My thigh muscles are jerking and I think I've torn the sheet between my fists because otherwise Spike would be bald and he's saying things but I'm deaf with rapture. Every few seconds he flicks his tongue against my clit and sets off another convulsion, and then he presses his palm hard which sends the shockwave right through every molecule. I arch and twist until his hands are merely caressing my skin and his kisses are more soothing than sensuous, and yet when he blows slowly across my crotch I twitch with aftershocks.

I'm lying dazedly on the bed. I have new insight into Drusilla's mental state because I'm crazy now, too. Suffused with pleasure, with bewitched nerves and enchanted muscles, and I'm going to start naming the stars on the ceiling as soon as I can open my eyes. I'd love to tell this to Spike, seeing as how he couldn't resist dragging Riley in here with us, but Drusilla is recently extra deceased and Spike is so pleased for me that I can't bring myself to tease him. I lie back and glow at him in stunned disbelief.

"That was magnificent, I admit, but I'm sure I can walk," I reply, and I'm aiming for crisp but really it sounds more like drunk.

Spike is buttoning his jeans while I roll to the side of the bed and stand up and stagger randomly for a few steps before finding my legs. He smirks at my Spike-inflicted feebleness, but god knows he's earned a smirk or two million. He tucks the sheet into a sarong above my breasts and guides me to a tunnel leading from a side room.

"You're going over there." He indicates the dimly lit middle distance. "To piss."

"I'm going upstairs for a smoke." He pats me on the ass and pushes me into the tunnel. "Urinate. It'll be fun," he calls after me.

I frown at the smoking, but having been the recipient of such mind-blowing pleasure I can scarcely object when he pursues a little bit of his own. Also because it occurs to me that his oral fixation works strongly in my favour.

I totter forwards and find a narrow, slow-running stream of mostly clean water. There's a rivulet of fresher water trickling from a pipe, and the sound makes me aware that peeing is a high priority, if not the fun one Spike seems to think it is. I look back and he's nowhere in sight, so I hitch the sheet up around my waist and squat over the stream, and as soon as the pee comes I'm almost knocked off my feet by another orgasm. That bastard. He could have warned me. I lean weakly against the wall and clean myself with the fresh water and dry myself on the sheet.

"You know what you deserve?" I ask as I crawl back onto the bed and curl up under the quilt he has retrieved from the floor.

He snorts at me, undressing and getting into bed, and pulls me into his arms. I nestle against him with my head on his shoulder and my arm curved over his delectable tummy, and in a minute I really will be asleep.

Spike brings me a glass of water and talks to me and massages my shoulders, stopping me from dozing off completely until I'm alert again.

"You're incredible," I tell him, snuggling happily into his side. "I've never felt like this before. Next time you ask me what I want, I'll know exactly what to say."

He rolls me onto my back and kisses me, which wakes me up even more and reminds me we've been building up to this for I don't know how long and he's been badly neglected.

The playful kisses get more intense and our hands and mouths more adventurous, tumbling and twisting each other across the bed. I graze his chest with my teeth and kiss down to his stomach, nibbling down his hip and inner thigh, exploring his reactions to my touch, finding out what provokes a sound, what makes him throw out his arm or squeeze his eyes shut.

He holds me under my arms and slowly pulls me up his body, dragging my nipples along his smooth skin, warm from mine, and arching between my breasts and against my belly. His palms stroke hard and slow down my back, the friction nearly burning. Gripping my ass, he grinds us together and we both moan. I turn onto my back, our arms tangling as we fumble for each other again, and his mouth slides across my cheek. He bites my neck in a way that makes my ears ring and I cry out his name and he tenses.

Not going to what? Something about that box of horrors lurking under the bed? But I finally get it because his tongue is trailing sinuously down my carotid artery. Buffy the what now? Slayer of ... something?

Spike leans back and tilts his head. I'm not sure what he's expecting, but I know what he sees ... my eyes heavy with desire, flushed skin quivering for his touch, my mouth wet and half open for shallow breaths.

He fans my hair across the pillow and kisses my temple and down my cheek. "I think so. If you wanted me to. If I'm gentle."

I stroke his hair. His voice is so low and deep. Lulling. My hand moves to the back of his neck. Holding him close when I should be pushing him away. Why am I not pushing him away?

"I'd be so gentle," he breathes into my ear and he's nuzzling my neck and this has already gone too far but I whisper a stupid, stupid question.

"Means so much ... to taste you, a tiny taste ... be inside you ... you inside me, a part of me ... your blood in mine, together ... have you, mark you, make you mine. I'll make it so good for you, Buffy. Invite me in ... Buffy, please ...."

His hand is holding my chin and he's slowly turning my face to the side and his teeth are human but now they're digging hard into my neck and he's waiting and my body mirrors his hunger but I'm nowhere near ready to even think about it but oh god this is so erotic but leading him on is insane and cruel but I want it almost as much as he does but not yet but oh, Spike ....

Spike pants raggedly and raises his head, the tendons in his neck corded with exertion and his jaw rigid. He turns my face to his, eyes flaring yellow-blue, my chin still clamped in his hand, and kisses me savagely.

This isn't going to be special. This is going to be brutal and he'll hurt me and the chip will trigger and I've ruined everything. I force his hand from my chin and put it between my legs, and moan as he pushes a finger inside me, and a second finger. He puts his leg between mine and jams his thigh against his hand, driving his fingers deeper.

We're moving much faster and rougher, gnawing and shoving and grabbing. He's harder than ever and the kissing gets messier and I'm sweating. I'm still worried about the chip, so I hold his wrists ... slow down ... can't ... Spike, please ... and he nods, and I kiss him until the lingering glints of yellow fade from his eyes.

Spike scratches exquisitely along my inner thighs, sucks hard and fast from my breasts to my lips and kisses me breathless, and now when he puts his hand between my legs ... so wet for me ... want you ... he gets three fingers inside with ease. He curls them inside me ... oh! ... stroking and very nearly scratching while I bite his nipples ... harder ... are you sure? ... yesss ... and drag my teeth to his shoulder. He lies on top of me and spreads my legs with his knees ... bit more, pet ... supporting his weight with one hand. The other hand rubbing his penis up and down between my legs ... ready? ... yes! ... and he pushes inside me a little way and slowly pulls almost all the way out. The next thrust is much deeper ... too much ... I warn him with my hands on his chest, and he whimpers but pulls back and I clutch his arms. He thrusts and withdraws, a little deeper each time, my ankles around his waist guiding the tempo ... if you're on top you can ... no, I want this ... until he's all the way in.

We kiss frantically, and I bite his lower lip. I flex around him and he throws his head back ... more ... and slowly moves in and out as I run my feet along his ass and thighs. When he's sure I'm ready he moves faster ... faster ... snaking his hips, grinding into me ... fuck, you're so hot ... yes, oh yes. He pauses to lick my breasts, but I rake my nails across his back ... do it again ... and contract around him ... don't stop, Spike ... and he's alternating long thrusts with short jabs, tethered by my legs.

He sweeps an arm under my ass and pulls me up with him deep inside me ... what are you doing? ... this'll be good for you ... it's already good ... this'll be better ... putting a pillow under my lower back, dropping me down onto it ... this isn't the basic missionary position ... huh ... you're cheating ... you want to fight or fuck? ... both ... that's my girl. He pushes my legs higher with his hands on the backs of my thighs ... like this ... haven't done this ... try it for a bit ... until my legs are against his chest and my knees are over his shoulders ... good? ... god, yes ... wanna argue some more? ... and I can see him, wet and straining ... I'm looking at your tummy ... yeah, right ... as he pumps ... harder ... in and out of me.

He's even deeper now, and my legs are helping to take his weight so he has a free hand to touch ... yes, there ... so beautiful ... sucking his fingers into my mouth ... taste us together. Now when he twists in a rough grind something is nudging my clit ... oh! what's doing that? ... pubic bone, love ... and he's ramming new places inside. Slow pulses vibrate through me, converging ... I think I'm ... in a long, rushing fall and Spike comes ... Buffy ... with hard, heavy throbs that counter mine, panting each other's names with clenched jaws and jerking hips and Spike holding my hand against his chest.

The pillow is pulled out from under me and I lower my trembling legs to his waist with relief. He rests on his forearms, his hands under my shoulders, and we gently rock together and kiss as the last shudders drift into satiated languor.

I squeeze my thighs around his narrow hips and rest my calves on his legs and wrap my arms across his back, moulding myself to him. Tomorrow I'm going to research what 'spike' is in Japanese.

"Yes, it was." His eyes are inches from mine. "I wanted to bite you. I will always want to bite you. It's what I am. Don't do that again unless you mean it."

Tender kisses take the sting out of his words, but he's serious and he wants to discuss it. Now? We can have a long, difficult conversation about our essential natures and exactly how evil he is and if he still wants to get the chip out and where all this is going, or we can lie here and enjoy our new Slayer/Arch-rival bond in blissful silence. Jeeze, how to choose?

"Can we talk about this later? I'm all afterglowy here." I kiss him very slowly, very softly.

Spike's head nestles contentedly by my neck and I'm stroking his beautiful face and he smells so good and we fit together perfectly. Everything feels so right ...

Crash

Part III

Sunday morning.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

He rolls us over and stretches luxuriously with a satisfied grunt. I lie draped on top, and can't stop looking at him and touching him. Spike makes little humming noises as I trace circles on his skin with my fingertips, and he strokes my back and we nearly fall asleep.

He pulls the quilt over us and we lazily play with each other's hair and speckle each other with kisses. I'm getting a crick in my neck, so I slither off him and he cradles me against his chest and we do fall asleep.

I disentangle our arms and legs. "Says the man who lived with Harmony? You can't tell me I'm even a hundredth of the work."

What's worse ... impersonating Harmony, or passing up an opportunity to tease Spike?

"How's the walking going now?" he laughs as I wobble to the makeshift bathroom in my sheet sarong, half asleep and barely able to co-ordinate my limbs.

Would he? Oh god, probably. I know he's doing either the thing with his eyebrows or the thing with his tongue, but I'm concentrating on walking without falling over, and I succeed until I'm back in the bedroom. I trip over his damn boot and land on the edge of the bed and sprawl awkwardly to the floor. He looks down at me and does both the eyebrows thing and the tongue thing simultaneously.

"I'm glad you find me so amusing," I huff as I climb onto the bed and sink back into his arms.

"No, you have to tell me. You have to make a list of every single thing you 'find' about me and I get to argue your points and you have to defend me against me."

"And, if you recall correctly, you were amply rewarded!" He captures my face and kisses me soundly.

"But you have to feed me. Do you have anything other than blood and booze? It must be morning and I want breakfast."

Spike holds me very tightly. "No, of course not. But you should," he says with regret.

"But, unfortunately, I can't keep my hands off you, so you're stuck with me." I demonstrate the magnetised hands problem. Also the magnetised lips problem.

"Do we have to talk about my mother right now? There's a name for that, you know. I learned it in Psych." I nose in his armpit to tickle him. "And since when are you Responsible Guy? Oh, my god! You're turning into Giles!" I gasp in mock horror and make a hex warding gesture.

I rest my chin on his chest and blink rapidly at him. "That's Morse code for 'shut up and kiss me'."

So he does, and I kiss him all over and decide to learn Morse code so I won't have to answer out loud next time he asks an embarrassing sex question.

He's trying to do the right thing, like when he didn't bite me. And I'm testing him. Again. How much control does he have? What will happen when the limit is reached? Poke poke poke.

"If you want to kick me out, I'm going to make it as difficult as I can. I'm aiming for impossible."

"You're already at impossible," he mutters, threading his fingers through my hair and rolling on top of me.

"They'll be mustering a search party by now. And stop pretending I want you to go, because you bloody know how much I want you to stay with me!"

I've been toying with him because I want to punish him for chaining me up last night and for stealing my stuff, and because teasing Spike is just too much fun, but he looks like he's going to throw me out if I don't move things along. I lower my feet to the bed and stroke his shoulders.

He smacks my ass as I stand up to get his copy of the letter from my jeans pocket. He holds out his hand to take it, but I keep it away from him and pull the sheet around myself and sit cross-legged at the bottom of the bed.

"No, I'm gonna read it to you. And don't sulk, because it's a good note and you'll like it."

He lies back on the bed, all tangled up in the quilt with his arms folded on his chest, and power-sulks. He probably won't concentrate as much as he should if I keep stroking his legs and feet, but I can't be this near and not touch him. Even his toes are pretty.

"Dear Mom, I went to Spike's last night to discuss things with him like you and Willow told me to." I look at Spike and pat his knee. "They said I had to make sure you knew I wasn't interested in you. Mom thought I must have been unconsciously leading you on."

He makes his left hand into a fist and sticks out his little finger. "Your grammar is for shit and how you pass any subject at that university is a mystery."

Oh, really. I lift my chin in defiance and stare him down. But he doesn't stay down, because he started with 'one' which means there's more coming, and ... ooh maybe he's going to do his Five Words Or Less routine which makes my pulse race.

The ring finger shoots out. "I can't believe you discussed me with the witch, she's been prejudiced against me for years."

"Because you so endearingly kidnapped her and held a broken bottle to her face, and tried to kill her at least twice, and threatened to turn her, and she has some issues with you. Willow offered to come with me last night and do back-up scowling."

"My plan was to avoid you and my second plan was to stake you, so really you owe them a big favour."

Spike's middle finger stabs the air accusingly. "You didn't come here last night to discuss things, you came here to yell at me and stomp out again without listening to me at all."

He sticks out his index finger. "You've been leading me on since the night we met!"

"I think that might be true, too, but you can hardly complain about it now that it's been so gloriously consummated," I point out mildly.

I fall on him, careful to keep the letter out of his reach, and kiss his legs deliriously. "That was the coolest thing ever!"

"You made me this way, you have to suffer the consequences. Want to hear the rest of the note?"

"You don't feel the cold. Lie there naked and let me look at your sublime body."

He reclines smugly, rubbing his feet against my legs and forgetting to sulk. I almost forget about the note because I'm ogling Spike and dementedly making a list of adjectives to embellish 'sublime' as he flaunts and flexes, but the rustle of paper between my fingers brings me back to my purpose. I swallow a few times to compose my voice, and restrict my field of vision to my handwriting.

"He and I talked for a long time .... See, I left out the parts with the chains and the cattle-prod in case Mom gets all 'prejudiced' about you."

"He and I talked for a long time, and now I know I was wrong when I said it's just a weird Spike thing and it'll blow over. You'll like the next bit," I say quickly because he's not at all happy about that last one. "And that's foreshadowing, so shut up about my academic achievements. He really is in love with me." I smile, and bend over to kiss his toes.

"Yes, I really am." Spike's face and voice are carefully neutral, but his body is taut.

"I'm going there again tonight because Spike and I need to talk more, and I know you won't be pleased but I think I'll be there all day tomorrow, too. But I'll come home and face the music soon, and you can fetch me earlier if there's an emergency. You see? I can stay today."

"I tell you we can have all day alone together and I get an English report card? I wrote it in a hurry so I could be with you."

Maybe I've exacted enough revenge for the chains now, and maybe I don't care so much for vengeance when Spike's body telegraphs 'I don't care what she wrote one way or the other' but his eyes are more than half waiting for me to say something horrible. That's the thing about revenge ... it's not enough until it's too much.

"Also, please don't tell anyone else about this, especially Dawn, because I want to tell them myself and I don't know exactly what to tell them yet because Spike and I need to talk about our relationship."

"I'll explain everything when I get home. All I know right now is that I'm falling in love with him. The end," I add, as his cue to take me in his arms and shower me with romance novel hero type kisses.

Spike snatches the paper from me, reads it, and stalks across the room to put it in his coat pocket. He takes out his cigarettes and looks at them for a moment, but changes his mind and saunters back again. He tumbles me up the bed and lies on top of me, mashing me into the mattress.

"I'm in love with you." And it would be very romantic if it didn't come out in a squashed wheeze.

"Why didn't you just say it in the beginning? Why the fucking torture?" he howls.

I push him back a bit so I can breathe. Also so I can fondle his chest. "At least I didn't electrocute you! Besides, I gave you a choice. We could be playing Things I Find About Buffy, but no, you had to be all responsible and try to make me go home, and ...."

Spike is finally kissing me, possibly just to make me shut up, but it's a fabulous kiss all the same and I moan into his mouth and try to get the quilt out from between us.

"It's the sex," he says flatly, eyes glittering and dark. "Five hours straight is too much for you. Have to cut down."

"The sex is unbelievable and there will be no cutting down! I wrote the note when I was at home last night. After some kissing, but before the sex. Although the kissing helped me sort things out in my head. Do you secrete a hypnotic drug in your mouth?"

Spike smothers a smile. "It's a spell. Red did a spell." He sits up and does his impersonation of Dracula's thrall gesture.

"A spell to make me fall in love with you? That's so last year. Red needs to get her act together."

"Something in the tunnel got at you while you weren't paying attention." Spike nibbles my ankle.

I stand on the bed and unfurl the quilt and sheet, and turn around so he can inspect every naked inch of me. "Where did it get me? And you really should have warned me about that orgasm, because I almost fell in the water."

He's grinning now, and these absurd theories are his playful revenge for my revenge for the chains. I'm not sure if I mind this spiral of vengeance, though. It seems to involve a lot of kissing.

I straddle his waist and hold both his hands. "I'm going to have some fun breaking the news to the Scoobies, but it isn't a game and it isn't a spell. I love you."

"I love you, too," he replies, and I revel in his words and his smile and his blue, blue eyes ... until he starts complaining again. "Hey! You told your mum before you told me."

"She won't have read it yet. Sunday is her morning for sleeping in, no daughters before nine o'clock on pain of extreme crankyness. And even then, we have to provide waffles. Speaking of waffles ...."

"Not today, but yeah. Soon. Otherwise our relationship will be like some dirty secret and I don't want that."

One with constant talking, apparently. "I don't know," I say honestly, loosening his grip a little. "Relationships don't just arrive in the mail. So far ours consists of being mortal enemies for quite a long time, and then a confusing part, and now this. You're asking the wrong person, you know. My track record sucks."

I'm so not going to be interrogated again about what I want, even if it did end well the first time.

"You know something? My whole life is planning for the future ... for school and slaying, the Scoobies, the next apocalypse ... and I'm not so hot with the plans lately. I don't have a strategy. Let's just love each other and make it up as we go along."

"You like this? What we have right now, this morning?" Spike hesitates a fraction. "Together?"

"And here," I interrupt the kiss blizzard and lean back on his thighs, ignoring his erection to lick his belly, "is still my favourite part of you." I raise my face to look at him, worried. "I hope all the sex isn't going to work off your fat."

"We have a lot of talking to do. Starting with your hallucination of fat and your obsession with my stomach. You're worse than Harris's piece of fluff, I'll have you know. At least she gets body parts in the right order."

I slide into his arms. "We have all day to talk, if that's what you really want to do." I experiment with a leer of my own. "But first I want food and you have to play the Things I Find About Buffy game."

"So it's straight to the shagging, pet?" I ask in the most atrocious imitation of his accent, and he lightly pulls my hair.

Spike sighs dramatically, already nibbling my earlobe and running his hands along my sides. "What's behind door number three?"

"There is no door number three," I mumble woozily into his chest. "You only get two choices."

"Make love to me and I'll tell you." I stroke the back of his neck and pull his face to mine.

I try to pull his arms around me again. "You bastard! What happened to drowning in me?"

"What's behind door number three?" he laughs, reaching down to tickle behind my knees, and I writhe on top of him.

"You're a useful sort to have around," he muses. "Train you up a bit, show you the right moves. Could be fun having you as a minion."