After a few weeks of almost nothing, a few more frozen blood bodies had finally shown up. Willow figured Buffy knew about it, since she'd been looking for Spike like crazy last night when they got shattered, but nope - it was the next morning and Buffy seemed utterly clueless.

Willow was pretty proud of herself again, this time for hacking into the coroner's report and downloading pictures of the bodies, all on her own initiative. Not to mention taking on the Giles role and making Buffy sit down and look at the photos! Willow had thought they were making progress, but Buffy was back in space cadet land and it was all the witch could do to get her attention. Luckily, when faced with some of the nastiest bodies they'd seen in a long time, Buffy pulled it together. 

"This is seriously gross," was the first thing out of the Slayer's mouth, but she clicked to the next one anyway. "All of their skin is... shredded. It would be impossible to identify them." 

Willow had to agree. The human body had a lot of blood in it, and when all 5 liters of that blood shattered... nothing was left intact. Nothing. Willow shuddered, and decided to lighten things up with a little joke. 

"Frozen blood - isn't that a vampire's frosty treat? I bet Spike would be into it!" 

"No," said Buffy. "Not even Spike would want to feed on these."

"Sheesh, Buffy, I was just joking," Willow pouted. She couldn't tell from Buffy's face what the deal was, but she was sick of all the recent ‘Spike's so great' crap. Even Giles had said that Spike might be useful. Whatever happened to remembering he was an evil soulless demon with hidden motives? Or - not so hidden motives, i.e. trying to get in her best friend's pants! 

"All the same age, according to these records... I can't really tell, but seems like they were wearing the ‘I'm a socially functional but boring dude' uniform," Buffy flipped back and forth between a few of the files, muttering.

 "What's the socially functional but boring dude uniform?" asked Willow, still trying to inject some brightness into this slumber party. 

"You know, jeans, collared shirt in a neutral color pretty open at the neck but not tucked in, flip flops or nice-ish sneakers."

"Ah, that uniform," Willow nodded. "How can you even tell, though? Their clothes got shredded too!"

"Not completely... I'm good with clothes, remember?"

"I remember you used to be, but recently not so much with the cute outfits, huh?" Willow didn't mean to, but the criticism just slipped out. She just felt so depressed, despite Yllaine, and having Buffy mope around in the colors of a graveyard wasn't helping! 

Buffy didn't even respond, though - typical. Instead she sighed and got up. 

"I don't think we're going to get much more out of these body photos," she said. "The weirdest thing is that the coroner's report seems to show that nothing was taken from them. No blood, it was all at the scene, and no missing... bits." The blonde made a squicked out noise.

"Same with the other guys. There were even witnesses when they... exploded or whatever. Nobody around, no beasties nibbling."

"Who were the other guys, did they ever find out?"

"I looked it up this morning, actually," Willow paused for praise. Buffy just raised an eyebrow and Willow huffed on. "They were all in their mid twenties, male, attractive if you're into that sort of thing, came here for college and stayed. Out on a boys' night bowling, friends, but no other similarities. Two had girlfriends." She shrugged.

"Hmm. So what kind of creature likes to take out young guys just for fun?" Buffy asked.

"... a Demon Lord?" Willow pointed out. "Spike did say they are evil mostly for the fun of it. And, I guess it is possible that they could've harvested some sort of power from such instant and simultaneous mystical deaths?"

"Harvested, gross word," complained Buffy. "Makes me think of Soylent Green, or something."

"You know what Solyent Green is?" Willow laughed. "Old dystopian movies don't seem like your thing, Buffy."

 "I had to watch it for class. It wasn't that bad... unintentionally hilarious sometimes... what does dystopical mean?"

"Dystopian," corrected Willow. "It means... about an imaginary horrible future, usually hallmarked by corrupt governmental control and lack of resources."

"Ah... now I get why we watched it in environmental science," said Buffy. 

Willow wasn't sure that SHE got that, but let it go. She heard a clatter upstairs, and closed her laptop. "Sounds like Dawnie is getting up."

"Yeah. I'll get on making her pancakes, unless you could? I need to go to the library and write a paper at some point today..." 

"Way to be a good student, Buffy! Of course I'll make pancakes with Dawn. And just remember - tonight Spike promised to visit her, so he'll be over here." Willow wished she knew why both the Summers sisters were so drawn to a short vamp with bad fashion sense. 

"Oh, right," Buffy said, and Willow was relieved to see that she didn't seem pleased. 

"I'll supervise if you need me to?" offered the witch. 

"No, it's ok. Spike protected Dawn for a whole summer while I was... gone. Why don't you do something?"

"Ok. I'm studying with Yllaine this afternoon, so maybe we can have a longer session or something. Now, go write your essay! It's making of the cakes of pan time!" Willow beamed. She was getting so good at communicating, and focusing on the happy things. Now if she could just make sure that Tara knew how well she was doing. 

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

Buffy got home late, after Spike had already left, thank god. She wasn't ready to see him yet, not after last night. Why had he said all those things to her? That she was evil - well, he hadn't said that exactly, but it was only a quick jump from inhuman lover of the dark to evil. Wasn't it? Buffy valued Spike partly for his honesty, but right now she could've dealt with a little less of it. She couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he was right, and that everyone else was thinking she'd come back wrong but were too polite to say so. That maybe they all wished they'd never bothered to resurrect her. Well, she wished that most of the time, too. 

"Dawn's already in bed," Willow said, interrupting Buffy's thoughts. "And why are you sitting in the dark?" The witch flipped on the lights and sat down next to Buffy. "How was the library day?"

"It was fine." Buffy didn't want to get into the details of her psych paper. She'd chosen to write about Zimbardo's prisoners and guards experiment at Stanford, perhaps unwisely. Reading about how people were capable of atrocities they never thought they could commit had not helped her mood. As Buffy read, she had wanted to scream at the participants, remind them it was just an experiment. Not real. Not real.

"Well, I had an amazing day with Yllaine again," Willow boasted. "We worked with this ancient Egyptian spell that you have to have a completely clear mind for. It was such a great exercise, and taught me so much..." 

Buffy tuned out as Willow kept going on about the technical details of her spellwork. She'd never met this Yllaine, so the story started out boring and just kept going. Buffy laughed a little internally when the thought occurred to her that she was never bored by Spike. He was a great storyteller, maybe because he didn't seem to NEED to tell them. Unfortunately, he was also good at asking tough questions, as last night had proved.

"...Spike," finished Willow, and rolled her eyes. The vampire's name jarred Buffy back into the room and she shook her head.

"Sorry, Will, what? I was distracted thinking about my... uh, my paper. What about Spike?"

"Just that apparently Dawn had an amazing time with him, blah blah blah. And then he was SO rude when I asked him to leave. Obviously just hanging around waiting for you to show up. I'm really worried about when Dawn realizes he doesn't care about her at all, that he's just using his friendship with her to impress you. Ugh, vampires!"

 "Um, I think Spike actually does care about Dawn," Buffy ventured. "He always asks me about her, I dunno." 

"When does he ask you about her?" Willow nearly exploded. "Are you spending that much time with him? Geez Buffy, I thought you had more sense than that. He's still a) soulless and b) a vampire, you know blood-sucking creature of the dark? That kind of vampire? Loves violence and mayhem, lost his humanity hundreds of years ago? Who happens to be in some weird twisted love with you! He'd probably throw Dawn under a train if it meant you'd kiss him."

Buffy shifted on the couch. Plenty of kissage had already happened, but Willow didn't need to know that. She wanted to defend the vampire, but couldn't quite muster any words. 

"Buffy, look, you know I just want you to be happy and safe," continued her friend. "I don't mean to upset you, and I admit Spike's been a good fighter from time to time. I just think you have to never forget that he isn't human. That he doesn't have a soul, and that means it is impossible for him to be on the side of good. That's all."

"He's done a lot of good things," Buffy felt like her words must sound like the creaks from a door hinge. A sad, possibly inhuman door hinge.

"I know, Buffy, but he's still Spike. His idea of fun is vicious fighting and murder. You have to remember that no soul equals bad. We know this! If I lost my soul, I'd hope that you wouldn't treat me like your friend. I'd be a completely different person, untrustworthy and just... wrong. You might even have to get rid of me." Willow preened at her self-sacrifice, and Buffy suddenly felt a burst of disgust for everything around her. 

"I have to go patrol," she said. "We can talk about this later." Willow just sat there, gaping at Buffy's sudden departure from the couch. Thankful for the lack of protest, Buffy scooted herself right out the door and down the block as fast as she could.

As she walked down the quiet block, Buffy began to feel worse and worse. What if SHE didn't have a soul? What if they'd managed to successfully bring back her body and mind and memories, but she was missing her soul? That might explain her lack of emotion, her disinterest in everything except an undead guy, and why the chip didn't fire when Spike hit her. It could even explain the recurrent nightmares of being back in the ground, trying and failing to emerge - the message was that she wasn't supposed to come back. Her body should've stayed in the box in the dirt, where not having a soul wasn't a problem. Buffy felt like she still was on the side of good, but clearly Willow didn't think that was possible. ‘I'd be a completely different person... just wrong.' Buffy shuddered. What if the others found out? What if Dawnie found out?

Buffy began to run. Where, she wasn't sure, but with these things in her head, it was the only thing she could do.

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

Spike lay on a big old sarcophagus, looking up at the stars and smoking. After being unceremoniously shoved out the door by Willow the moment the witch got home, Spike wasn't quite sure what to do. He'd wanted to linger until Buffy showed her face. He was hoping she'd see how good he was with Dawn and be reassured or some such. See, Slayer, inhuman thing getting along all peachy keen like with a teenage girl, not so bad. Maybe she was trying to keep her distance from him - was that a good or a bad thing? 

He'd also gotten a bit of an update from Dawn - apparently three more men had died of all the blood in their veins shattering blah blah. The Niblet had eavesdropped on Buffy and Willow from the top of the stairs, and told him that they thought the murders had been for fun, or for energy. Spike didn't like it, but he was betting on the former. Unless the men were magic wielders or carriers of mystical power, the energy from even instantaneous death wouldn't be all that much in the eyes of a Demon Lord. And Spike remembered his days of evil, when causing death and pain for fun was his full-time avocation. But the idea that enjoyment was behind these bodies made the vampire shudder. Demon Lord out for fun and games of destruction, no strategy to help them predict his or her moves... not an easy foe to fight. A monster acting on its every chaotic whim, one of the scariest things he could imagine.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Buffy's singsong voice rang out from just a few tombstones away, and Spike sat up. He started to look around for his lady, but was almost immediately struck by a blow that tumbled him off the stone rectangle and into the grass. 

"Come on, Spike!" Buffy said, feral and sharp. "Hit me back. Let's go!" She waited above him, bobbing like a boxer.

"Buffy, pet, whatever it is, can we talk about it?" Spike said in a voice he imagined a man would use to try and calm a lioness.  

"I'm sick of talking!" Buffy feinted a kick at Spike's crotch that he just barely managed to deflect with his knee.

"Oi, Buffy! Whatever's got your tits in a knot, you can tell me, but quit it!" Spike got up, looking for a way to penetrate Buffy's defenses and shake her. 

"No thanks, Spike! I want to have FUN! What else would we do together, us evil soulless freaks, but get our violence on?!"

All Spike could think was "soulless? Wha-" and then Buffy was fighting like he'd hoped to see her fight ever since she came back from the grave. Elegant, lethal, precise. Only problem was it was directed at him, and now Spike remembered what a challenge this Slayer was. Fierce, intuitive, in perfect control of her superhuman strength and balletic in her agile flexibility. He found himself fighting back, hard but reluctant. Every time he landed a blow, he remembered all over again that he wanted to stop, but before he could Buffy would get in her own strike and he'd be rushing to defend, deflect, slow her down.

They danced across the thick grass, crushing it beneath them and adding a vegetal tang to the night air. Spike weaved and jumped around tombstones, only to be met by Buffy directly in front of him every time. She was grinning like a comic-book villain, joyless and too wide. Spike felt as though he was losing, that under different circumstances he'd fear for himself instead of his girl's sanity. Buffy just kept coming, and Spike's heart wasn't in it.

 As though he'd said that last thought aloud, Buffy yelled, "Stop faking it! Fight me like the Big Bad, Spike!" 

Spike felt resolve come into his chest. If that was what would get Buffy to stop, then so be it. He threw himself into his moves, no longer resisting. Instead of refusing to take the opening on her right flank, he went for it and landed a solid kick on her ribs. He stopped letting her back him across the cemetery and began to take the offensive, watching her stumble backwards instead. After a brief period of surprise, Buffy responded and it became clear that they were perfectly matched. A timeless, eternal dance between them. Spike was enjoying this against his will, the exertion and the adrenaline. He fought for his undead existence, fought like all he wanted to do was sink his teeth into this Slayer's neck.

And then he had her, in a high school prom clinch, his teeth at her neck - but not without cost. The sharp point of a stake burned into his breastbone, keeping the two of them just separate enough. After all that movement, the stillness felt unnatural, but it was the only option. Spike could tear out Buffy's carotid artery as she staked him, but he'd still be dust. As they stood frozen, he heard the Slayer's heartbeat, smelled her sweat, felt his love for her. Instead of biting, the vampire found himself gently closing his mouth and pressing his lips to Buffy's neck instead. They stayed like that for another long moment, until Buffy dropped the stake and threw Spike back against a gravestone. He'd hardly registered the change when Buffy started kissing him with the same fervor as she'd fought him, pushing him into the lichen-covered stone. 

Now this Spike could get into. He kissed back, letting his hands wander all over Buffy's back and arse before he hitched both her legs up and around his waist. She latched on tight and let him spin them around so her back was against the gravestone, bracing her up as he tangled a hand in her hair to intensify their kiss. The proximity of violence between them made her body wrapped around his even headier, and Spike's head was swimming. He couldn't resist sliding his other hand underneath Buffy's shirt to stroke the top of her breast in its little lace cup. Instead of throwing him off as he half-expected, Buffy bucked and moaned in response, and slid a hand down to the button of Spike's jeans. Spike let his fingers find and caress her nipple, and they kept kissing, touching for what seemed like forever. Then, somehow everything sped up, as Buffy managed to free his cock and Spike reached under her skirt to tear her panties - and all of a sudden he was inside her. Everything came to a halt as Spike's mind caught up to his body. He was surrounded by her warmth, hardly able to believe this was happening. Buffy felt so good, fit so perfectly into his arms. She clenched her muscles and swallowed his moan of understanding that this was real, with her lips all over his mouth.

"Spike," she whispered into their kiss, "Spike, oh god, Spike." At the sound of his name coated in Buffy's pleasure, Spike lost all restraint. He pushed himself inside her again and again, shoving her against the carved words of someone else's life. Buffy stopped kissing him and put her hot face against his neck, panting, and he felt the orgasm explode through her. That did it, and Spike came hard, nearly turning blind with the pleasure of it and gasping into the night.

They remained in that position for a while, unable to think or move, until Buffy shifted and unlatched her legs. Spike put her down and quickly put himself back in his jeans. When he looked up, she was staring at him, but with what emotion behind her eyes he wasn't sure. Too aware of how easy it would be to ruin this, Spike took a risk and stepped closer to his Slayer. She didn't move away, so he leaned down and kissed her again, trying to transfer the sweet softness he felt. At first Buffy just let herself be kissed, and Spike began to be afraid. Eventually, though, she began to kiss back, tentatively at first but becoming more and more sensual. Spike felt the twinge of returning arousal, and pulled her into him. He picked her up again, holding her thighs against his hips, and thanked the Powers That Be that they were very near his crypt. Carrying Buffy as she kissed and nibbled his neck, he stumbled through the cemetery to his home. 

The moment they were in the door, Buffy's kissing got rougher. He let her down and she slithered off his body, biting hard at his neck as she went. It was enough for Spike's face to try to change, and he stared at the ceiling, willing himself to have control. When he looked back down, Buffy was kneeling in front of him, unbuttoning his fly once more. As if from far away, like he was watching one of his own dreams, Buffy pushed his pants down and put her mouth on his dick. Spike gasped and jerked into her mouth, and Buffy looked up. Seeing her meet his eyes with her lips wrapped around his stiff penis made Spike feel like coming then and there, but he wanted this round to last a bit. He pulled her up and made good use of his vampiric speed, taking off all his clothes and sweeping his girl into his arms. In a few short steps and a jump, they were in the bottom level of Spike's crypt, on the bed. 

Buffy lay fully clothed, eyes wide and lips puffed with kissing and heat. Spike leaned in and began licking and nipping at her right ear, as he slowly undid the buttons on her blouse. By the left ear, Spike had opened her shirt and unhooked her bra. He pulled Buffy up and smoothed the shirt from her shoulders, the bra down her forearms, and took a moment to imprint the perfection of her torso on his mind. Small perfectly shaped breasts, strong muscles in her stomach, those clean shoulder lines. He bent his head, pushing Buffy back into the pillows, and began to enjoy every inch of her golden skin. When his mouth came to her nipple, Buffy whimpered and thrust her hips into the air. Spike took that an as invitation to sneak his hand under her skirt, and whimpered himself at the first touch of her wet, warm pussy. He used his fingers to explore, to spread her juices up and down her folds, until he couldn't wait any longer and dove down to bury his head between her legs. Buffy let out a cry as his mouth found her clit, and Spike felt himself get even harder. He slid his fingers into her, back and forth, and kept his mouth working, finding a rhythm that built to a fever pitch. Buffy screamed as she came, and when he felt her convulsions slowing Spike pulled back and drove his cock into her, willing for her pleasure to continue riding with his. Buffy spread her legs wider, throwing her head back and dragging Spike's face to hers for another kiss. Connected at so many points, Spike's love and pleasure felt unbearable, huge and impossible, and he lost himself into Buffy, calling her name.