~Are you drowning or waving?

~I just want you to save me

~Should we try to get along?

~Just try to get along



"I don’t know how to not love you."





"Spike, oh my god! Stop it. Now." Buffy put the stake that she had killed two vampires with into her slaying bag and stood up, brushing dust from her clothing. "I can’t believe we were ambushed."





"And I can’t believe that you aren’t going to acknowledge the fact that we were talking about us before we were ambushed."





"There is no us." Buffy picked up her bag and took several steps away from him. He called her name and she turned to face him. "This thing that keeps happening between us has to stop before someone finds out."





"Would that be so bad?" Spike cocked his head to one side. "You know, pet, they had no problem with me looking out for Dawn so I don’t think they’d mind."





"You don’t think they’d mind? Big difference between babysitting and what we’re doing!" Buffy’s voice rose several octaves and she laughed cruelly. "I can see it now. They’ll throw a bash in our honor to celebrate the fact that we ‘shag’ as you so eloquently put in during pillow talk. Ohhh... or maybe they’ll stake you, kill me, and then resurrect me again so that I can learn from my mistakes."





"I’m a mistake now?"





"I didn’t -" Buffy sighed and ran her hand over her face. "Can we not do this?"





"No. We’re doing this. You come to me and you yank off your clothes and we go at it like wild animals and then you leave without a backward glance. And for the most part, I don’t mind this little unspoken arrangement we have because let’s face it ... we both need it. But I am tired of the little cat and mouse game we keep playing. You want me. You don’t want me. You push me away until you decide that you’re itching in places you can’t reach and then it’s just fine to put your hands all over me. In alleys, in cars, behind the -"





"I don’t need a reminder of where we’ve been, idiot. I was there."





"Were you? Were you really there, pet? Because I don’t think you ever are."





"Spike, you have a lot of shortcomings and your foray into psychology is one of the worst ones. You don’t know anything about me."



"Don’t I? I know your body like the back of my hand. And I know what you think, what you feel, what you want. I know you scream for a ‘normal’ life, but only ever feel alive when you’re shagging or killing something. I know you regret coming back from whatever paradise you were in. I know you lie to your friends, fake a smile for them, and then come to me. And I know you cry half the time when you leave the crypt and the sun is just starting to shine."





He hit a nerve, but Buffy rolled her eyes, not showing that he had hit anywhere near home. "If I cry when I leave it’s because I’m thinking about what I did with you."





"Wrong." Spike snapped. "When you cry it’s because you don’t want to leave my world and step back into theirs."





Buffy started to stomp away, but he caught her arm. She spun, hitting him in the face and sending him sprawling onto his backside. He used the back of his hand to wipe a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth and stared up at her. "You don’t want to fight me. You’re in a constant battle with yourself."





"Whatever." Buffy picked up her bag, which she had dropped when she hit him, and started to move past him.





Spike locked his legs around hers and sent her toppling to the ground. He was on her before she could react, pinning her hands over her heads.





"Get off!"





"Oh, I could." His eyes flashed and he tightened his grip on her wrists. "Stop fighting it, baby. You do this every single time and every single time ... I win."





"You’re pathetic."





"I love it when you talk dirty." Spike caught her mouth with his, silencing her. For several seconds she struggled, then he felt her arms go limp and her hips surging up against his. He pulled back, smiling triumphantly. "I guess this makes you pathetic, too."





"Shut up." Buffy brought her head up, kissing him again. Their tongues surged against one another until she gasped and broke free. "I can’t get these clothes off if you’re holding my arms."





Spike rolled to one side, watching as she lifted her shirt over her head and reached around for the clasp of her bra. "Right here in the cemetery?"





"It wouldn’t be the first time. You have a better idea?"





"Oh, I’m chock full of ideas, love. I just keep having a hard time selling you on them."





Buffy shoved her pants down her legs and glared at him. "Why are you still dressed?"





Spike gave her a crooked smile, then rose to his knees, kissing her stomach as he hooked his fingers in the crotch of her panties and slowly eased them down. She stepped out of them and started to tug his shirt, but he shook his head.





"Look at you," he whispered. "All bathed in the moonlight like Cytherea."





"Are you insulting me?"





He ran his palm over her thigh, down toward her knee, then up again, cupping her backside. "I probably should be."





Dipping his head, he traced her belly button with his tongue, gliding his hand forward to cup her mound. She shifted a little, trying to give him more access, but he took his time, smiling when he felt her tremble. Moving at a painfully slow pace, he slid his thumb between her legs, delicately massaging her most sensitive area. After a few seconds, she tried to move to the ground, but he shook his head. "Stand there."





"Spike-" She glanced around the headstones and covered her breasts. "I’m exposed in a big way. Anyone could-"





He pulled one leg over his shoulder and his tongue replaced his thumb.





"Nevermind," Buffy cried, dropping her hands to his head where her fingers tangled in his hair. "Don’t stop."





He didn’t stop. He repeatedly brought her to the edge, only to pull away and kiss her stomach, her hip, her leg, when her orgasm hovered too close. A rivulet of sweat beaded between her breasts and rolled down her stomach as he pulled away again, this time getting to his feet. Buffy swallowed hard, anticipating the removal of his clothing and being bent over a headstone.





Spike studied her for several moments, before speaking. "You know that empty, raw need that is coursing through you right now? Filling your thoughts, making you ache in places you didn’t know you had, and making your heart feel too heavy? That feeling?"





Buffy didn’t answer, couldn’t form words. She nodded.





"That’s how I feel every single time you use me and walk away from me. Oh, I’m sated physically, but I don’t feel it at all." Spike straightened his duster and turned away, taking several steps before he added. "You think about that while you watch me leave."





Her mouth fell open as he stalked away, not even bothering to look back. For a full minute, she kept her eyes trained on the crypt he had disappeared behind, expecting him to return. When he didn’t, she snatched her pants and shirt, throwing them on angrily. She was all too aware of the throbbing between her legs, the way her nipples stood erect beneath her thin shirt, and the way her breathing had yet to slow.





She cursed herself as she shoved her bra into her bag and then cursed him for making her body betray her the way it did. Zipping her boots, she stood and snatched her bag off the ground. There was no way she could go home in the state she was in. Someone would try to engage her in conversation, ask about her patrolling, force her to act like she didn’t have a huge skeleton in her closet and she couldn’t deal with it. Not tonight. She stalked purposefully across the graveyard toward town.





But where could she go if not to Spike’s crypt? The thought stopped her in her tracks and she turned, surveying the cemetery, hoping for a glimpse of him. How sad it was that she would rather spend the night with him after the way he had humiliated her than go home to her ‘family’. She leaned against a large headstone, then slid down it, pulling her knees up to her chest.





No one asked her if the rules could change. She didn’t want to play this game with him and she certainly didn’t want to crave him the way she did. But Buffy could not deny that she wanted him, needed him, and hungered for his touch every time he was near her. She hated him for it. And wanted him more.





The incessant throbbing began anew between her legs and she sighed, resting her forehead against her knees. The tears were scalding as they slid without pity down her cheeks. She fought against them, only to be rewarded with a painful lump in her throat and an even more painful tug in her heart that was pulling her toward his crypt.





Buffy refused to give into temptation. She would not swallow her pride and go to him. No matter how much she wanted to. Her silent tears rapidly became wracking sobs and she surrendered to it, enjoying the feel of yielding to her pain completely ... at last.





Spike, who had been stalking through the headstones looking for her, heard her and changed direction. He found her sitting in a small knot and knelt beside her, poking her in the arm. "How am I supposed to teach you a lesson if you start blubbering everywhere? Are you trying to raise the dead?"





When she didn’t reply, he lifted her face, wiping her cheeks. He wanted to mock her, but he couldn’t. Her vibrant green eyes were a sea of tears and it ripped him apart to think he had caused it. "Don’t, Buffy. You know it unmans me to see you cry."





She studied him for a while, then shook her head. "Why do I keep wanting you when it doesn’t even make sense?"





"You need me more than you want me, Buffy."





"Why do I need you? Why? Why do I keep coming back?"





"You’ll have to answer that yourself."





"I don’t want to be this person anymore, Spike. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m this pathetic human-"





"You’re not human, Buffy, and to think that you can keep living in their world and dancing in mine is insane. You come to me to escape it. You come to me because I let you be who you are and I don’t try to change you. You live a lie with them and with me you *live*. It’s dirty where I’m at and it’s nasty and wrong and dark, but you thrive on it because *that’s* who you are."





"I’m not evil."





"Not like me, but close enough."





"You’re wrong."





"Keep saying it enough and you might believe it one day." Spike held out his hand. "Do you want me to walk you home?"





She shook her head and didn’t move. "I’m not going home yet."





"Where are you going?"





"To hell if I don’t change my ways."





"Funny." Spike glanced at the horizon, judging how much darkness remained. "Let’s go to the crypt, love."





"So you can get me worked up and leave me hanging again?"





"You spending the night or running off after I finish the job?"





"They’ll wonder -"





"Buffy, let them wonder. I want to wake up with you. Do you know what it’s like to wake up alone after what we share?"





Buffy jerked her head up at his words. She knew exactly what that felt like. Wordlessly, she held out her hand and let him pull her to her feet. She lingered for a few moments, pressed against him. When he lowered his head and kissed her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and reciprocated with every fiber of her being.





Fighting it was useless.





She wanted him, needed him, craved him.





Spike picked up her bag, keeping a firm grip on her hand and lacing their fingers together. They walked toward his crypt and he felt like any other man in love, returning home after a night out with his chosen one. He caught her watching him out of the corner of his eye and said, "What?"





"You can be really decent sometimes."





"So can you," he replied, then added, "We’re done fighting for the night, right?"





"Until you piss me off again."





"Everything I do pisses you off."





"Then stop doing it."





Spike opened the door, holding it while she walked past him into the dark crypt. He fumbled around in the shadows, finally locating the candle he kept nearby. When light illuminated the small space, he saw her descending into the lower level where his bed was kept. Smiling, he tossed her bag into a chair and followed her down the makeshift steps.





Spike watched as she kicked off her shoes and tossed her jacket in a heap on the floor. For several long seconds, she regarded his bed and then looked up at him. "You bought new linens."





Spike nodded. "You said the others were uncomfortable."





"Why do you do that?" She faced him fully, regarding him with a soft look on her features. "Why do you do things that -"





"Because I love you. One day you may realize it."





He walked across the room, putting the candle in a holder near the bed. Turning, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, not stopping until she breathlessly gasped his name. Lifting her, he sat her on the edge of the bed, hooking his thumbs under her shirt and pulling it over her head. He was pleased to see her lack of a bra and knelt before her, kissing her stomach, her side, the valley between her breasts.





Buffy moaned as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, tugging it sharply with blunt teeth. He covered every inch of her, her shoulders, the column of her throat, finally coming to rest at the waistband of her jeans. Within seconds, he had her pants unbuttoned and urged her to stand and step out of them.





Her sex was level with his face, just as it had been in the cemetery. Spike looked up at her, locking her gaze with his as he slipped his fingers between her legs and slowly inside her. His thumb rested against her engorged clit and she closed her eyes, relief evident on her face. He let his fingers work her until she pleaded with him for more and he knew he had to taste her.





Pushing her back against the bed, he lifted her legs over his shoulders and devoured her like a man starved. Before he could even begin to get enough of her, however, she was bucking upward against her face and he could feel the spasms that quaked through her.





Buffy watched him as he slipped out of his clothing and crawled up the bed like a predatory cat, a wicked gleam in his eye. He paused at her thigh, kissing her, trailing his tongue upward until he tasted her, very lightly, once again. "Spike-"





"Shhh." He moved to her pelvic bone, kissing and nipping until she was laughing and trying to roll away. He pinned her and kissed her stomach, covering all of her exposed flesh until he found her mouth. As he tongue swept past her lips, his erection plunged into her warm, willing body.





"Oh, god," Buffy moaned against him, instinctively wrapping her legs around his waist.





Spike reached down, cupping her backside to pull her further against him. His eyes bulged as he thrust forward and she surged upward, matching his pace. "So, good, baby."





Buffy shattered for a second time when she heard him growl, very low, against her ear. That was all it usually took to push her over the edge and this was no exception. She cried out his name, digging her nails into his back, gripping him tight with her legs.





Spike stared down at her, watching the flush creep across her breasts and into her face. "Look at me, love."





Buffy opened her eyes, aware that they were heavily lidded and glassy from the intensity of the orgasm. "I’m looking."





Something was passing between them. They both felt it as their eyes locked and held and Spike began to pound into her with everything he had. She watched his face, the way his jaw muscles tightened, the way his lips formed a thin, hard line as he drew closer to the edge and she knew.





It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t perfect, but she belonged to it.





His world had become hers and as he collapsed on top of her, Buffy made peace with the fact that she was home.



-FIN