~*~

“Hey—waitress! Get your ass over here!”

Buffy Summers closed her eyes for a moment, desperately fighting to hold in an angry retort. Stupid teenagers, she thought spitefully, despite the fact that the teens in question were her age. She walked over to the table filled with high school guys, arranging her expression in a polite smile and tossing her bright blonde hair back. “How can I help you?” she said sweetly.

A guy at the table smirked. “How can I help you?” he repeated in a high voice.

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. Beefy and pimply, Percy Johnson was the epitome of everything that made adults hate high schoolers. “Just give me your damn orders,” she snapped, out of patience.

“Right.” Another boy, Ford something, leered at her. “How about a lap dance each, and then a slow strip?”

Buffy’s face turned red—bright, deep red. And she wasn’t embarrassed. Oh, no. Not by a long shot.

She was pissed off.

She was about to tell them where they could put their orders when another voice spoke from behind her.

“You know, boys, I don’t think your mothers taught you to treat a lady that way.” The voice was low and markedly English—and Buffy was relieved to hear it.

“Spike,” she said, smiling welcomingly. “Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.”

“Not until these pricks apologize, pet,” Spike replied, keeping his gaze trained steadily on the group.

Spike Kingston was 26, a full decade older than Buffy and the teens at the table, so his glare and implied threat carried a lot more weight than any furious tirade Buffy could deliver. The boys at the table began shifting uneasily.

“Look, man, we were just joking—“ one boy tried to explain, but Spike cut in.

“Wasn’t funny. Now apologize and give her your real orders.”

“Sorry,” mumbled the six boys.

“Whatever,” Buffy mumbled. She was glad that Spike was being the white knight, but at the same time…I don’t need protection! Even if it is from my really hot older guy best friend who happens to have the body of an Adonis! “Orders?”

The boys quickly ordered various variations on their burger-and-fries meal. Buffy jotted their orders down and began striding back to the counter wordlessly.

“Hey,” Spike said, jogging to catch up with her. “Don’t I get a thank you?”

She arched an eyebrow at him and placed the order on the counter, where her sister Dawn picked it up to carry it to Joyce, their mother and the cook. “For interfering and again making me the subject of ridicule? Not so much.”

“Oh, come on,” Spike protested, hopping up onto one of the bar stools. “I saved your ass. And what would they ridicule you for, anyway? Knowing a sexy as hell older guy?”

Se gave him a sarcastic look, going behind the counter and starting to make the coffee he always ordered. “Please,” she said sarcastically. “First of all, if your head got any bigger, I think it would roll off your shoulders. Second off, they’d call me a whore who dated older guys because I like the sex, or some crap like that.”

“’ey—no fair!” Spike protested. “We’ve never dated—I don’t feel like bein’ jailbait, thanks.”

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. “Like I’d date you anyway. You’re hot, Spike, but you’re not that bright. They don’t care if I’m really dating you. All they care about is making fun of me as much as possible.” She set the coffee in front of him.

Spike made a face as he sipped the brew. “Tossers,” he offered.

“Tell me about it.” Buffy grabbed a pastry from the glass dome and handed it to him before leaning on the counter conversationally. “So,” she said with a wicked grin, “How are things going with Kennedy?”

“’e riedta cohmiahte aw eets,” Spike said through a mouthful of pastry.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. She tried to coordinate your sheets? As in, the sheets on your different beds that are on opposite sides of town?” Buffy had heard some really sorry tales about Spike’s girlfriends, but this had to be one of the worst.

“Yeah.” He swallowed the pastry. “Terrifying, eh?”

“Try pathetic.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “She’s desperate. When are you gonna dump her?”

Spike put on a shocked face that didn’t fool her for a second. “Summers,” he said, placing his hand over his heart, “I can’t believe you’re accusin’ me of such a thing!”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Right,” she said sarcastically. “Because the past 50 girls you’ve gone out with will all vouch for your sincerity and willingness to commit.” She grinned mischievously at her friend, who was squirming in his seat. He could be such a baby sometimes.

“Well…okay, so I can’t settle down. What’s your point?”

“My point is that tomorrow when you come in here for your usual amazingly unhealthy lunch, you’ll be telling me that you kicked her and her matching sheets to the curb.” Buffy grabbed Spike’s empty plate and cup and took them over to the dishwasher. Coming back over with a wet cloth, she wiped off the counter. “So, see you later?”

“Sure. When does your da let you outta this hellhole, anyway?”

Buffy shrugged. Good question. “It depends. I can probably convince him to let me out by 4. He likes you.”

“Great. I’ll come by.”

“Sounds good.” Buffy leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, her traditional method of bidding him good-bye.

She watched him leave, same as she always did, tapping the rag against her apron till he disappeared into the crowd. Then she went back to work, a slight smile on her face. No matter how shitty her workday was, Spike could always cheer her up. He’d always been like that, every since they’d become friends 4 years ago.

At first their relationship had been very much adult-to-child, with Spike being more Buffy’s idol than her friend, but as she grew up, so did their relationship. Now Buffy had the (dubious) honor of being closer to him than any of his girls had ever been.

Buffy smirked as she gave Dawn the next order. Kennedy and the others come and go, but me? I’m his girl.

And she liked it.

~*~

Halfway down the block, Spike walked quickly, reliving their conversation. Just before he entered his office building, he touched his cheek. He could still feel her kiss. Her lips burned him.

Just like they always did.

~*~

A/N: So, there’s a teaser…what do you think?

~*~

”What the—what’s a little kid like you doing workin’ here?”

Twelve-year-old Buffy looked up—and almost passed out. The guy standing in front of her was gorgeous, and he was talking to her! She couldn’t have been more excited if Justin Timberlake had walked in! “Um—“

He’d called her a kid. How humiliating was that? “My parents own it,” she said, deciding to go with annoyed that he was being all adult instead of swoony because he’d talked to her.

He smiled, amused. “You’re a feisty li’l thing, aren’t you?”

“I’m not little!” Buffy protested. “And even if I am, you’re just a big bleached freak!”

“Easy, Blondie.” The man held up his hands. “I wasn’t tryin’ to insult you. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Buffy.” Buffy gave him her best smile.

“Buffy. Pretty name,” the man mused, a near-hidden sparkle in his eye.

Despite herself, her lip came out in a pout. “Angel says it’s stupid,” she mumbled.

“Angel? Who’s she?”

“It’s a he,” Buffy corrected. She then added proudly, “He’s my boyfriend!”

“Your boyfriend, huh?” The man grinned. “Bet he likes that.”

“Uh-huh.” Buffy nodded, glad that he hadn’t made fun of her like most adults did. She was twelve—totally old enough to have a boyfriend.

“Lucky guy,” the man said with a wink. “So, can I get a pastry an’ a coffee? Black.”

“Omigosh!” Buffy almost dropped her pencil. “I forgot to take your order! I am soo sorry!” She scribbled down the food he wanted and ran off to give it to Dawn.

He ate quickly and was about to leave before they exchanged any more looks. Spike called her over to the table and gave her five dollars. “’s a lousy tip, but—“

“No, it’s fine,” Buffy said, tucking it into her pocket. “That’s way more than losta people give me.”

The man grinned at her. “In that case, maybe I can get half back—“

“Oh, no!” Buffy hopped away, giggling. “Nu-uh. My money now.”

He smiled, an act that made his eyes even bluer, something that Buffy really wouldn’t have thought possible. “Well then, I guess ‘ll see you tomorrow, Buffy,” he said, standing up and moving towards the door.

“Wait! I don’t know your name!” Buffy cried. She was going to sound like a ‘tard if she talked to her friends about him and she couldn’t tell them what his name was!

He grinned at her. “Call me Spike. The rest is too atrocious to repeat.”

And with that, he was gone.

Buffy smiled at the memory as she changed in the bathroom. Her twelve-year-old self had been equal parts enchanted and disapproving of the man who treated her like who she was—a child verging on the edge of adulthood.

Well, if she’d been on the verge then, she was knocking at adulthood’s door now. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, tweaking bits of blonde hair and making sure that the mascara around her green eyes wasn’t smudged. She’d given up on her childhood crush for Spike a long time ago, but she still liked looking good when she was with him. God knew she wanted to look as grown up as possible, since he was so much older than she.

She met him outside of Restfield Cemetery. He was leaning against the fence, scanning the crowds—when he saw her, his face lit up in a smile. “Hey there, kitten,” he said, holding out his arm.

She hugged him, grinning. “How was work?”

“Same as yours, I s’pose. Bloody miserable, given that ‘s summer and I was stuck inside all day.” Spike’s voice was petulant—he was pouting.

“Oh, please.” Buffy made a face at him. “I’ve seen the inside of your work, mister! It’s all foosball tables and video games, not grease traps and rude fat people.”

“What can I say? I work with an advertising agency. We’re a bunch of lazy blokes.” They wandered over to a vendor and Spike paid the man for two hot dogs, handing the one smothered in ketchup, pickle relish, mustard, and onion.

“Thanks.” Buffy bit into it, spilling sauce on the ground. She was careful to catch what would have gone on her shirt with a napkin. “’s good,” she said through a mouthful of meat and condiments.

Spike shook his head, amused. “Dunno how you can stand all that rot on a perfectly good hot dog.”

“It’s not rot, that’s why!” Buffy wrinkled her nose at him. “Besides, you have seriously dull taste. Hotdogs aren’t supposed to have just mayonnaise on them. Angel says—“

“Oh, bloody hell.” Spike rolled his eyes, biting into his hot dog viciously. “Can we go an afternoon ‘thout talkin’ about that prat? Please, pet?”

Normally she would have given him a lecture about his attitude towards her boyfriend—because he hated Angel and she thought it was way unfair—but it had been a really long day and Buffy didn’t feel like bickering with her best friend. Plus also there was the small, not-so-insignificant detail that she was getting ready to break up with him. So instead of berating her friend, she sighed and said, “Oh, fine. What were we talking about before the hotdog debate, anyway?”

“Work,” Spike reminded her, finishing off the hotdog. Buffy fought not to wrinkle her nose when he tossed the remaining mayo-soaked bun into the trash. She really, really didn’t get why he ate that…but she knew better than to open the subject again.

“Oh, right. Anyway, it’s totally unfair that I have to slave away at a gross greasy diner and you get to lie in a nice air-conditioned office building trying to figure out how to sell soap on a rope to the masses.” Buffy pouted. “I hate it!”

“Well, you are sixteen,” Spike pointed out.

Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. “Please. Don’t remind me. That’s another unfair thing. How come you get to be ten years older?”

That made him chuckle. “You’ll have to take that one up with God. ‘m not responsible for my age.”

“I know, it’s just—yuck, you know? High school is one of the suckiest things I’ve ever had to put up with!”

“I hear you, luv. We all went through it, y’know.”

Buffy mock-scowled at him. “Not helping!”

“Wasn’t trying to,” he replied, smirking. “But hey, you’re gonna be a junior. A year an’ a half and then you’re out, right?”

“Out of high school, yeah, but with my luck Dad’ll force me to work at the diner and go to Sunnydale U at night, or something.” She sighed dramatically. “The world sucks!”

“Indeed it does.” Spike tugged on her hand and led them over to a bench. “Least you’ve got me,” he teased, tugging her ponytail.

“Spike!” Buffy shrieked, scooting away. “My hair!”

“Buffy? Are you okay?”

If she’d scooted when Spike tugged on her ponytail, she jumped about a mile into the air when she heard Angel behind her. She leapt up and spun around, giving Spike a warning glare, before launching herself into his arms. “Angel! I didn’t know you were in the park!”

“I didn’t know you were.” Angel detached himself from Buffy’s embrace, jostling her a little more than necessary. Buffy’s eyes narrowed. Something was off.

“Are you here with someone?”

“Me?” Angel’s voice was high. “No! And anyway, what are you doing making accusations? You were all over your friend there.”

Buffy winced. She hated, hated, hated when Spike and Angel were in the same room—or, actually, in the same town. Despite her protestations, Angel seemed to regard Spike as some kind of pedophile, and Spike hated Angel with a passion. No guy, according to him, was ever good enough for Buffy.

She was about to apologize when Angel’s words really registered. All over Spike? I’m never all over Spike! He’s my friend! “Excuse me?” she said coldly to her boyfriend.

Angel pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, Buffy, but I can’t put up with you practically cheating on me with Captain Peroxide there. He’s ten years older than you!”

“And I’m her friend.” Spike spoke for the first time, coming to stand beside Buffy. He was shorter than Angel by quite a bit, but he was twice as menacing as the sixteen-year-old. “So why don’t you just take yourself on home and watch Tellitubbies with your little mates, yeah?”

Angel’s eyes remained fixed on Buffy. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said in what Buffy guessed was supposed to be a scary voice. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t in the least bit impressed.

“Yes, you are,” she shot back. “You’re leaving. Now.” She clutched Spike’s arm. “And in case you’re wondering, I’m staying here.”

“No, Buffy. You’re coming home with me.” Angel’s eyes were expressionless as he grabbed Buffy’s arm and tried to haul her away.

Several things happened at once. Angel opened his mouth, probably to give Buffy a proprietary lecture that would only piss her off more; Buffy kneed Angel in the balls, yelling, “Let go of me!”; and Spike slammed his fist into Angel’s nose.

Buffy watched with satisfaction as Angel went down, howling, clutching at both his groin and his nose. “You know, that was kind of unnecessary,” she remarked to her friend as they watched a sufficiently crippled Angel walk away.

Spike flexed his hand. His features were still set; it was obvious that he wasn’t done being pissed off. “No, but it sure as hell made me feel better,” he said. “Pissant little tosser.”

That made Buffy laugh. “I have absolutely no idea what that means.”

He smiled fondly. “’s an insult, pet. He had no right to touch you, once you’d broken up with him.”

“Very true.” Buffy grinned at the memory of Angel whimpering like a baby. “Have I told you thanks?”

“Not yet.” Spike wrapped his arms around her waist and fake-leered at her. “Aren’t you gonna thank me the way Captain Forehead figured you were?”

She wriggled, laughing. Spike did this sort of thing often enough that it didn’t wig her out—actually, she thought it was kind of funny. They both knew that the chances of them ever doing anything like that were, like, nil. “Yeah, right. I ditch Captain Forehead for Captain Peroxide? Not bloody likely.”

He chuckled at hearing his phrase spill from her lips. “Just jokin’ sweetheart,” he said, releasing her.

Buffy tried to ignore the tingling that his fingers left behind, just like she ignored how her heart sank just a little when he let her go. “Duh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Can we go do something fun now?”

He cocked his head at her, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. “You sure you’re alright, kitten? You’ve been goin’ out with that ponce for—what is it now? Three years?”

“Four,” Buffy told him, “And you never approved. We were bound to break up sometime.” Despite her light tone, she felt a bit of pain when she remembered just how far back she and Angel went.

“But breakups hurt,” Spike reminded her. “Or so ‘ve heard.”

Buffy giggled at that. “Yeah, all your breakups have been kind of painless, huh?”

He grinned. “If you’ve gotta date, that’s the way to go.”

“Oh, really?” Now she had him. “So, I should just have casual sex and break up with each guy when the spark leaves the relationship?”

“What? No! That’s not what I said!” To her surprise, Spike looked genuinely alarmed. “You’re not gonna actually try that, are you?”

“Of course not!” Buffy laughed in spite of herself. He was cute when he was all worried. “Come on, Spike, when was the last time I took your advice?”

“Good,” Spike grumbled. “First tosser you try to have a one-night stand with, I’m killin’ him.”

Buffy smiled. Spike probably didn’t know it, but she’d never even had sex with Angel, so the likelihood of her doing the nasty with some random stranger was next to nothing. Still, she had fun scaring him, so…”If it was a real one-night stand,” she teased, “You wouldn’t know about it until after the fact.”

Her only response was a growl. She laughed and changed the subject, and they continued their walk, chatting more like an old married couple than old friends. It was always that way…

So why did Buffy feel like something had changed?

~*~

A/N: I made the endings of the two chapters similar on purpose—don’t worry, I’m not suffering from Boring Author Syndrome ;) As usual, please tell me what you think. Thanks again for all the incredible reviews that I got! You guys are awesome =D

~*~

It hadn’t always been this way.

Spike could distantly remember a time, long ago, when he’d thought of Buffy as just a friend. His kid sister, even. So, so long ago, that was all she’d been.

Well, okay, it had actually been more like a year ago. But still, it felt like a fucking eternity.

Spike shifted uncomfortably and resumed his staring at her house.

Despite what Peaches thought, he wasn’t a pedophile. This whole damn thing had started when she was almost sixteen. He’d started noticing little things—how pretty she looked in a certain outfit, or how beautiful her smile was. At first he’d attributed it to a sort of brotherly pride in how she was growing up. That had lasted for all of a month.

He remembered the day his illusions had been shattered almost painfully vividly. It had been winter, about two months before her sixteenth birthday. They’d been ice skating in LA, a special treat from her dad because of all the work they did at the diner. Buffy hadn’t dressed warmly enough for the ice rink—she’d been so cold she was practically trembling.

Spike had tried to help her, had in fact been worried about her because she was so cold her lips were turning blue, but she’d stubbornly refused his assistance, claiming that she could handle herself. Unfortunately she’d been wrong—she’d fallen and bruised herself badly.

After that he hadn’t paid any attention to her protests. He’d gathered her in his arms and carried her over to one of the benches on the side of the rink.

”You okay, pet?” Spike asked anxiously, rubbing her back. Buffy was shivering and clearly trying to hold back tears. Her lips were rosy red from her biting them.

She nodded, hiccupping. “It’s just a little bruise,” she sniffled, rubbing her leg. “I was being dumb is all.”

“You couldn’t help it that you fell down, sweet,” Spike protested, rubbing her arms, trying to warm her.

She snuggled into his embrace. “Yeah, but I was all shaky and stuff and I wouldn’t sit down. That makes it my fault.”

Spike snorted. “Teenager logic.”

“Hey!” She pushed him away from her, her eyes sparkling with mock indignation. “That’s so unfair!”

“Life’s unfair,” Spike informed her with a smirk. “Best get used to it.”

She pouted—and Spike felt like he’d been hit by an anvil. “I don’t wanna,” she grumbled, before arching her back and stretching. “Okay,” she said, standing up on her skates only a little unsteadily, “Ready to skate again?”

Then she smiled. That wonderful, bright, beautiful smile that he loved so much. And he was lost.

That had been the end of the buggering line as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t at all brotherly to want to shag a girl into the ground when she pouted.

Well, it wasn’t all his fault. Buffy had a bloody gorgeous smile, after all. Any man who wasn’t a poofter noticed it.

But he’d spent months feeling so damn twisted. She wasn’t even sixteen! He was almost ten years older than she was, and he was lusting after her like some kind of dirty old man. He ought to be ashamed. He sure as hell hated himself enough.

Problem was, when he was with her, he didn’t feel dirty or old. He just felt like himself—Spike. And she was Buffy. And somehow, despite the age difference, despite a million other things, it felt right. Beautiful.

Beautiful, and just as tragic as a sodding play. Spike wasn’t a stupid man. He knew damn good and well that the chances of Buffy ever thinking of him as anything but an elder brother were virtually nothing. Oh, when she was younger she’d had a schoolgirl crush on him, but that was nothing and Spike knew it. Girls that age, they had crushes on any and every male they came in contact with. He could tell, since then her feelings had changed into something entirely platonic.

He sighed. When he’d started falling for her was a definite date, but to be honest, he didn’t remember when he’d started following her. Standing outside her house like some sort of pathetic wanker.

Whenever he’d started, though, he was embroiled in it now. Every time he saw her, even if it was just while she was working at the diner—every time he saw her, it was like a blow directly to his heart. She was beautiful, fun, young and yet so old for her age. She wasn’t even seventeen, yet she’d touched his heart like no one his own age had.

Spike took a deep drag on his cigarette, thinking darkly, wonder what kind of rotten bloke that makes me?

He knew. He was a sick, dirty bastard who was probably going to burn in hell forever, and if he had any common sense or self-preservation he’d leave now. In fact, he should just turn around and—

What the fuck was that tosser Peaches doing sneaking across her front lawn?

Spike expression darkened. Buffy’s ex—and damned if he didn’t inwardly rejoice every time he thought that—was walking across the grass, not even really bothering to keep himself hidden. Stupid bloke prob’ly thought wearing black would hide him, or some idiot tripe like that.

Actually, he was difficult to see, but since Spike had been standing in the same spot for almost an hour, he spotted the teen immediately. At first he considered just leaving and letting the teen get caught—but then Angel started trying to scale the tree that led to Buffy’s room.

Spike wanted to rip his head off.

He settled for ripping him out of the tree, grabbing one foot just before it disappeared into the branches and yanking hard. Angel fell like a rock.

“What the bloody hell,” Spike hissed quietly, “do you think you’re doing, Peaches?”

Angel leapt to his feet, straightening his jacket (and what kind of nancy-boy wears leather like that, anyway?) and sticking his chin out. “I was going in to talk to Buffy,” he said.

Spike had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Idiot makes it sound as important as the Second Comin’. “Sorry, mate, but I don’t think you’ll be doing that tonight.”

“What are you, her guardian?” Angel sneered at him.

Spike sighed and flexed his hand, deliberately drawing attention to his knuckles—and the fact that Angel’s nose still looked like a squashed tomato. “We’ve already been over this, but given that you’re dumb ‘s a post, I’ll repeat it. ‘m her friend. Which gives me the right to protect her. You’re her ex, which—“

“Which gives me the right to talk to her!” Angel finished angrily.

“No.” Spike’s voice was flat. Could he make smashing the little brat’s head in look like an accident? “It gives you the right to fuck off.”

“You bastard, I’m gonna—“

“Go home before your mum misses you.” Spike cut in again, smirking. One good thing about being ten years older than the chit he was in love with—her sorry boyfriend didn’t have a chance.

Unfortunately, Angel didn’t seem to understand that. The poor boy must’ve had fewer brains than Spike gave him credit for—because Angel’s next move was to launch himself at the blonde.

Spike sighed and, almost lazily, dealt Angel a crushing blow to his already-swollen nose.

“Auugh!” As abruptly as he’d attacked Spike, the brunette reeled back. “You bastard!”

“Should’ve learned the first time, I don’t screw ‘round with wankers like you,” Spike said coldly. “Now get the hell offa my girl’s property.”

To his surprise, Angel scampered away quickly. Gave up pretty quick…stupid git, Spike thought smugly. He glanced up at Buffy’s window, saying a silent goodbye, before setting off down the street.

It was a long time before he realized what he’d done wrong—why Angel had run off so quickly. High schoolers loved gossiping…

And he’d told Angel to get the hell offa my girl’s property.

Shit. Spike had a sudden vision of what her dad’s diner would be like the next day. School might be out, but that didn’t mean a juicy little tidbit like the one he’d just tossed to Angel wouldn’t make the rounds. Her day was going to be hell.

For a second he thought about going back—but no. He knew his girl; she’d just worry and not get enough sleep. Feeling guilt curl up in his stomach, Spike continued to walk home.

First thing in the morning he’d go back and wake her up, tell her what was wrong. Hopefully she wouldn’t toss him out the window headfirst. Once or twice in the past, she’d tried…

It was with those unsettling thoughts that Spike went home, stripped, and fell asleep.

~*~

“Well, he’s gone.” Joyce put the curtains back in place. “Not his best time, is it?”

Hank glanced at the clock. “Only an hour,” he remarked with surprise. “Think he’s getting better?”

“Judging by the state Angel was in when he ran off, he’s getting worse.” Joyce sighed and sat down. “Hank, what are we going to do?”

He looked at her levelly over his newspaper. “We’re not going to do anything, dear. You know that.”

“She’s just a baby, and he’s—“

“I know! Joyce, you think I haven’t thought about this? She’s my daughter, for Christ’s sake! But she has no idea what’s going on—I’m not even sure if he really does. And if I tried to separate them, they’d both tear me—or you, so don’t get any ideas—apart.”

She sighed. Hank was right. She hated it when that happened. “Okay, fine,” she acquiesced gracelessly. “But when this comes back to blow up in our faces, don’t look at me.”

Hank didn’t bother to glance up this time. “I never do.”

Their was a faint smile on his face when the crumpled-up napkin hit it.

~*~

A/N: Sooo? What did you think? ;) I hope I’m still living up to you guys’ expectations—I’ve gotten so many reviews and comments telling me how much you like this story. Thank you!! They mean so much to me—it’s incredibly awesome to know everyone is enjoying this =D And I am aware that no sane girl’s parents would put up with a ten years older semi-stalker in real life…but this is fanfic ;)

Buffy was always really surprised that she didn’t get teased more about her friendship with Spike. When she was twelve it was a status thing, being friends with a “grown-up,” but the older she got, the more those admiring remarks turned into dirty jokes.

For the past year or so, though, most people had just ignored the unusual relationship—much to Buffy’s relief. She didn’t like admitting it, but there was a grain of truth in their accusations, and that made her feel beyond dirty.

It was wrong to lust after your 26-year-old best friend. She knew that. It was wrong and dirty and sick and a billion other adjectives usually applied to the freaky Mormons who married five women, but she couldn’t stop it.

Which was why, when the hazy cobwebs of sleep began to clear from her eyes and she heard Spike calling her name, she was positive she was just dreaming.

“Go ‘way,” she muttered, burrowing deeper into her pillow. “Bad dream. Bad bad dream.”

“Not a dream, pet.” A hand touched her shoulder hesitantly before gripping it harder and shaking. “C’mon, Buffy, wake up.”

“Not gonna,” Buffy muttered. Her dreams didn’t usually shake her like this…

“Buffy!” Wow. Dream-Spike sounded urgent…oh, well. Buffy snuggled closer to her pillow, willing her dream to change into something, anything that wasn’t her best friend.

She heard someone exhale, and then two arms gripped her shoulders and hauled her upright. Dream-Spike was strong…not that it surprised her, since real life Spike was strong, too. He had to be, with all those yummy muscles in his arms…

Nu-uh, Buffy. We’re not going there. Not even in a dream. Buffy shook her head firmly and caught a whiff of something. Frowning, she sniffed the air. She smelled the tiniest hint of cologne mixed with cigarettes…Spike to the tee.

Wait. Since when were her dreams in Smell-O-Vision?

Groaning, Buffy opened her eyes. She was sitting propped against her headboard, Spike supporting her, his blue eyes inches from her own. As soon as he realized she was awake, though, he backed away so quickly that Buffy almost fell over.

“Jeez, it’s not like I’m diseased,” she teased, straightening out her pajamas and glancing at the clock. 7:30—way to early to be up, even if she did have to work at the diner. “Why are you here, anyway?”

Spike rubbed his nose. “Anyone ever tell you you’re bloody difficult to get up?”

Buffy shrugged. “It’s a gift. You’re just lucky I didn’t hit you like I do to my alarm—oh.” She smiled guiltily, seeing a growing bruise just under his left eye. “Sorry.”

“’s alright, kitten, I shoulda known better than to try an’ wake you up so early.”

“Which begs the question I already asked. Why are you here?” As in, why are you standing in my room looking hotter than my now ex-boyfriend could ever possibly look? Buffy barely fought a grimace. It was thoughts like that that guaranteed she was going to Bad Girl Hell when she died.

Spike shifted uncomfortably. Buffy was instantly suspicious. “Spike? What did you do?”

“’s not so much what I did as what I said after I busted Angel’s face up…”

“Spike!”

“Okay. Was walkin’ past your house an’ I saw the ponce trying to climb the tree by your bedroom, so I yanked him off an’ busted him up a bit—“

“You do realize you could get arrested for that, right?” Buffy said in what she hoped was a cynically amused tone. The last thing she wanted was for Spike to notice that she was going all melt-ey over the ass-kicking of her ex.

“Well, yeah, ‘f the wanker ever decided to tell anyone—which he won’t b’cause he’s a stupid git.” Spike snorted derisively. “Anyway, he ran off after I told him something that I probably shouldn’t have.”

Uh-oh. Buffy’s heart sank—she could tell where this was going. “Spike? What did you say.”

Spike sighed and ran his hand through his hair, a typical sign on his frustration. “I was just trying to get him to leave off with the stalking, luv, but I told him to “ get the hell off my girl’s property.”

Shit. If her heart had been sinking before, it was sunk now. It was more than sunk. It was tunneling through the earth, headed straight for China.

Buffy banged the back of her head against the wooden headboard. “Oh, crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!”

“Yeah. I meant to tell ‘im to get the hell off m’ friend’s property, but it came out wrong.” His voice lowered. “You wanna whack me ‘round, I won’t argue.”

She stiffened at his tone. He sounded—well, more than sorry. He sounded like he did the time he’d made fun of Mr. Gordo and she cried for an hour straight. And—she sat up and looked at him closely. God, he looked depressed. “Spike.” His shoulders moved slightly at her voice, but he didn’t look up. Buffy’s lips pursed. Throwing back the covers, she got out of bed and walked till she was less than a foot away from him, arms crossed in front of her. “Spike. It’s OK.”

“No, ‘s not. I just completely fucked up your life, when you go into the diner there won’t be a teenager around who doesn’t know what I said—“

He stopped when she placed a hand on his shoulder. Fighting to ignore the tremors that raced through her, she said calmly, “I was a huge loser before you said that to Angel. Nothing much will change. I’ll just have to put up with a few dirty jokes, that’s all.”

Her friend shook his head stubbornly. “You don’t get it, Buffy. He damn near raced outta there, he was so eager to get home and spread the news.”

She forced herself to shrug nonchalantly. “When it comes to gossip, Angel’s worse than Harmony. He would’ve found something nasty to say anyway.”

He snorted. “You’re tryin’ to make it better, pet. ‘s not working.”

“I really can’t lie to you, can I?”

His answer was a raised brow.

She sighed. “Okay. So it’s going to be a pain in the ass dealing with nasty comments from everybody. That doesn’t mean the world’s ending. I can handle it, I promise.”

“You’re sure?”

God. He was so damn cute when he looked at her like that, all gentle and concerned….Buffy smiled at him. “I’m sure.”

“Good. ‘m still sorry, though.”

Her smile widened and she gave him a brief hug. “You wouldn’t be my friend if you weren’t,” she told him, stepping back.

He smiled back, but it looked forced. “Are you okay?” Buffy asked, concerned. “You look tense.”

“What?” He blinked, looking confused. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

“Oh. Okay.” Buffy tried to meet his gaze, but she found herself looking away. In just a few seconds, the atmosphere in the room had gone from friendly to…strange.

“I’d better go,” Spike blurted out finally, breaking the awkward silence.

“Oh! Yeah, you should.” She watched as he opened the window and started to climb out. Funny how he was using the same method he’d hurt Angel for trying…”Spike?”

He froze. “Yeah, kitten?”

“I’ll see you at lunch?” Please don’t say no, she pled. If he refused, that would mean that something had changed between them, and that didn’t bear thinking about.

A long moment of silence. Then, to her relief, Spike nodded. “Yeah. See you then.”

He was gone before Buffy could say anything else.

~*~

She stood there, her hair all rumpled from sleep, her eyes and mouth smiling and warm, wearing nothing but some shorts and a loose t-shirt, and hugged him—and then asked him why he was so tense.

God protect the bloody innocent.

Spike sighed in frustration and fought to regain control of his body. He’d been at work for more than an hour now, and he was still…twitchy.

“That bad, huh?”

He jumped. His boss, Anya Jenkins, had snuck up behind him. Abso-fucking-lutely wonderful. Just what I need to make my day complete, he thought sarcastically. “What’s bad?”

The head of his department rolled her eyes sarcastically. “The last time you were this fidgety, it was right before you shared orgasms with that Drusilla girl.”

Spike stiffened at the mention of Dru. “That was eight years ago, Anya.” He felt no qualms about using her first name; technically, she was in charge of him, but he was her most competent worker and her friend.

“And you acted exactly the same as you are now,” Anya pointed out. “Although you were just a paper pusher back then, so you didn’t have a desk to fidget at.”

He sighed, exasperated. “How in hell did you get to be so good at selling people things when you’re so fucking blunt?”

“Why are you using so many bad words? Are you sexually deprived again?”

“Anya!” She was the only girl in the world, aside from Buffy, who could make him blush—and she’d just succeeded admirably.

She sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll stop. And for your information, I’ve had such incredible success in my chosen career because my clients aren’t my friends. I don’t have to be annoyingly blunt with them to get answers.”

He knew that she was hinting—surprisingly delicately for her—that she wanted him to tell her what was on his mind, but he wasn’t biting. If he revealed even a fraction of what he was thinking, his normally open-minded friend would probably have him hauled off to prison. Not that I really blame her. He half felt like turning himself in.

“Spike! Would you stop brooding already?”

“Eh?” He blinked and Anya’s irritated face suddenly came into focus. “Right. Sorry.”

She sighed. “Even if you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong, this is still a business and there’s money to be made. So get to work!” And with those not-so-motivating words, she left his office.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Spike buried his head in his hands. Brooding. Dear God, his best friend had fucked him up so bad…

Then again, there was the distinct possibility that he’d already been fucked up. What kind of 26-year-old man was best friends with a sodding teenager? Anyone who was like that, as Buffy would put it, had serious issues.

But—she was so intelligent. More than that, really. Living with parents who didn’t exactly get along most of the time, working at that diner when she was just a little tot, enduring the persecution of her peers—all of that had made her seem far older than she really was. It was unnerving sometimes to remember that she was only sixteen.

That’s right, you wanker. She’s sixteen. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. If the all holy Shepard of Nazarene could get him out of this mess, he just might have to become a religious man after all.

Anya poked her head into his office. “Brooding!” she said triumphantly.

Spike rolled his eyes, his rather large troubles momentarily forgotten in the light of how annoying his boss was, and got back to work.

~*~

“You little slut!”

She’d been hearing these words all morning, but the voice saying them had never been more welcome than the one coming from the person who plopped herself down on the bar stool. “Hello, Faith,” she said dryly, grabbing the empty fry basket from another customer.

“All this time, you’ve been humpin’ the hottest guy in this whole fucking town, and you never bothered to tell me?” Faith shook a finger at her mock-scoldingly. “You are one bad girl, B.”

“Hey, guys!” Willow said brightly, taking a seat next to Faith.

“Hey, Wills.” Buffy smiled at the redhead before saying to Faith, “I would be if I had been, which I wasn’t. And he isn’t, by the way.”

Willow blinked. “Um, did I miss something? Why are we talking in tongues?”

“Buffy finally got some brains and screwed Spike’s out.” Faith grinned with obvious pleasure.

“What? Oh my God!”

“Willow, calm down!” Buffy glared daggers at the now grinning brunette. “I didn’t screw anyone’s brains out, okay? Faith’s got it all wrong.”

“What’s with the denial?” Faith asked. “I’m all about older guys. You oughta know that.”

“Okay, first of all, nothing happened!” Buffy exclaimed. “Second of all, ew! Spike is my best friend!”

“Your incredibly hot best friend who just happens to have an ass that puts the all-mighty Angel to shame,” Faith reminded her. “So why don’t you wanna jump him? Because it’s wrong?” She punctuated her mocking question with a wicked grin.

Buffy pursed her lips primly. “Among other things, yes.”

“Well, that’s a hoot and a half. You want him, girl, and you know it.”

“Wait. I’m confused,” Willow said plaintively. “Buffy’s boinking Spike?”

“If you listen to Angel—who is such a dead man when I find him,” Buffy added darkly. “Spike’s tongue slipped—don’t you even start, Faith—and he called me his girl when he was talking to Angel.”

“Oh, Buffy, that’s so romantic!” Willow, as usual, was being Silver Lining Gal.

“Actually, I thought it was way more romantic when Harmony came into the diner and announced to the whole place that I was a hobag,” Buffy said sarcastically. “It was a mistake, Wills.”

“Are you sure?” All of a sudden, the usually-nerdy girl looked sly. “Or do you think it was more of a Freudian slip?”

“What she said, minus all the brains. The man is hot, B.”

“You already said that,” Buffy reminded her. “Spike is my friend, ok? I’m really getting tired of saying that!”

“Right,” Faith drawled, grinning, before she hopped off the stool. “I gotta run, there’s a principal at Sunnydale Elm who wants me bad.” She winked at the two other girls before exiting the diner, hips swaying.

Willow wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t Principal Wood—“

“Like, thirty? Yeah.” Buffy rolled her eyes as she poured a coffee. “Faith might be eighteen, but that’s still in the realm of the seriously gross. Hold on a sec.”

She took off her apron and hat, tossing them on the inside counter, before calling to her dad, “I’m on break!”

They exited the diner, arms linked. “I know you were kidding,” Buffy said. “It’s just, I’ve been dealing with Harmony and company all morning, so having my friends get on my case was seriously not of the good.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Buff smiled at her friend.

“So, what exactly happened?” Willow asked curiously. “The way Angel tells it, Spike was being creepy stalker guy and Angel was being the virtuous boyfriend.”

“Virtuous ex-boyfriend,” Buffy corrected.

Willow’s face lit up. “Buffy! You finally dumped him? That’s grea—I mean, that’s terrible.” She put on a not-so-convincing look of sympathy.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Feel free to gloat. I am so over him it’s not even funny. I mean, Spike and I were just walking in the park and Angel went all wife-beater on me.”

Willow wisely kept her thoughts about Spike’s role in the debacle to herself. “So, you and Angel are officially over this time?”

“Remember the time I wore that orange wrap dress to the Spring Fling and had to spend an entire night listening to Cordelia telling me I looked like a rotten orange?” Willow nodded. “Well, I’m even more over Angel than I was over that dress.”

Given that she’d burned the dress after the dance, that was really saying something. Willow patted her friend’s back. “That’s great, Buffy. I’m proud of you.”

Buffy smiled—or at least tried to. To her surprise, she’d been feeling sort of bad about the breakup. “Thanks.”

Willow wasn’t her best girl friend for nothing. “Wanna go for ice cream?”

“Please,” Buffy said. The two of them walked toward the ice cream parlor, neither noticing that across the street, a platinum blonde was ducking into Hank’s Diner.

~*~

A/N: This chap was kind of long…hope you liked it! I swear I’m going to give this story an interesting plot sometime ;) Thanks a million times over for all the overwhelmingly incredible reviews I’ve been getting for this story. You guys are amazing *hugs* And of course I wouldn't say no to more *is about as subtle as an elephant...*

~*~

“What d’you mean, she’s not here?” Spike demanded. “She’s always here at this hour.”

Hank smiled at the annoyed man in front of him. “She’s been having to put up with some trouble from her schoolmates, so she took a break. She left with Willow.”

“Oh.” A pause, then: “Think she’s mad at me?” He said it as casually as possible, not wanting to give anything away.

Hank smiled slightly. “Harmony was in here half an hour ago, chattering to her friends about the bruises on Angel’s face.”

“Thank God.” His shoulders slumped in relief. “I thought I’d really blown it.”

“I can see why,” Hank replied. Something in his tone made Spike raise his head and scrutinize the man sharply—but the older man’s face was carefully neutral.

“Right, then,” Spike said, clearing his throat. “Tell ‘er I was here, yeah?”

Hank nodded. “Goodbye, Spike.”

“Bye.” Spike all but ran out of the diner, away from Buffy’s father’s understanding eyes.

Hank shook his head, amused, and went back to wiping down dishes.

Spike had every intention of walking back to his office; Anya might be his friend, but she wouldn’t excuse him being gone half the day. But when he rounded a corner a block away from his office, he damn near collided with Buffy and Willow.

Shit, he cursed inwardly. Usually he avoided Buffy’s friends at all costs, especially the redhead. That girl was too insightful for her own good.

“Spike!” Buffy smiled happily at him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you ‘till later!”

He swallowed, looking down at her face. It was stupid, it was insane, it was inexorable—every time she so much as glanced his way, he fell for her that much more. “I, um, I—“ Bleeding hell. He hadn’t stuttered this much in years. “I came by t’ see how you are. Hank said you weren’t there—“ obviously, you prat—“so I was ‘bout to go back to work.”

“Oh.” Her smile changed, became softer. For a second a look shone out of her eyes, one he’d seldom seen there before. One that made him catch his breath. “Thank you.”

“’s no problem, pet.” He shifted uncomfortably. Bugger. Was it just him, or did things get more uncomfortable between them every day?

“Oh, look at the time!” Willow said suddenly. Both blondes looked at her, as thought just remembering that she was there. “I have to go and—do that thing,” she said, nodding.

“What thing?” Buffy asked curiously. “Willow, this isn’t like that time you fell in love with that 40-year-old from LA calling himself Malcolm, is it? Because—“

“No, no, it’s nothing like that!” Willow beamed innocently. “I just have this—this thing, that I have to do. So bye!”

Before either Spike or Buffy could say another word, Willow had tossed her cone in the trash and scurried off.

“Odd little bird,” Spike remarked, trying to hide his relief.

“That’s Willow,” Buffy said, grinning and raising her cone to her mouth. Her little pink tongue darted out, scooping a dallop of ice cream off the top before sliding down, down, sucking the whole top scoop into her mouth. Her cheeks hollowed briefly as she sucked on the cone, and then puffed out when she slid it back out of her mouth, the ice cream on top greatly diminished.

Spike had never been so glad his suit pants were reasonably loose, because he’d gone from semi-hard to painfully so in the few seconds it had taken her to pull that little stunt.

She swallowed the ice cream and grinned at him, apparently oblivious to how aroused she’d just made him. “Chocolate ice cream is heavenly. Best thing on the face of the planet.”

“Luckiest, maybe,” Spike blurted out before he could stop himself. The second the words left his mouth he was horrified. Way to let her know you’re standing there fantasizing about her mouth doing that to your dick, you sodding prick!

Buffy, however, just wrinkled her nose at him. “You’re really weird, you know that?”

She didn’t realize what he meant. But then, how could she? It was sick—he was sick. She wasn’t like him…she didn’t live a lie, a sin, every day of her life. “Sorry, pet. Moment of poetic idiocy.”

“You have a lot of those.” Her grin turned mischievous. “Like when you told Angel I was your girl, for example.”

He groaned at her teasing. She meant it all in fun, but God, she had no idea how much it hurt him that what he’d said wasn’t true. “You’re a bloody irritating bint sometimes, you know that?”

She pouted at him. “So you don’t love me?”

His throat constricted. It was oddest feeling he’d ever had—as though his throat had actually grown smaller. He’d answered this question a thousand times before, but as the days passed, as his love for her grew stronger, so did his impulse to tell her the truth.

Thankfully, he had some self-control. “You know I do, sweets.”

She grinned happily, tossing the cone into a nearby trash can. “And I love you. You’re the best older guy friend a girl could ask for,” she teased, pulling up the sleeve of her jacket to look at her watch. “Ah, crap, I’ve been gone for more than a half hour…see you later?”

A year ago he would’ve offered to walk her to the diner, but now? Now it was all he could manage not to run away from her right then and there. That, or grab her and kiss her in the middle of the sidewalk. “Uh, yeah,” he said, realizing that she was looking at him expectantly. “’ll be by at lunch.”

“’k. See you!” A last smile, a quick hug, and then she was scurrying off.

~*~

Best thing on the face of the planet…luckiest, maybe.

Buffy shifted uncomfortably in her bed. Why, why, why did Spike say things like that sometimes? She knew he didn’t mean them to sound the way they did. He, after all, didn’t spend the majority of his time around pervy high school boys who could twist “I went to see my Great-aunt Mabel” into an innuendo.

But still…that little comment had thrown her for a loop. Before then, she’d just been licking the ice cream, same as she always did. After it, she was scared to eat another bite, because every time she licked it, images of giving her best friend a blowjob popped into her head.

And that was just wrong.

She could almost hear what Spike would say if he knew what she’d been thinking about. You are one sick puppy, Summers, he’d say, laughing. He would think it was a joke.

Buffy sighed, keeping her eyes screwed shut. She was absolutely determined to get to sleep—she had an early shift at the diner, and if she didn’t get some rest, she’d be liable to dump coffee on some slumming corporate bigwig, or something equally humiliating.

She’d actually done it before…

”What the hell are you playing at, letting a child work in your restaurant?” Clyde Daniels, CEO of Daniels Enterprises, was having a field day running down Hank Summers. Not that anyone in the diner really blamed him; his daughter had just dumped and entire pot of coffee on the eminent businessman.

“For one thing, this child is thirteen.” Hank was perfectly calm. “For another thing, it’s a diner, not a restaurant. You should be aware that in establishments that don’t boast four starts, accidents happen.”

Daniels narrowed his eyes. “Are you talking back to me, prick?”

Buffy watched, rapt, as her father laughed. “You’re an idiot, Daniels. Get out.”

“Not until I get a refund and payment for this suit!”

Buffy’s eyes widened when Mr. Gunn appeared behind her dad. The only other time she’d seen Gunn actually come out of the back room to deal with a customer, it had been the time that weird guy Ted got drunk and started throwing glasses at the wall.

“This is my property,” her father said coldly. “Now get out or Gunn will throw you out.”

Daniels gave the other man one last venomous look before whirling around—and stalking straight up to Buffy. “You nasty, stupid little brat,” he snarled. “Getting knocked up and stuck at this diner for the rest of your life wouldn’t be good enough for white trash like you.”

For a second, Buffy stared at him. She was old enough to know that this guy was important, and smart enough to know that he was really, really mad at her. “I—I’m sorry, sir,” she stuttered, fighting to remember the manners her dad had drilled into her before he let her work at the restaurant.

“I ought to make you sorrier,” Daniels snarled.

Buffy darted a quick look over at her dad. He and Gunn were watching her concernedly, but so far they hadn’t come over to interfere, which Buffy was glad of. She knew it would look really bad for her dad’s business if he threw a CEO out in the streets…even if he was a jerkface. “Sir, I really think you should leave now,” she said seriously.

As it turned out, Daniels took her advice. That would have made Buffy happy, if he hadn’t spit on her first.

As soon as he did, Hank and Gunn rushed over—but it was too late. Daniels had already left the restaurant.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” Hank said, kneeling down. “Are you okay?”

She wiped the glob of spittle from her cheek. “That was disgusting!”

“It was disgusting and wrong,” Hank said bitterly, “And if I could I’d have the bastard arrested.”

“Why can’t you, Dad?”

Hank sighed. “Mr. Daniels is a very important man, Buffy. He has all the police in his pockets.”

“Like a mob guy?”

Her father suppressed a smile. “Yes,” he said, “Like a mob guy.”

It hadn’t been so awful, really. Just unpleasant, and like she’d said then, disgusting. What made it stand out in her mind was what happened afterwards.

She’d reported the incident to Spike. He’d gotten seriously pissed—which made sense, because even though her 13-year-old self didn’t understand what spitting on somebody meant, he sure as hell did.

As soon as she’d finished with her story, he’d left the diner. Two days later Buffy had heard about how the CEO of Daniels Enterprises had left town in disgrace, his face supposedly looking like raw meat. She’d known immediately who had done it, though she’d never talked to Spike about it.

Buffy sighed, feeling herself drift further into sleep. He was always so good to her…

It was daytime, and she and Spike were up in her room. He’d been allowed up there since she was about fifteen and her parents had finally decided that they trusted the two of them. It helped that now that Buffy was growing up, they were on a more even footing.

She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Spike was sitting in the chair next to the bed. “It wasn’t that bad, kitten,” he said, watching her as she pouted at the ceiling.

“Are you kidding? It was horrible. Terrible. I completely flubbed it.”

Spike shrugged. “Everyone screws up class presentations sometimes, kitten.”

“I probably failed.” Now she didn’t sound angry, just sad.

“Buffy.” He put his hand on her wrist. Something in his voice made her turn and look at him.

As soon as she saw him, she caught her breath. His face…his eyes, bluer than blue, his sharp cheekbones, those lips that she’d never really noticed before but where now only inches from hers…

He was beautiful.

And he was talking to her. “It’s not your fault, luv. Teach didn’t tell you everything.”

She smiled a little. She knew that whatever was affecting her wasn’t doing the same to him. “Thanks,” she whispered.

They were friends…he was only up here with the door closed because her parents trusted her…and yet, as she licked her lips, all she could think about was kissing him.

The thought followed the deed. One second they were best friends, caught in a whirl of emotions they didn’t understand. The next second, she’d launched herself forward, tangling her lips with his…and he was kissing her back.

It had been she who initiated the kiss, and she got the feeling that if she hadn’t kissed him, he would have put distance between them. But now that she’d committed herself, he’d taken over the kiss with vigor. Buffy found herself fighting to keep up, her lips clashing with his, her tongue racing inside his mouth…her hips thrusting up against his as he lowered himself on top of her.

God, it was incredible. That was all Buffy could think. With Angel there had been lust, a certain urgency, when they made out, but this transcended anything she’d experienced before. It was like fireworks going off, not just behind her eyes, but in her heart. Every rub of skin against skin, every touch of his mouth to hers, was pure, utter perfection.

But it wasn’t enough. She reached down and tugged off his shirt, feeling her own get pulled up and then off. Her bra was soon gone too, and then they were skin to skin—and it was wonderful.

Buffy threw her head back, gasping, as his mouth left hers, traveling down her neck. He was muttering thing, incomprehensible things, but she knew they had to do with her, and they made the fire burning in her that much hotter. When his lips encircled her nipple, she thought she was going to die, it felt so amazing.

Then his fingers found the waistband of her shorts and dove in…and she had no more thoughts.

She thought she’d been burning before—it was like a match compared to a bonfire. Every touch of his lips to hers corresponded with a touch to some part of her between her legs. His tongue plunged into her in tandem with his fingers below, drawing more and more wetness out, coating his fingers with it, streaming onto the sheet below—and still she burned.

Buffy tore herself away from his lips. “Please, Spike,” she gasped, arching her back as still another wave of pleasure rolled through her. “I need—I need—“

“Say it, kitten,” he murmured, curling his fingers almost cruelly inside her, causing her to almost sob with frustration.

“I need it. I need to—please, Spike. I want—“

“What?”

“You.”

She didn’t think it was the answer he was expecting—but by then, she didn’t care. A strangely intense look stole over his face, and he bent down and kissed her deeply, almost savagely. For a moment everything seemed clear, perfect—

And then he plunged three fingers into her, pressing his thumb hard against her clit as he did…suddenly, all the fires exploded and she was spiraling, spiraling, into bottomless blackness.

Buffy woke with a gasp. Sweat was beading her brow, her whole body was alert—and unless she was very much mistaken, she’d just had an orgasm in her sleep. Thinking about Spike, about doing things with Spike. Her best friend.

Her 26-year-old best friend.

She slumped down into the pillows, a kind of muted panic taking over. Oh, shit.

~*~

A/N: *points* Hey—see that? It’s getting a plot. Slowly, but it’s definitely coming ;) Also, I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to all the incredible people who have left me reviews--you guys are wonderful! And just so that you know I’m not above begging…I’m a review whore. Please, please review this chapter and let me know what you think! I'm a little nervous about it, as usual when I write sex scenes...Thanks =D

~*~

The next day was one of the hardest in recent memory. The gossip had all but died down since both Buffy and Spike were denying that Spike had claimed Buffy was his, and to tell the truth, nobody really trusted Angel. Any other day, Buffy would’ve been relieved at her return to relative anonymity. But today, she would’ve welcome a few taunts from Harmony and company.

Without them, she had the whole morning to mull on what she’d dreamed about—and to fight the warm tingle that started in her stomach and gradually went lower every time her thoughts strayed. It was wrong, it was sick, and Buffy was pretty sure she was going to hell for it—but God, that dream had been hot.

And it had started her thinking about stuff she’d never really considered before. Like how Spike’s fingers would really feel running down her body. What would happen if he just kissed her on the lips one day.

What would happen if he kissed her other places…

Her hands slipped on the tray she was carrying and she almost dropped the two fry baskets. She bit her lip—it was really bad when she started being a complete klutz with stuff she’d been doing for ages.

“Jesus, Buffy, what’s the matter?”

She stiffened at the voice: Angel. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said coldly, giving the people their fries and walking back toward the counter.

“But I need to talk to you,” Angel said playfully. “C’mon, Buffy, you don’t have to be frigid about it.”

God. How could it be that even when she was having overly erotic dreams about her best friend, even when she’d broken up with the bastard currently bugging her, the bastard in question still had an effect on her? They’d been going out for four years. She couldn’t deny him simply talking to her. “Fine.” She glared at him. “Talk.”

“Your birthday’s coming up.”

Two weeks. Last year for her birthday, Angel had taken her to the beach and given her a ruby ring. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she spat.

Angel sighed. “Buffy, we broke up. It was bad, but it happened. Can’t we both just move on?”

“We broke up?” She repeated incredulously. “Angel, you went all Controllo-guy on me when I was with Spike, and then when he punched you, you spread rumors about us!”

“I was just telling the truth!” Angel said. He looked angry—or at least, he had the specific nonexpression on his face that Buffy had come to associate with anger.

Well, she was definitely madder—and it showed. “No, you know what the truth is?” She said, taking an aggressive step forward. “You’re a selfish bastard. You have the nerve to stand there and censor me and my friend, when you yanked me around for four years. Or do you think I’ve forgotten about Harmony?” She watched him flinch with bitter amusement. “Cheating on me with her for three months. Remember that?”

“Buffy, I was fifteen.”

“And now you’re sixteen!” she cried. “God, Angel, you just don’t get it! It doesn’t matter how old you are! Fifteen is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Age isn’t an excuse. I don’t understand why you can’t—“

“Buffy? Is there a problem?”

For the first time since the beginning of her tirade, her awareness opened up to include everyone else in the diner. All the customers were staring at her, and her mom was standing a few feet away, concern written all over her face.

She blushed, stepping back. “Sorry, Mom. Everything’s fine.”

Joyce regarded Angel with suspicion. “You’re sure he wasn’t bothering you? You seemed upset a minute ago.”

She had been upset, but not for the reasons Joyce was assuming. “It’s fine. Angel was just leaving, weren’t you?”

“Actually, I was—“

“Leaving. In fact, you’re walking out the door right now.” She glared at him. If he didn’t go along with this…

Well, someone up there loved her. Angel raised his hands in defeat. “I’m going, I’m going.”

She turned her back on him as he left, leaning on the counter for support. “I’m such an idiot.”

Her mother patted her back sympathetically, giving all the customers in the diner a menacing look. They went back to their eating quickly.

“Breakups are hard, sweetheart.”

Buffy had to restrain a laugh. It wasn’t the breakup that had been upsetting her. No, it was her dream, her stupid, twisted dream. She hadn’t been talking about Angel, not a bit. She been trying to convince herself—trying to convince everybody, really—that she wasn’t dirty, that she wasn’t sick. The problem was, it wasn’t working.

“Mom…is it…” she hesitated. Knowing her mom, she’d pick up on Buffy’s feelings for Spike in an instant. “Do you think it’s wrong for me to be mad at Angel? I mean, he was telling the truth.”

Joyce shook her head. “No, he wasn’t, sweetie. Not really. Spike was just trying to get Angel to understand that he needed to stay away. Angel deliberately spread rumors about it to make people think another way.”

Buffy sighed. “I guess…”

“In fact,” Joyce continued, smiling a little, “I really think we ought to thank Spike for defending you like he did. Do you think he’d be able to come over for dinner tonight?”

Buffy blinked. “How is that special? We have him over for dinner lots of times.”

“It could be a celebratory dinner. A pre-birthday, thank-you get-together.”

“Would in involve me in a dress?” She wrinkled her nose. Not that dresses were bad, but if she was in a dress, then Spike would be in a suit…and he’d look really, really yummy. Definitely of the bad as far as Buffy’s peace of mind went. “Because I think that would be overdoing it a little.”

“Nonsense. We could use a little gaiety, your father and I haven’t had an excuse to break out the champagne in months.” Joyce arched a brow at her daughter. “And Spike’s your best friend. Don’t you want to thank him?”

She was so going to hell for the images that evoked…among other things…she forced herself to smile. “Um, sure. Sounds good. Want me to go tell him?”

“Isn’t he at work? I wouldn’t want to get him in trouble with his boss.”

Anya knew Buffy pretty well, but Buffy decided not to bring that up. “I’ll just tell him when he comes here for lunch, then.”

Joyce smiled at her daughter. “Okay, sweetie. Tell him seven o’clock, okay?”

She nodded. “Will do.”

From the kitchen, someone yelled, “Joyce? The oven’s smoking again!”

“Oh, no. Sorry, honey, we can continue this later.” Joyce kissed Buffy’s forehead and then hurried back to the kitchen, yelling, “Don’t open it!”

Buffy watched her go, smiling falsely. As soon as she knew no one was watching her she let the smile turn into a grimace. “Stupid world,” she muttered, pouting ineffectually, and got back to work.

~*~

“So, my mom thinks you’re a hero now.”

“Really?” Spike asked, amused, as he bit into the pastry. “Why does she think that?”

“Because you told Angel I was your girl. She thinks you were being all chivalrous.”

Chivalrous. He couldn’t help but wonder if Joyce would still feel the same way if she knew he wanted to take her 16-year-old daughter and shag her into the ground. “Right then. Tell ‘er it was my pleasure to put the ponce in his place.”

“You can tell her.” When Spike arched a brow at her, she caved. “Mom wants you to come to dinner tonight. It’ll be fancy.”

“Fancy, eh? S’pose I have to wear a suit?” He mock-groaned. “The things I go through for you…”

“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes at him playfully. “I have to wear a dress, so we’re even.”

Buffy in a dress. He closed his eyes briefly. Damn lucky thing suit pants ‘re loose enough to hide a hard-on. “Don’t see why that’s such a problem for you, luv,” he teased. “’m the one who’s gonna have to look at you.”

Her mouth fell open. “You jerk!” she exclaimed, half-frowning, half-amused.

He shouldn’t bait her. Spike knew that, but hell—he shouldn’t do a lot of things that he did anyway. “That the best you can do, Summers?”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s it. You are so going down.”

“Oh, yeah? What’re you gonna do, hit me in your dad’s diner?”

“Nu-uh.” She shook her head, walking round to the other side of the counter. She sauntered up to him, and Spike gulped—she couldn’t possibly know what she did to him when she swayed her hips like that.

Her green eyes were inches from his when she smiled slyly and said, “But you’ll have to come out of here sometime.”

And with that, she tossed her apron on the counter and went to sit on the bench outside the diner.

Spike shook his head as he ate the rest of his pastry. Buffy was absolutely carrot-top sometimes, there was no denying that. It was one of the reasons he loved her. She was spontaneous enough that life around her was never boring.

When he was finished eating, he walked outside, half-expecting to get jumped by her, and bracing himself for the consequences an action like that would have. Instead he found her sitting still on the bench, leaning her head on one arm.

He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Kitten? You okay?”

“Mhm?” She blinked a few times and opened her eyes before half-smiling, half-yawning. “Sorry. I got almost no sleep last night. I had—weird dreams.”

If things had been the way he wanted them to be, he would’ve been able to tell her about his dreams—most of which involved her wearing rather a lot less clothes than she was now. But instead he just grinned and said, “Oh really? Any ‘f these weird dreams happen to feature a hot older English bloke you’re friends with?”

She blinked up at him, her cheeks turning red. Spike found that a bit peculiar—she almost never blushed when he teased her—but dismissed it. It didn’t mean what he wanted it to mean, why bother speculating? “No. They were just…weird.”

Suddenly wanting to get away from his closest friend as quickly as possible, he checked his watch. “Damn. Gotta be back at the office soon. What time does your mum want me to be there?”

Buffy shrugged, a smile returning to her face. “She said around seven, but you know them. You could show up at nine and they’d still love you.”

Which was one thing he had going in his favor. Now ‘f he could just get rid of the million other people and laws that said what he felt for her, what he wanted, was wrong…”Right, then. ‘ll be there at seven. Bye.” He was walking past the bench when she leapt up and grabbed his arm.

“Spike?”

Something in her voice made him pause. Instead of sounding older than her age, she sounded much, much younger. “Yeah, pet?”

“Are we—are we okay?” she asked, biting her bottom lip.

How could she do this to him? He was all set to walk off, to put just a little distance between them, for his sanity’s sake as much as anything else—and all she had to do was ask one little question, and he had her enfolded in his arms.

They stood like that for a few long moments, enfolded in each other’s arms, before Spike pressed a kiss to her head and said, “Yeah, luv. We’re fine.”

She sighed in relief. “Oh, good. See you tonight then?”

He stepped back and offered what he hoped was a friendly smile. “Yeah. See you tonight,” he said as he started to walk away.

~*~

Buffy watched him go, trying to restrain a sigh. Weird dreams? Yeah, of course you were in them. You had a starring role, in fact, right between my legs.

Right. Like she was ever going to say that.

Spike would think she was completely twisted if she ever told him what kinds of dreams she’d been having about him. Tonight was going to be bad enough, what with him looking all sexy in a suit and being in her house—possibly in her room, since when he visited they ended up there as often as not.

All she could think when she went back into the diner was, Thank God Mom and Dad are going to be there.

~*~

A/N: *innocent look* Me, hinting? I don’t know what you’re talking about! =D For those of you begging me for Spuffy…a little bit might come soon ;) Thanks for all the incredible reviews, I was simply amazed! The response this fic is getting amazes me—it’s wonderful to know that so many people are interested in what I have to say. Thank you!

He couldn’t stop staring at her. It was the worst evening of his life, yet he was transfixed by the angel in front of him.

The first surprise of the evening had come in the form of Buffy’s clothes. She was wearing a filmy red dress, not exactly skimpy but certainly more revealing than her usual clothes, and it was having a severe effect on him.

He was finding eating difficult because of the massive hard-on he was sporting under the table—and he couldn’t help but wonder if she was tempting him on purpose. They were just ‘bout as close as two people could get. She knew his favorite color was red, and everything she had on that night, from her makeup to her dress to her shoes, was deep crimson.

Enough to make a bloke cry, it was.

Even worse, it wasn’t just a dinner with Buffy and her folks. That would have been bad enough, but for some reason, Willow and Faith were there, too. Willow at least looked as awkward as he felt, but Faith had been dropping innuendos and calling him by various odd pet names all night. If the dress Buffy had on didn’t drive him mad, then the girl’s overly sexual friend was sure to accomplish the task.

Still worse, conversation wasn’t exactly flowing at the table. It started, lurched to a halt, and then started again when one of the brave souls at the table decided to take another stab at it. Spike took no part in it. He caught everyone at the table occasionally sending him odd glances—everyone except Buffy. She didn’t seem at all concerned with the fact that he wasn’t talking, and that told him a hell of a lot.

Something had changed. He just wasn’t sure what.

After what seemed like ages, Hank said, “Well, guess you kids had better get going.”

“Yeah, we sh-should go,” Willow stuttered, clearly relieved. “Come on, Faith. Buffy, want to maybe walk us out?”

Faith rolled her eyes as she stood up. “You know, Willow, I’m seriously doubting your sanity. The door’s right over there—we don’t need B to show us where it is.” She grinned slowly. “Although if His Studliness wants to show us out, I’m not gonna complain.

“No, it’s okay.” Spike watched as his girl hastily jumped up and hurried out of the dining room, telling her friends as she went, “Although Faith’s right, in a gross, slutty kinda way. The door really is right there.”

Spike shifted uncomfortably in his seat; sitting for two hours with a raging hard-on sure as hell didn’t do much for a man’s disposition. Joyce and Hank were sitting silently, seemingly perfectly alright with the evening’s events—which made Spike more than a little suspicious.

“So, Spike, how’s work at the agency going?” Joyce, ever the soul of courtesy, asked.

“Uh, fine. ‘m workin’ on a project for Aflack.”

“They got tired of the duck?” Hank chuckled. “And here I thought that one would never go out of style.”

Spike smiled slightly. “Don’t think it would, but they got tired ‘f searchin’ all their employees t’ make sure one of ‘em wasn’t a crazed PETA person tryin’ to blow their offices up. Rough gig, that.”

“Goodness. I wasn’t aware advertising could be so dangerous!” Joyce said, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh, that ain’t the half ‘f it. PETA makes some organizations look safe as houses,” Spike said, leaning forward with a grin on his face. He loved enlightening people about how strong an influence the advertising community had on the world around them. “You know how many terrorists ‘ave tried to do Victoria’s Secret in ‘cause of their underwear ads?”

“And let me guess,” Buffy said dryly from the doorway. “You had a hand in the ads in question.”

He stiffened immediately. With Buffy out of the room he could talk to her parents without a problem—now that she was back, all his feelings came rushing upon him again, guilt and shame included. Victoria’s Secret—Buffy wearing Victoria’s Secret—Buffy getting Victoria’s Secret ripped off her body— Suddenly Joyce and Hank’s expectant faces looked accusatory. “Not exactly,” he mumbled, getting up. “’s late—I should probably go.”

God help him, but she pouted. “No fair,” she said grumpily. “First you’re all bad moody through dinner, and now you’re leaving like I have some kind of freaky disease, or something.”

Wonderful—in trying to save his own arse, he’d hurt her. “’s not like that, kitten” he said earnestly, trying to get her to understand. Not like that at all. I just want to shag you on top of the table, an’ we might have a bit of a problem with that, given that your mum an’ dad are currently staring at us. “But ‘s a big project I’m workin’ on, and the creative juices aren’t gonna flow ‘f I stay much longer. I’m an old man, need my beauty rest.”

She smiled grudgingly at that. “Okay, fine,” she said.

“Now that that’s settled,” Joyce cut in smoothly, “Hank, you can help me clean up in the kitchen.”

When her husband didn’t move, only sat with a slight grin on his face as he watched his daughter and her best friend, Joyce tugged on his arm sharply. “Hank. Now.”

Spike couldn’t help himself—he grinned slightly at the disgruntled expression on the other man’s face. “Women,” Hank muttered, allowing himself to be drug into the kitchen by a very determined Joyce.

“Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em,” Spike added, winking down at Buffy.

She laughed. “Well, Mom’s just about the only thing that saved this dinner. It was uber-awkward.”

“That it was, but—“

“No buts, it just was.” Buffy sighed, looking suddenly despondent. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” That startled him. What did she have to be apologizin’ for?

“Well, it’s my fault that the dinner turned out to be such a suckfest.”

He cocked his head at her. “An’ how exactly does that work out?”

Buffy shrugged, the expression made eloquent by her bare shoulders. “I invited Willow and Faith,” she said simply. “I know you don’t like being around them…”

“That’s not true!” He felt the need to protest even if he was lying through his teeth. “Your friends are just fine.”

“Yeah, but they’re my friends, and my parents,” she argued. “And that’s what made it awkward. You—“

“Don’t belong.” He sighed wearily, running his hand through his hair. “I get it, Buffy, alright? I was the odd puzzle piece that kept the evening from being nice. ‘m not entirely stupid, you know.”

“Hey.” She swatted him. “Would you stop being self pity guy, already? That’s not it at all. You’ve been around my friends before.”

She was right. Dammit.

“It’s just—“ she sighed impatiently. “I don’t know why it was weird, okay? It just was. And I’m sorry.”

He recognized it for what it was—a peace offering. “’m sorry, too,” he said, and they began to move towards the door.

He shrugged into his suit coat. “’least I got to see what Faith considers evening wear,” he joked feebly, remembering the tiny black dress the girl had been wearing. “You sure she doesn’t work at a brothel?”

Buffy grinned. “She’s threatened to turn into an actual ho once or twice, but no, so far she gives it away for free.”

Spike shook his head, unable to resist goading her. “Tsk, tsk. Talkin’ bout your friend that way. Just ‘cause a tumble with you prob’ly costs a pretty penny—“

“Spike! I am so not a slut!”

“Thought I was callin’ you a whore,” he said, frowning in mock puzzlement, “An’ Faith a slut.”

He’d only been teasing—but apparently Buffy took it the wrong way. She slumped against the door, saying, “It’s the dress, isn’t it? The dress is totally hobaggy. I knew it!”

“What?” He couldn’t believe his ears. She thought she looked like a slut? “Buffy—I was kidding, luv. You look…”

“Yeah?” Forced casualness, and they both knew it.

Spike sighed, suddenly tired of playing. Tired of trying to pretend that seeing her all decked out like that didn’t affect him. Tired of lying to both of them about the thing he could feel in between him and her—the thing that came just as much from her as it did from him.

“You look beautiful, luv.”

Hazel eyes widened, locking with blue. Something passed between them—a quiet acceptance of what shouldn’t, couldn’t, be—and yet was all the same. Spike took a step forward, slowly, fighting and embracing what was happening.

“Y-you think I’m beautiful?” A quiet, breathy question.

He reached out let his hand brush her shoulder—the barest whisper of a touch. “You know I do,” he said, his voice low and husky.

“I do?”

“Well, ‘f you don’t, then you’re a little dumber than ‘d given you credit for,” he teased, a smile playing about his lips.

She smiled in return—her glossy red lips just barely parting to reveal white teeth. “Guess I’m stupid, then,” she breathed, tilting her head up.

His chest was pressing against hers, his heavy suit coat was crushing the crinkly fabric that covered her breasts. How had that happened? Spike wasn’t at all sure. “’s not like I’m much smarter,” he pointed out. His other hand came up, curving round the soft globes of her shoulders.

“Oh, definitely not.” Her breath hitched; his own chest seemed to constrict in response. He squeezed her shoulders, pressing her more fully against the door. It was bad, it was wrong—and it felt so damn good.

She pressed back. If he was buried in sin, then so was she. “What’s happening?” she asked as her head tilted back, as her eyes fluttered shut.

“Nothing.” He closed his eyes, inhaled her scent—and suddenly, standing there pushing his teenaged best friend up against her door, with her parents mere feet away, he was lost. Utterly, completely lost. He had been before—but not like now. Now he was gone, thrown into the abyss, without even a map to help him find his way back. The only map, the only guide he had, was in the eyes that were flickering behind closed lids, waiting him to do what they both knew he had to.

He pulled her away from the door and into his arms, running his hands up and down her semi-bare back. His head dipped.

“Nothing at all,” he whispered…

And his lips met hers.

It was a combination of the strangest and the most incredible kiss he’d ever experienced. She was so soft, so sweet, so very right. He could taste her—tart, feisty, yet incredibly young and untried. It didn’t make him feel dirty, didn’t make him feel wrong. He couldn’t feel like that, not when he was with her. Not when his lips were crushing hers, and she was doing her damndest to crush his right back.

Neither made a move to deepen the kiss. Their lips moved against each other, their hands scrabbled for purchase on the other’s body, their heads spun as they lost all semblance of control. Lips clung, crashed together—breathing escalated—life flowed through them both, warming them with its fiery heat. And still they kissed.

It was heaven, but it was an easily shattered one. Because the second Joyce called, “Buffy? Has Spike gone yet?” Spike was jerked out of a wonderful place were the only things that existed were Buffy and the way she was making him feel, and back into reality, where the very fact that he felt such things damned him for eternity.

He lurched away from her, fighting his way back to coherency. God—no—you’ve really fucked it up this time, mate.

“Spike?”

There was hurt in those hazel eyes that usually stared at him with such happiness and pride. He should be sorry—he was sorry—but all he could think about was leaving right now, before Joyce walked into the foyer and drew some very reasonable conclusions.

“Buffy—“ he broke off, staring at her, completely at a loss for words. What could he say? What had happened between them shouldn’t have happened. It was sick, it was wrong, and it was his fault. “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“No, don’t—“

But it was too late. He heard her begin to speak, but he’d already flung open the door and fairly run out of it. Down the steps, to his car—

“Spike!”

No. Couldn’t listen to her, not now. She was an angel, and she was the only one who had the power to ensure he spent the rest of his days roasting in hell.

“Spike, wait!”

Keys. Where the fucking hell were his keys? His hand dove into his coat pocket, retrieving the key to his car and shoving it into the lock.

“Please—“

He could hear her heartbreak. It matched his own.

What he couldn’t hear above the roar of the motor as he peeled out of the drive were the sobs. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs that escaped the girl as she slumped down on the step, weak, confused…

Broken. The word echoed in Spike’s head as he drove frantically away. Scenery flew past, but only one bit of it reached the mess that was his brain.

Los Angeles, 75 miles.

~*~

~*~

She was an idiot.

That was the only explanation that came anywhere near to being logical. The only explanation that didn’t make her want to puke. She was absolutely, positively, without a doubt, the most stupid teenager to ever walk the face of the planet.

How could she have thought he’d want her?

He was twenty-six, for God’s sake. He could have any woman on the face of the planet, and he damn well knew it. She was lucky enough to be able to call him her friend. Why had she been dumb enough to think he’d want anything else?

She wanted him, of course. Stupid, stupid little girl, Buffy berated herself, staring out at the night he’d fled into. How could she have been so incredibly idiotic?

Okay, so he had kissed her. That indicated that, on some level, he wanted her. But that didn’t mean anything. She’d deliberately tempted him, wearing a sexy dress in his favorite color. She wasn’t exactly an adult, but she wasn’t a little kid, either, and that dress made it obvious. But Buffy knew that she wasn’t anything special. She knew that Spike had only been reacting to her in the way any man reacted to a female, older girl or young woman. She’d incited that reaction on purpose…

And she’d pay for it with their friendship.

But did it have to be so hard? It had been perfect—every brush of his lips against hers had been utter and complete heaven. The fact that she was going for hell for even thinking about kissing him, much less actually doing it, had occurred to her.

She just couldn’t bring herself to care. If she was going to hell, then she was sure taking the scenic route. She was going right through heaven, which for some reason seemed to exist only when Spike was holding her, his lips moving over hers.

And that scared her more than anything else.

Willow—geeky, lovable, perceptive Willow—had tried to warn her. Right before her friends had left, the redhead had taken Buffy aside and asked, “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Buffy had replied blithely.

Willow had just stared at her.

She’d sighed. “Wills, it’s…complicated. Something’s happening between us, and I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s a shitload of UST is what it is,” Faith interjected. She’d grinned at the aghast look on her two friends’ faces. “Oh, come on, like you weren’t thinking the same thing. I get the feeling we’re gonna be seeing some blonde on blonde action pretty damn soon.”

Buffy had, of course, vehemently rejected the idea. What was she going to tell them? Oh, yeah, I thought about some blonde on blonde action…dreamed about it, actually. Yeah, that would have gone over really well.

Although in retrospect, it probably would have gone over better than her kissing Spike had.

But how could she have stopped herself? He was the hottest guy she’d ever been anywhere near, and in his own platonic, non-wet-dream having way, he loved her. She’d seen that love shining in his eyes tonight—love and worry, because he felt the same way she did. They were slowly, inexorably being pulled apart, and Buffy knew it was all her fault.

Dammit.

She’d never felt as complete as she had when she’d been kissing Spike, only moments before. Now she felt like she was being pulled into a million pieces. All because of a single, relatively chaste kiss.

No. There might not have been tongue, but no one in there right mind would call what had just happened in the foyer chaste.

“Buffy?”

Buffy’s head snapped up—too late, she remembered that she’d been crying. Shit. “Yeah, mom?”

“Are you—Buffy, honey, what’s wrong?”

Oh, nothing. I just kissed my best friend and he ran away from me. But hey, peachy with a side of keen, that’s me! Buffy’s mind searched for an excuse—one that wouldn’t have her mom hauling her off to the mental ward. “I, um…” she trailed off, sniffling for effect, when an idea hit her. “I was just thinking,” she lied, “About…about Angel.”

If her mom didn’t believe her, she was a really good actress. She came to sit next to Buffy on the front step. “Oh, honey. Spike didn’t mention him, did he?”

She stiffened at the name. She couldn’t help it—any time she so much as thought of him, her body was flooded with emotions she couldn’t name and couldn’t handle. “No,” she said, quietly, when her brain reminded her that she still had some lying to do. “I just…four years, you know?”

Joyce smiled an understanding smile. “I know.”

“And I never thought…I figured I knew him. It wasn’t perfect, but I knew where I stood, and now…now I don’t.” She shook her head; a few tendrils of rumpled hair came loose from the clip and fell onto her neck. “I just don’t.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, he acts one way, but then a different way, and I…I tried to talk to him, but he blew me off, and I’m not even really sure if we’re ever going to talk again, much less be like we were, and then I think maybe we won’t be and it’s all my fault, and it’s just a merry-go-round of badness, and—“

“Buffy, are you talking about Angel?”

“Of course I am!” Oh, great. Now she sounded defensive. “Who else would I be talking about?”

“You’re a teenager, honey—I have no idea what’s going on in that head of yours,” Joyce said, smiling gently at her daughter. “But I do know this—Spike is a good person. I would trust him with your life.”

Buffy looked at her mother and saw nothing but gentle understanding. “But—“

“Now, why don’t you go to bed?” Joyce interrupted smoothly. “It’s been a long night, and I know you need sleep.”

Funny how she was all of a sudden positive that her mother knew a whole lot more than that—and something told her that Joyce wasn’t going to budge an inch if Buffy tried to go all FBI 3rd degree on her. The teenager sighed. “OK, fine, you win,” she said grudgingly. “I’m going.”

They both stood up and went inside. Buffy was about to go upstairs when Joyce enveloped her into a tight hug.

A few seconds later Buffy croaked, “Um, Mom? I kind of need to breathe.”

“I’m sorry,” Joyce said, but she didn’t let go. “You’re just growing up so fast!”

That settled that—Moms were definitely psychic. Buffy detangled herself from her mother’s grip. “But I’m still me,” she said. “Just, you know, a little taller than I was when I was six.”

That made her laugh, as Buffy had hoped it would. Even she herself was smiling when she went upstairs…

But then she got to her room, and memories assailed her. Innocent ones—her and Spike lounging on the floor, arguing about the usefulness of martial arts—and the not-so-innocent memories of the dream she’d had, and the longing she’d felt long before that.

Quietly, so that the two adults downstairs didn’t hear, Buffy lay down on her bed and started to cry.

~*~

“What did you tell her?” Hank asked as he and his wife cleared the dining room table.

“Not much,” Joyce admitted. “I just tried to let her know that it was OK.”

“Does she know we heard her?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly tell them that their moaning carried all the way to the kitchen, if that’s what you’re asking,” Joyce said reprovingly. “Spike practically ran away—that’s the last thing Buffy needs to know.”

“The bastard ran away? Why the hell did he do that?” There was anger in his voice, anger that had never been directed towards his daughter’s best friend before.

“Well, he’s probably feeling even worse about this than Buffy is. He knows that anything he does now will probably hurt her—“

“Which will in turn hurt him, since I’ll break every bone in his body—“

“And so he ran off,” she finished calmly, ignoring her husband’s threatening mutters. She wasn’t surprised; Hank would only like Spike so long as he didn’t hurt Buffy, which was, Joyce knew, inevitable. It made her angry, too, but she had the wisdom to see that that was how it was always going to be. She hadn’t supported their relationship beginning—but now that it had started, she knew everyone involved would only hurt more if she tried to make it stop.

“Damn coward.”

“Hank,” Joyce said reprovingly. “You’re the one who first decided to allow their relationship.”

“But how long, Joyce?” Hank asked. “How many more times are they going to hurt each other before they finally figure out what’s going on?”

Wearily, Joyce sat down at the table. “I don’t know. If I did, I’d be able to—“

She was cut off by the phone ringing. Hank snatched it up. “Hello? Fred! How have you been? Really? Well, my congratulations to you both…he wants us to come visit? This weekend? That’s pretty short notice…no, Buffy doesn’t go back to school until Labor Day…of course I can. Let me ask Joyce.” He covered up the phone. “Rupert wants us to come visit them.”

Joyce perked up immediately. “Really? Why the short notice?”

“Apparently Fred finally got herself a fiancé,” he said, grinning, “And the festivities are this weekend.”

“Well, I don’t know…” Joyce hesitated. “Buffy might not want to go.”

As if on cue, a muffled wail came from her room.

Her mother winced. “On second thought, maybe a weekend trip is exactly what she needs.”

Hank nodded and took his hand off the phone. “We’ll leave tomorrow, Fred. Yep, see you there. Congratulations again, honey. M-hm. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone and turned to Joyce. “Looks like we’re going to LA.”

~*~

~*~

18 calls and still no answer.

Buffy sighed and flopped down on her bed. Maybe she was stupid, maybe she was immature; in fact, people had accused her of being both more than once. But was it really so unreasonable to want Spike to call her already?

Apparently, when it came to girls, he was no better than a sixteen-year-old boy.

But then, she’d known that. One of the many things that made her beyond dumb—she’d known how he was with girls, but she’d gone and kissed him anyway.

Kissed him. It sounded so dry, so—normal. But she knew that absolutely nothing about what had happened yesterday was normal. Which makes sense in a twisted, ironic kind of way, since it’s perfectly normal for a guy to not call a girl after they have some kind of frenzied kissing session five feet away from her parents…especially if the guy and the girl in question are best friends ten years apart.

Well, okay. Maybe it wasn’t normal. But still…she wanted him to call.

Even as she tossed clothes into her suitcase, her eyes remained on the phone. Please let him call, she prayed, even though she knew it was useless. Please, please let him call.

He wasn’t just someone she was attracted to; he was her friend, and had been for four years. Losing him to anything, especially something that was partially her fault, would break her heart.

And as they drove out of Sunnydale, Buffy was reduced to leaning her cheek against the cool glass of the car window and wonder if the terrible sensations inside her were what people talking about when they said their hearts were broken.

~*~

One hour and sixty miles later, she’d decided that it was all her fault. Well, hers and the suit Spike had been wearing last night.

She was a teenager, right? Teenagers had hormones. Seeing Spike looking beyond yummy in that suit had triggered the hormones, so they’d kissed. It was as simple as that.

The only problem, Buffy mused as she watched the Los Angeles skyline come into view, was that Spike had definitely been kissing her back—and whatever else he might be, he was not a teenager.

Which lead her to believe, once again, that she was very, very stupid.

Merry-go-round of badness. That had been how she’d described it to her mother, and she was starting to think it was a very apt description, indeed. No matter how long she thought about it—and she had thought about it for hours on end—she ended up reaching the same conclusion. Spike was the same guy he’d always been, and Buffy was short a brain cell or two million.

She slumped down in the seat. She hated being in such a bad mood. She hated feeling unsure, feeling stupid, feeling…young. It was something she wasn’t at all used to.

Ever since she’d been able to walk, she’d been treated like she was several years older than she actually was. From working in her father’s diner to her friendship with Spike, she was always just a little bit ahead of most people her age. But now she was reduced to feeling like a child, to puzzling out her emotions and the actions of others knowing that as far as the rest of the world was concerned, she was too young to truly understand.

She’d been told that before; had been told that her friendship with Spike was dangerous, that she wasn’t possibly old enough to understand what went on in a young man’s head. She’d ignored the critics, certain that they were wrong. Sure that the rapport between her and Spike was real, and that age didn’t matter.

But now she wasn’t so sure.

Why had he kissed her back? For her it was hormones, nothing more; what was it for him? Twenty-six-year-old guys didn’t have raging hormones, did they? She really didn’t think so…

And that, right there, was the problem. She didn’t think Spike had raging hormones, but she didn’t know. Because she was too young.

She sighed, shifting again in the seat. God, she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin. Knowing that Spike was in Sunnydale and that she was leaving him behind was driving her nuts.

“You okay back there, sweetie?” Joyce asked, glancing back at Buffy.

“I’m fine,” she said softly, keeping her eyes on the scenery outside.

Hank cleared his throat, looked at his daughter in the mirror, and said, “Doyle’s going to be there. Maybe he could show you around LA?”

That got a tiny smile out of her. Doyle was her uncle, technically, but he was only two years older than she was. They’d always gotten along really well. “I guess that would be nice…”

“And Fred and I are probably going to go shopping. You know you’re welcome to come with us.”

“Mom.” Buffy almost winced at her own voice—she sounded hollow, bleak. “I’ll be fine, okay?”

If she’d told her mom that the sky was green, the grass was blue, and the moon was a big hunk of Gorgonzola, Joyce probably would have been more believing. But she’d told herself she wouldn’t interfere—so she just nodded and turned back around again, saying something quietly to Hank.

Buffy felt divided—grateful to be left alone, terrified to go without talking to someone. For the first time in her admittedly short life, she’d run into something she couldn’t handle. The irony of it all was that this was the one thing she needed to be able to handle herself.

But she couldn’t. Because she was stupid.

In a vain attempt to close out her thoughts, Buffy screwed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against the window pane, willing the traffic to let up so they could drive into LA, into a city that for Buffy was filled with carelessly loving relatives…ones who had never been important enough to hurt her.

~*~

“I mean, ‘s not like I don’t have a life, you know? Got m’ job, an’ m’ pride, an’ up till now I had a bloody good social life…so what the fuck ‘m I doin’, goin’ out an’ maulin’ a sixteen-year-old?” Spike demanded, pounding a fist on the counter to emphasize his point. “’ey, gimme summore beer!”

“Spike, man, are you sure you should be having—“

“I said, gimme summore beer!” Spike bellowed, glaring at his friend. “You’re a fucking bartender, Xander—“

“Which means I have the right to tell you crazy drinkers that you’ve had too much,” Xander reminded him; but lucky for Spike, the brunette topped off his mug anyway. “And seriously, I think you’re talking to the wrong guy. I date Anya, remember? And I’m two years younger than you are, which makes me…”

“Eight sodding years younger than the bint. I bloody well know that,” Spike all but snarled. “But ‘s not the same when the bloke’s older, isit?” he asked bitterly. “’s never the same. ‘f anyone knew…they’d kill me.”

“Well, I don’t know about kill you…”

Spike narrowed his eyes at his friend. “They’d. Fucking. Kill. Me,” he snapped, his diction incredibly correct for someone who’d been drinking for the past two hours. “An’ I’d deserve it…’m sick, always have been.”

“Look, man, I’ve been friends with you since we were both babies, and—“

“Just shut the hell up, would you, mate? Jusht…shut…the bleeding ‘ell…up…b’fore I…’fore I…”

Xander watched with an aggrieved look on his face as Spike’s mumbled threats became less and less coherent…before, predictably, he passed out right at the bar.

“Stupid bleached menace,” he muttered in half-hearted anger. Most guys at least knew when to stop drinking, but somehow, Spike managed to keep going till he passed out right in the middle of a glass. “Hey, Joe!” he called out to his co-worked, “I’m on break.”

Joe nodded; Xander took that as his cue to toss his apron off and make his way to the other side of the bar. Thank God for burly construction muscles—he was able to hoist Spike on his shoulder with no problem.

Getting him to the back room where he could sleep it off, though, took a little work.

When Spike was finally drooped unceremoniously over one of the small, uncomfortable metal chairs, Xander straightened and shook his head, annoyed. He hadn’t seen Spike get this worked up since…well, since ever. And over a women—no, not even a woman. A girl. By a lot of people’s standards, a little girl.

And Xander was coming to hate her more every day.

~*~

”Spi-ike,” Buffy whined, “I wanna go!”

He rolled his eyes and continued to channel surf. “Really, luv, you should’ve known better than t’ come all the way over here just to try to get me to go to some poncy movie with you.”

“Willow and Faith are both busy,” she complained, “And I really, really wanna go see a movie!”

“Give it up, pet,” Spike said bluntly. “’m not takin’ you to see some dumb chick flick. M’ girlfriend’s gonna be here in ten minutes, now scat.” He almost winced at how cold he sounded—but that wasn’t half so bad as how much he wanted to duck out of his date and go with her to the movie. That alone was enough to make him determined to refuse her.

“Troy is so not a chick flick!” she exclaimed, clearly annoyed.

“It is ‘f I bloody well say it is,” Spike snapped. “Now bugger off already.”

For one glorious second, he thought that she was leaving and he was safe. Then she did the one thing that could always melt his defenses.

She plopped down next to him on the couch, crossed her arms over the chest that was partially exposed by her deep-cut red shit, and pouted. “Please?”

He shouldn’t feel this way. God help him, he shouldn’t. Problem was, he did…and God would want no part in it. Not for the first time, he paused for a second to think about precisely how horrible a man he really was.

But his girl didn’t let him think for long. She poked his arm and repeated her plea. “C’mon, Spike, please? I’m sixteen and it’s a Saturday…don’t you want me to have a social life?”

Well, yeah. Unless it involved some other rotten little bugger…which it wouldn’t, he realized, if he went with her. “Right, then,” he acquiesced, trying to ignore how much it pleased him to see her smile happily and clap her hands…trying to ignore how much it aroused him when she bounced up and down on his couch. “’ll just call Jeanette an’ cancel, then.”

“And I’ll run home and grab my stuff.” Impulsively, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek soundly. “Thank you so much!”

He waited until she’d scurried off to throw his head back and growl in frustration and disgust, trying to ignore the erection that forced him to acknowledge the truth that haunted him every day.

So long ago, that had been. Only a few months, but since then, everything had changed.

Well, almost everything, Spike thought as a pounding invaded his head. He still drank too much when he was upset, and he was still a bad, bad man.

Stifling a groan, he heaved himself upright. He couldn’t really recall why coming to LA and getting utterly drunk while spilling his guts to Xander had seemed like a good idea. Seems that when it came to running away, he wasn’t exactly a master.

Jesus tap-dancing Christ—his head felt like it was stuffed full of wool. Steel wool. Not a bad analogy, actually…

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was coming up with asinine analogies to avoid the real issue at hand.

Well, he was damn well going to avoid them for awhile longer. After all, he had things to deal with that didn’t involve the girl he was in love with and running away from—he stood up and walked towards the door that led to the rest of the bar, determined to put her out of his mind at least for as long as it took to listen to the whelp chew him out.

Problem was, when he stepped out the door, he ran straight into a laughing Buffy, hanging intimately on the arm of a man he’d never seen before in his life.

~*~

A/N: I feel completely horrible about the lapse in updates--sorry =( My computer got a worm so I didn't have access to my files for about five days...anyway, I decided that I'm going to give myself--and you guys--a little challenge. If you guys can top 25 reviews for one chapter, I'll update 2 times a week at least till the end of this fic *is shameless* So...think you can do it? There's Spuffy in the next two chaps at least ;) Thanks for all the incredible reviews--I loved hearing what you guys think!

~*~

“Spike!”

She was smiling at him. He stared at her stupidly, his still-groggy brain fighting to understand what was happening. “Buffy? What th’ hell’re you doin’ in LA?” And who’s this ponce?

“I’m…um…” She furrowed her brow, evidently trying to remember. “I’m living the life of a California teen!” she announced triumphantly.

The man whose arm she was hanging onto laughed. “An’ living it well, she is,” he said in a thick brogue.

Spike scowled at them both. The man—no, the boy—looked to be about his girl’s age, maybe a little older. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were well on their way to being falling down drunk.

The fact that he himself hadn’t exactly stayed sober that night didn’t penetrate his brain. All that did was pure fury—at that boy for letting Buffy get drunk, at Buffy for doing the drinking, and at himself for being so fucking stupid. She wasn’t just out drinking for the fun of it, and he knew it. She was the type to drink only when she was hurt.

And that was his fault.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t chew her out, though. He narrowed his eyes at the boy and growled, “Who the ass-shitting hell is this?”

If his language shocked her, she gave no sign. “Oh, this is Doyle! He’s my uncle.” She beamed at him.

God, her smile was gorgeous…and he was furious with her. Spike hardened his glare. “An’ do you an’ your uncle always come out to LA and drink illegally?”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You’re one to talk. You smell.”

“What? I do not!”

She leaned forward and made a production out of sniffing him. “Yes, you do. You smell like whiskey.”

“And how would you know what whiskey smells like?”

She rolled her eyes and pointed at the bottle in Doyle’s hand. “Duh.”

He couldn’t have explained what happened then if he tried. All he knew was that he was close to his girl again, for the first time since they’d kissed—and the thought made all the blood rush from his head and go to other, less convenient places.

Almost against his will, he heard himself saying, “Buffy, can I talk to you for a second?”

She glanced from him to Doyle nervously, clearly hoping the boy would have some objection. Doyle, though, just shrugged. Good boy. Maybe Spike wouldn’t kill him after all…

He cocked his head towards the back room where he’d just been sleeping. “In here,” he suggested.

She gave him a look, one that he knew she’d perfected during the four years they’d known each other. The I-don’t-trust-you-for-a-second look. The one she’d used when he’d tried to trick her into ditching Angel at Homecoming that one time.

It couldn’t be a good sign.

He closed the door and turned to face her. She was leaning against the wall, an expectant look on her face…Spike felt his groin tightened further. Not now, mate. We’re here to lecture the girl, not to shag her.

Now, if only he could get the rest of him to believe that…

“So, are you going to be lecturing me now?”

He sighed and sat down on the wooden bench. “You’re half drunk, pet.”

She snorted. “Oh, please. Spike, I stole all of two mouthfuls of whiskey from Doyle’s bottle. That’s hardly enough to get me drunk.”

Two sips? “Bolloks. You’re not acting like yourself, Buffy.”

“I’m not acting like myself? What about you? You kissed me, Spike.”

Four words, and they cut him like a knife. “I didn’t—“

“Yes, you did.” She pushed away from the wall and took a step forward, looking more angry, more aggressive than he’d ever seen her. “You kissed me and then you ran away. I’ve been crying my fucking eyes out for more than twenty-four hours because of you!”

He wasn’t sure what amazed him more, the fact that she cursed or the fact that seeing her all mad and in his face only made him want her more. “Buffy, luv—“

“No!” Fiercely. Inches away from him, now. “I’m not finished! Why the hell did you run away, Spike? Am I that repulsive? Am I—did you just decide you hated me, or something? Oh, wait.” A bitter smile came across her lips. “I know why. Because I’m too young. Your best friend, sure, but you’re too much of a coward to deal with the fact that there’s ten years between us.”

Coward. Wasn’t it just like her to hit the nail brutally on the head? Spike gave salvaging the situation one last go. “You don’t—“

Her hand came out. “Don’t you dare,” she said through gritted teeth, “try to tell me that I don’t understand.”

Everyone has a breaking point, a time when reason flees and instinct takes over. He’d reached one two nights before when he’d kissed her.

He’d reached another right now.

He stood up and slammed her against the wall in one fluid motion—not hard enough to bruise, but forceful enough so that she’d know he was angry. Pressing his hips into hers, letting her belly cradle his erection, he hissed, “Feel that, Buffy? That’s why I ran. That’s what’s wrong with this whole bloody thing. I see you every day, an’ every day I want you a little bit more. Do you get how wrong this is? How incredibly fucked up I am? ‘ve wanted you for so long, an’ that kiss…it shouldn’t have happened, luv. ‘ve had a taste ‘f you, ‘m bound to want more, and—“

She stopped his desperate rambling easily. The second her soft, dry palm touched his cheek, he halted. Smiling, she ran a thumb over his lips. He didn’t move—too captivated by the girl in front of him—too desperate to prolong the precious contact afforded by her body—to stop what he knew was wrong.

All he could see was her lips as they smiled slightly, her tongue as it moved to form the tempting words. “I want you too.”

He didn’t have time to wonder, didn’t have time to stop and take stock of what was happening. All he could do was stand still as she leaned up on tiptoe, her hand curled round his neck, and kissed him.

She was just a girl, and this was the area where it showed the most. She didn’t attack his lips, though by the desperate way her legs wrapped around him, she felt the same passion he did. Instead, her lips brushed against his, soft and firm and hot…

Unable to stop himself, he lowered his head and set her lips to his more firmly. Teeth nipped at her bottom lip, begging entrance; she moaned when she granted it.

His hands slid down, tightening on her waist, pressing her to him. As her tongue began an almost shy exploration of his mouth, he groaned, cock twitching, and pressed her body as tightly as he could against his own.

He needed this. He needed her.

Their lips tore apart and they both gasped. Spike immediately went to Buffy’s neck, kissing the soft skin he found there.

“Spike?” She said his name on a breathy moan, yet he heard the question in it.

He froze and eased upright, loosening his hold on her—though her legs stayed locked around his waist, and he didn’t try to prevent it. “Yeah, luv?” His voice was rough, scratchy.

“Are we—am I—oh, God,” she gasped, grinding her hips into his.

He couldn’t help but smile. “You were gonna say something?”

She shook her head, a dazed look on her beautiful face. “I don’t—I’m not—“

The dismay that went through him was almost physical. He lowered her to the ground, gently disentangling her legs from around him and easing his body away from hers. How could he have thought she’d actually want what he was offering? “’m sorry,” he muttered, looking away from her. Such youth, such innocence—he didn’t deserve it, and he knew it.

“No!” Soft fingers again reached out to his face. He didn’t want to, but he looked into her eyes—and in them saw pain that rivaled his own. “Don’t go away again,” she plead. “I need you here.”

There wasn’t a bloke on the face of the earth could resist her, not when she looked like that. But he knew that if they stayed where they were, bodies touching in intimate ways, then both their control would slip. “how ‘bout we sit down?” he suggested, praying that she’d realize what he was doing.

She nodded shyly. “OK.”

Together they walked over to the bench and sat down, both choosing to ignore that they were clinging to each others’ hands.

Spike took a deep breath. “Don’t rightly know where to start, pet.”

She smiled slightly. “How about here?”

That brought a chuckle from him. Even when they were both reeling from the pure number of emotions coursing through them, she still managed to keep a level head. “A’right, then…you wanna go first?”

“Um, no!”

Least she was as panicked as he was…”Kitten, ‘f you don’t wanna start…I don’t rightly know how to go ‘bout doing this.”

Her eyes were so green—Spike shook his head. Not thinking ‘bout her eyes. Thinkin’ about how she’s only sixteen. She’s young, mate, younger than you by a long ways.

“Then what are we going to do?” A whispered question, quiet and unsure.

He shook his head. “I don’t have all the answers, pet.”

“But you’ve done this before.”

He chucked bitterly. Such an innocent statement. “Fallen in love with m’ best friend? No, this is new for me.”

She pulled back with a gasp—too late, he realized the mistake he’d made. “Buffy, I don’t mean—“

“But you did.” She was staring at him, eyes wider than they’d been before. Silently, Spike cursed himself. The plan had been to just put it down to lust, ‘till his idiot mouth had betrayed him.

“No, I didn’t.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “So, you say you love me, but you really don’t?”

“What? No! That’s not it at all!”

“Then what is it?” He could see her anger, all over her; had been her friend long enough to tell that she was close to exploding, she was so mad. “I’m tired of the secrets, I’m tired of the lies, and I’m tired of the games. I just want the truth.”

The one thing she wanted, the one thing they both needed, an’ he couldn’t give it. Who the hell invented this system?

“’f I gave you the truth, it’d tear you apart. You’re not ready for it.”

Her eyes narrowed lethally. “Would you just make up your mind, already? Either I’m old enough to be treated like your equal or I’m not. You can’t kiss me and then talk to me like a child!”

Spike winced at how loud her voice was. “Would you keep it down? ‘m not exactly dyin’ to go to jail, y’know.”

“You’d only go to jail if we had sex. Which we haven’t.”

His poor, naïve girl. “Where d’you think this is leading, to unfulfilling walks in the moonlight? ‘m not that type an’ we both know it.”

He watched as her face became a little harder, a little—older. He beat himself for doing it to her, but she had to have her eyes opened. “Yeah, Spike, I know your type. Which is why I’m starting to think I should’ve just run away when I had the chance. I guess I was stupid to think I’d mean anything to you.”

“You’re stupid if you think you don’t,” he retorted, more harshly than he meant to. The second he said it he felt sorry—her face closed off, became a blank to him. “Luv, I didn’t mean it, I—“

“But you did.” Quieter now. “You meant every word of it, which is why I can’t do this.”

He felt his mouth go dry. And to think m’ goal in here was to talk her outta this whole rotten thing. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Spike, I’ve cried more in the past few days than I did in four years with Angel.”

Yet another reason he was going to hell. “Angel was a wanker.”

“And you’re not.” When he started to object she scowled at him. “I mean it, Spike. You’re not. You’re plenty of things, but if you were a—a wanker, then I wouldn’t be your friend.”

He was amused at hearing the phrase on her lips, but still…”Wanker or not, I can’t do this, pet. Neither of us can.”

She looked down at her hands; Spike’s gaze followed. Her hands were white-knuckled, betraying the stress she was under. “I know,” she whispered.

“Then—“

“I’m here for my cousin’s engagement,” she said quietly. “I’ve told you about Fred and Wesley, right?” At his murmur of affirmation, she continued, “It’s a pretty open party, tomorrow night at eight.”

What was she getting at? “And?”

“I have to go,” she said quietly. “But if what you said was true—then come. That way I’ll know if you’re still my friend, if you’re—something else…or if you’re nothing. Okay?”

He nodded, understanding perfectly what she was trying to do. “Okay.”

She sighed. “I guess…’bye, then.”

Before he had a chance to stop her—before he had a chance to do anything, really—she leaned over, kissed him softly on the lips, and left.

Not for the first time, he groaned, leaning back against the cold wall with a thump. Girl’s gonna be the death of me.

And after all that had happened, he still didn’t care.

~*~

A/N: *thud*

I thought getting 30 reviews would be a miracle. But I got 50. 50 reviews for one chapter! Thank you!!! I can't tell you how incredible that made me feel. I love you guys! And to prove how much, I went ahead and added a smutty bit to the next chapter...so pretty please review again? More reviews would make me a very happy, faster typing author....*looks at everyone hopefully*

Also, absenteye and I now have an awesome site called Peaceful Tears . Feel free to visit =D And thanks again for all the incredible reviews! *hugs*

~*~



”Oh God—Spike—pleeeeease….” Buffy moaned, gripping his thighs. “Just—a little—more—“

Spike grinned fiercely, his hands on her back, bringing her down upon his cock again and again. “Can’t take it all, little girl?”

She shot him a wicked look at that, one made even more naughty by the fact that her red bra was still on and her mini skirt was pushed up around her waist. “Oh, I can take it all,” she said, deliberately squeezing her already tight muscles around his shaft and fiddling with the straps of her bra. It fell open to reveal two small, ripe breasts, plump nipples begging to be touched, a task she immediately began working at. “Can you?”

He didn’t bother answering; he doubted he could have. Seeing her rolling her nipples in her little fingers, feeling her muscles fluttering around him, hearing her voice thickened by lust—it was all enough to undo him.

“Shit—Buffy—oh shiiiiiiit….”

He let go of everything, all vestiges of sense that told him the angel sitting on his dick shouldn’t be there, and came inside her, panting her name over and over again as she screamed above him. When she slumped onto his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, he could feel both their hearts thumping—and knew that he’d never done anything in his life quite this right.

Spike woke gasping, covered in sweat. Beneath him he could feel the cool stickiness that told him he’d just spilled it all over the motel sheets.

He sat up with a groan, his dream coming back to him. Wanker, wanker, wanker… He’d had dreams like this before, ‘f course, but tomorrow he was gonna have to show up at that party and give his girl some spiel about how he was just her friend. XXX-rated dreams were gonna make that a little harder…

He looked at his clock; it was 4 AM. Somehow, he didn’t think he’d be able to get back to sleep after this.

Grumbling under his breath, he went to take a cold shower.

~*~

She couldn’t do things the easy way, could she? She couldn’t have just given him some phony line about how they could just be friends. No, instead she had to give him an ultimatum that had seemed like a good idea at the time, before she realized that she’d have to wait a full day before she knew what was going to happen.

Now, the morning after she’d given him her ultimatum, she was sitting on the stairs, fielding questions from Doyle about Spike and her mother’s Nazi-like decorating orders.

“C’mon, would it really kill ye to give me a few details? You disappeared into a small room with a sexy older guy for ten minutes!” Doyle exclaimed.

Buffy raised an eyebrow at him. “Sexy? I was under the impression you were straight.”

“I am, but I also have eyes” he shot back. “Confess, Blondie. What happened?”

Blondie. Spike had called her that…to her shame, Buffy felt her eyes fill with tears.

“Buffy? Buffy, what’d I do? C’mon, snap out of it!”

“Sorry,” she whimpered, wiping her nose. “I just—“

“What?”

From anyone else it would have seemed abrasive, but Buffy knew that he was just trying to let her know that he was concerned. “Spike—my best friend?”

“The one you were in a small room with for a ten minutes.”

Why did she have to blush now? “Um, yeah,” she mumbled, “That one. Well, he used to call me Blondie, and we’re kinda…on the outs…right now.”

Doyle sighed. “And why do I get the feeling you’re really not telling me the whole story here?”

“Because I’m not,” she said honestly. “But Doyle, the whole story is between me and Spike.”

“Because he could get arrested if I knew? Jesus, Buffy.” He shook his head.

“Doyle! It’s not like that!”

“Then can you tell me what it is like?” he said a bit more quietly. “Buffy, I’m not gonna judge ye and I’m not gonna get mad, I just want to know what the hell is going on.”

She smiled at him. “You sound really silly when you get all accent-ey,” she informed him.

“Come on, Buffy. You know you can trust me.”

“Said the untrustworthy Irish uncle,” Buffy said with a halfhearted grin.

“Hey! Don’t go insulting the Irish. We don’t take too kindly to it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Do you want the whole story or not?”

“Do you honestly think I’d have been over here buggin’ you for so long if I didn’t want to hear the whole thing?”

Buffy figured rolling her eyes again wouldn’t accomplish anything, so instead she just caved and told him the whole thing—from her friendship with Spike, which he already knew a bit about, to the kiss they’d shared. The only thing she left out was her porn-tastic dream about him…Doyle may have been her two-years-older uncle, but she really wasn’t ready to let him know about the inner workings of her (incredibly twisted) mind.

When she finally finished she just sat still, waiting for him to talk. After he was silent for a few minutes she said, “Well?”

Doyle sighed. “Honestly? I don’t see what the big deal is. You both are being drama queens.”

“What? Doyle, he’s my best friend! And he’s ten years older than me!”

“Say it a little louder, I don’t think people in China heard,” Doyle shot back. “Really, though, it’s not the soap opera you’re makin’ it out to be. He’s your best friend. Why are you freakin’ out about this?”

“Reasons that could fill an entire encyclopedia,” she hissed. “If we ever got serious, he could be jailbait!”

“Not if you hold off for a year and a few days,” Doyle pointed out. “If you love him as much as you say you do, it shouldn’t be hard.”

Love him? “Doyle, I never said I was in love with Spike.” I just thought it and wanted to tell him and cried because I was, that’s all.

“Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not that dumb, Buffy. You don’t have to scream it from the rooftops for me to know.”

“But—“ She couldn’t explain it. Somehow, up until now, some small part of her had been denying everything that had happened over the past few days. Having her uncle (who for all his immature jokeyness was way wiser than her) toss the word in her face suddenly changed things.

Okay. So, things had been changing at a truly scary pace for awhile now. But love was, in a way, bigger than wet dreams, bigger than clandestine kisses—bigger, even, than Spike saying that he loved her.

When she realized Doyle was still looking at her expectantly, she glanced down at her lap and mumbled, “I don’t love him.”

“Right,” Doyle said sarcastically. “And next you’ll be tellin’ me that the moon is made of cheese. You never were that great a liar, Buffy.”

Well, okay, he had a point. “Fine. I—I love him.”

Doyle crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Say ‘I love Spike’. Or, better yet, ‘I’m in love with Spike’.”

She glared at him. “What are you, my shrink?”

“It’s not like anyone else will be. Say it.”

“Asshole.”

“I’ll tell Joyce.”

“Oh, fine,” she relented, secretly trying to think up ways to kill Doyle very, very dead. “I’m—I’m—“ Wow, this was hard. “I’minlovewithSpike.”

“If I was your shrink I’d make you say it again,” Doyle said cheerfully.

Buffy barely heard him. Her entire attention was focused on what she’d just said. I’m in love with Spike. As in, head over heels, want him like I want to breathe, could easily see myself getting married to him in love.Holy shit!

She’d never been more scared in her life.

Apparently Doyle was a little more perceptive than she gave him credit for, because he looked closely at her and said, “Hey, if you want to go for a walk or whatever, I can cover for you.”

“Really?” In her hyper-emotional state she felt incredibly grateful, jumping up and hugging him. “Thanks, Doyle. You’re the best.”

“No problem,” he said, and watched her fly out the door, shaking his head.

“Some people are just insane,” he remarked to himself as he climbed the stairs to his original destination—his room. His girlfriend was waiting for him to call—and if there’s one girl in the world who lacks any amount of patience, it’s Cordy.

~*~

A/N: Thanks so, so much for the reviews...I'm a day late, I know...you guys probably don't care, but I just started a job and got put in an AP class where I have to make up two months of work, which basically means I'm really, really busy....so last chapter's reviews really made me feel a ton better =) Now...*puts on Review Whore hat* Think I could get more? Please?

~*~



She felt so alone. It was strange how, even though Spike was by no means near her all the time, he’d become so important to her that knowing he wasn’t there in a best friend capacity anymore made her feel more alone than she ever had before.

She missed him—it was that simple. She missed being around him, missed making him laugh. She missed the hot kisses, too, but mostly she just missed him.

That, more than anything, told her that Doyle was right. She loved him. It wasn’t just hormones, it wasn’t just friendship. It was love.

Funny how she couldn’t shy away from it anymore. She’d been ignoring it for—God, she didn’t even know how long. But when Spike had said he loved her, and then when Doyle had said she loved him, well, a person could only deny so much.

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself, determined to keep walking until she’d at least partially resolved what she felt.

When she’d given him that (incredibly stupid) ultimatum, she’d been hoping he would show up and agree that they were just friends, platonic love, hormones out of whack, blah blah blah. Now she wasn’t so sure. Some traitorous part of her wanted them to keep going with their whatever-it-was relationship, wanted them to be together. And no matter how much she told herself it was impossible, she kept hoping.

Stupid world…

It was almost time for the party by the time Buffy meandered back to her cousin’s house. Smiling at Fred and her fiancé, Wesley, and avoiding her mother’s death glares, she ran upstairs and into the guest room.

She was wearing the simplest dress she owned—black, tight at the top and loose and ragged at the bottom. It wasn’t exactly formal, but since this was a mostly family thing, she figured it was ok…

And anyway, it was way less hot than that red dress she’d worn. Since Spike was going to be there, she counted the lack of hotness as a major good thing.

Although with her luck, he’d come wearing a suit again…

No. Bad Buffy. No salivating over Spike in a suit! He’ll come and say that you’re just friends, and you’ll smile and nod and agree. That’s all!

Somehow, she just couldn’t believe it.

Her stomach was a mass of butterflies when she descended the stairs about fifteen minutes before the party was to begin. Doyle was already there—and to her shock, Cordelia was on his arm. “What the f—“

“Buffy!” he cut in jovially, “I’m guessin’ you’ve met my girlfriend?”

Buffy’s only response was narrowed eyes and a curt nod. Immature, sure, but it wasn’t like she was required to be nice to the girl who did her best to make life miserable for everybody any time there was school.

Cordelia didn’t bother holding back. “Oh, everyone knows Buffy,” she said with a little laugh. “She’s the biggest slut in Sunnydale.”

“What?” To his credit, Doyle looked angry. “Cordy, did you forget to take your Midol again? Because—“

“Oh, please, Doyle.” His girlfriend looked disgusted. “She’s boinking a 26-year-old. Does that not tell you something about her?”

“And you’re doing the nasty with my uncle,” Buffy shot back. “I’m sure everybody in Sunnydale would love to know that.”

“He’s nineteen—duh!”

“Yeah, but if I say he’s not…” Buffy trailed off with a triumphant smirk on her face.

Cordelia sighed impatiently. “Okay, okay, you win,” she snapped waspishly. “I’ll keep my mouth shut about your pedophile boyfriend.”

Buffy was about to respond with something that probably would have resulted in a catfight when Doyle tugged hard on Cordelia’s arm. “Cordy, I need to talk to you,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument—despite the fact that Cordelia did, in fact, put up one.

“Doyle, stop it! I’m not your kid!”

“No,” he said in a low, annoyed voice, “You’re my girlfriend, and you’re being a bitch to my family. So cut it out.”

Buffy watched with a wry smile as Cordy started berating Doyle in a low, hissing voice. To tell the truth, she wasn’t as shocked about Cordy as she might have been. Doyle had a thing for beautiful women and an obstinate streak that would be useful in keeping Cordy in check. Still…no accounting for taste, she mused before walking over to where Fred and her father, Buffy’s uncle Rupert, were standing, putting the finishing touches on the decorations.

“Mind if I help?” she asked with an awkward smile.

“Of course!” Fred answered gratefully. “Dad doesn’t seem to get what streamers are for.”

“Really? It’s ‘cause he’s English,” she theorized, climbing up on the stool and helping Fred twirl the paper streamer before pinning it in place. “They’re way too fuddy-duddy for this kind of thing.”

“Really! How very ridiculous,” Giles scoffed. “The British decorate, same as everyone else. We just don’t use vulgar bits of paper to do so.”

“Oh, really? Seem to remember you helpin’ me hang these bits ‘f paper for Buffy’s birthday three years ago,” Spike drawled. Buffy’s head whipped around—and she almost fell off the ladder.

He was leaning against the doorway, wearing grey slacks and a dark black shirt, unbuttoned at the top. He came, she though in relief, drinking in the sight of him standing so near.

“Spike!” Giles said welcomingly, walking over to shake hands with him. “I must confess, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Didn’t expect to be here,” Spike replied. “But I ran into Buffy last night, an’ she invited me. Hope it’s alright?”

“Of course,” Giles assured him. “You’re like family to us, you’re so close to Buffy…you know Fred and her fiancé Wesley, of course?”

“Can’t forget a pretty face,” Spike said teasingly, giving Fred a hug.

“It’s great that you could come,” the brunette said sweetly.

Buffy zoned out after that. She didn’t see Joyce and Hank exchange small smiles, or Cordy’s shocked staring at the new arrival, or the rest of the family’s furtive glances at her. All she saw was Spike—or more precisely, all she noticed was the fact that he hadn’t once looked at her.

When he’d made the rounds, he finally came to a halt at the ladder Buffy was currently sitting atop. “Care for some help there, luv?”

“Huh?” Buffy had been lost, staring at him.

“Streamers,” he said, gesturing to the rolled-up paper she held in her hand. “D’you want help?”

“Um, yeah, that’d be good.” She smiled at him apologetically as he climbed up the ladder on the other side of the fireplace they were decorating. “Sorry, I’m a total airhead…”

“’s alright—you were up late last night.”

She sighed and twirled the paper, trying to work a pin into the crack between the wooden paneling. “Look, if you’re going to be all adult on me—“

“Buffy, I didn’t say anythin’ other than you were up late.”

“Yeah, but we both know how that sentence was going to end: I was out late because I was getting drunk with Doyle.”

“You were drunk?”

Oops. “Well, not really,” she backpedaled quickly. “Just, you know, buzzed.”

He shook his head in disgust. “Can’t b’lieve you’d do that. Bloody irresponsible.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Like you’re much better, mister I’m-too-hung-over-to-think-straight.”

He smiled slightly. “’m not ever gonna be able to scold you, am I?”

“Nope,” Buffy said, grinning a little in return.

They finished putting up the streamer and moved on the to next section of the house in silence.

“So,” Buffy said nervously to alleviate the tension, “I hadn’t figured on you showing up…”

He shot a quick glance at her before saying simply, “You’re m’ friend. Of course I came.”

She turned away quickly, before he saw her face.

He’d just told her everything she needed to know.

~*~

A/N: Check it out:



dasugraphics over at LiveJournal made it...now pretty please review? You want Miss Edith to keep her eyes, right? ;)

And BTW, feel free to hate me because I'm being so shameless...this probably proves that I shouldn't update after a long day of playing around with HTML.

~*~


The party was in full swing. People were talking, dancing, admiring the sapphire ring Fred had been given—doing everything, in fact, that they should do at a party.

The problem was that Buffy was bored to death.

Doyle and Cordy had long since disappeared, something that she didn’t really blame him for. Fred was radiant, Wesley was courteous, and the whole party was not a teenage scene.

Spike had been making the rounds for the past hour, shaking hands and basically dazzling all her relatives. It would have been great if he hadn’t made it all too clear what he wanted from her—or, more accurately, what he didn’t want.

Buffy sighed. The room was stuffy and she was so tired her heavily mascara-ed eyes were starting to feel gritty. Putting her drink down and giving polite smiles to people who glanced her way, she slipped out the back door and onto the deck that looked out at the Los Angeles skyline.

The breeze was just brisk enough to chill her, and she shivered as it caressed her bare arms. How had it come to this—to her feeling so young, naïve, and alone? Even at sixteen, she’d thought she knew who she was and what she wanted. Why had everything suddenly been turned upside down?

It wasn’t fair—but then, she knew the world wasn’t fair. She’d long since grown past repeating that adolescent incantation. But right now she felt so incredible childish that the found herself falling back on safeguards she’d thought she had long since abandoned.

“Getting tired ‘f all the merriment, luv?”

She jumped—and then immediately felt embarrassed. The Buffy of two weeks ago would have welcomed his presence, and it was the Buffy of two weeks ago that she needed now. He’d told her he only wanted to be friends. The romantic in her was just going to have to shut up. “Mostly just bored,” she said lightly. “Doyle was too busy with Cordy to talk to me, and the others aren’t exactly the funnest people to be around.”

He chuckled, coming to stand next to her. “They are your family, y’know.”

“Well, yeah…but still. Not the best party in the world.” God, did she have to sound so immature? Why was she unable to express what she was thinking? It wasn’t the party that was lacking—it was her.

“No, kitten. Don’t do that.”

“Huh?” Jolted out of her reverie, Buffy frowned at Spike. He was staring at her seriously, blue eyes sharp. “Don’t do what?”

“You’re blamin’ yourself for something that never happened,” he said simply. “Berating yourself for not wantin’ to be in there, sharing the merriment.”

“I never said that,” she mumbled, looking away from him.

“Hey.” Oddly gentle. “Things may ‘ave changed, but I still care about you, pet.”

Of course. You care about me so much that you blurt out your love for me and then backtrack faster than a Clinton. “I know,” she said. “The problem is I don’t know how.”

“’least you’re askin’,” he said. “I didn’t even have the courage for that, and ‘m s’posed to be the mature one here.”

She grinned a little at that. “You always were a big baby.”

“Not gonna deny that one,” he said with a slight grin.

“Guess we both need to grow up, then.” She still avoided his gaze, not wanting him to see the pain that resided there.

“Buffy—“

“Look. I know you only want to be friends, and I know that if we were more than that then you’d probably end up in jail and I’d be Sunnydale’s resident uber-slut. I know that, okay? The problem is—“ she braced herself, fighting to say what she knew she had to. “The problem is, I don’t care.”

Silence. Brittle, cold, and not in the least bit alleviated by the laughs they could hear coming from inside. Finally, Spike said in a low voice, “An’ how would you feel if you knew I felt the same way?”

She froze. Somehow, she’d thought he would tell her that they could never be together…or at least that she was silly for not caring about the so-called real world around them.

“I’m not saying we can,” he added quietly. “An’ I suppose some part of me must care, or we’d already be together, yeah? But…I don’t want to care, Buffy. I don’t want to have to care.”

Hazarding a glance at him, she winced when she saw his expression. He looked like he was honestly in pain. “The real world bites,” she said almost lightly, hoping he’d realize what she was trying to do. They couldn’t change the way the rest of the world was.

He smiled, only a little bitter. “Not gonna argue with you on that, either.”

For a moment they shared a simple silence, before Spike glanced at her and said, “Hey, you wanna go in there and dance?” Her uncle’s house was almost embarrassingly large—the living room, once cleared out, made a perfect dance floor.

She heard the music coming from the house; it was classical, Mozart or Bach or another one of those snooze-worthy guys. But it was better than being bored to tears, so…”Sure.” She smiled and took the hand he proffered, and they walked inside together.

“You look beautiful, you know,” he said as they went onto the improvised dance floor.

Buffy made a face at him. “Oh, please,” she said. “Black is so not my color.”

“Not mine, either, but you stared at me when I came in,” Spike said with a grin.

Her blush told him all he needed to know; he threw back his head and started to laugh. She gave him a disgruntled swat, trying to ignore how good it felt to be this close to him, and how happy she was simply because she’d made him happy. “You’re a doofus,” she informed him.

“But a sexy doofus,” he countered, squeezing her hips ever so slightly.

Ignore it, ignore it… she willed herself. “You know, avoiding illegal activity is going to be a lot harder when you’re drawing attention to the fact that you look hotter than any guy my age ever could,” she pointed out.

He shrugged. “’ve pretty much gone off the deep end, luv.”

He was confusing her, in that great, she was pretty sure he was insane sort of way. “Meaning…?”

“Meaning,” he said, letting his hand skim up her back and caress her bare shoulder, “That even though you’re m’ friend, I can no sooner ignore the fact that ‘m in love with you than I can jump off a cliff and fly. Both times, I’m sure to fall.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. She wasn’t sure what to make of him. After four years of friendship, they’d suddenly been reduced to making obscure statements and checking each other out when they thought the other person wasn’t looking.

Buffy hated it.

Which was why she sighed and stepped away from him. “Spike, I can’t—“

“Do this,” he finished for her. When she looked at him in confusion, he said, “You think I can? I keep tryin’ to just joke with you the way we used to, an’ it always comes back to the same thing. Me wanting you and showing it.”

Her cheeks turned red at that—well, how could she help it? 16-year-old guys didn’t say things like that, and they were the only kind she knew how to deal with. “I kinda get what you mean.”

He shook his head. “You couldn’t possibly.”

She gave him a level stare. “You’re wrong and you know it. I deliberately monopolized your time, dressed like a ho, made sexual jokes—“ She broke off, unable to continue. She’d been doing it for long enough that she wondered if it had ever occurred to him what was happening; she wasn’t proud of it. It was more immature than all his innuendos and confusing hints combined.

“Guess we’re both idiots, then.”

“Yep.” She forced her voice to be light. “You for asking me to dance, and me for agreeing.”

The second it came out of her mouth, they both winced. “Can we say anything tonight that doesn’t have like a million meanings?” Buffy asked, only partly joking.

The song wound down, and by silent, mutual agreement they left the dance floor. “Apparently not,” Spike answered. “Look, I’m gonna go get some air.”

“You mean you’re gonna go smoke,” she corrected, smiling in that wry, knowing way of hers.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted, shuffling his feet.

“You know, that’s really bad for you.”

Sodding hell. Trade once nuisance for another—it’s clearly my night.

No—that wasn’t fair. Buffy wasn’t a nuisance, precisely, just damn hard to be around, and that wasn’t her fault. “So you’ve told me,” he said dryly, stomping out the cigarette she’d indicated. “Hasn’t stopped me. ‘m a rebel when it comes to things like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Hey, wanna go for a walk?”

And yet again she’d managed to flummox him. Spike stared at her, aghast. “You wanna go for a walk?” In a skimpy black dress, with your hair all teased and your lips all shiny and…shit.

“Duh,” she said, giving him a look that made him feel like a prime idiot. “I’m bored, the party is slow, and I’m tired of Doyle being all insightful. C’mon, please?” She widened her eyes and began to pout.

Spike shut his eyes briefly. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, mate. “Sure, luv,” he said wearily. “Let’s walk.”

~*~

I really need to stop bribing you guys...the mother of all colds decided to make me feel miserable and NaNoWriMo came, pretty much simultaneously...sorry for the lag in updates =(

Luckily, this is the last really angsty chapter--prepare to drown in teh fluff, at least for a little while *g* Thanks so, so much for all the wonderful reviews--I pretty much died when I responded to them, they made me so happy =) *bats eyelashes* Feel like leaving me another? Just to make the fluff come faster? Yeah, I know, I'm a greedy little brat...either way, thank you!

~*~

Since her uncle lived right in the middle of LA, Spike insisted on her staying close to him the whole time. It was both a blessing and a curse; she loved being close to him, of course, but if she drooled any more she’d probably end up slipping on the sidewalk.

They’d kept the chatter light, talking about inconsequential things—Doyle’s odd choice of a girlfriend, Kennedy’s stupidity, even the freaking weather. Buffy was ready to jump out of her skin—this whole charade was driving her nuts.

When they ran out of things to talk about, they settled for walking side by side in silence. Occasionally one of them would stop, but no words managed to be said.

So when Buffy stopped dead and shattered the silence, it shocked them both. “Can’t we just—never mind,” she said quickly, starting to walk again.

“Oh, no you don’t.” She felt his hand on her bare shoulder and immediately shivered before pulling away from him.

“Tell me what you were going to say,” he demanded roughly. She looked into his eyes, glinting from the streetlight above them, and found that she couldn’t look away. Here, tonight, they’d already lied to each other enough. She’d had it drummed into her head since she was very young that best friends didn’t lie to each other, and now all those lessons came to the fore.

“I want us to be together,” she said bluntly, looking him straight in the eye. “Isn’t there any way we can be together without…you know…being together?”

It was a stupid hope and she knew it, but it didn’t stop her from looking up at him hopefully—and, she saw, it didn’t stop the same hope from coming into his eyes.

“You really think we could do that?” he asked, reaching out with an almost trembling hand and brushing a strand of her hair back. “Think we could avoid…for a year?”

“Do you love me?” A quiet question, blunt, but she was determined to have an answer.

He closed his eyes and she saw the muscles in his neck tighten: typical Spike expression. “You know I do,” he said finally. She wished it didn’t sound like she’d dragged the confession from him.

“Fine.” She sounded more brisk than she’d intended to—but then, nothing was really going the way she wanted it to tonight. “I love you, okay? I’ve loved you for…God, I don’t even know how long. Way longer than I should have. And I know we both think we’re making with the wrongness, and hey, it probably is, but right now, I’m beyond caring. All we every do is lie, and get all innuendo-ey, and then occasionally we kiss, which just makes things worse, and I’m tired of it,” she finished plaintively, just barely stopping herself from stomping her foot petulantly.

“You don’t mean it,” he said, still staring at her.

She blinked. Huh? “What do you mean, I don’t mean it?” she demanded. “Of course I do!”

He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “You’re sixteen, Buffy,” he said, as though that was supposed to explain it. “You can’t know—“

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said fiercely. “If you even try to rationalize this into some teenage crush-type thing, William Kingston, I will make you sorry you were ever born—even if it was ten years before me!”

His eyebrows went so high that for a second she thought they were going to fly right off his head. “Gettin’ a bit violent, don’t you think?”

“I’m getting impatient,” she said firmly. “I’m tired of this, Spike. I can’t stand all the not knowing and the stupid tension. Just give me a yes or a no—I’m not going to do this any more.”

For a second he stared at her, seemingly lost in thought. Then he shrugged, pulled her close, and kissed her.

She meant to struggle—she really, really did. On some level she recognized that he shouldn’t be doing this, and that if anyone else had just grabbed her like that, they’d have left half a man.

But this was Spike. Funny how that could make it seem okay.

Her hands came up to his shoulders and then to his neck, gripping him so tightly he’d probably have finger-sized bruising the next morning—but then, given how tightly he was holding her, she’d walk away from this a little black and blue, too.

When they finally parted they were both half-gasping, half-sobbing.

“Think you can put up with that, day in an’ day out, for more than a year?” he asked harshly. “Think you can deal with the secrets, the wanting—“

He was cut off when she pressed her lips to his for a kiss different than the one he’d given her. It was deeper, sweeter, but just as intense.

“Think you can?”

The look he gave her made her shiver…and then, as abruptly as he’d been serious, he smirked and the mood lightened.

“Baby, anything you can dish out, I can take.”

~*~

They couldn’t walk back to the apartment holding hands like sweethearts, although Spike knew that they both wanted to. They settled for walking close together, their shoulders touching, laughing and sharing glances when they were relatively sure that they were safe from observation. Their secret burned in their chests almost tangibly, warming them, buffering them from the criticism they both knew they’d receive when it was eventually revealed.

When they were about a block away from the apartment, Buffy slipped her arms around Spike’s waist. “So…I guess we have to act normal now?”

Spike’s thoughts strayed to Buffy’s parents, and he remembered how hostile they’d been when he had just started to get to know her. Understandably, they’d been suspicious of the man who their daughter called a friend. They’d come to like him since then—enough to tell him how they felt about Angel, and how much they worried about Buffy. He winced. “Yeah. I get the feeling your mum an’ da aren’t going to exactly welcome the information.”

His girl shrugged. “They’re pretty cool. Who knows, they might go for it.”

He grinned, unable to help himself. “You’re a sweet girl, Goldilocks, but a tad delusional,” he teased. “You think Hank and Joyce will like this little development in our relationship? They’re more likely to kick my arse all the way back to England.”

She grinned at him cheekily. “We’d better call and warn England, then, because they’re bound to find out sometime.”

“Very funny.” He smirked at her, that old smirk that had made her melt so many times before.

“Seriously, though,” Buffy continued, “Don’t you think that maybe they’ve kinda figured it out by now? I mean, I’ve been mopey for weeks, and you’ve been Sir Broods-A-Lot.”

“’ey! I am not broody!” Spike exclaimed indignantly. That label belonged strictly to her poof of an ex.

But he was mollified by her laughter—anything that put such a sparkle in her eye couldn’t make him all that mad. “And you’re a baby,” she said, bringing her face closer to his.

“Oh, really?” He sidled closer, wrapping his arms around her. “Guess you can’t kiss me, then. Cradle-robbing and all that.”

In response, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. His entire world tilted, and by the time he pulled away, he was gasping just as much as she was.

“Cradle-robbing, my ass,” Buffy said throatily.

It was wicked, it was wrong, but now he knew that if he was damned, then she was, too. Spike slid his hands down to the globes in question, fondling her and delighting in the gasp she gave him.

“I happen to like your ass,” he informed her, leaning down and nipping her ear.

“Are you sure this isn’t illegal?” she asked as her hands slid down his arms and across his stomach.

“Do you care?” He shuddered as her fingers caressed his stomach, luxuriating in the feel of her fingers caressing him, inwardly celebrating that she wanted this—wanted to be close to him, wanted to touch and be touched, wanted all the simple little things that constituted a relationship. He’d been desperate for this for so long, hating himself even through his want, that now that it was actually happening…

To say that he was overwhelmed would have been a massive understatement.

“Can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered. “I wanted—and I thought—“

“Shh.” Her hands slid around to his back, pulling him closer. “I know. I wanted it, too.”

He looked down at her, at those hazel eyes, so young and yet so very old. They shared that, old and young at the same time—children playing at being adults, and adults playing at being children.

“I love you,” he told her.

She shuddered; when her knees grew weak, she gripped his shoulders, and he held her up.

She kissed him one last time, sweetly, before they let go of each other. Time to go back to the real world.

“I love you, too.”

~*~

A/N: Thank you so, so much for the reviews--I'm having a rough time with RL crap right now, so they really helped =) Keep it up, pretty please? Because I gave you the fluff...and there's more faster if you're good and review ;)

~*~

“So…when’s the wedding, again?”

Fred smiled at her cousin. “We’re thinking we’d maybe have it in either November or April.”

“November, huh? Planning on serving turkey at the wedding?” Buffy joked.

Fred laughed. “Only if you guys want it. Spike’s invited too, by the way.”

Buffy froze, one arm inside her coat and one out, and stared at Fred. The brunette smiled understandingly. “It’s not rocket science, Buffy—if it was, I probably would’ve figured it out sooner,” she added with a laugh. “But I can tell how you two feel about each other.”

“Does anyone else know?” she forced herself to say, even though her tongue felt like it was made of wood.

“Not that I know of,” Fred said soothingly. “But, Buffy—“ She paused. “Are you ever planning on telling them?”

“I have a year and a few days before I’m eighteen and the law can’t condemn Spike,” Buffy said, quiet resolution in her voice. “After that, we’ll let it be known that we—that we’re together.”

“And until then, you’re going to try and stay chaste so that neither of you gets in trouble?” At Buffy’s nod, Fred hugged her tightly. “Good luck,” she whispered, before releasing her and leaving Buffy to hurry and catch up with her parents, both of whom were already in the car.

“So, Buffy, what were you saying to Fred?” Hank asked mildly, glancing at his daughter in the mirror.

Buffy forced herself to smile brightly—not such a difficult task when she remembered that she’d be seeing Spike the next day. “Just, you know, girly stuff. Goodbye, congratulations, that sort of thing.”

“Well, I think the weekend went quite well—she deserves a congratulations. Don’t you, Hank?” Joyce asked mischievously.

“Eh?” Buffy’s father was keeping his eyes on the road dutifully.

Joyce all but rolled her eyes. “Hank, I asked you if you thought the weekend went well.”

“Oh, of course,” Hank replied. “Buffy and Spike reconciled, didn’t they?”

Yeah. She would of course choose now to start blushing like a virgin.

“Didn’t you two come to an understanding, sweetie?”

Her mother was evil, Buffy decided. Pure, unadulterated evil. “Um, yeah,” she said, wincing at how clumsy and—guilty? Yes, definitely guilty—she sounded. "We're tog—I mean, we're friends again. You know us, all with the friendliness, and…yeah," she finished lamely. "We're ok now."

Joyce smiled peacefully and turned back around. "That's good," she said, and the car was silent as the landscape outside flew back and its occupants puzzled over the problem that was Buffy and Spike.

~*~

That day dragged by; Buffy was, to say the least, incredibly eager to see Spike, which made the minutes tick past all the more slowly. In typical teenager style, she spent almost two hours on three-way with Willow and Faith, who were both bugging her about the issue.

"C'mon, B," Faith urged her. "If you're fucking him, don't we deserve to know?"

"Faith!" Willow and Buffy both yelled at the same time.

Buffy could almost see Faith shrug irreverently. "You gotta admit, Willow, she needs to spill."

"Unlike you, Faith," Buffy began dryly, "Willow respects my right to—"

"Actually, I'm kinda curious, too," the redhead blurted out.

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “Oh my God. I have two of the most immature friends on the face of the planet.”

“Being a voyeur doesn’t make you immature,” Faith argued.

There was silence on the line.

“Um, ew?” Willow offered.

“Seriously, Faith, where do you come up with this kind of thing?” Buffy inquired, grinning into the phone.

“Oh, shut up and confess, already. Did you guys get bouncy, or what?”

“What,” Buffy replied. “We…tried to be friends, but then we ended up kissing, and…” She trailed off, not really wanting to say the next part. It was stupid, but she felt like if she told Willow and Faith, then she’d somehow be betraying Spike’s confidence. It was utterly ridiculous, of course—she was a girl. She told her closest friends almost everything.

“What happened? Come on, Buffy, you’re killing me here!” Buffy could hear the springs on Willow’s mattress squeaking, which meant that she was probably bouncing excitedly.

“I kinda…sorta…maybe…toldhimthatIlovedhim,” she said in a rush.

Silence. Even worse silence than the silence that had intruded when Faith had joked about voyeurism.

“Damn, B,” Faith said finally. “Are you fucking insane?”

Surprised, Buffy said, “Um, no. Not last time I checked, anyway. Although there was that incident with the leprechaun at the park last week—“

“Buffy, I think she’s serious,” Willow said quietly.

“Yeah, I got that,” Buffy said impatienlyt. “But I wanna know why. It’s Spike, guys.”

“Right—it’s Spike,” Faith said flatly. “He’s ten years older than you, Buffy.”

The squirmy feeling in her stomach? Definitely not of the good. “Your point being?” she asked, more coldly than she meant to.

“How do you know he doesn’t want to just fuck you and leave you?” Faith asked bluntly. “Not that I’m sayin’ I think Spike would do that, but he’s a guy, which means he’s a first-rate asshole.”

She winced at her friend’s cynicism—and at the implication she was making about Spike. “Look,” Buffy said, her irritation mounting with every word, “I don’t think he’s going to—“

“Yeah, you don’t think it. But you don’t know, B. He might be just as much of a slimy bastard as the rest of them. If you ask me, you oughta stay away from him. Sleeping with a guy like him could fuck you up for life.”

With that, Buffy’s patience snapped. “He’s my best friend, Faith. Do you honestly think he’s hung around for four years to get into my pants? Just because you’re a slut and sleep with guys who just want a piece of ass doesn’t mean Spike is like that!”

Shit. She was yelling. Her eyes darted to the door, praying that her mom hadn’t heard; the very last thing she needed was to be interrogated about what Spike was like. “Faith, I—“

“No.” Faith’s voice was just as cold as hers was, and Buffy could feel herself wincing. When Faith sounded like that, it meant she was more than just a little mad. “Far as I’m concerned, B, you and the Bleached Wonder can go to hell, if you’re not even gonna listen when I got something to say.”

When the “click” of her putting her phone down sounded on the line, Buffy winced. “So…I guess the bitch of the year award goes to me,” she said apologetically to Willow.

“No, no it doesn’t!” Willow protested. “You know how Faith is. She’s had all the relationships that end with oodles of bad, so she’s kinda jealous over you—plus, you know, Spike is really hot.”

“True,” Buffy said, sighing. She knew Willow was trying to cheer her up—but unfortunately, it wasn’t working. Stupid melodrama with stupid friends who might be right. “I just feel like—is this how it’s going to be for as long as I’m with Spike?”

“I don’t know,” Willow said honestly. “But Buffy, you and Faith always fight. Don’t you think this is maybe just you guys’ once-a-week tussle?”

“Maybe,” Buffy said, but the doubt she still felt was in her voice. “Listen, Wills, I’d better go. Stop by the diner tomorrow, ‘k?”

“Will you be there?” Willow asked teasingly.

Despite the fight with Faith, Buffy felt herself grin. “For the first half of the day, at least,” she said with a giggle.

“Good. I’ll bring Faith in the morning.”

Willow hung up before her friend could splutter a protest. Buffy glared at the phone before putting it back in its cradle. For a shy girl, Willow could be really forceful when she wanted to.

Sighing, she plopped her head back on the bed and waited for the next day to come.

~*~

Well, he definitely won the Wanker of the Year award.

He and Buffy had planned to meet up at the diner around one—but it was twelve-thirty, and he was sitting slumped in a corner booth, watching her work.

She had seen him, of course, and flashed him a smile that made him feel at least a little less like a sodding poof. Still, inwardly he was grumbling at himself. Pathetic, aren’t you, mate? Some chit ten years younger than you, an’ you’re turnin’ into some lovesick whelp over it.

But when she threw her apron off at one o’clock, he was at the door to meet her.

“Hey, pet.”

“Hi,” she said sunnily. He opened the door for her and she left. They started off along the block, same as they always did.

“So, what’s been goin’ on? Anything interesting?”

Buffy laughed. “Well, Faith and I had our monthly fight?”

“Really? ‘bout what?” God, she was beautiful when she laughed. Spike had to restrain himself from shoving her up against the brick wall and kissing her, passerby be damned. There would be time for that later.

For a second she looked uncomfortable—but before Spike had a chance to suss it out, her expression was normal again. “Oh, you know,” she said nonchalantly, “Faith stuff.”

Spike laughed. “Faith stuff” meant “Faith’s inherent sluttiness”. “That bint…”

“Has issues?” Buffy supplied. They rounded another corner and entered the parking garage where Spike put his car. “Yeah. Pretty much. I honestly think that—mmpph!”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Hearing her talk—it was a sign of how badly he was drowning in her, that just her voice could make him completely insane. So, he shoved her up against the parking garage wall and kissed her.

Her smaller body ground against his, her moans filled the air, as she kissed him back eagerly. Her hands slid down his back, her soft stomach cushioned his rapidly growing erection—there was no heaven better than this. Or at least, if there was, he hadn’t experienced it.

“Jesus, Buffy,” he gasped when they parted. “Can’t believe—we just—“

“I missed you,” she whispered, wriggling against him.

Was she trying to kill him? “Missed you—too—pet, you keep doing that, ‘m gonna lose it right here.”

Buffy stopped wriggling, an apologetic little smile on her face. “Sorry,” she said, glancing away.

Before he could stop himself, he reached out and caught her chin. “Not sorry,” he ordered gently, looking into her eyes. “Never be sorry, Buffy. Not with me.”

For a second, everything slowed; then Buffy nodded. “Even if I accidentally step on your foot when we dance at Fred’s wedding?” she joked.

He smirked. “’ll be wearin’ boots.”

“Boots? At a wedding?” She snorted. “So not.”

He laughed outright at that. “So will,” he teased, taking her hand and leading her away from the wall.

“Where’re we going?” she asked curiously as they got in his car.

“Well, I was gonna take us out to the beach, but then I figured, what the hell, ‘d just kidnap you,” he replied nonchalantly, flipping the radio on.

Her fingers were at the dial immediately, turning it to the ‘Top 40s’ station. Spike shuddered as some bint’s incompetent wailing filled the cab. He batted her hand away and changed the station to classic 80’s, never bothering to look down. For them, this was a well-rehearsed dance.

“So, are we seriously going to the beach? Because I don’t have a bathing suit,” Buffy said, yanking his fingers away from where they’d been resting protectively around the radio dial and changing the station again.

Spike allowed a slight smile to curve his lips. “You left one ‘f your suits in my trunk the last time we went swimming,” he told her, pinching her wrist.

She flipped her hand over and caressed his palm; for a second, he allowed himself to enjoy even that simple caress. “Oh,” she said, sounding just as happy as he did, “That’s ok, then—wait!” she yelped, dropping his hand.

Still keeping his eyes on the road—the problem with looking at his girl was that once he started, he had a rather difficult time stopping—Spike raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Is that the gross red one?” she asked petulantly. “Because, it’s all tiny and almost see-through and—hey! You perv!”

Either she’d noticed the smile or the persistent semi-erection that was just getting worse every second. “Hey, you said it, not me.”

“Humph. Neither of us said it,” she grumbled. “But you know you were thinking it. You want to see me as close to naked as possible.”

He chanced glancing off the road to leer at her. “If I wanted to see you naked, I wouldn’t have told you ‘bout the suit in the back,” he said, running his eyes up and down suggestively. Half of him was reveling in the fact that this beautiful girl was his, and that he could leer at her without feeling like a convict—and the other half was entirely focused on the image Buffy would make in her barely-there bikini.

She returned his leer with a lascivious look of her own. “If I’m naked, then you will be too,” she promised, grinning almost impudently at him.

He forced himself to stop before he pulled the Desoto over and they did something…ill-advised. “We’ll see, then,” he said.

His tense desire melted into contentment when she laughed, switched the radio station, and laid her head on his shoulder, content to just sit with him until the ride was over.

~*~

A/N: *is proud* See? Almost no angst…I should get a medal ;) Thanks for all the wonderful reviews for the last chapter—please keep it up! Despite my busy-ness, the only thing I love more than this story is hearing that other people like it too…and also, thanks to Cordykitten for pointing out my mistitlting of chapters!

~*~

Had the beach always been this…sandy? She had sand in her hair, down her bathing suit—

Granted, that was probably because she was lying down with Spike on top of her. And they were kissing. Generally, those two things didn’t make for a whole lot of cleanliness.

When they came up for air, Buffy grinned wryly at him and sat up. “So, was this your plan for a happy day at the beach?” she asked, pulling the bikini top ever so slightly away from her body and watching the sand fall out.

Not surprisingly, Spike’s eyes were riveted to the part of her anatomy that she was so close to revealing. “Somethin’ like this, yeah.”

Buffy had to fight not to giggle. He could be so cute, it was almost ridiculous. “Having fun?”

His eyes met hers and he smiled sheepishly. “Dunno what’s wrong with me. You turn me back into a bloody teenager ‘thout even trying.”

“Oh, so that’s a bad thing?” she asked with a little pout.

Now his gaze rested on her lip. “Define ‘bad’,” he said, moving towards her.

She launched herself away from him with a squeal. “Nu-uh! Sandy Buffy is definitely not sexy.” She glanced at the ocean, and a sly idea grew in her mind. “In fact, I think I’m gonna go wash off.”

Predictably, Spike followed her. Had anyone happened to come across that secluded little bit of shoreline, she would have heard laughing, screaming, and contented sighing; and she might have concluded that the couple there was in love.

“Well, duh,” Harmony said, her nasal voice so loud that Angel winced. “What did you think, that they were just together so he could screw her? Puh-leeze.”

“You’re trying to tell me she’s not a slut?” Angel snapped, his hands balling into fists. “That little bitch would fuck anything that moved!”

“Shh,” Harmony cooed, sliding her hand up and down his arm. “I know how it is, baby. Just don’t get all worked up, ok? Not over your ex and her stupid old-guy boyfriend. It’s, like, totally not worth it!”

By the end of Harmony’s not-so-soothing speech, Angel was relaxing beneath Harmony’s stroking. They started back towards the car. “I know, Harm. But the bitch is going down, one way or another.”

Harmony gave him a brilliant smile as they climbed into the car. “Oh, totally!”

Angel’s weary groan was lost beneath the car’s rumbling as he turned the key in the ignition.

~*~

The summer days passed sluggishly. Buffy and Faith patched it up, the way they always did; but Buffy was careful not to mention Spike around the brunette again. Call her crazy, but she kinda liked all her internal organs where they were.

Instead, she spent less time with Faith, and more time with Spike. She knew that they both questioned their own and each others’ sanity many times over, just as she knew that each time they questioned it, they came to the conclusion that they were doing the only thing that could be done.

It was now five days before Buffy’s seventeenth birthday. She and Spike had gone to his apartment; since it wasn’t the first time she had been there, neither of them felt any qualms in going. They had spent several hours just joking around at Buffy’s house, but after Joyce had given them lunch, Spike had suggested they go out.

If Joyce thought the amount of time they were spending together on weekends was odd, she didn’t comment.

Buffy had kind of expected them to start making out. They’d done it often enough the past few days, and while it inevitably left them both wondering if they could make a break for England without her parents calling the cops on Spike, she knew that he enjoyed it every bit as much as she did. She also knew that one of these days, one of them would decide that making out wasn’t enough, and they’d start to push the envelope known as “statutory rape”.

But much to her surprise—and maybe Spike’s, too—they didn’t end up pawing at each other the second they entered his apartment. Instead, as though by mutual agreement, they walked over to the couch and curled up on it, not even turning the TV on.

Buffy broke the silence first. “This is nice,” she remarked, curling closer to Spike and resting her head on his chest. “I mean, not that I mind talking or getting all hot and bothered, but—I like this.”

She felt his chest rumble, a laugh that never made it to the surface. “Know what you mean. Used to wish you’d come here. You did, ‘f course, but….”

“We weren’t much with the cuddling,” she finished for him. “I know. Although, I would’ve come more often if you redecorated.”

“’ey! I happen to like m’ décor, thank you,” Spike said in mock offence.

“Oh, please.” Even though he couldn’t see her, Buffy rolled her eyes. “Let’s see—red couch, black walls, white carpet, and a bunch of black guy toys all over the place.” That meant his TV, stereo system, and computer cabinet thingy—not to mention the towering ebony bookcases. “Yeah, you’re a real master when it comes to interior decorating.”

“Well, ‘m a man, after all,” he pointed out. “Not like I can go all Martha Stewart on the place.”

“Humph,” Buffy said disapprovingly. “If I ever get my hands on this place, I’m gonna—“

“Ah-ah,” Spike teased, running his hand down her hair and tweaking her nose playfully. “You don’t live here.”

“But I’ve seen your office at work,” she whined. “It’s nowhere near this yicky. Didn’t you tell me you haven’t redecorated in here since you were, like, twenty?”

Being as close as she was to him, she felt him stiffen. She looked up to see him frowning. “Yeah. Well, wasn’t me who did it.”

Suddenly she understood: Drusilla. A topic that was definitely not of the good. “Oh. Right.”

Silence for a minute. But Buffy couldn’t help it; she desperately wanted to know the answer to a question she’d always wondered, but had never felt she had a right to ask before. “Why do you keep it?” she asked, waving a hand at the odd colorations around them. “I mean, if she was all with the freaky, and clearly tacky, taste, why not just hire someone to rip it apart?”

“I would’ve thought that was obvious,” Spike said. His voice sounded light, but Buffy knew him well enough to know that if he had his druthers, he wouldn’t be telling her this.

“Well, I must be Special Needs Buffy,” she replied with the same feigned lightness, “Because I’m not getting it.”

He looked down suddenly; his eyes, a crystalline blue that bordered on grey, met hers solemnly. “Because the only girl who’d wormed her way far enough into my heart to be able to talk me into redecorating didn’t even know she’d done it.”

Oh. She felt her cheeks flaming. “I, uh—“

Now he looked amused. She was glad he wasn’t all with the soap opera-ey-ness anymore, but she really could have done without the amusement at her expense. “C’mon, Goldilocks. ‘ve already told you that I’m mad for you.”

“Yeah, but—redecorating?” Oh, great. Now she was squeaking. Buffy the mouse, that would be her. “That’s, like…couple-ey stuff.”

“So?”

Buffy sighed; one of the pitfalls of having a boyfriend a decade older than you was that he really wasn’t all that caught up when it came to cultural references. “Let me rephrase that. It’s not just I-love-you girlfriend-ly stuff. It’s…fiancé stuff.” Like Dru was.

He pulled her up so that they sat side by side. “Would that really be such a bad thing, if you were?” he demanded, his face betraying what the question cost him. “’f you were as important to me as I‘ve been sayin’ you are? I’m not that terrible, am I?”

“No!” She reached out now, catching his face in her hands and bringing his lips to hers. “You’re not terrible,” she whispered, kissing him softly. “I love you. You know that. It’s just…I’m sixteen, remember?” She smiled awkwardly at him.

He groaned, burying his face in her neck. “I remember,” he said hoarsely, rocking her back and forth. “’s impossible for me to forget, kitten.”

Maybe coming from someone else it would’ve sounded sick, but she knew what he meant. “I know,” she said as soothingly as she could. “Just give it awhile. Sixteen’ll turn into seventeen, and then before you know it I’ll be legal.” She shuddered at the idea. Even sitting here with him, she felt a small amount of fear; she knew, inside, that if they were caught like this, then Spike would be dragged to court. The suit might not go through, not without her parents pushing it; but who was to say they wouldn’t.

The whole situation, in a word, sucked.

But it could have been worse, Buffy reminded herself. Hell, it could’ve been a lot worse. She was sitting on her boyfriend’s couch, and they were cuddled up with the familiarity of a married couple…it got a lot worse than this.

She sighed and moved closer to him. “So…my birthday’s in a few days.”

“And?”

“Well, Mom and Dad have this thing at the gallery, so we’re doing the whole dinner thing the night before, and I was thinking…do you maybe want to come over?” At his look she added hastily, “Not that I think we’re going to do anything, you know, bad, but…we could cuddle, watch a movie, maybe have birthday smooches…” she trailed off with what she knew was a ridiculously hopeful look on her face.

He tilted his head and dropped a gentle kiss on her lips. “Like this, you mean?”

“Mmm.” She arched into him, wanting to feel more of the incredible, electric sensations that his closeness instigated. “I kinda love you, did you know?”

He laughed, the rumbling making both their bodies vibrate. “Yeah, kitten. I know.”

~*~

A/N: The stage is set. The pieces have been laid. Let the games begin.

Sorry, I’ve been watching too much Lord of the Rings ;) My point is, this is where the story picks up momentum and goes headlong into the plot…I wanted to include more beachy fun, but it just wasn’t writing itself. I’ll try to work in a beach scene later, because dangit, I wanted one…thank you for all the support I’ve been getting for this story! Please keep it up =)

~*~

Spike came into the diner the day of her birthday, grinning at her. She was working behind the counter instead of waitressing; she loved him to death, but her dad couldn’t understand the concept of taking a break from the diner if his life depended on it.

Hank was bussing tables; when he saw his daughter’s best friend he smiled and said, “Ah, Spike. Nice to see you. Have you eaten yet?”

Spike shook his head and came over to the counter, sitting on one of the bar tables. “You know me, I save all m’ hunger for when I come here.”

Ever the businessman, Hank whipped out his paper pad. “What’ll it be, then?”

He glanced lazily over at Buffy, his fingers playing with a cigarette. “I think the birthday girl knows what I’d like to eat.”

Generally speaking, Buffy didn’t believe in eyes gleaming—because seriously, unless a person was crying, eyes did not gleam. But just then, Spike’s eyes were glinting, and she would’ve sworn it was a wicked-evil glint.

She ducked her head to hide her blush. “Um…pastry?”

“Thanks,” he said, taking it, his fingers brushing against hers. As Hank walked away, he added, “I love this things…so soft, warm, an’ sweet…”

“You’re a pig,” she informed him matter-of-factly, smiling as she handed another customer his coffee. “A big, fat, ugly—“

“Sexy—“

“Cute pig,” she finished with a grin.

He looked offended, just as she’d known he would. “I am bloody well not cute!”

“Right.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “So, want anything other than your…pastry?”

He shook his head. “Nah. ‘m not that hungry. Could go for somethin’ sweet from my girl, though.” That last was accompanied by a very Spike-like leer.

“You are so juvenile.” She smacked him with a rag lying on the counter.

“That’s why we’re perfect together,” Spike replied, before sliding off the stool. “I gotta run—promised that demonic boss of mine I’d get there early. See you later, yeah?”

She nodded, wishing more than she’d wished anything before in her short life that she could just kiss him. It would be so easy, so sweet…

He was thinking the same thing; she could read it in him like most people would read a book. “We’ll get to that later.”

“I know.” She moved forward and kissed him on the cheek, just as she had before this whole thing had started—but this time her lips molded themselves into her skin, turning the peck into something sensual and promising.

She smiled when he looked at her with burning eyes. “See you tonight.”

~*~

The plan was for him to come around five in the evening, well after Hank and Joyce were to have left for the long, much-anticipated art showing, and well before they would come home. Spike had thought the movie plan was a good idea, and had promised to swing by the video store before he came to her house.

That left Buffy standing in the middle of her living room, wearing jeans and a tank top and feeling very, very nervous.

What if he showed up in a suit? Not that she’d really mind, because there was absolutely nothing bad about Spike in a suit, but…what if? She’d be way underdressed. And that was bad. Even if they were in her house, and they were going out, it was still bad. Plus, what if he brought a really icky movie, like War of the Worlds or something? She was so not in the mood to watch stuff blow up…

After about ten minutes she was forced to face the fact that she was kidding herself. She wasn’t nervous about her clothes or the movie. To be honest, she wasn’t really nervous about anything.

She just felt sad because it was her birthday, and none of her friends had so much as bothered to call.

It was ridiculous, really. She knew that Willow, Faith, Oz and the gang were all busy. Given that their group of friends was tiny to the point of being ridiculous, she really shouldn’t have been complaining about the lack of birthday wishes.

Except…this was the first year no one had even acknowledged it.

At four-thirty, a knock sounded on the door. She opened it, grinning to find Spike standing on the doorstep, looking sheepish.

“Would it be completely idiotic to admit that I left work early for this?”

She laughed; he had taken off his suit jacket, but he still wore the pants, shirt, and tie. “That eager to get me alone, huh?” she asked smugly.

He moved into the house and shut the door, pushing her against it in the same way he had less than a month ago, that night of their first kiss. “This answer your question?” he murmured, caressing her through her clothes.

“Mmm,” she moaned, leaning up to kiss him. “This definitely makes up for the suckiness that was my day.”

“What?” He pulled away at that, concern in her eyes. “’s your birthday, kitten. What happened?”

“Nothing, really,” she demurred, eager to turn the attention back to their movie night goodness. “It’s just…no one called or anything, that’s all. Stupid teenager stuff.”

He snorted. “You think adults grow outta that? I’d be downright hurt ‘f Xander didn’t treat me to his entire bar on my birthday.”

That made her roll her eyes. “You know you have issues, right?”

“You’d better believe it,” he said, wriggling his eyes mischievously.

She pushed him away half-heartedly, smiling almost in spite of herself. “You’re a dork.”

“And you’re adorable,” he purred, kissing her neck. “Don’t worry ‘bout your mates, yeah? Bet they’ve got a surprise planned for tomorrow, or somethin’ like that.”

“Maybe,” Buffy said doubtfully. They broke apart and moved towards the living room, his hand staying on her arm in a comforting gesture. “So, what movie did you bring?”

“I brought a few, actually.” He held up the bag he’d been carrying; in it were three or four DVDs. “All of them soppy teen flicks, so no worries on that score.”

She laughed. “I bet you loved explaining that one to the store-person.”

“Oh, of course.” Spike plopped down on the couch and grabbed an M&M from the bowl on the coffee table. “We’ve got a right nice setup here.”

Buffy grabbed The Perfect Score, which looked the least “soppy” to her, and glanced at the table. She’d laid out candy, soda, chips…anything and everything in the world that was fattening currently resided on that table. “What can I say?” she said lightly, putting the DVD in. “I like food.”

He laughed and they curled up on the couch, both staring over-intently at the opening credits. Buffy frantically tried to ignore the fact that as soon as she’d opened the door, she’d learned that coat-less suit-wearing Spike was even hotter than just plain old suit-wearing Spike…and that now that they were curled up on the couch, she really wanted to show him just how much she appreciated his hurrying.

She was also coming to realize that she probably shouldn’t have worn a tank top. It was red, and she thought it was cute, but it showed a lot of skin—skin that Spike was glancing at every other second.

It was ridiculous. They’d been together, in a secretive sort of way, for almost two weeks now. They’d done enough heavy petting and naughty talking to be completely comfortable with each other, but at the same time, they both still went nuts when a situation was even the tiniest bit sexy.

Like right now.

Almost in spite of herself, Buffy deliberately scooted closer. Her hand came to rest on his thigh.

“I could easily get used to this,” she remarked, moving her hand in circles.

He went rigid, and she’d known he would. A small, smug smile was about to make its way to her lips when she felt his fingers caressing her bare shoulder, dipping near her collarbone but never quite touching her breasts. “Likewise, Blondie,” he said lightly, keeping his eyes on the movie.

Fine, then. Two could play that game. “I mean,” she continued, “It’s just so comfortable, you know? Me, you, a movie…yummy stuff to eat…” She moved to his inner thigh, now, her fingers almost trembling as she touched him.

They’d never done this before, and it was starting to almost scare her. Not because she didn’t want to, but because once they started, she knew it would be almost impossible to stop.

In retrospect, they really should have locked the door.

Because just as his hand reached her shirt and began to slide the fabric upwards, exposing her stomach to the room, the front door flew open and the bulk of her friends and family rushed inside, screaming, “Surprise!”

Buffy and Spike both froze as everyone in the room grew silent—before Cordelia, who’d apparently been dragged there by Doyle, voiced what they were all thinking:

“Oh my God!”

~*~

A/N: Evil? Me? Oh, yeah ;) But I have the next update written, and reviews would make it go up faster…

~*~

Looking back, it probably wasn’t all that good an idea—but Buffy blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

“It’s not illegal!”

“Well, actually—ow!” Willow made a face at Faith, who’d elbowed her in the stomach.

Never moving her gaze from the couple, Cordy backed out of the room and onto the porch. A few silence-filled minutes later, they heard a car start and leave the driveway, tires squealing.

Finally, Oz took Willow’s hand and said, “We should go.”

He, Faith, Willow, Doyle, and Jonathon all left.

Now it was just Buffy, her parents, and Spike—who was still on top of her. Buffy frantically shoved him off, straightening her shirt and standing up. He, too, stood, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. “Uh, I s’pose it’d be useless to say that wasn’t what it looked like…”

“Yes, it would.” Hank’s voice was cold.

“Dad—“

“No, Buffy. I trust you with him and he takes advantage of you, violating you!”

“Hank!”

The other three in the room stared at Joyce. She’d been silent the entire time, looking at the scene with a bit of a smile on her face; but that smile was gone, replaced by a look of utter fury that she directed entirely at her husband.

Still staring at him, Joyce said, “Why don’t you kids go outside. I’ll talk to your father, Buffy.”

Spike took Buffy’s hand and pulled the teen out into the kitchen and then outside. They both stayed silent; dazedly, Buffy wondered if there was anything either of them could say to make this a little less disastrous.

They were on the back porch when Spike put his mouth to Buffy’s ear. Even then, when her stomach was roiling in near-panic, the action made her shiver.

“’round front?” he asked in a low, rumbling voice.

Buffy nodded; together, they circled the house and settled outside the still-ajar front door.

“Hank, we knew this was going to happen,” Joyce reminded him. “We’d have had to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know it.”

“But Joyce—she’s just a baby, and he’s a grown man!” Hank still sounded furious, though a note of almost-petulance had entered his voice.

“She’s seventeen now, and a whole lot more mature than most girls her age,” Joyce said firmly. “She’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

“Then why don’t we just toss her into the street?” Hank said harshly. “If she’s such an adult that she doesn’t need her parents, she ought to get the hell out of here.”

Buffy gasped—she’d known her father would have a harsh reaction, but this…this was bad.

Her companion’s hand found its way to her back and rubbed in soothing circles. Buffy leaned into him, clutching him for dear life.

“We could do that,” Joyce said sarcastically, “but then Spike would just let her live with him. Is that what you want?”

“Dammit! Joyce, you know good and fucking well that’s not what I want. Our baby girl is being violated by that sick, twisted pedophile!”

“Violated? Hank, I may be over forty, but I can tell when someone’s being violated,” Joyce said scornfully. “Your daughter was enjoying that every bit as much as Spike was.”

“Joyce—“

“Hank.” Now her mother’s voice was pure steel. Joyce had dug in her heels about this. “There is absolutely nothing harmful in their relationship, and despite what we may think will happen, we have no right to interfere. Now, you are going to go out front, tell Buffy and Spike that they can stop eavesdropping—“ the two both started guiltily—“and then we are all going to come inside and have a nice, quiet family dinner.”

Silence. Then: “Fine. But when she’s reduced to a scarred, crying mess for the rest of her life, don’t blame me.”

“And when they get married and live in bliss, you won’t get any credit for bringing them together,” Joyce said lightly. “Come on in, you two. I can see your shadows in the doorway.”

Both of them wore sheepish grins as they came inside; Buffy’s was tinted by a blush. She knew that the whole her and Spike thing had to come out sooner or later, but hearing her parents speculate about it was definitely on her list of things she did not want to hear.

Hank nodded at Spike when the younger man came inside. “Sorry about that,” he said gruffly. “But I want you to know, if you hurt her in any way…”

Spike held his gaze, and in that moment, Buffy had never felt more proud of him. Having been in his life for four years now, she knew that he wasn’t the most courageous when it came to dealing with “meet-the-parents” moments, but he looked straight at her father and didn’t flinch.

She moved closer to him. “If he hurts me in any way,” she told her father sweetly, “You’ll have trouble getting to him, on account of him being dead already.”

Both males laughed at that. “You always were violent,” Hank said, a bit of grudging affection re-entering his voice.

“Of course,” Buffy said. “Now, come on—I wanna eat. This birthday’s been enough of a suck-fest, ok?”

Now it was her father’s turn to look sheepish. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s just that I—“

“Food,” Buffy interrupted firmly. She pushed her father into the dining room; Spike followed behind her.

Joyce had quickly set the table for four; judging by the plastic plates and forks lying on a side table, the original intention had been more of the cake-and-music persuasion. Luckily, though, she’d also made her daughter’s favorite food.

“Wow,” Buffy remarked as she sat down, “It’s déjà vu all over again. Didn’t we do this just a few nights ago?”

Joyce threw her daughter a quelling look. “Well, we could have had a party if you hadn’t scared off all the guests,” she said, the smile on her face making the comment sting less.

Buffy pouted. “It’s not my fault. How’d I know you guys were going to make with the surprise-ey-ness right when me and my boyfriend were getting it on?”

Despite how light her tone was, her eyes darted to her father. She knew that she was baiting him by talking about her and Spike together, but she really couldn’t help herself. Sooner or later, it was going to come up, and she’d really rather deal with the ugly now than later.

To his credit, Hank just scowled blackly and took a rather overlarge bite of food.

“So, pet…when does school start again?” Spike asked in an effort to get all their minds off the display they’d just witnessed.

Buffy grimaced. It was almost time to go back to the world of bad grades and getting grounded. “Like, a week,” she said, half-pouting. “It sucks so much.”

“Well, think ‘f it this way,” he said, grinning. “The more you go to school, the less you have to go in the future.”

Buffy looked at her parents. “Okay, did that comment make sense to either of you guys?”

“Can’t say it did,” Hank said, raising an eyebrow at Spike.

“I’ll have to side with them on this one,” Joyce said, almost apologetically, to the bleached blonde.

“’s because the lot of you are rotten Yanks,” Spike teased, tickling Buffy and causing her to drop her spoon as tingles—and not just the tickle-kind—ran through her. “If you were self-respecting Brits, like m’self, then you’d see the logic.”

Just to get back at him, Buffy rubbed her foot against his leg, smiling at him. “And if you were an American,” she said, “Then maybe you wouldn’t still be wearing your hair like you think it’s 1985.”

“Low blow, pet,” he said, affecting a wounded look. “’sides—“ he captured her foot with his legs—“the way I dress is a hell of a lot better than those wankers you go to school.”

Buffy opened her mouth to refute the statement—when she realized, much to her dismay, that he was right. “Damn,” she mumbled.

“Buffy! Language!” her mother scolded her.

“What?” Buffy said, widening her eyes innocently and gesturing to her boyfriend. “Come on, mom. How can you look at him and not say a dirty word.”

As though to reinforce her words, Spike waggled his brows at her.

That made her parents laugh. “You know,” Joyce said, nudging her husband, “I’m starting to think that they deserve each other.”

“Oh, shut up,” Buffy grumbled, but inwardly she was grinning and doing cartwheels.

They were all the in the same room, with the whole huge secret out in the open, and no one’s innards were on the ground. That was definitely a good thing.

The worst was over. As she devoured the chocolate cake her mother brought out and smiled at Spike, who was watching her fondly, she tried to convince herself. The worst is over.

Then why did she still feel like she was waiting for everything to fall apart?

~*~

A/N: *cough*FORESHADOWING!*cough*

~*~

Buffy had expected for the next day at the diner to be worse than the day after Angel had opened his mouth about her and Spike, given that Cordy had seen their little display last night. That day, she’d arrived at the diner on her guard, ready for the onslaught of teenage pettiness that characterized Cordy and her friends.

It never came.

She was on edge when Spike came in around five in the evening. She was wiping tables down then, her apprehension lending her a violence she didn’t normally use on the poor wooden surfaces.

“Bloody hell,” he said when he saw her. “Rough day, sweets?”

“No!” She almost kicked the table she was currently cleaning in frustration. “In fact, my day was just about perfect. Everyone was nice, and courteous, and no one called me a slut!”

“That’s a problem?” Spike asked. She could hear that he was being careful…and for some reason, it enraged her.

“Yes!” she all but screamed, whirling to face him. “Spike, Cordelia was there last night! Faith was, too! Faith my friend so she might not babble, even if she does have a really big mouth, but we’re talking about Cordelia, Spike. The Prom Queen herself. She’s totally going to blackmail me if she hasn’t talked by now!”

Spike cocked his head at her, and Buffy resisted the urge to whack him—could he not see how urgent this was? Okay, it was kind of teen-movie-of-the-week-ish of her, but still…Cordelia with blackmail material was like Norah Jones with a microphone. Only scary, scary things could result.

“You sure ‘bout this, luv? Maybe she knows it won’t do her any good.”

“Who’s the teenager here, me or you?” Buffy demanded good-naturedly. “The Prom Queen is the biggest bitch in Sunnydale, Spike. There is no chance of her keeping this to herself.”

“Bit cynical, don’t you think?”

“Not about Cordy,” Buffy said firmly. “She’s evil, Spike.”

Her boyfriend just laughed. “Whatever you say, pet. After you’re done cleanin’ we’re going to the movies, right?”

Buffy froze. They’d made this date almost a week ago, but…”Sorry, I can’t,” she admitted, ducking her head.

Spike frowned. “What d’you mean, you can’t?”

“I kinda promised Willow that I’d go with her and Oz to the movies…she’s wicked scared of going alone,” Buffy admitted. It hadn’t been something she’d wanted to do, but her friend had been so incredibly nervous that Buffy had agreed almost before thinking twice.

“And I can’t tag along, eh?” Spike voice was dry; he knew what her answer would be.

She thought she knew what her answer was going to be, too, until it popped out of her mouth. “Sure.”

Spike blinked. “What?”

“Um…well, I think I said it was ok.” Buffy bit her lip. I guess I could tell Willow we’re gonna double-date…but it’s Spike! My ten-years-older-than-me boyfriend!

So? Another part of her shot back. He’s your boyfriend, which means that unless you decide to boink him in the middle of the theater, it’s totally okay for you to take him.

“Buffy, pet?”

“Sorry,” she apologized, coming out of her reverie to smile at him. “I was having a devil on the shoulder moment.”

“Oh, really?” He moved closer, until he was almost pressed up against her. Buffy gulped and fought hard—no, not hard!—to remember that they were in the middle of her dad’s diner. “An’ what was this devil ‘f yours sayin’?”

“He was telling me to take you to the movies, just as long as I didn’t kiss you or anything,” Buffy said perkily.

Spike’s face fell. “You coulda played along at least a little…”

“Hey, just be glad I didn’t tell you what the angel was saying. She didn’t want you to go at all,” Buffy teased, pressing up against him ever so slightly.

Spike shuddered. “Point taken. So, the movies is a date?”

“A double date,” she corrected primly. “Willow and Oz will be there.”

“Right, then,” he said, releasing her reluctantly. “Meet you there in an hour?”

She grinned at him. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

~*~

Deciding what to wear? Really not easy.

She’d been friend with Spike long enough that he’d probably seen every single article in her wardrobe before…but this whole date thing was putting new pressure on the all-too-familiar quandary of what she should wear.

Finally, she just grabbed a jean skirt and a purple top, and to hell with consequences. This whole date was so generic and—tame was the only word that came to mind—that Spike ought to be glad she was even dressing up at all.

Besides, knowing him, he’d just sit there and talk about how much he wanted to get her out of the clothes.

Lecherous old man.

But even as she thought it, Buffy was grinning. He might be a lecherous old man, but she loved him for it, just like she knew he loved her for being a pervy teenager. With them, that was just the way things worked.

Now, if she could just convince everyone else of that, life would be peachy with a side of keen.

“Buffy!” her mom yelled suddenly.

Buffy finished applying her lipgloss. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it!” she yelled down the stairs, grinning.

“I know,” her mom replied. “Spike’s here to pick you up!”

“Crap,” Buffy muttered. She’d told him not to come get her, but had he listened? No, because his stupid, bleached, British ass never listened to anything she said.

“Butthead,” she muttered, before grabbing her purse and running down the stairs…

Into a scene straight from last night’s rerun of Cops.

“If I catch you with so much as a hand on her, they’ll be finding your body for weeks,” Hank promised.

Buffy saw Spike’s eyebrow twitch, and no wonder: Hank had picked that statement up from Buffy, who’d gotten it from Spike himself.

To Spike’s credit though, he didn’t so much as smile. “’f course, sir,” he said, sounding almost as formal as the first time he’d met her parents, back when Buffy was almost thirteen. “I’ll have her back safely.”

“Oh, come on, Dad!” Buffy cut in, whining. “It’s Spike, for God’s sake. He’s the one who taught me all that stuff to do to guys who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, remember?”

Hank relaxed slightly at that. “I’m just nervous, is all,” he grumbled. “My baby girl, going out on a date with a guy who isn’t Angel.”

“Which, given that Angel was a cheating rat bastard, is probably a good thing,” Buffy quipped. “Come on, Dad. Spike and I are going to be late!”

Hank’s scowl didn’t lessen, but he did nod and say, “You kids have fun, then.”

Joyce smiled at them both almost benevolently. “Have a nice night, Buffy.”

“I will. We both will. Nice, innocent night—bye guys!”

When they finally left the house, Spike rubbed his arm, wincing. “Think you just yanked my arm out ‘f it’s socket,” he complained.

“Yeah, well, small price to pay if it got us out of the house,” Buffy shot back.

He got into the driver’s seat. “So you say. It’s not your arm. ‘sides, if I get injured, who’s gonna drive?”

Buffy just grinned at him.

He affected a horrified face. “Oh, no. There is no sodding way ‘m gonna let you drive. You’re a bloody menace!”

“Oh, please.” She pouted. “You didn’t think I was a menace yesterday, when we—“

“That had nothing to do with driving.”

“So did!” Buffy protested. “What was that you said about steering around all the corners? And—“

“You have a nasty, dirty mind.” One of his hands came off the wheel to whack her on the head; but as soon as it connected with her hair he settled for stroking it and then rubbing her mostly bare shoulders.

“Said the guy who’s just itching to feel me up,” Buffy shot back.

“Bitch.”

“Pinhead.”

“Slut.”

“Pig.”

“And the award for originality goes to…”

“The girl who will totally not let you make out with her in the dark back of the movie theater if you don’t shut up,” Buffy said with a tiny smirk of her own.

Spike groaned but was silent; settling back in the seat, Buffy smiled, proud to have won another argument.

They arrived at the movie theater to find Willow and Oz already waiting for them. Buffy sent Willow an apologetic look. “Parents,” she said by way of explanation. Willow nodded and whispered a question; Buffy giggled and whispered back.

Oz had spent the few minutes since the couples had met sizing Spike up. Now he nodded at the older man and said, “Hey.”

Spike had been versed in Oz-speak by Buffy, so he just nodded back. “’lo.”

“Guess we’d better get into the movie.” Oz tapped his girlfriend on the shoulder. “Willow.”

“Time to go in?” Willow elbowed Buffy with a conspiratorial smile. “They want to get us seats in the back, where we can make out, and laugh at all the little preteens.”

Buffy smiled back, then turned her eyes to Spike…who, for reasons he preferred not to examine, given that he liked his delusions of masculine superiority, gulped. “See, even Willow’s getting into the naughty feelings,” she teased. “What about you?”

“If you’d come a little closer,” he all but growled back, “’d show you just how naughty I was feelin’.”

“But it’s not dark enough,” she pouted. “I can’t let everyone see you corrupt me, Mr. Kingston!”

He all but laughed at the absurdity of that statement. “Kitten, you were born with all sort of dirty thoughts in that head of yours,” he teased as they began to head towards the theater where their movie would be shown.

“Yep—and gimme a few minutes, and I’ll put my head to use.”

That last comment had Spike all but chasing after her.

~*~

A/N: Sexy action in the movie theater? Meh. I know I promised angst, but I felt the need to write some fluff…and maybe some slut, if I get enough reviews. ~_^ Bridging the Gap has been nominated at the Blood Ties awards, so please click the link to head over there and vote for me =) I really can’t say how much I appreciate all the support I’ve been getting for this fic. Thank you!

Willow and Oz chose seats on the left back side, so Buffy and Spike chose seats on the right. When they were going to be making with the naughty, they didn’t really want to be close to each other.

As soon as the previews began, though, Spike felt Buffy yank on his hand. He glanced over at her—she grinned widely and nodded towards the aisle.

He shook his head, not understanding, as she began to tug him into the aisle. Crazy bint must’ve never made out in a movie theater before, he thought. He probably should’ve been annoyed at her antics, but all he felt was satisfied that she’d never done the nasty in the theater with that ponce Angel.

But now she was pulling on him hard, and he really was starting to feel less than happy with her. Finally he got up and allowed her to lead him up the aisle and to the theater doors. Like most theaters, a short hallway led from the door to the lit-up aisles; she pulled him till they were just a few feet from the door, and thus in heavy darkness.

“Buffy,” he whispered, his voice a hiss in the smothering blackness, “What the hell are you doing? I thought you wanted to—“

“I got horny,” she informed him in a breathless little voice that had his already hardening length swelling against his zipper. “And then I thought, what are the chances of us ever being able to do anything other than kissing in the seats without getting caught?”

She had a good point, but…”Buffy, this is a foolish—“

He was cut off by her lips attacking his.

And it was definitely attacking. She was ten years younger than he and didn’t have near the experience he did, but God, that girl could kiss. She’d pushed him against the wall, her hands firm on his chest, her lips firm against his and her tongue demanding entrance.

He granted it and reciprocated, his tongue dancing with hers, pulling her inside his mouth and stroking her tongue with his own. Buffy moaned quietly, and when he turned them so that she was pressed against the wall, she didn’t object.

It was insane on more levels than Spike could count, but he savored every second they stood there, mouths locked together, risking discovery every second they remained. He’d thrown in the figurative towel the second they’d been caught a week ago, but he rather suspected that whispered rumors were a world apart from full-blown evidence that he and Buffy were together and getting physical on a regular basis. Keeping that in mind, Spike prepared himself to pull back from her soft warmth.

Then she did the bit where she wriggled her hips and moaned into his mouth, and he was lost in her again.

He was hard and ready to go, and even though he knew that there would be no going of that sort, he couldn’t help but slip a hand beneath that tiny purple top and feel the smooth skin beneath it.

Even her stomach was perfect—curved every so slightly, smooth, and soft as silk. It shuddered under his touch, making him smile into her lips as he thrust his hips towards hers, pinning her more firmly against the wall.

“You like that, kitten?” he asked, stroking her stomach in tandem with the strokes of his tongue. “My hands…all over you…” he slipped a hand behind her, squeezing her bottom; she gasped and, to his delight, thrust back at him.

“Please…” she whispered, the pleading sound lost almost as soon as it left her lips.

Spike allowed his hand to travel upward, nearly trembling with the desire to just cup her, knead her, until she was gasping and putty in his hands—but he curbed his desire, sliding around the underside of her breasts, up to her collarbone—pausing for a moment where he could feel her heart beat—and then going down again, until his fingers rested, ever so lightly, on her right breast.

In the theater, the yuks had started. The audience was laughing at the actors’ innocent, PG-13 rated antics. Somehow, knowing that innocent fun was being had just feet from them made the whole adventure that much better.

She shoved herself into him. “Touch me, Spike,” she ordered, her breathy voice strangely commanding. “I need you now.”

He kissed her again, his lips teasing. “Are you sure about that?” he asked with mock innocence, catching her already hard nipple in between two long fingers. “It’s dirty, you know…lettin’ me take advantage ‘f you in the movie theater…”

She growled. He almost laughed with delight when he heard it—and then shuddered in desire. Her hot little mouth with its straight white teeth and lush lips, going down on him…sliding over his dick, swallowing around him—

Shit.

He palmed her roughly now, rolling her nipple and grinding into her with a rhythm that had them both gasping.

“Dirty girl, aren’t you?” he gasped, still in a whisper. Her face was illuminated now, very softly, by the flickering light coming from the huge movie screen. She was smirking at him.

“I am dirty,” she told him, reaching down and brushing her fingers against his painful erection. Lightning shot through him—he moaned and closed his eyes, almost overcome by sensation.

“I’m very dirty,” she continued. Her other hand left his neck, where it had been tangled in the soft hair there, and traveled downward to his hand on her breast. Spike watched incredulously as she began to move her own fingers around his, tweaking her nipple, licking her finger and tracing it around the edge…

Christ. ‘f his dick jumped any more, they were going to have a problem.

She smiled at him kittenishly. “Look, Spike,” she said, her voice deceptively innocent, as she cupped her breast. “It’s all wet.”

Her nipple glimmered in the light. Jesus. Fuck. “Buffy, ‘f you wanna get screwed right up ‘gainst this wall, then keep going.”

Her eyes glimmered at him. “But you know what’s wetter than my nipple?” she asked, her voice at the barest whisper. “My cunt. It’s dripping, Spike.” Abruptly she removed her hand from his dick. He almost whimpered at the loss…until she slid a hand into her jeans.

He watched them move as she clearly inserted her fingers inside herself, then moved his gaze to her face. God, she was beautiful. Even in the midst of fooling around that was beyond illegal—and not just because it was in a public place—she was an angel, pure and clean.

When she removed her finger, however, it was not. It shone blue and sticky in the light from the screen.

“Wanna taste?” she asking girlishly, batting her eyelashes.

“God yes,” he growled, and grabbed the digit, sucking it into his mouth.

Ahh…his eyes rolled up. They’d done stuff like this in the past week, but nothing quite this intense. Tasting her was heaven. “Fuck, luv,” he whispered, the obscenity an endearment as it rolled off his tongue. “You’re so damn—“

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”

A few seconds later, if you’d asked Spike, he would have said that the whole levitation bit was a bunch of bullshit…right before he ripped your head off for interrupting the two of them. But when he heard Robin Wood, Principal of Sunnydale Elementary, speak behind him, he jumped about two feet in the air.

He hastily shoved Buffy’s shirt down and jumped away from her. Too late he realized that he had her juices still on his lips; he hurriedly wiped them away before opening his mouth to tell the principal to sod off and go teach some impressionable little kiddies.

“Uh—uh—y’see, mate—um….”

Sodding, buggering--! He was turning into William!

He’d pretty much given the whole thing up for lost and resigned himself to life in jail when he heard Buffy speak behind him. “Principal Wood! Hi! Are you looking for Faith?”

Wood’s eyes left Buffy’s top, which only covered about half her stomach and was just about as helter-skelter as it could be and still count as a shirt, and met her eyes. “Well, actually, I was just—“

“Faith told me all about you guys.” Spike watched in wonder as his girl linked her arm through his and batted her eyes at the suddenly nervous-looking principal. “You guys are really close, aren’t you?”

“Um…” He was black and the room was dark, but Spike could’ve sworn he actually saw Wood blushing.

The blonde smirked. “Best get a move on then, mate.”

“Right. I’ll just be—going now.” Wood turned around and hastily exited.

Spike and Buffy both let out breaths they hadn’t known they’d been holding. They’d survived getting caught a second time in a much less innocent position. Spike, for one, was ready to die from relief.

He couldn’t love his girl from prison, not properly.

Then their eyes met—and the tension in the mini-hall evaporated as they both burst into laughter, leaning against each other for support as tears ran down their eyes.

“Did you see the look on his face?” Buffy gasped, giggles bursting through her.

“An’ how he started blushin’ when you mentioned Faith?” Spike chuckled. “Pet, that was downright amazin’.”

A sly smile came over Buffy’s lips, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him deeply.

“You are, too.”

~*~

A/N: Whee! Smut/fluff…hope you liked it =)

~*~

School. Worse, high school. Hell on earth didn’t even begin to describe the place…

And now it was time to go back.

Granted, she was a junior this year, so she was all with the upperclassmen power. But still—if she was looking forward to it any less, she might start to consider running away and getting a job in Los Angeles, or something equally dumb.

Despite his teasing her about it, Spike had offered to drive her the first day. She couldn’t refuse, even though walking would be just as easy. She’d begged him to drive her on her first day of high school two years ago, and somehow, it had become a tradition.

When he looked at her, his grey-blue eyes wide and hopeful, she didn’t think there was anything she could refuse him.

“Is it immature to admit that I’m scared?” Buffy asked, staring out of the Desoto at the all-too-familiar high school in front of her.

“Nah. You had a big summer.” Spike grinned at her slyly. “Hookin’ up with sexy older men and all that.”

“Careful, you’re venturing into poofter territory,” she joked, grinning at him when she used his phrase. “Sexy older men? What, do you have a crush on that Aragorn guy now?”

Spike arched an eyebrow at her. “Very funny. Be out here at three sharp, yeah?”

“Controlling.”

“Brat.”

Buffy smiled at him brilliantly. “Bye!” she said, and flounced off.

Spike watched her leave, torn between eyeing her ass and laughing at her antics. When she disappeared inside the building, he drove off.

~*~

Buffy was looking around intently for Willow and Faith. Since she’d tolerated Spike taking her to school, she was a good ten minutes early—plenty of time to talk about schedules and groan over the awfulness that was Sunnydale High School.

So she was very surprised when she didn’t find either of them. Usually they all met right at the entrance—it was a tradition they’d started in ninth grade and had kept every since, but this time, her friends were conspicuously absent.

“Crap,” she muttered. Ten minutes was not long enough to hunt through the school for the two girls.

“Damn, B, who died?”

Buffy whirled around, relief flooding her. “Oh, thank God.”

“Um…why are we thanking him?” Willow asked, looking confused.

“You guys weren’t here,” Buffy explained. I thought maybe something had happened, or…” She trailed off at the incredulous look both her friends gave her. “Sorry. I guess the whole Spike thing’s made me a little paranoid.”

Faith nodded. “Dating old guys can do that to ya,” she said with authority. “By the way, what the hell did you do to Robin? He’s been limp as a noodle since that day he saw you guys at the theater.”

“TMI, Faith!” Willow exclaimed, wrinkling her nose with distaste.

Buffy laughed. “Aren’t we just so mature? We’re juniors and we’re acting about as mature as a bunch of kindergarteners.”

“So? We’re upperclassmen, we can do shit like that.” Faith grinned. “Hey, I got an idea. Let’s go terrorize the freshman down in the caf.”

“Faith!”

But their friend was already heading towards the cafeteria where all the school’s freshmen traditionally congregated. Laughing, Buffy and Willow hurried to catch up.

~*~

“She’s just…fresh, y’know? Like springtime.”

Anya gave him a level look. “That is the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

Spike grinned. He knew he probably looked like an utter ponce—hell, he definitely sounded like one—but he couldn’t help himself. “’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“It’s disgusting,” Anya said flatly. “How are you supposed to make me money when you’re completely lovesick?”

“Said the woman who spent all ‘f yesterday giving the whelp a good sending off,” Spike shot back.

“Xander’s going to Cancun, Spike. It’s my duty as his girlfriend to make him so lust-addled that he won’t want to have orgasms with anyone else.”

“That’s sodding disgusting, d’you know?”

“Shut up and work on the Nike ad,” Anya ordered, but she was smiling. “I have to go have phone sex with Xander.”

Spike winced as his friend-slash-boss-slash-Woman Who Lived To Bugger Him Up walked away. The bird had some definite issues as far as givin’ out too much information went. Hearing her talk, you’d think she was the slutty, minimum wage type, but the truth was that Anya’s Ads earned millions of dollars a year and employed what sometimes seemed like half of Sunnydale, himself included.

Although, he thought smugly, he was a bit more special than the other employees. Being a childhood friend had its perks.

He knew she was tired of his constant prattling about Buffy, but how could he help himself? She was his, and he could finally tell people. That alone was enough to make him addled. Add that to the fact that their dates were becoming increasingly amorous and, well…

Spike Jr. was enjoying this relationship, too, and he wanted to tell the world.

Right now, though, he had work. Slip up on the job and Anya’ll fire me straight off…money-hungry bint. He opened the Nike portfolio and started inspecting the ideas his team had laid out for him at their meeting yesterday.

One of them wanted to advertise the bathing suits in a rather unorthodox way. Instead of having the girl swimming, she’d be standing under a waterfall, her hair wet and droplets clinging to her skin from the mist.

He looked at the photo and thought of Buffy.

Grimacing, he wrote on the paper, “Every guy’s wet dream, but have you forgotten that Nike wanted something empowering?”

His morning wore on slowly as he decided on projects, delegated tasks, and shuffled the papers at his desk. He almost wished that he was still low enough on the totem pole to be able to do the actual advertisement…but then, the low men didn’t get paid half as much as he did.

If he was gonna pull off what he had planned for his girl’s eighteenth birthday, he was going to need some cash.

Granted, that was a year away. Spike briefly allowed himself to think that far ahead—to dream of the day when they’d finally be able to cement their relationship, to imagine that she wouldn’t have tired of him by then.

He loved her and she knew it, but was that enough to keep her?

Buffy loved freedom. God knows he’d heard enough ‘bout her rows with her mum to know that. How would she feel about being tied down to a man she couldn’t even hold hands with in public?

Fucking rules. If he was a woman—well, for one, Buffy would be a lesbian, and wasn’t that a pretty thought? But Anya was living proof that if their genders would be reversed, then everything would be right as bleeding rain. A seventeen-year-old boy dating a woman ten years older than he would just get called lucky, and no way in hell would the woman be called a pedophile…unlike Spike, who’d had that word written on a sheet of paper tucked into his windshield. He’d found it a few days ago when he was out with Buffy, but luckily he’d managed to tuck it away before she found it.

She was under the impression that no one but her family and that Cordelia bird knew about them. Who was he to shatter that idea?

“Spike!” Anya called from her office. “Putting your head in your hands isn’t going to make me any money! Well, unless you’re naked,” she added as an afterthought. “Then I guess I could take pictures and sell them. If the angle was right I could even make it look like you were sucking yours—“

“I get the point, Ayn!” Spike cut in quickly. “How ‘bout I go talk to Arty, yeah?”

He made his escape before Anya could decide he needed more money-making motivation. Woman’s a menace. A bug-shagging crazy menace.

But at least, he thought as he went to find something to get Anya off his case, she made things interesting. He liked that in a woman.

Damn, Buffy, I wish you were here.

~*~

Buffy scowled at the boy in front of her. Damn, Spike, I wish you were here. “If you ever touch my ass again, you’ll draw back a bloody stump. Are we clear?” she snapped waspishly.

“Jesus! I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know you were such a frigid bitch.”

Buffy heard gasps around her, and to her disgust, she actually heard someone say, “Oh no he did not!” Why did she bother to go to high school, again?

But the guy wasn’t done. “I guess I’d have to be a fucking old dude to get a piece of your ass,” he sneered, leering at her.

The world spun, then froze. Buffy found herself staring at Percy, completely at a loss for words. “How—how did you—“

A delicately manicured hand suddenly appeared on Percy’s shoulder. But hands don’t just appear, Buffy thought, her brain still numb with shock.

The hand lead to an arm, which led to a shoulder, then a neck, and then a face.

“Well, well, well,” Harmony Kendall said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “If it isn’t our resident hooker!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Faith approach. The brunette looked mad as hell.

An image of the Principal’s office suddenly flashed before Buffy’s eyes. Oh, shit, she had time to think—

And then Faith arrived and dealt Harmony a blow square to her nose.

~*~

~*~

High school fights were one of the strangest phenomena the world had to offer. High schoolers were never all that civilized, but when a fight broke out—especially if it was a fight between a bunch of girls—everyone in the school would trample each other to get to the scene on time. It was, Buffy thought, ridiculous. Generally she tried to be as far away as possible.

But that was kind of hard to do when you were right in the middle of it.

Percy had slapped Faith for hitting Harmony, and Buffy’s friend was currently doing her best to unman the burly football player. Harmony herself had chosen to attack Buffy…although to be honest, it was less of an attack and more of the kind of clawing Buffy would have expected from a particularly bitter cat.

“Can we stop?” Buffy asked conversationally. “Because seriously, I’d like to not get expelled because you were having a bitch attack.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you, like, broke my poor little Angel-poo’s heart!”

“Yeah, about that,” Buffy said sarcastically. “Tell your precious Angel-poo that he deserves you. Actually—“ she batted Harmony’s hand away—“I’ll tell him myself. Where is he?”

Harmony smirked. It was an unsettling expression, because it meant she’d been thinking—not such a good thing, when it was Harmony.

“Angel’s off making sure your boyfriend can, like, never make it across town again,” she said smugly.

“Huh?” Wonderful. Now I sound like a dunce in front of Harmony. What’s next, pigs growing wings?

“Fliers, Buffy. He’s putting up fliers.”

For a second, Buffy was torn between hysterical laughter—because honestly, fliers?—and pure, unadulterated fury. Unfortunately for Harmony, the fury won out. “You stupid, conceited, jealous little bitch!” And with that invective, Buffy launched herself at Harmony.

It wasn’t much of a fight, really. Spike had long since taught her how to defend herself, and as the local waitress/Girl Who Gets Made Fun Of, she’d been in quite a few scuffles. Harmony, on the other hand, apparently thought that defending herself amounted to squealing and holding her hands up to her face. It was less than a minute before Harmony was sobbing and holding one hand to her black eye, and Buffy was above her, gasping with anger, a few scratch marks the only evidence that Harmony had even tried to fight back.

“Apologize,” she gritted, grabbing Harmony’s wrists in a cruel grip and wrenching them away from the girl’s face.

“I—I’m sorry!” she squeaked. Looking down at the frightened girl, Buffy sighed; this whole intimidation thing was really no fun when the person she was intimidating was such a wimp.

“Fine,” Buffy said, sitting back on her heels and letting Harmony up. “But if you ever pull this kind of crap again, I’ll—“

She never had time to finish her sentence, because Harmony jumped at her, face twisted into a rather crazy-looking snarl.

Buffy rolled her eyes, grabbed the girl’s shirt, cocked her fist, and dealt her a carefully placed blow to the temple. Harmony crumpled, falling to the ground like an extremely ungraceful sack of flour.

Now that the Bimbo Baddie had been taken care of, Buffy’s attention expanded to the action occurring around her, including Faith and Percy. The four of them—Faith, Percy, Harmony, and Buffy—were surrounded by students, most of whom had their attention firmly fixed on the brunette and her opponent.

“Fight! Fight!” they cheered. Luckily, Buffy didn’t recognize anyone she knew—although the idea of Oz screaming Fight! was enough to bring a smile to her face.

“Gonna help me out, B?” Faith asked, jerking back to stop Percy from hitting her. “Apparently skanky’s boy hasn’t heard about not hitting girls.”

Buffy grinned. She wasn’t as openly violent as Faith, but fights were fun, and she was still plenty mad enough. “Of course,” she replied, and jumped into the fray.

She and Faith came at Percy at the same time, but from different directions. Buffy kicked the back of his knees and Faith kneed him in the balls. He doubled over in pain from both sides, and with identical grins, the two girl’s fists met his face. When he didn’t go down, they hit again. Buffy’s fist found his nose, and she heard the satisfying crunch of bone.

“Woo-hoo!” Faith yelled—and that was when they realized that the crowd had gone silent.

“Miss Lehane,” said a cold voice, “and Miss Summers. Why am I not surprised?”

Buffy’s head snapped up, her eyes confirming what her sinking heart had already concluded: Principal Snyder had arrived.

“And beating up on one of our school’s prized students, as though your ordinary activities weren’t enough of a blight upon Sunnydale High School,” Snyder continued. “Well, well. I smell some discipline in the air!”

“Ooh, kinky,” Faith muttered under her breath. Buffy glared at the other girl.

Snyder moved his glare to Faith. “I assure you, Miss Lehane, that two months of detention starting today is not kinky. If I find you two miscreants fighting again, I’ll take great pleasure in expelling you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Buffy said quickly, smiling at Snyder and willing Faith to keep her mouth shut.

Snyder glared at her. “Stop smiling,” he ordered. “And what are you little deviants staring at?” he demanded, his eyes sweeping the crowd of students. “Get to class!”

Everyone hurried off, averting their eyes from Snyder and chattering in excited but low voices. Snyder coldly directed them to help the two fallen students to the nurses office. He sent them off with a cold threat to behave “or believe me, I’ll make juvie look like a walk in the park for you two.”

They walked off silently, not even daring to look at each other while they knew Snyder was watching. As soon as they were sure he was out of earshot, they glanced at one another…and burst into laughter.

“Did you see his face?” Buffy gasped. “Priceless!”

“Can’t believe that fucktard didn’t suspend us,” Faith agreed, laughing. “We totally kicked his star player’s ass, and he didn’t do a thing. Well, except for detention, and that ain’t shit.”

Buffy blinked at her, all traces of laughter suddenly gone. A sense of foreboding suddenly came over her. “That’s right,” she said slowly, “he didn’t do anything.”

“What, is that bad? We got away with it, B!”

“He gave Willow detention. For sneezing!”

“So? We got detention,” Faith said, still stubbornly refusing to see the point.

Buffy barely refrained from rolling her eyes. This was the part of being friends with Faith that drove her up the wall; the girl just plain couldn’t see the obvious. “Faith, he should’ve tried to expel us. He’s tried it before!”

Now it was Faith’s turn to look unsettled. “So, why didn’t he? Think he’s got somethin’ else planned?”

Grimly, Buffy replied, “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Faith snorted. “Yeah, and then die from the cliché.”

“Ha ha. You know, this might be serious.”

“Yeah, I know. But laughing’s fun.”

“True.”

“Damn straight it’s true.”

And then, still wary underneath the jokes, they went to class.

~*~

At quarter till noon, Spike said hell with the papers and poked his head into Anya’s office to let her know he was going to lunch. He grabbed his briefcase and left the building as usual.

Sunnydale was a strange town, full of more labyrinthine alleys than most cities twice its size. Spike generally used those to get around—it was a habit he’d had as a kid that he’d never really shaken. He was less than a block away from the diner when he reached one of the main roads.

The second he turned the corner, he halted in shock. There, on hundreds of sheets of fluorescent pink and yellow paper, was a picture of him and Buffy, snogging on the beach. The papers were attached to buildings, electrical posts, even the odd car window. And on every single one, accusing black letters said: William Kingston: child molester.

The funny part was, Spike thought dimly as he stared at the fliers, his mind still utterly stunned, that had this happened to any one else, he would’ve been laughing his arse off right about now. It was the most juvenile, stupid joke he’d ever seen—but somehow, faced with the reality of it, it didn’t seem stupid.

It seemed damned clever and, to Spike, deadly.

God, he was fucked. Well and truly fucked. By now all the kids at Buffy’s school would know—chances were he’d get shit from everyone at the diner—and oh God, her parents. What if they took legal action? What if they felt like they had to take legal action?

It was with a heavy heart and a sick stomach that Spike turned towards the diner, walking like a man in a dream.

~*~

A/N: Yes, that would be the Great Angsty Shoe of Doom that you feel dropping on your heads. ^_^

Absolutely GORGEOUS banner, made by the incomparable Suzee:



Isn't she wonderful? I think readindg and reviewing of her awesome fics is in order, don't you? ;)

~*~

Heads turned and low, disapproving murmurs sounded as Spike slipped into the diner. Careful to keep his eyes away from anyone specific, Spike walked to the counter where Hank stood, drying dishes.

“Hello, Spike,” Hank said genially. “How are you doing today?”

Spike stared at the man in disbelief. Surely no one was that thick? “Well, with the exception of the borderline pornographic pictures outside, it’s all sunshine an’ lollies with me,” he said sarcastically. “Why the buggering hell aren’t you knocking the stuffin’ out of me, Summers?”

Hank gave him a measured look, one that unaccountably made Spike want to squirm. It reminded him that Hank was a good two decades older than Spike himself. “Believe me,” he said, “I would be, if it weren’t for my wife. Joyce pointed out that we knew you kids were getting up to that sort of thing. Having it posted all across town is stretching my restraint, though.”

“’s not doin’ wonders for mine, either,” Spike admitted. “Fucking juvenile prank.”

“Well, that’s another reason I’m not hitting you,” Hank said, a grin starting to form on his face. “I don’t want to give those kids the satisfaction.”

It wasn’t a particularly funny joke, but Spike, having finally caught on to Hank’s game, laughed anyway. “Damn immature, innit?”

“Definitely.” Hank handed him a soda and pastry. “Bet you’re missing my daughter’s idle banter.”

“Not as much as I thought I would be,” Spike said thoughtfully. “S’pose you’ll make a bearable father-in-law.”

The glass Hank had been holding fell to the counter. “What?” he hissed.

He didn’t smirk. Took quite a bit of control, but he didn’t. “Honestly, Mr. Summers, did you think I’d fool about with your daughter ‘f I didn’t plan on spending the rest of my life with her?”

Hank was now blinking rapidly. “I—uh—“

“You did.” Spike shook his head. “What did I ever do to make you think I was like that?”

“Sleep with half of Sunnydale?”

He was blushing. Dammit. “Well, yeah, I did that…”

“Exactly. Joyce may be trusting enough to believe in your good intentions, but I most certainly am not.” Hank gave him a stern look. “I’m not even sure you’re telling me the truth now.”

“Mr. Summers.” Spike leaned forward, still smiling slightly for their audience’s benefit but looking Buffy’s father straight in the eye. “I know Buffy’s underage,” he said bluntly, “An’ I know she’s still very young, in every sense of the word. But I love her, have for awhile now. ‘m not gonna leave her alone—ever. We clear?”

The older man gave him a look that was filled with something suspiciously like respect. “You know,” he said slowly, “I think we are.”

“Right, then.” Spike nodded his head as though he’d been expecting that answer all along, though the truth was that he felt like sagging to the floor in relief. “I’d better be gettin’ back to the office.”

“Probably.” Hank accepted his empty plate and glass. Spike was about to slip off his stool and leave when he said, hesitantly, “Good luck. I know—well, it can’t be easy for you right now. And Buffy cares about you, so I don’t want to see you suffer.”

He smiled. “Thanks, mate.”

The occupants of the diner watched in amazement as the current leper of Sunnydale left the diner whistling.

Of course, the whistling didn’t last long. He missed his girl, for one; the fact that she was stuck in that hellhole of a school didn’t help much, since every time he thought of it he was reminded that she was far too young to be mixed up with him. The fliers that he ripped down as he walked just made the whole thing worse.

Funny how you could have perfection and all it took to fuck it up was a pushy bunch of gits who wouldn’t know love if it ripped their collective heart out and ate it for breakfast.

Spike smiled faintly. Now there was a nice visual.

He knew his girl was young; he knew she had to attend school, and that when their relationship got out things would be difficult for her, and there was nothing he could do about it. He’d accepted shit like that a long time ago. But what he hadn’t counted on was pure adolescent spite.

The only teen he’d been around since he was her age was her, and Buffy would never stoop to something so immature as this.

Parental disapproval he could understand—he’d even expected it. Hell, he’d think there was something wrong with Hank if the man hadn’t given him the third degree. But those sodding teens, doing nothing but try to ruin a relationship, pissed him off beyond measure.

When he got back to his office he headed straight for the elevator, deliberately avoiding departments that he knew would be crowded. Generally he was friendly with his coworkers, but right now he wanted to be left alone.

Unfortunately, when the elevator opened to his floor he was greeted with the extremely unwelcome sight of a half-naked Anya about to go down on Xander.

“Holy fuck!” He looked away quickly. “Anyone ever tell you ‘f you’re gonna do it in the workplace, you oughta at least take advantage of your private office?”

“We did,” Anya said cheerfully. “But then we decided to let it air out for awhile, so we came here.”

Spike stared at them incredulously. “You are abso-fucking-lutely insane, did you know?”

“Of course,” Anya said cheerily. “Now, Johnson & Johnson called while you were out. They want you to plan the advertisement for their newest baby lotion. Have fun!”

Spike watched incredulously as Anya abruptly ignored him, focusing instead on the way Xander was nuzzling her neck.

He went into his office and shut the door, burying his head in his hands, unable to feel anything but a kind of weary amusement.

He’d never be able to do that with Buffy—never be able to take risks. Even after she turned eighteen, the May-December stigma would still be hanging over them. It saddened him, made him angry. Fucking stereotypes.

But the thing that upset him the most was how Buffy would react to them. If he, a full-grown man and more than capable of ignoring juvenile pranks, was having trouble dealing with the idiots of Sunnydale…how much she be feeling?

~*~

Anya cocked her head as she watched her friend enter his office. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I almost feel sorry for him.”

“Why?” Xander asked curiously, running his hands down her back.

She pulled away from him a bit. “Well, look at us. You’re eight years younger than I am—we kept our relationship a secret for months because of that.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t have let it get out,” Xander said. “I’m not saying I support what people are saying, Ayn, but they haven’t exactly been careful about things.”

Anya glared at him. “Xander Harris, we’re in the middle of the largest room on this floor, and we were about to have sex that would make a porn star blush! You’re really one to talk.”

“But it’s different for us!” Xander argued. “We’re—I dunno—less reactionary, I guess. Less likely to have people freaking out over us.”

“No,” Anya said sadly, “We’re exactly the same.

“You and I are in love to the point of being crazy…and so are they.”

~*~

~*~

It shouldn’t have been so hard to bear. Logically, Buffy knew that. She’d spent two years in high school being mocked and ridiculed on a pretty regular basis because she was a waitress at the town’s most popular diner, so she really shouldn’t have been bothered by a few more taunts. But these were different somehow.

When she mentioned this to Faith, the brunette just rolled her eyes and said, “Duh, B. They’re hittin’ you where it hurts.”

“But they’re just stupid stuff,” Buffy argued. “I mean, I’ve been called slut something like 20 times today, so it shouldn’t hurt me—“

“Cumulative.”

Buffy blinked at Oz. “Huh?”

“Cumulative,” he repeated. “They keeps saying it, so the hurt builds up.”

“I—I’m not sure it works that way,” Tara said slowly, twirling the spaghetti in her lunch tray with her fork. “If Buffy can just ignore them—“

“But who could?” Faith asked. “Those motherfuckers just don’t shut up.”

“Faith!”

“What?” Faith asked, unfazed by Willow’s admonishment. “C’mon, you know those skanky hos are just tryin’ to get under B’s skin, and it’s working.”

“Faith, were you hanging out with the white trash again?” Buffy asked dryly.

Faith was unrepentant. “I might’ve been,” she said, “But that’s not the point. The bitches are gonna keep annoying Buffy ‘till she breaks down.”

“So what are we going to do?” Oz asked. “We can’t let Harmony keep it up. She’ll drive us all crazy.”

Everyone blinked at him—even Willow, who’d heard him say a sentence longer than that once. His participation in conversations was generally limited to monosyllabic contributions.

“Um, Oz? Are you feeling okay?” Buffy asked, grinning.

Oz just gave her an expressionless look that on anyone else probably would have been sarcastic. “I’ve had to listen to Harmony beg me for details on you and Spike’s sexual relationship,” he said. “Trust me, I’ll give a speech if it will make her stop.”

“Okay, then.” Buffy nodded resolutely. “What we need is a plan. Of the evil variety.”

“Um. Okay.” Willow nodded, an action that unfortunately made her resemble a bobble-head doll. “We can do evil…can’t we?”

“Well, Faith can,” Buffy said, grinning. “Honestly though, don’t you think this whole thing is a little—“

“Stupid?” Tara suggested, smiling slightly.

“Yep.”

“Could be fun,” Oz said neutrally. “Old school.”

“Startin’ a war over Buffy’s boyfriend is old school?” Faith laughed. “Damn, what school is that?”

“The school of hard knocks,” Buffy said, suddenly grim. Well, an image of Harmony trying to claw Spike’s eyes out could do that to a person. “So, what are we going to do?”

“We could turn her hair green,” Willow suggested.

Everyone else looked at her, confused. The redhead’s face turned the same color as her hair. “I saw it on an after school special,” she mumbled.

“It’s actually not a bad idea,” Buffy said thoughtfully. “I mean, if we could get dye, or something. You know Harmony’s neurotic about her crinkly bad bleach job.”

“Unlike your boyfriend, right?”

Buffy rolled her eyes at Faith. “Okay, let’s see: who’s hotter, Harmony or Spike?”

“Point,” Oz said. “Now, back to the diabolical planning.”

“Right.” Willow nodded resolutely. “Diabolical planning. Because…we’re evil now.”

“I thought we were fighting evil,” Buffy said, confused.

“Well, you know what they say,” Tara said. “F-fight fire with fire.”

“So we’re gonna have to be evil,” Buffy said thoughtfully. “Okay. Aside from dying her hair, what else can we do?”

“We could feed Percy steroids, make his Willy shrink,” Faith said.

“That’s just gross,” was Oz’s assessment.

“Yeah, but just think of how pissed Harm would be once she found out her boyfriend’s dick was too tiny to—“

“Visual!” Willow squeaked, clapping her hands over her ears. “I don’t wanna think about that, Faith!”

Buffy laughed, and the rest of the table joined in. They were still debating diabolical strategies when the bell rang and the group separated to go to their classes.

Willow gave Buffy a small, sympathetic look; they both had English right after lunch. “So…the world’s gone insane,” Willow said cheerfully.

“Looks like,” Buffy said dryly, flipping off a girl who’d just slunk by her and hissed, slut. “Of course, I figured it had gone nuts when I got into a fight this morning. I just don’t do that.”

The look Willow gave her was the same she would have worn if Buffy had informed her that the earth was made of cheese. “Because you’ve never had Snyder yell at you for fighting before…”

“Maybe once or twice…or every other week,” Buffy admitted.

“Exactly.” Willow nodded. “But we’ve never done the whole clichéd large-scale revenge thing.”

“There’s a first time for everything, though.” They entered the classroom and sat down. “And anyway,” Buffy continued, crumpling up the flier lying on her desk and throwing it in the trash, “I am getting pretty monumentally sick of this hellish town’s obsession with my love life.”

A paper airplane hit her in the back of her head. Grabbing the paper, Buffy unfolded it to a lurid drawing of herself and a man that she assumed was Spike, participating in an activity that she was sure had never occurred. God knows she would’ve remembered if it had.

She crumpled up the paper and threw it in the classroom, weariness suddenly overcoming her. Plots and immature pranks aside, this was shaping up to be a truly suck-ass school year.

I hate my life, she grumbled mentally, and fought to focus on the now-lecturing teacher.

~*~

“So? How was your day?”

“How was yours?” Buffy asked, fighting to remain neutral.

“Tolerable. C’mon, pet, I go to work every day. You only get a first day of school every…er…”

“Three hundred sixty five days.”

“Right. Once a year. So you should tell me about your day first.”

Buffy collapsed onto Spike’s couch. “I got teased,” she pouted. “Not just about the diner, either—they called me a slut and you a pedophile.”

“So far ‘m not seein’ anything that’s all that different from last year,” Spike mused, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch and pulling her feet into his lap.

“They had pictures,” she said, snuggling deeper into the couch and wriggling her toes as he began to massage the soles of her feet. “And this time, it wasn’t all made up.”

A slight smile graced his lips. “Odd to think that last year, none ‘f this had happened yet.”

“Yeah, I lived in bliss back then,” Buffy said dryly.

She noticed two things immediately. Firstly, he stopped rubbing her feet; and secondly, his entire body stiffened beneath hers. “So, you’d rather this hadn’t happened, then?”

His voice sounded hollow. Not even angry, just…empty.

She sat up, not an easy feat when you considered that he was clutching her feet. Feet. Feat. Ha.

I’m going insane.

“Hey,” she said, wriggling her toes again—except this time, it was more of an urgent wriggling. If there was such a thing.

He looked up, his face blank. Buffy wasn’t fooled, though. She’d been friends with him for four years—even when he fought to hide behind a mask of invulnerability, she could read him like a book. An easy book.

Looking him straight in the eye, Buffy said quietly, “You were the first person I met who…who took me at face value. Who didn’t try to make me into something I wasn’t. And I loved you first. I loved you more than An—more than anybody. And that hasn’t changed. It will never change. Okay?”

Pathetic excuse for a speech that it was, it somehow managed to cheer Spike up. Ladies and gentlemen, the seventh—or is that eighth?—wonder of the world, Buffy thought dryly. Buffy Summers can cheerfully speechify.

“’course you love me,” Spike replied lightly, jarring Buffy out of her thoughts. “’m just so damn adorable.” And then, with all the abruptness that she’d come to expect from him: “Wanna go shopping?”

Buffy laughed and the tension was broken. “Sure, Bleach-Boy. Let’s go.”

~*~

~*~

“You know, when you said shopping, this really wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Oh, sod off. You’re just itching to do this.”

“Um, actually, no. I’ve never itched to explore the nether regions of the world’s furniture industry.”

“But you’ve always wanted to explore my nether regions,” Spike said in a perfectly innocent tone. “And if I get new furniture, then we can do just that.”

Buffy scowled at him. “Perv.”

“Don’t you know it, baby.” Silence. Then: “So, picking out furniture with me is really that dastardly a task?”

“Did you just say dastardly?” Buffy paused beside a couch. Large, plushy, comfy-looking—would’ve been perfect if it wasn’t cream colored. Spike shuddered theatrically.

“Spike! Answer the question.”

“What? Oh. Yeah, I did. What’s it to you?” He tweaked her nose. “Avoidin’ the subject, Blondie.”

“Am not!”

“Are so. You still won’t answer what you think of going shopping with me for furniture.” He grinned at her to hide some very real trepidation. “C’mon, admit it. You want me.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want the responsibility of redecorating your heinously appointed apartment—until,” she added hastily, “I’ve had the chance to make plans. I mean—honestly, Spike, it’s terrible. And you dragged me out here with absolutely no warning!”

He looked at her suspiciously. His girl’s eyes were shining, her face the absolute picture of innocence—hell, even her hair exuded apple-pie American trustworthiness.

‘Course, he’d never trusted the Yanks. Bloody unreliable lot, they were.

“Right, then,” he said with mock-weariness, already knowing where the conversation was headed. “Exactly what kind of shopping do you propose we do?”

That glint in her eyes, he decided, wasn’t innocence. It was pure, demonic intent.

“I have an idea,” she said, and dragged him out of the furniture store.

Two hours later, Spike was convinced he’d gone to hell. “Pet, this is the fifth clothing store we’ve been in!”

An abject observer would have said he was whining—but Spike never whined. It was as simple as that. He was merely complaining…in a slightly less than dignified, but still very menacing, manner.

“And I’ve only bought two pairs of jeans, three tops, and a bra,” Buffy replied. “Come on, Spike, you’re the one who’s gonna be looking at me!”

The bint did have a point…Spike smiled widely, his prospects suddenly much improved. “Right, then. Carry on.”

“You are such a pig,” she said affectionately. “Okay, what about this top?”

It was red. It was strappy. On her, it would be almost illegally skimpy. Spike gulped. “Looks wonderful.”

She grinned and draped it over her arm. “I love the clearance rack. What about this one?”

Yep, he was in hell. And he was, by the looks of things, going to languish there.

Luckily for him, when she finished with the hellish mall sojourn, Buffy was more than willing to go to the ice cream shop and down an enormous cone of double fudge ice cream.

“Now this,” she said, licking the cone as they walked through the park, the bags forgotten in the Desoto, “Is something I could get used to.”

“Licking phallus-shaped objects?”

“Ew. No.” She waved her gone and winced when chocolate drops spattered the sidewalk. “Being served,” she explained. “Telling the pimply-faced teenager to get me food, instead of the other way around.”

Spike couldn’t help himself—he laughed out loud. “You’ve really got a complex about that.”

“What? I do not!”

“Do so,” he teased. “Every time someone serves you, it’s practically an orgasmic experience for you—ow!” His girl had hauled off and punched him in the arm. “That bloody well hurt. Abusive bint.” He pouted.

“Oh, please. You’re a baby,” she informed him, grinning.

There was a little bit of chocolate on his lips, which Spike took as a sign from God or whoever the hell was in charge that he was supposed to grab her shoulders and kiss her.

“Come over Friday night?” he asked, nipping lightly at her lip and then soothing the spot with his tongue.

“Hunh?” Buffy pulled away, looking up at him with unfocused eyes. “Oh. Um…I guess, sure.” He heard the unspoken message: and this is different from every other day, how?

He smiled. “For dinner, pet. ‘m gonna cook for you.”

“You can cook?”

Well, he’d be able to by Friday. “You doubt my abilities?” he asked, mock-offended.

“When it comes to cooking? Um, yes.”

“Silence, blasphemer!” He smothered her half-amused, half-bewildered laugh with his lips, kissing her a bit harder this time—deliberately showing the feelings that they were both too damn clumsy to voice.

When they moved apart again, she looked even more befuddled than before. “What about blue?”

He blinked at this apparent non sequitor. “What?”

“Blue. For your apartment.” His expression must have been utterly dumbfounded, because she elaborated, “You know, roses are red, violets are blue, dogs are colorblind, and apparently so are you…?”

Blue? He’d never considered it before. There was white…there was black…and there was red. But blue?

When he voiced this opinion to Buffy, she rolled her eyes. “You are such a boob,” she said. “There’s a whole color spectrum, did you know? There’s even green. You know, the color of the trees and the grass…and ooh, there’s yellow, too!”

He winced. “Hadn’t considered that you were gonna girlify my apartment,” he complained.

“Oh, please, are you five? Blue is totally a boy’s color. It’s the boy’s color.”

“But ‘s not my color,” he protested, knowing how very weak his argument sounded and yet somehow feeling compelled to keep it up anyway.

“Which is sad, really,” she said, cocking her head and looking at him. “You’d look good in it.”

He smirked at her, unable to resist the opening. “’course I would, but would it look good around me? Blue’s not very badass, and you know ‘m just about as bad as they—‘ey!”

His girl had dissolved into giggles. The ice cream cone was inches away from staining his leather coat as she leaned against his arm, laughing for all she was worth. “I am bad,” he muttered defensively.

“The baddest,” she said, snickering. “Of course, there was that time you were two hours late to work so that you could save that kid’s hamster—“

“Damn creature was up in a tree! Could’ve been eaten!”

“—or that time I caught you crying because of a Dawson’s Creek rerun,” she continued blithely. “And there’s also the whole baby thing.”

His cheeks reddened at that. “I do not, he said indignantly, have a ‘baby thing’.”

“You totally do,” she said with the cheeky impudence of a youth who knew she’d cornered the adult before her. “Come on, any time there’s a baby around, you can’t help but cuddle it. You even coo at it. It’s not wonder you’re such a wimp.”

By the end of her speech, Spike was spluttering. She’d emasculated him as only she could—stripped down all his defenses and yanked out his vulnerability as proof that he was what she claimed.

Still, he was never one for giving up easily, so he just grinned at her. “Well, who’s to say ‘m not just practicing?”

It was her turn to look gobsmacked. “Pr—practicing? For what?”

“For havin’ little brats ‘f my own.” He damn near laughed at the expression on her face. She’d hardly have been more shocked than if he had announced plans to join the circus.

“You don’t think—I mean, we—“

“Maybe someday, kitten.” He felt uncertain suddenly—not the same inexperienced and gawky uncertainty that plagued youths, but a deeper sort of feeling. The full and cognizant knowledge that he was taking a risk. “You don’t want to, then?”

For a second she studied him, her green eyes wide and serious. Then she smiled. “Like you said, maybe someday.”

He couldn’t stop himself from asking. “So you think this is—you think we’re gonna stick around, then.”

“Of course.” She replied like it was a foregone conclusion, something that made him feel quite nicely reassured. “I mean—didn’t you?”

“Hell yeah,” he said vehemently. “Just wasn’t sure—you’re a teenager, luv, try though we both might to forget it. Thought you might be havin’ second thoughts.”

She dropped her chocolatey cone into a nearby trash can and placed her hands on his shoulders, a quiet, serious expression on her face. Going on tiptoes, she pressed her lips to his. It wasn’t a kiss of anger, or of passion. It was instead filled with love—with promise.

“Never.”

~*~

A/N: “You are such a boob” is, of course, from Firefly. I really couldn’t resist.

~*~

Never say never, Buffy thought dryly the next day.

She and Spike had spent several more hours bickering over furniture after that. She’d finally managed to convince him to cooperate about the whole blue thing. Granted, he’d threatened her with a rather grisly death if his apartment ended up looking “like utter bollocks”, but she thought she’d done a pretty good job of being convincing.

Now if only she could convince herself not to go all homicidal on Sunnydale’s teenage population, things would be absolutely peachy.

The stupid cumulative semi-abuse had just gotten worse today. Teachers, with a very few exceptions, seemed to be making absolutely no effort to stop them. Ms. Calendar, her computer teacher, had sent Percy to the office for calling her a slut; but Mr. Peabody, her cantankerous history teacher, hadn’t seemed to care when some anonymous blonde bimbo called her a whore. And given that her very female Physics teacher had just laughed at her when she complained about having balled-up pieces of paper thrown at her head, she was pretty sure it wasn’t a gender thing.

“It’s just crazy,” she complained to her father that night. “I’m seriously tempted to pull a Carrie.”

“A who, sweetheart?”

“Carrie,” Buffy repeated. When her father continued to look clueless, she rolled her eyes and said, “Mom?”

“She killed a bunch of mean boys who poured pigs' blood on her at prom,” Joyce explained to her husband.

“Oh! That Carrie. I knew that.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. But seriously, if another round of fliers happens, I’m going to hurt somebody.”

“That was amazingly adolescent,” Hank agreed. “I’m just glad the mayor had them taken down.”

Richard Wilkins the Oh-Who’s-Really-Counting? had reportedly stepped out of his mansion to stare at one of the fliers solemnly, declare that it “just doesn’t adhere to traditional family values, folks”, and order them all taken down immediately. No one, including Buffy herself, was sure that he was technically allowed to do that—but then, no one really cared.

Buffy had been plenty ticked off when she’d heard about it. Angel was apparently being smart for once in his life, because she’d seen neither hide nor hair of him in the past hellish two days. She very well might have tried to kill him if she had.

She wasn’t wavering a bit in how she felt. She loved Spike and wanted to be with him, in both the G and X-rated senses of the word, but she was seriously considering just kidnapping Spike, moving to England, and forcing him to elope with her.

Hey, it might work.

“Yes, I’m starting to regret not voting for him,” Joyce said with a small smile, bringing Buffy back from not-so-la-la-land.

“I’m just tired of hearing about it,” she said. “I dated Angel for four years and nobody was this obsessed with it.” She paused, then added, “Well, except Spike.”

“Can you really blame them, though? It’s something of a scandal for little old Sunnydale.” Joyce smiled in what could almost be called an indulgent manner.

Buffy was having none of it. “Well, then, they can find a different scandal!” she all but yelled.

Her parent’s expressions immediately became concerned. “You’re having a real problem with this, aren’t you?” Her father actually looked mad—well, that was a good thing, she supposed.

She nodded. “In a big way. I just—why can’t people leave me alone?”

“Because they’re people, honey,” Joyce said wearily. “And if you’re going to go around kissing men ten years older than you are—“

“Then I can expect consequences,” Buffy finished for her dryly. “I know. Spike said the same thing.” Suddenly she sighed, a half-remorseful, half-glum feeling coming over her. “I haven’t been much fun to be around, have I?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Hank said, quickly enough that Buffy immediately knew she’d been a pain. “Right,” she said, blushing. “Well, sorry. Because I didn’t mean to be like this.”

“It’s fine,” Joyce said indulgently. “Heavens, you should have talked to me when I was in love with your father. I’m still surprised my mother didn’t disown me.”

“Well, that’s kinda impossible…unless I’m not really Dad’s kid.” Buffy grinned mischievously.

Joyce shook her head. “Oh, you’re your Father’s daughter, all right,” she said disapprovingly.

“So, what are you and Spike planning on doing this weekend?” Hank cut in quickly.

Buffy shrugged. “Not much. I’m going over to his apartment. He’s going to make me dinner and wait on me.” Her eyes sparkled. “See, dad, not everyone thinks I should be a waitress.”

Joyce and Hank exchanged a look that Buffy didn’t notice. She might not have recognized the significance of what she’d just told them, but they certainly did. “That…nice, honey.” Joyce said absently. “Your father and I will be out of town.”

She actually dropped her fork. “Hunh?”

“Your father and I will be out of town,” Joyce repeated patiently.

“So…I get the house all to myself?” Buffy said hopefully.

Joyce gave her A Look. Capitalized. “No. Fred will be here.”

Which, actually, might be better than being all alone. Fred was fun. Buffy smiled brightly. “Cool. How much are you paying her to babysit me?”

It was a loaded question and everyone currently sitting at the table knew it. Joyce’s voice was tense when she answered, “Is that really any of your business?”

“Um, yeah. You’re not even trusting me to watch the house!”

“Buffy, you’re—“

“Seventeen, dad! Seven freaking teen! And in case you haven’t noticed, a hell of a lot more mature than Harmony, whose parents let her have the house every weekend, and—“

“Fred wanted to come, Buffy.” Joyce’s calm voice stopped Buffy’s argument in its tracks.

“Um. She did?”

“Yes. Doyle too, but he failed some subject so his parents are keeping him in LA.”

Damn. Stupid Irish alcoholics… “Um,” Buffy said, her face going red. “Sorry about the argument, then.”

Her mother looked amused—which would have seriously annoyed Buffy except, well, she kind of deserved it.

“I was being immature,” she continued at a mutter. “And, um…stupid.”

“We’re not going to argue that,” her dad said cheerfully. “But it was a pretty small hissy fit, and—“

“Wait—hissy fit?”

Joyce laughed when a piece of bread hit Hank square in the forehead.

~*~

Lying on her bed later that night, Buffy found herself suddenly incredibly glad that Fred was coming to house—or was that baby?—sit. Despite all her protestations (which, in hindsight, looked incredibly stupid), she knew that she and Spike weren’t two of the most responsible people on the planet when it came to each other. And empty house wasn’t just inviting trouble, it was sending trouble a gold-plated plaque with the invitation in diamond overlay.

Buffy groaned and resisted the urge to bang her head against the headboard. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Stupid for thinking that she and Spike could control this thing between them, stupid for having that fight with her parents, stupid for starting this whole thing in the first place. God, she hoped Spike never found out about the fight. The humiliation that particular conversation would bring made her blush just to think about it.

She was treading a thin line, and she knew it. She might be a bit less petty and annoying than, say, Harmony, but the simple fact of the matter was that Spike was an adult and she still had a ways to go. Throwing fits at the dinner table was definitely not a good way to convince her parents that she was mature enough to keep seeing him—hell, even she was annoyed with herself for that particular stunt. She wouldn’t blame Spike if he was completely disgusted.

But God, it was so hard to deal with it all! Being mature she could handle—on a good day, when she hadn’t bombed a test and no one had ordered sexual favors that just really weren’t listed on the diner menu. Right now, though, with Harmony and the constant harassment and the pure stupidity that seemed to have gripped the town like a disease, it was all she could do not to just throw in the towel completely.

She knew she’d have to deal with it all eventually. She knew that relationships involved compromising and giving in and trust and all that jazz. She knew that if she wanted easy, she should’ve gone with Angel.

So she closed her eyes, and she tried to get her brain to quite down. And in the silence of the night, she prayed that Spike would be strong enough to not cave in to the constant pressure both their peers provided them with. She prayed that he’d be strong enough to resist the taunts…because even after all that had happened, she suddenly wasn’t sure that she was.

~*~

~*~

“So, Oz thinks he may have come up with a revenge plan.”

Buffy groaned, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Are you guys seriously thinking of doing that?”

“Of course!” Willow was the picture of innocence. “Someone hurt our friend. We have to kill them.”

Buffy blinked. “Um, Willow? Psycho behavior not of the good…”

“Harmony being beaten to death with, with a shovel,” Willow suggested. “Is that of the good?”

She shouldn’t smile. She really, really shouldn’t smile.

Well, she didn’t smile at least. She broke into a fit of giggles. “You’re insane!”

“But it’s the fun kind,” Willow said cheerfully.

“To be honest, Wills, I’m kind of surprised,” Buffy admitted. “Usually Faith is the bloodthirsty one.”

“It does kinda fit, doesn’t it?” Willow sighed. “I guess…you’re my best friend, and I knew that you and Spike were going to make with the naughty sooner or later. But then Harmony came along, and I’m worried that it’ll all go kaplooey. And then, poof! Spike will be gone and you’ll be a mess and—“

“You know, people have this thing called breathing, might wanna try it,” Buffy said, cheerfully.

“Sorry, babbling.” Willow hung her head. “But there was a point to it.”

“What?”

“Revenge,” Willow said enthusiastically. It was lucky, Buffy mused, that this particular part of the park was all but deserted right now—her friend sounded more than a little unhinged. “Getting back at Harmony for being such an evil, life-ruining bi—“

“Willow!”

“What? We were both thinking it.”

Buffy shook her head. “Okay, now I know you’ve been hanging out with Faith too long. Where’s nice, sweet Willow, who would never call anyone a bitch no matter how much it was deserved?”

“Harmony killed her with balls of paper,” Willow said promptly.

“Aww, poor good Willow,” she said sympathetically. “So now evil Willow’s getting revenge?”

“Something like that.” Willow yawned. “Wow, I need sleep. What time is it, anyway?”

“Five o’clock—crap!” Buffy slapped herself in the forehead. “I was supposed to meet Fred at our house…”

“That’s right, she’s doing the house-sitting thing.” Willow grinned at her friend mischievously. “Are you parents leaving before tomorrow night?”

“Willow,” Buffy groaned. “It’s only dinner.”

“Right, and Spike is only completely in love with you,” she teased. “It’s definitely something bigger than dinner.”

“Please, don’t make me any more nervous!” Buffy exclaimed. “I’m already freaking out. And I love Fred to death, but she’s gonna ask me about it, and it’ll drive me crazy.”

“Don’t you think you’re counting chickens a bit?” Willow asked, kicking a rock. They’d turned around and were headed back towards Buffy’s house.

“Said the girl who’s trying to convince me Spike’s planning on tomorrow being some huge romantic thing,” Buffy said, amused. “No. If Fred knows about the dinner thing—and she will, of course—then she’ll make a big deal out of it. She was happy about us when she found out.”

“When was this, again?”

“The engagement party.” Buffy smiled wistfully. “She was…happy. And I wasn’t so sure about it, then. I remember being so massively confused…”

“At least it’s more straightforward now,” the redhead said encouragingly. “Now you know you love Spike and hate Harmony.”

“I always knew that.” Buffy grimaced, wrinkling her nose. “Stupid hair-dyed skank.”

“Um, Buffy?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you tell me one time that Clairol owned your soul?”

A pause. Then: “Shut up.”

They were giggling as they walked back.

~*~

“Buffy!”

“Uf!” All the air was pushed out of her as her older cousin practically barreled into her.

“Buffy!” came the muffled voice from her shoulder. “I’m so happy to see you! How have you been?”

Buffy grinned at her awkwardly as they stepped apart, Fred grabbing her shoulders and looking her up and down as though she hadn’t seen the her in years. “They know about Spike, Fred.”

The smile that broke out on her face could only be called brilliant. “Oh, that’s all right, then,” she said, sounding much more relaxed. “I don’t have to worry about being the secret-keeping girl?”

“Nope,” Buffy said cheerfully. “Although Dad might explode if you talk about him.”

“I will not!” Hank exclaimed indignantly.

Fred just shook her head, still smiling. Buffy could tell that she was more than a little happy that her parents were in the loop again. She was smart, but Fred just plain couldn’t deal with deceit.

“Yes, you will, honey,” Joyce said fondly, patting his arm. “Anyway, we’d better get going. New York is a long ways away, and I don’t want to have to run to catch my flight.”

“Right.” Hank drew himself up to full height and fixed Buffy with a glare. “No drinking,” he began sternly. “No drugs. No parties, no sex--“

“Dad!” she exclaimed, mortified. “Fred’s staying over! I’m not gonna host an orgy or something while she’s here!”

If anything, that comment made him look even more stern. “You had better not,” he said, his eyebrows drawn down in a grimace of distaste.

Holy shit. She really wasn’t trusted much, was she? Buffy was about to tell her dad just exactly what she thought of his rules when Fred interrupted hastily.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she said, smiling nervously. “But you guys have a plane to catch!” And then, to Buffy’s amusement, the willowy brunette all but threw her dad out of his own house.

When her parents had finally driven off, Fred turned to Buffy with a bright smile. “Finally!” she said. “I remember when my parents were like that, but it still drives me up the wall. They go crazy when you’re a teenager, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed. “Although…” Images of the couch session that had led to her parents finding out about them flashed before her eyes. “They have their reasons,” she concluded mischievously.

Fred’s mouth fell open. “You mean…”

Buffy nodded, barely concealing her happiness. “It’s been working…well between us lately.”

“Buffy, that’s wonderful!” Fred hugged her impulsively. “But you know, if he so much as makes you cry, I’ll have to start plotting revenge.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Willow and Oz and everybody are already doing that,” she said, and explained the “Slut of Sunnydale” debacle that centered around the high school.

By the time she finished, Fred looked absolutely disgusted. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Isn’t it?” Buffy agreed, grimacing. “But for some reason, that’s just how it’s been. People are insane, I swear. It’s like…ooh, Buffy’s love life! Let’s obsess over it and torture both people who are involved!”

“Well, he is twenty-six,” Fred pointed out reasonably.

“I don’t care!” As far as Buffy was concerned, reason could go do some very nasty and explicit things to itself. “I’m half tempted to announce that I’m a lesbian and my life partner is some skanky biker chick twice my age, or something,” she grumbled. “Stupid world.”

Fred laughed, but not unkindly, and patted her cousin’s shoulder sympathetically. “Tell you what. Since it’s my first night here, how about we order pizza and watch some girly movies. Sound good?”

“Definitely,” Buffy said, relieved.

And they did just that.

After the movie was over, Fred stretched and sighed. “I’d better be getting to bed—you should, too, since it’s a school night. Do I get the guest room?”

“Of course. Did you think you’d be sleeping on the couch, or something?”

“I honestly wasn’t sure. Although I did want to come,” Fred added hastily.

“I know. Better you than, say, Uncle Giles.” Buffy grinned.

“You didn’t just say that!” Fred exclaimed, laughing. “Dad? The poor man would have a coronary if you started talking about Spike. Not that he’s a bad guy or anything, but…”

“Uncle Giles doesn’t like the whole May-December thing,” Buffy finished.

Fred grimaced. “Not exactly, no.” Her expression changed into mischief when she asked, “So, why are you so concerned? Got something planned?”

“Actually, it’s more like Spike has something planned.” Buffy explained the redecoration and dinner idea. By the end of the story, Fred was smiling like an idiot.

“That’s so adorable, Buffy! So romantic,” Fred sighed. “I remember the first time Wesley kissed me…”

“Wait. Is this, like, something most guys do?” Okay, so she sounded seriously naïve…but Fred was engaged, for crying out loud. Buffy had a vested interest in finding out more about this whole engagement thing.

“He did—just a few months ago, actually.” Fred ducked her head and mumbled something that Buffy couldn’t make out.

“Speak up, cousin dear. I can’t hear you,” Buffy sang.

“That was the night he proposed to me,” Fred repeated, her face bright red.

Buffy found herself following suit. “Oh. Um…that’s nice,” she said inanely, wanting nothing more than to bury her head beneath the couch pillows and never look up again.

Fred said something else, and then Buffy replied, and after awhile the conversation started up again. Thinking on it later, she was pretty sure they’d conversed normally. She remembered saying goodnight to her cousin, hugging her and thanking her for coming, since it mean that Giles didn’t have to.

But in between then and Fred’s mention of engagement, the only think Buffy really remembered was a thought, stretching across her mind like a huge neon sign: HOLY SHIT.

She’d known—she’d known this was coming. But lying in bed that night, it seemed to finally hit.

She doubted Spike was going to propose marriage on the spot, but somehow, the mention of Fred’s engagement had turned Buffy into a complete nerve wreck. It had brought into sharp focus the now painfully undeniable fact: she and Spike were building a life together, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready or not.

It was ridiculous, really. Spike had asked her about it that afternoon at his apartment when they’d talking about redecorating. But now…now. Now she knew just how low Sunnydale would sink when it came to butting into her personal life. Now she knew what it felt like to be reviled for being a slut, and to suspect that at least a little bit of it was true.

This wasn’t by any means the first time she had gotten grief because of Spike. A 22 year old being semi-friends with a 12 year old just plain couldn’t remain inconspicuous in a place like Sunnydale. Spike had been called a pedophile and plenty of other less lawyerly names. But it had been Spike then. Buffy had made with the righteous indignation, but everyone except her peers left her alone; and her peers had always hated her anyway.

Not now. Now, she was a partner in what Sunnydale viewed as a crime, and everyone—including Buffy herself—knew it.

What is wrong with you people? she wanted to scream. I’m a person! I can think and reason and care and love and we’re happy, so go screw yourselves!

And yet, no amount of defiance in the world could erase the fact that every barb, every whisper, every sideways glance, made her doubt this whole thing that much more.

She loved Spike. God, she loved him like she loved life and Mr. Gordo. But people died and stuffed animals shredded in the wash. There was nothing and no one to say that their love wouldn’t go the same way, and plenty of evidence to say that it would.

So as she lay silently in bed, the question that tortured her—the one that kept her awake far later than it should have, the one that kept her staring at the ceiling when she should have been sleeping—was one that she felt ashamed to even be thinking.

Am I strong enough for this?

~*~

~*~

Bloody fucking hell.

Spike was having what was commonly known as A Bad Day. And while he generally didn’t go in for the Dr. Seuss random capitalization bollocks, a day as bad as this definitely deserved that and more. A banner, maybe. Or a blimp.

‘Course, rambling to himself wouldn’t change the fact that his meticulously prepared spaghetti sauce was currently splattered all over the floor.

He knew she liked spaghetti; she’d told him so often enough. It was easy to make but delicious if you did it right, so he figured it was a sure shot. He hadn’t counted on turning into a klutz while carrying the dish out to the table.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Spike scooped what sauce he could and wiped the rest off the floor with a rag. He supposed he ought to be thankful that it hadn’t spilled on the carpet, but now all he was thinking of was how rotten the canned stuff tasted compared to his own home-made kind.

He was stirring a (clearly dye-enhanced) cherry-red pot of sauce when the doorbell rang.

Buffy walked in, not bothering to wait for him to answer the door, and he found himself wryly thinking that it was just as well that she was familiar with the place—if he stopped stirring this swill, it’d probably catch fire or something equally annoying.

“Hey, handsome,” she chirped, striding into the kitchen. Her hair, dress—hell, her entire attitude was bouncy, and it made him feel inexplicably annoyed.

“You’re early,” he said crossly.

He regretted it the second her face fell. “Fine, then I guess I’d better leave,” she snapped, annoyed.

“Wait.” He let go of the spoon for long enough to grab her wrist. “Sorry.” The apology was met with a suspicious gaze. “I meant to get things set out all fancy, light candles an’ all that, but then it went all to pot.”

Buffy blinked. “You got high?”

“No, pet,” he replied, chuckling. “I dropped the spaghetti sauce it took me an hour to make.”

“Oh.” She paused. “You made spaghetti!”

Her face lit up, and he almost felt bad to say, “Yeah, but…not with the right sauce. Just the cheap store kind.”

“But it’s spaghetti,” Buffy said, grinning widely, “And I didn’t have to chop the garlic, or cook the noodles, or anything!”

“You’re like a kid at Christmas!” Spike let out a grunt as she crashed into him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“This is better than Christmas,” she informed her, her voice muffled. “This is the best day ever.”

He was blushing. Blushing. More proof that the world was, quite literally, falling apart at the seams. “’s nothing, honestly,” he muttered, stepping away from her.

“You baby,” his girl accused good-naturedly. “So you spilled some sauce. Remember that time I dropped your birthday cake in your lap?”

He did, in fact. He’d been forced to go to work with a white stain in an exceedingly embarrassing place. “Right, so ‘m not the only one who’s perpetuated culinary disasters,” he admitted. “But I feel like an absolute idiot.”

Buffy shrugged, an action that would have been offensively flippant were it not for the sympathy still in her eyes. “It’s not a big deal,” she insisted. “Any food that I don’t have to make or serve is good, remember?”

Still stirring, he held out an arm. She nestled into his side happily. “This is nice,” she said almost sleepily, watching the sauce.

“’f you like sauce from the can,” Spike grumbled, unwilling to let such an ego-damaging issue go.

She laughed. “I didn’t mean that,” she said, stroking his chest. “I meant…this. You and me, all cozy in your house…the all-new blue upholstery about to be installed tomorrow…”

“Tell you what, pet,” he said, turning off the heat on the stove and embracing her fully, “You stop prattlin’ on about my soon-to-be-girly décor, an’ I’ll stop ‘bout the sauce.”

“Deal,” she whispered, and their lips met.

To his credit, he honestly hadn’t planned to start this night with a kiss…or several kisses. He’d meant to treat his girl to a meal that she hadn’t had to cook, nothing more. He hadn’t meant to back her up against the couch, to lower her and cover her body with his—to slide his hands up the dress, find the fastenings, and undo them.

He was a tad bit too busy to ask her if she meant to push off his coat and unbutton his shirt.

This was where they stopped usually—him half-naked, her down to her bra, both of them panting, gasping, and desperately wishing for more. This was where they always stopped.

But not tonight.

Tonight, somehow, her bra came off almost as easily as her dress had. Tonight, when he kissed his way down her collar bone, she didn’t stop him, didn’t push him away. Tonight, her fingers released him from his pants easily, as though they’d mapped out the way thousands of times before.

In a way, he felt that they had.

Tonight was the culmination of a thousand nights—nights of longing and pain, all coming together in sharp, glass-like shards of pure bliss.

But like glass, they pierced. And as they touched and kissed and moaned—as they finally after so long, reached the completion he knew they’d both craved—tears ran down both their cheeks.

~*~

It hurt.

She supposed she ought to have known it would. Didn’t everyone say that the first time hurt? But as she lay awake, with him half on top of her on the large black couch, she felt a dull ache deep between her legs.

Of course, it had felt damn good while she’d still been doing it. For a moment Buffy allowed herself to luxuriate in the memories—memories of Spike sliding in and out of her, of his mouth finding her nipple and making her see stars, of his hands, holding her as she shuddered and cried out.

And now there was pain. Pain and apprehension, because what they’d done less than a half an hour ago was something from which they could never come back.

Stroking his hair, holding him to her as though he were her only anchor between this world and another, she felt herself falling. Not for him; no, she’d done that some time ago. Instead, she felt herself falling into a darkness she hadn’t foreseen. Adulthood—or merely foolishness?

She knew only one thing as she stared into the dark of the living room. Whatever was at the bottom…whatever was there, she and Spike would pay the price.

And it would be dear.

~*~

A/N: Yep, I chickened out. When the time came, a graphic sex scene just didn’t seem right. But I’m still all nice and nervous about this chapter, so feedback would be very much appreciated.

~*~

~*~

Spike woke up at two AM. He wouldn’t have noted the time except that when he sat up with a gasp, the first thing he saw was the clock on his VCR.

He lay back on the floor with a groan. Memory was returning to him, fuzzy and indistinct, but very definite in its vague details. Around midnight, he’d dragged himself off the couch, covered Buffy with a blanket, and collapsed on the carpet. He’d had a muzzy, half-formed plan of carrying them to the bedroom, but he’d never been awake enough to try it.

Now, unfortunately, he was just about as awake as it was possible for a person to be.

He stared up at the ceiling. He hadn’t slept that well in a month at least—ever since this damn thing between them started. It was a bitter bit of irony that he could sleep well after committing the worst mistake of his life.

Because there was absolutely no doubt in Spike’s mind that what he’d done with Buffy was a mistake. Hell, it hadn’t felt like one; it’d felt like the best damn thing he’d ever experienced. But things were changed and if it got out…he’d get tossed in jail. His life wouldn’t be worth living.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Why could things never go as planned? Why did he always have to fuck things up—even the innocent things, like Buffy coming over for dinner?

He’d just wanted to show his girl a good time. That was all. How had he allowed things to get so fucked up?

He’d thought he loved her. He knew he loved her. But if he loved her the way he thought he did, why hadn’t he been able to stay?

It was a useless ring of logic and Spike knew it, but somehow that wasn’t enough to make him stop. Guilt wrapped round him like a blanket until nothing but mindless blame was left. Why didn’t I stop us? Why couldn’t I pull away? Questions he didn’t have answers for but couldn’t stop himself from asking.

The worst part was, he just plain couldn’t make himself regret what’d happened. Yeah, it’d been stupid. Yeah, he was probably the most fucked up individual in Sunnydale—with the exception of the poofter and that Harmony bint. But at the same time, lying on the floor with her just inches away on the couch, Spike felt happier—more complete—than he ever had before.

‘course, that was only when he could ignore the churning panic that had a tendency to rise in his stomach every two seconds.

He’d only been awake for a few minutes, was still frantically trying to control his pulse and steady his breathing, when her voice came throatily out of the darkness. “Spike. Where’d you go?”

He gained control of his body through sheer force of will. “The floor, pet. Wasn’t room for both of us on the couch.”

“But…why didn’t we go to your room?” Confusion clouded her voice, confusion and something that sounded terribly like insecurity. Spike winced. He’d forgotten how delicate girls’ emotions were when they were that young and something as world-shaking as first time sex occurred.

Fuck. “I was tired,” he said, forcing himself to inject emotion into his voice so that she wouldn’t think he didn’t care. “I just wanted you to be comfortable.”

“So…” Her voice was all but a whisper. “So you don’t regret this?”

Bingo. He sat up and looked her in the eye. “No, luv, I don’t,” he said softly, letting her read his emotions, not bothering to conceal any of them as they flickered across his face. “What ‘m worried about is that you do.”

“No. God, no.” He watched her as she realized what she’d said—as the recognition that she did not, in fact, regret what had come to pass fully assimilated itself into her mind. “I…it was good.”

He allowed himself a slight smirk at that. “Damn right it was.”

“Stupid, though.” His face must’ve betrayed something, because she added quickly, “Spike—I’m not going to get all immature on you, okay? I’m sixteen, but I’m not stupid. It happened fast…but I knew what we were getting into.”

“But I should’ve—“

“What? Told me I didn’t know what I was doing? Told me you didn’t want to? Please.” She snorted, that old sound that told him plainly she wasn’t putting up with any of his bull. “What happened, happened. I’m kinda glad that it did.”

That was a surprise. “You are?”

She nodded. “To say it in Faith-speak, there were mad sex vibes in the air,” she said, one corner of her mouth raised in a lopsided grin.

He laughed outright at that. “I s’pose that’s one way to put it.”

“Definitely.” Buffy stood up and Spike caught his breath in surprise—she’d never completely removed her dress, and standing there, she looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. She looked like a nymph, like walking sin—she looked like every overly sappy and stupidly poetic thing that came into his head, and damned if he didn’t love it. Damned even if he did, maybe.

“What?” She shifted uncomfortably. “Am I—is something wrong?”

“You’re gorgeous,” he said simply, standing up and placing his hands on her waist.

She swayed into the caress. “So we’re okay, then?”

It wasn’t just a question about the sex, and Spike knew it.

“Yeah,” he replied, praying that it was true. “We’re okay.”

~*~

The carpet installation people were supposed to come around nine AM the next morning, so they decided to try and get some sleep in Spike’s room. The only problem was, sharing a bed was enough of a novelty for them that neither of them actually slept.

It had been a long time since Spike had lain on a bed and kissed. “Make out sessions” were a teenager thing and at twenty-six, he’d thought he was well past them. Why bother wasting time kissing when there was so much else that could be done?

But the reason was in his arms, undulating and moaning just enough to drive him absolutely crazy.

“Fuck, luv,” he whispered, tearing away from her as she ran a hand down his chest. “Think you’re killing me.”

She smiled slightly. “Kiss of death?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Their lips locked again and Spike hooked his ankle around her leg, bringing her to sprawl on top of him. “Could do this all day…” he murmured.

“It’s not daytime.”

“Day, night—whatever. Shit.” He let his hands drop to the mattress. “We really oughta get some sleep.” Left unspoken was the fact that both of them had silently acknowledged the second they collapsed on the bed: if they kept going, a repeat of that evening would be inevitable. Since they hadn’t been ready for it a first time, they both knew that they needed to hold off. Hell, we should’ve held off in the first place.

“We should.” She rolled off of him and settled herself on the opposite side of the bed, shifted to the side so that her eyes were still locked with his.

Her hand was cradled in front of her chest, and Spike couldn’t help himself. He reached out and gripped it tightly, twining their fingers together.

Later, neither of them could say who dropped into sleep first. But when their eyes finally closed, they slept long and peacefully.

~*~

~*~

Early the previous day, Spike had set his alarm for seven, knowing that he’d need help waking up. Of course, he hadn’t expected to need this kind of help…but still, waking up beside Buffy—even with his alarm clock making his ears ring, even with all the doubts that were still ricocheting inside of him—was heaven.

Buffy, apparently, thought otherwise. “Turn the damn thing off,” she groused, burying her head under her pillow.

“Aw, poor baby,” he teased. “Rough night?”

She lifted the pillow just enough to glare at him. “My best friend devirginized me and now I hurt.”

Despite the fact that he knew she was joking, a pang of guilt ran through him. “Was it so bad?”

Her tiny fist, flying out of the covers to hit him square in the arm, was her answer. “Don’t be a dick. Of course it wasn’t bad.” Again she looked up, this time to stare at him with soulful—and tired—eyes. “But it’s seven in the morning!”

He shrugged carelessly, disguising the guilt that simply wouldn’t leave. “Your point?”

“It’s abominably early. Come back to bed.” She rolled over onto her back, the sheets slipping off and exposing her breasts to the air—and to Spike’s eyes.

“Planning on givin’ me a reason to?” he grinned at her.

She yanked the covers back up and threw the pillow she’d been hiding under at his head. “Pig.”

“Better believe it,” he replied. “And tempting though your invitation is, we really do need to get up. Remember the mess we left downstairs.”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Buffy rolled out of the bed and, once again, Spike felt his eyes drawn to her figure. “There’s the food, and of course there’ll be wax from the candles to clean up…and Xander having hot gay sex with Doyle…”

“Right.” Spike’s eyes stayed riveted on her chest. “Sounds good to me.”

“’k, I’ll just go join the orgy now,” Buffy said cheerfully.

That got his attention. “What?”

“You weren’t listening. You were staring.” She sent him a stern look that somehow didn’t look at all out of place on her young face.

“You’re naked,” he said patiently.

“So?”

“You’re in my bedroom…and you’re naked.” When her look didn’t change, he sighed in mock annoyance. “Cut a guy some slack, luv. You’re beautiful.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she joked as she grabbed one of his shirts and draped it over herself.

She tried not to think of what Fred’s reaction would be when she came home wearing her rumpled dress.

“’m guessin’ you’re staying then?”

Buffy paused to consider it. Staying over had, in a way, been a massively stupid thing to do. She wasn’t going to kid herself for an instant and think that Fred didn’t know where she was. But since her cousin did know, Buffy didn’t see why she shouldn’t stay. “Looks like,” she said, gracing him with a smile.

“Good.” His hands came round her waist and she leaned into them, sighing happily. Her parents’ reaction, Fred’s inevitable admonishments, a pariah’s greeting on Monday—all of it faded into the background when he neared. “Now, how ‘bout breakfast?”

~*~

Abell stood before the apartment, scratching his head. He could’ve sworn the guy who lived there was single—half the city knew Spike Kingston, which meant that half the city knew he was very much single. But there was some little girl standing next to him in his living room, studying the carpet intently.

Finally she turned to him. “I want the other one,” she announced. “This one’s too squishy.”

Squishy? Did the girl think she was some kind of new age decorator or something? “Sorry, darling, but that’s all we have.”

Her eyes narrowed—and Abell suddenly found himself swallowing hard. She might’ve been young enough to be his daughter, but she wasn’t dumb. “I told the Carpet Emporium that I wanted two options—sky blue and royal blue. The weave in the sky blue carpet is too loose. It’ll get dirt stuck in it way too easily.”

The carpet installer scratched his head. She was a smart little bitch, wasn’t she? “Don’t see how that’s really a problem, you’re not putting it wall-to-wall or anything…”

“I don’t care. You think I’m going to vacuum that much dirt?” She sniffed derisively. “Of course not. Besides, royal blue looks better with my complexion.”

“But—“

“Go. Get. The. Carpet.” Buffy scowled. “Or do I have to call them and tell them your ass is too lazy to haul a roll of carpet up two flights of stairs?”

Abell scowled at her. “Jesus, girl, what is your problem? It’s bad enough that you’re shacked up with some cradle-robbing dickwad, but you’ve gotta harass innocent delivery men, too? They didn’t give me any royal blue carpeting!”

“Dickwad? How about I shove this carpet up your—“

“Buffy.”

Abell’s eyes darted to Kingston. He was focused solely on the girl, Buffy—and who the hell named their kid Buffy, anyway?—but he looked annoyed, and Abell didn’t think it was because his girlfriend had a mouth on her.

“Tone it down a bit, yeah?” Kingston suggested to her, rubbing a hand up and down her arm. Like she was some kinda dog, Abell thought spitefully.

Apparently it worked, though, because when the she turned back to him she looked calmer. “I’m sorry about that,” she apologized, sounding almost—courteous? Damn. They weren’t lying when they said Kingston was a miracle worker.

“Yeah. It’s okay.” He paused before adding, “I really don’t have any royal blue carpet, though.”

“So I’d gathered.” Now she just sounded amused instead of ready to rip his head off. Jesus, was the girl bipolar or something? “You can go ahead and take the carpet back out to your truck. I’ll call Carpet Emporium and make them bring out the right color carpet.” She flounced off into the kitchen, where Abell guessed the phone was.

Kingston sent him an apologetic look. “She’s a bit touchy on account of those fliers.”

“Fliers?”

“You didn’t see ‘em?” When Abell shook his head in negation, Kingston sighed. “It was a juvenile prank carried out by schoolchildren, but somehow half the town are takin’ them seriously. Some ex ‘f hers felt the need to advertise our…intimacy…to the world.”

Well, shit. No wonder the girl was a complete bitch. “He didn’t reach everyone,” Abell reminded him. “Chances are it’ll blow over soon.”

“In the meantime, though, she’s got to put up with the mocking.”

“Talking about me?”

Abell winced; the girl was back. “Uh, no. Kingston was just telling me about that ex of yours. And the fliers.”

The girl—Buffy—winced. “Which I’d prefer never to hear about again,” she said angrily. “It was such a stupid prank.”

“Well, no one’s been talking about it,” Abell said helpfully. “People are probably already forgetting.”

She flashed him a brief smile. “Thanks…and I really am sorry I was such a bitch.”

“Not a problem.” And it really wasn’t, Abell decided. She was a nice kid when she wasn’t biting your head off. He hoisted the carpet up on one shoulder. “I’d best get back to the warehouse,” he said. “Sorry about the mixup.”

Buffy hurried to open the door for him. “It’s really not a problem,” she assured him. “Have a good day.”

“You too.” He paused on the threshold. “And I know not everyone in Sunnydale believes me—but good luck, you two.”

He was pretty sure that they were going to need it.

~*~

~*~

Buffy slipped into her house at five PM that day. The decorating men had come and gone, leaving only the walls to be painted—and leaving Buffy with no reason to stay at Spike’s house any longer. She knew that they both would have preferred to stick around in the bedroom for another hour or four, but she also knew that while Fred was lenient, she wasn’t going to allow Buffy to stay at Spike’s house for two nights in a row.

Fred was in the kitchen, searching through their phonebook. She smiled welcomingly at Buffy. “I need the number for a pizza place,” she said by way of explanation.

“There should be one on the fridge,” Buffy suggested.

“Thanks.” Fred began rifling through the papers on the refrigerator. “So, did you guys use protection?”

Buffy almost dropped the bookend she’d been playing with. “What?”

“Protection,” Fred repeated patiently. “I know your mother told me that you’re using oral birth control, but with someone like Spike you really can’t be too careful. The likelihood of getting pregnant is of course slim, but the Pill won’t protect against diseases.”

Buffy squeaked. A real, actual squeak. Humiliating, yes, but considering Fred’s question, she thought it was impressive that she was even semi-verbal.

“I—we didn’t—“

“It’s okay, Buffy,” Fred said calmly—even sweetly! “I saw how you guys were looking at each other.”

“So you just assumed that we—“

“Buffy.” The older woman’s mouth was quivering as she restrained laughter. “I didn’t assume anything. You were gone all night, remember?”

It was then that Buffy realized exactly what Fred had done for her. Instead of calling the cops and getting them to haul her home—or just calling Spike’s apartment—she’d let them be.

“Sorry.” It was reluctant and, even to Buffy’s ears, a bit sulky—but it was an apology. “I’m sort of…people have been difficult.”

“You’d better not let last night get out, then,” Fred warned. “Didn’t your classmates spread some nasty rumors?”

“They did worse than that.” Buffy told Fred about the fliers and the taunts, concluding with a grim, “It’s a good thing we’re both so stubborn, or we’d’ve quit already.”

Fred shook her head. “I can’t believe people would do that,” she said. “What did your parents say?”

Buffy’s lips quirked in a smile. “They told Spike that he had their support. Needless to say, the good people of Sunnyhell are a little disappointed.”

“Well, just think. Two more years and you get out of here.”

“Thank God.”

“Ever thought about what’ll happen after that?” Fred asked casually.

Buffy shrugged. “I’ll go to college, I guess. My grades are good enough so that I’ll be able to get into a decent school.” She narrowed her eyes at Fred; her cousin had the look on her face that said she was planning something. “Okay, spill.”

“What?” Fred asked innocently.

“I can see the wheels doing the spinny thing in your head,” Buffy said matter-of-factly.

“You can not,” the brunette argued.

“Can so! There’s a purple hamster running on the wheel, turning all the gears in your head,” Buffy teased.

Fred rolled her eyes. “You’re just the tiniest bit crazy.”

“We’ve covered that,” she said cheerfully. “Anyway, what were you thinking of?”

“Well, a friend of mine spent a year abroad,” Fred began hesitantly.

“How does that involve me?”

“Don’t get touchy,” Fred admonished.

“I’m not, really. Just spill. Why are you talking about—oh,” Buffy said slowly, suddenly understanding.

“Sixteen is the legal age of consent in England, and Spike’s a native. It would probably be easier for you guys over there.”

“I’m starting to think it won’t be easy no matter what,” Buffy grumbled.

“Probably not,” Fred agreed. Buffy scowled—she sounded way too cheerful. “But really, you should consider England.”

“I don’t know…a foreign country?”

“Not foreign,” Fred protested. “Just different. And a lot more liberal as far as the age thing goes.”

“Maybe,” Buffy allowed. Right now, she didn’t want to think that far ahead. High school and Spike was enough for her to handle right now.

“I’m gonna take a shower, if that’s okay,” she said, rotating her shoulder and grimacing. “I probably smell really bad.”

Fred laughed. “It’s fine—go ahead, take your time.”

Buffy all but ran up the stairs.

~*~

It felt weird, standing in the shower naked. She’d done it a million times before, of course, and it actually felt weirder simply because it felt weird in the first place.

The last time she’d been naked, he was there.

She rubbed soap over her body awkwardly. Why was it that her hands felt like they didn’t belong to her? Something here was fundamentally wrong, that much she was sure of.

Buffy finished her shower as quickly as possible and tossed on some clothes. It was a Sunday, so of course Spike was off work, but Buffy still had her job at the diner. Dad might be here, but if he got word that she was slacking off, she’d be dead meat.

The day went by much too slowly. Buffy felt like she was moving in a fog, one that was unsettlingly miserable and happy at the same time. Was this some kind of whacky penance for losing her virginity?

Finally at six o’clock customer flow slowed enough that she was free. Buffy threw down her apron triumphantly and all but bounded out the door. Spike would probably be out—he hated being cooped up on the weekends—but she knew he’d leave her key in its usual place.

Sure enough, the key was in its little pouch on the far side of the banister—but as it turned out, she didn’t need it. Buffy turned the open doorknob and went inside, grinning at the knowledge that he was already there.

“I honestly think Dad’s trying to kill me,” she announced, stepping into the newly carpeted living room.

Anya glanced up from Spike’s couch. “That’s nice,” she said absently before continuing her perusal of Playboy.

Buffy blinked at the older woman’s choice of magazine before asking, “Where’s Spike, anyway?”

“He’s in there, primping,” Anya said. She waved her hand towards the closed door, smirking.

“I am not primping, you bloody insane bird!”

“Go open the door,” Anya told Buffy cheerfully. “He’s primping.”

Buffy grinned and poked her head into the bathroom. Spike was combing gel into his hair with a fine-toothed comb.

“Come on, pretty boy,” she said. “I’m off work and I wanna go somewhere.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Anya called from her spot in the living room. “I am not going to housesit for another two hours. There is no way.”

“Housesit?” Buffy frowned in confusion—then raised her eyebrows when Spike all but jumped a mile in the air. “Spike, what—“

She was interrupted by an ear-splitting shriek. Anya barreled into the bathroom, followed by a tiny, yapping puppy that seemed intent on biting her ankle.

“Get that heinous little monster away from me!” she shrieked, standing on the toilet. Spike burst out laughing.

“Um. Is there an explanation for this?” Buffy asked.

“Well, it was s’posed to be a present—but yeah. She’s yours,” Spike explained, nodding to the puppy.

“I had to watch the little beast for four straight hours,” Anya snapped, “while he went and shopping for dog-type stuff. Do you have any idea how much money I could have made in that amount of time?”

“I paid you to stay here,” Spike pointed out, bending over and picking up the yapping puppy.

“Not nearly enough,” Anya informed him, trying to step off the toilet with dignity and failing utterly.

Buffy, for her part, was entranced with the squirming bundle Spike had squashed to his chest. “Hi there,” she said softly, offering the dog her hand. “Have you had a rough day with the crazy lady?”

“Hey! I am not crazy!”

“Rrraaf!” the dog barked happily.

“He agrees,” Buffy informed a fuming Anya.

“Easy there, pet.” Spike was obviously struggling to hold in laughter. “Gonna get me fired.”

“Yeah, whatever.” She held out her arms. “Let me hold her, please?”

Spike’s smirk softened into a smile as he deposited the puppy in her arms. “Right beauty, isn’t she?”

“She really is.” The dog looked to be a mutt, with a black-speckled brown coat and huge, floppy ears. Her face was sort of smushed, like she was part pug, and her frantically waving tail was stubby.

She was, without a doubt, one of the cutest things Buffy had ever seen. “So I guess we’re staying in tonight?” she asked as Anya huffed out of the bathroom and started gathering her things.

The guilt on Spike’s face had her hastily adding, “I mean—it’s fine, I want to. We need to keep an eye on her.” The last bit was punctuated with coos and a kiss to the puppy’s head.

“Sounds good. I rented movies while I was out.”

The grimace on his face told her all she needed to know. “So, what did the clerk say?”

“I think his exact statement was, ‘you are so whipped, dude’.”

Buffy giggled at his horrible imitation of the surfer accent. “Are you saying you’re not? You got me a puppy!”

“That doesn’t make me whipped!” he pushed her out of the bathroom and lead them to the living room. “The dog’s cute!”

“And has the potential to ruin your carpet.” Buffy treated him to his own smirk. “Whipped!”

The puppy barked in delight when the ball of crumpled-up newspaper hit Buffy square in the nose.

~*~

They named the dog Whip, and at first things were good. They had a relationship built on trust, Buffy loved the dog, Spike loved her, her parents loved them both—it was a fucking fairy tale relationship if you left out the sneering denizens of Sunnydale.

So he really shouldn’t have been surprised when the shit hit the fan. Life sucks, get a helmet, he remembered Buffy saying.

He just wished that it could have hit some way other than him walking in on her sucking face with Angel.

~*~

A/N: Whee, I’m evil.

~*~

Ten minutes earlier

“What the hell could you possibly have to tell me that I’d want to listen to?” Buffy snapped, wondering just how much force she’d have to put behind the pen before it went straight through Angel’s forehead. Probably a lot. She kept it where it was.

“It’s Harmony.” Angel drew in a shuddering breath; Buffy noted with delight that he looked almost as hurt as he did when she broke up with him. “She…she dumped me, okay?”

“And I should care…why?” Yep, bitchy Buffy was driving today.

The park bench shook when Angel slammed his fist against the side. Buffy didn’t even blink. “Because I cared about her!” Angel exclaimed. “And now she’s gone, and I just—Jesus. I’ve been such a jerk.”

“Yep, you have,” Buffy agreed politely.

He glared at her. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not trying to,” she shot back. “You’re the one who decided to accost me on the bench. And believe me, I have lots of things I’d rather do than listen to you blabber on about your stupid ex-girlfriend.”

Which was actually ironic because she was his ex, too. Thank God Angel didn’t really understand irony.

“I know.” He covered his face with his hand. “I can’t believe I gave you and Spike such a hard time.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say? Some people are just jerks,” she said snidely.

“No. I just—Buffy,” he said suddenly, taking his hand away from his face. There were tears shining in his eyes. Oh, terrific.

“I want you to know,” he said, holding her gaze, “That I really am sorry.”

She nodded. “It doesn’t matter, you know. We’re together. That’s it.”

He leaned a bit closer. “I know. But Buff, you gotta believe me—I was a little ticked, but I never meant to hurt you guys. It was mostly Harmony’s fault.”

It was meant to placate her, but instead she found herself wanting to slap him again. “I’ll believe that as soon as I believe the moon is made of cheese,” she snapped, reaching out and shoving him angrily.

She really wasn’t expecting for him to grab her and kiss her.

In fact, she wasn’t expecting it so much that when it actually happened, she froze in complete and utter shock. Angel’s lips. On hers. Angel’s hands holding her tight. Angel.

Oh, ew.

She pushed him away just in time to see Spike standing there. Oh, thank God, she thought, interpreting the shocked look on his face to mean that Angel was about to get his ass handed to him again. But instead of punching Angel, Spike’s eyes met hers.

“So this is how it is, huh?”

“Wait, what?” If she hadn’t believed her eyes a minute ago, now she didn’t believe her ears. Spike’s voice was hollow, his eyes empty…hurt.

Oh God, he didn’t think she’d actually wanted to kiss Angel, did he? The thought alone made her choke down a nervous giggle. “Spike…”

“Oh, so you think this is funny.” And now he really was angry, but it was inexplicably directed at her.

“No!” she protested quickly. “Spike, I swear, he caught me completely off guard. I tried to make him cut it out, but—“

“Buffy.” And now his voice is trembling, angry and kind of scary. “You were kissing the bloke.”

“No, he was kissing me,” Buffy argued. “Spike, you have to believe me, I didn’t—“

“What?” he demanded. “You didn’t what? Didn’t want to kiss him?”

“No, I didn’t!”

He looked at her coldly, face a mask of fury, and she had to fight not to burst into tears. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. It was completely and totally insane.

But as she stared up into his face, she realized that crazy or not, it was in fact happening.

And she was furious.

“Relationships are built on trust, remember? Mature,” and she spat the word out, “people trust each other. So what does that make us?”

“Mature people also don’t dally with their exes,” Spike said coldly.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“And you’re avoiding mine!” It was bullshit, surreal bullshit, that he could be standing here and accusing her of—what? Cheating?

She couldn’t be sad any more. If this was real—and honestly, Buffy had her doubts—but if it was, then she and Spike were breaking up, and the longer this crap continued the less patience she had for anything.

“Fine then,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Looks like we’re through.”

His expression didn’t change any more than hers did. “Looks like.”

“Get out.” For the first time since Angel had fled the room she stood up, looking Spike dead in the eye. “Get out of my house,” she repeated, forcing her chin to stay high, her voice to stay clear, “And don’t come back.”

She didn’t know what she was expecting, what she was hoping for. But when Spike nodded, turned around, and walked away, she couldn’t help feeling like someone had just ripped her apart.

~*~

It didn’t hit right away.

He was out of the Summers’ house, across the street, and halfway back to his apartment before the facts really hit home: he’d just ended his relationship with Buffy. Broken up, he guessed she’d say. It was real, permanent.

He’d never hold her, never kiss her again. He’d never be able to give her the ring that was still a half-formed idea in the back of his mind.

And it was his fault.

He felt like he was frozen. His face was perfectly calm as he took the elevator to his floor; his hands didn’t shake when he put the key in the lock.

But the whole time, it felt like being hollowed out. Shot full of anesthetic and told that when he could feel things again, his vital organs would be gone.

It didn’t hurt, but he knew it would. Somehow he felt that the longer this damnable numbness stayed, the worse it would be when he finally started feeling.

He sat down on his couch and stared at the carpet Buffy’d picked out until the sun set and the room went dark.

~*~

~*~

“I just—I don’t understand how this could’ve happened,” Buffy said miserably, staring at her hands.

Willow scrunched up her face awkwardly. “Um, well, didn’t it happen because Angel kissed you?”

“But I trusted him!” she yelled. “We trusted each other, through the fliers and—and the teasing, and my parents, and—“

“Maybe it wasn’t enough,” Willow interrupted quietly.

She could kill Willow. Yep. Pencil straight through the head. “Of course it was. I love—loved him.” Yeah, Buffy, just keep correcting yourself. Maybe someday it’ll be true.

“I think what Willow’s trying to say is that he was too old, and it came back to bite you in the ass,” Faith offered from where she was standing by the cafeteria table, stirring the paint.

Too bad she was pretty sure Faith could kick her ass. “No,” Buffy said stubbornly, shaking her head in denial. “It was just—a thing. Stress making us stupid. He’ll call and it’ll be fine.”

This whole self-delusion thing got a lot easier with practice. She almost didn’t see the oh-so-significant look that passed between Willow and Faith.

“I’m not crazy,” she insisted, slapping the top on the can of bright red paint. “I’m not!”

“Of course not. You’re just…hurt.”

Willow’s tone, soothing but uncertain, just made it worse. Buffy finally gave into temptation and covered her eyes with her hands, slumping down onto the cool, flat surface of the table.

“I’m screwed, aren’t I?” she asked, voice muffled.

Faith nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

So the question now was, what do you do when your whole world is pretty much stolen from you?

Buffy watched gloomily as Willow dumped the lumpy, smelly brown mix of paint, dirt, and cafeteria food into Harmony’s locker. Normally she’d be clapping her hands, jumping up and down, or maybe just laughing at Willow for doing something clearly evil, but right then she couldn’t even muster up a smile.

The worst part was that she couldn’t talk to Willow and Faith about it, not really. They knew about Spike, of course, and they had some idea about how she felt about him, but her dating—boinking—whatever-ing him had never really been ok with them.

It kind of sucked to prove your friends right after weeks of insisting they were wrong.

“Buffy?”

Buffy whirled around, half expecting to see some random person who’d be sure to turn them in to Snyder. She was almost disappointed to see Oz staring at the paint, his non-expression somewhere in between surprise and amusement.

“Is that Harmony’s locker?”

“Sure is.” Faith grinned at him. “What, did you leave your thong in there?”

Oz just blinked at her.

Awkwardness filled the room and wow, if this was what it was going to be like when she was in a bad mood then she’d better make sure to never date again. “I have to go do—stuff,” she said hastily, backing out of the room. “Bye!”

Faith shook her head as she slammed the now extremely messy locker shut. “Damn, that’s pathetic.”

Oz and Willow nodded wordlessly.

~*~

“Come on, man, you can’t keep this up forever.”

“Yeah I can.”

“Spike. You’re lying facedown on your bed. Sooner or later you’re going to have to eat and pee.”

“Not if I starve.”

Xander glared at the prone figure. “You’re not going to starve yourself over some girl! Please get up?”

Spike figured he should probably be gleeful or at least satisfied that he’d reduced his friend to begging, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore, because Buffy was gone and—

“Oh my God, you’re pathetic!”

—and his covers had suddenly been yanked off, exposing his naked ass to the air.

“’ey, gimme!” He made a grab for the covers, but his assailant had already pulled them off the bed.

“What, are you thirteen now?” Anya demanded. “Buffy went to school today, but you get to lie in bed all day? You’re wasting valuable money-making time!”

Normally it would be enough to make him laugh and throw a pillow at her head, but then normally he doesn’t stay in bed all day. He’s being a berk and he knows it, but Jesus—every time he fucking breathes he feels her there, and the love mixes in with the fury till he can hardly tell one from the other. “Anya, I don’t—“

“You broke up with her,” Anya said firmly. “You two are over. Done. Kaput! Goodbye and thanks for playing!”

Xander, that rotten jackass, was just standing next to his girlfriend and nodding like he had every single fucking answer in the universe. It pissed Spike off enough for him to hop out of bed and barrel past them, knocking Xander into the wall.

“Well, it worked,” Anya said, for once exercising tact and keeping quiet.

“For now, anyway.” Xander hugged his girlfriend as they followed Spike out to the kitchen.

~*~

She was dealing with it.

After running out of the locker room the other day, she was totally fine. Dad had let her have a few days off work, and the break combined with Harmony’s screeching after finding her locker had been enough to keep her from going crazy. She’d even managed to talk on the phone with Fred last night.

Now she was back at work at the diner and everyone there was very carefully not mentioning Spike Kingston to her. And okay, she dropped a glass when a blonde guy walked in—and yeah, she was kind of avoiding looking out the window, or even looking up, more than was necessary. But on the whole she thought she was doing alright.

So when Spike walked into the diner, she just barely managed to not lose it.

“What,” she hissed, slamming the glass lid back on the cake tin, “are you doing here?!”

“I—I need to buy lunch.”

The stammer was encouraging. The stammer meant that he was just as messed up as she was.

Good.

“Go elsewhere,” she said shortly.

“Buffy. I’ve been buyin’ lunch here for four years. You can’t expect me to change that just because—“

“William, I believe my daughter just told you to take your business elsewhere.”

Buffy blinked. She hadn’t known her Dad had superpowers but there he was, menacing Spike like he’d been born to do it. And the sad part was, Spike was letting him.

“Hank—“

“Leave before I have Gunn toss you out.”

There was quiet menace there, and for the first time Buffy thought about her dad throwing a punch. It was kind of weird to think that he might win.

“Hank, please.” Quiet now, eyes watching the man that might have been his father-in-law. Once upon a time, Buffy thought bitterly, in a world where things actually ended link they were supposed to.

“This is your last warning.”

Spike left without a backwards glance.

~*~

~*~

This whole thing was really getting old.

She was tired of avoiding not just Spike, but half the town—because while everyone sympathized with her, they had a seriously annoying tendency to sympathize while reminding her that they’d been right and now her heart was broken.

Really, really stupid. And Buffy couldn’t even hit them, because half of them were looking for an excuse to turn her in to some crazyass psychiatrist.

It was Faith who finally got her to snap out of it. Willow, Oz, and Tara had been careful around her all week, treating her like she was a walking, not-talking-much bundle of nitroglycerin. Faith had been avoiding her altogether, which Buffy honestly thought was for the best.

But then in between fourth and fifth period Faith walked up to her, tapped her on the shoulder, and promptly broke her nose.

“Ow!” Buffy cried, hands flying up to protect her face.

Instead of stepping back and apologizing for—what, temporary insanity?—Faith drew back her fist again. “Better block this one,” she warned, and let fly.

Buffy ducked instinctively, coming up to slam her hand into Faith’s shoulder. “What the hell is your problem?” she cried, scrambling backwards.

Faith just grinned and dove at her again.

Shit. Okay, clearly her friend had gone crazy. Fine. Buffy pulled her fist back before planting it squarely on Faith’s nose.

A crunch, a gush of blood, and the next thing Buffy knew they were sitting side-by-side in Snyder’s office and he was suspending them both.

Buffy just ducked her head and agreed that yes, she was a horrible terrible no-good juvenile delinquent who would benefit from being forced to dig ditches for the next ten years. She endured everyone staring at her as she exited the building, Faith walking right next to her. She even put up with Faith following her off campus.

But the second they stepped out of the fence that marked the Sunnydale High School entrance, she shoved Faith so hard that the brunette went flying onto the pavement.

“Are you insane?” Buffy yelled, clenching her fists.

Faith raised a skinned hand and brushed her hair from her face. “’bout time you started fighting back,” she said with what could only be called an ironic smile.

Buffy stared at her friend for half a second before bursting into tears.

Faith was there immediately, holding her up and brushing her tears off. Buffy finally let herself lean into someone, allowed arms to hold her up as she sobbed.

She’d cried before but this was different—it wasn’t denial or anger, just acceptance. Spike was gone, and she knew it.

They’d both been too immature, too stubborn, to make it work out. And she could blame everybody else if she wanted to, but the simple fact of the matter was that sooner or later, they probably would’ve broken up anyway. The pressure everyone put on them only made things go a little faster.

She wondered, now, if she was crying for what she’d lost or what she could have had if he’d been a little more patient, if she’d been a little more mature. She cried for the fact that they’d done—what they’d done—and she cried because she’d loved it so much. She cried because she knew him now, and she knew that it would never work.

When she finally finished, Faith offered her a Kleenex. Buffy accepted gratefully, wiping her eyes and fighting not to blush at the fact that they were kneeling on the sidewalk. She was dirty and gritty and tired.

God. So tired.

“I’m going to go home, clean up,” she said, and wobbled to her feet.

Faith was there instantly, holding her up. “Whoa, now. You think I’m going to let you go off alone like this?”

“Um,” was all Buffy could say.

Faith rolled her eyes. “We’re gonna go to my place. You’ll clean up and I’ll grab some ice cream, and then we’ll watch dumbass movies and talk about how the guys who took our virginity are such fucktards.”

It sounded like more of a Willow thing to do—minus the whole virginity thing, anyway. Buffy smiled. “Not that I’m not glad, but how about we go to the beach instead?”

“Pick up guys?”

Privately Buffy didn’t think she was up to that, but she just grinned. “Sure, why not.”

“Now we’re talkin’,” Faith laughed, and they started for home.

~*~

The beach was surprisingly nice. Sunny, and Buffy couldn’t believe how ironic it was that she’d barely registered the existence of the sun for the past few days. And hey, Sunnydale had way more cute guys than she’d thought.

She leaned back and smiled at the boy currently trying to impress her with his volleyball skills—Owen, maybe? Yeah. Owen. He was cute—not Spike-cute, but perfectly passable for some fun.

And Buffy definitely planned on having fun.

She stumbled home that night at midnight, giddy from a daiquiri or two and a serious makeout session in Owen’s car. They hadn’t done anything serious, but Buffy was already making plans for a second date.

The next day she and Faith went out again, and this time when Buffy smiled, it didn’t hurt quite so much.

~*~

“You’ve got to stop this.”

“Anya,” Spike sighed, “’m at work, what more do you want?”

“I want you to be you,” Anya said impatiently. “You turned in only three outlines for ads this week.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, all of them featured funerals.”

Spike didn’t look up, knowing instinctively that his friend would be glaring at him hard enough to burn holes. “They were depressing ads.”

“One of them was for a baby product!”

Well, alright, yeah. “So?”

Wonderful. Now he sounded like the sulky brat he’d broken up with.

Not fair, his conscience chimed in, and dammit, he knew it wasn’t. If there’d been a sulky, immature brat in the relationship, it certainly wasn’t Buffy.

“So, you’re broken and I can’t fix it.”

He should object to being called broken, except it didn’t really matter, did it? God knows there was some truth in her accusation. “Why the hell d’you want to?”

“Because you’re my friend, dumbass.” Anya paused, considering him, before saying, “You need to have more orgasms.”

“What?”

“You need to have more orgasms,” Anya repeated patiently. “Normally I’d offer, but Xander’s kind of possessive and I don’t think he’s up for a threesome yet.”

God, he couldn’t even crack a pun about that. “Mental image, Ayn! Mental image!”

“At least you care about that,” she muttered. “Fine then. What will make you happy?”

Spike had no early idea, and he said as much.

“Fine then.” And suddenly Anya was grabbing his sleeve, pulling him up. “Let’s go.”

She marched him down the elevator and out of the building, and despite all of Spike’s protestations about bloody crazy bints, he let her do it. He let her shove him into his car, let her peal out of the parking lot, and he let her pay their way into a strip club on the edge of Sunnydale. He even let her pay for the lap dance.

When the anonymous woman’s tits were shoved in his face he let himself get hard, let himself enjoy it. The woman was a sultry brunette, nothing like the girl who still danced carelessly through his mind.

Buffy was gone, and it was time to accept that.

~*~

Time passed. They’d been friend for four years, lovers for a week, and exes for six months now. Spike came to the diner every now and then, but only when he knew Buffy wouldn’t be working; Buffy occasionally walked past Spike’s office building, but not when she thought there was any chance he’d be there.

Sunnydale suddenly seemed miles bigger than it’d been before, and they both skirted the edges of the city, avoiding one another at all costs. Faith sometimes sent Buffy disapproving looks, but she’d just clench Owen’s hand tighter, kiss him a little harder.

Spike had no one to glare at him accusingly, and he liked it that way.

Autumn passed into winter, which in turn passed into spring and then summer again. A year of laughing, of bitching at Harmony and joking with Willow, and after awhile Buffy got used to the hole in her heart that seemed to make the most trouble when she made love with Owen.

Summer was winding to a close when Cordelia came into the diner.

Buffy was doing inventory, so at first she didn’t notice the unusual customer. It was only when the manicured hand shoved a ten dollar bill in her face that she realized who was waiting at the counter.

“Hello, I’d like to order some time this century,” Cordelia said in a bored voice.

“Too bad, we’re closed till 2100.” Buffy smiled sweetly. “You can wait, right?”

“Very funny.” Buffy watched Cordelia purse her overly lipsticked lips, tapping her nails on the counter. “Look, I wanted to apologize.”

Buffy played with her apron string, a nervous habit she’d picked up from years of irritating customers. “For?”

“Last fall. Look, I know it’s none of my business,” Cordelia added hastily, “but I just—I feel bad about it, okay? It wasn’t fair for Harmony and Angel to break you guys up like that.”

Buffy gave a short, sharp laugh. Her stomach didn’t twist at that statement. It didn’t. “Believe me, it wasn’t them.”

Cordelia obviously didn’t believe her, but luckily for Buffy she let it go. “Whatever. My point is, I’m sorry.”

For a second Buffy just stood there and studied her. Cordelia was the kind of person who was always perfectly groomed to the point of where it was kind of scary. She was perfect, and Buffy—wasn’t.

But it was Cordelia who was apologizing to Buffy, not the other way around.

“Apology accepted,” she said finally, and was almost shocked to notice Cordelia visibly relax. It was that action that had her offering, “A bunch of us are going to the movies later.”

The slight smile told her it had been a good move. “Want me to come with?”

“It’d boost all our cool factors through the floor,” Buffy joked.

“Well, okay then!” Now Cordelia was smiling for real, shiny white teeth out in full force. It was kind of intimidating, actually. “I’ll see you there!”

And that was that.

~*~

~*~

If someone had told Buffy at the start of her junior year that when her senior year was over she’d be fast friends with Cordelia and delighted that they were attending the same school—Columbia—she probably would’ve upended a tub of dirty dishwater over that person’s head.

But Cordelia was surprisingly easy to like. She was easygoing, nice even, once you got her away from Sunnydale High School, and unlike Willow or Faith she was willing to talk shoes and makeup with Buffy. She even humored the strict Spike-less schedule Buffy adhered to out of habit.

It was June 24, and they were graduating. The Mayor and Snyder both gave speeches that had everyone yawning and Buffy and Willow making mocking faces, but then finally—finally—they were called up, one by one, to receive their diplomas.

It was one of the more triumphant moments in Buffy’s life. “We did it!” she squealed, throwing herself into Willow’s arms.

“I know!” Willow, too, was beaming.

“Oh my God, can you believe these stupid things? Maroon is definitely not my color,” Cordelia said.

“Mine either,” Oz remarked.

“I’m just glad we’re out,” Faith said. “We never have to listen to that fuckwit Snyder again.

“Faith!” Willow exclaimed, but everyone else just laughed.

Buffy never saw Spike in the darkness under the bleachers, blinded by flashbulbs and carefree laughter. She never saw him watching her, applauding softly when she took her diploma. She never knew that it was to her smile that he got drunk later that night and passed out in a hotel room in the nasty part of LA.

She never knew because she never asked, and Spike tried to tell himself that that was how it should be.

~*~

Buffy and Cordelia were to drive out to college the next night. It had been one year and three hundred thirty-two days since she’d broken up with Spike.

More or less.

It was Cordelia’s idea that she visit Spike. “You need, like, closure,” her friend had advised. Buffy had considered just telling her to stuff it, but…well. She had a point, much thought Buffy hated to admit it.

That was how she found herself outside Spike’s apartment in the third week of July, rocking nervously on the balls of her feet. When she pressed the doorbell she felt the almost two years fall away, and suddenly instead of being eighteen and an adult she was a shy and nervous sixteen, unsure of anything except the fact that she loved Spike and would for forever.

At least she hadn’t been wrong.

Spike answered the door wearing only a sheet, and Buffy tried to ignore how weird it was—she knew what he’d been doing, knew what it felt like. How it was.

For the first time she was standing at Spike’s doorway and she knew everything she should’ve known two years ago, before she started this whole mess.

“Are you…busy?” Real smooth, Buffy. At least she hadn’t burst into tears.

“No! No, not at all.” He spoke awkwardly, probably a consequence of answering the door half naked. Buffy just barely suppressed a smirk. “Uh…”

She took pity on him. “Why am I here?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“I’m leaving for college today.” She took a deep breath. “Columbia.”

“Columbia—New York, Columbia?”

Buffy couldn’t help but smile a little at that; obviously Spike had been avoiding even the gossip. “Yeah, Cordy—Cordelia—and I got into the same school.”

“I’d heard that you two were close…not that I was paying attention,” he added hastily.

Of course not. “No, I wouldn’t think—“

“Right.”

God, she could probably scoop up the awkwardness in the hallway and bottle it if she wanted to. Between Spike avoiding staring at her and Buffy avoiding staring at Spike’s—well, anything really, since the part covered by the sheet was just as appealing as the part currently exposed—she was ready to melt into the floor and disappear.

“So. I’d, uh. I’d better be going.”

“Right. Well.” He shifted uncomfortably in the doorway—and then his eyes met hers.

Blue and painful and God, she still wasn’t over this.

“Good luck, Buffy.”

Her name sounded like a dream, like a prayer spoken underwater. It hurt more than she wanted it to. “Th-thanks.” Smooth, Buffy. Real smooth.

He turned round and slammed the door in her face before she had a chance to say anything else.

~*~

Cordelia was waiting a block away. “You did it?”

“Yeah.” Buffy got into the car and rolled down her window. “Yeah, I did.”

Cordy glanced at her once, sharply, and even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good Buffy gave her a sunny smile.

“You are so full of crap,” Cordelia informed her, but she was half-laughing as she said it.

Buffy just stuck her tongue out at her and turned forwards. New York was about 3,000 miles away.

She was ready for every curve.

~*~

“So you really did it, huh.”

It wasn’t a question, and Spike didn’t treat it as one. “Yeah, Ayn, I did.”

“You let the girl you love, the one who’s prevented you from having orgasms with practically anyone for two years, go to a college across the country, where there will be plenty of attractive college aged boys for her to fall in love with.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve basically trashed your last hope at being happy. Ever.”

“Right.”

“Hmm.” Anya tilted her head for a second, studying him, before jumping on him with a rib-crushing hug.

“What the bloody hell is this for?” he asked, petting her on the back awkwardly.

She shoved him away as abruptly as she’d hugged him. “Oh, you know. For being you. Hang in there, okay?”

And she left.

Spike sat at his desk for longer than was strictly necessary. Hang in there.

Hope springs eternal and all that.

Okay.

He plopped his boots on his desk and grinned. Half-heartedly, but still.

“Happy trails, pet,” he said softly, staring up at the ceiling.

Don’t forget to come back.

~*~

Later

He knew she was coming. Sunnydale might’ve grown, but there were parts of it that were still small towns—and enough people knew about Spike’s somewhat pathetic, lasting obsession that he was waiting on his couch when the knock sounded on the door.

She was standing on his doorstep, awkward as that first time. Four years ago now, and they’d both changed so much.

“Hi.”

He smiled.

~*~

End

~*~

Notes: Damn, it's finally over.

In all honesty, I wasn't expecting this story to take me more than a few months to write. I'm still not sure how it stretched over more than a year. I learned a lot while writing it--and while I know the ending is different from how most of you would've preferred, if you've stuck with me this long then I owe you a huge thanks.

Particular thanks to anyone who reviewed and let me know your thoughts, and an enormous, I-can-never-pay-her-back thank you to Suzee, who listened to me whine about this thing for the better part of a year. She wrote an alternate ending to BtG, and she wasn't going to post it but I was so incredibly amazed and flattered that I forced her to. And hey, it's her birthday--so go give her some love, yeah? *g*

Thanks, ya'll. It's been fun.