Part One

It wasn’t often that she’d had Slayer dreams about fighting giant wererabbits. Well, never before really, but even stranger was watching Spike getting completely thrashed by them. They used their suddenly feral paws to rip him apart, and Buffy was left going ‘huh?’ as they eyed her hungrily. With a strange jerk of her body, she escaped back to reality, leaving Spike beaten and…well, beaten.

But it wasn’t like wererabbits were real, and giant ones Buffy was willing to bet were even more sparse in the grand scheme of life and fluffy bunnies. She’d have to ask Anya one day, when she thought about it. Which could likely be never again.

Buffy yawned as she slowly opened her eyes to the darkness of her bedroom. A frustrated check of the alarm clock elicited a gargled moan as she realised she’d only been in bed for an hour. The recent absence lately of the dreaded slayer dreams had been blissfully welcomed without argument, but apparently, they were back now and Buffy felt like she could scream. Even if they never usually were high in the sense-making, at least they weren’t usually totally off-the-wall-ridiculous. And they never featured Spike in any way, shape or form; there weren’t enough ways to express how of the good that fact had been.

Why in the world would Spike be featuring in her dreams? At least the part about him getting beat up was somewhat accurate, and it was a comforting thought. At least some dire situation like a fake engagement wasn’t on the horizon. Spike’s ass being whooped by feral looking rabbits on steroids was something even the Slayer could appreciate. So, the Power’s That Refused To Be Accurate were giving her flashy warnings that in the near future, Spike was going to come out on the not-so-top of a brush with scary rabbits. She so didn’t care.

Although, come to think about it, she was more than a little irritated that thoughts of Spike and his relevance to her dream-life was depriving her of many zzz’s.

Buffy sat up and glared at her pillow, where she saw a smirking peroxided pest that she infinitely preferred to see battered and bleeding, and was suddenly inspired to wallop her pillow to an inch of its feathery stuffing. She would get some sleep tonight if it killed her, and if the Power’s saw fit to ruin it with another freaky dream, Spike was going to pay. Laying her suddenly heavy head on the fluffy goodness, Buffy closed her eyes and was snoring within minutes.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Every so often, Xander Harris dragged his girlfriend out into the chilly Hellmouthy air and helped Buffy on patrol. It was dangerous, foolhardy and stupid—three things Anya hadn’t stopped repeating to him since he’d forced her to start accompanying him—and yet he hardly cared. Being beside Buffy while she decapitated people they’d gone to school with, old teachers and even strangers, held all the appeal of a Big Dipper at the carnival. Especially when he considered that most vamps she slayed used to be people that, he imagined, had slighted him in their life; that was, if they’d ever met him

It made him feel alive to see Buffy dust so much of the dead. Undead. Whatever. He only wished she wasn’t particular about who she bestowed the pleasure. If she gave him the word, he’d make personally sure that Spike found his own personal highway to Hell and didn’t stop zooming till he reached the end.

It seemed darker than usual as they walked toward the first cemetery. Buffy had warned him that she had something to take care of and wouldn’t be able to patrol with them—going so far as to suggest they stay in and…do what Anya liked to do when they stayed in. But Xander had scoffed, roared his manliness while beating his chest all bruisy, and then took Anya’s arm like they were going out on a date. Which on the mouth of Hell, so wasn’t far from the main point.

He’d had high hopes for the night—even with the lack of Buffy’s presence. He was feeling good and sprightly right up until they’d walked through the gates and saw the first vampire of the night, and suddenly, he just knew his night was gonna suck. It didn’t even matter that the bizarre came along with the most annoying vamp ever.

Still, the view had him stopping abruptly and his belly rumbling hungrily—which really wasn’t that appropriate in the presence of the enemy.

Spike was standing beside the most ginormous carrot Xander had ever seen. His mouth was hanging open, his eyes disbelieving and his finger pointing at the thing as soon as he recognised his company.

“It’s a bloody giant carrot,” he said, gaping in shock.

“Way to state the obvious, Fang Face.” Xander contemplated the really overgrown vegetable and dismissed the possibility that Spike had planted it as some kind of joke. And he really hadn’t been intending to go with a pun that lame.

Still, that was one heck of a carrot.

“How d’you think it got here? Any giant gardeners you know out there, Spike? Someone with some magic vege beans that tell too many mixed up whacked out demon fairytales about salads?” Xander was smugly patting himself on the back for that one, his satisfied smile only slipping when Spike turned incredulous eyes on him.

“What are you talking about, you berk? It’s a bleeding carrot—growing in some pretty fertile soil if you take into account all the decomposition and the like.” He ignored the suddenly green faces looking at him in horrified fascination. “You better tell the Slayer ‘bout this. Girl's lettin’ vegetables get out of control right in her backyard. 'S not right." He glared at them for good measure, shoved his hands in his pockets and spun on his heel, striding away with more purpose than a useless vamp had any right to.

It was only after Spike had left that Xander wondered at Anya’s uncharacteristic silence through the whole exchange. Once upon a time, she would have had the craziest things to say about something as peculiar as a giant carrot in the middle of a busy graveyard, but it seemed that his patient lessons on acclimatising to the Hellmouth were taking effect. Progress that impressive should be rewarded, and seeing as how Buffy wasn’t planning to show anyway, Xander decided they should ditch potentially nasty and violent demons and go hang out at the Bronze instead.

“Hey Ahn, feel like shaking that booty? I’ll make it worth your while,” he hinted coyly as he took the first of many coercive steps away from the giant carrot.

Anya looked at the massive orange overgrowth and shuddered before quickly chasing after Xander. “Orgasms?” she asked hopefully, already mapping out a thousand ways she could force Xander to make her forget the hideous sight. Giant carrots looked like the perfect munchy for giant rabbits and that was a thought far too terrifying for her to deal with when she was all hyper and far from relaxed. Sex would do it. Sex could get her into that zone where such things didn’t scare her witless.

Xander was left staring as Anya blurred past him. Huh! She must really hate patrol.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Absolutely nothing had gone right since Buffy had dragged Dawn out of his crypt earlier in the night. He’d been feeling kind of wanted—liked—with the Bit sitting and hanging on his every word. She made him feel like something, helped him regain a little bit of his bruised and battered ego by letting him recall the glory days of his past with his lady love.

His previous lady love. Couldn’t exactly call Dru that now, could he? Not when the bint had gone to all the trouble of replacing him with the stickiest, slimiest bugger he’d ever had the misfortune to meet. He’d never been able to understand why they got the name of chaos demon. He thought the nit’s ancestors must have been pretty pretentious if they thought the dripping slime from their antlers was gonna be the big thing in chaos. Not that he hadn’t achieve it in one of the longest, most successful relationships in the history of demons. Wanker showed up and Spike was booted out on his ass. At least he wasn’t dust, even if oftentimes he’d craved an end to it all.

But not now.

Now he had Buffy to think about. The most frustrating bitch he’d ever clashed with was the one thing his heart wanted most to touch. Was bloody inconvenient, but her family was all right. Pretty decent—well, fantastic really. He loved Joyce—could never get enough of her hot chocolate and wished he had that on tap nightly. And the littler Summers was proving to be a right nice little treat, too. Not that he’d ever consider eating her. She was too much fun, had balls the size of the sun for him to even consider offing her whenever he wasn’t a useless gummy vampire again.

Still, the Slayer had snatched up the kid and he’d headed off for his nightly wander and he was fast coming to the conclusion that the night was bloody strange. And what was Harris and his bird doing out when it wouldn’t take more than a witless vamp to end them for good? Heh! That possibility brought a smile to his lips. It almost immediately turned into a frown the second he realised if the git was dead, the so would be his financial backer.

“Balls!” Gritting his jaw, Spike continued on his aimless trek. The night was relatively young, the Slayer was otherwise preoccupied…he was a vampire without aim or a sodding clue. He wasn’t welcome anywhere he could be bothered to go and that alone could really wear on a bloke’s confidence. At least he could still defend himself at Willie’s and shut up any bastard that dared question the validity of his presence, but when the Slayer and her chums got mean, it was all he could do to bite his tongue—not that he even managed that fast enough sometimes.

So it was that he was feeling a might bit touchy and more than a little depressed when Buffy seemed to accidentally step into his path. She had her arm raised, her fist gripping her stake like any good slayer should and her downswing all sorts of dead on accurate if he’d had a lovely big target painted over his chest. He just couldn’t summon up the will to care.

She looked suddenly nervous and her thrusting arm slowly dropped.

“Don’t let me stop you, Slayer. Seems like something’s got you all worked up and you need to put a bloke down.” His lips weren’t in the usual taunting, over-confident smirk. He was too tired to smirk, truth be known, and too heartsick to exist. He felt like he’d rather just be put out of his misery than pass through another lifetime knowing he’d fallen for the wrong woman.

“I, um, thought you were a different vampire.” She tried, unsuccessfully, to repress the blush that spread across her cheeks at seeing Spike. Dawn’s most recent revelations—while Buffy hardly considered them even slightly accurate—embarrassed her and she couldn’t get the images of her engagement to him and their many heated lip locks out of her mind. It made her tummy twirl in objection, made her feel twisted in knots and want to run away hard and fast so that the sight of him would stop throwing her off.

“Why are you acting all bad moody for anyway? It’s not my fault you feel you have to take your little expeditions where I patrol. With a stake.” She couldn’t help feeling resentful. She had all sorts of bad blowing up in her face lately and any kind of complication from Spike’s strange corner of the world could very well contribute to her fast track to the funny farm.

Spike’s eyes flashed, honing in on that little bit of something he seemingly needed to feel alive each night. “That’s right, Slayer. I forgot you owned the night. Silly me for not getting up like all good citizens and go for a blazing walk in the sunlight. Tell you what, I promise I’ll give it a shot, but only if you’re standing by with a hose and a blanket to beat out the flames.” He glared at her, his ire a damn good disguise for how horny he got from trading barbs with her.

“How ‘bout we try it now? You do the standing still and I’ll just beat you to death.” Buffy smiled sweet and false as she stood, arms crossed and her foot tapping delicately.

Spike looked her up and down and sneered. “I doubt you’ve got what it takes. In fact, I doubt you’ve got it in you to take on that bloody enormous carrot jutting out of the earth at Restfield. And it’s a vegetable.” Spike snickered, suddenly getting his own joke. “Get it? You wanted a victim that couldn’t move. Maybe that one’ll be more your speed.”

And before Buffy could think of a come back, Spike was ambling off, hands in duster pockets and his lips pursed around a jaunty tune. Took a truly gifted demon to make good use of the bizarre to make the Slayer feel yay high.

Buffy watched his back as he disappeared into the night, dismay making her grouchy. She wondered if she could test just how far she could throw a stake and watch it hit its mark, and then felt slightly guilty about the fact that Spike always seemed to be on the worst side of a beating and here she was contemplating making him dust. Not that his insane crush on her—if Dawn wasn’t fabricating the terrifying prospect all out of proportion—wasn’t an automatic ticket to Deathsville in her book. And after that comment that she needed things to be inanimate and statuesque so she could actually take them out, she should pummel him rotten.

With an irritated sense of thwarted achievement, Buffy spun on her fashionable yet cheap and breakable heel, “crap!”, bent down to retrieve it and check the vicinity for peroxided perverts, and headed for home.

“Giant werebunnies are too good for you, Spike.” She took five awkward steps and stopped. “And he mentioned carrots. Is he tapped into my dreams now?” Buffy paused in her thoughts and her walk, then shook her head. “No way. He’s just terrifyingly coincidental.”

She worked on banishing Spike and his strange musings all the way home. Reaching the porch and opening the front door, it never once occurred to her that she had succeeded in ridding her thoughts of him.

Spike simply didn’t matter anymore tonight.

Gahhhh, where did June go? Better get as much of this out there while I can.

Follow for some more of the ridiculous!

Chapter Two

It was an unfair fight. Buffy could see that, and no matter how many times she told herself she couldn’t care less how Spike was treated, being tied down, beaten, and slashed just went against every consideration of fairness in a fight that she’d expect. The enemy fought dirty, and it was only when they were cutting him deep with long vicious claws—claws that she didn’t know bunnies even had—that she attempted to step forward, attempted to make it a little less one-sided, and discovered she was rooted to the spot. She’d become the watcher instead of the slayer.

There was something inside her that Buffy had never felt before, some tremendous depth of hate that observed the fight, the torture, and approved. Wanted to see the ending, revel in it and be thankful the vampire was finally out of her life for good. It was an awful sensation, so not her and Buffy struggled and fought hard to banish it just so she could move. So she could make her own decisions regarding Spike.

The presence vanished with a furious jolt and a scream, promising retribution as Buffy finally fell to her knees. It wasn’t entirely where she’d wanted to go, but in her exhaustion it was, at least, in the right direction. Pushing back to her feet, she took only one step before everything around her came crumbling down. She looked up just in time to see the giant-fluffy-bringer-of-death slash Spike from ear to ear, his head a separate cloud of dust from his body. The scream that tore from her throat was unexpected, but Buffy couldn’t control her reaction. As much as she hated him, she couldn’t wish him gone when he could love her. Never in all the time she’d known him had she even imagined what it would be like to watch him disintegrate before her eyes, and now that she’d seen it, she wanted to rewind and get him out of there. He was too dark, too beautiful, too impressive to end like this.

As both the slayer and girl in her keened their grief, a sudden wind whipped up his ashes and blew them away.

And Buffy jerked awake.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Morning, Buffy. Can I pour you some juice?” Joyce held the carton as if it were too heavy and she was struggling to keep it in her hand.

“I can do that, Mom. You should be resting.” Buffy looked at her sternly, then glared at Dawn for good measure before trying to quickly, but with care, reassign the orange juice into her own more able grip.

Joyce smiled gratefully, tiredly, and then positioned herself at the breakfast bar. She was still dressed in her nightwear and looked like she was planning to either go to work late or take the day off.

“You look like you could do with some more sleep,” Buffy suggested, hoping her mother would take the time to get well rather than push herself like she usually did.

“I can’t today. I have a shipment coming in and—”

“And you have employees that can take care of that,” Buffy chastised lightly, feeling relieved as she received a grateful smile from her mother.

“Actually, Spike told me he’d do all the heavy stuff.” Joyce sat with her hands being warmed by a fresh mug of coffee and watched Buffy’s face as she changed expression four times.

“What? When? Huh? Spike’s an evil vampire, Mom. What are you doing spending time with him? You never said you needed help with the—”

“He offered, Buffy. And I enjoy his company. He’s quite knowledgeable about so much in the world. He’s very interesting to talk to, and he takes the time. He never tried to hurt me when he was still killing people, so I see no reason to be afraid of him now when you say he can’t.” As usual, the voice of maturity and reason had Buffy stumped, and Joyce again smiled as she took her first sip of the strong caffeine. “Besides, he’s pretty to watch. You’d never guess how many muscles he’s hiding underneath all that black—”

“Mom!” Buffy hissed, scandalised. It wasn’t enough that Dawn had to go and tell her that Spike had a crush on her, sparking all sorts of unwelcome thoughts and images in her mind, now her mom had to plant more ideas of not-so-evil-and-disgusting Spike in her head? “That is just so wrong. You’re a grown woman.”

“And Spike is a much more grown man.” She considered for a second at Buffy’s glare. “Okay, vampire. But he’s still very pretty, and very helpful, and I really need that at the moment, Buffy. I have too many shipments coming in and being messed up and it’s time consuming and exhausting. He takes so much of the pressure off. And really, he’s not so bad. Well, not as bad as I’d think he was if I actually listened to you and your friends.”

Buffy felt stunned into speechlessness while she stared at the woman that had given birth to her, her mouth hanging open ready for the words to fall out at any minute.

“You’re not actually…falling for him, are you?” Why did the idea of her mother lusting after Spike make her feel sick of the green with envy kind? Buffy filed that little bit of confusion away for the day where she actually wanted to understand why she felt things she couldn’t explain, and decided she would just let her mother have her day with Spike. It wasn’t like she could help. She had to investigate some weird slaughter on the train, and she was taking Xander with and that guaranteed much fun with the topics of interest on her mind lately.

“What would be so bad about Mom getting interested in Spike anyway? Not like anyone else is after him.” Dawn watched Buffy and grinned evilly at her sister’s wide-eyed look of horror. She knew Buffy would convince herself that the idea of Spike at all was icky and gross and better not left to sane minds, but she knew underneath all the insults and pretend-hatred, the Slayer could easily have the hots for the one vampire that Dawn, herself, thought was pretty drool worthy. “And if Mom doesn’t want him,” she teased, “then I’ve got no problem chasing him down.”

Buffy spluttered angrily and Joyce watched in amusement before deciding to play along. “Just don’t do it again without informing us where you are going. And ask Spike to walk you home. He’s quite the gentleman, you know.”

Buffy choked, checking the pair of them suspiciously before sitting down and ignoring them both while she poured out her cereal and juice. “You two are just the funniest. How I ever thought I could live on campus away from you is a mystery to me.”

“Me too,” agreed Dawn before she conveniently bounced out of the room to finish getting ready for school. One thumping run up and back down the stairs and she was shouting out her goodbyes as she slammed the front door.

“Ahh, the impatience of youth,” Joyce commiserated and Buffy pinned her with an intense look.

“Promise me you’ll take it easy today. And that you’ll remember at all times that Spike is an evil bloodsucking vampire that would rather kill your daughter than play nice with her mom.”

Joyce grinned at the conflicting look on Buffy’s face. There was worry there, of course, but she could see just a touch of jealousy and it made her stop and wonder if the teasing had been a good idea. As much as she liked Spike, enjoyed hearing his tales of the world and where he’d been—what he’d seen as well as who—she didn’t favour him as being one of Buffy’s love interests. Spike was unstable when it came to his girlfriends, easily relying on alcohol when things didn’t go the way he would like.

“There’s no need to worry about me, Buffy. Spike is a friend, nothing more. Can you say the same?” She wasn’t surprised that Buffy didn’t answer, but had expected more of an incredulous glare than a thoughtful chewing of her cereal while her daughter failed to meet her eye.

Joyce slumped back resigned. There were many lessons that she should have learned along the line of Buffy’s love life. Angel was the very worst a young girl could epitomise as her first great love and unworthy of the broken heart he caused. Riley was a nice boy, granted, but even Joyce could see the lack of chemistry between the two and had hoped Buffy would come to her senses and cut the boy free. While it was sad that her daughter forced herself into a relationship where she was only half alive, it was sadder for Riley to see it too. She couldn’t say she was sorry that Buffy had seen the light, and she had no details of what really had happened to send Riley off in a great wind, but neither was she disappointed.

Unless the considered replacement was Spike.

As a mother it was hard for Joyce to stay out of Buffy’s decisions. All she could do was offer advice and hope that Buffy would see the wisdom of what she had to offer—not that she had much in the way of vampires, but she refused to see that taunting Angel into leaving was a mistake. She only hoped Buffy wouldn’t fall into the same trap twice—though it pained her to see how possibly right for each other the blond couple could be.

With a deep sigh, Joyce finished her coffee and then stood to rinse the mug in the sink. “I’d best go get ready. Do you need a lift anywhere today?”

Buffy looked up from her deep contemplations and shook her head. “Nope. Xander and I have this thing to do today, so he’ll be by to pick me up. I probably won’t be home until late.

Joyce nodded and left the kitchen. She had this niggling feeling that today was going to be a very strange day.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Her head hurt. All of Xander’s laughing—while totally expected—seemed to grate for some reason. It wasn’t like she hadn’t laughed, too. Because she had. Lots. But that was yesterday, or last night and she’d kind of gotten used to the concept so it wasn’t so much funny anymore as deeply disturbing. And she was convinced that the disturbing came into it not because of the horror of an evil monster being romantically interested in her, but from the feelings that she still hadn’t shaken from seeing him dust in her dream.

Buffy had no doubts that her nightly rendezvous with Spike and evilly persistent giant wererabbits were part of some bigger picture that she was missing, but it wasn’t the first time the Powers had made her visit the obscure in her down time. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t they just send that weird little guy Whistler to give her messages, or hey, appoint some Cordelia-like-vision-having-person to her. Then she could not only fight the bad guys, but get a decent night’s sleep, too. Goodness all round.

Anyway, back to her splitting headache and the frightening impulse to tell one of her closest friends to just shut his chops and leave the poor neutered vampire alone. There was nothing on this train, nothing but this strange hyena giggle Xander persisted to shatter her eardrums with and a sense that she knew someone that had been on here lately. It was light; she could have easily missed it if she hadn’t been willing to give the whole Spike crush thing the benefit of the doubt and actually concentrate on the job at hand. There was some evidence here if she could just find it.

Standing and determined to give her search another try, Buffy closed her eyes and tried desperately to shut Xander out. She really thought it was kind of silly that he was worried Dawn had transferred her hero worship to someone who at least had superpowers, but if it made him feel good…

Buffy concentrated on the tingles that were tickling her spine. She could sense someone here, someone familiar and it grated on her to know they were back. Opening her eyes suddenly, she knew who it was, and with two short strides, she was underneath the storage compartment, almost too scared to look up and find whatever had been left.

Buffy stood on the chair underneath and hoisted herself up better to see, rolling her eyes at the melodramatic display. How did Dru part with one of her dizzy dolls? She thought they travelled around in packs, having dainty little pretend parties to mystify the onlookers. She snatched the doll down and strode off the train, Xander spluttering along behind her.

“What’s with the doll, Buff?” Xander asked as he tagged along behind.

Buffy looked down at the porcelain, blind-folded doll and cringed. This represented too many things that she didn’t want to consider right now. Drusilla in town brought too many variables into play, made her question how strongly she felt about the status-quo and whether she would be disappointed if the brunette with an intoxicating beauty would be exactly what Spike needed to lure him back to the life he’d always led. Or if this crush newly developing would factor in and cause him to think through other possibilities before he threw away the past year.

Lip tightening and determination lengthening her stride, Buffy refused to think of this as anything but another vampire she could kill. This world needed to be rid of the likes of Drusilla, and if Spike was stupid enough to join up forces with her again, he’d be next on her hit list.

Ignoring Xander’s attempts to get her to explain or coddle him through his newest Spike-trashing obsession, Buffy walked on and attempted not to think. Thinking was bad. Thinking led to ideas and decisions that she’d find out later got way out of her control. With a sigh, she tossed Xander something about meeting him later and left for home.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Know what I saw, Joyce. A bloke knows his evil veggies. An’ if I wasn’t already twigged to the next big bad, I surely would have guessed it tonight when I got home to find my crypt’s been utilised for the harvest. Bloody giant carrots everywhere. Buggered if I know where they even came from. I only saw the one sprouting out of the ground last night.” He knew that the story was ludicrous and he was more than a little peeved that Harris hadn’t seen fit to spread the news of their supernatural veggie patch to those who should be in the know. It shouldn’t be his job to keep the Slayer informed of what was going on in her own backyard.

Joyce was looking at him like he’d lost his marbles, and maybe he had—or he would have been half on his way to believing it if he was pissed, or if he wasn’t positive that Harris’s bird didn’t have a clue what it was all about. The chit couldn’t keep her trap shut for five seconds straight, let alone be stone silent for ten minutes in the face of one of the most truly frightening vegetable experiences he’d ever had.

“Well, Spike, that’s just awful. So I guess that means you’re homeless.” Even as she said the words, Joyce knew Buffy was going to kill her. Upbringing aside, she couldn’t let someone who couldn’t even safely wander the streets during the day have nowhere to sleep, as unbelievable as his story was. But then, they were on the Hellmouth, the centre for the most unbelievable of everything.

“That it does, pet. Right inconvenient it is too. Barely managed to squeeze in there and get my gear.” Spike slumped dejectedly. He was sitting on the benchtop under the cupboards of the kitchen, feeling more comfy and at home than anywhere else in his long life and it felt good. He loved talking to Joyce. She made it possible for him to forget who he was—forget that everyone around him hated him, including the one he wished wouldn’t. She made it easy to let expectation slip from his back and to drop the conventional big bad and allow himself to be free. It was a liberating experience—more so than when he’d forced himself to become Spike and lived as a legend to fit into his name.

Joyce had a visual of Spike, squeezing between a crypt rammed floor to ceiling with giant carrots and couldn’t hold back the giggle. “Would you like to stay in our basement, Spike? It will save you trying to run around tonight to find a new place to sleep. And then you’ll be on hand to tell Buffy all about the nasty vegetables that are here to take over the world.” Her smile was large and Spike felt good that she was so entertained—even if it was at his expense. There had been too many sad lines around her eyes of late.

“Don’t you laugh,” Spike accused, defying the glint in his eye. “Your daughter should be out there slaying whatever gardener is loading my home up with his produce. She wouldn’t know an evil vegetable if she fell over it. Told her about the enormous specimen still sticking out of the ground last night. Did the chit go and investigate?” It was more rhetorical than anything, yet it bugged him no end that the girl never took him seriously.

Joyce looked apologetic at his plight and he felt himself soften, and he couldn’t say how grateful he was for the offer, knowing probably better than Joyce herself how uncomfortable she’d been with doing it. He didn’t kid himself. Spike knew he was liked by the elder Summers, much more than being barely tolerated by her eldest and her chums, but he could still see how much being a vampire went against him.

“Appreciate the offer, pet. Slayer could probably do with all the help she can get when she pulls her head out of her…armpit,” he quickly saved, “and works out what agenda these sinister veggies have got. The chit’s having enough trouble keeping enormous caterpillars out of her house, let alone controlling killer carrots in her backyard. Reckon that ex-demon bint’s got a bit of a clue ‘bout it all, too.” Spike stopped, satisfied that he’d done enough work to cement his usefulness in being there and glad that Joyce had issued the invitation.

Being this close to Buffy could be just what he needed—it would either get him staked, or allow him to do the staking. Either way it would put him out of his misery.

And with Buffy entering the house and getting closer, he was fast going to find out if he’d make it through the night. When he recognised the doll in her hands, he wasn’t so keen on his chances.

“Balls.”

Her mouth wouldn’t close. For some reason that she so wasn’t getting, she was catching flies with no hoping of putting an end to it.

“You did what?” She felt like screaming, pulling her hair out and then flopping on the floor, kicking and crying until the real Buffy stepped up and told her that she’d only been hallucinating her mother’s admission to inviting Spike to live with them.

It didn’t happen. Her mom stood resolutely in front of her, arms crossed and lips pursed.

“I know what you’re thinking, and the poor boy is traumatised. I think something hit him and he’s gone a little…” She stepped closer and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “…Strange in the head.”

There was nothing to say to that. God, she was speechless and now she was stuck living with a vampire in her basement. The world could be so cruel; Buffy felt like racing straight out there and slaying it. Huh! Teach the world to play such horrible cosmic jokes.

And no matter that her mother had whipped her comfortable, safe, vampire-free home out from under her, she still had a murderous vamp to hunt down. And Spike suddenly in her face.

“I can’t help it if some faceless force decided to use my place to store his carrots, can I?”

She could tell by the way he was glaring angrily at her that he was probably what he would describe as shirty, and even though Buffy couldn’t for the life of her work out what shirts had to do with being angry—or why he had any right to be angry at her in the first place—it seemed a pretty good word to describe him. He looked kinda…nice…not that Buffy would let herself be distracted by the fact he’d moved into her house.

“If I had any idea what you’re talking about, I’d still want to stake you.” Her hand closed tighter around her stake and she took a step into his personal space, internally freaking out that her heaving breaths brought her breasts into the slightest contact with his chest.

“You don’t have the stones.” His lips twitched as he watched her grapple for control.

“Oh you don’t want to see my stones,” Buffy threatened, still misunderstanding the phrase as she stomped her foot and attempted to move back without losing face.

“Buffy, I really don’t think this is the place for that kind of tone,” Joyce chastised, though inwardly, she enjoyed seeing her daughter wrong-footed on this kind of level. Spike brought something unique into their lives, and as much as the mother in her didn’t want to see the tension between the two blondes as anything but natural animosity, the knowledgeable woman could see the underlying sexual attraction they held for each other as clearly as the doll Buffy held limply in her hand. She wondered if some part of her had accepted the inevitable; if she’d actually taken a part in match-making the two, or if she’d actually been manipulated in some unseen way. That made no sense at all, but then, Joyce was left considering her own aversion to this partnership on anything but destroying evil and wondering when the world she lived in had ever made any sense at all. She felt tired, her head throbbing behind the bones of her skull. The pounding grew louder every second she tried to remain standing.

Feeling useless and weak, Joyce rubbed her forehead and swayed a little, making her way to the stairs before she could fully speak. “I’m feeling very tired. I think I’ll go to bed. ‘Night, you two. And remember, Buffy. No staking the houseguests.”

All the animosity fled in the face of her mother’s weakened stance and Buffy rushed to her side, helping her up the stairs slowly even as she threw a pointed glare at Spike over her shoulder.

He was just getting comfy in front of the telly when Buffy flounced back into the line of his vision.

“Dru’s in town. What do you know?” This was the Slayer before him, the concerned daughter obviously still at the side of her mother as the woman grasped for relief and sleep.

“Direct. To the point. Not a bloody thing. Now move.” He peered around her body to watch some ugly talk show host discuss even uglier politicians and laughed. It was apparently the wrong thing to do as he was soon screaming in pain from the vicious kick she aimed at his shin. He might think the little tart was the love of his life, but did she have to bruise him all the time? “Careful where you aim that foot, luv. One day you might not be so pleased with the bits you injure willy-nilly.”

He smirked at the high blush that spread across her cheeks and just for that he loved the tease. Loved the reaction he could get without hardly even trying.

Buffy contemplated him, all comfy and at home on her couch, and wondered if he would really rush back into the arms of the so-called love of his life. The thought that he might hurt, even though she couldn’t work out why. Still, what easier way was there to flush her out? Locate the easiest threat to eradicate and actually do it? The vision of a dusted Dru didn’t bring on any of those sinking-in-the-gut feelings that her dreams of Spike ashes had, and Buffy refused to dwell on the possible implications of that. What she needed to do right now was work out how much of a threat a chipped Spike could be if he reconnected with the crazy-ho that had slaughtered a whole train load of people. Really, she had no choice. Dru had to be eradicated and she had to find her as fast as she could, and no possibly in-crush Spike—or Spike mesmerised by his sire—could stand in her way.

“Get up. You’re gonna help me find Dru.” And she left him to get her coat, trying not to care how he’d react to those words.

“Not meaning to be arrogant, but if she’s here, she’s looking for me. Might be at my crypt waiting for me. Though how she’d get in…that’s the puzzle.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and walked out the door. “Yeah, ‘cause your carrot story really holds water.”

“It’s the bloody truth,” Spike spluttered. He found it embarrassing that he’d been kicked out of his crypt by a truckload of carotene—and he was the last bloke that needed to eat veggies to take care of his dimming eyesight. He wasn’t bleeding pansy-arse William with the specs of old. It was the least the bitch could do to believe him and stop going on about it.

“You wouldn’t know the truth if you tripped right over it…William.”

And that just ticked him right off. “I know your solider Joe couldn’t get it up after you patrolled. Boy was all threatened by your power. Put that in your pipe and— OW! What the fuck is your problem?” Blood poured from his nose and splattered onto his light grey tee, and Buffy was a little sorry for that because a change of clothing was possibly Spike’s way of trying to change overall, and that deserved points—but only a few small ones.

“Just how exactly do you know such intimate things about my love life?” She didn’t even wait for him to finish forming the first word before the obvious occurred to her. “Ewwwwww. I so should stake your evil ass. Stay. Away. From. My. Window. Get a new fixation, Bleach Boy.” Her eyes shot wide open at letting that out. Crap. Now he knew that she knew and there’d be nothing but sexual innuendo till the end of time, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

“Oh look, it’s your crypt,” she said with forced brightness, her finger pointing out the obvious.

“You definitely eat your carrots then.” Spike stomped past her and shoved hard on his front door, feeling not even the slightest amount of satisfaction that he bet the Slayer regularly did when it cracked hard against the inner wall. At least the bastards had left enough room for him to do that.

His eyes lit up to see the stacks of giant carrot bunches still exactly where he’d claimed them to be, and he stepped aside with a smirk of ‘I told you so, what are you gonna do about it now?’ proportions on his lips.

Buffy pushed past him and stood framed in the door, her mouth dropping open in amazement. “Holy crap. I thought you were just lying to get into my pants.” Again with the unguarded secret dropping. She was going to staple her lips closed.

Spike’s double-take wasn’t faked. He was truly amused as he tried to stare into eyes that suddenly couldn’t look into his, and grinned at the crimson taint to her cheeks. “Well, don’t think I needed a tall tale to work my way into there, pet. But whatever you fancy.” And he inched closer, making Buffy back against the doorframe in shock. Where did confident, oozing sexuality Spike come from?

He inhaled her and stiffened. Looking over his shoulder into the darker quarters of the crypt, he sensed something and hoped it wasn’t what commonsense told him it was.

“Who’s there?” He didn’t move away from Buffy, almost feeling like they’d made one tiny step toward something and he was desperate to protect whatever it was, even if it was undefined and never went anywhere else.

Her laughter wasn’t as sweet or as welcoming as it once might have been. Now he could feel the terrible implications of her evil and it sent chills up his spine. Since when did he put her in a separate basket and label it evil? He was evil. For God’s sake, he’d scared Dawn just the other night with his stories of stalking and murder.

“I feel like I should be laughing. I knew. Before you did. I knew you loved the Slayer. The pixies in my head whispered it to me.” Sad eyes contemplated the end of a century of love and delicious death, and then they fell on the Slayer and betrayal changed the loss to fury. “Bad slayer, taking what was never hers. You will be punished—and by what’s inside you.”

Buffy couldn’t help the dirty look at Spike as he held her still in the circle of his arms. “You listened to that kind of babble for a hundred years? What, were you insane?”

All he could do was shrug. There really were no words to describe his past and he was rather more interested in how his future was suddenly panning out. “Could say the same ‘bout your fixation with vampires who use too much hair gel, or human boys that like the bite. Lot’s of stones, pet, but which house do you think will shatter first?”

Being that he’d already suffered two of her hits tonight, he was rather surprised when she looked more apologetic than violent. He guessed she was saving it up for Dru. Speaking of which…

“What are you doing here, Dru?” He was impatient. Despite the fact that they were out and about because of Dru, he wanted to continue on with the moment she’d interrupted.

“I want us to be a family again, my William.”

Buffy watched in apprehension as Spike considered it, and worried if being stuck between his arms and the frame was a really bad place to be. But then he turned his eyes on her, and the softness of his expression almost made him look beautiful.

“Got a new family, Dru, even if only half of them but know it.”

How could he say such heart melty things when she didn’t even like him?

“Spike.” Buffy lifted a hand and caressed the leather at his arm, recoiling in shock when Dru leapt forward hissing and spitting.

“Hands off, little sunshine. He’s not for you. Such things are only for girls who are worthy. You’ve yet to prove yourself.” She turned away from Buffy and watched Spike, her eyes dark and calculating. “She will be the end of you if you stay here. Come with me, sweet Spike. Come back to Mummy and Daddy and let us hurt the little children again.”

“Okay, enough with the ewwww. Children? Because I’m really gonna stand by and let you go slaughter another ton of people.” Buffy ducked, and before Spike knew what she was doing, she’d kicked him forward and he was painfully kissing the wood that framed his front door.

The first crack was juicy, Dru ready and waiting to propel Buffy high in the air and almost headfirst into a carrot. Her face didn’t imprint, but her stake broke the skin. It was a horrible precursor to the main event, two women—one he’d once loved and another he loved now—fighting to the death in a field of produce that gave no leeway to their sloppy attacks. Before Spike knew what hit him, there was juliette everywhere he looked, carrot juice slippery under his shoes, and both girls were head to foot orange. He snorted at the chunks of vegetable in Buffy’s hair, the squishy bits plastered to her shirt.

“Keep that up, luv, and we’ll have enough to take back to your mum for salad.”

She shot him a filthy look, and that one diversion was all Dru needed to slip away to the tunnels. Buffy looked around the top layer of the crypt, not knowing of the secrets below, and huffed in irritation. “Where’d she go?” she pouted, her stake arm still poised and deadly.

“Guess she had to cut and run.” It was all he could take, and Spike erupted.

Buffy bit her lip against the giggle dying to get out. No way was she giving Spike the satisfaction. Instead, she stomped right by him, jerking to a halt when he grabbed her arm and plucked a chunk of carrot out of her hair.

“Can’t have the Slayer look like she lost to a salad.” And he shrugged off his new leather coat and draped it shyly over her shoulders.

Despite herself, Buffy was impressed. “Shiny!” she approved and together they turned for home.

She was being bathed in carrot juice by the First Slayer. Wild knotted hair obscured her view around her, but the nakedness of both herself and Sineya was more than a little in-your-face. As Buffy sat up and saw the orange stains on her body, she panicked.

“I have no shoes to match this colour. Take it off me now!” Nude and vulnerable, the second most recent slayer stood with her arms spread out, turning a bright red underneath the orange streaks on her skin.

“You are cursed to wear the carrot’s colours for all eternity—and IT can walk that world with you.”

“IT? You’re cursing me to live forever with a giant carrot as my mate? But…that’s so cruel?” Buffy pouted, seriously put out that the original Slayer couldn’t find her someone more worthy to while away her life with.

“IT doesn’t breathe but pants daily for you. I curse you to live out eternity by each other’s side. He will hate you because of your hideous carrot flavour and be repulsed by your colour; you will loathe him for the disgusting evil creature that he is.”

The orange liquid bath was gone, and contrary to the dark declaration from her first sister to fight the demon world, Buffy found herself being lavished with loving attention, tight arms pulling her close to an equally naked body and a steel-like cock jutting against her rump.

“What’s got you such a pretty colour, pet?” And Spike licked her shoulder, his teeth gently biting against a moan as Buffy rubbed herself back on him, frantically seeking a way to stop the burning at her centre and groaning once he slipped smoothly between her legs.

“Carrots,” Buffy panted, feeling more eager now to coerce him inside. He was hers forever, after all, and if she waited for him to see the front of her and notice how her new colour clashed with her eye shadow, she could lose this incredibly intense moment to his amusement.

“We’re mated, luv. I bit you like so—” Fangs slid through the barrier of her skin and Buffy felt herself flushing against his cock, felt the head nudging her entrance with a practised ease. “And said the words that made you mine. Nothin’ fancy, mind, but ol’ Spike got the job done. Now I’ve got you for life, and it wouldn’t matter if you were bloody purple, I’m still gonna fuck you raw.” And he thrust into her hard, her body stretching and straining around him, but God, it felt so good.

She was on her knees with no memory of being manipulating into that position, Spike’s splayed hand on her back pushing her forward, his cock sinking deeper into her tight pussy and leaving it on a tortured whimper. The automatic piston-like motion of his hips propelled him forward again, his other hand moving to her hip to caress the smooth orangey- tanned flesh before giving into the tribal need to pound her into exhaustion.

For some reason, it didn’t seem odd to Buffy that Spike was being so dominant. She quietly admitted to herself it was a turn on—even if she did tell people she hated his guts. So not true—not really, and this sex with the enemy thing was sending tingles to her tingles and she felt wildly abuzz with ecstasy.

She arched against his touch, reaching desperate for him to seek all the spots inside that had never been touched before, for his remarkably soft hands to trace her body with the affection she only suspected he held for her. He slowed for a while, and she could feel the way his eyes studied his progress back and forth, could imagine the slick coating of her juices on his cock, and wished that she could have the same hot view as he must have.

For long glorious moments she forgot that she was orange, living the vitamin rich life of a carrot with Spike forever at her side.

The last thought as she clawed toward a release that seemed so very close and yet somehow unreachable, was how that would be totally gross.

“Purple?”

And she jolted awake, really on her knees and having her face repeatedly mashed into her pillow. Sensation rocked her body, shards of intense desire racing sanity through her nervous system until she started sobbing with the need to come.

There was a hand at her breast, fingers deftly manipulating her nipple until she was pinched hard, gut-crunching pain shooting to her clit like a lightning bolt that was then rubbed into a cruel torment by another dexterous digit.

“Oh God,” she panted, and then Buffy felt the rest of it, the cock that savoured her insides as her outsides prepared to implode.

“S-so sorry—ugh—Buffy. Can’t…stop!” And he let loose, unable to hold back the driving need to impale her good and rub his dick raw within her walls. The friction built, Spike rubbed her clit and Buffy was howling her release to the owl in the tree outside her window, her body shuddering with fresh spasms each time Spike touched a sensitised part of her—her nipples, clit, the bite mark…

Furious eyes shot wide open in realisation, feeling now the slow drip of blood down her neck to her shoulder as Spike finished spurting his essence inside of her. He fell forward and squished her face first into the pillow, and Buffy growled around a mouthful of fluff. She felt the most glorious sensations in the lower half of her body, but it was time to be the Slayer and deprive her bedroom of the trespassing peroxided ass that thought he could screw her in her sleep.

“Before you go throwin’ me across the bloody room and scrambling for a stake, I woke up here, inside you and I couldn’t have stopped if my unlife depended on it. Which it does if the way you’re gripping the bedding is revealing at all.” There was resignation in his voice, but then he sighed with a grin that she could totally hear even if she couldn’t see it.

Like he was deeply satisfied.

Buffy was so livid she could have sworn she was developing her own fangs to rip his throat out. “And what the hell makes you think I’d believe one idiotic word you say?”

And he had to go and spoil her work up of fury with the one word that spun her into a tailspin of epic proportions.

“Purple.”

“Oh my God, you were in my dream?” She had no clue her voice could be so high or squeaky.

There was no way she could see him nod at her back, but she felt the little jiggle of his cock inside her as his body moved.

“I’m bettin’ that was no ordinary dream, either. I lived with crazy for a century, luv, but that was a whole new brand of strange.” While he was talking, Spike had been rubbing her back, gently thrusting as his cock swelled ready for round two.

“Would you get the hell out of me?” She felt like screaming but so didn’t think this was the kind of thing she should get her mom out of bed for. And Dawn would never quit with the ‘I-told-you-so’s’. Not that she wanted her little sister seeing her so indisposed with the evil demon.

Spike sighed in disappointment, and yet it was a wrench to allow his now hard cock to slowly leave her body, falling out with an almost audible plop that gave no one satisfaction.

“No need to get into a tizzy, Slayer,” Spike told her, his voice strained. Once he’d lifted a little of his weight, Buffy turned and shoved him to the floor, her face bright red as she belatedly registered his hand had been tugging on his cock.

“You are so dead,” she hissed, flaming even redder as he leaned back, cocky grin in place with an arm bent under his head, and stroked his erection more avidly. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, the knowledge that it had only just worked her to such a high state of sexual bliss almost too much to bear.

“That’s my girl. Ever the observant one.”

She felt it the second his eyes noticed the bite, hot flushes assaulting her body until she wondered if there was anything that could ever put the fire out.

“Oh, balls!”

And she so hated when he said that. That meant something bad. If he was going to the trouble of exclaiming about male private parts, it had to be world endage bad.

“What?” Buffy bit worriedly at her bottom lip. She sat up and grasped the sheet around her tightly so as to prevent his wandering eyes, waiting for what ever doom and gloom announcement would herald the end of things as she knew it.

Buffy narrowed her eyes at his frustrated tone. “You ever read up on vampire lore? Claims and such?” Spike was the master at casting a glare while retaining all his manly power, despite being completely naked.

He was delirious. Buffy and homework—so not mixy. Research of the supernatural kind? That was kind of funny, actually.

“Try and say something you know I’ll be able to answer in the positive. Why on earth would I care about vamp lore? I stake ‘em. I don’t mate them!” She waited, and felt impatience jackhammer the back of her skull in the mother of all migraines as he sat staring at her with his mouth unattractively open. “WHAT?” she demanded through gritted teeth.

“Did you listen to anything that daft bint in your dream said?” His incredulous tone said it all.

Buffy shuddered in delayed fear. “She told me I was going to be orange for life. That is just so wrong.”

Even in exasperation, Spike was totally Dead Sex Man Walking. He almost levitated to his feet, his ascent was so graceful, but the sneer on his lips was far from pretty.

“Orange? She bloody cursed you, you twit. Bound us together and made me claim you. We’re mates, destined to walk the earth at the side of the other until one apocalypse too many finally makes this world go BOOM!” His eyes gleamed in the moonlight and his body shone, the not-so-subtle massage of his erection not going completely unnoticed despite the possible disaster of the moment.

The windows had rattled in their frames at his shout and Buffy cringed, waiting for the inevitable stampede of feet to come and witness her shame. When nothing happened but his words ticking over in her brain, Buffy paled.

“When you say mated—?”

“I mean, I’m your bitch till the end of time. But I can apparently bite you. Small bleeding comfort, if you ask me.”

Her pillow was only light, but the shock of it knocked him on his ass.

“What? Biting me is suddenly repulsive now? Do you even remember you’re still a vampire?” How could he be so damn insulting? Her blood was great. Top shelf, Grade A Slayer vintage wine. Who the hell did he think he was?

“Look, Buffy. As much as I’ve wanted a bite of your ass for a while now, I never planned on this kind of supernatural mojo doing whatever the hell happened here. I suggest you get Rupes to hit the books and do some research. Might want to look up that twisted bird that spawned your kind. Think she’s got it in for you.”

Because that was her first thought. To rush out and tell Giles that she had a slayer dream where Spike was fucking her into a puddle of slayer-shaped goo and that he’d bitten and claimed her—oh, and by the way, then woke up to Spike pumping like a vampire stallion racing for gold! She thought not!!

“Basement. Now.” Buffy ignored his glare as he shucked on his jeans and padded without argument out her bedroom door.

It was quite possible she’d never recover from this.

Buffy was certain that everyone was staring at her blush. She was embarrassed out of her mind—and she hadn’t even told Giles the sexy parts of her dream. Though while her brain was on partial holiday, she had revealed the naked bath in carrot juice and Xander still hadn’t wiped off the trail of drool from his chin. Willow and Tara had giggled, God bless them, but Giles had turned a startling shade of red before grinning inappropriately and finding the only interesting speck of dirt on the shop floor.

“Wow,” Xander started. Buffy was beginning to wonder if he even remembered he was a creature of this century and not one from the caveman era. “So, you can’t get away from Fang Face even in your dreams? That’s gotta suck.”

And so with the red fiery blush that was making her heat up and remember naughty things pertaining exactly to the fangy part of her dream.

“W-what exactly was Spike’s…er, role in this dream?” Giles looked up, hopeful for a less embarrassing diversion, only to look startled at Buffy’s redder-by-the-moment face and went straight back to studying his feet.

“You so don’t want to know.” She knew it couldn’t stop there.

“Hold on. You say you were being bathed—by a nude slayer, no less—while you were also nude, and then there was Spike? Was he naked too?” There was no faulting Anya’s inquisitiveness, and if the Slayer was in any kind of mood to be caring and with the sharing, she might have felt like doing something other than growling at the poor clueless-to-humiliated-Buffy girl.

“I think the important thing here,” Buffy redirected with a glare, “is the carrot epidemic and the dreams I was having before the nude bathing in juice. Remember? The ones with the fighting of giant were-rabbits with Spike?”

That scared the hapless shop assistant, and evil inner Buffy grinned with success.

“Yes, yes, quite,” agreed Giles, thoughtfully locating a book from a nearby shelf and thumbing his way through the index. “I know this is an absurd assumption, but are we quite certain this isn’t as simple as finding some kind of…giant carrot and perhaps…destroying it?”

“Tried that,” interrupted a new voice and Buffy groaned as Spike swaggered into the shop, shot her a very familiar look and flopped down in a chair, his hand resting against areas on his crotch—areas that Buffy now knew intimately but was more determined than ever to ignore. “Slayer slaughtered a whole crypt full. Carrot innards all over the place. Not that we’ve even seen any of these scary bunnies she’s so intent on.”

“That’s…um…not interesting at all actually.”

Giles’s dry disinterest garnered a raised brow from Spike, but the vampire obviously had to care before something like that would pierce his thick skin. Besides, he had knowledge that trumped the lot of them and as much as Buffy or her friends liked to deny it, he was under her skin and he had no intention of being pried out.

“This whole situation seems very Monty Pythonesque. Perhaps the solution is just to find some…central-acting carrot and destroying it. Who knows what this could be heralding for the world as we know it?” Giles looked pointedly at Buffy, and the Slayer shifted uncomfortably in her perch on the table. She stared at her watcherly guide, incredulity making her eyes wide with disbelief.

“I've been on DUMB assignments before, but now I have to save the world from a carrot?!” She looked around the table for some support, finding dazed and yet expectant faces for her to save them from hormonally-challenged vegetables.

“No worries, Slayer,” Spike declared, his eyes stripping her bare and his accent laden with raw sex-appeal. “I’ve got your back.”

His chauvinistic leer made Buffy shiver, and as righteously angry as she was, she was too weak-kneed to do anything but half-heartedly snap, “Shut up, Spike.” She couldn’t even summon up a reasonably fierce look. Not when Spike having other parts of her besides her back suddenly played like the hottest porno in her head.

“Right, and while Spike is busy having your so-not-naked back, what happened with Drusilla? Is she still around?” Willow looked like the possibility had only just occurred to her and it scared her silly, her eyes darting around the shop just in case the insane vampiress was lurking in some darkened corner. Tara rubbed her arm reassuringly, though she didn’t look any less concerned.

Buffy stared at Spike, turning so that no one could see how much she was dying of mortification, and waited—with a stake clamped in her hand in case he decided to be cute with his reassurances—for him to answer Willow’s question.

He quite visibly sighed, a great heave of his body as he took them all in. They were still afraid of Dru—and by association he felt like he should be sensitive to her threat, but to him, she was like a little lost kitten that just wanted to be petted.

“Pretty sure she scarpered. Not Dru’s style to hang around and persist with a losing battle. She couldn’t get what she wanted, so she buggered off.” He studied his nails, wondering if he should give up the polish now that his world had moved to between Buffy’s thighs, and waited for the inevitable confidence slashing.

“And what was it she wanted? We know it wasn’t you. She’s spectacularly not been with the Spike wanting.” Xander snickered and as much as it pained him that he couldn’t bite a great gaping chunk out of the boy’s thick neck, Spike tried his best to outwardly ignore it. Wasn’t worth a migraine. But the look on Buffy’s face was interesting.

Her eyes were wide and apologetic, and if he squinted, it looked like she was yearning for something.

“Did you tell the Watcher about the primitive slayer bird having a vendetta against you?” He spoke to Buffy, ignoring all the others in his interest to work out her look—decipher why she was looking at him like some kind of wounded animal that needed protection.

“What? Buffy, what more haven’t you told me?” Giles whipped off his glasses and looked sternly at his Slayer. “You know I can’t do my job if I’m not given the relevant information.”

Buffy shrugged and smiled in a way that betrayed how little humour she found in the situation. “I didn’t think it was important, Giles.” And without waiting to hear exactly how relevant and earth shatteringly important it was, she continued, “Spike and I will head out and look for the Mother Carrot. Hopefully I can slice, dice and julienne that sucker into eternal oblivion.”

“Watch out for the giant rabbits,” Anya suddenly called from her place behind the counter, her voice sounding far more wary and fear-filled than earlier. Though—wait—Buffy distinctly remembered Anya…not saying a damn thing all discussion.

Weirdness.

Giles had his mouth open to speak, Xander was rushing to his feet with a ‘wait for me’ poised on his lips, and Willow and Tara were looking moderately blank for the sudden flippyness of the topic, when Buffy grabbed Spike’s sleeve and hauled him desperately out of the door. The bell tinkled their departure and the Scoobies sat watching the disappearance in stunned confusion.

“Okay, Buffy just voluntarily took Spike out on patrol. What’s wrong with that picture?” Xander stood alone, no one formulating any kind of answer. “I mean, there’s all kinds of wrong, but specifically?” Still, silence—so he gave up and dejectedly sat back in his chair, his jacket dropping back to the table as he waited for someone to say something.

Tara looked around thoughtfully at the group, before venturing aloud, “You know, I have this really great recipe for carrot soup…”


~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Stake hits target? Check. Vampire disintegrates into dust? Check check.”

“And yet that just doesn’t satisfy the Slayer’s needy little self, does it, luv?” Spike smirked as he fumbled in his duster pockets for a packet of cigarettes and lit one up, puffing manically for a second before slowing to savour the habit.

“Some advice, Spike. Don’t go there.” Buffy stomped off ahead of him, wondering why she’d been stupid enough to force him to come with her. Killing things was a soothing activity to her, and having Spike along for the ride—snarky innuendo endlessly flowing from his mouth—was just going to send her to a brightly coloured crazy land rivalling Dru’s.

“Don’t go where, Slayer? Your succulent tits or that dripping pu—OW! You need to de-stress a bit before you end up more tightly wound than Peaches.” Spike rubbed his nose. He really should have expected it, and yet when the proboscis punch was delivered, it almost always caught him unawares. He was sloppy—getting sloppier where the Slayer was concerned. Not that he wouldn’t mind getting down and dirty with her, if she’d allow a situation where his chip wouldn’t put his brain permanently on the fritz.

“If you make one more disgusting and inappropriate reference to things you had NO right to see or experience, so help me I’ll scatter your ashes on the wind. Do we understand each other?” Her eyes were on fire and Spike hadn’t felt this hard since the previous night when he’d been pounding her into her fancy girly pillow.

Now he’d done it. Memories bombarded him of her pert little ass as he opened her pussy up to his girth, sliding and stretching her while her juices left him with a glistening view that he’d cherish until he was dust.

“Oh, come on,” he protested, thoroughly irritated with the prim little princess routine. “It’s your side of this that got us shagging, and you enjoyed it.”

“I so did not!” Buffy stood scandalised, her hand itching to beat him into dumbness and her feet wanting to run. And yet her heart was thumping so hard and her blood was becoming so hot that her skin was melting. She felt like she was fighting for breath, ready to both scream and beg for him to do something to stop this catastrophic spiral of emotions. “What happened last night will never happen again.” Deep breaths did not deliver the calm she was so desperate for. “Do we understand each other?”

Spike considered his quarry, his head tipped at an angle to better experience the erratic tic at her throat. He grinned as he heard blood thundering through veins, felt body temperatures gush warmth, and smelt the lie to the Slayer’s words. “I see the lips moving, pet—” Without finishing what was bound to be a classic insult, Spike turned on his heel and began his cocky strut toward Revello. It was either distance himself from the sweet presence of the Slayer, or he’d embarrass himself by tackling her and begging for a kiss.

When Buffy caught up and attempted to gain the lead without running, Spike forced her that tiny step behind him, getting a rush out of her contained fury as she steamed beside him.

He felt lighter than he had in years. It had been a funny day—packed full of sensory delights that kept his thoughts and desires alive for hours. He had Buffy all around him, almost suffocating him with her sweetness, and he’d been driven almost mindless with the need to recapture the rapture of sinking into her heat and experiencing the pinnacle of her passion. He’d lost sleep, finding it impossible to retire his hand from his cock, and he was fast believing Buffy was in his blood forever—without the benefit of any claim.

Spike wasn’t one to contemplate something as nancyish as dream interpretation. Any dreams he’d had since a demon had been of the blood and the thrumming pulse of his victims as he drained them dry. It hadn’t required much thought and had often just been the topper of a usually fantastic hunt. Whatever it was that Buffy was dreaming—and now sucking him into the middle of—was truly unique stuff. If he was honest, Spike could do without it. Getting caught in the middle of a slayer vendetta could not end up with a bag full of goodies for him. He had a feeling he was lucky to escape the previous night with his balls still attached.

He remained distracted all through their post-patrol chat with Joyce, only really noticing things when she bid them goodnight and alighted the stairs for bed. Buffy followed Spike to the basement, and for a second he smiled, convinced she’d been blowing nothing but smoke earlier, claiming that they’d never happen again. You didn’t shag like they had at the hand of some misguided original slayer and just roll over and forget about it.

His duster was the first item shrugged off as Spike led the way into the basement, keeping his back to Buffy as he toed off his boots and then finally pulled his tee over his head. Tensing his back muscles, Spike was close to grinning as he heard Buffy’s admiring gasp. But he didn’t want to push her, didn’t want to…

The familiar clang and clink of chains had him spinning around so fast his feet almost got caught up with each other in a less than graceful Big Bad way.

“I’m not taking any chances of you trespassing in my dreams tonight. Get nice and comfy,” she instructed. Her grin was sadistic and the gleam in her eye was inspired fully by her amusement.

She asked for it, thought Spike with that little devil always sitting on his shoulder. The quiet whir as the zipper on his jeans slid to the end of its path, lean hips revealed as they were kicked to the floor.

Buffy steadfastly refused to look, though the temptation was almost more than she could bear. Staring at a spot over his luminous shoulder, Buffy shook the chains and told him to hurry and get on the bed, and then before he could blink, she was winding it tight around his wrists and through the steel frame of his bed head. “There. That’ll keep you in one place.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but was left to watch helplessly as Buffy marched back up the stairs, an extra confident zing in her step as she continued on to her own room.

She paused at the door, glanced over her shoulder and shuddered at the unflagging excitement his body couldn’t help but betray to the world. It was totally not a view that Dawn should have to suffer, and Buffy, unfortunately, had no trouble seeing her mother fall down the basement stairs if she was faced with certain…sights. Without a second thought, Buffy flicked the internal lock and shut the door, leaving Spike chained and locked away from any curious Summers women.

Spike stared at the stairs for another few minutes before slumping down in his bed and trying to pull up the covers while he was awkwardly cuffed to the bed.

Why did he feel like it wouldn’t be him that she had to worry about wandering?

“You flaunt your skin colour like it pleases you. This is not right—you are wrong and the line is tarnished with you as The One.” A pause, filled with menace and loathing. “Why won’t you kill IT that walks with you?” Sineya spoke low, her voice guttural with rage and age.

Buffy shrugged, getting used to her strangely coloured skin, finding it not so much a hardship with her new wardrobe and Spike not caring as long as he got some nooky. “I would be totally stupid to kill him. He’s thick and hard and he reaches all those difficult to get places that no one else ever has. Besides, he looks really hot in purple. It brings out the vividness of his eyes.” Was it her voice that had gone all dreamy and flirty with the acceptance of hottie Spike?

They were in the desert this time, sizing each other up and adopting a fighting stance in defence.

“You are an abomination to this line. My sister lies with beasts and monsters and should be killed. I forced you to walk with the enemy—kill IT or IT will kill you.”

Buffy stopped her predatory circling and stood, became thoughtful, and then shrugged before shaking her head ‘no’. The refusal came easily to her. There was no part of her that sought the dustiness of Spike.

“Nah. Besides, Spike is so not the enemy. He’s like…a puppy with a really raspy tongue.” Giggles erupted at the thought of the places where he could potentially use that tongue and Buffy could feel herself getting all excited. Besides, walking beside the enemy? Again with the not-so-hardship.

“I curse you,” the first one spat rudely, and Buffy felt a little edge of hurt at the words. She hadn’t done anything wrong, nothing that others hadn’t done before her. Why was Buffy always the one to be slapped down when everything went kablooey and turned to carrots?

“Is it because of you that I dream about Spike being sucker punched and slashed to decorative ribbons by werebunnies? Because got to tell you, really not a pretty moment.” Though it didn’t take much for Buffy to start envisioning other moments that took the edge off the ugliness.

Even knowing she had a vengeful slayer at her back, Buffy turned and ignored her, searching now for the one she’d been cursed to walk the earth with forever. In keeping with the strange, he ambled out of obscure shadow and wore a purple tee. Buffy held in a surprised giggle, yet cocked her brow and waited for an explanation.

He spluttered in indignation. “I’m a manly man, Slayer. A bloke can pull off purple if he chooses.” He stopped before her, arms crossed and duster caressing his body in ways that savaged the butterflies dive bombing her stomach.

Oh yeah, he could pull off purple, all right. And Buffy had detailed plans for pulling purple off him. She had a little carrot-coloured skin she wanted to share and she didn’t care who her audience was.

“I think its past time you showed me how much of a manly man you really are, Spike.”

Spike looked questioningly over his shoulder at the stalking African slayer as she growled and bared her teeth at their sexual prancing and innuendo.

“What about your voodoo princess, pet?”

Buffy peered around him and shrugged unconcernedly. “Psh…if she wants to watch…”

Spike leered lustily and then jumped, tackling Buffy to the solid ground beneath them and absorbed the impact with a groan. The wind knocked from her lungs, Buffy could only gasp as Spike made with the claws and fangs and tore her clothes for her body.

And as she was revealed to his hungry gaze, he marvelled at the richness of her hue. “Bloody hell, Slayer. You look so tasty I could bite you right now. This colour does amazing things to your eyes.”

Yeah, she probably looked like a colour-deranged Martian, but who was criticising when they had naked Spike positioned at weeping, tense areas craving nothing but penetration and possession?

“You are obscene, unnatural. You both must die.” The battle-prepared Sineya charged them, and slammed hard into an invisible barrier that protected the mated couple. Spike grinned as the troublemaker hit the deck, and he thrust into the warm heat of his slayer. He’d barely submerged the first stroke before Buffy had him spinning—head and body.

He was immediately incoherent the second his skull impacted with the floor and Buffy’s pelvis slotting around his. His senses were scrambled as she leaned forward and dangled her breasts in his face, a delectable pale pink nubbin just begging to be sucked. Her gasp was the sweetest music to his ears and Spike gave her a little bite for good measure. Buffy squeezed her vaginal muscles hard, dragged herself up high on his erection, before releasing him on a whimper and sliding down again.

“Oh Slayer,” he breathed in worship. “You are the most beautiful orange woman I’ve ever seen. Give it to me good, baby!”

That pleased her, and with a silly grin on her face, Buffy bounced happily on his cock, loving the friction of surfaces, the bump against her cervix, the stretching of her body to accommodate him.

There was no stopping the frenzy of mind and body that had Buffy striving hard to reach that pinnacle that would make her relish death.

“C-call me purple, Spike. I want to be purple.”

He smirked in satisfaction as his balls clenched and he released himself into her heat.

“And so you shall be, my love.”


There was passionate screaming, and tears, and more with the screaming. Buffy stared down into the face of a vampire lost in passion with a resplendent smile. “Oh God,” she objected, and yet her body wouldn’t let her stop, wouldn’t let her contain the sobs of desperation that told her she needed this, would die if she didn’t reach orgasm soon.

Mindlessly impassioned about the pleasure of his cock and the love he felt for the woman that was making him her bitch with every slap of her body, Spike strained up to nip at her breast, freezing as Buffy screeched indignantly, “Don’t touch me!”

And then grinned ecstatically as she moaned and sobbed in tortured acceptance and need. “Please. Touch me.”

He wasn’t slow to oblige, but shook the chains around his arms as he attempted to use his whole body to catch her, hold her down and be fucked into the next world.

There was no way to check the tears flowing like mini rivers down her cheeks. Buffy was consumed by powerful emotion, her whole body shaking with the ecstasy of it. “God, why won’t you leave me alone? I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s obscene!”

Spike scraped his teeth over the engorged nub, his tongue flicking out to tease just the tight tip of her nipple before sucking her breast fully into his mouth again. He grinned as he stared up into her eyes, feeling playful and wicked and just a little bit irritated that she couldn’t see this for the destiny it obviously was.

“I didn’t touch you, pet. You came down here and took me with all the power and force a bloke can lose his head over. Now stop your bellyachin’ and start pumping.” He jerked his hips up sharply three times in quick succession, eyes crossing as Buffy’s muscles automatically contracted around his girth before letting him free.

With a resigned sob, Buffy slapped her hands on his pecs and rode him at a gallop until his eyeballs spun and he popped like warm Champagne. With an inhuman howl, Spike struck like a snake, his fangs elongated and ready to mark what was his and siphon a measure of precious slayer blood through the stunningness of her tits.

Everything tightened, waiting in suspension, and then as if caught up in a fierce and raging storm, feeling and desire gushed to an explosion that wiped both creatures out and left them wrung out and drained. Buffy whimpered, her body weak and useless before slumping on Spike’s chest like a discarded puppet with its strings cut. Spike didn’t move, feeling all sensation and ability for animation leaking out his ears.

“I think you broke me, Slayer.”

“Did not.”

He could feel the pout as it snuggled into the crook of his neck, could feel the warm puffs of breath as Buffy sucked in essential air.

“Did too.”

She didn’t respond, didn’t move and Spike was beginning to question which one of them was the dead weight around there. His shoulders had surpassed the hurt stage, now aching and burning for how he’d pulled them into an uncomfortable position while he was being screwed into his mattress.

He decided to prompt her. “Did not.”

“I so did, you asshole,” she hissed as she pushed herself up on wobbly arms and glared with all the remaining strength she had.

Spike grinned at his success and prodded her with his thickening approval. “Good of you to take responsibility, luv. But you didn’t damage the best bit.” And his hips jerked up and he stabbed her deep.

She squealed and then slapped him weakly on the chest. “You tricked me.”

“Yeah, but it’s so easy.”

“You know that these dreams have to stop. That this, between us, is nothing and will never happen again as long as I live.” She hissed and denied, yet her hips were slowly building up to a determined swirling movement.

Spike eyed the smooth golden form poised over and above him. She was sleek, lithe and gorgeous, breasts like perfectly shaped tear drops on her chest and hair that he wanted draped over his bulging bits. Picturing it all with a greyer tinge really didn’t do much and the swell of his cock eased and slipped.

“Sorry, pet. I’m no necrophiliac.” He waited for the realisation to hit, and felt the laughter slamming into him for release as understanding made her indignant—and still.

“You’re not—huh, what? You’re already dead.” Buffy looked around and then desperately lowered her pitch to a harsh whisper. “What would you care—” Eyes squeezed shut, words dying on tightly clamped lips, and Buffy found herself in a detested position. “Thank you. It actually means something that you wouldn’t want me dead.”

Seriousness had suddenly squeezed the life out of the exchange and Spike wished for all the world that he could touch her. He yanked meaningfully on the chains and then rolled his eyes when Buffy leaned down and retrieved the key from one of his boots beside the bed. She was blushing as she leaned forward and clicked the lock free, ignoring Spike’s not-so-subtle nuzzling on her aching, swollen breasts as she untangled his wrists from the metal. There was slow, almost imperceptible movement of her hips, just enough to keep things alive and interesting—even though she’d totally deny it if confronted.

The second he was free, Spike grabbed Buffy’s arms and drew himself up to be eye level.

“I know you don’t think much of me—if you let yourself think of me at all—but I wouldn’t hurt you. And this crazy bint that’s cursed us, I think she’s got her facts wrong because if it was a vamp she wanted to kill you, she picked the wrong one for the job.”

Misty green eyes measured his sincerity and triumphantly proclaimed Spike to be genuine. These dreams they were sharing were bigger than Buffy wanted to admit. They’d manipulated her sleep, put a price on her head, and turned her into a twisted nympho-necrophiliac. Not to mention made her terrified of vegetables the size of houses.

And yet, the biggest shock of all were the words proclaiming Spike to prefer her with blood thumping through her body. That was actually…kind of sweet.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Spike cocked an inquiring brow, stunned speechless at those magic words tumbling from his slayer’s lips.

“You know, for…not wanting to kill me anymore.”

He smiled, and it was warm and fun and filled with feeling.

“Pleasure’s all mine.” And there was that active little pelvis reminding her how true that really was.

“Would you stop that?” she pleaded half-heartedly, her voice nowhere near the vicinity of whiny.

“Why? ‘S fun.”

A very deep sigh and Buffy just gave in, allowing the urge to slowly move her hips up and down and renew the fever that had totally sapped her strength and sense.

“Guh! We have to stop this, Spike. There’s something making us do this. It isn’t us.”

Spike felt the molten slickness of Buffy’s juices coating him and begged to differ.

“Who is it then? Bloody feels like us.” And he scooped a neglected breast into the cup of each hand and gave them a squeeze, just to prove how right he was. Rubbed the raised wound of his bite and revelled in the compulsive shudder that moved throughout her body.

“Fine. It is us,” she admitted weakly. Reluctantly. “But I don’t want it to be us. I don’t want to wake up having sex with an evil vampire. You know this would never have normally happened between us, right?”

She’d only seen the flash of hurt because she’d chanced to look up for an answer. It wasn’t going to sway her. Dawn might have been so right about Spike’s fixation, but that didn’t mean Buffy had to accept it—and it especially didn’t mean she was going to return it.

“I’m no psychiatrist, but being that you’re a slayer being hounded by the First Slayer, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest there’s some kind of message here. You want to start dosing up on caffeine and the like to prevent yourself from dreamin’, then go right ahead. Now I think you should leave.” His hands around her waist, Spike lifted her up and groaned as the sucking motion wanted to keep her wrapped warmly around his cock—but his pride demanded she go find some other sucker to get her off. If she wasn’t going to stop being the bitch she always was, he’d rather face the empty satisfaction of his hand any day.

“Wh-what? But I thought—” She clamped her muscles around him and held him in place, causing Spike to grit his teeth and struggle out the only sane objection.

“That’s not fair.” And he fought harder to get her off his dick, feeling the blood being squeezed painfully to the very tip as her pussy neared the end of this journey. He almost had her there, felt sweat on his brow as he struggled to get her off when she got clever and clamped her hands around his wrists and wrenched them away from her waist, slamming herself with full force down so he was fully lodged inside her again.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. Totally. Absolutely no question.” Up. Dowwwn. Up. Dowwwwwn. Eyes rolling back at the delicious sensations, Buffy redirected Spike’s hands to her breasts, whimpering as he lightly caressed her and then pinched and plucked her nipples. “Besides, shouldn’t we discuss the dreams?” She smirked, knowing by the very hard, very pulsing agreement inside her that she had him exactly where she was happy to have him for the moment—even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Trust the Slayer to appeal to his sense of mystery. There was nothing to do but to give in to this and reach that moment that would flush away the residual lust and allow them to think clearly again.

He looked into her eyes and knew he was going to allow it. And they needed to get to the bottom of these dreams.

Right then…

“First things first.”

She hadn’t slept in two days. With bags the size of carry-on luggage under her eyes, Buffy watched resentfully as Willow and Tara left to go home to bed. She’d done the good hostess thing—forced her lids open with double caffeinated caffeine, and tried not to think of Spike out and about in black, or her soft inviting pillow on her bed.

She couldn’t give in to the call, though. As soon as her head would hit softness, she just knew other parts of her would be impaled—without her permission—on things of much hardness. And that was not on her list of things to do for the next however long it took to work out this rabbit and carrot mystery.

She’d already wracked her slayer brain for the past two days on why the original slayer might be doing this to her. Obviously, thinking about it wasn’t enough and she should probably have employed Willow’s much more higher-functioning and efficient brain for the job. She had her little list of clues—and taking a leaf out of Willow’s book, she’d even used pretty colours to do it. Yes, orange and purple featured prominently, but that was totally a conscious thing. And the little hearts she’d sketched around her purple Spike were so totally planned as well.

It had all started with the werebunnies. So not fluffy, by any means, and really not part of Spike’s admittedly minutely small fan-club. Still, it was the first dream and he’d been in it, and since that moment, he’d seemed to have as much access to her very important R.E.M time as she did. A seemingly strong connection, then, had to be the gargantuan vegetable life popping up all over Sunnydale. How it had taken over Spike’s home and led him into hers could have been a coincidence, but Buffy wasn’t taking anything for granted. Nuhuh. Not anymore.

As bizarre as it appeared, Buffy figured these items on her clue list were pretty normal as far as things went on the Hellmouth. It was how her dreams had progressed to be tormented by not just one of her sisters, but the original one of her line that had her confused. The First Slayer wanted her dead, and seemed not above manipulating a permanent connection to a notoriously evil—though not-so-dangerous—vampire to do it.

Though she was pretty sure the sex part of the curse wasn’t supposed to be as potent as it was. Or for it to have even gone past the claiming part of the objective.

Buffy smiled tiredly. She’d read up a little on claims—well, as much as she could,which turned out to be not too easy—since she’d come by the decision to not completely confide in Giles. She was so far from ready to admit that she was having very sexy, er, sex, not only in her dreams, but in real life, as well. There were certain things a girl deemed necessary to keep to herself, and doing the wild thing with Spike qualified very high as one of those things.

So far it all seemed to make a whacky kind of sense. There were werebunnies on the loose, and whoever had summoned them to Sunnydale was also growing size-appropriate carrots to keep their hunger at a minimum—presuming they were herbivorous. Fighting said bunnies wasn’t going to be the pushover Buffy might have originally suspected if she’d come across them on-the-job rather than in her sleep, and using Spike as a distraction might do little more than have him sliced and diced into pretty black and white ribbons.

“You still tryin’ to suss all this out? I bleeding well told you. Get Rupert on it already.” Spike stomped through the house after shutting the front door a little less loud than usual, and Buffy assumed her ‘Spike-is-totally-invisible-and-not-living-in-my-house’ routine and ignored him, tapping a violet gel pen against her orange notepad before resting the end of the cylinder on her bottom lip.

And then came the weird orange and purple metaphors, and that’s when her ideas veered off in the direction of the not having of any. She was idea and explanation free, and that just stunk. Stunk as bad as rotting werebunnies, if she had to guess. Which ewwww, she’d so rather a raincheck on that one—except for the part where they were dead and a non-threat.

She’d twisted her mind into all sorts of interesting avenues of exploration the entire day, and as a conclusion, she’d come up with nothing. And all it led to was the seriously unhappy realisation that she was gonna have to tell Giles. She was going to have to let the secret out of the bag and admit to having wild and compulsive, hot, naked sex with Spike, and shamefully confessing she wished she could do it without the intervention of her dreams. Or the inconvenience of guilt.

Giles was so going to kill her.

Her body was burning up for Spike. Every time he was near, she wanted to tackle him to the ground and make him naked. Every time she looked at his face, she saw them together, years into the future, fighting evil and spending the night lovingly in the other’s arms. It hurt her head—but even more, it hurt her heart.

She was totally going to kill Dawn.

None of this had ever been a blip on her radar until her pesky sister created the possibility by opening her mouth and releasing words. Painting pretty possibilities that her friends would flay her for even considering. For participating in…even if she had been asleep.

Okay, so back on track. It was the naked, the claim—which, all right, she got that. Her sister slayer thought if she was tied to a notoriously vicious slayer-hating vampire, one of them would end up dead with a more than average chance that it could be her. It was harsh, but she understood that bit. What she wasn’t getting was the failure of the curse, because Sineya—huh! pretty name—was totally with the determined, and yet Buffy and Spike were making with the loving, rather than the killing. And as much as it galled her to admit it—even if it was silently to herself—she wasn’t finding much about that to complain about.

As scorching hot lava rushed through her veins in place of the usual blood, Buffy cringed and admitted to herself that there wasn’t anything to complain about. She’d never suspected that sex could be so porntastically perfect outside of a movie, but she should have known. Spike had always been the type to rise to the challenge. And rise he had, over and over again.

Buffy had only just begun to lose the fire in her cheeks when she looked up and found Spike standing in the kitchen doorway, staring contemplatively at her and her notebook while he sipped on a mug of blood. He’d lost the neat new leather coat somewhere and Buffy gulped at the image of physical perfection in front of her. She’d never considered his form before. Sure, Spike had been a perfect example of what to mock, but really, when the blinkers of prejudice had been ripped off and crushed to a cinder—and the sensations of experience came into play—Buffy could see herself hooking up with a lot worse than Captain Peroxide.

“You know, we could have put those carrots to some interesting uses.”

And that was totally one of the reasons she’d never thought of Spike as anything but an evil, nasty vampire that would look so much better as ash in her vacuum.

“DO NOT add anything else to that sentence,” Buffy ordered, standing slowly and letting the notebook fall to the coffee table. And yet images began flashing behind her eyes and the colours in the living room changed suddenly without explanation. She felt light-headed, disorientated and consumed with a driving lust to see skin-of-Spike.

Spike’s eyes narrowed as he watched Buffy’s focus seemingly shift and blur before returning to pin him with a gaze of intent he’d never seen from her before. His head tilted to the side, Spike wondered at the very distinct change in her in the ten minutes since he’d entered the house. He could smell heat in the air; his body was being attacked by the scent of her lust and his fingers tingled with the desire to shed her clothing and run his tongue over her compact yet very sexy body.

“Buffy?” He took a step inside the room, leaving the mug absently on the desk and drifting past it.

“My mom is out of town tonight, and she didn’t trust me to have Dawn in the house.” Her voice was low and husky and Spike couldn’t help being overtaken by whatever mist around them was drawing them together, inhibitions and commonsense on permanent vacation.

“What are you saying, Slayer?”

She didn’t say a thing. Instead, he was slapped in the face with her scanty stretch-top and then a black lacy bra was hanging around his neck. Two rosy tipped nipples pointed at him with purpose and Spike licked his lips, still in control and yet eager to give in to whatever had the good sense to make the Slayer hot for him while she was conscious.

“Should your mum be gallivanting around the countryside so soon?” He cursed his tongue and his insane need to talk, almost terrified that she’d snap out of this daze and cover those luscious little lovelies up. That would be too cruel, not now that he could map the exact contours of her body.

“She’s not gallivanting. She’s partying. With her sister. Aunt Diane. It’s her birthday.”

His brow perked up at the implied difference of definition, and he refrained from grinning at Buffy’s frequent confusion of seemingly simplistic concepts, and yet again he couldn’t really care. Joyce—bloody brilliant woman—but Buffy was getting naked, and that was something he’d been aching to see without the influence of sleep for longer than he could remember. Though he only supposed it had been a few months, time flew when circumstances conspired to make you love’s bitch yet again.

“Birthday in the family then. We should celebrate.” Spike took another step closer, pulling his tee out of the waistband of his jeans and loosening the snap at the fastening of the denim as he went.

He was gratified by Buffy’s mesmerised focus at his crotch, and then almost laughed giddily as her hungry gaze traced the progress of his lifted hem until the shirt cleared his head.

Buffy was nodding when he ran his hand over his crotch, the ache in his engorged cock almost doing him in. Nodding and swallowing hard, and yet still progressing toward him.

“Spike?”

He almost stopped and fought against this primal urge, recognising the hesitant tone as heralding the possibility that she’d behead him for taking advantage of this lapse in her determination come tomorrow.

“What is it, Buffy?” he asked, already feeling the pain of her withdrawal. “You want me to stop?” Just the suggestion seemed to send opposing bolts of debilitating lust soaring through his body, and Spike suspected his bits were straining a bit too hard and his hair was standing on end.

“God no,” she gasped, and then her lips were on his, her fingers gripping clumps of his hair tightly as she held him determinedly against her.

Not that Spike was complaining, but he wondered which body part she was going to cripple when she came back to herself later on. It wasn’t that he’d told her how he felt about her these days—even though he’d picked up from the few things she’d said that the Bit had probably let loose more than a few of her uninformed musings concerning the more sensitive nature of Spike’s feelings. There was no denying he was a man, and Spike found it as difficult to hold back on the offer of insanely satisfying sex as the next bloke, but there was the little issue of roaming werebunnies and gardeners with size issues. Their first order of the night should be to start sorting out the many mysteries that were playing havoc with their lives.

And he didn’t want Buffy to take it out on his balls when the mists of pleasure parted and she saw who she’d inducted to the heady cavern of sin between her thighs. He was rather attached to his danglies, and he’d warrant she was partial to them too—if she was honest.

So as much as he wanted to take advantage of Buffy’s timely interest, he didn’t want to hear about it through a spray of ugly invective for the rest of his life either.

Preparing to take the bull by the horns, Spike sucked in her tongue and soothed its fire with his own, groaning at the almost beautiful violence of his girl’s thrusts as she tried to kiss his lips to dust. But then a wandering hand travelled a little further down the front of his jeans than he’d mentally prepared for, and Spike squeaked as he pushed her away.

“Christ, woman. What the bloody hell are you trying to do to me?”

The haze of lust was slow to burn out in the Slayer’s eyes, but when it did, Spike could see she was livid. “You…you…I hate you,” she screamed and burst into tears as she ran for the stairs.

“Buffy, stop!” Spike grabbed her before she got too far, holding her writhing body as she elbowed him in the ribs and kicked his shin. His eyes rolled back at the pain and he stumbled backward, thankfully landing on the couch, but unfortunately with Buffy jarring his aching erection as she ended up on top of him.

The Slayer screamed in muffled rage as a hand slapped over her mouth and Spike’s other hand snagged a breast and squeezed just hard enough to hurt. “Don’t bloody move or I’ll rip it right off.”

Buffy was immediately still, and he could just imagine the terror such dismemberment might have wrought and felt a queer sense of satisfaction at achieving even that minor scare.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, I’d dare, princess. An’ then some. But I admit it would break my heart to damage one of these pretty titties, but you bounce on my dick like that again and I won’t be held responsible for my actions.” It helped that he knew that he would never do it—helped just enough so that the chip didn’t explode in his head.

Buffy almost ripped herself out of his hold and Spike commenced a violent string of curses under his breath, but then she was turned in his lap and he was cradled comfortably at the cup of her pussy and he couldn’t hold back the groan of relief such a sensation brought him.

She had miles of shattered confidence laid out in the shadow of her eyes, and Spike knew himself all sorts of an idiot. He allowed his body to release the tension that had held him rigid, and allowed his hands to settle around her waist. Not that that was where he wanted them, but after threatening the all important globes, he thought he should probably hold off on touching her breasts for a bit.

“Wasn’t rejecting you.”

Her eyes shone as she looked up and confronted him. “I thought you wanted me? Dawn said…not that you…I mean…I thought you wanted me? Or is it only fun when we’re asleep?”

“Are you completely off your nut? What’s fun about being manipulated? If you were doing this of your own free will, I’d be right there, tickling you in all the right places, making you scream—” He was on a roll until she laughed and he lost his train of thought.

“You are such an idiot. I was using my own free will, and you pushed me away anyway. What? You can’t even tell when it’s me and not some bitch queen of the slayer line pushing my buttons?”

“Oi, it’s me that pushes your buttons, and don’t you forget it.” Spike grasped hold of the important words, that touching him had been her choice and not the cue of some mystical force, and decided to nut it out another time. And preferably one where they stood a mile apart from each other and were wearing a lot of clothes. “Now, I believe we’ve got a thing to return to.” And before Buffy could pout, before she could say another word in censure, Spike was attacking her throat and his fingers were trailing up her bare torso, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Buffy arched back, her body on fire for Spike’s special talents, and she felt the beginnings of a violent cry claw free from her throat as his lips latched around her straining nipple. She was crazy; there was no other explanation for why she’d suddenly been so filled with need just from looking at him. She’d caved into the impulse and allowed herself the freedom of truly feeling what it was like to choose him. To choose to share herself with him. Her choice—not some ho-bag slayer who’d had her time long ago.

The claim had truthfully never really crossed her mind as a motivation behind the out-of-control urges to feel Spike’s hands and mouth against her flesh. That was probably a bad as Buffy knew it had to be a factor—but acknowledging it as being the driving force behind her lust and developing affection for the bleached vampire was too sad to be considered. It remained as something they had to discuss, however. If she was joined to him now—if her existence and meaning was merged with his in any way that she was ignorant of, she needed the skinny. That way she’d know which way to jump to avoid Giles’s understandably furious retorts.

Spike was feasting on her breast, his teeth gnawing at the sensitive tip, and it was so much more satisfying than his threat of before. Tingling pleasure led the way through her body and snagged against her heated centre, before building into a roaring burn that was driving her insane for his touch. His fingers were delving into her pants, and Buffy knew the frustration of tight jeans—totally uncompromising when she wanted to get her kink on—and determined that she was going to be Skirt Girl every night from now on.

There was nothing for it, they had to move. Lips locked, Buffy forcefully brought him to his feet and they both got seriously busy with sliding down zippers and jeans until they stepped out, leaving a denim mess on the floor and stumbling almost drunkenly back to the sofa with Buffy landing in almost precisely the same spot as before. This time, however, there was nothing to hinder a much more pleasurable outcome and Buffy slid with unerring accuracy down, down until she reached bottom, her breathy gasps betraying the monumental impact of stretching around him.

And then it all came to a screeching halt. Buffy sat in his lap with his cock fully immersed and her body vibrated pleasurably all over. Curling her arms around his neck, any shyness that might have coexisted with the romance of staring deep into his eyes was absent, and Buffy lost herself in swirling stories and truths.

Of all the vampires she’d known, Spike’s entrance had had the greatest impact. Even that first night she’d had the drop on Angel, the hulking mystery guy had melted into the shadows like he was born and grazed there. Spike was only one with the darkness when he chose to be, but Buffy knew even back then that he wasn’t one to select obscurity often. Spike was someone who thrived on being seen, on being recognised, and as she stared into him while her muscles massaged him toward release, Buffy could see more of his truth than she’d ever thought existed.

Almost as if the experience was new, Buffy saw that day in the sun, when quips and slander had geared her up to whip immortality off his finger and send him sizzling into the sewers. It had been a satisfying moment—and not because she’d rendered Spike useless. She’d fought against his almost overwhelming power when humiliated and in pain, and she’d won. But not only that, she thrived when she and the bleached pain met up and traded blows. It made her hungry, it made her hot.

It made her his.

Buffy hissed as she recognised how inevitable this development had been. She may have fought it and denied it to her head, but somehow her heart had always known. Her slayer heart. Her Buffy heart had been decimated by the cruelty of others.

Spike could swear they’d been fucking for hours, and all of it without actually moving a muscle. Well, none of his, at any rate. Buffy’s body had stilled as soon as she’d reached the end of her descent, and yet he could feel every inch of his cock as she tightened and released him in an infuriating rhythm that made him want to bite her as well as kiss her senseless. But he couldn’t, had to be alert as she sucked his life story from his heartfelt, loving gaze.

“What are you seeing, beautiful girl?”

Buffy flushed, pleased at how soppy and intuitive he always was, and slipped her lips against his.

“I’m seeing you, Spike. I see you.”

And it was a sight profound.

Buffy awoke at the coldest, darkest point of morning, wrapped up tight against Spike’s chest. His body wasn’t especially warm, but Buffy was far from chilled. She jerked awake, a scream suspended in her throat and the burn of terror-sweat on her skin.

The dreams were so life-like sometimes that it was difficult for Buffy to divorce herself from them when she woke. She wasted valuable minutes grasping for the floor that had disappeared from underneath her before realising the scene around her had changed.

She’d been to that place again, made to stay on the outskirts as Spike was torn from her side and obliterated by the far-too-sharp claws of the killer bunnies. The moon shone large and round, almost making the night as light as day and Spike’s hair was so bright that it nearly looked like he wore a halo. Buffy felt pride in her beloved, crushing down that betraying part of her that wanted to scoff in disgust that she should care for an evil monster that had destroyed many more lives than she could begin to imagine. Spike was hers now; his mark was lodged deeper than the scar on her neck. He’d grafted himself to her heart and she knew that if he were removed, the hole would be too large to repair.

Some filthy, nasty little old man—wizened by time and experience—held her back from the fight and Buffy wondered why he seemed to have more strength than her.

“Let me go!” she demanded angrily, twisting and struggling against the tight hold while never letting her gaze leave her lover. Spike. He was her lover in her dreams and in her bed and now his very existence was being threatened and she could do nothing about it. When she found this guy, she was so going to make sure it hurt.

“What would you give, Slayer? What would you give to save the one you love? And what would you give to destroy him if he betrayed you?”

Before Buffy could scream her rage at being restrained, the man was gone and she had freedom again to move. Only it was all too late. Her first step accompanied Spike’s roar of pain and shock, and then he was twinkling in the night-time air as ugly, greasy ash. It was so undeserving for a vamp with such pretty eyes.

“No. Nooo!” And her legs were pumping through the air, running toward the leftovers of his spirit, and her face was bathed with his dust. It clung to her tears, showered her hair, and Buffy had never felt so bereft of her own essence in all her life. Had never felt so lost and broken and unwilling to go on.

Waking against his smooth chest was slow to build up her relief; Buffy was still heaving sobbing breaths at the devastation of her senses. And then his arms circled her and drew her closer, giving her the reassurance she needed to make it through the night and into morning without losing her sanity.

“Oh God.” She couldn’t control the shaking, didn’t care that the response to the familiar scene was more extreme, felt so much deeper than last time; didn’t care because she recognised now that the makings of this predictable torment was always there. Why else could she never stake him and accepted him so easily with chip into her life?

“Ssshh.” Spike rubbed Buffy’s back and tried to blink back his own confused tears. “I saw it, Slayer. But I’m right here an’ I’m not going anywhere. Do I need to remind you I’ve won against two slayers?” He cringed even as he pointed out the fact for reassurance rather than to gloat. “I’m hardly going to let some overgrown rabbit take me out. Not now I’ve got you to warm me up.”

Buffy ignored the words but soaked in the soothing tone while winding her arms tighter around his body. By touch she sought the wounds that existed only in her mind, and finally cried quietly, reassured that he was as perfect and blemish-free as he’d been when they’d tumbled exhausted into bed.

“Remind me when we actually find these feral furry rabbits that I have to take out the grubby little guy first.”

Spike smiled into her hair and nodded. “Sounds like a plan, pet.”

The comforting moment stretched out into sensual promise, Buffy’s uncertain emotions turning the tide from devastated loss to seizing the day. Her soft touch slowly mapped the contours of his body as her lips nuzzled his throat. She straddled his hips, her body twitching and needy for the reassurance of every aspect of his presence. Feeling his length slide fast and hard inside of her was the first clue that she wasn’t lost, and Buffy’s nibbling turned into much more active and determined bites. She flattened her body on top of him, gasping at the feel of her belly resting against his, her breasts squashed against his chest, her clit rubbing against the hard resistance of his cock.

The tingling sensation from her entire body pried her attention from his neck and Buffy pulled away to look at the teeth indents in his skin, feeling the satisfaction of knowing he wasn’t the only one who gained pleasure from that kind of pain. He stood rigid inside her, and Buffy melted around him, grasping hold as she began to move her hips.

Spike pushed her up so that she was sitting fully, her hands braced against his shoulders and her body betraying the changed trajectory of his cock as he lifted her and dragged her back down upon him. There were fang marks on her breast and he was mesmerised at his audacity, wondrous at her unspoken permission that gave him leave to mark her.

“Buffy, do you have any idea how I feel about you?” Spike couldn’t keep his hands off her, fear making him take every part of her she’d willingly give him before she tore herself away and made him go back to his carrot-infested crypt.

A finger stretched out and rested gently against his lips, her hazel eyes softer than he’d ever seen.

“Not now, Spike. We’ll talk after, okay?” She smiled, but the tears in her eyes glistened and he took pity on her. It wasn’t like he was eager for her to snap out of this and kick his ass to the curb. There was nothing he wanted more than to wallow in the affection of his slayer; nothing more delicious than to be sunk womb deep in her heat.

Buffy took control of the surging of her hips, and Spike lost himself in the vision of her body seeking pleasure from his. He loved the way her hair swung as her head lolled, loved the way her muscles bunched as she moved and really loved the way her tits bounced and hypnotised him into a drooling mess of vamp.

Despite feeling like all his senses were long past fried, Spike dragged his legs up so that his thighs could support her and he pushed her back, lifting her legs out of her kneeling position and parted them wider, his fingertips itching to rub the now exposed little pearl that was red and hungry for attention. Spike slicked his thumb with his tongue and let it zero in on her control button, enjoying the minimal movement that had her still trying to slide along his cock. Her whimper when he pressed against her almost lit him up from the inside out. His balls ached but he wasn’t going to rush. All their moments had been rushed, and now, if this was all he ever had, he was going to take the image of her open and desperate for him.

“Please…oh God…don’t…gah!” Buffy was incoherent as she swirled her hips against his thumb, her hand compulsively reaching his and helping him rub her mindless.

It was raw, this emotion that was suddenly unveiled while he touched her. He couldn’t stop looking at her, her body flushed, her eyes wide in surprise and embarrassment—which wouldn’t do at all. He loved her like this; couldn’t get enough of seeing her so open and pleasured. Couldn’t wipe the grin from his face that it was him and not Too-Happy Peaches making her moan and groan and wiggle on his cock.

“You’re glorious, you know? That gorgeous little nub sticking its pretty tongue out at me, tapping against my thumb. Your pussy fucking me like it owns me.” His eyes crossed as Buffy squeezed tight and he gripped her hips hard with his remaining hand and pinched her clit till she squealed.

“Spike!”

He loved it when she shattered. She was a queen among women, and when she pulsated around his cock, when she shouted his name, he could fool himself that she was his queen and that they were meant to be.

The layer of sweat she wore now was totally love induced, and Buffy liked that a whole lot better than the terror that had sparked her adrenaline rushed run from sleep. She felt her cells disintegrate and was mentally exhausted from the trip. Collapsing against Spike and curling her arms around his neck, she continued to pump her hips, wanting so much to feel his loss of control spurt inside her receptive heat. She’d never experienced anything like this and was half tempted to talk herself into believing it was the claim. That claim that she was mostly ignorant of and how it would affect her thoughts and actions. Buffy knew enough though to know that it was Spike that made her feel so out of control, made her feel so good and safe and loved.

Buffy shivered, concentrating on the drag of his cock against her walls and struggled to breathe properly.

There was something fundamentally different to having sex with Spike—and she so didn’t mean that it had started from a dream. Her first time with Angel had been overwhelming in a scary way, tainted with the fear that he was going to be gone for months or longer. And then he was gone but she still got to be torn apart by seeing his face and being slashed by his barbed tongue. Parker wasn’t worth mentioning, and Riley? How could she see sex with Riley as anything but an attempt to rub out the bad of her past with something not requiring much of her heart?

Sex with Spike made her think while inconveniently blowing her mind at the same time. Sex with Spike woke up every slumbering part of her body, and sex with Spike made her see a future for herself she’d always been too afraid to imagine. Especially now they had hellgods on their tail and mysterious vegetable patches popping up out of nowhere with hungry werebunnies hiding behind some inconspicuous corner.

Dealing with the inevitable, Buffy gave in once and for all. She was caught, claimed and dying to be kissed. Her dreams were totally gone from her mind, Spike wasn’t dust but in her arms, lodged deep inside her body and she happened to be enjoying that progression very much.

Biting her lip in trepidation, Buffy shyly looked at the plump yet sexy man lips slightly parted and whimpered needily. “Can…can you kiss me?”

He looked shocked, his brow rising as he assessed her vulnerability, and then his lips turned up in a relieved, warm smile as he curled a hand around her head and pulled her closer. “Buffy, I never want to stop.”

And then she felt it, the rapid increase of her heart beating at the first touch. She sank into the sensation, loving how he didn’t press too hard, wasn’t too soft and how he opened his mouth to lick her lips and press between them to butt against her teeth. His free hand cupped her face and Buffy’s eyes drifted closed, losing herself to the sensory experience of being wanted by a vampire. His mouth loved her and Buffy could tell that he was investing all of the unspoken emotions in this kiss. It melted the butterflies in her belly. Her body had totally stilled while she kissed him, while she explored his mouth and found him addictive and tasty. She’d stopped moving—but he hadn’t, and he came while he caressed her lips, his release shooting up inside of her as he groaned into her mouth.

“I love you,” he murmured against her mouth, and Buffy didn’t have the first mind to contradict him. Her second mind began forming the words herself, but the need to catch her breath held them back for now and that in itself was a relief. So much had happened in so short a time. Just days ago she would have had Spike disinvited from her house for voicing such a heinous thing. Now she wanted to gush and melt all over him.

Letting the words gather and be road blocked in her throat, Buffy bestowed a warm, meaningful kiss on his lips and then curled into him, resting her head on his chest.

“We’ll talk in the morning, ‘kay?” If pressed, she could do the talky thing now, but her bones were weary and her heart was on alert. She needed to think, needed to calm down, and after that awful dream, she definitely needed some sleep.

Spike heaved a gigantic sigh and she smiled secretly against him. She knew he was disappointed; somehow knew that he suspected the morning to bring ‘Foul Mood Buffy.’ That she’d be back to kicking and screaming at him while she spun a stake in her hand. He’d be so totally wrong, and Buffy was looking forward to when they did discuss the weirdness that had developed with them as the central force of God only knew what. For the first time ever, Buffy looked forward to waking up next to a lover.

Her body lax and satiated, Buffy closed her eyes and rested.

Spike kept watch with a frown marring his face. He hadn’t meant to spurt the words along with his come. Really hadn’t meant to leave himself vulnerable to the acid that could fly from the Slayer’s tongue at any given moment. Hearing the slow of her breathing and the relaxation of her body, Spike watched as Buffy drifted safely into sleep and hoped she’d be relieved of any more violent slayer dreams.

He’d felt something shift this last time. The way she’d taken his lips and made love to them. The way she’d left his body to reach toward relief from nothing but the stir of her tongue against his. The way she’d not fought against him in anything at all, instead held him with affection rather than brutal force. Not that he’d say no to a bit of rough and tumble on occasion. But this seemed like a good start—if he wasn’t reading the situation wrong.

Almost afraid to surrender to the same darkness that had the Slayer trapped, Spike closed his eyes and just hoped it would all be sorted tomorrow.

Wasn’t like he had any other choice.

“Bleeding Christ. Who bangs the door down at…11:30 in the morning?” Spike grouched as he ran a weary hand through his spiked up curls. He didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, being that they’d slept half the day away. There was a memory scratching at the back of his brain, and as soon as he heard Giles calling at the front door, he remembered they’d managed to miss a riveting history lesson on slayer dreams and flaming great animal anomalies.

Buffy sat up abruptly, reminding him that he was still lodged deeply inside his girl and that her sudden movement wrenched his cock painfully, not that it prevented him from releasing the automatic whimper of devastation when she climbed off and he slipped out like a dejected floppy snake.

“Spike!” she hissed, scrambling over his body and off the bed for her wrap. “Oh God, get dressed.”

And the natural world order according to Buffy had returned, fully operational and wild cannon-free.

“Why should I? I’m not breaking in, am I? Let the berk see us. Might teach him to keep his key to himself.” Spike sat up in the bed, barely covered by the recalcitrant sheet, and ignored Buffy’s glare.

“Get. Dressed. Now. Or so help me, I’ll kick your ass every last step into the basement.”

On closer study, Spike found little doubt that the honeymoon was over and that she’d do it. Her face was flushed pink and her heart was beating the tune of terror and he just knew that if it was still night outside, he would have been successfully shoved arse over tit out the window.

“Keep your shirt on,” he mumbled, missing Buffy’s surprised glance as she did the buttons of her shirt up.

“I was planning to,” she huffed miserably, already seeing how everything had gone totally wrong and Spike was taking everything the way of the dodo. As in, dumb ass. Oops, too many ‘s’s.’

“Just tell the git I was up here acting as pest control. Scared of a spider, aren’t you, luv?”

Eyes wide, Buffy stared at Spike like he’d sprouted a second head and his new hair colour was orange. “Like he’d believe the Slayer was scared of a spider. He’s more likely to believe you’re the pest, you idiot!” And just like that, Buffy could see that the Spike-sniping habit of old wasn’t going to die a sudden death.

His glare was icy with dislike, though, and that hurt. In her panic of habit—never ever let a Scooby see her macking on the undead—she’d managed, without any real trouble at all, to kill the good feelings Spike had managed to drag out of her through the night.

She cringed at the clench of his jaw and waited for the inevitable eruption of insults, feeling even lower when they didn’t come.

“He’s on the stairs. Might want to get out and head him off, and then your dirty little secret will remain exactly that. Distract him and he’ll never need to even see me.” Spike spoke quietly, and yet the venom in his tone was unmistakable and Buffy’s belly cramped in objection. But with Giles less than seconds behind her door, what was she supposed to do?

Buffy knew that her eyes would reveal how scared she was—and not of seeing Giles on the landing—but Spike didn’t even bother to glance her way. He gathered his pants and turned his back, letting Buffy almost lose sight of the bigger picture as she stared at Spike’s muscular back and thighs while he slipped the fabric over his hips and caught the clasp together.

When he was done, he didn’t move—a vampire staring at the shaded window that held back the sun but not the heat. Buffy sighed against the urge to cry and flung open her door; now that she knew she’d damaged something fragile in the name of saving face, she didn’t care who saw Spike standing in her bedroom.

Giles stood with his hand suspended to knock—now hanging in the air as the door was removed from his reach. His eyes took in the sight but he was slow to reach understanding, his speech moving on in habitual grace rather than remaining silent and working around new information.

“I’m terribly sorry to intrude,” he said softly, “but when you didn’t show up at the Magic Box to research your dreams and the killer rabbits, we all grew quite concerned. But that was unnecessary on our part, wasn’t it?”

“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have slept in—”

“Oh, Buffy. How could you?” Giles wiped his brow and swept his glasses off his nose, the world a little more balanced the second it all went fuzzy.

“Don’t you start on your melodramatic hubbub designed to make her whither with guilt. The girl’s legal age, pops. It’s time to cut the strings.” Spike was furious, and not only because Buffy stood as still as Barbie and with an identical smattering of brains. From the moment her precious gang intruded on them, she’d been too immersed in desperate movement to veil the truth. He’d thought he’d made inroads with her, but he should have known better. Buffy was a back roads kind of girl. The only time she’d take the highway would be for a human. It was acceptable and favoured, and he was neither of those things to her friends.

Giles sighed exasperatedly, and then seemed to come to some kind of decision. “Would I be correct in assuming that this has something to do with the slayer dreams that you’ve been rather averse on sharing with me?”

The heartless bint jumped at that avenue of excuse—just as Spike knew she would. He clucked his tongue in disgust, retrieved one of his many new grey shirts and tugged it violently over his head.

“Exactly! See? Dream badness. Totally bad.” Her eyes shot comically wide as she finally heard the words she’d employed to back out of the situation, reputation intact. Too late she saw Spike’s pursed lips, his balled fists as he very sexily stomped past Giles and headed downstairs. “Except really good?” she finished weakly and found it much harder to hold back the tears.

Giles wasn’t blind to the tension-filled atmosphere. It was something he’d have the skill to pick up, even with his self-inflicted blindness. “I-is there anything else I should probably know?”

Buffy stood a moment, wondering at how quickly being with Spike became her norm and rendered the typical oddness so much less, but there was still the issue of the claim that she’d managed to uncover no relevant details about. But she didn’t want to discuss it in her room—not the place that held the manly scent of Spike’s body and their mingled desires.

“Can we—?” Buffy led Giles downstairs, nibbling on her bottom lip while she tried to think of the best way to intro this part of the dream curse.

Spike was predictably in front of the television when they’d made it to the living room, and as worried as Buffy was that she may have driven a rather large and unnecessary wedge between them, she was still annoyed that he didn’t know her well enough to expect that her gut reaction to possible exposure would be denial.

Just to be contrary, as well as making an effort to put them back on the right footing, Buffy made her way to sit down next to a reclining Spike, smirking inwardly at his surprise to see her there.

Giles remained silent and watched as Buffy fidgeted nervously, and then in a sudden decision to be brave, she seized Spike’s hand and gripped it in a parody of an intimate handhold. Both sets of male eyebrows hit hairlines, but Buffy stubbornly refused to budge and instead stayed silent while she waited for the questions to start to flow.

“Buffy, you implied there was something else significant you’ve neglected to tell me? Though I fully suspect that holding Spike’s hand would come under that heading.”

She nodded—so avidly it hurt the muscles of her neck. Body aching in that way it does when a lover spent the night showing you all the ways in which he loved you, and yet Buffy shivered in fear at Giles’s expected reaction.

“The first slayer somehow manipulated us in my dream to…um, to…have…”

“Sex. The crusty old bitch forced us into having sex, and somehow managed to make me claim Buffy. I think that’s what’s got the Slayer’s panties twisted.” Spike slumped back in the chair, his hips swivelling him into a nice comfy state while he waited. He could feel Buffy shaking, her eyes too scared to look away from Giles, and yet he caressed her palm in his hand anyway.

“Yup. What he said. So I…kinda need to know what claims mean.”

Spike rolled his eyes. He could have told the silly bint all she needed to know, but oh no, why ask the bloody vamp about vampiric rites and rituals?

“H-hasn’t Spike discussed this with you?” Giles asked, clearing his voice several times to clear it of the obvious shock.

He loved it when she got all flushed. Not only was it an explosive reminder of all that delicious hot blood pumping in her veins, it also showed that she had emotions swirling in that bitchy interior on occasion.

“Hasn’t bloody asked me. But then I’m just the vamp with the fangs. What would I know?”

“Well, go on then. Enlighten us. Prove you’re not completely useless.” There was menace in Giles’s expression and Spike could see that while they might not actually come to blows over this development, he could definitely be receiving a wallop or two for being slack with the information.

“It doesn’t mean a bleeding thing. It’s nothing but a romanticised non-ritual that you ignorant non-vamps thought up to give meaning to a vamp bite during sex. Some idiot way back fell in love with a human girl, and instead of turning her, ‘claimed her.’ It’s absolute bollocks and doesn’t come with any special tricks or powers. We’re just joined. For life. Like any married couple, I guess. Except divorce is usually a bit more extreme.”

“Oh?” The watcher had his research cap on and for some reason, Spike found that image quite funny.

“Well, a human divorce doesn’t often end up with someone sweeping up the remains and tossing them out the back door, or does it? I admit I’m out of practise with the human element.”

Buffy looked positively horrified, and it was a second too late Spike before remembered the dreams she’d been having about his slice and dice death at the paws of their slippery rabbits.

“There’s something else,” Buffy admitted in a really small, insignificant voice. “The dreams are colour-coded.”

Giles looked totally befuddled. “What? Do you mean you sometimes dream in black and white? And sometimes colour?”

Buffy released a nervous laugh. “Um, no. I mean that the first slayer tells me I’m orange, and that’s usually when Spike and I…and then I say things like I don’t want to be orange, I want to be purple instead. I mean, who wouldn’t?” she said defensively. “Purple equals pretty. Orange—blah!” She shook all over to emphasise her point. “I have nothing to match orange, and after the carrot flaying incident, I know I now have an orange phobia. Definitely!”

“Oh. Well, that’s likely the easiest part of this whole…debacle…to solve,” Giles admitted with some relief.

“Really?” Buffy sat forward in her seat, still holding fast to Spike’s hand as she waited for Giles to relieve her mind of one of the mysteries that had crowded it lately.

“Why, of course. Didn’t you do any dream analysis, or colour significance in that university course in psychology?” Giles was back to impatient, and tempered with mild disapproval. But if mild was all she was going to get, Buffy could see a party in her not-so-distant future.

“Nope. Dead Professor, remember? So anyway, tell me what it means.” Buffy positively jiggled in excitement, and added in with the handholding, it was very successful at capturing Spike’s interest. When she was excited, her body thrummed with life and Spike found it almost as potent as the deadliest of drugs.

“Y-yes, of course. That was a shame,” Giles admitted dryly before tugging his ever-present hankie out of his pocket. The polishing commenced as the possible explanation rolled effortlessly and excitedly from his tongue. “Traditionally, the colour orange is associated with some form of conflict.” He raised a brow in question, effectively questioning if either of them had noticed any more conflict out of their usual, and he deflated measurably at Spike’s harsh bark of laughter.

“We are conflict, mate. It’s who we are. Every week is a new form. No week is any less or any more. Just different.” Spike spoke with bitterness in his throat. It wasn’t how he wanted it. Mostly he liked the way they traded barbs, loved the scent that overcame the Slayer when she argued and fought with him. But lately, just once he wished she’d accept something he said or did without putting up a fight about it first. But on reflection, that wasn’t Buffy and he’d likely get bored if she became insipid and agreeable now.

Just like that, his mood lightened and Spike prepared to hear more of the Watcher’s ruminations. He was buggered if he knew which way was up with these dreams. However, the sooner they figured it out, the quicker Buffy could get over herself and work out what she really wanted instead of pinning it on some supernatural interference.

“Er, well, perhaps the actual colour manifested because of the situation you’ve been facing with the…carrots.” Giles coughed a grin into his fist and looked down at the floor, where he thought his amusement was adequately hidden.

“Fair go, Watcher. Might seem ludicrous, but the bloody things are still stacked in my crypt. And some house-keeping bastard has been along to clean up the mess Dru and the Slayer made of it.

“Yes-yes, I’m quite sure your situation is…dire,” he allowed, failing at keeping the cynical smirk from twisting his lips. “Anyway, let’s deal with the possible significance of the colour purple.”

“What? But Oprah wasn’t there.” Buffy waited and then cracked up at Giles’s disgusted, disbelieving expression. “I’m having fun with you, Giles. You really need to loosen the neck of your shirt sometimes, you know!”

“Yes, fun. That’s something I don’t—” The shop-keeper’s eyes strayed to the vampire sitting on his charge’s couch and caressing her hand, the other hand resting on his thigh. Fun was such a strange concept to think of while being faced down by a chipped ex-master vampire that was renowned for his success in hunting and killing slayers, alongside his very own Chosen One who had multiplied his grey hairs exponentially. “Well, enough about me. We were discussing the purple aspect of your dreams. I’m wondering if it is possible that, with Spike being a direct descendant of the Aurelian Line, if that might not be considered royalty in the vampire world?”

Spike looked thoughtful for a moment, and then conceded the possibility with a dry, “Well, Dru always called me her dark prince, but I just thought it was another of her barmy sayings, you know?”

“Hold on a second,” Buffy interjected. “Are you saying it’s possible the First Slayer hooked me up for life with a royal vampire bloodline?”

Giles pursed his lips, but nodded in resignation. Spike might assert that it didn’t actually mean anything mystical to be joined for some indeterminate length of time to a blood-sucking murderer, but Giles was still reeling that Buffy had managed to hook up with another vampire at all.

“Cool!”

Was there any other response he might have had that wouldn’t end with an eye roll? Giles studied the pair and tried—with great emotional difficulty—to see them in their own right. It wasn’t as hard as he might have hoped, having suspected for some time that Buffy’s partiality for turning to Spike in times of crisis had gone some way in creating support that she would one day rely on. Without his even suspecting it, that reliance had somehow turned to something deeper.

“I-it’s highly plausible that by joining such a vampire line with the slayer line, that a significant royal connection has been made that supersedes all known lines. You’ve created something bigger, something—”

“Better?” Spike had no clue if all this had any basis is reality, but the bottom line for him was that he had Buffy. He’d had her in his arms, had his cock in her body, and he knew he was in her blood. If his feeling was right, probably always had been. She’d probably been biding her time with the brooding ninny until he’d come along to tear things up and point her in the right direction.

Giles ignored Spike as best he could and tried to form his next words thoughtfully before delivering them to Buffy. “You don’t have to settle for this, Buffy. We can do some research on how to break this bond.”

She was suddenly the centre of the room, and Buffy didn’t like either of their expressions; it put too much expectation on her response. Spike radiated fury and she could understand why. In his mind he’d married her, and if his feelings were real, it would be highly offensive and dismissive for her to basically agree to a divorce. Giles was like her father and she hated to be a disappointment, but the sudden feeling of abandonment that swept through her body and settled at her heart at potentially losing Spike was far worse.

“I’m okay, Giles. I think Spike and I have to sort this out between ourselves. I really would appreciate it if you don’t tell the gang just yet, okay? Or Mom and Dawn?”

Giles nodded, his lips a straight line as he prepared for the final question before he decided to go home and dig out his oldest bottle of scotch.

“Have you had any more dreams starring the First Slayer?”

He didn’t miss Buffy’s compulsive shiver at the mention of dreams, nor could he deny the obvious shine of fear in her eyes. He wanted to ignore how she turned her haunted gaze toward Spike and the way she clasped his hand so tight that her own turned white.

“No. No more slayer; just bunnies, and can I just say, I’m really seeing why Anya’s so terrified of them. Those things aren’t cute or cuddly at all.” Buffy shuddered and unconsciously sought Spike’s comforting embrace, feeling herself calm as he enveloped her tight.

“Well, perhaps that’s one of our mysteries solved then.”

And as Giles nodded his goodbye and left them sitting on the couch, it was the one thing they could hope for.

The pity was, it still left the rabbits.

Spike looked down at the crown of golden hair against his khaki pullover and smiled. He really should have known.

“Bloody knew you were my queen.”

Part Ten

“I think it might be safe to assume that, as the only place your dream has manifested in reality so far has been the over abundance in larger vegetable life— and that it is apparently being stored in Spike’s crypt—that if you stake out the graveyard you might come across the bunnies. Or, at the very least, whoever is stockpiling the food source.”

Buffy stared at Giles blankly. “Are you insane? These are vicious, vampire-shredding rabbits. I say we hop a bus and call someone else to deal with it.”

The Watcher spared the resident vampire an irritated look before focusing on his spooked slayer. If she didn’t climb into the slayer-seat soon, she could very well become too useless in the fight against darkness. As much as she might be feeling affection for the blond menace, she had to put him last on her list of priorities.

“Buffy, we have no way of knowing why this threat is among us, nor where it came from. Or, for that matter, what it wants. I’ve found no reference to giant wererabbits in my books, and really, our last course of action is to hunt the creatures down. Now, I am truly sorry that you fear Spike might be…lost to the fight, but this threat must be neutralised.” Giles was one step away from slamming his fist into the counter in frustration, but stopped himself just short of damage. There was no possible way he could understand this sudden obsession of his slayer to tie herself voluntarily to another vampire. True, they didn’t make a completely repulsive match, but it was the implication of the thing. He could never accept Spike as anything but a monster that had fostered a yen for taking their lives as long as he’d known them.

“Okay, I’ll do it. But Spike is staying here.” Buffy’s lips were tight with determination and she was obviously just waiting for someone to dare contradict her. She even looked ready to deck Spike if he so much as whimpered over her figurative castration.

“Fair go, Slayer!” Spike exclaimed as he sprung to his feet from his relaxed pose on The Magic Box’s counter. “I realise you’re all hopped up on the girl power, but I might like to point something out. Should have been bleeding obvious to you lot, but apparently the thought of my ‘torn to ribbons’ look before drifting off on a dusty wind has preoccupied you all to the point of stupidity.”

“Yeah?” Xander stood from the table where the rest of the gang had gone pretty much forgotten, resentment making him bristle. “You know, having you even in the group is making me all kinds of needy for a puke bucket, but that you actually think you know more than us in the demon fighting caper is just all shades of wrong.”

Spike crooked a brow and looked down his nose at the boy, silently congratulating himself on the feat when he was being towered over by a standing puffy boy of Angel proportions. “Yeah? Ask your girl then, you nit. What is the biggest clue about our not-so-little not-so-fluffy bunnies?”

It was always amusing when Xander didn’t know what to say, but Buffy had never noticed how much of a flapping fish his efforts could resemble when Spike was the cause.

“Ahn?” struggled past his lips, finally, and Xander’s head nearly twisted off his neck as he spun around, trying to find where his girlfriend had slunk off to. He had no explanation of how she’d moved so fast from the counter near Giles and into the backroom, but her look of guilt definitely merited investigating. No one else seemed to notice it, though, and Xander was more than willing to put it down to the wigginess of the subject matter. “The Bleached Wonder thinks we’re missing some vital clue about the werebunnies. Tell him how magnificently wrong he is.” Xander puffed up, secure in the knowledge that he…well…had knowledge and the vampire that they barely suffered the presence of didn’t.

“W-well,” hedged Anya suspiciously as she took that first hesitant step back into the main part of the shop. “They are wererabbits, right?”

Everyone was nodding, still not seeing it and Spike leaned back in his chair, a knowing smirk on his face as he waited for the ex-demon to blow all their little over-inflated perceptions of themselves right out of the water.

“Well, Oz wasn’t a werewolf all of the time. Right?”

“Of course!” Giles slapped his forehead with his hand, his self-annoyance heavy as he tried hard not to give into the furious blush that was heating his skin. Being bested by Spike was a hideous development, but in his own defence, he had had a rather bone-shuddering revelation foisted upon him. “Er, Willow, when would the next full moon be scheduled?”

Xander flopped down defeated into the chair beside his best friend and grumbled. Willow patted his arm in reassurance as she gave him a crooked grin, then did the once very familiar calculations in her head. “The full moon is another two nights away,” she confirmed and repressed the series of shivers that those memories brought back, even as Tara squeezed her hand.

“Marvellous. That is more than enough time for Buffy and Spike to stake out the crypt and gather some much needed information on this rather odd but potentially fatal—” He pursed his lips and wondered just how fatal such apparently enormous mammals could be, but then considered the mating cycle and shuddered at the thought of a rabbit epidemic the proportions of which the world could never have contemplated. “Enemy.”

“Fine!” Buffy jumped to her feet, looked around at the people closest to her and fell upon Spike last. A week ago, she wouldn’t have had a second’s care about forcing Spike out to help her. Her own survival instinct would have demanded to have him at her side, even if it just distracted the enemy long enough for her to kill it. The energy she spent worrying about his pretty skin was exhausting, and Buffy suddenly could see why she’d blocked out any and all attraction she’d felt for Spike in the past. He was going to break her heart. One way or another, Buffy knew that she was going to face the devastation of losing another love, and it almost brought her to her knees.

She was almost at the door before the tear slid down her cheek, and Buffy refused to look at anyone as Giles tried to call her back. She pressed forward until she was out in the cool air, fighting the onslaught of grief that threatened to cripple her before it was even time.

She hadn’t heard the shop bell ding along with the opening of the door after she’d fled, but she’d recognise Spike’s heavy leather-clothed arm anywhere. Even though she’d not yet experienced the comfort of his arm around her shoulders as they walked date-like to where the town’s after-hours action always was.

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it would be to become nothing but trail mix thanks to a few overgrown rabbits? William the Bloody, perished at the side of the Slayer by abnormally large bunnies. Priceless. And no bleeding way is it going to happen.” There was cocky self-assurance in his grin and Buffy wondered just how often she’d seen that exact same expression right before she’d taken him down. It would be just like him to be overconfident and get cut in half by the claws of the comic critters.

“You know, the time I died, it wasn’t at the fangs of the Master, but in a dirty little puddle. Pride cometh before the fall,” taunted Buffy before bouncing out of Spike’s loose grip and running toward his crypt.

Spike gave chase, almost immediately overtaking Buffy as his coat flapped behind him. Buffy narrowed her eyes and stepped up her pace, but she could never get close enough to regain the lead, seemingly permanently stuck with Spike’s coat whipping her in the face.

By mutual agreement, the race slowed as they approached Spike’s home, and in a move strangely natural and comforting, Spike took Buffy’s hand and directed her to a perfect place to spy on his front door. Only a light blush spread over her cheeks as she refused to admit she was well acquainted with the spot—it was hard to admit to herself that she’d ever staked him out for no reason at all—but Spike snorted quietly in acknowledgment. It would seem like she had absolutely no secrets at all.

“You know,” began Spike, his hand slipping out of hers and snaking up the back of her shirt. “We could be here for a bit. Can you think of anything that might make the passing time a little less boring?”

Buffy wiggled, an evil smile hidden by the fall of her hair. Without hardly any effort at all, the cool surface of his hand was encouraged to slide from her back to her front, and a sharp descent to her knees and Buffy had perfectly placed Spike’s cupped palm around the curve of her breast.

“I have no idea,” she said, totally tongue-in-cheek. “But I’m open to suggestions.”

“You have no idea but yet you manage to get me to grope you? You are one hell of a negotiator, pet.” And his fingers pinched a nipple and plucked it long and hard, Spike delighting in the gasp of pleasure and the wriggle that got Buffy into his lap, eyes doggedly focused on his front door.

Spike leaned back against a handy tree trunk and positioned himself a little more comfortably. Bushes mostly surrounded them, yet a strategic parting in the foliage allowed a clear view of the target while he could devote himself to more sensory experiences.

“Let me think, then. What can bad, evil Spike think of to pass the time?” His touch became gentle as he rubbed slow circles around the tightened bud. The crinkled skin was just as successful at hardening his cock as the inspired swirl of Buffy’s hips against his erection was. He hissed as the tip rubbed brutally against the teeth of his fly, and then sighed as Buffy gentled her thrusting and allowed him to explore under the soft flowing skirt. Her leg was warm against his palm, and Spike held a breath as one hand continued to caress her breast and the other made inroads toward her panties.

“How ‘bout a kiss then, luv?” He nuzzled behind an ear, his fingers scraping against the edge of fabric around her crotch, just scratching while he rolled a nipple between his fingers.

Buffy gasped, her eyes falling shut as she leaned in closer to Spike. “You don’t think that…might be kind of distracting?” Not that she cared too much, but they were meant to be on a stakeout.

“Vampire, pet. I’ll hear anything long before—” He snapped at the elastic leg of the panties, his finger running over the damp patch before drifting up to slowly drag over an extended clit.

Spike growled in his throat as Buffy gave into it, turning slightly to the side and drinking in his lips as if she’d had no choice at all. Her mouth was wet, hot, tantalising, and he desperately wanted to feel the other cavern of her body that could replicate the experience for him and his other senses. Looping a finger through the crotch of her panties, he tugged them down, her scent driving him crazy enough to encourage the vamp in him to seize control.

It wasn’t simple, but Spike offered up prayers to whatever deity that had convinced Buffy that the skimpier her undergarments were, the quicker the reward would come. Surrendering her breast just long enough to snap the tiny fabric link over her hip, Spike grinned against Buffy’s lips as her G-string slipped to uselessness down her thigh. Searing, moist flesh met his touch as Buffy’s jaw opened wider and she began sucking his tongue deeper inside her mouth.

Buffy broke free of his oral clasp and panted hard. Her body rocked with need and she felt like screaming that Spike wasn’t giving into the urgency. Instead of ripping away the encumbrance of his jeans and sinking into her until it was impossible to go any deeper, Spike slowly circled her nipple, gently brushed back and forth over the distended and aching pebble until she was shivering with pleasure. And his other hand was making her ache, driving her slowly out of her mind.

Fingers spread in a V, mimicking the opening between her legs, Spike rested them against the fine hairs and teased them back and forth. Heat flashed through her blood and Buffy lost all desire to look for demented little gardeners that catered for the size-challenged bunny rabbits. He scissored his fingers and dipped shallowly into her juices, letting them flow over his digits before withdrawing a little but spreading her fractionally wider.

“There’s someone inside,” he whispered against her neck, and Buffy was way beyond the point where she might have cared.

“Okay.” She nodded before sliding back a little in his lap, hoping the small move would make his fingers slip and he’d stop teasing her into madness.

Senses on alert, Buffy was deprived of a scream, Spike’s mouth swallowing her pleasure as he simultaneously tugged a nipple and introduced a single finger pad to her clit with a cluster of rapid rubbing movements. He settled into a more regular pace, occasionally dipping into the dripping treasure to lubricate her clit, and then tracing a maddening path around the protruding nub, and then back to rubbing her almost emotionally raw.

“You like that, baby?” Spike chuckled at the tortured whimper that tumbled from his slayer’s lips and finally drew away from her aching breast. His hand rubbed circles on her belly before he finally admitted that he deserved a little in on this highly sensitive situation, and left her body completely. His hands drifted under her to release his zipper and allowed his cock to strain outside his jeans. He could feel the pressure of blood making him bulge, could feel the veins as they stood out stark and hungry for touch. His cock pulsed alive and vibrant in his fist, eager to feel the wetness of Buffy’s pussy welcoming him in, sucking him inside her so far that he thought he might never find his way out.

He pinched her clit between his fingers, could feel the sweat as it broke the boundaries of mortal skin and let go of his cock only long enough to tug her skirt out of the way. He almost laughed, totally carefree as orgasm crashed down on Buffy when his cock stretched her opening and he slid her down on him. Her walls pulsed and squeezed him as he sunk in to his balls, marvelling at the sensation of her resting on his sac when all he wanted was to keep on moving deeper. Buffy moaned and fell forward, holding her weight up with her hands on the ground between his knees. The skirt might obstruct his view, but he had a vivid imagination and after the past few nights, Spike had no trouble envisioning his cock thrusting in and out of her hot, welcoming pussy.

Hips pumping, Spike lost sight of what they were doing in the driving need to find his release. Balls curling and cock almost bursting with the pressure, he almost missed the exit of the little man from his crypt. Knowing that he might be a bit dicey on the details later, Spike tugged Buffy’s hair so that she could also watch—even if it was through a haze of lust—and recommenced thrusting his hips for all he was worth. As a stream of cum jetted through his cock and began the long, spurting release, he soaked up the details of the nondescript little fellow as much as he could. He was short—shorter than Spike and likely not much taller than Harris’s demon bird. He wore very old fashioned clothing, he looked exhausted, and above all, pissed. Spike roared like a wild animal, his fingers working Buffy’s clit hard while he watched the startled jump of the little man who had used his crypt to store his strange vege harvest. His euphoric eruption was meshed with his fury, wanting to jump the git and show him a lesson or two about stealing a bloke’s home, but knowing that a splintering Buffy wouldn’t welcome his desertion at such a spectacularly sensitive time.

He welcomed her body’s vibrations around him, weathered the tightening of her pussy as she almost reshaped his cock, and glared at the little man that scurried back inside like a terrified mouse.

When he’d calmed down enough to notice Buffy panting almost to the point of hyperventilation, Spike pulled her back and groaned at the renewed welcome of his cock.

“H-he didn’t look so scary,” Buffy whimpered and Spike could smell the tears on her face. It was a boon that she was so awed by what he did to her and he didn’t think for once that the tears were anything other than an overwhelmed response to how she felt.

“Nope, not even a little knee-knocking. I think we’ve observed enough though, pet. You ready to move on for the night?” He had no intention of visiting the Watcher but rather was picturing several other locations around town that he could almost guarantee that Buffy would never view in the same way again.

“Okay.” Buffy grinned as she twisted her body around to face her lover, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I vote we see Giles tomorrow.”

Spike smirked and tucked his tongue behind his teeth, looking up and down the form of his dishevelled slayer. “I’ll second that. Besides, wouldn’t hurt to patrol a bit.”

Buffy eyed him knowingly, stretching so that she almost bumped him in the nose with her breast before bracing her hands on his shoulders and levered herself to her feet. His cock slipped out like an unwanted noodle and he pouted.

“Hey, no pouting! I’m the one with the slashed panties.”

Spike huffed in mock irritation as he stood and tucked his resisting cock back in his jeans. “Hey! You wore a skirt. You had to know that whatever was underneath wasn’t going to stay in pristine condition.”

Buffy winked playfully before bending to pick up the destroyed lace. “Doesn’t mean you don’t totally owe me a shopping spree.” She tossed them in his face and then was off, another location in mind.

Spike was never one to reject a good pursuit.

The mystery might have continued if an eagle-eyed Willow had never looked up at the love of her friend’s life. Guilt had never been such a pure shade until Anya wore it on her face.

“She knows something.”

Willow didn’t often interject when Giles was on a spiel about research and hypotheses, but she’d been long on the look-out for Anya’s perks and quirks and this looked like quite a substantial one. She’d known all along—one day the ex-demon would betray how truly twisted she was; right now her patience was finally being rewarded. And really, now that she knew—now that Anya looked guilty as hell—it was more than obvious.

The room stopped to look at Willow in surprise, waiting expectantly for an explanation of her outburst, as almost all her observations were worthwhile in the information sense.

“Anya. She’s got ‘uh-oh’ face.” She grinned in complete confidence. This moment was hers and she was going to expose Anya for the unstable, psychotic and incompatible-for-Xander girl she truly was.

It took slow seconds for the Scoobies to process her claim and attempt a connection to the problem at hand, then laugh and reject it. They turned away, interested again in Giles’s theories that were so not even close to the real answers to this whacked out mystery, and Willow’s satisfied grin faded.

Did she have to have all the brains around here?

Having Spike as an ally had never entered the redhead’s mind as a possibility, but she smiled triumphantly anyway.

“Oi. I’ve said from the start that the demongirl must know something. You remember, Harris. When we saw the first carrot.”

Xander didn’t jump straight away to reject Spike’s claim, instead screwing up his face as if trying to remember something that had happened two days after his birth.

“Hmmm, I’m thinking no. Definitely not coming to me. I remember you wailing about the carrot and how Buffy should be told—” Xander stopped suddenly, a wayward deer caught in too many incredulous gazes to escape collision safely. “Did I say that Spike said we should let Buffy know? I meant I said we should let Buffy know.”

“So how come the Slayer didn’t know then, Whelp? And you’re bypassing the point, as usual. Your brain too puffy to stay focused? Your bird’s escaping out the back, by the way.” Spike smirked, linked his hands behind his head and rocked back on his chair as Willow, Buffy, Giles and Xander darted surprised glances to the back of the Magic Box just in time to catch Anya as disappeared into the training room. He looked up and saw Tara smiling at him shyly. Wasn’t it nice to see he had support in some quarters of this group?

“Ahn!” Xander yelped, finding it difficult to think of an excuse for his girlfriend over their current bunny crisis when she was skipping out the back door.

Buffy caught her before the door could shut. And with a firm yet guided arm across the other girl’s shoulders, she led her back into the main research part of the shop.

With too many expectant gazes searching for some reason for her sudden defection, Anya seemed to inwardly collapse, resignation making her eyes dark and watery.

“You know, the fact that Buffy has been dreaming about killer bunnies—and that Anya’s most feared creature is the rabbit—and the fact that she’s not wigged out even once, despite the alarming evidence to support the existence of giant bunnies on the Hellmouth…I’m thinking the ex-vengeance demon might have the skinny on our friendly not-so-neighbourly giant carrot grower.” Willow stared the girl down with her patented trying-to-be-tough glare and waited for the girl to crack.

“All right!” Anya shouted, her hands doing an abrupt wave in the air before banging down on the table as she slumped dramatically into a seat. “The little man is here for me. I cursed him to be the caretaker of the giant werebunnies for eternity. But I swear, there were only two of them then,” the blonde appealed pathetically.

“Oh my Lord, but these are rabbits. How many are there now?” Giles balked at the numbers flitting through his head. The savagery visited on a dimension once a month…why, it bordered on catastrophic.

Anya wept. She blew her nose and cried out a number that made Giles’s jaw drop. “But that was over two hundred years ago. It could have dropped by now.”

“Good God woman!” Everyone jumped at the violence of the Watcher’s uncharacteristic explosion. “Dropped? Unless your caretaker was lacing those bloody carrots with mixamotosis, there is every chance the dimension has been over-run by giant murderous rabbits. How could you have been so careless?”

“Hey, and don’t forget cruel!” exclaimed Willow, liking the colour that leached from the ex-demon girl’s cheeks. “That poor old man must be terrified out of his mind.”

“But it’s his fault!” Anya exploded from her chair, the legs scraping like chalk on a blackboard.

Buffy raised a brow. It figured. Here they had a sitch where there was a guy, and Anya did something not only vengeful but morally wrong, and she was still blaming it on the poor fool that was probably totally traumatised. And let’s not overlook the sympathetic hug that Xander was giving her, his big chunky hands rubbing loving circles on her back while she shuddered melodramatically. If she even tried to offer the same comfort to Spike about some family he’d slaughtered when he was first vamped but had found a way to come back and haunt him, Xander would be the first to jump on her back with the murderous, evil vampire rhetoric. She needed to contact someone about fixing the dictionary. Hypocrisy obviously started with an X.

Carefully turning away from the show, Buffy had to reiterate the real worry. “No matter whose fault it is, these things seem to be here and the scared, weird little guy seems to be making this his home. Unless we do something, those things are probably going to dust Spike.”

Xander interrupted Buffy with a smug, “So Ahn did a good thing, then?”

Buffy glared, but then a glint of wicked glee lit up her eyes. “I think we can safely assume the guy brought the bad bunnies here to deal with the demon that ruined his life in the first place. What do you say I drop by the crypt tonight and give him directions to your place, Xan? I know I’m not known as Artistic Buffy, but I bet I could draw a map.” Her eyes glittered with fun as she turned to her redheaded friend. “How’s that full moon looking for tonight, Will?” she asked, still staring at her male-shaped friend as he hugged Anya even tighter.

“We’ll be good,” Anya squeaked, shocking everyone in the room with her almost flawless cooperation. It didn’t take much for them to see the little shop-keeper was shaking so hard that she was teetering on her practical work heels. “Won’t we, Xander? No more Spike jokes.” She laughed nervously, a tinge of hysteria bubbling up before she turned and tugged urgently on his arm. “It wouldn’t do to make the Slayer angry.”

The return of her title made Buffy raise a brow and she turned toward Spike, who merely shrugged his confusion. Whatever this was, Anya believed she needed Slayer protection.

“It’s okay,” Buffy snickered. “I’m not really going to give your home address to some guy who’s feeding the homicidal rabbits to their giant, feral best.”

“Oh, thank God.” Anya shuddered, and sounded another nervous giggle before she slumped, emotionally exhausted, into a chair.

“So, what is your plan then, Buffy? Poison them? Attack with blades? Blow up the crypt that has their food supply? Perhaps the rabbits themselves are beneath it?” Giles’s enthusiasm for the solution had him grinning madly and eyeing a new sword that he’d been busily polishing.

“Actually,” Buffy started slowly, surprised at this suddenly blood-thirsty side of Giles. “I was thinking I could go talk to this farmer guy. See if I can talk to him about the Anya sitch. And then if he’s unreasonable, cut his head off.”

The room came to an ear-shattering silence. It was so quiet that even the almost imperceptible hum of the light fixtures seemed like they were irritatingly loud. Minutes ticked by while everyone stared at Buffy, expressions varying only by the choice of mouth hanging open or eyes as wide as pizza dishes.

“So, you want the broadsword or the axe, luv?” Spike smirked as he got to his feet and strutted his way to Buffy’s side.

“I was kind of eyeing Giles’s new toy. It’s shiny. I like shiny things.” Buffy leaned over and snatched the handle out of Giles’s loose grip and gave it an experimental twirl, barely missing a tuft of Spike’s bleached hair as the blade whizzed past his ear.

“Much more of that and you’ll be left admiring my shiny pile of dust.” Spike looked indignant, but the look of horror on Buffy’s face and the shimmer of tears in her eyes undid him. He gave her a hug, loving the way the weight of her body against his made his coat creak in all the good ways and doing his best to ignore the faux-wretch that was Harris doing his usual immature tricks.

“I don’t think you should go to this man alone, Buffy.” Giles ignored Spike’s offended frown and growl, ploughing on regardless of the vampire’s hurt feelings. “I think it might be best if you have the strength of numbers on your side.”

Buffy looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Sounds good. Let’s arm up and head out.” Like a girl, the Slayer seized her boyfriend’s hand and tugged him toward the door. Willow, Tara and Giles grabbed what they could, preceding Xander and a struggling, less-than-eager Anya to the door. The group halted just long enough to lock the shop up behind them and then they were off, a strange collection of people heading straight to Spike’s cemetery and crypt.

Buffy walked beside Spike in the cool night, her hand feeling the warmth of his touch and her body tingling from his closeness. It was strange how their togetherness had just happened and that she felt less guilt at sharing her relationship with Spike in front of her friends. It was almost as if the enforced joining of their bodies had cleansed her mind of all her mortal hang ups. Suddenly it didn’t matter if Xander was jealous or if Giles was disappointed in her. It didn’t matter if they thought she was risking their lives by choosing to be with another vampire, because she knew she wasn’t. In the matter of days and over the course of several nights of erotic yet terrifying dreams, Buffy had changed. She’d grown and accepted what her future looked like, and she couldn’t see herself at thirty with friends married with kids, or stretching out under the umbrella of careers while she remained lonely with only the monsters of the night to keep her company. They may have wanted love and happiness for her, but when it came down to it, they only wanted it so long as they could pick and choose who she was happy with.

I should be grateful the first slayer had tried to kill me, Buffy thought with a sudden smile. How else would she have ever let go of the prejudices that she held regarding Spike? She might never have seen him as anything but an irritating pest that just might kill her if he ever worked out how to get rid of the chip. She may have ridiculed him every chance she or Xander got, but Buffy never forgot the potential simmering under his patient forbearance. Never allowed the threat of him to diminish in her heart. Somehow, whenever she thought of him loose and free, killing again as he made up for lost time and attempted to prove he was still the evil Big Bad his family thought he was, she was filled with sadness. It hurt to consider Spike leaving Sunnydale now. Leaving her. One vengeance bound slayer later and Buffy was reconciled to living the rest of her life at the side of Spike and being protected by his care rather than destroyed by it. There was nothing to hate about that, and yet everything to love.

Love.

That was a word that filled her with awe. It was a word that she felt Spike could re-define. She had a feeling it had nothing to do with pedestals in Spike’s mind. Had nothing to do with how often and how successfully she could save the world. She was positive he wasn’t thinking about how perfect it was to have sex with her, and she had no illusions that a creature needed a soul to love. Not anymore.

Buffy could smell things on the night that was probably non-existent to her friends and watcher behind her. She could smell death as it crawled out of the ground. She could smell the frenzy of the newly birthed being as it hunted down its prey, and she could scent the fear of the ripe flesh that it was her job to protect. She didn’t kid herself. Buffy knew that she was largely successful in her town, but that there was more out there than just one slayer could deal with. She felt things, too. She could feel the apprehension of those following her as they geared up for a possible furry fight to the death. She could feel the excitement that buzzed through Spike as he held himself to the walking pace she’d set. His body was always in a hurry, but if things were going to be bad, Buffy wasn’t in any rush to meet their target.

But most of all, she could feel the concern that radiated from each and every one of those she called friend as they bore holes in her back and wished they could set Spike alight. It was wrong, but she understood it. Unfortunately for them, Spike’s continuance on the outer edge of the gang was at a very definite end.

“Spike?”

“Yeah, luv.”

“I love you.” Buffy grinned as he lost step and almost tripped over a clump of grass.

“Oh. Righteo then.” A gentle squeeze of her hand and they continued walking, only stopping a minute later to wonder at the loss of their back-up.

“You guys planning on being there when I confront the carrot guy or not?” Buffy watched as the stunned Scoobies gathered their wits and jogged to catch up, staring at Buffy in such a way she wondered briefly if she might be orange again. Not that it mattered—not when she was royalty on Spike’s arm.

“We’re right behind you, Buff. Good thing too. Wouldn’t want your honey to slip on our collective disgust.” Xander shook his head, but Buffy shrugged and his face twisted up in surprise. Heh, it wasn’t her fault if he couldn’t intimidate her into the Spike-hate anymore.

They continued on in silence, Buffy’s and Spike’s companionable, the others in shock. Despite heading into a potentially dangerous situation, Buffy felt relaxed and happy. She let go of Spike’s hand and moved closer, feeling all gooey with the girlish crush as she slipped under Spike’s arm and was cradled against his body. It felt so carefree, and yet burned her with excitement. She never could have expected to feel like this with Spike at her side. It just made the surprise so much sweeter.

The moment couldn’t last, however. Not when there was danger to curtail, and badness to eradicate before vampires were turned to not so pretty dust particles. Spike’s crypt loomed ahead, and it seemed far more sinister and scary this night in the dark than it had on any other. It glowed with a moon looking very close to full, making Buffy shiver with what she hoped wasn’t foreboding.

And then Carrot Man stepped out, his eyes darting around and back again. Amidst the bodies he focused on one, his face turning purple as he held in rage and then exploded in a gush of hatred that must have been stored for centuries.

“Anyanka!!”

Part Twelve

It was terrifying how such a loud, booming voice could explode from such a small man. Such a small, old man.

Anya shook, taking as slow steps to the front of the group. She didn’t go further than Buffy and Spike, hoping that at least they’d protect her against any threat.

“Hello, Daddy. You’re looking well.” She smiled nervously and ignored the stunned gasps behind her.

“Wait just a bleeding minute,” Spike demanded. His eyes shone as he contemplated the girl who had complained long and hard about how terrified she was of rabbits and then looked over at the almost apoplectic rage on the man she called ‘father.’ He grinned, feeling strangely impressed at the girl’s gumption. “This is your old man?”

“You took out vengeance on your own father?” Willow was horrified, staring at the presumably misjudged man with a flood of sympathy.

“That w-was…ah…r-really brave o-of you,” stuttered Tara, She very obviously didn’t know how to react to something that seemed quite heinous, even if it probably had a good explanation.

“What exactly did your father do to you to warrant such harsh punishment?” Giles looked on, disgust warring with fear as he thanked his lucky stars that he’d managed to put this girl permanently out of commission—even if he had no memory of doing such. She was far too creative for her own good.

“He introduced me to Olaf,” she mumbled in reply, tears tumbling from her eyes. “And he gave me rabbits,” she whined before breaking down completely, turning into Xander’s chest and sobbing her terrified heart out. “They just kept copulating and making m-more and more rabbits,” she cried, burying her snuffly nose into her boyfriend’s shirt.

The stunned boy just patted her back comfortingly as his shocked gaze surveyed the scene. Friends horrified, some laughing silently, Giles looking as pale as Spike. How was a guy to react to a thing like this? Except maybe to be very relieved that he wasn’t actually dating a demon this time.

Carrot Guy quickly reached his limit of patience and stepped forward, the centuries of fear evident in the way his body just seemed to shake all on its own. “You!” He pointed a crippled finger at his daughter, hate and betrayal making his lips white. “I have been searching for you for over a thousand years. You will pay for what you have done.”

“But I-I’m human now,” Anya whined.

Her father seemed to spasm, his eye twitching as he tried to tamp down the fury that swelled and rocked him around. “I was always human, you vengeful hussy!”

“How did you get out of the Hydrock dimension? I sent you there for—” Anya said impertinently.
The carrot man’s green eyes gleamed with glee. “Eleven hundred years. Yes. My time's up now.”

“Oh. But I thought—”

“What?” He stepped forward, forcing his daughter back against the beefy boy she’d huddled against. “You thought I would be stuck caring for ravenous, wererabbits forever? Or perhaps you merely thought they would eat me once my time was done? Not that they haven’t tried.” And like a man who had been without human company in for far too long, a man with no scruples and no modesty, he turned and yanked down his pants, exposing his backside that was missing a huge chunk of cheek.

“Oh my God,” squealed Willow, hiding her eyes fast behind her hands.

There was a tremendous boom of thunder and they all looked up at the sky as a gathering flurry of storm clouds moved in on the brightly shining, full-moon. It took seconds before comprehension and then both Anya and Willow screamed together.

“Oh God, I must have miscalculated. It’s a full moon,” squealed the redhead in panic. The sky objected to their voices again, making the earth shake and vibrate.

“Okay,” Buffy conceded, eyeing the group of friends that were sitting ducks for bunnies with gnashing teeth and feral tendencies. “I’m thinking we need a plan.” She turned to the Carrot Guy, her stare bearing him down until he nearly shook off his feet with fear and trepidation. “Where are you keeping the rabbits? And even better, how do I get rid of them?”

“I don’t know.” He looked set to run, poised on the tips of his toes, knees bent.

Buffy stared at him stupidly, blinked, stared some more. “You don’t know?” She looked around at Spike, Giles, Willow, glared at Anya and Xander, and smiled nervously at Tara. Eyes turning hard and dangerous as the threat got nearer the longer they wasted time, Buffy turned back to the little man. “How the hell do you not know? You’re the keeper of them thar rabbits. Tell me how I kill them. Which direction will they appear from?”

“Look.” Anya’s father became frantic, his eyes darting desperately around for some sign of the creatures he spent most of his time being terrified of. “I hate the things as much as she does,” he claimed while pointing a shaky digit at his betraying daughter. “If I knew how to get rid of them, I’d have done it long before now. All I do is grow the carrots, toss them some occasional lettuce, they grow and then two days a month I hide and pray to a god that obviously has forsaken me that my knees knocking together won’t give away where I am.”

Giles looked horrified. “You poor man. And you’ve done this for over a millennia?” The Watcher shook his head and favoured his shop-keeper with a disappointed once-over. “Anya, I’m afraid you must make this right with your father. You make me heartily glad I had no offspring. You’ll be putting him in a home next, I feel sure.”

It seemed to hit them all at once, though Anya was resolute in her lack-of-caring as she refused to look at her father, rather continued hiding in Xander’s shirt.

“W-what will happen when you a-aren’t Keeper anymore?” Brave Tara asked what none of them wanted to, making possible certain revelations they’d prefer not to consider. “Are you h-human?”

He looked exhausted as he replied; exhausted and crippled with relief. “What I am is an old man. If I am released, I will die. Do not think it is short of what I wish. Anyanka stole away the rest of my life, and now I have lived so long with fear that I am well wishing to be rid of it. There is no need to worry about me. Just take away this curse and let me die in peace.”

The fine hairs on the back of her neck standing up in pure static was enough to tell Buffy it was time to get on with it. “Okay, so the carrot man doesn’t have a plan. Willow, ideas?”

The redhead jumped at being suddenly called upon, but even she was feeling the exposure of being out in the dark under a full moon while the ground rumbled in all new ways on the Hellmouth. “A plan?” She looked like she was too terrified to think of one, screaming suddenly when the first feral giant rabbit started hopping so hard that the ground shuddered around them. “RUN!” And the redhead did, the rest following. Buffy could almost guarantee she had no knowledge of them being able to move so fast. Particularly Giles.

The Caretaker led them to the crypt, slamming the heavy door closed and reinforcing it with several strong bolts that hadn’t been there before. Spike stopped and admired them before giving an approving slap on the back that sent Anya’s father spiralling into the door and Spike slithering in pain at their feet.

“Bloody hell. I can’t even be all friendly now without getting a headache?”

“Spike,” Buffy shrieked, all her nightmares approaching too much reality for her peace of mind. “Get up and make with the plan making. We need to get rid of the furballs before they make you a dust storm.”

“You want me to think up a plan?” he asked incredulously as he dusted himself off. “You seen the results of any of my plans? They don’t tend to the side of successful, luv.”

“Well, well—” she stuttered, highly sensitive to the danger that waited beyond the crypt door. “So now’s your chance to get successful. If you don’t—”

The tears in her eyes stopped everyone cold until a flurry of panicked ideas blindsided Willow, and she saw a werebunny-free existence in her very near future.

“We’ll send them away. To a-an alternate universe.” Sure, her voice was as weak as her confidence, but she knew she could do it. Maybe.

“Huh? You can do that?” Buffy held all the hope any of them could need and Willow nodded.

“Already done it. Hello. Olaf anyone?”

“Didn’t you send him to the dimension of Trolls?” Buffy jumped as there was a sudden thud on the crypt door.

“Pretty sure,” Willow confirmed nervously. “I mean, absolutely.”

Xander snickered and then shared a knowing look with Spike. “Send him the rabbits. Might be tastier than babies and fair maidens.”

Willow and Tara looked horrified, and then the red-witch just looked frazzled.

“What about supplies?” asked Anya, her eyes refusing to wander to the little man that could kill her with just one of his furious glares.

“You know what I’m thinkin’?” Xander broke in with only a touch of his normal hysteria heightening his voice. “I’m thinking, ‘what the hay’ with the supplies. Let’s just word up and whoosh those furry creatures to outer space or troll land or wherever the hell isn’t here. Sound good? Good.” He grinned, faux confidence making him appear slightly manic and unhinged.

“S-sure,” agreed Willow. “A g-good witch never relies on supplies.”

“And if there is one thing we are absolutely positive about,” Buffy said, attempting to boost morale even as her voice weakened and she felt tears looming on the edge of disaster. “Willow is a good witch.”

There was silence.

Giles looked at Buffy.

Buffy looked at Spike.

Spike looked at Xander.

Xander gulped and offered Tara a lopsided grin.

Tara looked wide-eyed at her girlfriend.

Anya huffed because no one was looking at her.

A werebunny slammed again with much force into the door and one of the bolts started to send puffs of dust into the air.

On the count of two, they all screamed and ran for the back of the crypt.

Clutching weapons, Buffy and Spike stood in front of the gang. Filled with duty and determination, Buffy kept trying to nudge Spike back, not giving a damn if she was trampling on his male pride as long as she saved his unlife to dust another day.

“So Wills, with the lack of ingredients and all, on a scale of one to ten, how likely do you think it is that sending them to Olaf might actually work?” Buffy kept her back to her friend, staring at the door so she’d be ready the second anything overly large with fluffy tails and shiny fangs came hopping through.

“On a scale of one to ten? Oh at least a…um…three?”

“Oh God.” Xander began to shake in his very manly work boots. “We’re all gonna get bitten and turn into really unattractive gigantic rabbits.”

The banging seemed to become more organised, more intent to gain the prize behind the sealed door.

“That bunny is going to have a really sore head when it stops doing that.”

Everyone stopped to stare at Tara like she had horns poking out of her head.

“Oh, and I supposed you’d have us give it a lovely head massage before it eats us,” Anya spat nastily, crumbling immediately against Xander again as the hopelessness of it all sank in and she accepted the very real consequence of her vengeance.

Everything went quiet, so quiet that Buffy thought she could hear everyone’s heartbeats over their frantic pants of fear. And then with the no warning, one tremendous bang and the crypt door connected jarringly with the wall, a gunshot crack still ringing in their ears.

“Oh crap. I don’t want to have a fluffy bunny tail and long pointy ears,” Xander whimpered, completely forgetting his terrified girlfriend as he approached meltdown in his pants.

“Yeah, because they’re really thinking of just biting your arse and letting you live.” Spike rolled his eyes at the git’s stupidity, and landed on the caretaker. The one who had half his butt cheek missing. “Oi. How come you aren’t all with the werebunny action? They bit you, right?”

Anya’s father seemed disgusted that he should be scrutinised after the pain he’d experienced for over a thousand years. Rabbits too big to get through the crypt doorway attempted to loosen the slab walls from the ground to get to their prey as he huffed and puffed indignantly. “I am the keeper. They kill me, they have no food. I seem to be safe from the normal consequence of a bite from a werecreature. Then again, perhaps that was one more of Anyanka’s clauses. Allowing me to be one of the creatures would have given me some kind of vengeance, and we can’t have that, can we!”

The walls seemed to rock around them and Buffy looked nervously around her. She had no worries about Spike dusting before her eyes if the crypt collapsed and made them all human-pancakes before the possibility even arose.

“You know what?” Buffy turned and gave a strong, encouraging smile to her redheaded witchy friend. “Let’s give that spell the old college try.”

“Oh!” Willow nodded, then slowly stepped closer to the frontline. The first words came out on a tremble, but her voice gained strength as her confidence grew. “Instrumentum ultionis, telum fabuloso, surge, surge, terram pro voca.”

Dust began to fall from the ceiling, and the beams began to shift slightly.

“Vola cum viribus, dominum tuum nega. Vola!”

They all took a horrified step back as the sharp teeth viewable through the open door glowed green and the eyes of the mammal became lethal with a matching glow.

And then Willow-the-all-powerful stepped forward, her arms outstretched and her eyes focused in deadly intent on her subject.

“Let the transposition be complete.”

Once again the silence was grating. The crypt stopped moving and the earth was still. The one rabbit they had been able to see was gone and nothing was rushing to take its place. Buffy crept toward the door and peeked outside into the dark. The clouds had drifted away long ago and the moon shone down in a happy, celebratory glow, not allowing anything to hide in the shadows. They were gone, and Buffy never knew such relief.

“Willow!” she squealed, overcome that her friend might have just got it right this time. Buffy was determined to blank out the possibility that Willow hadn’t sent the feral monsters somewhere else in their world—although there were no doubts that she’d hear about it if she had. “Go you with the bunny translocating.”

“Ooh.” The old man suddenly dropped to the floor, his heart weakening at a rapid rate but he with a huge smile on his face. “You’ve saved me at last.” The first expression of kindness crossed his face as he thanked Buffy and her friends, steadfastly ignoring including his daughter in the group.

“Hey.” Xander stepped up, eager to ask something before the man was moved on for good. “Mind if we take some of your carrots?”

The Caretaker looked horrified, gargled and died.

“I’m betting that meant no, Harris. But you go right ahead, eat the steroid-ridden veges.” Spike ate up Xander’s filthy look and rocked on his heels, amused and yet deflated that he’d missed out on a fight. He always felt good and fired up for Buffy at the end of a good workout with the killing.

Buffy just sighed, took inventory and was grateful no one got hurt. One by one they headed out into the night, leaving the slightly battered crypt behind them. Buffy walked beside Spike, admiring that he’d not needed to be asked to pick up the man that had once been the hand in raising Anyanka—and that thought almost crippled her with its wigginess. Giles trotted at an enthusiastic pace, forcing Tara and Willow to almost run to keep up with him as they headed back indoors.

“You guys want to come to the hospital with us?” Buffy wasn’t surprised when Anya looked like she’d been slapped, reeling back from the suggestion with all the flair of someone whose past was well behind her.

“I think we’re good,” Xander answered for them both. He grimaced as looked at the body hanging over Spike’s shoulder and thanked whatever God had momentarily stilled Spike’s tongue from rightly pointing out that he should be doing the conveying of the corpse. “Have a…night, you two.” And he led Anya away, shuddering intermittently as the image of a vicious giant animal with misleading whiskers flashed in his mind’s eye.

“See! Now you can understand why I dressed up as a rabbit for Halloween. Those animals are vicious.” Anya shook as she walked beside her manly-shaped boyfriend, her stomach roiling with the hangover of too much rabbit interaction. She was not even slightly cured of this particular phobia.

“Oh, you betcha. I’m never going to be able to look the Easter Bunny in the face ever again. All that beautiful chocolate…lost!” Xander wandered away with tears budding in his eyes and Buffy watched them go. She hated to think how much the therapy would cost them when they had kids.

“So, I guess you’re like my…husband now, huh?”

Spike turned with a huge grin taking over his face and Buffy almost tripped with how gorgeous and happy he looked.

“Newlyweds, baby! And you know what that means—”

If she didn’t, she truly should look into a brain transplant. Buffy blushed with eagerness and started estimating the time it would take to quietly lay Anya’s father’s body to rest on an unsupervised gurney. Which she didn’t anticipate would be as difficult as it should have been. Most people were selectively blind in Sunnydale.

“My mom’s out tonight,” she admitted coquettishly, battering her eyelashes like a pro.

“Always thought your mom was incredibly considerate.”

Oh yeah, she was so gonna get it tonight.

“So why haven’t I…you know…had any more dreams with the First Slayer in them?”

“If I had to guess, pet, I’d say she got intimidated by our bloody brilliant shagging.”

That word always made her blush. Buffy couldn’t put a meaning behind why, but every time Spike referred to what they did in those terms, it made her want to hide behind her hair.

“So this claim thing. I really don’t get anything special with it?”

Spike looked at Buffy, all spread out on his sheets, looking flushed and satiated and it made his non-beating heart swell.

“What? You mean like a set of steak knives?” He chuckled at her weak swing at his nose, ducking so that her fist whizzed safely over his tousled curls.

“No, you big goof. I mean like super-powery things. Like, maybe some kind of ESP thing. Can’t I feel you?”

“Nope.” He grinned as he trailed a light finger down her neck and over her collarbone.

“So I can’t read your thoughts?”

“Nope.” He licked and nibbled over the collarbone as he made his leisurely way to her breast.

“Do I get better night vision? Some kind of weird protection because other vamps can sense your bite and suddenly know better than to bite me because of possible retribution from you?”

“Nope. Buggers won’t give a toss who you’ve been bitten by. Might just show them how easy it is to snag you.” He sucked in mouthfuls of her ripe flesh as his tongue circled her skin, searching for that little nub that had a flavour all its own.

Buffy tried hard to reign in her rising anger. Did Spike have to treat this whole claim thing like it was worth nothing at all?

“What about the ‘until death us do part’ thing? Will I live forever at your side?” For that she was at least hopeful. Now that she’d found him, it would really suck if this Glory person they were up against this year was the one to take her out. Besides, immortality but with all the perks of being human. Who could seriously thumb their nose at that?

“Now that one would be perfect, an’ we can look into it more. But as far as I know, no. Sorry.”

Frustration exploded in her head just as Spike found his target and gently bit down on her nipple, sending searing hot lust through her body to swell and swirl in her belly.

“Dammit, Spike,” she panted, determination to know the full extent of this thing pushing her through the pain of pleasure and into the miserable world of cliché. “What use was it then? Why bother if it means nothing?”

“Didn’t say it didn’t mean anything, pet.” Spike leaned up far enough so that he could stare intently into Buffy’s eyes and she was forced to see the naked feeling he couldn’t ever seem to close away from her. “It means that I love you. That I want to spend whatever time I have left in this miserable world with you—beside you. I want to fight with you and for you. I want to fall asleep with you every night after shagging you into unconsciousness. I want to be everything you need, everything you can love.” He paused, allowing the swell of emotion to take him over and take her in. “I want to be the man you deserve. That’s what it means, Buffy.”

“Oh.” How could she possibly argue with that? Buffy sighed, feeling the romantic inside Spike and falling for him even more. He always had the words—whether they were intended to get her hot or just heated. He could make her mad and yet instantly dying of lust with just the switch of words on his tongue. It was quite a gift, and she had him for good. “You know, you are so good at that.”

He looked surprised, like what she said wasn’t what he’d been expecting. It made her feel guiltily aware of what she’d neglected, and then worse when he gave her a smile just slightly less enthusiastic than it should have been.

“What’s that, luv?” He resumed with the teasing, his hands and lips almost making her sense dribble out her ears.

“With the…romantic stuff. I could never…say anything…so gorgeous…”

A puff of cool air was blown over a wet nipple and Buffy felt both it and her insides crimp up in agonised need for more. “Just say what you feel, baby. That’s all I want to hear.”

Buffy took a deep breath, her vision blurring as the sharp sting of fangs experimented with her breasts.

“I never thought you’d be someone I could love,” she began, aware exactly the second Spike paused what he was doing and squeezed her arm a little painfully in objection. “I thought that you were someone I could like, maybe be friends with, develop feelings for, but could never allow myself to take that final step with. I thought falling in love with you was something I had to have my friend’s approval to do, when really I didn’t. I have the power and the ability to think and feel exactly what I want, and love who I want. I want to love you. And you have no idea how much I do.” She finished off with a passionate kiss, almost pulling hair out of the roots to drag his lips to hers.

It wasn’t a sign of his inability to control himself when his cock slid home. Being joined was something neither of them seemed to take for granted, allowing it to be the marker that together things were perfect—warmer and more beautiful than they were when they were apart. Spike moved slowly, letting his hips set an identical rhythm to his tongue and concentrating on every sensation as it washed over him. The quiet moans of happiness tickled his ears, making him alert to her every sound of pleasure and pain—because even pain could be hot. The tightness of her legs around his hips and the heels of her feet digging into his ass emphasised the squeeze of her pussy around his cock, making him feel tightly wound and wholly loved. The heat of her passage clashed violently with the coolness he pumped into her, and that sensation alone was enough to make Spike see stars.

She kissed him in ways he’d never known a man could be kissed. With a fiery intent that blew his mind. She wanted him, all of him, and she wasn’t allowing any part of him to hide. When she located the sensitivities in his mouth and the demon burst forward, she acted like there was no difference, and finally Spike could see that, in Buffy’s eyes, there no longer was. He’d achieved what his poof of a grandsire hadn’t. He’d shown that love was soul-less as well as full. It was deep and fathomless and had no need of boundaries or conditions at all. And Buffy was teaching him that as fast as he was teaching it to her.

Long, slow strokes nearly drove Spike crazy, his urge to come almost painful to hold back. Buffy lifted her hips against his, her legs releasing a little of her strong grip to slide up and down his body, the satiny skin driving him mad. Her mouth was warm, wet and her lips plump and swollen. Spike knew he’d never tasted anything that had his blood wanting to pump through seized veins. When she yanked her head back to breathe, Spike took advantage of her throat, diving in to kiss and lick and suck on her flesh. He loved it when Buffy got so excited she lost coherency; loved it when her hands wandered and she lavished loving strokes over his muscles.

“I love you, Spike.” And she came with a cry against his cheek, tears of happiness making her eyes shine and making her even more beautiful.

The dream that had unlocked the secrets in his heart had brought him here, though not once along the journey had he thought it possible that his irrational dreams might be returned. He may have pursued Buffy—might have tried to change for her so that she might see him in a different light, might want to know him a little more than as her chipped enemy. But this—he’d longed for it but never really believed he had a chance.

Not only had he been given the chance, he’d been given the gift.

“I love you, too.”