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And another chapter...
He’d rendered her speechless, a feat she couldn’t have imagined in a million years. Since when did evil vampires, better used to draining the populace dry, want to throw in their fangs and side with the good guys? Never—that’s when. Buffy felt the surge of temper at his attempt to trick her and punched him square on the nose.

“Ow! Bloody hell, what was that for?” He looked so hurt that Buffy wondered if she’d got it all wrong—toyed with the possibility that Spike was telling the truth and really did want to be a white hat. Then rational Buffy kicked her butt and she went back to glaring at him.

“I am really, really not in the mood for any of your games.” Her voice cracked with emotion that she was struggling to hold back; she was so tired and angry at herself for almost falling for it. And disappointed—she couldn’t even admit to herself how disappointed she was.

“Not playin’ games. Bloody tired of games. Dru made it—” Spike clenched his jaw and Buffy became transfixed at his effort to remain calm and collected, staring at the taut stretch of his neck and bobbing Adam’s apple. “She made it very plain that she didn’t believe my priorities were with her anymore, and no amount of my trying to prove I was still evil was enough once she knew what I’d done. Not much one for logical argument, is Dru, but make the wrong choice in loyalty and there’s no going back. ‘M not complaining. Got a taste for being the hero, an’ I liked it. Besides, was a bit of all right teaming up with you.”

“Teaming up with who now?” Buffy asked incredulously, desperately fighting back the part of her that wanted to give in to being impressed. “Pretty sure I remember me being all the t-e-a and the m in your little fabricated view of events.”

She so did not see sheepish Spike duck his head and toe the floor with his boot.

“Yeah, ‘m ashamed I didn’t hang around to make sure you were all right. My priorities were still with Dru and hey, guess it’s possible I had endless faith in you to do what needed to be done—because I wasn’t joking about liking the world as it is. I’m willing to bet there’s no spicy chicken wings in Hell.” The grin he shot her with was having an interesting reaction on her nervous system.

“You are a really strange vampire,” Buffy conceded, and then smiled her relief as he shrugged and bit his lip. He was still standing so close and the way she was feeling all warm and interested, it wasn’t of the good to be noticing things like Spike’s lips. But yummm, lips of Spike looked so delicious.

“That’s what makes me all the more interesting, luv.” He leaned in, sniffed at her hair, and while usually that would all eww, for some reason her temperature ratcheted up another few notches. Especially when his nose parted her hair and his lips ended at her throat, a frozen Buffy somehow still able to feel her flesh tingling under the softest kiss that she’d ever had.

When he pulled away, Buffy became aware that her eyes were squeezed shut and how much she’d enjoyed his body being close to hers. It had never occurred to her how much she would miss people—being close and feeling close to others. While Spike wasn’t a person in the strictest sense, now was he someone that she would have chosen to be close to, he was right in front of her. Whether he knew it or not, he fed her craving with a sweetness that took her breath away.

“P-patrol? I think I could really go for beating up bad guys right now. Spike?”

His eyes were glazed over and he was panting. Recognition slowly stole into his gaze and Buffy held her breath, wondering if this would be the moment where he finally remembered that he was a vampire who’d wanted her dead for the better part of last year, and would make good on that at last. She didn’t notice when his hand had moved, but she felt it like a scorching print on her waist as he settled and massaged her under the palm of his hand.

“Bad guys. Killin’ bad guys. Right, first step forward then.”

They didn’t move, confused crystal clear blue eyes hanging onto surprised jade for dear life; for some kind of reassurance that he’d still be safe if he turned his back to her. Buffy didn’t know what to do. He made her feel weak, yet itchy and she couldn’t help wonder how bad that really was. He’d appeared and ruined the unhappy quiet she’d settled into in the blink of a twitchy eye, and she had no idea how to handle it. He wanted her to go and do the very thing she’d refused to do since disembarking from the bus that had brought her to obscurity.

And there lay the impossibility of his plan.

With one less than gentle push, Buffy freed herself from the circle of Spike’s hold and stepped away from the bathroom door and into the apartment. She may have suggested it in a bid to grasp at some sanity and to remove herself from whatever strange spell Spike was wielding, but now the idea of resuming that part of her old life brought her out in cold sweats.

“I can’t do that, Spike. I don’t do that. Not anymore. I hung up my Slayer hat and tied on an apron. I serve people food now, not life. They all got along fine before I came along, and I haven’t seen any of them struggling since I stopped. The world is fine.” Buffy balked for a second, his disbelieving look suddenly making her words louder in her own head than they had been for the entire time she’d been saying them.

“You’re not fine.”

God, she really hated the way he did that observation thing.

“I am too fine.” Hands on her hips, bottom lip trembling, Buffy knew she was being childish and dishonest. She wasn’t fine. She was so far from fine she needed a map to find her way back—but she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t! As if finding her in a sea of faces in this city wasn’t enough, now he had to know her, too? Why couldn’t her mom—her watcher and friends—ever know her like an evil vampire apparently could?

His head tipped to the side and Buffy couldn’t help the betraying trip in her pulse. Sexy? Check. He totally was, and that knowledge was just dangerous to her peace of mind. She needed him gone—needed all reminders of who she was to disappear in a puff of smoke so she could return to the bland existence she’d taken great pains to establish. His stare was unbroken, seemingly stealing all her bravado while he waited for her to admit the truth—first to herself, and then to him.

Normally, she dealt with frustration by killing things, and despite not wanting to kill Spike just yet, if he kept pushing her, she’d have no choice. Still, her blood buzzed with the need to act, to deal with this build up of anguish; the longer he peered into her innermost secrets, the closer she was to breaking and giving him what he wanted.

It couldn’t happen.

“I’m fine, and I think you should go.” She couldn’t have made her voice any more decisive, and yet when he turned away and headed for the door, she felt something snap in her heart and an inhuman howl claw at her throat for release. The monster she was inside couldn’t take being caged any longer and so with a whimper and more than a tear, Buffy grabbed her coat and a stake and stalked out of the apartment beside a grinning vampire.

Damn. How the hell did he win that round with not even a snarky word or a show of force?

He strutted at her side with a huge grin on his face as they went, numerous cigarettes dangling from between his fingers. Buffy watched, bemused, wondering how on earth an apparently graceful, serene creature like Drusilla had put up with Spike the Energizer Vamp for a century.

She’d never actively hunted for evil prey since she’d been in the city, but Spike seemed to be the unelected leader on this expedition and Buffy found he’d taken her to all the usual haunts by instinct alone. Graveyards, parks, nightclubs were not safe from them as they swept in, staked, and disappeared on the whim of a truly psyched vampire.

He was like an overly excitable puppy, all that extra energy seemingly coming out of nowhere. Buffy was exhausted just watching him spin and kick and bounce his way through a patrol that ordinarily should have been pretty dull. And after more hours than her now-unconditioned body could cope with, she had to hand it to him. If he was telling the truth about wanting to save the world as his new gig through eternal life, he’d gone a long way toward achieving safety for all and puppies in just the one night.

Buffy had taken to sitting on whatever was available for the final spots they visited. She felt exhausted and it was easy to admit that it was more fun to watch Spike get bitch slapped and knocked around before he managed to get the upper hand. And he always did. He might be covered in bruises, but his thrill for the fight, his craving for the challenge, saw him as tenacious as a rabid dog. He always left his adversaries either limping badly in Buffy’s direction—or dead.

She didn’t need to be a vampire to know that morning was approaching, and Buffy giggled again as Spike tripped backwards over a headstone and landed hard on his ass. He was in demon face, blood dripping down the side of his face while he laughed at his last success.

“Did you bloody see that, Slayer? That bugger exploded into purple bubbles. That was just…neat!” His was ebullient when he jumped back to his feet, swaying slightly as he stumbled his way to Buffy, who remained perched on a stone wall. His human features slid forward as he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her in the air, falling backwards and thumping his head on the ground as her descending body impacted and knocked him off balance. She landed full length, squishing his bits in all the interesting ways and he couldn’t get rid of the grin that betrayed how happy he was. He wanted to cling to it, and before Buffy could adequately ‘eep’ her objections, he’d rolled and pinned her beneath him.

“I’ve just wiped out an army of evil, Slayer. You know what I feel like now?” The glint in his eye and the hardness of his body brought all sorts of images to her mind of what Spike might like to do now. The dominant one was as prominent as the hint of the not-so-little something she felt poking into her thigh.

She gulped hard. As intriguing as the idea of another exploration of a vampire’s finer points might be, Buffy felt a little at a loss about how to open her mouth and admit a certain degree of interest. Her focus fell to his lips and she prepared herself to make the move that would put behind her all these small tests of affection and go for the gold. And then she saw his lips moving and had to unscattter her hyper aware senses that were already half way along that happy place where she was kissing and it was feeling really good.

“Huh?”

“A milkshake, Slayer. Keep up. I feel like a really big milkshake. Chocolate even. Come on.” And then he was standing, pulling her to her feet and she was forced to follow, despite her befuddled mind and even more clutz-like feet.

He wanted flavoured milk, and not smooches? Either she was really slipping on the attraction radar or Spike was the weirdest male/vampire she’d ever encountered.

As his hand closed around hers and she warmed the palm with the overactive race of blood through her body, Buffy wondered if he’d altered her again. She’d hidden in the City of Angels and changed who she was so she’d be faceless and nameless in a sea of like-people; he’d found her anyway, bringing her closer to life than she had been since she’d screwed the soul right out of Angel.

Morning chased them as Spike tore down streets familiar only to him. He found a protected, dark little establishment that either opened super early to offer icecreamy goodness, or didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘closed’. Buffy didn’t care anymore. Suddenly the sweet flavours assaulted her senses and her stomach rumbled, angrily reminding her that she’d forgone the normal coffee and toast or apple for Spike and his insane pace through the night. She knew a milkshake wasn’t going to be enough, and if Spike was paying…

Missing out on smoochies suddenly didn’t look so bad, not when she was staring a multitude of flavours in the face.

It was only once a huge bowl of five of those flavours was sitting in the middle of them both, two spoons stabbed in and sticking up in the centre, that Buffy realised how tight her face was from the almost permanent smile that had been there through the night. Spike had made her happy, taken her mind off the hopelessness that had been overwhelming her.

They might not have been saving the world tonight, but in his own way, Spike had been saving hers. And all it felt was right.





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