The fabulous banner is by the awesomely talented Ben Rostock.

Chapter 6

“I should have known dying wouldn't stop you,” said Giles afterwards and Buffy smiled at him.

She and Willow and Xander dressed up and went to the prom together. They got there late, but dancing gave them the feeling of celebration that they needed. They had won. No one might know it but themselves, but they had saved the world.

The summer was quiet. Spike wasn’t there anymore to tell her what was going on with the Order. If they were still around, they were keeping their heads down. A couple of demons and a few vamps not part of the Order did turn up. The Hellmouth might be closed once again, but it was still there and its emanations inevitably attracted the ungodly.

Still those few incidents were nothing to compare with the madness of the last few months and Buffy was able to go off with a clear conscience to spend the summer in L.A. with her Dad. She did some partying and a great deal of shopping. Hank Summers was feeling guilty about walking out on her Mom and her like that, and Buffy used his guilt ruthlessly to buy all the clothes she wanted. Cordelia wasn’t going to be the only one in Sunnydale with designer outfits this year.

Buffy changed her whole look. Wee little sweet-sixteen, wet-behind-the-ears Slayer, huh? Well, sod that, as Spike would say. She’d killed the Master. She wasn’t an innocent anymore. Grown-up was a state of mind, and between Spike and the Master she had been forced into a great deal of accelerated growth recently. She wasn’t about to go for the blatantly sexy schtick that would make her look like a ho, but there were all sort of ways to bring out a more assured and alluringly adult appearance that the saleswomen on Rodeo Drive were more than happy to help her achieve.

Take that, Dru! She’d gone back and looked over the pictures of Dru in Giles’ books. That was one sleek and sophisticated woman. If that was what Spike’s taste was, Buffy sure wasn’t any competition.

She didn’t know why she was competing anyway. Spike wasn’t going to come back to Sunnydale and she sure wasn’t gonna take up with him if he did. He was a vamp, after all, and evil. She was piqued, that was all; ticked off because he had left like that. She wanted him to regret it. Word might get back to him across the demon grapevine, how the Slayer looked and acted now. Simple curiosity would make him notice and she wanted to rub it in, what he had walked out on.

Illogical. She knew that.

But she missed him. Missed talking and laughing and fighting with him. Missed just being with him.

God! What Giles and his Council would say if they knew! Slayer fixated on a vamp! Could anything be more wrong!

It was just a teenage thing, that was all. Because he was forbidden, was cool, was a bad boy. She couldn’t even call it a Romeo and Juliet thing, because there wasn’t any love involved on either side, just sexual attraction.

Heavy sexual attraction.

She had crushed the Master’s bones, smashing them viciously into the finest powder, just as Spike had told her to. But, even so, she had expected to have nightmares about the Master biting her like that, killing her. And she did. Except...

The Master biting her kept segueing into Spike biting her...and that rush of fire and rapture that came when he did. ‘You’ll dream about it,’ Spike had said. She did, over and over again. She had feared nightmares about the Master. But these dreams were worse. Waking up shaking and wet with raw, painful desire for something she could not possibly allow herself to have. Rapturous and terrible at once.

It was a good thing Spike had left Sunnydale. She didn’t know whether she could have managed to hold out against him if he had still been here. The temptation was far too powerful.

She got back from L.A. just in time to stop Willow and Xander from being eaten by vamps.

“Man, your timing really doesn't suck,” exclaimed Xander as Buffy dusted the last vamp efficiently.

“Does either of you even have a cross?” Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Very sloppy.”

“Well, it's been a slow summer,” said Xander shamefacedly. “I mean, that's the first vampire we've seen since you left for L.A.”

“It's like they knew I was coming back,” sighed Buffy.

“Well, you haven’t lost your touch. How was your summer? Did you slay anything?” asked Xander eagerly.

“No. Just hung out, partied some.” She grinned at Willow. “Shopping was also a major theme.”

“Great new look!” said Willow, admiring Buffy’s new clothes and makeup enviously.

“Show you later,” Buffy murmured into Willow’s ear and Willow beamed. “So, how did you guys fare? Did you have any fun without me?”

“No,” said Xander.

“Yes!” said Willow.

“Our summer was kinda yawnworthy,” said Xander and Willow looked hurt.

Buffy glanced at them. When she had got there, just before the vamps jumped them, they had seemed to have been sharing a tender moment. Buffy had hoped that Xander was over his fixation on her. But it looked like that wasn’t happening. From Willow’s expression, Xander had got her hopes up over the summer, but now she was starting to realize that she had been just a fill-in for Buffy. Buffy was sorry. Willow was such a nice person and deserved to have someone really care about her.

The new school year started out kinda flat for everybody. Snyder, the new principal, seemed to have a hate on for every human being under twenty, which seemed to eminently qualify him for his post in the eyes of the town authorities. Buffy wound his clock the most, with that file that existed about her and its accusations about her having burned down Hemery High’s gym and such. No way to explain to Snyder that it wasn’t so and the little troll told her flat out that he was just looking for an excuse to expel her. If Joyce hadn’t known she was the Slayer, Buffy would have been unable to do her patrols due to being permanently grounded from all the complaints Snyder made about her.

Giles was making noises about something called the night of St. Vigeous during which vamps were supposed to be at their strongest. That was in ten days and Giles expected the Order to crawl out of the woodwork then and attack her in force.

Wonderful, thought Buffy. She had hoped that the Order had made tracks out of Sunnydale now that the Master was gone, but it looked like they were still around. Life sucked.

She tramped gloomily through her patrol. Nothing had happened the last couple of nights. All the vamps appeared to be laying low, waiting for St. Vigeous. There weren’t even any demons around or, if there were, they too were keeping their heads down, leaving it for the vamps to take her out.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of movement. A recumbent form lying on one of those flat, marble, full-grave markers with a headstone at one end had suddenly crossed its ankles. It made her jump, because she had taken it for granted that the figure was just some carved statue. Then she picked up the vamp vibe and grabbed her stake out of its sheath.

Glass flashed in the moonlight as a bottle was upended. Great, thought Buffy; the vamp’s drunk. This was gonna be real easy. Then the figure shifted its position and moonlight glinted on white hair just as her Slayer senses clocked in and told her exactly whose vibe that was.

“Spike?” she exclaimed incredulously.

He blinked, then pushed himself up unsteadily and shoved himself backwards until he was leaning back against the headstone. “Sod it, it’s the Slayer. All I need to make my life complete.”

Buffy found that she was smiling widely. That was so not good. She shouldn’t be so happy to see him. But she was.

“What are you doing back in Sunnydale?”

“That’s what I keep asking myself.” He scowled resentfully at her. “Was gonna go to New York. Maybe up the coast to Vancouver. Hell, was gonna take a slow boat to China. Anywhere the pickings are easy. End up here in Sunnyhell. Must be as mental as Dru.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Ain’t I just?” He saluted her with the bottle, grinning, before taking another long slug. “Great feeling. Such a nice buzz and you don’t have to think. Best thing about being drunk, not able to think. Don’tcha agree?”

“Um, never been drunk.”

“Should try it sometime.” His gaze ran over her lingeringly. “Looking good, Slayer. I like that top. The way it clings.”

She glanced down involuntarily. She had gone to the Bronze with Willow and Xander that night before deciding to do a brief patrol, and she was wearing white, dress jeans and a silky haltertop with no back and therefore no bra. She realized that her nipples had hardened under his fixed stare and were showing clearly through the thin material of the top. She blushed vividly.

“Ve-ry nice,” he purred.

“Stop that!” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Hey, a man can look, can’t he?” he grinned. “Gonna stake me for it, Slayer?”

“I should,” she growled. “But not while you’re drunk. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“Yeah. Fair fight. Thass what’s important. No honor in it if you cheat.”

“Is that why you came back? To fight? You left without that notch on your belt. Is that what you’ve come back for now? ”

“Yes. No.” He waved a hand in front of his face irritably. “You’re confusing me. Stop trying to make me think, Slayer. Don’ wanna think.”

She sat down on a tombstone opposite him and studied him warily. His eyes were shifting back and forth from blue to yellow, his fangs appearing and then retracting. He seemed angry about something; but it was an inchoate anger, not focused on anything specific. She had never seen him like this before, so off-balance and unstable. He was unpredictable like this, volatile. Dangerous.

“So how’s your life been, Slayer? Bed o’ roses now that the Master’s gone?”

She shrugged. “Nothing much to speak of. It’s been quiet. Though I understand that might change with this night of St. Vigeous thing.”

“Heard about that.” He snickered. “Got them running scared now that they know you took out the Master. Bunch of candyasses. Thass why the brat’s waiting for St. Vigeous. Hopes it will stiffen their spines some.”

“So the Order’s still there.” She hadn’t been sure of that. That was another thing she had missed with his absence, the information he had tossed her way every now and then about what was going on in the demon world. Devilry on his part, stirring the pot. But it had been useful.

“Oh, yeah. Brat’s got them snookered. Convinced them he’s the Master’s heir. Thass not so, but they’re too demoralized to challenge him.”

“Are there a lot of them?”

“Enough.” He gave her a twisted grin. “They’ll take you, pet. No good ones left, of course. The four, five effective vamps still in Sunnydale never hooked up with the Order and they’re staying out of its way. Order’s gutted. Gone soft. Can’t get it up. But there’s still enough of them to bury you through sheer volume, come St. Vigeous.”

“Great.”

“Gonna be quite a show.” He upended the bottle and took a long slug.

“So that’s what you came back for. The show.”

“Yes. No.” He flung the bottle at her suddenly. She ducked involuntarily, but it shattered on the ground to one side of her and she realized that it hadn’t really been angled to hit her. “Stop pushing me, Slayer!”

What the heck?

“Okay, Spike. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Every-fucking-thing. You’ve ruined me, Summers.”

“What?”

“Gotta stay drunk. Makes things nice and simple, being drunk does. Been drunk for a week.” He frowned, thinking that over. “Or it might be a lot longer. Can’t remember. Since I left Rio.”

“Rio?” She stared. “Why were you in Rio?”

“Dumb question. That’s where Dru was, innit?”

Right. Dru.

“Leave her in Mexico, she ends up in Brazil,” he muttered. “Figures. Never has a buggering clue what she’s about. Just goes where the stars tell her. Was lucky she didn’t go to Prague.”

“Prague?”

“Said she might head that way. Other side of the bleeding planet. But she didn’t. Went to Rio instead. Even so, it took me a while to track her down. And then I get my balls busted for my trouble! All because of you!”

“Me!”

“She dumped me.”

Buffy found herself smiling. She wiped that expression hurriedly off her face before he noticed.

“You...told her about us.”

“Didn’t need to. The stars did. She’s psychic.”

“But...but...nothing happened!”

“Like I didn’t try to tell her!” He went into full gameface and snarled angrily. “‘Covered with you.’ ‘Floating all around me.’ What the fuck was that? Jus’ an excuse, thass all. Hundred and twenty fucking years and she pulls that on me!”

“Because of that Provi-whatsit demon?”

“Chaos. She’d moved on.”

“Chaos?”

He made an irritable gesture, the gameface fading back into his regular human features. “Antlers. Slime. Don’t ask.”

“Um, okay.” Buffy remembered Darla taunting him about that. “Wow, Spike. I’m sorry.”

He rubbed his hands roughly across his face. “Always was mental, Dru. But this time she really...”

“Well, I guess you training me like that, helping me with the Master...”

“Wasn’t that.”

He fell silent, his gaze fixed on her, a puzzled, searching stare, frowning and very intent.

“Spike?”

“Gotta think.” He staggered to his feet, swaying wildly. “Can’t duck that anymore. Gotta get some sleep and then gotta think.”

“Do you have some place to stay?”

“Same place as before. Met up with that Krasevic demon at Willy’s again.”

“What? Never mind.” She caught his arm as he careened past her. “I think I better see you home.”

She didn’t want him passing out somewhere on the way and then getting fried when the sun came up.

He grinned at her twistedly. “Gonna sneak in some night and stake me once you know where I live, Slayer?”

“Told you. When I stake you, it’ll be in a fair fight.”

“Way beyond fair now,” he muttered to her bewilderment. “I’m screwed. Big time. Oh, bloody, buggering hell, am I ever screwed!”

***

He had always had a fatal attraction to the best. The ones beyond his reach. First Cicely, the darling of London’s social set in 1880. Then Dru, always available, but essentially unattainable because of her fixation on Angelus. Now the Slayer.

That was the worst. The ultimate screw-up. He might as well put a stake through himself right now, he had destroyed himself so utterly.

Dru was right. He was...obsessed with the Slayer. He wouldn’t use the word ‘love’. He had spent all that time bombed out of his skull because he hadn’t wanted to face that word.

But there it lay, that word, and there was no gainsaying it, no denying it. He had never spent much time in Egypt. He faced facts, dealt with them. This one was going to crucify him, but it would have to be endured.

First things first. Her safety. It was hardwired into him, to protect those he cared for. He had protected Dru for a hundred and twenty years. This night of St. Vigeous thing offended him. Bunch of chicken-shit vamps too gutless to go up against the Slayer except en masse on a night when they were guaranteed to be at their strongest, egged on by an equally gutless brat hiding in the shadows, with no real right to the position he had only been able to claim by default.

The Master’s heir? Yeah, right. That was not the way the line of succession went. Collin had not been turned by the Master. Spike knew that for a fact. If he had been the Master’s get, Collin would have been part of the link and Spike would have felt it. But he was not. Nest had never turned children; he had only eaten them.

The Master’s heir was Darla and, after her, Angelus, both now dust. Next came Dru, but her mental state disqualified her. Which left...guess who as the rightful Master of Sunnydale.

Spike grinned nastily.

Thirty-odd vamps still in the Order and all of them sworn to the Annoying One, all of them his minions. Spike had the rightful claim. But challenge without backup was going to be tricky. He made a few arrangements.

A week before St. Vigeous, he strolled into the converted factory that Collin and the Order were using as their new base. Annoying One’s present lieutenant—Absalom, his name was, Kibble at Willy’s had told him—was thumping his chest and making with the bombast, and Collin was listening. Spike found that interesting. Collin wasn’t used to being a leader. He was used to taking orders not giving them and, from the poor showing they had made so far, he didn’t know how to motivate his troops. He was unsure of himself and leaning heavily on Absalom, who was clearly seeing this as an opportunity to be the power behind the throne.

“When I kill her,” blared Absalom, meaning the Slayer, “it’ll be the greatest event since the crucifixion. And I should know. I was there.”

Spare me, thought Spike. He stepped lazily forward into view.

“You were there?” He snickered. “Oh, please! If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.”

“I oughta rip your throat out!” roared Absalom, stung.

Spike turned his back on him and strolled away.

“I was actually at Woodstock,” he remarked contemplatively. “That was a weird gig. I fed off a flowerperson and I spent the next six hours watchin’ my hand move.”

As he expected, Absalom rushed him from behind. Spike swung his fist up without even looking, hit him in the face and knocked him cold.

“So. Who do you kill for fun around here?”

“Who are you?” exclaimed Collin.

“Spike.”

He looked around at the vamps tensing when they heard his name. They knew where he stood in relation to the Master. Collin’s eyes turned wary. Spike smiled.

The rest of the members of the Order suddenly began filtering in. Collin must have put out a call over the minion link he had with them, the one that Spike could not feel because it was separate from the Aurelian link.

“And you’re this Anointed guy,” Spike went on casually. “How old are you?”

“Older than you,” said Collin with a vicious smirk that looked utterly incongruous on that childish face.

“Guessed that. Who turned you?”

There was a deadly silence. The vamps of the Order exchanged uncomfortable glances. That was the question.

“Wasn’t the Master,” said Spike softly. “Some minor vamp trull?”

Collin looked over to where Absalom was staggering back onto his feet. “Kill him,” he said furiously.

“Glad to!” roared Absalom and flung himself at Spike. So did the other vamps.

Spike went straight up into the air, then came down onto the scrum as they crashed into each other below him. He had a stake in each hand and was spinning like a whirling dervish, dusting vamps coldly and efficiently as they grabbed at him.

But one vamp would never be able to hold off thirty and Collin was smiling with satisfaction as he left the box he had been sitting on and jumped up onto it instead for a better view.

Then screams erupted from the outer edges of the melee. Collin gaped. Vamps he had never seen before had arrived. There weren’t many of them, but they were killing with lethal efficiency.

“Yours are fledglings,” said Spike softly in his ear. “Mine are pros.”

Collin realized that Absalom was gone, dusted. And that the Order was rapidly dwindling.

“No!” he gasped.

But Spike’s stake was already slashing down.

“From now on, we’re gonna have a little less ritual and a little more fun around here,” remarked Spike as the Anointed One exploded into dust.

The surviving members of the Order were crying for quarter.

“No quarter,” said Spike grimly as his vamps looked to him for instruction. “The Order ends now.”

A few minutes later, it was truly ended, nothing left but little piles of dust on the floor.

“Told you it would be a piece of cake,” said Spike to his vamps as they gathered around him.

“Sunnydale’s ours!” one of them said incredulously. “We rule!”

“I do,” said Spike flatly. “And you’re mine.”

“Yes,” they said and came and bent their necks for the minion bite.

Having minions had always bored him, but it was necessary this time to ensure that they would have no choice but to follow his orders.

“The Order’s gone?” gasped Buffy when he told her about it.

Spike grinned. “All dusted. Don’t have to worry about the night of St. Vigeous crap. No one’s gonna come after you.”

“You wiped out the Order? But...why?”

“Oh, you know. Annoying One setting himself up as Master. Pissed me off. Wasn’t even in the line. Thought he could get away with it because he had them all so buffaloed they didn’t even think of challenging it.”

“You challenged.”

“I had the right. Even the Order knew it. I’m next in line. Those five effective vamps in Sunnydale that I told you about? They agreed. Backed me up on the power grab. They’re a lot better off being my minions than going it alone or joining the Order.”

She stared at him. “You’re the Master in Sunnydale now?”

He smirked at her. “Ain’t that a kick?”

She sat down with a thump on a tombstone. “No vamps?”

“Not gonna be that easy, Slayer. There’ll always be vamps. Hellmouth draws them like flies. But you won’t have them coming at you in a bunch.”

He had told his to stay away from the Slayer. They were happy to do that since they knew she would dust them even if they all came at her together, and they were grateful that he had no intentions of hurling them against her.

“I never thought you’d be interested in power, in making yourself the top dog,” said Buffy blankly. “You always seem a loner somehow.”

“Think I did it for your bright eyes, Slayer? Do I get a reward? Come on and give us a kiss then.”

“Hey!” Buffy leaped to her feet and backed away.

He laughed, something glimmering in his eyes, a kind of angry, self-mocking defiance.

“Relax, Slayer. Didn’t think you would. Didn’t make myself Master for you. Fuck that. Demon here and power is power.”

Buffy stared at him as he stood there, leaning back against a tombstone, the moonlight glinting on his bright hair. There was a glittering, dangerous edge to him. Dru dumping him like that seemed to have brought out something reckless and bitter in him.

She didn’t discount ambition from having been his reason for establishing himself as Master, but she didn’t entirely buy it either. Something else was going on with him.

“I think I’d better get home,” she said uncomfortably.

“Running scared,” he mocked and she didn’t deny it. He made her nervous, the way he was now.

A demon with fangs a sabertooth tiger would have envied and claws three inches long jumped them as they were leaving the cemetery. To her surprise, Spike attacked it the moment she did and between the two of them they took it down handily.

“What the heck is this thing?” she asked, staring down at the limp body lying on the turf.

“Grathar. No brains. Vicious. Just an animal.”

“Why did you help me kill it?”

“Animal like that is a liability. Brings the rest of us to the notice of humans. Better for us if the human world doesn’t know we exist. Don’t want humans getting into peasants-with-stakes-and-torches mode. We all get rid of the brainless ones when we can. They cross the lines.”

“Lines?”

“Territorial lines. The occasional turf war happens, but mostly vamps and demons work out what belongs to who. Vamps take the human-occupied territories. More people, the better eating. And we don’t have to worry about being seen. Demons haunt the empty areas. Cemeteries, run-down districts, abandoned factories, that kind of thing.”

“I see.”

Spike frowned down at the Grathar. “Got a bit of a clean-up problem here though. Can’t leave this lying around for someone to find.”

“Yeah,” Buffy sighed, not looking forward to having to haul the heavy thing away somewhere.

Spike looked up suddenly. “Maybe it won’t be a problem. Want it?” he called into the shadows. A piping call came back. “Take it then.”

Small forms stepped out of the shadows, three-foot-high demons with gray skin and little, gargoyle faces. They shuffled their feet and looked as if they were ready to run.

“Slayer,” said one nervously in a high, fluting voice.

“Yeah, but she won’t slay you,” said Spike and shrugged at Buffy. “They’re Firoud. Harmless. Live in the sewers and get rid of a lot of the vermin. Grathar meat’s good eating for them.”

“I won’t slay you,” Buffy confirmed. “Promise.”

They all bowed as one, bowed again and again as they came hesitantly forward.

“We good, yes?” one of them said anxiously. “No bad, we. No hurt, please.”

“No hurt. Promise,” Buffy reassured them and they beamed, converging upon the Grathar with more confidence and chattering among themselves in their high, piping voices.

“There’s a whole community of non-harmful demons in Sunnydale,” Spike said as they watched the Firoud cut up the Grathar and carry it away. “Firouds, Listers, Krasevics, Ano-Movics, whack of others. Hellmouth draws them. They don’t hurt anyone, just want to be left alone and lead their lives.”

“If they don’t hurt anyone, I won’t hurt them.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “Watchers’ Council might not like that. They’re demons, after all. Might say you should drive them all out of Sunnydale.”

“I have trouble enough with the harmful ones. I’m not going to waste my time like that.”

He nodded approvingly at her. “Sensible. The peaceable ones can also be useful, Slayer. These Firoud, for instance. They get everywhere. Know everything that’s going on in this town. You said it helped, my giving you info about the demon world, and that you missed it when I left. Well, there’s your solution. Just ask the Firoud. Or any of the non-harmful demons. Just go into Willy’s and drop word what you’re interested in. Know Willy’s bar?”

“Heard of it.”

“Go there. Willy will tell you, for a price. Or a Riherejk called Kibble. But there’s lots will do it just for immunity or the goodwill.”

“A network,” said Buffy, seeing the possibilities.

He grinned at her. “Oh, yeah.”

All she told Giles about any of this was that St. Vigeous was not happening because Spike had made himself the Master and didn’t have time for it right now. The rest she kept to herself. Giles was floored just by Spike being the Master now. She didn’t think he would be able to handle the détente that existed between them.

More than a détente. A friendship. A partnership. He met her in the cemeteries to spar almost every night now. No let up in that sparring. He was as hard on her as he had ever been. But they were evenly matched now and the contests always ended in stalemate. She could see the approval and satisfaction in his eyes. And he came with her on patrol, taking out vamps or demons right beside her, helping her.

“I like fighting,” he said evasively when she asked him about it. “Besides, these are not my vamps. They’re strangers.”

“And the demons?”

He shrugged. “Hey, demons and vamps don’t get along that well. Always open season on demons for vamps.”

Spike didn’t tell her that demons had tried to jump him at Willy’s, intending to teach him that it was not a good idea to harm demons on the Slayer’s behalf. They had paid for the attempt and Spike had laid out his position to the whole bar, knowing that word would get around.

“Slayer’s mine,” he said flatly. “You go after her, I go after you.”

They got the message. Didn’t mean that they didn’t try every now and then, but the Slayer and he together were a formidable force and they didn’t succeed.

Surely it wasn’t right, Buffy was thinking. He was a vamp and he was supposed to be fighting for the dark, not the light. Things were all upside down. And he never brought up that ‘third notch’ thing anymore either.

Everything was different about him these days. The laughter and the teasing appeared to be the same, but there was an angry, self-mocking edge to it now and the jokes seemed to have a hidden meaning that she didn’t understand, something double-edged and cutting, but turned against himself.

He was always too close these days, well inside her personal space. He was a tactile being and to touch was instinctive. Nothing in it of that aggressive sexual provocation that he had indulged in before. Just light fingers on her elbow or in the small of her back, the contact gentle and protective, the random brush of his hand on her hair caressive. So she allowed it and tried not to admit to herself that she enjoyed it, tried to ignore the way he watched her, the look in the intense, burning blue of his eyes, heavy and dark and silken, bringing the color up into her face.

She was too aware of him.

“Who is that?” Joyce asked one night after he had dropped Buffy off at Revello Drive. “I’ve seen him with you before.”

Buffy blushed and stammered, not knowing what to say. Maybe if she lied and said that Spike was her history tutor or something...

“All that bleached hair and black leather? He looks like trouble. Like rough trade.” Joyce was frowning. “Besides, he’s too old for you. You’ve just barely turned seventeen, Buffy, and he seems at least a college boy. Does Mr. Giles know him?”

Buffy winced. If Joyce asked Giles about Spike and gave him a description, Giles would put two and two together. Then he and Xander would be after Spike with crossbows, which meant that either he or they would get killed.

Only the truth would do.

“His name’s Spike. But...but...Mom, don’t tell Giles about him! He’s a vamp and Giles will kill him!”

“He’s a vampire?” Joyce stared at her. “But...”

Buffy sat her down and spilled the whole story out from the beginning.

“He’s the new Master of vampires in Sunnydale, but he’s helping you?” Joyce said incredulously when Buffy finished.

“Yeah,” said Buffy weakly. “I know it sounds...”

“Honey, you do complicate your life,” sighed Joyce.

“It sort of complicated itself,” Buffy said ruefully.

“I want to meet him.”

“Mom! It’s not like he’s some guy I’m going out with! A vamp is not someone you bring home to be vetted by your parents!”

“This one is. Buffy, you’re spending every evening in his company. I want to meet him—if only to be sure he isn’t someone I should be asking your Mr. Giles to stake.”

“Aw geez!” groaned Buffy.

“Language, dear,” said Joyce sternly.

“My Mom wants you to come to dinner,” Buffy told Spike the next night and he blinked.

“Didn’t know we had that kind of relationship, pet.” He was laughing, but his eyes were warm.

“Neither did I,” growled Buffy and he grinned. “If you even lay a finger on her, Spike, I’ll...I’ll...”

“Won’t eat her. Swear.” He crossed his heart, smiling, but his gaze was grave and steady, and she knew he meant it. “Does she know I’m a vamp?”

“Yeah. She’s trying to decide whether to have you staked.”

“Better be charming then.”

When Spike wanted to, he could be very charming indeed. He talked happily and openly about being a vamp and his turning and the culture he had been brought up in, and showed so much easy knowledge of the literary and artistic matters that Joyce was interested in (and Buffy so not) that Joyce was unwillingly impressed.

“Oxford!” exclaimed Joyce.

“Yeah, but getting turned made that sort of irrelevant,” said Spike ruefully. “Though being a vamp means that one can keep learning forever. Still a scholar at heart. But what I wanted then was to be a poet.”

He shrugged at Buffy’s stunned look.

“A poet,” breathed Joyce who loved poetry.

“Didn’t really have the talent. Took me a long time to figure that out.”

“That must have been painful,” said Joyce with sympathy, hearing the faintly bitter note hidden in his voice.

He looked down abruptly and both Joyce and Buffy got the impression that if he hadn’t been a vamp he would have flushed.

“Yeah. Guess it was.”

“But you’ve got a lot of other talents now,” said Buffy dryly and he looked up, the blue eyes suddenly vivid with wicked laughter.

“Loads. You have no idea.”

“You’re a vampire though,” said Joyce slowly. “And Buffy’s a Slayer...”

“Won’t hurt her.”

“Why not?”

Buffy raised her brows curiously, waiting for the answer. But Spike just shrugged.

“Just...won’t.”

He gave Buffy a sudden sideways glance from beneath his eyelashes. Buffy missed it, but Joyce caught the look in his eyes.

“I see,” said Joyce. She did.

“So what’s the verdict?” asked Buffy once Spike had gone. “Are you going to ask Giles to stake him?”

“No. He seems a nice boy. I won’t mention him to Mr. Giles.”

“Nice!” said Buffy, amused. “Only you would call a vamp nice, Mom!”

“Well, I like him and I’m glad you have someone to help you.”

“That’s the weird part,” said Buffy, frowning. “Him helping. I don’t understand that at all.”

Joyce gave her a thoughtful, sidelong glance. It seemed perfectly obvious to Joyce, but she hoped Buffy would never figure it out. She wanted Buffy to have a normal life and marriage and kids. Buffy being a Slayer would make that complicated enough without adding a vampire to the equation.

“You’re attracted to him.”

“I...” Buffy blushed wildly. “Hey, he’s hot.”

“Even I can see that,” said Joyce dryly. She would have had to be over a hundred not to see that Spike was sex on a stick, she thought wryly. Goodness, she’d have to be dead to miss that! “His being hot is the problem.”

“He’s a vamp, Mom. And I do know that getting involved with a vamp is so not of the good. Huge no. Utterly forbidden. Just plain wrong.”

“Mm.” Joyce was too shrewd to openly object to Spike and possibly drive Buffy into a whole rebellious Romeo and Juliet scenario. But she also wanted to keep an eye on things. “You should bring him around every now and then.”

“Okay,” shrugged Buffy, relieved that Joyce wasn’t making a big deal about it.

The trouble was, Joyce thought weeks later, that Spike grew on one. She had fallen into the habit of inviting him in after Buffy’s patrols and the three of them ended up talking for hours over the cups of hot chocolate that she found he liked. He tried to hide his pleasure at being included in their family group, but it was obvious to both Buffy and Joyce. Joyce found it touching and disarming. Family and belonging mattered to him and Joyce could understand that, though Buffy clearly thought it was strange in a vamp. But Joyce was starting to realize that Spike was not the typical vampire.

She knew that she should tell Buffy’s Watcher about Spike, that Buffy’s association with him was completely wrong. But telling Mr. Giles would be a death sentence to Spike and she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Especially with the way Spike was protecting Buffy on her patrols.

“That’s a bad slash,” Joyce said worriedly when Spike arrived after one patrol with a deep gash across his cheekbone.

Spike just shrugged. “Vamp here. It’ll heal by tomorrow.”

“It was a Laychek demon. They have these really wicked claws.” Buffy frowned at Spike. “But why did you jump in between us like that, Spike? I was handling it.”

“You’d have gotten slashed instead and their claws are filthy. Hope you’re up to date on your tetanus shots, by the way, pet. Vamps don’t have to worry about things like that, but humans do and you’re human, even though you’re a Slayer.”

Buffy made a face. “I don’t like needles.”

Spike looked up at Joyce as she cleaned the gash on his face. “She needs those shots.”

“I’ll make an appointment,” nodded Joyce, taping the edges of the cut together carefully.

“Mo-om!”

“You’re going to get those shots,” said Joyce flatly. “I can’t help you with this Slaying business like Spike does, but I can make sure that you get things like preventive injections.”

“Don’t understand why he helps anyway,” growled Buffy, stomping away. “Interfering jerk!”

“I do,” said Joyce under her breath and Spike gave her a sudden, panicky look.

“Better be off,” he said, getting hurriedly to his feet. “Thanks for the patch job, Joyce.”

“Thank you for taking care of Buffy.”

“No big,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

“Ganging up on me,” Buffy grumbled resentfully when she ran across him in the cemetery the next night. “Don’t need a big brother, okay?”

“Slayer scared of needles?” he mocked. “That’s a laugh, that is. Didn’t expect to see you tonight. Thought you were going to the Bronze with Red and Harris.”

“My big Saturday night,” Buffy sighed. “As usual my social life’s a bust. We were, but Willow’s mother did something to her knee and they’re taking her to Emerg. The way things are normally backed up over there, they’ll probably be waiting for hours before they get to see anyone. So I thought I’d do a patrol instead.”

“Want a date? We could go.” He gave her a sardonic, challenging glance. “Dare ya.”

If Willow and Xander were at the hospital, they wouldn’t see the two of them together and get all freaked out. Buffy felt suddenly reckless.

“Why not?”

“Really? Amazing! That’s brave of you, Slayer.” He was laughing at her.

It was not like anything could happen at the Bronze.

Except she had forgotten how erotic just dancing with him could be. His arms around her, that supple, powerful body moving against hers, his parted lips so close to hers, those gas-flame blue eyes watching her, all intensity and heat.

Just sparring with him aroused her, she had found. The necessarily intent focus on each other, the give and take of their moves, that strange intimacy of conflict. But this, with their bodies moving together as one and the closeness...She never should have agreed to it.

“You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?” He dropped his head to look at her narrowly, his forehead almost brushing hers, their breaths mingling, that beautiful face filling her vision. “It’s only a dance.”

“It was only a dance with Owen, but you called it something else.”

“Ah. Well, you know I’d like it to be something else.”

“Spike...” She backed hastily. “I think I want another Pepsi.”

His arms tightened around her. “Running again?”

“It’s not that.” But it was and they both knew it.

She raised her hand involuntarily and brushed her thumb over the thin white line that was all that remained now of the gash he had on his cheekbone last night. He had discarded Joyce’s strip of tape, unneeded now, and even that faint mark would be gone in a couple of hours.

“Vamp healing,” she said lightly, trying to change the subject, defuse that electric awareness between them. “Useful.”

He turned his face into her hand, so that her palm flattened against his cheek. “I like it when you touch me.”

“Don’t.”

“You know I want you.”

“For a good fuck.”

“More than that, pet. Oh, much more than that.”

She caught her breath in shock. “What are you saying?”

His face tightened. He looked as if he were nerving himself up to something he knew would end badly. “Shall I spell it out? Four letters, starting with L.”

“You can’t possibly mean...!”

But this time there was no missing that look in his eyes, no way to shut it out, deny it. All blue fire, those eyes, burning with intensity. Heat and desire, yes, but far more frightening to her, that silken look of tenderness, of...

“Vamps can’t...”

He just looked at her, his scarred eyebrow rising, and the words died in her throat. Maybe other vamps couldn’t, but Spike could. He had loved Drusilla for a hundred and twenty years.

“Dru...” she said weakly.

“She knew. That’s why she dumped me. She saw it right off. Everything I wasn’t even admitting to myself at the time. Even your Mum saw it. She knows.”

“Oh, God.” It suddenly made sense, Joyce being so at ease with Spike being around, so certain that he would never hurt Buffy despite being a vamp.

She saw the tension in his face, the way his lips were tightly pressed together, the vulnerability. He hadn’t meant to say what he had. It had just come out and now he was afraid of being hurt, was expecting harsh rejection.

“But, Spike...why?”

He stroked her hair lightly, his gaze moving with slow helplessness over her face. “Because of what you are. You shine. You burn. So bright. Like the sun.”

“The sun burns vamps.”

“Don’t I know it. You’ll burn me, Slayer. To ash. Worst thing that could have happened to me, my falling for you.”

“I don’t...”

“I know.” A flicker of bitterness flashed through his eyes. “Does it disgust you, Slayer? Does the thought horrify you?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m...flattered. But it just can’t happen.”

“At least you’re not running screaming,” he said wryly on a little breath of a laugh.

“Wouldn’t.” That would be callous and cruel and unfeeling. Even unwanted, love was a gift. A heart was something precious. One didn’t crush it under one’s heel like that, destroy the person offering it, wound him so deeply. Besides...”Too tempted,” she said honestly.

His whole face softened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Can’t give in to it, but still...”

He kissed her.

It had clearly been meant to be light and undemanding, that kiss. But the moment their mouths opened to each other, that changed. Like stepping into quicksand, sucked right down in an instant into a rich, honied, dark sensuality.

Their mouths broke apart, gasping for breath that they both urgently needed, came back together again helplessly, immediately, unable to stay apart. They kissed deeply, tongues stroking and twining ceaselessly. Kissed and kissed again, delicately, hungrily, losing themselves and time and the world in a maelstrom of exquisite sensation.

She opened her eyes for a moment and realized that she was leaning against the wall in the shadows under the stairs. They had somehow moved there, she didn’t know how and she didn’t think he did either, seeing the bewilderment in the heavy-lidded eyes looking back at her, the darkness and helplessness there.

His mouth took hers again and she was lost, forgetting everything, drunk on sensation, on this drugging, voluptuous sweetness, heavy and rich and slow as honey. Her hands moved over him, stroking his face, his hair, unable to settle, coming to rest for a second only to take flight again, knowing how wrong this was, caught between have to and must not.

It was just kissing, she thought dimly. There was no pressure, no demand for anything more. It was as if they had both silently agreed not to take that step forward, to remain just in this moment of absolute delight. She could indulge in it because of that, time and the whole world and every obligation abandoned in an endless, dreaming haze of pleasure.

Spike wasn’t about to ask for more. He knew how to live in the moment, to take what he could get. He was used to living with loss and disappointment, and her permitting even this was a gift, her not thrusting him away in horror. He knew how to cherish what he had. To ask for more would be to break the spell. She would come back to herself then and remember exactly how wrong this was. He didn’t expect to ever get more. This was a moment out of time. He cherished it, stored it up in his memory, drowning in her, the feel, the taste, the scent of her, the way her hands fluttered over him, those light, tentative caresses that got past all his defences and touched every hidden vulnerability deep down inside himself that he tried to deny.

Her mouth clinging to his and her hands stroking him so sweetly and her body responding to his. That surrender. He drowned himself in it, this wonder that he had never expected to have, beyond thought and never wanting to come back to himself again.

Movement around them brought them back to their senses. The Bronze was closing. Buffy leaned back against the wall and stared wildly around her. They had come to the Bronze late, but still...

“How long...?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall beside her and gasped for breath. They were both still shuddering with passion and heavy, languorous desire.

“Whoa. Never knew...” She dropped her forehead against his shoulder weakly, then drew back hurriedly as she felt the vibrating tremor go through him. They were both too close to the edge, control fraying. “Where’d the time go? I’ve got to get home.”

“I’ll walk y...”

“Not such a good idea.”

Some rational part of them had remembered that they were in a crowd. Out there alone in the darkness, they’d probably end up pulling each other down on somebody’s lawn.

“Yeah,” he sighed.

“I’ll be fine on my own. Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“This can’t happen again.”

“I know.”

TBC