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“It must have been a new guy, because he didn’t know who I was,” Dawn tells them, setting a large pan of lasagna down on the table. “Anyway, I ask for Xander, and he asks me if I’m the girlfriend Xander’s always talking about.”

Xander leans in, patting Dawn on the hand. “And naturally, this one shouts, ‘He never told me he had a girlfriend!’ and slams down the phone.” He grins. “The poor guy was so rattled. He kept apologizing to me.”

Buffy laughs. “Mom used to do that all the time.” Of course, she reflects wryly, in their mother’s case, the secretaries probably hadn’t been that surprised at all. Well, maybe the one who’d thought that she was the only other woman was, but…

She shakes her head, returning to the conversation. It doesn’t do to dwell on the past, especially not when it comes to her ever-so-clichéd deadbeat dad. “We’ve been coordinating our breaks lately,” Dawn is saying. “Xander has a half hour extra, so he’s the one who has to bring the food.”

“I’m the one who has to make the food, too!” Xander protests. “I’ve become the perfect little housewife, here!”

Dawn leans into him, smiling affectionately. “Hey, I can’t help it that I inherited her incompetence in the kitchen.” She jabs a finger at Buffy. “It’s better that you cook, trust me.”

“Trust her,” Buffy echoes, her lips quirking as she watches her best friend and her sister, lost in each other’s eyes. They’re both glowing, lost in the perfect normalcy of domestic couplehood and ostensibly loving it, and for a moment, Buffy hates them for the perfection they’ve found.

She shakes that away. No, nobody deserves joy more than Xander and Dawn, two innocent bystanders who’ve been caught up in the horror and danger of her calling and gaining nothing but pain for it. If she weren’t so selfish, if she didn’t need to be with the people she loved, she’d stay away altogether and try to let them lead their lives without another mention of vampires or demons. But she can’t give up any more people she loves, and she has no right to resent them whatever happiness they’ve managed to glean even with her around.

“Buffy!” She blinks. Dawn’s face is propped up on her left palm, just inches away from hers. “Where were you?”

A melancholy passes over Xander’s face, and she knows where he suspects she had gone, to that dark place where the memories of last year’s end are still heavy and unsettled. She manages a smile. “Just thinking about how much you guys are with the adorableness.”

Dawn smirks. “Well, we’d try to find someone for you to make us sick with the sweetness if you weren’t so hung up on-“

“Like Riley!” Xander jumps in, and Buffy’s glad. She’s fairly certain that however that sentence had ended, it would have left her out for her little sister’s blood. “You two were all over each other in college.”

“Yuck.” Dawn scrunches up her face. “They were nauseating. And all they ever did was have sex. My room was one over!” she protests at Buffy’s glare. “I was traumatized!”

“I am so gonna kick your-“ There’s a movement out of the corner of her eye, and Buffy turns, rolling her eyes at the vampire who thumps into view in the window outside the fire escape. “-Ass,” she finishes, arching a brow at him. 

Spike points at himself, mouths, Me? Never, and curls his tongue in front of his teeth in a leer that makes her shiver and turn away from him determinedly.

“Let’s not talk about Riley and sex,” Xander decides. “I’m a very, very, very manly man who spends all his time-“

“Overcompensating?” Dawn says pertly. Spike sniggers, flashing Buffy a grin and miming falling breathlessly into an imaginary person’s arms. He slips and drops to the floor of the fire escape with a clang that’s loud enough to hear even through the closed window, and Buffy winces.

“See what I have to live with?” Xander complains, and Buffy raises her eyebrows at them and squints back toward the window. 

“You love it,” Dawn retorts. 

“Mm, a little.” They share another grin just as Spike rises again, patting down his duster and flashing Buffy a sheepish smile. Xander clears his throat, affecting a pompous tone. “My only real issue with dating you, my dear Dawnie, is the riff-raff your sister keeps bringing over.”

“Riff-oh.” Dawn turns around, glancing at the vampire waiting outside the window. “Buffy, your date’s here.”

“He’s not my date.” He’s her friend, and he’s an hour early for their scheduled outing tonight. Which is not a date. Not at all. 

“See, this is why we don’t invite him in,” Xander says grumpily, but there’s little heat behind it. “He comes and ruins our nice family dinners with Buffy, and we barely get those now that she’s moved out.”

“I think it’s cute,” Dawn informs him, cutting a square piece of lasagna and placing it on a plate.

“What, now you’re feeding him? First it’s lasagna, and soon it’ll be blood!” Xander scowls. “I refuse to stock our fridge with vamp juice.”

Dawn heaves an extravagant sigh. “Get over it, Harris,” she flings over her shoulder as she heads to the window. 

Since his return, whatever tension Buffy had noticed between Spike and Dawn after the soul has all but evaporated. From what Dawn’s told her, they don’t talk about the past, but the once-close friends now go out of their ways to make amends regardless, even if they’ll only see each other when there are others around. There’s too much bad blood; too many years to make up for without reminding each other of their history.

Buffy understands.

Spike is settled down on the fire escape, Dawn is on the windowsill chattering to him about her day, and Xander’s watching them warily, grumbling good-naturedly about irritating vampires coming on to his girlfriend. It feels kind of right, and when Spike grins at her through a mouthful of lasagna, the sensation that runs through her is familiar, the kind of warmth that she hasn’t felt since late nights with Willow and Xander and a shrill little Dawn back in high school. Friends. Family.

“I thought you usually patrolled alone,” Xander says quietly. She turns to look sharply at him, but his eyes aren’t accusing, just curious, and she struggles to lower her automatic defenses.

“I do. Spike and I are going to LA tonight, though. There’s a club with a whole lot of our mystery vamps.” She feels almost guilty, talking about the supernatural with Xander. He shouldn’t have to cope with it, not anymore.

But he seems unperturbed, instead nodding and saying matter-of-factly, “ So it’s a date?”

“It’s not a date. Xander…” She turns pleading eyes to him. “I wouldn’t do that. Not again.”

Xander looks away. “It’s just…it’s okay. Really. I’m okay with it. We all are.” He mutters, “It beats the alternative” low, but Buffy hears it anyway and bites down hard on her lower lip. “No,” he says hastily. “No, Buffy- I don’t- we don’t- he’s been good, y’know? He hasn’t really done anything evil since long before Sunnydale- nasty, mean-spirited, and just plain asshole-ish, sure, but not evil. And it’s not really up to us, but we’re fans of anyone who makes you happy. So if he’s what you want, we’re good.” 

His tone is earnest and his hands are resting lightly on hers, and it’s all she can do to choke back frustration- why now, after all these years, when it doesn’t matter anymore? Why now?- and respond firmly, “He isn’t.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” She’s positive about that, at least. “I’m alone. It’s good. It’s better for me. It’s…no more mistakes like…like last time.” She stares out past Spike, into the darkness. “When I’m with someone, either he turns into an asshole… or I do.” 

She and Spike don’t talk about the past, either. And while she knows that he would vehemently disagree with her- god knows, he did it enough when they were together- it’s easier to just accept the truth as it seemed then, if only because it keeps her safely in reality in the present.

--

“So why were you early?” she wonders as she finishes up her makeup in his private bathroom. She’s applying extra eye shadow and just enough mascara to pull off the “I’m a ho, stick your fangs in me!” look, and Spike is stretched across his bed, still with the same clothes and hair that he had been wearing when he had come to get her. 

Boys.

“I got bored.” There’s a whine in his voice, sardonic and pouty all at once. She grins. Most of Spike’s early days in Sunnydale are just a blur in her memory, an occasional annoyance that got in the way of smoochy times with-

-Of smoochy times. 

Their earliest encounters are still burned in her memory, though, his voice as he casually threatens her life; the way he runs from her mother and her axe; and still, the laughter in his voice as he breaks into Sunnydale High during- some event, she can’t remember which- and explains, “I just got so bored,” as though that’s normal for a scheming vampire overlord.

Spike’s peculiar like that. And he calls her weird.

She adds the finishing touches to her makeup and wanders into the next room, sliding into a chair that’s already pulled up to Spike’s bed. By unspoken agreement, she doesn’t sit on his bed. He doesn’t sit on hers. Maybe it’s temptation; maybe it’s just the simple truth that two people who were as close as they had been- had done as much as they had- shouldn’t be that familiar with each other’s beds anymore.

Mm. Though she was just a few feet away from straddling Spike, tearing off that frustratingly tantalizing button-down shirt and pressing kisses down his chest to his- stop it, brain!

He’s smirking at her, hands propping up the back of his head in that purely male, satisfied way he always does. She flushes. “What?”

He cocks his head. “Nothing. You just look-“

“Cheap?” she suggests.

He wrinkles his brow. “Gorgeous,” he decides, sitting up. Her cheeks darken even more. He stretches out a hand to her. “Ready?”

She takes it, and he lays a chivalrous kiss upon her wrist. “Let’s go kill things.”

They’re still hand-in-hand when they step out of the ship and into a darkened parking lot, and Buffy tells herself firmly that it’s because they have an image to uphold. What kind of skanky bitch doesn’t show up clinging to her boyfriend like she isn’t about to run off with the next guy to arrive? That’s all this is, and if she leads the way for a moment so Spike can get a clear view of the way her dress hugs her body, well, that’s all for appearances’ sake.

She leans into Spike as he pays the bouncer, offering the closest arrival a flirty smile as she laces her fingers in Spike’s and rests her head against his shoulder. He blinks. “I need a drink.”

“Spike!” He takes off to the bar, and she’s left stumbling after him, confused. She reaches the bar a moment after him. “What the hell? You’re not getting drunk here!”

He gazes silently at her for a long few seconds. “No, I’m not. Need to be a little less uptight. You, too.” The bartender sets down two glasses of a clear liquid Buffy can’t identify, and he slides one over to her. She opens her mouth to speak, but he swiftly raises a hand. “Not gonna make you drunk, pet. ‘ve learned my lesson. This’ll be just enough for what you need.”

And for some insane reason she hasn’t figured out yet, she trusts him completely, so she lifts the glass and downs the whole thing. 

And naturally, five minutes later, she’s finished her third glass and is completely giddy, laughing as she slumps against Spike in a vague simulacrum of dancing. He’s smiling down at her indulgently, and she sways erratically, murmuring nonsense words as they move. She isn’t quite drunk, but there’s a pleasant haze surrounding her thoughts, and things like self-control and vampire hunting seem a little less vital when she’s dancing with Spike.

An ear moves into her view, and she licks her lips, remembering the taste of the pale lobe. It’s probably just the…

“Oi! Buffy!” She captures it between her teeth, nibbling and teasing it playfully. “Buffy, we can’t-“

“You taste good,” she mumbles, and he falls silent, his eyes burning a hole through the side of her face. He feels good against her, too, lean and muscular and hard- very hard, in some places- and she licks a trail down from his ear and slides her hands under his shirt, splaying them across his stomach and pressing herself even closer to him- “Buffy-“ he lets out a strangled moan- and she wriggles against him…

“Are you copulating?” The voice is cold and jarring, yanking Buffy from a universe where all that matters is Spike’s arms wrapped around her. “I do not wait for your attention, Spike. You will address me now.”

“I-Illyria? “ Spike is blinking, pushing her away. She lets out a snuffled complaint, but he’s already guiding her over to sit in a booth a few feet away, a blue- blue? I really am wasted- woman following them.

A woman in a skintight outfit that only enhances an already shapely body. Buffy blinks, shaking away the buzz that’s been oh-so-fun. “That’s Illyria?” Spike has mentioned her once or twice, some sort of god that he’d been working with since Sunnydale, who’d loaned him her ship- or maybe the ship was just from her dimension? She can’t remember. “That?” Gods were supposed to be smug, over-the-top, and far too skanky to be attractive. Not gliding and graceful and looking at Spike like he was a piece of meat completely under her power. And what kind of god has blue hair, anyway? This isn’t a comic book! 

“What the sodding hell are you doing here?” Spike demands, squinting up at Illyria. He’s seated himself opposite Buffy, but Illyria still stands placid in front of the booth, content to loom above them. Buffy doesn’t scoot over to offer her a seat. “I told you not to come!”

Illyria’s eyes darken. “You do not give me orders, half-breed. I go where I please.”

Wait. Is that where Spike spends his days? A thrill of fury runs through Buffy’s system, an unmistakable mine! that has her so stymied that she falls absolutely silent, her eyes fixed on the woman before her.

“This isn’t your kind of fun, love. We’re just keeping an eye out. No killing yet.” Spike’s voice is placating, an attempt to calm the god. He’s never spoken to Buffy like that.

Illyria scowls. “You were not watching vampires. You were watching her.” She turns a cool eye to Buffy, who glares back, unwilling to cave. Illyria looks away first, uninterested. “You will come with me.”

“I’m not-“

“There is a vampire with your markings leaving the club,” Illyria informs him. “Come.”

Spike springs up and follows her- like a trained seal, Buffy thinks spitefully, standing abruptly and sending a sharp pain through her head. 

She’s not jealous. No, that would imply that there was something more than friends between them, and there can’t be. But what gives Illyria the right to order Spike around like this? Even she doesn’t do that anymore. Spike’s grown beyond being nothing but a faithful follower and Buffy has tried to respect that, but apparently, he’s found someone better to follow. Someone more powerful and deadly and attractive. 

Annoyed, she purses her lips together and nudges past a crowd of women to catch up to Spike and Illyria, who’ve already reached the back door of the club. 

“-Is still unwell,” Illyria is saying.

Spike seems unworried. “She’ll be fine. She’s- Buffy!” He frowns at her as she reaches his side. “Where’d you go?”

Buffy shrugs nonchalantly, taking another step so she’s leading the way. “We’ve got a vampire to trail, don’t we? Let’s keep the chatter to a minimum.”

“Pet, is everything-“ She holds up a hand warningly and he falls silent.

“You do not command me,” Illyria snaps, and Buffy’s gratified when Spike retorts, “This is Buffy’s battle, and if you’re not going to follow her, then go back inside and have your little bloodbath.”

And it’s even more gratifying when Illyria considers, decides, “They will all die,” and promptly turns on her heel and returns to the club.

“Thought you’d had more than your share of self-important goddesses back in Sunnydale,” Spike murmurs as he reaches her side, his hand brushing hers with each step forward.

“Yeah. Thanks.” She catches his hand and squeezes it, letting it go with an inexplicable measure of reluctance. “Listen, about before…before your friend showed up…” She swallows, turning to look at him just as he does the same, and those impossibly blue eyes should be categorized as a weapon, because she doesn’t know how she’s going to stop herself if he keeps holding her gaze like this. “I…” She licks her lips nervously, and his eyes move downwards to follow her tongue. “I must have been drunker than I’d thought. Old habits, you know?”

“’f course,” he agrees, his voice husky as he takes a step away from her. He winces, shakes his head, looks back up. “Right, then. It’s already forgotten.” His voice is cool and businesslike, and she manages a half-smile and hardens her own expression.

“Great.” He frowns, and she glances away hastily, remembering their objective just in time. “Now, where’s this vampire?”

Spike lets out a low curse. “Gone.”

Naturally.

But it’s only a few seconds before the screaming begins from inside the club and half a dozen vampires emerge from the back door, tearing off in the direction of the empty lot across the street. There’s an even larger crowd of humans heading out the front of the club, looking terrified, and Spike and Buffy watch them flee with bemusement.

“She’s not…I mean, Illyria knows not to hurt humans, right?”

“She’s gotten better at it,” Spike says reassuringly, though he looks a bit too doubtful for her tastes, and she silently vows to check on the club as soon as they get back. “Don’t we have some vampires to chase?”

“Right.” They sprint after the vampires, who are too busy running to pay them any attention. Spike is right behind her, those impossible gasps for air as he runs a steady rhythm in her ears, comforting in its familiarity and the knowledge that he’ll always have her back.

They reach a cemetery just as a low roar sounds somewhere in the distance, and the terror on the vampires’ faces multiplies even more. They vanish into a crypt and slam the door shut just as Buffy skids to a halt a few feet away. 

Spike’s there an instant later, and they share a wry grin. “Go on, I know you love this part,” Spike murmurs, and Buffy smirks and slams the door open.

She blinks, disappointed. The vampires have nested here, yes, and three of them are marked clearly in the small light illuminating the crypt, but there’s nothing unusual about the environment or the vampires. No mystical texts or bloody pentagrams, nothing more than a corpse in one corner and a moaning girl tied up in another.

She lets out a defeated sigh. “Don’t tell me, you guys haven’t noticed the bites on your necks, either.”

They blink dumbly at her. Spike shakes his head. “Shall we?”

Maybe there’s no mystery at all, she considers as they lay waste to the lair. Maybe it’s just an odd coincidence that vampires across California- and according to Willow, elsewhere as well- are developing these marks. Maybe she’s just looking for an excuse to fight harder, a distraction from how mundane her life has become.

Maybe she’s just itching for this again, Spike at her back as they’re surrounded by the enemy, outnumbered and outmatched and loving it anyway.