In her pocket, Buffy's phone vibrated and purred.


"Turn that off," Spike said. He was waltzing her delicately backwards towards the stairs, his mouth buried in her neck, sending electric pulses of pleasure up and down her body's meridians.


"Incoming text."


"Can wait."


She pulled it out. "It might be important. Slayer stuff." Isn't this what I always do? Why I'm still all alone? she thought. Then, No. C'mon, let's not overdo the signs and portents. "It's from Willow, it's probably about you."


The message read: Call me. I've got information re: alley.


Before she could press the speed-dial, Spike took the phone from her hand. "Later. All's I want to know about me right now is how good I'll feel gettin' naked with you."


I could tell you that already. Even as she knew she shouldn't, Buffy found herself arguing. "Don't you want to know? She might have found the key to what happened to you." Without waiting for his reply, she put the call through. Willow answered immediately.


"You have news?" Buffy didn't know what she hoped the news would be. Spike detached from her and wandered off, his hands jammed in his pockets. Dumb, Buffy. Dumb. Even if it was positive news, it could've waited a couple of hours. Or all night. But Willow was already speaking into her ear.


"Why didn't you tell me that alley was behind Angel's old hotel?" Her voice sounded hollow, half-breathless, like she'd been running.


"Angel had a hotel? I didn't know Angel had a hotel."


"That was the Hyperion. He lived there for—well, I guess you two were out of touch. But I've been there, I met all his people. I didn't realize until I followed your directions to the place that the big battle culminated behind the Hyperion."


"Is that important?"


"The magical residue in that alley ... in the whole structure—is huge and beyond ugly. I lost what's got to be my last four or five lunches, just going back there."


"Are you all right?"


"Yeah, yeah." She didn't sound so sure. "But Buffy, it's worlds upon worlds of badness, back there."


"Meaning what?" Spike had disappeared into the kitchen. Buffy followed. He stood at the open refrigerator door, chugging down a bottle of beer.


"I got some trace readings on inter-dimensional conjunctions that opened there. Opened in the not-what-you-want way, like when ... when you jumped off the tower back in Sunnydale, because universes were bleeding together. Only, worse."


"Worse, how worse?"


Spike glanced around then, the bottle at his lips. Buffy thought he'd drift over and ask to hear what Willow was saying, but there was no curiosity in his gaze.


Which was kind of weird.


"The end of the world happened in that alley."


"Uh ... Will, the world didn't end."


"Well, not ours. For which we can be thankful. But you know this isn't the only world there is. Or, now, was."


"This all sounds really dramatic, yet vague. What does it have to do with what happened to Spike? And Angel?"


"There's a lot of physics to this, do you want me to explain the physics?"


"That would be a no. Just—is there any chance Angel and his people might be somewhere else? Can we get them back home?"


"If he wasn't dusted in any normal way in the battle, getting pulled into any of those converging dimensions ... no vampire or human could survive, or if they did, they wouldn't be ...who they were. What they were." Willow paused. "I'm really sorry."


Move on, move on, next question. "What's the prognosis for Spike's memory?"


"These other dimensions, the physical laws there, they're different. If Spike stared into something his brain couldn't handle, that could explain the psychosis, and the forgetting. Right now, that's my best guess for what happened to him."


"Will it wear off?"


"It might. I'd have to see him, to assess. Usually the longer someone has amnesia, the less likely they are to snap out of it, but with a vampire, who knows? There are probably things I can try that would help him. As far as this alley goes, the safest thing is to glamour it over so no one wanders in here until the effects dissipate. That should take another couple of months."


"Months? Geez."


"It's pretty toxic. You didn't feel anything odd yourself when you were there?"


"No. Guess my hide's pretty thick by now."


"Guess so. How're things there?"


"Good. We're good."


"I think you should two should come back to the castle. You shouldn't be all alone. Dawn misses you. And maybe working with the other slayers would help Spike. Work is good for all of us, right?"


"Yes. Well, maybe. I'll think about it."


Spike was chugging a second bottle of beer, head tipped back, his adams apple bobbing.


"Willow, I've got to go now. Thanks for coming out here, thanks for everything."


"I'm sure I could do more, there are lots of memory spells, if—"


"I'll ask him. We'll talk."


Ending the call, Buffy switched off the phone, even as she knew it was too late. She might as well make another seventeen calls.


"So, Willow said—"


"Heard what she said."


"Demon hearing, right." She went to him. "You've had the fridge door open all this time, you're letting the cold air out." She started to shut it; he caught the edge, and reached around her for another bottle.


"Three in a row? Really?"


"What, you're my Mum now? Fancy a drink." Setting the second empty on the counter, he opened the fresh bottle, and giving her a wide berth, moved out of the kitchen, across the wide white foyer, to the study door. She followed at a distance, feeling caked up inside, full of recriminations. Stupid stupid stupid Buffy. She should've been upstairs in bed with him right now. Full of joy. The echo of his kisses still shimmered through her.


Inside the study, she caught his arm. "Sweetheart. Forgetting something?" The words came out wobbly. She'd never called him by any endearment before—had never, she realized with a lurching sensation of falsehood, called any of her men anything but their names. Her smile felt forced. When she went on tiptoe to brush her lips against his jaw, her toes ached.


"Forgetting something? That your idea of a joke?" He pushed on to the big desk where the books he'd pulled down were still scattered. "Ever read these yourself? Suppose you have. Know your enemy an' all that."


"Actually, no. I ... I'm more of a People magazine-type reader, myself. Spike. I don't think there's anything in those books that's going to be any use to you. Spike, I'm sorry I took the call."


"Know you are, pet." He didn't sound angry, more preoccupied. "You written up in these books?"


"Me? I don't ... I don't think so. Not these, anyhow." For which small favor, much thanks.


He turned to her then, his hand moving towards her, and she thought he was going to caress her, to pull her close. But his fingers only lifted the hair from her neck, thumb tracing the raised marks of old wounds. "Got scars. Been bitten before. By me?"


"No."


"Told me you've been dead. Was it a vampire that killed you?"


"The first time, yes, but not with his bite. Somehow he was too haughty to just drain me, which was my good luck, I guess. He left me face down in a pool of water, but my friends revived me. The second time had nothing to do with vampires."


"So I never had my fangs in you before?"


"No."


"But I've tried."


"You tried. A lot. For a while."


"Wanted to kill you. Turn you?"


"I don't know. I don't think you were ever much of a turner."


"In dreams begin responsibilities."


"Huh?"


"Delmore Schwartz. American poet." He frowned. "Know lots of poetry. How's that?"


"I don't know." This whole conversation was giving her the heebie-jeebies.


"Don't you? Thought you knew me well."


"I do." And I don't. "And I ... don't. We ... we didn't have a lot of conversations. We were both more about deeds."


"Strong silent types, eh?" An eyebrow raised. "Thing that's botherin' me ... you were mighty cool when I backed you up an' sank my fangs in your throat in here earlier. But later I come in on you in the loo, you shriek an' panic like a child." He fingered his swollen eye. "Child that well knows how to put the boot in."


Never should have given him time to think.


"I told you, I had this bad experience. Ever since, I guess I've got this thing about getting barricaded into small rooms. I should work on it. It's a vulnerability I don't need."


Taking a swallow of beer, edging back to find a chair, Spike cocked his head. "Tell me about it. When did it happen? Was it a loo, or some other little room? Was that where you died the second time?"


She was standing now before him, like a pupil about to recite to a tutor. With the wall of books behind him, there was something kind of magisterial about Spike, even in his jeans and tee-shirt, even with a beer in his hand.


"I don't really want to talk about it now." She sidled over to another chair—not the power chair, which he'd taken, but a straight wooden one. Sitting on it didn't make her feel any better. "Do we have to do this now? I know I shouldn't have taken that call, but we could get the mood back if we—"


"You're the lady an' the tiger, you are." He turned the bottle in his hands. "Don't know where I am with you. Know what I feel, an' what I want ... but wonder if that's enough."


A part of her could actually imagine crawling to him, begging him from the floor not to talk this way.


"What would it take to ease your mind?"


He regarded her, not answering, his expression mildly neutral. Buffy forced herself to sit absolutely still, not to betray herself.


When he didn't immediately answer, she said, "I'm willing to try whatever would help. We could take a little time out. Or—we could go downstairs to the training area and spar. Or—" She paused. The idea astonished her, so unlike her, yet so full and strong. Confident. "Or, you could—"


Spike leaned forward. "Could?"


She touched her neck. "If it would reassure you. Please you. You could feed from me."


His eyes went wide. He sat back. The beer bottle clacked against the chair arm. "What makes you think of that? Was it what I used to dog you for? Or was it what you secretly wanted? From me? Or any random vamp?"


"No. No to both of those questions. But—"


He was at her side, kneeling to look at her straight on. "But you'd rather have me at your throat, than reveal what you're keeping from me."


Buffy opened her mouth, but could make no sound. The words reverberated in her head. Not quite resolving into an accusation, because there was no bitterness in his tone. Only a certain understanding, calm comprehension of the sum of this, and that. And then to her astonishment, he leaned in close to her, his look soft and once more fond. "Strange strange girl," he whispered. "P'raps you're right. P'raps it's better for us both that I don't know. P'raps it's better we two try an' be happy, rather than wise, yeah?"







In place of the rebuke she was braced for, the harsh peppering of questions and accusations she'd been sure would follow, came this tender excusal, followed by his mouth on hers. It was like a benediction. As was his cool comforting hand on the back of her neck, his forehead resting against hers, a gesture she hadn't recognized until now as an old intimacy of theirs she profoundly missed. His faint breath smelled not unpleasantly beery. She circled him in her arms with the sharp satisfaction of the jerk when the parachute opens overhead.


Then he was gathering her up, like a fireman or a bridegroom, carrying her out of the study. Buffy had her eyes closed tight, the better to feel the solidity of his grip, the smooth easy speed with which he bore her up the stairs. She bounced when he dropped her on the mattress, and gasped when he tore her jeans open like they were made of paper, the rending cloth stinging her thighs, pulling them apart. He buried his face there, his wet mouth against the already-wet strip of silk he left in place, swarming kisses through it.


"Knew your quim would taste of heaven," he muttered, taking deep snuffing breaths of her, nose buried deep, that muscular tongue working at her through the soaked silk. Excitement skyrocketed from zero, so fast and deep and intense she couldn't control herself, neither her twisting quaking body, nor her keening crying voice. His fingers slipped inside her, instantly slick, crooking and stroking so she bucked up against his open mouth. Hard and soaking and violent as a sudden windstorm, the climax overtook her, overlapping, disorganized, almost unbearable. Her voice cutting in her ears like the wail of an animal, too harsh, irrepressible. Then the long long shuddering, like a fall that never ended, every sinew vibrating, scooping air in through her open mouth. And Spike still there, nose and mouth buried in the silk, drenched, tracing her so slowly now as she wound down from the peak, sipping and inhaling her like she was the lightest headiest wine.


Her hands were tangled in the bedclothes, a tight fistful on either side. She spidered them out, feeling for him. He caught one in one of his (the other still resting inside her, a fullness that she saluted with a squeeze). Spike groaned into her pussy.


"Luscious cunt. Shall fuck it in a bit."


"Can't move. Too dead." She amended. "Too alive."


"You flatter a fellow, how you thrash an' spend."


It's how I am, with you.


"You were ready to have your cunny seen to," he said. He lifted his head now, so she could see his face between the two tips of her breasts, across the expanse of her belly. His brows, his lashes, webbed with her spunk, nose and lips and cheeks glistening. Slowly he drew his fingers free, spread them out across her mons. Her clit still throbbed; he gave it a soft flicking with his thumb through the silk, so saturated now that it might as well have been part of her skin. She jerked, rocking up. "This's part of your powers too, I see. Slayer fight, an' slayer appetite."


He climbed up on the bed then, coming up over her, thumb still teasing her hard clit as he neared her face. She grabbed him by the nape in both hands, greedy sloppy kisses around the clock of his face until he brought his mouth to hers, connecting like two magnets clamping. His thumb worked her harder now, and he let her feel the bulk of his erection, still caught—it must be painfully—behind his fly. She reached to free it. Spike tumbled slowly over, let her open his jeans, skin eager hands under the hem of his teeshirt. He pulled her top off next, leaning up to press moist open-mouthed kisses on the nipples that showed dark through the thin silk of her bra. Even as he did so, she reached for his cock, manouevering as he held her off with a teasing grunt, then letting her grasp it.


"Let's see you give him a suck."


She didn't need the suggestion—there was nothing else in her mind.


He combed and gathered her hair, slipping it through his fingers, holding it back to admire the sight of her full-mouthed face. He was sitting up, legs akimbo; she came at him from the side, curving in over one outthrust leg, breasts crushed against his thigh. He stroked her back as she stroked up and down with her mouth, her two hands wrapped around his length.


Loving the familiar slick spongy heft of his cockhead in her mouth, the mild peaty taste of his pre-cum. The flood of memory that came with this, not easy. But if she could not tell him things, there was still the obligation to admit to herself, everything. So much she shied away from. She'd used her mouth on his cock, in the past, to distract him, to mock him. Never gave him the pleasure without an overtone, far sharper than what she'd ever put into their fucking or anything else, of her contempt.


She'd never wanted him to think, when she came to him in his crypt, her secret vice, that she remotely thought she belonged on her knees before him, his cock between her lips. That she could possibly like it.


Like holding his ballsac in her hand, kneading it, pushing him down so she could reach it better, kissing him there with wet open deep kisses, running her tongue back across the smooth taut skin at the seam of his body, to goad the pucker of his ass. Like the helpless noises he made as she did all of this, as she jacked him with her strong hand, stake-grip on his thick curved cock. Like kissing the tip with gentle maddening little licks, showing off the sight of her swollen lips taking him in, her red cheeks and shining eyes and all her wild hair falling around her face, brushing his belly and his thighs.


She hadn't wanted to give Spike that ultimate pleasure, in the past. And a year later, when they both knew the end was coming, when she lay in his arms for two consecutive nights, she'd thought of giving it to him then, a raunchy consolation for a Spike who was willingly waiting to die to save the world. She could've done it. But she had not.


To spare, she knew now, herself.


Hands in her hair, he rocked up into her mouth, groaning and babbling, close to the edge.


He would know. If he wasn't certain before, he would know now, when he'd come. That she was too familiar with his body, his rhythms. That they'd done this before.


She hoped her flush of shame was lost in the uprush that hit him right then, a jerk, a guttural cry, and the sudden taste across her tongue of Spike's spunk, somehow both deeply commonplace and miraculous. She hadn't known how much she missed it.


When his hand curved around her face, tipping it up, she let him look at her, though she was sure now he would chide her for her lie.


But he only gathered her up into his lap, and kissed her.