There had been a time when Spike had enjoyed the clubbing scene. Together with Dru, he’d walk into a room and immediately command everyone’s attention, sheer sensuality and animal magnetism oozing into the atmosphere around him and drawing onlookers into his grasp. They would party, they’d dance- in so many ways- and then he’d feast.

Now, though, the onslaught of available bodies is only an unwanted temptation, and the willing dance partners leave him vaguely uncomfortable and guilty. He berates himself for it, but old habits die hard, and there’s something inherently wrong about finding comfort elsewhere when Buffy’s nearby, even when there’s nothing between them anymore. Instinctively, he’s certain that she’d be hurt. And that’s not something he can do, even when visiting her nightly and enduring awkward pleasantries each time has him frustrated and weary with the situation. He doesn’t hurt her. That’s not going to change.

He shrugs off an approaching woman and focuses on the crowd, all business. The club is crawling with vampires, gyrating with their human counterparts under the dim lights and beckoning others toward the bathrooms, the back door, and the darkest corners of the room. Spike is suddenly glad that he’s here. Strange markings or not, this is a daily bloodbath, and his soul is calling for an immediate end to this new threat.

His eyes alight on the closest vampire and he watches with satisfaction as she approaches, greedy and lusty and hungry. “Lovely night for dinner, hm?”

She smiles, low and feral. “I’m willing to share.”

“I’m counting on it.” In a swift instant, he has her backed against the wall, hand splayed just above her heart, a stake poking out from where it’s strapped to his sleeve and situated just right to remain unnoticed by the others around them. “Let’s talk about that bite on your neck.”

Her eyes widen with fear and more than a hint of confusion. “Bite? On my neck? I don’t have-“

He traces the mark, feeling blood pumping against his finger. She’s been feeding tonight, probably more blood than he consumes in a week. “Right here.”

She looks dubious. “Yeah. I don’t think so. Not unless…” Her body stills and tenses. “Well…nothing.”

“Nothing?” His voice is low and silky, the stake sliding closer to her heart. 

She glances at it, glances at him, and he sees the instant that she realizes that he’s going to stake her anyway. “Who are y-“ she starts, and then she’s dust, fluttering to the ground as the people around her dance on.

He sighs, and casts his gaze to the next dirty little corner. If he isn’t going to get answers, he might as well get something useful done.

--

The best part about travelling the globe on a daily basis is that night is endless. No awareness of the sun- he’d gotten more than enough of that in that first day fighting with Buffy again to last him a century. Though he does catch a nap sometime between California’s nights, he’s hardly constrained by just California time. Not when his afternoons are England’s nights.

And while he’s discovered a proclivity for California over the past few years, there are some entertainments in his home country that he can’t imagine anywhere else.

“It’s macaroni and cheese, Illyria,” Faith is saying exasperatedly when he enters what was once Giles’s flat. “It’s not rocket science. You cook the pasta, you add some cheese. That’s all. Make it yourself.”

“You will do it again.” The god glares at the not-quite-slayer. “With no questions.”

“The fuck I will,” Faith mutters. “You ate my dinner, you liked it. You left nothing for me. When I tried to stop you, you put up a force field and kept me in place until you finished. And now you think I’m gonna make more?” 

“You will do it because Illyria wills it,” Illyria says icily, and Spike grins with glee at the promise of the girl-fight of the century.

Faith’s eyes are narrowed and her fists are clenched, whatever strange not-magic that still fuels both the god and the former slayer lying tense between them, painting twin mosaics of cold stubbornness on their faces. Faith takes a step forward. “I will do whatever the fu- oh look, Spike’s here.” She shrugs Illyria aside, her anger dissipating, and extends the hand with the empty pot. “Have some macaroni.”

Illyria cocks her head in acknowledgement. “Spike. You are here.”

“Apparently.” He turns his attention back to Faith, quirking a brow. “Having fun with Her Majesty over here?”

“You have no idea.” Faith lets out an exaggerated sigh. “She’s been here all day, insisting that you’d be here. And you know how useless Angel is when it comes to…well, you know. Talking.”

Spike snorts. “Yeah.” He pats Illyria on the shoulder. “How about we meet outside, pet? I’ll be there in a mo’.” 

“You will.” Illyria examines him coolly before she abruptly turns on her heel, stalking toward the back door.

Faith gapes at him. “I’ve been trying to do that all day.”

He shrugs mock-modestly. “’ve got a gift with the ladies.”

“I’ve noticed.” She gives him a once-over that’s almost comically suggestive, and he responds with a leer of his own. Flirting with Faith is harmless, somehow. There’s no risk of a relationship there, never has been, not when both their attentions are diverted by others. And unlike so many over the years, she’s aware of that fact as well.

“Your sources weren’t much help,” he informs her, relating the events of the previous night. He’d loved the rush, the battle, the tens of vampires challenging him and losing because he had no fear of death, no caution. He’s always been a gleeful, reckless fighter, and it hasn’t failed him yet. It certainly hadn’t failed him last night.

Faith listens, eyebrows raised and head shaking incredulously. “You killed them all.”

“Yep.” A grin spreads across his face as the memory resurfaces.

“Didn’t question any more of them?”

He shuffles uncomfortably at her cross-examination. “I got bored.”

“That was your only lead, and now you’ve got jack squat. B’s gonna kill you, you know that?” 

He narrows his eyes at her. “There’ll be more tomorrow. That club was a vamp magnet. I didn’t get them all.”

“Goody for you.” Faith plops down on the kitchen table, stretching her legs and wincing as her bandaged ankle bangs against the side of a chair. “You need backup?”

“Not the kind who’d rather adopt all the vampires as her personal project,” Spike retorts, eyeing her ankle curiously. “What happened to you?”

“Bad bite on patrol. And you’re one to talk,” Faith shoots back. “I know you’re not coming here for me.”

“You mean to say that I’m not travelling all the way across the pond for your charming personality?” Spike raises an eyebrow in mock disbelief. “How can you say that? I’m hurt. Pained. Offende-“

“He’s out back,” Faith says, rolling her eyes. “Says he’s patrolling. So…brooding with stakes.”

“Naturally.” They share a smirk, though it’s half-hearted. There’s little to laugh about when it comes to Angel these days, not when he’s still trapped in endless self-flagellation, a mere shadow of what they’d once known and, in Spike’s case, hated. Well…not hated, exactly. Did he? He doesn’t know anymore, and contemplating Angel just makes his head hurt. It’s easier to needle him and play the irritating younger vampire than to try to make this any more.

It’s been so long since Wolfram and Hart and that alley.

When he makes his way out of the house, the other vampire with a soul is standing silently in the garden, stake in hand and stock-still as he stares into the night. Illyria stands beside him, tilting her head in curiosity as she observes him. “Spike is here,” she announces unnecessarily, raising blue eyes to regard him. “He reeks of conquered enemies.”

“Had some fun with a gaggle of vamps.” Spike frowns. “What’re you doing here waiting for me, anyway, Illyria? You’re not taking the ship back, are you?”

The god shakes her head, slowly and jerkily. “I am not. I have come to aid you in your battle.”

“There’s no battle, Blue. Just a few vampires with some funny bites. Nothing to write home about.” 

“I will slay the vampires,” Illyria says confidently. “I will tear their heads from their bodies and make their fading dust sing praises of my might. You will take me to these vampires.”

“No, he won’t,” Angel murmurs. “He hasn’t told her that he’s been coming here. She won’t like it.”

“Can you blame her?” He claps a hand against Angel’s back, rolling his eyes at the way Angel flinches from his touch. “I could be doing something productive, y’know? Slaying demons, unraveling the social fabric of society, buying her some new boots to go with that scrumptious red top she wore Tuesday… Instead, I’m standing in a garden with a pathetic shell of a vampire during yet another pity party. Somehow, I don’t think she’d be impressed.”

Angel doesn’t look at him. “I know what you’re doing, Spike. It isn’t going to work.”

“So you’re just going to wait out here until the sun comes up and you can brood in your room instead?” He pauses, rethinks the statement. “Well, Giles’s room, really. That must be fun for you.”

“Shut up, Spike.”

He chances a glance at Angel, who’s staring at the ground, and Illyria, who’s swiveling to follow a firefly circling her head. “What’s it like, knowing that your stupidity murdered one of the only good ones left? That you sit in his kitchen and drink blood from his fridge? That you read his books and enjoy his garden only because you managed to snap his neck and take him from this world? S’a nice gig for you, innit? Shame that Buffy doesn’t think-“

The name is all he needs to say before Angel has him backed against the wall of the house, murderous eyes leveled at him and an angry hand around his neck. Illyria ignores them both, and Spike manages a smirk. “Am…am I next, wanker?”

The fury fades as quickly as it comes, and Angel turns abruptly. “I’m going patrolling,” he announces, stalking off.

Good.

When he turns around, Illyria is watching him inquiringly. “You provoked the other.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You wanted him to leave.”

“Got it in one.”

“I don’t understand. Why?” 

She isn’t adversarial, just mildly perplexed, and he suppresses the defensive retort that’s bubbling up. “Because someone has to.”

--

Her expression is hooded, her body crouched, one hand gripping her weapon and the other gripping the ledge on which she awaits her foes. Blonde hair whips around her face in the wind, dark clothes barely shift against her skin, and she doesn’t move. Not yet.

A shadow moves just feet away from her and swift as a cat, she’s springing forward, her stake extended and her eyes glittering with a hunter’s joy. The vampire emerges, swinging once, twice, too clumsy in the face of its opponent’s grace. She moves like sheer poetry, an endless song of skillful warrior earning yet another victory, dodging the vampire’s attacks and finishing him with a single stroke.

She’s perfect.

She’s beautiful. 

She’s smiling knowingly and calling out, “You coming down here? Or are you just going to watch?”

He smirks down at her from his vantage point on a mausoleum. “I like the view.”

Her cheeks flush adorably. “It’s a cemetery,” she informs him archly. “There’s not much to see.”

He just watches her, lips curved slightly upwards as she tosses her hair and looks away. “I’m heading back now,” she announces shakily, and he drops to the ground and follows her out, his eyes glued to the curve of her lower back. 

Well, yeah, of course he’s still attracted to Buffy. She is the perfect woman, fucked up as they come but still worth it, and he’s been attracted to her since the moment he first saw her in a crowded club a bit under a decade previous. Doesn’t mean he’s going to jump her, not when she’s still hung up on Angel and has zero interest in him beyond the same attraction. Not when he’s finally found a place beyond her that is solely him and he’s no longer the man who yearns to belong to others. Even if they did still have feelings for each other- which he doesn’t, and had she ever had any to begin with?- they’d implode again, and Spike has no desire to go through that another time.

It’s not worth it. It can’t be. It can’t.

So instead, he traces her body mentally and remembers what’s beneath, and when she slows down so he can walk beside her, he tamps down his leer and announces unapologetically, “I dusted our leads.”

She heaves a sigh. “Of course you did. Tell me you got something out of them before you staked them.”

“Not as such, no, but...” 

“Spike-“ She’s exasperated, and he can’t help but grin at the way her brow furrows in irritation.

“One of the ones I pulled over might’ve known something,” he concedes. “Din’t even realize she had the mark, but she seemed to have an idea of where it came from.”

“She?”

Spike glances at her. She’s walking rapidly, her eyes focused straight ahead, and her lips are pressed together thinly. “Some useless bint. I grabbed her, demanded some answers, an’ when she got too curious, I dusted her.”

Buffy nods jerkily. “Good.”

“Except she might’ve had a suspicion of where the bite came from,” Spike points out, arching a brow at her dismissal of his failure. “Probably shouldn’t have offed her.” 

Buffy shrugs. “She’s an evil vampire. We’ll manage,” she says curtly, still staring straight ahead. “Are you going back tomorrow?”

He shakes his head. “I was thinking I’d go tonight. It’s soon enough that the others haven’t heard about what happened, so they won’t be on guard. I can’t say the same for tomorrow, yeah?”

“No, tonight doesn’t work. Willow’s supposed to be dropping by, and I don’t want to miss her.” They’ve reached Buffy’s apartment building, and Spike punches in the code and opens the door for her. 

He follows her in, frowning. “I can go myself, pet. I can come back later tonight and give you a report, but I don’t think-“

“I’m coming.” Her voice is firm, and he watches her warily, wondering if he should be offended. 

“I can get answers, Buffy. I may not have gotten them last time, but s’only a matter of time before…” She touches his cheek and his voice trails off, and all he can do is stare into her eyes.

“I know, Spike,” she murmurs. “I trust you. I just…I need to do something. I can’t wait at home while you’re out finding the Big Bad. I need to be in this fight all the way through.”

And maybe it’s what he sees in her gaze, maybe it’s what he hears in her voice, and maybe it’s her hand pressed against the hollow of his cheek, but he concedes without a second thought.