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em-writes-stuff-sometimes · 2 months ago

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mr. domestic │ Spike x Summers!Reader

everything he wants 'verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Part 1 │Part 2 │Part 3 (In Development!)

Spike thought love was supposed to hurt. Then he fell for you, bubbles, blood and all. Now he’s a kept man with a shopping list and a soft spot a mile wide, and honestly? He likes it that way.

Hey, again! Long time no see. Sorry for the wait! If it's any consolation, this is a 33,000+ word sequel to sweeter than blood. Please read that one before going ahead with this! Again, this is a multi-chap fic that I'm posting as a single one-shot up here on Tumblr. Just Spike POV this time.

Heads up: canonical character death, daddy kink, menstrual sex, Summers family drama, Season 6 BtVS finale references. Be ye warned!

It snuck up on him, this softness.

Didn’t happen in a bolt of lightning or some earthshaking, Slayer-slaying sort of moment. No, it crept in slow, easy, like a song he half-remembered from before the demon, some long-forgotten lullaby winding its way through cracked ribs and ruined veins. Now he’s got it stuck on repeat, and the worst part is, he doesn’t mind.

He used to think love was all fire and pain. Should be, right? He was made for ruin. Got his heart broke by that stuck-up bint Cecily, fought for Dru like a rabid dog, wore rejection from the Slayer like a second skin. Hell, even Darla and ’Gelus tossed him aside at the earliest convenience, not that he ever gave a tinker’s damn about their esteem. Every bit of love he’s ever known came sharp-edged and blood-slick. Cost him pride, cost him sanity, cost him skin more than once.

But you—

You giggle from the bathroom, the sound bright and clear over the faint hum of the pipes. It burbles up like champagne, a little drunk-sounding, and he can hear the splash of water as you shift in the tub. Knowing you, you’ve dragged a wine cooler in with you, meaning you’ll be too-hot and chatty the moment the water’s wicked from your skin—and he’ll listen to every word, because he never wants to miss a thing.

You’re different. Love with you is bubbles, is towels too warm from the radiator, is kisses pressed to the corner of his mouth when you think he’s not quite awake. It’s honey on his tongue instead of gore, comfort so sweet it should rot his teeth.

“Spike,” you call, sing-song, full of that mischievous lilt that always makes something in him go more than a bit half-witted, blood that ain’t his rushing down south. “C’mon. Water’s gonna get cold.”

He smirks to himself. Big Bad, brought low by bath time.

“Not happenin’,” he calls back, lifting his fag to take a long, slow pull. He smokes with his head stuck out the window, not wanting to infect your breathing with all that rot. Bloody tosser, he is, now, thinking about things like that. “You’ve already stolen my dignity. You’re not gettin’ my last shred of masculinity too.”

Another splash.

“But it’s all foamy,” you say, wheedling, “and warm. And my boobs look fantastic.”

He snorts. “They always look fantastic, kitten.”

“You’re missing the view…”

“Got the whole soddin’ thing memorized,” he mutters under his breath, though his hand is already twitching—itching—to toss the cigarette aside and slink toward the siren-call of your voice.

The Scoobies―stupid nickname, matches their bloody stupid personalities―they like to joke about him now. Xapper, mostly, talking up a big game about how he’s been defanged. The Slayer grits her teeth every time Spike drives to her house to pick you up, engine running too loud, making some muttered comment about him being your personal chauffeur. Even Little Bit’s been caught whispering “whipped” behind her palm, not knowing he hears everything. They think he’s been neutered all over again. Tamed. Domesticated.

Let ’em think it. Let ’em imagine he’s some shell of himself, panting after you like a lapdog. Truth is, they’re just jealous. Jealous of the way you smile when he passes you your tea, jealous of how you whimper his name like a hymn, hot little body writhing as he runs his hands all over. Jealous of the way you curl into him at night, muttering sleepy little secrets into his skin, affectionate, and meaning every last one. He’s never had someone to himself the way he has you: untouched ’til he got there, singularly devoted, all for him. And that kind of commitment—real, chosen—makes the rest of it fade: the flames, the chains, the clawing need to be anything but alone. You make the past almost worth it.

“Please?” you croon, dragging out the vowel sound like it’s foreplay. “I’ll scoot forward. I’ll be good.”

And that’s the problem, innit? You’re always so bloody good.

With a muttered curse and a flash of irritation at himself―soft, senseless, besotted―he tosses the butt of his cig out the window and heads for the bathroom, already peeling off his shirt. You’re gonna gloat, he knows it. Already sees the smirk on your face, the way you’ll tuck yourself between his knees like you were made to be there, all curves and warm, slippery skin.

God help him. He’s gone.

The bathroom’s a bit steamy already when he slips in, fog clinging to the mirror. You’re lounging back in the clawfoot tub, knees poking out of the water, bubbles piled so high it’s a miracle you haven’t disappeared completely under them. You beam when you see him, unabashed, shameless, playing the smug little nymph who’s just summoned her favourite demon with nothing more than a giggle and a moan.

“Took you long enough,” you say, budging over as promised, making room like this was always going to happen.

Spike huffs, tugging his boots off one at a time. “You really are a menace.”

“Your menace,” you correct, chin tilted up with the kind of confidence that drives him mad. “Now get in before I change my mind.”

“Oh no. Not that,” he says sardonically. “Anything but the dreaded mind-changing.”

He strips slow and dramatic, knows you like the show, even if you pretend not to. Your eyes dart down when he pushes his jeans down, and your teeth catch on your bottom lip as though you’re trying to hide how much you’re staring. That look—just that—could bring a man to his knees. He’s killed for less. Sliding in behind you, he hisses a bit at the heat, then exhales once he’s settled, your back flush to his chest. Your hair tickles his chin, your skin damp and flushed, the tub too small and too full. Perfect. You let out a satisfied hum and melt against him, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is.

“I swear,” he mutters, arms folding around your waist beneath the water, “you’ve got me completely bollocksed.”

You laugh, leaning your head back onto his shoulder. “Yeah. That a bad thing?”

He kisses your temple, then your cheek, then lower, just under your jaw where your pulse flutters—a secret only for his ears. “Not complainin’. S’just a bit of a come-down from eatin’ hearts and evisceratin’ priests, yeah?”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling. “You’ll survive. Big Bad can take a bubble bath now and then. You’re still scary. But, y’know, in a sexy kinda way.”

He groans into your skin. “M’never gettin’ my reputation back.”

“Nope,” you agree cheerfully, reaching forward to pluck a handful of bubbles and plop them onto his head in a crown of soapy foam. “Too late. You’re mine now. My cozy, bath-loving, emotionally-attached vampire boyfriend.”

Spike scoffs, but he doesn’t move to brush them off. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

You tilt your head to look back at him, lips curved up. “And?”

“And I’m bloody buggerin’ ruined.”

His hands roam beneath the water, not looking to start anything—yet. Possessive, reverent. They rest low on your hips, then glide up your belly, like he’s checking you’re real. You sigh, a soft, contented little sound, and that’s it: that’s the stake through his heart. Not pain, not fire. Just that noise, that ease, that trust.

“You know,” you murmur, eyes fluttering shut, “you’re really good at this.”

“What, bathin’?”

“No. This. The whole… making-me-feel-like-I’m-worth-it thing.”

His breath catches slightly. “That’s because you are.”

You shift, twist a bit so you can see him better, water sloshing a bit over the side. He cups your face with one hand, bubble-damp and still dripping, and leans in, pressing his lips to yours. It’s not desperate, not filthy, just… warm. Solid, like a promise.

“You really love me,” you whisper when you pull back, eyes wide as if it still surprises you.

You say it like you still can’t quite believe it. He can’t, either. Not really. Not deep down, where the doubt still sleeps. He watches your face, waiting―always waiting―for the laugh, the flinch, the way it all usually goes. But you don’t. You smile, stunned and real, as though you’re feeling it settle in your chest too.

There’s a beat where everything holds. No laughter, no flinch. Only you, looking at him like he’s something you chose, like you’d do it again.

“More than anything,” he says simply, truth so heavy it sinks straight to the bottom of the tub. “More than I’ve ever loved anything. Ever.”

And he means it, means it in the kind of way that terrifies him: quiet, vast, swallowing. Because he’s had obsessions, addictions. People he’d burn the world for, starve himself for, kill for without hesitation just to hear their praise. But this isn’t that. You don’t demand things, don’t test him the way Dru did or spit in his face like Buffy. You look at him, with those soft eyes and that stupid little smile, and he wants to be good. Not for redemption, not even for you, but for the chance to matter.

You blink a few times, like you’re overwhelmed—and maybe you are—but the next thing you do is reach for the mostly-empty wine cooler sitting on the rim of the tub. You take a sip, then turn and offer it up to him with a cheeky little tilt of your head.

“Want some?”

He looks at the bottle like it might bite him. “What, and ruin my street cred?”

“You’re in a bath full of bubbles, Spike.”

“… Fair.”

He takes it, drinks, and grimaces. It’s toxic—or nearabouts—sickly-sweet and full of something artificial, just like most of the swill humans poison themselves with. But you grin as though he’s passed some kind of test, and suddenly he doesn’t mind so much.

“Tastes like shite, baby. Not sure how you choke this down,” he says for the hell of it. “Gonna drink piss, it oughta be the real stuff.”

“Ew. No thank you. Smells like paint thinner.” The scrunch of your nose and the way you shudder is cute as anything. You waggle an eyebrow at him. “I shouldn’t even be drinking, y’know. Not legal.”

“Would be in the homeland,” he mutters, prompting an ‘oooooh’ sound the way you always do whenever he does something you find stereotypically British. He jabs a finger into the sensitive divot of your belly-button, a low bark of laughter escaping at your loud squeal. “Whoever got you ’em must be a real bad influence, then.”

You giggle again, soft and indulgent, and lean back against him. “The worst.”

Your hair sticks to his skin. The air’s thick and hot and wet, clinging to both of you, and it should be uncomfortable, cramped, undignified… but it isn’t. It’s peace, and that’s the part that guts him.

Peace is fragile, he knows that. Spike’s not supposed to have this. Somewhere deep down in the bones of him, he’s waiting for the moment it breaks. When you wake up and realise you could have more, when the Scoobies stop whispering and start prying, when some prophecy tears its way through your front door and takes him out like trash. But if it’s coming, let it come. Let it try, because if this is all he ever gets—steam, skin, sweetness—then it’s more than he ever had any right to ask for. While he has it, though, he’ll hold you like the last warmth of sunlight before night falls.

You sigh, all sleepy-soft and trusting, and tip forward again.

“Okay,” you say, “soak time over. You can wash my hair now.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” he gripes.

He’s already reaching for the shampoo.

There’s something heady about watching you open things he’s bought you. Not nicked, not looted―bought.

Sure, the credit cards are the great poof’s way of making sure you’re provided for, but it’s about time Spike got back in on the family money. Ain’t exactly his, ain’t exactly come by honestly, but if anyone’s owed compensation for generational trauma, it’s him. The bloodlines of hell still recognize sire-claim even if the soul-havers don’t, and with Darla somehow returned from dust and kicking ’round again, the Order’s financial backers have been bending arse over to avoid a power dispute. Not that the old bitch seems keen on taking up her place of seniority: a woman of her time, that one, too willing to go along with Angelus to take charge of her line. That, and Dru’s re-siring her makes the chain of command too confusing to figure out.

Oh, well. Sod ’em. It’s Peaches’s problem. Always is.

The Aurelius estate is a fortress of trust funds and ghost accounts. And Spike? He’s got access again, courtesy of the little plastic rectangles bearing the name William P. sent by post along with a letter from his grandsire. Didn’t even bother with pleasantries, did he? No, just a line about responsibility and a warning not to spend it all on ‘foolish pursuits’, as if loving you’s somehow a waste. Wanker. Not only that, but the added indignity of the bloody thing is it opening with a curt ‘as promised, Pratt’—always ready to throw in a dig ‘bout his poncy human name.

A small price to pay in the name of lasting security, he thinks. Now, he’s finally free to follow through on a little spoiling.

You gasp when you find the velvet-lined box on the bed, wrapped in brown paper and sealed with a red ribbon made of real silk. He likes the drama of it all: leaving little gifts like kills for you to find, emblems of his love for you, eyes tracking as you tear them open to find the treasures within.

“Spike,” you breathe, drawing the chain up to the light. Gold―the real stuff, none of that low-grade plated junk. Delicate. Long, tapered charm, nice big garnet studded in at the top. Reminds him a bit of a railroad spike, though he’s not telling you that. “You didn’t have to―”

“Yeah, I did.” He leans against the doorframe, staring with that stupid too-tight feeling in his chest, like his heart wants to start beating again at the sight of you. “Saw it ’n thought of you. That’s the deal, innit?”

He almost didn’t buy it. Too fancy, maybe. Too much. You get squirrelly about this sort of thing, still mucked about from your dad’s neglect. But he wanted to see that look on your face again: the one you wore when he laid that coat on your shoulders, the one that said you couldn’t quite believe someone thought you were worth the dosh.

He sees that look now.

You gaze wide-eyed at him, as though you aren’t sure what to do with his statement. He shrugs, casual as ever as he enters your personal space, sidling in behind you.

“’Sides,” he adds, swiping the necklace from your grasp and lifting your hair over your shoulder. The clasp takes him a few goes, tiny as it is, but it comes free with a little click, allowing him to fasten it behind your neck. “You deserve nice things.”

Turning to him, you lips curve softly as his fingers trace the pendant resting beneath the hollow of your throat like a collar. Marked. The garnet catches the light, blood-bright. He wants to kiss it, wants to press his mouth where it lays and bite down. Not to harm, not to feed; just to feel the truth of it. Of you.

“So do you,” you whisper back at him.

But he doesn’t need you to get him things to be happy. Doesn’t know how to explain to you without sounding like a pillock that you’re the only thing he needs. You’re young—in a way that would probably make him feel guilty for corrupting you if he was more like one of your little pals—and still swayed by shiny baubles. It’s not about buying you, though. Been there, done that, got him nothing but pain and trouble. It’s different. You love him with or without the trinkets. It still eats at him, how someone like you can look past the monster in him, past the chip and the history and the bodies in his closet. Not disregard, no, but deciding that they’re not worth the cost of leaving. When you look at him, when you kiss his knuckles as if they’ve never torn anyone open, he believes it. Wants to.

Mostly, Spike just enjoys providing for you. It reminds him that he can give more than grief and gore. Makes him feel manly in a way that doesn’t require claws or carnage or cruelty, a claiming bite made in cash.

’Course, your merry band of morons don’t see it that way.

At first, they think he’s stealing it all. Shove him up against the wall, stake to the chest, demanding to know where he swiped it from or whose corpse he filched it off. He’s not that bloody pathetic, and he says as much before you yell at them to back off, li’l hand sneaking into his back pocket and copping a feel before withdrawing his wallet to show off his newly regained fortune. There’s grumbling after that, a few nasty things said about the souled prick who set him up―he’s keen enough on that line of discussion, if the Slayer wasn’t always so defensive of her one true love―and that’s the end of that. Threats turn to taunts, and he’s never minded words when fists and feet, whips and chains hurt so much worse.

The truth is, they’re probably seething mad. Spend all their time playing goody-goody and all they get are a bunch of bruises and scrapping by in a 9-to-5 just to afford three square a day. Meanwhile, all you gotta do to live the good life is love him. It makes him smug enough to show off whenever he can.

When he drops a new pair of boots at your feet at the Magic Box―soft leather, real Italian make, fit you like sin―Zeppo snorts into his coffee.

“Wow. Sleeping with Spike comes with perks, huh?” It’s a little too defensive to be a true wise-crack, pointed with an edge of mean. “Should’ve tried it back when he was living in my basement. Might’ve scored a matching set.”

Too easy. He takes bait like no-one else.

“Please. Gotta offer more than a hole to get into my wallet, mate.” Spike glances at you, smirking when your face goes warm. You know what’s coming. One of the best bits about you? You don’t flinch. Don’t get shy when he runs his mouth. “My girl’s sharp as hell, deadly where it counts, and tight in all the right ways. You? Just a bobblehead with knees that click.”

He’s rewarded with a face turned the colour of a sunburned tomato, the boy choking on his coffee so hard it sprays all over a stack of bridal magazines he’s been made to look through. He sputters, glaring daggers, but can’t seem to get a word out past the sound of his own dignity combusting. The Slayer makes a strangled sound—half gasp, half growl—and bolts for the back room before she blows her self-control all to hell.

Next to the boy, demon girl lets out a snorting chuckle.

“He’s not wrong,” she says bluntly, flipping a page. “Your knees do make that weird crackle when you get off the couch. Very unsexy. Like old popcorn.”

A second later, the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of fists hitting the punching bag starts up, hard and fast. Spike smiles. He knows exactly who Buffy’s picturing with every hit. Didn’t miss the way her shoulders tensed when you laughed, the way she watched your hand when it found his without hesitation. As if it’s a betrayal. It burns her up inside, he reckons, that he’s found peace where she’s only ever had war.

He still remembers the day he found out. Learned before the rest, though it didn’t keep for much longer. He was trying to sneak through the back of the magic shop to spend some time with you in the basement. Stumbled on the Slayer instead. Tried to play off his presence, act casual. Lingered too long―long enough for her secrets to start spilling.

“Everything here is hard and bright and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch. This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that. Knowing what I’ve lost.”

Knew then that she was strugglin’, looking for something to seek shelter in. He’s no genius, but he’s pretty sure he gets how that story would’ve ended: rage and ruin, him all but destroyed, her no better. Stayed away after that, let the Scoobies do the heavy-liftin’. Not interested in kissin’ her woes better when he had―has―far more interesting places to kiss on his baby. His girl.

He shakes off the memory. Bad omen.

“You good, Harris?” Spike drawls in Lackbrain’s direction, mock-concerned. The boy coughs, wheezes, waves him off—like that’s going to repair the shrapnel of his pride.

Worth it.

Red mutters something about capitalism and exploitation under her breath, but even she doesn’t refuse the takeout when Spike foots the bill. Something nice from the restaurant down the street, not the usual filth they drag in from pilfering through pockets for the last tarnished penny. The others make their fun, but his baby’s gotta eat well. That, and Captain Forehead gets the statements on his spending—and he wants that bastard to know he’s treating you the way you deserve. Another nail in the Buffy-and-Angel coffin. He might not feel anything for the chit now, but anything involving riling ‘Gelus up is motivation enough in his books.

The Magic Box is all mildew and musty shelves, stale incense and the stench of dried demon guts, but you kiss him like it’s Versailles: soft and grateful, a little bit hungry, uncaring of the complaints you get from the rest. Like there’s no one in the room but him. Like you aren’t ashamed of him, don’t think he’s anything less than enough. It shuts him up, takes all the clever little comebacks and bitter asides and melts them into something warm behind his ribs.

They can scoff. They can sneer. You chose him, and that’s more than any of them ever did.

You’re… achy. That’s the word Spike lands on after trying a dozen others. Achy, squirmy, soft-eyed and irritable in the same breath.

You curl up on the bed in one of his threadbare old shirts—black, holes at the hem, still smelling like smoke and him—towel laid out underneath, clutching a heating pad and looking like heaven in bare legs and frustration. You’ve been this way all day: overwrought, oversensitive, caught somewhere between a whimper and a tantrum. It’s making him feral.

S’like this every time it comes around. Makes him feel like he’s never wanted you more.

You make a noise, something between a sigh and a growl, and Spike shifts his eyes from the telly. From his vantage point on the sofa, he can just see you through the crack of the bedroom door. You wriggle again, curling onto your side, and he catches the scent. Rich. Warm. Sexy as all hell. Rust and sugar, rain hitting hot pavement. The kind of smell that makes the demon in him rise below the surface, temples tightening and fangs prickling at his gums like they know what’s coming.

They do.

He swipes the remote from beside him, turns off the noise. Slinks down the hall, pushes the door open fully, quiet and careful. Walks over and sinks onto the edge of the bed with you.

“You alright, baby?” he asks.

You pout, eyes glassy and desperate. Close, now. “No.”

“S’wrong?” He lets his hand drift idly to your knee, purposefully vague, grin threatening at your subtle attempt to widen your legs a touch in silent invitation. Not the game, though. Gotta say it.

“Everything hurts. I’m bloated,” you complain. “My back’s killing me. And you’re—you’re looking at me. Like you wanna do something about it.”

“I do.”

You squint up at him, half-hearted protest at the ready. “It’s gross.”

He tilts his head, brow lifting in amusement. “It’s not. Say it every time, don’t I?”

“Spike…”

Easy, easy girl. The indecision’s performative now, innit? He can smell it on you, the salty tang combining with copper sweetness to form a potent elixir. Arousal and blood, tucked up between your thighs like a pressie just for him. He needs it.

“Want you.” Spike leans over you, voice dropping into something darker. Lets the yellow bleed into his eyes a bit, just to hear the pitter-patter of your heart reach fever pitch. “Want all of you. Always. Doesn’t matter what time of the month it is.”

Your mouth twists, unsure. He sees you want to give in. Not yet.

“Got a nummy treat for Daddy, yeah?” He doesn’t often voice that fixation of his plainly; hits too close to home for you, reminds you of what you don’t have. Gotta ease you into it real careful, get you used to it. And bugger if it doesn’t make a little whine sound in your throat, tears well up a bit. Desperate. “Gonna bleed for me? I’ll lap it all up, promise. None to waste.”

You choke on your breath, fingers clutching at his nape as he noses against your pulse, gives the vein thrumming through your skin a quick lick to get you going.

“Bet you’re sensitive,” he purrs. “Little thing like you, all full ’n sore. Could probably make you cry just from touchin’ you.”

He withdraws, relishes the pleading noise you make when you think he’s leaving, but he’s got a different goal in mind. Moves down, kneels between your legs like a man praying for absolution. You resist at first, soft and trembling, legs warm against his palms as if they’ve got second thoughts—but he’s stronger, and he’ll win. He witnesses the shift of emotions play out on your face: the uneasiness, the desire, the pride and shame and need fighting it out in your head.

When he starts peeling your knickers down slow, you don’t stop him, and that’s how he knows victory’s assured. You stare at him, pink-cheeked and trembling, as he slips them off, holds the gusset up and takes a deep inhale from the crinkly pad stuck there, fang flashing at the aroma. He tosses them away; won’t need them when the source is about to give in.

“Lemme have a taste,” he says, a bit coaxing. “Make you pop like a rocket. Take the edge off.”

A second of hesitation, then you nod, tiny and mindless and obedient.

“Nuh-uh.” He shakes his head, thumb slipping down to circle whisper-soft against your clit, all but purring at the stifled cry you let out. “Gotta use your words. Tell ol’ Spike: yeah or no?”

“Ye—yeah,” you sigh, crumbling like a house of cards. Beautiful, the way you break. “Please?”

Don’t gotta say much else. He settles back against the headboard, already stripping his shirt off, chest bare and hungry-eyed as you struggle to your knees beside him. Scooting lower, he offers you a lazy curl of the lip, hooded gaze running down your body as he reaches for you.

“Come on,” he says, the invite you’ve been waiting for. You’re already crawling up, up, over by the time he adds, “Sit on my face, baby, yeah.”

Your knees are planted firm to either side of his head, thighs trembling, hands braced on the wall as he puts his mouth to your red-slick folds. Laves flat and slow and filthy through your slit, hands holding fast to your hips like they belong there—they do—when you try to jerk away. His tongue catches the first drop, thick and metallic, and his whole body thrums. You cry out, thighs flexing, and he can smell the salt in the air as your eyes spill over.

The blood is hot, a bit syrupy in its nutrient-rich form as it coats his lips and chin and throat like a lolly. You’re a delicacy, and he’s consumed by consuming, eating you as if he’s starved―as if this is what he’s for. S’like a rich wine, aged to perfection, tasting like heaven and ruin and life. Nose brushing your clit, his tongue laps and curls at your tight little hole, scooping up the flavour and feeding as though it’s his last meal. He growls, low and constant, the demon rippling into view and catching against your skin.

As always, it makes you shake, naughty when you chase the scraping of his fangs against your innermost thigh, keening high and clear. When he snags on slick pink flesh, you come fast, too fast, hips jolting and breath hitching on a sob.

Spike doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow down. Just keeps you pressed against him, licks and licks like he can’t get enough, listens to you cry and moan. It’s the best kind of music, a symphony in his ears.

“Can’t—” you gasp, legs shaking. “I can’t—Spike, it’s too much—”

You tip forward, only the headboard holding you upright. Lift your hips as though you mean to leave. He’s a bad, rude man; doesn’t let up, purses his lips around where you leak slick and hot and sucks, sending you shrieking into another orgasm. He dips a finger into you and finds you clenching, pulsing, too snug for anything more.

“No, no…”

You’re whining, dithering between grinding down and lifting off. A weak protest. He pulls away only to graze at the skin down your thigh, smirking at the winking of your entry when you catch sight of his face, ridged and monstrous and covered in blood.

“Can take it, baby,” he purrs, licking his finger clean. “You always do.”

He returns to his meal.

This time, when you finish, your whole frame goes taut, hips rolling, knees locked against his skull, wail caught in your throat while your nails claw at the wall as if you’re trying to anchor yourself to the earth. You ride out the wave, rocking frantically against his mouth, and he moans like he’s tasting god herself; sin and sacrament, the first kill after a fast. It’s only when you reach down, grab his hair at the root and wrench away, your signal to stop, that he gentles his touch, withdraws to soft kisses against your folds.

Shuffling from under you—you’re frozen, panting for breath, locked in tremors as you try to find equilibrium—he holds himself against you, chest to spine, running his hands up and down your body to ground you, bring you back. He’s still got his game face on, and he knows he’s looking at your side profile like you’ve hung the stars.

“Did so good,” Spike says against your temple, throbbing in his jeans at the streak of red adorning your face. “So good for me.”

You crane your head to look back at him, blinking and vacant. He brushes your hair back, kisses your sweaty cheek, your ear, your jaw, the crown of your head. His hand maps your contours, cupping your breast before descending to settle against your belly, the warmth of you absorbing into his cold flesh. Matches the heat of your blood filling his gut, glutting his hunger and making him dozy as a cat after a hunt.

“All wrung out,” he coos. “Nearly creamed me pants, havin’ you up there. So proud of you.”

A small, broken noise is his only response, your throat too dry, too sore, too strung out to offer more than a whimper. That’s alright, though.

“C’mon, kitten,” he says eventually, nudging at your side. “Let’s get you to the loo. Gotta go, yeah? Then I’ll run a shower. Get you all cleaned up.”

You nod, barely. He slides off the bed and lifts you with care, arms cradling you bridal-style even though you mumble something sleepy and offended about being capable. He lets the corners of his mouth lift. “Yeah, yeah. My capable girl with jelly legs and a twitch in her thighs. Let’s not test gravity just yet, alright?”

The bathroom’s chilly, even for him, so he turns the big warming light on that floods the room in brilliant gold. The glow catches in your hair, in the damp of your skin, making you shining and radiant. Venus, come to life in his dodgy flat on the Hellmouth. Setting you down on the closed toilet lid―blood’s easy to clean off the surface―he turns to the shower faucet, turning the hot water on and adjusting until it’s comfortable. Kicks off his jeans, while he’s at it, freeing his poor chafed prick from its denim prison.

“You okay?” he asks, crouching in front of you. “Need anythin’ else?”

You look up at him, lashes wet and cheeks still flushed. You shift a little, then wince. He sees it immediately.

“Still hurtin’, huh?”

Nodding, you bite your lip. Ah, game’s not over yet, then. That look―wide-eyed, wanting, just a little helpless―always gets him going.

“Say it,” he tells you, already rising to his feet, already stepping into your space. His cock bobs with the movement, your eyes snapping to it like a hound to scent. He leers down at you, grabbing himself at the base and giving it a good few passes with his fist, locking at the head to eke out the bits of white fluid beading up. “Say what you want.”

You swallow, nervous as though you aren’t familiar with this part of his body, as though it’s your first time. It half gives him a mind to keep going, to wank off until he coats your face and make you lick it all away. Wouldn’t be new for you.

“I want you,” you whisper, peering up at him through your lashes. Your mouth drops open as he brings himself in close, tongue peeking out to lap at his tip.

He grunts. “Yeah? How bad?”

You kiss where saliva is cooling on him. “Bad.”

Spike growls. It’s low and barely restrained, the sound vibrating through the room. That’s how he remembers that he never shifted back to his human visage; that all the while you’ve been gazing up with something like worship, you’ve really been looking at him. Who he is, underneath the man he pretends to be. It knocks the wind out of him.

Helping you to your feet, he spins you slow, gentle hands pushing you forward until you’re braced on the edge of the sink. He takes in the sight of you through the mirror as you pant against the counter, thighs still trembling, body already knowing what comes next.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice thick with awe as he rubs his prick through the mess between your legs, huffing amusement at your little shiver and the arch of your spine. “Bleedin’ and cryin’, so bloody wrecked you can’t stand straight—but you still want me.”

You make a noise of assent, hips tipping up to catch him where he’s needed. “Always.”

“Gonna be rough, kitten.” He can already feel it: the bloodlust, the thrill of the hunt requiring satiation. “Not gonna be sweet.”

You don’t quite catch his eyes given his lack of reflection, but the plea is clear. “Don’t want sweet.”

Well. That’s it, then.

He grabs your hips and thrusts in hard, one callous push that makes your mouth fall open on a soundless cry. You’re soaked, tender and slick, walls fluttering from the last time, and he can feel everything: every spasm, every pulse, every sweet ache still echoing through your cunt.

“Bloody―fuck,” he snarls, digging his fingers into your hips. “Tight little thing. Always so good for me, yeah?”

You whine, tears falling once more.

He snaps into you again and again, rutting rough and deep, pace relentless and angle brutal. You scrabble for purchase on the spout sticking up from the basin, the tap handles digging into your ribs as you’re jostled up and up and up. Calling out with hurt little ah-ah-ahs, your hand slaps against the mirror, driving back against him. The wet sound of it echoes, melting together with the hissing of water on tile. Shower’s still running, but the bill’s unimportant compared to having you like this. Leaking all over his prick, over his belly and his legs, honey-soaked blood that’s all you, and he’s so far gone he doesn’t care if he dusts here and now.

“Filthy girl,” he groans, fixated on the curve of your neck as you twist to watch him, eyes stuck on his face and heart thundering at the sight before you. S’not fear that’s making it race. “Let me work you open, let me feel it all. Want me to hurt a little, don’t you? Want me to fuck the ache away.”

“Yes, yes,” you gasp, the words distorted from the force of his thrusts, spine hunching as you clasp your head in your hands like it’s the only thing keeping you from losing your mind. Bruises are already forming under his palms. “Spike, please―don’t stop―”

“Never,” he vows. “Never gonna stop takin’ care of you.”

He stares at your expression in the mirror, sees every shudder and sob, every time your mouth falls open as you constrict around him as though you’re trying to keep him inside forever. Wishes he could see himself too, see the devotion in his own eyes. But the glass stays empty, like always. You’re the only proof he’s real.

Spike reaches around and rubs your clit, forceful and fast. You come again, screaming, legs giving out as you shake under him. He catches you and holds you close, hips still moving as he rides it out, chasing his own high now.

“Inside?” he asks, breath ragged. “Want Da―want me to fill you up, baby?”

You nod frantically, words gone. He slams into you twice more and groans—harsh, grating—as he spills inside, chest pressed to your back, arm banded tight around your waist to keep you upright. Buries himself to the hilt as if he’s trying to brand you from the inside out. You’re his. All of you. Even the blood. The last of it washes over him and he stirs himself deeper in you, forcing you up on tiptoes. You like the hurt, so he keeps going, rocks in until you’re squealing and writhing, begging without words. Finally, spent, he falls still.

For a long second, there’s only the rattle of your breathing, yours faster than his. Not like he needs to, really. Just fond of the sound of it. Your heartbeat in his ear, your lungs pulling air through your battered little body… there’s no better noise to him.

Then, he leans down, mouths at your neck, your ear, lips sticky. “Still hurtin’?”

It makes you laugh, exhausted and winded and drunk. On him. He could bottle and drink your laughter for a century, sustain himself on your joy alone.

“Not that way,” you say.

He grins, kisses your shoulder. “Didn’t think so.”

His grip doesn’t loosen. Doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to pull out and lose the heat of you, the weight, the ruin he’s left on your skin. He’s never been good at quiet, but now? He’d stay here forever, buried. Blood-warm. Belonging.

“Mine,” he murmurs, voice low and gutted. “All mine.”

And there’s no one left to argue. Not now. Not ever.

Famous last words, eh?

Got too confident. Too sure that there’s nobody standing in his way, in yours. That’s why he’s not expecting the visitor that shows up at the door.

Spike hears it before you do: three sharp raps, knuckles stiff with self-importance. It’s the kind of knock that’s used to being answered promptly, that thinks it deserves to be. You’re in the kitchen, humming to yourself, shirt sleep-creased and bare legs swinging as you sit on the counter eating your little seedless grapes straight from the stem. Domestic as anything. Pretty in a way that makes him wish Peaches taught him to draw way back when, to create instead of destroy. It’s the kind of scene that should be immortalised. He’d been about to drag you back to bed, or maybe spread you across the marble and feast, if not for the knock interrupting the peace.

It comes again, more forceful this time. Spike stands.

You frown. “Was that someone at the―”

“I got it,” he says, already moving. He notes as he passes by that the sofa bed’s been folded back in, bags gone. Glinda must’ve decided to head back to the dorms after all. Probably for the best; no one there to hear her cry.

As he approaches the entry, he can tell it’s not a vamp or some other nasty. Not a threat. There’s no weight behind the sound, and the heartbeat’s easy enough to hear through the wood grain. The scent hits him first—rich cologne, too polished for good ol’ Sunnyhell—and something else buried under it: a trace of blood not fresh, but familiar. Family.

Spike opens the door, and there he is. Tall, tanned, money-washed. Not a hint of the smalltown vibe he gets from everyone else ’round here. Pressed linen, Rolex gleam—Hank bleedin’ Summers, right here in the flesh. Recognises him from the dusty photos tucked at the back of the shelf in the living room, the place you and your mum and your sisters dumped everything to do with the useless sod. Out of sight and out of mind, just like he’s been all these years.

He’s holding a manila envelope in his too-soft hands, his expression stony. Doesn’t have the effect he’s after―too doughy. Niblet’s scarier than this one, and she’s just a kid.

“Can I help you?” Spike asks with a raised brow. He doesn’t need to turn; he can feel the shift in the air, the thrum of your heart stuttering into worry. Bugger.

Hank doesn’t blink; barely even acknowledges him, the wanker. Instead, his gaze shifts past him, somewhere behind as he steps forward like he owns the place. “How could you be so stupid?”

No foreplay, then. Straight into the bloodletting.

You’re right behind him: breathing coming unevenly, the scent of the shampoo you use wafting his way. Double bugger.

“Huh? Dad?” you say. Spike looks at you―bare legs, loose shirt, hair a mess of sleep and satisfaction―and sees the moment the fire dims in your eyes. “What… what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” Hank repeats, volume rising like it’s the most obvious question in the world. “What are you doing here? Shacking up with a guy twice your age―this―this thug―and acting like that’s normal?”

Spike snorts. Not the worst thing he’s been called. Tame, even.

“Sorry, mate,” he says, tone light as he moves an inch or two into the tosser’s space, a hint of a threat seeping into his posture. “Missed the part where you got visitation rights. Or where I let you know my address.”

“Not all my daughters are reckless chumps,” Hank tosses out, unknowing or uncaring of Spike’s tacit intimidation.

The barb stings you as intended. You flinch. “Buffy told you where I live?”

“Yeah.” He laughs, but there’s nothing funny about what’s happening. “Stopped by earlier. Seems she’s got a lot of thoughts about this set-up, too.”

Spike files that away. Buffy. Should’ve figured that. Twice now, she’s handed you over to someone who hurt you. Gonna have words about that.

“She called you?” Your question’s slightly hysterical. “So what―you won’t pick up when Mom’s dying, but you’ll fly here because I’m in a relationship? Jesus, Dad.”

He’s glad to hear some of the grit back. Got worried for a second that you’d fall apart completely.

Hank stares at you like you’re something he’s stepped in. “Nice try, kid, but you’re not throwing that in my face. And no, Buffy didn’t call. I got something interesting in the mail a few days ago. Mrs Greenberg is very concerned about you.”

Spike feels the wave of ire wash over him. ’Course it’s that manky old biddy. Always nosing over the shared fence into your front yard, back when you lived with your sisters. Always with snide comments about the Slayer’s ripped clothing, or all the people walking in and out of the house, or how cropped Little Bit’s shorts are. She’s had a bloody field day with him since first capping eyes on his hair, his duster, his car. Hates him, and the feeling’s mutual. He wishes the chip’d give him a freebie, just one. He’d pick her.

“She sent me some photos,” Hank continues, tossing the envelope in his grip at your feet. It lands with a dull thwack. “And a note that said ‘thought you should know what your daughter’s up to.’”

Your face drains of colour as you crouch to pick it up, pull out its contents, rifle through the pages. Spike can’t see the particulars, but he can certainly imagine them. You, in his coat. Laughing next to him on the pavement. His hand on your waist, mouth on your neck. All of it damning if you squint at it with the wrong kind of eyes.

You’re silent. Spike pushes down the urge to speak, to defend you, ’cause this isn’t his fight. Not yet. His job is to be here after.

Hank’s shoulder knocks his as he edges further inside the flat, uninvited. “Do you have any idea how this looks? How this reflects on me?”

What a wanker.

You laugh, brittle and sharp. “Of course. Of course it’s about you. Not about me―not about how I’m doing, or what I want. Just your reputation.”

“You… Don’t talk back to me!” Hank snaps. “I took you in when you needed it. I paid for the best school, gave you everything―”

“Everything?” you cut in. “You dropped me off at Thacher and forgot I existed. I was fourteen, Dad! Fourteen years old! And scared out of my mind. All you gave me was a checkbook and a dorm room before you disappeared.”

“I did what I had to,” he says coldly. “You needed discipline. Direction. God knows your mother didn’t give you any.”

“Don’t you dare―don’t you dare bring up my mother.” Your words are shaky, eyes wet. And yet, no tears fall. “You don’t get to say stuff like that. You don’t get to walk in and act like you have a right to judge her, or me. You left me. I needed a parent, and you left.”

Spike would tear the old man’s throat out if you asked him to. The chip’s not what holds him at bay. It’s the knowledge that no amount of violence would fix this, would make you feel like you weren’t left behind. Besides, this ain’t about today. Ain’t about Spike. It’s a lifetime’s worth, spilling out all at once.

Your shoulders are curving in, your voice growing thinner around the edges. “I wasn’t the screw-up, remember? That’s the only reason you bothered. Because I was the one most likely to turn out alright. To make you look good.”

“That’s not true―”

“Isn’t it?” You scoff. “I spent every year trying to be perfect, trying to make you proud, and it was never good enough. So don’t you dare come into my home and call me stupid like I’m some lost little girl who doesn’t understand what she’s doing.”

“You don’t,” Hank says, face red. “You’re sleeping with a man who belongs in a mugshot. No job. No prospects—”

“Right. Because money and status are the most important things in life.” You smile, vicious, and let out a bitter laugh. “Who the hell do you think you are, trying to lecture me―”

“I’m your father!”

“No.” You say it soft. It lands like a gunshot. Even Spike flinches.

A hush falls.

He’s starting to hate these bloody family rows always going on in front of him. Feels like watching himself, years ago, all rage and grief with nothing to show for it. Only difference is, no one ever stood beside him back then. Now, he always seems to end up looking on, unable to toss himself into the ring lest he risk his impulses overriding his common sense.

“Dawnie… You know how many nights she cried herself to sleep after Mom died? I don’t. Hard to remember. But I do remember how she’d keep asking me where you were. Why you weren’t picking up our calls. Why you wouldn’t come.” The anger’s eased up, leaving only a sort of resigned sadness that makes you sound so much older than you are. Spike hates it. “Where were you, Hank? Where have you ever been when we needed you?”

Hank’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Eventually, he gives up, staring back at you. Spike can hear him grind his teeth beneath his closed lips. Not sorry, then.

“I think we should just be honest here,” you say, quiet. “You… you stopped being my father a long time ago.”

Spike’s seen a lot of screaming matches. Started more than his fair share. But this? Watching you peel yourself open like this, letting old pain see daylight for the first time? This one cuts different. Deeper. It makes his fists curl with something more than rage. It makes him ache.

Hank sighs, wiping a hand over his face. “I did my best.”

“Then your best sucked.”

Glancing down at the envelope you’re clutching, you appear to make a decision: your spine straightens, your shoulders squaring back out. You throw the contents back at Hank in the exact same manner he did, the stack landing at the man’s feet.

“Leave, Hank,” you tell him. “It’s the only thing you’re good at.”

Hank’s mouth curls, examining you like he doesn’t recognize you. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he never did. A light in your eyes sputters out; abruptly, you turn and leave the room, a door creaking open behind you as you disappear down the hall. The air shifts.

“I’d get goin’ if I were you, Summers,” Spike says, stepping forward slow and smooth. “Not wanted here.”

Hank glares. “You―you ruined my girl―”

“My girl, actually.” Spike’s fingers dig so hard into his palms that he can feel the damp of blood starting to well up. “Shouldn’t have chucked her away if you planned on havin’ any sort of say in who she shacks up with. Between you and me? I ain’t the one who ruined her. You did the job well enough on your own.”

Hank snorts derisively. “Enjoy it while it lasts. She’ll wise up soon.”

“Maybe.” Spike shrugs. “Maybe not. Either way, has nothin’ to do with you anymore. She needed a dad. Got a ghost instead. Now make like one and disappear.”

One more long moment―then Hank turns and leaves without picking up the evidence he’d trekked all this way to shove in your face, door slamming behind him. After, silence.

Wanker.

Spike collects the packet from the ground, tossing it onto the kitchen counter as he retraces your steps. The door creaks open as he steps into the room, sees you curled up on your side at the edge of the bed, facing away from him. He crosses the room, kneels by your side.

“You alright, sweetheart?” he asks. Already knows the answer, though.

You don’t respond; just look at him with wide, lost eyes, gleaming with the promise of an impending meltdown. He reaches forward, strokes your hair, flattens his hand to the contours of your arm until his touch meets your wrist. Your fingers dart out to grasp his like a lifeline.

He makes a vague soothing noise, a sort of hum that he wishes would ease that horribly wounded expression you’re wearing. “What d’you need?”

Finally, you whisper, “Hold me. Please.”

That he can do.

Spike crawls over you and crowds to your back, arm wrapping tight around your middle and legs winding with yours. You pull him even closer, an unspoken demand to squeeze harder, mould himself to you to the point that your bodies cannot be separately distinguished. He does it. It’s all he has to offer.

“Got you,” he murmurs in your ear. You shudder, then relax, boneless.

You lie there, quiet and tucked close, like the silence itself is a bandage. Spike doesn’t tell you it’s not your fault. Doesn’t tell you it’s okay. He waits, steady and present. Yours.

Because that’s the point, innit? He’s staying.

The DeSoto’s headlights sweep across the curb and up the pavement as he pulls in to 1630 Revello Drive, engine idling low. You sit in silence beside him, backpack at your feet, hands wringing themselves to death in your lap. Outside, the streetlights cut long shadows over the bonnet, blinking amber across your face. You look calm—too calm—and it eats at him.

It’s funny how strangely time passes when you’ve got no end in sight. Decades pass in a blink, half-forgotten. But the hours since Hank’s nasty li’l turn-up? Endless. Truth is, Spike’s been waiting since the man left for you to completely break apart. Long time coming, and you deserve a release of a different kind. Instead, it’s this: quiet, withdrawn, something melancholy that he can’t touch, can’t save you from.

“You sure about this?” he asks, voice rough. Not hesitant; just making sure.

You nod. “Dawn needs help with her history project. I’ll… I’ll deal.”

Yeah. Deal.

S’not often that he has no idea what’s about to happen. Spend enough time kickin’ ’round, you learn some things about people, the way they behave, how they’re going to respond to finding stuff out. But you? Ordinarily, he’d say you’d go in swinging, maybe not with fists but with words. Now, though, you seem so… so defeated. Like fate’s gone ahead and cut all your strings.

This is what moves him to follow you to the front step instead of hanging back in the car. Wednesday nights are for you and Little Bit, usually, but this time, he’s coming in too. You flick him an odd look, saying nothing. He wishes you’d say, do something. Tell him to bugger off or send him packing back to the flat. But nothing. Is he the corpse here, or are you?

Before you knock, the door swings open.

The Slayer’s expression flickers between surprise and wariness, gaze skipping from you to Spike and back again. “Oh,” she says. “It’s you.”

Figures she’s the one answering. Red’s probably off somewhere knitting or meditating or whatever it is witches do when they’ve sworn off casting. Maybe with Zeppo, making sure he’s not drinking his weight in cheap beer after making the biggest mistake of his life leaving demon girl at the altar. Prick.

You don’t answer. Just step past Buffy, impassive but for the way your chin folds into your chest a bit, subtle enough to be missed by anyone not looking for it. He is. He sees it all.

Her eyes narrow. “Did he show up? Dad?”

Your head jerks up, down, a spasmodic nod. No words still.

“Well?” she asks. “How did it go?”

Now you’re paying attention. Your gaze snaps to her, and for a second Spike can see intensity there, a burning set to consume. Then it fades, replaced by an ache too deep to name.

“I’m… I don’t think I can be around you,” you say. It’s not quite an answer. Comes out strangely. Stops and starts, like you’re fighting the urge to scream or cry. “I’ll come by for Dawnie. But I—I need space from you, Buff. Indefinitely.”

“What are you—”

It’s all you can say, it seems. You turn your back on her and head upstairs, white-knuckled grip on the rail. Buffy’s forehead creases, smiling in clear confusion.

“Wait—what?” she asks after you with a short bark of laughter. “You’re mad at me? Seriously?”

You don’t answer her, instead disappearing up to the landing. Gone, and all that’s left is the rage thrumming in his chest like the heartbeat he no longer has.

Spike remains in the entry, waiting for the telltale creak of the door at the end of the hallway. The sound cleaves through the silence, dull and echoing. He pictures you on the other side, face buried in Niblet’s quilt as she watches on with bewilderment, trying not to cry loud enough for Buffy to hear. A helplessness claws up his throat, bitter and sharp. He’d give anything to follow, but someone’s still got to fight your corner down here.

He clears his throat, shifting his weight. Buffy turns to him, arms crossed tight across her chest.

“What?” she snaps.

“Oh, don’t play dumb now,” he says, temper flaring.

He advances on her, gearing up for a beating. More shouting, like last time. Typical. Another spat at Casa Summers. Bleedin’ place might as well be cursed. Never just tea and telly; always ends in blood or somebody stormin’ off in tears.

“Thought I’d have a little chat with you, Slayer,” he continues. “‘Bout how you sicced that deadbeat old bastard on her like a bloody trained hound.”

Her face tightens. “He’s her father, Spike. And you’re just—”

“Yeah, yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “A demon, evil, some thing. Heard it all before. You keep sayin’ it like it still means anything. But I get it now. Why you hold onto it so much. Eats at you, doesn’t it? Me an’ her. Makes you lie awake at night, wonderin’ what could’ve happened between us.”

She flinches, tries to cover it with a scoff. “Oh my god. Don’t flatter yourself.”

He steps closer, smirk flashing. He can feel the coil of it winding in his spine. The pressure in the room surges: hot, close, electric. Slayer bristling like a cornered thing. Spike leaning in like a wolf scenting blood. His hands flex at his sides, itching. Always comes to this with her, doesn’t it? A beat too long, a breath too fast, and then—

“I’m not,” he says.

Doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t want to open the door to that memory—her, eyes full of anger, heart tapping out a maybe. Maybe. But she never did. Never would.

“I’m tellin’ you the truth you won’t admit,” he adds, following through. “You got her hurt just to hurt me. ’Cause you can’t stand the fact I found something real before you could figure out if you even wanted it―me―first.”

“I didn’t―I didn’t mean to upset her!” Buffy’s voice rises, but the aggression’s hiding something vulnerable, insecure. She won’t make eye contact with him. “She’s just a kid. She shouldn’t be with you. You know it, I know it. Everyone does.”

“Funny,” he growls. “You keep sayin’ it’s so wrong, but she’s never been as happy with you as she is with me.”

There we go. The look, all wrath and malice, the one that promises a world of suffering. “What the hell would you know about her happi―”

“You think you’re doin’ all this to keep her safe, yeah? But you’re not. You’re just twistin’ the knife in her back, over and over. Callin’ it love.” He chuckles. It sounds nasty to his ears. “Coward.”

She gets in his face, hissing at him like a viper spraying venom. “Shut up, Spike! You’re dangerous! I have to protect―”

“I am dangerous! You, though? You’re worse. Least I’ve never made her cry so hard she passes out. You don’t care what it costs her, so long as you get your digs in. And you call me soulless.”

From the way her eyes begin to shine, that last bit landed hard. Good. S’time she understood how bad she’s been treatin’ you. How bad all her pals have been treatin’ you. Sure, they don’t jump you the second you walk in the door or anything, but they don’t do a great job at hiding their contempt, either. You’re too content with your lot to make a fuss about it right now, but he knows where this goes: another big blow-up, and maybe one you all can’t walk back from.

Spike tilts his head, lets his leer fill in the gaps between his next words. “Good goin’, luv. Didn’t even have to lift a finger. You’re the one makin’ it so easy for little sis to crawl between my sheets.”

The Slayer draws herself back and swings. Her fist crashes hard into his cheekbone. The blow lands with a wet crunch, pain blooming like a struck nerve beneath his eye. He grins through the deep-seated throbbing of bone fracturing apart, because it’s familiar, real, a reminder that some things still break the old-fashioned way. Letting the punch sit a mo’, he rubs at his cheek—then returns it twofold, skin on his knuckles splitting from the force he uses. She slams back into the wall with a cry, clutching her jaw. As she catches her breath, shock blooms across her face.

“Ah,” he says dryly, just to rub it in. “The pain.”

She’s off-balance, eyes wide, the realisation crawling over her like cold fingers. He watches her swallow, sees the tremble in her lip before she catches it. Emotion flashes across her expression: confusion, then dread. For the first time in a long while—maybe ever—she looks at him not like a mistake, but like a threat. Something inside him leaps, then curls in on itself. He shouldn’t like it, shouldn’t want her to flinch. But bloody hell, it feels good to be stronger for once.

“You… you hit me.” Her stance has gone slack. “How?”

“Got me first, didn’t you?” His hand is throbbing. Worth it. “‘Sides, you copped one a few weeks back too, remember? Night you tried to rake my girl across the coals?”

Thought it might’ve been a fluke, actually. Or maybe that the memory of the zap wiped itself from his mind the second after. But nah, this here proves it.

She stares. “But the―the chip…”

“Still got it.” He shrugs, but it feels hollow. “Still works―on humans.”

And that’s the thing, yeah? All this talk of him being beneath you, but he’s been fighting the good fight for a while now. Maybe it’s not something he chose at first, but he’s choosing now. He’s been choosing since you came into his unlife. Wants to be better, for you. Not ’cause you want that, necessarily, but ’cause how else will he ever be enough? Still, still, the Slayer doesn’t see it. Or won’t. Too blinded by her power to see she’s using it to crush you.

He tries to chase away the sting by doing what he does best: cruelty. “Guess Red wasn’t as good as she thought. Didn’t bring you back right. Maybe that’s why you’ve been such a monster since you clawed outta your grave.”

Breathing unsteadily and shaking her head, still pressed to the wall, Buffy whispers, “Get out. Get out.”

“Piss off, Slayer.” He’s had enough. Started like a thrill, but now it’s just noise. “Get off your high horse. Think I’m the evil one―then what the bleedin’ hell are you?”

He turns away, jaw aching and knuckles bleeding. It doesn’t feel like a win. Nothing ever does, not really, when it comes to her. But he’ll take the scrap of justice, even if it’s come at the cost of a little more of himself.

Spike doesn’t wait around. Just heads upstairs, the thud of his boots on the steps grounding him again. As he draws closer to you, the anger melts away. Your scent calls him, and like a planet orbiting the sun, he’s bound to the path, up and up and up. The hallway stretches ahead, filled with the sort of quiet that comes after a storm. The weight of what just passed clings to him like dust, but your voice―soft, threadbare―pulls him onward. There’s blood on his hands, and still, he reaches.

For the first time today, the atmosphere’s peaceful. No shouting, nothing being thrown, no limbs flying. Only this: dim light, muted rustling, the creak of the pull-out as you set it up. Your movements are practiced, careful. A trajectory on autopilot.

Niblet dumps her backpack on the floor beside the sofa, muttering curses under her breath like willpower alone could bring a curse down on the Slayer. “I mean, seriously. I can’t even look at her right now. She actually told him where you were? Like that was ever gonna end well.”

You nod faintly, tucking a fitted sheet over the mattress corner. She hasn’t noticed that you aren’t throwing your own complaints in yet. Hasn’t noticed much beyond the burn of betrayal bubbling up in her voice.

“And then she tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal. Like I was being dramatic. She lied to me! Said she didn’t tell him where you were. But she did.” She huffs, tossing her still-damp hair as she looks at you. “And now she’s acting like you’re the one who blew things out of proportion?”

While it’s no small thing to have her on side―the ringing in his ears after listening to her shriek at big sis is proof enough―Spike knows you’re maybe a half-hour from complete breakdown, and this isn’t helping. He leans against the kitchen counter, watching, not getting involved. Not yet. Not until he has to.

“And Xander?” She goes on, flinging one of the throw pillows onto the sofa like it’s personally offended her. “He still talks about you like you’re some helpless little idiot and Spike’s a predator, and Buffy and Willow never call him on it. Especially after the whole wedding thing.”

She shudders, and Spike can picture what she’s thinking. That godawful get-up demon girl made you all wear, though he still thinks you can pull the green off alright. The boy taking her hand, speaking softly to her. The way he slipped out, letting her walk up the aisle by herself. Still raw, it all is. Not a thing to mention at your li’l gatherings. Like it never happened.

“Yeah.” Your shoulders twitch, eyes downcast.

“I just…” She drops onto the edge of the pull-out with a frustrated grumble. “I thought after—after everything, they’d all back off. Let you be happy. But no, it’s all fake smiles and pretending that they’re okay with it when they’re clearly not. And they keep putting me in the middle of it, acting like I’m supposed to be on their side. I’m not.”

“I know, Dawnie.” You pat her head and busy yourself with smoothing out the creases in the duvet, trying to conceal your sniffling.

“They don’t see how you are together. They think it’s some… some creepy sex thing, but it’s real, isn’t it? It’s love. They don’t get it. It makes me wanna―”

“Alright, Bit,” Spike says, gentle as he can make it. “That’s enough.”

She freezes, startled. “Huh? I’m only―”

“Tellin’ the truth, yeah.” He pushes off the counter and crosses to her. “S’not what’s needed right now, is all.”

You still don’t look up. You simply stand there, fingers twitching at the corners of the blankets piled generously on the makeshift bed. Spike tugs it from your hands, palm to the small of your back.

“Go start your shower, baby,” he tells you. “Yeah? Let me finish this.”

You hesitate, but then your lip wobbles and you nod. His gaze follows you down the hall, your arms hugged to your torso like they’re the only thing keeping your insides in. Like you’ve been gutted. In a sense, you have. Hank, Buffy. An absolute shite day. The bathroom door clicks shut; the taps creak; the water heater hums to life, a low buzz through the thin walls. Without you, the flat feels smaller.

Dawn pulls her legs up, chin resting on her knees. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to make her sad.”

“I know.” Spike kneels to grab the last of the pillows. Too many of the bloody things. “She knows, too. S’why she let you say your piece.”

No response. One’s imminent, though―the real source of her explosion tonight. Sure, some of it’s about the Slayer, about her little lapdogs and the way they treat you and him, but he reckons it’s a front. An ugly, angry wall she’s using to hide from reality. So he lets the silence sit for a while, fetches a glass of water for the small table beside the sofa and draws the curtains closed in the meantime. Lets her work through her feelings.

Then it comes.

“I…” Little Bit sighs, hands fiddling with the hems of each pant leg. Her nose is turning red, a sign that she’s about to cry. “I thought he came to see us. For real. Said he was gonna take me out for ice cream later. I wanted to ask if we could go to that place by the promenade. The one with the waffle cones? And then he just… didn’t show. Didn’t even bother to call. Now I know why.”

Her confession cracks the fount open, tears winding down her face. He crouches before her, catching her line of sight with a sympathetic twist of his lips.

“You’re too good for him, Bit. Always were.” He tries to inject as much surety as he possesses into his words. It’s not enough to fix what Hank broke, but better than letting her believe she’s to blame for his failures. “Nothing to do with you.”

Bit glances away, wiping her eyes. “I know. It’s ’cause of Buffy.”

Not exactly. But not wrong, either.

“I―I had one chance. To spend time with my dad. And she wrecked it, just to stick it to you. To hurt her.” She frowns, turning back to him with beseeching eyes. “Why?”

Part of him’s always touched by how much she trusts him to have all the answers. To a kid like her, he’s seen everything, understands everything. Doesn’t have the heart to tell her that there are some things he can’t explain. He can try, though.

“She’s… she’s got her own demons, see? In her head. Playin’ with her feelings.” Crude analogy, but it works. “Doesn’t know what to do with them, not since she―”

“Since she was snatched outta Heaven,” Niblet says. Some of the ire’s burnt itself out. “Yeah.”

He curses himself for feeling sorry for the stupid bint in this moment. But he can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like, goin’ about day by day down here after being at peace. Knowing it was friends who tore him from his final rest, brought him back only to shove him into the same old endless fight. Doesn’t excuse her actions. Makes them easier to forgive, maybe.

Little Bit interrupts his musing. “I wish… I wish she’d deal with it, instead of taking it out on all of us. She’s not the only one suffering.”

He snorts. “Careful. Wishes in this town don’t go down well.”

Wouldn’t do to play those games out loud, what with demon girl back to her former glory―not that anyone else has figured it out. He certainly ain’t gonna dob her in. Let her get her jollies cursing Xapper; not much of a loss there, the miserable sod.

“But―she loves you,” he adds, more sincere. “You know that, right? Both of you. Not showin’ it all that well at the mo’, but she cares. Enough to risk everything to do what she thinks she has to.”

That’s what’s getting him the most about all this. It’s love. How the worst pain gets doled out, innit? For that feeling. Kill for it, die for it, destroy everything to make sure that love lasts another day. And the irony? That ruin is the very thing that turns love into hate. He knows best. He’s love’s bitch, after all.

“Doesn’t feel like love,” Bit mutters, wiping her face with her sleeve.

“No,” he agrees. “Doesn’t always.”

Like the kept man he is, he takes a while to hush his girl’s little sis, help her dry her tears and settle herself for sleep. Tucks her in good and proper, soft goodnight falling from his mouth and echoed by a frail, weary whisper. Turns off all the lights, except for the plug-in at the outlet in the kitchen to remind her that she’s not alone. He leaves her be, heads toward the bathroom. A yellow glow spills out from the crack where the door doesn’t quite meet the ground.

Spike knocks. No response.

Heat curls out like mist from a dream when he steps inside, warming his cool flesh to sweltering. The tap’s dripping again, but that’s not important. No. What’s important is the way you’re hunched over yourself in the corner by the bath, swamped in your towel as though you’ve tried to strangle yourself with it. Water makes a puddle beneath you.

“Oh, baby,” he murmurs, already moving.

He doesn’t care about the damp soaking through his shirt. Not when holding you feels like life itself. You turn into him as though gravity’s lost its meaning, seized by silent sobs, hours and days and weeks’ worth―a lifetime’s worth―of pain rushing out. It’s a pain he can’t fix with antiseptic or plasters. He can only catch you while you fall, banding arms around you so tightly that there’s bruises come morning.

“Take me away from here,” you choke out against his chest, cracked and distraught. “Please, Spike? I don’t wanna be here anymore.”

He presses his lips to your crown firm enough to leave a mark, letting your words tear at his unbeating heart. “This won’t last forever. Promise. Give it a bit.”

“I can’t, I can’t―”

He rocks you as though you’re a child, shushing you in low, soothing tones. Anything to get that manic sound out of your voice. His hand cups the back of your head, palm against soaked strands, and he lets your scent fill him, steadying his frayed edges. Every tremble in your frame hits him like an aftershock.

She’s safe, he tells himself. She’s safe. Just broken in all the softest places.

“I swear it, kitten, on the poof’s soul.” Can’t bloody well swear on his own. Nothing holy left in him anymore. But you believe him anyway. Always have. “If it’s still too much, if you still want out… I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

There’s a pause, broken only by the drip of the tap and the sound of your breath hiccupping against his chest.

“Anywhere?” The question is small, childlike, full of something he recognizes too well: hope, starved and shaking. “A place you’ve been?”

He nods against your hair, never loosening his hold. “Sure. Or it can be somewhere different. New. Just for us.”

You lean back slightly to look at him, lashes clumped with tears, cheeks blotchy and mouth trembling. But your eyes… there’s a flicker in them now. Faint as the first star after sunset, but it’s there.

“Not trying to erase the past,” you mumble, voice thick. That easy acceptance shatters him all over again. “Only create the future. With you. We can make memories of our own.”

He smiles, lips twitching. One hand lifts, brushing along your jaw, his thumb catching a droplet rolling down your cheek. “Never shagged a girl standin’ in the Eiffel Tower, you know,” he says, casual as anything.

The sound that escapes you is uneven, half-sob and half-laugh, but it’s real, and it undoes him. You shake your head, resting your forehead against his collarbone. “If you want. Anything, if it’s you.”

He holds you tighter at that, his cheek resting against your temple.

There’s silence in the flat. Not the kind that comes from peace or contentment, but the kind that settles when there’s nothing left to say. The heater ticks, spitting dust into the air, gold creeping through the curtains like it’s sneaking in on tiptoe.

Spike lights a cigarette at the open window, sun not quite high, and tries not to let the smoke drift back down the hall toward the bedroom. You’re asleep, cozied into his pillow like you’re trying to disappear inside it. Happens more and more. You sleep mornings, patrol nights, and talk to no one in between—mostly him and the Bit. Maybe Red, if she manages to catch you outside the house before you shut her down with a polite smile and a tighter grip on your keys. Demon girl too, when she comes ’round for a drink and a bitch, her friends few and far between. And Glinda, always poppin’ over. Nice bird.

Alright, so maybe it’s not no one. Just Buffy and the boy.

You’ve withdrawn from your Scooby meetings, from anywhere the pair frequent. From everything outside this little home, this late-night life you’ve carved out between the cracks. Once upon a time, you’d cram into Buffy’s living room with the rest of ’em to plan a demon hunt, always with popcorn to spare. Now, the silence between you and them feels sharp enough to cut.

Spike knows how it looks to those two. Knows what they’re surely whispering now he’s not there to hear: that he’s isolating you, keeping you locked away so he can feed off whatever pieces of you that still remain. Sometimes he wants to. Could picture it, too. Keep you safe, tucked away from the nasties and the harm your so-called friends dole out like party favours, telling themselves it’s love. Keep you for himself. But love’s gone and twisted him soft, hasn’t it? Couldn’t bear to hurt you. He doesn’t get them, how they can stand it.

He’d tell them they’ve got it all backwards, that you’re the one who stopped showing up, who stopped answering their phone calls, who stopped listening whenever they caught you out at night and called your name to beckon you over. That he’s the only one you don’t brace yourself against anymore. But there’s no point. People see what they want to, and they want him to be the villain.

Fine. He’s been worse.

There’s a muted thump as Gus, one of his winnings from last week’s poker night, drops from the top of the fridge and glares at Spike like he’s the intruder. Bloody thing’s barely bigger than a toaster, but it’s got fangs and attitude and a mean swipe. Spike bares his teeth at it and mutters under his breath.

“Oi. Kitchen’s my territory, furball.”

The whole bleedin’ place is, but that doesn’t matter to Gus—he just hisses in response, flicking his tail like a whip.

They tried playing for kittens once. Demon girl, couple nice Brachens, Clem and his buddies from Willy’s; good, safe company. Clem swore the fluffballs wouldn’t stick around. Lied. Now Spike can’t make his mug of blood with Weetabix in it without risking a bite to the ankle, so it’s back to chips and cash next time. You, of course, love the li’l bastard, named him after that old cartoon mouse from the pictures. Spoil him rotten, too. He’s got a little fish-shaped dish on the counter and a cushion by the space heater in the living room. Spike’s own cushion, mind you, not that he’s bitter about it.

The rap at the door lets him know that Glinda’s come by as she said she would. He waits for the sound of the spare key in the lock, the squeak of the hinges as she steps through. Sees her pop her head into the kitchen, eyes gentle. There’s a canvas tote slung over her shoulder and a shoebox tucked under one arm.

“Thanks, Spike,” she says, moving into the room. “For this. Didn’t have to leave it all by the door. I would’ve sort–sorted it myself.”

Spike nods. “S’fine. Least I could do. That everything?”

She hesitates, then sets the shoebox down. A few books, a candle, one of those horrid tea mugs with an inspirational quote on it. Things she’d left behind when she moved on. Her fingers reach out to stroke down the kitten’s back, and the little prick purrs all the while.

“Yeah.” Her gaze drifts to the hallway, to the closed door of the bedroom. “Is she…”

He exhales smoke through his nose. “Still knocked out.”

“I wanted to see her, but… I get it. She’s not up for it, huh?” From anyone else, it’d sound like pity, but the witch has more magic to her than spells and curses.

Spike sighs, watches the cat take a flying leap off the counter—brave for a beast so small—and dart away, stumbling over too-big paws. “Not these days, no.”

The corners of her mouth turn down, all compassion, but there’s no hiding the sparkle in her eyes, the creases in her face from a fresh spot of laughter. She looks more alive than she has in a good while. The weight she’s been carrying seems lighter now.

“You look happier,” he says, and it’s not a dig. Tired still, yeah, but the grief’s gone.

She grins. “I’m—I’m moving back. To the house.”

He arches a brow. “So that means…”

“Yeah.” She glances away, expression exposing the delight she’s trying to restrain. “Me and Willow. We’re… trying again.”

“Good for you, luv.” Stubbing out his cigarette, he offers her a grin. “Ain’t love grand, eh?”

Not much more to be said after that. Glinda thanks him again, picks up her stuff and shuffles on out, the lock clicking shut behind her. The spare key’s left on the counter, polished metal gleaming in the morning light. Spike lingers by the window, listening to the hush that follows her absence. Nothing sad. Not for her. It’s the sound of the world waking up after a storm, quietly relearning what it means to live. Somewhere in the flat, a sound shatters the stillness—Gus knocking something over, probably the remote. Bloody cat’s been on a warpath, especially where his boots are concerned.

The rustle of sheets draws his attention. He slips down the hall, cracks open the door and slips through. You’re stirring, bleary-eyed and slow-limbed, a little frown forming between your eyebrows as you push yourself up on one elbow.

“W’ssat Tara?” you mumble, yawning.

“Yeah.” He slips off the duster, hanging it on the stand in the corner. “Came for her things.”

You rub at your face, the edge of your voice still full of sleep. “She say anything?”

“Movin’ back to Revello,” he says as he crosses to the bed, drops his jeans. “Her and Red are givin’ it another go.”

Your lips part around a little oh, and then you nod again, lids fluttering closed as you sink back into the mattress. “Comin’ back to bed?”

Spike slides down beside you, starkers, tugging the covers back up over you properly. “’Course. Gotta get me beauty sleep.”

You reach for him, lips upturned. “Pretty for the vamps later?”

“Nah.” He lays close, hands sliding along your skin, feeling you warm and substantial in his grasp. “For you.”

True, more or less. Patrol is mostly just foreplay. Not even his job, but he started when the Slayer’d shuffled off the mortal coil and you insisted on steppin’ up. You work out some frustrations on the first couple beasties—like last night’s fledge, first stake you didn’t hesitate to drive home—then spend the rest of it watching on as he gets a nice spot of violence in. As far as you’ve come, you’re no heavy hitter, so you hang back with a cross and stake as ol’ Spike shows off for you, throws extra ferocity into each swing. Gets you all hot and wet, him rippin’ apart some poor demon, but you’re always good in waiting ’til he’s done, ’til the fire in his gut’s enough to make him feel truly alive. Bloodlust turns to randiness, then. He gives it to you hard, bent over a headstone or crowded up against a crypt wall, sets you squealing. Makes his head buzz for hours after.

Worth it. Double worth it if he catches a flash of goldilocks hair in the moonlight, Slayer scent all furious and embarrassed as it fades with distance.

Your fingers find his jaw, thumb stroking lightly over his cheekbone, and he kisses your palm without needing to be asked. There’s nothing urgent in it. Only small reassurances, familiar maps retraced.

“Love you,” you tell him. “Know that, right?”

Spike’s voice is a whisper, rough around the edges. “Love you more.”

Knows you need to hear it more than ever. Need his touch, his care, his protection. Ironic, yeah? He’s a million times better at the things a father gives his girl than Hank ever was. Hell, it was why he was turned in the first place: to be Dru's dark prince, her guardian. Now, yours.

The soft hum of the heater fills the space, and you nuzzle into him, breaths coming slower and slower. For a bit, he thinks you’ve fallen asleep, starts to sink into a light doze, but you interrupt the serenity.

“They think it’s because of you,” you say quietly. “That I’ve—that I’ve pulled away.”

“Yeah.” There’s no venom to it. Just fact.

A brief lull, and then: “They’re wrong. If I have to lose them to keep you… then I will.”

He doesn’t answer that. Speaks for itself, yeah?

Sometimes he thinks that you can read his mind. That you know all his darkest thoughts, his worst impulses. His fears. How else can you get him the way you do? Get what he needs to hear, even before he realises it himself? He’s never had faith in anythin’ before. Never could. Couldn’t trust anyone enough for that. If he had faith left to give, he’d put it in you.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he mutters. “I’ve got you.”

He feels your lips curl up against his chest, feels that phantom thud between his ribs again, the skipping of a heartbeat. Your body relaxes against his, all trust in him—in him—and you and he both let the world shrink down to this bed, this quiet, this warmth. From the living room, Gus yowls at nothing, or maybe something only he can see. Spike stays still, content to bask in what he has while he has it.

But it’s inevitable―the shift in the tide. Humdrum doesn’t last forever. It’s shattered by the ringing of the phone, of all things.

It’s a jarring sort of noise that doesn’t belong in the quiet of afternoon some days later, shrill and sudden, slicing through the peace. Spike jerks from sleep, clutching his chest like the shock of it might’ve jumpstarted his pulse. You stir more sedately, breath hitching as you push yourself up on an elbow.

Warm and sluggish still, you roll toward the nightstand and fumble for the receiver, blinking blearily. Your voice is thick when you answer. “Hello?”

A beat of static—then sound crashes through, tinny and high-pitched and hysterical. “She’s not—she’s not moving. What do I do?”

He recognizes the speaker, and his gut turns to stone. Not the bloodless kind, but deeper, the kind that belongs to the living. Bit’s voice, cracked and raw, stabs through his ribcage. Beside him, your body goes rigid as you bolt upright, hand white-knuckled around the phone.

“Dawnie?” you ask, sharp and scared, fumbling with the covers twisted up around your legs.

“I—I don’t know what to do—she’s just—oh god, she’s so cold—”

“Who’s cold? What’s happening?”

“Tara. She’s—she’s not moving. She’s cold.”

Spike’s already heard all he needs to hear, feels it like a coffin lid slamming shut. Death. Real death, not the kind that unearths itself days later, not the kind he came back from. He gets out of bed, tugging on a pair of jeans, already thinking of how to get to the girl without turning to ash. Hunts for his boots. One’s missing. Dragged off down the hall, likely.

When he returns, you’re asking her where she is, calm as anything. Always admired that, he has: how straight you are when the going’s tough.

“In Willow’s room,” Bit sobs. “I—I found her like that. I tried to wake her up and she just… wouldn’t. There’s blood. I think there was a gun or something? I don’t know, I don’t know—”

“Okay, Dawnie, okay.” You’re up now, tugging yesterday’s hoodie over your—his—shirt, scrambling one-handed into a pair of loose-fitting track pants. “I’m coming. Don’t move her. Just—stay where you are, okay?”

You hang up before she can respond, tossing the phone to the bed. By the time you’ve slipped into your trainers, he’s swung his duster on, running through ways to get to Revello Drive in daylight without charring his arse to cinders.

“We don’t have time to black out the windows,” you say, shuffling through the bottom drawer. You toss the fireproof blanket at him, heading out of the room. He follows you to the kitchen, watches you snag his keys out of the bowl. “I’ll drive.”

“You hate stick,” he mutters. More correct to say you can’t drive stick at all, but it’s not the time. No other option, is there?

“I’ll figure it out,” you say.

And you do—sort of. The DeSoto jerks and bucks the whole way, stalling at every red like it’s trying to fight you off, but it moves quick enough. Spike huddles low in the back, wrapped in a shroud, and says nothing. Every turn sends sunlight spilling through the cracks, stinging like a cattle prod, though he doesn’t complain. Can’t. Not when you’re gripping the wheel as if your life depends on it, eyes wide and wet, near unseeing. His stomach turns like it’s trying to crawl out of him at the sight of you, so small in the driver’s seat, so close to splintering. He’s seen you nervous, angry, devastated. But this kind of fear, this kind of panic? It’s new.

“Easy, kitten,” he lets himself murmur when you nearly clip a parked car taking a corner too hard. “Don’t need both of us a pile of ash.”

You don’t answer. S’like you can’t hear him at all. He wants to tell you to slow down, pull over, that he’ll take over once the sun dips—dead is dead, and speed won’t change a thing—but he keeps his mouth shut.

When you screech to a stop outside the Summers house, you don’t wait for him. You’re out of the car before the engine’s off, racing up the drive and through the front door, hair wild and loose, calling Bit’s name as you vanish up the stairs. Spike stays low, crouched under the blanket, and makes a break for the porch as fast as he can without combusting. Slips inside slow, careful. The air is thick with something cloying. Grief, maybe, already settling in the walls.

He hears your voice upstairs, muted and shaking. Hears a sob that doesn’t belong to you. He climbs the stairs one step at a time, blanket over his head, and turns toward Red’s room.

You’re huddled in the corner, braced against the vanity. Bit’s crumpled into you, clutching at your waist like a little kid, face streaked with tears and staring at the floor. He steps in, follows her line of sight, and on the carpet—

Glinda.

Tara.

She was the good one. The warm one. The first one before you who looked at him like he was… like he was a man. And now, her arms are splayed out like a doll dropped mid-play, a hole torn through her chest, already crusting at the edges. All bones and blood, leaking out on a carpet he’s walked a hundred times. A stain no one will ever scrub out.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Niblet’s whispering. Her hands are covered in blood, up her arms and smeared on her jeans. Not wiped away so easily. “The others aren’t here. I didn’t know who to—to call.”

“You did good.” You move then, knee-walking in front of little sis to shield the view. “Come on. You’ve got—let’s clean you up.”

Dawn lets you tug her to her feet, push her toward the bathroom. You tell her to start the shower, then crack open the door to her bedroom. Spike leans against the doorframe, cautious, waiting. You rifle through the wardrobe, grabbing a fresh top and skirt, body moving automatically. Nothing behind the eyes. It’s when you turn to face him, startled by his presence, that emotion bleeds back in.

“Who—who do I call?” you ask him, taking a trembling breath. “Never done this part before.”

He’s across the room before he even realises it, hands framing your arms as though his body knew before his mind did that you needed grounding. You look up at him with a red-rimmed gaze, cracked porcelain seconds from smashing to pieces. And you ask him—him—what to do. That lands harder than the body in the next room. You’re relying on him to be steady when everything else isn’t.

“Ambulance, sweetheart.” That’s right, innit? He’s the one who dropped vics, not the one who stuck around to pick ’em up. But the answer seems to satisfy you; you nod, making to dart past him. He stops you. “You deal with Niblet, yeah? I’ll do the speakin’.”

Some of the tension eases at that. He feels it under his palms. It reminds him that you’re still painfully young. Too young for all this.

“Okay. Okay.” You set your shoulders, lift your chin. Always good at that—forcing resolve. You lean in briefly, press your mouth to his chest. “Thank you.”

He wants to respond, but the words clog in his throat. You’re off again by the time he boots back up again, already speaking in hushed tones to Bit. Girl’s shut down. He listens in on you narrating each step of the process, the rustle and slip and creak as you take over washing her like she’s an invalid. Anything to fill the silence.

Downstairs, the phone feels heavy in his hand. His voice sounds strange giving the address. Feels like a cruel trick; after centuries sending people to the grave, he’s the one left trying to explain the body. He’s used to them. Seen piles of them. But this one… this one doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong to some alley scrap or battlefield. This stuff doesn’t happen to someone he knows. Knew.

It’s only when you’re urging Little Bit down the stairs, snugging her up on the couch like bundles layers might keep the shock at bay, that he realises how much time’s passed. He won’t interfere with the pair of you. Gives you something to do, the fussing. The telly clicks on, filtered sound echoing through the house, a remnant of normality. He ventures out of the kitchen, eyes your front damp and tinged pink, hands clutching Dawn’s bloodied clothes.

“Gonna start a load,” you mumble, hugging the material. “Hopefully it’ll come out easy.”

“You should change too,” he says, extracting your quarry from you. Shouldn’t be a task for you, this. “Make yourself all neat.”

Just a suggestion, but you take it like a command: let him have Dawn’s things, strip down right there in the entry, pass your own stuff over. Lights on, no one home. You wander back upstairs, naked, and he heads down, starts the machine.

You’re in the shower when the paramedics arrive, so Spike handles it. Wants to yell at the two blokes as they move Glinda about, try to find some sign of life. There’s none. He knows. They offer meaningless condolences, use their li’l units to call in to the coroner, tell him someone’ll be by to pick her up. You’re all done by the time the next lot arrive, hair damp and stare vacant as strangers poke through your mum’s room—Red and Glinda’s room—and take their pictures. It’s all very clinical. Callous. He wonders how this detachment isn’t a sort of evil, too. Only nice thing about them is that, by the front door, they unzip the bag, let you say your last goodbyes.

Niblet weeps and hugs the body, plastic crinkling as she squeezes tight. He tugs her into the crook of his arm when she steps away, letting her cry. You stroke Glinda’s hair back, fix the flyaways. A wistful smile ghosts across your face as you lay your lips against her forehead.

“Love you, Tara,” you whisper.

His turn. Can’t say anything. He’s surprised at himself. Never got all that close. But there’d been… a quiet kind of truce between them. Respect, maybe. She saw more than she said, was warm and kind in that quiet, seeing way that made him uncomfortable. When he reaches out and brushes her shoulder, she doesn’t shy away. It’s the first time he’s ever touched her, he thinks. First, and last. Bit was right. Feels like ice under skin. He sees them load the gurney up, slam the back of the van shut, start the engine, but it’s just background to him. All he can feel is the absence of that heat, that life, long after her body’s taken away. Her soul’s probably long gone by now, but he hopes she felt it—him—somehow. Hope she knew that he was here, right ‘til the end.

Afterward, you ferry Dawn upstairs, tell her to pack a bag. The light’s faded out, giving way to a dusk that paints eerie shadows across the walls. While you’re busy, the washer downstairs beeps its little tune. Done. He sticks the clothes up on the line running under the basement stairs, just finishing up with a sock as the front door bangs open.

Voices crash in: the Slayer, sharp and frantic, calling out for Dawn. Xander’s right behind her, heavy footsteps and ragged breath like he ran the whole way here. Spike sprints, intercepts them before they can stampede up the stairs, ruin the tenuous calm you’ve created.

“She’s upstairs,” he says, tone low and measured, “gettin’ her stuff.”

Buffy halts, halfway to shoving past him. For once, she doesn’t look like she wants to dust him where he stands. Just stops, looking lost. “Where—where’s Tara?”

“Gone.”

The stairs creak behind him. He turns to see you coming down slowly, drawn and hollow, borrowed clothes hanging off you wrong. Big sis’s wardrobe suits you poorly.

“Spike called it in,” you add, knuckles cracking against the banister, speaking in that oddly flat cadence. “Coroner came.”

Buffy exhales unsteadily, eyes glistening. Unsurprised. She knew, then. So did the boy, if his lack of shock’s anything to go by. He frowns, pained-looking, gaze sweeping over you and then up, like he’s trying to will it all to be a dream. Spike’s torn by the urge to throttle the pair of ’em—who the bloody hell leaves a pair of teen girls to clean up after a corpse?—‘til he sees you sag against the newel post. He reaches for you, steadying you before your knees give out. You fall into him like it was inevitable, like you were always going to seek him out, reflexive. His arm spans your waist, hand slotting into its natural place at your hip.

“She was—Warren.” She glances down at her shoulder, at the splotch of rust-dark drying on her jacket. Swallows. “He was… aiming for me.”

Spike jerks his chin toward it. “Didn’t just miss, then.”

“You alright?” you ask softly, all worry. Instead of going to her, though, you shrink into him. The other two notice. Wants to be smug about it, but the victory feels empty right now.

“I wasn’t. For a while, I wasn’t.” Her voice catches, like it hurts to speak it aloud. “I don’t even remember falling. Just… black.”

Spike’s jaw tightens. You flinch beside him.

Buffy’s hand drifts toward the stain, brushing it lightly. “It should’ve been over. It was over. But Willow—” She swallows. “She saved me.”

A chill rolls through the room. You stiffen in Spike’s arms, breath snagging on a sharp inhale. He feels it. Your fear. Not of death, but of history, of the way it keeps repeating like a curse no one’s figured out how to lift.

“She brought you back again,” you whisper.

“Yeah,” Buffy says, quiet. “She didn’t even hesitate.”

No one speaks for a moment. Even the house feels like it’s listening.

“Using again, then?” Spike asks. Tries to keep the rattle of fear out of his voice. “Magic.”

A dumb question, but he has to hear it for himself.

Buffy nods. “Yeah. She was here. When—when it happened.”

Bleedin’ Christ.

Spike’s throat works around a tightness he can’t name. He thinks of how your body’d feel, lifeless beneath him. Thinks of the Bit when he found her with Glinda. Thinks of Red reaching past the veil without blinking, again and again, destroying little pieces of herself every time.

He’s been on the wrong end of her rituals and incantations before. Nearly got hitched to the Slayer ’cause of her. Forgot everything and thought he was a tosser named Randy Giles for a bit, too; only lucky part of that whole cockup was the li’l photo of you an’ him in your purse, no mistaking his connection to you. You might’ve ripped his bollocks off if he thought himself attached to one of the other birds. And both those times were the result of her mistakes. Accidental magic. A helluva witch, to be able to chalk up the bending of reality itself to mere misfortune. On purpose, she’s performed feats that anyone else might call impossible: re-ensoulment, enjoining, resurrection…

How much more can she take before the world breaks for good? he wonders.

Zeppo only adds to the worry. “She’s not herself,” he says, rubbing a hand down his face. “She’s after Warren.”

Spike’s no idiot. Body upstairs when he got here means Red couldn’t revive her. If Red’s back on magic—back doing stuff as powerful as patching up bullet holes in a Slayer’s shoulder after weeks without so much as floating a pencil—then what the bloody buggerin’ fuck is gonna happen next?

You’re tense beside him, probably thinking the same thing as he is. “Think she’s turned to black arts again?” you ask.

“Most likely.” Buffy all but stares you down. “I’ve never seen her like this. Not even… not even then.”

That sits out in the open for a bit. Spike lets himself consider it. He was there, wasn’t he? A favour for the Slayer when she stopped by, asked if you or he’d seen Niblet or the witch. He figured helping out with the search might force her to speak to you proper. Didn’t. Not when faced with what Red had done. The car. The demon. Her, eyes black, off her face high. Sobbing on the ground. Thought that was the lowest she could get.

“We—we’re going after her,” Buffy continues. “We have to…”

“You have to stop her.” You meet her eyes straight on. “Should we come with?”

“No!” Big sis shakes her head vehemently, hand reaching instinctively toward you. He knows where this is going. Steps back a little. Buffy flashes a look at him, acknowledgement, and takes the space he’s offered. “Take Dawn with you. Keep yourselves safe. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

That last bit, she directs at him. Message’s clear. ‘Protect them.’

He doesn’t need a request to shield you or Bit from anythin’, but he’ll accept the peace offering. Dips his head. ‘I will.’

“Okay,” you whisper.

It draws her attention back to you. She focuses in on your face, demeanour melting as her palm brushes your cheek. When you lean in, her eyes brim, her aura of strength diminishing. She’s not the Slayer right now. Just a girl. She draws you into a hug, chin settling in the crook of your neck, her frame slumping. You don’t recoil, don’t falter―you rest your head on her shoulder, hands linking around her middle. Muscle memory.

“I almost died again,” she murmurs against your temple. “And I just… God. I’m so tired of being this person.”

“I know.” Your voice is muffled. “We’ll deal with all that later.”

Time seems to halt for as long as you share the embrace, an endless instant. Spike doesn’t know how long passes―only sees the laxness in the curve of her mouth as it grazes your forehead, the scrunch of her brows like she’s savouring this final manifestation of love between siblings. Wonders if she’s expecting this fight to be her last, again. Then she’s gone, bolting up the stairs. Spike hears Little Bit’s sobs start up again, Buffy’s voice shushing her, trying to soothe.

The boy shifts forward then, arms half-raised like he’s unsure if he’s welcome. If it were up to Spike, he’d toss him out on his arse. But you’re too good for grudges. You don’t stop him, let him fold around you like he has the right to seek comfort after all he’s done. No surprise, no forgiveness. Just tired, the sort that’s bone-deep. Spike can see it in the way you slip your head under the boy’s chin like a kid clinging for warmth―that you need this, too. When Xander pulls away, he nods in Spike’s direction and trudges up the stairs after Buffy. Solidarity, or perhaps recognition. Could never be gratitude. Not from the likes of him.

And then it’s just the two of you again.

As activity ignites above―drawers opening and closing, plans being made, digits being plugged into someone’s mobile device―you turn back to Spike. Something in your expression is breaking open, giving way.

“Is this the price?” you ask, plaintive. Reminds him of little sis, the way she hangs on his words as though he’s some sort of prophet. “For loving you? Everyone else suffers?”

Sounds like something he’d think, and that’s what stings the most: watching as your light’s snuffed out time and time again by the cruel hands of fate. Like looking at you and seeing his own face―young, human, still worth something―staring back at him. His fingers itch to break something, but not you. Never you.

“Nah, baby.” He gathers you up, tucks you close. Imagines that if he’s solid enough, broad enough, he might block out the rest of it. “It’s not the price for loving me. S’only the price of livin’. Gets heavy, even hurts… but it’ll pass. Always does.”

You don’t respond. Just settle into him, pressing your face to his chest and letting your breath even out against him, accepting what little he has to give.

He should’ve bloody well known better.

Spike took you both back to the flat―two traumatised girls, barely speakin’, blank-eyed and morose. Made him uneasy. Not used to grief. Spent more years than not kickin’ about with Dru, and sure, Angelus getting a soul shoved in him and subsequently abandoning his family was a knee to the bollocks. That was more rage, though, the hurt dressed as a pressing need for vengeance against the ones who cursed him. Spike’s grandsire. He hunted down the lot of ’em, down to the last child, but didn’t change nothin’. And yeah, deep down, it still stings. The rejection. Being chucked away by the one who made him who he is. But that? Not the same as this. because at least Angelus wasn’t really gone. Not like Glinda.

He was the one fixin’ the bedding this time, settin’ Bit up on the sofa, pattin’ her goodnight on the head. He was about to turn off the light when the phone rang; not the one in the bedroom, but the cordless landline in the kitchen. Shrills loud since you dropped it in the sink the other week, stuck itself on speaker mode and won’t work otherwise. Snatching the receiver off the cradle, he barked, “What?” before it had barely rung thrice.

“Spike?”

The Slayer. Figured.

“Yeah.” Tried not to sound pissed off. Niblet had just closed her eyes, but the noise got her all wound up again, sitting up like she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning.

“You know that warlock―Rack—the one who got Willow hooked.” Buffy’s voice was tight and breathless, as though she’d been sprinting for miles before finding a payphone. “How do I find him?”

Shite. Dawn’s heartbeat picked up behind him, rabbit-quick. He was tempted to disappear down the hall, take the conversation away from prying ears, but there’d been no point. Could’ve heard it from two floors down, probably. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why―lookin’ to score?”

“Not funny,” Buffy snapped. “It’s important. Willow broke into the Magic Box. She’s―”

“Lemme guess.” He hummed, unimpressed. “Nicked all the bad mojo?”

“Absorbed it,” she corrected grimly. “All of it. Anya said the books disintegrated in her hands.”

You appeared at the bedroom door, face stricken as you ventured up the hall with light footsteps. Thought you were asleep. Must’ve been wrong.

“After,” Buffy continued, “Willow, she―she found Warren. We were too late. She…”

Spike finished the sentence for her. “Killed him.”

“Worse.” She didn’t elaborate. He was glad for it, what with present company listenin’ in. “We… we think she’s gone to Rack. He gave Warren some… some protection thing-y. Made her really mad. She has to be―stopped.”

Before he could respond, Little Bit sidled up beside him, blanket and jammies ’n all.

“Rack’s place is cloaked,” she said quietly. When he arched his brow at her, interrogative, she added, “Willow took me there. That time. There’s some kinda spell―she said only demons and people with magic could find it.”

He nodded, eyeing you as you moved toward her, took hold of her arm. She leaned into you, awkward with the height difference. Little sis towered over you.

“Try Clem, Slayer,” Spike said. “He’ll know. Won’t get you inside, but he’ll take you to the door. Tell him I sent you.”

“Okay.” Distorted whispers undercut Buffy’s voice, delaying her next words. “Spike… Thank you.”

The line clicked dead.

No worries, then. Didn’t get a chance to say it aloud. He replaced the receiver with a thunk, the only sound other than the typical sputtering pipes and humming heater being the low purr emitted by Gus on the pillow in the corner.

“You okay, Dawnie?” you asked, drawing the girl back to the makeshift bed. “Need anything?”

She was a little too quick with the reassurance, now he thinks about it. Insisted she was fine, that she just wanted to sleep. Dream the horror of the day away. He could blame you and the way you took it at face value, patting her back and fixin’ the covers over her when she asked to be alone. But really, he should’ve known better―shouldn’t have allowed you to drag him to the bedroom, coax him into lying down next to you, dressed ’n all. Shouldn’t have shut his eyes and let the thud-thud of your pulse lull him into oblivion. Should’ve known it was suspicious.

That’s probably why he’s not surprised right now. Furious? Sure. But waking up a couple hours into nightfall to utter quiet―not soundless, but instead, the kind of quiet that just doesn’t happen when you’ve got an extra human in the joint―he only feels the curdling of disappointment in his gut. Disappointment in himself. Feels blisteringly hot, or maybe that’s the urge to rip her foolhardy head off.

Still, “Niblet?” he calls. No answer.

You stir beside him, but he’s already up and at ’em, prowling about the place, tryin’ to uncover some sort of clue that’ll tell him where she went. As he moves about, you’re rolling off the bed, cracking the sleep from your limbs and shuffling after him gracelessly. You get with the program quick, confusion turning to panic as your cries of her name grow to a fever pitch. He barely registers it, too busy cataloguing the obvious: Little Bit’s ransacked backpack. Missing keys. Shoes gone.

Spike has to move the bloody cat off the kitchen counter before he finds the folded note, the familiar chicken scrawl American schools teach kids in this century:

Gone to find Willow. I have to try. Don’t be mad.

– Dawn

He crumples the note in his fist, yellow bleeding into his eyes as he lets out a snarl, turning abruptly. Gus skitters off, tail swishing angrily. “Bloody stupid, stubborn, heroic little snipe.”

You blink at him, ashen. “What? Where is she? Has Willow taken her?”

He tosses the note in your direction; you fumble as you catch it, unfurling the paper and reading its contents. What little blood’s left in your face drains and you look back up at him.

“Oh my god,” you mutter, tiny breaths coming fast. The note falls from your fingers. “Oh my god. We―we have to go, we have to find her, before―”

“No,” he snaps, cutting you off before you can reach your coat. “I’ll find her. You’re stayin’ here.”

Shoving at him’s no good. Too strong, especially compared to your human frailty. He remains unmoved, captures your wrists and brings them to his chest, holds ’em firm. After a bit of struggle, you slump, defeated.

“Glinda’s dead. Red’s gone ’round the twist. Bit’s disappeared.” Can’t help easing his grip, reaching for you good ’n proper. His hands trace a line down your back, settle at the dip in your spine. He tries not to let the desperation colour his tone. “Won’t lose you,” he murmurs. I’ll dust meself, he doesn’t say. Rather die than see you dead.

The hard line of your mouth softens, muscles relaxing in his grasp.

“Spike. Honey.” Pet name always gets him. He shudders, melts like wax against the heat of your fingers sweeping up the ridge of his cheekbone. “I understand, I swear I do. But”—your eyes become flinty—“you can either know exactly where I am, or you can spend the rest of the night wondering.”

For a second, he thinks about grabbin’ the handcuffs from the bedside drawer and shackling you to the bars on the window beside the sofa. Then he thinks about what you’d do to him when he came back and released you. If he came back. Nah. A losing game, there. He growls, torn between his fury and a grim sort of admiration, though the display of his temper doesn’t scare you. You give him no reaction. Not in that pitying way the others look him up and down when he bursts out in anger, but simply undaunted blankness—the kind of daring that comes from a lifetime of pushing past fear just to be seen and heard for who you are.

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. But you bloody well stay behind me. Got it?”

You nod, taking advantage and darting up on tiptoes to press your lips to his jaw, relief flickering across your face. You’re already pulling on your boots by the time he grabs his duster from the peg, though you let him help you button your coat over your nightwear.

“Come on then, kitten,” he says, listening to your heart thudding like a war drum. “Let’s go save the Bit’s stubborn hide.”

It’s not hard to find the place. Spike starts by stickin’ to what he remembers from talk around town, lets his nose do the rest. Should be near impossible to get to, but the air tastes wrong tonight. There’s a buzz to it, makes his gums ache like his fangs’ve torn through in the midst of a vicious kill. Magic. Thick, crackling, ripe with rot—and it’s everywhere. It coats the back of his throat.

You walk beside him, hands fisted in your pockets, the set of your shoulders stubborn. Determined. Part of him hates it. The grit in you. Not ’cause it’s ugly—never that—but ’cause it means you’re about to do something far too dangerous, all in the name of love. And he gets that; oh, he gets that. But he wishes you didn’t understand him so well that you’d pull the same suicidal stunts.

“You sure about this?” he asks you anyway, the third time since you left the car parked two blocks down the road.

You don’t answer―just shoot him a look. He can tell what it means: that you’ll be going with or without him, and that he should shut up about it already.

“Yeah, alright.” He kicks at a bit of loose gravel as you round the corner. “But if she’s found Red―if the witch is there―you run. No cleverness, no speeches. Just run.”

“I’m not leaving you,” is your response, matter-of-fact ’n subject closed. He doesn’t argue. What’s the point? Not gonna win.

Halfway down the alley, he pauses. The heat’s gone, the usual whisper brushing across the back of the neck whenever he gets near particularly dark mojo. When his eyes adjust, he can see it―the door, nestled in among the dinky back entries of shops long since closed. Blacked-out windows, sigils sprayed in grime on the glass. S’not a place he’s supposed to be able to observe with his own eyes… which means the wards are broken. And a nasty like Rack ain’t the type to bring ’em down willingly.

There’s a subtle shudder in the ground as he nears―shadow-magicks, rippling through the threshold. He grabs your wrist, yanks you close. “You hear that?”

You dip your chin once in acknowledgement, head tilted. Listening. A muffled voice, familiar, but the tone is cruel, sneering. With some focus, his enhanced senses pick up the thread of conversation.

“… the one where you lie to your friends when you’re not trying to kill them? And you wreck everyone else’s happiness just so you don't have to be so miserable alone? And insane asylums are the comfy alternative? This world? Buffy, it’s me.”

The witch. The Slayer.

Red’s still going. “I know you were better off when you were in the ground. Ah-ah, Dawnie―”

Niblet.

He doesn’t wait. One solid kick and the door splinters. His body moves on instinct, dragging you in by the arm, shielding you as the power inside the room slams into him like a train. Red’s warping space, bending reality in on itself, folding sharp corners where there shouldn’t be any. Light refracts sideways. Gravity pulses. Every cell in his body screams.

Red turns her head.

Christ. Any other time, he’d find the new look delicious: black-eyed, skin ash against tar-dark veins creeping up her neck, across her face. Hair dyed to pitch by sheer force of will. The magic she’s swiped coils around her, fogging up the air like mist in sub-zero temperatures. Unnatural. Profane. Exactly his type, once upon a time. But it’s only a mirage, a crutch she’s using to hide from her pain.

“Great,” she says, sighing. “More of you. Can’t you all just mind your own business?”

Spike doesn’t answer. Dawn’s beside her, wrist held loosely in her grip, frozen. Girl’s face is white, tears glimmering in her lashes but not falling. She’s not struggling―just staring at him, you, Buffy, something like grief in her expression.

“Bit,” he calls, free hand reaching out. “Come on. C’mere, luv. We’ll take you home.”

He hoped there’d be enough of Willow left in the witch to let her go. Instead, Red laughs, bubbling up oily and sweet and mocking. Not a sound that belongs in a human mouth.

“What’s wrong, Spikey?” she asks, pouting exaggeratedly. “Scared of a little magic?”

He wonders what she’s pulling ’til he sees the world around him begin to shift, to blur into abstract colours. Room’s vibrating hard enough to make his eyeballs itch. He’s the only one who can feel it: neither you nor your sisters are showin’ any discomfort beyond the emotional.

“I keep forgetting,” she continues airily, picking up on his uneasiness. Can’t tell if she’s just good at reading people or if she’s picked up telepathy. “Trip’s kinda rough, huh?”

Something locks into place―everything sharpens, settling into a new configuration. A new location. Familiar smells: candle wax, dust, the faint trace of incense. His ears ring as his vision levels out, taking stock of his surroundings. The Magic Box.

Red steps forward, grinning. “Well. If you’re not me, that is.”

The effects of her spell finally hit―you fall, knees buckling, and Spike barely catches you as your legs go out. Across the room, Little Bit’s collapsed, the Slayer rushing to with a cry of her name. The witch ignores it all, turning to eye the shop’s other occupants: Zeppo frozen behind the counter, the two rawboned geeks at the table, sweaty and wide-eyed. She smiles.

“Jonathan. Andrew. You boys like magic, don’t you?” Her words seem to conjure violet energy so ferocious it whips her hair into a froth, lightning crackling. She lifts her hands. “Abracadabra.”

Spike braces himself for the release, crouching over you to shelter you from the worst of it. The magic explodes forward, hurtling toward the boys―but it never reaches them. Something’s blocking it, a flickering dome flaring around them.

Red stops, darkly amused. Might be worse than frustration; means she’s still playin’. “Huh. Didn’t see that coming.”

The pair seem just as confused as she, cowering in their seats.

“Aw. You guys wanna take it slow? I can do that.” The witch’s mouth is still curved up, still light. A cat playing with its prey before going for the kill. “Ask Warren. Oh. Wait.”

Beneath the roaring of her renewed attack, Spike hears a soft stream of chanting. Sumerian, he thinks, though it’s heavily accented. American. Demon girl, hidden somewhere in the room. “Gurumē ninginme, nugul-gula, gurumē ninginme, še-me dul-dul-e. Gurumē ninginme, nugul-gula, gurumē ninginme, še-me dul-dul-e…”

Somethin’ about shields, protection from black arts. Smart bird, he thinks, but says nothing. Doesn’t want to give her away. Meanwhile, the geeks are scrambling up out of their chairs, shoving at each other.

“Let’s get out of here,” one of ’em exclaims. Can’t tell which.

They run toward the open back door, which slams shut on them.

“Come on,” Red says, strolling toward them all casual. “Stay a while. We’re just getting started.”

While she’s distracted, Spike takes his opportunity. “Let’s go, kitten,” he mutters, nudging you along. “Gotta move.”

You stumble to your feet, barely keeping up with the speed at which he pushes you to the counter, to where Xander’s hiding. Slayer’s takin’ his lead with Dawn, and you grab little sis’s hand as the pair of you converge on each other, huddle down where you can’t be seen. Buffy turns to him, locking eyes. ‘We’re fighting,’ her look says, and he lets himself nod in response. Understanding. An accord. They move into the danger zone, a buttress against the witch―who’s still yappin’, high off her own power.

“Doesn’t matter, really. I’m just curious.” Shrugging, she points to Jonathan and Andrew. “But just ’cause I can’t do magicks on you, doesn’t mean I can’t do them on myself.” She bends her head, muttering, “Da mihi vim.” Latin. Give me strength.

Spike tastes it before he sees it. The magic rolls like a storm front, thick and dirty, acrid as burnt ozone. He feels it rattling like dying breath as a pillar of swirling light surrounds her, sending him and Buffy to the ground. Gettin’ real sick of this li’l trip, he is. From the floor, he watches as the spell dissipates, as Red looks at her own hands and grins.

“Alright. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough”―she nearly glides as she heads straight for the geeks, grabbing hold of the table they’re using as a barrier and sending it flying across the room―“to beat you to death.”

The Slayer darts into the witch’s space, blocking her path before she has the chance to act.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” she says.

Red responds not with words, but with a punch so hard it sends Buffy crashing through the candle rack. “Not a problem.”

Right, then.

He’s already moving, letting the skin of the demon ripple over his body. Knows this is gonna hurt―if not from the chip, then from the brawn she’s imbued herself with. She smirks, gaze trailin’ up and down like she’s assessed him and found him lacking. He recognises that look. Doesn’t matter who it’s aimed at. Just a blind need to destroy.

“You up next?” she asks, flexing her fists teasingly.

But he’s not payin’ mind to her. Should be, but can’t―because he sees it. You. Moving out from behind the counter, twitch in your arms and catch in your breath. Knows what you’re about to do. His stomach drops. He lurches in your direction, but it’s too late. You bolt from where he hid you, all reckless and stupid with your palms raised in surrender.

“Willow!”

Fuck.

“Willow,” you repeat, soft and pleading, sticking your fingers straight into the flame. Behind you, Xapper’s taken control, herding Little Bit and the other two toward the edge of the room. “Please,” you say. “You don’t have to do this.”

For a second, he thinks he sees a glimpse of her. The girl. Computers, books, fuzzy sweaters. Timid, human, too much heart and not enough boundaries. Only a second—then she vanishes, replaced once more by something vicious, meaner. Her sneer brims with lashed fury.

“You know what I hate about you, kitten?” she says, head tilting as she examines you. “You think you have all the answers. That you can fix everything with a few high-and-mighty words.” Her eyes glint obsidian. “But you didn’t fix Ta―fix her. So much for that superiority complex, huh?”

You stand stock still, lower lip wobbling once. Then nothing. “I know… Willow. I know you’re hurting. But this isn’t—”

“Oh, please.” Her voice drops, thick with venom. “You don’t get to pull the sweet little sister routine on me. Not when you’ve got him”—she jerks her chin toward Spike—“on your leash.”

His gaze meets yours, sees your terror before some kind of resolve pushes the weakness out. He shakes his head. “Don’t.”

A warning, a plea―but it doesn’t stop you. Your steps are cautious as you pick your way through the debris, stare sliding back to the witch. He feels the heat of you next to him. There’s defeat written in the tense jut of your shoulder-blades, the anticipation of certain doom. You meet Willow’s gaze head-on, even as everything in Spike tells him to get you out.

“This needs to stop.” You sweep your hand through the air, motioning to all the chaos surrounding you. “Do you think Tara would’ve wanted this? That she’d be happy about any of—”

“Shut up!” Any trace of laughter is gone at the utterance of that name. A curse. Red stalks forward, veins seeming to darken and spread their terrible poison, intent on exacting justice for invoking her lover’s ghost.

Spike’s in motion before he even thinks. Doesn’t matter if it fries him, doesn’t matter if she tears him limb from limb, if it means you live. He’d take it a thousand times over. He’d crawl across glass, dive into sunlight, rip himself apart to keep you breathing. And you’re in her sights, in mortal peril, and he has to move―

His instincts clamour, putting him between you and her in half a second. Shoving you back, he bares his teeth, reflex driving him onward. Not elegant, not smart, but it’s all he’s got. All that matters is shielding you, stopping Red’s wrath from touching your skin. Almost feels the pain before it hits, just waiting for one wrong move to sink its teeth in him. But he’ll do it anyway, because it’s you.

He doesn’t even feel his fist connect—only the detonation behind his eyes. Through a wall of static, he hears you scream his name.

White-hot fire cascades through his head, sizzling down his spine like the aftershocks of an explosion. Roaring, he drops, clutching his head. Something liquid drips from his nose. But it’s almost secondary to the fear―because if this chip kills him now, who’s left to protect you?

You collapse beside him, fingers scrabbling at his shoulders like you could physically hold him here, anchor him to this world by touch alone. “Spike. Spike!”

It was always going to end like this, wasn’t it? All the strength in the world, and he still can’t do the one thing that matters. Still too weak to protect you.

Red straightens slowly, rubbing her cheek and looking down at him with unholy delight.

“Oh, Spikey,” she purrs. He barely hears it. Can tell she’s gettin’ closer, though. “Still trying to play Big Bad?”

Like a wounded, snarling animal, he hisses, tries to rise. But his body won’t obey.

“You’re so pathetic,” she adds. “You think this―this―is love? You and her?”

‘Know it is,’ he’d say, if he could remember how to make words. But there’s nothing. Nothing exists outside the agony.

“You do realise she’s going to die, right? Maybe not today, but someday. You’ll outlast her. You’ll lose her. Maybe that’s what you’re really in love with: that pain. Figures.”

Your fingers clench down on the neckline of his shirt, involuntary. He can’t tell if the stab of nausea’s from her li’l speech or from the repeated zapping in his skull. Either way, he thinks he might bring up the blood he forced down earlier. Still, his body tries to rise. Through cloudy eyes, he sees the witch’s arm raise, point straight at him.

“Here,” she says, lips peeling back like flesh from bone. “Since you love pain so much―let me help you feel really loved.”

Her fist snaps closed.

For a breath, Spike’s numb―then it hits, so sharp that his senses flatline. Not a bomb, this time: an entire universe, collapsing in on itself as the sun eats each planet whole. Someone’s poured acid into his brain stem, crushed his skull to pulp. He’s been tossed in acid-soaked barbed wire, the corrosive wet of it pouring down his chin and out his ears. Can taste it, the metal. Barely hears his own scream, guttural, shorting out in staccato beats. He convulses, seizes, everything he knows blinking in and out in flashes. White, red, black.

Chip’s never felt like this before. Not just pain. It’s punishment.

There’s shouting―yours, maybe his, maybe both―but it’s underwater. Endless infinity rolls itself into seconds, millennia passing in instants. Can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t―can’t tell if he’s on fire or if he’s been got for good. But he knows where you are. Feels you. Smells you. The weight of you flung over him, touch on his face like a whisper through smoke. He promised. He―

“Stop! Willow, please, stop!”

Your voice streams through like water to a man dying of thirst. You’re crying. Because of him. Because he was too slow. Too old. He wants to reach for you, tell you he’s okay―but even his thoughts are unsteady, falling like teeth from a shattered jaw. His eyes roll as the next spasm takes hold. Through it, the blur of your face, pink ’n tear-stricken, streaks of pale crossing up over him as he’s grabbed at. Dragged along the ground, voices fading, fading.

Can’t die, he thinks muzzily. Not yet. Not while the witch could still…

He swore he’d protect you, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to you. But now your hands are slick on his chest and he’s going under, failing again. Would rather die than see you dead… and now it’s you watching him slip away.

Spike tries to speak, to say your name, to tell you he loves you one last time, but his mouth won’t work. And then—

It’s all gone.

He wakes to the taste of copper. Not blood, not quite. It’s watered down, dragged through a rusted pipe and sour on his tongue. His head feels like it’s been split open, stitched up with silver thread and set on fire for the fun of it. He groans.

Am I dust? he wonders. If he’s gone to ashes, then this has gotta be hell. No other place for a demon like him. But where’s the eternal suffering? The rack, the flogger, the echoes of screams in the distance? Little anticlimactic, all things considered. Blinking up at the ceiling, he’s struck by how familiar it looks. Been here before. Can’t remember, though. Can’t…

Movement beside him. Rustling fabric. The sound of slow, deep breaths. An arm draped across his ribs, heart thudding to the beat of sleep nearby. Your scent. You, curled into him, mouth parted. Alive.

Thank Christ.

Relief shudders through battered muscles, throbbing but responsive. Good. He forces his neck to arch so that his eyes can settle on you, tucked against his side on the bed, hair messy and clothes mussed. Safe. Can smell blood, but it’s not yours. Overlapping that scent is the familiar vanilla-smoke of the flat, the prickle of cat hair in his nostrils, the sting of the disinfectant you use to scrub the bathroom. Home.

Spike tries to ground himself in his own body, lets himself feel all the li’l aches and twinges that come with wakin’ up after a cosmic thrashing. Forgot what it felt like to be in control. The witch can’t have had him under for long—but pain has a way of transcending time. Could’ve been a moment, could’ve been an age. His gaze wanders, taking in the dim light from the lamp in the corner, Gus at the foot of the bed. Across the room, in the threadbare armchair by the blacked-out window—

Giles.

“Watcher,” Spike rasps, all cracked like gravel run over by a compact roller.

Man doesn’t startle; just looks at him, newspaper lowering to his lap. His face is busted up, expression unreadable. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah. What gave it away? The moaning, or all the moving around?” When the old boy doesn’t rise to the bait—instead, keeps on staring like he’s found an interestin’ specimen locked up in a zoo—Spike grunts. Didn’t come for another round of beat the vamp, then. He changes tack. “When did you show up?”

Giles’s nostrils flare. “From what I can determine, not long after you were… rendered unconscious.”

“Right.” Rendered unconscious. Nice way to put his whole being-almost-dead. “An’ Red?”

“Dealt with.” At Spike’s eyebrow raise, he clarifies. “She—briefly—attempted to bring about another apocalypse. Suffice to say, she did not succeed.”

Huh. Must’ve been a hell of a plan to talk her down from that ledge. When Spike asks, though, the bastard smiles. It’s not a happy thing.

“Xander,” he says softly, eyes misting over. “Xander got through to her, in the end.”

Spike rolls his eyes. Hell, even that hurts. “Really. Zeppo?”

“He is not so useless as you believe,” is Giles’s response. His tone’s a shade cooler this time. Figures.

“S’pose he was bound to get it right eventually,” Spike offers, reluctant.

Giles makes a vague noise of agreement.

There’s a lull after that. Spike’s not blind—throughout the conversation, he noticed the man’s stare linger a bit too pronounced on you, on the way you’ve wrapped yourself around him so obviously in your slumber. He’s clearly gearin’ up to speak his mind, seeing as he’s the only one who hasn’t weighed in on you and Spike yet. At least, not in person; he’s surely pestered you over the phone at some point, but you’ve never mentioned anything of the sort.

Spike takes the chance to observe you a little closer. You’ve shuffled around a bit what with all the noise he’s been makin’, but that’s about as far as you’ve got to being awake. He can see your face now: dark circles beneath your eyes, pallid skin, lips dry and cracked. There’s the faint tang of dried sweat, the musk of unwashed hair. Not unpleasant in itself, but for what it means—that you’ve been running yourself ragged.

“She’s scarcely moved from your side for days, now.”

He glances up to see Giles leaning forward in his seat, hands clasped. Pensive.

“There were moments when it seemed… likely that you would not survive,” he adds. “But she refused to accept it.”

Spike feels his mouth lift at the corners, throat tightening. “Stubborn girl.”

Giles nods. “Quite. She’s been feeding you. Human. She persuaded Buffy to procure it from Willy’s.”

That explains the smell, then. And the crinkling whenever he moves: blood bags strewn across the mattress, drained to emptiness, a matching crust smearing his chin.

“Didn’t think the Slayer gave a toss,” Spike murmurs.

“Oh, she doesn’t.” Giles chuckles, a short, grim sound. “But she would do anything for those she loves. It seems that is a Summers trait.”

Gotta be. Spike doesn’t know what to do with the ache in his chest—not a physical one, but the pangs of old wounds scabbing over. Strange, for someone to care enough about him to… to push their limits, to risk their peace, to do whatever it takes to keep him around. Always some ulterior motive, like the Slayer settin’ him up for your sake. But you? S’not explainable. Not in the language he understands: violence, trickery, egotism. It upends belief, to have stumbled his way into love. Real love. Wild, passionate, dangerous, yeah. Bein’ all broke in this bed’s proof enough of that. But it doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t break away bits of himself ’til there’s nothing left. Instead, it makes him whole.

“Yeah,” Spike says finally, a little choked up.

Giles sighs. “I admit I… this. It’s not what I expected.”

“No?”

“I thought it was the same as everything you’ve done previously. Manipulation. Obsession. Perhaps a ploy for leverage.”

Spike expected the jab, but it’s still a sore spot. He can’t help himself. “That’s the problem with you lot, yeah? Always expect the worst of me. Really any wonder that I feel the way I do—when she’s only ever seen the best in me?”

Rather than incense the man, it seems to make him thoughtful. A moment passes, and then he murmurs, “Indeed. You nearly died for her.”

“’Course.” Spike’s jaw clenches. “Not lettin’ anything hurt her.”

“You attacked Willow,” Giles says carefully. “A human. With your chip still active. You had to know what that meant.”

“I knew,” Spike says. “Didn’t care.”

There’s another beat of silence. Giles looks older, worn down. Less righteous, somehow.

“She loves you,” he says at last.

Spike’s eyes flicker down to you, the flash of an unwelcome voice resounding: “she’s going to—” He swallows. “I know,” he says.

“And you—”

“I’d burn the world down for her.” Simple. Not even a second’s thought. The Watcher’s clearly surprised by it. “Haven’t you figured that out?”

Giles’s lips part, then press shut again. Like he wants to argue, but the words have abandoned him.

“Demons cannot love without a soul,” he says. It’s not cruel—it’s fact. Stated like someone raised on a single version of the story.

Spike barks a laugh, dry and humourless. “Yeah? And you’d know that how? Just ’cause you spent a couple hours as a Fyarl demon a while back don’t mean you’ve got a clue what I feel.”

Giles doesn’t answer.

“You don’t get it,” Spike says. His voice lowers, something fervent bleeding into it. “It’s not some game. Not about possession, or revenge, or any other shite you lot try to lay at my feet. It’s…”

It’s quiet days in. Laughter. Watchin’ Passions ’cause he likes it, even if you don’t. Listenin’ to him ramble on about knocking off those Slayers, or the biggest beasties he’s slaughtered. Cleaning his duster, bleaching his hair for him, and getting his brew right. Beggin’ him to write you poetry, melting adoration when he reads his measly scrawls aloud between kisses, spreadin’ your thighs for him in the moonlight.

It’s you, lookin’ at him like he’s hung every star in the night sky just for you.

It’s… it’s bubbles.

That’s not what he says, though. Some things are meant only for you and him. Sacred. “It’s wanting, all the time: her smile, her happiness. It’s waking up thinkin’ of her. Feelin’ like… Like I don’t exist without her. Love, true as it gets. I’d tear out my fangs if she asked me to.”

Giles studies him. Reminds him a bit of how his grandsire would look him over, intense and unreadable. Usually ended in a sneer and a beating. At least this old man treats him with a scrap of respect. There’s nothing judgemental in the Watcher’s stare. It’s the look of someone who’s built his life on doctrine that doesn’t hold up. It’s as if he’s trying to reconcile something he’s never seen before. And honestly? It probably is.

“I watched Tara love Willow that way once,” he says finally. “Not with your flair for theatrics, of course. But with her whole heart. And Willow lost herself in that.” A pause. “You’ll forgive me if I fear that sort of love is something no one survives.”

Almost an acknowledgement, innit? A sign that one of the more hostile of your mates might come around. But even as that possibility makes itself known, so too does the flash that threatened before. The memory.

“You do realise she’s going to die, right? Maybe not today, but someday. You’ll outlast her. You’ll lose her.”

He’s thought it before. But the witch’s words brought it all back into the light, a raw nerve with a cattle prod plunged straight into it. All the more powerful in its cruelty.

Words stick in his throat. What can he say? No nobility in him, let’s be real. He knows he’s too selfish, too soulless to attempt to swear off you if it means you’ll be safe. There’s a hundred other routes he’d take before givin’ you up, a thousand deals with the worst scum on the planet he’d rather make than to watch you walk away from him. He won’t promise it—not even as a lie.

Giles takes pity on him, then. Sees the truth he won’t hide.

“She deserves joy,” he says. “Not tragedy. Not… all this.”

“Then I’ll make damn sure she gets it.”

The Watcher nods. “See that you do. Because if you ever hurt her—”

“You won’t get the chance.” Spike doesn’t shy from strength of Giles’s stare. “Trust that.”

The man exhales. A fragile accord settles in the room. After a moment of stillness—then two, three—he rises, joints popping. “I’ll give you both privacy.”

As he limps toward the door, Spike calls after him. “Watcher.”

Giles pauses.

“Thanks. For not stoppin’ her from loving me.”

Giles glances back, hint of a challenge in his eyes. Not threatening, though—more sardonic. Playful, even, if that were the sort of thing he shared with Spike.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t try,” he says. “But I’m not blind.”

He exits, door clicking shut. Gus starts purring as soon as it’s you three left.

Spike lets his eyes fall on you once more. Brushes a strand of hair from your cheek with shaking fingers, weak and clumsy from the way Red took him apart. That hollow buried in his ribcage swells again, the kind he’s only ever known with you. Because of you. He’s never had anyone watch over him like you’re doing. Not Dru. Not Angelus. Not even his mum, too sickly to risk her own fragile health to care for her only son. Nobody’s ever sat vigil like this. Nobody’s ever cared enough to choose him like this. And that’s love, isn’t it? Not burning or consuming. It’s choice.

You can’t hear him when you’re this deeply asleep—but that doesn’t stop him from whispering, “Still here, sweetheart. Still yours.”

The next few days pass in a blur of rest, routine and restless dread.

You barely leave him be, not that Spike’ll let you go far. He’s treated to your single-minded—almost manic—focus: your insistence on feeding him, changing the sheets after the Slayer and Zeppo lug him off to the bathroom, helpin’ him peel off his casuals as he lay prone in the tub and scarcely able to move. There’s a begrudging silence that follows whenever the rest shuffle off to obey one of your orders, not resentment but something else. Muted, lacking vitriol. And he… he’s useless. Can barely lift his own arms. It reminds him a bit of the days when the chip was brand new, him half-starved to dust and out of his mind—only this time, he’s not surrounded by idiots eager to kick him while he’s down.

It's just you.

You, wiping his chin when blood spills after his lips slacken around the straw. Filling the bath with all that scented stuff you like—an’ that he likes but’ll never admit aloud—and getting in with him, less like a nurse sponging down an invalid and more like it was before. Calming. Vanilla foam and warmth. Doing your best to imbue sensuality into the way your lathered palms slide along his skin, as if it’s heavy pettin’ and not service. You, pressing a damp cloth to his forehead as the aftershocks of Red’s spell burn him up, muttering soft apologies each time he flinches.

S'not all sweetness. He can’t escape the pain he’s in, though he never says a word about it. Doesn’t tell you when the little metal wafer in his brain sparks behind his eyes, simply clenches his jaw and takes it. Feels wrong, now. Spike’s not sure if it felt like this before—like he could sense it digging in where it doesn’t belong, a splinter lodged someplace he can’t claw it out from. A ghost, branded on the inside of his skull. It flares when he dreams, sometimes. Especially when he dreams about the witch. Of you, screaming.

But, when he wakes, it’s always to the sound of your voice; to your hands on his chest, counting the seconds between tremors. To your breath, hitching when you think he’s still out.

You’re knackered, bone deep. He can see it, hear it in the rasp of each word as they tear their way from dried lungs. The tremble in your fingers when you bring him his blood, only half-heated because you didn’t leave the bag in hot water long enough before pouring. Skin’s too pale, eyes sunken, limbs too thin. You sleep next to him, but never well, jerking awake if he so much as shivers. Makes him want to yell at you, tell you to bugger off for a while in the hopes one of your sisters might get you to lie down and have a proper kip. For a half-hour, he intends to go through with it. But then you come in clutching the mug like it’s solid gold, steps slow and careful, face—tired, haggard, beautiful—beaming with pride.

“It’s perfect this time,” you tell him, sticking one of your curly straws in and swirling the contents once. “Pinch of burba weed, heated ten minutes, and a dash of water to make it go down easy.”

You look so proud of yourself. He can’t do it. Can’t crush the genuine joy glittering in your expression, even if it’s for your own good.

“Thanks, baby,” he murmurs instead, heaving onto his side so he doesn’t risk choking like he did a few feedings back. “Just how I like it.”

And when you grin in response, all teeth and radiance splitting through fatigue, he gives up on the idea entirely.

So he lets you fuss over him, and not only for your sake—but for his own. He might make gruff comments, roll his eyes and find it hard to muster up a smile, but he never pushes you away. He drinks what you bring. He takes the meds Buffy forced on him—strong enough to knock a human out, though it only gives him the tiniest relief—and allows you to micromanage every inch of his life while he’s recovering. You joke about it only once, saying, “Don’t get used to this, or I’ll have to start charging by the hour.”

You don’t laugh, and neither does he. It’s not funny. There’s too much love in the silence to pretend.

But the flat doesn’t stay quiet for long.

Once he looks marginally less like roadkill, Little Bit drops by. She bursts in like old times—clearly coached—with arms full of snacks and DVDs she swears aren’t nicked. Thank God. He’s not up for playing moral compass. Chattering loud enough to wake the dead, she gives him a once-over, says nothing about the ruptured vessels spiderwebbing his face. Nah―she kicks off her shoes, flops next to him, starts rifling through DVDs.

“Don’t worry,” she says, flashing him a crooked smile. “All G-rated. You’re all scrambled, and she’s sleep-deprived. No emotional damage allowed.”

Spike’s lips twitch. “No flayin’? No disembowelment? Thought that was our thing.”

She snorts, fluffs his pillow. “Not this week, Brain-Burger.”

Meanwhile, Rupes stops in only twice more before catching his flight back to England, back to keep an eye on Red. She’s doin’ some magic rehab plan with some coven near Devon, last Spike heard. Watcher’s vague on the details. Too soon to put words to everything that happened, maybe. He doesn’t say much after that initial conversation, simply making small-talk and dropping off books he thinks you’d like. But, on his way out, he sets a hand on Spike’s shoulder.

“Whatever this”—he waves aimlessly at the room, but there’s no mistaking what he means—“is… it’s changed you.”

Spike meets his gaze. “For better or worse, you reckon?”

Giles smiles, brittle and strange. “We’ll see.”

Somehow, that’s not the dodgiest shift from the lot of ’em. Xapper goes from wordlessly hoisting Spike from the mattress to guiltily shuffling into the bedroom, empty-handed.

“I, uh… don’t do the whole Florence Nightingale thing,” he says, awkwardly adjusting the chair near the foot of the bed.

You’re sprawled on your belly next to Spike, dosed up to your eyeballs with the melatonin Niblet swiped from the medicine cabinet back at hers. Crushed it up in your cocoa like a proper little partner in crime, wheedled you into drinking it all up before she left for the night. Clearly works: he’s shaken you gently a couple times, but there’s no rousing you. In her defence, he was the one who asked for help getting you to stay asleep.

The boy glances at you, relief clear to read in the laxness of his mouth. “But I figured,” he continues, “that I could do moral support. Or something.”

What self-respectin’ vamp lets that stand? Pity, ’n from an idiot human, no less. Spike opens his mouth—maybe to bring up the fact that Xapper ain’t exactly a paragon of comfort or conviviality—but that’ll only start a row. He’s more interested in seeing how far he can push this weird period of indulgence. Instead, he lets the pointed arch of his brow do the talking. Xander picks up on it, huffs.

“Still alive, huh?” he asks awkwardly after twiddlin’ his thumbs a bit.

“Yep. See you are, too,” Spike replies. “Heard what you did.”

It’s as close to a compliment as he’ll ever give the boy, and Xander knows it. He nods. “Yeah. It… it put some things into perspective. Made me realise”—he shakes his head—“well, that doesn’t matter. But I guess the world’s ending a lot these days. Might be… nice, having someone around who’s a little less breakable than me.”

Perfect opportunity to toss in a dig about Spike’s laid-up state. He doesn’t take it—just leans back, sprawls himself out and gets some shut-eye, leaving Spike to his own devices. Eventually, Spike feels tired enough to slip into unconsciousness with you. Each time he wakes, tormented by the fire ricocheting in his skull, the boy’s there. Silent. Watchful. There’s a sort of security to it, knowing he’s there.

When the faint glow of gold seeps through the very top of the curtains, Xander stands, knees poppin’. Sighs, stretches. Turns. As he leaves, he pauses at the door, looking back at Spike.

“I’m not saying I like you,” he says. “But she does. And it… maybe that’s okay.”

It’s the closest thing to a truce they’ve ever had.

But the biggest surprise is Buffy. She takes the longest to come ’round, though when she does, there’s none of the awkwardness of Zeppo or Rupes. Only that rigid saintliness she wears when she thinks she’s bein’ particularly self-sacrificing.

There’s no fanfare, no incitement. She hovers in the entry like a storm cloud trying not to make rain, watching him intently as you help him hobble slowly to the couch. Took him longer than usual to get on his own feet, though it’s far accelerated compared to a human. When he’s dropped onto the sofa with a grunt of effort, she hands over the customary brown paper bag from Willy’s, mumbles something about type O and sealing lids tight. Her arms cross, as though she doesn’t trust herself to relax around him. Even then, she lingers.

It’s after you leave to go rinse out one of Spike’s mugs that she makes her move. Stays behind. For a second, he thinks she’s going to say something sharp. Tension’s there, taut across her shoulders, jaw clenched. But instead, her eyes track over him—the fading redness, the hollows of his cheeks filling out from an abundance of blood. Wavers, like she’s not sure if she should voice what she’s thinkin’.

“Y’know,” she says at last, “I used to believe you were some sorta… roach that wouldn’t die.”

Spike snorts. “How touchin’.”

She shrugs, unrepentant. “Still kinda do. You’re annoying. Evil. And so, so gross.” A pause. “But…”

He tilts his head. “But?”

“But… it wasn’t just that.” She lowers her gaze, something small and vulnerable taking the place of the woman who’d faced off against gods and won. “You… being with her. It—I thought I could pretend. That I hated it ’cuz you’re a vamp, or because you’re you. If I’m honest, though? It’s— Truth is, I guess I never thought you’d stop being there.”

Spike stares. Not so long ago, this girl tried to stake him mid-rant. Now she’s confessing her worst fear in his living room.

“Not like that!” Buffy’s quick to say. “I didn’t, like… want-want you. I just—got used to you. How you looked at me. How I could be awful, and you’d still be around. Waiting for me. It’s stupid”—she huffs, shakes her head—“but sometimes I thought you were the only one who would. Stay.”

She shifts her weight, eyes flicking to the ground, then back up. “So… yeah. It stung. That it all stopped. That you moved on, didn’t look back. Like I was a—a placeholder while you searched for something better. Story of my life, huh? Everyone leaves.”

Spike swallows. “Wasn’t like that.”

Never really had an honest chat with her before. He’s assumed a bunch, generalised based on what he knows. Sure, this li’l confession ain’t out of left field. And yet, it strikes him as strange. Startlingly mortal. He forgets that, sometimes: that there’s a person beneath all that superpowered brawn and go-getter destiny.

“I know,” she says, surprising them both. “I know. She’s it, or whatever. Your person. And you… love her. Maybe it’s not the same as what people feel, but—I get it, now. That I was being unfair. Just ’cuz Angelu—” She chokes on that last bit, unable to force the rest of the word out. He doesn’t blame her. Grandsire screwed her up good an’ proper. “But, uh… yeah. It’s real, for you. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt a little.”

There’s a long silence after that—not hostile, but heavy. Bittersweet.

Then Buffy lifts her chin, a shadow fading from her face. “I won’t stand in the way anymore. Of you, and her. If—if she wants you, and you fight for her the way you did… then I guess I’ll support that. You and her, and the whole togetherness thing.”

Spike can barely process it. He blinks, taken aback. “Slayer—”

“Don’t confuse things, though,” she interrupts snappishly. No heat to it, though. “This isn’t some—some declaration of friendship. You’re still you. But you’re… alright. For now. Just don’t hurt her.”

Last bit sounds more like a plea than a statement. It makes the sanctimony of it all a bit less grating. That, or he’s tired. He was made for the fight, yeah, but there’s no victory where he winds up winning. If he keeps you despite Buffy’s vitriol, then it means you lose her, means you’ll never be happy. And if he can’t keep you… Then it’s simple, isn’t it? Means he’ll dust himself. End it. What’s the use in anythin’ if he’s not with you?

“Don’t hurt her,” she said.

“Never,” he replies, voice hoarse. And maybe he could tell her all the things he’d rather do than ever risk your happiness, your safety, your love—but he’s done explaining. Done defending.

Buffy seems to accept that without speaking. Nods. That’s it. There’s no teary apology, no promise to be someone she’s not, no demand for the same from him. Only truth laid bare, once and for all. A sort of poetry to it, to mending fences with someone who’s hurt him as much as he’s hurt her. It ain’t forgiveness—they’re both too proud and too jaded for that—but it could be a new beginning.

For a good while after that conversation, he sits there, pretends to doze off for a bit. He hopes it’ll force you to stop hovering so much, get a chance to catch up with big sis properly. Works, somewhat. When you come back, he hears you settle in the ratty armchair, the frame creaking under the slightest weight. There’s more shuffling, then a brief lull.

“You emailed them, then?” you ask Buffy suddenly, tone light. There’s an edge, though.

She lets out an exasperated noise. “Yes! I said I would, didn’t I?”

“And?”

“They’ll do it. They’re in—” She cuts herself off. Spike feels that tingle of awareness, the sense that eyes are watching him closely. S’possible she’s caught onto his act. “I’ll just… write down the address.”

“Good. Thanks, Buff.”

“Yeah. I only… I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Buffy leaves it at that, quickly changing the subject before he can begin to figure out the context. He feels the temptation to grill you—bein’ cooped up’s made him nosy, ’n you’ve got an unwitting penchant for getting into trouble—but that means coming clean about the faking, and you get proper shirty when he listens in on stuff that ain’t his to hear. Not worth it. All he can do is heal himself up and wait for whatever you’ve got planned to reveal itself. Besides, topic’s turned to plans for a morale-boostin’ shopping trip, and that’s easy enough to tune out. If only he hadn’t trapped himself in a situation of his own making.

With nothin’ else to do, he thinks about earlier. About the Slayer’s words, turning over and over in his mind. She didn’t want him—just liked being wanted. Yeah. He understands that a bit too bloody well, if he’s honest. Stings a little, that old hurt. Never good enough, never worth the risk, a tool to be used until discarded. It’s the principle of the thing, though. Not the girl herself. No fresh wounds from it, but a faint, detached pity, the kind you feel for someone wandering blind. Must be terrible, to be so alone.

That, more ’n anything, is why he keeps up the lie. Keeps his eyes shut, drifts to the sound of voices in his ear, your pulse thrumming through his skin. Doesn’t keep track of the time. He’s only barely aware of the shift—rustling, farewells, door opening and closing.

What’s left is the low hum of the fridge, Gus’s paws scratching at the mat outside his litter box, the sound of your breathing. What’s left is relief, and the peace of finally letting go.

Usually, he’s stickin’ his head out the kitchen window and finishing off his cig at this time of day. You in bed, the light arcing over the curtain headings to dapple the ceiling. Close as he comes to seeing the sun, and it never comes low enough to burn him.

Bit different at the mo’, what with the near deep-fryin’. Can’t be bothered with the effort of it all. He might be walking alright now—mostly—but not for too long, and even now his fingers struggle with the lighter. Has to make do with getting his nicotine fix through patches or those bloody stupid inhalers. It’s not forever, though. The aches and pains are gone; his head throbs only rarely; he doesn’t get tired as quick.

For now, this is his new normal: lyin’ in bed, watching you reading or doing one of your little crosswords, thinkin’ about stuff. Today, he’s takin’ stock of all the changes to his social life—namely, the Scoobies. How they’ve stopped treating him like a ticking bomb, like he’d explode if they so much as let their guard slip.

Not all the way, of course. He’s not daft. They’re wary, but the edge has dulled, glares softening into sidelong glances and jokes lacking their usual bite. Almost… banter, ’til they realise who they’re palling around with. And that realisation doesn’t come with upset or horror, or any of the old defaults—more a shy nervousness, as if they’re worried about his reaction. As if they’re waiting for him to turn on them. As if he’s the one with the upper hand. Dawn and Anya remain more or less unchanged. Guess when you start out fond of a monster, the bar’s lower to begin with.

Annoyingly, earning the esteem of the others seems to have come with a hefty price: they’re over his all the buggerin’ time. Can barely go a minute without hearin’ someone banging cupboards, or callin’ across the place, or screwing around with his stuff.

Little Bit’ll eat all the food and put her sugary crap on the shopping list so that her supply doesn’t run out, hog the bathroom and keep leavin’ her tweeny-bopper CDs all around for him to trip over. Walking’s already hard enough at the mo’—when he yells at her, she’ll smirk and say, “Bite me, buzzkill,” and cackles when he snarls. Demon girl seems determined to open a new magic shop straight outta his kitchen if the rancid smells are anything to go by, and spends the rest of the time updating him on the latest goings-on with the locals or ranting about the couple wishes she granted while he was out. It’s oddly touching, even if it is bloody irritating. The boy takes delight in putting on his science fiction shite, content enough to sit in silence beside Spike for hours racking up the electricity bill. Angel’s cross to bear, innit? Not Spike who has to cough up the goods. In fact, that tidbit seems to put as much a smile on Xapper’s face as it does on Spike’s. And Buffy? Well, she’ll never be comfortable around him. Too much history. But the forced ease and measured civility she brings to bat whenever she’s in company is a sure step up from breaking his nose every time she sees him.

They have their little meetings here now. There’s no apocalypse to stop, no big evil to slay—only regular ol’ vamps and the kind of fledge-tier riff-raff that’s inevitable when living on the Hellmouth. Perfectly doable for the Slayer and her merry band of misfit children. And yet, there’s awkwardness in the air, though for once it ain’t because of him. No one says it aloud. But it’s obvious, innit? The empty spaces. Holes, left behind by the witches that should be here. That aren’t.

Spike hasn’t asked, not once. At first, it was just survival, everything else on shut-down mode while he fought to stick around. Then, it was ’cause he couldn’t face the memory of it—the call. The house. Glinda. Blood everywhere, Niblet sobbing. You. Almost tempted to let the silence continue, let time deaden the sorrow like it always does.

That’s not who he is anymore, though.

He clears his throat, waits for you to shut your book and set it down on the bedside table. “What… what happened? With Glinda?” he asks.

The look on your face—it’s not shock, or anguish. More a quiet, resigned sadness, a waiting that’s come to fruition. Your breath hitches, brows furrowing as you seem to search for the right words. The lull stretches on, too long for comfort.

“Do anything?” he asks, tryin’ to help you out. “For—to send her off?”

You hesitate, then shake your head.

“We, um. Buried her. Said goodbye. You were—Clem sat with you for a bit.” He grabs your hand, squeezes. You get worked up thinkin’ about those first few days. “But,” you continue, “there hasn’t been anything detailed. Felt wrong without Willow.”

“When she’s back, then?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

He knows you’re nervous about that, ’bout Red returning. The rest of ’em are already planning on how to manage her when she gets home: supervision, restrictions, therapy. But you? You think he’s chomping at the bit to get his own back after she tried to turn him into sludge. Explained it before, but there’s some things that language can’t express right. He’s done worse himself, hasn’t he? Gone dark, let love curdle into something ugly. Difference is, she came back from it. Just like he’s trying to. And violence doesn’t stick to demons the way it does to humans, ’specially when it’s among allies. Nothing to do with keeping score. It’s hierarchy. Power. Red had it, he didn’t, and she showed ’em all that fact. Sure, he’s brassed off by her arrogance and her choice to put you in danger, but seems like she’s learned her lesson if the snippets he’s caught are anything to go by. Sick with guilt an’ nearly took herself out when she realised what she’d done.

Not the point. The point is that he doesn’t care a whit about the witch comin’ back, provided she’s screwed the lid tight on her megalomania. Not interested in having a repeat of all this.

Beside him, you turn the lamp off and shuffle under the covers properly. His arm doesn’t hurt anymore, so he relishes in folding it around you, letting you burrow into his chest with a sigh. His chin settles to the top of your head, the scent of vanilla shampoo wafting pleasantly.

“The others are grateful, you know,” you murmur, cutting through the quiet. “For what you did for Tara. Means a lot to them.”

He says nothing in return, kissing your crown.

Doesn’t have it in him to complain after that, though ponderin’ on it too long makes his pride wilt. Bloody mother hen, isn’t he? Adopting all these sad li’l orphan chicks. Lettin’ them run all through his coop like they own the place. If the big bads could see him now, they’d laugh so hard they pissed blood.

And yet—

It’s far more than he ever thought he’d get, this unsettled acceptance. They’re not his friends—never will be, not properly—but the war’s over. And that’s something.

Healing’s always been odd business as a demon. Wounds don’t last long, so it doesn’t hurt much, either. Broken bones right themselves in a matter of days, the occasional scrape or swelling even less. And the more blood drunk, the quicker the whole thing goes.

Spike’s more familiar with it than most—get beat on, drain a vic, sleep it off and Bob’s your uncle. No aches or pains when you wake. Mightn’t be fully up to form, but at least it ain’t lyin’ around for weeks and waiting. Only real difference is if the hiding’s less one-on-one and more a mob deal, or if magic’s involved. Got plenty of history with the former, with Dru after that mess in Prague. Now, thanks to Red, he’s got experience with the latter, too.

Different, innit? Less passive. It’s like he can feel the damage she did, feel the grey matter reforming from mush into something resembling brain again. Whole body copped it, too, what with the seizing. There’s an awareness there he’s never had before, as though he’s actively paying witness to the knitting together of what was undone. More or less finished now, though a phantom flashing remains. A memory of what it was to be brought low, turned into a hunk of char-grilled meat.

But with recovery comes clarity, comes noticin’ stuff he hadn’t before. Or maybe things he was too wrapped up―in you, in the newness of attachment, in excitement envisioning some kind of future where you’re always there―to see.

Like how easily you trip on thin air or drop things, always coming away with some new cut or bruise in your attempt to catch them. The underlying scent of infection coursing through your blood when you forget to apply mercurochrome to open wounds. The wince you think he doesn’t catch when you move from one side of the room to the other, the slight limp from that old track injury of yours. So fragile. So breakable. So temporary.

Red could’ve done away with you with next to no effort. Any creature worth its salt could take you out quick. And that ain’t even countin’ all the regular human ways to go: slippin’ on the stairs at Revello Drive, gettin’ hit by a car crossing the street, drownin’ in the tub. Droppin’ dead for no reason at all, just because. Happens, doesn’t it? Humans stop, sometimes.

In the blink of an eye, you’ll be gone. A name in a county record, words on a headstone. All that stubborn, brilliant fight that makes you so bloody glorious―gone. But Spike? He’s forever.

Never had to deal with it before. Dru’s the same as him, and he didn’t really get enough of a shot with the Slayer to worry about it. But it’s more and more clear as the days go by that, eventually, the difference between you and him’ll catch up.

His first impulse is to go for the immediate fix. He can’t be human again, but you could be like him. For a second, he imagines it: your eyes glowing yellow, ridged brows and razor-sharp fangs, fast and strong and safe. That idea’s tossed away almost immediately after, though. Knows all too well that turning’s a gamble. Might not get the same girl back at the end of the road, and that defeats the whole point. S’you he wants to keep, not your body.

If only there was…

Catching sight of you, he immediately loses his train of thought.

You’re standin’ in front of the mirror, midway through stripping off for your shower. Started it as a tease months back―undressin’ in the bedroom instead of right before hopping under the stream, gives you the chance to strut starkers up the hall ’n give him a good show―but now you do it out of habit. He lets himself ogle: smooth skin, the flare of your hips, the dip above your arse. The good bits are covered, hidden from view by your practical, full-coverage underthings. Pale, girlish pink. Not one for fuss and frills, you are. Makes him feel as barmy as his sire, all that cotton innocence. Cute. Wreckable.

“Think I’m all better,” he says from his place on the bed, sprawled out with a cocky little smirk that hasn’t made a proper appearance in ages. His stare sharpens, blatant, when you turn to face him, eyes lingering on your exposed body. No mistakin’ his meaning. “Mm. Much better.”

Your nostrils flare in amusement, though you arch a brow at him. “You still flinch when the cat jumps on you.”

“Bastard’s got needles for claws,” he mutters, transfixed by the spill of your tits as they’re released from your bra. “You get your bollocks shredded by that furry li’l demon, see how casual you are.”

That makes you giggle. “Sure”―the humour fades into something more sober―“but you nearly died. It’s not a good idea to risk it. Set you back.”

“Bit o’ rough-and-tumble won’t knock me flat, kitten.” He might be erring into begging territory, but that’s no knock on him. Doesn’t take much convincing on his part to get you to cave on most things, ’specially if he’s clear he’s desperate for it. “’Sides,” he adds, “I’m a vampire. Near-dust experiences come with the package.”

“Not when it’s because you tried to fist-fight a witch hopped up on dark magic.”

“That counts,” he insists.

“You had seizures.”

“Yeah.” He pushes himself up onto his elbows, playfulness vanishing from his voice. “But I didn’t lose my bloody mind. And―most importantly―I didn’t lose you. Worth it all, for that.”

You soften slightly at his words. He pounces on it.

“Tell you what,” he says, eyes gleaming as he settles back, folds his arms behind his head. “If it’s too soon for a good, proper shag―how ’bout a lazy one? You on top, I don’t have to move a thing.”

You shake your head. “You’re impossible.”

Sure, he’ll cop to that―but he’s noticed that you haven’t moved to the open drawer yet. Haven’t picked out your night wear, or shuffled out the door. He grins. “Not what you were saying last time you were ridin’ me like I owed you money.”

“Jesus Christ, Spike,” you hiss, blushing furiously.

Easy to read between the lines, though: that bolt of shocked pleasure whenever he reminds you how hot you get for it, how deep you throw yourself into the feeling of your body under his, him inside you. Still got a smidge of that prissy shamefulness. Used to get all tangled up in guilt over spreadin’ out for him, ’til he started reminding you that the best girls are always ready to go for their bloke. Ramps up the overachiever in you like nothin’ else.

“C’mon, baby. Just a little ride. You set the pace.” He spreads his legs a bit, lets the line of his prick straining against his sleep pants emphasise his intent. “I’ll even let you finish first.”

Sighing, you slip your knickers down, kick them off onto the floor. Padding toward the bed, you say, “S’pose I should thank you, huh? For saving me.”

“Mm. Thought you might say that.” He drops a hand to his waistband, lazily palms himself through the thin fabric. “Deserve some gratitude, I do.”

You kneel between his legs, slow and deliberate, fingers ghosting up the inside of his thighs before tugging down his sweats. His cock springs free, hard and already weeping, ruddy from his earlier meal. It’s been too long since you last touched him, since he’s felt you wrapped ’round him. Hell, he misses it. Misses you.

You take him in hand, leaning forward.

“Oh, I’ll give you gratitude,” you say with a grin. “But if you start seizing mid-thrust, I’m taking your wallet and leaving town.”

He chuckles low in his throat. “Deal.”

Your grip is confident, the right side of too-much as you gather spit in your mouth and part your lips, letting saliva trickle onto him. He curses under his breath as he watches you coat him in it, slick him up, lickin’ ’round the head like Lolita with her lollipops. Right sight more sinful, too. You open wider, sinking down. Warmth surrounds him, pressure, and wet, velvet suction. Your tongue flattens against the underside, lashes fluttering as you take him in bit by bit. Gotten better at this―so much better―but he still brushes the back of your throat too fast, and you gag. Your eyes water, hand tightening around the base as you draw back with a gasp.

“Not perfect yet,” you rasp, stifling a cough. “You’re too big.”

It’s said almost accusingly, like it rankles you to be anything less than immaculate. He doesn’t have the words to tell you how that’s the whole point, the part that makes it so bloody superb. Instead, he groans, all shaky pride.

“Beautiful,” he croons, sincerity couched in lewdness. Reaches down, curls his fingers through soft strands. “Li’l human mouth wasn’t made for it, yeah? But you try anyway. Look so gorgeous when you choke.”

You glare up at him―cheeks flushed, no real ire to it―then go back in. Slower, less force in the pull of your cheeks. Sucking and swirling, your tongue teases the slit, fist working what you can’t take. Spike sinks into the mattress like he’s been shot. It’s too much: you, your mouth, the way you moan around him like you’re the one getting off. He hisses, fangs brushing his lower lip. Wouldn’t take much to let himself go, but he doesn’t want that. Wants more.

“Up.” He tugs you off his prick with the hand in your hair. “C’mon now. Get that cunt on me.”

“You’re lucky I’m into you,” you say, mouth red and swollen, climbing up to straddle him. You brace yourself, rub your slick folds against his shaft, grinding slow and rhythmic. A tease, but not much of one―your arousal’s written all over you, soaking him, making him twitch beneath you.

“Christ,” he grits out. “So wet I could slip right in. Don’t need prep at all, do you?”

A lie, that last bit, but one that’s fun to tell. You knot straight back up if he’s not gotten inside you for more than a day, and it’s been a fair while longer than that. Makes you huff, though, bite your lip like you’re not sure if you should melt into him or tell him off. He jumps his hips once to catch at your entrance, just enough to let you feel the breadth of him there. Like he thought, you’re sealed up like a vault, barely givin’ ground.

“Not too fast.” He slides his palms up your thighs. “Been a while.”

Nodding, you reach down, angling him in one-handed. A pop of pure heat surrounds his tip, forcing him to curl his toes hard to keep from grabbing at you too tight, keep from taking over. You wiggle onto him, sinking an inch, two inches—then you stop, panting.

“Too much?” he asks, voice low and careful.

“Hurts a little,” you whisper, wincing. “But—I like it.”

That gets him: his control fractures, his nails digging into your flesh, and he can’t tell if his head’s pingin’ from the chip or if it’s the phantom twinge that’s hit periodically since waking up. Nerves misfiring. Either way, he’s too distracted to worry ’bout it. Too focused on the iron band of your inner muscles squeezin’ on him as you work your way to the base, the way your brows furrow and your lip catches between your teeth each time you pause. He might blow just from this.

“God, baby.” He stifles the bestial noise threatening to rumble from deep in his gut. “So tight ’n hot. Gonna tear you apart on me.”

“Yeah.” You’re trembling as you rock in increments, easing him in. “I want that. Break me, lemme feel it—”

“Then take it,” he says, thumb pressing circles against your clit. “All the way. Show me how bad you want it.”

When you finally settle with a sharp cry, it’s with some measure of his cock left to go, no room to fit. Should’ve licked you open, maybe. Got you off. Would’ve relaxed you, made sure you could take him whole. S’no matter, though—you’ll open up. As it is, he can barely think. You’re a bloody vice around him, wound as far as you can be, insides fightin’ his presence with everything they have. Rippling, wringing. It’s torture.

He groans your name as you brace your hands on his chest, dragging up and dropping down leisurely, gettin’ yourself used to the stretch. You don’t lift high―just enough to push a little noise from your throat each time you fall back. Best part of this position is watchin’ you move: hips winding, tits bouncing, head tippin’ back like you’re seconds from passing out from the pleasure-pain of it. Tremors run through your thighs as you work yourself, sweat coating you in shine. You lean forward a bit, and on your next downward plunge, you swallow up his remaining length with a low whine.

“Good girl,” he says, grunting when the praise makes you flex ’round him. Always loved that: how hot you get for his approval. “So sweet, jus’ look at you.”

You moan, deep, as if it’s come straight from your cunt. The flush is spreading down your neck, painting you bright, and the corners of your eyes glisten, overwhelmed. He's right in to your cervix. Can feel the little bump of it right at the head of his prick, threatenin’ an early finish each time it rubs up against him. Shooting zaps fizzle in his brain every time you bottom out, but the ache ain’t stoppin’ you; if anything, it’s fuellin’ you, making you ramp up. Your pace is gettin’ a little clumsy, less steady and more lurching, like you need it more than you can bear it.

Beautiful. Beautiful, perfect girl.

“Got the best li’l snatch, baby.” His hands are unable to settle on any one place, trailin’ down your spine, cuppin’ your arse, grippin’ your thighs. He wishes he had more of ’em, could touch you all over ’n leave no place uncovered. “Feelin’ nice, yeah? Hurtin’ good?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, mindless, arms shaking with each stroke. Your legs are quivering too hard to hold your weight for long. “Please, Spike―”

On the next thrust, you lose your balance, pitching straight toward him and just barely bracing beside his head with an elbow.

“There we go,” Spike purrs, voice honey-thick and wolfish as he catches you. He bends his knees, plants his feet against the mattress to roll up into you, teeth bared in a smile. “That’s it. Can’t even hold yourself up, can you?”

One arm around your waist, other palm at your arse, he pulls you up higher ’til your tits are in his face, nipples within reach. He wraps his lips ’round the nearest, sucking slow, almost sweet. Makes you keen, back arching to push yourself into the pressure of it. Takes a couple deep pulls, tongue swirling around the hard tip―then bites, hard enough to make the saltwater spill from your eyes, get you pulsin’ around him.

“Oh―oh, god,” you call out, warbling, hips moving wildly now. “I―’m gonna―”

He doesn’t stop, keeps hummin’ round your nipple, worryin’ it between his teeth and letting his hand drift between your legs to stroke where you’re swollen and sensitive. You shudder in his grip, heartbeat racing and breath coming in short little bursts, whole body starting to tense up.

All it takes is one firm pinch to your clit, and you break.

You grind down onto him as your cunt spasms, drawing him in even further. A flood of wet soaks him, burning hot and coating the air in richness. You crumple fully, slick and wrecked, wracked with convulsions.

Spike snarls. “That’s my girl.”

He flips you, your limbs pliant and uncontrollable, and your lips fall on a gasp as you hit the mattress. You barely have time to blink before he’s buried in you again, pressing your thighs to your chest as he drives into you hard and fast, his pelvis all but crashing against yours. The sound is filthy: skin slapping, lush squelching as your cunt continues to throb around him, your cries comin’ thick and loud. He can feel the demon showin’, his fangs digging into his lower lip as his face twists with pure, animal hunger.

“You like that?” he asks, hips snapping into yours. “Daddy’s cock makin’ you feel all messed up? Nice ’n deep?”

Regrets it for a mo’―remembers how unsure you’ve been when that name’s slipped out during past romps, the way you cried for days after Hank’s visit ’n avoid bringing it up since―but you either haven’t heard him or you don’t care anymore. You nod frantically, incoherent with sensation, fully weepin’ now. His cute li’l crybaby. “Yeah, yeah, I love it, love it loveitloveit…”

He grits his teeth, pounding at you even harder. The bedframe slams against the wall with every motion, threatening to crack the drywall. He feels the chip spark in warning, but he pushes through it. Doesn’t stop. Won’t. Not when you’re squealin’ and beggin’ like this, nails scratching into his shoulders and ankles digging into his back like you can hold him here just with that.

“Gonna wreck you,” he pants, hammering in ’til he hears it punch the air from your lungs. “So bloody sweet for me, takin’ it all even when it hurts.”

Tears streak your cheeks and he licks them away, growling against your jaw. “Such a good girl, lettin’ Daddy have you like this, all stretched out and sobbin’ for me―”

Your cunt flutters at that, and his control finally shatters.

It hits him like a bat to the bollocks, blinding and all-consuming, every nerve firing up as he comes. With a guttural groan, he thrusts one last time and holds, grinding in as he spills inside you. The pleasure is too much, too big for his barely-healed body, and he nearly howls with the force of it. Still buried to the hilt, he slumps into you, chest heaving despite the fact that he doesn’t need oxygen. This close to you, the thud of your heart feels like it’s his own.

For a long moment, he doesn’t move―just breathes you in, all salt and sweat and tears and heat, quiverin’ beneath him. Then, finally, he reaches up to cradle your cheek, soft to counter all the roughness. His nose nudges yours, staring into your half-lidded eyes, lingering there before leaning in to kiss you. It’s not hurried, not greedy like the rest of him’s been. It’s slow, careful, his tongue gliding past your lips to taste the tiny sounds you’re trying to catch your breath around. There’s a hint of him, too, bitter beneath the sweetness of those lollies you’ve been swiping from little sis’s stash all day. Your fingers twine into his curls as he licks into you, drawing him closer, and he lets a sound from low in his throat loose.

When he finally breaks off, he lets himself brush his lips along your cheekbone, press firm against the corner of your eye, your temple. All that earlier boldness has melted. You’re soft now, quiet in that way you get sometimes, like you’ve been undone to your foundations and all that’s left is the barest version of you: fragile, small, safe.

“You did so good,” he murmurs. “So brave.”

You hum, a little dazed. “S’nice. Full.”

His chest swells. “Know you like it when I make you feel like that.”

Nodding, you say, “I like bein’ yours.”

Gently, he folds you back out, massages your legs to get the blood flowin’ properly after being pinned up over his shoulders. Doesn’t pull out, though―not when you’re like this. Makes you sad ’n pouty like a little girl. But he rolls you back on top of him, arranging you all proper so you’re comfy. You sigh, wriggling about until your contours fit his perfectly. He wraps his arms around you, holds you tight, listens to your pulse return to a leisurely rhythm.

You go silent for a long stretch. He thinks maybe you’ve nodded off.

And then you sniffle loudly.

“Hey, now,” Spike says, instantly alert. He cups the back of your neck. “What’s all this?”

You bury your face into him, shaking your head, but you’re trembling, and this time it ain’t in a fun way. He shifts you up a bit so he can see your expression, see what’s botherin’ you so much. His palm strokes your spine.

“Sweetheart. Talk to me,” he says.

Your voice is tiny when it comes. “I… I thought I lost you.”

His breath catches.

“I―I didn’t say it. Didn’t let myself think it, but… you weren’t waking up, and I didn’t know what to do, and I was so―so scared, Spike.” You hiccup on a sob. “You were shaking and bleeding and you looked dead-dead, and I had to keep pretending it’d be okay so no one else would panic. But I thought―I thought you were gone.”

“Oh, baby.” He hugs you closer. Your fingers clench against his shoulder like he’s a lifeboat on stormy waters. “I’m here now. I’m alright. Don’t have to hold it in anymore.”

“I did, though,” you whisper, voice thick. “I didn’t cry. Not once. Not with Tara, not with you. I just… kept going. Couldn’t fall apart.”

“You were brilliant,” he tells you, kissing your forehead. “Strongest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“I didn’t want to be strong,” you whimper. “I wanted you.”

Christ, that stings. He pets your hair, soft as he can manage. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

You pull back enough to look at him, eyes glossy and red-rimmed. “Thought you were gonna leave me. Like everyone else.”

His throat aches. His heart―whatever’s left of it―twists violently.

“Never,” he says. “Not me.”

Red was never gonna stop him from being at your side, but he can’t put into words how far he’d have been willing to go to make sure of that. Wherever vamps end up after they’re dust, he’d have crawled limbless out of there just to get back to you. Nothing to hold him back: not death, not pain, certainly not a bit of metal or a witch.

You blink hard, and then it comes. A weak, uncertain whisper.

“Daddy…”

It’s the first time you’ve used it yourself. Never thought you would, and he was fine with that. Can’t help what you can’t help, and it’s not your fault that Dru’s obsession with Angelus―with her daddy―warped him irreparably. A need to be someone else’s everything, the way Spike’s grandsire was her everything.

But here you are. Callin’ Spike Daddy. Accepting everythin’ he’s been dyin’ to give.

Something in him shatters.

His voice catches at the end as he murmurs, “Daddy’s here, princess. So proud of you. Not goin’ anywhere.”

That’s a promise he’s willing to swear by everything he is. Blood and guts and filth and rot. Vampire, man, killer, poet. It’s all yours.

Your cheek is wet where you nestle into his neck, damp lashes tickling. Your breath is still shaky, puffing hotly against his flesh. “Gonna be with me forever?” you ask.

He squeezes his eyes shut, thinks of crystal pools and sun-warmed hotel beds and train rides down the coast. Thinks of demons and spells and impossible wishes. Thinks of your hands in his hair, smile direct at him and the way you always choose him, even when you shouldn’t.

Forever. Somehow, he’ll find a way to make it true.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says, letting his chin alight atop your head. “We’re forever.”

You nod, cling tighter. And Spike? He lies there, wrapped around you, anchoring you to him like a prayer―because that’s what you are. An invocation of all his most desperate desires. Hope made flesh. You’re his future.

Eventually, your tears subside, and you drift into slumber. He stays awake for a while longer, staring at the ceiling, trying to imagine a future that doesn’t end.

The first thing Spike notices is the stillness.

You’re asleep beside him, curled into a loose sprawl that hasn’t shifted in ages. One arm’s nestled under the pillow, the other draped across the bed like you’d reached for him and forgotten to pull back. Breathing’s even, heavy. No crease between your brows, no twitch in your fingers. Purely rest.

That’s new.

He watches you for a long while―longer than he should, probably―but he can’t help himself. You look softer, lighter, like something inside you’s been unhooked. There’s no hovering or fretting, no rattling off questions about whether or not he’s finished his blood or reminding him to nap. Been annoying, yeah, but he realises now that you’d never really stopped moving. Not once. And it wasn’t simply about taking care of him. It was armour, wasn’t it? The only thing keeping you from unravelling. Gotta keep going, stay useful, stay in control.

Should’ve known. How many hits have you taken already? Lived a fraction of the time he has, and yet you’ve faced so much loss, so much pain. Bloody hell. You’re just a baby.

The bedsprings creak as he eases out from under the covers, tugging on yesterday’s jeans and heading barefoot to the kitchen. Floor’s cold, early evening givin’ him the barest hint of light to see without switching the overhead globe on. Gus is sunnin’ himself on the windowsill, soaking up the last dregs of heat before night comes; little prick stares at him for a second before apparently deciding he ain’t worth the fuss, immediately closing his eyes again and noddin’ off.

He opens the fridge, grumbling a bit when he sees there’s only one egg left. Still takes it out, though. Bread’s nearly gone, too, so he chucks the last two slices in the toaster, fishes ’round the cupboard for a saucepan. Cracks the egg and scrambles it with a pinch of salt and a splash o’ milk, bit of pepper over it like he’s seen you do a hundred times.

While he’s waiting, he examines the list on the little notepad you keep stuck to the fridge door.

Tea (English breakfast) Soap (vanilla) Blood―go to Willy’s Chocolate Plasters Crushed garlic

Unclipping the pen from the top of the pad, he crosses out the last one with a mutter of, “Oi,” and then writes underneath:

Eggs Milk (cow’s, not oat) Bread Juice

Satisfied, he returns to his task. He gets out the crockery right after turning off the burner. Butters the toast, piles on the egg, pours the rest of the orange juice. He carries the plate into the bedroom and sets it down gently on the nightstand, glass next to it.

The smell rouses you―you make a little sound, eyes opening a smidge. Hair’s wild, face all scrunched like a sleepy kitten.

“Time s’it?” you ask.

“Half-past too early,” Spike says. “Made you breakfast, so you’re not allowed to complain.”

You blink at him, then smile. A real one. He notices the difference: how it doesn’t waver at the edges, doesn’t look like it’s trying too hard to seem put-together. It’s the first proper smile from you he’s seen in ages.

“You cooked?” you ask, sitting up and rubbing your eyes. No mention of what happened before you went to sleep. Probably for the best.

“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m a kept man now.” He settles back on the mattress beside you, nudging his thigh against yours. “Got responsibilities. Grocery lists. Toast mastery.”

You giggle, craning your neck to reach his lips. He brings himself down to you, tucks a finger beneath your chin, presses his mouth against yours. No need to deepen it―not about lust. It’s unhurried, drawn-out, a silent declaration of love. When you pull away, you say, “Thank you, kept man.”

More loaded than it needs to be. That’s how he knows you don’t just mean for breakfast―but for last morning, too. For all of it, maybe. Stayin’. So he gives you a smile of his own and looks on as you reach for the plate, tuck in to the grub he’s made you. Sees how the last few shadows drain from your face, nothin’ left but light and laughter, the way it should be. You don’t even notice when he brushes your hair out of your face while you guzzle from the glass, heavy-lidded. Just sigh a bit when his mouth brushes your temple, contented.

“Eat the rest, princess,” he says. “Can’t have my girl wastin’ away.”

Your lips curl up at the edges, drowsy and grateful, and you mumble a thank-you. Don’t comment on how natural it sounds, how gentle his bossiness is. It’s just fact. He remembers what the Watcher said: joy, not tragedy. This? This is joy, innit? The kind you do whatever it takes to keep. The cavity in his ribcage feels weighted, like there’s a balloon expanding past bone and muscle. Not painful, but full.

He doesn’t tell you ’bout the thoughts in his head. The ideas, half-baked, gathering like mothballs. The rumours passed from other continents that promise the unattainable. His wish, turning and turning itself over, tryin’ to figure out a way to become real. Immortality, no drawbacks, no complications. Just you, and him, and whatever stretches beyond the end of the world. But none of that’s for you to hear, not yet.

“After breakfast―wanna talk about that holiday?” he asks instead. He’s already planning it. Not in the way you think, though.

You nod, all happy and golden. Clueless.

And Spike—self-proclaimed monster, eternal outsider—grins like a man who’s finally found a cause worth fighting for.

Read on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64531855/chapters/165726460

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em-writes-stuff-sometimes · 3 months ago

Text

I'm very flattered by this comment--thank you! More than I deserve, but I'm glad to hear that this fic was enjoyable. I'm hoping to finish off the next instalment so I can post it all in one go soon (I'm anywhere between half-way and two-thirds through).

sweeter than blood │ Spike x Summers!Reader

everything he wants 'verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Part 1 │Part 2 (Work in Progress!)

Returning to Sunnydale for the first time since Angel lost his soul—older, bitter, unprepared for grief—you never expected to fall for Spike. Through the eyes of the others, it's obsession, danger, betrayal. But to you? It’s the only thing that still feels real. (Set post-episode 14 of Season 5, "Crush".)

Hey, guys! Briefly showing up to post a short fic I wrote after getting whacked by the Buffy bug lately. Not going to be frequently updating or anything - I'm literally just posting this and popping back out. Couple notes: this is a three-chapter fic that I'm posting in one single hit. It's like, 22,250 words, so it's long. Also, it's mixed POV from pretty much all the main characters. Keep in mind that my writing style doesn't exactly fit in the Reader or in the OC category; best way I can describe it as nameless, vaguely-described OCs written in second person. Enough from either category to justify calling it both. If that's not what you're after, I recommend you don't read.

Buffy rolls her eyes when she recognizes who’s behind all the commotion by the door, turning away from Giles to give the intruder one of her meanest eyebrow-raises.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, fists clenched and knuckles white as she glares at Spike, tension etched into every line of her body. Her voice is a low, warning growl, her fingers itching to wrap around something sharp and stabby. Anything will do, really. “It’s the middle of the day.”

It’s been only a few weeks since bizarro entered Spike’s brain and he tried to tell her he loved her, and in that time it’s like it never really happened. Sure, he’s been loitering around the house like a pervert, glances lasting a little too long on her as she deliberately ignores him to unlock the door and retreat to the safety of a freshly-Spike-free zone, but his focus is all screwy. It’s like the tap of grossness has spun itself off, still dripping a bit but like… not flooding. Or something. She’s bad with figures of speech.

The evil bleached wonder sneers over at her, still furiously smacking at the smoke trails rising from his exposed skin and stinking up the shop. “None of your business, Slayer. Ain’t my bloody keeper. I can go where I like.”

“Does that have to be where Buffy is?” Xander snipes. “You know you’re never getting a shot with her. Why make us all put up with you?”

Dawn’s here, so Buffy makes a cutty-motion with her hand at him, warning him off the tangent he’s on. Even though Dawnie’s just as mad as the rest of them about Spike’s confession, she still gets huffy and moody whenever anyone spends too long mocking him for it, and Buffy totally can’t deal right now.

Spike shakes his head. “Look, I dunno what Buffy told you about that stuff with Dru―”

Giles advances on him, shielding her from view. “Spike, you’re not welcome here.”

“Yeah, and by the way, we're working on a way to de-invite you from here,” Willow adds. Though there’s nothing super snarky about the indifferent way she looks Spike up and down, for Wills it’s positively cruel. “Even if it is a public place.”

Spike looks away, lower lip curling under his teeth as he scoffs. “Alright, maybe there was some expression of feelings, but ‘m all―”

Whatever he was gonna say dies in his throat. He straightens himself up and runs his fingers through his hair, which, strange, isn’t slicked back like he usually wears it. Has he suddenly realized―re-realized, or whatever―that she’s there and is doing some uber-sketchy peacocking thing? She’s just about to ask him what the hell is up when you brush just past her, bookbag swinging as you rifle through its contents.

“Buff,” you say, absent-minded, “d’you know where I put my―oh, hey, Spike. Nice hair.”

You look up and smile at him, a bit unfocused as you wander over to the table, scattering the items inside on its surface. Pens and textbooks go skidding across the wood as you dig through, muttering an aha! when you find your tube of chapstick buried at the bottom. Dawnie shoves at the stuff that’s rolled onto her homework, but you don’t seem to notice at all.

“Afternoon,” Spike says. Buffy narrows her eyes at him. “Settlin’ in alright?”

“Mm,” you hum, smiling, lips freshly glossy and reddened. “Stuff’s unpacked, classes all sorted… everything’s coming up me. How ‘bout you?”

“Can’t complai―”

“Seriously, Spike,” Buffy snaps, folding her arms. “Clear outta here.”

She’s totally a hypocrite for being so freaked by him basically ignoring her, she knows that. It’s not like she wants him stalking her, but she’s Puzzle Girl. She solves things, and the mystery is that Spike is acting stranger than usual.

She hasn’t had time to figure it out, not between helping Mom, rearranging Dawn’s room—well, your shared room now—and grilling you about Hank’s way-too-young girlfriend. That doesn’t even begin to cover the stress of keeping Glory’s demon goons off Dawn’s back. Time is totally against her right now. And after Mom told you about the tumor? Yeah, no wonder you were all in for moving back.

“Wait,” Anya says, frowning. “I thought Spike didn’t know her. Why are they talking?”

“Introduced meself, yeah?” Spike’s stink-eye is ineffective as usual. “S’what civilized people do and all that rot.”

“If that’s civilized,” Anya mutters, too low for anyone but Buffy to properly catch, “then I’ve been using the wrong definition. Civilized people don’t pant like wolves in heat—”

“He’s nice,” you say.

“—yeah, most men pretend to listen,” Buffy hears her whispering to Tara. She tunes it out. “Vampires probably do it better. Less hormonal noise.”

Patting your sides down―looking for pockets, though as usual you’re wearing a dress that doesn’t have them―you shove your chapstick down the neckline before going back to sorting through the things you’ve discarded. Buffy watches Spike watch you, watches his eyes settle where the balm presses through your bra. Disgust curdles in her belly—but it’s not just disgust, and that’s the worst part. It shouldn’t matter. Really. He should look anywhere but at her. Still, the absence of his usual obsession lands like a slap. Her chest tightens, breath caught in her throat. Embarrassing. She rolls her shoulders back, forces her focus elsewhere.

“We talk sometimes,” you add. “He’s a good listener.”

“Thanks, pet.” Spike’s smile looks genuine enough to fool even her.

“Uh, he’s a vampire.”

“Good for you, Xan,” you say, levelling him with one of your are-you-the-dumbest-person-in-the-world? looks. You’ve always been good at that. “Your observational skills are A-okay. Congrats.”

Xander sputters. “He’s evil!”

“Not this again,” you mutter. Continuing in a deceptively mild tone, you say louder, “Evil’s relative, isn’t it? Is the lion evil for hunting and eating the gazelle? No, because you can’t moralize about the predatory drive of a completely different species with different—”

“He’s not another species, though,” Giles interrupts, taking his glasses off and scrubbing at them with his cloth. “He’s a demon.”

You cock your head, slight curve to your lip. “So, not human, right? Ergo, another species.”

“Okay, difference of opinion, agree to disagree!” Buffy calls out loudly. She really doesn’t want to deal with broken-brain Giles, and he always comes out when you prod at his whole Watcher upbringing. “We’re wasting time. Can we seriously get back to the whole April thing?”

Her resolve face is enough to get the Scoobies moving back to the counter, and though the conversation begins flowing in the right direction once again, Buffy can’t help but pay just a little more attention to what’s going on across the room. You’ve sat down opposite Dawnie, tugging out the worn copy of Emily Dickinson poems that Buffy had to read when she was in junior year, too. You probably borrowed it from her closet, actually, where she keeps all her old high school stuff. That’s not the problem, though—it’s that Spike’s gone and swung himself across the seat right next to you, spread-kneed with arms folded and resting on the chairback. You shift obligingly, murmuring something just out of earshot to him, and he seems to be considering your words thoughtfully—for him, at least—gesturing to the text on the open page before you.

She watches Spike watch you as you’re preoccupied with getting your essay perfect. He used to look at her like that. In fact, he hasn’t so much as glanced her way like he would usually. She doesn’t know what to make of it.

“It’s weird, right?” Willow’s nervous voice interrupts her focus, and she turns to find her staring in exactly the same direction. “That. It’s like, all sorts of ooky.”

“Spike’s, um… he was a poet, wasn’t he?” Tara asks, uncertain. “It’s no–not that weird. He prob–probably knows a lot and wants to he–help with her assignment.”

Suddenly, you laugh, drawing their eyes back to you. Buffy’s stomach twists. That laugh—light, happy, normal—doesn’t belong here. Not in this context. Not with him. Spike’s grinning at you, unaware of all the attention on him. Even Dawnie seems a bit startled, her gaze darting from you to him and back again. And you… you’re looking back at him like he’s a good friend of yours. Like he’s safe. Like he’s someone who stays. Like he’s normal, and not the soulless demon who’s caused so much hurt to so many people in the room right now, who would go on to cause even more pain and suffering if not for the leash in his brain keeping him from harming them. It’s like watching someone pet a cobra and call it a puppy. And Spike just… lets you.

“Yeah, right.” Xander huffs, scathing. “He’s probably thinking ‘gee, maybe the Slayer’ll get the lust on for me if I play besties with little sis’―”

“Unlike the rest of you,” Giles cuts across, adjusting his glasses, “I have little care to understand why Spike does what he does. So long as he is being useful and is leaving Buffy be, then by all means… Shall we return to the problem at hand?”

Buffy nods absently, mind still whirling as she tunes back in to the previous discussion. She can totally do two things at once. Xander’s right. Spike’s probably just trying to get her interest. Is it that you’re her younger sister, or is he just trying to make her jealous? That won’t work. You don’t get involved in stuff like that. She’s wondered if you even notice boys sometimes, let alone get dragged into some messy demon-y love triangle. Line. Whatever. So it must be him thinking that you’ll get him on her good side or something, which ew. Talk about desperate.

It's a good explanation. Perfect, actually. If only her chest didn’t feel tight in that way it gets when she knows, deep down, that she’s missing something. Not danger—she knows that feeling too well. This is worse. It’s something personal. Something close.

“… your thoughts, Buffy? Buffy? Buffy!”

“Huh?” Giles’s face is unimpressed. Buffy smiles apologetically, turning to face him properly. “Sorry. Problem-Solver Buffy, reporting for duty. Hit me again.”

For now, she’ll have to deal with the weirdness. She’ll figure it out later. There are more important things to worry about—like superstrong robot girlfriends causing havoc across Sunnydale. When did it begin?

Since you came back. The thought pops unbidden in her head as she tunes in to Slayer mode. Hm.

The muscle below his eye twitches as he watches Spike across the cemetery, moonlight tracing the sharp lines of his face. The graveyard is silent now, empty of mourners, the solemn faces of those in black who came to watch as Joyce Summers was laid to rest in the ground. Even Buffy is home now, numbed and tired from the hours spent cradled in Angel’s arms. Just faintly, his senses pick up the murmur of hushed voices—yours soft and raw, Spike’s a slow, gentle rumble. Of course he’s found a way to worm his way in, always lurking where he doesn’t belong.

You stand too close, arms wrapped tight around yourself and shivering despite the mildness of the night air. It’s the first time he’s seen you since you were sent away—since Angelus. You were small then, too. Frightened, stalwart in your sadness over Buffy having convinced Joyce that spending some time with your father might make the night terrors go away. A cover that should’ve put you out for a month, maybe two, and instead led to years of isolation, all because of him. Guilt congeals acrid in the back of his mouth, from memory and from here and now, blurring together. He didn’t even think to check on you, so wrapped up in Buffy’s grief as he’s been. You look like Buffy did after the funeral. But not the Slayer version—the kid version. The girl who used to beg her mother for a later curfew. The one he couldn't save from heartache, then or now.

He sees Spike shrug off his duster and drape it around you, fingers lingering on your shoulders. You tug it closer, inhaling deeply, the sleeves all but swallowing your hands. You look like a child in too-big clothing, hunched as though grief itself is sitting on your shoulders. Your eyes are puffy and red as you look down at the hole in the dirt, the place where what is left of your mother now lay, your cheeks streaked with the gloss of tears that glimmer under the glow of the night sky. Angel can hear the ragged edges of your breathing, the way you try and fail to even it out.

And Spike—

His posture’s casual, the type of relaxed Angel knows is deceptive, calculated. His focus is wholly on you, head bowed, eyes flicking over your face as if memorizing every twitch and quiver. His fingers find the crook of your elbow, stroking gently. Too practiced. Too careful. As if care could be learned by imitation. He’s never mastered the art of guile, for all that Angelus tried to beat it into him. Too soft. If not for the hair, the coat, Angel might mistake the demon ahead for the human he’d been.

It’s not just the way he looks at you that bothers Angel. It’s the way you look back. The small, anxious clutch of your fingers on his lapels, how you lean instinctively into the rumble of his voice, unguarded, drifting closer as though the space between you is a safety net. Spike’s too close, saying something low that makes your lips quirk up in a wobbly, trembling smile. His answering smile, lax around the edges, is unsettling—not the predatory leer or cocky smirk Angel’s used to seeing on his face. You step toward him, easily accepting the embrace he offers, and the way you fold into him makes the hairs at Angel’s nape rise.

He clenches his fists. It’s an act. It has to be.

Pushing forward, his bootfalls are deliberate and heavy, purposeful, and the noise draws your attention as he knew it would. The talking stops. You glance up, startled, and Angel takes note of how quickly you wipe your eyes, trying to hide the tears. Spike’s features harden, his mouth curved into a stubborn, disdainful sneer.

“What are you doing here, Spike?” Angel demands, crossing his arms. The chill of the air seeps through the layers of his clothing.

Spike smirks. “Nice to see you too, Peaches. Out for an evenin’ stroll?”

Angel’s glare doesn’t waver. “Get away from her. Now.”

You wince, but Spike doesn’t move. Instead, he lets his thumb brush the back of your arm, a gesture so brief, so casual that Angel might’ve missed it if he wasn’t watching so closely.

“Girl’s having a rough go, not that you’d notice,” Spike says arrogantly, “trailing after Buffy like you’re her bitch. Thought someone ought to check in.”

Angel’s eyes dart back to you, ignoring the barb. “You can talk to Buffy. Or Giles. Not him.”

“I tried, but… She’s got so much on her plate. She’s doing her best. I don’t—I don’t blame her.” You sigh, weary, pulling Spike’s coat tighter around you. “I just… I needed someone who could listen. Without trying to fix it.”

Spike glances down at you, the hardness in his gaze melting like ice in the heat. “Gotta let yourself feel it, pet. S’not weakness.”

You look up, eyes wet. It’s as though you’ve forgotten Angel exists. “It’s stupid,” you whisper. “I keep thinking she—she’s gonna just… walk in, tell me to wash my face, snap out of it.”

“Not stupid.” Spike’s mouth twitches. “Just means you love her.”

The words hang heavy in the air for a beat; two; three. Your chin dips, face crumpling, and Spike’s grip tightens, hand sliding to span the back of your head. You lean fully into him, forehead pressing to his chest, and he mutters something too low for Angel to catch—it makes you nod, knuckles clutching his red jacket. His hand drifts to your spine, drawing soothing circles, gentle and patient. It looks practiced. Habitual. Wrong.

“You’re using her,” Angel growls at him, feeling a bit of fang slip with the flare of his temper. “Trying to get to Buffy. It’s pathetic.”

Spike rolls his eyes. “Oh, right. Because I’m raring for the Slayer’s approval. Tell yourself whatever helps you sleep, mate. Assuming you can.”

Angel’s jaw clenches. “If you think for a second that I’ll let you manipulate her—”

“Not manipulating anyone,” Spike snaps, snarling. His arm curls tighter around you, unconscious. You glance between them, wary. “She’s grieving. Thought I’d help.”

“Help yourself, more like.”

Spike’s eyes flash, his own fangs bearing down against his lip. “Don’t care what you think, sire. Just here for her. So unless you plan to dust me, sod off.”

Angel hesitates. He’d like to. It’s bad enough that Spike’s been after Buffy. But she can handle herself—you’re too easy a target.

“It’s okay,” you say then, shifting in place. You press closer to Spike’s side, entirely unbothered by the appearance of his game face. “He’s… he’s my friend. He’s kind.”

Spike scoffs. “Careful, pet. Man’s liable to think I’ve gone soft.”

“Nah.” You shake your head, the side of your mouth curling up ever so slightly. “You’re evil, remember?”

“Too right.” It’s warm, indulgent.

The words land heavy in Angel’s chest, like stones in a sinking ship. He glowers. “This isn’t a game, Spike.”

He’s not talking about Spike’s sudden helpfulness. The meaning is clear. ‘Not her. She’s too good for you.’

Spike stiffens, drawing himself up to height. “Never was. That’s your problem, Angel—you think everything’s about you. S’nothing to do with you, or anyone. Just me n’ her.”

Angel’s scowl deepens. “If you hurt her—”

“Get in line,” Spike interrupts, all arrogant swagger. “A popular threat, where she’s concerned.”

Angel’s stare lingers on you, on the openness of your expression: face relaxed, eyebrows tilted just upward, lax jaw. He watches the way you lean into Spike, nonchalant, his grip proprietary.

“You deserve better,” Angel says.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” You hold his gaze, unconcerned and unafraid, bolder than he remembers. Surely, it’s easy for you to front up to him when you’re tucked under the arm of someone like Spike. “Either way, it’s my choice to make.”

He eyes Spike, who glares back with an unspoken challenge. ‘Leave,’ he says without speaking. ‘Go back to where you came from. You aren’t needed here.’ Eventually, Angel turns away, shadows clinging to him. “If he lets you down—”

“He won’t,” you say, conviction lacing your voice.

The certainty makes Spike’s eyes widen, smile hinting at the edges of his mouth, a glimmer of something raw and unspoken to be read in the planes of his face. Angel’s frown deepens. How can you trust him? What has he ever done to deserve your confidence? Angel earned Buffy’s affection, her faith, and look where it got him: no girl, no love, no happy ever after. It’s as though Spike hasn’t even had to try, the resentment a sword to his chest all over again. He murmurs some vague attempt at goodbye, an invitation to reach out if you need anything, though you and he both know you’ll never do it. You’ll never need it. Spike, he snubs entirely, suddenly exhausted, not wanting to see the victory in the set of his frame. As he sets off, a shade in the moonlight, he expects some final dig to reverberate across the cemetery, some juvenile taunting yell that’s so typical of the other vampire. Instead, nothing. Angel turns, taking one final look at the pair of you, standing together so damn closely.

Cigarette smoke drifts up, curling in revolutions from Spike’s loose grip. “Brave girl,” he tells you, fond.

“Or stupid.” You sigh.

“Never that, pet.” Spike’s palm drops to the small of your back, spanning wide. He cards through your hair, rubbing the strands between his fingers. “Never that.”

Angel swallows, flexes his fists once, again, and walks away.

He doesn’t hear what Spike says next. Doesn’t see the way you press your cheek into his shoulder like you’ve done it a hundred times before. He never sees it coming. That’s what hurts most of all.

The sun is setting, the sky colored in bruised purples and fiery oranges. Anya leans against the half-wall that separates the porch from the side of the Summers house where she slumps, watching as night falls. A storm is brewing. A metaphor, maybe, but it definitely feels like something’s up with the world. It’s like the Earth knows what’s about to happen. What they’re up against. Dawn’s in trouble, and they have to save her from the hellgod who wants to bring death and destruction to this dimension.

Everyone inside is tense: dealing out weapons, talking through battle plans, trading worried looks. Buffy’s on a rampage, taking everything anyone says the wrong way, as an attack on her littlest sister—especially Giles. He only suggested killing Dawn once, and he apologized for it, but Buffy won’t let it go. Willow’s busy trying to distract Tara from walking out the door until it’s time to fix the brain-suck Glory pulled on her, so she can’t stop them from fighting like she would normally. Xander’s the one trying that, and even though Anya loves Xander, he’s not the best at calming people down. So yeah, everyone’s freaked, driven to it by all the waiting, trying to pretend like they aren’t secretly hoping for some miracle.

Anya doesn’t believe in miracles. She’s lived for a thousand years. She believes in what’s real: power, blood, the occasional loophole in cosmic prophecies. She knows the sound of desperation, though, the smell of it, even if she doesn’t have her old senses anymore. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand what she’s seeing now.

Spike’s standing in the front yard under the tree, far enough away that he probably can’t tell she’s out here too, smoking one of his cigarettes with a too-casual stance that only makes the tension on his face more obvious. He’s not alone: you’re with him, arms hugged to yourself like you can keep all your bottled-up worry and fear from exploding out. Anya’s watched the two of you skirting around each other for weeks now. She’s not the only one who’s noticed—most of the others have. They’re just too determined to pretend they don’t know what it means.

She remembers the argument from earlier, how Buffy and the others tried to order you to stay behind, to leave Dawn’s fate to the rest of them. ‘Too young,’ they said. ‘Too helpless.’ Anya disagrees. She knows better than most that appearances can be deceiving. The fire in your eyes reminded her of a certain vengeance demon who once went toe-to-toe with hell lords and never flinched. She wasn’t all that shocked when you refused them, furious, but it was Spike’s support that threw her a bit. He sneered at them, claiming he’d make sure nothing happens to you. After you stormed outside, he rounded on the Slayer, reminding her how headstrong you were when you thought you were right, asked how she planned to stop you from following after. That exchange was ugly.

Buffy’s eyes narrow, lips pulled into a thin, furious line. “You think you can keep her safe?” she snaps, crossing her arms. “Like you kept Dawn safe?”

Spike’s jaw tightens, muscles twitching. “That was a trick. Can’t fall for the same one twice.”

“Doubt you’ll get the chance,” Buffy says, voice cold as a blade. “If you even think of letting her get hurt—”

“Yeah, yeah. Big, scary threats,” Spike drawls. “But if you think anyone’s gonna keep her from fighting, you’re wrong. Least this way, I’ll be there when the fists and fireballs start flyin’.”

For a moment, Buffy looks like she might argue, but then her shoulders sag, and she nods sharply. “Fine. But if she dies—”

“I’ll be dead first,” Spike interrupts. The promise lands heavy and solid, and Buffy’s glare softens, but only slightly. She turns away, shoulders stiff. He watches her go, tension simmering, then stalks outside.

Anya ducks a bit further down when Spike starts speaking, not wanting to get caught. Something’s telling her she’ll want to hear whatever it is that’s going on.

“I might die tonight,” he drawls, flicking ash to the ground. His voice is rough, a strange sort of fragility lurking underneath. Her brows arch. It doesn’t sound like his usual bravado.

Anya’s eyes flicker over Spike’s tense stance, and she huffs softly. She’s never understood him. A vampire with no bite, a demon mooning after a Slayer and now her sister. Pathetic, she’d say, but he fights for them anyway, chipped or not. Sometimes, she thinks he’s a fool. Other times, she wonders if he’s the only one who really gets it—that love comes with a cost.

You startle, brows knitting together as you frown. “Don’t—don’t say that.”

“Why not? Might be true.” Spike’s smirk is twisted, bitter. “Glory on the rampage, me all chipped n' useless. But if—”

“Stop it,” you mutter, grabbing his sleeve. “Don’t give me your ‘if I die’ speech.”

He huffs a bitter laugh. “Feels like the end, luv. Night like this—you say your piece or regret it forever.”

He tosses the cigarette—the cherry glowing, then fading in the grass. He doesn’t look at you, voice rough, jaw tight. “Bloody hell. Can’t believe I’m doing this. Stupid. Pointless. But when you’re up against a soddin’ hellgod and odds that make death look cozy, what’s the use in leavin’ things unsaid?”

He huffs, scrubbing a hand through his hair, agitation radiating off him. You stay silent, but the concern shows—in your face, your posture.

“Suppose I should’ve said something sooner,” he continues, half to himself. “Not like I’m any good at this. Maybe never was. Back when I was... well, different story. Used to be all flowery words and grand gestures. Always had to prove meself.”

He risks a glance at you, eyes flicking away when they meet yours.

“Not much of a man now, am I? But the way you look at me... bugger me if it doesn’t make me feel like I could be.” He forces a chuckle, brittle around the edges. “Maybe it’s just my own foolishness talking. Wouldn’t be the first time.” Spike stops, swallowing hard. “But if this is the end, I need you to know that… that every stupid poem I scratched out, back when my heart was still beatin’—they were shadows of what I feel now. For you.”

You take a slow, shuddering breath, eyes wide and lips parted in a soft ‘O’ as you stare up at him. The porch light’s come on, the glow shading warmth into your expression. His fingers reach out and touch, delicate across your cheekbone, down to cup your jaw. “You’ve gone and wrapped yourself ‘round me—tight as sin, sweeter than blood. I can’t stop wantin’ more. Reckon I never will.”

You’re voiceless, your mouth opening once, then again, before giving up. Anya smirks to herself. Powerless in the face of blunt truth. You mortals and your weird little problems.

Spike rubs the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze. “Said more than I meant to already. Should shut up before I make an even bigger mess―send you runnin’. Hell, maybe I deserve it. Always cocked things up when it mattered. ”

You inhale sharply, staring at him. “Oh…” You swallow. “Spike…”

His smile widens, but it’s not a happy thing.

“S’alright, pet,” he says, stepping back a foot. Ash is smeared across your cheek. “Not expectin’ anything. Just wanted to say it.” He hesitates, gaze dropping. “Never thought I’d be worth a damn to anyone, not really. But you—hell, you make me feel like I am. Like I’m enough. Like there’s somethin’ good left in me worth savin’.”

He turns to go, but you stop him. “Wait―I―”

The surprise on his face might seem deliberately put there to anyone who didn’t truly get demons. Anya knows it’s real. He really wasn’t expecting a response.

“You are enough. You are. And I―” You huff, biting your lip and averting your eyes. “You weren’t supposed to... be this—this important. To me.”

He looks at you then, eyebrows drawing together. You twist at your fingers, looking as though you’re desperate for something to hold on to.

“You drive me crazy,” you say suddenly, words tumbling. “With the attitude, and the way you think you can just―just―say stuff like that, like it doesn’t mean anything. Except it does. It does, and I—” You stop, breath trembling. “I can’t―I can’t lose you.”

His eyes widen, mouth opening, but you plow on, words spilling over themselves. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. You make me feel... like I can breathe, even when everything is falling apart. And I know it’s insane, and I shouldn’t, and everyone will hate it, but I—” You take a breath. “But I’m already lost. I don’t want to find my way back.”

Something startlingly human spreads across Spike’s face. He cocks his head as he stares down at you, shy wonder making his features less cutting. It’s as though he’s just a guy and you’re just a girl, and this is just a scene out of an ordinary life.

Suddenly, you laugh, a short, small sound, but it breaks the oppressive atmosphere. “Damn. This is so cliché,” you say, shaking your head ruefully. “It’s like we’re in a movie.”

The mood shifts, and with it Spike’s distinctive brashness returns. His posture adjusts, less bumbling fool and more leonine hunter, tongue curling behind his lip in invitation.

“Yeah?” he asks, sauntering into your space, up close and personal. “Pretty sure the sort you mean ends in a kiss. Rounds out all the talk.”

He’s goading you, trying to recoup and save face—but it’s also an offer veiled by provocative words. Anya sees your uncertainty, the red flush working its way across your skin, and her anticipation begins to fade. Darn. She should’ve expected you to quail under the full force of his charm. She’s realistic enough to recognize that even she wouldn’t be unaffected by him. He’s very pretty for a vampire, and he knows it.

But wait—after a moment of vacillation, you surge forward, fists grasping the collar of his duster to pull his mouth to yours. Spike’s eyes widen briefly before sliding shut, hand tangling in your hair. She watches your lips mash together awkwardly for a second before Spike takes over, tilting your head just so until you slot together like puzzle pieces, your bodies converging to match. He kisses you like he’s memorizing the shape of your mouth, the taste of you, like it’s the last time he’ll ever kiss anyone—and it might just be. It’s intense. Desperate. Romantic.

You let out a squeaking sort of sigh, muffled, a sound answered by the bass growl of the vampire attached to you as his arm spans across your waist, raising you up on tiptoes and into him even further. The flickering globe lighting the front of the house paints shadows across your entwined forms. The corners of Anya’s mouth lift.

You look very nice together. The sex will be great, she’s sure—when you’re ready, of course. And you could do worse than someone like Spike, who definitely has decades of experience in giving pleasure. She’s happy for you. Quality orgasms are necessary.

But there’s an obvious catch. Buffy, Giles, Xander—they’ll hate it. Spike is nothing but a monster to them, a rabid animal on a choke chain. No way they’ll tolerate his increased presence, never mind the very idea of him even touching you. You might get Tara and Dawn on side—and if you have Tara, you’ll most likely get Willow, too—but the likelihood is far-fetched. Even if you do, it’s easy enough to sway them. Anya’s seen it in action time and time again. She knows how it’s going to go, when this gets out: they’ll call it disgusting, wrong, the scheming of a soulless demon. She can already hear it.

In her heart, she wishes they were more understanding. Humans make love messy when it doesn’t have to be. Demons love simpler—when they want something, they just take it. No wringing hands, no guessing games. But there’s something intoxicating about all the fussing. She understands why some demons get obsessed.

Anya crosses her arms, thinking back to Xander’s proposal—so clear, so certain, like he’d already made the decision a hundred times before asking. It was a rare, beautiful thing: certainty. Not like the mess playing out on the lawn now. She thinks about the ring, nestled in the little black box Xander offered. She didn’t take it then—no point in promises if they don’t survive the night—but the offer sparked something bright and unexpected in her. Delight, disbelief, a warmth and depth of emotion she didn’t know she was capable of. A reminder that demons, ex or otherwise, can know love as fiercely and deeply as any human.

Watching as the kiss breaks, Spike’s forehead resting against yours, she sighs. When it blows up, and it will, she’ll inevitably be dragged into it. Great, she thinks. More drama.

But, as she watches you embrace under the steadily darkening sky, she can’t help but feel a pang of… something. Envy, maybe, at your audacity. Nostalgia. Or the bitter understanding that love is a gamble, and fools are the only ones brave enough to take it. But it’s a gamble worth fighting, worth losing, maybe even dying for.

Giles stands in the corner of the back room, pretending to clean a counter already spotless. The pretense is for your benefit, perhaps Spike’s too—but not his own. He knows exactly why he’s here. Buffy is dead. And you, her younger sister, are throwing yourself into the very life she died living. He tells himself it’s just concern. That he’s watching to ensure you’re safe. But it’s more than that. With Buffy gone, everything he failed to protect now rests in you. And Spike—compulsive, volatile—is the one you’ve chosen to help carry that weight.

The Magic Box is still and dim, cloaked in that aching quiet that has lingered since her death. The only sounds are the thud of your fists on the heavy bag and Spike’s low, muttered instructions. You’re quick, focused—but Giles can see it in the way your shoulders tighten, your mouth presses into a hard line. You’re angry. You’re hurting, and Spike is right in the middle of it.

Once, he stood in this very spot and watched Buffy move.

Not like this.

She was light—fluid—grace sharpened into purpose. A dancer in motion, even at her most frustrated. He remembers the flash of her blonde ponytail in the air as she twisted into a spin-kick that sent the padded dummy reeling. How she’d bounce on the balls of her feet with a smirk and say, “Again?” even when sweat was dripping into her eyes.

He remembers correcting her stance, only for her to adjust just slightly wrong on purpose, just to get a rise out of him. The way she'd laugh when she nailed something new. How she complained, always, but never stopped trying. Now, the echoes of those moments sit in the corners of the room like ghosts. But watching you move—raw, stiff, driven by pain instead of instinct—feels like watching someone drown slowly under the weight of her shadow.

You decided to train properly just days after her death. It’s understandable: each of you have found your own methods of working through your sorrow, Dawn blaring her uncomfortably loud music at all manner of odd hours while you find yourself here, or away from the house, out at all hours of the night. The others are wrapped up in their own hurt, the wound too fresh to consider the plight of the Summers girls beyond the most basic of necessities. While Giles cannot make himself comfortable with the notion of you in any sort of battle, at least here he can keep vigil. For her.

You aren’t built like your elder sister: your frame is too slight, too small, and your punches lack the power to truly hurt. You’re about as threatening as a fly, but Spike does not coddle you.

“Potential there, yeah?” he said enigmatically when last Giles asked, smirking. “Something raw n’ fierce. She’s no Slayer, but she can surprise a nasty or two.”

When Spike offered to train you, he framed it as a way to keep you from getting yourself killed on the patrols you’d abruptly become insistent on joining. It is your way of honoring your sister’s sacrifice, Giles thinks, though he wishes you might choose some other means. With the Slayer gone, there were none suited to the task save Spike, and thus the proposition was reluctantly agreed to. The chip in the vampire’s head makes his sparring with you impossible, much to everyone’s relief, but he has turned instruction into drills for evasion, for striking with speed and precision, for using your size to your advantage. You’ll not make for a spectacular fighter, no, but Spike ensures you might hold your own.

“Footwork,” the vampire barks as you stumble back from a missed hit. “You’re dancing like a drunk. Move your feet.”

You scowl, breathing hard. “I am moving.”

“Yeah, like a duck. Gotta be faster, light on your feet.” His gaze flicks over you, lazy but appraising, lips curling. “All that talk about training—wouldn’t want to bruise anything too delicate, would we? Keep your face pretty. Gotta keep the goods intact, yeah?” He leans closer, a teasing edge in his voice. “Though you might wear a bruise well, pet. Bit of edge suits you.”

You bristle, cheeks flushing and indignation flaring in the pout you level him as you obey, focusing on the way Spike glides predatory, almost elegant. He demonstrates a simple but effective series of moves, unnaturally fast, hands ghosting close but never touching. Giles can see your mounting frustration at your inability to replicate the finesse of the supernatural, limbs shaking with exertion.

You lunge abruptly, no rhyme or reason to it, throwing a punch that flies wide. Spike dodges easily, grinning. “That it? Come on, you can hit harder than a wet noodle.”

“Not like you can punch back,” you mutter, blowing a strand of hair out of your face.

His eyes narrow, playful. “Then make me dodge.”

You strike again, quicker this time, a low jab aimed at his ribs. He twists away, swift as a snake, but instead of stepping back, he moves into your space and catches your wrist in a carefully firm grip. Before you can react, his other arm wraps around your waist, pinning you flush against his body. Giles jumps, box slipping from his hands to the counter with a dull thud. Neither of you appear to notice.

“Close,” Spike is murmuring to you, voice a rough rumble, “but no.” His hand slides just a bit lower, fingers splayed against the curve of your hip. His mouth brushes your ear. “Distracted, baby? Can't blame you—hard to focus when you’re all tangled up, yeah?”

His hand twitches lower―just enough to provoke, to threaten―before releasing you with an odd little twist to his lips. Giles stiffens, teeth clenching as he looks on, sees Spike’s regard intent and glimmering on you. For a moment, he thinks the vampire wishes to bite you, to drain you dry, but in an instant, the moment is past and you return to starting positions.

It is hard to watch. But watch he must, for it has long been his mandate to guard against the malevolent creatures who hunt and slaughter innocents. Not only that, but in Buffy’s absence―the pang each time the memory resurfaces of her lying there atop the rubble nearly bowls him over―someone ought to keep their eye on this strange development between the pair of you.

“Ready?” Spike’s tone is clipped, stance relaxed. “Again.”

Giles watches as you push harder, your muscles trembling, frustration mounting with every falter. Spike’s needling is mild but targeted, sustained, enough to build up the uncharacteristic anger in you. The vampire never raises a hand against you―he cannot, after all―but he pushes, demands, making you curse your own limits and curse him just the same. He’d perhaps be grateful for the efforts Spike is undertaking if not for the way his gaze lingers just a fraction too long, or how carefully he listens when your voice cracks.

He’s tried to intervene. Truly, he has. It seems from the very second you returned to Sunnydale, armed with a superciliousness that can only come from having attended an institute like Thacher for near three years, you have met his every entreaty with a discourse on the intellectual failings of dichotomous thinking. Spike has no soul―one cannot unilaterally quantify a soul’s impact on the quality of personhood. Spike is evil―‘evil’ is subject to time, place, culture, any number of qualifiers that make it impossible to define concretely. Spike can only cause harm―then that is your cross to bear, and your lesson to learn. Interesting, certainly, but gullible. The accusation that Giles is in some way lacking rationality is galling, though he sees your point. However, he’s seen Spike in all his unholy glory, knows what he is capable of. You can question the basis of his suspicion all you like, but it does not change the simple fact that Spike has done things that even the most abominable human beings would shudder to behold, and he has rejoiced in the horror.

Ben, hand clawing at his arm, weakly trying to twist away—No. His thoughts turn back to you.

You protest Giles’s every exhortation, strong-willed, resilient and reckless in such an unassuming manner that it terrifies him. You aren’t a Slayer, but you are a Summers, and let no one tell you what you can and cannot do. You insist that Spike is helping. That you need the distraction, the outlet. That you need someone who sees you for more than the grief and the guilt that plague your waking hours. And perhaps that’s what terrifies him most—that Spike might actually be helping. That darkness, once cut loose from consequence, can learn the shape of meaning—wear it like a mask.

Over the following weeks, Giles observes from a distance, acutely aware of how your dynamic with Spike has changed. The vampire’s instruction has become softer, more invested. Confident, maybe, in the lack of challenge to his conduct. Spike encourages you, listens to you. Something protective lays in the way he steps closer when your voice wavers or when fatigue drags your movement. Giles sees it all.

The contradiction bothers him. Spike has no soul, his every innate impulse leashed by the metal sliver in his skull. And yet, here he is―teaching you, protecting you, caring. The chip keeps Spike in check, but it does nothing to curb emotions. Even a soulless vampire can develop fixations, obsessions that mask themselves as something softer, sweeter. Spike is a being of passion, his fascinations consuming. His almost violent preoccupation with Buffy has transmuted, found a new form in you as he reveals himself a man possessed, but it is the way you look back that worries Giles more. Longing, visceral and bursting. You cling to him like a tether, held together by someone just as lost and just as dangerous. He knows that Spike would chomp at the bit to take you in hand, to save you, possess you; though for what purpose, he knows not. It gnaws at him.

Giles lingers late in the shop now, a Watcher in a ghost town, listening to your sessions with Spike. He tells himself it is concern that keeps him still, ears searching for snippets of conversation―but the more he hears, the more he realizes with growing dread that there is something more to your connection. Mouths too close. Bodies too familiar. Words too tender, hidden behind closed doors and from averted eyes. Spike is no longer a distraction. He’s become vital—like breath, like blood. A companion, a confidant. The full scope of it hides below the surface and out of Gile’s sight, save for the ripples of recognition that make themselves evident in gradual increments.

The question eats at him: what happens when Spike’s obsession inevitably turns darker, when fleeting touch and veiled intent no longer serve his desires? Will you recognize the danger before it consumes you? Will you even care? Though it keeps him up at night, Giles cannot bring himself to confront you. Not yet. Grief drives people to foolishness, the need for comfort outweighing common sense. He’s considered confronting Spike directly—pulling him aside, demanding he explain himself, threatening consequences if he oversteps again—but what good would it do? Spike would only smirk, lean back with that insufferable slouch, and twist concern into something vulgar. A taunt, a dare. He would make it a game, because that’s what vampires do. They play at humanity. And Giles is so very tired of playing.

The time for subtlety is drawing to a close. He must make you understand the risk—even if it costs your trust. Watching isn’t enough. Not anymore.

Upon an evening after your training comes to a close and you rest, smarting and sore as Spike prowls away to his shift on patrol, Giles corners you.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he begins, the edge in his voice betraying his fear.

You look up at him. He sees it in your face when you grasp his meaning, your nostrils flaring just the once, frustration fleeting. “I know what he is,” you say after a pause, quiet and tired. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t choose to be more.”

Giles sighs. “He’s a vampire. Change isn’t in their nature.”

“Isn’t it?” you challenge softly. “He protects Dawn. He fights the good fight. He ca―He’s… trying. That has to mean something. Maybe he just needs a chance. Maybe everyone does.”

“Naive,” Giles mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Evil doesn’t change. It adapts.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” you admit, gaze unwavering. “But if people never get a chance to be better, what’s the point? Even you gave Angel a chance. Or was that different?”

Giles looks away, ashamed at how small the truth sounds when you say it like that. He absently pats the pocket of his jacket, fingers brushing the edges of a plane ticket he hasn’t yet decided to use. He doesn’t know if it’s cowardice, or mercy, that’s kept him from boarding it. “He had a soul.”

“And Spike has a choice.”

Silence hangs between you. Giles wonders if you’ll ever understand what he’s seen, what he’s lost. But the fire in your eyes is familiar. Unyielding. He thinks of Buffy, of her tenacity and persistence, and then of you: juvenile, grieving, determined to carry burdens too heavy for your shoulders. With her gone, he is supposed to protect you. But how can he protect you from yourself?

There is no future to be found here. Not with Spike. Not like this. And if Giles does not leave while he still can, he will remain stuck, resigned to watching the inevitable fall.

God help you both.

Dawn’s tears feel cold as they slide down her cheeks. She’s not sure if she’s crying because she’s angry or just tired—but either way, she’s so sick of them.

She doesn’t mean it. Deep down, she knows that. They’re trying. They get her up in the mornings, drive her to school. Pick her up, spend afternoons making stilted conversation. They help you with the bills, with dinner, with making sense of all of Buffy’s ID stuff so that Social Services still thinks she’s in the picture. Dawn sees the self-help books they hide whenever she enters the room, the step-by-step how-tos on helping their child cope with loss. There probably isn’t one on how to fix a ball of mystical energy after her fake mom and fake sister die. She hates how they avoid it—how they won’t say Buffy’s name. The looks, the half-finished sentences, the careful choice of words. It feels like they’re all pretending. Months have passed, and nothing’s better. Mom’s dead. Buffy’s dead, and no one wants to say it out loud.

Tara’s soft voice echoes in her ears, gentle, soothing, so understanding it made Dawn want to scream. Willow’s hovering didn’t help either. It felt like drowning in marshmallow fluff. She had to get out. She needed air, space—somewhere she wasn’t the Key or a broken kid sister. Somewhere no one would baby her, hover, be in her face all the time.

It's kinda depressing, but the cemetery has always felt peaceful to her. It’s familiar: the dirt beneath her sneakers, the rot of dying grass, the mildew dirtying the headstones that stick up like crooked teeth out of the ground. It’s bleak, but honest. The air feels cleaner here, cool and bite-y, a reminder that she’s still alive.

“The hardest thing in this world is to live. Be brave. Live… for me.”

Buffy’s last words hit her like a hammer, shocking her with a fresh wave of sadness prickling in the corners of her eyes. She looks up. The stars are out, cold and distant, glinting in the sky so far above her. It’s comforting, in a way. They’re all trapped in their own galaxies billions of light years away, never getting to meet each other. Alone in the dark, just like her.

Her vision blurs. She swallows hard, the lump in her throat thick and heavy. Everyone leaves her—Mom and Buffy, bodies in the ground, Giles an ocean away. She feels small. Insignificant. But at least here, the quiet feels less accusing, less full of expectations. She drags in a breath, shaky but grounding.

Shivering, she looks around as she nears Spike’s crypt. Everyone thinks she’s pretty weird for hanging out with him sometimes, but he’s the only one who doesn’t try to tell her everything’s going to be okay. He doesn’t try to make her talk. Sometimes, he doesn’t even say hello to her. He just nods at her, lets her sit there in silence until the anger and the hurt melts away. Spike is… Spike. He gets it. She remembers what he was like before: obsessed with Buffy, creepy and desperate, kinda vicious in his insistence that her sister felt something for him. The way Buffy looked at him—like he was disgusting, an ant under her shoe, like he was less than a bug to her—comes back to her. That was always painful to watch. But he learned from it, grew, turned his feelings into something else. He got less threatening and aggressive; pulled back, focused less on her and more on what was important to her, on you and Dawn. Showed Buffy that he could be someone to rely on, someone to help with the Slayer’s kid sisters.

Guilt eats at Dawn. She hasn’t come to see him a while. All the Scoobies have taken up so much of her time by dragging her through the motions, convinced that she’ll just move on with her life if they remind her to do her homework and stick a chore chart on the fridge. She’s seen him plenty at home, but it’s always hard to tell how someone’s doing when they’re just visiting.

I guess I’ll find out, she thinks with a slight prickle of nerves.

As she draws closer, she instantly notices something off. She squints, taking in the sight of the stone outside. Is the door… painted? Yup. Still has that slightly funky paint smell, so it’s gotta be pretty fresh. The stoop is clear for once, none of the crackly dead leaves announcing her presence under her feet, and there’s a broom tucked behind the pot plant. Weird. There’s even a flowerpot sitting just next to the column, a splash of bright. The inside is cleaner than she remembers. Swept floors, no cigarette butts, the beer bottles gone. A faded throw is tossed over the back of the armchair Spike took from their house, and the moldy damp smell seems a little less intense.

Huh. Spike isn’t exactly Mr. Domestic. What gives?

It takes her a moment to realize that the trapdoor is open. He doesn’t usually leave it like that, whether he’s out or staying in. She’s heading for the ladder before she’s fully aware of it, careful not to make a sound as she goes down. Her steps are light, careful, not wanting to disturb Spike, or whoever’s in here.

Edging along the wall—not too close, because erghh and ick with the spiderwebs—she’s just before the bend when her ears pick up voices. More than one. Muffled, but clear enough to hear the difference. One is definitely Spike’s—gruff, low, offensively British—but the other one is… softer. Younger. Familiar. Her heart lurches before she can stop it.

What are you doing here?

Her curiosity outweighs her sense, and she peers just around the corner to see you. And Spike. You and Spike, together.

Her eyes widen. Spike lays in bed—a real one, not a ratty cot or a stone slab—bare-chested and propped up by kitschy pillows that match the new rugs on the floor. You’re spread out atop him, equally free of clothes, your chest pressed to his so that all she can really see is the span of your back and the way Spike’s fingers trace lazy circles across your skin. Your cheek rests in the crook of his neck, your hair messy. The rumpled sheets just barely cover some seriously X-rated stuff, though Dawn can tell that your legs are tangled together, and that his other hand is on your thigh beneath the coverings. It’s obvious what you’ve been doing. The scent of it clings to the air—sweat, skin, warm and strong. Heat climbs her cheeks, but she can’t look away.

She knows this is a scene she was never meant to see. Something private. It makes a strange, painful knot form in her stomach—but at least she’s finally figured out where you’ve been going now that you’re not at home as much. You’re here. With Spike.

Privacy, boundaries, respect, blah blah blah, she thinks, intending to back away until you speak again, finally near enough that she can hear you.

“… and I—I can’t fall apart,” you say, voice thick with sadness. She finally takes in your expression: crumpled, eyes rimmed red. The kind of face you make when you’ve cried too much and can’t anymore. “Buffy’s… she’s gone. Mom’s gone. And I―”

Spike hushes you, gaze locked on you in a way that makes Dawn’s heart skip a beat.

Your breath hitches. “I’m supposed to hold it together. For Dawnie. I’m the oldest now. And everyone expects me to―” You stop, hesitant.

“You can say it, kitten. Go on,” Spike encourages softly. “Let it out.”

You choke on a sob. When you begin again, your voice is small. “I… I’m her sister. Buffy’s. Her real one. The one with real memories and real love, and I have to… I have to bury it all. Because if I don’t, who steps up? Buffy’s the Slayer, but I’m the strong one, and I can’t―”

Your words break, face turning into his throat as a noise unlike anything Dawn’s ever heard escapes you. She almost throws up. Wants to storm in, yelling, asking you if that’s what you really think of her, if you see her as just some thing instead of a person. It hurts something fragile and breakable in the very darkest parts of her to hear you say what no one else will: that she’s a fraud, a phony that doesn’t belong. Not real. Alone. If that’s how you feel, then why do you even bother?

But then, Spike’s arms tighten around you, holding you even closer, and she pauses.

“Not wrong for what you feel,” he murmurs. “Bloody awful mess. Not fair. And you’ve been carrying too much of it alone.”

Your fingers curl against his chest. “I hate feeling this way. I hate that I even thought it. Dawnie… I love her.”

Spike presses a kiss to your hair. “You’re allowed. Doesn’t make you a bad sister. Makes you human.”

“I… I miss her,” you say, unsteady and so, so young. “I miss Buffy. I miss… I want my mom. I want them back. How do―how can―how am I supposed to do this?”

“I know, baby.” His hand slides up to cup the back of your head. You grip him like a lifeline. “It’s rotten, the hand you’ve been dealt. But you’ll get along. You’re brave. And you’re not alone. Never alone.”

Dawn presses a hand over her mouth, backing away slowly. The quiet, broken sound of your crying follows her as she slips out, heart pounding. She makes it halfway home before her legs wobble, forcing her to sit on a crumbling stone wall.

The way he held you… Like you were something precious to him. She swallows back the lump in her throat. You and Spike. You and Spike, together. It’s weird, and part of her wants to be grossed out, but the look on his face sticks in her mind. He’s never looked at anyone like that before. Not Drusilla, not Harmony, not Buffy, not Dawn. No one. No one but you.

She gets it now. Why Spike’s around so much. Why she seems to always find him with you―at the Magic Box, at the house, in the cemetery, the Bronze. She wonders when it all started. What she’s seen tonight isn’t just random. It didn’t look like two people just trying to cope. It looked like… it reminds her of Buffy, how she was with Angel.

Dawn sighs. Sure, it stings, but she gets it. Her rage has left her, replaced by something stinging and bittersweet. She can’t unhear the pain in your voice, can’t unsee the way Spike held you like you matter, maybe more than anyone else in the world. She knows she should tell someone what she saw—maybe Willow or Tara—but the idea makes her stomach churn. It would hurt you, betray you. And Spike, he would never forgive her.

She rubs the salt from her eyes with the heel of her hand, then grips the edge of the wall like it might steady her. The choice settles into her chest, warm and a little heavy. She’ll keep your secret. For now.

The house feels thinner tonight. Hollowed out, smaller. Quieter than she’s used to.

Buffy’s away, dragged by Willow and Xander to the Bronze in the hopes that bass and bodies might shake loose the shadows she's been carrying since her resurrection. Dawn’s at Janice’s, sleeping over, probably halfway through a horror movie and a bag of microwave popcorn, equipped with gossip and a parent who can pretend not to notice how late they stay up. And you—you’re usually the one who stays behind, always so gentle with Buffy lately, so patient with Dawn. Steady, in your own quiet, hurting way. Tara assumes you’ve gone to sleep already, or out again, whereabouts unknown.

For once, she can breathe. No awkward silences. No Buffy’s thousand-yard stare across the table. No tiptoeing around the tension that still clings to the walls like smoke. She’s been floating for weeks, a warm presence pressed into the background, not quite seen. Not quite necessary. The only time anyone touches her anymore is when she initiates it. She can’t remember the last time someone held her like they needed to.

She moves softly through the hallway now, mug of tea in one hand, the intention simple: grab the spare quilt from the room you share with your little sister and curl up on the couch with a book. But then she hears it. A sound, soft and aching. A moan, breathy and real, the kind of sound that doesn’t come from pain.

Tara pauses outside your bedroom door, which hangs just slightly ajar. She should walk away. She knows she should. But something makes her glance through the gap. She tells herself it’s concern, not curiosity—that the sound you made could’ve been from pain. Just checking. One breath. One heartbeat. Just long enough to see something that will never leave her.

She freezes.

You’re on the bed, bare from the waist down, hips tilted to the edge of the mattress and thighs parted in surrender. Spike is on his knees on the floor—shirtless, pants riding low and sagging, undone, skin pale as milk in the moonlight. His shoulders ripple with restrained tension, arms banded tight around your thighs as he buries his face between them like a man starved. The lamplight from the corner casts long shadows across his back, glinting along the ridges of his spine, the curve of his neck. One of your legs is slung high over his shoulder, trembling. The other braces against the mattress, and you're huffing, squirming.

Your head tosses back on the pillow, lips parting on a soft, drawn-out moan. He’s working you over with slow, luxuriating confidence—worshipping, hungering. His tongue traces slick, purposeful circles, every movement intentional. Tara hears him groan, hears the filthy little noises he makes when you twitch and jolt beneath him, the wet suck of his lips when he draws your clit between them, savoring you like sin.

“Spike,” you breathe, and he groans like it’s the only word that matters.

Her breath catches.

Spike pulls back only to spear into the furl of your entrance, pressing his nose in hard and inhaling. Your body judders helplessly, your fingers digging into the bedspread, into the air, into nothing at all. The muscles in your stomach flex, then tremble. You whimper, low and wrecked, and he makes a sound in return: something primal, appreciative, entirely unashamed. It’s obscene. And yet—there’s something soft about it. Reverent.

Tara’s seen Spike grin through blood and violence, heard him mock the pain of others. But this—this isn’t that. She remembers the tower: his hands slick with blood, the way he stood, shaking, hollering your name as a stray hit sent you reeling to the ground, afraid. Broken. She hadn’t known then what it meant. She might now.

His hands aren’t being cruel. His mouth isn’t taking. It’s giving. Something in him is folded open, gentle. Wanting. He moves, draws his tongue over your clit with careful precision, then slips lower again, teasing your opening before easing back in, slow and sure. One hand trails up to splay wide across your belly, grounding you. He growls, eyes half-lidded like it’s better than blood.

“Such a sweet li’l cunt. Heaven,” he murmurs, voice gravel-soft and decadent, like velvet dragged over grit. “Could die here, buried in you. Wouldn’t even mind.”

Tara flinches, face flaming. But you—you make a shuddering sound of agreement, helpless and high-pitched. Your hand fists in his hair, pulling without thought, and Spike laughs, low and delighted. Not mocking; giddy, like a man dizzy with luck.

“Greedy thing, aren’t you?” he chuckles, nosing along your thigh before dipping back in, tongue wicked and unrelenting. “Already twitchin’, beggin’ for more—look at you. Bloody gorgeous when you come undone.”

Your hips cant forward, chasing his mouth.

“C’mon then,” he urges, licking slow and deep, practically cooing. “Lemme feel you break.”

Tara swallows, heart thudding. The room smells like skin and salt and something sweet, air balmy and thick enough to taste. She presses the mug to her mouth like an anchor. Doesn’t drink. Just holds it, fingers damp with warmth. Everything else goes quiet.

She should look away. But the way you move—hips lifting, breath catching—draws her in. You whisper his name like a plea, and he doubles down, suckling hard enough to make you arch off the mattress. Crying out, you twist the sheet in one hand and reach for him with the other. He catches your wrist and kisses your palm, never pausing.

Then—

“Oh god,” you sob. “Please, please, I—”

“Shh,” Spike murmurs, voice ragged against you. “Give it to me. Let go, baby, I’ve got you.”

And you do.

You crest with a gasping, hitched cry, back arched and mouth open. Spike moans against you like he’s the one unraveling as you tremble, thighs clamped around his ears. Your chest heaves. Your lips part. For a moment, you look unmade: tears streak your cheeks, sweat glistens on your skin, and your breath comes in gulps, shallow.

He doesn’t pull away. His kisses soften, slow and adoring. It reminds Tara of how Willow once touched her wrist in a crowded room. She envies it—the ache turned to tenderness. To be truly seen, desired. She mourns how rare that feeling has become. There’s awe in it, and something worse―need, maybe, or love. Ever since Buffy came back, the world’s been tilted slightly sideways—sunlight too yellow, silence too thick. But this? This feels real. Loud. Alive.

Spike presses his lips to your thigh as you come down, murmuring too low to catch. He licks up the mess he’s made of you, gentle now, like you're sacred.

“Too much,” you whisper, blinking. “Can’t…”

He eases back, wiping his mouth, then nestles into the cradle of your hips. His fingers trace the wet between your legs—not to arouse, but to relish in, the tip of his nose gliding along your belly, devoted. He lingers, kissing the slope of your mound like prayer.

Tara starts to move. She should leave. Any longer, and it won't be an accident. If you see her, it becomes something else. A breeze shivers through the hallway and she stills, heart pounding, suddenly certain that if Spike turns his head, he’ll know; that if you catch her, it will live between you like a ghost. She tells herself it’s only curiosity, that it’ll vanish from her memory come morning. But she knows it won’t.

She stays. Listens.

“I didn’t mean to cry,” you mumble, throwing an arm over your eyes.

“I like it when you do,” he murmurs as he kisses your hip and climbs up over you, licking his lips. It doesn’t sound cruel. “Means you feel me. Means ‘m not just makin’ this up in the dark, yeah?” He pulls you into the crook of his arm, palm brushing your cheek, thumb gentle beneath your eye. You sniffle. His mouth brushes against your temple. “There she is. My brave girl.”

The way you melt into him—it’s not just comfort. It’s trust. Tara knows love doesn’t always look gentle. He curls around you like you might vanish, nose brushing your temple, hand stroking your back. You toss your leg over his, and he slides his fingers to touch where you're still slick, to which you wriggle but say nothing.

“Still with me, kitten?” he murmurs.

You nod. “You didn’t have to be so—”

“Didn’t have to. Wanted to.” He nuzzles your hair. “Wanted to make you feel good. You always make me feel like I’m still… real.”

You bury your face in his chest. He exhales.

Tara never thought vampires spoke in anything but hunger—but Spike does. He calls you gorgeous. Brave. And the way you curl around each other—it’s not lust. It’s sanctuary.

“Love you,” he whispers. It sounds like confession, like surrender. “So much it hurts. So much I’d burn for it.”

Your fingers curl into his shirt. “I know. I love you, too.”

That’s when Tara steps back. She closes the door gently, careful not to make a sound, her hand lingering too long on the knob before letting go.

She should feel horrified. She doesn’t. What she saw wasn’t twisted, wasn’t wrong. It was private, fierce, soft in a way Spike isn’t with anyone else. If Buffy knew, it would break something. If Xander knew, he’d burn it down. But Tara understands the truth of it—the strange, aching, imperfect truth. She saw you: the girl clinging to something fragile and fierce, and the monster who looked like he was terrified to let you go.

That truth belongs to you and Spike. Not the rest of the world. She walks away, silent and thoughtful, and decides she didn’t see anything at all.

Buffy will come home tonight with mascara smudged and shoulders slumped. She’ll shuffle through the door like a ghost who got lost on the way back to her grave, and Tara will hand her tea and ask about the music. Neither of them will mention how long it’s been since anyone laughed.

The house still feels hollow, but not lifeless. Something still beats beneath its ribs—reckless, messy, lit with want. Tara doesn’t know if it’s hope, but it’s something. She doesn't know what it is she envies more: the hunger, or the way it’s fed.

He wants to tear his eyes out, rip his eardrums from his skull and swallow them all. Anything to escape the full-on assault in front of him.

Well. Not an assault. It’s pretty quiet, all things considered. But still. There’s a special kind of hell in watching whatever the crap this is. Your face is pretty much all Xander can really see of what’s going on―brows furrowed, mouth open, eyes hooded―but the uh. Bouncing. Yeah. That’s painting a pretty graphic picture. And the sounds. Wet, gross, thrusting sounds.

Your hands are clasped against the back of Evil Dead’s neck, fingers twisting and twisting away in the ungelled hairs at his nape as you make those haunting little wounded noises with each―oh god, yuck―drive of his hips against you, pushing you further into the wall of the dusty old crypt you’re hoisted up against. Xander’s eyes flicker down before he can stop himself―bare calves jolting with the rhythm, skirt hiked high—and snaps them back up just in time to see Spike’s mouth dragging along your throat. Hands flex on your hips, steering you squirming into each harsh roll of his body. Thank the Powers That Be that he’s still fully clothed.

Well―

Nope. Not thinking about what’s unclothed right now.

"Spike…” you gasp, high and pitchy, but whatever you were going to say is swallowed by a vicious kiss, Spike’s bleach-blond head blocking your face from view as he devours you. The sight jolts Xander’s heart sideways, but he can’t—can’t—look away.

You used to call him Xan the Man. Used to ask for rides home from school and come to him for help with the printer. Now you’re wrapped around a monster like he’s the only thing keeping you upright.

“The thing he’s doing with his tongue,” Anya whispers, wide-eyed. “She’s probably having multiple orga―”

He waves a harried hand at her, the universal motion for shut the hell up, Ahn, partly because he so does not want to hear the end of that line of thought and partly because he doesn’t want Spike to know they’re here. Also, to be honest, because he’s still kinda trying to process what he’s seeing. It’s like watching a train wreck: he can’t look away. Are you under a spell?

“Shh, shh,” he can hear Spike murmur then, voice low and coaxing, his nose dipping to glide along the arch of your throat as he hitches your legs higher. “Gotta stay quiet, yeah? Don’t want any beasties coming ‘round.”

You yelp, and Xander flinches. The bleached wonder makes his own series of sounds, then, deep and growly, and his lips curve in a wicked smile against your ear. Fingers curl tighter against your hips in a way that should be making that chip of his fire off, make him scream in agony, stumble off and away. But nope, of course Xander’s not that lucky. You writhe closer, gasping.

His pulse pounds. A hundred bad scenarios run wild through his head—Buffy’s face twisting in rage, Dawn crying, you lying cold and broken after Spike gets bored. He feels sick.

“You want that, then, kitten?” Spike croons, lips skimming your jaw, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. “Want ‘em to see you hanging off the Big Bad’s cock, slack-jawed n' titties bouncing? Mm, give ‘em the treat of their lives, show off my girl and her tight li’l quim.”

“Oh my god,” Anya mutters. Her expression is fascinated and maybe a little aroused, but she doesn’t seem surprised, which is one to file away for later.

Xander’s stomach revolts. He’s heard Spike talk like this before—sick, lecherous, all swagger and filth—but hearing it directed at you is… it’s wrong. You’re too young, too trusting, too damn human. You’re Buffy’s sister. Dawn’s sister. Hell, you’re practically his kid sister—still fourteen in his mind, still asking him to reach the cereal from the top shelf. And Spike? He’s leering at you like a prize to ruin. But you don’t look ruined. You look… hungry. Yearning, with the bright flush spreading across your face and your arms winding tighter around his neck, ankles locking round his back like a limpet.

You’re shaking your head, but your lower body is curving off the stone to grind back down on him, keening out, “No, no―”

Spike grins, tongue flicking against your earlobe as his hips roll deeper. Xander wants to snap something—an insult, a threat—but he can’t risk it. “Course not, you’re a good girl, aren’t you? Selfish, I am, plucked you for my own and I’m keepin’ you, all mine, my good girl.”

‘A good girl.’ The phrase slithers down Xander’s spine like ice water. The edge in Spike’s voice freaks him out. Maybe… maybe we should’ve been more wigged out when he started spending time with her instead of sniffing around Buffy.

His gut clenches hard as you cry out, clearly in pain as the vamp staccatos his thrusts like he’s stabbing you through to your core. The chip still doesn’t go off and you’re writhing closer, not away, completely unbothered by the slamming of the hand by your shoulder and the rock that crumbles under superstrong fingers digging into the wall.

Xander keeps hoping the chip’s gone dead.

Because that’s easier than admitting you’re not fighting back.

God, do you even want Spike to stop?

Xander’s stuck, warring with his desire to burst through the thicket concealing him and Ahn and stake Spike for what he’s doing to you, but he can’t figure out if the chip’s malfunctioning or not.

“You gonna cum, kitten?” Spike’s asking, teeth fixated on the skin where your neck and shoulder meet, nipping and sucking like he’s getting ready for a feast. You’re clinging to his hair, crunching the gel all out of it, knees scrabbling but unable to find purchase against the leather coat until he hooks his arms under them. He folds you near in half so you let out a squeal, feet kicking. “Yeah? Feel you gettin’ hot for it, squeezin’ down all desperate … Come on, gimme it, get me all drippin’ with it, yeah―”

You seize up like you’ve been tazed, electrocuted, a sobbing whimper bursting out as he works you up and through it, pace frantic―

“Yeah, baby,” he’s moaning, “came like a dream―know it’s hurtin’, jus’ gotta let me finish, lemme―”

―and you wilt, limbs loosening to jelly so much so that Spike’s all but shoving you through the crypt wall. Your voice is fervent and cracking as you say, “Please, Spike, please—want it inside, want you in me—please, please—”

You whine high and clear while Spike pounds at you, animalistic, though you clutch yourself to him tight as he grunts and blusters his way to his end. Making little encouraging cries, you arch back obligingly as his chin dips and―hoo boy, that’s definitely more of you than Xander ever planned to see, thanks, never mind the tongue and teeth all over you. The movements slow and slow until there’s nothing more than a lazy shuddering roll of Spike’s lower body against yours. You tilt your head back, eyes closed and sighing.

“Wow,” Anya breathes. Yeah, wow’s right.

Xander feels like he’s been gutted. He’s seen plenty of things on patrol, but this… this is something else. Something private and raw and so, so wrong. No, not just wrong—it’s unwatchable. Buffy’s sister, tangled in Spike’s claws, and he can’t do a damn thing about it. The helplessness burns.

Spike kisses you again, touches you like he’s starved for it, his body cradling yours with sickening tenderness.

“Come back with me, kitten?” he asks you softly.

Huh, still with the nickname-y thing. Xander’s mind twists back to Drusilla—how she used to cling, and how Spike would all but melt into her, feral and adoring. The comparison knots something ugly inside him.

“Got you all messy,” Spike’s still saying. One of his hands disappears, and you make a noise Xander can’t really place until he sees the vamp stick his fingers in his mouth, lewdly suck them with a pop. “Can’t go off leakin’ all the way home.”

“If I had my panties back,” you say, laughing, “maybe that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Zipper sounds, and Spike lowers you with more care than Xander’s ever seen him use, fiddling with the skirt of your dress. Your knees are pressed tight together.

“Were you wearin’ any?” he asks with false innocence, tucking strands of hair behind your ear and following the plane of your shoulder, your arm, winding his fingers with yours. “Can’t remember.”

You laugh again. You keep doing that. “Spike.”

He tugs you from the wall, arms holding you like a vice against him. The expression on Spike’s face as he looks at you… Awareness feels like nausea.

This isn’t just screwing around, is it?

Of course. The way Dawn hovers. Tara’s looks. Giles leaving—not after Buffy died, but after something else. They all knew. They just didn’t say it. How long has this been happening while everyone’s looked away?

“Feels better when you’re with me,” he says, voice low. His forehead presses down against yours and you sway together, idle, caught in a spell. “Watchin’ you sleep, heart beatin’… Get to hold you, too. S’nice. How ‘bout it, hm?”

Too soft, too soft.

Your eyes are wide, adoring. “I’ll call home. Tell them I’m out for the night.”

Suddenly, Xander’s thinking back to all those times Buffy or Dawnie or Willow or Tara have mentioned you staying over with a friend, going out late and coming back the next afternoon, or the afternoon after that. How many of those times have you actually just been with Spike?

You shriek, nearly cackling as the vamp hoists you up into a carry, spinning in an arc so your hair flies gleaming behind you. “Oh my god, Spike!”

“Yeah, baby, say my name.” He stalks off into the night with you, no doubt to make good on taking you back to his crypt.

Xander just stands there.

He wishes he never agreed to go patrolling tonight; wishes he decided to turn right instead of left; wishes he didn’t hear those noises and decide to stop, to creep up and scope out the source beyond the cover of bushes. Wishes he didn’t have to know that you and Spike are together, and that―worst of all―this isn’t just some fling. You’re in deep. Maybe he is, too.

He lets out a slow, deep breath, searching for his inner calm. “That was… disturbing as hell.”

“Why?” Anya tilts her head, frowning. “Because they’re in love?”

“Wha―No! No, that’s not the issue!” He rubs his face, trying to ignore the heart palpitations at Ahn’s use of the word love.

Her eyes narrow slightly, brow set in an even deeper furrow. “I don’t know why you’re so upset.”

“I don’t—” He stops. Don’t lash out. Inner calm. He sighs. Starts again. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”

Anya nods, clearly not understanding. The great thing about her is that she doesn’t push when she doesn’t get it. “Okay. Should we―should we just go home for now? Maybe you’ll feel better about it there.”

If Buffy finds out and doesn’t stop it—if she looks at this and says it’s fine—then maybe the world’s already broken beyond repair.

Xander shakes his head, already pulling out his phone, scrolling to ‘B’. “Not yet. I gotta make a call.”

He doesn't even know what he's gonna say. Just that someone has to know. Someone stronger. Someone who can stop it before it’s too late.

Willow steps through the front door like she’s bracing for a spell to blow back in her face.

The house feels wrong the second she enters. Too still, like the quiet after a slammed door. The air’s brittle with tension, the kind of tension that’s made her call in sick to work and grab the first bus back across town. It’s been a while since this atmosphere settled—long enough for her to head back out, get her copy of Witchcraft from where she’d left it behind the counter at the Magic Box. It was Buffy’s request. She thinks Spike’s put some kind of love spell on you. No one has the heart to tell her that you’re not acting like you’ve been under a spell.

Tara’s waiting in the entryway, pale and subdued.

“She knows they know,” she murmurs, voice soft but heavy. “I called her.”

Willow nods. “Thanks.”

Dawn’s been sent up to her room—the conversation that’s coming isn’t one for her ears, though Willow assumes she’ll probably just hide herself in the hall upstairs so she can listen in. For once, though, she didn’t put up a fight against her oldest sister’s demand. There was something sad in the set of her mouth—like she knew what was about to happen.

In the living room, it’s a standoff. Buffy’s pacing like a caged animal, arms crossed so tightly they could splinter bone. Xander’s by the fireplace, jaw set and eyes sharp, practically vibrating with righteous fury, while Anya is perched on the arm of the couch, watching everything like she’s about to start taking bets. That leaves her and Tara. Willow doesn’t know what to think. She doesn’t have long to figure it out.

The front door opens again. You come in first, proud and tense, daring anyone to speak. You’re holding Spike’s hand, clutching it with knuckles white. He remains a half-step behind you, his usual leather and arrogance somewhat marred by the tired, guarded expression on his face―like he’s expecting a stake through the ribs at any second, but will gladly take it if it means standing with you. You pause in the entry to the living room, hovering, indecisive.

Willow’s stomach flips. She doesn’t mean to stare, but she can’t help it. The way your fingers are laced with his, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world—as though you’re not standing in a room full of people who once would’ve bled to keep you safe from evil like him. It’s shocking.

Buffy’s the first to speak. Of course she is.

“Really?” she spits, voice like a lash. “You thought this was a good idea? Bringing him he―”

“We didn’t come for your permission, or your blessing,” you say flatly, raising your chin. A blaze burns in your eyes, threatening. “We came because I’m tired of hiding.”

Spike raises his eyebrows slightly, clearly amused despite everything. Willow wants to scream.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Xander cuts in, face red. “No one thought you did. But maybe you should have. Or, I don’t know, used the part of your brain that goes ‘hey, maybe I shouldn’t be having freaky sex with the guy who’s tried to kill everyone in this room?’”

Buffy whirls around to glare at him, but you beat her to it.

“Shut up, Xander,” you snap, the hostility so unlike you. Perhaps you’ve finally been pushed to the edge. Or maybe―just maybe―you’ve found something, someone worth the fight. “You don’t know a damn thing about us.”

“Please,” Xander scoffs. “What, you think that because he’s not killing people anymore, it makes this okay? He’s a monster! He’s—”

“He’s not!” you snap, stepping forward unconsciously. “He’s more human than half the people in this room.”

Willow finally speaks. “He’s a vampire with no soul. Do you even hear yourself?”

You look at her like she’s failed a test you thought she’d pass. “Yeah. I do. Better than you do, apparently.”

She flinches. That stings.

“You think this is some epic romance?” Xander scoffs. “This is Spike. He doesn’t love, he obsesses. You’re just the next thing he’s latched onto.”

Shaking your head, you say, “You’re wrong. He cares about me.”

Buffy’s in Spike’s face before Willow can blink. “Stay away from her. Stay away from my family. You touch her again and I swear to god—”

“Buffy.” Willow tries, she really does. But her voice is small, hesitant. She doesn’t know how to fix this. She doesn’t even know what this is.

Anya chimes in, voice low but unflinching. “This isn’t helping. Yelling at her like this. It’s not going to make her stop loving him.”

Everyone freezes for a moment, surprised. Anya shrugs, then folds her hands primly in her lap. “If yelling could fix love, none of us would’ve ever made a single relationship mistake. But here we are.”

The bite in the room is momentarily thrown off.

You’re shaking now, but not from fear. “I’m not some toy you can shove in a box when it makes you uncomfortable! I’m not yours to protect, or judge, or decide for. I’m the only one who gets to decide who I love.”

“Oh, God,” Buffy mutters, eyes wide with something between horror and heartbreak. “You really think this is love?”

“I know it is.”

Buffy’s breathing is sharp now, unsteady. She’s staring at you like she’s seeing someone else, someone she can’t recognize. Her voice, when it comes, is cracked at the edges. “Giles knew, didn’t he?”

The words land with more weight than Willow expects. There’s no venom in them—only something raw, wounded, almost betrayed.

You flinch, just barely. “What?”

“That’s why he left,” Buffy says, eyes narrowing. “He couldn’t watch it. Couldn’t watch you… this.” She gestures to you and Spike like the very sight of you burns.

Willow stiffens, heart sinking. She knows Giles’s departure had nothing to do with you—at least, not directly. But Buffy’s not really asking for answers. She’s lashing out because it’s easier than facing the loneliness that's been creeping closer every day since he left. Willow can see it in the clench of her jaw, in the brittle shine of her eyes. Buffy’s not stupid. Deep down, she knows the distance between her and Giles is her own doing. But tonight, she needs someone to blame, and it’s fallen on you.

“Don’t put that on her,” Spike says, low and warning.

“Don’t speak,” Buffy snaps, flicking her gaze to him. “You don’t get to talk. You’re the reason she’s like this.”

“I’m not some project he corrupted,” you fire back, shaking now. “I chose him. I wanted him. And he—”

“Stop,” Buffy barks, stepping forward. “Stop talking like… like it means something! Like this is anything but sick.”

The heat radiating off you is palpable. “You don’t get to judge me just because I love someone you couldn’t handle! You want someone to hate? Fine. Hate me. But don’t pretend this is about Spike!”

“Like hell it’s not,” Buffy growls. “You’re dragging him into this house again like he belongs here. Like you do, while you’re—you’re letting him crawl inside you like some… some thing.”

Willow doesn’t even have time to intervene before you go cold, your voice like ice. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh, I dare,” Buffy spits. “Because someone has to! Someone has to tell you how disgusting this is—”

“No,” you snap, sharp and clear. “You don’t care about what’s right. You want someone to blame. Someone to scream at, to shove out, so you don’t have to feel the way you feel. Because you’re still mad the world kept turning without you in it.” You gulp, unsteady, readying for the killing blow. “Because my vampire gives me what yours never could. Guess a soul doesn’t count for much after all, does it?”

Buffy raises her hand. Time slows.

The slap cracks across your cheek, the sound sharp and awful. For half a second, everything stills—and then Spike moves, shoving past Willow, fist meeting Buffy’s jaw with a brutal crunch. It sends her stumbling back against the wall.

“Don’t you touch her!” he growls, yellow eyes scorching as his human mask slips, revealing the demon below.

She’s already pulling a stake from her waistband. Tara moves at last.

“Buffy, no!” she gasps, her voice trembling as she reaches out instinctively, but she doesn’t make it far. She halts behind Willow, one hand outstretched like she’s forgotten what she meant to do with it. Her voice cracks. “Don’t do this. This won’t help—none of this will.”

It’s not loud. It’s not enough. But Willow hears it like a bell: clear, desperate, and already too late.

“Buffy, stop—” Willow adds, stepping forward, but you’re already in between them.

“If you kill him,” you warn, “you lose me too.”

Buffy’s hand is frozen mid-air, stake shaking. Like a puppet with its strings cut, her arm falls, stake clattering to the ground. “I can’t even look at you.”

“Then don’t.” You inhale, but it doesn’t steady anything. A strange look passes over your face, your shoulders squaring in some unknown resolution. “Isn’t that what Mom said to you? When you wouldn’t stop being the Slayer long enough to be her daughter?”

Buffy’s face crumples, just for a second. A tear falls. Then she whispers, devastating in its quiet: “Get out.”

No one breathes.

She walks away, slips through the back to the kitchen, and Willow hears the kitchen door slamming shut, the silence that follows unnatural.

You turn to the door.

“Come on,” Xander says, stepping a foot toward you. His hands are raised, his voice placating, like he’s speaking to a little kid. “Don’t… she didn’t mean it. She’s just angry. It doesn’t have to be a―a thing. Cut him loose. That’s all it takes. Let him go, and things can go back to the way they were.”

“That’s all it takes?” you repeat, quiet but deadly. “Toss him aside so Buffy feels better? Like he’s garbage I dragged in and forgot to take out?”

Xander shrugs, defensive. “I’m saying it’ll fix things. Make it right again. So we can… we can all move past this.”

Your eyes lock on him. “So you can all breathe easier. Buffy stops feeling grossed out, you stop feeling threatened. As long as I pay for it—right?”

Willow tries to interject, voice uncertain. “That’s not what he meant—”

You cut her off, sharp.

“It’s exactly what he meant.” You look back to Xander. “You, of all people, Xander. You’ve loved people you weren’t supposed to. What makes me different?”

Xander’s face tightens. Willow has no words.

“I love him,” you say. “He loves me. And there’s nothing any of you can say or do to make me give him up.” It rings with finality, lines drawn once and for all.

A hush descends for a beat. Spike’s voice sounds out, hesitant, uttering your name.

“No,” you tell him firmly, shaking your head. “Don’t even think it.” Your tone gentles, wavers, lower lip trembling. “Let’s… let’s just go, okay? Please?”

He wavers for a moment, searching for something in your expression. Willow sees the subtle slackening of his rigid frame, certainty propelling the nod he directs at you. “Yeah, kitten.”

A wan smile crosses your face. Without so much as glancing back, you let him open the door, hand on the small of your back as you both leave.

Willow casts around the room beseechingly. Xander’s all but shut down, staring at the space you just occupied with an inscrutable look. Anya’s curled in on herself, chin pressed to folded knees and avoiding meeting anyone else’s gaze. Tara clutches the banister, face deathly pale and eyes bright, distraught. A sliver of brown hair at the top of the stairs. Dawn. No one’s moving.

It’s up to her, then.

“Spike,” she calls out, rushing out onto the porch. One final attempt at ending this insanity. “Don’t―don’t let this happen. Don’t… there’s no going back. From this. If she goes now…”

You won’t even look at her. It’s like she’s ceased to exist. Staring up at Spike, you let him lay a hand on your cheek, let him nudge at your temple with the jut of his nose. Your arm’s curled under his duster, held fast to his waist.

“Wait for me, baby,” he murmurs to you. “I’ll deal with Red for a mo’.”

He pushes you gently in the direction of the tree and you go, sinking to the ground with your back against the trunk. You stare out at the street, something horribly lost and afraid in the shape of your body curled up in a ball. Spike makes his way back up the steps, murder in his eyes. He does nothing―just halts. Stares expectantly.

Willow wavers. “Why are you doing this? Haven’t you hurt us enough?”

Spike barks out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.

“You know, I held back in there. Let my girl handle it.” He snorts, though there’s nothing funny about this. “Bunch of self-absorbed wankers, you are. S’not about you lot.”

“Then what?” She frowns. She wants to understand. “What is it about? Why?”

Just like that, the fight goes out of him. He sighs, sounding every inch a creature that’s spent the last hundred years scrapping for everything he had, everything he needed. It’s strange, coming from him. Resigned. Weary. Sad.

“Got used to takers, didn’t I?” he says at long last, soft and reminiscent. He’s gazing at you. “Dru. Buffy. Needed me, never wanted me. Never saw me.” His voice is low, guttural. “She… she sees me. She gives. It’s simple, with her. No proving myself. No trying to be something I’m not.”

His eyes flicker to Willow, not accusing—just honest.

“Thought I knew love, before her. I didn’t. Not really.” He taps his chest, softly. “She’s in here. Part of me. I’m not giving her up. Can’t.”

She’s speechless. Her throat is tight, her pulse thrumming with guilt and something else she can’t name. She’s seen people walk away before. But this feels different. Final.

He doesn’t add anything else. Just sighs again, presses his lips together like he’s steeling himself, and slinks back down the walkway that leads away from the house. You reach up to him, childlike, his grasp solid and gentle as he helps you up from where you’re sat. Together, your head against his arm, you leave.

This time, she doesn’t stop you.

Willow stands alone on the porch, heart hammering like she’s finally feeling the spell’s backlash—too late to undo, too late to stop. Her hands tremble at her sides. Some part of her—deep and insistent—whispers that there’s a way to fix this. A spell. A simple one: memory, clarity, obedience. Just a few words, and she could make this right again. She could make you see sense. Make Spike let go. Make Buffy forgive.

Just a few words, the magic whispers. So simple. So clean.

But she doesn’t move. She just watches you disappear into the night—and tells herself it’s not the magic calling her. It’s grief. It’s fear.

She doesn’t believe it.

You didn’t mean to cry.

You wanted to keep your head held high, secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t you who broke in that messy, vicious confrontation that you’d known for a while was coming. But the second the crypt door shut behind you, Spike looked at you. Just a look: expectant, forlorn, waiting. You didn’t mean to, but one glimpse of that expression and you crumbled—violent, choking sobs, wilting like a flower left too long without water. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. He just gathered you into his arms and let you bury your face in the curve of his neck, let you shake apart against him as you mourned for what could no longer be. And, afterward, when you’d turned into yourself, hollow and spent, he carried you like a baby to bed, nestled you up tight and wound around you like you’d float away if he didn’t.

Days later, he still treats you like glass.

The Spike who once barked sarcasm and wore his smirks like armor has been replaced by someone quieter, gentler, his fingers featherlight and his gaze fixed on you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. When he kisses you, it’s a confessional. He pours out all his sins into the open maw of your mouth like your touch can absolve him of everything he is. When he’s inside you, he moves slow and aching and careful, his words sweet and gasping.

“You’re the most incredible thing I’ve ever had," he murmurs on one occasion, voice thick with awe as he stirs against you, body covering yours. He feels hard and real in you, deep, grounding. His thumb strokes your cheek. "Dunno what I did to deserve this. To deserve you.”

Each thrust is a question, each brush of his lips a promise, his hands holding you like you’re made of silk, like he’s never been capable of destruction. When you call his name, he exhales like it’s a prayer. You both shake by the end, your fingers curled against his spine, his mouth against your temple crooning things neither of you will remember clearly later on.

It’s like he thinks one wrong move will make you bolt. You wish you had the words to convince him of your certainty, but he’s the poet. Words can be manipulated, used to lie and misdirect. He doesn’t believe you when you tell him that you’re staying, that this is for good—but you know he wants to. You know it has less to do with you and more to do with his past, with all the many people who’ve screwed him over and hurt him so badly, so you try not to take it to heart. You let him hover, let him treat you as though you’re a porcelain doll, easily breakable. You should resent it, probably, and part of you does. But mostly, you’re just grateful. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask you to prove anything. He just stays.

That morning, he’s pressed against your side, bare skin against bare skin, fingers lazily tracing patterns over your lower back. Save for school, you haven’t left the crypt in days. The bed below ground is new—plush blankets piled over a surprisingly good-quality mattress that he’s dragged in from who-knows-where. He probably stole it, but that habit of his has never bothered you. Besides, you sleep better here than you ever did at home.

“You gonna go back today?” Spike asks. It’s spoken softly, vibrating low against your shoulder. “Get your stuff?”

“Nah.” You shake your head against the pillow, mussing your hair even further. “Last night, while Willow and—while the others were busy, Tara brought Dawn over. She packed my suitcase. Couple important things. Birth certificate, stuff like that. The rest… some other time, maybe.”

Spike was patrolling then, safe in the assumption that you were asleep. It’s not really that surprising that he hasn’t noticed the bags over in the corner.

Now, he hums, lips trailing across your neck. It’s aimless, casual in its intimacy. So like him, like all the love he has to give. Effortless.

“Dawn hugged me,” you add quietly, trying hard to hold back the tears. “Said she saw us. Before. Said Tara and Anya knew, too. That they’re on our side.”

Spike doesn’t reply—just tightens his hold a little. You don’t have to say what you’re both thinking: that support from a few doesn’t make the silence from the rest hurt any less.

You sit up eventually. The crypt can be cold and damp at times, but Spike’s done a pretty great job at softening it up, making it almost livable. There are little touches of normality now: rugs plastering the dirt floor, a mismatched set of mugs, a bookshelf that wobbles only slightly whenever you walk by.

“Come on,” he says, slipping out of the bed like a panther, naked as the day he was born so long ago. It’s a fantastic sight, one that not even low spirits can stop you from admiring: cut muscles, lean form, perfectly proportionate everywhere. He’s a god among men. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

You grin. The makeshift shower he’s rigged up is more affection than function. A pilfered showerhead duct-taped to the end of the pipe, a clunky water heater that hums loudly and makes the whole wall clank. It’s not pretty and it doesn’t hide the fact that this really isn’t a place to be living in, but the water is warm. Mostly. He helps you wash your hair, fingers gentle, nails never scratching. You can tell he’s muttering his usual sweet nothings against your skin—jokes, compliments, promises—but as always, it’s impossible to hear over the heater’s groaning.

When the machine abruptly turns off—another short, probably—you can actually hear him curse under his breath.

“Time’s up, baby,” he says, quickly rinsing the last of the conditioner from his bleached hair. You’d helped him touch up the roots yesterday. “Gotta get dry before the pipes go cold again.”

He wraps you in a towel, glaring at the run-down thing like he can make it work through sheer will alone. If anyone could, it would be him, and the sight makes you laugh. It’s the first real one in a while.

Later on, you’re perched on the bed, your homework splayed around you. Spike’s horribly insistent on you getting a good hour a day on it, at least. It reminds you of how Hank should’ve been: razor-focused on your success. Unbearably proud. Insistent that you’re “gonna go places, just you wait.” Instead, all he did was ship you off to boarding school at the first opportunity. Even though you’re probably going to get valedictorian, that reminder always hurts. Like in all things, Spike eases the pain.

You’re just about to double-check your references when your phone buzzes. Unknown number. Huh.

You answer. “Hello?”

“You’re living with him?” Angel’s voice is unmistakable, if crackly. The reception’s not so great down here. “Buffy told me.”

Hearing her name pinches something in your chest. You ignore it, rolling your eyes. “Hello to you too, Angel. Sorry, but I’m not interested in hearing your self-righteous opinion today, thanks.”

“You don’t know what he’s like—”

“Don’t care.”

Spike appears in the doorway. He takes the phone gently from your hand.

“Go on, kitten,” he murmurs. You catch the flicker of anger in his eyes, but his voice stays calm. “Finish your essay. I’ll deal with the poof.”

You watch him go, surprised by how civil his tone is as he says, “Oi, Peaches. Got nothin’ better to do with your time than bother my lady?”

When you stick your head upstairs after wrapping everything up, he’s still on the phone. Pacing back and forward, his words are too hushed to pick up. Damn vampire senses. It’s weirdly civil for an exchange with his so-called undead enemy, though you wouldn’t call it friendly—he looks as though he’s about ten seconds away from beating the wall in. Still. You wonder what’s making him so… controlled.

Days bleed together. School, home, school, home, the occasional patrol in places you know Buffy isn’t. You see Dawn in the halls at Sunnydale High, or sometimes when she stops by in the late afternoon with Tara or Anya. You watch Passions with Spike, though you spend most of it watching his reactions to whatever mess is going on on-screen. You get your schoolwork done, and you try to get used to this new normal, patching up the giant hole in your heart with these small little glimpses into your old life.

Spike keeps bringing things home like a magpie nesting: a tiny gas stove that sputters and clicks but usually works well enough to make dinner. A battered washing machine that walks a few inches every time it’s used. A foldable hanging line with half its wires snapped. He insists they’re all only temporary, but he never says what he’s waiting for. Neither do you.

Graduation looms nearer. Your final scores are out, though the victory is hollow. No one will be there to celebrate, will they? Or only some will. You wonder which option is worse. When school gets out, you begin the trek home in despondent silence. Usually, you’d hum a tune to yourself or maybe even read as you walk, but you just feel drained. Going through the motions, you stop by the bathroom next to the cemetery’s reception building. After, you meander through the grass, letting your feet take you along your customary route while your mind spins in circles, lethargic.

That’s when you see her.

Buffy.

She’s waiting just outside the crypt, sitting on the stoop. Smaller than you remember. Her expression is weary, aged. She looks how you feel. When your feet crunch on dead leaves, her head snaps up and she makes eye contact with you. The corner of her mouth twitches in an almost-smile. That’s how you know she’s not here to duke it out again. Not intentionally.

Steeling yourself, you move toward her, step around her form as you dig through your pocket for the key to the lock Spike’s jerry-rigged to make things safer. The door swings open, too loud in the stillness of this moment. You enter, but don’t shut the door behind you—an unspoken invitation. She takes it.

You turn and watch Buffy look around with something like disbelief. She takes in the kettle, the electronics, the random décor. The laundry line, full as it can be with yours and his clothing. The half-dead pot plant Spike brought home because you mentioned you liked sunflowers. The photographs you’ve tacked to the musty walls of friends, family, of you and him.

“I thought… I thought this was just a phase,” she says finally. No hello, then. Her gaze travels back to you, wide and vulnerable. “I thought you’d leave him.”

You fold your arms, chin high—not combative, just done entertaining this. “I’m not stupid, and I don’t do things for the hell of it. You should know that.”

Something unreadable flickers in her face. A fight, maybe. But no—she sighs, a sound of complete and utter defeat. “I do now.”

Neither of you talk for a moment. Spike chooses this time to appear from the stairwell, deliberately slow, telegraphing his movements like your sister’s a wounded animal backed into a corner. She just stares at him as he approaches. He lowers himself carefully into the beaten-up armchair. You settle on his knee, in part to shield him from any attempt by her to follow through on her actions from the other week, but mostly because you can. You want to. Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t comment on it. It’s awkward. Painful.

Finally, Buffy clears her throat.

“Come home,” she urges you. You blink. You weren’t expecting that. She pushes on, ignoring the snort from Spike beneath you. “I’m not saying I’m okay with—with this. I’m not. But I’ll… I’ll deal. Maybe he’ll grow on me.”

“Thanks ever so,” he mutters. His hand tenses on your thigh when she levels him with a withering sneer.

“No,” you tell her. “I’m not going to let you or anyone else try to trick me into giving him up. We’re a package deal. Where he goes, so do I.”

She frowns. “That’s—I’m not gonna try and break you up. I’m not that petty.”

“Well, then,” you say, “I guess I just don’t trust you anymore. How am I supposed to believe you?”

Buffy flinches, looking away. Her arms fold on themselves as her eyes begin to glisten.

“Ouch.” She takes a breath. “But… I deserve that.”

A pause.

“I meant it, Buff.” The words come out quiet, but firm. “When I said I love him. I know that it—I know you’re upset, but I’m not sorry for what I feel. And I won’t be made to believe it’s wrong. It isn’t.”

She raises her hands, a white flag. “Okay, okay. It’s just…”

Again, she glances around, but this time it’s like she’s looking at something particularly disgusting. You bristle despite yourself.

“What—what kind of life can he give you?” she asks, pleading as she turns once more to you. You notice that she’s not once stepped foot down the steps into the main area. “I mean… are you really going to stay here? What about a future—marriage, kids? How are you gonna support yourself?” At your scoff, she adds, “I’m just being realistic here. Somebody’s gotta be.”

“God, Buffy,” you snap, standing up. “Not everyone wants the same things you do. And who’s to say I’ll even live long enough to seriously consider stuff like that? It’s the Hellmouth.”

“Oi.” Spike taps the outside of your knee—the nearest part of you in reach—in reprimand. “Don’t say things like that. S’not good for my constitution.”

Buffy huffs. “You don’t have a constitution, Spike. You’re a vampire.”

“Do too,” he retorts immaturely. Then, all of a sudden, he coughs awkwardly, scratching his neck. “Dunno about the rest of it. But I—uh—I got a place. Decent, but not much. Has a proper bathroom, bedroom. All the fixings. Near the cemetery, so I can still keep my hunt. Near your bus stop, too, baby.”

This is news to you. “Huh?”

Spike raises an eyebrow at you, gesturing around. “What—think this here was my choice? Dru took all me cards n’ stuff when she ran off with that chaos demon. Order of Aurelius’s got a fair bit of dosh squirrelled away.”

Here, his chin tips up arrogantly, smug as any vampire with a lineage like his would get. Your nostrils flare, a smile tugging at your lips even in the tense atmosphere. Buffy’s not interested in discussing pedigree, though.

“Then why didn’t you just get it back?” she asks skeptically. “Not hard to call a bank.”

“Is when it’s a demon bank, Slayer.” He rolls his eyes, shifting uncomfortably. “‘Sides, gotta get permission for that. Most senior member, all that rot.” He looks down. “Didn’t want to give Peaches the satisfaction. Y’know, of asking for help,” he mutters. “Sodding wanker.”

Oh. Oh. That’s what he was talking about on the phone with Angel. Something warm and impossibly affectionate wells in your chest.

Buffy studies him. “What changed?”

The weight of his stare falls on you, full of significance. It’s an answer all in itself.

I love him, I love him, I love him, you think, heart full to bursting. You’re overcome with the urge to reach down, kiss him, thank him with everything you have for tearing up his pride and throwing it away just to give you a home. A real one—with him.

You see Buffy’s face change as she begins to understand. To see what you see. It’s dawning on her, that maybe she’s got the wrong idea about him. You’re sure the shattering of her worldview is as painful to her as her slap was to you. A strange sort of peace follows this realization.

No one says anything for a while. It’s strained, but not hostile. Not anymore.

“I’m—I’m gonna go now,” she says at long last. There’s no dejection in her voice now. Just a quiet sort of acceptance. To Spike, she adds, “Take care of her. I’m… I’m trusting you.”

You know what it means to him to hear that—not just for your sake, but for everything he once felt for her. When he nods, it’s full of unspoken confidence. “Of course.”

She turns to you, and you’re heading toward her before you even realize it. Coming face-to-face, eye-to-eye—for the first time in a long time, it feels—a stone in the pit of your stomach starts to finally work its way free.

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice breaking.

You step into her arms, hug her, feel the iron band of her arms squeezing you too tight, too much for your bird-bones. You feel them grind below your skin. It hurts, not only physically, but you do it anyway. You breathe her in—shampoo, sweat, and that familiar weight of the world she always seems to carry. She’s trying. You can feel it, the way you’re trying too. When she pulls away, there are tears in her eyes. You don’t wipe them away.

What’s broken isn’t fixed. Not nearly. But maybe, one day, it could be.

Spike waits until she’s gone to speak. “You alright?”

You glance toward the door, then back at him—this strange, stubborn vampire who’s built you a home out of scraps and love.

“Yeah,” you say, reaching for his hand. And this time, you mean it.

Spike loves his unlife.

He hasn't always. There’d been a decade or two of ennui—rage and rot and revelry, blood from the veins of whores in Paris and cowards in Prague, nothing lasting, nothing real. Just endless nights and meaningless hunger, and the thrill of fear cracking open in a scream. Thought he had something, with Dru, 'til she pissed off and left him. Then Buffy came along, all fire and fury, and he thought, Yes. This. This is meaning. Purpose.

He doesn’t know. Not until you. Not until now.

Not until this: you on your knees, bent forward across the mattress, spine a taut bow beneath his palms, back arched as he thrusts into you with filthy, measured force. You’re folded down over the bed, your cheek pressed to the pillow and drooling, hands fisted in the sheets, body trembling beneath the relentless pace he sets. Your thighs are already drenched with both of you, his cock disappearing into your perfect, aching cunt over and over, the sound of it obscene, wet and sharp and constant.

The room is dim and hot, the air choked with sex and the smell of skin and sweat. Tangy, piquant. Gorgeous. The sheets are kicked down to your calves, twisted up under your knees. Your moans are high and bitten off, teeth buried in the pillow as you try to quiet yourself. Habit, that—leftover fear. For so long, you’ve both lived in the silence, in the shadows, sneaking and muffling and hushing every cry.

But not anymore.

“Go on, baby,” he rasps, bent over your back, his mouth dragging slow kisses over your spine. “Let ’em hear you. Nobody left to catch us now.”

You whimper, hips pushing back instinctively, greedy for more. He grins—sharp, delighted—and brings his palm down on your arse in a light slap, the sound echoing. Your whole body jolts. You keen around the pillow, voice breaking into something raw and helpless.

“Uh—Spike!”

“That’s it,” he says, all gritting teeth as you squeeze down hard, dizzying enough to choke the veins in his prick. The demon peeks out for a moment, control slipping. “That’s my girl.”

It still astonishes him sometimes—how much you like this. How much you crave being split open, filled full, stretched past your limit until you’re crying and shaking and still begging for more. Turns out the chip doesn’t fire when the victim likes the pain, and bloody hell, do you ever. You like it when he’s reverent, whispering soft, desperate poetry into your cunt, but you love it when he’s like this: filthy, possessive, shagging you like he owns every inch of your body.

And he does.

He watches the way your shoulders shake, the flushed skin of your back shivering each time he slams into you. Watches your fingers clutch the pillow like a lifeline. Watches your body bloom under him, red and marked, so alive.

“Bloody goddess, you are,” he growls into the crook of your neck, panting against the salt of your sweat. “Tightest little snatch I’ve ever had. Made for me, weren’t you?”

You nod frantically, breath catching on a sob as you try to speak. Can’t. The words never make it past the pillow, and you give up trying. Instead, you just feel—bucking back against him, desperate and loud now, your cries slipping free without shame.

“Say it,” he hisses, slamming into you harder, deeper. He feels the twinge of your answering wail in the back of his head, threatening, splitting his lips apart in a vicious smile. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“Yours,” you gasp, nearly sobbing. “Yours, Spike, ‘m yours—”

Your orgasm crashes into you like a tidal wave. You yowl into the pillow, cunt knotting around him so fiercely it makes him snarl, hips stuttering for only a moment—before he keeps going. You’re whimpering now, all breathy and high and wrecked from the overstimulation, your voice cracking every time his cock punches deep into your oversensitive walls.

“S’too much,” you whine, but your body never stops moving, still pressing back against him, still so greedy for it.

“Oh, you can take it,” he pants, mouth at your ear, voice low and hungry. “You’re so good like this—fallin’ apart for me, still lettin’ me fuck you through it.”

He’s obsessed. Obsessed with how you quake under him, how your cunt keeps fluttering and squeezing like it doesn’t want to let him go. He groans, driving into you harder, chasing his release with a fervor that borders on worship. You sob again, and he can’t stop himself—he wraps an arm around your waist and hauls you back, chest flush to your spine, shoving up into you at a brutal, punishing pace.

When he comes, it’s with a guttural shout, hips grinding deep, prick pulsing as he fills you. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even try to pull out. Knows you like it messy and trickling afterward, how it makes him mad with wanting.

You collapse to the mattress, winded and utterly stunning. He stays braced over you, breathing hard even though he doesn’t need to, pressing kisses to your spine and shoulder and hair. You’re trembling, still twitching beneath him. You don’t let him go. Instead, you reach back, grab his hand, pull him down to lie with you, still buried deep in the slick patch you’ve both made.

He rolls the both of you onto your sides, panting, trembling, your sweet little quim keeping him locked inside like it means something. Like it always has.

“Don’t go,” you murmur, voice hoarse and wrecked, fingers clutching his arm like a tether. Your face is rosy, flushed with exertion, and so bloody beautiful it twists something violent inside him.

“Not planning on it,” he says, kissing the top of your head.

The bed is new. Big. Expensive. Mattress so plush it makes him want to roll around like a pampered tabby. The apartment is still shite in a lot of ways—rickety fridge, a coffee table with one short leg—but it’s his. Yours. And Glinda’s out for the night, enjoying her life instead of staying on the pull-out sofa in the living room as she has since her fallout with Red. There’s all the time in the world to lay here, linger, or at least it feels that way.

You’re still wet around him. Still clenching, pulsing every few minutes with aftershocks, like your body hasn’t quite gotten the message that he’s finished. Greedy. Filthy, greedy girl. His baby. His sunshine princess, all aglow with love and lust.

Spike’s cock twitches in response, and you both feel it. You tilt your head, meet his eyes. He kisses your collarbone before raising a brow, smirking.

“Fancy round two?” he asks, sick with the feeling racing in his veins. The need. A constant, thrumming thing, near breaking him into pieces.

You laugh—gorgeous, breathless.

Things have settled into something approaching normal; or, well, a new normal. Spike’s never had a normal quite like this before. Little Bit’s over all the buggering time, mostly to steal your clothes and pilfer through his things and fill the place with her junk food and loud music, but she likes the apartment. Likes the big window in the living room when the blackout curtain’s pushed to the side. Likes the sitting area, big telly showing MTV in crystal clear graphics, and the way his stuff looks less ramshackle and stolen and more deliberately incongruous. She really likes the bathroom, with its big tub and generous vanity. It’s why he got the place, to be fair: something nice for his girl, forced to walk into the chill of night just to use the loo for all those months. None of that here.

The rest of the lot trickle in too, one by one. Always awkward, always uncertain. Like they’re not sure if this is a visit or reconnaissance. Red’s come by twice, once with baked goods she barely managed to make eye contact while offering. No one else wants to put up with her right now, so he entertains it best he can. Demon girl stops in randomly with opinions about the wallpaper and detailed suggestions about spicing up your sex life. You laugh, Spike doesn’t. Bint’s awful presumptuous, thinking he needs help getting you off. The Slayer shows up, digging into every nook and cranny like she’s trying to find a reason this won’t work. She offers a strained smile at the end of her visit, unsatisfied. Bitch. Even the boy shows up once, a six-pack in hand and his mouth pressed in a tight line, nearly disappearing off his ugly mug. He doesn’t say much. Doesn’t have to. He looks at you—glowing, happy, curled up against Spike’s side in that ratty old blanket—and just nods. Doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t start fights. For now, that’s enough.

And then there’s Peaches.

He arrives like a thundercloud, tall and grim, taking up too much space and too much air. He walks the apartment like he’s cataloging faults, eyes landing on the ghosts of water rings on the coffee table, the mismatched pillows, the scuff on the wall from when you’d tripped and knocked over the lamp. He doesn’t say anything outright, but the judgment radiates off him like heat.

Spike doesn’t bother pretending. Your legs are slung over his lap, and he strokes lazy circles into your calf with his thumb, teases his fingers under the hem of your skirt. Loves your dresses. How wicked it makes him, copping a feel of all that innocence. You shift closer to him, head resting against his shoulder, fingers tracing patterns over his collarbone, casual and affectionate and utterly yours. Spike feels like a king. Tall, dark and forehead scowls the entire time you make harmless small talk. It’s glorious.

Later, after you disappear down the hall to dig through the pantry or put away some other sundry item—Spike’s not even sure—Angel finally makes his move. He waits until your footsteps fade, until the apartment quiets. Spike doesn’t look at him at first. Just listens to the silence. Then, slowly, his gaze returns to his grandsire.

Angel’s arms are crossed, his brow a storm cloud. He looks like he’s swallowed a lemon. Wanker. “You really think this is going to last?”

Spike leans back into the couch, cool as sin, folding one ankle over his knee. “Dunno. Been plenty long already. She’s still here—still laughs at my jokes. Still screams my name. That’s gotta count for somethin’.”

Angel winces like someone’s sprayed holy water up his arse. Spike savors it.

“You’re reckless,” the big, strapping hero mutters. “You always have been. This—her—she’s not just a fling you can—”

“Watch your bloody mouth,” Spike snaps. The amusement’s gone in a blink, replaced with something cold and lethal. “You don’t get to talk about her like that. Not after the way you dangled the Slayer on a chain like she was the only thing between you and damnation.”

Peaches opens his mouth, then shuts it again. There’s no defense.

Spike leans forward, elbows on his knees, his voice low. “She’s not some passing fancy, mate. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And if you can’t see that, maybe it’s not her you should be worried about.”

Angel looks away. “She’s not like us,” he says finally. Quietly.

Spike’s smile softens. “No,” he agrees. “She’s better.”

The silence hangs for a long beat. Angel doesn’t have anything left. Nothing worth saying. He looks like he wants to argue, wants to do something—but there’s nothing left to fight. Spike’s not giving him anything to push against. Then you come back in, grocery list in hand, all nonchalant in your ease.

“Babe,” you say, “I’m heading out. You want more Weetabix?”

Spike beams. “Yeah. And maybe those little marshmallows?”

Your grin is blinding, waving the list about like he’s guessed correctly. He knows you’ve already written it down. “I know what you like.��

It hits him like a sledgehammer, then. How you see him―not just the vampire, not the body, not the snarl, but all of it. And you love it anyway.

He reaches into his wallet, pulls out his brand-new credit card—the one Captain Forehead set him up with, the only thing he’s ever been good for—and hands it to you. “Take this, yeah?”

“I’ve got money,” you say, stubborn as ever, but smiling.

“I’ll spank you if you don’t let me pay,” he teases, voice low and fond. “And don’t pout. Gonna get that lip if you ain’t careful.”

You giggle, step in close, lean down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“Pervert,” you whisper, your lips lingering just a second longer on his skin.

“Only for you.”

And then he watches, all dumbstruck and dopey, as you take the card, tuck it into your purse, and head out the door.

The silence that follows is thick. He doesn’t look at Angel. Doesn’t need to, because—for the first time in a long time—he doesn’t care what the poof thinks. He’s got everything he wants, and the poor sod knows it. The satisfaction in shutting the door on his slack, stupid face makes Spike want to laugh and laugh until his dead lungs crumble to dust.

His days pass in a blur of disgusting bliss. Truly, it makes him think sometimes that he should hang up his post as Big Bad. He’s got to be testing some cosmic force, being so unbelievably happy with his lot, but he doesn’t get struck down by a flying spell, or staked, or zapped into some other dimension. Nah, he keeps kicking. He gets to be with you.

Attending your graduation day is hell: sunlight everywhere, too many people, a mish-mash of scents that, if he were living, would make him gag. But he does it anyway—sneaks in through the sewers, creeps up through the sub-basement of Sunnydale High, taking his awkward place by Little Bit and the others in the bleachers.

It’s all worth it when he sees you. Radiant, cap tilted, gown a little too big.

You cross the stage with that bright smile he loves, all cheeks and squinted eyes, shaking hands and collecting your little rolled-up paper. And, when you step up to the podium to give your big first-place speech, it’s like you were born to it—clever, kind, full of biting humor and practiced to perfection. The whole damn place hangs on your every word, and he feels pride well up like it’s his own achievement, seeing you up there.

His clever girl. His light.

Afterward, he lingers with your sisters, with the odd assortment of people you’ve chosen as family. He sticks out like a sore thumb, so clearly not part of the group, but that’s never bothered him before. You rush to them, beaming, diploma in hand and cute little cap askew as they take their turns congratulating you, voices overlapping in their relief and pride.

Spike doesn’t bother with platitudes. When you turn to him, he does what he does best and shows you how proud he is by tugging you into his body, mouth pressing down against yours. Long. Hungry. A little too much tongue. He overhears someone nearby make a fuss about it, but he doesn’t give a fig, and neither do you. The world is your oyster now, and he’s too excited to see what you make of it now that you’re free.

That night, he takes you dancing.

The Bronze is a hole, always has been—one day soon, he’ll take you to the real spots he’s seen on his jaunts through unlife—but it’s what passes for a good time in this sorry town. He lets you spend a few paltry minutes with your friends, decent bloke that he is. Besides, it means he gets to relish in the look on their faces when they realize for the thousandth time that your presence is only temporary, that soon enough, you’ll head back to where you truly belong. To him. So he nurses his beer as you laugh with them, dance with Dawn and the Slayer, bounce around like a stoned rabbit with Lackbrain and demon girl and Glinda, and he waits.

Eventually, you come to him as you always do.

He doesn’t need to be asked. Taking you in his arms, he presses close and sways you about to some pathetically sappy slow song that you probably don’t even like. But you’re warm, and happy, and he can feel the eyes on you both.

Spike’s always felt them.

They’ve all seen you together at some point. By accident, by circumstance, through open doorways and down dark hallways. They’ve seen the truth of it: the way you cling, the way you gasp, the way you let him worship you with teeth and tongue and desperate hands. He doesn’t give a single rat’s arse. He’s evil.

And god, Christ and all the saints he’s ever remembered the names of, he loves you.

He never expected this. Never expected you. You were cute. Smart. Sharp. He thought you’d be a momentary distraction, a splash of intrigue while he waited for Buffy to make her mind up about him. Buffy: a splash of color in his grey, dismal world. But then—you. Accepted him, listened like the stuff he said was important, like he mattered. Defended him, never shied away, never called him a thing or a demon or a monster, even though that’s what he is, what he’ll always be. You crept up on him, quiet and subtle-like until he caught sight of you across the room, laughing at something Xapper was saying to you, and it hit him over the head like your mum with that axe all those years ago. You happened, and he realized the truth. You have his dead, unbeating, black heart in your hand, and it fits there like it was always meant to.

He knows now. You’re the Gem of Amarra in bitty, beautiful human form. Not just color, but a supernova, blazing and teeming with vitality. Being with you is like feeling the sun on his face every goddamned day. Spike’s whole world is brighter with you in it.

Still, even now, there’s a flicker of doubt in his chest. A shadow. The part of him that’s been broken too many times. This can’t last, it whispers. This is too good, too soft. Things like this—things like her—don’t stay.

Then you look up at him, eyes sparkling under the Bronze’s lights. Your arms loop around his neck, your forehead presses against his. You breathe him in like you mean to keep him, and you say, “I love you, Spike.”

He closes his eyes, and just like that, the shadow’s gone. Everything’s still.

“I love you, Spike.”

He closes his eyes, and for once, the world is quiet. There’s only you.

It’s always been only you.

Read on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64333024/chapters/165146395

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