By joan the english chick

A Vague Disclaimer Is Nobody's Friend: The characters and locations of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are property of Mutant Enemy Productions (Grr, argh) and FOX Television, and are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. This story is property of the author, and may not be reproduced, retransmitted, or posted anywhere without my expressed permission.
Warnings/Ratings: This story is rated NC-17 for graphic descriptions of sex, and some four-letter words.
Timeline: Takes place after episode "After Life" and before, during, and after episode "Flooded."
Spoilers: "BTVS" 6th Season through "Flooded"

Spike has the TV on, but he's not really watching it. He's waiting for her, same as every night. Waiting, and brooding.

He spends so much time brooding lately, Christ, it's like he's turning into Angel, that big poof, that sodding poncy idiot who had her and lost her.

Truth, he brooded plenty while Buffy was dead, but even more since she came back, since she told him her big secret. The part of him that's happy to have her back, and the part that wants to kill those thrice-damned witches for pulling her into this hell, have long since stopped bickering and admitted stalemate, leaving him just with this deep sense of sadness. So now he sits around obsessing about that, about the unfairness of life, something that hasn't bothered him in a very long time. That's what he was doing the first time, sitting in his crypt brooding while some inane starlet babbled at a leering Letterman.

Of course, now -- after the first time, after the second and fifth and who's-counting-anymore times -- now she doesn't speak or waste time or anything. No fanfare about it, just strolls into Spike's crypt like you might wander into your kitchen or living room when you're at loose ends and not sure what to do with yourself. Strolls in, unzips her skirt, sits down on his lap. It's that simple, now; sometimes they don't even make it to the bed. But that time, the first time, it took her a little work to get around to it.

Oh, she walked in casual enough. Coming up on midnight, the same day she'd made her revelation in the alley. Walked in on him brooding, sat down a little fidgety on the arm of his armchair, stared vacantly at Letterman.

Spike looked up at her, a little wary, wondering what now; a little sad yet, seeing the haunted bruised look that still hangs around her, still feeling the shock of her bombshell twelve hours later. Slumped low in the chair, he was a good foot from touching her, yet he could feel the warmth of her live body, and the proximity was just a little too much for comfort, but he couldn't figure out what to say to defuse it, couldn't even formulate a simple greeting phrase.

Luckily, he didn't have to. She started it herself: "What I said the other day?"

"Yeah?" he replied. Thinking back on it now, he marvels at how easy it is with her, how they can just start in on the middle of a conversation. It's comfortable, the way William used to imagine interaction with a woman could be.

"I could get past all that," she said then, almost wistfully: "...I could get back into my life, if..."

"If you could just damn well stop thinking about it," Spike finished for her. Now there was a problem he knew all too well.

She nodded slowly for a long beat before saying, "Yeah."

Spike glanced up at her then, just briefly, trying not to look at the tight tense length of her throat, trying to read what was different in her tone, her posture. He still couldn't quite figure where she was going with this.

So she took a deep breath, visibly steeled herself, and said: "I want ... I need to stop thinking. You ... you have to." And paused. And: "...help me stop thinking about it."

Still not getting it, Spike was about to frame some flip reply like, 'Oh, and how do you propose I do that, luv?' But as he turned his face back up toward her, there was that in her expression that froze the words on his tongue.

She had her body twisted toward him, her legs hanging off the other side of the chair. One hand on the chair's back to steady her. As he turned toward her, she leaned down, tilted her head in that way every man living or undead knows, and his head angled up in automatic response, and she leaned down, and suddenly they were kissing and he put his arms around her and she let herself fall into his lap, twisting so as not to break contact, her lips burning hot under his, her ass hitting and squirming against his crotch. And she wouldn't let him stop, wouldn't let him so much as pause to ask or wonder whether it was really, really what she wanted.

Later, he felt guilty about how rough it was, remembering what she had said, how the whole world was violent and harsh, how that was part of what made it hell. But she had seemed to want him that way, rough, harsh. She had dug her fingers fiercely into his hair, had whimpered when he ripped her shirt open, had moaned when he twisted her nipple between his fingers. The noises she made drove him wild with desire, though that was a short trip. When he pinned her to the bed and sank his teeth -- his human-shaped teeth, not his fangs -- into her neck, she had arched up against him and he felt a flood of wetness against the hand that was pressed up between her thighs. When he slid his cock into her, trying to take it slow, trying to savor it, she had grabbed his hips with hard strong fingers and yanked him against her, gasping, moaning. She had set the rhythm herself, hard and merciless.

And anyway, if she had really wanted it tender and gentle, she sure as hell wouldn't have come to Spike in the first place.

And he couldn't think about what it meant that he felt guilt at all, over anything. Wasn't he still undead, evil, soulless?

Afterward, in an ironic reversal of traditional gender roles, Buffy had rolled over and fallen asleep, while Spike lay awake staring at the crypt's ceiling and wondering what it all meant. He lay there for a long time while her hot moist breath painted obscenities on his bare shoulder and the marks her fingernails had left in his flesh quietly healed themselves.

When she woke a half-hour later she didn't say anything, just glanced at the window to check that it was still dark out, got up, put her clothes on. At the door she paused, hesitated for a long moment on one foot, drawing in a slow breath as if it would bring words with it. But Spike just said, "Go," and she went.

He figured that was it, then. He'd given her an hour or so of not-thinking, and now it would be as if it never happened, back to normal between them -- what passed for normal these days, anyway. Figured he'd have a lovely memory to keep him warm for the next couple decades, and that would be that.

Of course, that was just the line he fed himself. He knew it wouldn't really ever be enough. But for her sake he was determined to pretend it was.

Lucky for him he hasn't had to keep up that pretense. Because the next night she was back again. This time there were no awkward introductory words, there was no self-consciousness. She walked in, closed the door, took off her clothes. Spike made it last this time, brought to bear all the talents of his mouth and hands, had her moaning and screaming through several sets of peaks and valleys before she shoved him over and climbed on top of him. It's always like that. She loves everything he does to her, but in the end she still wants his cock inside her.

And so it has gone since then, night after night. Dizzy from the bittersweet ecstasy of it, Spike is continually bracing himself for the night when she won't show up, but so far it hasn't happened. She always appears -- not exactly like clockwork, sometimes it takes longer to get Dawn to bed, sometimes she encounters more vamps in the cemetery -- but she always appears, often flushed with exertion and adrenaline from slaying, and she always wants him to fuck her senseless. They never talk, not before, not during, not after. She always leaves in plenty of time to slip back into bed before Dawn and the witches wake up.

That's how it's been for a lot of nights now. And tonight, as it turns out, is the night she doesn't appear.

It's true that yesterday was different. Yesterday, they had a nice conversation on the porch, listening to the Watcher and the witch shout at each other. Spike made Buffy smile, which in turn made his cock twitch, but she pretended not to notice, kept up some silly prattle about finances. Then the demon, the fight, just like old times, Spike and Buffy working together as smoothly as if it had always been so. Even the dirty look she gave him when he pointed out the flooded basement, that was all as it should be.

He offered to stay, help clean up the mess, but she said no. "Go home," she said, with a meaningful look, so he did, and she showed up about an hour later. And for the first time, she didn't want it rough and fast, she pushed his hands away when he tried to grasp her, she pushed him onto his back and mounted him and moved over him so slowly he thought he would explode, thought he would die (again), thought against all reason that he could still get to that place from which Buffy was recently untimely ripp'd. She made it last what seemed like forever, and then she cried quietly into his silk sheets, and fell asleep. He had to wake her just before sunrise, sat frowning with concern as she jumped frantically into her clothes and ran off.

That was this morning. And now it's tonight and he's waiting for her to arrive.

Spike waits a long time. He sits staring at, but not seeing, the telly through the entire Letterman show and a bloody stupid Jerry Springer as well. Finally he gets up, paces around uncertainly for a few minutes, tells himself something must have gone wrong, she got attacked by something out there, she's in trouble. He knows it's bollocks, but he clings to it.

He clings to it all the way through the graveyard, all the way back to her house, a route he knows like the back of his hand, like the patterns of scars on Drusilla's back. He finds the house quiet, dark, asleep. Lets himself in, prowls through the hallways like a burglar. Almost wakes the Watcher in the living room, stops himself just in time. Tiptoes up the stairs, avoiding the one that squeaks. Peeks in on the niblet just in case: sleeping soundly. Peeks into Buffy's room: empty.

He frets, but there's nothing he can really do. He ends up keeping watch from the kitchen, monitoring the entire sleeping household, waiting to hear her slip back in, but she doesn't. When the sun comes up and the others begin to stir, Spike slides behind the door to the basement, closes it, stays there lurking at the top of the stairs. It's almost dried out down below; they got a sump pump in from somewhere. He leans against the door, closes his eyes, listens to the sleepy beginnings of activity in the kitchen.

"Morning." That could be either of the witches; they're almost indistinguishable from here.

"Morning." That from Dawn, too casual. He pictures her glancing around with a practiced 'I don't really care' expression. "Buffy's not back?"

"Uh, no, n-not, not yet." The Watcher, nervous.

"Sweetie, she'll probably get back tonight." That has to be Tara, the new self-appointed mommy of the group. "It's a bit of a drive, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess." At least Dawn seems mollified. "It's gotta be weird, don't you think? I mean, her, seeing Angel. After being ... dead and all."

"Yeah," Willow's agreeing, saying more, but Spike loses the rest of the conversation in the sudden rush of pain, anger, self-loathing. He scrunches up his face and tells himself over and over that he knew it was coming, that he was prepared for it. It's more bollocks, of course. He was prepared to lose her; he hadn't counted on this.

He has to stay there holding it all in until they disperse: Dawn to school, the witches to university, Giles to the store. Then Spike can emerge, toss a blanket over his head, flee at top speed back to his crypt and cry himself to sleep.