***************************************

Buffy stood, determined, in the middle of Spike’s crypt.

She’d done this before, she realized. To wrestle information from him, and then later to wrestle him to the floor. And that last time, to beckon him away from the pain and uselessness and rejection he’d come to know. She’d failed there, where she’d succeeded so many other times before. For once he’d not succumbed to her, lain himself prostrate before her every whim.

She looked around. The end of their relationship had made one hell of a mess. Sooty walls, rubble littering a space he’d once managed to make almost hospitable.

Right now, of course, Spike was nowhere to be found. Just as he’d been absent almost every time she’d come by since their return to Sunnydale. Did he really think she’d give up on him so easily?

Not like she had ever given him any reason to think otherwise, but still. It was a little insulting, that he assumed she’d just accept defeat. This…this avoidance tactic was dumb, really. Maybe he figured she didn’t possess enough patience to wait him out. Ha. Ha! Wasn’t he in for a surprise.

Four hours later her butt was sore, her joints ached and she felt like a fool. Not a noteworthy way to end an evening at Spike’s, but usually she at least had several earth-shattering orgasms to show for it.

Buffy frowned. Was that still how she thought of him? As her own personal, unliving sex toy? No wonder he’d pressed her for more; no wonder his frustration drove him to his own cruelties.

As she pondered this new thought he grabbed her from behind.

She glimpsed blue eyes gone empty and cold before she was thrown across the room, skidding roughly on the cool stone floor. She looked up at him, wary.

Oh, yeah. They’d done this last time as well.

“Well, well. Look what’s landed on my doorstep.” His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile.

“I came to…talk to you.” She hated how uncertain her voice sounded. “I think we need to. Talk.”

Spike shook his head. “That just leads to more messes, wouldn’t you agree? Threats of violence; throwing of tantrums and furnishings.” His glance flickered to the lone surviving candle, perched askew along the far wall.

Buffy swallowed. “Not this time.”

He raised an eyebrow and Buffy recalled the moment she had first seen him. So self-assured and clever, congratulating her even as he promised her death.

“Not this time? I see, then,” he said conspiratorially, and instantly he had vaulted over the wreckage that separated them. He was close to her now, so close her flesh was chilled by his proximity.

“You came for your little nasties, hmm? For all the naughty words I whisper in your ear, and make you whisper back to me. You don’t want to do it, but you know what will happen if you don’t.”

“No,” she said hotly, while she was melting inside at the memories.

He pulled back from her.

“Ah. So you want old Spike to make you feel better.” At the sudden lowering of her gaze he snickered. “That’s it. Act all demure and wounded. Always worked on me before.”

“I told you. I just want to talk.”

His smile remained but there was no compassion in his gaze. “Right. You want to unload. ‘S hard, I imagine, taking all the troubles of the world onto those tiny shoulders. Poor Buffy Summers, the Sunnydale Stigmatic.”

Vitriol was on the tip of her tongue – and now she recognized it for her typical reaction when he said what she couldn’t bear to hear. So she held herself still for a moment, and when she did speak her tone was gentle.

“You haven’t been by,” she observed.

He stared at her, then shrugged. “Bit’s come to see me. On her own, mind you. No trickery involved. You can’t stop me from seeing her, you know. She’s one of mine now.”

Buffy smiled slightly. “I think she always was.”

“Not like big sis, eh? Best be careful, Slayer. You keep coming by my place, I might start getting the wrong idea.” He stepped closer, breaching her space as always, breaching the barriers she erected so long ago.

The familiar quakes were beginning, that fluttering low in her stomach whenever he was this near. But damn him, they were going to have this out.

“And if you keep running away from me, I might start to think you’re scared.”

His face hardened.

“Scared?” he asked her, the word deceptively light. “Should I be? Is your better half going to come out and play?” Buffy flinched. He went on.

“Or maybe…maybe you figure this is where you belong, after all.”

He was touching her now, knowing fingers running along her summer-bare arms. “Muddied yourself up good and proper now, haven’t you? And now you don’t deserve anyone – anything – better than me.”

He pebbled kisses along her jawline, the arch of her throat, her too-prominent collarbone.

“This isn’t what I…”

“Shhh,” he murmured. “This is the only talking we’ve ever done.”

And she had to nod imperceptibly and accept his touch, because he spoke the truth. And oh, how she recalled it now, all that she had labored to ignore at the time: his silent pleas when he looked up from the apex of her thighs; his vows of love, forever, forever as he watched her climb and peak; the thank you found in his contented breathing when she allowed him to nestle, replete and spent, between her breasts before she shoved him away.

She didn’t struggle when his hands came around her front, and quickly unbuttoned her silly, frilly shirt. “How’s this, sweet one? Guilt fading a bit?” She didn’t answer. He dropped the shirt to the ground.

“Not yet?” He was pressed up to her back, and she panted out her recognition of the hardness flush against her. His hands reached down, now, past the waist of her jeans and inside.

“Jesus, you’re wet,” he said thickly. “Do you remember that time, when you came just from sucking me off?”

Buffy gasped, and thought she heard his voice hitch a little as he went on. “You were so angry, afterwards. You didn’t come back for days.”

She remembered, how his exquisite climax in her mouth had set off her own. His hands, gripping the top of her head but not too tightly; and hers wrapped around his thighs, no attention paid to her pussy but that didn’t seem to matter as she rocked uncontrollably with him.

She remembered the bolt of joy and pure feminine pride, that she had pleased him like this. Brought him to this place of excruciating pleasure, brought that awed, near-innocent expression to his face.

And then she remembered the horror and shame and disgust that had hammered her in the next instant. How sick, how wrong was she, that she could gain her pleasure from…servicing him like this? Down on her knees before a demon, wasted in her wantonness. She’d stumbled away, wiping at her mouth like she’d swallowed poison. Threw on her clothes while his ecstasy faded, given him one hateful, hateful glare and run off. Slammed the crypt door behind her, shut him in with his latest desolation and his skin still warm from her touch.

How many times had she broken his heart?

His fingers found her clit and she bucked against him. “Oh, yeah. Like that, do you? I used to make you so hot, and you couldn’t stand it. You hated that I could but you came back for more.”

Desire was spreading inside her, sure enough, and it made her want to weep. She needed to make him understand, needed him to once again accuse her of loving him so that she could finally agree. Words of epiphany and explanation chorused in her brain but his strange new bitterness, his just-too-mocking attitude about their encounters, and God, his hand cupping her, toying with her flesh – it was too much.

In a haze as his fingers began a familiar rhythm, Buffy thought of how hard it was, to say that thing when it could so easily be tossed back, unwanted. How often had he sworn it to her, though she had never done anything but bury it in her contempt?

One cool hand drifted up to her breasts, caressed nipples that were already tight and pulsing. “If you ask me, I’ll use my teeth,” he teased, pinching one rosy bud for emphasis.

Blindly she groped behind her, pulled him impossibly close and he laughed. The sound grated and echoed in the barren room.

“Pretty baby. Take off your pants.”

And she did, because she understood now. What it felt like, when one person was making love and the other was fucking.

She stepped out of her pants, now pooled on the floor, and began to turn around.

“No.” His voice was furious and harsh and the faintest bit panicked.

“There’s nothing here you want to see.”

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Words from her brief Sunday-school career drifted into her mind, and Buffy shuddered. Behind her, the metallic clink of a belt unbuckling and the dry rustle of denim. She waited, exposed.

He maneuvered her so that she was bent over the nearest sarcophagus, cool stone beneath her fingers and cool flesh surrounding her. “How’s your penance feel, Summers? Is it awful enough yet? Do you hate yourself for being here, yet?”

Tears welled in her eyes but she would not let them spill. “No,” she rasped out. “I don’t hate myself. Not for being here. Not for being with you.”

His movements behind her stilled. She had surprised him. “Spike, I –“

“Shut up,” he hissed. “Just – don’t. I can’t – I can’t listen to you.”

He nudged her body lower until her arms were splayed across the tomb lid. She didn’t fight him. “I wanted to see you.”

“God! Would you shut the fuck up already?” He was struggling for control; she could feel it in the way his hands roamed nervously over her, molding her ribcage, grasping the globes of her ass. Then he lifted her and drove inside.

“Yessss…” Was that her? Buffy couldn’t tell. Couldn’t bother to care, either, when he was hitting home over and over again, rough and so very relentless.

Hoarse muttering from above her, where he fucked her and watched her writhe: “Oh, my girl…that’s it, take me, take me in –” A short, suddenly pained gasp. “Take your punishment, yeah.”

She shook her head; it was a supreme effort. “Not – punishment.” A deep breath, next to impossible with his cock inside her and his hand working her clit because despite it all he couldn’t, wouldn’t leave her wanting.

“Love you, Spike. Love you.”

He stopped. Everything stopped for a fraction of a second, and then he looped his other arm around her torso and pulled her up sharply.

“You…little…bitch.” His other hand rose to cover her mouth and he picked up again, grinding into her more brutally than before. She bit down on his palm and felt blood flow into her mouth. His hand relaxed for an instant and that was all she needed. “I love you.”

“You’re gone in the head, you know that?” But his voice faltered.

“I love you. Do you hear me? Do you understand? I love you.”

His forehead rested on the back of her neck; she could feel the furrow of his brow. “No.”

“Yes.” She arched back, taking him deeper. He thrust reflexively, fast and ferocious.

His arm still held her tight against his chest; for all that he couldn’t seem to stand looking at her, he wouldn’t let her fall. Ever. She wrapped her hands around his clenched forearm. “Love you, Spike. Love you, love you, always you, love you, love you, love you…” As the words poured out of her mouth Buffy felt the orgasm build and unfurl within her, different from all the times before because this time she rejoiced in the thought that it was him giving it to her.

He made sounds now that she didn’t comprehend, savage and primal. He knew she was close and that did it for Spike every time. “You – don’t –“ but his voice was failing him and his grip on her now was desperate, not quite so angry.

“Love you, love you, you…”

“Buffy…please…” She didn’t know what he was asking and her vision was blurring now so she just turned her head so she could kiss him softly at the same moment she came so hard. Finally, finally his lips descended and met hers and then he joined her, grunting out helpless nonsense, teeth scraping hers.

“Love you, love you…” The whispers continued even after, and when she heard Spike’s voice weave with hers in the same litany Buffy at last closed her eyes.

***************************************

Willow smiled serenely.

“You take it black, right?” she asked Xander. “My mind seems to be everywhere at once, these days.”

He nodded gratefully, happy at her calm. Happy just to see her. After Tara’s burial, Willow had been so distant, almost secretive. Moving out of Buffy’s house, making Xander swear not to reveal her whereabouts. It had unnerved him; he’d wanted things back to normal. Was that so damn much to ask?

Maybe not. Willow’s gaze was clear and seemingly guileless as she placed the coffee on the small table in front of them. She reached out, rested a porcelain hand on his knee. “I’m glad Buffy came through all this. I can’t see her yet, but…I’m very, very glad.”

“Great,” Xander muttered. “You can lead the Spike parade down Wilkins Boulevard.”

Willow’s expression turned questioning. Xander sighed. “I’m just…having a hard time with it. The Spike-as-hero routine. He’s evil, and dangerous, and really annoying, and…Spike.”

Willow pursed her lips thoughtfully. “It can’t be that everyone else has forgotten what he’s done in the past.”

“Well, they have,” Xander grumbled. “Anyway, I’m not thinking so much about ‘everybody’ as I am about Buffy.”

Laughter made his best friend’s eyes crinkle and dance. “What else is new?” There was no malice in her tone.

“She’s been looking for him, Will! She thinks about him all the time, I can tell. So he babysat Dawn for a few weeks! Does that cancel all the rest out? Since when does he get a fucking free pass? He’s a monster, and he should have been dust years ago. Years!” Xander exploded. “What the hell will it take?” He was standing now, enraged. Willow rose as well, and turned his face to hers.

“Oh, Xander,” she whispered. “Let me make things right.”

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