Summary: Set sometime in the fourth season, Spike and Buffy cross paths
again.
Spoilers: Mild ones throughout the third season.
Disclaimer: Wish I could claim them, can't.
Rating: PG13. Some mild and not so mild S/B undertones. (Or overtones. <
g >)
by: Amy
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He'd been watching her for weeks. Watching her as she danced with her friends, her blond hair falling in her eyes, her face flushed with laughter and innocence. That bloody innocence. How did she manage to keep a hold on it after everything she'd been through?
Spike knew that he couldn't avoid her forever. He wasn't a low profile kind of vampire, anyway, and wanted the recognition, the excitement that came from talking with her. He liked exchanging barbs. Shoot from the hip, but not to kill. Not to kill until the time was right, that is. Unfortunately, whenever the time *was* right, he couldn't manage to kill her.
He classified Buffy as the one that got away. Over and over and over.
She annoyed him.
Likewise, she attracted him. Those lips that had a pouty quality to them, those big, shining blue eyes. Hair bleached to the color of the sun, loosely gracing her bare shoulders. Spike hated her for appealing to him. He hated her wit, her quirky, smug smile, that perfect body.
He wasn't accustomed to this sort of an attraction to a human. Slayers were always beautiful, but they usually disgusted him to a degree at which he couldn't stand being in the same room with one unless he was killing her. He craved being around Buffy. Which, Spike figured, meant that he was sick. And what was one of the ways to get over a mental illness? Confrontation.
With that thought only half formed in his mind, he stepped out of the shadows one night while she was on her way home from the Bronze and began to follow her. Perhaps if he just clocked her really hard from behind. Bested her-- just once-- to prove to himself that he could. Of course, he wouldn't kill her. She was too much fun.
He trailed her until she was in an alley not too far from her home, and promptly lost her. Stealthily strolling through the darkness, he wasn't prepared or pleased for what came next.
*She* clocked *him.*
He flipped over onto his back, swearing. "Damn it. Slayers don't know how to fly!"
Buffy stood over him, stake raised, triumphant. "No, but we can balance pretty well."
Spike groaned, getting to his feet. "What the bloody hell did you do that for, pet?"
Buffy looked at him. Blinked. "What did I *do* that for?" She paused. "So, my favorite drunken nemesis is back in town. How I long for these moments. Truly."
Spike staggered away from her, still rubbing the place on his head where she had kicked him and sent him flying. "Not drunk this time, Slayer. All clean and sober. Though right now I'm wishing I wasn't," he finished darkly, shooting her a dirty look. Taking his hand off the back of his skull, he checked it to make sure it wasn't bleeding.
Buffy's defensive stance relaxed somewhat. "Really, what are you doing here?" she insisted.
Spike glared at her. "I'm in town. To stay. Think you can make me leave, give it a shot. But it's not going to happen this time. This time, I make the rules."
She smirked. "You do," she stated, her eyes twinkling. Spike couldn't help smiling back at the obvious humoring she was doing for him. Changing the subject, she put away her stake altogether and folded her arms under her breasts. "So where's Dru?" Spike's eyes were still right above her folded arms and he didn't hear her. She waved her hands in front if his face. "Yoo hoo. It's not that I'm not flattered, Spike, as a lot of the undead don't tend to check me out, but I do have a face, you may have noticed."
He looked up slyly. "I noticed. Problem is, I notice everything. Now, what did you say?"
Buffy grinned. "Drusilla."
Spike's smirk fled and he glowered at her for a moment. "Where's Angel?" he countered. Her eyes dipped and Spike would have felt bad if not for the fact that.... well, he didn't have a soul. He grinned to himself at his thoughts.
"Fair enough," she finally gave. "What does this mean? Are we on good terms or something else that could only happen on the Hellmouth?"
Spike approached her slowly, cautiously, purposefully seeming as unthreatening as possible, even as her eyes widened in alarm. His hand swept up and traced the air next to her cheek and she was treated to a cool breeze on her skin. "No, Slayer," he whispered, his eyes dark. "Not on good terms. Never that."
She laughed nervously. "I have a name."
"You like your name enough to want me to call you that?" He looked at her incredulously. Buffy flushed and rolled her eyes at him. Spike chuckled. "Fine, Buffy. Is that better?"
Her voice was husky for a reason she couldn't fathom. "Call me whatever you like, Spike. Just stay out of my way or else I'll stake your ass in the beat of a human heart."
He raised his eyebrows. "Stake my ass? This is something new. I thought you were always after my heart. Slayer, I'm crushed." He held his hands up to his heart melodramatically, and then wiggled his eyebrows. "Though the other one definitely has possibilities. Strange ones, but possibilities nonetheless."
Buffy let go of a peal of laughter. "Why is it that the men are all freaks to some capacity?"
Spike smiled slowly. "Maybe you're addicted to us?" he suggested.
Buffy nodded, the corner of her mouth drawing up the smallest bit. Spike's eyes hooked on that gesture. "Probably something like that," she conceded. Their eyes locked for a long time, and they each fell silent as they looked at one another. Buffy was the first to break the silence, and she cleared her throat, taking a hesitant step away from him. "Well, I suppose I'll be seeing you, Spike. Be good."
"Will you spank me if I'm not?"
Buffy flashed her teeth at him in a quick, almost business like smile. "I'll spank you either way."
"Are you flirting with me, Slayer?" he asked in a low voice.
"Would it bother you if I was?" she replied.
"Yes. But only because I would be welcoming it," he growled. Charging her unexpectedly, he threw her up against the brick wall.
As she gasped for breath, her eyes wide, and instinctively hunted for her stake, Spike pressed the hardness of his body against the softness of hers and pinned her wrists gently above her head with his hands. She looked at him, startled, as he leaned even further in, letting her feel his arousal. Their eyes locked again, and Buffy relaxed against him, pliant under his hands. She licked her lips, wetting them slightly, and Spike leaned in.
The kiss was expected, but not the heat of it. What had been a gentle experiment turned rapidly into something fiercely hot and liquid, their tongues fighting for dominance as was their custom. Spike grinned triumphantly into the kiss and licked at her mouth, pressing her back into the wall, pressing himself into her. His knee found its way between her thighs and he lifted it against her ever so slightly, utterly smug and pleased with himself when she broke off this kiss to moan.
Releasing her, he watched as she slumped dazedly against the wall. Gathering all of his will and self control, which he was the first to admit that there wasn't a lot of, he looked at her steadily and backed away.
"Not on good terms," he repeated. "But most definitely on intriguing ones. Looks like I won that round."
Spike smiled as she blushed a deep red and hurried to fix her rumpled top and skirt. She glared at him. "You might think so. I have other ideas."
Spike turned his back on her, concealing his smile, and began walking smoothly away. His voice rang out into the darkness, mingling easily with the sound of her ragged breathing.
"I can't wait to find out what they are, Slayer. I can't wait."
The End