A/N: I apologize for the delay between chapters. Please continue to enjoy as we now start to move further into the abyss of the AU.
Buffy couldn't sleep, not when Spike was downstairs and she couldn't keep an eye on him. She was feeling protective, having seen what was happening and not understanding what it was. Spike was powerful and if something could control him, it didn't bode well for any of the rest of them. Part of her feared it was the soul that was tearing him apart, as though his subconscious was rejecting the implant. But as she thought more on it, she knew he had been doing better with it, at least that was what she wanted to think.
Spike had been so ashamed of himself after she tore him off the crucifix and got him home. He wouldn't look at her and kept saying that it might be better if he went somewhere else until they figured out what was happening. To her, it wasn't even a consideration. For one, he didn't appear to be a threat to anyone but himself, but if it did get to a more dangerous point, then there was no one better to face it than her. Telling him this, he had looked at her then, so serious, and she expected to see his eyes clouded over again, but this time, all was clear. The sight took her breath away and she opened her mouth to break the tension, but then he'd said something about her diffusing the problem by taking him out, and she'd been able to do nothing more than grasp his arm harder and pick up the pace.
By the time she had him back on his cot, running her fingers through his hair, a softer expression had replaced the serious tension on his face and he had thanked her. His mouth lay open in wonder and she couldn't look away from his lips as she remembered the softness of his upon hers. How easy it would be to reach down and kiss him, to succumb to the urges she knew they both felt, to achieve the release they both desperately wanted.
Instead, her legs carried her up the stairs, but her heart stayed down in the basement with him. Buffy wished she was brave enough to have laid down next to him and faced the nightmares together, both in the dream and real world. She wished she trusted herself enough to open herself up to him, rather than take advantage of the circumstances for her own brand of comfort. What they had developed in the past few weeks felt far too precious for her to tarnish by falling back into bad habits, and so she left him there to his darkness, hoping that at the very least, he knew she cared.
Now she lay in bed, feeling chilled, lonely, and scared, thinking that the habits themselves were not to blame, but her own intentions. She was fixing her intentions, determined as she was, so maybe, soon, she would be brave enough to show him.
Willow and Tara returned home a few days later with smiles on their faces, Willow looking a bit more sheepish and apprehensive as she faced her friends. Xander hadn't hesitated in embracing the both of them, Buffy and Dawn quick to follow. Buffy shifted her body to glance back at the lurking Spike, who she had insisted come with them to the airport, but before she could process any kind of reaction, Tara stepped away from the group and pulled Spike into a tight hug. Within her chest, Buffy felt a mixture of sorrow, regret, and jealousy. Despite her changing, and growing more obvious by the second, feelings, she knew that the relationship between Tara and Spike was more tender and sweet. For Buffy to have included him in the embrace would have opened her up to a ton of questions that she wasn't ready to answer, as it would never appear as innocent.
Buffy wanted to hug him for those non-innocent reasons, but she also wanted him to feel included, to include him without hesitation or condition, and for that to just be accepted. Sure, Tara could do it because she was Tara, the nurturer, kind one in the group. It wasn't that she was still trying to hide her relationship with Spike from her friends, however it was defined, but everything between them was so fragile that she didn't want every step they took to be analyzed or judged.
As they made their way over to the Bronze to continue the reunion festivities, Buffy found herself in danger of brooding as she watched her friends take over the dance floor- Tara and Willow looking happy and light, Anya and Xander without a peep of an argument, and Dawn crowded around her own friends and looking every bit the young teen she was. They had invited her to join them, but the coupley-ness made her feel left out and just a little with the resentment. Spike had left to get a drink and so she used not wanting to abandon him as an excuse. Waiting, she tapped her foot to the music, itching to dance, and trying to focus on anything else besides not having hugged Spike earlier. It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other in months, so the hug wouldn't have even been warranted, but still she felt like it was a missed opportunity.
Spike, the constant subject of her thoughts nowadays, seemed lighter than he had in a long while. There hadn't been any more incidents since the church and he started to trust himself again. They were talking more too, nothing particularly deep, but more at ease. He still went out late into the night, claiming he had to keep up appearances within the demon world to stay updated and maintain his Big Bad status, but he was now patrolling with her every night and it was quickly becoming what she most looked forward to during the day.
His old teasing was coming out, challenging her to sparring when demon-slayage was slow, providing colorful commentary to all of her battles, and not hesitating to trade insults, though decidedly more tame than anything in their past. The playful glint in his eyes returned, making Buffy feel warm all over.
It was this very expression, his bright eyes and crafty smirk, that she found approaching her in the Bronze and suddenly, Buffy didn't care that her friends were feet away, as they were caught up in their own little worlds anyway, that the vampire was balancing a tray of drinks as he walked, or that people milled about them. She met him through the crowd and threw her arms around his neck and didn't detach herself as he backed her towards the table, dropping off the now half-filled drinks, before finding a space of their own and holding her close.
Flush against him, her heartbeat reverberating through the both of them, she rested her head against his chest, swayed to the music, and savored the feeling of just being.
It was this feeling she remembered the next few days and weeks, as they tracked down a flesh-eating demon, stopped a group of evil high schoolers from sacrificing an innocent teenage seer who dropped dead of heart failure despite their best efforts, and convinced Anya to give up being a Vengeance Demon once and for all. There hadn't been time for a repeat performance or a conversation about what it had meant, but she missed it.
Buffy was still caught up in her feelings of Spike, and daydreaming at work, when suddenly, she wasn't. She had been talking to this boy Dawn liked, RJ, caught between wanting to steer him away from her sister and towards Dawn, when she realized his appeal. Thoughts of Spike disappeared and all she could focus on was the confused man in front of her, looking dapper, charming, and quite a bit pleased with himself.
It didn't matter that over the next few days, Dawn wasn't speaking to her anymore; her, Willow, Tara, and Anya, were trying to outdo one another for RJ's attention; or that Spike and Xander were treating them all with disdain and exasperation. Buffy knew she needed to do something drastic and taking out Principal Wood- the gall he had to reprimand such a man as RJ- was the only way to prove her undying love.
Fear mixed in with that unbridled lust as she realized Dawn was missing and where she had gone. The train was coming fast, and she broke off from the argument with Willow and Tara, to get to her sister. Buffy hoped that Dawn understood what she was saying because this speech had been a particularly good one. No man was worth her life, flashes of Angel hit her right in the gut as she said it, feeling slightly shamed, though the realization of how she had been acting the past few days was far worse. The girls agreed amongst themselves never to talk about it again, and Xander was bribed easily with a box of donuts and promises of kisses from Anya, but Spike was decidedly not talking to her, which wasn't fair because the rest of the girls had been just as bad and he was talking to them.
Walking from her bedroom, determined to get the stupid and stubborn vampire to talk to her again, she stopped as she heard his low rumble comforting Dawn.
"'It's what love is, Pet. Not pretty or easy. More apt to make a fool outta yourself than anything else."
"But it's just so embarrassing. I can't even look at him anymore."
"Figure the bloke has more to be embarrassed about than you. It happens, Dawn." Spike chuckled. "Did you see the rest of the chits? Anya robbed a bank, Willow and Tara almost turned against their very nature, and Buffy-" the humor in his voice dropped, causing Buffy to cringe. "Well, your sister was a downright nut, but that's the end of that. Love makes us blind, Kitten, and there's not a one of us immune to it. Not a vampire slayer, powerful witches, useless whelp, a thousand year old former vengeance demon, or bloodsucker like me, and especially not an innocent teenage girl with raging hormones."
Buffy snuck a peak in time to see Dawn burst into laughter as she socked Spike with a pillow. He grabbed it from her, tossed it behind her, and got Dawn to lie down. Just in time, Buffy stepped away from the doorframe, a smile on her face, as she waited for Spike to leave the room. His friendly demeanor shifted as he found her waiting for him.
"Dawn sounds happier."
His grunt was noncommittal. He was halfway down the stairs when she decided to chase after him.
"You're a hypocrite!"
At the bottom of the stairs now, Spike looked like he was biting his tongue, but couldn't help but retort against her comment, the hand on her hip, and the challenging expression on her face.
"How's that now?"
"All that you said to Dawn, how it's all fine and nothing to be embarrassed about, how you let the rest of them off the hook, but me, you won't even look at."
Spike crossed his arms against his chest and tried to look casual. She wasn't buying it.
"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
Looking for a moment like he was truly considering her question, he shrugged and turned away from her, his hand twisting the knob of the front door.
"'M going out. Got stuff to do."
"Oh no you don't, Mister!"
Using her slayer speed, Buffy brushed past him and made it to the porch before he could make his exit.
"You're being particularly annoying this evening," she sniped.
"Funny, I was just going to say that about you."
They stared each other down, unwavering, before Spike gave in with a sigh.
"What do you want, Slayer?"
"I wanted to talk to you," she tried not to pout but she couldn't help it and now he was smirking at her, which was more infuriating. "But now, I don't, so go on and enjoy your night."
She tried to slam the door in his face, but he was too fast, his smirk wider, and he caught it with his foot.
"Now I'm thinkin' I might want to stay home."
"Fine, then I'll go out patrolling or some-"
"Though a little fist and fang action might be fun."
"Spike-!"
"What?"
He looked so innocently back at her that Buffy didn't know if she wanted to smack him or kiss him. Instead, she fixed him with a heated glare that even got Dawn to do whatever she wished.
"Will you please stop acting like a petulant, jealous teenager?"
"'M not the jealous type, Pet."
Buffy scoffed.
"Desperate wasn't a pretty color on you."
"Nor is jealousy on you."
"I just said I wasn't-" Spike took an unnecessary breath. "Fine, I was jealous. What's it to you?"
Sensing this sudden shift, Buffy felt uneasy. Despite his usual lack of patience and subtlety, Buffy knew Spike was calling her bluff. He didn't think she was up for having this conversation, the true Buffy and Spike feelings conversation, which she totally wasn't, but she also didn't want to surrender.
With a deep breath and a flash of courage, Buffy looked up at him.
"Nothing happened with RJ."
Spike's eyes warmed. "That right?"
"Xander walked in before-" But that hadn't been the right thing to say and his eyes flashed again as he looked away from her. "I mean-"
"You were under a spell, couldn't help yourself."
"I-" She had been busy formulating a solid rebuttal to whatever rant he was about to go on, but this caught her off-guard. "Yes, that's right."
"Don't have a right to be jealous anyways."
He said it more like a question and Buffy wanted to answer him the way he wanted her to answer. That yes, he did have a reason to be jealous because there was something, much nicer and sweeter, blossoming between them, but Buffy couldn't get the words to leave her tongue and silence hung between them.
"Still up for that patrol then?"
Once again, he was offering her an out, and Buffy wanted to shock him by not taking it. But she wasn't sure what she could offer him at this point, other than her friendship and her lust, and she didn't want to hurt him anymore.
"Yeah. I think I could kill something."
"Good," he said as he shut the door and stepped into the night. Buffy followed him, feeling a little bit better because at least he sounded like he meant it.
