The Only Love I Know

Too much between us to ignore anymore. My blood burns as he looks at me, my body answers his. I don't know how we stayed away from each so long, before we realized the truth. Certainly, nothing has changed in how we deal with each other. He has always called to me; I just used to be better at ignoring it. There were other things in my life, I could pretend that I didn't see that look in his eyes when he watched me, and he could pretend not to see what was in my eyes. But we've both lost everything now, leaving only each other and lives that we don't have the faintest hope of understanding. I move towards him like I'm in a dream, slow, sure, hypnotized by the light in his eyes, caught by his spell. He reaches out for me, pulls me against him hard, so that I can feel the strength of him. There's something almost irresistible about the fact that he is as as strong as me. Humans are so weak, so fragile. I had to be so careful with Riley. With Spike, I can be myself, safe in the knowledge that he won't break, and that he won't look at me in the morning and wonder what I am, that I want these things.

He tastes like blood when I kiss him, and I can feel fangs against my lips, a gentle nick, almost an accident. He can't hold his demon all the way back when we're together. Prey and passion mixed into one, too hard a combination to resist. Blood lust mixes too easily with lust, and we both get lost too fast for him to hold back. He licks at the drops of blood he's drawn, and I whisper his name, pulling him harder against me. At the back of my mind, I know that I have responsibilities I should be fulfilling- we haven't patrolled, god only knows what's out there in the night, getting away with murder because we're so wrapped up in each other. But most of me doesn't care, wants only to be here, in this moment, caught in his arms. I move closer, my body arching in invitation, my head thrown back so he can lick at my neck. I don't even care that we're in public. I need him now, will die if I don't get him, and he's hard enough against me that I know he feels the same.

"Hey, guys!" A voice says with forced brightness and Spike and I break apart like we've been burned. I can't look at him, not even to see if he's managed to pull the demon back in. I have to fight the urge to run my tongue around my lips, to make sure that Spike caught all the drops, that I'm not standing here, looking bloody and debauched. I can't move at all; I'm frozen by shock.

Because it's Willow standing there, trying to look okay with everything, trying to look like Spike and I wouldn't have just done it on the ground if she hadn't interrupted us. There's a sick glaze to her eyes, but I can only recognize it because I've known her for so long. Spike probably doesn't see it at all. But he's frozen still too, no doubt trying to figure out if Willow's going to stake him for this.

"Red," he says, guardedly, carefully, stepping back from like I carry the plague.

"Spike," she says back, eyes wide. So maybe I do still have blood on my lips, or maybe Spike is the one looking bloody. Hard to say.

"Will," I say, aiming for casual. What does she think that she's doing here, with us? She made her feelings more than clear this morning. She thinks that this is wrong, that it's sick and twisted. Why on earth would she want a close up performance? Why would she come in the dark and watch us? Never figured Willow for a voyeur, and she sure doesn't look like she got off any watching us.

She speaks, still in that bright, unnatural tone, the one that I can tell hides darker, more real emotions- I think she would happily kill Spike right now, if she didn't think it would lose her me forever. "Saw you guys together, thought I would patrol with you."

I eye her warily, "You want to come with us?"

Bad phrase, I can almost hear Spike trying not to laugh aloud, considering what we were about to do before she interrupted us. "You thinking threesome, Red? Didn't think the Slayer here was your type."

I turn to glare at him, trying to keep my own mirth down. Willow wouldn't understand, couldn't understand, all the ways I've changed. It hurts too much to see her look away when she's confronted with all the things that I am now. It's just easier to lie. It hurts less. "Spike, don't be disgusting."

"C'mon, Pet," he croons, laughter still hiding his voice, "cat's well out of the bag now, might as well be myself."

Willow tries to laugh that off, and I suddenly want to be anywhere but here, with the two of them. There's a wrongness to everything and I think that I could cheerfully hate Willow forever if she's ruined the only thing that makes me real nowadays. Spike doesn't care if he alienates her. He's made his feelings on the Scoobies quite clear, is explicate in explaining why it is I'm better off without them. Together, Spike and Willow feel like dynamite that's about to go off. It doesn't feel safe to be around them. I wish I could run and run away from all this. I'm getting better at running and it's getting easier and easier to stay away. Willow is still pretending that she didn't see what she most certainly did, and Spike is looking growly, that look of frustration that any male would get if they were interrupted where we were interrupted.

"So, patrol?" If I can't have Spike, then might as well go and do what I was made to do. There must be vampires out there somewhere that need killing. No big bad has really shown itself lately, but that doesn't mean there aren't little bads out there, running around with big, glaring death wishes flashing over their heads.

None of us might be on good terms with the others, but that doesn't mean that we've forgotten how to act in Sunnydale after dark. Willow and Spike let me take the lead, and fan out behind me. I'm super sensitive these days, so it seems to me that I can almost feel Willow's eyes on the flowers that Spike gave me. I'm suddenly glad that he did. Maybe she'll be less inclined to dust him if she sees that it's not all bruises and blood between us.

There's no conversation; what would we say? All it takes is a glance at Spike to know what he's thinking as he walks behind me. He wishes Willow wasn't here, he wants to finish what he started. And Willow is almost as easy. She wishes Spike had never been here, she's wishing he would go, and leave me alone, like that being alone would be enough to make me whole again. When did her world get so narrow, that she can't see anything but what she thinks should be there? When did she get naive? It's not Spike's fault that I am the way I am. It's just that he's the only one who can make me not care about the thousand and one ways that I've changed, about all the emptiness I have now, in what used to be a life.

More of our bad luck, there's nothing to kill tonight. No vampires, no demons, just a rising tension between us, growing steadily as the night slowly wanes into the early morning. This isn't the way that it's supposed to be, not at all. I can be with Willow, even if what we had now is a poor shadow of what used to be between us, sharp with thorns and painful to the touch, or I can be with Spike, lost in the moment, only feeling, lost to thought. But I can't handle the two of them together, all their suspicions, no trust anywhere, just fear and anger. The silence feels palpable, like a cat scratching at my back, like fingers digging into my flesh. It's driving me crazy. I have so little control over myself these days, so little strength when it comes to stopping what I'm feeling. Anger is like fire under my skin, a force larger than myself, struggling to get out. It burns, painful under my flesh, a demon pushing out of me, until it pushes me to snap.

"Willow! There's nothing here. Go home. Just go home." Just my luck, I think there's more in my voice than I wanted her to hear. I think there's pain, I think there's anguish, but I can't stop everything from bleeding out in my words. Spike watches me, his eyes hidden from Willow. He knows this mood well, recognizes what he sees in me know and knows as well as I do that Willow needs to go and go now, if she doesn't want to see anything else that's she's not ready for. Like she's ready for anything. Like she can deal with anything.

And does the woman listen to me? No, of course not. That would mean she might care about what I want, what I feel, what I need. Instead she touches me gentle, and I can feel the demon inside me shriek and wrestle for control. It wants whatever it can have. This night has been too hard. No release with Spike, and then all the awkward moments with him and Willow, and finally, nothing to kill. I can't control myself, whatever I am now is too young to understand how it is when humans are mad, how it's supposed to handle itself. Her hands are gentle on me, but I can't take gentleness, I can't pay it back in kind. I grit my teeth against the need to hurt her- your fault, your fault, this is your fault, fucking bitch!- and try to push her hand off me gently. My voice is a whisper because if I try to speak, I will only yell. I know what she wants, she wants to fix things between us, but now is not the time, can't she see that? Can't she see how I'm fighting this, how hard it is to control? And now even Spike moves closer; he knows that Willow is doing the wrong thing. Knows that no matter how anger I am, I would never really be able to forgive myself if I gave in to what I'm feeling and hurt her like she's hurt me. Willow will never understand what he's doing, will never understand that he's trying to protect her from me, from the rage that eats me alive, destroys me. She'll only interpret his actions as threat, never seeing that I'm the real danger.

Her voice is hesitant when she speaks. She knows that something is wrong, but lacks the understanding to know what, exactly, it is. "Aren't you coming home, Buffy? I thought," a glance at Spike, than her eyes are back on me. Damn it, why now, of all times, is she trying to be understanding? Why is she always so far off the mark? "We could talk about things."

Even when she's trying this hard, her voice grates on my ears like sandpaper, scraping my anger up another notch. Stop it stop it stop it stop it! I spin away, knowing full well that the truth of my new nature is in my eyes, and I can't stand the thought that she might see me for what I really am. "Just go, Willow! You need to go! Now is not the time." I'm fighting for control with everything I have and I'm losing. I want to hurt her. I want to make her feel what's she made me feel.

Spike is not totally clueless. He may be as angry at Willow as I am, but he knows that letting that feeling loose won't solve anything. He gently pries her hand of my arms, turns Willow away from us.

"I'll walk her home before dawn, Red. You'll talk to her then." His voice is firm, and it's clear that he'll accept no arguments. Finally, thank god, finally, she turns away, confused, concerned, but seeing that there is no way that I'm going anywhere right now, no way that Spike will leave me alone. She may hate what we are to each other, but it seems to at least be coming clear to her that it's not the best idea to get between us.

"All right then. I, um, I'll see you at home, Buffy." She starts to walk away and even that little bit of distance helps pull me down from my killing rage. But she stops, she stops like she's blind, and she speaks again. "Spike?"

A grunt from him. It's no easier on him, being between her and me when he can see very well how fast I'm sinking into the darkness. He doesn't want to come between us in any way.

"Spike, don't hurt her." Willow's words are a whispered plea. She doesn't know what she's asking.

I can feel his eyes on me as she speaks; can feel him assess exactly what I'll need to feel human again, to become what I used to be. His voice is quiet when he speaks, full of knowledge that he has no desire to share with her. Some truths go too deep to ever speak them aloud. "It's never pain, Willow. Get on home."

I think she runs but I'm too lost in myself to know for sure. Fire in my blood, fire in my bones, nothing to kill nothing to hunt and the fire burns me alive he took my kill away he took my kill away...

"Buffy." His voice is firm and he spins me around to look at him. He's so strong, he can take anything that I give and stay standing. Willow would be cold and still at my feet, but Spike is already dead and a second death is not so easy.

We're by the cemetery, at the edge of town now, and he pulls me off the walk into the darkness, even as I fight him. God, it feels so good to fight, feels so good to let the demon rage free again.

"Fight me," Buffy, he says, and hits me hard in the face, enough to free the demon.

I fly at him, punching and kicking and he gives as good as he gets back. He can meet my demon with his own; he can battle it on equal ground. It's such a relief to just let go, to let myself be what I am in the dark, in the night. His hands are hard on me when he finally gets me, and I'm no gentler on him.

He smells so good, like smoke, like blood, like death, and this close to him, one lust is lost in another and all our anger burns away, changes into something else. When we kiss, it draws fresh blood for Spike to drink, and when he runs his hands down me, I battle them away so that I can touch him. His body is like marble, a carved beauty that feels like living ice beneath my hands. I wonder what I feel like to him, but he's past words now, only whispers my name as he licks and bites, a heart beat away from eating me alive.

When he's finally in me, I can feel the rest of my demons fly away from me, leaving me in peace, leaving me calm. Now we can be gentle, now we can be kind, and he rocks me to ecstasy, and we scream together.

He holds me tight when we're done, holds me against him and I finally feel weak and sated and human. The rage is gone, leaving only Buffy behind. This is what Willow would never understand, that I need this violence from and with Spike, so that I don't turn it on anyone else. That I don't hurt the people that I used to love. Instead, I just hurt him, and he hurts me, and we both can be calm again. I can rest in his arms, tired and safe, because I know that I can't kill him without really trying, that he can take whatever I give and just get off on it.

"Better, love?" he whispers, playing with the flowers in my hair, tangling his fingers through my curls.

I lean into his touch, the coolness of his skin against my heat.

"Yeah. It was bad tonight."

"I know. I could see."

"Do you think she could?"

"Nah, doubt it. Like you said, she only sees what she wants to."

A pause then as I wonder if I have the energy to go again. Spike's body is an unending fascination to me, addictive, a constant temptation.

"Pet," he says, finally. "Can't believe I'm saying this, cause she's damn fool, and not one of 'em deserve you, but she's trying. Can you give her that, that' she's trying?"

I turn in his arms, face his sculpted face. Spike may say that Drusilla chose him for his poetry, but I think it was the face she wanted, elegant and vicious all at once. A predator's face. I don't know how he hid it even from himself in his human times. "Why do you care what she does?"

"Cause you do. I saw your face tonight, Slayer. I saw what was eating at you. You didn't want to hurt her. You would have hurt yourself before you hurt her. No matter how angry you are at her, you still care."

"You think I'm stupid for that?" I don't try to deny the words. There are bloody half moons in my palms, carved there from my efforts to keep my hands from acting without my permission. I can't hurt her. It would be the last breath of my humanity. As if he can read my mind, he takes one of my hands, turns it palm up and gently licks the blood off, so used to my taste now that the kick of a slayer's blood to his system barely makes him shudder. When he answers me, his words are almost lost against my skin, drowned in my blood.

"Nah, darling, I'm a master at caring for people I shouldn't. Love you, don't I?"

"Not now, Spike." I can't handle these declarations. I know and I try to deal with it, but there is nothing in me anymore that would let me love anything. He knows that now, and mostly leaves the words unspoken, but I can always feel them between us. Why can't it just be flesh? Why can't it just be need?

"Have it your way then. But talk to the woman, if only so she doesn't kill me."

"In the morning. I'll talk to her in the morning. For now, take me home."

He bites my ear, gently, just the faintest skim of teeth on skin. "Done already, love? We've only gone once."

"Not my home. Yours. Take me the crypt."