Time pretty much lost all meaning for Spike after the karaoke break from reality. He vaguely recalled being congratulated on his performance by roughly half the vampires in North America, and then he was staggering outside for a much-needed smoke. Which he had to bum off of someone on the way out because his were in his jacket pocket, and he couldn't find his jacket. Had he taken it off, or had someone taken it off of him? He should know that, shouldn't he?

He stood alone at one of the side entrances of the Marriott parking lot, blowing streams of carcinogens into the night sky. The stars were laid out like a banquet above him, and he couldn't remember the last occasion he'd had to glance up at them. Occupational hazard, he supposed. He tried to find Orion, but settled for the Big Dipper. And that was nice, too.

An emotion tugged at him, and it took him a moment to name it. Contentment. Long fucking time no see. He thought it only right to give contentment a swift kick up the ass, so he wondered then where Buffy had scarpered off to.

Spike was sure down to his bones that her disappearance had nothing to do with the book she was after, and everything to do with him. So much for her proclamations of doom. Fine by him, though. The way he saw it, if she didn't care about the book, neither did he.

She was probably already back home, burning her disguise on the barbecue, but he thought he'd stick around for a while, just in case. Besides, and maybe even more than besides, he was having fun. Fun that for once had nothing to do with forbidden love or smashing something's face in. He couldn't have done it night after night or what have you, but he had to admit it was a bit of a blast being the hit of the party.

At that moment two vampires burst through the door beside him, tumbling over each other like puppies. They shifted into game face the moment they hit the pavement, and it didn't take long before one of them was dust. Spike watched the last vampire standing do the Rocky dance of victory, then hurry back into the hotel, no doubt anxious to celebrate with many Purple Nurples and Blow Jobs.

Ice cream, karaoke, and fights to the death in the parking lot. This could possibly be the best party he'd ever been to. And what the hell was that sneaking up on him now? Not a spark of happy, surely? Would wonders never cease. Spike flicked his cigarette on the ground and slipped back inside, the door thudding shut on the stars, and his vampire power, to boot. Back to the party.

He headed straight for the open bar, looking forward to getting plastered on someone else's dime. He was standing in line, speculating on which single malt scotches were waiting for him under the counter, when he felt a small hand on his shoulder. He turned on her, his feelings as tossed as salad. "Where the bloody hell have you...?"

It wasn't her. It was one of his own kind. A pretty, curvy one, at that.

"Would you like to dance?" she asked him. She was a few inches shorter than him, blonde, petite. And bore no resemblance whatsoever to anyone who might have recently given him an emotional evisceration. Shut the fuck up, Freud, he said to himself as he allowed her to lead him to the dance floor.

"Are you having a good time?" she asked after she'd wrapped her arms around his neck and settled into him.

"Yeah, pretty good. How about you?" Small talk while dancing to a karaoke rendition of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." He was fairly sure he was on the short-list for the most pathetic Big Bad in the history of evil.

"Very good. Now." She wasted no time in getting a tongue in his ear. "Maybe we can go somewhere," she said, "so we can be alone." Guess she was all action, no talk. He sighed without even being aware of it.

She must have sensed his reluctance, because she whispered, "You won't regret it, Spike. You can't imagine the things my sire made me learn."

"Oh, I might have an idea," he said dryly.

"Mm, but I bet Angelus always sent you flowers the next day." He could feel her grin into his neck.

Spike laughed, which was as shocking to himself as if he'd yodeled. Why the hell did he suddenly feel so guilty? No law against laughing at an unexpected touché, was there? Somehow, it seemed like more of a betrayal to Buffy than if he were merely screwing someone else.

The vampire pulled away from him so she could get a good look at all the pretty. Then her mouth was inching towards his, and Spike froze, not quite sure whether he wanted to stop her or not.

Okay. Right. Looked like he was about to kiss Somebody Other Than Buffy. Although, if he squinted, he could almost pretend...God, more pathetic by the second. Ah, what the hell.

Spike leaned her back, closed his eyes, and kissed her. And wondered where Buffy was. He yanked her roughly by her hair, disappointed he wasn't more aroused by the whole thing. She seemed to like it enough, though. Her crotch was grinding a hole right through the front of his pants.

Later, he'd try to figure out just how he'd missed what happened next. His attention had been focused, of course, on crotch grindage. And his vampire senses were deadened down to normal. Those were the only excuses he could scrape together for why he didn't hear the conversations stop around him, and why he didn't feel the other dancers part like the Red Sea beside him.

When Spike finally sensed someone standing in front of them, he opened his eyes. The first things to enter his line of vision were the black leather Fuck Me boots with three inch stiletto heels. He looked higher, but those boots went on forever, all the way up to the start of her bare thighs. After that: the body-hugging crimson velvet dress, cut up to here and down to there. And then there was the straight black hair that cascaded gloriously down around her shoulders. Finally, the face – thick black eyeliner, lipstick the color of bruised cherries. Yeah, it was Buffy.

He dropped the vampire he'd been kissing. She landed in a heap at his feet.

"Am I interrupting something?" asked Buffy the vampire player, coyness incarnate.

"Um...I...um," said Spike suavely.

The other vampire struggled to her feet and gave Buffy a push. "I don't know who you are, bitch, but he's with me at the moment. And if you have a problem with that, then maybe we should take it outside."

Buffy didn't even glance at her. Her eyes were locked on Spike's. "Be careful what you wish for," Buffy told her. The vampire looked to Spike for some assistance, saw how he was looking at Buffy, and gave up immediately. Even an immortal didn't want to waste time on lost causes. She sashayed away, her dignity limping along behind, already on the hunt for her next conquest.

Spike couldn't stop blinking. Buffy might as well have been the sun. He was surprised he didn't turn into dust at the edge of those boots. For a split second, he entertained the thought of leaning her over one of the tables in here, carnations scattering. It was pretty damn entertaining.

Of course, he wasn't the only one taking a good long look. Dozens of vampires were admiring the view. How long would it take for their eyes to move off of her thighs, and on to her face? How many minutes before it dawned on one of them just who she was? He knew what they'd do to her if they got their hands on her. It would take them a long time to kill her. Or turn her. He would have done the same, once. Now he'd be screaming as he watched.

Spike moved towards her, his arms outstretched as if he were going to sweep her into a dance. Buffy took a hesitant step forward.

"Can I talk to you in private for a minute?" he said through a gritted smile. Without waiting for an answer, Spike yanked her off the dance floor and threaded both of them around the tables like the tables were so many traffic pylons. Buffy had to break into a trot to keep up with him. He didn't seem to empathize much with the logistics of trying to run in Fuck Me boots.

Spike took her down a hallway marked "Employees Only". He pulled her into the first empty room they passed, her shoulder bouncing off the door frame as he jerked her around the corner. There were stacks of extra chairs and tables crammed everywhere. He flicked on the light and shut the door with both hands.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he immediately snarled at her. "Is this your idea of keeping a low profile?"

"Don't you li..."

He cut her off. "Do you know what'll happen if someone recognizes you, you stupid twit?"

She snorted. "Nobody will. See? Do I look like me?" She presented herself for his appraisal.

That depended. She was as far from a California girl as she was ever going to get, it was true. But her eyes were still the same. Damaged. Defiant. Ready for a fight. She was so beautiful it hurt. And didn't it hurt, though? "You look like someone who wants to be the center of attention, so yeah, you look just like you," he said.

One little crack and the dam burst. "Me? What about you? Dressed like James Bond? Singing that song like you were trying to fuck them with it? You're the one jumping up and down saying, 'Look at me! Look at me!'"

His mouth fell open. Then he sneered. "I get it now. Did the spotlight veer off you for a second? You can't stand it if it's not all about Buffy, every minute of every bloody day!"

She jabbed a finger in his chest. "Welcome to Delusionville! Population: Spike!" Buffy's face was so close now he could feel her hard consonants on his lips. Spike let his right foot slide back a ways. Previous experience indicated they were about two harsh words away from this turning into foreplay, and if that was the case he wanted to brace himself. But she wasn't done yet. "Why don't you just go back to your exploratory surgery on that ho-bag?"

"Ho-bag? Oh, that's rich, Elvira. And what do you care, anyway?"

She tossed back her black hair, but didn't answer.

Spike barked out a laugh. "It's killing you that I'm not even thinking about you, isn't it? That you mean so little in this world. Face it, honey. If you're not the Slayer, you're just another face in the crowd." That felt so good going in. And was it just him, or was this fight getting out of hand?

Buffy slapped him across the face. It was somehow worse than a punch would have been. More personal. And it stung like hell. That did it. Now he was really mad. "Do that again and see what happens!" And damned if she wasn't going to take him up on it – her hand was already swinging.

He grabbed her wrist. She yanked it free...or...hold on there. It should have come free. But it didn't. She tried again, but his fingers were like a vice. They looked at his hand on her wrist. They looked at each other. Spike's tongue was already curling up behind his front teeth.

"Oh, that's right. Our strength has been dampened," he said as he forced her arm down against her side, even as she struggled to get away. "So that means – well, it means I'm stronger than you." She couldn't even pry his fingers off her wrist. "Because I am a man and you, pet, are just a weak little girl."

That may or may not have been the case, but Buffy, like women since the beginning of time, knew that upper body strength is not the only weapon in the battle of the sexes. She stopped struggling. And stepped into him. Between the presence of her nifty new boots, and the absence of his nifty Doc Martens, they were now virtually eye to eye. And mouth to mouth.

He didn't budge. "Just how stupid do you think I am?" he asked her.

Buffy was itching to find out. She used her free hand to yank his dress shirt out of his pants. The bottom two buttons tore off and bounced across the floor, safe at last from all the violence.

Spike's expression went completely blank. This time when she took a step closer, he took a step back. Little by little, she nudged him until his shoulders bumped into the wall behind him. Because there was just something about a wall that begged Buffy to get Spike up against it.

Spike could feel the thump of bass in his back from the music in Convention Room B. He was feeling fairly light-headed. When Buffy's hands went under his shirt and ran over his stomach, Spike let go of her wrist. He needed both hands on the wall behind him for support.

For the first time, Spike felt Buffy's touch as if he were human. He had long forgotten that his vampire form had put his nerve endings on permanent high alert, which made every touch "too much." He'd grown accustomed to the sensations he felt on his skin as an unending mix of pleasure and pain.

But that was all gone now. Nothing left but the pleasure as Buffy's hands moved over him. Spike couldn't believe how much room there was in the front of these pants compared to his jeans. He wouldn't be surprised if he tipped forward.

"I mean so little to you?" Buffy said as her fingers took the deluxe Spike torso tour. "Don't kid yourself, Spike. I mean more than that."

Oh, yes, there was the pain mixed with the pleasure again. "And whose fault is that?" he said bitterly. "You don't want me? Fine. Just let me go then." Spike winced the moment the words were out of his mouth. He'd finally given Buffy permission to walk away from him, from them – the one thing he swore he'd never do. That, and wear shoes with tassels on them. What a night.

But Buffy acted as if he hadn't said anything at all. Her thumbs dipped under the waistband of his pants and found the spot just inside his hip bones. "Tell me," she said. "Tell me what I mean to you."

Spike tried to concentrate. Surely this was a rhetorical question. Surely every blow, every kiss, every tear in the last six years had answered that question in full. Her thumbs pushed another inch lower. Or not.

He ignored the voice of self-respect blathering in his head. "Everything," he told her flatly. "You mean everything."

She smiled. He smiled back. Then her thumbs pulled out of his pants and she moved away from him. "Now that's funny," Buffy said in a tone that wasn't funny at all. "Because no matter how important you are at The Gathering, you're still nothing but a disgusting, filthy vampire, and that's all you'll ever be to me."

Huh. Another unexpected touché. The smile slid off his face. He became still, as only one of the undead can do. No pulse, no breath, no involuntary clench of the muscle along his jaw line. He looked at her, his face unreadable.

Buffy, on the other hand, was a bundle of obvious, churning humanity. Because this was her fallback position, wasn't it? Whenever her feelings for Spike threatened to get the upper hand, she struck out at him with cruelty. She wanted him to hate her. It would be so much easier than when he loved her. But Spike refused to hate her, no matter what she did or said.

Until now. Looked like maybe it finally worked. Good job, Buffy. Now he was going to walk away, forever this time, and it was too late, she couldn't take it back. Buffy's ears started to ring as the blood rushed to her head. She really needed to sit down.

Spike slowly smiled again, weighing her words carefully. Then he picked her up by the shoulders, twisted her around, and slammed her into the wall. And then he kissed her.

He kissed her so fiercely that her head snapped back and hit the wall behind her. If this was a lesson he was teaching her, it was a brutal one. Buffy was struggling again, but Spike pressed her into place with his body. He forced his tongue in, and waited for the sweet moment when Buffy's reluctance would turn to desire, and then need. First her mouth would open, and soon enough her legs would open, and before he knew it, every wet, hot opening Buffy had to offer would be his for the taking. It usually took about 20 seconds, door to door. Tonight was no exception.

When he finally let her up for air, her hands were wrapped around his tie, her legs were wrapped around his waist, and he was holding her pinned against the wall with his palms under the backs of her naked thighs. He didn't dare move his hands any higher, because he really couldn't bear to know if Buffy's new and improved vampire disguise included panties or not.

He let her down, none too gently, but her boots made the drop a lot shorter. He examined her. She was panting, shaken to the core. Good enough.

He made as if he was going to have another go at her, and she let out a moan of either dread or hunger, but he stopped just short of her mouth. Instead, he turned his head and whispered into her ear, "I love it when you talk dirty, Buffy."

He walked out without looking back, slamming the door behind him.

Buffy took a while against the wall to pull herself together as she tried to decide if she could hold back her tears. The insides of her thighs were sticky, and the throb between her legs was unbearable. This seemed like a good time for some introspection.

Why had she done this? What had possessed her to break into a Le Chateau store in the middle of the night and "borrow" this getup? It wasn't for The Gathering attendees, of course. It wasn't even for Spike, who was, she knew, nothing more than collateral damage in her fight to claw her way back into her own life.

It was for her. Because she couldn't let Spike go – she was hooked. Not on him, and all his attending fangy complications. No, she was addicted to him loving her. Him wanting her above all else. The look in his eyes when he saw her. As it turned out, she couldn't do without it.

Hi, my name's Buffy, and I'm a Spikeaholic.

Oh God, what had she done? Here he was, helping her, and this was how she thanked him? By yanking him around by his heart – or was it his cock – and then ripping him to pieces when he responded.

Buffy ran out of the storeroom. It wasn't too late. She could catch up to him, explain to him, apologize. Her heart was galloping. Her hands felt numb. How many ex-boyfriends would she have to chase down in a heaving panic before she caught one?

Now which way had he gone? Right, back to the convention room? Or left, down the hall and into the parking lot?

She spun around in a circle, trying to decide which way to go. The exit door was just clicking shut. Her feet were already flying. It couldn't still be him, could it? Maybe he'd stood outside the storeroom for a minute before he had left. Maybe he was already regretting what had happened, just like she was.

As she shouldered the door open, she smelled cigarette smoke. Of course! He'd come outside to calm down. In her mind's eye she was already pulling the cigarette out of his mouth with one hand and pulling him against her with the other.

Buffy stepped outside, the return of her Slayer powers no match for the relief that washed over her as she saw him, head down as he finished lighting his cigarette. He turned around to see who had joined him.

It was the Boston vampire.