Spike was practically nipping at the Slayer's heels he was following her so closely. Buffy was swept with another wave of chills each time the wind threw some of his body temperature against the back of her neck.

"Slayer, wait up!" Spike called roughly, his throat already raw from arguing with the blonde for a good, powerful ten minutes. "Buffy!" he reached out to her again in a verbal manner, not wanting to infuriate the girl by touching her. "Buffy, love, just hang on a second".

Upon hearing the four-letter word Buffy had grown to despise, she stopped dead, whipping around on her heel. "How many times do I have to tell you?! Stop. Calling. Me. Love!" her eyes practically staked the vampire with rigid edges as he attempted to stop all forward motion before ploughing into the girl.

"Just speakin' the truth lov-Slayer" hoping that she wasn't carrying a real stake, Spike refrained from stumbling over the word again. His blue jewels hardly held an ounce of the menace hers did. Of course, Spike was becoming slightly frustrated by Buffy's constant pushing him away, but tonight he felt content enough to handle anything.

"God! Stop saying that! You can't love, okay? You're a vampire. The only thing you can love is a tasty, helpless 'townie' and the 'occasional shag' as you might put it" Buffy was ruthless, though it was hardly a change from her usual attitude toward Spike. She felt this close… this close to staking him. At least, she wished she did.

The vampire simply stared at her with the 'moon eyes' she loved to hate. "Why do you keep throwing me away like this? What we had back then, what we had last night, wasn't nothing, Buffy. It wasn't just shagging. It was making love. Maybe not for you, too high and mighty to admit it to yourself, but for me" Spike clutched his chest with an open palm, his eyes attempting to throw even a morsel of his emotion into her. "… No matter how violent things could get, for me… it was…divine" Spike almost smiled when he made use of a poet's word, but Buffy's glare kept any sort of humility from rising to the surface.

The Slayer, though she hardly looked it, was almost in tears. She wanted her beliefs to be the same as Spike's in some ways at least. Part of her wanted to admit that this vampire was someone who she might be able to love… but there were always things holding her back. Too many things that created barriers fifty feet high and ten-feet across, as opaque as the night sky. Now… now would be the perfect time to toss one of those barrier-constructing issues onto the table.

"You say that now, Spike…" she gave a soft sigh as her voice quieted, suddenly tired of yelling. When he brought up their act of making love the night before, Spike had somehow softened the barriers she was holding up, or at least made them sheets of transparent plastic. "You say that now. But what about three years from now… What about fifty years from now, when I'm not the same girl anymore? Things between us can never be real, because unlike you, I'm going to get older. I'm not going to look like this forever…"

What could be called a heart suddenly deflated within the vampire when Buffy finished speaking what he hoped were soul-filled words. This girl, who usually seemed so hard and strong on the exterior, was in fact ripped to shreds on the inside. Perhaps not all of her, but the holes left by her past lovers had never been patched up. On some level, Spike understood that.

Attempting to manufacture words that would sound just right, Spike sighed during the awkward silence, drilling through his vocabulary in the meantime. "Piffle…" Buffy glanced up, thinking that she had never heard him use that English word before. Spike continued with words she couldn't deny had to have come from the softer portions of his blackened heart. "Buffy, I'm not bloody stupid. I've been undead for over a century; you think I didn't notice that people tend to age?" Spike gave a short laugh, though his face was only contorted in its humoured state for a moment.  

"Buffy… I love you" his voice was stronger than the Slayer thought it had ever been. Glad that she hadn't flinched or shot venom at him when he spoke the detested word, Spike took the step toward her that was needed to fill the gap between them. His hands reached up to hold her tenderly by the arms, blue eyes moulding against hers. "And nothing… nothing is going to change that. Not you. Not me- and yes, I've tried to stop loving you. But most of all, definitely not age. I love you Buffy… your body and your mind… that's what infatuation is all about…" Spike smiled softly, and his hand rose to gently caress Buffy's cheek as she leaned into the touch.

Eyes fluttering slightly, Buffy realised that breathing was becoming somewhat of a challenge to her. Instead of saying something that would surely sound horrendous at a time like this, she simply exposed her emerald jewels to Spike, the ones she knew he adored. "Kiss me…" with the gentlest of whispers, Buffy spoke what had become simple words to form. For Spike, that effortless phrase was neither a request, nor a demand… to him it was a necessity, one he was always willing to fulfill.

And so he did, letting the Slayer fold herself in his arms, the warm caress of her fingers against the nape of his neck sending shivers down his spine. At some point during the evening, either being knew they would fall into the depths of Spike's crypt. After tonight, it was even possible that Buffy would stay until the morning, and then perhaps they would read the morning newspaper together, and play footsie under the sheets.