Make It

A/N: The Shakespeare quote is from A Midsummer Night's Dream (annotation: IIIii 140-144). What? I'm reading it for school and it seemed to fit! This chapter isn't as good as the last and I know that, but I was experimenting a bit with what I wanted to do with the characters, so they may have come out a bit wishy-washy. Watch for actual plot action in the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I only stole the characters! And the song, and the quote, and I didn't make up the words. But the way they're put together (song and quote excepted) is totally mine!

I believe in events, not emotions. We can't get by on just how we feel, because how we feel is too human, we're all animals inside, right? So we've got to keep the kill-or-be-killed idea in our heads. I wasn't going to get killed, again. I wasn't going to love and lose.

I was going to like and get rid of.

Buffy Summers laughed as her two best friends guided her into the Bronze, the most popular club in Sunnydale, she had a blindfold over her eyes, and had no clue what they had dressed her in. Her boyfriend, Riley Finn was sulking along behind the three giggling girls.

Willow Rosenberg, who stood on Buffy's right, was a pretty redhead, with a perpetually cheery expression. She and Buffy had met in tenth grade and bonded instantly over gossip and a mutual crush on Xander Harris, Willow's best friend since before she could remember. Luckily, they had both gotten over him, Willow was now dating the lead guitarist in the sort-of-half-famous band Dingoes Ate My Baby, Oz. Buffy and Riley had been together for almost a year now.

Anya Jenkins stood on her left, blonde this week with curls, pretty brown eyes and a disturbingly honest take on the world. She and Xander had met in the twelfth grade and had been a couple for the past three years, they were getting married in a few months. Anya and Buffy had bonded over chocolate and flunking math exams, while Willow and Xander 'tisk-tisked' in the corners and tried to get them to study.

Xander, tall with dark hair and chocolate eyes was walking with Riley, in on the joke and grinning like an idiot. His goofy sense of humour had gotten their tight-knit group through high school and half of university at this point. Oz, with dark brown hair that may or may not have been his natural colour, stood next to him, a lot shorter, but equally attractive. He was fielding off some girls asking for autographs- his band had really made it big in California and were in talks for a record deal.

That, with the exception of Riley, who was a newer addition and not really very close to anyone except Buffy, was the core group that had been together for as long as any of them could really remember in one form or another. Willow and Xander had simply been born best friends, Oz, who had met them sophomore year and integrated himself into the group without any questions asked, Buffy and William, though Buffy, his father and his brother were the only people even remotely allowed to call him his given name, he'd been going by Spike since fifteen. Spike and Buffy, however divergent their personalities were, were simply a pair. You didn't get one without the other. So even though it was questionable whether Spike and Xander would ever get through more than three sentences without being mean, the bleached-blond, rock singer, was part of the group.

Buffy, Oz, Willow and Riley all went to the University of Sunnydale, Xander was in construction and Anya owned a store that sold herbs and crystals and what she referred to as 'creepy new age junk'. Spike had no permanent home, but when his band, Man Enough To Admit It, had taken off in a big way when he was nineteen, two years ago, he'd started touring almost constantly. Probably in an effort to get over his high school girlfriend, Drusilla, who'd been more than a little bit insane and, in Buffy's opinion, one of the worst things that could have happened to her best friend.

As they entered the Bronze, Buffy heard the opening cords of a very familiar song, Spike had written it for her on her eighteenth birthday, a few weeks before he'd moved away from Sunnydale to work in LA. He hadn't been in town for more than two weeks at a time since then. And normally those two weeks were Christmas and the anniversary of their mothers' deaths, which had only been a day apart. And the anniversaries were in just a little more than a week, and last she'd spoken to him, Spike couldn't come home.

Save some face, you know you've only got one

Change your ways while you're young

Boy, one day you'll be a man

Oh girl, he'll help you understand

"Guys, if my only surprise is that they're playing my song, can I go home now?" Buffy asked, Smile Like You Mean It (Buffy's Song) had taken off as the band's first real hit, and Buffy rarely went a day without hearing it. Sure she felt bad that the song had been the catalyst to Spike and Dru's relationship, it was just nice to hear it.

"It's more who's playing the song, Buf," Xander said, coming up and putting his hand on her shoulders, "and you have to promise not to scream."

"Isn't he just sex on a stick?" Anya said, dreamily, "if no one else wants him, can I have him?"

"That's it? Isn't he kind of... short?" Riley asked no one in particular.

"Try not to say to his face," Oz threw in.

"Does he ever take that thing off?" Willow asked, referring to the black leather duster the lead singer of the band on stage was wearing, granted, it did make him live up to Anya's more-than-blunt observation, but even his best friends hadn't seen him without it.

"SPIKE!" Buffy shrieked, ripping off the blindfold, revealing her blue-eyed, now bleached-blonde best friend on the stage, howling the song into a microphone he was doing things that should have been illegal too.

"That wasn't a scream at all," Xander commented.

"All the other girls saying his name that loud are throwing their panties," Willow observed, "how do you think they get them off? I mean it's gotta be really uncomfortable when you-" Oz quickly covered his girlfriend's mouth.

"I'll tell you later. Don't give her any ideas," he pointed at Anya.

Smile like you mean it

Smile like you mean it

Looking back at sunsets on the Eastside

We lost track of the time

Dreams aren't what they used to be

Some things sat by so carelessly

Buffy quickly made her way up to the foot of the stage, using mostly force, while the rest of the group stayed at the back. They knew better than to interrupt the two when they hadn't seen each other in more than a week, they both babbled- and Spike was not one to babble- in something that wasn't any recognizable language.

Smile like you mean it

Smile like you mean it

And someone is calling my name

From the back of the restaurant

And someone is playing a game

In the house that I grew up in

And someone will drive her around

Down the same streets that I did

On the same streets that I did

Smile like you mean it

Smile like you mean it

Smile like you mean it

Smile like you mean it

Oh no, oh no no no

Oh no, oh no no no

As soon as the song was over, Spike jumped off the stage, and pulled Buffy into his arms, spinning her quickly and putting a kiss on each cheek.

"Surprised?" He asked the shell-shocked blonde.

"I'm going to kill you!" she said, hugging him and proving to the contrary. "You told me you couldn't make it home, I quote 'I'm sorry, pet, I'm just too busy right now, I've got to go do British things.'" Several people gave her very strange looks, Buffy hoped to God it was just the very bad accent.

"Remind me never to take you to a foreign country if that's what you can do to the King's English," Spike said, than squeezing her to him again, "missed you."

"Missed you, too. And now you can meet Riley! And this time, don't scare him off, alright? It took me months to explain why you growled at Scott and we still broke up. And I blame it all on you. And yeah, he was a bastard in the end. But still..." She trailed off, pushing him back to examine him. "I thought you were over the eyeliner?"

"My makeup artists are terrifying women, I only wear it onstage," he explained. "And I thought you knew how I felt about that top?" He was eying Buffy's black, slinky tube top with something remotely resembling how a toddler looks at a new toy; complete and total possessiveness. "Your just a kid for Christ's sake!" Spike added this more for himself than for her.

"Anya and Will dressed me." She explained, "and you're not my father."

"Just a concerned citizen, pet," he said, then looked down at her mid-calf red suede dress appraisingly, "at least you're better dressed than you were last time you came to one of these things." She had been a bit drunk at the time, and had looked, she admitted midway through the hangover in Spike's hotel room the next morning, like a whore.

"Are you done the set?" She asked, noting for the first time that several teenaged girls were looking at her with undisguised hatred. "We're just friends, you can still get your paws on him," she called out before turning back to Spike. "So?"

"Yeah, we're done, love."

"How long are you here for?" She knew this was the next question, if it was anything less than a week Buffy's plan was to beat him until he needed to be hospitalized for as long as she wanted him there.

"As long as you need me, granted you need me for twelve days or less," he answered, "and, before you ask, no wiggling room. I had to bribe Ethan to even get this off- on the condition I did tonight and tomorrow night. Then I'm in New York for a week, and on a plane to record the new album with him holding us all upside down by our ankles and shaking until songs come out."

"No new songs?" Buffy asked. Man Enough To Admit It's first album had had them riding high for a year, and then their second, 102 Synonyms for You, had rocketed them up so that, as Spike had said at the time 'we can almost get into an elevator with a living Beatle without blushing and pissing our pants. And now, a year and a half later, their manager, Ethan Rayne (who gave Buffy the creeps), was very eager to see a third album, but Spike, who wrote most of the songs for the four-man band, was totally blocked.

"Not a one that I'd let see the light of day," Spike admitted. "The first album we'd had three years to work on- and then I had a lot to say after Dru left, but not so much anymore."

"You, nothing to say?" She laughed. "I doubt it. Rant about the president, or bash us all over the head with how cool you are. Try to be more upbeat."

"Have I taught you nothing?" He asked, despairing and throwing his hands up into the air. "I would be lynched if I were even the slightest bit upbeat."

"You've taught me nothing, I'm like a steel trap. Where are you staying?"

"Right on that count. You'll never believe this, but you know the old Sunnydale Arms?" It was a posh hotel that Spike and Buffy had spent countless hours making fun of because it didn't let unmarried couples stay in it together, "Ethan decided it was the 'highest-class' of hotel here. Ethan holds Sunnydale in some kind of elevated disdain that I don't really understand, and I didn't have time."

"And Giles didn't want you to stay with him?" Buffy asked, referring to Spike's father, who lived in the house Spike had grown up in with Angel, Spike's older, schizophrenic brother.

"Someone would have died, you know that," Spike and his father had never gotten along well. "It wasn't just Da who didn't want me there."

"We'll talk later," Buffy said, registering the look on his face, a very familiar look of half-sadness, half-anger. It had been pretty much perpetual during high school, and then just after Drusilla had left him- well, after the drinking.

Buffy had to admit that watching Spike was part of the reason she'd never let herself get into a serious relationship with anyone she felt passionate about. He had loved Drusilla so much- despite the fact that she was insane and clearly not half so in love as he was. But he'd stuck with her until he'd found her with another guy in his bedroom, Giles had been out of town for the weekend and he'd been practically inconsolable.

Riley had been her longest-term guy, and she liked him very much. He was stable, a farm-boy from Iowa and in the army, he was good for her. And her type, too, tall, dark and handsome. Sex with Riley was... nice. Kind of boring after the first week of lust-bunny-loving, but she'd get over it, maybe sex wasn't supposed to be fun, after all, she'd only had one orgasm in her life and really she couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Or at least that was what she was going to keep telling herself.

Spike on the other hand, thought it was entirely possible that love was the point of the universe- if it existed, that was. There was nothing so fantastic as the pure rush you got from being in love, and he didn't mean puppy love, Spike liked to think of himself as more than puppy-love, above it, if you will. He just loved the feeling you got when you saw the girl, who at the time, seemed the most precious, divine being in the world, it always made him want to quote Shakespeare at someone.

Goddess, nymph, perfect, divine

To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?

Crystal is muddy, O how ripe in show

Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow.

He admitted that maybe his outlook on the world was ridiculously romantic for a man who swore he didn't believe in fate, or even real love. But sometimes he slipped, and for just a moment, he wasn't Spike Giles, rock star, lyricist and general all-around cool guy, he was William, timid, brilliant poet. And, yeah, he didn't mind it so much anymore. It was interesting to let down the tough-guy veneer and feel something- unless it was loss. That was the one things Spike was afraid of, losing someone he loved again.

He had tried, desperately, not to love anyone outside of his father, brother and Buffy for the longest time, but had failed. He had found out that he fell in love easily and out of it with difficulty, you should not always mistake a man who loves without reservations for a man who loves very little, most of these men do fall out of love as easily as they fall in, but some of them love forever, and possibly longer if given a chance.

Spike just hadn't had a chance yet.

"Well, yeah, Red, Clem's an idiot, but it was damned funny when the two birds walked in like that," Spike said, much later that night as he sat with his arm loosely hanging over Buffy's shoulder. The old core group, Spike, Willow, Xander and Oz were sitting together, Anya had spotted an old friend at the bar and left about an hour ago, telling Xander not to wait up, and Riley had left about fifteen minutes after meeting Spike in a huff.

"You mean they were sister's all along?" Xander spluttered, "did he write Penthouse?"

"Probably should- every guy's fantasy," Oz said, Willow smacked his arm, "except mine of course. You're all I want, ever, Willow." It was said with such a total lack of feeling that Buffy, Spike and Xander startled giggling into their assorted drinks.

"I've got to get home to Anya, she said something about tux fittings tomorrow and I've got to try to get out of it," Xander said. As far as anyone could tell, Xander's only goal when it came to his wedding was to get it over with and with as little participation as possible, "ride, anyone?"

"Yeah, take me home," Willow said, "I'm not feeling so drive-y."

"You mind taking me too?" Oz said, "Want to make sure she makes it up the stairs," it was a well-known fact that already klutzy Willow couldn't walk straight after a single alcoholic drink, and she'd had two martinis.

"On my way anyway, Buff?" Xander asked, nodding in the blonde's direction. He knew the answer would probably be no, he doubted she wouldn't stay at Spike's that night, but there was always the possibility of some weird sort of Riley commitment issues. Xander had never really liked Riley, or any of Buffy's boyfriends. He had always held a private suspicion that she and Spike would end up together whether they liked it or not, an idea which he knew most people who knew the pair well agreed with.

"No, I think I'll stay here a while longer, get caught up," she looked pointedly at Willow, "I'm going to head to the little girl's room though, alright Spike? Female bonding, Willow?"

"Be right back," Willow told Oz, leaning in and kissing his cheek.

As they walked to the bathroom of the Bronze, which was always smoky and hidden in a corner in the back, Buffy started talking, "I've got an issue. Riley freaked when he even saw Spike and got way more possessive than I can ever even remember him being before- and he had freaky Giles issues for a while," Buffy and Giles had always been close, seeing as her father and his constant stream of girlfriends/fiancées/wives never quite seemed to be able to parent she or Dawn.

"Think about this, Buffy, Spike's famous, hot and British- Riley's kind of well, not. Except with the handsome... in an overalls and pigs way," Willow said, applying colourless lipstick. Buffy looked critically in the mirror at her mascara, which had smudged from laughing so hard she cried.

"But didn't you think he was kind of weird about Spike, I mean, he likes Xander and tolerates Oz, but it was like he wouldn't be in the same room with Spike in case he was catching," Buffy looked over at Willow, "and with my song- did you see that look on his face? He was disgusted. I don't get it- he knew about Spike, he knows how we met, he's got to know that Spike means something to me that he can't ever mean. And maybe we haven't said it yet, but there are times when I think he could be the long-haul guy, maybe."

"Remember what you said to me in high school when I made out with Xander and Oz caught us?"

"Remind me."

"You told me Xander had a part of me that Oz could never touch, and I just had to show Oz he came first now," Willow turned, "and since you haven't even had making-out-with-Spike thoughts- that you told me about- you just have to give Riley some extra smoochies and stuff until Spike leaves. Plus, tough time for you right now, Riley'll understand."

"No! That's the problem, Riley won't understand, Riley doesn't like Spike and he's going to think I shouldn't like Spike. You know how he thinks- with Angel, remember?" Riley had essentially said that mental illness was the person's fault, and that Angel should 'cure himself' or die. It had been the only glitch in their relationship to date, and while Riley pretended to have come about on the issue, if he was near Angel, Buffy had noticed a tendency to recoil. "And I have never even thought about making out with Spike- it'd be like kissing Giles!"

"Yeah, and ew factor. For Giles, not Spike. Spike is hotness embodied. In a brotherly sort of way... like Xander, except I used to make out with Xander and... Yucky." Willow concluded, looking thoroughly puzzled, "and I'm not even really drunk yet."

"Yet?" Buffy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I was considering it."

"Riding on the wild side, Will." Buffy teased, Willow's book-nerd tendencies were well-known and made fun of.

"Excuse me! I've done lot's of exciting stuff. Like dating a guy in a band- and a girl!" Willow claimed, somewhat excitedly, it was true, compared to Willow herself, her love life was very shocking. She'd dated, briefly, another woman, Tara, who'd moved away after graduation, throwing a separated (for about a year) Oz and Willow back together.

"Sure you have Will."

"And Buff?" Willow said as she put her stuff back into her purse, "don't pretend like you've never even thought about what it would be like with Spike."

"I've never!" Buffy said, "he's like my brother."

"If I danced like that with my brother I'd be breaking lots of laws. There's stuff there- if Riley doesn't work out..." Willow trailed off, "he likes you." Then she left, and Buffy was forcibly reminded of being fifteen and talking about her high school boyfriend- Parker, who had been a jerk of the first order.

But thinking about she and Spike was gross, or wrong or something that wasn't of the good. Spike was like a brother to her, someone she loved in a platonic way and could never, never lose in any way. Buffy seriously doubted she'd retain any semblance of sanity if she didn't have Spike in her life, she knew she would never have made it this far without him. That didn't mean she hadn't thought about it, imagined loving someone who knew her so totally and completely, getting to claim him once and for all as hers... but those were just dreams, stupid ones at that. Love hurt, she knew that, and she did not want to get hurt again. Especially not by someone who meant as much to her as Spike as a lover inevitably would.

"Red and Oz, are they thinking long-term yet?" Spike asked, as they sat in their booth at the Bronze just after midnight. They had been gossiping for hours, though Buffy knew they'd eventually work their way around to themselves, but probably not until they went home. They had had sleepovers all through high school and elementary school, with Spike on the floor and Buffy on a bed, they'd never found anything strange about it, though everyone else (including their fathers) had. Since both of them had moved away from home, they normally shared a bed- there was nothing sexual about it, just the fact that in Buffy's dorm room (which she shared with Willow) and most of Spike's hotel rooms, there was only one bed, and neither of them had ever warmed up to sleeping on the floor.

"I think so, but I don't think they want to get married," she explained, "Oz is still a little weird about the Tara thing, and Willow just isn't sure about the whole idea. Besides, her parents are mad enough at her for just dating him."

"Thought good old Ira would like anything better than his little girl living in harlotry?" Spike said, sipping his third beer thoughtfully. "Is it really that big of a deal for them? I mean, I know he's really religious- but I thought Mrs. Rosenberg was on Willow's side now."

"They haven't talked much since the whole ordeal with Tara at graduation, Willow doesn't even go home Friday nights anymore. She normally comes here and spends the night with Oz- I think she misses them."

"I know I would, it would hurt to lose a parent like that..." Spike trailed off. "Speaking of, who's your dear old dad married to this week?"

"Secretary he's dating been around the house when I go to see Dawn. The usual, blonde, blue-eyes, tall, about my age, slutty as all hell. Anya adores her because she reads Cosmo and Riley's been ogling her like there's no tomorrow. Heard from Harmony, speaking of sluts?" Buffy grinned, she'd hated Spike's post-Drusilla girlfriend with a sort of holy passion, and when Spike had dumped her she'd actually done a little dance of joy. Alright, technically speaking, Harmony had dumped Spike because he was 'thinking about another girl', but that hadn't happened in Buffy's version of the world.

"Nah, but Dru's between boyfriends again, keeps on calling 'round Ethan's to see if I'm there. Rung Rupes last week, he nearly had a cow when she told him we were engaged," Spike chuckled humourlessly, and Buffy reached over to put a hand on his upper arm quickly.

"You're not going too get back with her, right?" Buffy knew that Spike intellectually knew that he and Drusilla could never be together again, but emotionally? It went deep, or had gone deep, for two years she'd been his salvation, his muse, his everything. You couldn't just make that go away with a snap of your fingers. No matter how very, very much you might want to. There were times when she thought she would do anything just to take away the years of pain and responsibility on Spike's shoulders- and her own.

"You worry too much, pet, doesn't suit someone as pretty as you," she smiled, Spike's compliments were common and, in her eyes at least, meant absolutely nothing asides from the fact that he didn't have an 'off' button. "Of course I'm not, and before you ask, I'm not seeing anyone new either."

"Seeing them and sleeping with them are different questions, any fun new conquests?" She teased Spike mercilessly about the sheer number of one night stands he'd had. She'd had one, with Oz after Willow had split up with him for Tara, she, Oz and Spike were the only people on the face of the earth who knew about it, and it was never, ever to be spoken of again.

"Groupie chit, Faith something-or-other's been shoving her bra in my nose every time I come off stage, but I'm probably not going too," he grinned at her.

"How long has it been, anyway?" she teased, "six months since you got any nookie at all?"

"I intensely dislike you."

"Feelings mutual, according to Clem and Evan it's been six months, two weeks and three days exactly."

"It's deeply disturbing that they counted," Spike said, trying to change the subject.

"Meh, Evan also told me what kind of condoms he likes to use and gave Riley sex tips," she grinned, "have I mentioned lately that I love your band?"

"No, and please don't, it's going to make it harder for me to kill them later. Speaking of Riley, why in hell's name are you dating him? He's made of cardboard and you don't love him," she looked at him evenly.

"Don't give me your 'stable, loving relationship' crap, Buffy."

"Kind of all I've got on hand," there had never been a point in lying to Spike, he would just get angry and figure out the truth. It was easier to pretend he couldn't read her mind.

"You want to get into this here?" Spike asked, reaching for his beer and taking a swig.

"Don't want to get into it at all."

"Too bad. My place or yours?"

"Yours," she pulled her leather coat off the back of her chair and stood up, holding her hand out to him.

"Don't think we're getting out of talking about you, buddy."

Spike's room was, as always when Ethan booked them, gorgeous, red with oak furniture and a four poster bed, where Buffy was lying, wearing an old shirt of Spike's and a pair of his sweatpants as she drank a glass of Diet Coke. Spike was sitting on an easy chair across from her, pen in hand, poised over a peace of paper, but looking over at her with much more interest than he was showing in the song he'd been trying to write.

"What I don't get is why Riley can't just deal with the fact that I'm in college and not just his girlfriend, I mean, he's a good guy, but there are days when he's just..." she trailed off and swung a finger around her head loosely, "really possessive. Which can be sexy when it's like, putting an arm around me when I'm with some guy who's coming on too strong, but when it's 'oh, it's nothing if you skip just one day of class, baby' it's a bit much."

"He calls you baby?" Spike asked, raising his scarred eyebrow (not from a bar fight, like everyone thought, but actually from the time he fell out of a tree trying to see if he could fly when he was four).

"You call me baby if I give you food and alcohol," Buffy pointed out. He nodded.

"He just seems more of the 'dear, bring me a beer while I sit on the couch and you labour away in the kitchen with our thirteen children because I am fundamentally against birth control and perpetually turned on' type."

"You hate him with more than your usual amount of anti-boyfriend hatred," Buffy commented.

"Government, sort of goes with the job to hate them all."

"How's Angel?" Buffy said, wanting to get off the topic of her relatively unsatisfactory love life. "I was over

there last week and your dad seemed really stressed out and he was sedated. Is he getting worse?"

"Resistance to the meds... we knew it was going to happen eventually, but we were really hoping it would take longer. He'll do alright once they get him on some new stuff, but I wish Rupert didn't want him at home, I could afford to put him somewhere he'd be happy, and cared for," Spike's entire life was about caring for the very select group of people he loved and his brother took up a lot of that time. Buffy knew that no matter what, blood would always matter to her best friend and his loyalty to his family was unquestionable and strong. Spike paid for all of Angel's medications and his psychiatrist, but felt guilty about not doing more for his older brother. Also, there was a stalemate that had been going on for years about whether or not to put Angel in a home, Anne, half-delusional from the pain medications a few days before she'd died, had made Giles promise to keep Angel at home with him. But it was becoming harder and harder for Giles, and Angel was veering out of control with more regularity.

Not that Spike had told her anything about it, normally, if she didn't already know, he would just tell her that Angel was 'fine' he was 'fine' and, in fact, everything was 'fine'. Which is why she had made it her life's work to know everything about him before he had to tell her, and if she had to use underhanded means (read: alcohol and low-cut shirts) to find out, she would. It was best to go into conversation with him with a well-formed battle plan, and knowing all his weakest spots, just in case they were needed. Which they rarely were, and she was glad, because Buffy had always hated to hurt him. They were both very strong people, but her strength was the core of her personality, while he was nothing but his emotions. Which meant, that he showed how he felt, and watching his features crumble had, for one reason or another, never been easy for the blonde. Certain reasons she had decided, consciously never to go into.

"And you?" she asked, "it's got to be hard for you, not being able to be there for them." There, she'd managed to come at it from the right angle.

"It's no harder than it's ever been, love."

"William Steven Giles! That is a lie," she accused, losing most of her patience the second he'd said the words in his ever-so-irritating offhand manner. He lazily saluted her. "Spike!"

"I don't want to talk about it, Buffy," he said, hoping that using her real name (which he rarely did) would hammer the point through.

"You've mistaken me for someone who cares what you want," she snapped. "I know you, you've got to be hurting."

"Doesn't mean I want to talk about it, whatever you may think, I'm not actually a girl."

"You're very manly. Are you happy now? But you're going to pop from manly suppression eventually."

"Are we back to the dry spell then?" He said, dodging the pillow that came flying at his head.

"Don't you dare change the subject!"

"You're not actually my mother, Summers."

"Spike, I just want to be there for you," she tried, simpering and looking at him the same way she had since they were kids, sweetly and pleading, raising her voice a few octaves. Though he'd never admit it, he was a sucker for a sweet little girl, and normally did what she wanted as long as she'd stop pouting. And, damn it, if all it took to get him to talk was screwing up her lip gloss, than so be it.

"You're a determined little thing," he grinned at her, then turned serious. "Yeah, pet, it hurts, same as it always has, but he's my brother, you know how I feel about that. I don't have a choice about who I'm related too, and I love him, when he's himself."

"Yeah," she slid off of the bed and came over to his chair, settling on the ground and resting her head on his knee. They were both very tactile people and neither of them found this arrangement even the slightest bit odd, it was just what they did. Neither of them would have been comfortable with comforting the other with words, they weren't Buffy's strong suit and Spike knew she wouldn't appreciate it as much as a hug. So they were physical supports for each other when they needed to be, it was an unspoken rule that they didn't touch so much around people they were dating, or their overeager fathers and Dawn (who had all always staunchly believed the two belonged together), just in private.

"When he's not though... the things he can say, they bite, love. Deep, I know Rupes feels it too. Think he wants to escape 'bout half the time, he was never really the same after," Buffy knew what he meant, and it was too painful to elaborate on his mother's death, "and he doesn't have many people to help out with Angel, 'cept me. And I'm off gallivanting about and being generally useless to him-"

"You are not useless, Spike, you love your family and you're home as often as you can be, and you know you take care of Angel in other ways."

"I pay, you mean. For Jenny," Jenny Calendar was Angel's therapist, "and whatever he's on this month."

"And Giles wouldn't be able to do that without you!" she objected, "Jenny's the best you can get and I know she can't come cheap! And as the person who was being mailed your credit card bills for a straight year I know the drugs aren't."

"You said you didn't look," he accused, glad she'd given him the out to change the topic and knowing she'd done it on purpose, having gotten what she wanted. He sounded pathetic, but he'd been worse, and

he didn't need the mothering she'd intended on giving him.

"I lied."

It should have been obvious then, to both of us. Looking back now, I know why it wasn't. I liked to play the big man, taking care of everyone else, scared of nothing. But I was scared of that little blonde girl, terrified of what life would be without her.

And with her.

I loved her, like a friend and so much more. I thought it was stupid though, I knew her kind of relationship and being with someone I couldn't have all of... it would kill me. But, damn it, I'd wanted her so bloody much, in every way, since long before I could remember.