Author: Nora
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series, Spike
Characters/Pairing: VampTara/VampLindsey
Disclaimer: I don't own them – I wish I did – Joss is apparently god. I'm just borrowing them for my own amusement and your entertainment.

Can't Always Have What We Desire

Spike stood in the shadows; he's been in shadows since she left him. It's been more than twenty years since he last saw his beautiful Tara, and thirty years since she left. Disappeared in the middle of the night with nothing more than a note telling him she needed time to figure things out; to figure herself out.

He won't admit it but it's pathetic in a way how even after all this time he's still waiting. He'd wait forever if he knew he had just the smallest bit of chance with her. Guess what they always said about him was right; he has delusions of the way things should be to the point of thinking that they're real. That hasn't changed since he was human, trying to woo that proper girl whose name he had long since forgotten.

All women's names have long since faded in the background, only one girl haunted his mind and his heart, and that was Tara. When Drusilla showed up nearly eighteen years ago, he denied her, told her to go back to her slime demon because he didn't want her.

She laughed at him, laughed in his face and told him that his eyes for Tara were bigger than her feelings would ever be for him, he'd never have her back. After telling her to go to hell and ignoring his need to be obedient to his sire, he growled, storming out of the bar that she'd found him in, her laughter trailing behind him and making him even angrier than he already was.

It wasn't so much that Dru had said it … it was that she was almost always right.

That was then, not like it was any different than now. He would stand and watch them, lurking in the shadows just out of sight. Making sure neither could sense or smell him; he became the voyeur to their life, like they were some sort of twisted and sadistic reality show that used to be so popular so many years ago.

Spike would watch, he'd yearn for her and there were even times when he'd watch them making love – or one of their many sadistic games – he would twist it inside his mind and it was him that made his beautiful Tara cry out and writhe on the bed.

Tonight wasn't any different than any other night. He was still there, watching, waiting. Always hoping that somehow they'd run into a Slayer and Spike would come down and save her, pausing a moment too long to save Lindsey. If he had it that way then he wouldn't have to worry about sharing her. She would mourn the loss of her late lover and move on.

Move on with him.

The two lovers walked hand in hand; seemingly normal to anyone that passed them by. Sometimes an older woman would stop and point, smiling at her friends and commenting on how angelic and sweet they were together.

Spike always made sure to snap the woman's neck when the others were further away.

They weren't sweet or angelic by any means. Spike hadn't created a thing of beauty; he created a creature of the night, sweet death in pure human form. Those soulful eyes drawing in her victim, making them crave to know what else she hid behind her honey blond hair.

It always ended the same way. Tara was a creature of habit – as was he, watching like a ghost and never having for himself – she always killed the same way, with Lindsey watching from afar. She'd make a slow seduction of them, her little cherry trick that he knew always made her prey wonder how her tongue would feel against his cock. Spike knew, he remembered. He'd always remember like it was memory burned into him like the sun.

After a quiet game of cat and mouse she'd give in, letting her meal of the night lead her to a dark corner in hopes for a peak under that pretty short skirt she wore. There'd be kissing and playful whimpering before Lindsey snuck up behind the man pawing at his sire and he'd watch closely as Tara drained the man dry right there in the back of the club.

That always made Spike so proud. He'd taught his girl well.

What happened next always made him seethe, filling with fury and knowing that it should be him down there.

It wasn't long after they laid their victim in a chair, making them look like they'd passed out before hurrying to the back of the club, not wasting time as Tara fell to her knees, pulling Lindsey out of his jeans and teasing him till he grabbed her shoulders and slammed her into the wall.

Spike would watch from the rooftop as Lindsey fucked his beautiful girl in a dirty alley, making her whimper and cry for more. i "Lindsey, please…harder…" /i It always made his blood boil. It should be him down there between those creamy thighs – after all it was his mark that she had carved into her skin – it should be Spike's name that she cried out into the black of night, tightening around his cock and baring her neck for his fangs.

NotLindsey.

But night after night it was the same thing; same image – different bar – and every night Spike would feel the rage boil up in his veins for the girl that didn't want him. Lindsey's words echoed in his ears from the last time they'd all met.

Spike had spent hours trying to get Tara's mind back to him – her smooth pale skin looked so beautiful under his whip – but she wouldn't break. She sobbed Lindsey's name only to enrage Spike more, the more she said his name the harder he brought the whip down.

He had tried everything. He tried being sugar-sweet and nice, and that didn't work. He tried beating her into submission, but that didn't work either. He was sure that Lindsey had turned Tara against him. Spike could remember that night after he turned her in his crypt how beautifully she broke under him. Tara begged and pleaded for more of Spike and his whip, loving the hurt almost as much as she loved taking his cock deep inside her. Accepting it into any part of her he was willing to give.

A kicked tin-can broke him of his thoughts, pulling him back to the sight before him – or well, below him – and he looked down to see Lindsey with his paws all over his girl. b His girl /b . Tara was pressed hard against the wall, whimpering Lindsey's name and gasping as he slipped inside her, her face pressed hard into the brick wall.

Spike grinned cruelly and he knew that every inch of her skin that touched the brick would be raw and sore, maybe even broken. Her blood did taste so good.

Anger rose inside him again when he remembered he wasn't going to be the one to lick at her wounds, he wasn't going to be there to slowly seduce her like he once had in Sunnydale – taking her under a tree – and then back to his place.

Looking away from the lust-filled couple behind the bar, he could feel the sun rising and knew it was time to go; time to head back to his hotel room and drink himself into a stupor until tomorrow night.

It would be a different night but always the same desire…