It would never be you.

Buffy twists herself up into knots. The room is too airless, the heat too stifling. Every time she tries to find a cool spot in the bed, to try and fall asleep her body over heats and she's left panting amongst sheets.

Cold as his hands were every small part of her skin that was touched by his is still burning.

It's just all tangled up. That's all.

I'm mad at Riley. I'm not allowed to be, after he nearly got himself killed but I am. I can't help that I am. And Spike is a manipulative asshole so it's just all got... tangled up in my head.

Plus I haven't been touched like that since... God, months.

There had been a night. Months ago, at the Lowell House, when it had almost felt like that. Like a burning fire that wouldn't go out. Endless and passionate and aching.

Didn't count though. Just a spooky sex curse. An incredibly... fulfilling spooky sex curse.

She hadn't needed to hold back then. It didn't seem to matter how strong she was, or how much she's clawed and screamed and bit, he hadn't backed off. Neither of them could back off. Nothing had quenched the need. Hadn't mattered how much they'd writhed around each other.

But it hadn't been like that after. After that night the passion had fallen off to an antiseptic wasteland. No more kisses that bruised. No more tongues entwining desperately as hands clawed and stroked and slipped further in and down-

Buffy's hand has found the edge of her underwear, fingers slipping underneath the fabric.

Want to feel that again. Feeling like you could tear each other apart. Hard kisses with teeth underneath. Biting and licking and caressing... starting at the neck.. moving down.

Spike-

NO! NO, not Spike.

Her hand stalls.

God what am I doing?

She sits up in the dark, furious. The room is suffocating.

I need to slay something. I need to shove something hard and wooden and pointy straight through someone's chest and I am not going to think about how that's probably some psychological symbolism thingy.

The graveyard is exasperatingly quiet. The most activity usually happens over on the south side, Spike's side, but Buffy's keeping well clear of it.

She twirls her stake through her fingers over and over.

Come ooooon come on come on.

A twig snaps behind her and she spins, facing a vampire that's lurching towards her over a gravestone.

Finally.

It's dressed like a reject from Mötley Crüe and as it lunges at her she smells a thick fug of decay. She bats him back with the back of her arm and catches him across the mouth. Yellow fangs drool some foul liquid onto its cosmetically torn shirt.

Ok, no one can say I have a vampire kink. That is repulsive.

A thick layer of dirt is caked to the back of its backcombed hair.

"Did you like, just crawl out of a grave? Did someone honestly and for real bury you like that?"

Buffy lands a hard kick across its face, spins back and lands a second across its chest, sending it flying backwards over a grave. It leaps back up with a fist rocketing towards her eye but she ducks underneath it, kicks it hard in the stomach and punches it hard across the cheek as it bounces back up.

"Because if they did you really should get some better friends. All that frizz, it's going to take you days to get the dirt out of that."

A spinning kick sends it hurtling back against the door of a crypt.

Alright. Enough playing around. That stench isn't worth working off the tension.

Buffy brings her stake down in a hard swing, aiming for its chest.

But it grabs her wrist. And instead of the punch she's expecting it to throw it follows through with the downward trajectory of her stake. Into her stomach.

For a second she's too awestruck to think of anything. Words are just something that happen to other people. She blinks, taking a gasp and suddenly the pain that had been hovering at the sidelines floods in in a hot red wave.

"Uh.." Oh. Oh God.

Mötley Crüe is leaning in, a sour stench washing over her as his mouth comes closer to her neck.

She tries to pull the stake out of her stomach but its hand is still gripping her wrist.

Other hand, use the other hand!

She punches it in the mouth and it sprawls into the grass. She heaves the stake out of her side, trying to relax so that the muscles don't clench down on the wood. The vampire's already back on its feet, snarling, stalking towards her as she's slipping down the stones of the crypt.

Something dark crashes into the vampire, knocking it away from her. She presses the sleeve of her sweater down over the wound, but the blood is weeping out through the fabric over her hands.

Oooh... not good.

A snarl gets her attention, fading as it is, and she sees Spike as he kicks Mötley Crüe hard in the abdomen, following it through with a hard backhand. As it struggles to right itself against a grave Spike sinks a stake into its chest and it bursts into dust.

"Sorry to cut in on your waltzing, Slayer. But I did see him first. You know you can't just wander about stealing my pr-"

Spike stops, suddenly noticing the metallic scent of blood that's filling the air. He turns, taking in the sight of Buffy slumped down on the grass.

"Oh... bloody hell."

"I'm... ugh," the blood has started to pool in her lap, running over her hands in a red sticky river, "I'm fine."

"Yeah. Seems it."

He bends down, moving an arm underneath her legs.

"Don't... uh... don't touch me."

"Shall I just leave you here to bleed out and die then? That'll really show me."

Buffy tries to frame a reply but things are starting to fade out of focus.

"Hey. HEY!" Spike taps her face as she slips to her side. "God's sake, come on, luv. If I was trying to take advantage I'd have my mouth clamped round your sodding stomach."

Buffy meets his gaze, and nods.

"Fine."

The scent of her blood is mingling with the scent of her skin and all of it is crashing over him in a dizzying mind numbing wave.

It's a miracle I can bloody see straight.

She's got her arm wrapped across his shoulders and as he lifts her up a little higher to stop her slipping down and she rests her head against his neck. A deep throbbing low note resonates in his gut like someone's pulled a cord tight around his insides.

Back at the crypt he lowers her down into the armchair, and settles on his knees in front of her.

"Alright, pet. Let's see what we're dealing with. Arms up."

Buffy blinks.

"What?"

"Your fluffy jumper is soaked, sweetheart. Pop it off so we can wrap you up."

"Um, no?"

"Slayer-"

"Super, super no."

"Alright, fine. What's your plan then? Besides slowly ruining the upholstery."

"Do you even have anything to wrap me up with?"

Spike rolls his eyes and reaches underneath the table next to the armchair dragging a battered box towards him.

"Had enough fights with you, luv. Got a whole box of goodies." He lifts the lid off the box revealing gauze, swabs and bandages. "Your move."

Buffy winces, biting her lip.

Oh my God. Riley's going to complete wig.

She takes a deep breathe through a sudden bolt of pain.

I'm just going to have to bite the bullet here. God, I screwed up big time...

"Don't tell Riley?"

"We are keeping a lot secrets, aren't we?" Spike says. "Arms up then."

Buffy nods, and releases her stomach, letting Spike gently shift the blood soaked sweater up and over her head and off her arms. She sinks back into the armchair in nothing but a lacy pink bra and streaks of blood.

Spike swallows hard, hoping she doesn't notice the sudden pause he takes. The cold of the crypt has made her nipples stiffen, pushing against the lace. He pulls his eyes away, focussing on the wound in her stomach.

"Doesn't look too bad. Missed all the vital organs."

Buffy groans, feeling like the pressure in her head is taking a dangerous dip underwater.

"You still with me, luv?"

"Nnnuh."

"Alright, well this might wake you up a bit. Sorry, this is gonna sting..."

He tips a deep slug of vodka into a swab of cotton wool and presses it as gently as he can over the hole in her stomach. Buffy sucks air in through her teeth, and Spike bats her hand away as she tries to take the swab out of his hands. He gently wipes the blood off her skin, until the swab gets clogged.

What a waste. Could do a much better job with my tongue. I'd get you purring again, kitten, trust me on that.

He drowns another ball of cotton, wiping away the blood down below the wound. Further down her stomach, trying hard to focus on the concrete under his knees rather than the soft skin underneath his fingers. Buffy moans, and the sound floods his head with every thought he'd been trying to keep at a distance.

Not quite how I pictured it in my mind. Although I am on my knees. And she is moaning... so there's that.

He claws his mind back away from images of other scenarios. Between her legs.

"Blood's starting to clot. Ready for the bandage?"

"Yeah." He takes her hands and helps her up into a sitting positing. She clenches his fingers as she swallows another groan.

"Worst bit's over, pet."

"Ugh. Don't call me that."

He smooths a square of gauze over her wound, and takes a bandage ball out of the box.

"Take a deep breath in." She does and he starts winding around her abdomen, savouring the moments his fingers graze her warm skin.

How'd things get so twisted around?

"...Thank you."

He blinks in shock, momentarily freezing in wrapping the bandage around her. Her voice is tired, on the edge of pain, but there's no disgust or contempt lurking underneath her words. For just a moment it sounded like she was speaking to a man, not a monster. To a friend.

He finishes the binding, and Buffy settles back into his chair, wincing. Spike dusts his knees off and disappears down the crypt's hole. Buffy sighs, gently probing the bandage. It hurts to sit up, and it hurts to lie down.

The thought of telling Riley knots her stomach. She knows he'll be concerned. What good boyfriend wouldn't be? But underneath it will be, even subconsciously, just a hint of satisfaction. That his near death acquiring super power hike was unfounded . That she's not as strong, not as fast, not as clever as he thought she was. That she really does need a knight in shining armour, or at least a knight in kevlar. Maybe he won't say it but the thought will be lurking underneath. That if the roles were reversed he wouldn't be bleeding heavily from a major stab wound to the stomach.

And maybe it'll motivate him to be even more involved with her patrols. Take some petty revenge in the guise of over-protection because his weak, helpless girlfriend got hurt.

Spike clears his throat and Buffy realizes her eyes had closed and she was off in a deep angry internal rant at herself. He's holding a shirt towards her, black with a paisley pattern in velvet.

"...What?"

"You're shivering."

"My sweater-"

"Is drenched, to say nothing of the bloody great big stake-shaped hole in the front. Take the sodding shirt."

She bites her lip.

I've fallen down the rabbit hole for good now.

"Look, luv. You're more than welcome to sit there and freeze in nothing but your pretties and a bandage it makes no odds to me."

Buffy stiffens.

"Alright."

She lets Spike help her back up into a sitting position and pulls on the shirt, buttoning it up quickly. Spike drags the footstool to the pillar and props himself against it, fishing a cigarette out of the packet in his jeans.

"You want to talk about wh-"

"No."

They sit in uncomfortable silence, letting the minutes drag on into hours. Buffy's breathing slows and her head slips down on to the arm of the armchair. He watches her for a long while.

He doesn't realise he's fallen asleep until he stirs awake hours later to an empty crypt and weak sunshine glowing in the windows.