"BUFFY!" Spike's voice echos down the street after her. She hasn't stopped running since she left the factory behind. She's just a blur now in the distance, and he has to sprint to catch up. "BUFFY! COME ON NOW, STOP!"

She turns a corner and he thinks he's going to lose sight of her completely. As he hits the corner she's up just ahead, bent double against a wall retching up dry scraping heaves, thick choking coughs in between gagging.

Oh fuck. Sweetheart I'm so sorry...

Tears are streaming down her face from being bent double but there's nothing to throw up against except her own horror. She flinches a little when she feels Spike's cool fingers on the back of her neck, pulling her hair out of the way from her mouth.

"I... I just thought you should know."

"You-" She straightens up, swatting his hand away from her hair, "you could've just told me. What is wrong with you? What, it's no good for you unless you get to watch?"

She starts walking away, fast down winding streets away from the factory, wiping at her mouth and eyes with the back of her sleeves and he follows behind, leaving enough space to duck out of a punch if her fist swings his way.

"You think if I'd told you, just outright came out with it and said hey by the way, Oh Approachable One, Sergeant Shagless back there's spending his nights getting sucked off by some ladies of a very questionable reputation, you would've believed me? Did I miss the part where we suddenly had that kind of relationship, Slayer?"

"God just shut up."

"So no then."

"You could've tried."

"I DID TRY! I told you he was bad news, it's not my fault if you won't listen!"

"Why are you always there?!" She spins turning to face him, spitting venom like a wild cat. "Why is it whenever anything goes to hell in my life it's ALWAYS YOU THAT'S THERE!? Do you just follow me around waiting for things to go wrong?"

She doesn't wait for him to answer, turning right down a street that parts across from the cemetery.

"Oh that's RICH coming from you!" Spike shouts, following her through the cemetary gates, boots crunching on gravel behind her. "You spend all your free time kicking me about, batting me back and forth. I can't get away from you! You know, I've got a set of bootprints on my door for every bloody pair of shoes you own, pet. So you tell me, who's following who?"

"Sorry, are we just blowing passed the two times in as many days you've broken into my house?!"

He catches up to her then, blocking her path.

"Are we blowing right passed the fact that you could get your dial-a-witch to de-invite me anytime you choose and yet you don't? Why is that, Buffy? Cus from where I'm standing it's a little like you don't actually want me out of your life."

"You want a de-invite? Here it is: Stay. Away. From me!"

"Oh sing me another tune, luv. That one's a golden oldie."

"Funny you never seem to remember the words then."

She shoves passed him and he grabs her by the elbow, hard fingers digging into her bicep.

"You started this! You don't get to act all high and mighty, playing innocent in all this, when you can't stay away from me either! There's always an excuse Buffy. Always some little piece of information that you need to pump me for. That you say you need! If being around me was really such an inconvenience you could find it some other way! But you break down my door every time! It's wearing a little thin, sweetheart."

"Let go of my arm."

"You say you hate it, but you won't leave! If being near me repulses you so much why won't you bloody leave?!"

Her mouth crashes into his hard. For a blind groping moment he thinks she's punched him in the mouth until he feels her tongue against his own.

The shock of it stirs his demon awake, furious and hungry. Sharp teeth on soft lips, and Buffy catches her tongue on his fangs before he pushes his demon features back down, before he can pull the fangs back away from her. Suddenly her blood is in his mouth, coating his tongue.

It's just a scratch but God... First fresh human blood in nearly a year... he assumed he'd be out of control like a shark scenting blood in the water, but it's hers, her taste, perfumed like her scent. So much so that it floods his mind completely, pushing all the blood lust back into oblivion, until all that's left is a throbbing, aching need for her.

His lips are surprisingly warm, from the night air and from her own. Buffy wraps her arm across his neck, pulling him harder against her. She expects him to wince, pull back out of her clawing grasp but he's leaning in deeper, matching her strength with his own.

This. This is what I want...

She clings to him desperately, bruising her lips on his. There's a sharp tingle across her tongue that's gone in an instant but she can taste blood in his mouth. In hers.

She panics briefly from the taste of it, expecting his fangs to come sliding out to finish the job. She pulls back and trips over a step. She braces herself, clinging to his collar, thinking she's about to tumble into grass, but her back slams hard against a door of a crypt. His crypt.

She blinks. Dazed. Realising that's where she'd been storming off to without knowing. Instinctively heading in his direction.

He doesn't let up, dragging her back to his mouth, pushing her through the door, into the cold darkness inside. Her hands move from the back of his neck to his jaw as they move further into the crypt.

She sinks her teeth into his lip and he groans, a deep spine shivering growl that reverberates over her teeth down her throat, all the way down and settling in her stomach where it scorches and burns. Hard fingers at her back make Riley's seem like moth wings.

He pushes her further back, not breaking their kiss, further towards the back of the crypt to the hole leading down into the floor.

He finally pulls away from her, releasing her, and she feels weak from it. He drops down the hole, expecting her to follow. Doesn't look back to see whether she will or not.

Buffy bites her lip, standing in the gloomy half dark of the crypt, looking down into the pitch black beneath her feet.

I can't turn back now...

She takes a breath and climbs down into the dark.

"Spike?" She whispers. There's a small scraping clink of a lighter, a flare in the dark, and his face is illuminated. He touches the flame to a few candles, dispelling some of the suffocating darkness.

Buffy blinks in the half light, casting her eye around the cave underneath the crypt. A few empty coffins lie overturned along the walls, some furniture lines the other side. Spike moves further into the caves, lighting candles on his way through.

At the back is a bed. Not what she pictured him sleeping on. Peach colored and quilted. Pillows. More candles. Everything soft, and sort of golden in the glow.

Her skin turns to goosebumps, breathe fogging in the chill of the crypt a little.

"Spike... I can't-"

He snaps the lighter shut, shrugging out of his duster and draping it over the side of a chair, moving in front of her in the half light.

He grasps her again, less desperate, more controlled, one hand at her back, the other brushing her hair away from her neck, letting it slip through his fingers.

"Why? Why can't you?" He leans in, running his lips over her neck and she shivers, wanting to dig her nails into his back. Rigidly keeping them by her side to avoid temptation.

"It's complicated."

I won't be able to say no if he keeps doing that...

"I want you. You want me. What's complicated?"

He moves his lips to hers, hand on the back of her neck pulling her closer.

"I'm still with Riley."

He freezes, hurt glistening in his eyes.

"After everything? Everything you saw? You still want to be with him?"

"No." She sighs, "Spike I-"

"It wasn't just blood Buffy. You know what he was doing."

"I know. It's over, it is, but it needs to be said, I need to end it properly. And I can't... with you not until then. I need to do better than he has, for myself."

And so he doesn't have something to throw back in my face. I can't pretend that's not part of it.

He runs his hands down from her neck, down her arms, settling on her hips and pulling her towards him. Pulling her with him further back into the cave.

"That's good of you." He slips a hand round her waist, under the edge of her sweater, bare hand on her skin.

"Spike-" she's about to protest, but she's moving on her own, deeper into his arms.

"I hear you're serious, so am I. Stay. Just stay here. Not for-" he cuts himself off, clenching his jaw as the warmth of her skin melts his fingers from the inside out. "For whatever you want, or don't want, figure it out later, just stay."

She sighs. She doesn't say yes but she relaxes into him a little more as his hand travels up her back, the other snaking round her waist.