She stood in the hallway for what felt like forever, staring at the door he'd disappeared through with a feeling that was almost like abandonment… and that was weird. Buffy blinked and looked over at the vampire behind the desk, who studiously ignored her, then down at the key in her hands, which was marked with the number seventeen and stubbornly refused to tell her anything more. Resigned to her fate, she turned and pushed through her own doorway, prepared to do battle with whatever was on the other side.

To her surprise, she found herself in a locker room.

An empty locker room.

She looked around in wonder for a few minutes, thoroughly dumbfounded as to why she was standing in the middle of a room with drains in the floor and small square lockers lining the walls, the lights dim on pale blue paint and tile. Moving cautiously down the long bench that spanned the room, she rounded the row of lockers to find another door waiting for her, still and ominous, a dull beat of music coming from the other side. Spinning away from the door, she attempted to catch the breath that suddenly felt stuck in her throat, her heart beating hard in her chest. Purely by chance, her eyes landed on locker seventeen, the number engraved into a small metal plate at the top of the door.

Checking the matching number on her key one more time, she moved tentatively forward, opening the door with trepidation only to find it empty. She didn't know what was going on, didn't know what kind of a place this was that required her to change her clothes, but it was making her nervous. She wanted out of this weird little locker room fast, and to her horror, she wanted to find Spike. She might kill him for this.

Unfolding the black fabric in her hands, she shook out a t-shirt of soft, stretchy cotton, a perfect fit. Darting a quick glance around to make sure she was really alone, she did the only thing she could think to do, whipping off her own shirt and stuffing it into the locker, pulling the black one down over her head. A shudder rippled over her shoulders as the chill air touched her skin, and she quickly tossed her wallet in with her shirt before turning her key in the lock and crossing to the other side of the room, pushing through the door without a backward glance.

She emerged in a darkened hallway, black lights lining the ceiling and shining down with a strange purplish glow. Spike was leaning against the wall opposite her, his arms crossed over his chest casually, a smirk edging at the corner of his mouth though it was clear that he was trying to hide it. He'd apparently switched out his t-shirts, not that she could really tell, and his duster was missing, so when he rolled smoothly off the wall onto his feet and stepped towards her, she could see the muscles shifting in his shoulders, and she wondered if he moved the way he did on purpose.

Buffy wrinkled her nose.

"Come on luv," he said, ignoring the look. "Time for the fun part."

"It's your version of fun that worries me," she grumbled, following him down the short hallway.

As they moved along they found themselves faced with a long table covered in bowls of a thick liquid that glowed an eerie white. Whatever the substance was, it was everywhere, spattered over the floor and the walls and the tabletop, smudges and fingerprints smeared all over the place, and a cold feeling came over her. It was like looking at a crime scene that the color had been bled out of, and her breath caught in her throat.

"What is that?" she asked, and her voice came out in a choked whisper.

Spike cocked an eyebrow in her direction but didn't tease, just deadpanned an answer.

"Relax. It's paint."

Reaching out for a bowl, he dipped two fingers into the substance and they came back out a bright, neon green.

"Woah! How'd you do that?"

Now he grinned, encouraged by her abrupt interest and cautious delight.

"You can do it to," he encouraged. "Try it."

Reaching for a different bowl, Buffy stuck a finger in and pulled it out covered in a hot, electrifying pink. "That's so cool!" Turning back to him, she froze when she saw him drawing stripes over his cheekbones like Native American war paint. "What are you doing?"

"It's what the shirts are for," he answered. Gesturing behind her, he waited until she turned and pointed her to look through the door at the end of the hall. It opened out to the main room of the club and Buffy could see the different patrons, demons and humans alike, passing the doorway, all decorated with bright, vibrant colors. Some had drawn on patterns and strange symbols, others were just covered in swipes and spatters like they had simply flung it at each other with gleeful abandon.

"Oh this is cool!" she grinned. "As long as I don't get it in my hair…" Behind her Spike snorted but she ignored him. "Oo! I like the handprints!" A Riddix demon had walked by the doorway with a blue handprint curling around its hip, and Buffy immediately turned to the table, dipping both her palms flat in the tray of paint that turned pink at her touch.

"Help you out with that..."

Buffy looked up to find Spike staring at her chest, his hands up suggestively and a sneaky glint in his eye.

"Don't even think about it!" she warned, and because of the weird way he'd done it, less lecherous and more playfully flirtatious, like any guy out on a date with his girl, she snapped her own hands out and thumped him squarely in his own chest, making him stagger back a step and leaving two perfect, pink handprints over his pecs. He had laughed, chuckled at her threat, but the smile faded as he looked down at the marks, a strange, almost awe-like expression replacing it that Buffy couldn't read. She thought she saw his eyes flash gold in the dark, thought she heard a low, predatory rumble come from deep in his throat as his gaze darted between her and the hot pink hand prints on his chest, but she shrugged it off, not without significant effort.

Turned back to the paint, she poked around in different bowls to find purple and even some that stayed white, drawing on her own warrior stripes on her cheeks and upper arms, giving herself some artistic slashes across her torso that looked a little like claw marks. It looked pretty cool, and it was actually kind of fun, like adult finger painting, and Spike too had seemed to shake off whatever he was dealing with, painting himself in much the same way with green and blue. To her surprise he had the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth, an uncharacteristic display of nervousness, deep thought, and it made her strangely nervous in return. This whole thing was already a bucket of weird, and having him be… not Spike… was just making it worse.

"Turn around."

"What?" she asked, jerked out of her musings to find him with her colors, purple and white, on his hands.

"Turn around," he repeated, circling one finger in a spinning motion, and she cast him a wary eye before slowly showing him her back. She felt his fingers dancing over her shoulders, saw him reaching out for more paint from the corner of her eye, and concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even.

"You're not writing 'kick me' are you?" she asked.

Behind her Spike scoffed and moved lower, tracing a long, straight line down to the small of her back and she struggled not to squirm. "Not that lame Slayer," he muttered, concentrating on the task before him. "All done."

Twisting around, she pulled up the shoulder of the t-shirt and surveyed his job. He'd painted her up like a sport's jersey, writing the word 'CHOSEN' in all caps over her shoulders and then adding a big block '1' underneath.

"Chosen One," she grinned. "Hah!"

Spike smirked back, practically glowing beneath the praise she'd bestowed on him, and something curled oddly in her stomach.

"Your turn," she said, shoving the feeling away. "Turn around."

"Not sure I trust you Slayer," Spike grinned, but he'd turned away even before he'd said it, and behind his back she couldn't stop a smile. "Wouldn't put a 'kick me' past you."

"Hey!" she protested, grabbing the bowl that she'd found turned a gleaming ruby red at her touch. "I'm not in high school anymore!"

For a minute she contemplated her canvas, surveyed the broad, smooth spread of his shoulders and suddenly the thought of them bare under her hands flashed through her mind before she cast it viciously away, horrified by the idea that her mind had gone to all that pale, muscular flesh…

Ugh! What was wrong with her?! Not a sex club her left foot!

For a second she debated naming him the Slayer of Slayers and giving him the number two but it felt too vindictive, too harsh even though it was Spike, and so she quickly changed her mind, dipping her fingers into the bowl and painting him up. Finishing quickly, she put the bowl back on the table and wiped the excess paint off her hands on a piece of provided toweling.

"Oh ha ha."

Spike had twisted round himself to check out the job she'd done and was frowning at his new nickname. She'd branded him MR BLOODY and given him two big, square zeroes – maybe not the cleverest thing, but she'd thought it was funny and his wry glower had her giggling behind her hand.

"Come on," Spike sighed, rolling his eyes at her. "Let's go."

She followed him the rest of the way down the hall towards the open doorway hesitantly, a low, steady beat of music rumbling up through her shoes and setting her skin humming, and as they emerged onto a wide balcony running around the edges of a sunken dance floor her senses were assaulted with color, movement, and noise. Spike was watching her carefully, gauging her reaction as she stepped forward to look over the edge, her hands resting on the railing. Below her dozens of patrons danced, a veritable rainbow of painted color, moving sensuously together as though the music had pulled a thread through each one, every single heartbeat or non-heartbeat dancing in time. She felt Spike step in close behind her, the spell not quite enough to block his powerful signature, and her grip on the railing tightened.

"This place is about heightened senses," he murmured close her ear, sending goose bumps down over the back of her neck as he caged her in, his arms on either side of her as he leaned against the railing. "Demons come here, or white hats like you, anyone with a little something extra." Stepping to the side, he moved in closer, placing his hands on the railing so that their forearms were almost pressed together. "You and me, we're different Buffy. We don't feel things like humans do. That's what this place is all about. So try to relax, yeah? Try to feel it."

She already was.

That was the problem.

She'd been solid, prepped, ready to hate everything about tonight, and already she was off her game. It had started the moment she hit the top of the stairs back at the house on Revello drive, looked down to find him staring up at her as though the she were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, the love that he couldn't possibly generate burning in him like the sun. From there it had only gotten worse; making her feel bad for his lost pride, confusing her with his un-Spike-like behavior, bringing her to this place which was like nothing she would have ever have guessed at, and even worse, was actually enjoying.

And that was bad!

Because it was Spike. A date with Spike.

And more than that, it was the bet.

She was supposed to be focused on winning this thing.

Of course, she'd thought he was going to screw up royally, make it easy on her. She'd never imagined that she'd actually have to look for things that made this suck.

But if that was what she had to do…

"It's not exactly something I can just turn off," she said quietly, forcing more venom into her voice than she really felt. "Dampening spell or not, I'm still the Slayer. And you brought me to a club filled with vampires and demons."

"You're over thinkin' it," he murmured, refusing to rise to her bait. "It's your night off. It's their night off. We're all just here to have a good time. You gotta let it all go every once in a while Slayer." Tilting his head in that unnervingly innocent way he had, he looked at her closely before he began to back away, leaving her with one last cryptic warning before he faded into the crowd.

"You'll go nuts if you don't."

Hey all! I promised a friend, who is new to , that I would drop a shameless plug for their stories, so if any of you are in to Teen Wolf, go check out UnstableIntention and drop her a review!

Hope you enjoyed the update (: