"Spike Maneggi"

Sorry for spelling oopsyies, haven't had a chance to read through properly. Tell me what you reckon, cheers.

Part Two: Just There

"So, how long has it been since you… ah… fed?"

Spike considered it. He couldn't remember.

"You know, I'm not sure," he muttered, genuinely confused. "I can't remember anything…" he frowned. Xander raised his eyebrows.

"Don't s'pose there's any chance you forgot you were going to bite me?"

"Sorry, mate, that's clear as a bell. No," he sat forward abruptly; making Xander jump on the other side of the basement, and Spike put his fingers to his temples. He looked up, confusion in his eyes. "No, I can't… I can't remember anything since… What's the date?" he asked suddenly.

"What?"

"C'mon, what's the bloody date? When… Where…" Spike looked thoroughly distraught.

"It's March fifteenth."

Spike's head snapped up. "March? What happened to July through February?"

"Ah, I think they went to get soda and chips," Xander said evenly. "Hey, Evil Un-dead Man, what are you talking about? They've been and gone."

"No, no they haven't… I was…" Spike got to his feet. "I was here, in Sunnydale, I was with Buffy… and… Angel. We broke into the magic shop—"

"That was months ago," Xander frowned. "Longer, nearly a year."

Spike stared at him.

"Are you havin' me on?"

"Really, really not."

Spike glowered. "You are. You bloody ponce, I'll have your throat for—"

"Spike, think," Xander said brusquely. "Why would I lie? What's up?"

Spike appeared to gather his thoughts, before looking straight at him. "I can't remember how I got here," he said quietly. "I remember getting' into my car after I left the Slayer and her puppy at that magic shop, then the next thing I'm standing outside the Bronze a… a year later."

"That's not possible—"

"Don't you tell me," Spike howled sharply, striding across the room and pointing at Xander with an unsteady hand, "it's not damn well possible." He laughed. "You've been in Sunnydale long enough to know tha' anything's possible, if you've got enough demon in you. And everybody's got demon in 'em."

Xander stood up. "Look. I don't know how you got here, or what it is you're on, and I don't really care. What I really want if for you to not be here anymore, pal. Your forgetfulness isn't really the most important thing in my life right now."

Spike's face broke into a broad smirk.

"It should be, blood bag, because – what with all the confusion – seems a lot like I haven't eaten in about… eight, maybe nine months. So I'm getting a mite peckish."

&

"Normally I'm not a man-bite-man kind of guy," Spike growled, slamming Xander against the wall. "But a bloke's got to eat, y'know? Beggars can't be choosers and all that rot…"

He dived for his throat. Xander wriggled and squealed again, and Spike groaned, pulling back.

"Will you please stop making that noise?" he snarled. "You're putting me off me food." He smashed him into the wall again, hard. Plaster fell lazily from the rotting ceiling tiles.

Xander kept squirming, and Spike rammed his body over his, to hold him still, tightening his grip. From nowhere, excruciating pain exploded in Spike's groin.

"Argh!" he yelled, doubling over and toppling to the floor – Xander had kneed him rather viciously in the crotch. "Bloody bastard! That hurt, you great prig!"

Xander panted, massaging his neck.

Spike roared, and launched himself at Xander again. They both collided with the wall and Spike pinned Xander's hands either side of his head.

"Get off me, Spike – if Buffy finds out you killed me, she'll be using your entails as Christmas decorations!"

Spike growled incoherently, crashing him against the wall again. He smirked hungrily, and bared his fangs. Xander whimpered.

Something dawned on Spike's face, his yellow eyes flickering. Xander became acutely aware of Spike's stomach pressed tightly against his, and suddenly Spike's forehead was melting, his eyes sinking into icy blue again. He licked his lips.

"Well, now," he said, with barely contained glee. "What's this is then?"

Xander glared at him, anger and embarrassment evident.

"Get the hell out here, Spike."

The vampire grinned, edging closer, looking piercingly into his eyes, head bowed, and a defiant grin on his mouth.

"You sure you want that?" he said, glancing downwards with his tongue between his teeth, and making Xander furious and flushed, and unable to speak. Spike laughed. "If I'd have known you were that way inclined, … But like I said. I'm not a man-bite-man kind of guy, Harris."

He spun awkwardly on his heel, still smarting from Xander's well-aimed kick, and swept up the staircase.

"Bloody poofter."

&

"Where is he?" Buffy yelled, crashing into Xander's basement, stake pulled back over her shoulder. She backed Xander up against the brick wall, much to his dismay. Her eyes blazed with rage.

"Buffy!"

"Tell me!"

"Buffy, what's got into you?" he gasped, as she shoved her arm against his throat and pushed. He gurgled.

She seemed to realise what she doing, stumbling backwards, looking distraught.

"Oh my God, Xander, I'm so sorry! I didn't realise, I didn't… I couldn't stop myself…" Confusion and dismay lined her face.

Xander shrugged, rubbing his neck. "It's all right. You were worried about me, I get that. In fact I appreciate it, but, you know, you can be concerned without trying to snap my head off—"

"I know, Xand, I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me." She sat down. "I was just so angry." She looked up at him, wide-eyed. "I can't remember ever feeling that angry before." Before he knew it, she'd jumped up and hugged him around the waist. "I'm just glad you're okay… If Spike had…"

"I'm fine," Xander said quickly, fighting a hot rush that threatened to engulf his head. If Buffy saw him blush, he wouldn't be able to explain it.

"But Spike… That vamps got a definite dust-wish. Any ideas where he might've gone?"

&

Willow shut off her computer and clambered into bed. Light shone into her bedroom through the blinds, thick lines of yellow from street lamps and white light from the moon crossing on the carpet and the walls. Her fish tank shone purple and green, and the light from the hallway spilled in as well. Normally all the light didn't bother her, but tonight it clouded her head and made it feel fat and full, like a giant marshmallow. It pressed on her eyes and kept her awake, when she very much wanted to be asleep: while she was awake, her mind kept ticking over, kept throwing strange images at her, bizarre feelings, and playing tricks on senses: she kept smelling peppermint.

Her eyes opened, and she sat bolt upright.

Spike was leaning on the door jam, just outside of the room, blowing smoke into her room through the open door.

"Spike?"

"The one and only, kitten."

The silence was tangible. She felt like she could feel it, as if it were electrified, and tingling against every inch of skin she possessed. Her mother was asleep in the next room. Her fish were wheeling blindly around their mauve-tinted tank.

"Why're you here?" she asked.

He looked as though he was going to say something, and changed his mind at the last moment.

"Not for the spell," he said, frowning at himself, seeming only then to realise it.

Willow paused. "Come in."

Spike cocked his head at her, but didn't step over the threshold. "What're you doing, Red? I can just… kill you where you lie, now." He smirked. "Right there. All pink and flurry and warm. Just there."

"Oh my God," she choked. "D-did I just—"

"Yeah, pet. You did. You absolutely did. Either bloody brave, or bloody—"

"I'm leaning towards bloody stupid just about now," Willow said thickly. Spike smiled softly at her accent wrapping around the unfamiliar word.

"I don't think so," he muttered.

Willow leapt to her feet.

"That's all very well and good for you to say!" she hissed frantically, as though the implications of inviting him in had only just settled. "You can swoop in here, all bat-like and bitey… What the hell came over me?"

"I'm not going to swoop in anywhere," he said reassuringly, though she detected a hint of smugness. "Not my style. Prefer a good prowl, personally."

"I'm not normally quite so idiotic, you know," she said firmly. "Normally I'm the one who's all 'ooh, be careful', and 'ooh, watch your back'. What's Buffy going to say?"

Spike chuckled. "Hungry vampire on your doorstep and you want to know what Buffy would say? You need to re-organise your priorities, love."

Willow looked torn between guilt and defiance. Tinged, of course, with a little mild terror and freezing panic.

Spike stepped cautiously over the doorframe. "Don't worry, pet. I won't bite."

"Pfft!"

He shrugged. "Well… all right. How about I don't bite you?"

"I…" Willow narrowed her eyes at him. "I like that plan. S'good plan. Go with it."

"I will," he said sincerely.

Willow shifted uncomfortably, tugging at the hem of the over-sized t-shirt she'd been sleeping in.

"S-so, if it's not because of the spell… and you're not going to k-kill me… why are you here?" she asked nervously.

Spike looked confused. "I'm not sure of that meself, love. Came here with definite bite-directed thoughts… I was all over the biting plan. But when I—" he stopped.

Willow's eyebrows twitched upwards encouragingly.

In three quick paces Spike was in front of her, searching her face with crisp, blue eyes. He'd expected her to tense, at the very least, perhaps even squeal a bit. She just stared at him.

The electrified air that Willow had been so worried about felt like the voltage had been doubled; tripled. Again Willow was caught by the smell of smoke and mint, mingling foreignly with the scent of lilacs that hung around her room.

"You know," Spike swallowed, "I've wanted to bite you before. So many times…" She shivered as his fingers curled, softly and unobtrusively, around the hem of her shirt and he watched her watching his thumb stroke the cotton. "Last year, with Drusilla's spell… at the factory, when your Mr. Harris was all knocked out… God…" he breathed emphatically, "I was so drunk…"

"Gee, thanks…" she murmured, not taking her own words seriously.

"So drunk…" he repeated. "So much so," he smiled predatorily, "that I nearly missed you… nearly didn't notice everything that you are…" he growled softly, in the very bottom of his throat.

Willow's eyes were bright, glassy. Big and deep and brown, and full of a painful mixture of trust and fear and hunger. It was those last two that clinched it. Spike pulled up Willow's softly trembling fingers, clutched them firmly, and brushed a warm, yielding kiss over them. A nervous breath escaped her lips, and she found herself laughing faintly, to alleviate the tension in her stomach.

Spike fell backwards. Well, technically, stumbled or flailed would have been more accurate. It became clear to Willow that he'd been yanked backwards by the collar of his coat, and that Buffy, standing on the other side of the room with a stake in her hand, followed by Xander, had been the one to do it. She barely had time to register what was happening, that Buffy and Xander had stormed the room and were bearing down on Spike, before the Slayer's hand flew back, ready to strike, a short stake clutched tightly in her fist.

That was when the confusion began.

&

Both Xander and Willow rushed forwards, Xander grabbing Buffy's stake hand and knocking the stake clear from it, whilst Willow threw herself right at the spot where the stake had been aiming for. She landed over Spike heavily, and they both grunted simultaneously from the brunt of the impact. Spike looked completely bewildered by the whole thing, and Buffy was no better off.

Spike was still reeling from having all the breath knocked from his lungs by Willow's fall, and the fact that the girl's big brown eyes were gazing, somewhat awe-filled, into his own was making everything very so much confusing than he'd ever conceived. Willow's face broke into the brightest, most surprising smile he'd even seen, and he realised that if he'd actually needed oxygen then her piecing stare would've ripped the breath from his lungs more effectively than her landing on him ever had.

Tentatively, he found his hand reaching up to touch her temple, her hair, anything, and those eyes of hers glinted. He licked his lips.

Xander grabbed the back of Willow's shirt, pulling her away from him and to her feet. He leapt between her and Spike as the vampire struggled to his feet, but he was glaring at Willow.

"Stay away, Will," he growled, rounding on her. Willow froze, partly in shock, and partly in anger. Her mouth hardened into a line, something like her resolve face stiffening in her features.

"Stay out of it, Xander, this has nothing to do with…"

Her eyes widened, her gaze shooting from Xander to somewhere over his own shoulder. Spike spun around just as she yelled his name, and Xander turned too. There was a flash of wood, and the last thing Spike really felt with a massive, bulbous-feeling pain in his shoulder, and his vision clouded over with a white, searing ache.

When he managed to crack an eye open and blink back some of the throbbing agony in his shoulder joint, he blearily made out the shapes of two people having a quick and vicious fist fight. The small, lithe one was clearly Buffy, but the other one… the other one looked larger, darker… familiar, in a pointy-haired, self-sacrificing-sod kind of a way…

"Angel?" he croaked.

Buffy fell to the floor, unconscious, as Angel knocked her a clear three meters into the wall on the other side of the room and she slid to the ground. He shook his fist off, grimacing.

"Ow. Hello, Spike."

"What the bloody hell are you doin' here?"

"Stopping her from staking you, by the looks of it," he muttered sternly, glaring at Buffy's crumpled form. He looked up; an expression in his face that was edging on… what was that? Disappointment? "What have I told you about staying away from the Slayer, boy? She's no good. Won't you ever learn?"

"Huh?"

&

As ever, R & R appreciated. Comments? Suggestions? Limericks?