Buffy and Spike were now inside the crypt that Spike called home. The walls were lit by candles and the flickering of the flame felt much more ominous and creepy than Buffy was used to.

"Place gives me the shivers." She wrapped her arms around her body and began to rub.

"Put your coat back on then." Spike's voice came from below; he had descended down through the hole in the center of the tomb that held most of his personal belongings.

"I can't! It's got vampire dust all over it!"

"Not my fault then."

"Nobody said it was."

"Where the bloody hell is it!? Get the cravings for a damn drink and there's no bottles!"

"Everything all right down there?"

Spike emerged from the hole climbing up a ladder, "Yeah, I s'pose. Drank all the liquor, though, so I can't provide much in the form of entertainment."

"Aren't you mister hosty guy. Not much for the alcohol of the non-rubbing variety anyway."

Spike sat down beside her on the small bench that was pushed against the wall. He looked at everything but her and so did she. Their not quite friendship had now evolved into a not-quite relationship and neither knew how to deal with it.

"So!" Buffy said, unable to deal with the silence anymore, "I wanna hear more about the poetry."

"What?"

"Speak some pretty words!"

Spike also dived too enthusiastically into his role; he stood up and twirled around to face her and as he spoke his movements were graceful and exaggerated, all done so in an effort to entertain the slayer, "Well, I'll have you know poetry isn't just about the pretty words. It's about the heart. Those invisible non-material things that matter most of all! Would you like a rhyme?

I went down into the hole,
Looking for some booze;
I couldn't find my goal,
And now my crypt's a snooze!"

Buffy laughed, "Boo! I want real poetry! With the love and sparky things!"

"Alright then; I'll give you my best:

Shall I compare the too a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and hotter.
If dying is like a roll in the hay,
I'll line'em up for the slaughter!"

"That's disgusting." Buffy stood up, making for the door, "If you're not going to take it seriously, I'm leaving."

Spike ran to get between her and the door with much haste, "Look, alright? That thing I said about heart, it wasn't a lie. Poetry's gotta come from the heart and unless you got the hankering to hear about blood, blood, or blood not much else is on my mind...ever."

"...There's nothing else you could rhyme about?"

"Well..." As he spoke next a powerful glance came into his eyes and Buffy, though seeing it, didn't acknowledge it, "There is one other thing."

A knock thudded against the stone crypt and startled Buffy and Spike. Standing there, leaning against the door, was a demon dressed like a cowboy ahead of his time. He wore a large, exaggerated cowboy hat, a long brown leather coat, brown pants and boots. His face, though hidden beneath the shadows of the darkness of his hat was red and bumpy in all the wrong places; he looked very sinister. "A poetic undead. How beautifully ironic. Funny" He began to walk forward, slowly, unafraid, "I always thought poetry needed soul."

Spike had changed to his vamp face in reaction to the charged atmosphere he felt, "Soul's are irritatingly over rated." Spike jumped at the demon only to find himself flung against the side of the wall.

"Vampire's...They never know when their story is over. And the same could be said for you, Slayer."

"You don't want me. I've killed Gods."

The demon smiled, those white teeth of his catching whatever moonlight that found its way into this dank hole of a home to glint in the darkness,

"How's your record against Devils?"