The taste of cherries lingered, clinging to the back of her throat. Tartly sour, though that might've been due to the misery roiling in her gut like a pit of hateful snakes.
His crypt loomed into view, and Buffy practically took the door off its hinges as she kicked her way in.
Stake already raised in her hand she barged into the gloom, expecting him to be there in his chair, probably smirking at how under her skin he'd gotten that would just boil her blood to fizzing.
But he wasn't.
"Spike?" Buffy called out, just in case, but it was obvious from the heavy silence that the crypt was empty.
Damn.
She lowered her stake, feeling like a sad angry idiot as she departed back into the graveyard.
The snap of a twig caught her ear, and warning bells rang out from the base of her skull down.
Buffy gripped her stake tighter. Not a total wasted evening. If she couldn't soothe herself with a bit of Spike kicking she'd put a stake through something else.
She moved out of the cover of the crypt's doorway and spotted it. Shuffling pathetically as if out of a poorly financed horror movie a vampire with dirt-clogged hair shambled towards her, seeming to pick up pace once it locked its yellow eyes on her.
A running leap brought her into its orbit. She laid a hard backhand across its face, following through with an uppercut with her other hand and a kick to the chest that sent it wobbling back. It loomed again, toppling onto her briefly before she kneed it in the stomach, bringing her elbow down on the back of its neck. The fight seemed to only spur it on, as if Buffy's increased heart rate from the exertion was driving it crazy. It lurched upwards, overpowering her and spilling the stake from her hand.
Buffy turned underneath it, outstretched fingers scrabbling at the edge of the stake just out of reach, got her hand around it the same second she sensed the vampire rear back for a bite. She flipped onto her back, bringing the stake around in a sweep towards its thorax-
But the vampire exploded into dust over her before she even made the connection.
She sputtered, coughed, hacked up undead dust and glowered up at-
"SPIKE!" she shouted, wiping an arm over her mouth. "That was my kill!"
"Are you-" Spike blinked, clearly dumbfounded at her lack of distressed-damsel gratitude. "Are you off your fucking rocker, Slayer?! You were about to be a blood-filled juice box!"
"I had it under control!" She countered, struggling up from the grass with the stake in her hand, wiping mud and grass from her jeans.
"Bollocks, did you!" He shouted, gesturing to the Buffy-shaped flattened grass she'd just crawled up from. "He had you pinned to the sodding…well, sod!"
"I don't need you looking over my shoulder, Spike! Would you stop getting in my way!" She turned away from him, stomping over the grass, her earlier breakup-grief-induced homicidal rage forgotten under a tsunami of adrenaline.
"Oh, what a surprise!" Spike called, following behind. "Slayer's being an ungrateful bitch! Must be Tuesday!"
"Ungrateful?!" Buffy spun in place, coming face to face with him. "What the hell do I have to be grateful to you for?!"
"Aside from saving your skinny arse back there?" He growled. "Are we oh so conveniently forgetting me sticking my neck out for you over your Army-edition Ken doll's little late-night excursions? Face it Goldilocks, he was one bad day away from trying a pair of fangs on for himself. Yours truly paid the price for that one."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?!" Buffy bit back, barely following his incensed tirade.
Spike snorted as something in his expression changed. A sudden shift from anger to contempt. He shrugged out of his duster, pulling it furiously down off his shoulders along with his dress shirt and dumping them over a grave, and finally yanking his t-shirt off over his head.
Buffy stood blinking, suddenly faced with a Spike naked from the waist up. Mouth slacked at the sight of all the pale skin. And muscle. And-
Scarring. An enormous, strawberry-colored starburst scar exploded like a firework over his heart.
Buffy's brow furrowed at the sight of it.
"Plastic stake," Spike huffed bitterly and Buffy's eyes widened. Her world turned on a dime.
"Oh God…"
He nodded, lips still pinched tight. "My sentiments exactly."
Horror sunk through her like a lead in her bloodstream. That was so… so past evil. So malicious…
Her anger shifted, changed course away from Spike, and flared anew at Riley. Stupid, cheating, thoughtless, evil Riley.
A plastic stake?! Who does that?!
Regret chased the sour cherry taste still burning the back of her throat. Maybe it was just the shock burning in her veins that caused it, but she found herself taking a step towards Spike, dropping her stake to the side as she closed the distance.
He stiffened, watching her with unreserved caution as she brought her fingers up to touch the healing skin, brushing over the raised welt Riley had inflicted on him. He shivered but didn't pull back.
"What are you doing?" he asked, quietly, and Buffy turned her head to meet his gaze. He was closer than she thought he was, forehead practically touching hers.
She took a step closer and held her breath as his hands rested on her hips, keeping her there with her hand on his chest.
What am I doing?
Loneliness and anger and cocktails shouldn't mix. She could tell herself that later, even if it was a lie, even if she was perfectly sober at that moment, and ultimately it would change nothing. Contempt had shifted permanently into compassion and she couldn't undo it. Not when he was looking so wild and yet so needful. Hunger smoldered at her from within ice blue eyes so brilliantly that Riley burnt away under the fire of it. Desire so readily expressed without reservation it caught her breath.
Momentum carried her forward. Irreversibly, as if they were two magnets coming together. Neither able to pull apart… as her lips crashed into his.
Impossible things becoming possible. Buffy sighed against him.
Must be Tuesday.