"If I kiss you it'll make the sun go down…"

For a five-minute power nap in the middle of class, the dream had been unusually vivid. Kissing-the-handsome-TA-in-front-of-the-whole-class sort of vivid that felt like an embarrassment dream turned up to full volume.

Until the man with silver teeth had turned up right at the end, his grin wrinkling the edges of his black-lipped mouth, dead eyes flashing hungrily.

That had awoken her with a jolt, breathlessly frozen in place in the uncomfortable plastic auditorium chair as she glanced around to see if anyone else had heard the words ringing in her head.

"Can't even shout

Can't even cry

The Gentlemen are coming by…"

That lullaby… It had wormed itself deep into Buffy's brain in a way that was so unusual for a dream. Every word glistened in her memory as though deliberately refusing to fade back into subconsciousness, and a nasty tingle lingered at the back of her neck even as her classes came to an end.

The feeling deepened further as night drew in and she headed out for patrol.

After an hour or so she left the graveyard, twirling her stake through her fingers. The song still crept through her head. Insidious and haunting. Silver teeth grinning along with it.

She shivered.

It'd be fine. Giles was on it. It would turn out to be something simple, maybe a kid's cartoon she misremembered from her youth, coupled with a fear of the dentist.

Sure why not? she snorted to herself. Things are always the best possible outcome in Sunnydale.

Patrol had been pretty good though. Pretty damn good. Three vampires dusted and not a speck on her new suede skirt.

She slipped the stake into the pocket of her powder blue pea-coat and strode out of the cemetery towards Giles' house. It was a lengthy walk through dim streets, but with no monster-tinglies at the back of her neck, Buffy allowed herself to slip into fantasies about TA Finn.

Riley…

Handsome Riley.

Mega smart Riley, with the gorgeous forearms and wow so tall and those eyes that just seemed super kind and the way his smile cocked up on the right side first—especially when he was gearing up to talk to her and maybe say something flirty that would end up being maybe not all that flirty actually but still A for effort even with the awkward babble in between—and if Dream-Riley was anything to go by, probably a pretty good kisser to boot…

That particular daydream carried Buffy all the way to Giles' door. She paused for a brief second to squash some of the racier thoughts lest her watcher read them on her face, before bouncing in.

"Hey, Giles!" she called out, shrugging off her coat and hanging it up on the hook by the door. "Mom said you wanted me to drop by to collect something?"

"Yes, indeed I did," Giles replied from the kitchen, removing a tea bag from his mug and adding milk. "That something." He gestured towards Spike—sprawled out on the sofa boredly watching the small TV in the corner—with a disdainful flick of his spoon.

"What?" Buffy asked, at just the same time Spike did, sitting up with a jolt.

"I have a… friend… arriving later-," Giles cleared his throat, stirring his tea in lieu of polishing his glasses, "-and I am in need of the room for a few days."

"You mean for privacy?" Buffy asked, further horrified and frozen to the spot. "For… for romance having reasons?"

"I'm not staying with her!" Spike growled, raising himself fully off the sofa.

"I've already spoken with Joyce, who has confirmed Spike can bunk in the basement," Giles continued as though the logistics were the main concern being debated. "He's chipped, and with a Slayer in the house this is the best option."

"Oh, charming!" Spike scoffed, dumping the remote on the coffee table with an angry clatter. "Who needs the Ritz when you could have leaky pipes and the smell of rising damp!"

"You can't make him stay with me!" Buffy pleaded, and scrambling for a solution added, "Xander's! H-he could stay at Xander's!"

"Xander lives in the basement of his parent's house, Buffy," Giles replied coolly. "And what with his blossoming relationship with Anya, I rather think they're at demonic capacity."

"But!—" Buffy started and was crisply cut off.

"You've both formed an alliance of sorts in the past when needs dictated," Giles barrelled forth over her objections. "I'm confident you'll manage."

"'Needs dictated' was the end of the sodding world, Watcher-," Spike bit out, his shoulders squaring as if for a fight he could no longer participate in. "-Not date night with some tart you picked up at wherever you shop for this season's tweed!"

Buffy agreed. Vehemently.

Though ultimately she knew arguing was pointless as soon as Giles had taken that first sip of Earl Grey.

She ended up dragging Spike along next to her towards Revello Drive, hand digging into his forearm, his purposely lax gait working her last nerve to the point of hand-clenching irritation. He stalled—dragging his feet deliberately as he tried to wriggle out of her hand—and she jerked his arm so hard it gave her a momentary flare of gratification to think of pulling it clean out of its socket.

Why me?!

Why me?!

Stupid vampire! Stupid chipped vampire that always needs babysitting and is gonna be all lurky lurkerness in my basement!

"Would you watch it," Spike snarled, yanking his arm out of Buffy's grip. "You're gonna drive a talon straight through the leather,"

"Don't talk, just move," she huffed back, shoving him hard in the shoulder.

He stumbled a few feet before righting himself, moving directly in front of her, personal space fully invaded. "I don't need this kind of manhandling, alright?" he growled into her face, adjusting his duster over his shoulders. "Can bloody walk myself."

"Then do it. Walk," she said, shoving him again.

He anticipated it this time and braced himself, causing her push to only slightly level him backward. "That all you got, Slayer?" he sneered, leaning in just shy of too close. "Bit of roughing up? Can't do anything real nasty, can you? That'd interfere with your white-hatted moral standing, wouldn't it?"

Rather than answer, she punched him, smiling pleasantly when his nose made a happy little squishy noise as her fist broke over it.

Spike grunted as his head flew back. He groaned—more from exasperation than pain— and sniffed wetly as he held a hand under his nose. "I get whatever those army bastards did undone we're gonna have ourselves a proper brawl, honey, mark my words."

"Fine by me," Buffy replied, spinning him with a hard grip on his bicep and forcing him into step with her. "If you manage it by Christmas we can use you to grit the sidewalk—"

"Buffy!"

She froze, ice water slipping down her back in an all too familiar feeling of dread.

"Oh, crap," she whispered to herself as Spike turned on a heel to eye the approaching figure.

"Buffy, hey," Riley beamed as he caught up with them. "Wow, you sure do walk fast when you want to!"

Buffy could feel Spike's gaze flicking between the two of them. Cogs whirring into motion in that malicious brain of his.

"Uh-huh," she muttered lamely, eager not to start any flirty-bantery sort of conversation in front of Spike; Mr Manipulative who never let a single thing slide.

"I, uh," Riley started, shifting awkwardly, "I was wondering if maybe you—" he stopped, seeming to finally realize Spike was standing there, not just some bystander, but from the cut of Buffy's stance clearly an unwelcome acquaintance. "Hey, man, you wanna give us a little privacy here?" he suggested in a polite but firm tone.

Spike shrugged, a slight smirk playing across his sharp features. "No, not particularly."

Riley's gaze narrowed a little, taking a second look at the angular face poorly lit by Sunnydale's notoriously terrible streetlights.

"...Have we met?"

"You'd remember," Spike growled lowly in a way that set every overworked nerve at the bass of Buffy's skull tingling.

She cleared her throat—anticipating the very not-good avenue the upcoming conversation was about to take—and made to pull him away from Riley.

"Spike, go lurk somewhere else for a second—"

"Spike?" Riley's eyebrows raised to his hairline. "Spike? As in 'I'm engaged to a guy named 'Spike' Spike?"

"No!" Buffy sputtered, whitening at the flash of wicked glee lighting Spike's eyes from the inside out. "No! It's not like that—"

"Oh, yeah it is," Spike interrupted with a sickening smirk and a heavy arm over Buffy's shoulders. "That's exactly how it is. Push off, college boy." He flicked a lazy wrist, puffing up slightly as though to insinuate their evening was being rudely interrupted.

"No, look, it's really not—" Buffy stammered, batting Spike's arm off her shoulders, her face darkening as he instead wound it around her waist, uncaring for how she tried to lurch away from him with a look of incredulous disgust.

"I should go—" Riley said, sensing he was in the middle of some couple's tiff, his cheeks red with embarrassment. "I-I'll see you in class."

"No, Riley, wait—," Buffy called as she unlatched Spike's hands from her hips, but Riley was already walking away, moving with a faster gait than felt strictly necessary.

She rounded on Spike, eyes burning with fury.

"WHAT is your PROBLEM?"

Spike chuckled, a nasty grin crinkling the corners of his mouth. "Can't have my fiancée stepping out on me, can I?"

The kick was a surprise. A full roundhouse that knocked him off his feet onto the pavement.

"Ugh… Bloody hell," he grumbled, rolling onto his side with a cough before Buffy's hand fisted in his hair, dragging him up.

"Let's get one thing very clear," she said, her fingers splintering the gel at the back of his head as she yanked it closer to her face. "I loathe you. If I didn't have monster-chipping secret-army conspiracy crap to figure out you would already fit in a saltshaker. Do not make that more tempting than it already is."

He was about to open his mouth again to say something further aggravating, before she hauled him up by the lapels of his jacket and dragged him down the bend in the road leading to Revello Drive.

Even as she forced him into a frogmarch next to her, Spike brushed the grit off his duster like it meant nothing. Like she hadn't made his very insides squirm at the thought of dissecting her piece by grisled piece. Like her proximity hadn't made his blood feel like it could boil from hatred alone.

I'm gonna kill her, he thought, and let the idea grant him a single atom of peace. He closed his eyes to reign in what little control he had over his temper as another hard yank at his elbow almost caused him to trip.

It was going to be an extremely difficult weekend indeed.