Despite his outraged objections, Spike had to concede the basement of the Slayer's house did lord some modest comforts over Giles' musty old sofa.

The first being an actual bed, even if it was nothing more than a camping cot shoved up against the cold brick wall. The chill hadn't bothered him in over a century though and it was pleasantly lump-free, with slightly more room for his legs. It was also mercifully out of any direct sunlight and he could doze off now and then without fear of waking up in flames if Giles decided to open the bleeding curtains.

The second point in favor being that Joyce was fairly generous regarding her book collection. An attitude Spike suspected Giles' would never bend to willingly. After the Slayer had chained him to the wall—ignoring all his valid points about being bloody chipped, dammit, and not about to run amokher mother had graciously brought him down an old box of books to rifle through. Even if she had raised an infuriating little brat, the woman had decent enough taste in literature. Curled up with a good book wasn't the worst way to spend a sunny Saturday morning, even if he was fettered by the wrists and ankles.

Besides, it was a pleasant enough basement. Not damp, but airy and relatively dust free, littered with a few boxes of family-memento crap stacked here and there and a large wooden bench that seemed to be the dumping ground for an array of Slayer weaponry and broken furniture (also on its way to becoming Slayer weaponry).

If he wasn't chained he would've had a good nose about.

…Maybe he could charm Joyce into turning him loose.

The third point—and really it was the crowning jewel of benefits—was how much it aggravated Buffy.

She was angry.

So deliciously angry.

He'd only been settled in for a single night and he could already sense her resentment from two floors above him.

If she could, he expected she would have been spending the weekend on campus with her mates, maybe at a party or two, probably batting her lashes at another hulking idiot who was all height and no charisma. Girl certainly seemed to have a type. But Slayer obligation—alongside several sacks of laundry—was keeping her metaphorically shackled to the Summer's homestead, and it was darkening her mood no end.

He could taste it. The air was permeated with it, heady and rich and oh so fucking sweet as the pheromones of her fury drifted through the air.

Currently, it was mingling with the scent of laundry detergent as the washing machine by the opposite wall rumbled away.

Spike bit his cheek, reliving the memory of Buffy's pleas to her mother not to have to do the load herself. Her wheedling voice imploring she didn't really know how to use the machine, and that Joyce did it so much better, please mom please, when Joyce had pulled out the big guns and insinuated—loud enough for Spike to hear—that Buffy was just trying to avoid him.

He'd held in a smirk, knowing full well that was the case.

It had shut her up right quick and moments later she'd stormed down the stairs with two stacked laundry baskets slung on her narrow hips, glaring daggers as she loaded a heap of whites into the washer, dumped the second basket on the basement concrete, and stormed off again with barely a controlled sneer of contempt.

He hadn't reacted. Simply smiled politely as she left the cellar (or near enough 'polite' as it was possible for him to achieve), knowing it would rankle her further, and settled back down to Joyce's copy of Bleak House.

A squeak of wet fabric against glass interrupted his attention, his glance darting to the washing machine's window view of frothing bubbles.

Frothing pink bubbles.

He cocked his head, a grin overtaking his face as a red thong passed over the glass and disappeared again.

He chuckled, tucking a shackled arm behind his head as he wriggled further down onto his bed.

An hour passed quietly until the machine beeped and ended its cycle. Another hour after that before the Slayer finally stomped down from her bedroom into the basement.

He didn't raise his eyes to her, the pair of them frostily ignoring the other until her footsteps stopped in front of the washing machine.

"Nooooo," Buffy breathed. "Oh, no no no—"

"Joyce is gonna kiiiill yoooou," he sang melodically without looking up from his book, turning the page aggravatingly slowly with a flick of his index finger.

"I'm seriously going to kill you, Spike. It'll be a bloodbath," she bit back, unlatching the washing machine door and running her hand through her blonde locks in exasperation.

"Oh, yeah, good plan." He nodded, sniffed, and turned another page to piss her off. "Then the walls can match your sheets."

"Was I somehow not excruciatingly clear on the shut-uppage?!"

She shot him a warning look that promised pain unless he held his tongue immediately. But he was having too much fun to heed it.

"Don't get your knickers twisted, pet," Spike chuckled, his chains clinking as he crossed one ankle over the other. "They've done enough damage."

"One more word out of you, Spike, I swear!" she hissed as she heaved pink sheets and shirts (and a single red thong) out of the washer and dumped them despondently into the laundry basket.

"Yeah?" he mumbled as if her unspoken threat was nothing to even raise an eyebrow at, secretly wanting to keep that wet, red thong as a trophy. "Stake's on the table, luv, put your money where your mouth is."

She surprised him then by storming over to his bed. He was halfway up into a defensive sit when she snatched the book out of his hand.

And ripped it in half.

It took a moment before his shocked countenance crept into a grin. Which deepened into a smirk and then a chuckle.

"WHAT?!" she shouted at him, her cheeks flushed as pink as the laundry.

He cleared the laugh out of his throat, leaning back casually against the brick wall.

"Just waiting for you to realize I came to you with nothing but the clothes on my back, sweetheart."

"...You…?" she glanced down at the book in her clenched hands. At her mother's book. Torn in half spine to fore-edge.

He couldn't stop himself from laughing harder, even when she blackened his eye and dumped the two halves of the book in his lap, grabbing the laundry in a whirlwind and shutting the cellar door with a teeth-rattling slam.

It was too easy, sometimes. There was something so utterly tormentable about the girl. And what with the goddamn chip installed it was the only bit of entertainment he could get. Couldn't bite. Couldn't fight. Could only smoke, and down animal blood, and inflict a bit of mental torture now and then.

The thought made him bitter. Made him wince.

Pathetic.

He discarded the murdered book back into the cardboard box and fished out another. He read for a while but couldn't concentrate on the words. Every time he turned a page the chains clanked distractingly.

He dropped the book on the bed and carded his hands through his hair before getting up.

The shackles gave him just enough room to pace in a shallow semi-circle, rattling with each step as he tried to walk off some of his pent-up energy.

He'd got in a little bit of malice—made her temper good and hot—but he wanted more. Wanted to binge on it like smoking an entire pack and he couldn't because she'd bloody flounced off and left him chained up like a mutt.

Shit, if Dru could see me like this…

It became all at once overwhelming. The entertainment value had officially worn off. The chip seemed to actually buzz in his head and the cellar around him was suddenly suffocating. The room was full of the scent of Slayer, clawing into his nostrils and making his mouth water.

He needed to fight.

Or feed.

Or at least smoke, but the damn bitch had confiscated his pack once he was in the house.

Need blood, he thought desperately, straining at the chains, the fangs itching to sink down into something soft and warm and living. Need it, need it, fucking need it.

"Hey!" He shouted. "Slayer! Get your skinny arse down here!" He waited for a second, before rattling on the chains again. "SLAYER!"

There was a roundness to the silence now as if someone was listening and he was sure she'd heard him.

"SLAY-ER!" He bellowed.

That did it. A click of her bedroom door opening and her clomping footsteps on the stairs gradually getting louder heralded her return.

The basement door opened, throwing a triangle of light over the wall from the kitchen windows, darkened immediately by her silhouette as she descended the steps.

"What?" she said, leaning on the banister halfway up and refusing to move further down. She'd changed her clothes; no longer in jeans and a white tank but a fringed leather skirt and peasant top ensemble.

Spike narrowed his eyes.

All dolled up for some reason.

A red choker hugged her throat and for a moment it had him thinking she'd been slit ear to ear.

Wishful thinking…

"It's dinner time," he snarled, tugging on the chains again to emphasize his point.

"Din-nerrr?" She cocked her head in a display of faux confusion.

"Don't be dense," Spike huffed, no longer in the mood for a to-and-fro. There were three blood packs in the fridge upstairs that he'd carried from Giles' and they were calling to him now. Even if it was pig's blood, it was better than nothing, and 'nothing' was now entirely unbearable. "Second shelf in the fridge, fifty seconds in the microwave, ninety-eight point six. Hop to it."

Buffy stared at him for several seconds, not moving, until he widened his eyes at her.

"Well?!"

She smirked and then tapped her top lip with her finger as though summoning a thought.

"How does that saying go?" she mused as if to herself. "Don't irritate the hand that feeds you?"

His nostrils flared. Bollocks.

"You got me chained up down here, the least you can do is feed me," he insisted.

"The least I can do is nothing," she said in that aggravating tone that made him want to rip her head off, stick a straw in, and drink from it like a coconut. "Which, hey!" she added brightly like an idea had just occurred to her. "Ya-know what? That's exactly what I'm gonna do."

She turned on her heel, about to climb the stairs again.

"Don't you dare! Hey! WAIT!" he shouted after her, and she stopped after two steps, leaning back on the banister with a smug look on her face. "You can't starve a prisoner, woman! That's against the rules!"

"Oh, no!" she gasped, sarcastically. "Not the rules!"

He suppressed a growl and held it down so tightly it made his throat ache.

I'm gonna kill her, he thought, his new calming mantra to rein in his temper. I'm gonna kill her I'm gonna kill her I'm gonna kill her—

"Alright," he said, fighting his face into a look of affability that was only marginally undermined by the twitch in his jaw. "We've had our fun and games, I get it, lot of laughs and I've enjoyed it immensely. Now let's shake hands—metaphorically—and you go get me my blood."

That self-satisfied smile didn't slip. "Hmm," she hummed as if considering his proposition. "Nah."

"Slayer—"

"Bye, Spikey."

"SLAYER!" The last syllable was cut off by the basement door slamming shut again.

He howled after her and doubled his efforts against the chains.

If he could only get free he was going to wring her scrawny neck, chip or no chip. Was going to suck her dry until her lifeless corpse looked like a goddamn raisin.

"Come on," he growled, yanking furiously, but the wall fixings didn't budge. The iron bit into his wrists as he leaned back and he snarled, letting his fangs down as frustration choked him.

"Gonna fucking murder the little—" Another click got his attention; the sound of the front door closing.

His human face fell back into place in shock.

She left?

Hatred burned uselessly in his dead lungs as an emptiness settled in the house above.

She bloody well left!