It's late afternoon by the time the gang finishes running all their errands.

Xander closed off both Willow and Tara's dorm rooms with little more than a wave of his hard hat at campus security. Aside from a couple of spooked freshmen, no one had been back to the rooms after a Tara had walked through a group of drunk frat boys and made them lose their lunch. Most of the neighboring rooms are empty too, the hallways deserted. The rooms had been cleared out of the current tenant's stuff, and the yellow warning tape Xander slapped across the door honestly seemed like overkill.

Meanwhile, Dawn and Tara stood waiting on the front porch of the Summer's house while inside Buffy ducked and weaved around Taras through to Dawn's room packing up a bag of clothes and school books and dropping it through the window to outstretched arms below before doing the same for herself.

Tara was explicitly—vehemently—clear she didn't want anything from her room, so after humming and hawing at her own closet, Buffy packed her a bag of some of her less fitted clothes; an ankle-length denim skirt, several sweaters, and plain tshirts, and some pajamas (happy Christmas penguins, but she'd deal).

With Dawn safely stowed at Xander's—and two hefty camping sleeping bags and a rolled futon mattress traded in exchange for the surly teenager—Tara and Buffy head side by side towards Restfield in companionable silence.

They walk through the gates, their joined footsteps crunching over the gravel.

"I'm gonna do a quick patrol once it gets dark," Buffy says, hefting the futon mattress higher onto her hips. It's not heavy, but the puffiness of it is rather unwieldy. "I was thinking it might be a good idea to stop at the seven-eleven and pick up supplies first."

"Th-they sell slaying supplies at the seven-eleven?" Tara asks, raising an eyebrow over the top of the sleeping bag in her arms.

"No," Buffy chuckles. "I mean, like, camping supplies, since this is sort of a campout, you know? Bottled water, snacks, toothbrushes, that sort of thing?"

"Toothbrush would be good," Tara nods. "I'm guessing the bed and the TV are the only human comforts Spike has?"

Buffy grimaces, thinking they should maybe stop off somewhere with a bathroom before it gets dark. She'd cast an eye over a badly welded pipe over a drain that she assumed was his grim attempt at a shower, but hadn't pried further.

"Best to assume," she says.

Tara settles into the armchair Spike has graciously vacated in favor of an abandoned lawn chair he obviously found at the dump. The feeling of being a third wheel hasn't quite dissipated—even after Buffy left to patrol, technically making her an awkward second wheel on this bizarre bicycle—but it's certainly lessened.

"I-I really am grateful," she mutters as Who Framed Roger Rabbit begins on Spike's grainy TV.

Spike flashes a quick smile at her before handing her a beer out of the plastic bag by his feet. "Ain't about to turn down the opportunity for two girls in my bed," he says as Tara rolls her eyes, suppressing a smirk. "That's the line I'm sticking to, by the way, I still have a reputation in this shithole town."

Tara nods. "Diabolical."

"Entirely."

Jessica Rabbit's leg (and about a foot and a half of chest) glides out from behind the velveteen curtain and Tara holds down a smile.

"M-my dad blamed Jessica Rabbit for my fall from grace," she says as Jessica croons about how other men do right. "I completely wore out the VHS tape with rewinds."

Spike snorts.

"Thought Cherlize Theron was supposed to be the lesbian awakening?"

Tara shrugs and swallows her sip of beer. "I don't really care for blondes."

"Oh, I'm heartbroken."

"Hey," a weary-sounding Buffy calls out as she closes the crypt door behind her, dusting off her jacket. "Ugh, if we don't get all of those ooky visions out of our house I'm gonna hit a serious laundry problem."

"Dust more than your fair share?" Spike asks, turning his head. "Shouldda borrowed the leather, luv. Wipes clean."

"Ew." Buffy pulls over a second lawn chair that was leaning against the sarcophagus and makes herself as comfortable as physically possible.

The movie winds on, finishes, and slides into another after a brief commercial break. This time an old black and white version of Frankenstein.

Light snoring sounds from the armchair. Tara has curled herself almost into a ball, her feet propped on one arm and her head on another in a spine-wincing angle.

"Glinda," Spike mutters, shaking her shoulder. "Bedtime before you snap your neck."

She pries her eyes open with a soft scowl in his direction, but nods in agreement, yawning as she does.

"Goodnight," she says as she brushes her tangled hair out with her fingers and carefully descends the ladder to the level below.

Buffy smiles after Tara, and can't stop a yawn from joining hers.

"Et tu, Slayer?" Spike smirks, draining the last of his beer.

Buffy hums in acknowledgment, grinding her eyes with her knuckle.

"Very tu. All the tu."

She extracts herself stiffly from the lawn chair, stretching with her arms above her head. "I better get some sleep as well. Had a super long day. Probably another one tomorrow."

"They do make a habit of lining up," Spike says.

She smiles down at him. Almost expectantly.

"Are you gonna be alright up here?" she asks, nodding towards the futon they'd bartered Dawn for. "You don't need anything from downstairs?"

"Slept on worse," he answers with a shrug.

"Nothing else you want?"

"I'll be fine, luv. Go get some kip."

She levels a look at him, and he narrows his eyes at her, unsure what it is he's supposed to say. Or do. "What's the matter?" he prompts when the silence seems too full.

Buffy snorts, and he can't help furrowing his brow like he missed something. Like somehow that was an opportunity he was supposed to have taken hold of.

"I know what you're doing, you know," Buffy says as she takes up the spare sleeping bag on top of the sarcophagus.

Spike raises himself out of his chair, feeling like it would be rude to stay seated if she's about to hit him with another tonne of bricks. "And what is it I'm doing?"

There's a beat of silence as Buffy's eyes flit to the hole in the floor.

"I know you're keeping your distance," she says eventually and smiles sadly when his brow creases. "It's… always me finding you," she pauses, fussing with the zip of the bag. "And I'm grateful. I'm all with the mega grateful. That you're letting me… that you're not pushing—"

"I won't, I—" he starts but she blurts out over him.

"But you could if you wanted to," she says in a stupid rush that makes her wince, her mouth opening and closing as she tries to put words to the feelings. "Not push, I don't mean being all—" don't bring up the…everything before, she thinks, feeling a spark of shame even if she doesn't put words to the thoughts. "But you can find me too, you know? I want you to come find me too." She stops and offers him what she hopes is a warm smile and a slight nervous shrug. Hoping it conveys that things are different now between them. That she wanted to sweep away all the eggshells he was still tip-toeing over. "I'd like it if you felt like you could ask me for what you want."

At that, she leaves him blinking, and clambers carefully down the hole leaving Spike frozen to the spot, her words a lingering refrain.

…what you want…

"…Right," he huffs to himself after a minute, shaking himself out of the stupor. "Right."

He stares at the hole and very nearly follows her down it before he remembers their bunking roommate for the night and has to pull himself back. "No, right."

He gets comfy on the armchair, flicks the TV on, and keeps it low. He watches parts of whatever's playing; a horror film at first—-classic and black-and-white and gorey in a way that just makes him restless—and then some History Channel documentary about Mongolia which drones on and does nothing to distract. He flicks to another channel. Some sitcom or other. The laugh track starts to piss him off, and he can't keep his eyes off the hole in the floor.

Wants me.

She wants me.

He feels drunk on the thought that he could instigate things. She'd given him permission. Given him the keys to the shackle that had him crippled in his devotion. He didn't have to just wait for her attention or for a heartstopping moment of connection. Didn't have to stay curled around her ankles like a loyal hound, but could actually reach for what he wanted.

…What do I want? he thought, that question giving him some trouble.

A year ago it would've been a simple question…

He wanted her body. He wanted her soul. He wanted her time and her conversation and her fists in his eye. Her tongue in his mouth and on his skin and her hands everywhere, fucking everywhere as they clawed each other to shreds.

Wanted her blood in his mouth. That had still been a want. Not to feed, or to gloat, or to kill, but just to have her in his gut. In his veins. Some of her to carry around night after night as he followed her every whim.

Spike spreads his thumb and forefinger over his eyes and clears his head. Pushing back that rising note of obsession and really thinks hard about it.

What do I want?

He lays his head back and lets the answer bubble to the surface.

I want her next to me.

He swallows and glances at the hole. An hour or two has passed since she'd disappeared down to the lower level.

She could be asleep by now.

Dozing happily, and would likely be none too pleased he'd roused her from her delicate slumber.

But she said you could…

She said to find her if you wanted to. She said you could.

He shuts the telly off, biting his lip. Unable to sit still he starts picking at a thread of the armchair, wrapping it around his finger into a tourniquet. The sight of it drags his eyes down to his nails. Freshly painted. No chips. A treasured moment that he knows he'll be gripping too tight now. That the memory might fracture under the weight of his attention… unless he makes others to help lift the weight.

It's pointless trying to argue himself out of it. Self-control was never his forte. Getting out of the chair, he unrolls the camping mattress in front of the sarcophagus and heaps it with blankets.

It's not a proper bed by any stretch, and he feels a twinge of regret about making her sleep on the floor—-

You're not making her, he reminds himself. She can say no.

Quietly he descends the rungs of the ladder. The cave is still illuminated by a few straggling candles and he can make out two lumps in sleeping bags on the bed. Buffy's blonde waves splayed over his pillow makes him ache anew.

Her hand is curled lightly next to her head and he slips his fingers between the spaces of hers. A squeeze stirs her, eyes fluttering.

This is cruel.

She needs her sleep.

But he can't turn back now. Not even if he tried.

He leans on his elbows on the bed.

"Buffy," he whispers and her eyes pry open. Dark green in the candle light.

"Hi," she whispers back, and he's flooded with relief that there's not a trace of animosity in that single syllable. Her thumb strokes along his, and the dead heart in his chest lurches. "Everything okay?" she whispers.

He nods and feels the need to swallow, his mouth suddenly parched.

He holds her hand a little tighter. "Can you come with me?"

"Something wrong?" she mutters, rubbing her eyes as she props herself up on an elbow.

He shakes his head no, nearly doubling back and telling her to ignore him and get some kip, but it's too late–it's too late.

"Just want you with me, luv," he answers, and his chest feels taut from the feeling of nerves strung too tight.

But she runs a hand through her hair as she stretches and smirks a knowing smirk before climbing out of her sleeping bag.

She slips off the bed and he rolls up her sleeping bag to take with them, enjoying the secondhand heat of it. He watches as she makes her way to the ladder via the carpets, hopping over the cracks where they don't overlay so her bare feet don't touch the cold dirt floor. And then she's disappearing up the ladder and Spike casts a last look back at Tara, lightly snoring in hard-earned sleep.

When he pulls himself up out of the hole she's already waiting for him on the makeshift campsite, her arms wrapped around her legs.

He pries his boots off and motions for her to move over enough to slide in next to her.

She doesn't budge, and as her tongue darts out to wet her lip he cocks an eyebrow at her.

"What's wrong?" he asks, standing awkwardly next to the mattress, not sure if he should kneel next to her or sit or what.

After a moment of indecision, Buffy reaches out for his hand and tugs him down to his knees, rising onto hers opposite him.

She glances at him once, her face full of determination, and it sends a bolt of terror through his gut before she starts unbuttoning his shirt. He stays statue still, hands locked by his thighs as he watches her steady hands pick apart the buttons.

Once it's open she slides her hands under the collar onto his shoulders. He chokes down a moan from the warmth of her palms, shuddering lightly as she pushes it down onto his arms and off his hands.

She runs light fingers over the scars on his stomach and chest as though mapping them out, and he keeps himself rigidly still, watching her. She looks like she's about to say something as her hand passes over the one above his heart, but she shakes it away before it materializes.

She tugs him down then, wrapping him around her to spoon against her back, and settles almost immediately.

Lying almost underneath him, her head resting on his arm, he's struck by how calm she is. How peaceful, letting go a soft sigh as she slides her feet on top of his. So at odds with his own near-trembling unrest.

For a brief moment, he remembers what it was like to have the Buffy-bot here on the ground next to him. Just like this. The slope of her neck and the curve of her shoulder bared beneath his teeth.

But there's a heartbeat this time. Warmth from her body pressed against his. Nerve endings beneath her skin singing out to be touched and he runs his fingers over her collarbone to the tip of her shoulder, gathering back her hair as he does. She flexes at his touch, her head falling further away, exposing her neck, and the temptation is agonizingly too much.

A century of giving in to every urge, every impulse, every whim—sex, food, violence, vices, anything, everything, it all sits so heavy on his shoulders and its weight is crushing the willpower out of him. Having to hold himself back in a way that he's come to know intimately in the last couple of weeks is no less tortuous for its familiarity.

I just want a little more. Just my lips on her skin.

Just a little more…

He can't stop himself. He presses a kiss to her shoulder.

And another.

And another, this time open-mouthed and at her neck, over her pulse point, a shivering sigh in her throat vibrating against his lips. He pulls back an inch and his tongue swipes across his lip, tasting her skin, her pheromones, her scent. Her, tasting her, said he'd stop there but all it's done is dump oil onto the flame of his hunger for her.

Bloody hell, I have to stop, or make her make me stop, or tell her to go back downstairs—

"Buffy—"

She spins, and her mouth crashes into his. Dragging him into a kiss that is the inverse of that sweet goodnight in every way.