Buffy's head was spinning, kiss drunk as Spike's fingers dug into the curve of her spine, arching her back and pressing her further into him.

"Come to bed," he purred as he worked his way down her neck. His lips grazed against the mark he'd kissed into her skin days ago, and under a feverish sigh, the cold hard lump of anger that had been making her throat so tight finally melted.

But her eyes still stung from the tears she'd nearly shed in the night. Her throat felt thick. Her eyes flicked to the pulled-down comforter, the single bed that would demand they be wrapped around each other in order to share it.

And her heart fluttered uncontrollably.

Imagination was one thing, acting on it entirely another, even if the desire was there, coiling in her gut as he savaged her throat with adoration.

Oh, majorly dangerous. Mundo bad…. Badness.

He was kissing another bruise into her neck, and the electricity of the nerve endings shivering, underneath his bite threatened to tip her under another lightheaded wave, but it wasn't enough to change that strangling feeling of heartbreak that refused to dissipate.

"This is still pretend, right?" she asked, relieved when her voice sounded firm and not rasped with lack of breath. It seemed they both needed reminding.

Or at least she did, since her nervous system was getting fully carried away again, her heartbeat thrumming from every inch of contact like she was touch-starved.

"Just pretend," Spike confirmed, kissing upwards.

"I still hate you," she continued, just to say the words out loud because fuzzy head or racing heart notwithstanding, her body had absolutely no qualms about arching into him further when it was supposed to be pulling back.

"Right," Spike agreed in barely more than an amused huff of breath, answering the bow of her body by closing what little distance there was left between them, pressing his crotch against the burning heat at the crux of her thighs. "Obviously."

"And you hate me," Buffy added.

"Loathe you," he whispered, and her blood pressure plummeted by how worshipful he managed to make those words sound.

Buffy bit her lip to silence a whimper as he banded his arms around her waist. God, he felt so good. It felt so good, to be wrapped up in him as the hard pressure of his body leaned in until she was almost horizontal on the desk, his mouth over hers, kissing so deep it was intoxicating. No one kissed like this…

But it wasn't real. She had to remember that.

He hates you, you hate him! This isn't real!

"Then," Buffy managed, trying to bring her voice back into those commanding tones and out of breathlessness, "separate beds."

"Break my heart," Spike muttered, a smirk working its way into a grin.

"And you shackled," Buffy added (far more firmly than she felt),

She expected him to argue. Or pout, he was excellent at pouting. She at least expected to have to make some excellent points about not trusting him not to root through her stuff while she got some sleep, or duck out entirely and start pilfering the dorms.

But no objections came, only the feeling of a small satisfied smile stretching his mouth as though he'd expected the shut down.

He tilted his head. Arms still encasing her waist. Hips still between her thighs. And he raised his eyebrow at the chastity they currently weren't even close to maintaining.

"Still got me in the dog house, Slayer?" he said, his arms wrapping tight around her waist. "Good thing I don't mind a leash."

Buffy scoffed, reaching back to unlatch his hands from her lower back.

"Is there anything you don't have a major creep fetish for?" she asked rhetorically.

"Oh, says the girl with her own set of chains," he retorted, his eyes glittering at the bite in her tone.

"That's not what they're for," she argued, her face flushing from lightly pinked to a full blush.

He appeared to enjoy the sight of blood in her cheeks, flashing a dangerous smile and attempting to close the distance between them again before she stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"Lie down."

"Love it when you get high-handed, pet," he purred as she skirted around him.

She shot him a glare, and his chuckle heated the tips of her ears as she walked to her weapon's chest, retrieving the shackles. She heard the bed settle beneath him, and she let out a sigh. Her head had to start making some sensible decisions even if her heart was galloping away into a fantasy of letting him wrap himself around her.

No, she had to get a grip now before it was too late.

Maybe it was already.

I'm not going to tell him I was worried about him, she admonished herself. I'm not because he'd seriously never shut up about it if I did.

And I'm not chaining him to the bed so I know where he is, so I know he's here and not in a big white box getting his insides scooped out.

That would be… completely crazy.

And also—

"You really scared the crap out of me," her mouth blurted out without her permission and she froze.

…Perfect.

She scrunched her eyes tight.

Why did I say that?! What is wrong with me!? God, now he's going to think… he's going to think I… and I really don't and I'm not even going to think the thing I don't, because liking Spike is absolutely not an okay thing to do!

Stupid!

She shook off the scrunch and raised her head to glare at him, daring him to mock her.

But the expression on his face was unexpected; strangely unreadable but he almost looked chastened, his eyes scrutinizing her in a way that made her skin itch. The way it always did when he was about to impart some barbed observation that was usually dead on the mark and would cut down to the bone.

But then he dropped his gaze and cleared his throat.

"The pretend crap out of you?" he asked, raising his eyes back to hers again, and offering a carefully encouraging look.

Buffy swallowed, trying to look nonchalant.

It was all just a game. Thank God it was just a game.

"Yes."

He sucked his cheek, held it in his teeth like he was biting down a chuckle.

"Didn't really think I'd skipped town on you, did you?" he asked, faintly teasing as though the suggestion was ridiculous.

But it wasn't ridiculous, and Buffy snorted petulantly at his goad.

"Right, cus it's so unlikely? The chip doesn't work on demons. You don't need—" She bit her tongue before it could form the words 'you don't need me' and changed direction at the last second. "You don't need protection anymore. You could go and make your own little demon gang and get back to being all… evil and stuff," she added lamely, crossing her arms, feeling hot all over as she squirmed in panic that she might've accidentally just given him a good idea if he hadn't thought of it already. She countered it with a daring glower.

I'm so not good with words tonight…

"Couldda done that anyway, pet," Spike said softly, and Buffy's heart tripped a little, her indignance faltering at a hurdle and falling behind.

Oh…

"...Why didn't you?"

He shrugged and flashed a grin.

"Maybe I'm just not that ambitious," he answered. "Bit of blood, bit of company, and I'm content."

Buffy let out a tired huff. "I'm so flattered. Here I was thinking I was special."

Spike chuckled, a short burst of true delight that made her cheeks flush.

"If you're gonna fish for compliments, come closer and stop pouting."

"I'm not fishing for compliments," she argued back, the blush deepening. Because she had been. She had been and he knew it, and she knew he knew it, and it was getting so exhausting, the both of them knowing things and acting like they didn't.

This whole pretend thing sucks sometimes, Buffy thought.

She shook it off and sighed inwardly.

"I'm just tired. I hate it when there's more than one five AM in a day."

Spike smiled, affectionately unconvinced. After a long pause, he raised his hands up towards her, his fingers curled into fists, wrists together in an off display of supplication.

Buffy frowned. "What are you doing?"

He cocked an eyebrow.

"The shackles, luv?"

"Oh… right."

Her feet felt leaden as she made her way to the side of the bed, threading the chains through the bars of the bed frame as Spike shifted down, resting his head on her pillow, his hands by his head, a look of delicate innocence on his face. Buffy rolled her eyes, entirely unconvinced as she took up one of his hands.

"Had practice chaining a bloke to the headboard before?" he asked as she fixed the first cuff around his wrist.

Buffy rolled her eyes.

There it was.

"Shut up."

She raised herself out of the slight stoop and moved to the opposite side of the bed. The chains clattered as she re-looped the cuff through the bars again to shorten the chain length, glancing across to Spike for a half second.

"Hey, what are you staring at?!" she exclaimed.

Dark eyes traveled back to her face, his tongue tucked behind his teeth in a leer.

"You usually wear a bra when you're tying me down."

"I was asleep, Spike. I don't wear a bra to bed," she replied curtly.

His grin only widened. He strained as far as the chains would allow as she clicked the cuff shut around his other wrist.

"Last kiss for sweet dreams."

"Nope."

She made to stand, but only had time enough to gasp as he lurched upwards, teeth out—

And bit down on the neckline of her cami, his teeth pulling the neckline taut.

Buffy froze. A handful of options flashed through her brain in a split second.

She could pull back and let the fabric rip.

She could punch him.

But instead, she let out a resigned sigh and leaned down, closing the gap between them.

Spike carefully unlatched his teeth. Grazed his lips up her neck, curling up towards her. She let her lips brush over his, a prelude to a kiss—

Before shoving him back down with a hand over his face, smiling to herself as his body made the bed's springs bounce and he let out a grunt.

"Goodnight," she said.

"Tease," he threw back as she tucked herself into Willow's bed, rolling his head to the side to watch her. She could still feel his gaze on her even as she snapped out the bedside light.

It was midmorning when she resurfaced out of sleep, more nightmares poisoning her subconscious with visions of blood and gore and white corridors.

"Great," she sighed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

After a moment to comb her fingers through her hair, hopefully dispelling any bedhead, she turned to survey her overnight guest.

He looked all but statuesque, pale and unmoving with a hand tucked beneath his head, the other at a crooked angle against the headboard.

A small sliver of sunlight had encroached through the room's blinds in dangerous proximity to his face and Buffy hurriedly slipped out of her sheets, grabbing a towel from the laundry, rolling it tight, and lining the window sill with it.

Spike stirred, head lolling from one side to the other as though he'd sensed her movement, but he didn't wake.

Buffy worried her lip, standing by the bed with a multitude of bad dreams still coursing through her bloodstream like bad coffee. Certain images wouldn't fade.

Of scalpels, and men in white coats…

With a cautious hand, she fanned her fingers over his cheek, ready to pull back if he stirred. His mouth parted, but he didn't wake, and Buffy ever so carefully turned his head away from her.

She brushed his hair aside. And stared at the long white scar nestled amongst his curls, starkly white even against his deathly pale scalp. Expertly neat, and something about that was all the more revolting. It should be jagged. He was a fighter, there should be signs of a struggle. It was all so… clinical. And that felt so wrong.

She was about to reach out and run a finger down it, but his stomach made a loud rumble, stalling her.

Her stomach answered with its own growl.

Okay, I get the hint.

Buffy sighed, gathered up some clothes, and left to dress in one of the shower cubicles across the hall. Brushed her teeth and her hair, and slipped back into the bedroom to retrieve her bag and shoes before heading out into the trademark overly-bright Sunnydale sunshine.