What a hellish night, Buffy thought as she shut her front door behind her, locking it up tight. She was so scared for her mother- why did these damned demons always have to go after her, she asked herself. Between the confusion with Dawn, the new demon in town (the one that nearly killed her last night) and her troubles with Riley, she had so much pent-up anger she needed to patrol. Riley was tearing her up inside; his constant I love you’s were making her so confused she could scream. And she felt like it, too. She felt tears of frustration begin to well up her eyes but she wouldn’t let herself break down. She was going to be strong and fight this, whatever that girl in the red dress was. Her body still ached from the severe beating she had received from that vixen, but she forced herself to patrol none the less. All her frustration needed a vent and she also wanted to check a few sources of hers for information. All this business was just driving her mad. Being the slayer has its con’s, but you already knew that didn’t you?

Buffy stomped down her front steps and quickly gave the yard a quick glance before leaving. Last thing she needed was Spike lurking around her house. Sure enough, there he was behind the oak tree sucking down cigarettes. He didn’t even notice her.
“Spike,” she shouted. Trying to contain herself wasn’t the easiest task right now, and she hoped he would get the hint and scram. As much as she would enjoy staking him, he was still an innocent, unwilling or not, for the time being. “If you don’t stop stalking my house right this minute I’m going to stake you. If you have any doubts about this, just try me.” She was use to delivering these kinds of lines to Spike, and frankly she was sick of it.Why won’t he just ‘sod off’?
“Oh, stop your blathering,” Spike sneered as he raised a bottle to his lips. She could see the light glint off the remnants of whiskey left in the massive bottle- she could only guess how drunk he was. “I was just looking for a place to drink and this tree looked awfully comfortable so just piss off, slayer.” His voice wavered and slurred, ruining the little charm his accent gave. He wasn’t as witty when he was drunk.
Buffy rolled her eyes and stalked up to him, grabbing the bottle and chucking it against the house. The glass exploded into pieces and covered the ground like some kind of strange glitter. “Get out,” she said grimly.
“Hey!” he protested, raising his eyes to hers in anger. They were clouded and unfocussed, a drunk’s eyes. “That was my last bottle of whiskey, you bitch!” Out of nowhere he tried to grab at her legs but he fell over in the process, burying his head in the dirt. She shook her head at him and gave him a hard kick in the groin for good measure. He moaned in pain as he rolled over onto his back. “Bloody hell, Buffy! What do you wanna do, make me impotent?” He continued to wail and roll around on the ground but she suspected it was more for show than actual pain. She gave him an even harder kick in the back and he groaned louder.
“See, know your balls don’t hurt as bad do they?” she cracked. He went limp and sighed heavily, obviously expressing his frustration with her. She would have been her life savings that he was cursing that damn chip right now.
“Just go away,” he spat. To Buffy’s surprise, he sounded like he was going to cry. A vampire was going to cry. I guess liquor can do amazing things.
“Just go away,” he moaned again as he clutched his crotch. “You and your gang of jolly do-gooders and that army boyfriend of yours- I can’t get a moment of peace! You obviously all take pleasure in beating the piss out of a poor defenseless vampire…I have to drink cold blood for Christ’s sake! Isn’t that punishment enough? And- and…. Well, just go shag cardboard boy.” He struggled unsteadily to his feet, pointing a finger at her. “A-And when I get this bloody chip out of my head, your… your…” He seemed to forget was he was going to say from an instant by the look on his face then his eyes suddenly bulged. He quickly turned his back to her and vomited. “Well that’s what you get,” he choked between heaves. “You get my dinner on your front lawn.”
She brushed her hair from her eyes and looked at the pitiful sight: a drunk disabled vampire puking up his whiskey on her yard. She felt sorry for him despite herself and sighed heavily. He wouldn’t make it home and he would probably end up in the sunrise. Technically she could be rid of him, but for some reason her conscience couldn’t let him pass out here. “Come on Spike, I’ll walk you home,” she said defeatedly.

Buffy kicked the door to his crypt open and dragged his practically limp body through the door. He seemed to be half-conscious; he was uttering incoherent sentences every minute or so. Why am I bothering, she asked herself. The mattress was in the far corner of the room and she roughly threw him towards it, not bothering to bring him over there. He tumbled face first into the bed and she heard him snicker.
“So you like it rough too, eh?” he muttered into the sheets.
She wrinkled her face in disgust and let her eyes wonder about the room. All the times she had been here she had never bothered to look around, mostly because she always burst inside in an angry frenzy, looking for some important answer to some damn life-threatening crisis. Sometimes she wished that she could just forget it all, and just focus on school and a job. A job would be nice. She shook herself out of those thoughts and glanced around. There wasn’t much to see. “You know, this place really needs a women’s touch. Why don’t you let Harmony come in and decorate?” Spike managed to turn himself over onto his back on the bed. Her first though was that drunks should lie on their side, but then remembered he was dead. Undead, anyway. What’s the difference?
“That stupid bimbo would have the place done up in unicorns. I hope I never lay eyes on her again a hundred years.” He seemed to reconsider. “Well, maybe she could just stop by my bed once or twice a week. A vampire gets lonely, just like a slayer does.”
His last statement struck her hard. “What do you know about me,” she growled. “What do you know about a slayer?”
“You just seem as lonely as I am,” he replied simply.
“I’m not lonely,” she uttered under her breath.
“Is that so?” Spike asked with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s so,” Buffy replied sternly, quickly tiring of this conversation. These were things she didn’t want to talk about- insecurities like this she had tried to bury a long time ago.
“Glad you’re so confident in yourself. If I were you I’d feel a bit like a freak.” Spike grinned at his own efforts at getting under her skin and it was quite obviously working. He knew it would probably result in a good kicking of his ass, but he considered himself to have a slight sado machinism fetish so it wasn’t all that bad.
She crossed the room to him and stared down at him, her eyes lingering on his bare chest for a moment too long. He had slipped off his shirt before getting on the bed. “You know nothing about me Spike so why don’t you-” She appeared to be at a loss for words so she reached and squeezed his testies and hard as she could.
He let out a squeal of agony and rolled onto his side. “What is this- do you have this desire to injure my nuts?!”
She snickered as his voice raised an octave. It was quite funny actually. She started to laugh out loud.
“What is so fucking funny!” he demanded. Hearing his voice only made her laugh even harder. In frustration he left for her but that firework of pain exploded in his head and he fell back onto the mattress.
Buffy’s giggles subsided after a minute or so and Spike seemed to be sobering up, probably from the pain. She decided to address his comment once more than go. “What do you know about being me? You know nothing about me,” she said, again trying to control her anger.
“Being a freak? I think I know that quite well, love. I’m an in-between as well. Not quite, human, not quite a monster? That’s what you are, isn’t it?” His drunkenness seemed to be faded all together now and he was sitting up, glaring accusingly at her. His once clouded eyes bore right into her now clear as a bell, seeing right into her. She knew what he saw. “We’re outcasts. They can pretend to accept us but we know the truth.” He drew closer to her, still not dropping that gaze. “Buffy-”
“I am nothing like you,” she snarled.
“We’re the same and you know it,” he snickered, running a hand down his chest with an arrogance that made her blood boil. “You know I can see it in your eyes, that’s why you’re looking away.”
Buffy snapped her eyes away from his body and to his eyes accusingly. “You’re the monster. You’re an in-between that no one needs and no one wants. People need me and people love me. I can’t say the same for you.” She started towards the door but stopped at the sound of his voice.
“Is that why you were so popular in high school? Is that why everyone seemed frightened of you, and kept their distance? Because people loved you?”
She turned on her heels and stomped back to him tightening all her muscles but trying to keep from hitting him. “I am no more a freak than you are.”
“Maybe your right. But you can’t deny it…” His face was inches from hers and he slowly raised his hands, trying to cup her face but trying not to at the same time. He wanted so badly to kiss her but he didn’t understand it- he hated her, she hated him- but that look in her eyes right now was anything but hate. “…we are the same…” He leaned towards her despite his own warnings and she watched his lips draw closer to hers, so pleasingly close…
Buffy suddenly swung her left fist at him as hard as she possibly could muster, appalled at her own desires. To her astonishment he caught her arm before it connected and forced it to her side, using his other arm to press her to his chest. Spike’s kiss was rough and hard but she enjoyed it; it was so much different from the soft tender kisses Riley lavished on her. Kisses of love were no longer what she wanted. Lust had a deliciously evil sense about it and she wanted to indulge in an innocent evil that had nothing to do with black magic or Masters or women in red dresses. Things that were wrong and right at the same time.
Spike grabbed her and tilted her back onto the bed, crawling on top of her. He kissed her solid on the mouth as he pressed his whole weight onto her and she welcomed him. She felt that familiar hardness between his legs eagerly pressing against her and she wanted it- she couldn’t believe her own thoughts! She actually wanted to have sex with Spike. Right now it didn’t matter, though. Only his kisses mattered.
Spike kissed her lips again then gradually moved lower onto her neck, sucking lightly on the area between her collarbone and shoulder. He wanted her blood- he could hear it for Christ’s sake- but he knew better than to try. He moved lower, slipping off her slinky shirt and caressing her breasts, tonguing them, and kissing them. He unzipped her pants and hurried to take his off as well, surprised to see how excited he was.
“Now I know why they call you Spike…”

It was the best sex she had ever had, and later after the guilt had settled in she pondered why that was again and again. She never mentioned that night to anyone, not Willow or Riley or anyone- it stayed in that old dank crypt. It became something dark and bad she splurged on every few weeks or so when she was still with Riley, but when they ended it occurred nearly every night. Even then she never told a soul, her midnight sexual escapades with the harmless monster were restricted to the times she was suppose to be patrolling. They never even discussed it- Spike would just look up and see the Slayer in his door and without a word he would take her to bed. He had his own theories on the subject but he never mentioned them, perhaps frightened of scaring her off. He had not yet admitted to himself that he had fallen in love with the Chosen One, the tiny girl that was so strong on the outside yet so frail on the inside, the tiny girl who wanted just one simple evil and just one moment of peace- one opportunity to let someone else take control. Other men came and went but she never once stopped coming to his dank cellar to let him kiss her and hold her and make love to her… The lust she once thought was so evil had faded and her love became something good, something she could keep to herself and not voice. It was their secret.