DREAMING OF OCEANS By Ginmar ++++++++ The floor crumbled away beneath them, and they hit the ground with a thump that make Spike gasp underneath her, his lips parting, his whole body freezing underneath her. And in her. Oh God. He lay underneath for a moment, his eyes glazed, as she tried to control the shivering of her body. Then his eyes focused on her, fixed on her, and cleared. She watched reason return to his eyes, awareness, and felt the blood rush into her face from parts unknown. Comprehension changed the color of his eyes; suddenly they were very blue. He blinked at her, reached up one hand, stopped, and studied her, his hands finding her knees, spreading on them, sliding past them. He wasn't exactly cold, not after what they'd done, and his hands were just a little cool. His eyes never left hers, not even as he sat up, nudging his face to hers till only protons separated them. Good thing I shaved my legs, she thought, then was horrified at herself. Even better idea that I shaved my…..Worse. He kissed her as if he'd never done so before, barely brushing her lips, as if he wasn't slowly shifting inside of her, as if what had just happened hadn't just happened. He kissed her as if he were afraid to do it wrong, and was only just testing the waters. He paused, then, pulling back a bit, assessing her reaction, his eyes focusing on hers, hers unwillingly lifting to his, so unnerved by what had just happened that it was only the kiss that was keeping her. He slid his hands further up her warm legs, and with them she could feel her chance at leaving retreating ever further. "Stop." She breathed. In response, he did exactly the opposite, his hands spreading out possessively on her body under that skirt, searching, finding….. "Stop what?" He whispered. One finger on his left hand moved, shifted, and that was all it took. She stiffened, her eyes suddenly on his, startled. She swallowed over a dry throat, hearing a click as he demonstrated. "That?" She nodded, not daring to make a sound. "Or…that?" She gasped, but he didn't stop, those cool fingers sliding and moving, drawing chords out of her, till she buried her face in his shoulder and clutched at his arms to keep upright till she was done shaking. Oh, God, what do I do now? But that was her last thought, because there were no gentle kisses now, she'd never been kissed that way before, and she forgot where they were, that he was still inside her, because how did he kiss like that? He slid his hands underneath her blouse, finding her breasts, filling his hands with them, making her gasp, and making all her muscles twitch. He felt that, because his lips parted for just a second, as he froze at the sensation. He slid his arms all the way around her, pulling her tighter, tight enough to hurt, except it didn't hurt, and she became aware they were making sounds, sounds she'd never been conscious of before, sighs that turned into gasps, murmuring sounds when she to pull away for air. She pulled away to look into his face. He traced her cheekbones with one thumb and she thought. Just tonight. It isn't real. Just tonight. It isn't real. He shrugged off his coat to the floor behind him, then reached for her face with both hands and kissed her again, making it impossible to breathe, which was odd, because he was back on his back, they weren't kissing just at that second, as he fell back, why couldn't she breathe then? He pulled her down on top of him, and then they were kissing---where did he learn to kiss like that? Maybe it's not something you learn. She thought, maybe it's something you feel. They rolled over onto their sides, and he was pulling out of her, and she shuddered as he receded. She pulled at his shirt buttons, and then they were pulling and tearing at clothes, Spike shoving her blouse and camisole over her breasts, finding her nipples with his tongue, while the only way she could anchor herself to reality was to clutch him to her. And then it was frenzy. The only anchor was kissing him; clothes torn away, tossed away, and the sight, briefly glimpsed, of Spike hopping around trying to pull off his boots made her giggle. He repaid her by pulling her to her feet and pulling her against him, still with one boot on, his pants falling open. She flushed to the collarbone, looking away, and then he pulled her against him, his hands trying to hold all of her at once. He kicked the other boot off, and somewhere there was a thump and a tinkle of broken glass wherever it landed. Then he shoved his pants away, and they were left naked. Oh, God he was beautiful, even, she thought with embarrassment, everything…There was no extra flesh anywhere, no flab, no fat, just cat's muscles. He was watching her face as she looked at him, and she only noticed that when her eyes reached his face again, and saw the hunger there. For me, she thought. This is not happening, she thought, this is not happening, this is not Spike, how could it be? This cannot be me, cannot be him, because this is too confusing, but oh God he kisses me like that, that can't be him….They surged and rocked against one another, too much skin to taste and touch, too many sensations washing across them to catalogue. She wasn't prepared for the shyness of it, and he was disarmed by the way she trembled. She traced his shoulders with her fingers, sighing into his mouth, shaking with it, falling with him to their knees on the coat on the floor, both of them shivering with it, how come it had never been like this? Riley never kissed her the way Spike did, as if he was dying, and she was the only thing that could save him. They melted to the ground, pulling and holding and grasping. He kissed his way down on her body and all thought ceased. That was too much; she pulled him back up to her mouth, not quite ready for anything more than this, her hand finding him hardening, and as he gasped at the warmth of her hand, she realized, she could have an effect on him. Oh, the sounds of those kisses, the wet noises their mouths made, waxing and waning against one another, and then he was shoving inside her and she groaned out loud with it. His chest was heaving with the effort of it, and his hips twitched as he sunk himself in her to the hilt. She flinched at it, the pleasure of it so intense it was almost like pain, and then he pulled almost all of the way out of her. She found herself looking down, where their bodies were joined, almost painfully aroused by the sight of his hips crashing between her legs. Then he found his tempo and she found it was almost impossible to breathe. He pounded into her, and she knew in some dim corner of her mind that she was moaning with it, and he was panting faster and faster. Her body didn't belong to her anymore, and she couldn't understand why it was moving in ways she'd never felt before. Her legs wrapped around him and her arms clung desperately to his shoulders, his buttocks, his face. His face was contorted with it, his head thrown back, his nipples scraping against her chest with every stroke. Her sweat coated him, made them both slippery, and she didn't even care. She could only gasp with every thrust, and then, she couldn't gasp at all. She grabbed him to her, as her muscles rebelled against her sanity, and everything contracted again and again. She knew dimly that she was undulating under him uncontrollably, her body jerking with every spasm, that it was probably ugly, but he was doing the same, and on him it was beautiful, as his eyes squeezed shut, and he panted over her. His shoulders slowly slumped, his forehead touching hers. Lips and fingertips trembled on sweaty skin. She realized she'd bitten his shoulder, she kissed the wound weakly, every muscle on---and in----her body trembling. He shifted, framing her head with his forearms, looking into her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, he pulled out of her, and she gasped at the sensation of tender flesh being abraded again. She was sore now, but instead of being painful, it was arousing, and she couldn't figure out why. She only knew that the weight of his body was slowly making her shake, and his kisses only made her hungry for more. He slid off to her side, his weight only partially on her, and pulled his mouth from hers to look into her eyes. She reached out tentatively with one hand, and found his cheekbones with her palm. He almost hoped she staked him then, because the look on her face made him feel so much hope, he knew there was no way to go but down. She was drooping with tiredness now, and the kisses were fading. He reached back and pulled up her discarded skirt with one hand and pulled it over them. Then he nudged her over onto his chest, and they both dozed off to sleep. ++++++++ She dreamt of oceans. She waded into a dark and surly sea that sucked all light into it, but didn't manage to subdue the fishes gleefully leaping to and fro. The water was cool, but she was hot and flushed, and there was no one to see her, so she had no need to think of explanations. The water swirled about her legs, as high as her hips, and she wondered at her own daring. With Riley, it was always sheets; yet here she was, wading in dark waters in the night, and as naked as she'd been born, and not a sheet in sight. She could see very little. There was only the faintest tinge of light in the Western sky, but where she waded was dark, and she knew that in the uncharted depths beyond her was a precipice common to all oceans. There was a thing called a shelf, where all oceans began, where she now waded, but abruptly it dived down into dangerous depths, and she felt with her toes for its edge so as to avoid its undertow. For the first time in ages, she felt no cares. The water washed about her hips, sleek and calming, and the breeze, humid with oncoming rain, breathed expectantly against her. She wondered what things lurked in the water, but thus far they had been benign, brushing her legs and between them, but never doing anything untoward. It was the breeze that troubled her more, brushing against her breasts, and she couldn't explain why the water, so cool and soothing, felt so hot as it flowed to and fro between her legs… Buffy awoke with a gasp. Her breath heaved in her chest, and she gasped as realization swept over her; it was his hands on her breasts making her hold her breath, and his mouth buried between her legs both soothing and tormenting her. She heaved herself upon her elbows, determined to stop it, but at that moment, he raised his head, confronting her, and she found the sight impossibly arousing. But girls don't get aroused, she thought, echoing another's thoughts. Good girls don't. Even for….only for…..just one night. She had to see what he was doing, she had to confront what he was doing, and at that moment, he locked his eyes onto hers, and extended his tongue till it caressed her, and all thought ceased. He was so cool, but she was not, and his tides flowed back and forth against her. All the while, his eyes watched her, and she found it impossible to look away, even while she heaved under his tongue. He's kissing me, she thought, and she writhed against him. His fingers spread and clasped against her breasts, and the sensation bolted straight to her navel, and lower. Oh, this is bad, she thought. This is so bad…No, this was someone else, her legs spread almost flat against the ground, completely exposed, ebbing and flowing against the urgency of his tongue and fingers, it simply couldn't be her, sex wasn't like this for good girls, it was tender and careful, calm, certainly… He pressed forward, faster, watching her, never releasing her from his eyes, and she thought, Ohmygodhe'slookingatmetastingmethere'snowheretohide…! All her muscles clenched into a fist, and she heaved against him. He responded by cupping her buttocks into each hand and drawing her closer, which only increased the pressure. She heard painful groans, and realized they were hers, but somehow she knew he would be rather pleased. The pulses faded into afterthoughts, and she looked down at him, still locked on her face, still riveted to her eyes. It just wasn't fair that he could do that to her, and she couldn't'……. ++++++++ It just isn't fair, she thought, sagging back against the floor, while Spike idly traced a circle around her navel with his thumb. She thought her heart would give out, it was beating so hard, but of course he didn't have that problem. She raised her head and looked at him, expecting to see smugness or some other form of male gloating, but instead, she found him looking into her eyes as if they'd been discussing some serious political theory. Or maybe cooking; he wasn't the political type. He pulled himself up, crawling up her body like a cat, till he was poised over her. It seemed the only plausible thing to do, to slide her hands up his arms, all that fascinating skin, while he looked at her face. He had her entire body to look at, but it was her face that he seemed to find fascinating, settling himself on top of her, their bodies conforming almost comfortably. She ran her hands up his back, tracing the landscape along his spine, even while he traced her cheekbones with his thumbs, something that almost had more of an effect on her than the sex. He brought his face down to hers, close enough to kiss, but he didn't. Close enough to taste, but he didn't. She was holding her breath now, seeing those impossibly blue eyes so close to hers, till their foreheads were touching, but she wasn't even aware of anything else. She was dimly aware that she should have been embarrassed; she wasn't used to nudity, except for brief moments before or after with various boyfriends. But all she was aware of now was how they fitted together, like halves of a whole. Especially at the mouth, as he leaned down, almost tentatively, and kissed her. She stopped thinking with the kisses, and almost stopped breathing as well. He pulled away, looking down at her face, smiling very slightly. "What?" She whispered. "I don't know how to say it." "Try." "Hm." He whispered with a taste of his usual sarcasm. "Amazing how being so bossy is a good thing in bed." "We're not in bed." She shot back. "And I'm not bossy." "No?" He looked as if she'd said the most endearing thing possible, something incredibly amusing. He wasn't laughing at her. He looked so fond of her, so pleased with her that she was discomfited. It was just sex; it was just one night, and there wasn't supposed to be anything but that. He couldn't actually have anything for her but sex; that was all she could cope with. She shoved at his chest and got up, and admittedly, Spike was so disarmed by the sight of her behind, and from such an entrancing angle, that he momentarily lost the ability to form thoughts. Then he frowned. "What? What was that?" He got up and caught her just as she reached for her blouse, which had been tossed away and hung festively on an old light fixture. Her next move would doubtless be to look for her knickers, which he had last seen sailing across the room after he'd ripped them off and pitched them like a lace-covered fastball. She didn't get that far. He shoved her into the wall, sliding his hands between her and the wall, partly to spare her breasts contact with the rough plaster, and partly because well, it had been at least five seconds since he'd touched her. "You're bossy in all the right ways," he whispered. He half expected her to slap him, but instead she turned as fast as a striking cobra, and kissed him. He shoved her against the wall, but this time for leverage. They were standing in a beam of moonlight and there was no way to avoid seeing every detail with crystal clarity. It was disconcerting, the way he kissed, combined with the way he moved; he kissed like a virgin who'd only just tried it, who, admittedly, had a natural aptitude for it, but nevertheless…he kissed her as if she was the first girl he'd ever kissed. Heart in the throat, she thought. His fingers, however, were expert, and she had to wonder how if he was a vampire and lacked the blood temperature of a human he could make her flush with heat all over. He exhaled into her mouth, as her fingers trailed down his back, and then curled around front, to find his penis. He pulled away from her mouth, watching her reaction, as she traced the veins with her thumb, caressing the slit with her index finger. He shuddered against her, forgetting everything but her warm hand fisted around him, pressing his forehead against the plaster over her shoulder. She looked down, watching his erection thicken and lengthen, trying to divide her attention between his face and his erection. 'Isn't that a decision', she thought wryly. He was hard now, and he shoved between her legs, his fingers sliding against tender flesh still sensitive. He found her clit with his thumb, and she jumped against his mouth. She shifted against his whole body, and he lifted one of her legs around his waist. She gasped then, twisting around him like the stripe around a candy cane. They were shifting, and moving, breathing only between kisses, but even then it seemed like they weren't doing any breathing at all. He reached around and filled his hands with the circles of her ass, pressing her to him, his erection rubbing against her belly. She returned the favor, grabbing his behind, till he pulled away and grinned at her. "Like my ass, is it?" He whispered, tracing her lips with his tongue. "Love it, but I like your cock better." Buffy whispered back without thinking, which made his eyes bug out, while she blushed an almost painfully bright red. She looked so horrified at her non sequetor that he grinned at her, rubbing his cock against the slippery wetness between her legs, while she gulped. He grabbed her waist, lifting her against the wall, and as she started to slide back down, he pushed inside her so hard and so deep, she banged her head against the wall. He was hitting places she didn't know she had, but it was his face that was more vivid than what he was doing to her. Everything else seemed to fade away except him, and he was so vivid he blinded her. They weren't in an abandoned building, they could have been anywhere, but all that mattered was the way they moved together. They moved against each other, and then suddenly, the movement changed, and they were moving together, and the momentum turned higher and higher, they gasped at each other. Her knees were bumping against his shoulders uncontrollably, her hands clutching at his shoulders, then the wall fixture above them. She buried her face into his shoulder to muffle her cries, but he ran his fingers roughly through her hair, pulling her head back, and she heard herself echoing in the ruins of the old house. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and then she didn't have to. Every nerve ending in her body spasmed and then froze for a long, aching minute. Centuries passed, while she hung on his body and they stared into each other's eyes, hers dazed with sensation, his stunned and astonished. After an eternity of moving involuntarily against him, she came to two realizations; that the French weren't kidding when they called it 'le petit mort' and that he himself hadn't reached the same conclusion he had. He'd frozen as she convulsed around him, but then he began to move again, slowly, then faster and faster, and she got the chance to watch his response, without the distraction of her own. He managed a few more hard thrusts before he shoved hard against her and arched, his mouth twisting in what looked like pain, and his mouth gasping for air. Every note of the crescendo echoed in his face, and then he buried his face in her shoulder, as if his strength were gone. Awareness seeped back gradually, as her legs slipped down his thighs and touched the ground. She realized her legs could not support her. She also realized that the same was true for him. Their only support was the wall….. and each other. 'I'm so scared. I'm so scared. I'm so scared', she thought. Spike whispered against the wall, "I'm here. I'm here. I'm here". "Don't leave me", she whispered. "Don't leave me". "Never". There were sleepy kisses then, exhausted caresses. She never knew how they got to the coat stretched on the ground, but she had a brief, almost hallucinatory moment of clarity, as she curled around Spike, and he around her. "I'm so scared". And what he replied was: "I won't let anything happen". I won't let anything happen. ++++++++ She walked along the edge of the abyss, feeling her way by touch and sensation, testing for edges and rocks, bumps, and fissures. She crouched down experimentally in the water to test her ability to hold her breath, but something slithered past her in the water, and she suddenly gulped in a mouthful of…air. She erupted from the water in shock, then looked down at it. Her own legs looked distorted to her eyes, changed by the sea around them, but when she ducked under again, she looked at herself, and she was normal. And she could breathe; she didn't understand how, but she could. Once she was underwater, it seemed as if it was almost daylight; light illuminated the depths, and she could see her own hair swirling around her. The water itself was utterly comfortable; molded around her body, supported her, swirled around her with her movements. It was so much less work to move forward underwater than on the ground. She swam along the edge of the precipice, wondering if this dream would turn into a nightmare. But there was only one way to find out. She braced her feet on the edge of the shallow shelf, and launched herself over the edge…. The water was warm, and the light gentle, almost like sunset light, and strange little sparkles swirled around her. No more Disney movies for a while, she thought, even in her dream, and then she snapped awake. The water had been warm, but she was cold, curled up around Spike, with her skirt as a blanket, and his coat as a mattress…..and him as a pillow. She laid still for a moment, assessing where she was. It was actually pretty warm; this was Southern California, and cool was eighty degrees. She wondered if she could get up and quietly leave. Would he notice? Could she sneak away, pretend it hadn't happened? She was interrupted in her thoughts by the realization that he was solidly asleep, and naked. This had been right in front of her eyes, so to speak, the entire time, but there was a time delay between her brain and her eyes. She slowly lifted her head and looked at him, starting at that angelic face and working her way down. She'd never before realized that an Adam's apple could be interesting to look at, but it was a reminder that she didn't have one, and that seemed to sum up the realization that seemed more like a revelation. "Oh. My. God. He's…a guy! And he's naked! Right here! " But it seemed to her she'd never before so much as devoted a thought to the fact that Spike was of the masculine persuasion; he'd always seemed like his own irritating demographic group, impossible to characterize as anything but Spike, possessing his own characteristics, irritating though they were, but impossible to find duplicated anywhere else. And now….She touched his throat, flushing slightly at the spot on his collarbone where she'd bitten him. He had absolutely no body fat anywhere, and even while asleep, his body was lithe and supple looking. He looked almost frail naked, and that was something surprising to her, because in her nightmares he'd almost loomed monstrously tall. She traced her hand past his bellybutton, and hesitated. His penis lay relaxed between his legs, and she wondered if she dared do to him, what he had done to her. She wondered for a moment what he would taste like, what his face would look like if she did. She traced a finger down its length and was startled at how soft the skin was. Softer than his lips, she thought. Gently, she circled the head with one cautious fingertip, and it twitched, just a bit. She caressed the slit, then encircled the whole circumference with her hand. Spike sighed in his sleep. She glanced at his face, startled, but he was still asleep, probably worn out, she thought. She ran her finger up and down the groove along the bottom, and Spike sighed again. Now he was getting hard, and she could see it, feel it, and she didn't know what she was doing, what she was going to do. She couldn't leave him like this, he'd know and…..She was getting excited. She stroked him a few more times, and now he was completely hard, and she found that she herself was suddenly, abruptly, aroused. He was utterly asleep, she thought, what if he didn't wake up at all? She wasn't aware what she was thinking, except there was a rushing sound in her ears, and before she was aware of it, she had swung her legs over his, poised over his erection. No eye contact, she thought. No confusing thoughts. No Spike, his mask falling away before her, till she was confronted with someone else, someone she didn't know, even while she wondered if he, too, was seeing something she didn't want to reveal. She positioned herself on him, and slowly slid down his length, holding her breath. And then letting it go. She wasn't as ready as she thought she was; something was wrong, it just didn't feel like it had. It was devoid of anything, even when she tentatively rose and fell on top of him a couple of times. It was pleasant, and that was all. She looked at his face, seeing him again as he had looked the last time, his face twisting with pleasure, changing, someone she wasn't used to seeing….She thought of him like that, and she went faster. And his eyes snapped open. They stared at each other, Buffy trapped and horrified at getting caught, Spike slowly registering the heat around him, the movement. He opened his mouth and shut it, trying to believe his eyes and senses, trying to separate the dreams from the reality. She was on him, riding him, and he suddenly understood the dream of a warm sea that had engulfed him. Understood it, but didn't. He tried to sit up, but that changed his angle in her body, and it sent a bolt through him. Buffy stared down at him, her expression stricken, guilty-looking, and he couldn't figure out why. Oh, he'd been dreaming of seething waters, but it was nothing compared to her. He spread his legs and bent them, and she braced her hands on his knees as he leaned in to kiss her, their tongues ebbing and flowing with the movements of their bodies, teasing sounds out of throats and bodies. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "Why?' He asked, but she discovered the skin on his thighs, able for the first time to do what he usually did; stroke the long muscles of the thigh, caress the sensitive muscles of the inner thigh. Spike threw his head back and bit his lip, trying not to make a sound, but he couldn't stop from panting. "Why? Because you made me hard? Because you wanted me inside you?" Buffy blinked at him, utterly beyond speech. She couldn't have managed coherent speech anyway. The angle, the position, was new, and she could see every thing. Every thing. She could see him entering her, and even as she turned fiercely red, she couldn't have said whether it was shock or…She didn't even have a word for it. He watched her face, watched her breathing in rhythm to his movements, watched her arch and roll. She pushed herself forward to kiss him, grasping the back of his neck with one oddly cool hand, gasping against his lips, her tongue echoing the movements of their bodies, surging and flowing, receding and returning. He had only one hand free, supporting his weight with his other arm braced behind himself, but he made the most of it, stroking her clitoris with one finger, then tracing her nipple with a wet fingertip. She stared into his face, wondering who it was she was with. His hands, his tongue did things to her that could only have been perfected through experience, but his face, his expression, was almost absurdly innocent, utterly without guile or pretense, pleasure stripping all the defenses he wore during the day. Looking at him as he closed his eyes, she saw someone she hadn't expected and didn't know….but wanted to. Oh, God, she wanted to. She wanted to know where the gentleness came from, how he kissed like that. Who was this person inside her, inside him? She didn't feel exposed to him any longer, she felt as if she'd been connected to him at the skin, at the soul, at the heart, and she didn't even know who he was any more. Now she understood why it was so vivid, all of it, where it had never been before, because she'd never felt like that about anyone else before. She pulled herself forward, getting her weight on her knees, but that brought every sensitive spot on her body against some hard muscle on his so that she abruptly without any warning at all, froze, as her body contracted with orgasm. The surges of it brought her against him further, and it didn't end. It was like a pulse, endless, cyclical, and she thought it was too much for her; she thought it would kill her. He turned her over, burying himself in her in flesh made sensitive by pleasure. She hadn't even recuperated; she grabbed at him as he moved slowly against her, his face straining over her, burying his face between her breasts, her heart pounding against his face. He stiffened over her, quietly, shuddering, and she tried to pull him closer, wanting him closer still, closer than inside her, closer than it was possible to get. "Not possible", she thought. He pulled out of her gingerly, and she saw again the stranger's face. Was this who he really was, was this the person who loved her? Who did he see? How could he be so sure of whom he loved, when she didn't know herself? ++++++++ It was Spike who couldn't sleep, who couldn't relax, who couldn't let go. He was conscious of the rising temperature, the humidity, the breeze that sprang though the gaps in plaster and glass. It was going to end. He could feel it coming, hear it, taste it, and only scant hours kept it away. The hairs rose on his arms, on the back of his neck, and there was nothing he could do to hold it back. He turned over on his side and tried to engrave her on his memory; every gasp, every sigh, every sound, and every sensation. He knew there would be nothing else; he'd been too lucky as it was, and he had to make sure that every iota was remembered. She curled up next to him, and he was reluctant even to touch her, as if reality would sully what had happened. He ran it through his mind, stroking her hair with one airy finger as he did so. The first kiss, the contact, the shock, the frenzy. He wanted to separate the moments, the flow, the feeling. He couldn't; he couldn't remember the exact moment she'd come down on him because his eyes had been too full of her, as she buckled over him, every fiber of her body plucking chords in his, every cell in her body exploding around him, and how was he supposed to be sensible? He knew what had been happening with her through all those weeks after she'd returned; seen her waste down to a pale thin creature who almost looked more like a vampire than he did, even while he tried to remember how simple it had been not to give a damn, or---to not give a damn, vehemently. He'd lost track of all the times he'd seen her on the back porch, not even crying, which he'd seen her do more than a few times when her mum was ill, but sitting there silent, while her supposed friends bickered about, no doubt, her ingratitude inside her own house. Just don't think about it, he thought, but he checked the dim light, and knew it was just the debris between him and the rays that could kill him. Oh, he hadn't expected this, this shocking turn, not in a million years. He'd thought just to be around her, seeing her day after day, would be enough, but now…! He'd measured her as any enemy takes stock of their opponent, to defeat them, but he'd never expected the things he'd seen this night. She was so tightly wound, so controlled, should he have expected her to be so…..? She was a creature from some history, more of a vampire than he was, the way she attacked him, made him feel dead and alive at the same time. As a disinterested observer, he'd seen no sign of it with Angel, but he was biased; 'passion' and 'Angel' were just not two words he could put together in a sentence and feel good about. Then there'd been the wanker, a doe-eyed creature he'd summed up as being too embarrassing even for lunch, the vampire equivalent of incredibly tacky food. Instead of a White Castle, Parker had been the whitest of White Boys, so greasy he'd slide right through. Pity he hadn't at least done away with the little bastard, though. And then…ah, yes, then. He flopped over on his back to think of Riley, the one he personally most regretted the chip for, the one who'd hurt Buffy even worse than Angel, because he was such a good guy. Bastard thought he ought to get a better deal because he was one of the good guys, even when he was doing the one thing guaranteed to hurt Buffy like nothing else. He wondered if he could make a case like that for himself. He was bad, no doubt, but trying to be good, why, he wasn't sure. Still, it was harder for him to be good, so shouldn't there be some kind of brownie points for him for trying? And shouldn't it be worse when Captain Cardboard did something wrong, because he was such a good guy? At the very least, he had further to jump. Had to be lot of time to think on the way down. Same thing for me, he thought. Lots of time to think about what I'm doing, except I'm not jumping off a cliff and landing on some poor Slayer on the way down. I'm climbing, and it's all asses and elbows. Lots of time to think. Lots of sweat, lots of…he couldn't think straight, he was so tired. Lots of….stuff. He studied the girl next to him. Lots of time to think, but as long as it was her he had to think about, he didn't mind. He wondered what would happen, not in the morning, which he figured was going to be bad, but he also knew he had a chance to kiss her out of it. He shook his head at the amazing figure of Riley Finn, a man who got a chance with Buffy, and tossed it aside, not because she was too much to handle, but because he didn't even try hard enough. Spike knew one thing with absolute clarity. Now he was going to try. He didn't know how much of a chance he had of succeeding, but he knew he was going to keep making the effort. He wasn't going to slink back to his crypt to write poetry, although his fingers itched suddenly with the desire to find a rhyme for 'contusion'—no, he was going to dream about this. And then he was going to wake up, to find her not knocking and then yelling at him, no doubt. Better sooner rather than later, he thought. Get the yelling over with, get on with it. Yelling he could handle. It was the silence that worried him, silence meaning she was so locked up in her chest, she couldn't get it out, till it came out like a volcanic eruption. "Ablution," he thought suddenly, and went to sleep with happy thoughts of bad poetry and loud fights making his lips curve into a contented smile. ++++++++ The End