Rated:  NC-17 
E-mail: astarte@uia.net 
Pairing: Buffy/Spike 
Warnings:  Angst, language, explicit and rough sex, violence, and some blood 
thrown in for good measure. 
Disclaimers:  The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, 
and Mutant Enemy.  No copyright infringement is intended, and no financial 
profit is anticipated. 
Spoilers:  Up to Season 5, "In the Woods."  After that, this is total AU. 
Summary:  With Spike's help, Buffy descends. 
Feedback encouraged and welcomed. 
  
  


The Art of Courtship
By atara
Copyright 2001



Buffy walked through the quiet cemetery, hands in her jacket pockets and senses 
alert.  It seemed *too* quiet; the vamps were lying low for a reasons she didn't 
understand, and it made her nervous.  At the same time she was puzzling over 
whether she missed Riley or not; she ached for the security of his warm arms at 
the same time that she felt a huge sense of a weight lifted and a liberating 
release.  But if she was free, what was she free to do?

Suddenly a voice sliced through the chill air, echoing off the gravestones:  
"SLAY-ER!"  Buffy whirled around at Spike's unmistakable tones, her slayer 
senses noting that there was something different about his voice, a barely 
discernible intensifying of energy.  "Hey baby," leered the vampire; "I got 
something to show you."

"What?" Buffy demanded, irritated, "now you're going to flash me?"

"No, something much better," crooned Spike as he walked right up her.  He gave a 
quick hard shove in the middle of her ribs, and Buffy found herself sprawling, 
staring at Spike in surprise.  He casually examined his curled fingers and blew 
on them.  

"What the fu . . . ?" began Buffy, still on the ground.

"Well, it should be bleedin' obvious, Slayer.  I got the soddin' chip out.  
Brilliant surgeon who wanted to be turned; I was so grateful I kept my word.  
And now I can hurt you all I want, and look ma!  No headache!"

"Oh, I'll give you a headache!" muttered Buffy as she leapt to her feet.  

Spike delivered a solid spinning kick to Buffy's thigh.  "Shall we dance, 
Slayer?"

The words chilled her; she didn't know why.  She didn't want to know why.  
Instead of thinking about what she didn't want to think about, she lashed out, 
her fist connecting with Spike's gut.

"Ah, bloody 'ell!" cursed the vampire, and then he grinned, ducking and weaving.  
"Come dance with Uncle Spike, little girl."

Anyone watching would have seen but a blur, with the occasional arm or leg or 
head appearing, the two were fighting so hard and moving so fast.  The only 
sound in the cemetery was the wet smack of fist or boot on flesh, and the 
increasingly heavier breathing of the human.  True to her word, Buffy did smack 
Spike upside the head; as he shook it slightly to stop the ringing in his ears, 
she kicked strongly, sending him flying.  He jumped up, picked Buffy up bodily, 
and hurled her against the trunk of a tree.  Only slightly dizzied, she returned 
to the battle, her fists pummeling the vampire.  She swept his legs out from 
under him, with her leg hooked around the back of his, then kicked him hard in 
the side before he rolled to his feet.

Buffy's mind whirled with the knowledge that Spike's chip was out, the predator 
unmuzzled.  A maelstrom of feelings rocked her--anger, fear, revulsion, and some 
others she couldn't identify.  Spike took advantage of her distraction with a 
solid kick to her kidney.  Buffy gasped and fell forward onto the ground.  She 
fought not to throw up, as the pain blurred her eyes and took her breath away.  
She panted, trying to get air into her lungs and slammed her fist into the 
ground to release a portion of the shattering pain.

As soon as she seemed to be recovering, Spike was behind her and on her, 
dragging her to her feet and twisting her arm hard up behind her back.  Buffy 
gasped, but felt no inclination to fight.  Instead she revelled in her acute 
awareness of the hard, lean body behind her, the hips tilted forward so that the 
bulge in Spike's jeans pressed against her ass.  "You have no idea how long and 
how hard I've waited for this moment, Slayer--to have this kind of power over 
you.  I'm your *god* now, pet.  I'm all that you love and hate and fear and 
crave.  I could kill you in an instant . . . ," here Spike grasped Buffy's 
throat with his free hand, "snap your neck like I did that other slayer.  And 
that delicious crunch goes straight to my cock, luv."  He pressed his bulge 
closer, just at the tightly stretched fabric between her cheeks.  "Or," he 
continued conversationally, "I could drain you dry and leave you to rot."  He 
pulled her jacket out of the way and skimmed the juncture of her neck and 
shoulder with his cool lips.  Buffy trembled with involuntary lust; just the 
mere graze of those lips seemed to open vistas of possibilities she had never 
contemplated.  "Then again," noted Spike, "I could drain you, open my wrist, and 
press it to your mouth, watching you suck as greedily as a newborn.  Turn you 
and make you mine, *mine* to own and rule.  Really, the possibilities are so 
enticing, baby, I'm having a hard time deciding.  Of course, the other 
possibility is that I let you go so I can have the pleasure of a dance with you 
again."

Spike gave Buffy's twisted arm a slight wrench, then shoved her away.  She 
turned around and for a moment she looked at him in shock, a deer caught in the 
headlights, her eyes wide with confusion and disbelief.  Then another emotion 
shook her with its ferocity, and she leapt at him, pummeling him with all her 
strength.  Spike dodged and blocked some of her blows, but did not inflict much 
damage in return.  Soon, Buffy had him on his back, straddled him, and pulled a 
stake from her jacket.  She held it over his heart, and Spike grinned in sheer 
abandon.  "Oh, go ahead, do me, baby.  You know you want to."

"Do you want to *die*?" she demanded between clenched teeth.

"No, not really, luv, but I'll admit that the idea of being dusted by you is 
well, rather *piquant*."

"You don't know what you're saying," gritted Buffy.  She yanked Spike's tshirt 
out of his jeans and pulled it up, exposing his marble chest.  Buffy brought the 
point of the stake down and drew a careful circle around the target that was the 
vampire's heart.  She felt Spike shiver under her at the touch of the sharp 
point on his skin, and she pressed just hard enough to draw blood.  

Spike licked his lips and gazed up at her under heavily-lidded eyes, his mouth 
parted slightly.  "You have a way with a stake, woman," he breathed, then rocked 
his hips, "but wouldn't you rather take Uncle Spike for a *ride*?"  

Buffy's arm dropped to the side.  She backhanded Spike's face hard with her free 
hand, stunning him into silence.  Suddenly exhausted, she got to her feet in a 
slow, graceful motion, and pocketed the stake.  She took a few slightly 
staggering steps away from Spike, then turned back to him.  "Spike, you fucking 
idiot," was all she said.

* * *

As if by mutual consent, Buffy and Spike avoided each other for the next few 
days.  It seemed to Buffy that it took hours for her heart to slow to its normal 
rate after their graveyard encounter.  Spike free to kill and hurt and prey.  
She knew she should tell Giles and warn the others, but she knew instinctively 
that with Riley gone, Spike would leave her friends alone.  Instead, she did 
housework while her mother recovered from her surgery at home and took on the 
agonizing task of announcing Riley's departure to Dawn, who took it hard and was 
furious with her "sister."

One night, sleeping restlessly, Buffy awoke to see Spike standing over her bed, 
looking down at her with a softness and affection in his face, she was sure was 
part of her dream.  As soon as he noticed that she was awake, his face returned 
to his usual smirking half-smile, and he said, "I would have thought you would 
have had Red revoke my entrance privileges, pet."

"I guess I didn't get around to it," muttered Buffy lamely.

"No you didn't.  Don't you know by now that I'll take *every* and any advantage 
that comes my way?"  Spike was on the bed in a moment, straddling Buffy's thighs 
and pinning them together.  He pushed up Buffy's flimsy baby-girl pajama top, 
and closed his eyes for a moment to process the riches that lay before him.  His 
long fingers gathered up one breast, and still Buffy stared at him as if 
hypnotized.  As Spike's fingertips stroked and roamed her breast, he said, "Do 
you know that I can use my fingertips to detect the distinct flow of every vein and artery?  And if I concentrate, I feel the throb of every single blood vessel.  
I'm not using any parlor-trick Dracula thrall on you, but you're paralyzed just 
the same.  Do you *know* what I could do to you, my pet?"  He lightly rolled a 
nipple between his thumb and finger, remarking, "And you wouldn't stop me.  I 
could just sink my fangs into that breast, pierce your flesh, and your vein 
would open and flower for me, willingly giving up its contents to my mouth."

Spike continued to fondle Buffy's breast.  "Such warmth," he murmured, "such 
warmth and such treasure, all that blood simmering just under the skin."

"Just do it already, Spike!" snapped Buffy impatiently.

Spike raised an eyebrow, and his lips quirked in a half-smile.  "Is that an 
invitation, luv?"  He rolled her nipple more firmly between his fingers.

Buffy sighed in frustration.  "I don't know what the fuck it is, but will you 
please stop the hell *playing* with me?"

"As you wish," answered Spike obligingly.  He shifted into his vampire face, 
parted his lips slightly to reveal the fangs sliding out, and stared into 
Buffy's eyes, willing her to look at him, to look at what she was allowing to 
invade her.  She looked.  Her eyes scanned the ridges, lingered on the fangs, 
and she nodded.  Spike bent his head to her other breast, while his other hand 
continued to play restlessly with the nipple of the first.  With exceeding care 
and delicacy, his fangs *just* pierced her skin, and he stopped, lingering at 
that point.  Buffy moaned--prickles of pain radiated out from those four tiny 
points, and the smallest droplets of blood made their way to the surface.  Spike 
continued to pause, and then with barely a movement, he sank his fangs 
completely into her breast.  To Buffy, they slid through her flesh as easily as 
a hot knife through butter.  The pain that lanced from the four punctures was 
pure and sharp and icy-hot.  Her slayer senses gave her a distinct conciousness 
of the sensation of being penetrated; she could acutely *feel* each fang inside 
its neat space carved into her breast.  Then Spike began to suck, and Buffy 
arched upward with the pain, and then sank into the bed, boneless and melting 
and without resistance.  She felt her veins yield as Spike had predicted, felt 
her heart seeming to strain to pump more blood in the direction of that blooming 
passage into Spike's mouth.

Spike's hand on her other breast stilled, just resting on it in a casually 
possessive attitude.  He was focused on the act of sucking, on the taste and 
texture, on the spice and fire and glossy lushness of slayer blood.  Buffy's 
body was limp beneath him with surrender, but his keen senses detected a 
building tension coiling from her center.  He sucked a bit more firmly in 
response to that rising energy, and then covered Buffy's mouth with his hand 
just before she screamed in shattering, shuddering climax.  He gently licked her 
wounds, knowing that they would heal quickly, given Buffy's slayer healing 
powers, but that they would scar.  She sucked his finger dreamily for a few 
moments.  Then her eyes seemed to focus on the vampire looming above her.  "I've 
marked you, you know," he murmured, half sardonically, half reverently.

Buffy bit down hard on the finger that was lingering in her mouth.  As Spike 
pulled his hand away, she said levelly, "I know you have, asshole."

* * *

Buffy made very clear over the next few days that she didn't want to have 
anything to do with Spike.  She pointedly turned and headed the other way when 
she saw him coming, and he just smirked to himself and let her alone.  One 
night, however, he climbed up to her window and saw her examining her breasts, 
touching the healing bite marks and biting her lower lip.  Spike vanished before 
she could turn around and see him.

The next night Buffy had a big battle, clearing out a new nest of vampires 
hiding out in the basement of the remains of the old high school.  She was in 
top form, seeming to glide from one vampire to another, spinning kicks, swinging 
punches, and plunging stakes over and over.  When the last vampire was dust, 
Buffy was out of breath, but her veins were singing.  She was heading home, but 
a heat was rising in her, and she knew her own hand would never be able to 
quench it.  She stopped in the middle of the block, indecisive, but then she 
turned around and loped toward Spike's crypt.

When she slipped inside, Spike was watching the television, his feet up.  "Ever 
watch 'Roseanne?'" he asked casually.  "What a vampire that Darlene would have 
made."

"I'm not here to discuss sitcoms, Spike," replied Buffy tensely.  "So where's 
your bimboid cryptmate?"

"Oh, Harm?  She buggered off after I didn't kill you that night at your house.  
No great loss, believe me."

"Good.  Then fuck me."

Spike actually looked surprised.  He recovered quickly though, then demanded, 
"Strip then.  Come on!  Shake a leg!"

Buffy began pulling off her clothes, abstractedly, her eyes fixed on Spike.  He 
remained dressed, and she felt like her mouth might start watering at the sight 
of him in tight black jeans and a black tshirt, every plane of his taut body 
emphasized.  Naked, she stood in front of him, hands on her hips, and tossed her 
loose hair behind her.  Spike picked her up without a word and sat her down on 
the very edge of a stone slab.  He cupped the marked breast, scrutinizing the 
forming scar tissue.  His lips lightly grazed it, and then he stepped back, 
reaching out to capture Buffy's nipples between his thumb and his finger and tug 
them forward.  Buffy let out a bit of a sigh at the pain, but she said flatly, 
"More."

"That Watcher of yours hasn't taught you manners, has he?" mocked Spike as he 
obligingly twisted and pinched Buffy's nipples.  Then he grabbed her breast and 
pinched a fold of flesh, rubbing his fingers back and forth as he applied 
pressure.  Buffy leaned back with her hands flat behind her, and let her head 
fall back.  Satisfied with the bruise he had created, Spike went back to playing 
with her nipples.  She moaned and wriggled a little, her head still back, 
exposing her throat, while her hair fell in a cascade behind her.  Spike decided 
she wasn't paying enough attention and gave her breast a sharp slap.  Buffy sat 
up, eyes wide.  This was a new sensation.  "More?" asked Spike harshly.

Buffy nodded wordlessly.  Spike backhanded her other breast, then slapped the 
first, alternating back and forth.  Buffy closed her eyes, wincing from the pain 
yet craving more of it.  "Open your eyes, Slayer," ordered Spike.  She complied.  
He roughly pushed her legs wide apart, and thrust two cold fingers into her 
cunt, which he discovered was hot and dripping wet.  He began toying with her 
clit with one finger, and Buffy uttered a strangled cry.  "Can't stand it 
gentle, luv, can you?"

"Noooo," she moaned.  "Hard.  Need.  Hard."  Spike wetted his thumb and 
forefinger in Buffy's cunt, and began rubbing her clit between them, pinching 
and squeezing.  His fingers slipped over her slick flesh, but he pinched it 
again and again.  Buffy arched her back, leaning back again on her hands and 
emitted a low whimpering noise in her throat.  The whimper rose in pitch as 
Spike's assault on her clit grew more brutal, and she screamed as she came.

Spike didn't give her any recovery time, but pushed her on her back.  Pressing 
her legs even farther apart, he knelt on the floor and began tonguing her clit 
lightly.  Buffy complained wordlessly, whimpering and almost whining, but the 
sound eventually turned into a repeated litany of "Fuck you, Spike!  Just fuck 
you.  You fucking bastard.  Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou . . . "  Spike sucked her clit 
into his mouth hard, and sank his blunt teeth into it, biting and sucking until 
Buffy howled again in release.

He pulled her up to a sitting position and ordered, "Don't move."  He quickly 
stripped off his clothes, and lifted her under her ass, impaling her on his 
cock.  Buffy put her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist.  
Spike's hands were on her ass, pulling the cheeks apart as he drove her onto his 
cock.  Buffy sank her teeth into his throat, biting and sucking and leaving a 
bruise, while Spike fucked her relentlessly.  After a time, he laid her down on 
the slab, without withdrawing from her.  Her ass was just at the edge, and her 
spread legs hanging down.  He pulled her a little further onto his cock and then 
thrust into her brutally, while she rocked her pelvis hard, driving him even 
deeper inside herself.

Her orgasm set off waves of contractions inside her cunt, and they sent Spike 
over the edge as well.  He shot cold seed into the heat of her cunt, claiming 
her, marking her, wanting to make her his own.

"What the fuck am I doing, Spike?" asked Buffy as she curled into his chest, and 
let his arms wrap around her.

"It's called shaggin', pet.  Absofuckinglutely spectacular shagging at that."

"Blood and pain and heat and darkness, Spike.  What am I doing there?"

"Living, Slayer.  You're learning to please yourself.  Most slayers fight to 
resist the Dark Side of the Force.  But you, baby, you're just eatin' it up, 
taking big bites out of it, and makin' it your own.  I knew you had promise, 
Slayer, but you've just blown my expectations out of the water."  Buffy 
shuddered with horror as Spike talked, and he pulled her closer, hoping he could 
offer her some shelter and comfort in his cool embrace.

"Spike, you're fucking with my head," complained the Slayer.

"That's the only place that matters, luv," answered the vampire.

* * *  

Spike strolled leisurely through the cemetery, wondering if Buffy would turn up.  
Suddenly something came whizzing through the air behind him, and he was struck 
with a ferocious pain in his shoulder.  He staggered, then someone came up 
behind him and yanked the object out that had pierced him.  He knew it was Buffy 
from her scent.  She spun him around to face her and shook the stake 
threateningly.

"Ow!" he yelled.  "What the fuck did you go and do *that* for?"

Buffy's eyes were wild, and her hair looked as though she had been running her 
fingers through it continuously.   She was dressed in a short black dress, and 
he remembered her saying she was going to patrol the Bronze that night.  "This 
has to stop, Spike!" she announced with a catch in her voice.  "It *has* to."

Spike shrugged her hand off him, and leaned back against a tall monument, 
crossing his arms.  He kept his demeanor casual, ignoring the throbbing ache in 
his shoulder.  "What has to stop, pet?"

"THIS!" she insisted, stamping her foot.  "Us.  This!"

"Us?" said Spike with a sardonic half-smile.  "You mean we're an *us*?"

Buffy screamed in frustration.  She flung the stake away and pounced on Spike, 
pounding him with her fists, and taking a massive swing at his face, which 
resulted in an instant black eye.  "It's wrong! . . .   It's wrong!" she gasped 
between breaths.  "We *can't* fucking be an US!!!"

Spike let her pummel him for a while, then began to fight back.  He flung her 
across the cemetery, and she landed on her back, the wind knocked out of her.  
In a moment he was on her, pulling her to her feet.  She delivered an extended-
leg kick to his gut and then punched him in the same place driving him backward.  
Then he came forward, managed to briefly grab her wrists in one hand, and 
smacked her ass hard.  She whirled around in a frenzy of punches and kicks, 
which he returned with equal ferocity, involuntarily shifting into his vampire 
face.  Finally he had had enough, and grabbed Buffy's arms.  She wrested one 
free and fought to get away from him.  They tumbled to the ground, wrestling and 
clawing, but eventually Spike got the upper hand.  He yanked her hard to her 
feet, and pinioned her thin wrists behind her back with one hand.  With the 
other, he tipped up her chin and said soothingly, "Are you saying you don't want 
me, Slayer?"

Hot tears slipped from Buffy's eyes.  "God, yes, I want you, Spike.  I want you 
now!"

"*How* do you want me, luv?" he crooned, stroking her cheekbone and jawline with 
one long finger.

"Any fucking way," gulped Buffy.  "Just so long as it's hard."

"Well, I don't know," teased Spike.  "Little girls who go staking me in the 
shoulder shouldn't be rewarded."

Buffy turned around in his grasp and drove an elbow hard into his stomach.  
"Take me, Spike, right fucking NOW!"

"All right then," said Spike, his voice suddenly rich with menace and his face 
grim.  "Just don't say you didn't ask for it."  He pushed Buffy onto her knees 
in the mud and grass and began to unbuckle his belt and undo his jeans.  He 
freed his cock and said, in an icy voice, "Prove to me you want it, Slayer."  

Buffy obligingly licked her way along the underside of his cock, then took the 
tip in her mouth.  She tongued the slit, tasting the fluid already gathered 
there.  Slowly she sucked him, her lips pushing and pulling the foreskin over 
the head and back.  Spike groaned.  Soon he couldn't stand it any longer, and he 
grasped a handful of Buffy's golden hair, now matted with mud, in each hand, and 
used it to immobilize her head.  Then he drove his cock deep into her mouth.  As 
it nudged her throat, she felt her gag reflex rising, then consciously relaxed 
her muscles.  "Good girl!" gasped Spike, and began fucking her mouth in earnest.  
"No, it's not enough," he muttered to himself. 

He pulled out of her mouth and ordered, "Hands and knees, Slayer, now!"  Buffy 
got on her hands and knees and parted her legs, while Spike knelt behind her.  
He pushed her dress halfway up her back, then ripped her panties in half, 
exposing her tight and muscled ass.  Spike plunged several cold fingers inside 
Buffy's cunt, withdrawing them coated with fluid.  He smoothed it over his own 
cock, and then gathered more.  With this fluid on his fingertips, he anointed 
Buffy's puckered opening.  She yelped slightly, as he pushed one finger inside, 
but he continued spreading her and coating her with her own fluids.  Then the 
cold head of his cock was pressing against her anus, and he demanded, "Tell me 
if you want this, Slayer!"

"Yes, Spike," she said firmly.  She lowered herself onto her elbows in the mud, 
and raised her ass a bit higher.  

Spike pushed slowly but determinedly inside and remarked, "Be grateful, luv.  
Your ex-boyfriend used to dry-fuck me as a form of punishment."  

"You mean it can hurt *more*?" asked Buffy, as she felt herself burn and 
stretch, penetrated in a way no previous lover had ever ventured before.

"Like it, pet?" he asked.

"Yes, god yes!"  Spike pushed inside harder, and Buffy felt the narrow passage 
filled and aching with cold stiff cock.  For his own part, Spike relished the 
heat that surrounded his cool flesh.  He slid partly out slowly then back in.  
Buffy groaned each time that he sank all the way into her ass, but she urged, 
"Harder, damn it!"

"My pleasure," answered the vampire, and drove into her full force.  

"YESSSSSSSSS!" yelled Buffy, and Spike fucked her hard and fast, as the burn in 
her ass spread a shuddering weakness through all her limbs.  Spike literally 
fucked Buffy into the ground, as she spread her legs wider and wider.  Then he 
rocked back onto his knees with his arms wrapped around her waist, impaling her 
on his lap.  His fangs sliced keenly into her shoulder, and he drank.  Buffy was 
limp and panting in his arm, overwhelmed by the burning at her center, and the 
pull of her blood toward the bite.  But Spike stopped after only a few minutes, 
then licked gently at the wound.  A moment later he had shoved Buffy forward 
into the mud, and he was pounding into her again.  Buffy's fingers clawed at the 
grass as her moans filled the cemetery.  Spike began to groan as well, and with 
a hard thrust he came, his cold semen spurting into her ass.  Buffy began to 
climax as well, feeling her cunt contract and throb despite being empty.  She 
wailed her release, her muscles clamping down on Spike's cock and milking the 
last of his fluid out of it.

Spike slid out of her, sat back against a gravestone, and pulled Buffy onto his 
lap.  She buried her head in his neck, shuddering and weeping, and feeling 
sticky mud all over her and feeling sticky semen leaking from her asshole onto 
Spike's leg.  He didn't seem to mind.  Her tongue flicked out to lick at her dry 
lips, and Spike asked, "Thirsty, my pet?"  Buffy nodded and looked up at him, 
her eyes wide but with her face determined.  Spike bit a puncture wound into his 
own wrist and offered it to Buffy.  Tentatively, she poked out her tongue and 
tasted it.  She licked the blood welling out of the wound and then suddenly 
grabbed Spike's wrist, pushed it to her mouth, and began to suck voraciously.  
It burned, pumping down her throat in rhythm with the throbbing of her sore 
asshole.  Her veins tingled as the potent mixture of vampire and slayer blood 
surged through her body.  

After a time, Spike felt himself grow slightly sleepy and murmured, "Slow down, 
luv, that's enough for the likes of you."

Buffy reluctantly released his wrist and lapped at the healing wound, cleaning 
it carefully.  She looked up at Spike, and a powerful wave of emotion surged 
through his heart.  He thought that the Slayer, her limbs and dress spattered, 
and her hair matted with mud, and with blood seemingly brushed across her mouth, 
was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.  For the first time, he pressed 
his lips to hers, and his tongue searchingly roamed her mouth and twined around 
hers--wrestling or dancing, he wasn't sure.

* * *

Buffy was grateful that Joyce and Dawn were out of town for a weekend in a San 
Diego resort; she was able to shower and clean herself up without anyone 
noticing her condition.  She slept all day and woke up the next evening feeling 
numb and somewhat broken.  She wearily wandered outside and sat down on the back 
steps.  A few minutes later, Spike slipped out of the bushes and joined her, 
sitting a few inches away.  They never talked about their frenzied encounters 
afterward, and they both maintained a stoic, strained silence.

As they both stared ahead of them, Spike felt he had to say *something* and 
found himself asking hesitantly, "In the cemetery--last week--why did you call 
me a fucking idiot?"

Her voice flat and detached, Buffy said, "You got the chip out.  You're hunting 
now?"

"Yes, luv.  It's what I do.  It's how I exist."

In the same flat tone, Buffy said, "I'm the Slayer, Spike.  You're a vampire.  
Put two and two together, Fangboy.  One of these days one or the other or the 
both of us is going to come out of this dead."

"Perhaps," said Spike, striking a match on his shoe and lighting a cigarette.  
"Or perhaps not."  He blew smoke reflectively in front of him.  "All I know for 
sure, baby, is that this dance ain't over yet."

The End