A/N: Thanks to slaymesoftly for betaing! The title comes from a Flogging Molly song. I wanted to use this lyric from another FM song, but it's a little too long:

"With the sun that lights the day
Brings the darkness and the prize
Of another great shame"

*****

Spike stalked through the UC Sunnydale campus, resigned to being a creature of the darkness once again. He was starting to wish he’d taken a little more time to enjoy the day before going after the Slayer. He always had to be so impulsive. Find the gem, run after the Slayer, like a little kid on Christmas morning who can’t wait to try out his new toy.

Then he mentally kicked himself for being such a poofter. What did he care about daylight and sunshine? He was evil, and evil belonged to the night.

Besides, if everything had gone according to plan, he would’ve had eternity to spend in the sunlight, basking in the glow of his most satisfying kill. Instead, he was skulking in the shadows, fighting the voice in his head that told him he was a failure. The voice he thought was gone for good, silenced the night he killed his first Slayer. But now the voice was back, only this time it sounded an awful lot like Drusilla. Why can’t you kill her? I can still see her floating, all around you. Laughing! Why can’t you push her away? Maybe the crazy bird had a point.

Through the trees, he saw Harmony up ahead and quickly changed directions to avoid her before she noticed him. If he had to hear another bloody word come out of that stupid bint’s mouth, he really thought he might rip her head right off her body. First thing she’d say was how the Slayer had beaten him again. As if he needed a reminder. His skin still stung from when Buffy had taken the gem from him.

Naturally, with his piss-poor luck, his change of course brought him directly into the path of the only person he wanted to avoid more than Harmony.

“Slayer.”

“Spike?” Buffy rolled her eyes, and they glistened in the moonlight as if she’d been crying. “God, I am so not in the mood for this.” She slid her hand in her pocket and fingered her stake, but she didn’t make a move to attack him. She knew she couldn’t beat him without a fight, and she just didn’t have the energy for that, even without him wearing the gem of Amara. All she wanted was to be alone and depressed. Was that so much to ask?

“Relax,” Spike replied, as if reading her mind. “I’m not here to fight you.” There was bitterness in his voice, and he wondered if Buffy could sense his dejection.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why not? What’s wrong with you?”

Spike sighed. “Just out for a walk, you know?” He wasn’t really in the mood for this either. She was the last person he wanted to see. Nevertheless, here she was, ruining his moping and self-pity. He stared at her, daring her to make a move. She didn’t, and he felt an uneasy, unspoken truce form between them.

Recognizing that he really wasn’t going to attack her, Buffy couldn’t resist mocking him. “What’s the matter, Spike? Did you have a fight with Harmony?” She stuck out her lower lip in a taunting pout. He deserved it after the things he’d said to her about Parker and Angel.

“No,” he snapped, scowling at her. “Well, yeah, but that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t mean anything to me. Harm’s just… something to pass the time. I don’t really care about her.”

His banter had dropped off into a serious conversation, and Buffy was starting to get weirded out. “Well, that’s great. Can I go now?”

“I care about you,” Spike continued, as if he hadn’t even heard her.

Buffy froze, her eyes wide. “What?” If Spike confessed that he had feelings for her, she thought she might just stake him on the spot. As if she didn’t have enough relationship problems already.

Spike sighed and shook his head, his hands balled up into tight fists at his sides. “Don’t you get it, Slayer?” He ground out the words through gritted teeth. “I can’t kill you.”

Buffy backed up slightly as she saw the rage written all over his face. “Why not?” What did he mean, he couldn’t kill her? He wasn’t able to? Or he didn’t want to? He certainly looked like he could kill her right now.

“Hell if I know. Not like I haven’t been trying. But I had the bloody gem of Amara, I was fucking invincible, and you still almost had me extra crispy.”

“Sorry,” Buffy apologized instinctively. Then the reality of the situation hit her. “No, wait, not sorry. Why am I apologizing for not being dead?”

“Little sympathy wouldn’t kill you,” Spike muttered as he started to walk away.

Buffy pondered that one for a minute, then hurried to catch up with him. “Spike, have you been drinking?”

He shrugged. “Little bit. What’s it to you?”

Buffy couldn’t remember Spike ever being quite this pathetic. Strike that – she could. Last year, when Dru broke up with him. “Seriously, Spike, go find Harmony and get yourself laid or something. Snap out of it.” She couldn’t identify exactly what about this conversation was unnerving to her, but she knew without a doubt that she preferred Spike when he was evil. It made things easier for her.

“Harm.” Spike snorted. “I used to be a great vampire, you know? The scourge of Europe, me and Dru. Now what am I? Slayer’s punching bag and Malibu Barbie’s bloody Ken doll.”

Buffy just rolled her eyes again as Spike sank deeper into his self-pity. “This isn’t happening…”

“Hey, I'm just trying to be honest here. I'm trying to talk about my feelings.”

The idea of a vampire talking to her about his feelings, especially this vampire, was just too much for Buffy. “You’re right,” she said sarcastically. “I can't imagine why I'm not more sympathetic. Maybe because you tried to kill me earlier today?”

Without warning, Spike grabbed Buffy and threw her up against a tree, vamping out as he did it. “I need you, Slayer,” he growled in her ear. “I need this to feel alive.” Before Buffy even had a chance to respond, he let go of her and morphed back into his human guise. “The hunt, the kill. Makes me who I am.” He fixed his eyes on her. “You of all people should understand.”

For some reason, that made her uncomfortable, enough to stop her from hitting him back, as though afraid to prove his point. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t like killing vampires. I do it because I have to.”

Spike scoffed. “Right. Duty, and all that rot.” He gave her that knowing look again, the one that felt like he was looking right through her. “You love it, and don’t try to pretend you don’t.”

“Well, if you’re offering yourself up, I wouldn’t say no,” she retorted, drawing the stake out of her pocket and holding it ready. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve staked you today.”

“Pity that didn’t take.”

“Well, you don’t have your magic ring anymore, so I’m thinking this time, you’re dust.”

“Yeah,” he muttered bitterly. “Bet you’ve already smashed it to bits like a good little white hat.”

“Actually –” Buffy started, but she quickly clammed up as though she’d almost let something slip. “Yeah. I did.”

Spike nodded as though he believed her, but his thoughts were churning. If she hadn’t destroyed it, what was she waiting for? Unless… maybe she didn’t plan to destroy it at all. He could think of one vampire she might want to make invincible.

“Guess we’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way, then,” he said.

“Yeah, like drunk depresso Spike is really gonna be a challenge.”

“Oh, bugger that,” Spike said, waving a dismissive hand in Buffy’s direction. “Brooding is too much work. Honestly, I don’t know how Angel does it.” As he stalked away from the confused Slayer, a grin slowly spread across his face. Under his breath, he murmured, “Maybe I’ll pay him a visit and find out.”

Suddenly, his night wasn’t looking so bad after all.