Spike held her tenderly, gently kissing her temple as she cried and cried and cried. Eventually she became aware that he was whispering to her. “I’ve got you, love. It’s all right. It’s all okay, I’ve got you. It’s all over now. You’re here. You’re here, I’ve got you.” Over and over again, his tender words sliding into her being. Buffy wanted to melt, to stay there, to fall into him, to try and burrow her way inside him and never come out. His arms, his scent, his voice, all of them penetrated her, more than his cock had ever done.

    They were too deep inside her. Too deep. He’d already found too much. She’d given too much away. She started to tremble, terror ripping through her, and she suddenly pulled away. “I have to go,” she said.

    Spike looked shocked. “What?”

    “I have to go, I have to go!” she said. She pushed herself roughly out of his comforting arms and almost knocked him to the ground as she scrabbled for her clothes. She was almost tempted to run out without them, but... no. If anyone caught her, open and vulnerable like this. A vampire she could stake, but if Xander...? Or Dawn!

    “Dawn’s home alone,” she muttered. “I have to... I have to go. I have to go home.”

    “Buffy, don’t do this,” Spike said.

    “Shut up!” Buffy snapped. “You don’t get to say what I can and can’t do!”

    “Buffy!” He glared at her, and then wrestled off his remaining chains. “God, I hate that you do this. Why do you throw away happiness with both hands?”

    Buffy kicked him as he came toward her, and he grunted as he was pushed back.

    “Don’t go like this.”

    “No,” Buffy said. “I have to. I have to go. I have... to go.” She couldn’t find her damn shoes! She scrabbled under furniture, knocking over candles in her haste.

    Spike watched her for a long moment. “Not like this.”

    “Like what?” Buffy snarled. “I’m going.”

    “One more,” he begged.

    Buffy scoffed. “No. No, no, I’m going.”

    “One last game.”

    It tasted like fear, the offer. If her mouth hadn’t already tasted like blood, it would have then. She swallowed. “No more games, Spike. No.”

    “Just one more,” he said. It was a plea, she could hear it. “One more, Buffy. Don’t leave like this.”

    She was tempted. He was open and vulnerable and covered in bruises and red marks that she had inflicted. Her own blood graced his lips. A bite mark – god, how was she going to explain that? – was on her shoulder, almost on her throat, still oozing blood. He was inside her now. She was inside him. She should go, she should leave him, she should never have come here... “No, I’m leaving,” she said. She jammed her feet into her shoes and headed for the ladder, still attaching her skirt.

    “Buffy.”

    “Shut up.”

    “Buffy!”

    “No!”

    “Joan!” he called out.

    She stopped. She looked back at him. He had wiped the blood from his face, and he stood naked and vulnerable in the center of the room, one hand held out in invitation. There were no costumes. No weapons. No equipment. There was only him.

    Joan. What he was offering, what he was asking for... no history. No baggage. No demands. Just him, and... her.

    “Please don’t leave, Joan,” he whispered. “Not yet. Just one more.”

    She stared at him for a long moment, and history, and fear, and regret, all of it fell away with his offer. She found herself dropping the ladder, dropping her jacket, dropping everything, and suddenly his cool hand was in hers, and they stared at each other. “Are we safe?” he asked, and she knew he was already there. One more game, and it had started already.

    She thought about it one more time. Were they safe? “Yes,” she whispered. “I think we are.”
    

***
 

    “You got bit, can I help?” Randy asked, gently touching the wound.

    “How...?”

    “Come on.” He led her over to the side of his room to a recycled chest of drawers. He reached inside and pulled out – Joan chuckled – a bottle of peroxide. “Here.” He poured a little on a handkerchief and daubed it on her bite. It bubbled and stung, but it felt good, really.

    “You’re gonna stain my shirt.”

    “It’s peroxide, not bleach,” Randy said. “Here, though.” He unbuttoned her shirt, carefully not pointing out that it was haphazardly buttoned and lopsided, and then pushed it off her shoulders to get to the wound. She wore nothing beneath. He tended the bite gently. “You gonna be okay?”

    “You don’t look great yourself,” Joan pointed out.

    “It was a heck of a fight,” Randy said. “I guess that happens when you’re superheros.”

    She chuckled. “Wish I knew how we got that way.”

    “I don’t,” Randy said. “And neither do you, really. I mean... must have been epic, but... I kinda like what we have.”

    “Well, it’s clean,” Joan said quietly, meaning every word. “Uncomplicated.” She stopped his hand. “I think that’s clean, too.”

    “Is it?” he asked.

    She gently touched his face. “Yeah.” She gazed at him for a long moment, trying to read his blue eyes. “You’re the weird one. Fighting other vampires.”

    He shrugged. “I just want to be helpful.”

    “And you think you have a soul,” she said.

    He opened his mouth a moment and then turned away, unable to find any words for that. He went and sat down on the side of the bed. He leaned on his elbows and without hiding his face he still seemed to curl into himself. Joan was touched. She sat down beside him. “What does that mean to you, anyway?” she asked. “When you decided that? I always wondered.”

    “Always?”

    She shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, why not something else? Like, I’m not hungry right now, or I’m some animal-eating breed of vampire, or we have a business deal, or, I don’t know, government chip in your head. Why did you jump straight to I must be a vampire with a soul?”

    “You said it was lame,” Randy said.

    Joan shrugged. “You gotta admit, it is kinda lame,” she said, and they both chuckled.

    Randy shook his head. “I don’t know. It just seemed to make sense at the time.”

    “Well, why? I mean... isn’t the evil kinda intrinsic?”

    “I guess not. Or... or if it is, there were other things that were more important than that. I dunno, I mean, I just thought about why I’d be on your side instead of theirs, and that kinda... popped into my head. It really did seem logical then, though now I... I don’t know. But... I mean why would I love you if I didn’t...” he trailed off.

    Joan was actually a little surprised. “You loved me?” she asked. “I mean even... just after we woke up, there? Even then?”

    Randy smiled at her. “Yeah. I didn’t know sod all about myself, I didn’t even know I was a vampire at first, but loving you? Yeah. That I knew.”

    She doubted it. “First sight?”

    “No,” he said quickly. “Not first sight. Probably from just after you staked the vampire, but the way you just took charge, and there was something in how you were looking after... Umad.” They both chuckled again. “I dunno, touched me, I guess. I was gonna wait until things were calmer and then ask... if you felt the same way.”

    Joan looked down. She hoped he wouldn’t ask. Asking was so dangerous....

    “Did you at all?”

    “How can you ask me that, I knew nothing!” she said, somewhat annoyed.

    “That’s why I ask,” he said quietly. “I mean look at me. If you knew nothing about me, nothing about my history, what would you think? What did you think? I mean, you knew you and – and Umad were sisters.” She said nothing. “What did you feel about me?”

    “I don’t know,” she said quietly. She picked at her fingernails in nervousness. “I mean... I don’t know.”

    “You know something,” he pressed. He knew she had to feel something.

    “I trusted you,” she said finally. “I did. I trusted you. I... I felt really betrayed when I turned around and saw you all bumpy.”

    “Did it bother you after that?”

    “I don’t know.” She thought about it. “Not after you said you didn’t want to bite me.” She looked up at him then. “Do you really not want to bite me? At all?”

    He shrugged. “You don’t smell like food to me,” he said. “I know your scent too well. There’s too many other things than hunger tangled in it. You smell like....” he trailed off, and swallowed. “Can I hold you?” he asked, very casual.

    Joan closed her eyes, and then nodded. Randy’s pale arms went around her, pulling her warm body against him, and god, he did feel good. It felt right, entwined in him. Joan put her arms around him, and he hissed. “Ow!”

    “God, your back! I forgot...”

    “It was a heck of a fight,” Randy said easily. “I don’t mind. Come on back.”

    She put her arms around him more gently, and he buried his nose in her hair, then Randy was kissing her throat, and it felt good, so she let him. She didn’t just let him, she melted under him, moaning a little with the pleasure of it. She felt insanely tired. Like she’d been fighting for hours, battling she knew not what, but it was time to stop, now. Just time to stop, time to curl up in Randy’s arms and let him take care of it for a while.

    After a little while he looked up and gazed down into her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her expression was completely at peace. “You look half asleep,” he said. “Maybe we should–”

    “Don’t stop,” she whispered. She sounded like a little girl. “Please don’t stop.”

    Randy kissed her, his lips sliding over hers, cool and smooth and sensual. His tongue entered her mouth lightly, just the tip, teasing at her teeth, her tongue, the inside of her lip. “Did you like that?” he asked.

    “Yes.”

    Randy lay her down on the disheveled bed and ran his hands down her body, stripping her slowly and sensually before he slipped alongside her and set about kissing her in earnest, slowly, deliberately, firmly. Her heart began to beat faster, and she put her arms around him, sliding up and down the cords of his neck, along his collarbone, down across his arms, and back again. He caressed her, just firmly enough so that she could feel his strength without there being any pain. After a little bit he pulled back and gazed at her. She was heavy eyed, languid, beautiful. “You are marvelous,” he whispered to her. “Did you know that? You’re exquisite.”

    She smiled up at him. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

    He looked shy. “Really?”

    “Mm,” Joan said. “In bed with a hottie. I can’t complain.”

    Suddenly Randy looked like he might cry. He shook the emotion off with a breath and kissed her forehead. He reached up and caressed her breast, and the nipple hardened under his ministrations. Joan hummed with contentment. “What about the evil?” she suddenly whispered.

    “What do you mean?”

    She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. “Vampires are evil. Don’t you want to go... conquering the world and such?”

    He grinned, showing surprisingly keen teeth, even when they were human. “I’ve got enough to conquer right here,” he said. “And it can be more fun being conquered.”

    She grinned back. “You want me to conquer you?”

    “Too late.”

    “Mm...”

    She relaxed beneath his hand – which had somehow switched breasts – and Randy took the opportunity to kiss her again. And again. And again. He slid his body half over her, put his leg over hers, held her close against him. “Do you want this?” he whispered.

    “Yes.”

    Randy shifted so he was more over her, looking down upon her. “Do you want me?”

    “Yes.”

    It came so easily. He kissed her, and she opened beneath him like a flower, no resistance, no demand, just... they fit together, like matching puzzle pieces. He slid inside her, and she slid around him, and it was so exactly what he was thinking that he didn’t even notice at first when she said, “Welcome home.”

    When he realized he’d actually heard that, and not just felt it, he looked down upon Joan. He couldn’t think what to say. Maybe, he realized, not saying anything was more important now.

    For her own part, Joan wasn’t thinking at all about what to say. The vampire moved within her evenly, softly, and she looked up at him and just... let herself enjoy it. It was wonderful, so freeing to have nothing in her past to think about, no future to try and contemplate, no self to try and sort out. As Joan she just was, and here was this vampire who was trying to be good, and okay, maybe he wasn’t great at it, but he felt good against her, good atop her, good inside her, and god, he belonged to her, didn’t he. Completely and utterly belonged to her. That was a good feeling, to have someone who belonged to her.

    And man, but his cock filled her right. She could feel him sliding in and out, over and over again, and suddenly he slowed, pulled out, slid back in so slow, and then did it again and again, taking long, exquisite seconds between each thrust, letting her body close, and then opening her again. It sent the sensation of him right up through her spine, making her very heart open and close, and her breath grew shaky. God, he felt good.

    He smiled as he sensed she liked that, and did it more, slowing even further, slowly filling her completely before leaving her utterly empty, over and over again. Then he plunged into her, shockingly sudden, and she cried out. Once, twice, and then he pulled out again, just tickling at the edge. Her groin clenched in anticipation. Would it be fast or slow? Hard or gentle? Hard! Yes! Yes! Then he stopped, and went slow and full again, and she gasped and cried out and clutched at him.

    How long this went on, she couldn’t say. She was so tired, so flushed, they’d been at these pleasure games so long, and they’d gone so serious, and so strange, and so confusing, she found herself needing to be closer and closer to him, pulling him against her. His cool flesh felt like a soothing balm against her own skin, his weight felt like the comfort of a favorite blankie to a child, his scent was as welcoming as homebaked cookies, his cock between her legs was a gift, a treasure, a calling, and the movement, the life between, the sound of her heart, the feel of his breath, the taste of passion, weight of his love – “I love you.”

    The words rose from her, unbidden and unconsidered, and as she heard them she paused, trying to force herself to take them back, to be someone who cared, who wouldn’t believe it. If he had stopped, if he had looked at her, if he had made it real in that moment, she’d have taken it back, or added more – your cock, your body, something. But he gave no indication that he had heard, made no demands with his eyes or his face, and the words were left to float between them, and bounce back, and rise again. “I love you,” she said again, the words tasting like flowers in her mouth, fresh and sweet and not made to be swallowed. “I love you, I love you, I love you....” They fell from her, the words, she was made of them, they were freedom.

    He shifted his weight, gazing down upon her now, bearing down more on her clit, filling her, holding her, and she held him back, and suddenly the joy of it just filled her. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you.”

    “I love you,” he said back, and then he groaned, almost sobbing as if he’d had a festering thorn taken from his flesh. “Oh, god. God, I love you, I love you.”

    She returned the words, they became almost a mantra between them. “I love you. I love you. Love... love... oh, god, love....” The words and the thrusts and the warmth and the closeness, the slick sliding of him inside her, all grew, and swelled, and rose to a crescendo. More, more, “Yes, yes, love, love you, yes!” She cried out as the pleasure crested and crashed, and he groaned with release as he finally let himself go. “God, I love you!” he breathed into her ear.

    “I love you, too,” she finished, and then said what had to be said. “Randy.”
    

***
    

    The moment shattered, the dream died, the game ended. Just. Like. That.

    Spike pulled away and looked down at her. Her face was clear and cold and he knew Buffy wasn’t in there. If she had ever been.

    He pulled himself off her and stared. He couldn’t even glare. He couldn’t even be angry. He wished he could be. He wanted to be furious. He wanted to break her spine and rip her to pieces and spread her remains over half of Sunnydale. He wanted to make her into mincemeat. He wanted to sink his teeth in and drain every last drop of her traitorous, treacherous blood, suck her inside himself so that she had no doubt that every last inch of her belonged to him.

    And he wanted to cry.

    The two impulses tore him across, canceled each other out, and all he could do was sit there, staring.

    Buffy sat up and pulled her skirt from the foot of the bed, sliding it on with neither hurry nor reluctance. “Thanks,” she said cooly. “This was fun.”

    Spike stared at her in what he was afraid was shock as she reached down, found her shirt, retrieved the shoes he’d placed at the side of the bed. Sunday morning after a college tryst, he half wondered if she’d even remember his name in ten minutes. You have to know how cruel that was, he wanted to say. He wanted to berate her. But suddenly he was scared. Because she did know. She had to know. Which meant she’d done it on purpose.

    Unless she hadn’t.

    “Buffy...” he said.

    “Yeah?” She glanced over at him, casually hooking her silver cross back around her neck. There was no hurry here. Her shirt was buttoned and only a little disheveled. Okay, so her bra was ripped and lost, but you couldn’t tell with her perky breasts.

    There were a thousand things he wanted to say to her, starting with Don’t go and ending with I’m gonna kill you, you fucking bitch!

    When he said nothing she smiled – cold and friendly, and she leaned forward. She kissed him, a thank-you peck almost on the lips, and it was like being touched by an ice-cube. “We should do this again sometime,” she said, with all the merry perkiness of a valley-girl coquette.

    He couldn’t believe that after all of this, she was about to pretend none of it had ever happened. Was none of this real? How could it not have been real? She felt it, he knew she’d felt that love, he’d heard her say it! “Buffy, don’t.”

    “It was a game, Spike,” she said. “Just one last game, like you asked.” Her words weren’t as cold as they had been, but they were very firm. She stared at him, and he could read the plea in her eyes. Let it go, let it go, please, please, just let me go!

    He trembled. It wasn’t fair. But it had been what he’d asked for. This whole night had been what he’d asked for. Something other than the violence and the hatred they’d been wallowing in for months. It had been naughty, and seductive, and confusing, and friendly, and powerful. And loving. It wasn’t hate. It was exactly what he’d wanted.

    He wished he’d never asked.

    “Buffy....”

    “I gotta get home, William,” she said suddenly. “Thanks for the poetry lesson, it was neat.”

    A laugh escaped him, hysterically. Poetry? She was back to the sodding poetry?

    But she was. She was Buffy the promiscuous teenager, and Queen Fi the Sultana of all, and the emotionless robot, and the youth experimenting in secret, and the avenging archangel, she was all of these as much as she was anything else. She was the Slayer. She stood alone. He’d been trying to reach out, trying to connect to her, somehow, in some way, get through the walls she’d constructed. And... and he had. But he couldn’t hold her.

    “I tried,” he managed to say.

    “I know. But I’m not very good at this sort of thing.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry, William.” She reached out one warm hand and caressed his cheek, his throat, and god... her eyes hadn’t changed from what they’d been when she stared up at him as Joan, desperate, honest, so loving. Then she stepped away, turned her back, and walked off.

    “Another time?” he said as she approached the ladder.

    Buffy stopped, and looked at him. “Maybe.”

    At least it wasn’t never. But it wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough. “Buffy, what can I do?” he begged her.

    “I... I don’t know,” she said quietly.

    But she did know. She’d just as much as said it in his arms just now. She’d only love him as Randy, and Randy wasn’t Spike. Randy was the vampire... with a soul.

    Bollocks. There had to be something else.

    “At least this wasn’t boring,” Buffy said. He barely remembered he’d said he’d been getting bored with the way they’d been doing things.  

    “This isn’t a game, Buffy.”

    Buffy stared straight at him. “Yeah, it is.”

    She was too far away to hear when he managed to find the next words.

    “It doesn’t have to be.”