A/N: I have been told to cut this short and so I will. Beta'd by amyxaphania.

***

They’d moved to another town since then. After all, with the diets of three vamps, the longer they stayed in one place the more unwanted attention they tended to attract.

It had been nearly two months and Buffy was still with them—still driving him insane with her constant chatter. Spike was starting to think that Dru only kept her around to annoy him. At least lately she had stopped asking to hunt with him and following him when he said no. It offered him the only break he had from both her and Drusilla and fuck, sometimes he just wanted time to be on his own.

So why was he hurrying through, looking for easy victims? Usually he wasn’t such a ponce, grabbing weak stragglers from the sides of the street. If there wasn’t a fight in it what was the point anyway? Still he found himself skulking around the red light district sizing up potential meals out of the women that couldn’t put up that much resistance and who no one would miss.

There was one petite, blonde that caught his eye. He wasn’t too sure why she appealed to him. There wasn’t anything too exemplary about her—or at least nothing he could see in this dim light, but she was already talking to a customer, leading the piss-drunk gent back into the dark of an alleyway to complete their little transaction.

Spike crossed the street to follow after them. He could drain the john first, get rid of him, then have his wicked way with the hooker—who’d probably be scared shitless—before drinking from her as well.

The alley smelled rank, like mildew and rotting garbage, and, even with his superior eyesight, Spike couldn’t make out much. Instead he relied on his hearing to guide him over to the couple: she was faking some sexy mewls and her customer letting out low grunts with each methodical thrust into her body.

He walked towards them carefully, trying not to make a sound. He wanted to see that look of shock and unadulterated fear on the girl’s face when he ripped out the man’s throat while he was still inside her. Spike was the one to be surprised though, as the cloud cover in the sky shifted slightly to reveal the moon.

Reflected light streamed through the darkness just enough for him to make out the girl’s face: Buffy. She must have already noticed him because when her eyes locked with his they were without any hint of shock. The man was still fucking her, dirty up against the wall, and Spike felt an irrational possessiveness flicker within him. His eyes changed to gold and he felt his face shift in a bout of anger, but Buffy just smirked at him. Wait, did she just wink?

He wasn’t sure what he would have done next if Buffy hadn’t acted first, switching into her vamp guise and sliding her fangs into the bloke’s neck with ease. The prick didn’t even seem to notice – just cried out while spilling inside her and after a few gulps stilled. When she’d had her fill, Buffy shoved his body off hers, so he landed with a soft thud on a trash pile. She gave a quick glance to her victim before facing Spike.

“What?” Her features had already changed back to human, making her look more like the hunted than the hunter.

“What the hell were you doing?”

“Well.” She paused to wipe some stray blood from the corner of her mouth, then gave the finger a long, hard suck. “I was doing my dinner till you showed up.” Her annoyed tone only served to piss him off even more.

“But is that really necessary?”

She tilted her head at him. “Are you giving me a lecture in ethics, Spike? Because I wonder what you would’ve done if it wasn’t me back here, if it just some other whore. Would you have made her watch as you killed him, then, just when she was too terrified to speak, rape her to tears?”

“That’s—that’s not the point!”

“Then what is?” She was screaming at him now, eyes tinged gold in her fury.

“It’s—oh, bugger this.” He turned and made to leave, his appetite gone, but Buffy grabbed his arm to stop him and then the last bit of restraint he had broke and he turned, pushing her hard against the wall hard.

“You’re right.” His hand ran down her side, taking in her shape, stopping on her thigh. “I would have ripped the bloke’s throat out, made her right terrified. Then,” He roughly hooked her leg around his waist. “Pressed her up against this very wall and fucked her till she went limp.” His hand slid the thin fabric of Buffy’s dress up, baring her unclothed pussy to the night air. “And just when she thought she couldn’t feel any more pain, I’d sink my teeth on in and devour.” He licked his lips and his voice dropped to a low whisper. “Every. Last. Drop.”

Buffy sucked in an unnecessary breath beneath him, but made no move to free herself from his grasp.

“So, since you ruined my evening plans,” Spike continued, “you’ll have to make it up to me.” His mouth attacked hers with no attempts at tenderness and soon she was responding, her own lips battling for control. He could taste the blood on her lips, some from her victim and some of her own drawn from his bruising kiss. He didn’t know when he got hard, probably had been since he first saw her from across the street, but now his desire was so great it hurt. His pants were shed out of necessity not intimacy and then he was inside her. Time seemed to slow for Spike. What had started out as an act of pure lust and want had become something even more intense. He looked into her eyes, a little frightened at the feelings that were overcoming him in their coupling and saw it mirrored in her own gaze.

They moved together, slowly gaining speed, and, as they came over the edge together, their gazes never wavered from each others. Spike didn’t move afterwards. Neither did she. They just continued to stare at each other with expressions of disbelief and awe.

A quiet scuffling noise from behind them broke the spell. Spike pulled out and fumbled to pull his trousers back up. Buffy hurriedly smoothed her dress and swore under her breath when she saw the cause of the noise.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she told him and broke into a light run. Spike followed, still a little bewildered over what had just transpired between them.

He caught up with her a few streets over from the warehouse they were currently inhabiting—for a small bird she sure could run.

“Buffy, what was that?”

She didn’t say a word, giving him a helpless look, and he realized she’d misunderstood him.

“I meant, why’d we have to run, pet?” He clarified. The question she thought he’d asked was something he didn’t expect her to have an answer to and if she did, he wouldn’t want to know it.

“Oh, um, he was waking up.” She replied, as if that made sense.

“Who was waking up?”

“The guy you saw me with. Usually they stay unconscious longer than that, but...” She shrugged it off. “Anyways, I didn’t want him to see the both of us together. I mean, he blacks out after going into a dark alley with a hooker? Sure, he’d had a bit to drink anyway. He should just be happy he’s still got his wallet. But, he wakes up and that same hooker is there covered in his blood with someone else also covered in blood and, well, angry mobs at our door are kind of a solid bet.”

Spike stared at her.

“What?” she demanded. “I know you like a good brawl, but I personally don’t want to have to deal with the torch and pitchfork crowd.”

“You ... left him alive?”

She hesitated. “I— I told you I don’t want to bring about the suspicious townspeople, so I didn’t kill him.”

Buffy avoided his eyes as he studied her face. She was lying. “Why aren’t you-?”

“I don’t know, okay?” she shouted, cutting him off. “I’m supposed to kill, right? Take pleasure in their pain and so on, but I don’t. I just don’t want to. It makes...” She squeezed her eyes shut. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

Right? That was hardly a concern of most vamps, Spike knew ... and, yet, he understood a little. There were times when he didn’t want to go through with the kill, especially when he had known the victim. He had gotten over it for the most part, seeing as most of the acquaintances of his youth were long dead. So when she asked him not to tell Drusilla it was no surprise he agreed.

***