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Chapter 7: Convergence
 
Giles was slightly dismayed to find Anya already hard at work when he arrived at the Magic Box in the morning. He had been looking forward to a quiet cup of tea and the morning paper before having to deal with the others. “Morning, Giles!” chirped Anya.
 
“Good morning, Anya,” Giles replied. He put his newspaper down on the counter and surveyed the room. Anya had brought out additional stock and made up a few displays on side tables marked ‘Special Price!’ Apparently ‘special’ in this case meant ‘higher than normal’. Then he noticed that even more candles had been added to the candle display. “Anya, do you realize that not all of these candles are the same? Some are enchanted with love charms, but some are designed to ward off undesirable people. If someone were to light them both at once, they could find themselves repelling their intended.”
 
“Well, the sign just says ‘enchanted’. It doesn’t exactly specify what enchantment, so it’s not like we’re really lying.”
 
“Anya, I insist that you label these things properly and keep them separate. And why are these other candles marked down?”
 
“They had some sort of sticky stuff on them. Maybe something leaked in the basement. But since they’re a little gross, I thought we could get rid of them if we marked them down.”
 
“But if you don’t know what’s on them, how do you know it’s nothing dangerous?” Giles inquired. “What in heaven’s name has gotten into you lately?”
 
“Giles, we need to make more money around here. If we don’t, then how are we ever going to each have enough when we make the business a partnership?”
 
“A partnership?” Giles was flabbergasted. “Anya, when did I ever give you the impression that I was going to take you on as a business partner?”
 
“It’s inevitable. You need someone with good financial sense and drive. I supply that, you supply the magical knowledge and the wise old sage image, and…”
 
“This has gone far enough,” Giles snapped, bristling at being characterized as a ‘wise old sage’. “This is my store, and I will decide what gets sold. Now kindly separate those candles and label them. And no more selling those books of curses! I know you sold some yesterday, and we’ve been over this before. They are dangerous.”
 
Anya rolled her eyes. “Giles, the people I sold them to didn’t have a magical bone in them. I can sense these things.”
 
“Anya…” warned Giles.
 
“Fine. But when you go broke and can never retire, don’t come crying to me,” she said. Irritated, she started sorting out the candles on the counter while Giles went in the back to make his morning tea. As she worked, Anya noticed the headline in the local Sunnydale Times. “College students homeless after early morning fire” it read. Anya looked closely at the pictures. One picture showed the neighbors out watching the fire being extinguished. One of the neighbors was the little old lady she had sold the book of curses to the day before. Anya read the article more carefully. The neighbor, a Mrs. Neilson, was quoted as saying, “Those college kids were always making noise and partying all night. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they managed to start a fire. “ Anya felt a sudden chill. Was this truly a random coincidence? Or did that little old lady curse her noisy neighbors? Anya wasn’t entirely sure she wanted the answer to that.
 
******************
 
The bell above the door rang around 11:45, heralding the arrival of Xander and Buffy. Buffy went into the back to talk to Giles, leaving Xander and Anya to regard each other awkwardly. Finally, Anya broke the silence. “I’m sorry I wasn’t in the mood for sex this morning,” she blurted out.
 
“Look, let’s just forget it, ok?” said Xander. “I just want to hit the reset button and start over.” He came over and gave her a brief kiss, and she smiled up at him.
 
“Why don’t you help me restock the herb jars?” she asked. “I think there might be a couple extra herbs downstairs that we haven’t tried selling much yet. Maybe if we relabeled them they’d go faster.” Xander sighed inwardly, but followed her downstairs anyway.
 
Giles looked up from his tea as Buffy entered. “Good morning, Buffy,” he said, affection in his voice. “How was patrol last night?”
 
“Fine,” she answered. “Took out a big nest in one of the cemeteries, got a frat boy imposter on the campus, the usual.”
 
“And how are you feeling otherwise?” he ventured.
 
“I don’t know. I’m all tense and angry, and I really don’t know why. I just find everything really irritating today.” She found herself getting angry at having to explain her anger. Would you get a grip? she told herself. “Anyhow, more anger equals better Slayage, I guess.”
 
“Not necessarily,” replied Giles gravely. “If your emotions are blinding you, you may make mistakes.”
 
What, like fucking Spike out of spite? Her face colored slightly, and she got up to pace the office, trying to hide her agitation from Giles. “So what do I do about this anger management problem?”
 
“Have you considered trying some meditation exercises?” Giles asked, watching the pacing girl as if she were a caged beast. Her barely constrained emotions boiled under the surface, and Giles found himself slightly worried.
 
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try,” she sighed. Might take my mind off the vampire that I am sooo not thinking about right now. She left Giles’ office and went into the training room. She felt a little guilty when she saw the heavy bag still in the corner, awaiting replacement. “Maybe we should get Xander to take a look at that later,” she said.
 
“Good idea,” Giles agreed. He sat cross-legged on the mat and invited Buffy to join him. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes – meditation had never been her thing – she sat down facing him. “Now, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing.”
 
Buffy obeyed. She listened to Giles as his soothing voice guided her to slow her breathing, to focus on her heartbeat. She did her best to empty her mind, and to imagine a calming, endless blue sea like Giles told her. But despite all her efforts, she couldn’t maintain the image. The blue of a summer sea became the blue of Spike’s eyes, which led to her thinking about his smirk, his swagger, and his wicked, extremely talented tongue. The memory of having given herself to him caused the anger to flare anew. The calming blue sea in her mind became an endless, red, angry lake of fire. She stopped hearing Giles’ soothing words and heard only her own heart beating faster and faster, her breath quickening, all her senses screaming at her to fight. Finally she could take it no longer, and she jumped up yelling, “This isn’t working!”
 
Giles’ eyes flew open in alarm. “Buffy, it takes a few minutes. You need to give it some more time…”
 
“This is that same sanctimonious crap that Angel used to try to get me to do!” she yelled. “All this inner peace shit does nothing when you’ve got seven vampires at your throat!” She stalked over to the stuffed target dummy that they used for weapons practice and started pounding it with all her might. Giles watched as she reduced the dummy to a pile of wood and stuffing in about five minutes. She stood there, panting, fists clenched, surveying the wreckage with unfocused eyes.
 
After a moment, Giles dared to speak. “Buffy?” He rose to his feet, but did not approach her. Xander and Anya had come to the door when they heard the yelling, but also wisely remained silent, staring in shock at the destruction wrought by an infuriated Slayer.
 
Buffy closed her eyes and kept her fists clenched. “Could everyone please leave, right now,” she said, as calmly as she could.
 
The others backed rapidly out of the room, closing the door behind them. Buffy remained where she was, trying to get herself under control.She ran through her mental list of things that she was worried about. Mom’s health. Glory. Protecting Dawn. Riley leaving. This thing with Spike. She knew that any one of those things would be enough to upset most normal people. No one would deny she had a lot on her plate. But this rage? Why am I so furious? She gradually opened her eyes and unclenched her fists, noticing blood on her palms where her nails had dug in. Slowly she began gathering the pieces of the broken training dummy, trying to sort out her thoughts and completely failing.
 
In the other room, Anya, Xander, and Giles were conferring in hushed voices. “What is Buffy so upset about?” asked Anya. “If she keeps destroying equipment, I hope you’re going to make her pay for it. We can’t keep reducing our profits by replacing everything she trashes.”
 
“Anya!” scolded Xander. “If a friend is upset we help them, not charge them!”
 
Giles took off his glasses and pinched his nose. “She says nothing in particular is bothering her. Maybe it’s all just too much right now. I suggest we leave her in peace for a while.” This was easy advice to follow, as none of them were particularly at ease with the idea of confronting her in this state.
 
Their thoughts were interrupted by Willow’s entrance to the shop. Xander instantly picked up on her worried look. “What’s up Wils?”
 
“Tara’s sick,” Willow explained. “She ate some bad leftovers last night and got food poisoning.”
 
“Poor Tara,” said Anya sympathetically. “Is she going to be alright?”
 
“She’s in the campus health center. I’ve been there with her all morning. I tried a spell to help with the nausea, but it didn’t seem to help much. I think it just switched things to the other end, if you get my meaning. But it could just be the food poisoning.”
 
“And that was far more information than I needed, thanks,” said Xander.
 
Giles spoke up, saying, “Willow, do you really think it’s wise to try a spell on someone for the first time when they’re sick? You could have injured her.”
 
“Relax, Giles. It was just a simple anti-nausea spell. And she did stop throwing up, so what’s the problem?” Willow responded.
 
Giles was trying to come up with a good response, when there was a knock on the door. It was five minutes after the store was due to open, and the first customer was there already. Anya hurried over to let them in while the others moved over to the work table to discuss things. “Giles, I’m sorry if I upset you,” Willow began. “I’m not trying to make you mad. I just think I can do much more than you think I can.”
 
Giles took a deep breath. “Look, let’s just try to keep ourselves focused on our current problems. We’re no closing to finding Glory, or determining how we can defeat her than we were before. I am going to consult the Council about this, but I still think there is more we can do. If we could just find a way to… repel her, or otherwise ward her off, at least until we get more information, then we would all rest a little easier.” And if you are focused on Glory I don’t need to worry about you turning Tara into a toad by accident.
 
Buffy came out of the training room at that moment. “Hey guys,” she said shyly. “Sorry for the bad moodiness earlier. Xander, do you think you could take a look at the heavy bag for me? I think we might be able to re-hang it if we can find another spot in the ceiling.”
 
“No problem. Man with tools to the rescue.” Finally, something I can do that they can’t. Better than nothing, I guess.
 
Xander and Willow followed Buffy into the training room. Xander got up on a chair and started peering at the ceiling, while Willow took a look at the sad remains of the training dummy. Concentrating on the dummy, she began chanting under her breath. Buffy’s eyes widened as the pieces started flying through the air and reassembling themselves on the stand. “Woah. Now that was pretty interesting!” Buffy commented.
 
“What was?” asked Xander, turning to look. As he did, the chair rocked and he fell to the ground. Nice job, asshole. You can’t even look at something without hurting yourself. No wonder Buffy doesn’t want you around. To Willow he muttered, “Nice repair job, Wils.”
 
Willow was ecstatic at the success of the spell. “Watch this!” she said excitedly. She muttered the incantation again, causing the heavy bag to fly off the couch, repair itself, and reattach itself to the ceiling once more. Unfortunately, it managed to clip Xander in the head just as he was getting up, knocking him to the ground once more.
 
“Ow!” he grumbled. “That’s just great. So glad you could help. Couldn’t leave at least one thing that I can do around here, could you? Why don’t you just conjure some donuts? Then I’ll truly have no point to my life.”
 
Buffy and Willow looked at each other, perplexed. Then Willow turned to Xander and said, “Donuts? You lost me there.”
 
“Never mind. I’ll just go collect dust in the corner somewhere. I’d probably be good at that.” With that he stomped out of the training room and sat down, sulking, at the research table.
 
Willow and Buffy shrugged at each other. Willow was flying on a magical high. “I’m going to go look up some more healing spells. I need to get my sweetie back on her feet.”
 
Buffy decided it would probably be better if she spent a little more time away from the others, given her continuing foul mood. “Tell Giles I’ll be in here working out, ok?” she said.
 
“Ok, but just spare the furniture! Those fix it spells wear me out!” Willow chirped as she made her way out. Buffy got out every sharp, pointy weapon she could find. Maybe some target practice would do me good.
 
Anya was bustling about tending to customers while Xander sat flipping though the newspaper. Anya had managed to sell a number of her ‘specially priced’ items. At one point a regular customer had complained about the suddenly higher prices, but Anya had managed to smooth it over without Giles overhearing. She threw in a few of the magical candles gratis with the purchase, spinning some tale about suppliers raising their prices and so on. I just hope those were the love candles I gave her. I probably should pay more attention. But any momentary hesitation was blown away by the ever growing total on her receipts. She had to restrain herself from doing the money dance with customers watching.
 
Xander finished the paper and threw it down on the table, pondering what to do next. At that moment, the cellar door opened and Spike swaggered in. And now, my joy is complete, Xander thought bitterly. “What do you want, fangboy?” Xander snarled.
 
Spike took off his duster and threw it over the back of a chair. “Wanted to consult with the Slayer,” he said.
 
Screw him, and his muscles, Xander grumbled to himself. He also realized that the vampire’s jeans were incredibly tight, and from the look of it, he must be hung like a horse. Figures. Some guys have all the luck. “Buffy’s in the training room,” Xander muttered. He thought about warning Spike about Buffy’s temper today, but decided to err on the side of hoping she would dust the annoying undead.
 
Spike smirked at Xander’s staring. “Checking me out, Harris?” he leered. “Sorry, mate, not my type.” Although if this mood keeps up I may get desperate enough to find even a wanker like you attractive.
 
“Fuck you!” Xander growled, standing up. He walked over and shoved Spike back angrily. “Why the hell do you still exist? Buffy should have killed you years ago!” Then I might have had half a chance with her.
 
“Xander!” hissed Anya. “You’re scaring away the customers!” It was true that Xander’s death threats were being met with wide eyes and astonished looks.
 
“Money, money, money!” yelled Xander. “That’s all you care about lately! If I’m not rich enough for you then why don’t you just leave!”
 
“What’s all the shouting about?” asked Giles.
 
“Nothing,” Xander spat out. “I’m worthless, no one listens to me, and I’m apparently not good enough at bringing home the bacon for Anya. My only purpose around here is to be the butt of everyone’s jokes and the gofer. I’m done with this crap.” With that, he stormed out of the door, slamming it with a bang.
 
Willow was alarmed. Xander was usually the last of them to have any sort of major meltdown. “Anya? Shouldn’t you go after him?”
 
Anya hesitated. Then she said, “He was in a bad mood last night too. He was going on and on about how everyone has better everything than him. I’ve got customers to serve. I’ll talk to him when he’s done with his little pity party.” Besides, if I leave Giles will probably mark everything back down and our profits will be shot.
 
Giles was quietly worried. He thought it was just the girls who were acting a little off, but now Xander was joining in. “Willow?” he asked, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “You haven’t cast any spells that could affect someone’s mood, have you?”
 
“What? No!” said Willow. “I’ve been researching, and fixing things, but I haven’t cast any spells on anyone except Tara.” Ok, and a squirrel, but that doesn’t count.
 
“No need to be defensive,” Giles said. “It just seems that everyone is unusually on edge the last day or two.”
 
“I’m not on edge,” said Anya. “I’m enjoying myself thoroughly!” She turned to go persuade more customers to check out the new herb selection.
 
“I think you’re the one who’s been on edge, Giles,” said Willow. “You’ve been twitchy about my magic the last couple days, and I’m really not sure why.”
 
Spike had been listening to all this with amusement. Just like Red to completely ignore any consequences, he thought. Still, he wondered if Giles had a point. I’ve never in all my days been as horny as I have been these last couple days. Bloody unnatural. He sat down at the research table and tried to surreptitiously adjust himself so that his never ending hard-on was more comfortable. Then again, it could just be that this place reeks of Slayer. Enough to get any vamp hard.
 
The door opened again to admit Dawn, who dropped her backpack on the table as if it weighed a ton. She had gone to the library with the best of intentions. She had sat down, pulled out her books, and promptly fell asleep on the desk. She was roused an hour later by the librarian, who reminded her that the library closed at one o’clock on Sundays. She hadn’t gotten around to finding the book she wanted, and no amount of pleading could persuade the librarian to give her two minutes to look for it.
 
“Hey Dawn,” said Willow. “How goes the homework?”
 
Dawn shrugged. “OK, I guess. Hey, Spike,” she said, noticing the vampire.
 
“’Lo, Nibblet,” Spike replied. Dawn was leaning on the table in a way that her slight but noticeable cleavage was right in his line of sight. He found himself struggling to keep from imagining Dawn naked. Been decades since I’ve been with a virgin… He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his own leg as hard as he could under the table, trying to kill this line of thought before it started breeding. This is Dawn we’re talking about here! You know you’d stake yourself before you ever touched her. That is, after the Slayer staked you fifteen times over.
 
Dawn hadn’t noticed Spike’s discomfort, having been rummaging through her backpack for her notebook. She had suddenly gotten an idea. “Spike, were you in Europe during World War I?”
 
“Yeah,” Spike answered. He was torn. He desperately wanted to go find Buffy, but he was so painfully and embarrassingly hard that his inner William shied from getting to his feet in front of Dawn. Best help her with her history lesson for a moment rather than giving her an eyeful.
 
“What was it like in the trenches and all that?” Dawn asked, pencil at the ready. What better way to find this information than to interview someone who was there? I can just write what he says, no strain on my brain at all!
 
“Bloody smorgasbord it was,” Spike remembered. “Mud, blood, shit all over the place. Lots of underground places for a vamp to hide during the day. So many dead bodies everywhere from the mustard gas and the shells and whatnot that a few extra corpses made no difference. Most of the soldiers were barely out of their teens. Scared shitless most of them – you could smell the fear everywhere.” Oh yeah, good times. The memory of all that blood and carnage was almost as arousing as a woman.Keep talking about this and my dick is going to explode in a very large and bloody mess.
 
Dawn took notes, but realized that she couldn’t really directly transcribe what Spike was talking about. She somehow didn’t think her history teacher wanted to hear about the soldiers as dinner. “Ok, but what was it like for the soldiers?” she persisted.
 
“Damn if I know,” said Spike. “Wasn’t one of them really. Just hanging around for the easy meals and general violence. After a week or two I got bored and met Dru in Paris where she had been hanging out and we continued wandering Europe. Thought it was going to be an amusing fight, but it was like shooting fish in a barrel. No challenge in it at all. Just a bunch of bloody fools pounding each other for months over the same mile of ground.”
 
Crap, he’s no help, Dawn thought. He hasn’t given me enough to fill half a page. “Thanks,” she muttered. She flipped open one of the other history books she had and started turning pages unenthusiastically.
 
“Are you feeling ok?” Willow asked. “You seem really draggy today.”
 
“Just not in the mood for World War I today,” Dawn muttered. She yawned, propped her head on her hands and kept flipping through the book.
 
Spike took this opportunity to get up, moving quickly and grabbing his duster to hold it nonchalantly in front of his bulging jeans. “Buffy’s in the back room, is she?” he asked.
 
“Yeah,” Willow answered. “Be warned, she’s all bad-moody today.”
 
Maybe I can change that, he thought. He stepped to the door and opened it slowly. “Slayer? I was wondering…”
 
“I said I needed to be alone!” she shouted, whipping a throwing star in his direction. Only his vampire speed allowed him to avoid getting it in the skull. His eyes widened and his erection wilted at the sight of the weapon embedded in the door, inches from his head. Buffy covered her mouth in shock. “Oh my God!” she gasped. “I could have hurt someone! I didn’t mean to throw it!”
 
“Can I come in then?” Spike asked, holding up his hands. “Just me, yeah?” He closed the door behind him, noticing that Giles had stuck his head out of his office, alarmed at the shouting.
 
Buffy was shaking slightly. If that had been one of the others I could have killed them! She sat down on the couch, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering at the thought.
 
God, I could shag her right here. Spike nearly closed his eyes to bask in the intoxicating scent of the Slayer.  He approached her slowly and tentatively. “You alright now?” he inquired.
 
“Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong today,” she muttered. “What did you want?”
 
To fuck you eight ways to Sunday, actually. Somehow, Spike didn’t think that response was going to fly. But he needed some pretense to get her away from here. Thinking quickly, he said, “I was thinking of going down to Willie’s and poking around to see if any of Glory’s minions had been spotted anywhere. She might be hiding out, but she’d have to send someone out to get stuff for her.”
 
Buffy looked up. “That’s actually a really good idea. And I need to get out of here before I break something else.” Or kill someone by accident.
 
They went back out into the other room. “Spike and I are going to go ask around Willie’s to see if anyone has seen any of Glory’s minions around. Dawn, can you call Mom at the gallery and see if she’ll pick you up?”
 
Dawn had been half dozing, but she sat up at the sound of her name and said, “Yes, call mom. Got it.”
 
“Don’t strain yourself,” Buffy muttered.
 
“I never thought about looking for the minions!” said Willow. “I’m going to have to try a locator spell on them!”
 
“I’ll work with you on that,” said Giles, wanting to keep tabs on the overconfident Witch. “How will you be getting to Willie’s?”
 
“Tunnels, if the Slayer’s willing,” said Spike. Buffy assented and they went down to the basement, slipping through the trapdoor into the tunnel system.
 
******************************
 
As they walked through the tunnels toward the demon bar, Spike found he could barely move, he was so swollen with need. He tried to concentrate on something else as they walked, splashing through puddles with their footsteps echoing around them. Finally he could bear it no longer and stopped. “Slayer.”
 
“What is it, Spike?” she asked, stopping to face him.
 
“I… it’s just that…” Oh bollocks. Without thinking he grabbed her shoulders and, as before, pulled her into a searing kiss.
 
“Mmm hmmm mmm!” Buffy started to protest. But then one of Spike’s hands found her breast and expertly tweaked her nipple, sending a shock like electricity straight to her sex. Damn him! she thought, but found her hands snaking around the back of his head to tangle in his white curls.
 
Spike ground his painfully hard crotch into hers, his free hand moving down to grab her luscious ass. She is going to kill me for this. He groaned as her tongue clashed with his. Fuck it. I’ll dust a happy man.
 
He expertly slid his hand down to unfasten her jeans. Buffy gasped and moaned as his fingers found her clit; rubbing, twisting and pinching until she could hardly stand. She fumbled with his belt and zipper and he groaned loud enough to echo in the tunnel as she wrapped her hot hand around his solid erection. He shoved at her jeans and she squirmed out of them without missing a stroke. He reached down and grabbed her ass again, hauling her up to wrap her legs around his waist. She clutched at his hair and threw her head back as he guided himself into her. She cried out incoherently as his enormous cock filled her. She started to ride him, using her supernatural strength to grip him, inside and out.
 
He spun and shoved her against the wall of the tunnel, pounding her as hard as he could. Buffy reached up to grab a pipe running overhead to steady herself as she panted and cried out again and again. Oh God he’s so big feels so good gonna come oh God… As the orgasm ripped through her she pulled hard enough to break the pipe, causing a cascade of water to pour down on them. Spike never stopped.  The sight of her now wet t-shirt clinging to her breasts and accentuating her nipples drove him over the edge. “Holy fuck!” he yelled as he came, mashing his lips into hers and jerking over and over.
 
Incredibly, he realized he was still hard, still locked deliciously inside her. She arched off the wall, causing him to fall backward to land flat on his back in a puddle. Buffy kept riding him, and he reached down to rub circles around her clit while she ground herself into him. When her heartbeat and breathing began to quicken once more he suddenly sat up, vamped, and sank his fangs into her breast. “Spike, God, Spike!” she screamed, and once more her mind was blotted out by the lighting storm of the climax. Spike took three long sips then threw his head back and roared as he thrust into her one final time, coming so hard he felt he would turn inside out. Finally he fell back onto the floor of the tunnel, his human face returning as he panted and gasped. Buffy collapsed onto his chest in a near faint, struggling to get control of her breathing.
 
They lay insensible for several minutes before Buffy slowly hauled herself upright. Both of them groaned as she moved and his cock pulled out of her. Buffy was completely drenched, naked from the waist down, her blond hair plastered to her head like she had been in a rainstorm. Spike was still almost completely dressed, but he was soaked and muddy from being on the ground, with his finally softened cock hanging out of his open jeans. Buffy straddled his legs, still breathing hard, and regarded him with her perplexed green eyes.
 
“You alright, love?” he asked quietly. I may never walk again. But given that you’re probably going to stake me about now, I guess that’s not a big problem.
 
His voice broke her state of shock and she rapidly scrambled to her feet. “Damn you!” she cried as she snatched her soaking wet jeans off the floor and pulled them on. “We’re not supposed to be doing this! What the fuck is going on?”
 
Spike got to his feet and reassembled his jeans. “Fuck if I know! Bloody expected you to slay me after the first time.” He mentally slapped himself. Would you shut the fuck up, William?
 
“I should have!” Buffy snapped, trying to do something with her hair and failing.
 
“So why didn’t you?” Spike retorted, staring her down.
 
“Because it was fucking incredible, you asshole!” she screamed. “You totally blew every other sexual experience I’ve ever had clear out of the water, and it pisses me off!”
 
Spike boggled at her. “What the hell are you on about, Slayer?”
 
“I couldn’t have that sort of experience with a nice normal guy. Noooo. The nice normal guys are either cheating little bastards or Army circus freaks. If I want to get laid, I have to screw my mortal enemy!”
 
“You think it’s easy being a vampire in my position?” he yelled back. “Most of the vamps and demons in town either won’t speak to me or are actively trying to kill me because I’ve gone over to your side. I’m supposed to be killing slayers, not lusting after them to the point that I can barely fucking sleep!”
 
They stared at each other, both of their eyes blazing with emotion. Buffy had no idea how to react. She couldn’t slay him. Not after this. But she couldn’t face the others with him leering after her either. In the end, she fell back on what had worked in the past. She punched him in the nose and took off back to the Magic Box.
 
TBC