“You need to call him.”
 
“I am not calling him!” Buffy wisely refrained from stomping her foot. It would’ve made her fall over.
 
Dawn sighed and rolled her eyes. “You still need crutches, Buffy. I can’t carry anything. The bus is no longer an option.”
 
“Lolly could come get us.”
 
“Lolly doesn’t have a license, remember?”
 
“Oh. Yeah.” She’d forgotten about Lolly’s long-ago drinking problem and continuing non-license-having. Buffy had been so sure her ankle would be healed by now. Yeah, it’d been a bad break, but hello … Slayer! She’d never had an injury not heal in a week before.
 
Sighing, Buffy gave in and dialled.
 
“Spike?”
 
“Slayer.”
 
“I need your help.”
 
“World endin’ tomorrow?”
 
“No.”
 
“‘S funny. ‘Cause last time we spoke, you swore you wouldn’t say another word ‘less it was, and then the words’d be ‘piss off and die, asshole.’”
 
Buffy closed her eyes and sighed. “Are you gonna help me or not?”
 
Now Spike sighed, hating himself for how easily he was giving in. “What d’you need?”
 
“Could you maybe give Dawn and me a ride to LA?” Desperation fuelling her, Buffy added a deeply, deeply resentful “Please?”
 
Rage boiled up in him like he hadn’t felt in years. “That so’s you can go fuck the one vampire who does get you hot?”
 
Despite herself, Spike growling like that did things to her insides that had absolutely nothing to do with anger or fear. “No!” she snapped. “Moron! We’re going to my Aunt Lolly’s for Thanksgiving!”
 
“Oh,” Spike said, suddenly acutely embarrassed.
 
“Although now you mention it,” Buffy said sweetly, “maybe I should just call Angel and ask him to drive us. I’d bet he’d just love to help us out.” Even as she said it, she was ashamed of herself. She knew perfectly well she’d rather lose the use of another limb than speak to Angel right now. And as for asking him for favours? Forget it.
 
Dawn grabbed the phone away from her sister. She could hear Spike screaming obscenities even with the receiver feet away from her ear.
 
“Spike!” Dawn shouted.
 
“Bit?” He sounded slightly hoarse.
 
“Buffy and I only have three good legs and arms between us. We were going to take the bus, but we really can’t now. Will you please help us get to Aunt Lolly’s?”
 
There was a long pause. Then, “Yeah, alright.”
 
“Thank you so much. We’re both really grateful.” She elbowed Buffy. “Aren’t we, Buffy?”
 
“Yes,” Buffy said, sullenly and through clenched teeth.
 
“When d’you need to be there?” Spike asked wearily.
 
“Lolly’s expecting us for dinner tonight, so I figure if you can get here at sundown, we’ll be there by 7-7:30 if the traffic isn’t bad?”
 
“Yeah, sounds right.”
 
“Thank you, Spike.”
 
“Welcome.”
 
Dawn hung up the phone. “There,” she said to Buffy. “Was that so hard?”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
The first half an hour locked in a car with Spike and Buffy was quite possibly the hardest thing Dawn had ever done. Including hell gods and funerals. They just never stopped. Dawn could only be grateful Buffy was trapped in the back seat to keep her ankle elevated – otherwise it would have turned into a bloodbath before they got out of Sunnydale.
 
“Okay, I have tried – really tried! But if you make me listen to five more minutes of KROQ, I am going to gut you like a fish!” Buffy had left shrill behind three decibels ago. Dawn was worried her ears might have permanent damage.
 
“Well I’m not putting up with that bubblegum pop shite you insist on callin’ music in my Own. Soddin’. Car!” Spike shouted back.
 
Dawn was terrified he was going to rip the steering wheel off, he was clutching it so tightly. White-knuckled vampire driving was not a comforting thing.
 
“Shut up!” Dawn screeched, and switched off the radio.
 
They all three continued in near-perfect silence for a blissful thirty-odd miles until just after the road veered off the coast, when Spike said they needed to stop for gas.
 
While he was out fussing with the pump, Buffy said in a subdued voice that she needed to pee, but didn’t think she could manage on her own. Dawn went to get the key from the attendant, came back, and wordlessly helped Buffy manoeuvre herself into the washroom. Once she was settled, Dawn went back to Spike. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed.
 
“What?” he asked, all innocence.
 
She gave him a withering look. “We have more than an hour of driving before we get there. I can’t take any more of this.”
 
Spike stared down at his boots. “‘S not my fault,” he mumbled.
 
“What are you, five? I don’t care whose fault it is!”
 
Spike groaned. “She just….”
 
“I’m her sister. You think I don’t get it?”
 
He sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
 
“Just … stop saying stupid stuff. And be nice. You can do that, right?”
 
Spike rolled his eyes. “Yes, mum.” He pulled out a few crumpled bills from his pocket and handed them to Dawn. “You pay for the petrol, I’ll go fetch her back from the loo.”
 
Dawn gave him a dubious look. “If I hear yelling, I’m gonna come back with a bucket of water.”
 
Spike smiled. “No yellin’. Scout’s honour.”
 
“You were never a Scout,” Dawn scoffed.
 
“Ate enough of ‘em.” He winked. “Sorta counts.”
 
Still unconvinced, Dawn watched him walk towards the washroom. She called after him: “It’ll be really dirty water!” Then she turned and went into the shop to pay.
 
“Buffy?” Spike’s voice came low and calm from outside the door. “You done?”
 
Buffy banged her head against the stall partition. Why did it have to be him? Seeing me all helpless like this? At least she was wearing a perfectly dignified knee-length skirt – the indignity of pants around her ankles might actually have killed her.
 
Slowly and painfully, she managed to get up and almost out the stall, but just as she cleared the far-too-narrow door, she knocked one of her crutches over where she couldn’t reach it.
 
Two more days, and I could’ve had a walking cast. Two!
 
“Buffy?” Spike sounded worried now.
 
Getting more and more frustrated, Buffy managed to drop her second crutch while trying to recover the first. To her horror, a feeble whimper escaped her throat. She hated this. Hated being dependant on others. It was making her crazy.
 
There was a sudden bang as Spike kicked the door in.
 
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’m fine!” she snarled.
 
Before Dawn’s little lecture, Spike probably would have snarled back. But he held back for a moment, long enough to register the quaver in her voice, and to see that she was stuck half-in and half-out of the stall and both crutches were out of her reach.
 
“Oh yeah, totally fine,” he sneered. But there was no edge to it. He stepped across the room, standing so close they were almost touching. Just as she was convinced he was going to try and kiss her, he bent to pick up her crutches.
 
As he straightened up, his face came within a hairsbreadth of hers. They froze, drawn in as if caught by an undertow, each suddenly lost in the other’s eyes.
 
The crutches slid through Spike’s fingers and clattered to the ground.
 
Buffy was hyper-aware of where his chest pressed against hers and the sudden weight of his arm wrapping around her waist. Her muscles started flexing in anticipation.
 
Spike briefly closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose. Fuck, she smells good. Even surrounded by the stench of gas station toilets.
 
He pressed in closer, rubbing his face so lightly against hers she couldn’t be sure they were actually touching. Buffy’s lips brushed against his cheek, her breath sighing into his skin, while his hand slid excruciatingly slowly along the underside of her thigh. He wrapped her bad leg around his waist and was oh-so-gently rocking against her before something seemed to snap in both of them and the kissing became drowning and possessive and urgent and he spun her around and slammed her backwards against the door to the outside, banging it shut.
 
He was thrusting up against her, mauling her breasts, fingers pinching and pulling at her nipples through her clothes. She grabbed at the hair at the nape of his neck with one hand, digging in her nails, while her other was clumsily pulling up her shirt and bra to give him better access.
 
“In me,” she commanded, mumbling into his mouth, still not breaking the kiss. “Now.”
 
She whimpered when his hands fell away from her to start attacking his belt.
 
She’d finally undone his trousers – who has buttons? – when he pulled back suddenly with a dark chuckle, leaving her gasping. He was still holding her leg, and she felt off-balance – vulnerable. Buffy watched him reach into his pocket and pull out a flick knife. He roughly shoved her skirt up around her waist then he leaned forward to kiss her, swallowing her scream as he ran the ice-cold flat of the blade back and forth across her belly.
 
Her panties dropped to the floor, quickly followed by the knife.
 
Dragging his lips across her face to her ear, he whispered, “That get you hot, baby?
 
She glared at him for about half a second before he started painting circles around her clit with his cock and her eyes rolled up into the back of her head.
 
“Know that does, my dirty girl.” He parted her soaking lips with two fingers, rough and quick but disturbingly accurate. So,” thrust, “goddamn’,” thrust, “wet for me.”
 
Buffy gasped as he forced himself in, his thumb grinding at her clit. She wasn’t anywhere near ready. But oh God, it hurt so good.
 
“Fuuuuck,” he groaned, throwing his head back.
 
Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted herself up so both legs now circled his hips. It gave her the leverage to move, regaining some modicum of control.
 
“Nuh-uh,” he whispered, slinging an arm around her lower back then stumbling backwards so only her shoulders were still in contact with the door. He set a very slow, shallow rhythm while he stroked and pinched her clit. “I’m drivin’ tonight, Sweetheart.”
 
Buffy’s neck ached and her stomach muscles were on fire. Holding herself horizontal like this was quite possibly the most uncomfortable position she’d ever been in, ever.
 
But he was touching all the right places and she could just about fool herself that she could see heaven again, peeking through the cracked and mouldy ceiling of the gas station washrooms. Nothing mattered compared to that.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Muzak pumped through the speakers in the shop. Dawn was trying to figure out what it was … AC/DC? No. Please don’t let it be Guns’n’Roses. That would be so morally wrong.
 
After a few seconds, she realised that at least part of the beat wasn’t actually the music.
 
Glass bottles on the shelves were rattling.
 
Are the walls shaking?
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Buffy was trying to relearn how to breathe. She felt the best kind of throbby-achy-sated, but also embarrassed and terrified and starting to worry about catching something from the grossness of bathroom sex. She still couldn’t believe she’d done the nasty somewhere this, well, nasty. It felt disturbingly Faith-like.
 
Spike’s arms were still wrapped around her, one hand tangled in her hair, while the other held the thigh of her bad leg. He was rubbing her own stickiness into her skin with each caress. Feeling gross and uncomfortable, Buffy awkwardly half-crawled, half-fell off of him.
 
Her good foot landed on her underwear and she would have fallen on her ass if Spike hadn’t caught her.
 
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. She could feel wetness spilling down the insides of her thighs now that she was upright. Even worse, she knew not all of it was from him.
 
He let his arms drop and took a step back. “Got it. No touchin’.” His cock was still hanging out and bobbing slightly, like it was thinking about getting interested again.
 
Buffy tore her eyes away and tried to pretend she wasn’t licking her lips. She hated him seeing her like this – dishevelled and sweaty and weak.
 
Studiously examining her feet, Buffy tugged down her shirt and bra, flushing dark red with the humiliation of having to fight with her straps and get her breasts back into place. It didn’t help that each brush of skin or fabric against her bruised and bitten nipples ached in a way that gave her aftershocks. And her stupid hungry eyes kept snatching glances his way.
 
She gave up on the sneaky and flat-out stared when he started licking and sucking his fingers clean. She couldn’t decide whether it grossed her out or—
 
Who am I kidding?
 
She could almost feel his mouth just by watching it move around his fingers.
 
Bastard.
 
Spike gave his hand one last languorous lick and smirked at her. Then he turned and bent over to recover her crutches. She didn’t think he was deliberately flaunting his ass, but Buffy found herself mesmerised all the same. She completely missed him snatching up her ruined panties and his knife.
 
“See somethin’ you like?” Spike drawled as he straightened.
 
Of course he’d noticed her watching him. Asshole.
 
When he turned back towards her, his cock was reaching up and out and more than ready for round two. Buffy wondered if she’d be able to taste herself on him if she were to—
 
“Shut up, Spike!” she snarled.
 
He could smell the bloom of fresh arousal, so strong he could taste it. His eyes narrowed, growing cold and hard. “So that’s it then. This all just a new way to shut me up?”
 
She jerked her shirt down again – completely unnecessarily. “You’d rather I just broke your nose? ‘Cause I could do that right now.”
 
She sounded bright and perky; it was her quipping voice – the one she used for slaying. Spike hated that voice. He forced himself to laugh as he manhandled himself back into his pants. “Eyes’re up here, pet.”
 
“You’re disgusting.”
 
“That innocent act was almost cute when you were sixteen an’ still actually innocent.” He looked her up and down. “Works less well when your legs are drippin’ with come.”
 
Buffy flushed again. To make the humiliation even worse, he was between her and anything she could possibly use to clean herself up.
 
Smiling coldly, Spike pulled out a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and moved back towards her. She leaned back against the door and submitted to his hands and the scratchy, sadly non-absorbent paper. It made her feel so much dirtier. But it also made her crave his hands.
 
He nuzzled into her neck. “Just why did you stop shavin’ your pretty l’il pussy, anyway?”
 
Buffy gaped at him.
 
“Or was it wax? Bet it was wax. Bet you loved the feel of it all hot an’ gooey spread along your lips like honey right before all that ripping, searing pain you need to really get off.”
 
She tried to move away from him, but she forgot about her ankle and she ended up stumbling into his arms.
 
His lips brushed against her ear. His voice went all deep and throaty, so thick it was almost touchable. “Was it because no matter how much you flaunted yourself, none of them could ever touch you right?”
 
Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and tried to jerk away from him again.
 
He licked up the length of her neck. She couldn’t suppress her shiver. “This kitten doesn’t like gentle, does she?” He reached under her skirt to cup her, two fingers slipping straight inside and pressing down hard enough to make her collapse bonelessly against him like he’d flipped a switch inside her.
 
She bucked against his hand once … twice … and then she was coming again.
 
“I may be an evil disgustin’ thing,” he snarled, “but I’m still the only one can make you see heaven.”
 
Their eyes met. Buffy’s had gone from pleasure-drunk to shocked and anguished. Wet.
 
Spike let go of her like she was burning him. He watched her veneer of strength and anger crumble and break until standing before him was just a girl, a vulnerable girl who was so near breaking point she barely knew what she was doing.
 
And I make her see heaven.
 
“Buffy?” His voice had gone up an octave and dropped to a whisper.
 
“I hate you,” she whispered.
 
“So you should,” Spike murmured. Very, very slowly, he took one of her hands in his. “I’m sorry.” He pulled her against him so delicately, so gently, that despite herself, she let him hold her.
 
How did he always know? How could he see?
 
“I’m a stupid git and I’m so, so sorry.”
 
There were no more biting words between them for the rest of the drive. Dawn didn’t know what had happened, but she was grateful for the respite.