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The Bronze buzzed, full to the brim with the weekend college crowd eager to work off steam since the only decent drinking hole had finally reopened after the troll-induced need for repairs.
It had taken strategic loitering and a lot of excessive coat placements to procure a table, and the gang now sat elbow to elbow around one near the bar.
"Watch my seat," said Anya, slipping off the high stool. "I'm gonna get pretzels."
"Oooh pretzels," crooned Buffy as Anya made her way to the bar.
"Shall we play a drinking game?" Xander asked as he poured beer from a pitcher.
"Yes to 'game', no to 'drinking'," Buffy replied deftly. "I'm sticking to lite and I'm sticking to one."
"I'm game for a game," Willow piped up with a bounce next to Tara. "But second the slow drinkage. The headaches are still full throbbing, and a hangover might actually kill me."
"Fair enough," agreed Xander. "Any suggestions?"
"I don't know many," said Tara. "Maybe Never-Have-I-Ever? Although I don't think I'd end up drinking anything…"
"And I will be compulsively lying for the duration," added Willow.
"What about Fuck Marry Kill?" offered Xander
Buffy grimaced. "Ugh. That's exactly what it sounds like, huh?"
"It's your game, Xander, you go first," said Willow, and Xander tilted his beer towards her in agreement.
"I'm at your mercy."
"Okay… um…" Willow bit her lip in deliberation. "Okay, Captain Planet. Uhhh… Oh! Captain America—"
"Are they all gonna be military high command, Will?" Xander asked as Tara leaned to whisper in Willow's ear. She giggled.
"And Captain Crunch," she finished as Buffy snorted into her drink.
"Perfect."
"Okay! I'm back!" Anya cried, depositing a large basket of pretzels in the middle of the table. "What're we talking about?"
"We're playing Fuck, Marry, Kill," mumbled Buffy, her mouth already full around a handful of pretzels.
Anya's head snapped to Xander.
"You can't play that!"
"Why not?"
"Xander! You can't have sex with anyone else! We're in a no-one-else relationship!"
"Ahn—"
"Anya, it's not real," Willow interjected. "It's just a game. Like a drinking game? But we're not drinking. Just imagining."
"You want to imagine having sex with other people?!" The table winced as Anya's voice reached shrill heights, turning heads from amongst the Bronze's crowd as Xander shushed her down from hysterics.
"Okay, okay. Buffy; choose two other categories for me," Xander said, looping an arm around Anya's waist. "No 'fucks'. Or 'marrys'."
"Fine. It's your dumb game," muttered Buffy, but huddled with Willow and Tara for conference, whispering behind her hand. "Alright, the options are: co-owners of a small business," she listed on her fingers, "be stuck in an elevator with. Or kill. Captain Planet, Captain America, and Captain Crunch. And go."
"Oh, you have to run a small business with Captain Crunch!" Anya exclaimed, her outburst already forgotten. "He already has his own franchise. Very successful."
"Run a small business with Captain Crunch," agreed Xander, taking a sip of his beer and mulling over the other options. "Probably share an elevator—"
"Stuck in an elevator with," corrected Buffy.
"Right, be stuck in an elevator with… Captain America? Bet we wouldn't even be stuck for very long."
"And kill Captain Planet?!" cried Willow in mock disapproval.
"Another blow for Mother Earth," muttered Tara around a sly smile, palming a handful of pretzels for her and Willow to share.
"Your turn, Buffy?" prompted Xander, and Buffy smirked around her fifth pretzel.
"Sure."
"Alright… the Count from Sesame Street," Xander started listing.
"Real funny, Xan," said Buffy as the table dissolved into giggles.
"According to the imagery in my head, it is very funny," said Xander, taking a pretzel from the bowl.
"Do not picture whatever the 'it' in your head is," Buffy demanded with a glare.
"Yes, don't," added Anya.
"So the Count from Sesame Street…," continued Xander, "Um… Dracula," he added to more smirking. "And…"
"Spike," finished Anya. "What?" she asked when Xander retched. "They're all vampires. At least he's not made of felt."
"Ugh. And Spike," relented Xander. "I've said this before, but definitely kill Spike."
"Do I seriously only get one kill?" Buffy asked.
"Just one," Willow replied. "You have one single stake."
"And they can't, like, stand back-to-back?"
"Nuh uh."
"Great," Buffy grumbled. "Okay, then kill Dracula again, since no way the last two options. Not with he-of-the-many-brides." She paused in consideration. "Marry the Count, I guess? I bet Sesame Street pays pretty well."
"Good choice," agreed Anya.
"So that leaves..." said Willow, wincing.
"Yes. It leaves." Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. "Well," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I've tried to kill him a lot, and thanks to Will almost did the married thing so, fine, I guess in this extremely hypothetical situation, and completely out of his creepy bat hearing, I'd fuck Spike—"
"Evening all." She almost jumped out of her skin, lurching practically off her stool as Spike placed his tumbler of whiskey down next to her drink and slid in seamlessly between her and Xander, like water through a crack in a dam. "What're we all talking about?"
"We're playing Fuck, Marry, Kill," replied Anya. "Or, in Xander's case, Be Stuck in an Elevator With, Run a Small Business With, Kill. For monogamy reasons. Buffy was just about to have sex with y—"
"Anya!" Xander shouted, cutting her off.
"What!?" Anya snapped back as Buffy tried to force the blood out of her cheeks with sheer willpower.
"That right?" Spike said, and even without turning to look, Buffy could feel that dark smirk pulling across his mouth.
"It's a no-drinking drinking game," clarified Tara,
Spike nodded.
"Deal me in, then."
"You want to play?" said Willow, raising an eyebrow at Spike as she took another pretzel from Tara's hand.
"Oh!" exclaimed Tara. "Willow, Xander, Buffy!" she surveyed the horrified looks suddenly aimed in her direction. "Oh, uh, just b-because three people and three… um…"
"You can't marry Xander," Anya said firmly, glaring at Spike from across the table.
"Oh, I'm definitely marrying Xander," replied Spike. "It'd be a perfect marriage: watch his TV, drink his beer…" He took a sip of his whiskey. "You'll never get rid of me."
"You are—and I do mean this as an insult—not my type," deadpanned Xander.
"Tough, that's not the game." His gaze turned to Willow, and he smiled wickedly, leaning on his elbows to take another pretzel. "Kill the witch. Turn her into a fierce magic-wielding vamp. She brings on an endless night: let the reign of terror begin, the blood of the innocents flow."
Willow huffed, unimpressed. "Dream on."
Spike chuckled. He took a pretzel, placing it luridly on the tip of his tongue and disappearing it with a crunch. "And fuck the Slayer," he said dusting the clinging salt off his fingers. "You know I've said that so many times it's lost all meaning."
He smiled sadistically, and Buffy glared back at him with an unimpressed scowl. He wandered off with his drink in his hand. Something pulled at the sight of him walking away, like some invisible line had looped around them both. He glanced back at her and the knot tightened in her gut, unwilling to budge even as Buffy took a sip of her drink to try and dissolve it.
"So will you be having intercourse with Spike now?" Anya asked from the other side of the table.
Buffy choked on lite beer going down the wrong way. "What?!"
Her outcry harmonized with Xander's and Willow's.
"But they both selected the intercourse option," Anya repeated, as though the rest of the table was missing the obvious.
"Imaginary," Xander enunciated. "So, so imaginary. Verbal contracts? Not binding here."
"And not imagined either, thank you," Buffy growled.
"This game is stupid, I'm gonna dance," Anya stated and slipped off her stool, tugging Xander along with her.
"Think you could manage a dance?" Tara asked Willow, linking their fingers. "Or w-would you prefer to sit this one out?"
"Couple of aspirin and a bottle of water, and I'm your girl," Willow answered with a smile. "You coming, Buffy?"
"Nah, I'll be table watcher," Buffy answered. "You guys go ahead."
She watched them as they made their way to the middle of the floor, Willow beaming as Tara folded her fingers within hers, swaying together near Xander and Anya. She twirled under Tara's arm and Tara smiled wider.
Buffy took another sip of her beer and let her gaze roam. It landed on Spike, leaning against one of the newly refurbished walls, sipping his whiskey and watching the crowd. His gaze tracked to hers and he offered her a slight smile. And a strange liquid warmth slipped through her veins and pooled in her belly. That same tug in his direction sent shivers over her arms.
After a moment's hesitation she slid off her stool and made her way towards him.
"So… how's your head?" she asked and Spike shot her a smirk.
"Just a lil bump to the noggin," he replied deftly, still watching her friends shake the week's worries off on the dancefloor. "That wannabe-glamor-model ain't that tough."
"She did seem to take it kinda personally when you called her a skank."
"Skanks generally do," he replied authoritatively, and Buffy smiled, forcefully stalling a chuckle. She leaned next to him. The taut line of craving relaxed slightly, but only slightly, satisfied it seemed to have closed some distance.
She didn't dwell on it. It wasn't so unusual. Cracks had been forming in her Spike-armor, appearing in intervals over the last couple of weeks; the hand that had wrapped around her shoulder when she'd needed it, the stern words of encouragement when she'd been so lost—how badly she'd needed those too—and the trust she'd somehow found herself placing in him whenever Dawn embodied the full teenage cliché of climbing out her bedroom window. Each had been a blow to her previously imperviable disdain. Another chip off her icy blockade…
"You fancy a dance, Slayer?"
Buffy blinked.
"Huh?"
Spike raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"You know what," she said, her voice ever so microscopically dry from shock. "And I know what. And so I ask; huh?"
He chewed his cheek as he shrugged.
"Just aiming for friendly, is all," he replied petulantly. "I mean we're taking on the big nasties together now, right? Little Bit is all safe and whatnot. Just thought maybe we could…" he let the sentence trail off with a glance at her and Buffy felt her stomach do an unexpected flip.
"Well, it's weird," she answered, and tried to sound derisive, but her heart made a disappointed flutter, making the words come out on a nervous hitch. "Go back to… villainous villainy and shadow lurking."
He grinned, tight-lipped and overtly smug.
"Prefer me bad, luv?"
"It's supremely less Twilight Zone."
"Fine." Spike cleared his throat. "That's a hideous effing dress and orange ain'tcha color." He paused to let her get in a glare, finishing his drink and leaving it on a table in arms reach. "Happy?"
"It's not quite evil, but sure, points for effort," Buffy said. "And orange complements the green in my eyes," she added with a glare.
He held her gaze like he was studying her. Not glaring back. And she needed him to glare back because they were just staring at each other, so she glared harder. She blinked as he lifted a hand and tilted her head up to the light.
"Right." He nodded. "Guess it does."
That tugging sensation was noticeable now, deep in her belly and high in her lungs, wrapping around her like a lasso.
"Cut it out," she said quietly, voice firm even as butterflies rioted in the pit of her stomach. His fingers framing her jaw were singing with electricity and making the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end.
Half-lidded eyes dropped to her mouth.
"I'm trying." Spike swallowed, sounding pained. "Been trying to cut you out since this started," he whispered but it seemed like he was saying those words to himself for as much sense as they made.
"I can kind of relate," she said, and the honesty stung slightly. Every freshly-averted catastrophe she promised herself the next one wouldn't involve him. She had yet to stick to that promise.
"Yeah?" Spike prompted, and leaned a fraction closer. Buffy shivered. Whatever was stringing them along was pulling her into an undertow and she wasn't sure if she even wanted to break free of it now. They were standing close enough that the stomach-tightening tug had melted into just a comfortably insistent glow, but still it drew her in.
His nose brushed hers, and she let out a soft gasp, but didn't retreat. Didn't lurch back the way she had done a few weeks ago. His proximity was making her blood boil but this time it wasn't an angry seethe but a pleasant burn.
Hypnotized, she let a hand stroke up over the muscles of his neck, the back of her fingers brushing across tendons as he tilted his head towards her hand, eyes begging for more. She linked her hands around the back of his neck as that strangling vine of tension redoubled around them, crushing them together. Another atom closer and a prickling heat swept upwards from Buffy's thighs, leaving a fever behind as Spike's free hand wrapped around her waist, bringing her hips flush with his.
"Heard you say my name earlier," he whispered in her ear. "Got me wondering if I could get you to say it again."
"It was just a game, Spike," she whispered back, but that didn't feel true anymore. Not when he was so close and her fingers had inched into his hair. Not with that python-thick rope that was coiling around them. Not with his lips trailing her jaw, making her skin tingle and her spine arch into him.
"So play just a little more."
His voice sounded raw—like he was begging not commanding—and Buffy liquified a little further. She was going to. She could feel it in that magnetic pull keeping her close. She bit her lip first to stave it off just a couple seconds more, before pressing her lips to his. Her heart lurched up into her throat, a sudden surge of panic that turned into elation made her dizzy, as he held her tighter, pulled her closer, and then opened his mouth under her kiss, tilting her head back and drawing her in deeper.
He tasted sweeter than she thought he would. Smoke and salt and whiskey, but underneath there was a sweetness that had her biting his lip to draw it out. He drew in a gasp and kissed her back harder, fighting with her for ground until she could barely breathe. She didn't have a lot of expertise in intoxication, but she felt drunk; the way he kissed hard enough to burnish her lips into a darker red, gravity tilting her into him as lightheadedness tipped her into a freefall.
"You're making me dizzy," she rasped when she managed to catch a gasp of air.
He pulled back, his hand slipping from her waist to reach back and twist the handle of the door she hadn't realized he'd been leaning against.
"In here, luv."
He pulled her into one of the newly refurbished bathrooms. Black tiles, stark lighting. The air smelled slightly of fresh paint, everything untouched except for the graffiti in the top corner of the mirror above the sinks. (For a ruddy good time call 555-1783).
Spike locked the door behind them and pushed her up onto the edge of the polished marble counter.
And then his mouth was on her—kissing hard enough she dimly expected his chip to send off a warning zap—his hands cupping her face as his lips bruised with furious hunger.
"I knew it." He broke away to maul her neck, teeth scraping over tendons as though threatening to bite. "Knew you felt the way I do. God, Buffy, the way I've wanted you, it's been a sodding death sentence—"
"You want me?" Buffy asked, delirious, head spinning.
"I've always wanted you. Fucking sick of pretending I haven't been wanting you for months." And then quietly to himself again, right at the slope of her neck; "...years."
Buffy groaned. Whatever was pulling her into him was working from the inside now, her fingers fumbling at his shirt's buttons as he licked a line up her throat, pushing and pulling him out of his clothes so her hands could flatten against his bare skin.
The tether around them gave a satisfied squeeze in her belly. His skin was like cool silk, decadent to the touch. Underneath her fingers his skin was growing warm, until he was bathed in glowing patches of her body heat, stealing it for himself the tighter she held him.
"Spike…"
She was going to have bruises all the way up her neck, indents from his teeth. Hard kisses and soft bites coloring her shoulder. He'd have moon shaped crescents of her nails in his pectorals and over his shoulder blades in return, and as her fingers scored down his spine he lurched into her, pressing her into the mirror as his hands dropped to squeeze her waist.
"Let me show you how good I can be for you," he purred as she bowed into him, her thighs pressed wider around his hips. His hands dropped beneath the hem of her dress that had rucked up to her hips. "I'll treat you so nice, Buffy."
"You're never nice," she argued as his thumbs dug into the valley of her thighs. She squeaked as the hard fingers of his left hand dipped beneath the waistband of her panties, her knees digging into his hips.
"I can be. I can be damn well angelic," he growled, middle and index finger slipping lower, spreading her open. "With the right—" she gasped as he slid inside her, thumb against her clit, two fingers pressing cruelly into a spot that made her vision dance with stars, "...encouragement."
She smacked into the marble counter, palms pressed flat as she rolled her hips into his hand, groaning at the subtle crook of his fingers.
"We could be perfect together," he whispered as she moaned, thighs shaking as the roll of his wrist coaxed her up into breath-stealing heights. "Fighting the good fight together." She was panting against his shoulder, fingers curling tight into her palms every muscle started shivering. His thumb rolled her clit in slick circles, each crest drawing out another high-pitched moan from her lungs. "Making you come every fucking night the way you deserve, Goldilocks. I don't step out on my girl, you won't find me fooling around with some suckhouse desperate like your former." Her moans turned to screams, arms wrapping around his shoulders as he pressed close enough to feel her lungs heaving in air that did nothing to alleviate the delirium she was drowning in. "If I'm yours, I'm yours."
"Spike!"
His fingers pumped wetly into her, forcing her over the edge an inch at a time.
"And I am. I…" Her nails bit into the back of his neck. "Am." Knees locked around his hips. "Yours."
She came with a howl, an explosion of bliss snapping through her body like a plucked string vibrating hard enough to snap, muscles bruisingly taut as she shivered through it. She was clinging to him with everything she had, and as his mouth caught hers and she bit his lip too.
"Don't let me go," she pleaded, hands fisting in his hair, splitting the gelled sweep into separate curls as he groaned into her mouth, pulling his hand out from beneath the skirt of her dress to unbuckle his belt.
A floor-shaking, earsplitting crash from the other side of the door brought them to a halt, eyes wide, blinking hard, scrabbling to right their clothes as panicked screaming echoed from the dancefloor.
"So." Willow swayed comfortably in Tara's arms as the band started playing a sweetly slow song. "Fuck, marry, kill…"
Tara grinned, wrapping her arms tighter around Willow's waist. "Okay?"
"Okay, baddies edition." Willow smirked. "Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty."
"Interesting," Tara hummed.
"Poison Ivy—" Willow continued.
"Oh, red hair—"
"Hush," Willow chastised with a playful glare. "And…. Scary Glorypants."
Tara chuckled.
"Well, I'd make love to Poison Ivy," she answered, smiling as Willow scowled in mock jealousy. "I've got my fingers tangled in her red hair, and she's got really pretty, green eyes staring up at me," Willow glanced up at her through her lashes and Tara's smile widened, "but hey there's a weird join under her chin? And I pull at it, and hey, it's a Scooby-doo rubber mask—Willow!?" she cried. "What are you doing here?"
Willow laughed.
"And th-then I'm standing at the altar with Maleficent—h-having second thoughts, you know?—and wait, she's wearing a rubber mask too!? Willow!? You're crashing our wedding?! Oh well, the ring is already on."
Willow cackled. "I'm so sneaky."
"A-and I don't need to kill Scary Glorypants because when she fell from that big height you magicked her up to, she went smush."
"Like a pancake?" Willow giggled, winding her arms around Tara's shoulders.
"Mmhmm. Just as flat. A-and even deader—"
A far off whistling preceded the deafening smash as something plummeted through the roof, hitting the ballroom floor with a heavy thud in an explosion of dust and glass.
"Tara!" Willow gripped her tightly, pulling her away from the crater. Her jaw dropped as the dust cleared enough to reveal a blood red dress, permed blonde hair—dead eyes. "Oh my God, it's—"
Screaming from the surrounding crowd cut her off.
"So let me get this straight," said Giles as he polished his glasses, blurring the sight of the scoobies crowded together on Joyce's sofa. "You were playing this… drinking game—"
"No-drinking, drinking game," corrected Willow.
"And then Glory—the hell God the Council has only just warned us of—crashed through the Bronze's roof?"
"Totally smushed," mumbled Tara, tucking a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear as she squeezed Willow's hand.
"And very, very dead," added Willow.
"Did anything else materialize from these… invocations?"
"Uh…" After a slight pause, Willow and Tara raised their left hands, matching silver rings on their ring fingers catching the light. "They… don't come off."
"Yeah, and," Xander and Anya raised theirs, gold wedding bands glittering in place.
Heads turned to Buffy.
"I'm good," she said, brandishing her left hand with a flourish. She had yet to unbutton her coat, but no one was making that observation.
"Did you notice anything unusual? Any differences since the Bronze's refurbishment?" Giles asked.
"They got rid of the flowering onion," said Xander.
"And redid the bathrooms," muttered Buffy.
"And hired that new bartender," added Anya.
"Bartender?" queried Willow.
"Yeah. Older guy. Kind of Giles old—"
"Thank you so very much."
"And British. Like… Giles British."
Heads turned back to Giles as he let out a bone weary sigh.
"Oh for goodness sake…"
For a ruddy good time call 555-1783
Giles glared at the graffiti as he dried his hands, dumping the paper towels in the trash. The steadying third cup of tea had gone right through him, but he couldn't put off the confrontation any longer.
He'd ducked under the police tape spiderwebbing across the entrance to the Bronze, pushing his way inside (pausing only to use the facilities) and now, as he stepped across rubble and glass, he felt eyes on the back of his neck.
"Well, hello, Ripper."
He turned, spotting Ethan leaning against the door leading to the kitchens.
"Ethan," Giles greeted back cooly, his polished brogues crunching over the debris littering the dance floor. "What have you been up to this time?"
Ethan shrugged with a loose unbothered roll of his shoulders.
"Just a harmless little intentionality spell." He grinned a decidedly wicked grin. "You know what they say, old boy," he brought out a jar of pretzels from behind his back, fishing around for one and bringing one to his lips. "Verbal contracts are binding." Crunch. "And self-fulfilling."
Giles glared. "Was it in the drinks?"
Ethan scoffed. "Of course not, Ripper, that's so tacky." He brought out another pretzel and crushed it between his teeth. "It was in the mini pretzels."
"Jesus Christ."
"Well, I was going to curse the flowering onion but it got remodelled right off the menu—"
He choked as Giles's hand closed around his throat, pinning him to the wall.
"I'm going to give you one last chance, Ethan, since this time you accidentally saved Buffy and myself a hell of a lot of grief. You're going to pack up your bag of tricks and leave—promptly—before I really lose my temper."
"Oh, fuck me," Ethan breathed, his eyes dilating.
Giles froze. His hand squeezing tight as he dropped a glance to Ethan's hand, and the pretzel jar held loosely in his fingers.
"What did you just do?"
"Don't worry, darling," Ethan snickered, "it only works if we both partake." He grunted as Giles released his throat with a shove. "More's the pity," he added as Giles turned on his heel and strode back towards the exit.
"Goodbye, Ethan," Giles snipped to the lecherous chuckle following him to the exit. "And clean my number off the bathroom wall!" he called back before letting the Bronze door close with a slam behind him.
The cold night air was a balm on Buffy's flushed skin as she made her way across Restfield, having decided on a last-minute patrol rather than remove her coat in front of the collective entourage of friends, mother, Giles, and teenage sister.
A chill deepened right at the exact spot on the back of her neck that it always did, just before Spike's words trickled down her spine.
"Looking for me?"
She turned to see him sucking down the last breath of a cigarette, leaning in the shadow of a mausoleum.
"Enjoying your cliché stalking from the shadows?" she retorted, and he grinned.
"Just proving I can do as I'm told, luv," he said, grinding out the cigarette under his boot.
Buffy tightened her collar around her neck, the blotches and bites he'd littered over her skin nowhere near fading.
"So, mystery solved," she said, attempting to fill the intense silence that seemed determined to settle between them. "Turns out that Ethan guy made a reappearance and spookified the pretzels into little words-come-true time bombs."
Spike blinked, and then after a pause nodded.
"That right?" he said, though it didn't sound like a question.
Buffy answered it anyway.
"That's why the whole… feeling all crazy and out of controlness happened."
Spike watched her for several heartbeats, and then smiled sadly, clearing his throat.
"To be honest, luv, I didn't notice a difference."
Buffy's eyebrows creased.
"You didn't?"
He took a few steps closer to her, and the marks he'd left on her neck sang at his approach, a new knot squeezing around her lungs. She took a step back, and another until she came up against a tree, resting there as he closed the distance. That wire of tension was thrumming now, winding around her with panther-like slowness until she could barely breathe.
"It's a bit of a permanent state of being, truth be told." His eyes met hers as his fingers hooked into the collar of her coat, widening the neck. "Fuck, marry, kill," he purred as she shivered hard from the feeling of his fingers on her neck. "Some days I could bloody well do all three." She gasped as he dipped his head, grazed his lips up towards her ear, a pleasant shudder trickling down from the nape of her neck. "But it's always at least one."
Her breathing deepened as his hands slid to the buttons of her coat, working them open before cool hands slipped inside.
She'd thought whatever curse had caught her in a chokehold had lifted. The magic broken.
But maybe… maybe Spike was right. Maybe there wasn't much of a difference between the baseline craving that was pulling her in—that had been pulling her in since those sharp blue eyes had landed on hers from across the Bronze—and that winding feeling of inevitability that had been humming away in the background for months.
…Years, she thought quietly as her hand slipped into his hair.
"Hypothetically," she whispered as he bit down on her neck, laving the muscle between his teeth with his tongue. His hand cupped her jaw to keep her steady against her lips as he kissed up to her jaw, and she let out a mesmerized sigh. "Sort of, right nowish …" His lips grazed hers in a sweet tease and she swallowed tightly. "…Which one?"