"We could stop for a bite, love!" he shouted, but she couldn't hear him over the engine noise.  But then, he knew she didn't want him to bite, so maybe she was just ignoring him.  Demonic fury boiled up in his breast and he felt his face shifting, but there was no one but himself to fight.

She sobbed against him.  She only cried when there was no one to see.  His anger evaporated, and he pointed ahead, to where pale light blossomed at the end of the tunnel.  "Look, love, there's the end.  We'll be outside soon."

Her silent, awful weeping continued, and he knew with sinking certainty that it was the prospect of escape that tormented her.  And he knew what he had to do.  He twisted in the seat in one of those contortions possible only in dreams.  He had one glimpse of her face, of the quiet, terrible sorrow in her eyes transmuting to relief and peace, before his fangs met in her neck and she faded away into nothing, disappearing like mist in sunlight.

Thump.

Spike jolted awake, the dream shredding as the waking world intruded on his senses.  He lay motionless beneath the blankets, locked in place by a tension as deep and cold as permafrost, and wished his heart could still pound, just for the relief of feeling it slow again.  He forced himself to draw a deep breath and relax, muscle by muscle.  After a moment he rolled over and peered over the side of the bed.  The haphazard pile of books and magazines accumulated there had collapsed of its own weight again, precipitating a minor paper-slide.  He regarded the mess, then sighed and tossed the fallen volumes back on the heap.  He should shovel it all back onto the bookshelf, though it was hard to see the point since the whole lot would inevitably migrate back again within a week.

He lay back and folded his arms behind his head, frowning up at the canopy overhead.  If he had to dream about the Slayer, couldn't his subconscious have obliged with something more entertaining than this half-arsed testament to an obsolete classical education?  Spike threw off the covers with a low, irritated growl and got up.  His internal clock informed him that it was approaching four in the afternoon.  Bugger.  He'd overslept and missed Passions.  He flipped on the light to dress--habit, nothing more, since he could see perfectly well in the pitch darkness--and wrestle his hair into some sort of order.

Part of the dream had been straightforward enough.  His stomach rumbled as he climbed the stairs to the upper level of the crypt, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the late afternoon light.  He ambled over to the fridge and surveyed the contents: A few swallows of pig's blood in a styrofoam take-out cup, the bagged blood he'd obtained last night, a half-empty bottle of black olives, and a scraped-dry jar of crunchy peanut butter.  There was Weetabix on top of the fridge, but when he tilted the box it contained only a thin layer of crumbs at the bottom.  Time for a grocery run, then.  He felt around in the pockets of his jeans and came up with a grand total of twelve dollars and fifty-three cents.  That might cover a pack of fags and a pint or two, but just barely.

"Spike, old mate, a spot of dishonest toil looks to be in order."  He considered his options.  He could go down to the Bronze and hustle pool, or better yet over to one of the bars near the UC Sunnydale campus--too many people knew him at the Bronze, and marks were getting harder to come by.  Or he could just lift a few wallets, though the chip made that risky if he got caught.  Or he could try heading over to Buffy's place and cadging breakfast there--he ended up at the Summers' residence often enough these days that Dawn had added pig's blood to their regular shopping list... but somehow after last night that had a riskier feel to it than unarmed robbery.  "Or you could just drink your brekky and stop whinging.  There's an idea."  He pulled out one of the bags of blood and the old ‘Kiss the Librarian' coffee mug he'd acquired from Giles, and started to bite off the corner.

And hesitated, plastic between his teeth.   Buffy wouldn't like you doing that.  Amber flecks coalesced in his eyes and dissolved again.   After a moment he growled softly, bit down and tugged. "Sod what Buffy likes."  And stopped. Pull the other one, you great nance.  You know bloody well you're going to roll over and do whatever she wants you to in the end, so why not just hand her your balls on a platter right now and be done with it?

He set the bag down on top of the refrigerator and glared at it as if it were the author of his troubles.  "Right, and what did she ask you to do, exactly?  Take the blood back so the shop wouldn't have to pay for it.  Moot point now, innit?  Drink up."  He picked the bag up.  Set it down again.  Clasped both hands behind his back and began pacing restlessly. But you know bleeding well what she meant.  Of course he did.  "Never enough for her, is it?  Can't kill, can't feed, gotten so pathetically attached to a sodding lot of humans that you're beginning not to want to, and she still wants more?"  Spike came to a halt, shoulders tensed, then whirled and pounced.  He grabbed the bag in both hands and sank his teeth directly into it with a feral snarl.  Squoosh .  His teeth didn't puncture the plastic.

He'd forgotten to shift into game face.

"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGHH!"  Spike slammed the bag back down on the fridge.  He grabbed the coffee mug and with grim deliberation slit the corner of the blood bag and poured it in.  He stalked over to the nearest chair, flung himself down, and took a defiant swallow.  Oh, yeeeesss.  Rich.  Savory.  Life itself.  Infinitely better than pig's blood.

Still... it would've been better with Weetabix to go with.

And it was ice cold, and tainted with the medicinal tang of anticoagulants.  Couldn't compare to what it tasted like pumping warm and fresh from a still-living throat, and Spike had long since accepted that he was never going to taste that particular flavor of bliss again, even if, someday, the damned chip finally wore out.  He set the mug down, lit a cigarette, and took a contemplative drag.  Would it, really, be that much of a hardship to give up this occasional treat if it would make her...

"Not.  One.  More.  Word."  He took another swallow and glared into the mug, daring it to talk back.  Buffy'd never asked him to make any of the changes he'd gone through in the last year.  For most of the time they'd known one another, she'd been adamant that he couldn't change.  In a strange way last night indicated she'd accepted that he had.  That he could.  And that... that was both exhilarating and terrifying.  Easy enough to follow the path the chip in his skull prodded him down, and convince himself he had no choice.  To keep following that path of his own volition...

To his vast relief, someone started pounding on the door of the crypt.

Xander stood in the long shadows outside the crypt, listening to the echoes of his door-pounding die away inside the crypt and fidgeting.  Bad idea, coming here.  It was just that all his other ideas were worse.  It had been almost a month since he'd exchanged more than a cursory word on patrol with Spike, and he was feeling distinctly awkward.  He ran over what he was going to say in his head for the dozenth time.  Not apologizing.  Definitely not.  Nothing to apologize for, and who apologized to demons who conned your best friend into raising your other best friend from the dead anyhow?  Spike ought to be apologizing to them, damn it!  Especially Buffy!  Oh, wait, he already had.  Damn.

He could hear intermittent snatches of conversation from within the crypt, no words, just the low, accented rasp of Spike's voice.  He pounded on the door again.  He had just about decided that the lack of response meant that Spike really did have other company when the wrought-iron door flew open with a bang.  Spike's pale face appeared, sporting a ferocious scowl and a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lower lip.  He looked thoroughly pissed off.  No shock there; pissed off was Spike's ground state.  "Oh, it's you, is it?  What the bloody hell's wrong with you, knocking instead of barging in like you own the place?" the vampire snarled.

"Because barging in on you usually results in seared eyeballs.  I heard voices.  Or rather, voice.  Harmony back, or are you practicing pick-up lines on another robot?"

Spike affected boredom.  "Long walk, short pier, Alexander Harris.  Mix well."

"Ooh, tetchy."  Xander peered over the vampire's shoulder.  He hadn't been to the crypt in almost a month, and in the blue shadows of late afternoon the interior looked different.  The big marble sarcophagus still loomed at the end of the room, and the old black and white television and the mini-fridge were familiar, but the ratty overstuffed armchair and attendant packing crates had given way to a scattering of less dilapidated chairs, chests and low tables.  Over the summer Spike had taken the fit to 'stop living like a bloody anchorite' and had flung himself into dragging home all manner of scavenged furniture and appliances.  Xander had actually helped him move some of the larger pieces in downstairs, but since Buffy's return... "At times like this I find it helpful to break out the sock puppets.  Then you merely look geeky rather than insane."

"Well, yeh, if that's your goal I'd say you've succeeded admirably."  He glanced down at the bag in Xander's hand, nostrils twitching.  "What do you want?"

"Who says want?  I just happened to be in the neighborhood..."  Spike looked at him.  Not buying it.  Xander hunched his shoulders.  This was going to be hell.  "Look, right after Buffy came back, I was...  Things got said... not that they weren't perfectly justified things, but..."  Xander grit his teeth and forced himself to continue, "If Buffy can... then I guess I... Sanctuary?"

A demon of mirth flickered to life in Spike's eyes and the corners of his mouth acquired a wicked curl.  "Let me guess.  The demon bird's got some less than manly wedding-related activity on the schedule."

Xander passed his free hand over his eyes and groaned.  "She wants me to look at flower arrangements.”

"Squealing in girlish glee at the prospect, no doubt.”

“There was some vocalization in the ultrasonic, yeah.  So I told her I’d love to, but I’d already made plans."

“Ahhhh.  Let me further guess: none of your mates from work are available?"

Xander feigned deep interest in the weeds growing along the edge of the doorway and kicked at the doorpost of the crypt.  "Fishing trip."  At Spike's raised eyebrow he clarified, "I don't deal well with bait.   Besides, I do the Blair Witch thing on a daily basis.  Who needs to travel to the piney woods for creepy near-death experiences when I can stroll over to your place?"

Spike took a drag on his cigarette and flicked ash in Xander's general direction.  "And therefore you're thrown back on the company of the soul-challenged bloke you swore you were never going to speak to again?"

Xander heaved a resigned sigh.  "It's that or go visit my parents.  And frankly, given a choice between a bloodsucking creature of the night and my family..."  He made an ‘eh' gesture with his free hand.  "It's a close call."

Spike folded his arms and leaned against the doorway.  "Care to explain why exactly I ought to take pity on you, me bein' evil and all?"

Xander held up the paper bag and waggled it.  Sauce was beginning to soak through the bottom.  "I brought wings."

The vampire cocked his head to one side, obviously enjoying Xander's discomfiture, and allowed the wicked quirk of his lips to blossom into a full-blown smirk.  "Well, why didn't you say so?  Lassie come home, all is forgiven."

Xander followed him inside and kicked the door shut behind him. "I still hate you, y'know."

"Right, I'll keep it in mind.  Did they come with those little carrot things?"

"It's not that I don't love her to pieces," Xander said, setting the bag of wings down on the nearest table and flopping into an adjacent chair.  Spike made the noise which meant he was pretending to be interested and produced a bowl from somewhere to put the carrot sticks in.  "I mean, I'm marrying her, right?  But she drives me absolutely insane sometimes.  Normally Anya’s up front about everything--that’s one reason I love her, right?  No guessing games.  But for some reason this whole wedding thing has turned her into a space alien.  I know if I hang around and let her turn the puppy eyes on me I'll end up spending the whole evening debating the merits of the Spring Mist Arrangement over the Daffodil Rhapsody.  If I don’t venture an opinion she’ll get hurt because I don’t care about the flowers, and if I do venture an opinion she’ll get upset because we don’t agree on the flowers.  I'm convinced that come the wedding I'm going to enter a fugue state about the same time I enter the church and will remember nothing anyway, so what do I care what the flowers look like?  It would make life so much easier if she’d just say ‘Here, Xander, this is what I want.  Do it now,’ instead of expecting me to agonize over something I really don't give a hoot about."

Spike collapsed in the chair opposite and picked up his mug of blood.  He looked ruefully at it for a moment, set it down and went over to the refrigerator.  He returned with a styrofoam container full of what was, to all appearances, identical blood, and dipped a carrot stick into it.  "Bearing in mind that I'll torture you to death with a barbecue fork if you repeat this... Harris, minus the flowers,  I know exactly how you feel."

"School newspaper?" Buffy asked.

Willow scrunched down in her seat and hugged her notebook to her chest.  The waiting room couch made a loud obnoxious squeaking noise every time either of them moved.  "I panicked."  She shot an anxious glance at the door through which the secretary (whose desk nameplate proclaimed her Mrs. Finster) had disappeared.  "There is a college newspaper.  The Sun.  Which, you know, makes sense in Sunnydale.  And I did think about taking some journalism classes once."  She expected Buffy to make a smart remark at that, but Buffy only nodded, and after a brief moment of inspecting her nails, went back to looking at the spot on the far wall which housed the ‘Scenic Views of the Rockies' calendar.  Whether or not she noticed the calendar itself was subject to debate.

She was a million miles away again, her eyes grave and distant, staring into eternity as if it were the face of an old friend.  Willow tried to keep the dismay out of her own expression.  She'd been so... so Buffy this morning, and at lunch, but some time in the intervening hours while Willow was off at her afternoon classes it had all disappeared.   It had been a big mistake, bringing her here, Willow decided.  Hospitals gave Buffy the wiggins under the best of circumstances.  And who could blame her?  It was all linoleum floors waxed to a scary degree of gloss, and tubes and bedpans and machines that went ping.  Even here in the administrative offices the smell of antiseptic and illness underscored every breath they took.  With all that had happened in the last year, her mother's death, the plague of crazy people, Ben's betrayal... the whole medical profession was probably on the permanent blacklist for the Buffy Fun Club.  The sooner they got out of here the better.

The door across the office opened and Mrs. Finster returned with a folder full of printouts.  She trotted over to her desk, fussing with her frizzed hair--she reminded Willow of an elderly and slightly overweight poodle--and spread them out, examining them with a critical eye.  "I think this may be the kind of thing you'd find useful for your article.  You understand that I can't give you any individual patient information, dearie--that's confidential."

Willow nodded vigorously.  "Oh, I know.  We're just looking for general trends, you know, how the stresses of modern life affect mental health and, um, healthlessness.  Anything you can give us will be just spiffy."

"Are they still here?" Buffy asked abruptly.

Mrs. Finster's severely plucked brows fluttered upwards.  "Who?"

"The people in those files.  The..." She stopped, clasping her hands together tightly--fearful, perhaps, that they'd escape her.  "My mother was... she stayed here for several weeks last winter.  There was a whole ward then, of people who'd just... lost it.  Are they still here?  Can we see them?  Talk to them?"

"Oh, heavens, no, we're not a long-term care facility, dearie.”  Buffy gave her that look of special loathing reserved for total strangers who call you dearie, but Mrs.  Finster chose not to notice.  “We can't afford to tie up that number of beds.  The only reason we had all of them as long as we did was because the CDC was investigating, trying to determine the cause of the outbreak... though they never found anything, so you can't really call it an outbreak, now... most of them were released to the custody of their families, or..."  She cleared her throat delicately.  "You might want to contact the Social Services people, or perhaps the county hospital--they usually deal with indigent cases."

"You mean they just got... kicked out?"

Mrs.  Finster's sweet rosy mouth pursed and she looked quite fearsome for a moment.  "Certainly not.  I don't know what rumors you've heard, but I can assure you that all of them went through normal checkout procedures. I'm afraid that if you want to discuss the incident last winter you'll have to speak to our lawyers."

"Lawyers?" Buffy looked blank.  Willow rose hurriedly to her feet, causing the couch to emit a mournful plasticine screech, and scooped up the folder from Mrs, Finster's desk before she could change her mind.

"That won't be necessary, sorry to take so much of your time, c'mon, Buffy, time to go stop the presses and put the ol' issue to bed!"  She took Buffy's arm and all but dragged her out of the woman's office.  Buffy shook her off the moment they were out the door and stood in the middle of the hall, rubbing her arm.  Willow tried to catch her eye.  "Buff, think about it.  They had a dozen physically healthy patients die in one swell foop when that Quellor demon got them, and then a month or two later another couple dozen just up and disappear, and plus the one the Knights of Byzantium broke out under their noses.  There's probably half a dozen malpractice lawsuits pending against them right this minute.  We know they went to go help Glory build her giant diving board, but I bet the hospital's board of directors wouldn't be jumping with joy even if they did know what really happened.  They're going to be really, really testy if we get too nosey-Parker."

Buffy said nothing, standing there in the sterile white corridor with that little half-frown on her face--trying to remember what planet she was on on Fridays.  Willow felt an overwhelming sense of frustration.  It had all been so good this morning... "Buffy?"

"Hmm?  Oh.  You're right, I didn't think..."  She looked around and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.  "We should go," she said, and then, so softly Willow could scarcely catch the words, "I hate this place..."  She started off down the hallway and Willow hurried after her, trying to stuff the folder into her notebook without dropping its contents all over the floor.

She caught up with Buffy at the elevator, and looked from her to the lighted button on the wall.  Buffy looked up at her approach and for a moment was there again, her eyes big and urgent.  "Can you fix them?"

Willow glanced at the elevator buttons.  "I think it just takes awhile for the car to get here--"

"No... the crazies.  You fixed Tara.  Could you do it for the others?"

"Sure."  The reassurance was an automatic thing, spoken without thought--of course she could fix them.  Memory of the spell she'd lost control of earlier nibbled at the edges of her confidence, and Willow pushed it aside.  "I mean... probably.  Depending."  Painfully aware that she sounded nervous and feeble, Willow tried another tack.  "The thing is, Glory's not around any more, and--"

The elevator binged at them and the doors slid ponderously apart.  The two of them got on and Willow pressed the ‘Lobby' button.  Buffy bit gently on her thumbnail as the doors closed and the car lurched into motion, and watched as the warm orange glow of the floor indicator traveled steadily downwards.  She didn't look at Willow as she spoke, but there was an impassioned note in her voice that was both encouraging and a little disturbing. "It's important, Will.  Spike said some things last night...maybe he can't care about people in general, but we should.  We're in the world-saving biz, right?  But who are we saving it for?  It can't be just us.  It can't be.  When I need a vampire to remind me of that there's something seriously wrong."

Willow bit her lip.  "When I fixed Tara I had Glory right there.  I was able to suck Tara's essence right out of Glory's head and put it back into Tara's.  Glory's gone, so--" She waved one hand to indicate the enormity of the problem.  "All the essence she sucked out of people are gone too.  And whatever's still doing it?  Not Glory.  So I can't even be sure that the same spell would work.  On whatever it is."  She laughed nervously.  "Of course I could try Raising Ben and see if that would get us Glory back, but you guys seemed to frown on that--"

"Don't," Buffy said, her voice so flat and dead that Willow flinched.  A second later the chill had vanished, replaced by anxious entreaty. "But you can find another spell, right?  Are you saying you can't fix them?"

"No, I didn't say that!  But you need to give me some time to work on it!  There are... complications."   The elevator clanked to a stop and the doors opened on a short hallway leading to the main lobby.  In stark contrast to the quiet order of the administrative offices, the corridor was full of people: an intern striding by in scrubs, two nurses with clipboards arguing about whether or not Jessica was really going to leave Eric for Rocky, an orderly pushing an elderly black man in a wheelchair.  A small horde of visitors, a whole family's worth of children, harried parents, and argumentative in-laws, trooped up to the elevator and clustered around the "You Are Here" building diagram, trying to determine if this was the green or the blue wing.

"Too bad you didn't try to find them over the summer," Buffy said as they wound their way past the line at the information desk.  "If you had, you might have a spell which would work on them by now."

Something inside her, grown thin and brittle over the last month full of awkward silences and accusing glances, snapped.  Two paces before the doors, Willow bridled, rounding on Buffy in a fury.  "Well, I'm sorry, but I was wasting my time helping Giles track down your Dad, and convincing my parents to keep Dawn until we found him, and beating off Social Services, and planning your funeral and keeping Angel and Spike from killing each other during it and, oh yeah, slaying vampires and fighting demons and excess Knights of Byzantium in my copious spare time though why I bothered since Spike the Perfect was on the job--maybe because someone can't go traipsing around in full sunlight or, I don't know, fight humans without collapsing in agony, and oh, yeah, making sure you didn't get brought back as someone's mind-controlled zombie, though I'm beginning to think you'd be happier that way!"  She didn't bother trying to keep the hurt and bitterness out of her voice now.  "Open!"   She flung the word at the front doors like a weapon, and they flew outwards as she stormed through, smashing into the shrubbery outside.  That was more like it.  That was what magic ought to feel like.

She strode out into the gathering twilight, trying to lose herself in the automotive maze of the hospital parking lot.  For a moment Buffy stood dumbfounded, and then Willow heard her footsteps on the pavement behind her as she broke into a run to catch up.  "Willow!  Willow, wait!"  Buffy took a shortcut over the top of an SUV and leaped to the ground in front of her.  "Willow, I didn't mean--"

But she didn't sound apologetic; she sounded tired and irritated, like a mother dealing with a sulky child.  Willow's hands curled into fists.  "You know, I could understand it if you were mad at all of us.  But with Dawn you're fine.  With Spike you're fine.  It's just with me that you act like I'm some horrible person you're forced to deal with.  You were my best friend of the girl variety, Buffy!  And now you're a total stranger and you hate me and I was trying to do the right thing, darn it!"

Buffy's eyes closed, squeezing shut against the words, and her whole body tensed against some coming blow.  "I know that," she said, very softly.  "I don't hate you, any of you.  But... you didn't do the right thing.  You did a wrong thing.  You destroyed a soul to get me back--”

“That was Spike’s choice!”

“And Spike is so rational on the subject,” Buffy snapped.  “Maybe it's easier with Dawn because she didn't know all about what the two of you were up to.  She's a kid.  She's supposed to do stupid--"

"And since Spike is a century older than any of us, he gets a free ride for senility?"

Buffy's eyes opened again.  "No," she said, her voice clipped.  "Spike gets a free ride for saying the magic words."

"And those would be?"

"'I was wrong, and I'm sorry.'"

"Oh, peachy doodle!" Willow flung up both hands.  "Listen to yourself, Buffy!  Not six hours ago you were all ‘I can't think he's got a cute tush because, the morals of it all!'  You know why he's sorry?  Because you're unhappy to be back.  That's it, that's all, finito, the end.  Look, I’m pro-Spike, honest.  He’s the nicest evil dead guy I know.  But you said it yourself, he doesn't care about the morals.  And I do care, but my morals don’t match up with yours, so I'm awful and Spike's a saint?  Pardon me if I think the cuteness of Spike's tush is a bigger factor in how you're treating us both than you want to admit!"

At that moment the automatic lights in the parking lot flicked on all around them, and the two of them were haloed in a multitude of long shadows, vying for space on the asphalt and echoing their every move.  Buffy's hand closed on the side view mirror of the SUV and there was a crunching noise, as of metal deforming under pressure, and the brittle snap of glass cracking.  "I'm going to forget you said that."  If the humidity had been any higher, icicles would have formed on her words.  "You want to know why I've been avoiding you, Will?  I'll tell you.  Because it's exhausting being around you.  You want me to be fine so badly it hurts, ‘cause that means you did good, even if I won't admit it.  And I... I love you, so I keep trying to be fine.  For you, and for Dawn, and for Xander and Giles--"  The intensity of emotion in her voice was frightening now, after so many weeks of detachment.  Tears rolled down her cheeks.  "But I can't be fine all the time, and Spike accepts that!  He doesn't sit there giving me the ‘Are you OK now, Buffy?  What about now?  Still OK?  Sure?' looks when I'm not.  It's that simple."

"I'm sure you've convinced yourself of that," Willow said, matching the chill degree for degree.  She took a fresh grip on her notebook.  "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got... things.  Things to do."  With an angry swipe at her own eyes she pushed past Buffy and hurried off down the long rows of cars, leaving her best friend of the girl variety staring after her, the mangled remains of the SUV's mirror in her hand.

Spike always claimed that he’d picked this particular crypt to lair in because of the location: it was close to a power line he could tap into for electricity, had access to the web of sewer tunnels and caves which honeycombed the ground beneath Sunnydale, and was located on the side of the cemetery closest to the back fence of the police impound lot where he kept the DeSoto.  All of which was true, but Xander strongly suspected that the real reason was the really cool windows: deep-set, arched, guarded with romantically gloomy iron crossbars.  They let in enough light during the day to make most vampires extremely nervous, but Spike had always had a cavalier attitude towards sunlight--and candles, and cigarette lighters, and anything else in the ‘fire pretty’ category--for such a flammable creature.

"The place cleans up well," Xander said, with a magnanimous look around the crypt.  In the warm golden light of the masses of candles Spike kept in the wall niches and along the windowsills, the place looked downright... comfortable.  Several steps above some of the places Xander had called home in the last few years, anyway.  “Pity I can’t say the same for the inhabitant.”  He picked up the remote control and flipped idly through a few more channels, wondering when Spike had gotten cable.  Stolen cable.  Whatever.  It had Argentine soccer and Czechoslovakian-language movies starring masked Mexican tag-team wrestlers, which was the important thing.   “I do think you lost a certain je ne sais quai when you got rid of the pile of moldering skulls.”

“Yeh, wouldn’t you know it, a week later I really needed one.  Always the way when you toss out rubbish, innit?”  Spike dipped his last wing into the dregs of his blood and ripped into it happily while Xander watched with faintly queasy fascination.

“Can you really taste that?”

Spike stopped mid-bite.  “No, I just get a thrill from exercising my jaw.  ‘Course I can taste it.”

"Angel said you guys couldn't taste regular food."

The scarred eyebrow quirked.  "Bollocks.  Can't digest solid food, but it tastes just fine."  Spike licked the gory mix of blood and hot sauce off his fingers and leered.  "Blood just tastes better."  He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head.  "You want to know the real reason the Broodmeister doesn't eat, besides being a self-flagellating wanker who wouldn't know fun if it walked up and bit him in the arse?"  He laid a finger aside his nose.  "Side effects."

Xander's brow wrinkled.  "Eh?"

Spike chuckled.  "Not to get crude, but what goes in must come out.  On a strict all-blood diet it doesn’t amount to much."

"What--oh."  An expression of enlightenment spread across Xander’s face.  "OH.  Way too much information, but oh.  I can see where Angel'd want to avoid that.  Not exactly... dignified, is it?"

"It's human," Spike said.  "Peaches never could stand anything that reminded him of that poxy residue of humanity..."  He bit into another carrot stick.  "Yours truly, on the other hand, finds the variety worth the inconvenience."  He hurled the empty styrofoam carton at the wastepaper basket by the fridge and bounced to his feet.  "And speaking of inconvenience, I've got things to do, so you can bugger off now."

Xander conspicuously failed to move.  He rolled back his sleeve and checked his watch.  "Uh uh.  I bribed you fair and square, you get to hide me from floral fantasias for the whole evening.  My sources have also ascertained that it's Willow and Tara's night to patrol and Dawn's at Lisa's place, and we all know you have no social life outside Scooby Central--" Spike snorted and Xander took the rare opportunity to give him one of his own smirks back-- "So you have no excuse to ditch me."

“Stroppy tonight, aren't we?”  Spike grabbed his duster and shrugged into it.  “Please yourself--come along if you want, but I'm not going to slow down for you."

Xander got up and reached for his own coat.  Half-way into one sleeve he paused apprehensively.  “This isn’t going to involve breaking and entering, is it?”

Spike gave him one of those deep, nasty vampire chuckles.  “Put it this way--I’m not taking you anywhere I wouldn’t take Dawn.”

“OK, that should... hey.  I think I’m insulted.”

“Nah,” Spike said cheerfully.  “No need to think about it.”

Part 4

Part 6