The Next Morning...

Buffy jumped awake when she heard Dawn’s alarm going off the next morning. She crawled out of bed, still groggy, and began to pull her pajamas on.

Spike rolled over and watched her with interest, more than a little longing, and a bit of confusion. “Correct me if I’m wrong: aren’t you supposed t’ put those on when you come to bed … not when you get up?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Dawn thinks I’m sleeping on the couch,” she admitted. “She doesn’t know about … us yet. I need to get down there before she figures it out and starts with the third degree.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one on the couch, pet? This is your bed, after all.”

“No, it’s alright. I have to get up anyway to take her to school. I don’t want her walking. I have to go though – she’ll be out of her room in about twenty seconds,” Buffy observed knowingly as she grabbed some clothes and hurried to the door. She opened it, flashed him a quick smile, closed it silently, and was gone.

Spike tried to go back to sleep, but missed Buffy’s body against his already – he just couldn’t get comfortable without her there. He sighed and looked at the clock, wondering just what time school actually started.

**~**

Buffy sighed as she crawled back into bed next to Spike after taking Dawn to school. He had finally fallen back asleep waiting for her and was sprawled kittywampus across most of the bed on his stomach. The sheet was tangled around one leg from ankle to thigh. It then disappeared between his legs, traveling under his body and emerging near his lower back. It continued wrapping around him like a snake, hiding about half of this bum. It looked like he’d been wrestling with it – and lost.

Buffy lay on her side, resting her head in one hand, her elbow bent, and began tracing designs on his back with her fingertips. She circled his dragon wings … Dawn would’ve called them chicken wings; Willow would’ve called them his scapulas. Buffy thought of the sharp protrusions as dragon wings on Spike; he was certainly no chicken. He was like a giant, fire-breathing dragon: deadly and dangerous, fierce and protective of the people he cared about.

She smiled at the thought of Spike as a fire-breathing dragon, letting her fingers trail idly over the hills and valleys of muscle on his back. She explored the bumps along his spine and the strong strap of muscle along each side of his backbone. Her fingers lingered over his Dimples of Venus, which were playing peek-a-boo with the tangled sheet, then tickled back up his spine to his shoulders.  His traps were rigid and felt tight to Buffy’s touch, so she began to massage them with a firm grip; first one, then the other.

Spike moaned in pleasure and shifted slightly so she could reach the furthest one more easily. “One arm broken, luv?” he asked pleasantly after about a minute.

“No… I’m leaning on one hand,” she disclosed.

“Feels bloody wonderful,” he sighed in delight. “Two hands’d feel like I’d died and gone t’ heaven.”

Buffy smirked and shifted positions. She lifted one leg over his body and straddled his hips as she sat up with her knees on either side of him, freeing both hands.  Spike released a deep, throaty moan when she squeezed the tight muscles running from his neck to his shoulders with both hands in a death grip. It would’ve been debilitating if she’d done that to a normal person – a Slayer’s version of a Vulcan nerve pinch – but to Spike it felt absolutely blissful.

“You’re bloody hired,” Spike breathed as she continued the procedure all the way from his neck to the top of his shoulders and back again.

“What’s it pay?” Buffy asked teasingly.

Spike’s whole body seemed to vibrate under her as he rumbled a throaty moan. “Name your price, Slayer.”

Buffy smiled devilishly, although it was lost on Spike since he was lying on his stomach with his eyes closed. Her face flushed pink and the room suddenly felt too warm. She started to verbalize what she was thinking, but then thought better of it and bit her lip, stopping herself.

Spike furrowed his brow as the silence dragged on. “What happened?” he asked at last, still savoring the fantastic massage she was giving him. “Cat got your tongue?”

Buffy licked her lips. “No. Just … thinking,” she stammered back as she slid her hands down his arms and gave them the same treatment she’d been lavishing on his shoulders. His strong muscles relaxed, dissolving into a bowl full of jelly under her ministrations. Spike gave her another moan of approval as she kneaded his deltoids and triceps, and even reached around and sunk her fingers into his biceps.

“Gotta warn ya, Slayer – my resources are limited, so if you’re thinking o’ the Taj Mahal … well … keep thinking, pet. Ya got a choice o’ fingers, hands, tongue, lips, teeth, and dick … or, with time, could do all of the above. What’s your pleasure?”

Buffy squirmed a bit atop his ass and cleared her throat. The flush of heat had returned to her cheeks and they deepened to the color of grenadine.

When she still never answered, Spike, somewhat reluctantly, and very carefully, turned beneath her so he could look up into her face – see her eyes, try to suss out what the problem was. The sheet tightened its grip on his body when he shifted, corseting his hips and groin tightly.

“What’d I do, offend your prim and proper Slayer sensibilities, then?” he asked when he saw her embarrassed expression.

“No … it’s not you … it’s just … me,” she stuttered, laying her palms flat against his hard stomach. Her fingers began idly tracing the six-pack there, as if they had a mind of their own.

“Still in the confessional, pet.  C’mon now – I told you my favorite bloody fairy tale, there’s nothin’ you can say that could possibly be more embarrassing than that,” Spike contended.

Buffy rolled her eyes to the ceiling, but her fingers never stilled on his abs. Buffy took a deep breath and looked back into his eyes. “Ok, well … here’s the thing … I uhhh …" she cleared her throat nervously and blurted out, "How do you feel about cunnilingus?”

Spike’s brows went up but he suppressed a chortle of laughter, catching it in his throat and choking slightly to cover it. “Never met the bloke, m’self, but…”

“Never mind,” Buffy whined, disentangling herself from the sheet, which had somehow wound around her legs too, and flopping down onto the bed next to him. “Sorry I mentioned it.”

“No, pet, I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, realizing that it had probably taken all her Slayer power to ask him that. “It’s just … you’re so bloody cute usin’ them big university words and all. Don’t reckon I even know how to spell that one … but I can answer your question like this…” he offered as he began to sit up. When he lifted and twisted his upper torso though, pain shot through his sternum. He grimaced and had to drop back down to his back to get it to stop.

“Oh, Spike! Are you alright?” Buffy asked with concern as she sat up and laid a hand comfortingly over the deep, and still apparently painful, wound on his chest.

“Be … fine,” he ground out as he gasped for unneeded air. After a couple of minutes, the pain subsided and Spike pulled her nearer. “Sorry, luv – you’ll have t’ do some of the work. Sit on my face and tell me ya love me,” he prodded with a smirk.

“No … really – it’s no big…” Buffy stammered.

“Buffy,” Spike chastised, drawing her name out like he was talking to a stubborn child. “I’m sorry. Ya gotta lighten up, pet. Can’t go scampering for cover every time I ask you to sit on my face … or is it the ‘I love you’ part that’s got ya back-peddling?”

“Don’t be like that,” Buffy moaned, sorry she’d ever said anything. She should’ve just asked for a kiss or something safe like that. “You know I love you – I mean, who wouldn’t love a guy whose favorite fairy tale is…”

“OI! You promised you’d never repeat that – ever,” he interrupted curtly.

Buffy smiled at him innocently. “Oh … you meant never … as in never, ever?”

“Never. Ever. On penalty of a slow and painful death,” Spike confirmed.

Buffy laughed and pulled her fingers across her lips in a zipping motion.

“Now … ya gonna give me a taste or you gonna keep that sweet pussy to yourself all day?” Spike asked, reaching a hand out towards her.

Buffy hesitated again, but after a moment her curiosity won out over her embarrassment and she asked, “Where do you want me?”

“Here,” Spike motioned vaguely around his head a moment before realizing she was gonna need more direction than that. “How about you sit facin’ my … feet? Put your knees here on either side of my body,” he instructed guiding her into position. “Then just … sit back and down … and, if you get the urge to do something with your hands or mouth – like unwrap that soddin’ binding around my hips and give us a kiss – feel free.”

“Oh no,” Buffy blurted out. “I’m not … any good at … that.”

Spike furrowed his brow. “Have you ever ‘Lorena Bobbitted’ anyone?”

“No, of course not,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

“Then let me be the judge, yeah? Anyway, ya know what they say, ‘practice makes perfect’,” Spike quipped wolfishly.

Buffy laughed nervously as she pressed her ass back, readjusting her position a time or two at Spike’s urging. “Now … relax,” he instructed, smacking a hand on her rump lightly.

“Not gonna bite you … much,” he assured her just before he pressed his tongue between her folds and touched the hard tip to her clit.

Buffy’s body jerked as fire roared through her body and her back arched, pressing her tits hard against Spike’s abdomen. Spike opened up the petals of her flower with his fingers and flicked his tongue against her little bundle of nerves several times in rapid succession. Buffy moaned her approval as Spike circled her clit slowly with his tongue then wrapped his lips around it and emitted a deep, basso growl, vibrating her sensitive flesh.

Buffy’s body exploded just that quickly. A cascade of bliss engulfed her and a shriek of pleasure tore from her throat, filling the room. Spike moved his mouth and drove his tongue into her cum-filled channel as it convulsed and shuddered around him, the rumbling growl never fading. Buffy soared as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her, engulfing her in bright flames of bliss. Spike never let up, taking her higher and higher on wave after glorious wave of rapture the likes of which she'd never felt before.

Her nervousness and embarrassment were gone in that instant – in fact, all rational thought seemed to have abandoned her. There was only that feeling. That’s all that mattered in that instant; it was, in fact, all that existed in the world right then. There were no hell-gods, no Hellmouths, no demons, no dangers – in fact, there was nothing else but her and Spike. And, anytime a thought of something else began to creep back into her consciousness, Spike banished it from her mind with his lips, tongue, teeth and hands … and low, rumbling moans and growls of passionate delight.

Spike could hear Buffy’s heart skittering uncontrollably in her chest, hear her raspy gasps of air, feel her chest heave desperately above him as he lapped at her chalice greedily. She was delicious; heavenly. Her sweet cum poured down on him, her body quivering and shuddering uncontrollably, the velvet-clad, iron walls of her channel undulating wildly around his tongue, barely relaxing a moment before grasping and fluttering over and over again. He fingered her clit and the sensitive skin around her ass as he fucked her with his tongue. His theory that he could touch her deepest desires, sate her demon's every need, was confirmed time and again as he consumed her in the flames of bliss. She was an animal, relentless, like nothing he’d ever known before. Wild and wanton and filled with dark lust, but at the same time she shone and glittered with bright goodness, like the Northern Star. She was a heavenly body filled with feral, untamed passion. She was everything he'd ever dreamed of and more.

Spike slowed his ministrations, easing Buffy back down away from the lustful flames. He half-expected her to object at any moment, but she didn’t. She had no breath to object at that moment. She was flying in the heavens and floating through a river of fire and it was wicked.

Buffy’s body was still caught in the throes of passion when her screams subsided and the gasps of air finally began to penetrate her lungs and send oxygen to her brain again. Her inhibitions had been squelched, for the moment at least, and what her barely-functioning brain wanted more than anything was to give Spike what he’d just given her. Without a thought, and with the same feral desire that Spike had just been admiring, she ripped at the sheet covering his bulging groin. Spike lifted his hips off the bed to help as she clawed and yanked, finally freeing his cock from the fabric trapping him. She squealed in victory and dropped her lips to his raging erection, swallowing his shaft as deeply and quickly as she could.

Spike gasped, unprepared for the power and ferocity of it. He thought he felt his eyeballs sink deeper into their sockets when she sucked down. She was going to extract his eyeballs out through his dick! It was fucking brilliant!

“Fuck! Bloody hell, Buffy!” he exclaimed in surprised delight.

She quickly released the suction when he cursed and lifted off him. She’d actually hurt Riley the one time when she’d tried this before, thus the lack of confidence and practice. She was suddenly afraid that she’d done the same to Spike.

“Christ woman … don’t stop! Don’t fucking stop!” Spike urged her frantically, bucking his hips up adamantly, his cock searching for that warm heaven it had been in just a moment before.

Encouraged, Buffy began again, sucking down on him hard as she pumped her head up and down in fast, hard strokes. Spike’s hips jerked up into her hot, wet mouth, slamming the head of his cock against the back of her throat. Buffy gagged and pulled back as tears welled momentarily in her eyes.

“Fuck! Sorry, pet! Can’t … bloody … stop,” Spike gasped out before burying his tongue in her pussy again.

Buffy grasped the base of Spike’s cock in one iron fist and dropped her mouth back down over the bulging head. His hips bucked again when she sucked down on him, but her hand stopped him from gagging her that time. She twirled her tongue around the spongy, mushroom head and, for the first time, actually tasted and felt his pre-cum on her tongue. She faltered and pulled back, her inhibitions once again surfacing and warring with the lust within her.

Spike stopped too, afraid that he’d somehow hurt her or gagged her again. “You ok, pet?” he asked, genuinely concerned. “Did I hurt you?”

“No … I …” Buffy’s brain tried to figure out what to say – something that wouldn’t make her sound like she’d just escaped from a nunnery. She could find nothing that would work, so she just said it. “I just … ummm … you aren’t gonna cum in my mouth … are you? ‘Cos I’m just not sure … I mean ... I've never ... and well ... ummm .... well, it just seems ... a little squick-worthy.”

Spike pulled his upper lip between his teeth and bit down to stop the laugh that had bubbled up from his throat. After a moment trying to remove the amusement from his voice, he assured her, “No, pet. If you don’t want … that.”

Buffy seemed relieved and visibly relaxed.

“But, just t’ be safe,” Spike continued. “When I tell you, press down here with three fingers,” he advised, guiding her hand to his taint, halfway between his ass and scrotum. “Not too hard, don’t want to … burst anything.”

Buffy pressed down, lightly at first, then slowly increased the pressure until Spike stopped her. “Yeah – that’s it.”

“And that … stops it?” Buffy asked, slightly skeptical.

“Yeah,” Spike assured her. “I don’t usually have a problem holdin’ back, but you … you undo me, pet. You’re a bloody animal.”

Buffy flushed. She wished she could see his eyes to see if he was teasing her, but she could only see his legs and feet.  “I didn’t think I was … very good at … this,” she admitted.

Spike snorted. “Not sure how ya came to that daft notion, pet. You’re bloody brilliant. Never known anyone like you, Buffy,” he told her, his voice serious and sounding more than a little awestruck.

Buffy was suddenly glad he couldn’t see her face, because she was sure it was splotchy with heat and beet-red. Buffy bit back a grin and leaned back down to touch her tongue to his cum-slit, tasting the shiny pearl of pre-cum that had reappeared there.

She wasn’t sure what she expected it to taste like – something squicky was her assumption – but it was sort of coppery and metallic … like blood, and salty and spicy, like the pizza he’d had the night before. She wrapped her lips back around the engorged heard of his shaft and Spike moaned his approval as she resumed her ‘practice session’.

Spike’s hips once again took on a life of their own as she flicked her tongue up and down his hard length, top, bottom, and sides – exploring and testing his response to each touch. She circled the hard edge where the head flared out above the shaft and sucked down on the taut band on the underside with her lips. Spike’s moans, hisses, and growls intensified as she teased her tongue, lips, and teeth over and around him. One of her hands found his balls and was fondling them lightly while the other hand kneaded his thigh, like a cat, sometimes digging her nails into his flesh as she did so.

Spike buried his mouth against her wet pussy again and tried to focus on giving her pleasure, rather than the need that she was building inside him. He raked his tongue over her slit roughly and Buffy moaned around his cock, her lips and tongue vibrating against him. He reached a hand between them and began fondling her tit as he sucked down on her clit and nibbled on the hard, eager pebble with his teeth.

Buffy’s shriek of pleasure was muffled as she swallowed down on his rod again, sucking hard. Spike again had the thought that she could suck his eyeballs out as easily as a Cajun could suck the brains out of a crawfish. The thought drove him wild with lust. His concentration vanished, his brain fizzled, and all he could feel was her hot mouth on him, slamming down around his cock, sucking him into her deeper and harder with each stroke.

It hit him like a freight train barreling out of control down the tracks – utterly unstoppable. “Fuck! Buffy! Now!” he gasped out, as she banged down on him faster and wilder as her own passion built.

What he was saying barely registered in time for her to react. Not taking the time to remove her mouth from his shaft, she dropped her hand from his balls down to his taint. She pressed down as he had shown her, with three fingers – not too hard. Spike groaned against her soft flesh as if caught in the clutches of the Grim Reaper himself, and his body writhed under her. It was more frustrating than actually painful, but it was painfully frustrating as all that built-up energy and desire was held back.

A warm glow of intimate, unerring trust bloomed inside Buffy in that instant, growing from a bud to a beautiful, fragrant rose in the blink of an eye. It wasn't like she hadn't trusted Spike before – of course she had or he wouldn't be here – but this was somehow different.  It seemed strange to say that she could have a deeper level of faith in Spike – she already trusted him with her life and Dawn's – but it was true. She could trust him, she realized, with her most embarrassing secrets; he wouldn't hold them against her or taunt her with them. Her lack of sexual experience – or maybe it was more a lack of experimentation – was painfully obvious, especially compared to Spike's century on this earth. But he'd only offered praise and support – he'd been nothing if not patient; he hadn't pushed or degraded her for her naïveté. As odd as it sounded, for Buffy trusting someone with her life seemed to pale in comparison to trusting them with her secrets – Slayers and secrets had been BFFs since time immemorial – but in that moment of restraint, Spike had shown that he could be entrusted with both.

Mixed in with the sweet perfume of trust was something else: respect. She had a growing respect for that small, tattered bit of William’s soul, which could undoubtedly wield a great deal of power over the demon if given a chance to be heard. A while back, Spike had said something to her and Angel: he’d claimed proudly that he was ‘Love’s Bitch’. It occurred to Buffy that as went Spike's heart, so went William's soul. If he was pouring his love over a ruthless vampire like Dru, then his soul would’ve been unheralded – its wishes unheard. But, if he found himself filled with love for someone with a soul, someone with a conscience, and a mission to do good, then that little scrap of soul would be able to climb out of the dark, dust itself off, and hold court over the demon. 

As soon as Buffy felt his discomfort wane, she released her hold on him and disentangled her legs from his arms. Careful not to push against his injured sternum, she turned around and straddled him again, this time with her hips resting on his.

“Are you alright?” she asked, caught somewhere between sorry she’d made him do that and amazed that he’d allowed it. His demon hadn't even surfaced once that whole time.

His erection had waned a bit with the aborted liftoff, and was now pinned between their bodies. The slick heat of her heavenly flower pressed down on his length, and renewed energy surged up and jump-started his need in an instant.

“I’ll do,” Spike assured her, panting slightly with unneeded breath as he wriggled his hips under her, settling his hardening cock between her damp folds as she sat atop his hips.

“I … that was really … nice of you,” she stammered, embarrassed that she wasn't experienced or confident enough to really be the sexy animal he'd claimed she was. “Thanks.”

“Don’t go spreading that ugly rumor around, Slayer … I would have to find a way t’ kill you,” Spike warned, smirking.

Buffy laughed lightly and bent forward to drop a kiss on his lips. A new flavor mixed with the spicy tang of ‘Spike,’ and Buffy realized it was her own essence she tasted. Her juices covered his lips and face, and she was at once turned on by it and guilt-ridden for not returning the favor properly. She resolved to do better in the future; to not act like a squeamish girl on her first date, even though in some ways she definitely felt like she was.

Spike pulled her body down against his roughly. Even though pain shot out from his ribs when he did it, it still felt wonderful. He deepened the kiss and Buffy could taste herself in his mouth and on his tongue, not just on his lips. Her body tingled with renewed desire as she swirled her tongue around his and devoured his cum-slick lips with hers.  She invaded his mouth with her tongue just as he had invaded her channel: passionately and full of primal desire.

Buffy could feel his erection growing even harder beneath her hips and she began to move, sliding her hot flesh back and forth over his shaft, building the need in both of them back to a fever pitch.

Buffy sat back and lifted her hips up to free his erection from the sweet prison of her pussy-lips. Spike reached between them and guided it along her slit. She moaned when his glans pressed over her clit, then gasped, her eyes fluttering closed, when Spike lifted his hips and pressed into her.

Buffy sank down on him, savoring the feeling of being filled and stretched by his hardness. Although different, the euphoria of the first moments of penetration was just as overwhelming as soaring through the heavens on the wings of an all-out, scream-from-the-rooftops orgasm.

It was that moment of connection, that moment of sharing yourself with someone else, of letting down the walls and allowing them in – not just physically, but emotionally, as well. For some people, like Faith, for example, sex was just sex – just physical. But for Buffy it had always been more, and the emotions that welled inside her only made the physical pleasure that much stronger. She couldn’t help but think the same was true for Spike. He claimed to be ‘Love’s Bitch’, not ‘Sex’s Bitch’, after all.

Spike’s moan mirrored Buffy’s as she pushed down and engulfed him. Blissful electricity danced over him, emanating from the head of his cock, surging through his groin, and tingling up and down his spine. The hair on Spike’s head actually prickled with the current running through him, and his body shuddered in pleasure as her quim closed around his hard length.

Buffy’s sugar walls undulated and molded around him like a tight, velvet glove, increasing the sparkage that flowed between them. The staccato rhythm of her heart thudded in his ears, and he could feel her racing pulse in her femoral artery beating like a drum against his groin. She took shallow, reedy breaths that made his own chest heave with unneeded, but excruciatingly sweet, hot air. 

Buffy opened her eyes and looked down to find Spike watching her through a veil of thick lashes. His blue eyes sparkled with joy and love, and those same emotions were mirrored in hers. They stayed there, unmoving, gazing into each other’s souls, lost in the bliss of the connection, for what seemed a lifetime.

Finally, Buffy leaned forward and whispered against his ear, “I love you, William.” She hoped that little tattered scrap of soul heard her.

“I love you, Buffy,” Spike replied hoarsely, his voice cracking slightly with emotion. She couldn't be sure, but his accent sounded ... different, softer maybe.

Spike picked up her rhythm and moved against her, increasing the friction of their bodies as he swirled his hips opposite hers. When his pubic bone found her clit, Buffy moaned again and her pace increased, desperate to rise back into the flames of heaven.

Spike’s touch became harder, more demanding on her breasts, groping and pinching, pulling and rolling her nipples between his long fingers. Buffy’s hips jerked and began to slam down on his harder and faster. Although still pleasing to the senses, Spike could no longer call it sensuous, but powerfully passionate. He did his best to match her, to thrust up as she came down, but his bruised and battered body objected to the pace. He moaned in pain, hoping it sounded like pleasure.

“Be still. Let me … just … let me do this,” Buffy instructed breathlessly.

Spike obeyed, losing himself in her power, in her desire, in her strength. He reached between them and curled one knuckle at the base of his cock. The next time she came down, her clit exploded with rapture when it hit the hard protrusion. She shrieked in pleasure and redoubled her efforts as she felt those waves growing higher and higher again – lifting her into the white-hot flames.

Buffy’s pussy walls tightened around his length almost painfully and words of praise exploded out of Spike’s mouth, fast and furious. “Bloody hell, Buffy! Fuck, woman! Yes! Give it to me, Buffy … give it all! Do that again! Yes, woman! So good, you are! Fuck me, Slayer … so bloody hot. So wet … so goddamned beautiful.”

“Spike!” Buffy exclaimed as she felt the waves turn into flames and begin to engulf her in their power. “Cumming! Oh God … Spike, yes! Yes! Yesssssss!” she screamed just before her body began to convulse in pleasure. Her hips still thrashed against him as her pussy pulsed and milked his cock, begging it to expand with cum and explode into her.

Her words were all the invitation Spike needed to let go. In fact, they had managed to undo him without actually allowing him to consciously release his will. The electricity that had tingled his skin before returned, now white-hot and jolting, as his cum surged into her. His body convulsed in overwhelming pleasure as flames licked his skin, and his soul soared into the heavens with her.  

Even as they danced on the surface of the sun, her scream of bliss and his roar of release could still be heard from the earth below. The sounds were disparate and yet seemed to harmonize into a passionate, blissful chorus that could only be fully appreciated by the souls that created it. It was a song of connection – of finding the missing piece that made the puzzle of life complete.

Buffy tried not to, but couldn’t stop herself from collapsing atop Spike as her soul slammed back into her body and all the tension was released. Her muscles had been turned to rubber and refused to function even one second more. Spike didn’t care or even notice the pain of her crumpling atop him at that moment. He wrapped his arms around her and held her there, squeezing her tight and wishing this moment would go on forever. It was more than he deserved, to have her love. It was more, really, than he’d ever hoped for to be this close to her … this close to her heart.

The woman in his arms was a glorious concoction of contradictions: at once a woman and a girl, a sexy tart and an easily embarrassed lady, a supernatural nymphomaniac and shy, gentle lover.

Buffy was a tangle of good and evil. It was as if someone had taken two skeins of fine, delicate thread, one black and one white, and tossed them into a room full of over-excited kittens. The resulting snarl of jumbled, intertwined knots was impossible to disentangle – they were inexorably and forever linked together. Over time, the black and white began to fade into each other and in places became gray – indistinguishable, no longer good or evil, but something in between. Spike looked forward to exploring that mass of contradictions … to untangling the secrets of Buffy. He hoped it would take him a long, long, long time to sort out.