Author: Ameeya
Rating: NC-17
Timeline: S.3, during Lover's Walk.
Summary: Spike returns to Sunnydale to kill the Slayer. He's just too drunk to do it properly, and ends up getting himself into the deep without even realizing it. Perhaps worst of all, he has no memory of his actions the next day.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em; I'm just playing. Please oh please, do not sue me.

Author's Note: OH MY GOD! Beloved in Blood was nominated at Spuffy Awards!!!

I guess my desire to keep it light and fluffy totally got side-tracked. Heehee! It was nominated for Best Angst, Best Saga, and Best 'Missed The Bed Again'. ***BOUNCING UNCONTROLLABLY*** THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE NOMINATIONS!!! Now I just gotta stop running around the room long enough to get some more writing done!!!

And in case I don't get a chance to update again before Tuesday (eeep!) Happy Fourth!!!

Buffy didn't know where she was running until her legs carried her up the walk at the mansion. Every nerve in her body screamed in rage and the sickness that had enveloped her stomach became more prominent with every step. Her skin was singed—as though someone had dangled her above a fire for their own amusement. There wasn't a part of her that didn't ache. She was gutted. Spike's words had gutted her. His anger. His outrage. His crudeness. Her chest was burning and she needed relief.

No. Relief wasn't what she needed. She needed the hurt to be gone completely. She needed to not break, no matter how hard Spike tried to break her. She needed to get over this—she needed to suck up and do what she'd told herself she'd do all along—forget the past few weeks. She needed to forget. She needed to forget everything.

There could be no more playing with her bite mark. No more waiting for Ghost Spike's touch. No more snapping at her non-Spike male friends and ex-boyfriends and watchers. Whatever hold Spike had on her would eventually destroy her if she didn't put an end to it. Walking away from him that first morning hadn't lessened his hold on her—rather, every day thereafter had secured her fall, little by little.

At the Bronze, he'd kissed her and she'd pushed him away. She'd told him to forget her while knowing damn well that she couldn't forget him. Just two nights ago, she'd allowed him into her body again. And again, she'd walked away, telling herself that time would heal all wounds.

Nothing could heal, though, if she didn't try to heal it. Buffy wiped at her eyes and sniffed pathetically. Angel wasn't the answer. God, she knew Angel wasn't the answer. Any love she'd felt for Angel had dwindled into nothing. However, Angel was her only other link to the wild and wacky world of dating, besides Scott. And she wasn't about to crawl to Scott. Besides, the guy had seemed kinda gay.

She was hung up on a vampire. It would take a vampire to fix it.

With the way she'd been acting, it would be perfectly fair for Angel to slam the door on her face, so Buffy didn't bother wasting a knock. She barged right in, evidently startling the vampire so much that he jumped off the sofa and dropped the book he'd been reading.

"Buffy," he said shortly, not bothering to mask his astonishment. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't say anything. Her body was hurting too much to say anything. Every step that she took toward Angel ripped through her insides. She'd be lucky if she made it all the way to him without passing out from the pain.

"Buffy, are you okay?"

The redundancy of the question annoyed her. Anyone with eyes could tell she wasn't okay.

No, dumb-ass.

"Have...Buffy, have you been crying?"

She hadn't stopped crying. If she wasn't weeping on the outside, she was sobbing on the inside. But she said nothing. She couldn't.

Instead, she swore an oath to herself, sucked in a breath, then marched forward until she was up against him. Her heart was thundering, and not from nerves. No, she wasn't nervous from what she was about to do. She was, quite literally, ill.

But that didn't stop her from grasping the sides of his head and pulling his lips down to hers.

No matter how sick it made her.

Spike sat atop a headstone, smoking a cigarette, and feeling sorry for himself. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face. Every time he inhaled, he smelled her tears. He was trying hard to ignore the pain stretching through his veins, though he was resigned to sleeping in a borrowed crypt if he couldn't make it back to his.

It hurt to walk. It hurt to think. And he deserved it. He deserved whatever the Powers dished out. He deserved every pang of Dru's wretched hex. For what he'd done to Buffy, what he'd said to Buffy...Christ, he deserved everything and more. She'd done nothing but be honest with him. She'd practically handed herself over on a golden plate. She'd given him more than he could have ever deserved in light of what he'd done to her, and he'd had the stones to ask for more. To insult her when she didn't give it. To aim his words for the deepest cut when she refused to be someone that she wasn't.

As though he'd want anyone else.

Spike chuckled miserably. Buffy had infected him with her light, and he was burning from the inside. He was becoming something he'd fought since his rebirth. The true self he'd covered under the persona of what Dru had wanted him to be. What Angelus had told him to be. He resented her so much he could kiss her senseless.

Buffy deserved nothing of what he'd given her. He was tearing himself up over something he couldn't control, and it was because of what she'd done to him. What she'd unintentionally done to him. He'd kidnapped her, followed her, kissed her, convinced her to sleep with him again and still managed to blame her for everything that was wrong in his life. That wasn't the sort of man he wanted to be. Not for her. He wanted to be someone she deserved.

And fuck if that wasn't terrifying. The kind of man Buffy deserved was exactly the kind of man he was not. She deserved someone more like the gentleman he'd been lifetimes ago, only stronger. And Spike didn't know how to be that man. He'd spent so much time running from his inherent nature—running from the man his mother had called William—that he'd forgotten what was important. The part of him that hadn't been pathetic. The part of him that had been genuine.

Of course, wanting to be anything for Buffy was insane. It was absolutely insane.

But Spike was tired of fighting it. He was so bloody tired. It'd only been a few weeks, and he knew that there would be no getting over her. She was in his gut, in his throat—she swam in his blood and lived in his heart. No matter how much he might resent her light, he was drowning in it, and he wouldn't fight his way out now if he could.

Spike offered the night another acerbic chuckle and shook his head. "I'm fucked," he said, then laughed again. "I am completely buggered."

The words died and the night was quiet again.

So quiet that when the first wave struck, he barely knew what hit him.

She was kissing Spike.

Buffy didn't know how, but she wasn't about to question it. The second her eyes had closed, she'd found herself kissing Spike. The hurt had vanished. The ache that had her insides broken had subsided. She was kissing Spike. She knew Spike's kisses so well. She breathed him in and clutched desperately at his shoulders. Her mind washed away the illusion of a broad, bulky body—replacing Angel's imposing frame with Spike's smaller, wiry build. She drowned in his taste. Cigarettes and alcohol, and even the hint of leather.

It was so right. It was so unbelievably right. The Powers had intervened. They'd seen her mistake, and they'd given her what she wanted instead. And everything else, for the moment, didn't matter to her. Not what he'd said, not her knowledge that whatever they had couldn't last. Right now, she was in his arms, and all reservations could wait.

"Buffy," he murmured against her lips. A girl could lose herself in his accent. "God, I've missed you."

She swelled with happiness. "I've missed you," she replied, drawing his mouth back down to hers. Her eyes remained shut. She just wanted to kiss him. She needed Spike so badly. She needed him to kiss her and whisper that everything would be all right. That all her worries were for naught, that all her fears were completely ridiculous, and that he needed her more than he needed blood.

But Spike wouldn't say that. Not to her. So she'd settle for kissing him.

It made the hurt go away. Spike was the only one who could ease her pain.

He was in agony. He was in complete agony, and he was seething with jealousy.

Jealousy at what, he didn't know. It had seized his insides from nowhere, and he burned with knowledge. Someone was touching her. Someone was touching his slayer. And Spike couldn't stand it.

He'd never felt anything like this. It didn't wash away the pain; rather, his jealousy meshed with pain, and he found himself tearing headstones from the ground and smashing them against stone walls. He'd vamped uncontrollably, screaming and roaring at the sky, his howls an attempt to get the Powers to leave him alone.

It was impossible, but he knew it. He felt it. Buffy was with someone else.

Someone that wasn't him.

And he'd done it. He'd driven her to that. His anger had driven her away.

Spike moaned pitifully and sank to his knees among the mess he'd made. Buffy was ripping him apart because he'd ripped her apart. It was poetic justice, he supposed, in some small way.

She was killing him. She was absolutely killing him. And he deserved it.

However, that didn't make the demon howl any less. It didn't ease the ache in his chest. It didn't do anything to reign in his fangs. It didn't stop his blood from burning.

Buffy was out there with someone else, and it was ripping him apart.

"Buffy..."

She sighed happily. "Mmmm...Spike..."

There was a long, cold pause. The air was thick with astonishment.

"What?!" Strong, non-Spikeish hands grasped her shoulders and thrust her away from the arms that held her, and her eyes flew open. Angel was staring at her in a strange combination of horror and disgust. "Spike?" he demanded. "You were thinking of Spike while you were kissing me?"

Oh God. Oh God. She had been kissing Angel. It hadn't been Spike at all. Suddenly, all the nausea and pain that the presence of Ghost Spike had chased away came rushing back, only worse. God, it was so much worse. Buffy gasped, pressing a hand to her stomach.

"Oh God..." she moaned. "Uhhh..."

"Buffy?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick..."

And she was sick. The few minutes she'd masked her infidelity were getting their own back in pain, and it was more than her body could handle. Buffy lurched forward with a gag, and vomited.

Violently.

All over Angel.

Buffy didn't bother looking at him. Didn't bother apologizing. She staggered pathetically and braced herself against the sofa, gathering her bearings. She heaved deep breaths and tried to keep her body from breaking down and gagging again.

Wasn't Spike. It wasn't Spike.

She needed to run before she tossed her cookies again. She needed to get away from Angel, and fast. He was making her sick.

And before her drenched ex-boyfriend could utter a word, Buffy summoned every inch of her strength and ran like hell was chasing her.