Title:  The Other Foot
Author: Pattyanne
           snapkik@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: None of the BtVS
characters belong to me.


Summary: A story for everybody who
always wanted to see Buffy take it the way
she dished it out.

**************************




"What are YOU doing here?"

"I was...just out for a walk."

"A walk?  Here where I live?  At three in the morning?"

"Yeah. It's a hot night. I couldn't sleep."

Spike turned and headed towards his crypt. "Whatever."

Buffy stood for a moment, watching him go, unsure
whether or not to follow.  Sometimes he was friendly,
other times he could be pretty nasty.

For the life of her, she didn't know why she kept
coming to see him.

Except for the fact that she was fairly certain she was
falling in love with him. That might have something to do
with it.

One-sided, unrequited love was a bitch. Stupid slayer.

**Why don't I just give this insanity up?**

Even as she asked herself that question, she was forcing
her feet to follow after him.

**It's a dead end. He's a vamp. I'm a slayer. Ends don't
get any deader than that**

Spike pulled open the door to his crypt, but didn't
enter. "You should scamper on home, Slayer," he said
without turning around to face her. "Wouldn't want any-
thing nasty to take a bite out of you."

Buffy tried to sound cocky. "Oh, you're not all that nasty."

He turned to face her. "Well, I'M not interested in biting
you."

For some weird reason, that stung. "Why not? You
afraid I won't taste good?  Blood of a slayer not to your
liking?"

Spike grimaced. "Yeah, there IS that. Not to mention the
three hour migraine that would follow up the bad taste in
my mouth."

She had to bite down on her lower lip to keep it from
trembling. "Oh. Well..."

The vampire stared at her lowered head for a moment,
then rolled his eyes. "And besides," he added, sounding
like the words were being forcibly dragged out of him, "you've
been kind of handy to have around once or twice."

**Once or twice? ONCE OR TWICE?  I've saved your
undead ass MORE than once or twice. Not that you've
ever appreciated it....or thanked me for it.**

She said none of it, just shrugged her shoulders and
tried to look as though she didn't care one way or
another about him.

Looking back up, she offered him a tentative smile.  A
smile that disappeared from her face immediately when she
heard him let out what could only be described as a long
suffering 'Why me?' sort of a sigh.

Common sense and pride demanded she turn her back
and walk away from him, admit she was less than
nothing to him, and move on with her life.

Unfortunately common sense and pride were being
beaten down by sheer desire.

He was just so damn beautiful. Beautiful...and sexy...and
dangerous. Everything she wanted in a man.

********************

Before she'd met Spike, she would never have have
thought about a man as being 'beautiful'.

Angel had been a good looking guy, although she'd never
really understood that "One With The Angelic Face"
business.  His features were a little too blunt for that,
and the fact that he never  smiled didn't help.

And he had been way too big for her. Their embraces
were never really comfortable for someone her size; too
much stretching on her part and bending on his.

In fact, on their only night in bed together, Buffy had
quickly discovered the drawbacks of a tall/short joining.
Lying on top of her, he'd needed to be too far up her
body to achieve penetration, and she'd found herself with
her face smothered by his chest.

She hadn't had the courage or the experience to suggest
an alternate position, so she'd remained where she was
as his heavy body pummeled hers.

If anybody deserved the appellation 'angelic', it was Spike.

A fallen angel, to be sure, but still...

Sharply chiseled features, a sensuous mouth, and blue
eyes that could melt her into a puddle.

And she wanted him.

She wasn't particularly happy about wanting him. At times,
she was downright furious with herself for it. How could SHE
want HIM?  Of all the men in the world?

She was the Slayer, for God's sake. A vampire's worst
nightmare.  Her job was to kill them, not follow them
around like a lost puppy, whining for attention. For a smile.
A friendly word. Something!

Anything...

Buffy sighed deeply.  She had to stop this right now,
before she was too far gone, before she really got hurt.

What she SHOULD do was concentrate on another
guy.  Riley Finn was interested.  She'd been out with him
twice now.

He was nice enough, and she couldn't deny that he was
good looking in a wholesome, Kansas corn-fed way. Of
course there would be that tall/short problem again if she
ever wound up in bed with him.

In bed with Riley?  It really didn't sound very appealing. In
fact, it sounded decidedly UN-appealing.

And deep down inside of her, buried safely beneath all
the other pros and cons, was the ever present fear that if
she DID enter into a sexual liaison with Riley, she'd need
to close her eyes and think about Spike in order to find
any kind of satisfaction.

God, she was pathetic. Standing around and mooning over
a guy who would never return her feelings.

Still....a girl had to try. Had to do what she could.

She spent long nights lying awake in bed, staring at
the ceiling, yearning to know what it felt like to be touched
by him. Nine times out of ten, those meandering thoughts
would segue into erotic dreams.

That was how the whole thing had started. She'd been
dreaming of the two of them standing in the middle of his
crypt, touching and kissing, whispering soft words of love.

The dream had been so intense, so realistic, that she'd
awakened with a muffled cry of horror. Bolting upright in
bed, she'd stared into the darkness as the meaning of that
dream became as clear as glass.

She was in love with him...without a clue as to how it
had happened, or when.  Begging an unseen Deity to
make it not be true had been useless.

Every time she'd seen him after that dream, the entire
thing replayed in her mind, and she'd soon found herself
noticing things about him that she really hadn't before.

Like his beautiful face. His lean and muscular body. His
natural grace and agility.

She'd found him so desirable, wanted him so badly
that she'd begun acting foolishly.

Turning up unexpectedly wherever he happened to be;
hiding behind tombstones and trees, waiting for him to
come home to his crypt; forcing her company on him when
he clearly didn't want it.

Pathetic.

Worse, every time she saw him even talking with another
girl, jealousy would begin to take a slow stranglehold on her
throat.  Bad enough when she was dealing with the 'here and
now', but ten times worse when she was dealing with the
past.

Dealing with the memory of Drusilla.

Her envy of Drusilla was so vast that there were times
she nearly choked on it. Thinking about Spike kissing her,
putting his hands on her body, making love to her...it made
Buffy want to vomit.

For over a hundred years he had been hers.

That bitch.

She tried to be philosophical about it. Sure, Drusilla
had been the love of his life. Past tense. Emphasis on
'had'.

But she was gone now. With any luck, she'd never come
back.  This leveled the playing field nicely.

And Buffy knew....she KNEW...that if she got half a chance,
she could make Spike forget that Drusilla had ever existed.

All she had to do was get him to admit that there was
something between them. A tiny spark that could be
fanned into a wildfire if he would just let her do it.

It was there. She could see it so clearly.

Why couldn't he?

They were just so RIGHT for each other, had so much in
common. A lot more than he realized, or would acknowledge.

Slaying had turned her into a nocturnal hunter, as he was.

She was a killer, dishing out death on a nightly basis. She
was good at it. She liked doing it, truly enjoying the heady
rush of power that shot through her when she put down a
demon.

And every time she did it, the darkness in her fed off of it,
taking her down just a little bit further.

They belonged to the darkness. It was their natural
environment. Cloaking them in black velvet, it allowed
them to run wild through the night, unseen by eyes that
would never understand...or believe...what they were.


********************


"Hadn't you better run along home, Slayer? I think I
hear Mommy calling you."

Spike's voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"My mother is out of town," she replied with a shrug of
her shoulders. "I doubt that even YOU can hear her."

"Go home anyway."

Her cheeks turned bright red at his annoyed dismissal. 'I
do as I please," she declared belligerently.

"Fine," Spike said, gesturing her away with his hand. "Then
I'LL go home."

Buffy began to cast around in her mind for something to
say that might keep him from leaving, but all she could
come up with was, "I need to tell you something. Just
wait a minute."

He sighed again and turned to face her, arms folded
across his chest. "Well?"

She could see his impatience and irritation, but she
couldn't stop now. She had to say something before
she became so desperate that she'd have to chain him
up to make him listen to her.

"I was just...I was wondering if you...well, I've been
invited to a party at one of the frat houses, and...I
wondered if you might like to go."

Spike looked at her. "With you?"

She offered him a smile. "Well...yeah."

"That sounds like a date."

Buffy nodded shyly. "Could call it that."

He just stared at her, shaking his head. "You've gone
completely mad."

Her smile faded. "No. No...I...I haven't," she stammered. "I
just thought that it might be nice to...to spend some time
together..."

Spike laughed. "No. No, it wouldn't. It would be fucking
torture."

Buffy's stomach tightened at his mocking tone.

"I..it's just...we've been...you know...working together
for a while now."

"So?"

Tears were threatening to pool in her eyes, but she
blinked them away. "I...thought...we seem to be...doing
all right..."

"Slayer," he cut her off. "Just because I've been reduced
to satisfying my hunting needs by killing demons with you
doesn't mean I'm dying for a little more personal interaction.
And even if I was, two people in...the workplace, for lack of
anything better to call it...have no business socializing after
office hours. S'just not a good idea."

"Sometimes....it is," Buffy said softly, meeting his gaze
with her own.

"No," he insisted, "it isn't ever. It's the sort of thing that gets
Presidents impeached."

This was all going so wrong. Where had she lost control
of it.

Had she ever HAD control of it?

"Not to mention the fact," he went on, "that you're a slayer.
Vampires and slayers don't date."

Buffy lifted her chin. "Angel and I dated. A little."

"Angel is a candy assed, washed up excuse for a vampire,"
he said. "I'm nothing like Angel."

No one knew that better than she did.


TBC (?)