"Er..." Giles stepped back. "Come in."

"Yeah, I think we established that bit last night." Spike slipped past him, tossing his jacket at the coat rack with more energy than strictly necessary; the wooden pole tottered, but didn't quite fall over, though Spike didn't look as if he cared. He flung himself down on the sofa, frowning, but not saying a word.

Giles shut the door and contemplated the scowling vampire on his couch. If it had been one of the others, he would have at least known how to approach them to find out what was wrong -- years of trial and error had given him that hard earned knowledge, little as he might have been using it recently. But with Spike, he didn't even know where to begin. He was down to guesswork.

Well, he could always fall back on how they had begun last night. "Drink?" he asked. He certainly had enough of that remaining, despite the loss last night of the bottle whose shards he'd cleaned up not an hour ago.

Spike nodded curtly, then stood again. Walked to the door, and opened it, looking out at-- what? Whatever had kept him so long?

"Spike?"

"What?" His voice was hard, a palpable wall of sound against anything Giles might have been intending to ask.

"Scotch or gin?"

Spike looked at him blankly for a few seconds as the question registered. "Scotch," he finally answered gruffly, though it was still in a more friendly tone than he had used before. Giles merely nodded and poured him a glass. He handed it over without comment. Spike was far too defensive right now; Giles knew he had to wait until he relaxed his guard before asking anything.

He'd hardly seemed to be in a bad frame of mind when he'd taken off from the shop this morning, beyond his posturing for Xander and Anya. But there were any number of things in this town that could put a reasonably sane person into a piss-poor mood. Like this town itself, for instance. Giles retrieved a new bottle of scotch from a half-unpacked box, and glasses from the re-filled cupboard.

He poured, and set his glass on the coffeetable before carrying the other over to Spike, who was still staring out into the darkness. "If you weren't a vampire, I'd point out that you're asking for trouble, standing in an open doorway in Sunnydale in the middle of the night."

Giles held out the glass just as Spike turned around to look at him, expecting some variation on 'if I weren't a vampire, I'd have been dead a hundred years ago.' Instead, he got the glass snatched from his hand, and a flash of blue eyes so full of rage that Giles thought for a moment Spike was going to toss the drink in his face.

A prey-creature's instinctive fear of predators skittered along his spine, and it was an effort of will to not take a step back. Keeping his expression as much the same as he could, he continued to hold the glass out. Spike didn't reach for it, didn't do anything for a moment, except continue to stare at him-- until Giles realized that it wasn't even him Spike was seeing.

With that realization, he must have given off some sort of signal, a sudden lack of fear, a secret body language that said he was something besides dinner. Spike's gaze focused on him, and Spike reached for the drink in his hand. Held it for a moment, and again, Giles expected violence, though this time he was picturing a repeat performance of his own impromptu Greek toast last night, the glass flying across the room to shatter in the much-abused corner.

But Spike only held the it tightly for a second, then bought it to his lips, pouring it down in one swallow. Then he slammed the glass down on the arm of the chair next to the door, and before Giles could fathom what was happening, there were liquor-covered lips against his own, wet and demanding. Fingers clamped around his arms almost hard enough to hurt, but not quite, drawing him in.

Taken by surprise, Giles was frozen for a few heartbeats, then opened his mouth, letting Spike's tongue slip in to brush against his own. He could still feel the violence in Spike, coiling just under the surface, that could explode any second. It made the kiss all the more intoxicating.

Spike only pulled away long enough to slam the door shut, slide the lock into place. Then he was pushing Giles towards the sofa. Backwards. Down. One knee between Giles' planted legs, and hands on his shoulders, pinning him against the cushions. Lips on his again, hard. Insistent. Angry and desperate, and Giles hadn't a clue for what, unless every night with Spike was going to be like this.

That could be true, he realized. Wasn't every night with Rupert Giles the same, before the last one? Lonely reading, one elegantly sipped drink too many, and a long slow climb to the loft, where he'd lie awake trying to hold the nightmares off as long as he could, trying to convince himself to go or stay or do *something* to take him out of this half world he'd been living in?

He returned the kiss with less desperation than Spike, but hard enough to let him know that whatever it was, Giles wasn't going to argue, wasn't going to ask until Spike had found what he needed to find. Reaching up, he wrapped a hand around the back of Spike's neck, pressing hard, holding him in place as much as he was being held.

It was easy to give in, to give as good as he got. Easy, when with every touch Spike bestowed on him, tinged with that desperate need, he felt more and more alive -- body tingling as if awakening after a deep slumber.

One hand disappeared from his shoulder, and for a moment Giles felt off-balance, as if the pressure were the only thing holding him to earth. That righted itself soon enough with the feel of Spike's fingers digging at his shirt, pulling it from his trousers. Fumbling, he almost thought, at his fly, but there was nothing clumsy about it, just hasty. Scarcely a moment before he felt Spike's hand on his cock, warmer than the air in a room still half chilled from the night wind.

Giles groaned at the touch, feeling himself harden even further under Spike's hand. He arched up into the touch, his hands sliding down to cup Spike's buttocks. For a moment only, Spike's hand disappeared from his cock, to the tune of a zipper being undone, feel of denim brushing his skin as Spike opened his fly. Then there was hand and cock and cock, and Spike pressing himself close, trapping all three between their bodies, grinding himself against Giles almost violently.

Hard enough to hurt, almost, and Giles saw the grimace on Spike's face. Wondered if the chip gave him some sort of warning buzz when he got near the edge, or if he was just guessing. Sensing how far he was pushing it. In the bright flash of blue eyes, Giles saw an anger that burned past any fear Spike might be feeling.

It made the terror shimmy up his spine for a moment, to guess that there was a level of rage that might let Spike move beyond the controlling leash upon his mind, if only for a second, before it knocked him to the ground. It hadn't happened yet, and it wasn't what was happening here, but sometime, somewhere, Giles could foresee. When it did, he hoped to god that whoever was on the other end of that one-second spark truly deserved what Spike was capable of doing. Sick, probably, that the thought only made him harder.

It wasn't in his nature to be so passive, but under Spike's gaze, Spike's hands, he found himself held motionless -- save for the involuntary tensing of muscles as he was driven inexorably towards his climax. Spike looked away as he thrust down against Giles, and it was only in the loss of that gaze that Giles realized Spike hadn't been seeing him before, either.

Giles understood all too well, the need to fuck wildly, hungrily, painfully, more about the world outside than the body beneath you. He didn't mind serving that need. What else were they doing with each other anyway, if not that? But he'd be damned if he'd let Spike not *notice* who was giving him what he needed. Who he was grinding into the sofa.

He squeezed hard with both hands, and raised his mouth to the side of Spike's turned-away throat. The sharp nip got him an angry glare - but it was a glare at *him*. Giles would have nodded, pleased, if Spike hadn't thrust himself downward. Both of their cocks were crushed in his hand and between their bodies in a movement so tight, so sharp, that Giles could only breathe, then not breathe -- then come so violently that if it hadn't been his own body responsible for the sensations, Spike would probably be writhing on the floor right now.

And Spike *was* writhing, but not from any chip induced pain. He was thrusting against Giles desperately, almost brutally, not pausing for a second even as Giles' climax ripped through him. He continued, blue eyes bright with hunger, maintaining that glare of awareness by the narrowest of margins, fading rapidly as Spike drove himself towards his own completion.

When he came, his grip on Giles' arm was so tight, his body so rigid, pupils so wide and fixed, Giles thought for a moment that Spike *had* managed to fry his brain somehow. His limbs were frozen, and the contortion of his face was nothing like what Giles had seen last night, with Spike beneath him looking up.

Spent, Giles resisted the instinct to relax, instead holding tightly to Spike's unmoving body as his orgasm seemed to fight its way out, as stubborn and angry as its owner. It seemed more of an ordeal for Spike than a pleasure, and Giles braced both of them, Spike's climax crashing down like a tidal wave breaking against a insurmountable cliff.

When it was over, there was another moment of connection, when Spike was looking at him again, just for a second. Seeing him. Still angry, but not at Giles, or no more at Giles than he was the rest of the world. Then that moment broke, and Spike was rolling off him. Zipping up and starting to stand, then when his legs didn't seem to want to oblige him, shrugging, and dropping back to sit next to Giles.

Spike let his head fall back, and Giles watched the muscles in his throat tighten as if he were going to speak, though he didn't. Giles watched him, not speaking, waiting with a patience honed by the years of being Buffy's Watcher for him to find his voice.

It was a long wait, punctuated only by the sound of Giles' own breathing, but eventually, it ended. Without looking at him -- still staring at the ceiling, in fact, head resting against the wooden back of the sofa in a position that couldn't have been comfortable -- Spike took in a breath, and let it out in a single word. Odd. Nearly inflectionless, though Giles could still feel the anger simmering within the body next to him. "Bitch."

Giles waited for something further, and when nothing came, ventured, "Buffy?" It was, after all, the word behind every other word spoken between them, between any of them, since she'd been gone.

"No." Spike paused. "Well, yeah. But no. Willow."

Giles considered that for a moment, mentally running through what he knew of Willow's actions lately, and was unable to come up with something that would cause this kind of reaction. "Why?" he finally asked.

Spike's jaw clenched, but he spoke through it, his words tight, clipped. "She was supposed to make it stop. That...thing."

"I don't--"

"The Bot. She was supposed to make it stop...saying things. Doing things."

"Things," Giles repeated, frowning. "What do you mean by th--" He stopped as his brain put it all together. "Some of its...original programming still exists?"

"Not supposed to. Red said she'd cleared it all out. Made room for all the knock knock joke routines." The shape of a laugh was in Spike's words, but his voice didn't fill it. "Christ. It's not enough of a reminder, to have to look at it, apparently. No matter what gets done to it, rip its head off and spit into its sparky bits, doesn't matter. It's like that thing knows what it does to me, to hear that crap. Bitch."

"You don't really mean Willow, then."

An abbreviated snort. "Any of them. All of them. Does it make a difference?"

"Not really," Giles agreed. "Since it's not them you're really angry with." He hesitated before continuing but was resolved to give Spike the same brutal honesty he had been gifted with the night before. "No one likes to have past mistakes shoved into their face."

Spike looked down at him for a moment, sharp and unpretending. Then he laughed. Short and harsh and too small to fill up the hole where something more real belonged. "Very subtle, Rupert. But I didn't come here to get my head shrunk. I know what my issues are, thank you much."

Giles shrugged, not letting himself feel insulted. "You came here for more than a mutual wank on the couch, or you'd be gone by now."

"What, I don't get the chance to catch my breath?"

"You don't breathe."

There was silence, then a sigh that seemed to give the lie to that. "Right." And silence again.

Was it permitted, for him to offer comfort? Like this, not in the middle of sex? He didn't even know if he *wanted* to give in to the ludicrous impulse to draw Spike into his arms, much less if Spike would accept it. In a place that wasn't very far beneath the surface at all, Giles thought perhaps it was only right. Perhaps Spike *deserved* to have that lifelike reminder of her walking about, speaking with her voice, looking at him with eyes that he'd specified be filled with mindless, uncomplicated love.

Perhaps they both deserved her presence, for all the failures and foolish choices, and outright cruelties in their lives. Their penance, as much or more so than the grave hidden in the woods. An image of what they had both loved, so real that they could reach out and touch -- only to have the illusion shatter when they did.

Giles felt his lips curl up into a humorless smile. This level of maudlin was usually only achieved with half a bottle of scotch inside him. Mostly because he couldn't bear to think so deeply about these things without the cushion of alcohol to blunt the pain. God knew what it was about Spike, that he could bring this out; there was certainly nothing blunted about him.

Blunt, yes, in his directness. There were moments when Giles could imagine locking Spike and Anya in a closet together, and coming back an hour later to find them bored out of their wits, because they'd said everything there was to say in the first five minutes. But there was nothing in Spike that dulled the senses. Everything about him was designed to scrape your nerves, your memories, your patience, raw.

Even when he was only sitting silent, staring at the ceiling. Giles had a vision of Spike staying exactly like that the rest of the night, not moving, not speaking. Just brooding. "Why did you come here?" Giles asked, the need to break through that motionless silence and provoke a reaction suddenly overwhelming. There were all kinds of ways of making a connection.

Spike looked at him again. Surprised, this time. "Thought you'd be expecting me."

"I was." The admission was less difficult than he'd imagined it would be, now that he knew Spike had been thinking the same thing. There was nothing patronizing in Spike's tone, to make him feel stupid for his expectation -- rather, Spike had almost sounded as if *he* was suddenly unsure of his welcome. "That wasn't what I asked. Or even what I meant. Why did you come here tonight, now? What do you want, if not a quick shag and out the door? Or free unqualified psychoanalysis? You must've thought about it for a while, before you came here; it's been hours since the youngsters headed home."

Spike's look of surprise changed, somehow. Shifted into an everyday sort of confusion, as if Giles had just told him his boot was on fire, when it obviously, visibly, wasn't. "I came straight here."

Now the confusion was Giles' as he frowned. "We finished patrolling over two hours ago. The others said they were heading straight home..." He trailed off, frown deepening. It was evident now that they had lied to him. And that was not a comfortable feeling.

Spike laughed again, this time with a bit of amusement in it. "They ditched you. Snuck off from the old man to go play in the pool halls."

Giles shook his head. "Far be it from me to point out that they ditched you as well, or that you're older than me..."

"But better preserved." Spike did something illegal with his eyebrow, and it was almost as if he suddenly wasn't angry or upset at all. Impeccable timing, as always, now that Giles wanted to be taken seriously.

"Possibly. Better preserved or not, you still weren't told that they were off somewhere, when they said they were going home. And I can't see them taking off for a lark, leaving you with Dawn."

Spike's brow furrowed. "Well, they know she's safe with me. And they don't give a beggar's penny if *I* know what they're about, unless they need me."

Giles couldn't dispute that -- he hadn't treated Spike any differently before meeting him at Buffy's grave last night. But that still left the fact that they were keeping something from him -- going as far as lying to do so. His frown deepened. Unless they hadn't been lying -- perhaps they'd run into something on the way home? "They didn't mention anything unusual happening?"

Spike shook his head. "The Bot came home before they did, actually. Sparks fizzin' out of her head, and walking into walls. Only my good looks and charm kept the thing from going back out to look for Red, once it figured out there was something wrong with it. That and Dawn convincing it to play rummy with her."

That left out some unexpected bogey having ambushed them on the way home. They would surely have mentioned it to Spike, if the two girls had encountered something nasty enough to delay them for hours, without the robot to protect them. Which still left Giles with the question, which he vocalized: "Why would they lie to me?"

Deep inside a voice was whispering an answer -- that he wasn't needed anymore. That they had got so used to the idea that he was leaving that they had stopped thinking of him as a part of the group. But then, he'd had that suspicion for a while, hadn't he. It was one of the reasons -- only one, or he'd probably have been packing tonight instead of unpacking, despite Spike's good looks and charm -- that he'd been ready to leave in the first place.

Spike gave him a look, and Giles came close to laughing, because it was the sort of look that said, 'I swear to God, if you utter some piece of boring, self-pitying crap right now, I'm going to forget about this chip and bash you over the head with the nearest fertility statue,' without a word being spoken. "Because they're up to something," he said flatly.

Well, that went without saying. At least it did when he stopped thinking it was about him, Giles amended silently. "Of course they are. But it begs the question: what are they up to?"

Spike folded his arms. Crossed one leg over the other. Looked as if he was thinking deeply about it -- and the thought struck Giles that all it had taken to get him out of his Buffybot-induced funk was a problem to solve. A trick that seemed to work frighteningly well for the both of them. "S'not your birthday coming up, or anything, is it?" Giles blinked at him, and Spike gave a small grin. "Well, I know this is Sunnydale, but every once in a blue moon, there's a less than sinister explanation."

"No, it's not my birthday coming up. Nor can I imagine, given the mixed reaction, that they're making plans for a Thank You, Giles, For Not Leaving party." He could perhaps be forgiven just a *tiny* bit of self-pity, couldn't he?

Spike shook his head, letting it pass, seeming intent on the puzzle they were trying to solve. "You're right. If they were, Dawn would be in the thick of it."

"Does she even know?" Giles hadn't gotten the chance to tell Willow and Tara until they'd met at the shop for patrol, and neither of them had called home, to his knowledge.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Of course she knows; I told her."

It wasn't germane to the matter at hand, but Giles couldn't stop himself from asking. "How did she react?"

He expected a snicker; perhaps a comment about Spike asking her if she liked Giles, check yes or no, the next time he was called on to Dawnsit. Instead, Spike looked far too wise. "She said she'd believe it when she saw it."

That had the ring of truth to it; with all she'd been through, Dawn had become cynical of everything and everyone -- far too soon for someone her age. And all of this wasn't bringing them closer to figuring out what had happened in those hours where the others had been missing.

Spike scratched his chin. "So let's say it's something of a non-party nature. What would be so bad that they wouldn't want you involved in it? Or wouldn't want you knowing about it at all?"

Giles searched his memory for other times when things had been deliberately hidden from him. Angel, of course, times past counting. But that had been Buffy, whose life had been his to watch over; it was unsurprising, really, that she'd kept parts of it from him, from fear of disapproval, or just the need to have something of her own. The rest of them, though... "The only thing I can think of is that it's something that might put them in danger."

*****
Part 4:

Giles closed his eyes and let the technicolour scenes flow by him. Xander, panicking his way into the library, a trail of women beating down the door after him. Willow, sheepishly baking cookies and testing his returned vision by lying about which one she was handing him. Tara, in the shop, face twisted into the image of guilty horror as the rest of them fought for their lives against invisible demons, and she muttered a prayer of undoing to eyeless Cadria, as fast as her lips would move.

Himself, twenty years ago, standing before his father and promising that there was nothing from his days as a reckless youth that could come back to haunt him, now that he'd given in and joined the Council of Watchers.

"It's magic." It would have to be. What else would they think he wouldn't approve of, or wouldn't believe they could handle?

"Maybe." Spike was thoughtful. "Or they're messing about with somebody they shouldn't trust. There's some pretty heavyweight nasties around here who aren't deep into the mojo -- doesn't mean they're not trouble. If those kids think they can go up against something that *you* wouldn't touch..."

"It could just be them overestimating my disapproval," Giles said, trying to think of the least disturbing reason, but he didn't even sound convincing to himself.

There were just too many dangers out there and, despite everything, the children had too little fear. They'd seen everything, done everything, fought everything. They weren't really children, had passed that age of innocence long before they should have -- but their experience had given them a dangerous sort of cockiness, as well. They'd saved the world, and the worst it could do to them now was kill them. It occurred to him, with a small tremor of sad fear, that he and Spike might not be the only ones for whom the worst no longer seemed like so much of a threat.

"They're not frightened enough, anymore," he said quietly. "They're afraid of the little things -- will we fool Dawn's school into believing a robot is a proper legal guardian for a fifteen year old girl, will the shop make enough profit to add a coffee bar... But they're not afraid of the big things. They've seen the world almost end, and they've seen death come to them and take what they love most-- so what else is there to be afraid of?"

Spike lifted his head and gave Giles a sharp look. "If that's how they're thinking, then they really are in trouble." He was still slouched in his seat on the couch, but there was a tenseness, a watchfulness to him now. "They, hell. All of us."

"Indeed." Giles didn't even want to think of all the things that would be worse than mere death, but his brain was providing him with a long and detailed list regardless. He stood and walked towards the door. "I should go talk to them. To Willow. If it's magic they're playing with, she'll be the one in the lead." She wouldn't -- none of them would -- intentionally cause harm, or put each other in danger. But he'd lived through enough to know what good intentions were useful for, when it came to untempered power. Paving stones.

Spike looked at him quizzically, then did the thing with his eyebrow again that was, if not illegal, at should at least require a three day waiting period and background check before use. "You're going out like that?" He pointed to the front of Giles' trousers.

They were rather... yes, well. Perhaps not. "I'll change, then."

"Giles, it's after midnight. Whatever they're up to, it's either done, or they're not doing it tonight."

"And if it *is* done? And the city's overrun with yog-sothai when the sun rises, because I don't go talk to them now?"

"Then you get to tell me 'I told you so' and we go yog-sothai hunting."

He gave the vampire an exasperated look. "That's not exactly helpful."

Spike corrected himself. "Well, you'd get to go yoggie-hunting. I wouldn't get very far in the sunlight. Not that they live in sunlight. Not that they can live out of *water*." He stood as well. Giles wondered if he'd suddenly changed his mind, but Spike leaned down to pick up the drink that Giles had poured for himself earlier, then walked over and handed it to him.

Giles studied it, rather amazed that it had survived being so near the both of them for that long without being drained -- but he didn't drink.

"If you really think they've conjured up something that can't wait until you've slept, we can walk out the door right now," Spike told him. Then glanced down. "Well, after a little judicious application of club soda. But I don't think you do. I think you're just trying to convince yourself they need you again, right now, this instant."

Giles shook his head and opened his mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn't come. He sighed, shoulders slumping, and sipped at the scotch, barely tasting it. "You're right," he admitted, voice soft with defeat.

Spike looked at him for a moment, then grinned, and walked close to him. Very close. Whispering in his ear close. "There's something you need to know about me, Rupert."

"Do tell." He heard the flatness in his own voice, but was it any wonder that he couldn't quite manage to get up the enthusiasm for whatever game Spike had suddenly decided to play?

"I'm evil." He said the words as if now that Giles knew, Spike might have to kill him.

That made him, against his will and mood and all that made any sort of sense in the world, laugh. "I'd never have known."

"I'm also extremely talented at cutting off my own nose to spite my face." Spike gave his nose a tap, a sign that stood for a different 'something secret and understood and mustn't be spoken aloud' in every city Giles had ever lived in. "In this case, letting you go off into a funk thinking your brats don't need you, just 'cos I'd rather have you here."

Giles looked into the shaded blue eyes so close to his own, trying to sort out his own feelings. When he found himself smiling, he decided that the words had been more comforting than disturbing. "You'd rather have me here," he repeated, still smiling.

"Well, I could have you at the witches' place too--" He never called it 'Buffy's place.' Never the Summers house. Not aloud. For all his sharpness, Spike had his own little denials. "--But I wouldn't want to wake Dawn up on a school night."

"You're impossible. You wanted me to think they don't need my help, so I'd stay and shag you?"

"Put a little more surprise into that tone, Rupert. Try pretending I did something selfless and noble."

"I fear my acting skills aren't up to pretending that," he replied, dryly.

"We'll have to work on that. You'll need 'em pretty sharp tomorrow, if you're gonna put the screws to the younger generation, without letting them know how you figured out they're up to something." Something of a smirk, though there was the same flatness in it as Giles had heard in his own voice.

"Then you think I should? That there is something going on? It's getting hard to keep track, with you."

Spike worked his jaw through a frown and back to that same half-smirk. "That's what I meant by cutting off my nose. Do I think they need you to stop 'em from getting their heads bitten off by something nastier -- and there's always something nastier -- than they ever expected? Yeah. They need you."

He tugged lightly at the collar of Giles' untucked, half unbuttoned shirt, and said nothing further. He seemed to be waiting for Giles -- but if there was an expected response, something that would address both what he'd said, and what he was doing, Giles didn't know what it was.

Spike shook his head, and tugged the drink from Giles' hand. "Honestly, this stuff is wasted on you." He drank it, as he had the last one, in one swallow -- but this time it was slow, smooth. A silken movement that lasted so long, a human would have been choking on the gold liquid that disappeared from the glass and into Spike's mouth.

Then Spike was pulling him down and that mouth was on his, and Giles couldn't for the life of him think where the glass had gotten to. He might have heard a dull thud as it landed on the carpet he'd unrolled when he was unpacking; it was difficult to separate other sounds from the blood roaring in his ears, as Spike pulled at him. A deep, drowning kiss, sucking at him as hard as Spike's lips had pulled at the liquor a moment ago.

When Spike let him go, he knew what he was supposed to have said. "They need me -- you just need me more?"

Spike shook his head. "I'm just more selfish."

Giles tried to be angry with him. He really did. He worked at it, attempting to think anything but 'This is what he is -- how can you fault him for it, when you've known for years? When you knew last night, before you ever set foot up those stairs?'

Spike saw it, and grinned. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm also more pragmatic. When it comes to things that might rise up and bite *me* in the arse, or hurt the Niblet..." His expression grew more serious. "Well, you can bet *your* arse that if I thought there was a chance of anything happening tonight, we'd be over there right now. Without stopping for club soda."

That much he could believe was honest, and accept without having to look at his own reactions too closely. "That is...comforting, in a disturbing sort of way." Moreover, Spike was probably right; if anything had already been done, it hadn't been cataclysmic, and he could find out about it in the morning. More likely, given the collective nervousness, they'd gathered to talk about whatever it was they couldn't say in front of him.

Spike's grin shifted from affable to truly demonic, without pausing for breath. "Want to go upstairs and I can disturb you some more?"

Giles' body reacted to the suggestion, before he really had a chance to think about it. "You're disturbing wherever you are."

"Yes, but the bed's comfier than the couch." The statement, matter of fact as it was, for a moment no overtone of seduction in it -- or no more than Spike always carried in his voice -- made Giles laugh again.

"I thought the whole point of being disturbed was to *not* be comfortable?"

"Well if you'd rather be disturbed down here..." Spike moved impossibly closer, their bodies touching at more important points than Giles could coherently count.

Giles had to stop himself from automatically taking a step back, or reaching out and grabbing hold. "I never said that."

Spike watched him for a moment, a smirk playing about his lips -- then it disappeared, to be replaced by a simple, rueful grin. "Do I actually have to seduce you again, or can we just shag now?"

Thank god for Anya. Something Giles had never thought he'd be thinking with a male vampire practically molding his body against Giles' -- but working with that woman for one year had taught him more than the previous forty-seven about how to deal with sexual directness. He'd think about why that disturbed him, later. "Are you trying to tell me that episode on the couch was you seducing me?"

"Not romantic enough for you?" It was rather frightening that Spike actually managed to sound serious.

"I've had more romantic experiences with my hand and a Mantovanni record," Giles responded sincerely. Somewhere across town, Anya was applauding. Somewhere a bit closer, Spike was looking at him incredulously, then bursting into appreciative laughter. "Oddly enough, I wasn't expecting you to bring flowers, Spike."

Just the thought of Spike showing up on his doorstep with a bouquet of flowers was enough to put a smile at his face at the ridiculousness of the image. Utterly straightfaced, Spike said nothing, but hummed a bit of something. It took Giles a second to recognize "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore."

"You're disturbed," Giles muttered, trying to squelch his smile.

"And you're making conversation when you could be shagging me," Spike replied, and pressed him against the door.

"Am I?" The smile escaped as his hands came to rest at Spike's waist. "What are you going to do about it?"

Spike grinned back, rather evilly. "Stop talking," he said just before he covered Giles' mouth with his own.

*****