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This Thing We Have by Sigyn
 
All Of This
 
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Warning: the rape attempt from Seeing Red is vividly replayed.



    Angel went very quiet after Buffy had informed him of Spike’s sacrifice. He answered questions in monosyllables, and refused to look at her. “Angel, what?” Buffy finally demanded, after it became difficult to work together. “What?”

    “I didn’t believe it,” Angel said, unable to look at her.

    “Believe what?”

    “Spike. I felt... that he’d stolen my thunder, and he didn’t really do anything. He himself said he’d just waited for the fire to come. I thought it was the amulet. I didn’t think it was really Spike.”

    “Yeah, well. It was.”

    “Yeah,” Angel said. “But I made him believe it, too. I discounted his sacrifice, and belittled him for it. Told him all he’d done was wear a necklace.”

    Buffy stared at him. “And made him believe he wasn’t worthy,” Buffy said. “Worthy of me, of anything. You really can be a piece of work, Angel.”

    Angel shook his head. “Spike brings me back to who I was when I knew him,” he admitted. “I think I do the same to him. We bring out the worst in each other.”

    “Yeah, well,” Buffy said. “Maybe it won’t be a problem anymore. One way or another, it looks like he’s gone for bloody good!”

    He tried to hold her. “I’m sorry, Buffy–”

    “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Not right now. You know, if we find him again, I’ll forgive you for this, Angel. If not... I’m gonna need you to stay away from me for a very long time.”

    “Do you really mean that?”

    “If you had acted like a human being, with a soul, or a conscience, or any compassion for either him, or me, I’d be really torn between the two of you. As it is... I need your help, and you saved his life. If both those things weren’t true, I’d tell you to get out of my sight.”

    “And if we find him?” Angel asked.

    Buffy glared at him, but it wasn’t full of hatred. “Then I’ll just insult you a lot over a beer.”

    He laughed, and she smiled, but he knew she was still angry.“Guess I’ll bring Nina,” Angel said.

    “Yeah, that’d be fun. After we make sure he hasn’t just walked into the sun,” Buffy said.

    “He wouldn’t do that.”

    “He’s been tempted to do that for years,” Buffy said. “He got himself a soul instead, and used it to defeat evil.”

    “You really think the amulet wasn’t the...”

    “It was a magnifying glass, Angel,” Buffy said. “Not a flame thrower. It didn’t hold the power, it just... amplified Spike. His soul in particular, but all of him. He was the weapon.”

    “How do you know?”

    Buffy swallowed. “Because I touched him,” she said. “And I knew him. I felt it. In my own soul, I felt it. The purifying, the cleansing, all those scrubbing bubbles, they were an instruction manual, not a contents list. It was only because he was what he was that it worked at all.” Buffy shook her head. “And you dismissed it.”

    “I am sorry, Buffy. I couldn’t believe it. I knew him when... god, it’s not even fair to say the sorts of things he used to do.”

    “Angel, I know the sorts of things he used to do. Some he’s told me. Some... I’ve inferred. But that was a demon. It wasn’t his soul. It wasn’t even his heart.”

    “He just doesn’t seem so different to me.”

    “You don’t seem so different to him,” Buffy said. “But he really has changed, even before he earned his soul. He really wanted to be a better man.”

    “I thought he just wanted to get in your pants.”

    Buffy stared at him. “It was a little more involved than that,” Buffy said, annoyed with his scorn. “Yeah, if he hadn’t fallen in love with me, he probably wouldn’t have done it. But it’s not like I asked him to, and there was no guarantee that I was going to take him back. It was very over between us, and he knew that. He had to know that. There was no going back. We happened to go forward, but it was unlikely that we would. He just felt bad. He felt guilt. He knew how wrong he had been, and he wanted to be better.”

    “You know this?”

    “Yes,” Buffy said. “A demon, racked by guilt. How can you just dismiss that as lust? I mean think about it, honestly, did you feel guilt before you were cursed? I mean, ever?”

    “No,” Angel said, and he looked ashamed.

    “He did,” Buffy said.

    Angel looked confused. “Why? He’d hunted, murdered, tortured, slaughtered whole families for over a century. What hideous sin could he have committed that would suddenly make that monster feel guilty?”

    Buffy gazed at him. “Angel? Don’t ask when you don’t really want to know.”
 

 

***    


    Things were getting past heated between them. Spike had gotten over his fear of making love while bound to a soul. They’d undressed each other, explored each other, touched and heated and drawn themselves into a state of mutual arousal so potent that there was no going back now, not for either of them. Buffy felt such relief at finally having him again. All the denial as for years she’d told herself she would never want him, that was gone. The pain and confusion from the cravings she’d been battling, as she raged against her addiction to him, all that was gone. And the nightmare that had plagued her ever since that terrible moment in her bathroom, when his thirst for her had driven him almost mad, and he’d lost all control over his demon. That was gone, too. It was only this, only him, and her, and they were all alone in the world, and nothing mattered but their bodies and their souls and this, this thing between them, that at the moment was more potent than a drug. It was blissful. She opened for him, ready to draw him in, and his fear was gone – he was ready to come home.

    “You don’t really think I’ve changed, do you, pet?” Spike’s voice hissed at her.

    Buffy froze in Spike’s arms and pulled away, but he was staring at her in confusion.

    “I’m still the demon,” he taunted. “I’m still the big bad. I go where I please and I take what I like. And now I’m taking you.

    It was the First. Buffy knew it was, taking on Spike’s form and taunting her with it. She turned her head, and sure enough, there he was, pale and soulless and dangerous, hovering over their cot like a dark shadow. It wasn’t fair. Not now, not when everything was almost perfect. “I don’t hear you,” she snarled.

    “Buffy,” Spike said beside her. “Buffy, you all right?” He looked around the empty room. “Is it here?”

    “Yes,” she whispered.

    “All that sin,” the First breathed. “All that evil. All that dirt you like to roll in. That’s your biggest problem, pet. How are you supposed to fight me when you love me so much?

    “Don’t listen,” Spike said in her ear. He held her very close, and she let him, hoping his cool arms would shield her from the mental ache. “Don’t listen to it.”

    “Evil is why you exist,” the First said. “Evil is what makes you feel. Evil breathes life into you, and your heart can hardly beat without it. Without me.

    “Stop it,” she growled, knowing that by even answering she was playing into its hands.

    “Who is it, love?” Spike asked.

    “So you play my whore,” the First whispered. “Let me rub my sin all over you, until you’re steeped in the blood of the innocent. Until you’re black and sticky with me. You let me taint you. You let me inside you. And you love it.

    “Who?” Spike asked again.

    “You,” she said. She was starting to tremble, and she didn’t know why. She was strong, she’d just taunted this creature not an hour ago, she knew they could win against it. Why wasn’t she standing up and arguing back? The answer was partly in the precious and delicate moment the First had interrupted, but there was more to it, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

    “Oh, god,” Spike whispered, and tried to block her ears with his hands, but they both knew it was fruitless.

    “You know I haven’t changed,” the First said, as clearly in her head as if there were no barrier. “You know what I am. You know what that makes you.

    Buffy cringed. “Leave her alone!” Spike barked at what to him was the empty room, but the First ignored him.

    “You’re already one of mine, love. You can’t stand against me. You’re drawn to me. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t have a chance at this world. And just look at you, curled so happily into my blood stained hands. I’m just as evil as ever. The blood drips off my every whisper. Pours delicious into your mouth with every... sultry... kiss.

    Buffy shook Spike off her head and sat up, glaring at the apparition. “It’s not true,” she snapped, angry now, and glad of it.

    “You already know it is,” the First said, out of Spike’s bedroom voice. “You know it intimately. Why do you keep lying to yourself?” It came closer, kneeling over the cot, almost breathing in her face. “Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous, it burns and consumes.

    Buffy had heard this before. She had heard it with this exact same inflection, flashed back to it in moments of tortured weakness. “Don’t do this.” She couldn’t help but say it, a prayer, not to the First, but to god or fate or luck, anything that would stop this before it got any further.

    “I know you feel like I do. You don’t have to hide it anymore.

    “Buffy, what is it saying?” Spike asked. He had sat up with her, holding her secure, but neither his vampire strength, nor her slayer powers could protect her from this. And she was trembling. The Slayer, the warrior of the people, was trembling. What the hell was it doing to her?

    “Let yourself feel it,” the First said. “You love me.

    “You know what it’s saying,” Buffy said to Spike, her voice tight. “You were there.”

    Spike was lost for a moment, and then tensed as he realized what she meant. “Oh, bloody hell,” he breathed.

    “You love me!” it went on, and she shut her eyes on the demonic desperation the First was replaying on the false Spike’s face. “Let it go. Let yourself love me!

    “It’s over,” the real Spike whispered in her ear. “It’s all over, don’t let it take you, it’s over.”

    “I know you felt it, when I was inside you,” the First said. “You’ll feel it again, Buffy. I’m gonna make you feel it!

    This was where Buffy had ended it the first time. Where the slayer had stopped the vampire, to the relief of them both. Buffy cried out, waiting for it to be over, but it wasn’t over. The First started all over again, Spike’s voice, Spike’s inflection. “Why do you keep lying to yourself? Great love is wild, and passionate, and dangerous.

    “Stop it!” she screamed, but it kept right on.

    “It burns and consumes.”

    “Buffy!” Spike hissed at her.

    “It started over,” she told him.

    Spike held her, rocking her as the words brought back the memory, in the vivid flashbacks she’d used to suffer of that moment. Again and again Spike held her down. Again and again she begged him to stop, please, please, Spike. Again and again her trust was shattered, her affection poisoned, their beauty stolen, her life torn apart by an act of brutal lust. In reality Spike was rocking her gently, whispering in her ear, trying to shield her from the memory, but the memory was beating her down. “Don’t do this. God, please don’t do this to her. Please. Not to her. Buffy. Buffy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh, god, don’t do this!”

    Then he heard it, the First, in his own voice. “Early one morning, just as the sun was rising...

    Spike’s face darkened in anger, but he had full control. The trigger was snapped. “You don’t get me that way!” he snarled through his fangs. “I’m free!”

    “Unh-uh,” the First said. “It’s your turn. You know what you’re supposed to do. How could you use a poor maid so?

    The song was powerless over him, but the First didn’t stop trying. The song danced in his head as Buffy still fought off the flashbacks. “It won’t stop,” she told Spike, clutching at her head. “Over and over again. It won’t stop.”

    “I know,” Spike said. “It happened to me, too, when I got back. Months ago. The same scene, over and over. I thought it was just guilt at the time, but not now.”

    She turned to look at him, and didn’t even seem to notice his vampiric face. “How’d you get out of it?”

    “I went mad,” he said. “It couldn’t find me there. Not always.”

    It was one of the methods the First had used to plant the trigger, Buffy was sure of that. His guilt, his tender new soul, his pain, his loss, all of them had been vulnerable, and the First had used them to turn Spike into its weapon. It had found another vulnerable moment tonight, and it was attacking again.

    “I know you felt it, when I was inside you,” the First repeated. “You’ll feel it again, Buffy. I’m gonna make you feel it!

    “Slay him.”

    The First’s voice had changed. It was her own. “Kill him, and it will stop. Please, please, Spike, please! Slay him. Be what you are. He’s evil. Just a little stake, one little punch, you know you can do it. There’s one on the shelf. Right within arm’s reach. You should have done it years ago. Stake him.

    Buffy was extremely tempted to do just that. It was what her own heart was telling her to do. But she knew she was stronger than that. The slayer in her told her to fight this creature – not the vampire in her arms, but the pain that was being thrown at her. But there was nothing to fight, nothing her fists could connect to. How could she fight formless evil, or a painful memory? “Why do you keep lying to yourself?” Spike’s voice again, starting again.

    Buffy groaned. The voice burned on and on, torturing her again. “Let it go. Let yourself love me!

    “Spike,” she said, fighting the nightmare. “Kiss me.”

    Her mouth reached for him, but he pulled back. He shook his darkened head. “I...”

    “We have to take it back!” she hissed.

    “What?”

    “The memory,” she said, trying to block out the horror in her ears. It was all she could think of. If it was the memory that was the First’s weapon, she needed to take that weapon back. “That moment. Do you remember what you said?”

    “I...”

    “Before! And as it happened, do you remember what you said?”

    “No!” he cried, desperate. “Yes,” he confessed at the despair in her eyes. It was burned in his memory, a trauma as painful for him as for her. “Oh, god, don’t do this!”

    “Say it again,” she said. “Say it all again, take it back. Make it right.”

    “I can’t.”

    “Make this beautiful again,” she said. “Do it. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous, say it! Please, Spike, please. Don’t leave it for the demon, take it back. Please, take it back. Please!

    He couldn’t deny her, not with that plea in her voice. Her pleas and cries had haunted him too long not to do anything she begged for in that tone. It was like tearing his own heart out, but he made himself say the hated words. “Great love is wild,” he said low. “And passionate. And dangerous.” He was shaking as he lifted her up onto his lap, and her legs wrapped around his hips. “It burns... and consumes....” He was crying, now, out of his yellow eyes, and Buffy kissed his dark brow. “I can’t.”

    “I know you feel like I do,” she whispered.

    Spike closed his eyes and tilted his head back to the ceiling. “I know you feel... like I do.”

    The words meant something entirely different now. They were both human, they were both alive, they could both feel. Buffy kissed him, caressing his fangs briefly, and she felt them slide and retract beneath her tongue. When she pulled away, he stared at her, his own soulful blue eyes again. “You don’t have to hide it anymore,” he whispered.

    Woman. Slayer. Buffy. There was nothing to hide. He ran his lips along her throat, trembling in her arms like a fever victim. “Let yourself feel it,” he breathed in her ear. Feel her strength, and her weakness. Accept herself. Gently he lay her down on the cot, and if the First was still speaking, neither of them heard it. Buffy arched up, feeling his strong arms, his beautiful torso. “You love me?”

    It was a question, not a demand. Curiosity, a dare, even. The idea was attractive, and she smiled at it.

    A whisper. “Let it go.” It was already going. The trauma was dying as he spoke, and she wanted him, found herself opening for him. “Let yourself.”

    He kissed her and kissed her. She could feel him hard against her, insinuating himself alongside her. “Love me.”

    As if the request had been for an invitation, she shifted and slid him inside. His eyes closed with pleasure. “Buffy,” he breathed.

    “Keep going,” she whispered. “Take it all back.”

    “I know you felt it, when I was inside you,” he said. She felt everything with him. He made her alive, he made her feel. She moaned and shifted, and he gazed down at her with such love. “You’ll feel it again, Buffy.” Hunger touched his eyes, and his last words were a promise. “I’m gonna make you feel it.” He thrust inside her sensuously, using himself as an instrument for her pleasures.

    She sighed with satisfied lust, and writhed beneath him, breathing in the scent of him with each gentle thrust, her hand on the back of his head, pulling him into a kiss.

    How long it went on, neither of them knew. Buffy rolled him over and moved herself on him gently, until he took her beneath himself again, each movement a wave of the sea over her inflamed body.

    It was gentle. It was loving. It was tender. It was as different from their previous sexual encounters as it was possible to be. Every breath was a gift, every movement was beautiful, every tender moment was part of this, part of themselves, part of everything. When she came she buried her cry in his mouth, and a moment later he let himself go, hiding his breath in her throat. The feel of his mouth against her throat sent a shiver through her. He pulled away and rolled beside her, holding her close. A moment later he opened his eyes. They gazed at each other. “It’s gone,” he whispered. “Did you hear when...?”

    “No,” Buffy said.

    “What was it trying to do?” he asked.

    “It doesn’t matter.”

    “Don’t keep it hidden,” Spike said. “That’s how it works in you.” He brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “It used to take on your form and torture me. Say you wouldn’t come for me. That you didn’t care.” The back of his finger caressed her cheek. “I never let myself stop believing in you, but it hurt. Every moment, it hurt.”

    Buffy closed her eyes. “It was saying... that I couldn’t fight evil because it was part of me. Because I took to its bed and let it inside me.”

    “With my voice,” he said. “That must have been a picnic.”

    “When I fought back, when I wouldn’t doubt you, it attacked,” she said. “With the memory.”

    “I am so sorry,” he said, and she knew he meant for the attack, and the fact that the memory was there in the first place.

    “I know you are. I just didn’t have an any other answer... for why I had....”

    “Taken a murderer to your bed.” She nodded.  “I have one,” he said. She looked at him, truly curious. It was something she’d never found an answer for herself. “Slayer,” he whispered. “Cutting the cancer out of the world. You could have cut me out, but you didn’t. You were healing me.”

    Buffy looked at him. She’d never thought of the evil as a disease.

    “The chip gave you time to work on me. Restrained the worst of the evil so you could heal it out of me. You made me want to be good. Drew the evil out of me drop by drop,” he said. “Even before you touched me, even before I got my soul. No matter how evil I was inside. You infected me with goodness, until I could not stand against you. You started by treating me like a man, and then you made me want to be one. I still have a way go, but the worst is gone.” He kissed her briefly, and went on. “You are drawn to evil, but only to neutralize it. You do it everywhere you go. Anya, and Faith, and Willow. You polished the last of it – or a lot of the stain, anyway – out of Angel. If you can avoid killing you do, and you heal it instead. It sounds to me like the strongest, the best, and most subtle slayer in history.” He kissed her nose. “You’ve got it scared,” he whispered.

    “But it’s my fault it’s loose,” Buffy said. “If I wasn’t here, the First would still be trapped.”

    Spike shook his head. “Maybe your resurrection opened the door, but you’re still standing in the entrance, like a guardian. The most powerful slayer in history. It knows it has to get rid of you before it can escape.”

    “Did it go after you, too?” she asked. “You went dark there.”

    Spike touched his forehead to hers, tense in anguish. “It tried to trigger me,” he said. “It wouldn’t stop singing, even when I refused. I was supposed to kill you.”

    “Not just kill me,” Buffy said. “Kill me now, when my trust was complete, and the betrayal would be greatest.”

    “That would have only fed it,” Spike said. “The deepest of evils.” He sighed. “I guess we know what it had planned for me, now.”

    “Do you... think it’s given up?”

    “It knows the trigger is gone. I think... I think I’m not its weapon anymore. It failed.”

    “It almost didn’t,” she confessed. “It told me to kill you, too. When it failed with you, it turned to me. After you refused, when it knew the trigger was snapped, it told me to stop you.” She swallowed. “Those flashbacks were.... I wanted to.”

    “I would have let you.”

    “I know. It wanted the betrayal. It wanted to end this,” she said. “You and me.”

    “It doesn’t want us together,” Spike said.

    They both realized what it meant at the same time. “This is a weapon!” “It’s afraid!”

    “This,” Spike went on. “Somehow this... you and me... we can hurt it. How?”

    “Well, sacrifice,” she said, considering. “And redemption. And forgiveness. Those are all weapons against evil.”

    “So then... this whole thing....”    

    “All of it,” Buffy said, realizing. “Even that I used you, even that you betrayed me. The hatred and the growth and the trust and everything. This whole thing between us. All of it, even the nightmares. It’s powerful.”

    The two of them stared at each other. “We are gonna win!” they both said.

 

 
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