Playing Creatively by msclawdia

Chapter #1 - Chapter 1/4

Author’s Note: Thanks as always to my beta, Kar. And of course to Liliaeth for the challenge! This is a shorter story, mostly a character piece, and a little moody. Hope you’ll enjoy it. Chapter One: Spike woke up with a sore head and his lady love's eyes boring into him with seething disappointment. These were all too familiar circumstances. "Christ, what did I do this time?" Buffy rolled her eyes and waved an arm around. "Well, if you'd wake up already you might notice that we are not at home, and according to the newspapers all over the sidewalk, we're thirty years in the past." Spike rubbed his face and looked around. Bugger. Right she was. And a mite put out about it too, not that he could blame her really. "I cannot believe you found even sketchier friends in Cleveland than you had in Sunnydale," she moaned. "You cheated Chronout the Time Mangler at cards again, didn't you?" He managed to push himself to his feet, still feeling a bit nauseated from being flung about in time. "I do not cheat," he protested. "Right, right, you play creatively," she broke in. "What are we supposed to do now?" Spike considered their problem. They'd need a mage, and for that they needed money, since Willow apparently hadn’t been tossed back with them. For that matter, the sun was coming up quickly, so they needed a spot to hide. Not to mention that he had an extremely hacked off woman to placate. He glanced at one of the fluttering papers spinning around them in the alley and tried not to visibly react to the location and date. Chronout apparently knew a bit more of his past than he'd let on. Which meant a whole other set of problems he wasn't too keen on bringing up right away. Or thinking about for that matter. A fresh wave of nausea threatened. "Come on, love, know a place we can stay. And get a big of exercise." She rolled her eyes but followed him. "What's so special about this place?" she asked. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He wasn't particularly looking forward to this particular trip down memory lane. "None of your handy plastic accounts exist yet, love." "I'm carrying cash," she protested, but her arm was around his waist, fingers lacing through his belt loops, so he knew she was just arguing for the sake of it. "Right. Giant portraits of Franklin that look like something from a play set. Not going to go over well with your more honest inn-keepers. Need a place where the operators are a bit more underhanded." She stepped away from him. "You are taking me to a demon hotel?" "By the time we're done checking in, we'll have the place all to ourselves," he promised with a sly grin. The prospect of vigorous exercise and demon destruction seemed to perk her up a bit. She pouted at him a bit, for show. They walked on companionably and he tried not to think about when they were. "We'll really be screwing up history," she blurted. He smirked at her. "Oh yes, how unfortunate that you'll be giving a pack of vamps an early send off." Something twisted in his stomach at the thought. There was a beast lurking somewhere in the city, and Spike didn't know yet what they were going to do about that. She wrinkled her nose at him. "What? Oh that. Well, yeah, it's hard to see the bad in that. No, I was thinking... is there a way we can start a college fund for Dawn, like, now? Or would that be, you know, cheating?" He threw his head back and laughed at her and her sincere struggle with herself over such an idea. "Clever girl," he purred, kissing her pout away. Not a bad idea at all, actually. He had a few 'current' accounts under his usual pseudonyms, if he could remember which banks would survive that ugly S&L mess. Maybe when they got home he could talk her into handing over a bit of the proceeds to pay off the bloody Time Mangler. ******* Spike licked his lips and let the girl's body slump to the floor of the alley. His body flushed and bubbled with her blood, and he felt his brain lift and spin. Something unnatural in her veins, but he'd been expecting that. Humans sometimes played with the most interesting poisons. He frowned at the woman's corpse as he felt around in her clothes for some cash, hoping it wasn't that shit that made it temporarily impossible to get hard. Not that it mattered so much with Dru out of town. Still, he'd been hoping for a bit of fun with his dinner now and then until she got back. Of course they were just appetizers, a bit of nothing to pass the time and fill his belly in preparation for the main course. He'd fought her twice now, and both times let her get away, just to prolong the dance. The next time they met would be the last, and the last go round for one of them, forever and anon. She was something too, tough and creative, with just a bit of desperation in her dance. His cock swelled in anticipation. So not the bad shit then. He stuffed the girl's cash into his pocket and took the last cigarette from her pack. Exiting the alley, he lit up and watched the crowd drifting out of the club as band gave their finale encore. Could do with a quick snack, but the dawn was coming, making his skin prickle. Time to go home then. Whatever the girl had taken, it was good, because he was fairly certain he'd just seen himself scurrying down the sidewalk with a sweet-smelling blond tucked under his arm. Intrigued, he followed his less fashionable doppelganger back to the hotel across the street from the livelier one where he'd set Dru and himself up for a few weeks. Spike kept his distance and watched through the windows, fascinated, as the blond duo went room to room, destroying the inhabitants and riffling through the scattered clothes for dosh. A few rattled demons rushed out into the street, but when the place quieted he carefully made his way inside. "I am not staying here! This place is a mess." There was loud laughter and then the wet sound of kissing. They were sufficiently distracted so that they didn't notice him watching them from the room across the hall. The aroma of her blood wafted through the place and he felt his eyes widen; she was a slayer. And the bloke putting it to her so vigorously on the dusty sheets was clearly himself. Apparently, the hapless girl he'd invited out for some air had gotten her little mitts on some very quality hallucinogens as well. Not that the origin of this vision was going to stop him from unfastening his pants and enjoying the show a bit. It was quite something to see himself in action, really. He'd have to see a warlock about getting a special mirror made when he finished up his current mission. Super 8 just wasn't the same as live action. Did she know what he was? He couldn't imagine that she didn't, given their obvious familiarity. And yet instead of thrusting a sizeable piece of wood into his heart, she was bouncing on his double with feverish glee, cooing his name and tossing that golden mane around. He sagged against the wall, feeling a bit fuzzy from the confusion and the orgasm. They were still there, and seemingly real. Where had they come from? The sky was turning pink behind the heavy curtains of the room. The couple across the way were still rather caught up in themselves. Spike took a moment to admire his own stamina and then regretfully made his quiet way out and across the street. The chemicals were wearing off and he was exhausted from the long night behind him. He kicked the door closed, registered that Dru still hadn't found her way back from her semi-annual walkabout, and let his slack, satisfied body collapse on the mattress. *****

Chapter #2 - Chapter 2/4

Author’s Note: Thanks as always to my beta, Kar. And of course to Liliaeth for the challenge! Chapter Two: Buffy pushed a cool fry around her plate and watched Spike sleep. The sun was setting and she knew he was going to wake up. She wanted something to fight, something to strangle, or maybe something to punch her unconscious so that she could stop thinking about what she had to do. William the Bloody was out there somewhere. She'd walked up and down the sidewalks for two hours trying to somehow make that fact less true. He was out there, soon he would kill Nikki Wood if he hadn't already, and no telling how many others had been sucked dry while she'd been busy making love with his future self. She could not believe she was going to have to do this again. He opened his eyes and gave her a sleepy smile. She wanted to take the moment and freeze it, preserve the memory of how he looked at her before he knew she was going to kill him. All that comfortable intimacy faded from his eyes when he really caught sight of her face. "Sussed it out, then, did you?" She nodded miserably. "Nikki Wood..." "Not for two days yet," he answered quietly. "Might find some way to stop that." He scratched an arm with studied casualness. He sat up and wrestled his jeans out of the tangled covers. "But the others," she whispered. It was too hard to say it all out loud. "All the others." She watched the little shudder that went through him. She knew how heavily those deaths weighed on him. "So this is my chance, is it, to undo some of my mistakes. Course, it'll undo every bit of good I ever did as well." "I know." She had thought about that too, trying to convince herself there was some way out of it. Who else would help her stop Angelus, or foil the First, or help her in the countless other minor and major catastrophes? She wouldn't know the difference, she supposed; she would never have met him. That thought just choked her up more, and she dropped her gaze to stare at her hands. "Nothing for it, is there? We just have to hope whoever takes your place has all the help she needs." "What?" He smirked. "Can't say you haven't thought about it. This one lives a bit longer, maybe you don't get called. I go the way of all flesh, and you get that normal life you always wanted." "This is so not about that, Spike!" She couldn't blame him for his desperation, but really. Or maybe he was trying to make it easier on her by pissing her off? The truth was, that had occurred to her, along with the fact that Angel was out there somewhere too. Of course, he could be in Bangladesh or Baltimore for all she knew. She balled her fists and pressed them into her thighs. "What else am I supposed to do, trap him in a box somewhere, tuck him into some handy hell dimension for twenty-five years? Even if I did that, he wouldn't ever be you." Saying it out loud made her a little dizzy, hearing herself say that in order to become the man she loved he first had to kill another slayer and hundreds more besides. "Ain't that a kick in the head?" She shoved her plate away and stood up. "I have to get out of here," she blurted, pulling her hair back. Spike started putting his boots on. Off her expression he snorted. "Not coming with you," he scoffed, grabbing the stack of bills they'd scavenged from the wrecked rooms the night before. He tossed a twenty on the table in front of her and shoved the rest in his pocket. "Where are you going?" she asked quietly. He tipped her chin up. "Know you, slayer. And love you, in case you're wondering at the moment. Know you'll do what needs doing, but I can't help working against it on this one." He kissed her cheek and was out the door before she could think of anything to say to that. ******** The twilight air felt good against his skin, but his hands were still shaking as he lit his cigarette. There was no good solution to this one. His only option, really, was to find some way to get them back home before Buffy had a run-in with the Other. He headed toward the bank he’d noticed the night before. Might as well get Dawn set up, do some bit of good for the Bit if he was never going to be there to keep her out of trouble. He also needed to make a phone call, tell Crowley to keep his girl off the subways for a few days. Assuming he'd take advice. There was a throbbing in his head. He tried to think of what he'd been doing thirty years ago, besides tracking Wood. Nothing came to him. That kill overshadowed everything else. People walked by and he wondered idly if he was going to kill any of them. Maybe it wasn't really him. Did he really remember seeing himself walking with the slayer, or was he only imagining that what he would have seen had his past self been there? They'd had enough of back and forth through other dimensions to know there might be other Williams the Bloody; maybe this wasn't the one he'd issued from. But he knew it wasn't true; that wasn't how Time Manglers worked. Willow had explained it to him once, how the continuums were like strings. Some witches and demons could make those strings cross, but Time Manglers just folded the string on itself. Was there some way to send a message up the string? Plead from the past for Willow to yank them back into the proper time before they'd changed the past enough to obliterate their future? Might be worth a shot. If only he had a clue how to accomplish such a thing. ******** Spike woke with a start and sat straight up as memory slammed into him. He made his way down the stairs just in time to see himself emerge from the lodgings across the way and go east. Moments later the little blond hustled out, going west. Smiling at his luck, he let her get a few blocks away before following in her footsteps. With a signature like that, he could follow her all night. He caught up with her despite himself. It was too much fun, watching her move in that purposeful way, like she owned the night. Watching her fight was intoxicating. Was this how she'd bewitched him in the future? He couldn't imagine himself so tamed. Or maybe she was his pet, and he obligingly let her hunt his own kind while he was hunting hers. He caught bits of her ranting as she pummeled unprepared fledglings to grit. Apparently she and his future self were in a bit of tiff about what was to be done about him and his plans for adding another slayer to his list of kills. "I mean, if I do stop him, maybe I don't get called in, what, twenty years or whatever. Which, do I even want that? And it's not about what I want, is it? I mean, I have a duty. Even if I do love him." "I'm not gonna be a lot of help here, lady," the battered vamp managed through his fattened lips. "Shut-up," she rebutted, dispatching him and turning her attentions on his friend. "I mean, I can't imagine not meeting him seven years ago. Or twenty-whatever from now. You know? But I won't even know any better, will I?" This last seemed to throw her, and after dusting the second demon, she leaned back against the gritty bricks and sighed. He got a good look at her in the glow of the streetlight. She was old for a slayer, but not at all too old for bedding. After all, if Drusilla could have her little flings, why shouldn't he have a pet? She loved him, apparently, which he couldn't quite fathom. Some piece was missing. The unpleasant thought occurred that he'd somehow ended up like Angelus, cursed and driven out by his own kind to skulk among the mortals. If so he ought to thank the universe for sending him such a charming, delicious little warning. Should he do it here and now, or wait those twenty-whatever years and find her before she got so strong? He wasn't entirely sure he could take this one, strong and fast as she was. And if she'd known him seven years, she might be able to anticipate him. Besides which, slayers never survived half so long as she had, based on her babbling. Might have some magic in her as well. She was indeed a special little thing. He itched to sink himself into every little bit of her. Her head lifted sharply. "Spike?" He froze. She was looking in his general direction, and then she began to move slowly toward him. Contemplating his options was going to have to wait, until he found a safer place to puzzle things out. Besides which, he was hungry. He needed his strength; tomorrow night he had a date with the other slayer and she was no slouch herself. ********** Good, bad, indifferent, let me have it!

Chapter #3 - Chapter 3/4

Author’s Note: Thanks as always to my beta, Kar and to Liliaeth for the challenge! Thank you as well to everyone's who is reading. Feedback is very much appreciated. Chapter Three The room was empty when Buffy returned. The hotel, however, was not. After dispatching the few hapless stragglers dumb enough to return to the place, she made her way up the stairs and flung herself down on the bed. It would be sunrise in a few hours, and she still hadn't tracked down Spike. Or not Spike, but... yes, actually it was Spike, she had to keep reminding herself. Crying, she reminded herself sternly, wasn't going to help anything. She couldn't be mad at him either, that he was out there doing something to try to stop her from making him dust. It would be easier if she could work herself into some sort of righteous fit over his desire to survive at the cost of thousands of people that he was now planning on effectively killing twice. Or maybe she was dooming the whole world by dusting him. She really hated time travel. Maybe the reason he wasn't back at the hotel wasn't because he was understandably avoiding her, maybe it was because he was already gone somehow. Maybe he'd poofed out of existence when she wasn't even watching. That thought jarred her so badly that she almost didn't catch the stake before it plunged into her chest. Palms clamped over the hand of her attacker, she looked into the brown eyes of her assailant. Buffy felt the young woman's hand jerk as she felt the pulse in her intended victim’s fingers. "You're not a vampire." "No, I'm not." Nikki Wood let go of the stake and backed up against the rickety dresser. "Saw you with him, taking out his competition. What kinda demon are you?" Buffy felt an involuntary smirk quirk her lips. "The same kind as you," she said quietly. "And I'm not with him. At least, not with the him you mean." "You're not saying there's two of them?" Nikki flashed her a suspicious look. "Twins or something? Because that would explain a lot." Buffy sat forward a bit. "How's that?" "My watcher said William the Bloody busted into his store tonight, ransacked his books, and told him to keep me off the subway. But I know it wasn't him because I was tailing him." Buffy smiled to herself. "That sounds about right. But the other one," she started, realizing suddenly from Nikki's statement that 'the other one' must have been following her around all night. She had no idea what, if anything, that meant for her Spike that she’d been sighted. "He's going to try to kill you." Nikki shrugged. "Lots of vampires try to kill me." Buffy stood and took a few steps closer to Nikki. "Your watcher's done his research, right? He's told you William the Bloody did it once before, then." She scanned the woman's face. "And you're tired. Slaying, it wears you out, sucks you dry. And you have all these other responsibilities. Your little boy." Buffy could tell she was getting through and took a step closer. "You have so much to handle, and all of it alone, or close enough to alone. There's a part of you, isn't there, that wouldn't mind so much, that might even welcome the rest?" Nikki's eyes went wide and she scrambled back. "What do you know about it?" "Too much," Buffy replied. The other slayer narrowed her eyes. "Look, lady, I don't know what you are, but I know you're not like me. There's only one of me at a time." She crossed her arms, the leather of her jacket creaking a bit. "I'm gonna let you go," she huffed, "mostly because I don't know how to kill whatever you are." Buffy didn't know what else to say. "Nikki. The subways. Stay away from them. At least for the next few days." Nikki lifted a brow. "Gotta do my job," she insisted, "if you have any idea what that's like." "Yeah, I really do." The other slayer rolled her eyes and turned on her heel to slink on the door, sending her horribly familiar black coat swooshing around her calves. Behind the curtains, the sky was pinking up. She'd failed. Nikki was alive, but for how long? Spike had been right about her. Something was going to get her, sooner than later, even if it wasn’t him. So was there even any point in trying to save her? Her brain hurt. Buffy curled herself on the tattered bedspread and waited for Spike to come back until she finally fell asleep alone. She woke up the same way. ************** He wasn’t sure how he’d expected such an auspicious day to begin, but Spike had certainly never expected a slayer to wake him by bashing a pillow across his face. He rolled out of the bed to stand across from her. She waited with inexplicable patience for him to get his bearings. “I still don’t know what the right thing is to do about you,” she announced quietly. She seemed completely calm for a girl standing two feet away from a monster. Nothing in her posture implied that she was frightened of him in the least. Her demeanor implied that she’d swat him aside as easily as a mosquito. He was entirely fascinated. “I don’t know what happens if I kill you. If you’re not there in twenty-five years, if I’m not there in twenty-five years, I don’t know what happens. Maybe nothing. Maybe the world ends.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “You are such a pain in the ass. Do you have any idea how much time travel makes my head hurt?” He couldn’t think of a cogent response to any of that, and his stomach rumbled at the nearness of her. Underneath that skin was something better than anything the average girl could sniff or shoot into his supper. “I’m going to make you a deal.” He laughed. “Is that right? You in the habit of making deals with the devil.” A wry smile crept across her face. “I’ve thought about it, trying to balance out everything you’re going to do. And maybe I am just being unbelievably selfish, but I don’t want to find out what happens to me or the world if you’re not there. So leave her alone.” “Think it’s as simple as that, do you, girl?” he asked, amazed and amused at her presumption. “What’s in it for me?” “I let you go,” she said solemnly. “You let her go and I let you go. Even if that maybe changes everything. In which case, I probably should kill you.” “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you, pet? What makes you think you’re leaving this room?” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he was pinned face down on the carpet with her knee in his spine and a pointy piece of wood pressed against his back. “It’s a little harder to hit the heart from here,” she told him calmly, “but I have good aim and a lot of practice.” Her voice was cold, detached. But there’s the slightest tremor in her hands. She didn’t want to kill him. “And what is it I’ve done to earn this benevolence?” She stepped back. He spun around and watched her turn the door knob behind her. “Let her go, and you’ll find out,” she replied firmly before letting herself out. He waited for the sunset and considered the offer, skin still afire from having her warm, humming body pressed against it. Certainly, if he wanted to take this one on it would have to wait until she was younger—she wasn’t wrong about the headaches either. In the meantime, he had a date to keep. ********** Spike lit a cigarette and sighed. Slayers oft times ignored the sagest counsel. Nikki Wood marched right past him, leather slapping briskly against her legs. Spike knew all too well how this would go. Indeed, seconds later he emerged from a crowd and followed the slayer down the stairs. It was odd, seeing such a deeply familiar scene from the outside. No matter the changes he'd been through in thirty years, he remembered the details of this night with cursed clarity. But then Buffy went bustling after the Other into the station. That certainly wasn't on the old reel. He had spent most of night following Nikki Wood at a distance, waiting for the crowd to thin so they could be alone. His determined little sweetheart was throwing it all into chaos. Not that he could fault her. Ought to be angry with her, he supposed, but it wasn’t possible. Buffy wouldn’t be the girl he adored if she was willing to just give him a pass. Spike kept a few paces distance as he followed her following them. Buffy passed through a door into another car, but when he tried to turn the door, he found it jammed. Of course, he realized, she was going to fight him in Nikki's place. Her grim little face appeared briefly in the window. There were tears standing in her eyes. "I love you," she mouthed from behind the glass before she turned to face the other. It was wildly disconcerting. He seemed to be saying something like ‘I’ve reconsidered, and I’ll take your offer.’ Spike couldn’t see Nikki Wood at all. Buffy was on her own against the Slayer of Slayers. Spike pounded the door, screaming her name. The other passengers on the car gave him odd looks and shuffled away. He kept banging away, determined to get to her before the Other did. He grasped the sides of the door. The metal began to shudder and shriek in his hands as he tried to wrench it from the frame. White light flooded his brain, and then there was nothing but the blinding bright. *************

Chapter #4 - Chapter 4/4

Author’s Note: Thanks as always to my beta, Kar and to Liliaeth for the challenge! Thank you as well to everyone's who is reading. Feedback is very much appreciated. Chapter Four When he could see again, he was looking up into Willow's eyes. She shuddered and sparked a few times before stumbling back against Giles's shoulder. The watcher just sighed and carefully lowered the redhead into an armchair. "I realize you needed to get us a message, Spike, but was it really necessary to mutilate one of my favorite volumes?" Spike shrugged, or tried to shrug. "Had to be sure you'd see it." Giles heaved a mighty sigh. "You dog-eared the page, Spike. That crease will never--" "Clever," Buffy blurted, cutting her watcher off. He looked her over, but he couldn't tell much from her expression. Knowing the drill, he wandered out on the porch for a smoke while the slayer gave her watcher a sort of mission report. Likely they'd want to hear his own, but things were swimming around in his head. Had he done for her on the 10th or the 12th, and that trip to the mage with Dru to purge the sunshine from his veins... was that why he didn't remember Buffy? Finally the watcher and witch went trotting past, giving him sidelong glances and lukewarm good-byes as they went. Inside the smell of burnt reptile hung heavy in the air. No mystery then, why they'd done the spell in their apartment instead of the offices at the school. He waited on the couch for her to descend the staircase. When she did there was a duffel flung over her shoulder. "The book. How did you know?" "Don't exactly print them off at Random House. Pass those guides down and copy like monks. He's mentioned often enough that he's Crowley's copy." She nodded. "Smart. You're really smart, Spike. When you want to be." But her smile didn't reach her eyes. “Do you remember me, from then?” He tried to recall anything of her from then, but she wasn’t there in his past. “No.” “Time travel,” she sighed. "So you're going then?" he asked quietly. She gave him a sad little frown. "I don't blame you, Spike. I really can't." He nodded. "Don't blame you either, pet, if that's why you're scampering off," he told her, even though he knew that wasn't it. Few things hurt like disappointing the slayer. No matter how he'd changed, part of him was still a beast, a beast that wanted to survive. He felt the weight of those thirty years of killing every day. He'd feel it doubly now. But she knew all that. He could tell in the way she looked at him. "It's not that," she assured him. "I just need a little time. I'll be back in a few days." She looked away. “I tried, you know. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you and I don’t know why you don’t remember.” “I know, pet. I saw you in the window.” Her brows knitted. “No, I mean… never mind. It doesn’t matter.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here,” she told him. She kissed him lightly on the mouth. Spike gripped her shoulders and deepened the kiss. She let him, but her posture remained firm. His fierce little warrior; that he'd ever wanted her death the way he'd lusted for Nikki Wood's... He did everything he could think of to make up for it. Trained the little ones, fought with her, even helped the whelp, the witch, and the watcher when called on to do so. If called upon, he would let himself burn again. But he wasn't a hero. There were some things he couldn't give up. Buffy was a hero. He drew back. "Pet. This going away, it's not some way of punishing yourself, is it?" Of course, he realized, now she was carrying the guilt for those thirty years too. She stroked his cheek. "I'll be back in a few days," was all she said. --The End-- *********** Or is it?

Chapter #5 - Chapter 4b/4

In the first ending, Buffy and Spike were pulled home, and history played out much as before, with Nikki being done for a few days later and Spike not remembering Buffy, thanks to Dru. But suppose ‘our’ Buffy and Spike disappeared for some other reason… Trapped by the experienced slayer, Spike did the only wise thing he could do. He broke a window and escaped into the tunnel before she could rip him to pieces. The blonde started to follow him through his impromptu escape hatch, and then it seemed like she just faded away. Could have been something in his dinner again though. He sighed and then lit a cigarette as he trudged through the dark and then above ground. He'd wait a day or two and track down Ms. Wood again. It was a shame he was going to have to wait so long for the other. After dinner he made his way back to the hotel. There were no lights burning in any of the rooms across the way. Given the noise coming from within his room, he gathered that Drusilla had returned. And brought a friend. Or dinner. Possibly both. Spike wasn’t hungry. It was his turn for a walkabout. Buffy dropped happily into their bed and sighed. Four days was long enough. She was officially over it. Clearly, she was going to have to learn to deal. All the others said so. If ‘grandmummy’ was going to come knocking once a year, she’d just have to work a little harder to remind him that she was his dark princess now. She should have known better than to pitch a fit and go stomping off just because he’d spent a night with his sire. And he was going to be really pissed about the dent in his stupid car. She was fairly sure she could make it all up to him though. His peace offering squirmed and screamed into her gag. Slayer were strong, as she knew all too well. But Kendra was not getting out of those bonds. It had been a little harder putting down the children and the Watcher. They really had been nice to her before Spike had come along and liberated her from her dismal life of duty. But they had gotten in her way. “What did you do to my car?” Spike kicked the door shut behind him, all thunder faced and fierce looking. He stopped short when he saw the outfit. He was so easy, really. She sauntered over to him and put her hands or her hips. “You’ve been drinking.” “You ran off,” he pouted at her. “You know what that does to me, love. And you’d no call. She’s my sire. Should teach you better manners.” Buffy just pouted back at him. No matter what the other vampires said, she didn’t like it. Playing with his food was one thing, this was different. “If you’re mean to me, you don’t get your present.” For the first time, he seemed to notice the squirming pile of dinner at the foot of their bed. “That can’t be…” She preened. “I picked up your favorite, sweetie, fresh from Sunnydale.” Spike pulled her in for a kiss and then tossed her onto the bed. Kendra’s body thumped against hers a moment later. Her sire took his place on the other side and grabbed the bound woman’s hair to bare her throat. “You’re too good to me, pet,” he moaned, stroking the dark skin of the woman’s neck. She licked her fangs. “Yes I am.” “Look at you. Proud of you, my Buffy. Queen of my undead heart.” Queen trumped princess any day. She beamed at him. “Don’t you want the first bite?” He ripped aside part of the wide-eyed girl’s shirt. “Let’s do it together.” ------------------ Please let me know what you think of this version! I just couldn't resist writing something a little more dire.