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Part 1--Peace Offering
Peace Offering
Halloween. God, how she hated Halloween.
Buffy sighed as she carried the box down to the basement of the Magic Box. Helping out was one thing, but after the weirdo repeating mummy-hand loop, she was leery of everything right now. Especially weird things that happened in the magic shop with her friends—that’s how it all started the last time when she had the run-in with the mummy hand in question.
She was thinking of everything else except the thing that she ran into when she turned the corner. There in front of her with his annoying smirk stood Spike. His bleach blond curls fought to escape the gel that he used to try and tame them, and she found herself staring at the curls brushing his forehead, her fingers twitching as she wondered what they would feel like in her grasp.
Instead, she looked up at him and glared. “Bell—neck—look into it,” she said, setting the box over on the table. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Ran out of burba weed, so I came through the tunnels.” He held up the ropy weeds to show her he was here honestly. Or dishonestly, in this case. “What? I was gonna pay for it.” Buffy gave him a disbelieving look and he rolled his eyes at her. “All right, I was gonna nick it ‘cause that’s what I do. What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were done with the customer disservice.”
She grinned. “Oh, I so totally am. Straight time tonight, without the creepy mummy-hand repeato-vision.” She looked around at the packed storage shelves and back at the irritating vampire, exasperated. “Any idea where the mandrake root is?”
He stepped over to the shelf and picked up a jar. “Here they are. There’s three in a jar. They do tend to go a bit wonky when they’re shoved in too tight.”
He held out the jar and she reached out to take it from him, brushing against his fingers as she grasped it. Her hand trembled and she almost dropped the jar at the pulse that raced through her when she touched him. She stared up at him for a split-second, open-mouthed and stunned, then stammered, “Thanks.” She dropped her eyes to the jar in front of her, concentrating instead on the mandrake root instead of the feelings inside her.
Spike gave her a calculating look. “How about a bit of rough and tumble later?” he asked. She looked up at him, eyes wide with shock.
“What?” she squeaked, and he gave her a wide grin.
“Me. You. Patrolling. Hello? It’s what we do.”
She blinked twice, then looked down at the jar in her hand. “Oh. Well, I…I’d better stay. It’s wicked busy up there,” she said, jerking her chin to the stairs, its path to safety and friends.
“Well, not like I don’t already have plans, Slayer. Great Pumpkin’s on in twenty, then creature features after that.” He turned, stashing the burba into his duster pocket. “Catch you later then, Slayer.”
She watched his back as he made his way to the sewer grating he’d entered through, then turned to climb the stairs, wincing inside as she heard the ruckus of customers echoing above her. She paused mid-step and looked at the dark corner where the sewer grate was hidden by boxes and crates. “Maybe patrol wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Sighing again, she climbed up the stairs unwillingly. “Why were things so much easier when he wanted to kill me?” she asked herself before entering back into the fray.
Later, after all the customers had gone and they were preparing to clean up, Xander and Anya made their big announcement about their engagement and Buffy felt a twinge of jealousy shoot through her, scalding her senses. Glancing over toward Tara and Willow, she saw their loving looks and clasped hands. She felt so alone and lonely, left completely out of the love fest that seemed to be going on around her.
It seemed that her friends had found love and companionship and she was alone, always alone. Angel had been completely detached when they’d met in the desert—not the sweet, loving vampire that he’d always seemed to be, but distracted and unsympathetic to her feelings. He had blown her off, basically; told her that she would eventually get used to being alive again and just to get over herself, in so many words.
It hurt. It hurt her that he would be so distant and uncaring, especially after all that she’d been through. At least she could talk to Spike. He did seem to care what was going on inside her head and he was the only one that did really know what happened. He was the only one that she could tell—the rest of her friends wouldn’t understand at all.
She tried to dismiss her trust in him as simple need. She needed someone to unload on and he was always around. As she watched her friends congratulating each other on finding their one true love, she realized that wasn’t the case at all. She confided in Spike because she did trust him, not only to keep her secrets, but also to watch her back and care for her sister when she wasn’t around to do it herself. She snuck out onto the front porch for a little alone time as the party in her living room continued.
Why did she trust Spike so much, she asked herself. True, he had changed dramatically in the past two years. He’d adapted well to the chip, actually used his vampire strength for patrolling and slaying by her side instead of setting himself up as the master of Sunnydale, which he so could have done a million times over. He had cared for her sister while she was in heaven for all that time, more than her friends did, it seemed. She had heard as much from Dawn time and time again when Willow kept trying to take credit for what had transpired while she was gone.
He still loved her. She had seen it written clearly on his face the night of her return and every night since then. There were times when he thought she wasn’t looking that she would catch him staring at her with such longing and devotion. She couldn’t imagine anyone carrying a torch for that long without some kind of encouragement, but carry it he did. Heck, he nursed it and kept it alive. She could count on him for anything she asked and she asked a lot, she realized.
Maybe he deserved more than she was giving him. Maybe he deserved a chance—the crumb that he’d asked for over a year ago. There had been a lot of water under the bridge since then and he was still as dependable as a…well, she wasn’t quite sure what, but he was dependable. And she trusted him. A lot. The prospect of telling him how she felt gave her tickles in her tummy that felt like they were the size of pterodactyls, but she still felt like it was something that she needed to do—not only for him, but for herself.
She stood and dusted off her pants as Xander came out the front door. “Buffy! I was wondering where you were hiding.”
She smiled. “I just needed some air. What about you?”
Xander fanned himself with his pirate hat. “Sweet mother oxygen. I can’t believe this is all happening.”
Buffy shot him a wry look. “What, you asked her to marry you. It isn’t like one of Willow's spells went wonky.” She frowned and looked up at him. “It wasn’t one of Willow's spells, was it?”
“No, this one’s all me.” He leaned against the porch railing and looked up at the night sky. “I have to keep telling myself I’m wallowing, not drowning.”
Buffy laughed. “Define wallow for me.”
Xander took a deep breath of cool air and replaced his hat. “So, ready? Once more into the breach?”
Buffy shook her head. “No, I think that I’m going to head over to Spike's and grab him for patrol. Night like tonight, there has to be something begging for a smackdown, you know?”
She started toward the stairs when Xander grabbed her arm. “Buffy, what is it with you and Spike anyway? Is there something going on?”
Buffy looked down at her arm where Xander held onto her and he released his hold and looked at her nervously. She cleared her throat and said, “You know, Xander? I think that we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s never gone back to being evil like we thought he would. He patrols with me and watches my back, he keeps his ear to the ground and tells me when things are cooking in the demon world, and he’s devoted to Dawn. He isn’t the Big Bad anymore, and we’ve kept shoving him away when we should be reeling him in.”
Xander gave Buffy a worried look. “Buff, he’s still a vampire.”
She shrugged. “So is Angel. Even without a soul, Spike has done more to help me than Angel ever did. I just think that he’s been getting the short end of the stake, you know?”
“Well, I don’t agree with you.” Xander's face took on a mulish look and Buffy shrugged again.
“You don’t have to. You have Anya and Willow has Tara. I have nobody. And if I want Spike to be part of the Scoobies, then he is.” She took a couple of steps, then turned around. “You know, I haven’t ever told any of you to butt out of my life, Xander, but this time I am. Butt out.”
Shocked, Xander turned to go back into the Summers’ house. Giles needed to know about this. He didn’t even wait to see Buffy's stubborn look as she left, never looking back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Xander never got the chance to speak to Giles alone, nor did Buffy get to talk to Spike with all the upset over Dawn. Buffy climbed the stairs, weary from battling the vampires that didn’t know the custom and slipped into bed, slipping easily into dreams that she shouldn’t be having. Dreams of her and Spike locked in an intimate embraced, making love in a hundred ways. She woke up the next morning feeling irritable and heavy and unsatisfied, staring at the ringing alarm clock and wondering why she even bothered to wake up at all.
After the third morning of rising feeling the same, she made plans to go and talk to Spike. If she could just get these feelings out in the open, maybe they wouldn’t be so…dangerous. If she talked to him, she might feel better—about herself, him, and the burgeoning emotions that threatened to erupt any moment.
As she patrolled that night, however, she burst out into song. Not just any song, mind you, but a full-blown Disney type song full of allusions and feelings that were too much for her to handle. She didn’t think that it was the proper time and place to discuss any feely-type things with what was becoming her favorite patrolling partner, so she headed home with a heavy heart, resolving to speak to him as soon as she figured out what was going on now. The singing bothered her, to say the least—she didn’t even like to sing anyway, then to burst into this great big Disneyesque number was wigging her out in a major way. Talking to Spike and breaking out in song would be of the major bad, because who knows what she would sing about to him?
By sundown the next night, though, she knew that this was too big a deal for her to wait. She needed information and fast, and Spike was the one to get it from, if he had any. She headed to his crypt as soon as she could get away from her well-meaning friends that were starting to grate on her nerves a little too much, arriving at his door just as the sun was setting.
He climbed upstairs from the basement to find her standing in his open doorway. “Well, the sun sets and she appears. Come to serenade me then, Slayer?”
She stepped warily toward him, unable to read his mood. “So you know what’s going on then.”
“Seeing a Churago demon playing like Yma Sumac will stay with me for a long time. Drink?” he asked, holding out the bottle in his hand.
Buffy’s stomach roiled in rebellion at the memory of the last time they had drank together. “A world of no. So, any idea what’s happening?” she asked, jumping up to sit on one of the sarcophagi that littered the crypt.
His face changed, closing her out. “Oh, so that’s all then—come to pump me for information.” He stalked past her toward the door.
“What else would I want to pump you for?” Buffy realized what she said. “I really just said that out loud, didn’t I?”
Spike opened the door and gave her a smoldering look. “Sorry to disappoint, but no idea. Have a good night then.”
Buffy looked across the distance between them, feeling his pain as it rolled out of his every move. “What’s the matter? You’re all bad moody,” she said, wondering what she could say to fix this. Her gut told her that she had to say something, but the words stuck in her throat before they could escape.
Spike tossed her a bitter look. “Don’t know a thing, so be on your way then.” He looked from her to the door and back hinting broadly for her to depart.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, unable to keep the petulant tone out of her voice.
Spike looked away from her, then back again as he began to sing plaintively about feeling alive when he was with her.
She sat there, unable to move, barely able to breathe. He still loved her, he sang it, but he wanted her to leave him alone! She couldn’t stop the emotion running rampant inside her as she contemplated a life without Spike, vampire or not. When he threw the bottle against the wall in his melodic rage she flinched and came back to the present, deciding then and there to do as he asked without her own confession to confuse them both. There could be no turning back if she left, but if that was what would make him happy, then so be it.
He stopped her at the door of the crypt, kneeling in front of her and swearing that she already knew he was her willing slave. Well, yes—but only in the last few days. As for playing with the thought of sleeping with him…there was no playing there. If dreams were deeds, it was already done. If imagination could suffice for reality, they had been making love for a long time. Longer than Buffy was ready to admit to.
She tried to hurry away from him and get distance between them before the song that was inside her burst out of her mouth. She could feel the bubbling lyrics threatening to erupt even as they walked slowly toward the crazy nighttime funeral as Spike continued to confess to her. She found herself paying close attention to his words and movements, seeking clues to what he really wanted. Surprisingly, he had a good strong voice and could really carry a tune, unlike some of the other occupants in Sunnydale.
“I know I should go. But I follow you like a man possessed, there’s a traitor here beneath my breast, and you hurt me more than you’ve ever guessed. If my heart could beat it would break my chest but I can see you’re unimpressed so leave me be….” He ran to stand atop the casket being carried by the pallbearers to the hole in the ground and Buffy hurried behind him, trying to minimize the damage he could cause by frightening the mourners.
Her chest hurt with the effort it was taking her to breathe. How could he ever think that it didn’t matter to her? Unimpressed her ass. And she hurt him? She never wanted to hurt him—quite the opposite. She could barely look at him without her unspoken feelings showing in her eyes. She could barely think when he was around. She could barely feel when he wasn’t around. How could he ever think that she was unimpressed by his devotion to someone who had been dead, the wonder in his eyes when she came back, his gentle way with her since her return? Oh, did she have a lot to tell him…quite the headful.
She saw him vamp out and grabbed him, tearing his hands away from the priest. Her movements sent them spinning away from everyone and into the prepared hole in the ground where she landed on top of him as he warbled out the final plea of his song. “Why won’t you let me rest in peace?” Spike asked her, his blue eyes darkening with passion and his body reacting to her proximity.
She froze, unable to move. Her mouth worked, trying to spit out the words and finally succeeding. “I can’t,” Buffy replied.
His hands gripped her upper arms. “Why? Why do you torment me, Slayer? Why do you hang around and dangle yourself in front of me like…fresh blood? Hoping I’ll stake myself so you don’t have to?” he growled.
Buffy stared into the tormented eyes of the one person she felt completely comfortable with since her return and decided that if they would ever have a chance, she would have to be completely honest with him. “I think we need to talk, Spike,” she finally replied.
Spike shoved her off of him and climbed out of the grave, extending his hand to her and helping her out of the hole. “Nothing to talk about, Buffy. We need to leave each other alone.”
Buffy held onto his hand, refusing to give it up. Her knuckles whitened as he tried to pull away then finally let her do as she would. “I can’t leave you alone, Spike,” she stated baldly, then turned to walk back toward his crypt, dropping his hand and leading the way.
With little else to do, he followed her, confusion clear on his face. He didn’t try to catch her or ask questions he knew she wouldn’t answer; instead he kept his distance, walking slowly behind her to delay the confrontation that he was sure she was about to initiate.
She didn’t even pause at the door to the crypt; she walked in and sat down on the same sarcophagus she’d been sitting on when he started his tune and waited for him to come in behind her. Spike did, looking at her expectantly as he sat on the sarcophagus across the room from her, wanting to increase the distance between them if this turned violent.
Buffy looked down at her swinging feet then back up at the vampire that had gone from menace to friend. It was time. Time for her to tell him exactly what he meant to her. Surprisingly, she felt no desire to sing to him.
“Spike,” she started, “I’ve been thinking. Thinking about you and what you’ve done since you got the chip….” Her voice trailed off as he processed what she was saying.
Spike immediately started to protest, jumping up to pace in his agitated state. “I’ve done nothing but help your sodding little Scooby gang and watch after the Nibblet ever since…well, you know…and I get no credit for it whatsoever. Nothing but grief, that’s all they ever give me.”
“I know.”
Her simple statement had him turning to stare at her, eyes wide and shock stiffening his entire body. “What’s that you say?” he asked, disbelieving his own ears.
Buffy sighed deeply. “I know,” she repeated, “And it isn’t fair to you. You’ve done everything that you can to help Dawn, help me, cover me on patrol, and they still treat you like a thing, and I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t keep the stunned expression off his face. He sat down heavily on his seat across from her and stared at her earnest look. He belatedly realized how poncy he had made himself in her eyes tonight and reached for a fag then discovered he’d left them in his duster across the room. His hands fumbled nervously as he patted his pockets, then he decided to just sit still and try to listen to what she was saying.
Buffy stared at the floor, trying to ignore his shock and discomfort. When she sensed his complete attention was on her again, she looked up at him. “Even worse, I’ve treated you like crap, and I can’t apologize enough for that.”
The look that crossed Spike's face was priceless in Buffy's estimation. It was a combination of shock, awe, love and disbelief that mingled deliciously and reminded her of the night she had come back. Suppressing a giggle, she said, “I know that you never expected to hear that from me, but it’s true. I’ve never let you live down your past, no matter what you did to help me or how hard you tried, and for that I can never really tell you how sorry I am. You’ve become so much more than you were when I met you the first time, Spike. You’re a better fighter and more important, a better man. I appreciate that.”
Gobsmacked, he stared at her with his mouth agape. Buffy snapped her fingers twice until he blinked and closed his mouth. “Hey, did I break you or what?” she finally asked, and he shook himself.
Suddenly worried, Buffy went to the fridge and grabbed a bag of blood and a cup from the top. She took it back to him and shoved both items in his hand, then ran back to grab a half-full bottle of whiskey from the window nook, along with a pack of cigarettes. “Spike, are you all right?” she said, unable to hide the concern in her voice.
Spike flinched at the sound of her voice, then blinked again. Finally realizing what he held in his hand, he vamped out and tore the bag open, discarding the mug and drinking it straight from the bag. He chased it down with half the whiskey and lit a cigarette before he turned to her, his mouth working to form the words spinning out of control through his mind.
“Wha—what are you tryin’ to say, Slayer?” he finally stammered.
Buffy sat down next to him on the sarcophagus and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “I guess the most important thing I’m trying to say is…I trust you. Enough to give you the crumb that you’ve always waited for.”
“Huh?” His mind couldn’t even process the information she was giving him.
Buffy touched his cheek with the back of her hand, smoothing the sculpted planes and lingering in the hollow. “I’m saying that I want to give us both a chance at being happy, Spike.” She dropped her hand to rest beside the other on her lap and stared at the floor. “Things have been…hard since I came back. You’re the only one who knows anything about where I was or how I feel. When I’m with you, I feel safe. I’m content when we’re together. I don’t know if this will go anywhere, but I…I want to give it a shot.”
Spike turned his head to stare at her openly. “Buffy,” he said, his voice husky with unspent tears, “Are you sure, pet? I don’t want to cause you more problems.”
Buffy covered his mouth with her hand. “No, there won’t be any problems.” She stood and paced the empty floor still littered with shards of broken bottle. “Spike, do you know that you’re the only one who ever listens to me? The rest of them act like I should be bouncy Buffy, happy-go-lucky and glad to be back. Why can’t they see what they dragged me back into? A life that I never wanted in the first place.” She stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips. “They don’t care if I’m happy or sad or anything. They don’t care if I’m lonely. All they care about is their own feelings—as long as they’re happy, I should be too.”
Buffy's shoulders slumped, defeat weighing her down. “I’m tired of being alone, Spike. I’m so lonely I….” She couldn’t finish the thought, it was so depressing. Instead, she looked up at him with teary eyes and a trembling lip. “So can we try, Spike? Can we try to make each other happy?”
He wondered if she was settling for him because he was the only unattached member of their group, not counting Giles—then tossed the worry to the back of his mind. Hell, if this was the crumb she was tossing, who was he to question? She was here in front of him, crying and asking for affection—he couldn’t turn her away. He wouldn’t. It was too much like an answer to his prayers.
Spike's trembling fingers brushed the tears from her lashes before his arms engulfed her in his embrace. He held her as she sobbed out her frustration and pain on his shoulder, soothing her with quiet words and gentle caresses. When her crying had tapered to silent tears and gentle hiccups, he raised her face with a finger beneath her chin and looked into her tormented eyes. “Buffy, love, there is nothing that would please me more than trying to make you happy again.”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “It may be futile, Spike. I don’t know if I can even be happy, but if I can, you’ll be the one that does it.”
He picked up her slight form and carried her to his one comfortable chair, sitting down with her curled in his lap. Stroking her hair soothingly, he said, “What made you come to this conclusion, love?”
She plucked at the buttons of his red shirt. “I think that it started on Halloween,” she said, unable to meet his eyes. “Xander and Anya announced their engagement and everyone was so bouncy and happy and I was all alone. Again.”
He looked down at the top of her head. “The Slayer's life is a lonely one,” he said sympathetically.
“Yeah, I know. Still, there I was with all my friends and Giles and Dawn and all I could think of was getting out of that house and coming over here to see you. Then all that stuff with Dawn happened and I forgot everything else. Until tonight.” She chanced a look at his face and saw the love spilling over into his eyes moments before he spoke.
“An’ what made you decide tonight was the night, then?” Spike asked, his voice holding more than just idle curiosity.
Her finger came up to trace the fullness of his bottom lip and she just let her feelings out in blessed release. “You were telling me to go away and leave you alone, and I didn’t want to. Don’t want to. I mean, of all the people that are in my life now or ever have been in the past, you’re the only one that really gets me, you know? And hearing you say that you wanted me to leave was just…it almost broke my heart.” She couldn’t look in those eyes right now because it would undo her completely. “It almost broke my heart,” she continued in a whisper, “Because I knew that if I walked out that door and ran away like I always did that I would be alone for the rest of my life.”
Spike didn’t speak, just allowed her to ramble on as he traced patterns on her back with his free hand. Buffy continued confessing as a weight lifted from her; secrets that she’d kept for years were finally freeing themselves and she felt relieved to be spilling them into his lap. “Even when you were all with the evil, I couldn’t help but think that you were a hottie. Giles kept lecturing me about souls and all that jazz, but I still knew that you were so much more than he ever imagined, especially after you helped me beat Angel. When I saw how much you cared about Drusilla, I couldn’t help it—I was jealous. I didn’t think that anyone would ever love me like that, ever.”
Spike continued to hold his tongue, afraid that interrupting her with questions would stop this wondrous flow of information. She went on distractedly, pausing to take a much-needed breath.
“Then when you came back to Sunnydale—I thought it was to try and kill me again. When I found out it was to get Dru back, I was so surprised. And again with the jealous, because nobody had ever done that much to make me love them. Then you made that speech about love and I just melted because you were right. Angel and I couldn’t ever be friends. Heck, we weren’t even able to be lovers either because the smoochies didn’t feel right after…you know, after I had to kill him. It was like they were a consolation prize, you know?”
He murmured his assent and understanding as he learned more about how the Slayer's mind worked with every minute that passed and every word that fell from her lips. She turned her tear-stained face to him and looked at him with autumn eyes of green, gold, and brown. He started to open his mouth to make a comment, then remained silent, waving his hand for her to continue.
Buffy studied his face so close to hers that she could see the fine lines that were already forming while he was alive—smile lines bracketing his soft mouth and crow’s feet barely there at the corners of his eyes. She wondered if he knew that they were there, showing the world what a smiling happy person he was instead of the big bad that he purported to be.
Buffy took a deep breath and spilled the last secret—the big one. The one that she had held tight in her heart for years, refusing to share it with Willow no matter how hard she tried to pry.
“Then I fell in love with you.”
Spike's eyes widened and he could stay silent no longer. “What? When?” he demanded, his hands gripping her upper arms.
Buffy dropped her eyes, ashamed of years of lies. “Somewhere between the time that you left and the Gem fight. Oh, I fought it, don’t kid yourself. But I kept thinking about how noble and good you were, keeping an old truce and fighting for a love that never existed and…that’s why I was crying the whole time we were fighting. It wasn’t over that stupidhead Parker. It was because you were fighting me again, when I thought that you…but then I realized you didn’t…and you didn’t even have a clue how I felt, so I buried it deep enough that even I forgot it. Until Willow cast that stupid spell.”
Unconsciously his body throbbed, remembering a lap of squirming Slayer. She felt his reaction and snuggled back against his shoulder, her arm coming around his waist to pull his body closer to hers. “Yeah, Willow cast that spell and instead of seeing it as a spell, I saw it as an answer to my prayers.”
He looked down at her hair instead of at her face, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Prayers, pet?”
Her voice was as shaky as he felt inside. “Yeah. I always wanted you to see me as more than just the Slayer and I thought that you did. For once.”
He could no longer listen without looking into her eyes, so he grabbed her upper arms and pulled her across his lap, peering closely into her face. “I did see you as more than just the Slayer, pet, but that happened long before the witch’s spell.”
He expected her to answer him, asking probing questions because that was her way. He never expected her to pull his head down to press her mouth lightly to his but that was exactly what she did. Her lips were softer than he remembered. When she finally let him raise his head to look into her eyes, they were shining with a secret light in their depths.
“Spike,” she whispered, her breath tickling his sensitive skin, “Can we go to…your bed? Will you…I mean, can we…?” She looked at him hopefully and he was thrilled at her uncertainty as well as her offer.
He scooped her up in his arms and stood in one smooth motion. “We can, pet, and we will if that’s what you want. Is it really what you want?”
Her voice was breathless. “More than anything, Spike. Make me feel alive again.”
He had a momentary thought that this would change everything. He looked down into her beauty, the dearest face in his unlife, and wondered if he should say it aloud then decided against spoiling their moment. The mysterious singing could wait; the Scoobies could research on their own. Tonight—well, tonight belonged to this girl, no, woman in his arms, and she deserved it all. His Buffy deserved his best and he was just the vamp to give it to her.
A/N: Some dialog taken and altered slightly from the shows Afterlife and Once More With Feeling. Song lyrics for "Rest In Peace" copywrite Joss Whedon, taken from the musical episode.
Just realized that I never did post this fic here, only on my LJ and website. So sorry for the oversight.
Halloween. God, how she hated Halloween.
Buffy sighed as she carried the box down to the basement of the Magic Box. Helping out was one thing, but after the weirdo repeating mummy-hand loop, she was leery of everything right now. Especially weird things that happened in the magic shop with her friends—that’s how it all started the last time when she had the run-in with the mummy hand in question.
She was thinking of everything else except the thing that she ran into when she turned the corner. There in front of her with his annoying smirk stood Spike. His bleach blond curls fought to escape the gel that he used to try and tame them, and she found herself staring at the curls brushing his forehead, her fingers twitching as she wondered what they would feel like in her grasp.
Instead, she looked up at him and glared. “Bell—neck—look into it,” she said, setting the box over on the table. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Ran out of burba weed, so I came through the tunnels.” He held up the ropy weeds to show her he was here honestly. Or dishonestly, in this case. “What? I was gonna pay for it.” Buffy gave him a disbelieving look and he rolled his eyes at her. “All right, I was gonna nick it ‘cause that’s what I do. What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were done with the customer disservice.”
She grinned. “Oh, I so totally am. Straight time tonight, without the creepy mummy-hand repeato-vision.” She looked around at the packed storage shelves and back at the irritating vampire, exasperated. “Any idea where the mandrake root is?”
He stepped over to the shelf and picked up a jar. “Here they are. There’s three in a jar. They do tend to go a bit wonky when they’re shoved in too tight.”
He held out the jar and she reached out to take it from him, brushing against his fingers as she grasped it. Her hand trembled and she almost dropped the jar at the pulse that raced through her when she touched him. She stared up at him for a split-second, open-mouthed and stunned, then stammered, “Thanks.” She dropped her eyes to the jar in front of her, concentrating instead on the mandrake root instead of the feelings inside her.
Spike gave her a calculating look. “How about a bit of rough and tumble later?” he asked. She looked up at him, eyes wide with shock.
“What?” she squeaked, and he gave her a wide grin.
“Me. You. Patrolling. Hello? It’s what we do.”
She blinked twice, then looked down at the jar in her hand. “Oh. Well, I…I’d better stay. It’s wicked busy up there,” she said, jerking her chin to the stairs, its path to safety and friends.
“Well, not like I don’t already have plans, Slayer. Great Pumpkin’s on in twenty, then creature features after that.” He turned, stashing the burba into his duster pocket. “Catch you later then, Slayer.”
She watched his back as he made his way to the sewer grating he’d entered through, then turned to climb the stairs, wincing inside as she heard the ruckus of customers echoing above her. She paused mid-step and looked at the dark corner where the sewer grate was hidden by boxes and crates. “Maybe patrol wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Sighing again, she climbed up the stairs unwillingly. “Why were things so much easier when he wanted to kill me?” she asked herself before entering back into the fray.
Later, after all the customers had gone and they were preparing to clean up, Xander and Anya made their big announcement about their engagement and Buffy felt a twinge of jealousy shoot through her, scalding her senses. Glancing over toward Tara and Willow, she saw their loving looks and clasped hands. She felt so alone and lonely, left completely out of the love fest that seemed to be going on around her.
It seemed that her friends had found love and companionship and she was alone, always alone. Angel had been completely detached when they’d met in the desert—not the sweet, loving vampire that he’d always seemed to be, but distracted and unsympathetic to her feelings. He had blown her off, basically; told her that she would eventually get used to being alive again and just to get over herself, in so many words.
It hurt. It hurt her that he would be so distant and uncaring, especially after all that she’d been through. At least she could talk to Spike. He did seem to care what was going on inside her head and he was the only one that did really know what happened. He was the only one that she could tell—the rest of her friends wouldn’t understand at all.
She tried to dismiss her trust in him as simple need. She needed someone to unload on and he was always around. As she watched her friends congratulating each other on finding their one true love, she realized that wasn’t the case at all. She confided in Spike because she did trust him, not only to keep her secrets, but also to watch her back and care for her sister when she wasn’t around to do it herself. She snuck out onto the front porch for a little alone time as the party in her living room continued.
Why did she trust Spike so much, she asked herself. True, he had changed dramatically in the past two years. He’d adapted well to the chip, actually used his vampire strength for patrolling and slaying by her side instead of setting himself up as the master of Sunnydale, which he so could have done a million times over. He had cared for her sister while she was in heaven for all that time, more than her friends did, it seemed. She had heard as much from Dawn time and time again when Willow kept trying to take credit for what had transpired while she was gone.
He still loved her. She had seen it written clearly on his face the night of her return and every night since then. There were times when he thought she wasn’t looking that she would catch him staring at her with such longing and devotion. She couldn’t imagine anyone carrying a torch for that long without some kind of encouragement, but carry it he did. Heck, he nursed it and kept it alive. She could count on him for anything she asked and she asked a lot, she realized.
Maybe he deserved more than she was giving him. Maybe he deserved a chance—the crumb that he’d asked for over a year ago. There had been a lot of water under the bridge since then and he was still as dependable as a…well, she wasn’t quite sure what, but he was dependable. And she trusted him. A lot. The prospect of telling him how she felt gave her tickles in her tummy that felt like they were the size of pterodactyls, but she still felt like it was something that she needed to do—not only for him, but for herself.
She stood and dusted off her pants as Xander came out the front door. “Buffy! I was wondering where you were hiding.”
She smiled. “I just needed some air. What about you?”
Xander fanned himself with his pirate hat. “Sweet mother oxygen. I can’t believe this is all happening.”
Buffy shot him a wry look. “What, you asked her to marry you. It isn’t like one of Willow's spells went wonky.” She frowned and looked up at him. “It wasn’t one of Willow's spells, was it?”
“No, this one’s all me.” He leaned against the porch railing and looked up at the night sky. “I have to keep telling myself I’m wallowing, not drowning.”
Buffy laughed. “Define wallow for me.”
Xander took a deep breath of cool air and replaced his hat. “So, ready? Once more into the breach?”
Buffy shook her head. “No, I think that I’m going to head over to Spike's and grab him for patrol. Night like tonight, there has to be something begging for a smackdown, you know?”
She started toward the stairs when Xander grabbed her arm. “Buffy, what is it with you and Spike anyway? Is there something going on?”
Buffy looked down at her arm where Xander held onto her and he released his hold and looked at her nervously. She cleared her throat and said, “You know, Xander? I think that we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s never gone back to being evil like we thought he would. He patrols with me and watches my back, he keeps his ear to the ground and tells me when things are cooking in the demon world, and he’s devoted to Dawn. He isn’t the Big Bad anymore, and we’ve kept shoving him away when we should be reeling him in.”
Xander gave Buffy a worried look. “Buff, he’s still a vampire.”
She shrugged. “So is Angel. Even without a soul, Spike has done more to help me than Angel ever did. I just think that he’s been getting the short end of the stake, you know?”
“Well, I don’t agree with you.” Xander's face took on a mulish look and Buffy shrugged again.
“You don’t have to. You have Anya and Willow has Tara. I have nobody. And if I want Spike to be part of the Scoobies, then he is.” She took a couple of steps, then turned around. “You know, I haven’t ever told any of you to butt out of my life, Xander, but this time I am. Butt out.”
Shocked, Xander turned to go back into the Summers’ house. Giles needed to know about this. He didn’t even wait to see Buffy's stubborn look as she left, never looking back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Xander never got the chance to speak to Giles alone, nor did Buffy get to talk to Spike with all the upset over Dawn. Buffy climbed the stairs, weary from battling the vampires that didn’t know the custom and slipped into bed, slipping easily into dreams that she shouldn’t be having. Dreams of her and Spike locked in an intimate embraced, making love in a hundred ways. She woke up the next morning feeling irritable and heavy and unsatisfied, staring at the ringing alarm clock and wondering why she even bothered to wake up at all.
After the third morning of rising feeling the same, she made plans to go and talk to Spike. If she could just get these feelings out in the open, maybe they wouldn’t be so…dangerous. If she talked to him, she might feel better—about herself, him, and the burgeoning emotions that threatened to erupt any moment.
As she patrolled that night, however, she burst out into song. Not just any song, mind you, but a full-blown Disney type song full of allusions and feelings that were too much for her to handle. She didn’t think that it was the proper time and place to discuss any feely-type things with what was becoming her favorite patrolling partner, so she headed home with a heavy heart, resolving to speak to him as soon as she figured out what was going on now. The singing bothered her, to say the least—she didn’t even like to sing anyway, then to burst into this great big Disneyesque number was wigging her out in a major way. Talking to Spike and breaking out in song would be of the major bad, because who knows what she would sing about to him?
By sundown the next night, though, she knew that this was too big a deal for her to wait. She needed information and fast, and Spike was the one to get it from, if he had any. She headed to his crypt as soon as she could get away from her well-meaning friends that were starting to grate on her nerves a little too much, arriving at his door just as the sun was setting.
He climbed upstairs from the basement to find her standing in his open doorway. “Well, the sun sets and she appears. Come to serenade me then, Slayer?”
She stepped warily toward him, unable to read his mood. “So you know what’s going on then.”
“Seeing a Churago demon playing like Yma Sumac will stay with me for a long time. Drink?” he asked, holding out the bottle in his hand.
Buffy’s stomach roiled in rebellion at the memory of the last time they had drank together. “A world of no. So, any idea what’s happening?” she asked, jumping up to sit on one of the sarcophagi that littered the crypt.
His face changed, closing her out. “Oh, so that’s all then—come to pump me for information.” He stalked past her toward the door.
“What else would I want to pump you for?” Buffy realized what she said. “I really just said that out loud, didn’t I?”
Spike opened the door and gave her a smoldering look. “Sorry to disappoint, but no idea. Have a good night then.”
Buffy looked across the distance between them, feeling his pain as it rolled out of his every move. “What’s the matter? You’re all bad moody,” she said, wondering what she could say to fix this. Her gut told her that she had to say something, but the words stuck in her throat before they could escape.
Spike tossed her a bitter look. “Don’t know a thing, so be on your way then.” He looked from her to the door and back hinting broadly for her to depart.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, unable to keep the petulant tone out of her voice.
Spike looked away from her, then back again as he began to sing plaintively about feeling alive when he was with her.
She sat there, unable to move, barely able to breathe. He still loved her, he sang it, but he wanted her to leave him alone! She couldn’t stop the emotion running rampant inside her as she contemplated a life without Spike, vampire or not. When he threw the bottle against the wall in his melodic rage she flinched and came back to the present, deciding then and there to do as he asked without her own confession to confuse them both. There could be no turning back if she left, but if that was what would make him happy, then so be it.
He stopped her at the door of the crypt, kneeling in front of her and swearing that she already knew he was her willing slave. Well, yes—but only in the last few days. As for playing with the thought of sleeping with him…there was no playing there. If dreams were deeds, it was already done. If imagination could suffice for reality, they had been making love for a long time. Longer than Buffy was ready to admit to.
She tried to hurry away from him and get distance between them before the song that was inside her burst out of her mouth. She could feel the bubbling lyrics threatening to erupt even as they walked slowly toward the crazy nighttime funeral as Spike continued to confess to her. She found herself paying close attention to his words and movements, seeking clues to what he really wanted. Surprisingly, he had a good strong voice and could really carry a tune, unlike some of the other occupants in Sunnydale.
“I know I should go. But I follow you like a man possessed, there’s a traitor here beneath my breast, and you hurt me more than you’ve ever guessed. If my heart could beat it would break my chest but I can see you’re unimpressed so leave me be….” He ran to stand atop the casket being carried by the pallbearers to the hole in the ground and Buffy hurried behind him, trying to minimize the damage he could cause by frightening the mourners.
Her chest hurt with the effort it was taking her to breathe. How could he ever think that it didn’t matter to her? Unimpressed her ass. And she hurt him? She never wanted to hurt him—quite the opposite. She could barely look at him without her unspoken feelings showing in her eyes. She could barely think when he was around. She could barely feel when he wasn’t around. How could he ever think that she was unimpressed by his devotion to someone who had been dead, the wonder in his eyes when she came back, his gentle way with her since her return? Oh, did she have a lot to tell him…quite the headful.
She saw him vamp out and grabbed him, tearing his hands away from the priest. Her movements sent them spinning away from everyone and into the prepared hole in the ground where she landed on top of him as he warbled out the final plea of his song. “Why won’t you let me rest in peace?” Spike asked her, his blue eyes darkening with passion and his body reacting to her proximity.
She froze, unable to move. Her mouth worked, trying to spit out the words and finally succeeding. “I can’t,” Buffy replied.
His hands gripped her upper arms. “Why? Why do you torment me, Slayer? Why do you hang around and dangle yourself in front of me like…fresh blood? Hoping I’ll stake myself so you don’t have to?” he growled.
Buffy stared into the tormented eyes of the one person she felt completely comfortable with since her return and decided that if they would ever have a chance, she would have to be completely honest with him. “I think we need to talk, Spike,” she finally replied.
Spike shoved her off of him and climbed out of the grave, extending his hand to her and helping her out of the hole. “Nothing to talk about, Buffy. We need to leave each other alone.”
Buffy held onto his hand, refusing to give it up. Her knuckles whitened as he tried to pull away then finally let her do as she would. “I can’t leave you alone, Spike,” she stated baldly, then turned to walk back toward his crypt, dropping his hand and leading the way.
With little else to do, he followed her, confusion clear on his face. He didn’t try to catch her or ask questions he knew she wouldn’t answer; instead he kept his distance, walking slowly behind her to delay the confrontation that he was sure she was about to initiate.
She didn’t even pause at the door to the crypt; she walked in and sat down on the same sarcophagus she’d been sitting on when he started his tune and waited for him to come in behind her. Spike did, looking at her expectantly as he sat on the sarcophagus across the room from her, wanting to increase the distance between them if this turned violent.
Buffy looked down at her swinging feet then back up at the vampire that had gone from menace to friend. It was time. Time for her to tell him exactly what he meant to her. Surprisingly, she felt no desire to sing to him.
“Spike,” she started, “I’ve been thinking. Thinking about you and what you’ve done since you got the chip….” Her voice trailed off as he processed what she was saying.
Spike immediately started to protest, jumping up to pace in his agitated state. “I’ve done nothing but help your sodding little Scooby gang and watch after the Nibblet ever since…well, you know…and I get no credit for it whatsoever. Nothing but grief, that’s all they ever give me.”
“I know.”
Her simple statement had him turning to stare at her, eyes wide and shock stiffening his entire body. “What’s that you say?” he asked, disbelieving his own ears.
Buffy sighed deeply. “I know,” she repeated, “And it isn’t fair to you. You’ve done everything that you can to help Dawn, help me, cover me on patrol, and they still treat you like a thing, and I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t keep the stunned expression off his face. He sat down heavily on his seat across from her and stared at her earnest look. He belatedly realized how poncy he had made himself in her eyes tonight and reached for a fag then discovered he’d left them in his duster across the room. His hands fumbled nervously as he patted his pockets, then he decided to just sit still and try to listen to what she was saying.
Buffy stared at the floor, trying to ignore his shock and discomfort. When she sensed his complete attention was on her again, she looked up at him. “Even worse, I’ve treated you like crap, and I can’t apologize enough for that.”
The look that crossed Spike's face was priceless in Buffy's estimation. It was a combination of shock, awe, love and disbelief that mingled deliciously and reminded her of the night she had come back. Suppressing a giggle, she said, “I know that you never expected to hear that from me, but it’s true. I’ve never let you live down your past, no matter what you did to help me or how hard you tried, and for that I can never really tell you how sorry I am. You’ve become so much more than you were when I met you the first time, Spike. You’re a better fighter and more important, a better man. I appreciate that.”
Gobsmacked, he stared at her with his mouth agape. Buffy snapped her fingers twice until he blinked and closed his mouth. “Hey, did I break you or what?” she finally asked, and he shook himself.
Suddenly worried, Buffy went to the fridge and grabbed a bag of blood and a cup from the top. She took it back to him and shoved both items in his hand, then ran back to grab a half-full bottle of whiskey from the window nook, along with a pack of cigarettes. “Spike, are you all right?” she said, unable to hide the concern in her voice.
Spike flinched at the sound of her voice, then blinked again. Finally realizing what he held in his hand, he vamped out and tore the bag open, discarding the mug and drinking it straight from the bag. He chased it down with half the whiskey and lit a cigarette before he turned to her, his mouth working to form the words spinning out of control through his mind.
“Wha—what are you tryin’ to say, Slayer?” he finally stammered.
Buffy sat down next to him on the sarcophagus and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “I guess the most important thing I’m trying to say is…I trust you. Enough to give you the crumb that you’ve always waited for.”
“Huh?” His mind couldn’t even process the information she was giving him.
Buffy touched his cheek with the back of her hand, smoothing the sculpted planes and lingering in the hollow. “I’m saying that I want to give us both a chance at being happy, Spike.” She dropped her hand to rest beside the other on her lap and stared at the floor. “Things have been…hard since I came back. You’re the only one who knows anything about where I was or how I feel. When I’m with you, I feel safe. I’m content when we’re together. I don’t know if this will go anywhere, but I…I want to give it a shot.”
Spike turned his head to stare at her openly. “Buffy,” he said, his voice husky with unspent tears, “Are you sure, pet? I don’t want to cause you more problems.”
Buffy covered his mouth with her hand. “No, there won’t be any problems.” She stood and paced the empty floor still littered with shards of broken bottle. “Spike, do you know that you’re the only one who ever listens to me? The rest of them act like I should be bouncy Buffy, happy-go-lucky and glad to be back. Why can’t they see what they dragged me back into? A life that I never wanted in the first place.” She stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips. “They don’t care if I’m happy or sad or anything. They don’t care if I’m lonely. All they care about is their own feelings—as long as they’re happy, I should be too.”
Buffy's shoulders slumped, defeat weighing her down. “I’m tired of being alone, Spike. I’m so lonely I….” She couldn’t finish the thought, it was so depressing. Instead, she looked up at him with teary eyes and a trembling lip. “So can we try, Spike? Can we try to make each other happy?”
He wondered if she was settling for him because he was the only unattached member of their group, not counting Giles—then tossed the worry to the back of his mind. Hell, if this was the crumb she was tossing, who was he to question? She was here in front of him, crying and asking for affection—he couldn’t turn her away. He wouldn’t. It was too much like an answer to his prayers.
Spike's trembling fingers brushed the tears from her lashes before his arms engulfed her in his embrace. He held her as she sobbed out her frustration and pain on his shoulder, soothing her with quiet words and gentle caresses. When her crying had tapered to silent tears and gentle hiccups, he raised her face with a finger beneath her chin and looked into her tormented eyes. “Buffy, love, there is nothing that would please me more than trying to make you happy again.”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “It may be futile, Spike. I don’t know if I can even be happy, but if I can, you’ll be the one that does it.”
He picked up her slight form and carried her to his one comfortable chair, sitting down with her curled in his lap. Stroking her hair soothingly, he said, “What made you come to this conclusion, love?”
She plucked at the buttons of his red shirt. “I think that it started on Halloween,” she said, unable to meet his eyes. “Xander and Anya announced their engagement and everyone was so bouncy and happy and I was all alone. Again.”
He looked down at the top of her head. “The Slayer's life is a lonely one,” he said sympathetically.
“Yeah, I know. Still, there I was with all my friends and Giles and Dawn and all I could think of was getting out of that house and coming over here to see you. Then all that stuff with Dawn happened and I forgot everything else. Until tonight.” She chanced a look at his face and saw the love spilling over into his eyes moments before he spoke.
“An’ what made you decide tonight was the night, then?” Spike asked, his voice holding more than just idle curiosity.
Her finger came up to trace the fullness of his bottom lip and she just let her feelings out in blessed release. “You were telling me to go away and leave you alone, and I didn’t want to. Don’t want to. I mean, of all the people that are in my life now or ever have been in the past, you’re the only one that really gets me, you know? And hearing you say that you wanted me to leave was just…it almost broke my heart.” She couldn’t look in those eyes right now because it would undo her completely. “It almost broke my heart,” she continued in a whisper, “Because I knew that if I walked out that door and ran away like I always did that I would be alone for the rest of my life.”
Spike didn’t speak, just allowed her to ramble on as he traced patterns on her back with his free hand. Buffy continued confessing as a weight lifted from her; secrets that she’d kept for years were finally freeing themselves and she felt relieved to be spilling them into his lap. “Even when you were all with the evil, I couldn’t help but think that you were a hottie. Giles kept lecturing me about souls and all that jazz, but I still knew that you were so much more than he ever imagined, especially after you helped me beat Angel. When I saw how much you cared about Drusilla, I couldn’t help it—I was jealous. I didn’t think that anyone would ever love me like that, ever.”
Spike continued to hold his tongue, afraid that interrupting her with questions would stop this wondrous flow of information. She went on distractedly, pausing to take a much-needed breath.
“Then when you came back to Sunnydale—I thought it was to try and kill me again. When I found out it was to get Dru back, I was so surprised. And again with the jealous, because nobody had ever done that much to make me love them. Then you made that speech about love and I just melted because you were right. Angel and I couldn’t ever be friends. Heck, we weren’t even able to be lovers either because the smoochies didn’t feel right after…you know, after I had to kill him. It was like they were a consolation prize, you know?”
He murmured his assent and understanding as he learned more about how the Slayer's mind worked with every minute that passed and every word that fell from her lips. She turned her tear-stained face to him and looked at him with autumn eyes of green, gold, and brown. He started to open his mouth to make a comment, then remained silent, waving his hand for her to continue.
Buffy studied his face so close to hers that she could see the fine lines that were already forming while he was alive—smile lines bracketing his soft mouth and crow’s feet barely there at the corners of his eyes. She wondered if he knew that they were there, showing the world what a smiling happy person he was instead of the big bad that he purported to be.
Buffy took a deep breath and spilled the last secret—the big one. The one that she had held tight in her heart for years, refusing to share it with Willow no matter how hard she tried to pry.
“Then I fell in love with you.”
Spike's eyes widened and he could stay silent no longer. “What? When?” he demanded, his hands gripping her upper arms.
Buffy dropped her eyes, ashamed of years of lies. “Somewhere between the time that you left and the Gem fight. Oh, I fought it, don’t kid yourself. But I kept thinking about how noble and good you were, keeping an old truce and fighting for a love that never existed and…that’s why I was crying the whole time we were fighting. It wasn’t over that stupidhead Parker. It was because you were fighting me again, when I thought that you…but then I realized you didn’t…and you didn’t even have a clue how I felt, so I buried it deep enough that even I forgot it. Until Willow cast that stupid spell.”
Unconsciously his body throbbed, remembering a lap of squirming Slayer. She felt his reaction and snuggled back against his shoulder, her arm coming around his waist to pull his body closer to hers. “Yeah, Willow cast that spell and instead of seeing it as a spell, I saw it as an answer to my prayers.”
He looked down at her hair instead of at her face, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Prayers, pet?”
Her voice was as shaky as he felt inside. “Yeah. I always wanted you to see me as more than just the Slayer and I thought that you did. For once.”
He could no longer listen without looking into her eyes, so he grabbed her upper arms and pulled her across his lap, peering closely into her face. “I did see you as more than just the Slayer, pet, but that happened long before the witch’s spell.”
He expected her to answer him, asking probing questions because that was her way. He never expected her to pull his head down to press her mouth lightly to his but that was exactly what she did. Her lips were softer than he remembered. When she finally let him raise his head to look into her eyes, they were shining with a secret light in their depths.
“Spike,” she whispered, her breath tickling his sensitive skin, “Can we go to…your bed? Will you…I mean, can we…?” She looked at him hopefully and he was thrilled at her uncertainty as well as her offer.
He scooped her up in his arms and stood in one smooth motion. “We can, pet, and we will if that’s what you want. Is it really what you want?”
Her voice was breathless. “More than anything, Spike. Make me feel alive again.”
He had a momentary thought that this would change everything. He looked down into her beauty, the dearest face in his unlife, and wondered if he should say it aloud then decided against spoiling their moment. The mysterious singing could wait; the Scoobies could research on their own. Tonight—well, tonight belonged to this girl, no, woman in his arms, and she deserved it all. His Buffy deserved his best and he was just the vamp to give it to her.
A/N: Some dialog taken and altered slightly from the shows Afterlife and Once More With Feeling. Song lyrics for "Rest In Peace" copywrite Joss Whedon, taken from the musical episode.
Just realized that I never did post this fic here, only on my LJ and website. So sorry for the oversight.
Part 2--Love Offering
Love Offering
The gentle, swaying motion of Spike carrying her lulled her into a sense of complacency that Buffy thought was beyond her since her return. Just having his arms cradling her brought her a sense of security and peace that had been out of her reach, achingly out of her grasp, and she embraced it fully, relaxing completely for the first time since she rose from her grave with bleeding knuckles.
Spike looked down at her and noticed that the pinched look around her eyes and mouth was smoothing out and the relaxed pose of her hands, one around his neck and the other resting on his chest. He hadn’t realized the Slayer was so tense until he felt her going loose and lax in his arms; it was only then that the full import of the evening hit him—she had given him his crumb, the one that he had longed for, and he was grasping it in his arms at this very moment. The realization nearly brought him to his knees.
He dropped down to the lower level of the crypt, absorbing the shock with the same weak knees that he thought were going to give out at any moment. He crossed the distance to the bed and placed her gently on the red velvet bedspread, then straightened to look at the feast before his eyes. Her hair had come loose from its utilitarian bun at some point and fanned around her head in a halo of golden light. The lace on her blouse framed her face in delicate ruffles of white and his heart, though unbeating, rose into his throat and choked him, bringing unbidden tears to his eyes. She was perfection personified, beauty unbridled, and it hurt at the same time that it thrilled him.
Spike was terrified that she would wake next to him in the morning and decide that this had been a mistake. He quailed at the thought of comparisons between him and Angel, or anyone else that she had been with—if she did, he wasn’t sure that he could take the blow to his ego or his heart. He loved her; he had forever, it seemed. Still, there was the doubt that resonated through his bones that he was no more than a replacement for a love that could never be. It vibrated his nerves with tension that must have communicated to her, because she opened her eyes to look up at him.
Buffy looked at him fully for the first time since their conversation upstairs and saw the fear that he had hidden so successfully for so long. She started to ask about it, then closed her mouth purposely, understanding flowing over her in a wave. There had been so much that was unspoken between them, so much they had to say to each other that had never been said, and she was the last one to question nerves or fear. She had it herself, in spades.
How could she ever measure up to the love of a hundred years? She could never be Drusilla—never match the strange draw of the dark, slinky vampiress that had held his heart in her hands for so long. She had little experience with men—one night with Angel and Parker apiece, a relationship with Riley that had been somewhat satisfying but left her wanting on so many levels. There were things that she wanted to explore that she was afraid were too dark for Riley and too kinky for anyone else—strange cravings for biting and pain that sometimes woke her gasping in the night, throbbing after dreams of sex and violence.
How could she tell him this? Would he still love her if she confessed a dark side? She wasn’t comfortable coming right out and asking him, so how do you go about telling things like that to a new lover? She had no idea how to go about it or what to do.
And now he was standing here next to the bed, looking as though he saw both pleasure and pain in front of him. She understood—God, how well she did—but there was little left that she could say right now. She couldn’t actually tell him she loved him; she had told him upstairs that she was in love with him, but love him? She didn’t know yet. She had pushed the feelings away for so long she wasn’t sure what she felt right now. She was like a blind man groping his way through a new place, floundering without direction or light.
She raised her hand and reached for him, and he took it, sitting down on the bed next to her supine form. “Spike, I…” she started, then the lump came up into her throat and stopped her voice as effectively as if it had been stolen outright.
He patted her hand. “You don’t have to say a word, pet. I understand. I’ll just—”
Buffy gripped his hand tightly as she felt his grip loosen. “No, you don’t understand. I—I don’t have much experience with…I mean, I’m not sure—God, I don’t know how to say this!”
His heart in his throat, he cleared it then said, “Just say whatever it is you need to say, Buffy.”
She looked down, unable to meet his eyes while she spoke. “I really don’t have much experience. I mean, Angel and I only had that one night, and you know that turned out craptastic. And Parker—well, one-night stand there. Riley…well, we…it was….” Her voice trailed off as she felt her cheeks growing hot with embarrassment.
Spike felt his heart sink like a stone when she mentioned Angel, but kept any expression off his face by sheer will. “I understand, pet.” He started to get up off the side of the bed and she pulled him back hard, inadvertently yanking him off-balance until he was lying halfway on top of her.
He held himself away from her with stiff arms. Buffy glared up at him, upset by the fact that he seemed to take everything the wrong way. “I don’t think that you do understand, Spike. I don’t think that you understand in the slightest.” Instead of waiting for him to misunderstand her some more, she pulled his head down to her and took his bottom lip between hers, pressing it gently with her teeth.
Spike groaned into her mouth and cupped his hands under her shoulders, drawing her closer to him. Buffy nibbled a path across his jaw to his throat and he buried his face in the golden silk of her hair. “What do you want from me, pet?” he asked hoarsely.
She sighed, her breath hot against his skin. “Everything. Sex and blood and violence. All the stuff that I’ve been too afraid to ask anyone else to do with me because they put me on a pedestal and you never did. I want you, Spike—along with all the stuff you told me that you were going to do to me on our wedding night that we never did get to. Is there anything else that I need to say?”
Spike took a deep breath of her, drawing her scent into his lungs. “Buffy, love…huh?” He pulled away far enough to look her in the eye. “Wedding night?”
“Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “You remember, the one we never got to have? Well, I want it…now,” she said, then pulled his head down to hers to meet his mouth with a fiery kiss full of unspent passion.
She tried to pour two years of longing into one sweet kiss; two years of denial, two years of frustration, two years of self-delusion, trying to forget the promised passion and failing miserably. She couldn’t tell him that she used him to measure everyone, even though they had never been intimate like this. She wouldn’t tell him how Riley had been lacking and she had longed for Spike's touch long before the big break-up. She could only pray that he felt the need inside her as much as she did.
Spike heard her heart racing and smelled her arousal as it wafted through the air. He felt her heart throbbing wildly against his chest and threw caution to the wind. “You do, do you? And what would you be talking about? What did I tell you that you want so bad?” He ran his hands over her face and down to cup her breasts over the lace of her shirt.
She buried her face in his throat. “I can’t say it out loud, Spike. You remember.”
Spike refused to let her hide any longer, from him or herself. “No, pet, if we’re gonna do this, we have to do it right. Honesty always—I don’t want anything less between us.” He nibbled at her throat. “What do you want more than anything, Buffy?” he whispered against her skin, sending a shiver down her spine.
“Oh God…I want you to bite me…I want you to show me…how good it can feel….” Her reply came out breathy and whisper-soft in the stillness of the cavern.
Spike pulled back to look down into her face. “That’s my girl,” he said, curling his tongue behind blunt teeth. He lowered his face to her throat, teasing the corded muscle and reveling in the flavor of her flesh. “Tell me more,” he commanded, his tone allowing no argument.
“Oh, God, Spike…I…I need to feel you against me. I need skin on my skin. I want to touch you. Please,” she begged, “Don’t make me think. Just…take me.”
His hands were busy at the front of her blouse, working the buttons free. He spread the loosened fabric open to reveal the satin and lace cups that concealed her breasts, then worked the front clasp to reveal her rosy skin to his gaze. Her nipples were already hard as diamonds, crinkling further in the cool air. He blew gently on them, grinning madly as they seemed to reach toward his pursed lips. “Buffy love, you’re beautiful,” he said reverently.
Without giving her a chance to respond, he covered her with his hands, feeling the heat rising from her body. Leaning on his elbows, he cupped a breast in each hand and supped the delicate piquancy of Slayer from each nipple in turn. Even her perspiration reeked with power, almost as much as he remembered slumbered in Slayer blood. Her soft sighing moans filled his ears as he teased her nipples with teeth and tongue and fingers, her body arching toward him to afford him better access to her delicious secrets.
Spike stroked her skin and pushed her shirt and bra off her shoulders, tossing them recklessly to the floor. Her hands dragged at his tee and yanked it over his head to join her clothing, leaving them both nude from the waist up. He was amazed at the satiny smoothness of her skin as he resumed his exploration of her body, touching her lightly and stroking her with questing fingertips as she stretched to increase the pressure of his caress.
Spike began kissing her again, letting the passion build slowly between them as he massaged her tongue with his, fully exploring the inner recesses of her mouth. She groaned deep in her throat, her hands reaching for his belt, and he grasped her wrists and drew them over her head, holding them firmly in place. “Bad Buffy,” he said with a chuckle. “We’ll take our time and do this right. None of this fast and furious for us tonight, love.”
Buffy looked up at him with her green-gold eyes. “Please, Spike. I need you,” she whimpered.
Spike nipped her earlobe before he replied by lowering his groin, allowing the full press of his erection to caress her thigh. “And I need you, love. I want this to be…memorable.”
He looked up in time to see Buffy roll her eyes. “I think that I’ll remember something this important, Spike,” she said, and he caught her other lobe between blunt teeth, working it gently until she was gasping for air. “All right, all right, you win,” she finally blurted out before he caught her mouth with his once again.
Need and desire set them both aflame as he touched her with his free hand. She allowed him to pin her wrists above her head with the other, letting him feel in control although they both knew it was a hold she could easily break. His mouth explored every inch of her exposed skin, marking it as his; his tongue was a brand that he used liberally to stroke and tease every minute part of her, from the curve of her shoulder to the sensitive bottoms of her breasts. When he buried his face in her armpit she tried to recoil in horror but he would have none of it. “Kitten, you smell so damn sweet all over I want to memorize your scent. Vampire, remember? I smell what lies beneath—the lust, the arousal, all of it.”
Buffy closed her eyes tightly in embarrassment. “But I’m all sweaty—” she started to say, and was surprised to hear him scoff openly.
“The sweetest scent, pet. Haven’t you ever learned about pheromones?” He looked amazed at the shake of her head. “A subject for another time.” He raised his head to look into her eyes. “Buffy, do you trust me?”
Buffy stared back at him for a long moment until he was nearly to the point of worry, then finally replied, “Yes.” Her voice was brimming with certainty he would not question.
Spike cupped her face with both hands, releasing her wrists to do so. “Then let me love you completely, pet.”
She raised her face and answered him with a kiss.
Spike moved off of her and left her chilly and bereft for a moment, until she realized that he was working the zipper on her skirt. Her fingers fumbled to assist him and together they got it undone. She raised her hips for him to slide it down over her legs, not realizing that he had raked her panties off with it until her buttocks slid on the satin coverlet beneath her. With a gasp, Buffy covered her pubic mound with both hands.
Smiling, Spike moved her hands to allow him full view of her body. “You are perfection, love. Never hide it from me.”
Buffy's lashes fluttered against her cheeks as he gazed on the deceptive perfection of her form. Small hands that held a stake so deadly to his kind; tiny feet that could down a raging vampire with a roundhouse kick—from head to toe she was a killing machine clothed in soft skin and womanly curves and he couldn’t help but want her, love her.
He stripped off his jeans and tossed them aside, his cock springing rampant and bobbing in the cool air. Her eyes fluttered open to look at him in turn and he was amazed to see the nearly fearful look that skittered through the windows of her soul. Almost belatedly he knew that it had been a long while since her last sexual experience, not counting the months that she’d been de—no, he wouldn’t think of that now. Never think of that when he had her there before him, eagerly waiting for his touch.
He stretched out next to her on the bed, his body barely brushing against hers. “So, pet, what do we do now?”
Buffy stared at the first naked man she had seen in what seemed like forever. He was muscle and sinew, wiry but never scrawny by any definition of the word. His alabaster skin gleamed in the candlelight with a borrowed golden glow and she could feel the desire curling in the pit of her stomach, ready to implode on itself. It had been so long since she felt another’s touch; she was more than ready for him.
Spike reached out to trail his finger from Buffy's collarbone down the center of her body to her navel. She caught his wrist in her hand and pulled him over on top of her to cover her body with his. At his look of surprise, she jerked one shoulder in half a shrug. “I was chilly,” she said, a calculating smile curling her mouth invitingly.
Spike raised himself up on his elbows to look down into her face. “You’re sure this is something you want, pet?” he asked, his cocksure attitude slipping away and leaving behind his insecurity in its stead.
Buffy reached up to cup his face with her palm, warm against his coolness. “I’m more than sure, Spike. Seems like all this time I’ve been trying to convince myself how wrong you were for me, but really? You may be the only one who’s right.”
She reached for him with her mouth and he met her halfway. Their tongues tangoed in a timeless dance of passion as her body arched into his of its own accord. Sparkles danced behind her closed lids as she felt his tongue scraping over her teeth and gums to explore every crevasse of her mouth. She raked her own tongue over the tiny slits in his gums where fangs would sprout when his demon emerged and felt rather than heard his groan as it rumbled through his chest.
Gasping for unneeded air, he tore his mouth from hers and reared back to stare down into her face, soft and slack with desire. “God, Buffy, do you realize what you do to me? I want you so bad, pet,” he murmured.
Buffy smiled up at him as she coiled her arms around his neck and toyed with the short curls at his nape. “Well, Spike, you can tell how much I want you. Do that smelly thing and you’ll know.”
Spike's mouth burned an icy path along her jaw to her earlobe. “Oh, I know, Slayer. Believe me, I know,” he said, nipping the lobe of the ear he whispered into. “I think that I’ll go and investigate the situation myself, though.”
Before she could respond he had slithered down her body to the soft brownish curls that were already damp with the juices of her desire. Leaning on his elbows and hovering above the apex of her thighs, he breathed her scent in deeply, relishing the mingled perfumes of his Slayer. Arousal, musk, perfume, it didn’t matter what anyone called it; it was the most elusively erotic aroma that had ever graced his nose. There was a hint of power in her essence along with something that was exclusively hers, and he knew that he could recognize that scent among a thousand women while blindfolded.
Spike was unable to resist the urge to swipe his tongue over the pungency to taste her and followed his urges, gratified by her gasp of surprise that was quickly followed by a moan of contentment. Her hand reached for his head and fisted in curls that were springing free of their everyday gelled prison as she arched her pelvis toward his seeking mouth, eager for him to begin his gustatory explorations. Instead of diving right in like his mind told him to do, he took his time, swiping his tongue over the damp curls and relishing the soft mewls of delight that were coming from the Slayer's mouth.
When her heart began racing in a staccato beat and her breathing became just as erratic, he dipped his tongue into the separation between her labia and into her dripping core. She squealed as her body listened to its own demands and he thrust his tongue once, twice, three times into her then swiped it upward to the pearlescent nubbin of flesh that was engorged and distended with her desire. Her legs fairly flew apart as she planted her feet flat on either side of his shoulders and thrust her clit against his mouth, trying to increase the pressure as she pulled and tugged on his hair to guide him closer. He grinned madly around her flesh as it covered his face, then gave her what she asked for, sucking her clit between his lips and flicking it quickly with the tip of his talented tongue.
She felt like she was flying and falling simultaneously. His mouth was both cool and hot, his tongue spearing her and raking over delicate nerve endings with exquisite tenderness and roughness at the same time. She tossed her head from side to side, begging for the release that remained teetering on the edge of consciousness and reason and came no closer. He sensed her need as she clenched and unclenched her fingers in his hair and finally crawled up her body slowly to hover above her.
Buffy cried out for him wordlessly, actual words lost to her in the flames of desire that consumed her. She opened her eyes to see him there above her, watching her face as she writhed in heat. “Spike, please—I need you,” she whispered. He dipped his head to shatter what was left of her composure with a heated kiss as he slipped inside her slowly.
Her eyes widened as he filled her, deeper than any other had ever been. She raised her head to look down at the place where they were joined together, their bodies made one. It was strangely erotic to see their pubic hair mingled in shades of shadowed browns in the dim light, his cock smooth and sculpted like marble as it delved deeper into her recesses, finally coming to rest inside her as he stilled. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, and she shook her head negatively, held mute by the sensations.
He cupped his hands under her shoulders and began to move slowly inside her. It was torturous to move that slowly—his gut wanted to pound into her and make her scream—but he wasn’t listening to his gut, only to his heart, and his heart told him to make this beautiful and make it last for her. All for her. He went slow, inching in and out as the gliding muscles gripped and tightened against him wetly. As sweat beaded on her brow and made his forehead slide from hers and land somewhere close to her throat.
Slow—as the world spun and changed around them with the import of their choice; as Sunnydale itself changed and the night dragged on inexorably; as a man tap-danced to his death and another sang until he burst into a flaming pillar of song; slow and sure as one day turned into the next and the next.
Spike scented her blood beneath the flushed skin of her neck in an offhand way, just another part of the womanly perfume that enticed him and excited him. The demon was far at the back of his mind now, for it was the man at the forefront, loving her with all his unbeating heart. She was the air for lungs that didn’t need air, the sunlight he had searched for to quench the shadows inside him, and the destiny that had eluded him for some one hundred years. She had been the driving force for his being for some time, but she became the reason for his unlife at that moment. He would spend the rest of his days to the ends of time itself to make her happy.
He shuddered against her and she smoothed her hands over his back, sensing the changes in him without words having to be spoken. Her thighs trembled and her stomach fluttered with the sensations he was arousing, but that seemed secondary now; her primary focus became the waves of adoration and adulation that rolled off of him and centered on her. She smoothed his hair and whispered comfort in his ear for his subconscious to absorb, for the man in him was too wrapped up in the realities he was allowing to surface.
Buffy wrapped her legs around his and held his body still inside her until his shaking ceased. He lifted his head and looked deep into her eyes and saw her peace and it brought tears unbidden to his own eyes, blurring the beauty before him. “God help me, Buffy, I love you,” he finally blurted out, and was surprised by her soft smile.
“I know, Spike. I love you. You’re my other half, you know?” She smoothed the moisture from his cheek with her hand and then wiped the tears from her own. “My Spike. My William. Love me?”
“With all my heart, Buffy.” His voice trembled with the emotion held deep for so long and she rewarded him with another blinding smile.
“Then show me how much.” She dug her heels into his calves and arched against him, flexing inner muscles around him and making him gasp. “Give it me good, Slayer of Slayers. Didn’t you tell me that once in an alley?” she teased, and was rewarded by a toothy smile from him.
“Yeah, but I also said that you were in love with death.”
She grimaced. “Not so much in love with death now. Been there, done that. Twice. So, not so much.”
He curled his tongue behind his teeth and arched his scarred brow. “Well, you do know the French call it le petit morte, right?”
Buffy frowned, trying to remember what little French she had learned in her sophomore year. “The…little death? What?” At his continued stare, her eyes widened at his wicked smile. “OH! Well, I guess we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”
“Oh yes, we WILL see, missy,” he replied, and tweaked one of her pert nipples with thumb and forefinger. She gasped then moaned as he bent his head to capture it between his lips while moving his hips in tiny circles. His hips pressed her clit between their pubic bones as he moved, stoking fires inside her that had barely had time to die down. His body slid freely into the liquid silken sheath of her flesh as she arched and moaned against his arm, her fingernails raking his skin to urge him on faster, harder, but he kept his pace steady as he suckled her nipples. He reached down and cupped her ass in both hands, tipping her pelvis to afford him access to nerves deep inside her.
Her mouth o’ed at the first nudge of his cock against the deeply seated nerves, then she clenched her teeth against the scream that seemed to be building in her gut, refusing to let it out. She spiraled closer to the peak as he moved faster now, their bodies slapping together noisily as he drove himself deeper and deeper inside her writhing form. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder and gripped her bottom lip between her teeth, desperate to stifle the moans that threatened to erupt at any minute into pleas for release.
Spike sensed her closing in on her peak and redoubled his efforts. He didn’t hold himself back, for she was not a normal girl who would break beneath his onslaught. She was his equal in every way; that had been proven time and again in their years of acquaintance. He felt her bite into his bicep and his demon awakened, sensing her need, but he thrust it to the recesses of his mind and held it there by his will alone. He would not bring bloodplay into their first time together, no matter what the demon wanted. Instead, he gripped the slope of her shoulder between his own blunt teeth, increasing the pressure slowly until she was wild beneath him, biting and scratching.
Buffy stiffened, then her orgasm crashed over her in a wave of pleasure that took her by surprise. It rolled thunderously throughout her entire body from head to toe and back again, blinding and deafening her to her own voice as she begged, pleaded, and screamed for more. Her entire body clenched as a fist would and the second one was upon her before the first was complete; her entire consciousness centered on that one spot deep inside her being relentlessly pounded and molded by love into a sensitive mass of raw nerve endings.
Spike released the bit of flesh and muscle that he’d been gnawing on and watched the mindless bliss overtake her as she came, then was shocked as her second orgasm triggered his own, his come jetting inside her as his hips jerked spasmodically against hers. He rested his face in the crook of her neck, gasping for unneeded air and feeling her relax beneath his stillness. Her hands still grasped his arms, her face was still buried in his shoulder, but there was no urgency for him to move as they both came down off their natural high and back to the reality of life around them.
He felt her body quiver under him and leaned up on his elbows to look down into her laughing face. At his confused look, she smoothed his cheek and said, “I guess you were right, or the French were—it is a little death, isn’t it?”
Spike grinned. “Call Guinness—the Slayer thinks that I’m right about something.” They shared a laugh for a moment, then together fell silent as they both realized the import of their actions simultaneously. “We’ve really gone and cocked things up for you, haven’t we, pet?” he said, expecting her to jump up and run screaming from his crypt.
He was pleasantly surprised when Buffy shrugged. “You know what, Spike? I don’t care anymore. I used to wonder what they would all think if I…well, you know…and especially after Willow's spell, when I sat in your lap all that time and felt….” She clenched her inner muscles and gripped his softening cock. “But now? They all have girlfriends and people that care about them. Why not me too? Heck, I gave my life for them—and they dragged me back to here—so the least they can do is let me live the life they gave me, right?”
He rolled off of her and she leaned on his chest, her pointy chin digging a hole in him—but he wouldn’t ask her to move it for the world. “I can save the world a thousand times. I can slay vampires and demons until the cows come home. But if there isn’t a reason for me to do it, it kinda gets to be just a job. It makes my life just a job, and that isn’t living.” She traced patterns on his skin with her fingernail while she talked. “I learned a little since I died and came back. I need something to keep me here besides my sister and my friends and being the Slayer. I need someone to come home to and someone who will rub my back and make me feel important too. I hope that you’re that someone, you know? If you want to be.”
Spike felt his heart leap in his chest, though it still lay unbeating. “I would be honored to rub your tired feet, pet, but are you certain that I’m the one you want?”
She giggled. “After that? Oh, mister, you’re the only one that I want.” Her face grew serious. “You’re the only one that I’ve wanted for a long time. I just never could say it—not to you or to anyone else.”
“And can you now? Or will we be a dirty little secret?” He tried not to let his fear show, but he failed miserably and she could tell how much her answer would affect them both.
She cupped his cheek lovingly. “Can’t be a secret if you move into the house, can you? Unless you have some of those weird skills that Dracula is supposed to have—you know, with all the seeing, not-seeing stuff?”
He scoffed. “Gypsy parlor tricks, they are. Power of suggestion and all that. I don’t play those games, even though I am evil.”
“More like evil light…tastes great, less evil….” She collapsed on his chest, laughing uncontrollably. He looked down at her and waited for her giggles to pass.
Buffy looked up at him and saw the serious look on his face. “What?” she asked.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
She saw the hope deep in his eyes. “Nope,” she said, popping the p. “Not kidding. I think that you moving in is exactly what I need. And I already know your bad habits—drinking blood, smoking too much, hogging the bed…so there’s no surprises there. Plus, it’ll be nice to have someone to come home and snuggle with.”
Spike listened to her making plans with half an ear as he let his heart soar. She not only loved him, but she wanted him to move into her house with her and her little sister, make a family with him. He vowed silently to do everything in his power to make her happy. It was the least that he could do.
The gentle, swaying motion of Spike carrying her lulled her into a sense of complacency that Buffy thought was beyond her since her return. Just having his arms cradling her brought her a sense of security and peace that had been out of her reach, achingly out of her grasp, and she embraced it fully, relaxing completely for the first time since she rose from her grave with bleeding knuckles.
Spike looked down at her and noticed that the pinched look around her eyes and mouth was smoothing out and the relaxed pose of her hands, one around his neck and the other resting on his chest. He hadn’t realized the Slayer was so tense until he felt her going loose and lax in his arms; it was only then that the full import of the evening hit him—she had given him his crumb, the one that he had longed for, and he was grasping it in his arms at this very moment. The realization nearly brought him to his knees.
He dropped down to the lower level of the crypt, absorbing the shock with the same weak knees that he thought were going to give out at any moment. He crossed the distance to the bed and placed her gently on the red velvet bedspread, then straightened to look at the feast before his eyes. Her hair had come loose from its utilitarian bun at some point and fanned around her head in a halo of golden light. The lace on her blouse framed her face in delicate ruffles of white and his heart, though unbeating, rose into his throat and choked him, bringing unbidden tears to his eyes. She was perfection personified, beauty unbridled, and it hurt at the same time that it thrilled him.
Spike was terrified that she would wake next to him in the morning and decide that this had been a mistake. He quailed at the thought of comparisons between him and Angel, or anyone else that she had been with—if she did, he wasn’t sure that he could take the blow to his ego or his heart. He loved her; he had forever, it seemed. Still, there was the doubt that resonated through his bones that he was no more than a replacement for a love that could never be. It vibrated his nerves with tension that must have communicated to her, because she opened her eyes to look up at him.
Buffy looked at him fully for the first time since their conversation upstairs and saw the fear that he had hidden so successfully for so long. She started to ask about it, then closed her mouth purposely, understanding flowing over her in a wave. There had been so much that was unspoken between them, so much they had to say to each other that had never been said, and she was the last one to question nerves or fear. She had it herself, in spades.
How could she ever measure up to the love of a hundred years? She could never be Drusilla—never match the strange draw of the dark, slinky vampiress that had held his heart in her hands for so long. She had little experience with men—one night with Angel and Parker apiece, a relationship with Riley that had been somewhat satisfying but left her wanting on so many levels. There were things that she wanted to explore that she was afraid were too dark for Riley and too kinky for anyone else—strange cravings for biting and pain that sometimes woke her gasping in the night, throbbing after dreams of sex and violence.
How could she tell him this? Would he still love her if she confessed a dark side? She wasn’t comfortable coming right out and asking him, so how do you go about telling things like that to a new lover? She had no idea how to go about it or what to do.
And now he was standing here next to the bed, looking as though he saw both pleasure and pain in front of him. She understood—God, how well she did—but there was little left that she could say right now. She couldn’t actually tell him she loved him; she had told him upstairs that she was in love with him, but love him? She didn’t know yet. She had pushed the feelings away for so long she wasn’t sure what she felt right now. She was like a blind man groping his way through a new place, floundering without direction or light.
She raised her hand and reached for him, and he took it, sitting down on the bed next to her supine form. “Spike, I…” she started, then the lump came up into her throat and stopped her voice as effectively as if it had been stolen outright.
He patted her hand. “You don’t have to say a word, pet. I understand. I’ll just—”
Buffy gripped his hand tightly as she felt his grip loosen. “No, you don’t understand. I—I don’t have much experience with…I mean, I’m not sure—God, I don’t know how to say this!”
His heart in his throat, he cleared it then said, “Just say whatever it is you need to say, Buffy.”
She looked down, unable to meet his eyes while she spoke. “I really don’t have much experience. I mean, Angel and I only had that one night, and you know that turned out craptastic. And Parker—well, one-night stand there. Riley…well, we…it was….” Her voice trailed off as she felt her cheeks growing hot with embarrassment.
Spike felt his heart sink like a stone when she mentioned Angel, but kept any expression off his face by sheer will. “I understand, pet.” He started to get up off the side of the bed and she pulled him back hard, inadvertently yanking him off-balance until he was lying halfway on top of her.
He held himself away from her with stiff arms. Buffy glared up at him, upset by the fact that he seemed to take everything the wrong way. “I don’t think that you do understand, Spike. I don’t think that you understand in the slightest.” Instead of waiting for him to misunderstand her some more, she pulled his head down to her and took his bottom lip between hers, pressing it gently with her teeth.
Spike groaned into her mouth and cupped his hands under her shoulders, drawing her closer to him. Buffy nibbled a path across his jaw to his throat and he buried his face in the golden silk of her hair. “What do you want from me, pet?” he asked hoarsely.
She sighed, her breath hot against his skin. “Everything. Sex and blood and violence. All the stuff that I’ve been too afraid to ask anyone else to do with me because they put me on a pedestal and you never did. I want you, Spike—along with all the stuff you told me that you were going to do to me on our wedding night that we never did get to. Is there anything else that I need to say?”
Spike took a deep breath of her, drawing her scent into his lungs. “Buffy, love…huh?” He pulled away far enough to look her in the eye. “Wedding night?”
“Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “You remember, the one we never got to have? Well, I want it…now,” she said, then pulled his head down to hers to meet his mouth with a fiery kiss full of unspent passion.
She tried to pour two years of longing into one sweet kiss; two years of denial, two years of frustration, two years of self-delusion, trying to forget the promised passion and failing miserably. She couldn’t tell him that she used him to measure everyone, even though they had never been intimate like this. She wouldn’t tell him how Riley had been lacking and she had longed for Spike's touch long before the big break-up. She could only pray that he felt the need inside her as much as she did.
Spike heard her heart racing and smelled her arousal as it wafted through the air. He felt her heart throbbing wildly against his chest and threw caution to the wind. “You do, do you? And what would you be talking about? What did I tell you that you want so bad?” He ran his hands over her face and down to cup her breasts over the lace of her shirt.
She buried her face in his throat. “I can’t say it out loud, Spike. You remember.”
Spike refused to let her hide any longer, from him or herself. “No, pet, if we’re gonna do this, we have to do it right. Honesty always—I don’t want anything less between us.” He nibbled at her throat. “What do you want more than anything, Buffy?” he whispered against her skin, sending a shiver down her spine.
“Oh God…I want you to bite me…I want you to show me…how good it can feel….” Her reply came out breathy and whisper-soft in the stillness of the cavern.
Spike pulled back to look down into her face. “That’s my girl,” he said, curling his tongue behind blunt teeth. He lowered his face to her throat, teasing the corded muscle and reveling in the flavor of her flesh. “Tell me more,” he commanded, his tone allowing no argument.
“Oh, God, Spike…I…I need to feel you against me. I need skin on my skin. I want to touch you. Please,” she begged, “Don’t make me think. Just…take me.”
His hands were busy at the front of her blouse, working the buttons free. He spread the loosened fabric open to reveal the satin and lace cups that concealed her breasts, then worked the front clasp to reveal her rosy skin to his gaze. Her nipples were already hard as diamonds, crinkling further in the cool air. He blew gently on them, grinning madly as they seemed to reach toward his pursed lips. “Buffy love, you’re beautiful,” he said reverently.
Without giving her a chance to respond, he covered her with his hands, feeling the heat rising from her body. Leaning on his elbows, he cupped a breast in each hand and supped the delicate piquancy of Slayer from each nipple in turn. Even her perspiration reeked with power, almost as much as he remembered slumbered in Slayer blood. Her soft sighing moans filled his ears as he teased her nipples with teeth and tongue and fingers, her body arching toward him to afford him better access to her delicious secrets.
Spike stroked her skin and pushed her shirt and bra off her shoulders, tossing them recklessly to the floor. Her hands dragged at his tee and yanked it over his head to join her clothing, leaving them both nude from the waist up. He was amazed at the satiny smoothness of her skin as he resumed his exploration of her body, touching her lightly and stroking her with questing fingertips as she stretched to increase the pressure of his caress.
Spike began kissing her again, letting the passion build slowly between them as he massaged her tongue with his, fully exploring the inner recesses of her mouth. She groaned deep in her throat, her hands reaching for his belt, and he grasped her wrists and drew them over her head, holding them firmly in place. “Bad Buffy,” he said with a chuckle. “We’ll take our time and do this right. None of this fast and furious for us tonight, love.”
Buffy looked up at him with her green-gold eyes. “Please, Spike. I need you,” she whimpered.
Spike nipped her earlobe before he replied by lowering his groin, allowing the full press of his erection to caress her thigh. “And I need you, love. I want this to be…memorable.”
He looked up in time to see Buffy roll her eyes. “I think that I’ll remember something this important, Spike,” she said, and he caught her other lobe between blunt teeth, working it gently until she was gasping for air. “All right, all right, you win,” she finally blurted out before he caught her mouth with his once again.
Need and desire set them both aflame as he touched her with his free hand. She allowed him to pin her wrists above her head with the other, letting him feel in control although they both knew it was a hold she could easily break. His mouth explored every inch of her exposed skin, marking it as his; his tongue was a brand that he used liberally to stroke and tease every minute part of her, from the curve of her shoulder to the sensitive bottoms of her breasts. When he buried his face in her armpit she tried to recoil in horror but he would have none of it. “Kitten, you smell so damn sweet all over I want to memorize your scent. Vampire, remember? I smell what lies beneath—the lust, the arousal, all of it.”
Buffy closed her eyes tightly in embarrassment. “But I’m all sweaty—” she started to say, and was surprised to hear him scoff openly.
“The sweetest scent, pet. Haven’t you ever learned about pheromones?” He looked amazed at the shake of her head. “A subject for another time.” He raised his head to look into her eyes. “Buffy, do you trust me?”
Buffy stared back at him for a long moment until he was nearly to the point of worry, then finally replied, “Yes.” Her voice was brimming with certainty he would not question.
Spike cupped her face with both hands, releasing her wrists to do so. “Then let me love you completely, pet.”
She raised her face and answered him with a kiss.
Spike moved off of her and left her chilly and bereft for a moment, until she realized that he was working the zipper on her skirt. Her fingers fumbled to assist him and together they got it undone. She raised her hips for him to slide it down over her legs, not realizing that he had raked her panties off with it until her buttocks slid on the satin coverlet beneath her. With a gasp, Buffy covered her pubic mound with both hands.
Smiling, Spike moved her hands to allow him full view of her body. “You are perfection, love. Never hide it from me.”
Buffy's lashes fluttered against her cheeks as he gazed on the deceptive perfection of her form. Small hands that held a stake so deadly to his kind; tiny feet that could down a raging vampire with a roundhouse kick—from head to toe she was a killing machine clothed in soft skin and womanly curves and he couldn’t help but want her, love her.
He stripped off his jeans and tossed them aside, his cock springing rampant and bobbing in the cool air. Her eyes fluttered open to look at him in turn and he was amazed to see the nearly fearful look that skittered through the windows of her soul. Almost belatedly he knew that it had been a long while since her last sexual experience, not counting the months that she’d been de—no, he wouldn’t think of that now. Never think of that when he had her there before him, eagerly waiting for his touch.
He stretched out next to her on the bed, his body barely brushing against hers. “So, pet, what do we do now?”
Buffy stared at the first naked man she had seen in what seemed like forever. He was muscle and sinew, wiry but never scrawny by any definition of the word. His alabaster skin gleamed in the candlelight with a borrowed golden glow and she could feel the desire curling in the pit of her stomach, ready to implode on itself. It had been so long since she felt another’s touch; she was more than ready for him.
Spike reached out to trail his finger from Buffy's collarbone down the center of her body to her navel. She caught his wrist in her hand and pulled him over on top of her to cover her body with his. At his look of surprise, she jerked one shoulder in half a shrug. “I was chilly,” she said, a calculating smile curling her mouth invitingly.
Spike raised himself up on his elbows to look down into her face. “You’re sure this is something you want, pet?” he asked, his cocksure attitude slipping away and leaving behind his insecurity in its stead.
Buffy reached up to cup his face with her palm, warm against his coolness. “I’m more than sure, Spike. Seems like all this time I’ve been trying to convince myself how wrong you were for me, but really? You may be the only one who’s right.”
She reached for him with her mouth and he met her halfway. Their tongues tangoed in a timeless dance of passion as her body arched into his of its own accord. Sparkles danced behind her closed lids as she felt his tongue scraping over her teeth and gums to explore every crevasse of her mouth. She raked her own tongue over the tiny slits in his gums where fangs would sprout when his demon emerged and felt rather than heard his groan as it rumbled through his chest.
Gasping for unneeded air, he tore his mouth from hers and reared back to stare down into her face, soft and slack with desire. “God, Buffy, do you realize what you do to me? I want you so bad, pet,” he murmured.
Buffy smiled up at him as she coiled her arms around his neck and toyed with the short curls at his nape. “Well, Spike, you can tell how much I want you. Do that smelly thing and you’ll know.”
Spike's mouth burned an icy path along her jaw to her earlobe. “Oh, I know, Slayer. Believe me, I know,” he said, nipping the lobe of the ear he whispered into. “I think that I’ll go and investigate the situation myself, though.”
Before she could respond he had slithered down her body to the soft brownish curls that were already damp with the juices of her desire. Leaning on his elbows and hovering above the apex of her thighs, he breathed her scent in deeply, relishing the mingled perfumes of his Slayer. Arousal, musk, perfume, it didn’t matter what anyone called it; it was the most elusively erotic aroma that had ever graced his nose. There was a hint of power in her essence along with something that was exclusively hers, and he knew that he could recognize that scent among a thousand women while blindfolded.
Spike was unable to resist the urge to swipe his tongue over the pungency to taste her and followed his urges, gratified by her gasp of surprise that was quickly followed by a moan of contentment. Her hand reached for his head and fisted in curls that were springing free of their everyday gelled prison as she arched her pelvis toward his seeking mouth, eager for him to begin his gustatory explorations. Instead of diving right in like his mind told him to do, he took his time, swiping his tongue over the damp curls and relishing the soft mewls of delight that were coming from the Slayer's mouth.
When her heart began racing in a staccato beat and her breathing became just as erratic, he dipped his tongue into the separation between her labia and into her dripping core. She squealed as her body listened to its own demands and he thrust his tongue once, twice, three times into her then swiped it upward to the pearlescent nubbin of flesh that was engorged and distended with her desire. Her legs fairly flew apart as she planted her feet flat on either side of his shoulders and thrust her clit against his mouth, trying to increase the pressure as she pulled and tugged on his hair to guide him closer. He grinned madly around her flesh as it covered his face, then gave her what she asked for, sucking her clit between his lips and flicking it quickly with the tip of his talented tongue.
She felt like she was flying and falling simultaneously. His mouth was both cool and hot, his tongue spearing her and raking over delicate nerve endings with exquisite tenderness and roughness at the same time. She tossed her head from side to side, begging for the release that remained teetering on the edge of consciousness and reason and came no closer. He sensed her need as she clenched and unclenched her fingers in his hair and finally crawled up her body slowly to hover above her.
Buffy cried out for him wordlessly, actual words lost to her in the flames of desire that consumed her. She opened her eyes to see him there above her, watching her face as she writhed in heat. “Spike, please—I need you,” she whispered. He dipped his head to shatter what was left of her composure with a heated kiss as he slipped inside her slowly.
Her eyes widened as he filled her, deeper than any other had ever been. She raised her head to look down at the place where they were joined together, their bodies made one. It was strangely erotic to see their pubic hair mingled in shades of shadowed browns in the dim light, his cock smooth and sculpted like marble as it delved deeper into her recesses, finally coming to rest inside her as he stilled. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, and she shook her head negatively, held mute by the sensations.
He cupped his hands under her shoulders and began to move slowly inside her. It was torturous to move that slowly—his gut wanted to pound into her and make her scream—but he wasn’t listening to his gut, only to his heart, and his heart told him to make this beautiful and make it last for her. All for her. He went slow, inching in and out as the gliding muscles gripped and tightened against him wetly. As sweat beaded on her brow and made his forehead slide from hers and land somewhere close to her throat.
Slow—as the world spun and changed around them with the import of their choice; as Sunnydale itself changed and the night dragged on inexorably; as a man tap-danced to his death and another sang until he burst into a flaming pillar of song; slow and sure as one day turned into the next and the next.
Spike scented her blood beneath the flushed skin of her neck in an offhand way, just another part of the womanly perfume that enticed him and excited him. The demon was far at the back of his mind now, for it was the man at the forefront, loving her with all his unbeating heart. She was the air for lungs that didn’t need air, the sunlight he had searched for to quench the shadows inside him, and the destiny that had eluded him for some one hundred years. She had been the driving force for his being for some time, but she became the reason for his unlife at that moment. He would spend the rest of his days to the ends of time itself to make her happy.
He shuddered against her and she smoothed her hands over his back, sensing the changes in him without words having to be spoken. Her thighs trembled and her stomach fluttered with the sensations he was arousing, but that seemed secondary now; her primary focus became the waves of adoration and adulation that rolled off of him and centered on her. She smoothed his hair and whispered comfort in his ear for his subconscious to absorb, for the man in him was too wrapped up in the realities he was allowing to surface.
Buffy wrapped her legs around his and held his body still inside her until his shaking ceased. He lifted his head and looked deep into her eyes and saw her peace and it brought tears unbidden to his own eyes, blurring the beauty before him. “God help me, Buffy, I love you,” he finally blurted out, and was surprised by her soft smile.
“I know, Spike. I love you. You’re my other half, you know?” She smoothed the moisture from his cheek with her hand and then wiped the tears from her own. “My Spike. My William. Love me?”
“With all my heart, Buffy.” His voice trembled with the emotion held deep for so long and she rewarded him with another blinding smile.
“Then show me how much.” She dug her heels into his calves and arched against him, flexing inner muscles around him and making him gasp. “Give it me good, Slayer of Slayers. Didn’t you tell me that once in an alley?” she teased, and was rewarded by a toothy smile from him.
“Yeah, but I also said that you were in love with death.”
She grimaced. “Not so much in love with death now. Been there, done that. Twice. So, not so much.”
He curled his tongue behind his teeth and arched his scarred brow. “Well, you do know the French call it le petit morte, right?”
Buffy frowned, trying to remember what little French she had learned in her sophomore year. “The…little death? What?” At his continued stare, her eyes widened at his wicked smile. “OH! Well, I guess we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”
“Oh yes, we WILL see, missy,” he replied, and tweaked one of her pert nipples with thumb and forefinger. She gasped then moaned as he bent his head to capture it between his lips while moving his hips in tiny circles. His hips pressed her clit between their pubic bones as he moved, stoking fires inside her that had barely had time to die down. His body slid freely into the liquid silken sheath of her flesh as she arched and moaned against his arm, her fingernails raking his skin to urge him on faster, harder, but he kept his pace steady as he suckled her nipples. He reached down and cupped her ass in both hands, tipping her pelvis to afford him access to nerves deep inside her.
Her mouth o’ed at the first nudge of his cock against the deeply seated nerves, then she clenched her teeth against the scream that seemed to be building in her gut, refusing to let it out. She spiraled closer to the peak as he moved faster now, their bodies slapping together noisily as he drove himself deeper and deeper inside her writhing form. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder and gripped her bottom lip between her teeth, desperate to stifle the moans that threatened to erupt at any minute into pleas for release.
Spike sensed her closing in on her peak and redoubled his efforts. He didn’t hold himself back, for she was not a normal girl who would break beneath his onslaught. She was his equal in every way; that had been proven time and again in their years of acquaintance. He felt her bite into his bicep and his demon awakened, sensing her need, but he thrust it to the recesses of his mind and held it there by his will alone. He would not bring bloodplay into their first time together, no matter what the demon wanted. Instead, he gripped the slope of her shoulder between his own blunt teeth, increasing the pressure slowly until she was wild beneath him, biting and scratching.
Buffy stiffened, then her orgasm crashed over her in a wave of pleasure that took her by surprise. It rolled thunderously throughout her entire body from head to toe and back again, blinding and deafening her to her own voice as she begged, pleaded, and screamed for more. Her entire body clenched as a fist would and the second one was upon her before the first was complete; her entire consciousness centered on that one spot deep inside her being relentlessly pounded and molded by love into a sensitive mass of raw nerve endings.
Spike released the bit of flesh and muscle that he’d been gnawing on and watched the mindless bliss overtake her as she came, then was shocked as her second orgasm triggered his own, his come jetting inside her as his hips jerked spasmodically against hers. He rested his face in the crook of her neck, gasping for unneeded air and feeling her relax beneath his stillness. Her hands still grasped his arms, her face was still buried in his shoulder, but there was no urgency for him to move as they both came down off their natural high and back to the reality of life around them.
He felt her body quiver under him and leaned up on his elbows to look down into her laughing face. At his confused look, she smoothed his cheek and said, “I guess you were right, or the French were—it is a little death, isn’t it?”
Spike grinned. “Call Guinness—the Slayer thinks that I’m right about something.” They shared a laugh for a moment, then together fell silent as they both realized the import of their actions simultaneously. “We’ve really gone and cocked things up for you, haven’t we, pet?” he said, expecting her to jump up and run screaming from his crypt.
He was pleasantly surprised when Buffy shrugged. “You know what, Spike? I don’t care anymore. I used to wonder what they would all think if I…well, you know…and especially after Willow's spell, when I sat in your lap all that time and felt….” She clenched her inner muscles and gripped his softening cock. “But now? They all have girlfriends and people that care about them. Why not me too? Heck, I gave my life for them—and they dragged me back to here—so the least they can do is let me live the life they gave me, right?”
He rolled off of her and she leaned on his chest, her pointy chin digging a hole in him—but he wouldn’t ask her to move it for the world. “I can save the world a thousand times. I can slay vampires and demons until the cows come home. But if there isn’t a reason for me to do it, it kinda gets to be just a job. It makes my life just a job, and that isn’t living.” She traced patterns on his skin with her fingernail while she talked. “I learned a little since I died and came back. I need something to keep me here besides my sister and my friends and being the Slayer. I need someone to come home to and someone who will rub my back and make me feel important too. I hope that you’re that someone, you know? If you want to be.”
Spike felt his heart leap in his chest, though it still lay unbeating. “I would be honored to rub your tired feet, pet, but are you certain that I’m the one you want?”
She giggled. “After that? Oh, mister, you’re the only one that I want.” Her face grew serious. “You’re the only one that I’ve wanted for a long time. I just never could say it—not to you or to anyone else.”
“And can you now? Or will we be a dirty little secret?” He tried not to let his fear show, but he failed miserably and she could tell how much her answer would affect them both.
She cupped his cheek lovingly. “Can’t be a secret if you move into the house, can you? Unless you have some of those weird skills that Dracula is supposed to have—you know, with all the seeing, not-seeing stuff?”
He scoffed. “Gypsy parlor tricks, they are. Power of suggestion and all that. I don’t play those games, even though I am evil.”
“More like evil light…tastes great, less evil….” She collapsed on his chest, laughing uncontrollably. He looked down at her and waited for her giggles to pass.
Buffy looked up at him and saw the serious look on his face. “What?” she asked.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
She saw the hope deep in his eyes. “Nope,” she said, popping the p. “Not kidding. I think that you moving in is exactly what I need. And I already know your bad habits—drinking blood, smoking too much, hogging the bed…so there’s no surprises there. Plus, it’ll be nice to have someone to come home and snuggle with.”
Spike listened to her making plans with half an ear as he let his heart soar. She not only loved him, but she wanted him to move into her house with her and her little sister, make a family with him. He vowed silently to do everything in his power to make her happy. It was the least that he could do.
Part 3--Burnt Offerings
Burnt Offerings
Spike hated this. He hated watching her dress so carefully across the room from him, hated her leaving, hated that they couldn’t stay the day together in the crypt and make love until they were sorer and more aching than they already were. Time had passed too quickly and she had to go to the Magic Box and there was nothing that he could do to stop her. He was powerless, couldn’t stop anything. Not the morning, not her friends’ ignorance, not her Watcher’s imminent defection, although that was something she knew nothing about yet. But he had seen the signs, that was sure, and Giles would be boarding a plane and leaving her behind once again, just like all the other men in her life. Leaving her and thinking it for the best. Like all the others. All the others except him.
She gave him a closed look from across the room, her feelings tamped down deep and her eyes shuttered against them for the moment. She would have to have The Talk with her friends first, he knew that, and then they could get on with their plans. Moving, loving, slaying, patrolling; all the little things that made her life hers and nobody else’s. Maybe she would let him help with the bills; it wasn’t like he didn’t have any means, just never occurred to him to access what he did have. As a vampire, there was no need; want, take, have, the universal code—you didn’t have a house payment or an electric bill when you were a vampire.
Buffy cleared her throat. “I’m, uh, going to the Magic Box to see if they have any idea what’s going on. Will you be here when I get through?”
He wanted to say that he would go with her, but he knew that she didn’t want that. “I think I’ll do a quick round. Never know what other creepies might be about with all the singing and burning going on. Maybe take a run by Willie’s and see if he knows anything.”
Her head bobbed in a brusque nod. “Do that. I never even thought of it myself. He may know something.” She frowned, then added, “But no kitten poker.”
Spike wanted to laugh but settled for a pout. “Aw, Slayer, you take all the fun out of information gathering.”
He was dazzled by her smile as it broke through the cloud that had descended the moment she left his bed. “I know you don’t mean that, so don’t even try it. When was the last time you actually ate the kittens, anyway?”
Spike made a face. “They taste gamy, and the fur gets in your fangs. I usually just let them go.”
Buffy crowed triumphantly. “See? Not even semi-bad anymore. Fur in your fangs—really, Spike.”
He sat up on the side of the bed, yanking his jeans over his feet and up to his knees. “I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was soft, barely there in the stillness, but he still heard the yearning tone that hid beneath the word. She wanted him to catch her later. It held a world of promise in a time that just an hour or two before had no promise whatsoever.
Buffy had almost made it to the ladder when he caught up with her. Spike grabbed her arm and yanked her around to press her against the rungs of the ladder, kissing her breathless until she was weak at the knees. “Until later then,” he said, and she nodded. Her legs wobbled as she climbed to the top of the ladder and emerged from the hole, but they strengthened as she put distance between them until she was almost able to walk a straight line again. Almost.
She beelined to the Magic Box, not speaking to her friends in the store but heading directly to the back room. Buffy changed into workout clothes and examined her exposed skin in the mirror to look for hickeys and bruises, but her Slayer healing must have been at full force because there was no sign of her liaison with Spike on her flesh. No sign whatsoever. She sighed, and then turned to exit the little private chamber and face Giles and the training that he thought was so important.
Buffy thought at one point that she heard Giles singing, but it must have been a glimmer of music from outside the shop. When she asked him, he shook his head and denied it. She stepped into the store to go and talk to Willow about what she’d found out about anything at this point and it was only a few minutes later that Spike burst in the front door with what was obviously a minion in tow, demanding him to sing.
An orchestra swelled in the background and then—the minion spoke in a dull monotone. “My master has the Slayer's sister hostage and at midnight he’s taking her to Hell to be his Queen.”
Giles cleaned his glasses, as per the usual. “What does he want, then?”
The minion pointed at Buffy. “Her.” He twisted out of Spike's grasp and ran out the door. Spike rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly, murmuring about when the minion would be a real boy, and Buffy looked around at her closest friends.
“Well, Dawn's in trouble again. It must be Tuesday. So, what do we do now? Bust in there and rescue her?” She looked around at the familiar faces and saw that they were closed against her. She wondered what exactly had happened that they were not jumping to help her defend her sister, but never got the chance to ask.
“He wants you Buffy, not the rest of us. You’ll go alone.” Giles' voice was cool and brisk and brooked no argument, but it didn’t keep Xander from trying, or Willow either.
Xander said, “Axes? Stakes? What do we fight this guy with?”
“Maybe a little spell—” Willow started to say, and Tara interrupted her.
“No! No more spells, Willow.” Willow stared at her girlfriend, not even realizing she was in the shop until that moment. Tara ignored her and turned to Buffy. “I’m sorry, Buffy. I only left her alone for a minute.”
“It’s okay Tara—Dawn doesn’t have to be alone for a second when trouble finds her.”
They were all speaking at once; Giles about her need to go alone, Anya about child brides of demons and how it never turned out well, Xander about what to battle the demon with. The only voice that she really heard clearly was Spike's.
“Let’s go, Slayer, I’ve got your back.”
Buffy looked at him and saw that he indeed had her back; had always had it, even though she never bothered to look or even pay attention before. “Let’s go then. I need to save my sister.”
Giles put his hand on Spike's arm, who shrugged it off immediately. “She needs to go alone, Spike.”
Spike watched her walk out of the front door of the shop, then turned back to look at her so-called friends. “What she needs, Watcher, is someone who will see her. She’s in pain. She’s grieving. She—what the hell, you people don’t care. You got her back and that’s all you wanted. You don’t care what it’s done to her.”
Spike turned his back on the resulting confusion and followed his Slayer.
They looked at each other, unable to process the insight the vampire had imparted about their friend. They had dragged her from Hell—hadn’t they?
Tara's stutter was firmly in place when she broke the silence. “W-what if she wasn’t in H-Hell?” She chanced a look up at the shocked faces of the group around her and found the courage to continue. “W-Willow, did you ever…look for her? B-before the spell?”
Willow gave them guilty looks. “I…we…she went through a portal to a hell dimension, I just…we all thought….”
“So you never looked for her. Never tried a locator spell before you set on this irreversible path to save her.” Giles was colder and more British than he’d ever been before. He held himself stiffly, trying not to rant and rail at the children’s ignorance. “You just decided to go ahead in your usual careless fashion and resurrect her.”
Xander looked wounded. His brown puppy-dog eyes accused Willow of the greatest of sins. “Willow, you told us….” he started to say, then trailed off and turned around to flop heavily in a chair by the table.
Anya, however, was more forthcoming. “You didn’t bother to look. You were so wrapped up in yourself and your own feelings that you never even bothered, did you? And look at what we’ve done—and you convinced us all to help! Wouldn’t let us get Spike or Dawn involved because you were afraid they would stop us, weren’t you? You are so selfish, Willow. Even more than I thought before.” She turned and went to comfort Xander, who had begun to cry silent manly tears.
Willow looked around for sympathy from Tara or Giles or anyone and found none. “I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean to, but you did. You didn’t bother to research or think of the risk or even to think about the primal forces that you were harnessing. Again I say, rank amateur.” Giles looked around at the gathered group and cleared his throat. “We need to go help her.”
No question who the her was. “Why, Giles? You just said she needed to do it alone,” Anya asked, her arms still cradling Xander.
“That was before these, er, questions were raised. Now I’m not certain that she’s in top form to handle this demon.” He headed toward the weapons cabinet and grabbed an axe. “And she needs more than Spike as backup, don’t you think?”
The mention of the bleached vampire menace galvanized Xander more than any other argument would have. “Let’s mount up.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Buffy felt a strange sense of satisfaction when she busted in the door to the Bronze. The tingles at the back of her neck and pit of her stomach told her that Spike was close behind her, but she needed to get some of the violence out before she faced this thing, whatever it was. She stalked in like a wild animal, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other, not thinking about the thing seated next to her sister on the stage.
There was evil on the air; he exuded evil from his pores. She thought that she had felt that feeling before but it smothered her now, making it a difficult task to even think of drawing breath. Hiding the frisson of fear that shivered up her spine, she leaned against the pool table in a challenging stance. “So, what do they call you?” she asked in her most bored voice.
“Sweetheart, I have thousands of names,” the demon answered, waving a languorous hand.
“Well, pick one. I need to know what I’m supposed to call my new brother-in-law.”
Dawn finally broke. “Buffy, I never…I didn’t….”
Buffy spared her sister a short glance. “I know, and you won’t either.” Turning back to the nameless demon, she said, “Listen, I know that I can’t beat you, so why don’t you and I cut a deal. You let Dawn go and take me to Hellsville in her place.”
“NO!” Spike's resounding shout echoed through the empty club. Buffy turned to give him a glare to make him shut up, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t let her do that—even if it meant…. “Take me,” he said, cringing at the words. “Take me, do whatever you want. I’ll sing, I’ll dance till I burn, just let the Slayer and her sister go.”
He didn’t notice the audience in the open doorway; none of them did.
The demon caressed his pointy chin, thinking the offer through. “You’re a vampire. What do you care about the Slayer, or her sister for that matter?”
Spike shrugged. “Must be something about the Summers women. Can’t help but love the lot of them. Even their mum. Couldn’t help myself then, can’t help myself now. I love them.”
“And you would put yourself in the line of fire for them? It would kill you.” There was a strange look in the demon’s eyes as he said it, and Spike acknowledged the look and the sentiment behind it.
“Yeah, I know that. At least it would mean something if I died for them in their place. My whole unlife would have had a meaning then. As it is now, it’s just been…nothing.”
Buffy laid her hand on Spike's arm. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you. Somebody has to be here to take care of Dawnie.”
Spike smiled down at her wryly. “That would be you, Buffy. I won’t let you do this, not if it’s in my power to stop it. Go on, take the Bit and go home. I’ll head to wherever with this wanker and we’ll do the dance. You know I love to dance.”
Her grip tightened on the sleeve of his coat, almost painfully. Turning to the demon onstage, she said, “What is the price? For my sister’s release?”
“Why Slayer, nothing more than a song. That’s all I ask, just a song.” Waving his hand, music filled the air and she started singing despite her definite desire not to. Minions attacked and she repelled them, caught up in the words that were coming unbidden from her vocal cords to the melody of the music floating through the air.
The tone of the music changed and she finally noticed her friends and Watcher, standing awe-stricken by the doorway. Willow had silvery trails down her face, but Tara refused to look at her, much less comfort her. Anya and Xander clutched each other, looking both guilty and sad. Giles looked resigned. She continued to sing about life and its difficulties, heaven and being ripped out of peace and comfort, then the tone of the song changed again.
Now, for some reason, the song had a note of hope that was missing before. She sang about love and finding it in an unlikely place, how she thought there was no hope where hope lived in an unbeating heart. She sang about fear of rejection, of wanting to make choices that weren’t in line with her friends’ ways of thinking, of wanting to be independent and not worry about losing everything for a love that shouldn’t exist in the first place. She sang about loss and abandonment, of being alone and lonely, and feeling guilty about feeling that way.
She watched the dawning reality of her song on their faces, each one picturesque in turn. Giles' face hardening when he realized she was singing about loving Spike, then softening as the vocals about rejection and loss reached the strings of his heart and plucked at them mercilessly. She saw the dawning understanding on Willow and Tara's faces and intercepted their surreptitious looks at the vampire in question to bring their notice back to her song with a wave of her hand in their direction. She watched the anger chase jealousy across Xander's plump, tearstained cheeks and cast his pain aside to embrace her own; Anya simply stared, horror at their actions in her expressive eyes but no horror at her love, only acceptance. Anya was nothing but pragmatic when it came to orgasms, it seemed.
Finally, she looked at her sister. Dawn looked…pleased. Happy as she darted glances between Buffy and Spike. It was what Dawn had always wanted. A family. A home. Stability and happiness and…basically what she had all summer, with Buffy there this time instead of….
And then the boom dropped and the secret that she’d only shared with Spike seemed to erupt from her mouth like pearls before swine, only the swine were her friends and the pearls—well, the pearl, the gem in question, was her actual location after jumping into the Swirling Portal Of Doom. She sang about heaven, how comforting and secure and safe she felt and watched the tears winding their way down the faces of her friends without shedding any of her own. No, it was the part where she sang about being back, how hard and harsh it was, how unrelenting their pats on each other’s backs seemed, their self-congratulatory poses like nothing more than a slap in her face. How they ignored her pain for their own happiness. How they ignored her grief for what she had lost because of what they had done. How they had ignored Spike's contributions to turn on him once again, which pained her more than she had ever been comfortable saying.
Now she was singing and dancing, spinning faster and faster in circles that were more concentric with each spin and smoke billowing and building with each revolution.
Spike stopped her cold, with a hand on each shoulder and a glare at the nameless demon watching coolly from the stage. She stood in front of him panting from her exertions and wondering what would come out of her mouth next. He touched her face tenderly and turned to the personification of evil sitting comfortably there next to his Bit. “Wanker. I told you, take me, not her.”
A waved hand. “It was her choice, not yours. So what’s for the encore.”
Buffy's voice was strong, despite her weak knees. She didn’t let on that Spike was keeping her from falling, only leaned on him in a parody of relationship. She couldn’t afford to let him, that demon, see that weakness in her. “There won’t be an encore. We’re done, and you’re done. Get out of here.”
The demon stood and waved a hand at Dawn, who jerked to her feet like a puppet on strings. “Come then, sweetness, let’s be off on the honeymoon. I’ve got the perfect little cave with an excellent view of the damned.”
“I told you before, she’s not leaving here with you.” Buffy's voice held a tinge of desperation that she couldn’t hide. She shook off Spike's hold and stepped forward shakily. “Let her go.”
“Oh, but I don’t think that you have the steel to back up that little show, do you now?” The demon moved his hand and Dawn danced on the movement in a herky-jerky, fear on her face and desperation in her dance.
“I think the Slayer is giving you a bye. I would take it if I were you.” Spike added his two cents, stepping up behind Buffy and letting her lean on him, her back resting against his chest and the smoke still wisping around her.
“I think I agree with Spike for once. You need to leave.” Willow's voice, although shaky, had the steel to back up her threat; if that wasn’t enough, she added a glimmer of power to it. Tara felt the shimmer in the air, as did the demon by the look of respect that crossed his face.
“I sense power and lots of it. So, would you rather in her place? She wears my talisman, I assumed that she must have called me.” He waved his hand at the necklace around Dawn's throat.
“Buffy I swear! I…found it…while I was sweeping at the store….” Dawn's hurried lie struck home as they all looked at one another.
“If it was in the shop, then any one of us could have….” Giles left his sentence hanging in the air, looking at each of them in turn and finally landing on Xander. Xander, with his hand raised sheepishly in the air, defensive at the dismayed looks being thrown his way.
“What? There wasn’t anything about people burning up. I thought singing, dancing, how bad can that be? I wanted us all to have a happy ending.” He glared at Spike, then pointed. “He must have done something to make it go wrong.”
Buffy scowled at him. “Get over it, Xander. Spike didn’t do anything. You did.” She turned to the demon. “So since my sister didn’t summon you, does that mean you’re taking Xander to Hell instead?”
A thoughtful look crossed the demon’s face. “Well, it’s tempting, but…seeing how he’s not the right…form, it might prove a little daunting. No, I think that I’ll let him stay here. You’re going to make his life a greater hell than I ever could ever dream.”
The demon looked around at the sad and despondent faces of the warriors around him. “Oh, do cheer up. You beat the bad guy, and not even a drop of blood shed. You should be happy. But hey, I guess that’s not possible now, is it?”
He sang as he left, sparkles trailing in his wake. Buffy waved her hand above her head to dispel any traces of him that he left behind, whipping around at the sound of Dawn's voice beginning yet another song.
“No. Stop now. No more singing. I’m done with singing.” Buffy stomped over to Xander and slapped his face. “Don’t touch another thing in that store, do you hear? Not another thing. And I might have more to say to you later, so stick around.”
She looked at Willow's teary face and the sorrow in her eyes. “Not. Another. Apology. I want you and all your magical crap out of my house as soon as you can get it out without using magic. You didn’t even bother locating me, did you? I wondered, but I never bothered to ask. Now I don’t have to. Tara, you’re welcome to stay, but my house is officially a magic-free zone now.”
Her look encompassed them all now, even Giles and Dawn. “In case you didn’t get the drift, Spike is my boyfriend. You did your part bringing me back to this hell—he’s the only thing that’s kept me from letting some demon have it’s one good day, although that one came close.” She gestured where Dawn still stood on the stage. “I’m done. I’ll patrol, I’ll slay, but I’m going to live my life for me now instead of trying to give your lives meaning, cause hey, nobody paid much attention to me after I got back. Well, other than why isn’t Buffy happy to be back? You do the freaking math, okay? Until then, I don’t know that I want to see any of you for a while.”
She turned to Spike and gestured her desire for him to join her, and he was at her side in an instant. “Come on, Dawnie, let’s go home.” Buffy linked her arms with Spike's, then with her sister’s, and together they left the stunned and guilty crowd with their mouths agape.
Spike looked down at the diminutive Slayer at his side, their arms linked as they strolled through the quiet Sunnydale streets to the house on Revello. Tonight had been more than he had ever hoped for; hell, it had been a bloody triumph for him and for the Slayer as well. He was proud of her for finding the stones to tell off her well-meaning friends, and prouder yet for her ability to let them know about their relationship without letting them nose into her business yet again.
He started to open his mouth to speak when Buffy broke the silence herself. “Dawnie, are you going to be all right with, um, me and Spike? I mean, not that you have a choice in my boyfriends or anything, but…I don’t want you to feel like I’m not taking you into consideration here.”
Dawn looked at both of them like they had multiple heads. “What? You two are so meant for each other. And I get my big brother back, so yeah—you’ve got my support. But only if you’re both cool about it and don’t keep me awake at night, ‘kay?”
Spike gave Dawn his patented smirk, then looked down at Buffy with a genuine heartfelt smile. “Well, if we have the Bit’s blessing, that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?”
Buffy smiled back up at him. “It’s a start. For now.”
It was a start. Tomorrow would tell whether the Scoobies would come around, or not. But then again, as long as the three of them had each other, right now that seemed like enough.
Spike hated this. He hated watching her dress so carefully across the room from him, hated her leaving, hated that they couldn’t stay the day together in the crypt and make love until they were sorer and more aching than they already were. Time had passed too quickly and she had to go to the Magic Box and there was nothing that he could do to stop her. He was powerless, couldn’t stop anything. Not the morning, not her friends’ ignorance, not her Watcher’s imminent defection, although that was something she knew nothing about yet. But he had seen the signs, that was sure, and Giles would be boarding a plane and leaving her behind once again, just like all the other men in her life. Leaving her and thinking it for the best. Like all the others. All the others except him.
She gave him a closed look from across the room, her feelings tamped down deep and her eyes shuttered against them for the moment. She would have to have The Talk with her friends first, he knew that, and then they could get on with their plans. Moving, loving, slaying, patrolling; all the little things that made her life hers and nobody else’s. Maybe she would let him help with the bills; it wasn’t like he didn’t have any means, just never occurred to him to access what he did have. As a vampire, there was no need; want, take, have, the universal code—you didn’t have a house payment or an electric bill when you were a vampire.
Buffy cleared her throat. “I’m, uh, going to the Magic Box to see if they have any idea what’s going on. Will you be here when I get through?”
He wanted to say that he would go with her, but he knew that she didn’t want that. “I think I’ll do a quick round. Never know what other creepies might be about with all the singing and burning going on. Maybe take a run by Willie’s and see if he knows anything.”
Her head bobbed in a brusque nod. “Do that. I never even thought of it myself. He may know something.” She frowned, then added, “But no kitten poker.”
Spike wanted to laugh but settled for a pout. “Aw, Slayer, you take all the fun out of information gathering.”
He was dazzled by her smile as it broke through the cloud that had descended the moment she left his bed. “I know you don’t mean that, so don’t even try it. When was the last time you actually ate the kittens, anyway?”
Spike made a face. “They taste gamy, and the fur gets in your fangs. I usually just let them go.”
Buffy crowed triumphantly. “See? Not even semi-bad anymore. Fur in your fangs—really, Spike.”
He sat up on the side of the bed, yanking his jeans over his feet and up to his knees. “I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was soft, barely there in the stillness, but he still heard the yearning tone that hid beneath the word. She wanted him to catch her later. It held a world of promise in a time that just an hour or two before had no promise whatsoever.
Buffy had almost made it to the ladder when he caught up with her. Spike grabbed her arm and yanked her around to press her against the rungs of the ladder, kissing her breathless until she was weak at the knees. “Until later then,” he said, and she nodded. Her legs wobbled as she climbed to the top of the ladder and emerged from the hole, but they strengthened as she put distance between them until she was almost able to walk a straight line again. Almost.
She beelined to the Magic Box, not speaking to her friends in the store but heading directly to the back room. Buffy changed into workout clothes and examined her exposed skin in the mirror to look for hickeys and bruises, but her Slayer healing must have been at full force because there was no sign of her liaison with Spike on her flesh. No sign whatsoever. She sighed, and then turned to exit the little private chamber and face Giles and the training that he thought was so important.
Buffy thought at one point that she heard Giles singing, but it must have been a glimmer of music from outside the shop. When she asked him, he shook his head and denied it. She stepped into the store to go and talk to Willow about what she’d found out about anything at this point and it was only a few minutes later that Spike burst in the front door with what was obviously a minion in tow, demanding him to sing.
An orchestra swelled in the background and then—the minion spoke in a dull monotone. “My master has the Slayer's sister hostage and at midnight he’s taking her to Hell to be his Queen.”
Giles cleaned his glasses, as per the usual. “What does he want, then?”
The minion pointed at Buffy. “Her.” He twisted out of Spike's grasp and ran out the door. Spike rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly, murmuring about when the minion would be a real boy, and Buffy looked around at her closest friends.
“Well, Dawn's in trouble again. It must be Tuesday. So, what do we do now? Bust in there and rescue her?” She looked around at the familiar faces and saw that they were closed against her. She wondered what exactly had happened that they were not jumping to help her defend her sister, but never got the chance to ask.
“He wants you Buffy, not the rest of us. You’ll go alone.” Giles' voice was cool and brisk and brooked no argument, but it didn’t keep Xander from trying, or Willow either.
Xander said, “Axes? Stakes? What do we fight this guy with?”
“Maybe a little spell—” Willow started to say, and Tara interrupted her.
“No! No more spells, Willow.” Willow stared at her girlfriend, not even realizing she was in the shop until that moment. Tara ignored her and turned to Buffy. “I’m sorry, Buffy. I only left her alone for a minute.”
“It’s okay Tara—Dawn doesn’t have to be alone for a second when trouble finds her.”
They were all speaking at once; Giles about her need to go alone, Anya about child brides of demons and how it never turned out well, Xander about what to battle the demon with. The only voice that she really heard clearly was Spike's.
“Let’s go, Slayer, I’ve got your back.”
Buffy looked at him and saw that he indeed had her back; had always had it, even though she never bothered to look or even pay attention before. “Let’s go then. I need to save my sister.”
Giles put his hand on Spike's arm, who shrugged it off immediately. “She needs to go alone, Spike.”
Spike watched her walk out of the front door of the shop, then turned back to look at her so-called friends. “What she needs, Watcher, is someone who will see her. She’s in pain. She’s grieving. She—what the hell, you people don’t care. You got her back and that’s all you wanted. You don’t care what it’s done to her.”
Spike turned his back on the resulting confusion and followed his Slayer.
They looked at each other, unable to process the insight the vampire had imparted about their friend. They had dragged her from Hell—hadn’t they?
Tara's stutter was firmly in place when she broke the silence. “W-what if she wasn’t in H-Hell?” She chanced a look up at the shocked faces of the group around her and found the courage to continue. “W-Willow, did you ever…look for her? B-before the spell?”
Willow gave them guilty looks. “I…we…she went through a portal to a hell dimension, I just…we all thought….”
“So you never looked for her. Never tried a locator spell before you set on this irreversible path to save her.” Giles was colder and more British than he’d ever been before. He held himself stiffly, trying not to rant and rail at the children’s ignorance. “You just decided to go ahead in your usual careless fashion and resurrect her.”
Xander looked wounded. His brown puppy-dog eyes accused Willow of the greatest of sins. “Willow, you told us….” he started to say, then trailed off and turned around to flop heavily in a chair by the table.
Anya, however, was more forthcoming. “You didn’t bother to look. You were so wrapped up in yourself and your own feelings that you never even bothered, did you? And look at what we’ve done—and you convinced us all to help! Wouldn’t let us get Spike or Dawn involved because you were afraid they would stop us, weren’t you? You are so selfish, Willow. Even more than I thought before.” She turned and went to comfort Xander, who had begun to cry silent manly tears.
Willow looked around for sympathy from Tara or Giles or anyone and found none. “I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean to, but you did. You didn’t bother to research or think of the risk or even to think about the primal forces that you were harnessing. Again I say, rank amateur.” Giles looked around at the gathered group and cleared his throat. “We need to go help her.”
No question who the her was. “Why, Giles? You just said she needed to do it alone,” Anya asked, her arms still cradling Xander.
“That was before these, er, questions were raised. Now I’m not certain that she’s in top form to handle this demon.” He headed toward the weapons cabinet and grabbed an axe. “And she needs more than Spike as backup, don’t you think?”
The mention of the bleached vampire menace galvanized Xander more than any other argument would have. “Let’s mount up.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Buffy felt a strange sense of satisfaction when she busted in the door to the Bronze. The tingles at the back of her neck and pit of her stomach told her that Spike was close behind her, but she needed to get some of the violence out before she faced this thing, whatever it was. She stalked in like a wild animal, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other, not thinking about the thing seated next to her sister on the stage.
There was evil on the air; he exuded evil from his pores. She thought that she had felt that feeling before but it smothered her now, making it a difficult task to even think of drawing breath. Hiding the frisson of fear that shivered up her spine, she leaned against the pool table in a challenging stance. “So, what do they call you?” she asked in her most bored voice.
“Sweetheart, I have thousands of names,” the demon answered, waving a languorous hand.
“Well, pick one. I need to know what I’m supposed to call my new brother-in-law.”
Dawn finally broke. “Buffy, I never…I didn’t….”
Buffy spared her sister a short glance. “I know, and you won’t either.” Turning back to the nameless demon, she said, “Listen, I know that I can’t beat you, so why don’t you and I cut a deal. You let Dawn go and take me to Hellsville in her place.”
“NO!” Spike's resounding shout echoed through the empty club. Buffy turned to give him a glare to make him shut up, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t let her do that—even if it meant…. “Take me,” he said, cringing at the words. “Take me, do whatever you want. I’ll sing, I’ll dance till I burn, just let the Slayer and her sister go.”
He didn’t notice the audience in the open doorway; none of them did.
The demon caressed his pointy chin, thinking the offer through. “You’re a vampire. What do you care about the Slayer, or her sister for that matter?”
Spike shrugged. “Must be something about the Summers women. Can’t help but love the lot of them. Even their mum. Couldn’t help myself then, can’t help myself now. I love them.”
“And you would put yourself in the line of fire for them? It would kill you.” There was a strange look in the demon’s eyes as he said it, and Spike acknowledged the look and the sentiment behind it.
“Yeah, I know that. At least it would mean something if I died for them in their place. My whole unlife would have had a meaning then. As it is now, it’s just been…nothing.”
Buffy laid her hand on Spike's arm. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you. Somebody has to be here to take care of Dawnie.”
Spike smiled down at her wryly. “That would be you, Buffy. I won’t let you do this, not if it’s in my power to stop it. Go on, take the Bit and go home. I’ll head to wherever with this wanker and we’ll do the dance. You know I love to dance.”
Her grip tightened on the sleeve of his coat, almost painfully. Turning to the demon onstage, she said, “What is the price? For my sister’s release?”
“Why Slayer, nothing more than a song. That’s all I ask, just a song.” Waving his hand, music filled the air and she started singing despite her definite desire not to. Minions attacked and she repelled them, caught up in the words that were coming unbidden from her vocal cords to the melody of the music floating through the air.
The tone of the music changed and she finally noticed her friends and Watcher, standing awe-stricken by the doorway. Willow had silvery trails down her face, but Tara refused to look at her, much less comfort her. Anya and Xander clutched each other, looking both guilty and sad. Giles looked resigned. She continued to sing about life and its difficulties, heaven and being ripped out of peace and comfort, then the tone of the song changed again.
Now, for some reason, the song had a note of hope that was missing before. She sang about love and finding it in an unlikely place, how she thought there was no hope where hope lived in an unbeating heart. She sang about fear of rejection, of wanting to make choices that weren’t in line with her friends’ ways of thinking, of wanting to be independent and not worry about losing everything for a love that shouldn’t exist in the first place. She sang about loss and abandonment, of being alone and lonely, and feeling guilty about feeling that way.
She watched the dawning reality of her song on their faces, each one picturesque in turn. Giles' face hardening when he realized she was singing about loving Spike, then softening as the vocals about rejection and loss reached the strings of his heart and plucked at them mercilessly. She saw the dawning understanding on Willow and Tara's faces and intercepted their surreptitious looks at the vampire in question to bring their notice back to her song with a wave of her hand in their direction. She watched the anger chase jealousy across Xander's plump, tearstained cheeks and cast his pain aside to embrace her own; Anya simply stared, horror at their actions in her expressive eyes but no horror at her love, only acceptance. Anya was nothing but pragmatic when it came to orgasms, it seemed.
Finally, she looked at her sister. Dawn looked…pleased. Happy as she darted glances between Buffy and Spike. It was what Dawn had always wanted. A family. A home. Stability and happiness and…basically what she had all summer, with Buffy there this time instead of….
And then the boom dropped and the secret that she’d only shared with Spike seemed to erupt from her mouth like pearls before swine, only the swine were her friends and the pearls—well, the pearl, the gem in question, was her actual location after jumping into the Swirling Portal Of Doom. She sang about heaven, how comforting and secure and safe she felt and watched the tears winding their way down the faces of her friends without shedding any of her own. No, it was the part where she sang about being back, how hard and harsh it was, how unrelenting their pats on each other’s backs seemed, their self-congratulatory poses like nothing more than a slap in her face. How they ignored her pain for their own happiness. How they ignored her grief for what she had lost because of what they had done. How they had ignored Spike's contributions to turn on him once again, which pained her more than she had ever been comfortable saying.
Now she was singing and dancing, spinning faster and faster in circles that were more concentric with each spin and smoke billowing and building with each revolution.
Spike stopped her cold, with a hand on each shoulder and a glare at the nameless demon watching coolly from the stage. She stood in front of him panting from her exertions and wondering what would come out of her mouth next. He touched her face tenderly and turned to the personification of evil sitting comfortably there next to his Bit. “Wanker. I told you, take me, not her.”
A waved hand. “It was her choice, not yours. So what’s for the encore.”
Buffy's voice was strong, despite her weak knees. She didn’t let on that Spike was keeping her from falling, only leaned on him in a parody of relationship. She couldn’t afford to let him, that demon, see that weakness in her. “There won’t be an encore. We’re done, and you’re done. Get out of here.”
The demon stood and waved a hand at Dawn, who jerked to her feet like a puppet on strings. “Come then, sweetness, let’s be off on the honeymoon. I’ve got the perfect little cave with an excellent view of the damned.”
“I told you before, she’s not leaving here with you.” Buffy's voice held a tinge of desperation that she couldn’t hide. She shook off Spike's hold and stepped forward shakily. “Let her go.”
“Oh, but I don’t think that you have the steel to back up that little show, do you now?” The demon moved his hand and Dawn danced on the movement in a herky-jerky, fear on her face and desperation in her dance.
“I think the Slayer is giving you a bye. I would take it if I were you.” Spike added his two cents, stepping up behind Buffy and letting her lean on him, her back resting against his chest and the smoke still wisping around her.
“I think I agree with Spike for once. You need to leave.” Willow's voice, although shaky, had the steel to back up her threat; if that wasn’t enough, she added a glimmer of power to it. Tara felt the shimmer in the air, as did the demon by the look of respect that crossed his face.
“I sense power and lots of it. So, would you rather in her place? She wears my talisman, I assumed that she must have called me.” He waved his hand at the necklace around Dawn's throat.
“Buffy I swear! I…found it…while I was sweeping at the store….” Dawn's hurried lie struck home as they all looked at one another.
“If it was in the shop, then any one of us could have….” Giles left his sentence hanging in the air, looking at each of them in turn and finally landing on Xander. Xander, with his hand raised sheepishly in the air, defensive at the dismayed looks being thrown his way.
“What? There wasn’t anything about people burning up. I thought singing, dancing, how bad can that be? I wanted us all to have a happy ending.” He glared at Spike, then pointed. “He must have done something to make it go wrong.”
Buffy scowled at him. “Get over it, Xander. Spike didn’t do anything. You did.” She turned to the demon. “So since my sister didn’t summon you, does that mean you’re taking Xander to Hell instead?”
A thoughtful look crossed the demon’s face. “Well, it’s tempting, but…seeing how he’s not the right…form, it might prove a little daunting. No, I think that I’ll let him stay here. You’re going to make his life a greater hell than I ever could ever dream.”
The demon looked around at the sad and despondent faces of the warriors around him. “Oh, do cheer up. You beat the bad guy, and not even a drop of blood shed. You should be happy. But hey, I guess that’s not possible now, is it?”
He sang as he left, sparkles trailing in his wake. Buffy waved her hand above her head to dispel any traces of him that he left behind, whipping around at the sound of Dawn's voice beginning yet another song.
“No. Stop now. No more singing. I’m done with singing.” Buffy stomped over to Xander and slapped his face. “Don’t touch another thing in that store, do you hear? Not another thing. And I might have more to say to you later, so stick around.”
She looked at Willow's teary face and the sorrow in her eyes. “Not. Another. Apology. I want you and all your magical crap out of my house as soon as you can get it out without using magic. You didn’t even bother locating me, did you? I wondered, but I never bothered to ask. Now I don’t have to. Tara, you’re welcome to stay, but my house is officially a magic-free zone now.”
Her look encompassed them all now, even Giles and Dawn. “In case you didn’t get the drift, Spike is my boyfriend. You did your part bringing me back to this hell—he’s the only thing that’s kept me from letting some demon have it’s one good day, although that one came close.” She gestured where Dawn still stood on the stage. “I’m done. I’ll patrol, I’ll slay, but I’m going to live my life for me now instead of trying to give your lives meaning, cause hey, nobody paid much attention to me after I got back. Well, other than why isn’t Buffy happy to be back? You do the freaking math, okay? Until then, I don’t know that I want to see any of you for a while.”
She turned to Spike and gestured her desire for him to join her, and he was at her side in an instant. “Come on, Dawnie, let’s go home.” Buffy linked her arms with Spike's, then with her sister’s, and together they left the stunned and guilty crowd with their mouths agape.
Spike looked down at the diminutive Slayer at his side, their arms linked as they strolled through the quiet Sunnydale streets to the house on Revello. Tonight had been more than he had ever hoped for; hell, it had been a bloody triumph for him and for the Slayer as well. He was proud of her for finding the stones to tell off her well-meaning friends, and prouder yet for her ability to let them know about their relationship without letting them nose into her business yet again.
He started to open his mouth to speak when Buffy broke the silence herself. “Dawnie, are you going to be all right with, um, me and Spike? I mean, not that you have a choice in my boyfriends or anything, but…I don’t want you to feel like I’m not taking you into consideration here.”
Dawn looked at both of them like they had multiple heads. “What? You two are so meant for each other. And I get my big brother back, so yeah—you’ve got my support. But only if you’re both cool about it and don’t keep me awake at night, ‘kay?”
Spike gave Dawn his patented smirk, then looked down at Buffy with a genuine heartfelt smile. “Well, if we have the Bit’s blessing, that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?”
Buffy smiled back up at him. “It’s a start. For now.”
It was a start. Tomorrow would tell whether the Scoobies would come around, or not. But then again, as long as the three of them had each other, right now that seemed like enough.
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