by Megan

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [Epilogue]

Chapter 9

The night was a revealer of secrets. Buffy had never felt, since becoming Chosen, that anything could hide from her amongst the crisp curtain of darkness. It was when the monsters emerged that the reality of her life in peril became clear, and her path and destiny mingled with the hidden truth of day. Clarity was a spicy nightmare that lost its secretiveness as soon as the moon shadowed the earth and evil lost its cloak.

Buffy stretched toward her seventeenth birthday with a yearning that recognised that every birthday in her life was a major achievement. Since being called she could almost hear the ticking time bomb counting down to each concluding year. But it warned of the need to grasp hard what was offered, what was given. It was almost funny to her that it was in the dark as she wandered through graveyards that she felt freest to think about her birthday and what it might bring her.

Her most earnest wish was that it might bring her Spike.

A smile touched her lips as her eyes glazed over, blurring the ground in front of her as her feet still took steady and sure steps along her mission of demon eradication. The night was still, allowing her mind to expand her thoughts, to ponder over recent meetings with the blond vampire and wonder at her lack of fear, her lack of concern in his possible evil motives. It was hard to consider someone that made her feel so good—someone who liberated her body and heart so fully—could be setting her up for some kind of fall.

It was beyond hard.

The thought of Spike doublecrossing her, handing her over in some evil plot to meet her end, was enough to freeze her solid. Evil was as evil does, and Spike had quite believably shed his evil wear, donning a white hat with the best of them. He constantly rubbed shoulders with Giles, a Watcher with history and learning steeped in the contradictory yet blinkered teachings of the Council. He traded barbs that hung on the right side of insulting with Xander, and Willow…well, Willow seemed to be really okay with him. Didn’t hurt that Spike seemed to go out of his way for them all.

The absence of Angel in her life weighed on Buffy’s mind, however. The ease in which she had made a decision, had swapped her outer vampire wear, shrugging off large brooding soulful purpose for the touch of fire, the vision of angelicness in the devil’s clothes. Even if black and red really suited him.

She felt shallow. Thoughts of all she had achieved with Angel made Buffy stand still in sudden apprehension. She couldn’t possibly have tossed her soulful boyfriend aside merely because a better-looking, tastier version landed in her school corridor. Sure, kissing Spike stole her senses and made her burn in all the right places. But was it right for her to abandon Angel just as he had gained new responsibilities? Buffy hadn’t pushed the physical side of her connection with Angel until recently, and to dump him because he didn’t show a lack of control around her like Spike did? Well, shallow.

But that didn’t seem right, either. It was more than just a molten, burn-the-house-down moment when she was with Spike. Sure, her hormones let loose and created crazy dancing within her soul, but something of him called to her, leveled her so thoroughly that she could do nothing but submit to him on every level. It was deep, whatever this thing was between them. The fathomless emotion she sunk into every time he looked at her? Buffy might be unsure of her own feelings for the blonde vamp, but there was no confusion in regards to his, despite the lack of declaration. His actions shouted at her, drowned her in feelings of fire, of devotion, of newness and right.

And God did it set her alight.

Made her so excited and happy she couldn’t help but skip as she spun her stake.

Exhilarated her so much she was all enthusiastic for the killing of vamps. Making with the dustiness.

Another couple of steps and she was making with the frustration. No vamps. Buffy stopped and pouted, taking a longing look around the cemetery grounds, looking for one little sign of the walking undead. She couldn’t even locate some torn turf.

“Grrrr,” she chastised the ground as she rewarded the unfettered grass with an irritated stab with the toe of her shoe.

“What’d the poor innocent grass do to you, pet?”

Buffy spun on her heel with a large grin erupting on her lips.

“Spike!” she almost shrieked as she leaped into his arms, her legs clamping around his waist as her arms wrapped around his neck. They laughed together as he began to spin them in a circle, dizziness soon making them fall in a lump to the ground.

Predictably, the randy soulless vampire landed on top, neatly slotting his pelvis into the V of her legs. His hard protrusion was another thing that was not hidden in the dark, and a small frown replaced the delight that had speckled her lips and eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately noticing and hating the anxious expression that clouded her happiness. So used to her down moods, her internal struggle to live, Spike nearly bit his tongue to stop himself from panicking.

“It’s just, it’s…” she hesitated, unsure of whether to bring up her age considering all the experimentation she had been doing lately.

“Tell me, Buffy. What is it?”

Buffy startled at the look of fear that was blatantly taking over Spike’s previously carefree demeanor. Sometimes he seemed shadowed by something dark, and when Buffy picked up on it she felt like kicking herself. Hello, evil vampire lying wedged between her thighs. He’s supposed to be all dark and mysterious. But this was different. Like he was afraid of her. Afraid of the pain that she could cause, which made no sense.

“I was just thinking about my birthday,” she offered at last, and she quirked a brow at his tremendous sigh of relief. He buried a suddenly heavy head into the crook of her neck.

Buffy lay completely still, pricklingly aware of how close to her vein his mouth was. As if he could read her mind, his blunt human teeth sunk into the soft skin of her neck and she released a low, lustful moan. Absolutely contrary to her expected reaction, she felt the warm, overwhelming gush of fluids in her panties and she wiggled a little in embarrassment.

When his tongue began to trace the length of her throat the continuing flood made her tremble and flush scarlet with heat. Her less than seventeen reaction was to abruptly push him to the side, away from the tender and extremely sensitive column of her throat. She jumped up away from him, and with one quick look at the confusion swirling in his azure depths, she bolted.

Suddenly darkness was not her friend as she barely made it a few metres away from him before she was confronted by a small vamp gathering.

“Why is it that when I want to see you guys, you’re all with the absent, but when I don’t, your right in front of me? In big, evil packs? Guess I’ll just have to deal with you so I can be on my way.”

“Not so fast, Slayer,” said one unfortunate, stepping up to make his point but quickly finding his way impeded by a shapely carved stake protruding from his chest. And he was a large gust of dust in the fresh nightly breeze. Buffy coughed delicately as she turned to the remaining two.

Looks of understanding passed between them and they suddenly took off out of her way. Unfortunately for them, they ran in the direction from where Buffy had been making her escape. They barely heard the tread of her trainers as she kept up with them and thrust them into eternal darkness with her trusty stick of wood.

It was too late, though. Spike had merely needed to walk to catch back up to her, and he snagged her elbow and spun her back to face him. The whole motion had the tinge of darkness, of evil determination, and the sexiness of it made her shiver.

“What the bloody hell got you all spooked?”

His face was the picture of abandoned sex; his eyes all smoky with desire while his body displayed his condition rather prominently. He didn’t even blink when Buffy’s eyes couldn’t stray from the bulge in the front of his pants. The patented smirk spread and he tilted his head.

“So what were you wantin’ for your birthday, luv? Anythin’ I could perhaps get for you?”

Buffy gulped as images of what she wanted to unwrap flashed behind her eyes.

And then she heard high-pitched, maniacal laughter that set her teeth painfully on edge. Almost by the second, Spike’s head had swivelled to the direction of the sound and his feet had begun to carry him in that direction. Buffy followed wordlessly, and not without an ample supply of irritation.

When they found themselves at the park and watching the antics of Spike’s ex-love, Drusilla, Buffy found herself groaning with a seething hatred. It was tempered only slightly by the accompaniment of Angel. The dark-haired couple was not immediately aware of the appearance of the blondes, or at least they acted like they weren’t. But that they were standing once again at the swings, the fruit loop dancing between the chains and sweeping her hands out to touch on each revolution, was enough to shoot Buffy into a foul mood.

They’d interrupted. What exactly, she was still debating. Not a moment really, as she shamefully admitted she’d blasted that to smithereens the moment she had jumped to her feet and run like an inexperienced child. Which was a bit much for a girl who’d experienced the engorged wonder of having a vampire’s penis in her mouth.

No, they’d interrupted the make-up scene. And everyone knew that make-ups were so much hotter than the normal making-out.

The Buffy pout was pushing into existence as the feelings of deprivation strengthened and piled high with the irritation. By the time Buffy had accepted her level of annoyance, Spike had crowded her side and slid his arm around her waist. The sensual slide of his coat against her back calmed and soothed her to the point of uncaring. Almost immediately Buffy raised her relaxed gaze, only to clash with feral amber as they studied her comfortable connection with the peroxided vampire.

“Be careful what you wish for, Slayer. Birthday parties are fine for showers, but little presents are better with the background of thunder.”

Buffy stared at the crazed vampire and giggled. Even the warning squeeze around her middle couldn’t stop the reaction, and Buffy ignored his tactile advice.

“You so have to stop taking teatime with the Powers that Be. Vague it up, much? Thanks for the birthday cheer, though. I’ll be sure to not care.” She hid well her freak out that the weirdness of mentioning her birthday—still a few months distance from the night—had rolled from the evil red lips on a night when certain desires had already been thought about. She knew that vamps had enhanced hearing, but for Elvira the ho to hear from that distance defied even the Slayer’s belief.

Buffy’s eyes switched to focus on Angel—her eyes sweeping by accident over his throat—gasping loudly when encountering the littering of fang marks spattering his neck in purple splotches.

“Oh My God. Angel, what has she done to you?” The words were not enough, and Buffy found her legs carrying her swiftly to the vampire she had discarded only days ago, and allowing her finger to gently scrape over the numerous healing pinpricks in his skin.

His flinch away from her touch halted halfway through the movement, and instead he pressed himself into the slack cup of her palm. All sound fell away from them as the two interlopers fell silent; shock a crack in confident armour.

“It’s nothing bad, Buffy. I thought Sire blood might help to cure Dru. Seems to be working so far. She’s much stronger than what she was a week ago.”

Buffy nodded her head without really processing what he said. Her hand still lay against the flesh of his throat, almost absent in its continued position, and her mind fell lost to thoughts of her other vampire. So consumed in thoughts of Spike, she remained ignorant of the soft growls vibrating in his chest, projected from a few metres behind her.

Not until the hysterical cackle from her least favourite vampire broke through her reverie did she finally notice that Spike had turned away from her absent display of affection and was striding across the park. Stepping away to follow him was a useless move as Angel caught her elbow.

“Forget Spike. I don’t know what his problem is, anyway. I’d have thought he would have asked after Dru, made sure she’d settled in okay.”

Buffy raised startled eyes, and couldn’t help the childish reaction of jealousy from tumbling past her lips.

“And has she settled in okay?” The spite felt all rumbly inside her, and Buffy was forced to consider the jumbled reality of her feelings. Without allowing him the chance to answer, Buffy held her hand as a halt in front of his face. “Don’t tell me. It isn’t my place to know. You need to be with Dru, Angel. And I need to go after Spike.”

Before he could grab her again, Buffy swiftly stepped away and began to jog in the direction that Spike had disappeared. No sound of his steps meant he was in stealthy vampire mode, and Buffy stopped with a frown. She pushed her senses out to try and sense vampire, but the three vamps ambling in a dorky, uncoordinated fashion toward her made the efforts redundant.

They stopped a few metres away from her, recognising the Slayer by the pointy stake clasped in her hand, and they turned in the direction of cowards and ran. Watching them disappear, Buffy felt a twinge of guilt for not chasing them down and dusting them. But as her eyes followed their progress to safety, she halted her slow pace at the gliding beauty of an enraged Master pounding on the three as they pleaded for their continuing unlives.

When their particles had drifted to the grass, Buffy’s smile froze on her face as she encountered the furious ridged mask. Spike pivoted on his heel and was striding away, fury pumping his thighs. He ignored Slayer calls for waiting; gliding along with larger strides until he reached the copse of trees that bordered the next cemetery.

A burst from her own legs had Buffy catching up and repeating Angel’s earlier move of a clutch at the elbow. The slicing anger of his movement had the smooth leather of his sleeve slipping through her fingers, though, and she was left frowning and hurt in the entryway.

As he disappeared in the dark, rejection bouncing off him and fading into the night, Buffy recalled her earlier assumption that the night held no secrets for her. This night was turning into a fizzer as far as clear sailing was going.

But maybe she was missing something. Maybe the severity of Spike’s defection told her more than their continual hormonal dance could. Buffy had admitted to herself earlier in the night that the vampire had an ease of feeling for her that she was able to recognise, if not be sure of reciprocation. Her reaction to Angel told her there was a residual love still lingering on the edge of her feeling for the larger vamp. But her hand had not felt his clammy coldness as it rested on flesh. She’d felt the hum of another’s, and felt like kicking herself at the silly act of daydreaming while showing major concern over something that wasn’t any of her business.

In truth, the bite marks hadn’t done more than caught her unawares. Had her imagination leap to areas brushed on earlier in the night, but which had had her running way in severe opposition. Spike’s mouth against her own throat launched her into a moment of tingling anticipation, and the comfort she gained from the desire to feel his teeth sink into her vein catapulted her into majorly wiggy territory.

Seeing the evidence of vampire marks on Angel’s throat brought back her own feelings on the topic, and she was horrified to admit that the image of sharp canines breaking her skin wasn’t as frightening as it should have been. Dying from it once—the lulling effect that robbed her of consciousness and had her drowning in a puddle— seemed to lend her a tougher shell against the consequences. Resting her palm against Angel’s bites meant nothing more to Buffy than an acknowledgement to herself that she was curious to experience the same.

But Spike couldn’t read her mind, and she had really mucked up her secret message. The darkness was his world, and just because it seemed to simplify things for Buffy, didn’t mean the same was happening for Spike. In fact, his disappearance beyond the foliage would suggest another story.

So involved in her self-castigation, Buffy didn’t hear the approach or take note of any tingly sensation heralding the arrival of a vamp at her feet. Sitting on the damp grass, her first clue was the heavy black boots that stomped up to a point in front of her crossed legs. Buffy couldn’t tear her eyes away from the scuff marks on the toe points, and instead of gaining strength from the knowledge that he’d come back, she felt tears sting at her eyes and a wobble settle over her lip.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the boots, courage deserting her in the face of this new relationship. The Slayer bent forward a little more, her hair curtaining around her face and hiding the extent of her misery.

“Got it sorted?”

Buffy’s confusion at the remark did what all his soft reassurances wouldn’t have been able to. It halted the clog in her throat and forced back the tears. It gave her courage to lift her face to seek understanding in his.

She’d gotten it sorted all right. She was a child. Gave up one guy to be petty when he’d shared an intimacy with another that he’d never even suggested to her. Then when she had recognised who she did want to experience something so intimate with, she’d mucked it up by touching the wrong vamp.

Spike’s face was ravaged with uncertainty. He looked like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times, his shoulders slumped and his usual cocky stance a mere shadow of his usual confidence. He avoided her eyes, not sure of what he would witness if he turned fully to her. In fact, his little sojourn into the patrol alone was enough to convince him how completely stupid he’d been to think he could change anything by going back.

It had never been Buffy.

All these years Spike had been convinced that it was the girl’s reaction to the great Lunkhead that had ruined all hope for Spike. Without a soul, he’d never have a chance. And even then he’d be pushing it. So, like he thought, it was never Buffy.

It was him.

Spike, William the Bloody Awful Poet who just never had what it took to get the girl.

In all of his progressive personalities and personas, he’d never moulded himself into being the kind of man that would be chosen. Well, not in the way he wanted to be chosen. His mother had pushed him continuously to find someone to help him flee the nest. As loving and indulgent as she might have been over his awful talent, she was eager to see him settle down and thus out from under her thumb. How many mothers were eager to see the back of their influence in their child’s life?

And then there was Dru, picking him off the street while in bitter tears, cornering him in a barn where no one could witness his wonky judgement to take what she was offering. It had seemed with her sweet, knowing words that she required him, and her beauty and mystique had sucked him in completely. Only after he’d risen did he get the memo. He’d been created to be a playmate. Not important, not a chosen mate, not someone to love. Just a playmate to keep the younger member of the family entertained.

And then Buffy. Well, what could he say about Buffy? The Slayer. He’d been so determined to extend his evil reputation by depriving Sunnydale of her protection. Only she’d come armed with her mother. The memory of Joyce clubbing him good and proper with an axe brought a nostalgic smile to his lips.

But Buffy was pure light, she had a destiny and no part of that indicated space for an ex-evil vamp with no soul. She’d made her choice years ago. Or now if he was being pedantic. Angel. Spike could get her hot, could lower her defenses and might be devoted to keeping her alive and healthy, but he would never succeed over Angel. His position in the family order predicted it. Angel’s desertion, leaving Spike the paternal victor of their ever decreasing group, being the youngest Master vampire in history did nothing to placate Dru, to secure his importance in the order. He remained the childe. Forever behind the eight ball in the collection of his due.

So, as long as Angel was there first, Spike would never have a chance with Buffy, and obviously coming this far back in the past did nothing other than give him angst free encounters with her. But the way she had caressed the Poof’s neck. Spike hadn’t been able to control his animosity, knowing that if he’d stayed he would have caused some kind of hurt. Better to keep the pain restricted to himself, because he knew intimately how much of it the blond Slayer was in for when she finally breached the lines with the amazingly pathetic ‘Daddy.’

So, he’d acted like a lovesick fool and escaped to another cemetery. But at least he’d come across a number of fledglings and had been able to expend a little of his frustration and surrender to killing.

For a moment he’d found the need to wonder why. Why persist in something he was never going to get? Why put himself in the middle of the Scoobies when he could easily just gobble them all up. He knew that his love for Buffy wouldn’t let him even squander a second of his unlife contemplating to kill her, but the others…there was nothing leashing him anymore. He had no chip; he had no reason to stay here. He was pretty much invincible now with the gem, and if he was getting nothing in return, why should he stick around and put himself in the front line of being tortured time and again in the name of love?

It was the blond hair and wide green eyes turned on him with an expression of wariness and fear that brought him back around. That was why. He would stay to make sure she lived. He’d lived with a broken heart for the past three years, what was another how many of her lifetime? And be satisfied with being in the background of her life.

“I’m sorry.” She struggled with the huskiness of her voice, her eyes returning to the moist stage that convinced her of her emerging feelings for this vampire. He made her feel, in a way wholly different to anything she’d felt before.

Spike held back, but the glassiness in his eyes softened at her apology, and he hardly believed the possibility that she wanted him to know she felt remorse for earlier.

“Angel and I broke up.”

He couldn’t help the severe swing of his head as he tried to take that one in. In one breath she turned all his assumptions arse over tit. He felt the push of awe take him over at the opening she’d given him, but it still didn’t explain her moment of jealous protection.

“What does it feel like?”

Again her quiet question blew him out of the water.

“What does what feel like, Pet?”

The answer obviously caused her some anxiety as her hesitance stretched into the night accompanied with impatience. He’d finally given up on her wide eyes, her racing heartbeat and fluttering pulse when she opened her mouth and uttered the response guaranteed to strip his pretensions bare.

“Your bite?” Her nervousness gentled his heart and he tipped his head to the side in amazement.

“My bite, or the poof’s? Or just a bite in general?” He balanced on edge, waiting for the devastation that could be her answer, but it was postponed with banter he hadn’t been ready for,

“Have you been bitten by Angel, too?”

Her wide-eyed innocence was adorable, and it momentarily threw him from the revelation she was asking him to make. He wanted to hold back, wanted to conceal how close he’d actually been with his vampiric family, but it would be wrong, and that was what he was trying to reverse.

His automatic jump into the wrong option of everything.

He considered her closely, wondering if she was really ready to know the truth of vampire existence, of tradition and survival. He faltered at the wariness that lent her green eyes a black shadow, but garnered the strength he would need to acknowledge something he’d taken pains to forget since the day he’d encountered Angel in Sunnydale. Moments he was now finding it far from enjoyable to do over again. Sharing Harris’s basement while his folks screamed and threw things at each other above their heads was a pleasant memory in comparison.

But if he didn’t answer, it would be something held over them for Heaven only knew how long. Spike was a vampire, and Buffy the Slayer. She had to know the truth of life for those she killed. She had to know the truth about Spike. She had to be lowered to his reality, so when she made statements like breaking up with Angel, he’d know that she said them fully prepared for the consequences. He pulled her to her feet so he could look her in the eye.

“Yeah. I’ve been bitten by Angel. And I’ve bitten ‘im. We were a close family, Buffy. It’s what vampires do. Sharing blood with your Sire is a gift. Almost like Christmas.” He smiled at her, trying to reassure her that it wasn’t as evil or macabre as she probably thought.

“I get that,” she shocked him with. “It’s…almost like an honour to be chosen to be bitten. Even as food.”

Spike nearly fell to his knees, wonder at this younger, less emotionally scarred Buffy overwhelming his sense of order.

“Not a bloody honour for the fledge trying to take you out.”

Spike felt a little angry at this response, this negligence and acceptance of the bite. He was torn, the erotic possibilities of her desire to feel the sensual slide of fangs into her soft flesh opposing the almost frantic fear of her passing at the teeth of some strange vamp.

“But, it’s being chosen,” she countered and his mouth dropped open, absent a vital clue of where she was going with this topic.

“What are you gettin’ at, sweets?”

He hoped. Spike held himself still, waiting in almost agony for her to speak further. The image of biting was circling around his head now at breakneck pace and he felt a little dizzy at all the potential.

“When,” she paused and her gaze fell to study the grass with furious intent. “When you chose those Slayers, when you chose me?” And courage was gained with her desperate need for confirmation. “When you chose to kill us, don’t you see that we would consider it an honourable death? Not killed in a car accident, or disease, but by an opponent worthy of our calling.”

Spike was dumbstruck, not only by the image her words brought to mind, the memories that brought a hesitant smile to his lips, but the maturity of thought and acceptance of her fate.

“I s’pose it is. It was definitely an honour for me. To win against the girl born to take me out, though I didn’t taste them both, pet.”

She was nodding her agreement, and instead of the frown that he expected to accompany the subject matter, she completely leveled him with a seductive wink.

“It’s my birthday in a few months.”

Her change twisted his gut into an excruciating knot.

“Yeah. Not likely to forget,” he told her, anxious over the timing in relation to Dru’s deathday. In his past he’d been heavily immersed in reassembling The Judge. Thankfully, this time no one was in the position to carry that out.

“I was wondering…hoping…”

Spike fell into the promise she projected from her increased heat. It reached out and captured him, steadily reeling his coherence into a drooling ball of vampire lust. He wanted her so badly, and all this talk of biting was rendering him helpless with control. He found his body moving closer to hers, almost unwillingly, still confused over the show over Angel.

But he needed the contact with her. Needed to touch her and reassure himself that this was past Buffy, pre-Angelus and re-ensouled Angel’s desertion. Not the Buffy of his future—cold, almost dead inside, and rejecting everything to do with his love. Despite his earlier fears, with this Buffy there could be hope for him to cling to.

But the conversation had become stunted while he had buried himself in his rhythmic panting. He was teetering, so close to her now he could feel the burn of her body through two layers of clothing.

“Yes,” he breathed almost soundlessly, encouraging her to speak the words, to add to the element of fire that was raging within and around them right now.

Her eyes were focused on him, so close he could see the tiny flecks of gold immersed in the jade of her iris, and the grey line circling all the colour. So close, his unneeded breath expanding his diaphragm regularly enough to brush his chest against the tips of her nipples.

“I want you to bite me on my birthday.”

For one startling second Spike could feel the disintegration of his body. Saliva rushed his mouth and he could feel his fangs tickling at his gums, his demon struggling to emerge and take her up on her offer. He was desperate to do something, and as near to her as he was he felt impulse rule his limbs and he was crushing her against him, his cool breath gasping at her neck.

She trembled in his arms, excitement forcing her blood to rush against the thin covering of skin, almost reaching out for him to take, to taste.

Spike felt tears of gratitude burn at his lids and he hiccuped a single sob, his hands clutching desperately at her hair as he forced his demon back. Her birthday. She wanted it as a gift on her special day, to mark another milestone year with a new set of marks, ones given in love and affection rather than intent for death.

Then he was kissing her, his lips frantically bestowing wet, sloppy kisses on her neck and working toward her jaw. By the time he’d captured her lips he was gone, disappeared to a place where Buffy was his, claimed and mated so that Angel never had a hope of getting her back.

“I want to make love to you,” he mumbled against her lips, his mouth working hard to catch every surface of her plump softened flesh. Her eyes, temple, nose…he wanted it all.

“On my birthday,” was her answer and he almost whooped at her permission, the final step about to be handed to him on a golden platter.

He was indeed a lucky bloke.

Buffy struggled for breath as she quite happily submitted to being crushed against Spike’s body, knowing the trembling was reciprocated. She’d taken the step, admitted what she wanted and she was in a hurry for the first time in ages to get to a birthday. Even if a quarter of a year was still to be lived.

The images that bombarded her mind, of being completely naked and free to worship his body…she felt like growling. His blunt teeth snapping at her throat elicited moans of pure passion and she seriously considered bringing her celebrations forward.

To right now.

In the graveyard.

Long licks of his tongue had her knees weakening. As she felt herself lowering to the ground, it seemed to bring him back to himself and Spike held her away from him as he gasped in air, a relaxation technique to regain control.

“Right, we should get you home.”

Buffy felt disappointed, but still placed her smaller hand in his and allowed him to walk her home like a date.

They shared an innocent kiss at the tree under her window, and instead of words, she conveyed her girlish excitement for her birthday gift with a grin. Then she was gone, shimmying up the tree and disappearing inside her bedroom window.

And Spike walked back to Giles’s on a cloud that should be unavailable to the likes of him. But she’d offered it to him, not Angel. Her innocence, she would be his. His confidence was surging back and he just knew things would be different.

Bloody hell! She wanted him to bite her. His Buffy had never submitted to the thought of his fangs in her throat. This Buffy desired it. Thought it an honour for him to choose her. He felt like he was about to keel over from a heart attack, except for the absence obviously of a beating heart.

But his luck was definitely changing.

Chapter 10

“Stop it! You’re scaring me. No small feat for an ex…exciting type like myself.” Spike couldn’t help but flinch back in the face of two of the most deliriously excited and proud smiles he’d ever seen spread across the face of a human while in his presence.

“Would you bleeding well stop it?” His voice held a tinge of whine and he cringed when even more of their teeth became visible. “Bloody hell, just talk would you?” He was honestly scared; they looked like they’d been taken over by some kind of happy parasite, their faces frozen in a grin reminiscent of the absent but pure pleasure of The Gentleman.

Instead of a dimming of the dual beaming, Spike found himself with an armful of exuberant elder Summers and he shot looks of pleading to the other member of the Happy Club.

“Rupert, get this woman off me right bloody well now.”

Without intervention, Joyce stepped back and Spike took his chances. He leapt away from the two and took refuge behind the huge block of sofa. Waggling his finger at the still frighteningly chipper pair, he warned them to keep back with an unaccustomed shaky voice.

“I remember this!” he almost shouted in desperation, feeling a lot like Harris on one of his usual lightbulb moments about three hours after the fact.

“Band Candy, you two had a tipple. Bloody magical chocolate!”

Too late Spike remembered his slip about things yet to happen. The mention of magic might not have been the smartest thing he’d ever done, either.

At last the wattage dimmed and the smiles slowly slipped in confusion.

“Er, we were just excited about the success of the auction,” offered Giles, and just like that the scary good humour snapped back on their lips.

But this was alright, he could cope with this, understand even. The auction. He’d forgotten it was to be last night, which was unusually negligent of him.

“Right then. Went off okay, did it?”

Joyce started jumping on the spot, her sophisticated smile and laughing eyes infectious enough for him to venture two steps back around the sofa.

“We’re rich,” she screeched loud enough to make his eardrums vibrate extra violently.

“Made a few thousand then, did we?” he asked in relief, glad that he’d made the money more legitimately this time rather than trying to deal with those stupid and bleeding dangerous eggs again.

Giles gasped. “A few thousand? My God man, I asked collectors of these kinds of artifacts, and I’m still reeling over the wonderful pieces you allowed me to pick out first. Absolute treasures. It has set you up for life.”

Spike watched the realisation leach into the good humour, and blinked.

“Er, well, perhaps a reasonably, er, lengthy life?” Giles amended hastily with a wink, thrusting a handkerchief against his clean lenses as he attempted to wipe his small gaff away and distract Joyce from the strange interaction.

It made Spike attempt to share their mood, and he allowed a trademark smirk to tilt his lips.

“So, would there be enough for me to get my own place? Just a small flat somewhere?”

Spike became alarmed at the look of incredulity on faces of the older generation, though he did think the bugging of Giles’s eyes was moderately funny.

Joyce’s charming giggle brought the focus back and she whispered a total that made Spike’s own eyes bug.

“What was that, Joyce?”

“You’ve made me a comfortable woman, Spike. I am extremely grateful to you for choosing my gallery to host your auction.”

“Will it make you comfortable enough to pay off your house? Get good life insurance? You know, to cover Buffy if anything ever happens. She doesn’t get paid for sl…slummin’ around, you know.” He aimed an evil, angry glance at the Council representative in the room before beginning to get concerned that he’d set Joyce onto a line of worry that wasn’t necessary. “Not that that matters,” he rushed to reassure. “’M here now. I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”

Joyce blessed him with confusion. “You know Buffy?” A quick look to her right brought Rupert into her line of vision and she shrugged her shoulders in understanding. “Of course you do. I never made the connection.”

It hadn’t occurred to him before, but Spike could feel himself haunted by the fact of what he was, and Joyce’s lack of knowledge about his and Buffy’s world.

“Buffy and I have sort of been seeing each other.” The thought of Joyce hating him, of wanting to keep him away from Buffy, was a hot lance that seared his heart. “I’ll take good care of her, Joyce. I’ll never ‘urt her. I know she’s young, but I…I care a great deal for ‘er. I hope you don’t mind.”

He was unable to continue looking at her, knowing that finally his luck was at an end, and no matter what tremendously fantastical total the auction of demon artifacts had made him, the mother of the woman he’d give his unlife for was about to sweep her away from him. Not because he was dangerous; not because of what he was. She was going to forbid him Buffy because of who he was. Irony was a bitch. A great big, nasty Hellmouthy bitch. He felt like falling to his knees and crying his heart out. Foiled at every turn.

He’d forgotten about Joyce. All the new situations meshing with the old, he sometimes forgot that Buffy hadn’t yet died for good-- or at least until out-of-control power-mongering witches let loose with her magic box and hauled her best friends out of the sodden ground. Forgotten that he needed to pave the way, allow Joyce to get to know him and see that he was a wise choice for her daughter. It didn’t help that he was hard pressed believing he could have her, that she was even interested in exploring a relationship with him. The turn around of attitude of his two Buffys was so acute it near twisted off his head.

The hushed quiet was getting to him and he finally risked an upward glance, only to be confronted by a simple warm and accepting smile from the girl’s mother. He sighed in emotional relief and sat heavily on a nearby table chair.

“How old are you, Spike?”

And just like that he was back, wavering on that line that meant he could easily tip over onto the side of bereft, of being the loser. Again.

“I don’t wan’ to lie, Joyce. Please don’t ask me.” He could feel the futility of it all prickling at his eyelids and he buried his head in his hands, all excitement about the possibility of being as rich as blazes surrendering to his terror of losing Buffy to her youth.

“Are you twenty-five?” She levelled him with a hard eye and his hope shrunk in on itself.

“Nope,” he countered mournfully. “Long way from twenty-five.”

At first he didn’t understand her relieved sigh, nor could he grasp the meaning behind her brief hug while he sat.

“You are a houseguest of Mr. Giles. How can I do anything but trust you? Buffy holds him in such high esteem. And she has mentioned you, though I hadn’t put it all together before.” She dished him a saucy wink and he felt his throat scratch in its dryness.

“I bet you got those artifacts and jewels as an inheritance. How could a mother be so negligent as to prevent her daughter dating a millionaire?” The easiness of her permission stunned the seated vampire to such an extent that he couldn’t expel words.

Giles saw his inability and took over.

“Yes, Spike has hung onto those family heirlooms for quite a while, but other than a few choice stones, there was really no reason for him to hang on to so much of it.”

Joyce nodded her agreement just as Spike was coming back to himself.

“A lot of it was right ugly, hey Rupert? Though I do have the perfect birthday present for Buffy.” Spike’s eyes rolled back as he leaned into the chair and thought back to the sword he’d swiped from the hidden tomb. The warrior in Buffy would adore it, and he wouldn’t mind borrowing it on the odd occasion, either.

“Well, in answer to earlier, I will definitely have enough to pay off the house. Hadn’t thought of life insurance, but I guess that is something I should look into. We never think we won’t be around forever.” Her laugh was a tinkle that brought tears to his eyes. The knowledge of what her loss would do to this group—all of them, not just Buffy. Her death deprived the lot of them of one of the too few adult influences in their midst.


He made it to his feet in a cautious move and wrapped her awkwardly in his leather-clad arms. He kissed her spontaneously on the top of her head, grief mingling with his second chance.

“Thanks for all you’ve done, pet. I ‘preciate all your help.”

Joyce rewarded his generosity of affection with a warm palm to the side of his face.

“I don’t mind you dating my daughter, Spike. But please keep in mind her age?” The last was a veiled warning disguised as a suggestion, and Spike could feel his agitated body project to a foot shuffle as he recalled the birthday plans Buffy had blatantly outlined to him.

“I’ll do that, Joyce. Thanks again.”

Her exit brought with it two sighs of relief that the pretence was at an end.

“Forgot she doesn’t know about the supernatural world,” he offered lamely as Giles returned from securing the door.

“Yes, sometimes it makes things rather awkward. I’m rather afraid I’m still confused how she can be so blind to the goings on of this town. And Buffy’s bruises, cuts, ruined clothing. There is an abundant amount of…demon blood and gore….that I am unsure how Joyce manages to miss.”

“Maybe Buffy’s just good at covering her tracks.”

“Well, she certainly has been in regards to this dating you were referring to.”

Spike was suddenly the focus of a full Watcher glare, knowing that the friendly camaraderie was at a disadvantage. Spike groaned in resignation. He felt like he had to fight for every single one of his breaks and it was bloody exhausting.

“Look, Rupes. Didn’t think it was a bloody secret. You and Red knew as soon as I swallowed the Gem I was off to see Buffy. She’s much better off with me than the Wanker. I’m never goin’ to bugger off and leave her to whatever fate dishes out.”

Giles pinned him with a considering look, his brow arched in thought.

“With all the knowledge and years of training through the Council, I never thought I could see that it was possible for a soulless demon to actually do good deeds. But you, Spike, are the antithesis of everything I’ve ever believed. I can’t help but still feel a little nervous that we are possibly being fooled by you, that you have some grand plan to kill us all. We are all taking a tremendous risk by inviting you into our lives. I would hope that you mean what you say in regards to Buffy. If this face you have been showing us is genuine, then I wholeheartedly give you my blessing with Buffy. And I agree with you about the Wanker, as you call him!”

Spike was two seconds from banging his head violently against the wall. He struggled in an effort to control his impulse to thrash everything in the place in explosive frustration. It was his driven impulse to give in to the fury, to allow them all to see his talent for destruction and murder. But just as his demon started to flicker in the back of his consciousness he came back to his senses, a sparkling blond image circling his haze of red to calm and protect all he had been striving for.

And just like that the fight went out of him. His muscles loosened, his demon took again to the backseat and relaxed as Spike wondered how he was ever going to have them trust him. And then he accepted that they probably never would. He was a threat. He had the power, the ability to dominate this group, snap them like brittle twigs. Completely annihilate their sweet little world and allow the Big Bad to rein once again. But he chose to use his superior strength for good, to protect them all, even if they were so bleeding well small minded they couldn’t tell the difference.

He hated to admit it, but killing them off now would actually hurt him. He’d become attached to the lot of them over the years, their abuse notwithstanding. Even Harris, though he was like a scab you couldn’t help but peel so it would continually reappear unhealed. Giles was someone he could respect; someone he could relate to on an intellectual level in a way he’d never attempted to before. So, the fact that that barrier had been diverted was enough to show that at least a modicum of trust supported his presence.

“I’m not much of one for plannin’, Watcher. If all I was about was to kill you all, I’d ‘ve done you in your sleep ages ago. I’m not gonna hurt the girl. Buffy is special. I want her to survive. If I have my way, she will.”

Not once had he lifted his head to study the expression of his fellow converser, not eager to see anything but acceptance. His body shuddered on a sigh, and his biceps flexed against the fabric of his black tee. He ran both hands through his gelled hair in an agitated front to back sweep, releasing the curls to riot over his head and reflect the tear of his mind.

“’M doin’ everything for her. Can’t you see that? Being able to walk in the sunlight, selling off the other jewels and artifacts so that I can support her, make sure she never wants for anythin’. I want her to not have to worry ‘bout the little things, yeah? She’s enough on her plate without worryin’ about unnecessaries. I’ll do anything she wants.”

The silence buzzed in his ears, overlaid by the thought, the knowledge that Rupert was dying to say something, challenge something, and once he did, Spike wished he’d gone on that rampage to open it all up, paint the town red. He’d never win.

“Would you get a soul for her?” The tone was inquisitive, yet it held every condemnation the Scoobies had loaded at him for the years he’d been amongst them since the chip. Before that, having a soul was not something they expected of him. They knew him as an evil bloodsucker. But since the day he had stumbled into their protection under the exposure of sunlight, they had damned him for not being Angel. For not being a trendsetter in the soul department. But none of them had ever asked. Actually put the option out there and let him consider it.

Even weeks ago he would have said ‘hell no’. But would he? Could he do that if it would put their doubts behind them once and for all? This Buffy seemed happy enough with what he could give her. He’d been trying so hard, keeping his lips closed against some of the stupider things that wanted to roar past his lips. And so far he’d succeeded, and she’d asked him to bite her, mark her, make her his. But how long could it last? He wasn’t known for his cool restraint, wasn’t sure how long he could control the demon inside under his own steam before it would demand carnage. And here he had no chip to stop him should he go too far.

If he killed, Buffy would never forgive him.

If he lost control around her, he’d never forgive himself.

But the one thing he couldn’t bear, getting souled up would achieve. He’d be just like his pansyarse of a sire. Angel. Cursed Angel. He knew the teacher was probably close to finding the spell, but what if the nature of that soul was what caused Angelus to emerge so enraged? The Angelus of Sunnydale was different to the Angelus of old. Sure, Angelus was mighty, was evil in the extreme, was vicious in his swathe cutting. But to his family, he’d been tender. There were shades of that in Angel’s attentions to Buffy. The Scoobies were all in the dark about the truth of Angelus. Losing his soul made him badder, meaner, and bent on revenge. And for some reason he’d blamed his family, even though it was he that had deserted Spike and Drusilla, not a word of warning or explanation, just up and gone in the slink of darkness.

And yet, Spike he’d punished. To this day, he had no clue why. Maybe there was no thought to it at all. Maybe it was just him reasserting his place in the family. And Spike, wheelchair restrained, was unable to challenge for his long held place as head of the small family.

So, the losing of the soul changed Angelus. He was no longer the vampire he’d once been. He came back with something to prove, and a Slayer to torture and play with. He’d done one hell of a job, shutting her off for the rest of her life. Living through Angelus had closed off her heart, damaged her faith in her decision-making skills.

So, would Spike willingly don the cap that would likely make him like his elder, brooding and sullen, while he watched the love of his unlife from afar? Knowing that a decent shag was way down on his list of happies. Just being in her presence, holding her hand after all the ‘I’m using you’, ‘you make me feel’ bollocks from the future was diverted for a much nicer set of phrases. And he knew it wouldn’t take much to push the boundaries of the curse. What was the point of a dispensable curse?

It was selfish of him, but being cursed with a soul wasn’t going to make things better. And if he lost it on a whim and came back as mean and ugly as Angelus, well, he wouldn’t fail to kill the girl. He knew that from experience.

Giles, who’d sat unmoving yet watching intently the play of emotion crossing Spike’s flickering features, had left his contemplative quiet alone. Short bursts had revealed the demon to the Watcher, and he was fascinated with the play and thought Spike gave the concept of a soul. He’d expected a soulless demon to do nothing less spectacular than reject the notion quite out of hand. To jump to his feet, fangs bared and dripping as he struggled with the option of running like hell, or leaving the unarmed man pale and bloody on the carpet.

To Giles’s tremendous relief, Spike did neither. After a substantial degree of time had passed, and darkness teasing at the open curtains, Spike spoke. His consideration had been deep, and his resolution unfathomable.

“Yeah. If that’s what she needs. I’ll get my soul. But not like Angel.” He looked up, his cool but bright blue irises glittering with a furious fire that Giles had not thought possible. “I won’t be cursed. I’ve heard of a demon. In Africa. Will reward you with a wish if you complete his trials. Not a bloody cake walk, either, Watcher. Could well end up dust. But I’d do it. Have him give me what she deserves.”

Spike looked across the flat at a darkening window, remembering his Buffy. The Buffy who’d come back from Heaven angry, and alone. He’d tried to give her everything he was, but instead of dragging her back to herself—returning her to the light she seemed depleted of—he’d come up with the sterling argument that she belonged in the dark. Doing it over, he now knew how wrong he was. She never belonged in the dark. His Buffy had lost her way, but not her light. Only Spike had tried to pull her further away from it.

How would things have been different if he’d left to reclaim his soul? If instead of walking into the Magic Box, getting drunk and commiserating with Anya and being wished right back to where it all started, if he’d hopped on his bike and made it to some transport off the continent and off to Africa? Could he have changed things? Might she have appreciated his efforts to become the opposite of everything she had accused him of being? Was it possible that she might have finally come to him, her heart open and willing if he’d made that kind of sacrifice for her?

He couldn’t help but think it was possible. He hadn’t given her any reason to call him different to being a soulless monster. The first opportunity he had to use his fists without cranial payback and he’d planted them on the woman he claimed to love. He’d been pushed into fighting for his love in a physical way, but when she finally surrendered to him it was in anger and disgust.

The pain welled way down, because he knew. Even then he knew. She felt something for him, and it wasn’t as negative as she liked to think. He could feel it in her more tender moments, in the way she kissed him. Just the fact that she came to him and let him touch her at all. Contrary to what Buffy thought, she wasn’t the type to use. So, her claim was to pacify more herself than him. She was past caring about how he felt about her actions.

No, the somber let down—her dumping him—had meant more to try and free herself of guilt, than to let him down softly. Deep down she kept her feelings buried beneath her subconscious, unable to acknowledge them to herself. If she had, her denials and her hate would have been unfounded. And after punching her way through dirt and wood to crawl from her grave, it was the hate she needed to cling to. Either that or the Scoobies might have ended up as finely-ground mince meat.

So, yeah. To make up ground from that little mess, he would have had to make some grand gesture, do something drastic to prove to her that he could change, wanted to change so she could feel secure in her feelings for him. Show her there was no need for guilt, for hiding.

He couldn’t do it for that Buffy now, what with Anya wishing him way into her past. But he could do it for her now. Could set their future up to be secure. And it wouldn’t be a burden. Wouldn’t be a hundred years of disgrace and hiding from his past. Not with her by his side. Not with her friends by their side.

Still, it filled him with a gutful of fear. Truly, he’d rather crawl belly flat over flaming hot coals and risk ignition than go and fight for his soul. But his demon wasn’t cringing away as much as he would have expected. It was William, hiding in his corner and too afraid to climb out and claim centre stage. William who’d been made fun of, who couldn’t do a thing right in his life. Even his one true passion—the one thing that gave his life meaning—was a whole load of bollocks. His awful poetry was better at feeding a fire in winter than being spoken out loud. Buggering everything up with his pathetic ramblings of love and his non-knowledge of women. Yeah, William was terrified of showing his face in public again. Afraid of being exposed in front of another woman he loved, and found wanting.

It was a question that was better addressed now than in some state of future where it was brought up again because he’d shown an inability to control his impulses. What if he somehow managed to do the opposite of what he professed he wanted? What if by some sad turn of fate he did hurt the girl? Then it might be too late. When love wasn’t enough to get him through the barrage of betrayal, or hurt and perhaps hate.

He could make it his own. His demon was in control, and clamouring for a say on the condition. To Spike’s complete surprise, his demon was joyous in his permission, seeing the strategy for what it was. A conscience. A leg-rope to tie down his evil. For sure he had the most fucked up demon a vampire had ever been saddled with. Was it any wonder his sire, his Grandsire, his Great grandsire had always been ashamed of him?

The demon could fashion the soul, however, could expend enough influence to keep William in check. And that was all Spike could wish for.

Giles sat with his bum firmly glued to the seat and an incredulous turn to his mouth. It hung open, his glasses dangling from his lax fingertips as he struggled to make sense of this revelation. A demon willingly submitting to the idea of a soul.

“This is between you and me, Rupert. You don’t tell Peaches. You don’t tell Red or the Whelp. Not your teacher lady-friend. And especially you don’t tell Buffy. I’ll investigate the demon some more and when I have the details, we can discuss it then.”

The event hung on the night air once again, swift in the discovery of its possibility while the struggle for gravity with its weight battled on. A change of subject was desperately called upon, and Spike thought back to earlier when Joyce was here, crowing about how wealthy he now was.

“So,” rushed past his lips as he fair bounced out of his chair, beginning an agitated pace around the living area. “I’m a bloody millionaire vamp.” He stopped his pacing, a look of wonder crossing his lips and changing the shape of his lids. “Think I’m feelin’ a bit faint, mate.” And he collapsed on the sofa, changing the night’s venue for chat once again.

Giles was not long in steadying himself in a chair beside the thunderstruck vampire and offered him a half-filled glass of his finest bottle of scotch.

“A toast. To new beginnings. And lots and lots of money.” The glass pinged the air with a celebratory tinkle, and Spike began to see the benefit of an ever-widening grin. It felt all right to be happy.

The two settled down to steady drinking, expounding the virtues of expensive liquor over the cheap stuff while their heads filled with the heady influence of said liquid.

“Another toast,” Spike belched later in the night. “To pretty girls and flashy red penis-mobiles.”

Giles replied with a spray of scotch and a mirthful liquored giggle.

“I can just see you,” he tittered. “A bleach blond vampire with the top down, hair blinding in the sun in his little red sports car.”

The image made Spike nod in approval as he contemplated a choice of red or black.

“Not me, mate. You. Got to get rid of that hunk of junk you got out there sometime. When you do I’ll bet you go for bright and flashy.” His insider smirk was just the ticket to get Giles wondering.

Giles furrowed his brow in deep thought, and then he brought up the next expenditure.

“So, shopping for a place to live?” His tone did not convey an urgent desire to see the back of Spike, but rather an interest in his choice of lodgings now he had the money to consider.

Spike thought about it, his fingers drilling absently over his denim clad thigh. Just what would be the perfect set up? he wondered. A house was too much work, inside and out. Something like where Harris lived in the future would be perfect. And a gigantic step up from the Harris basement where he had spent some less than pleasant moments in his life. Spike had set foot in the apartment once, and that was only because Anya had bullied him into transporting some great chunk of furniture up the stairs for her. Once was enough to see that the place was pretty fancy. A decent place where he could make himself a home.

His memory recalled only one bedroom though, and something whispered in his ear that it might be better to locate a two-bedroom place. Memories of the screaming matches—heavy emphasis on the shattering glass—from when he’d made Xander’s basement his home brought about a little touch of commiserative feeling. Yeah, wouldn’t hurt to have a spare bedroom should anyone need a place to sleep.

His mind made up to look for a semi-posh flat like Harris’s future place, his ears stumbled upon a suggestion from a more than half inebriated watcher slash librarian.

“Wha’s that?” he asked in his own altered lazy tongue, wondering when the fuzzy had settled over his head and dragged his lids to half-mast.

“There’s a lettle bung’low for sale, right here in th’s block.”

Spike smiled drunkenly and filled his cup by half again. He slurped at the amber liquid as he calculated.

“How close ‘gain?”

Giles watched the vampire on his sofa and rolled to the side of his own chair. Its arm prevented him from sliding completely to the floor.

“What’s close?” he asked, taking the time to pronounce the two words as precisely as he remembered how.

Spike’s eyes widened as he tried to recall the original strand of the conversation, only two sentences deep into it. A flash of the Harris basement brought it back in desperate clarity, and he almost leapt forward in an effort to beseech the watcher to stay on task.

“The Bunglow, how’s close you say its isses?”

Giles watched him blankly, then began to giggle. “Isses? Oh my!”

The giggling continued until Spike flashed his fangs in annoyance and Giles jumped, spilling the rest of his glass against his shirt.

“Oh, close? Um, upstairs and to the left.”

Spike rested back into the sofa, thinking over the wisdom of living so close to Buffy’s watcher. They would be on call in case of apocalypses, or even other demon emergencies. Wasn’t too close for them to draw attention to themselves. If he had the place soundproofed, it would be a bit of all right.

Making up his mind to check it out as soon as possible—and still holding out a mini prayer for the second bedroom for those who might occasionally need it—by mutual consent the two men slumped back in their chairs, empty glasses of grog slipping slowly from slack fingers, and they gently fell asleep.

Chapter 11

Xander stepped alongside Spike, almost tripping on his uncoordinated feet in an effort to keep up with the graceful and determined vamp. He was still encased in that hazy world that was busy denying he was actually only an arm away from the incarnation of evil, and semi-enjoying himself. It was a great world. One with rollercoasters and rides on the ever popular raft going down the infamous river De-nile! Oh, it was pretty…no demons, no weirdo types sitting in his science class, no savage dog attacks…no Spike.

His happy came to an abrupt conclusion. No evil, then no Buffy to fight it. And that would be so much bad he didn’t want to even think about it. Thinking was power, and he didn’t want it.

So instead, he had this quandary beside him, dragging him from one property for sale to the next. They only spoke to each other when necessary, throwing the odd derogatory comments back and forth almost as if it was just a tired requirement. But even so, Xander was kinda enjoying himself. Felt nice to do something with another male for a change. Last time he had this was with Jesse…which brought him back to the vampire part of the equation and his confusion jumped a notch.

But it was still way up high on the scale of wig. Not to mention a lot scary. Here he was, trotting alongside a supposedly ex-evil vampire that glowed with his new undustable status, like he did this thing every day. He was taking a lot here on trust and he just hoped that Buffy—not to mention himself and the other Scoobies—didn’t live to regret it. Or not live to…whatever. He hoped that Spike didn’t prove to be a killer. Or at least, not prove it by killing them. Specifically Xander.

“So, Whelp.”

Xander jumped in surprise. They hadn’t really talked while they made their way to each place, the intermittent journeying shrouded in almost comfortable silence. In light of that, Xander eyed the white-haired vamp with suspicion.

“Yeah?”

Spike looked at the boy hard, seemingly struggling with the desire to say something but failing to get his tongue around it. Opting for something else instead.

“So, what’d you think ‘bout the last place? Comfy? Was it airy enough? You think Buffy might like it?”

Xander’s eyes were huge in his confusion. “You’re asking me?” He shook his head as he thought. “Sure, it was real nice, Spike. I’m sure Buffy would love it. But it had two bedrooms. Whatcha need two for?”

Spike watched the conflict as it battled across Xander’s face, and felt a funny twinge of affection for the teenager.

“You know, in case someone might need a place to stay?”

Their eyes clashed and Spike seemed to hold on for dear life, for the first time eager to convey some kind of honesty with the Scooby bane of his existence. He caught the subtle shudder of Xander’s body and then his determined pull away from the stare.

“Yeah, that might be really good to know.” Xander kept his eyes lowered, almost afraid of how he was going to react if he found even the slightest glimpse of insincerity.

But he couldn’t stay downtrodden for long and at last he looked up, and was floored by the concern the vampire seemed to hold deep within those blue eyes Buffy tended to rhapsodize constantly about these days. Xander felt uncomfortable and raw, feeling like someone knew his secrets when they couldn’t possibly have a clue about them, but reassured all the same. Spike couldn’t know about how it was in his house, the truth about his family. Not even Buffy or Willow knew much about how he lived. He couldn’t see how it would come up between Buffy and the vamp. If he was a betting man, Xander would lay heavy odds that the only thing coming up in that relationship was…well…this raft was such a smooth lovely ride…

Xander shrugged it off, having zero tolerance for pornographic images of Buffy with anyone but him, even if Spike was strong and mysterious and sort of compact, but well muscled.

His eyelids seemed to explode into the retreat to the eye sockets, back on the raft and paddling back out to the middle of the river. He DID NOT just think that about Spike. But he gave him a sideways look just the same.

“So, you leaning towards a house or an apartment?” Xander rushed back to the first topic, thinking over all the places he had checked out with Spike today. It was getting dark now, and he felt all manly for walking out in the night, implicitly under the protection of a badass vamp. But safe, no matter what was by his side.

“A house might be a bit of maintenance. Won’t have much time for that sort of thing, in between the sleepin’, the patrollin’ and Passions.”

Xander shot the vamp an incredulous look and Spike returned it with a worried arch of his brow.

“What? You think Buffy might like a garden or something?”

Xander just laughed and clapped Spike on the back with a good old fashioned slap. “Nope, don’t think the Buffster is the gardening type. She likes her nails too much. And no stylish yet affordable boots would stand up to the perils of dirt. Nah, go with the apartment. ‘Sides, elevators are fun! All those little buttons with numbers on them…stopping on all the floors.”

It was Spike’s turn to spear the boy with incredulity. The strength of his tolerance—or what could easily turn to a lack of it—effectively stopped Xander’s joking and they set back to walking.

“So, you got a preference, Whelp?”

Xander felt his heart thud loudly in his chest. Nobody really asked for his opinion on things, or made out like it mattered to anything. Well, no one other than his friends —and even then not so much.

“Er, that place in that big white building was kinda nice. Big, open. You want to buy, right? Cause they had one down the hall for rent.”

Spike turned away so Xander couldn’t see the twinkle of knowledge in his eye; the smile on his lips. He found it very interesting that out of the ten places they had checked out during the day, the place at the top of Harris’s list was the one the boy would choose to live in with Anya in the future. In a strange reassuring way, it made Spike happy.

“The one for rent’s no good. Only one room and a tiny thing like a cupboard. Not really big enough to be a second room.” The implicit invitation for Xander—should he ever be in the position to need it—was almost given without thought, the generous offer of support a part of Spike that he no longer consciously fixed upon.

Thought began to tick away in Spike’s head, images of the future blending naturally with the reality of his now. He could see Anya and Harris actually making it down the aisle, one day maybe having kids, and could see how the gift of a two bedder in a place he knew the teenager would one day come to love could be seen as a really generous and thoughtful thing for Spike to do.

With Spike’s new circumstances—his success in beginning a relationship with Buffy—happiness was a thing almost bursting from his chest. He wanted to spread it around, and right now, he felt so indebted to Anya for giving him the chance, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure she and the fool she fell in love with didn’t muck up their bloody wedding.

“Right then. That’ll be the one. Let’s go get a bite to eat, perhaps a pint and I’ll call the agent.”

Xander grinned, feeling a lightness in his step as he willingly, almost excitedly made his way alongside a notorious vampire.

Man life was weird!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Giles was hanging up the phone, his face looking stern and impatient, when Buffy burst through his front door.

“Hey, Giles. Is Spike around? I thought we could do an early patrol tonight.” The responsibility suggested in her plan was lost amidst her hot, flushed face and Giles raised his left eyebrow in question. Rather than challenge her eagerness for slaying, he let it go and shook his head in the negative.

“He and Xander went out together much earlier today. Spike is looking for other accommodations.”

Buffy was too stunned to move.

“Xander?”

Giles nodded slowly, not sure which of the five questions he could think to accompany the inquiry would be the one she was actually asking.

“Spike?” Again he consented in mystification.

“Whoa. Never saw that coming.” And she flopped down on the sofa, waiting for Giles to offer some kind of conversation or suggestion of how she could fill in her time.

Before speech, he nodded at the phone, his hands busy with polishing his glasses.

“That was Angel on the telephone before you came in. He was just asking if I would mind keeping an eye on Drusilla for him. He says he needs a break.”

They watched each other, silent smiles cracking open toward laughter as they shared amusement of Angel’s whining need of a break from his charge, almost like he was an overly frazzled mother that needed time-out.

Once recovering, but with a giggle still floating through her voice, Buffy asked him, “So whatdya say? Did you agree?”

“Well, he was rather insistent.”

The humour vanished from Buffy’s face and concern twisted her lips.

“She’s pretty dangerous, though. Do you think it would be safe? And then she’d have access to your home.”

Giles jammed the glasses back above his nose as he took a step away, turning his face to suddenly become engrossed in a closed text.

“If worse comes to worst I can do a disinvite spell. I do know some magic from my pre-watcher days.”

Buffy looked at him with interest, obviously impressed.

“Cool. Way to go Giles! Remind me to get you to spill that little story one day soon.” Her wink was simultaneous with the loud, almost desperate rap at the door.

Sharing a returned smirk, Buffy went to answer it.

Standing outside was Angel—his face already perfectly molded with miserable apology—and the dark-haired vampiress. Her eyes were darkened with evil intent, and Buffy felt her body quiver. She didn’t feel fear exactly, but a sense of foreboding made her senses dull and her body freeze.

The burning hatred was completely transparent; the monster Angel wanted Giles to babysit made no effort to conceal it. Buffy couldn’t even pretend to understand what sparked it, having had nothing to do with the vamp except on the occasional meeting under the moon. The first of those two times had been rather tainted by Drusilla’s energetic effort to kill her.

“I really don’t think this is such a good idea, Angel.” Buffy couldn’t tear her eyes away from the brunette beauty. She exuded an aura of innocence completely in contradiction to her existence, yet Buffy couldn’t shake it. And couldn’t tear her eyes away from the swirling brown of the vampiress, not until Angel took her arm and she looked down at the pale fingers holding her tight.

“I need this, Buffy. You have no idea what it’s been like. Just tonight. We can chain her up or something. Giles will be perfectly safe.” His eyes were so sad; big brown puppy dog eyes imploring her to let him have this rest happen.

“Why?” Buffy countered. “Whatcha gonna do?”

She watched him closely, wondering at his expression and feeling distaste for his broody personality for the first time. The dark, mysterious persona was so over for her, she thought a little testily. Everything about Angel seemed cloaked in a silent despair that Buffy recognised now to be more than a little frightening when she saw him together with his Queen of Midnight Insanity all up close and personal.

Not for the first time did she feel herself start the comparisons between this ensouled vampire and the one who was almost constantly attached to her lips. Spike was upbeat, hopeful and sexy—often surprising her with small acts of thoughtfulness and little kisses that broke into her mind and blew it away. His passion made her forget everything, except for him. Made her forget her own name and who she was. Made her forget that she was becoming more and more intimate with a creature who shouldn’t be able to feel emotion for her, who was supposed to be evil, not out looking for accommodations with her best friend.

The best friend who hated Angel from the start, and who hated vampires with a furious animosity. Buffy knew she should be concerned about Xander, walking the streets with an invulnerable vampire. Should be terrified that Spike had been all along just trying to get her to lower her defences so he could kill them all.

But Buffy didn’t feel afraid. She felt the security warm her, knowing that Xander was out in the dark with the only other person other than her who could adequately protect him.

She couldn’t even imagine Xander going out and spending down time with Angel. Angel was impenetrable. He may have been slowly uncovering himself to Buffy, but for the most part he held himself back, kept the secrets of himself locked securely away and frowned at any attempt to get too close.

Angel was a permanently closed book whose motives and actions would never make sense to Buffy. In contrast, Spike wore his heart on his sleeve and his love in his eyes. The sense of right in that was overwhelming to Buffy. It meant she could give him her trust, and in the past few weeks he had more than earned it.

Seeing Angel silent, watching her while Drusilla stood beside him, an evil smug smile stretching her lips taut, Buffy just shrugged a little apprehensively and stepped aside.

“Er, we need Giles to invite us in.”

Buffy stepped back in minor embarrassment and allowed Giles free reign of his door while she looked around at Angel’s hands. They held nothing.

“Did you expect us to already have chains here? ‘Cause, babysitting evil vamps? Not something Giles does every day. We are usually in the business of staking them. Kinda impossible to chain up dust.” Buffy returned the evil smirk with a smile of pure malice and felt a little satisfaction as Dru shrunk back away from the doorframe.

“Er, yes Angel. Though I am not in the practice of …er…minding.” His eyes strayed to the evil beauty before him. “I do believe I posses a set of chains that might be useful.”

Buffy raised a scandalised eyebrow and made a big show of zipping her lips.

“Don’t wanna know,” she said instead and moved further back into the apartment, leaving Giles flushed and shuffling at the door.

“Giles,” Angel nudged. “We need to be invited.”

“Yes, yes of course. Come in, Angel. Drusilla.”

Buffy was back the second Drusilla launched herself at Giles, fangs barley missing the snack of his neck. She sailed back into the arms of her sire after the violent connection of Buffy’s fist to her jaw.

“Can’t you control your children, Angel?” Buffy fumed, her hands curled tightly into fists, prepared should Drusilla make another break for it and Buffy would need to belt her into restraint.

“Obviously not,” he shot back, whipped into his own fury. “If I could I would have been able to keep Spike the hell away from you.” His voice was tainted with irritation, seemingly oblivious to the real state of the interaction between his slayer and his grandchilde.

“She’s out of control. You can’t leave her here with Giles.”

“If we chain her up, it’ll be fine.” Angel shunned Buffy’s angry rejoinder and turned instead to the legal inhabitant of the abode. “Where do you think might be the best place to restrain her?”

“The…the bathroom perhaps might be the, er, safest option. There are the pipes.” Giles was obviously shaken but too proud to back out of his agreement.

Buffy shook her head, exasperated at the mindless effects of testosterone and instead stomped toward the bathroom to inspect said pipes for strength and security. Behind her she could hear the steps of Angel as he struggled to force Drusilla into the hallway, whispering words of pleading and reassurance on his way as the vampiress jerked and fought the passage. Giles came rattling up a safe distance behind them, his arms laden down with very strong, very sturdy chains.

Buffy’s eyes widened as she took them from him and met his eyes, the teasing coming back slowly.

“Ooh, shiny.” And they were. Not worn but new, the silver almost blinding.

While her back was turned, Angel had impatiently thrust Dru into the tub, her wailing and screeching wearing gratingly on Buffy’s last nerve. She showed no sympathy as she slapped the chains around her body and attached them to the pipes, winding them round and round till she felt secure that the vampire would be staying put. She deftly avoided the snapping, snarling jaw that made bites in the air—rather too close to her neck for comfort. When she finished, she gave the attached chain a petty tug and felt like sticking her tongue out at the monster with a beauty’s face, even with fangs protruding.

“So now what?”

Buffy stood waiting for Angel’s reply, hands on her hips as she looked back down the corridor. Anywhere but at the female vamp that inspired too many questions that she so didn’t want answers for.

“I could patrol with you,” Angel offered, his voice soft and encouraging. Yet to Buffy, it sounded whiny.

She didn’t rush into an answer, slow to give up her fantasies of patrolling with Spike, ones which she had invested a lot of time in developing that day. Without any intention, her eyes finally fell back on Dru and one of the questions teasing the edges of her mind forced itself to thought.

This pariah had been Spike’s lover for over a century. She’d shared everything with him, had been his key to the world of depravity and death. She’d opened up worlds that Spike would never be able to sample again if he remained by Buffy’s side, and again his lack of soul became an issue.

How could she possibly reconcile all she knew of vampires—of their hunger for the weakness of human flesh, their feral desires that decimated lives—with the reality of Spike and his pursuit of her? This was a world Buffy was meant to eradicate, not perpetuate by being choosy about who she let survive. Angel was a special case; he had a soul. Spike and Dru didn’t, and even though one was being forcibly controlled and the other had chosen a different road, was her teaching so wrong and so open to interpretation that she could leave off this decision and save her the ache developing in her heart?

“Sure,” she answered finally, turning with a final glance at Spike’s ex and heading out of the apartment, all the while cringing at the calls of hatred that were aimed at her retreating back.

Angel followed along behind her in silence, barely the thud of his footsteps audible as they made a brisk pace through the town to the first stop of the night. The vampire found it to be companionable, while Buffy felt it strained. The little moments they had shared in the past, the intimate little smiles and glances…they were all gone now. Evaporated on the winds of change as if they had never existed.

Buffy looked at Angel now and saw a stranger. When she first met him, she had been sucked all the way in by his enigmatic personality, fast becoming addicted to dark and mysterious. The problem was that once they had become close, begun to share time and saliva, nothing had changed. This vampire with a soul was as much of an intriguing puzzle to her now as he was then.

Except the kind of puzzle you admired the picture of but wanted to leave the pieces in the box.

The kind of puzzle you shrugged your shoulders over while declaring it way too hard and time-consuming.

The first vampire of the night took Buffy head on, jumping out unexpectedly from behind a tree. The Slayer threw her first punch as she eyed the male frumpy looking vampire with a note of disdain.

“Tell me you weren’t actually hiding from us behind a tree?”

The vamp nodded his head fearfully, then took to his heels and tried to run, bursting into teeny tiny dust particles seconds after a stake lodged itself deep in his back.

“Well, that was way too easy.” Buffy smiled at Angel. He returned it with a quirk of confidence as he moved a little closer to take her hand.

“I’ve missed you so much.” His eyes were round and imploring, yet completely unseeing.

Buffy’s flinch went unnoticed, her waning smile ignored as he lifted her into his arms and gave her a breath-stealing hug.

“I’ve been going crazy holed up with Dru all this time. I hope Spike has been a help.”

“Oh yeah. Big with the helpful. Helpful Spike. That’s exactly what he’s been. That’s what we call him these days.” Buffy abruptly pulled herself from the arc of Angel’s arms and stepped quickly a few steps away.

“So, Dru’s all big with the crazy, huh? I thought you were supposed to be helping with that.” Her innocent statement met eyes gone deep with remorse.

“As much as I would love to help her with that, I don’t think it’s possible. She had her sanity compromised before I sired her.”

Buffy stopped in complete surprise. “She was already nuts when you vamped her? Why would you want a psycho vampire in the family?”

She watched his head hang lower, his hands gripping tight the stake in his hand and the jaw clench in guilt inspired self-anger.

“Angelus sired her, Buffy. He wanted the benefits of her sight, but thought it amusing to break her mind before he took her eternally.”

Buffy watched Angel separate himself from his demon, and felt nothing but irritation. After experiencing so much with Spike—the care and affection, the consideration and respect—she found it difficult to draw such a distinct line.

If gaining a soul split the being into two, what on earth could be left of Spike if he gained one? Sure, he still retained the rough edges, the darkness of being evil. Buffy could feel the strain sometimes of Spike’s efforts to exert control on himself. Occasionally though, she welcomed the glimpses of the monster. Spike’s demon had never once tried to hurt her, make her submit. In fact, the few times Spike had allowed his evil side to show, the tenderness had been beautiful.

“But you’ve been helping her? I thought that was why you took her on,” Buffy asked as she walked away, checking recent graves for the signs of vampire raisings. Angel followed dejectedly behind, hmphing intelligently.

“I’ve been helping her regain her strength.”

Buffy spun on her heel to face him, her face stuck in a show of stunned surprise.

“’Cause that’s what all Sunnydale citizens needed to make them feel safe at night. A fully healed, strong loony vampire.” Buffy’s seething sarcasm made him wince. “Why on earth are you looking after her? Just hand her over to me and I’ll dust her if you guys can’t?”

Horror replaced his miserable acceptance of her mockery. “She’s my childe, Buffy. She’s my responsibility.”

“She’s nothing but a soulless killer.”

“What? Like Spike?” Angel stood confused as he watched Buffy’s face harden in determined denial. Instead of asking for an explanation behind her stubborn attachment to the peroxided vamp, he continued. “I am helping her,” he grit through his teeth in the face of her condemnation. “She will change. Just give her a chance.”
Buffy’s disbelief stretched on the air and instead of answering, she resumed her path, allowing Angel to continue to tag along while she sought out some more of those evil killers she could actually dust without an unlife saving argument.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Xander had been to Willy’s before. More than once even. But it had never been like this. Never before had he walked in and encountered an atmosphere of fearful respect. A room full of baleful looks, yet belonging to those too afraid to make issue and come and tear his head from his shoulders. Nope, this time he visited Willy’s he was safe as houses. For he had Spike at his side. And could he sound any more superhero geeky if he tried?

“So, what’ll it be, Whelp?” Spike’s lazy drawl brought a smile to Xander’s face.

“I trust you, Spike.”

The vampire’s eyebrows got lost in his hairline as he pinned his least favourite Scooby with an inquisitive glance. He searched for the insincerity and was knocked sideways when it wasn’t there. To all intents and purposes, Harris’s smile was genuine.

Spike couldn’t speak. He’d never taken the time to contemplate how acceptance from this friend of Buffy’s would feel—he’d never thought the possibility anything but miraculous, and being evil and all, miracles weren’t exactly handed out for the likes of him.

“A beer then, mate?” Feeling an uncomfortable prickle in his eyes, he decided to forgo the boy’s reply and went hastily toward the bar.

Xander watched him go with a confusion that he found disconcerting. Stating a trust in an evil undead creature of the night had started out as a mere slip of the tongue, but the moment the sentiment passed his lips, lost itself within the other words in the air as said, he found himself agreeing. Not strongly perhaps, but he certainly had never felt the need to run for his life even once in the whole day.

And that allowed Xander to grin. He sat back in the booth, his hands behind his head, elbows bent in a manly show of strength. And waited for his beer. The grin bared major teeth. God, he felt happy. On the edge of major excitement. A beer. This being buddies with the evil object of the Buffster’s affections might not be so bad after all. Certainly not intolerable.

Xander sat up straight as a mug of beer was thumped down in front of him, and he grasped the handle in eager thirst. The first mouthful frothed in his mouth, leaving a little moustache around the outside of his lips that he licked off with a goofy giggle. The taste was kinda dull, the smell a bit like piss, but he could push past it. He was a man. And Spike was buying.
They drank in companionable silence, the occasional eye clash during their many looks around the room. The demons were on edge, periodic roars making Xander jump in his seat, spilling the flow of his mug a little down the front of his t-shirt, while Spike stayed still—as cool as the proverbial cucumber. Or a vamp, cause hey, kinda cool. In the undead, no heartbeat to pump the blood through the body kind of way. And the black leather and snow white hair was all of the coolness too, thought Xander as he took a generous sip of his third mug of beard.

Xander let his mind fumble over the realisation, and as the words ‘Spike’s cool’ banged the sides of brain, he let a small increasingly inebriated giggle wheeze past his lips.

“What’s there to laugh about, Whelp?”

Xander stopped to try and think; had he laughed? And if he had, at what? While he thought about it, his eyes fell on the mussed up curls on the vamps head and he giggled again.

He pointed at Spike’s head and let out a hearty laugh. “That is just so cute.”

Spike’s eyes widened so fast and so with the width that he thought maybe his eyeballs had exploded…which would explain the sudden red haze behind his eyes.

“Right, then. I’m cuttin’ you off,” Spike told him, his voice strict and uncompromising.

But Xander was full of the funness; all the jollility he’d mushed into his day. All the pavement beating and agent ass-kissing with Spike on the look-out for the perfect space for a formerly evil Big Bad to take up residence. The concept was so hilarious that Xander felt unable to help the rush of giggles that had him collapsing on his table, the tears flowing like a river over the formica bench top of their booth table.

Spike watched Harris collapse in a very girly display of uninspired laughter. The bar had been quiet—no jokes, no chaos demons. Seriously nothing in there for the idiot to laugh about. Spike watched him, holding a tumbler of Jack half filled of which he had managed to slug back a mouthful or two while he was busy deciding whether or not to be pissed off about this inept display of manhood by one who yearned to grab the title but was years off the mark.

Feeling uncomfortable about the intimate setting, sitting opposite the whelp without a scrap of conversation to offer, Spike almost involuntarily let his eye fall on the back door and sighed in relief. It was closed, so obviously a game was in progress. Right then, a diversion, and something he could teach Harris that might help him out financially—keep him off those bloody hideous odd jobs he was bound to retry after he finished up his schooling.

“Come on, then.” Spike jerked his head to indicate the door in back. Xander returned a goofy smile but got to his feet obediently.

“What’s back there, Spike? Or is it a surprise?” And he rewarded Spike’s sobriety with an inebriated and exaggerated wink, making Spike take an anxious step backward.

“No bloody surprise, Whelp,” he almost shouted, though with a major squeak in his tone. “Just a game of cards. Nothing lush.” Spike paused, gathered his manly courage and took a step closer to the brunette and whispered his intent.

“’s poker. Thought I could teach you how to cheat, yeah?”

Xander’s face lit up like the dragon cracker in Lord of the Rings.

“Poker? Demon poker?” The enthusiasm saw no boundaries, shocking the other patrons in the bar with its lightness, its insensitivity to the dark, evilness of the room.

“Yeah,” Spike responded with a smirk. “Play for kittens an’ all. Jus’ don’t tell the Slayer.”

And Xander’s dubious walk into the world of ‘moderately evil turned redemptive’ began, aided by the tipsy confidence instilled by a few bottles of glorified hops.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Giles was ready to go outside and feed himself to the first demon he came across, just to stop the sound of voluble discontent before it completely blew away his eardrums. He hadn’t left his sofa—ears shielded with cushions pushed hard against them—since Buffy and Angel had left for patrol. His skull was reverberating in an alarming manner and he could feel every single cell on his skin screaming in an enervated protest to run hard and fast away from the extreme sound. At least every five minutes his eyes were drawn to the stick of knobbly wood lying just to his right. He was bloody positive his ears were bleeding internally.

He’d taken up humming, at first low but gaining in volume until he rivalled the unholy racket echoing in the space between his eardrums. It took minimal time for him to come to a crashing halt, the crescendo of the buzz of his own voice added to the banshee wail of the vampiress chained to his water pipes making him rapidly conclude the folly in such an action.

Just as it got too much—right as he was bound for the kitchen to retrieve a knife to slash his own wrists—the noise ceased. The change made him reel, left the man in him slightly off-balance while the watcher part of his person started to gather weapons in apprehension.

Hesitant steps bound him to travel the short path to the bathroom, his heart pounding an erratic dance as he made to face off with the vampire who’d tried not that many hours ago to make holes in his neck.

She was stretched out gracefully in the enamel tub, an act thoroughly incongruous to her surroundings, and yet she achieved it. Her eyes were fixed on him, and as he stopped in the frame of the door, he felt swept away by her raw beauty. Without decision he almost swayed toward her, the stake in his hand clattering against the tile floor. He felt eager to please her, make her comfortable as her voice soothed the ache that was his head into a pleasant numbness; an accepting calmness that left him kneeling by her, the key to the chains hovering over the lock and his throat exposed to her fangs.

The second the chains released her from their grasp she pounced, extra sharp incisors digging hard into his flesh, the hazy veil that had obscured his mind of all rational thought rushed back to the fore.

But the weakness hit him like a ton of bricks, and his legs buckled more, leaving him almost hanging from her jaw. The rush of his blood through his veins toward his neck was a roar of the surf, deafening in its power. He heard nothing but his life as it gushed out of his throat, his arms hanging weakly at his sides while his eyes fell uselessly on the abandoned stake.

“Bleeding fuck.” The feral outburst broke through the fog and he felt the slice against his skin as fangs tore their way out. His blurred vision picked up an image of white fury as it spun on the floor, a fistful of dark hair tangled as he reefed the head attached to his neck back violently.

Giles struggled to process that Spike, the evil vampire and visitor to his home, had just saved his life and gained his unwavering support.

And then he collapsed and everything was dark and cold.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Spike was on him as soon as he walked through the door. The first punch left crumbling plaster and a wary Buffy on the edge, about to jump in. Another uppercut had her enter the fight, mindless of Giles’s belongings as she threw Spike across the living room and took up a protective stance in front of Angel.

The room stilled in an electric silence, an emphatic statement of sides washing over the vampire that had just saved a life. Disbelief caused Spike’s eyes to turn pale as he watched Buffy, shades of his Buffy—full of loathing and disgust as she flayed him undead with her pain of Heavenly rejection—shining through until he could do nothing but straighten his lips in angry resignation.

So he did what he had to so as to not break down in front of them.

He ignored her, too much hate for her clawing a hole in his belly.

“What kind of a…would leave a crazy…” His eyes burned hot as he stared straight through her to his grandsire. “Half-starved and angry vampire with a human without even fucking telling him she could thrall him into letting her go?”

Angel mumbled a denial, shock keeping his tongue largely unresponsive.

“You great thumping moron. What did you think she’d bloody well do? All chained up in a bathtub. You haven’t let her hunt for ages and you actually thought she’d be alright with that? You’re a bigger wanker than I thought. Vampire, mate. Thought you knew that.” His voice cut flesh, tore it fresh from the bones as the implications of his words sank in and the disgust washed over them.

Buffy’s body tensed even more as the scenario gained an image in her mind, and her watcher became the new victim.

“Giles?”

“Is sleeping the sleep of the nearly drained dead,” shared Xander as he came down the stairs from Giles’s bedroom and took a supportive position next to Spike.

“Get Drusilla, and take her the fuck away from here. You let her come near the watcher again and your dust will be floating on the not so sunny breeze.”

Spike turned away and stomped to the bathroom, returning almost immediately with the unconscious brunette, the cause of so much trouble. No care was given in the exchange, Dru thrust into the arms of her sire with a not so subtle shove toward the door, Buffy standing quietly aside as she stewed in her own guilt.

“What’s thrall?” Buffy risked, her voice low and a bit scratchy as she contemplated how it looked that she had shown support of Angel against Spike.

Spike looked incredulous as he turned his back to her, tearing up the stairs away from her and to check on Giles. She was left with Xander, and for the first time she noticed how pale he looked.

“It was like Jessie all over again. The fangs, and the neck, and the fangs…and Spike? God, I thought Batman was a superhero, but he saved G-man’s life. Smelt the blood on the walk outside and…man…I never knew they could move so fast. It was like…and the fangs…and Spike?”

Buffy looked at him again as the story began to repeat, and as she caught his tears falling against pasty cheeks, the knot lodged in her throat loosened and hurt.

She’d backed the wrong horse. She’d allowed Angel to wheedle his way back into her thoughts by sharing her night with him, and instead of supporting the vampire she’d wanted to be with, wanted to do dirty things with while they dusted off monsters, she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. She’d thought the attack was jealousy based and juvenile; punching Angel into the middle of next week was so not the way to handle things and she was no one’s possession.

As her eyes climbed the stairs slowly, one excruciating step at a time, she could feel Spike as he hovered over her watcher. Could feel him as he retreated from her emotionally. While it left Buffy feeling confused and frightened—the near death of Giles left her feeling numb.

Without checking on Giles, without saying a word to Xander or Spike, she bolted from the apartment, sobs breaking through her restraint and drowning out the calls from her friend to stop.

Chapter 12

When Angel opened his eyes she was there, standing before him as if she was his own heavenly guardian. Everything about her shone; shouted her perfection like a production of God’s choir. Her lips were still, and with their lack of movement he found it impossible to tear his eyes from them. Lush soft pink naturally pouting at him, beckoning him to touch, to taste.

The prickling of his body was his answer to the promise of her standing before him, wordless but beautiful as she watched him. Her eyes sparkled with an innocent arousal that inspired surges of similar within his frame, but before he was too moved, too inspired to take up the offer, he was lost in the sheen of her hair.

Blond streaks that were alight without benefit of earth’s fire.

In silence her body called to him and he answered with the forward momentum of his feet. Her gaze never wavered, intently watching him and taking heed of his physical instruction. He took everything in as he reached her, the subtle breath she took to control her erratic pulse, the strength of her arousal on the air, the little shifts in nerves and confidence as her body shook delicately before him.

Her presence was unexpected but welcomed. Forgiveness of his sins swept over him as he remained solid in her presence, a hand slowly raised until the fingers tangled in the soft silken strands of wild wheat. It shook, the mercy of her permission almost breaking him.

Forgotten now were all the aborted attempts at intimacy. He dismissed all his arguments of why he must maintain some distance from the girl he’d fallen for while still a mess of a vampire, feeding on rats in alleyways. She was standing before him in the style of a perfect offering, a valiant offering to a master vampire who’d been without touch for a century.

His arguments were no more and finally he nudged her gently to his bed, allowed her to sit and stare as he memorised every small dip in the shape of her face. Every little slight, yet perfection made up the whole that was her, and Angel felt himself as enthralled as he had been the day Whistler had opened her world into his.

They sat side by side, only touching by the awed tightening of his grip in her hair. Nothing else felt right, not yet. Not without the words that could set them both free, that could give them the final direction they had both been hoping to travel from the moment she had taken him seriously. The moment she had allowed him beyond the fringes of his life.

“Buffy,” he almost gasped, the words falling from his lips in valediction of singledom. She’d taken his heart over the past months and he felt it time to finally let her know it. Confirm at last the truth they’d felt but so far never voiced. To finally acknowledge it without his usual taunts of distance and stunted intimacy.

“Angel.” Even the quiet of her voice betrayed her deity, and for one devastating and panicked second he contemplated turning his back, not allowing her to sully herself with the likes of him. Taking the decision from her hands. He was so utterly unworthy of having her like this, within his arms, upon his bed.

But Angel knew he was weak, and so the stop he felt he should bring to this interlude remained absent. Instead his fingers trailed from the glistening lure of her hair to the smooth plane of her cheek, finally tracing the line of her bottom lip.

Her fevered sigh against his digit, warm breath brushing over him, set his cock to a pulsing preparation. He was never one who could hold out, the sins of the flesh too enticing for him to ignore for long. So with barely a touch—no need for build up when he’d had well over a year of fantasies to stir him along—he was ready to possess her, to know her fully and make her his.

He would be her first lover; her only lover and he knew he owed her an experience to remember. But the need to take the next step was almost debilitating as his hardness grew, the restraint becoming painful. But first. The groundwork must be cemented—he must make her sure of his feelings for her.

Her quivering lip brought attention to his ongoing silence and his face—threatening to be consumed with the power of lust—struggled to remove the experience that would frighten the innocent.

“Buffy,” he said again, his throat scratching at the word, constricting so far to almost prevent his declaration from getting through. “I…I love you.”

The light in her eyes flared, a swirling heat leeching out to encompass him in her excitement. He could see the sentiment returned, knew it down deep in his soul before she even made a sound—even parted her soft, beautiful lips to form the joining words.

But still, when they finally came, he felt closer to heaven, felt close to forgiveness.

“I love you, too,” she whispered, tears blurring the sparkling green of her eyes, and at last Angel had his permission to seek her lips. He took them in a soft promise before allowing his hands to drift over buttons. His haste was countered by the soft touch as he pulled the fabric from her skin, leaving her flesh glowing in the darkness of the room.

Her shivering shyness as she covered her breasts only calmed him slightly, prevented his almost lascivious licking of his lips. He felt like a wolf determined to force his way onto his mate, but something at the back of his mind tugged his memory, reminded him that Buffy was a girl—supernatural powers notwithstanding—and deserved a calm and measured consideration of her first time. He owed her an experience to remember—happiness over her decision to come to him. But the demon calling for action, calling for completion no matter the consequences was eager to begin the show, and Angel had difficulties reining it in.

He made himself stop, placed his hands gently on her now bare arms and encouraged her hands away from the curved surprise waiting for his attention. The soft swell of her breasts made sharp needles of his skin prickles. His heart didn’t thump, no circulating blood rushed to his head, but he felt the rush all the same.

Felt the rush and couldn’t wait any longer. His mouth latched onto her hard and he began the seduction that would make Buffy his.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


In Spike’s head, it had all gone differently. Rather than the whelp by his side, physical support saying more than words—and not something necessarily that Spike wanted to easily discard—it was Buffy. Buffy who just knew in her heart that he was in the right, who didn’t need an explanation of his attack before just believing in him.

When had it all started to go wrong? Was it right from the start when he’d stupidly made a wish for something he had no right in wanting? Or had it been when it had started to work, started to reveal a Buffy without hang-ups of the ‘poofterish’ kind and he’d allowed his heart to get happy? Why was he even wondering about it? He’d always known that magic had consequences, and he’d be more than a wanker himself if he believed any good could ever come from misguided wishes made drunkenly to Vengeance demons.

Spike hung his head; allowed it to fall into the cradle of his hands as his body assumed the position of defeat. He remained in watch over Rupert, having sent Harris home despite his loud protests of wanting to help.

Spike couldn’t bear the thought of anyone watching him. Couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing what he really was. A loser who’d gained nothing by going back in time. A failure who had already caused the beginnings of pain for these people who would be his hated family in the future, but who were determinedly placing him in the middle of their lives now without the benefit of anything but faith.

His Buffy in the future would have rushed to the poof’s side without a second thought to loyalty, too. Spike had lived around her for years, protected her as best he could, had looked after her merry gang and her kid sis while she had been visiting the great beyond. All without a shred of thanks, if you please. But he’d done it for years. Always been there for back-up, for information despite the lack of a dollar when the monetary enticement all but dried up. He’d been there as fodder for the Big Bads, he’d been her shoulder to cry on when she couldn’t tell her truths to the ones who supposedly cared for her, and he’d been the one to love her, so totally and faithfully that he was crushed by her lack of care.

But knowing he was the dependable vampire, the sincere in love vampire, meant little when it was always his grandsire she would always go back to. He didn’t know if it was a comfort thing, if being her first love meant she had one of those stretchy elastic strings joining the two so that at any crisis it snapped her back to Angel’s side, no questions asked.

But this time, he’d had enough. Seeing her bounce into the fight with her fists cocked—fury tightening her stance—he felt something within him snap. Some little whiff of ozone in the air warning him that his wish was unachievable through no fault of his own. He’d tried, made changes with all the little Scoobies. Made his experience with each and every one of the buggers better. Even found himself liking them.

But not with her. Nothing changed with her. She still meted her affections out by the thimbleful. And dished out her displeasure and distrust with a bucket.

Now Spike knew that nothing ever could change.

Buffy was never meant to be his.

The sooner he accepted the inevitable, the sooner he could do something to get over it. The sooner he could devote his time to just helping the Scoobies remain alive and kicking while he sorted out what to do with the rest of his unlife.

Just that thought caused his heart to bleed. He knew he couldn’t go on being near Buffy forever when there was no possibility of her ever falling for him. He loved her with so much depth that it consumed everything he was. And yet, if he remained he’d slowly crumble away to ashes.

Seeing her with the bumbling foot soldier had hurt—in a way that was the right of the unrequited lover. But seeing her now with Peaches, fighting by his side, taking up his defence…well, it pissed him off at every level. William the Bloody ponce, looked over again. It burned his gut for sure.

Spike felt his fangs slip through the shields, lumpies grappling with the normal human bones of his face and he felt a growl tickle at his throat. He’d bloody completely had it with women. The lot of them were cursed, hell-bent on sucking out all the bleeding marrow of his unlife. They were contrary, selfish evil bitches…far more vicious and evil than him.

A groan from the bed halted his warm up to his ‘all women are bitches and should be drained at birth’ speech. Spike was on his feet in the next breath, hovering over the weakened watcher with a concern that was damned unseemly for the likes of him.

Rupert was too pale, and Spike still wasn’t sure if he shouldn’t have packed the man off to the hospital. Harris had suggested it, but at the time the watcher’s heartbeat had thumped a reassuring tune and Spike left him to his bed upstairs. All the better to be on hand to knock Dru out each time she regained consciousness and to confront Peaches the second he came through the door.

And that went well.

At least Spike knew where he stood…and it was about a metre and a half away from Buffy when it counted. But only centimetres from his biggest enemy in the ‘stay away from Buffy’ camp. Will wonders ever bloody cease?

When he came back to earth from his angry self-berating, he encountered wide, curious eyes. Giles passed a hand over his face and then flicked at his teeth, pointing out to Spike that he was sitting over a man in full gameface who had just been vamp chow, and very nearly dead.

“Sorry, mate,” Spike apologised as he let the demon features slip back into obscurity. Not until he sought out the rhythm of the only heartbeat in the flat did he realise Giles had not shown fear at being confronted by his demon. His eyes filled with awe even as Rupert’s eyes drifted closed again and he passed into a more relaxed sleep. Reassured that he was safe. Reassured that he wasn’t dead, and despite the demon presence in his room, unlikely to be.

The acceptance and belief—something he’d craved but not received from Buffy—brought tears rapidly to the surface. He returned to the chair he had chosen to stand vigil from, burying his feelings of fear in losing Buffy. Not like it was a new situation. He’d lost her in his world, too. For some reason this hurt even more, broke apart all that he had felt secure in.

He’d believed so strongly that Buffy had loved him, but duty to the Scoobies prevented her from acknowledging it to herself. Duty to her watcher’s misguided teachings to stick to her belief that Spike was soulless and therefore evil of the really bad variety.

And being dragged from her heavenly home had so skewed her senses that she trusted nothing, no one, and so any feeling for him that she might have been developing would probably have taken her years to acknowledge. Years after she had killed him—one way or another.

He’d buried his face in his hands again, the cup of his palms feeling decidedly damp. Spike had always been emotional, but since his turning and rebirth into the Aurelius family, he’d grown a pair. He’d learned how and what to hide to keep his secrets safe—and also his unlife. Angelus favoured no weakness, and that William couldn’t prevent some of it from showing through in relation to Drusilla, meant that he’d never been able to make it to Angelus’s private mark of acceptance.

But Buffy had made him cry more than he ever had in his entire century of being second to Dru. Of being important to no one. But now…well now, he had people. Had a purpose that wasn’t all about Buffy—purpose that gave him no hope but some small measure of achievement. As his swimming azure eyes fell on the figure quietly resting himself back to health, he recognised the beginning of that purpose. He’d gained the Scoobies trust, something impossible for him to do in his future. Now what was he to do with it?

He sniffed the air once and breathed a resigned and sad sigh.

“I smelt the magic in the air before. Never suspected it might have been you.” His voice sounded dead, no inflection of the emotion that usually typified Spike.

“I could see there was a bit of a situation, so I stayed back for awhile.”

Anya looked just as she did the last time he saw her, and it scared the bejeezus out of him.

“Put the face away, luv, before you hear me screamin’ with nightmares.” It was a start, a small hint of a chuckle and Anya let the wrinkled reality of her demon face slip into nothingness.

“What are you doin’ here, pet?”

Anya answered his question with a silence that emphasised the nervous twitching of her hands. The doom that had been drowning him in depression since he’d found Dru’s fangs buried in Rupert’s throat seemed unlikely to lift as he watched the changing expressions of hope and anxiety chase themselves across her face. But she was in no rush to enlighten him, and instead she took a seat on the bed and watched the man she had been working for over the past two years in concern.

Spike left it, having a feeling something would be before him to consider before the night was through that he wasn’t yet ready for. As the minutes turned to ten, they united in a steady, companionable silence, and watched Giles as he diligently sucked air into his lungs, confirming his secure grip for the moment on the world.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Angel was all thumbs in his eagerness. The exploration of warm skin with his fingertips was something new, yet old. It had been beyond long since the last time he had touched a woman, which to him made this all the more special. Even more so that it was Buffy.

Buffy watched him with wide eyes, naïve in the ways of men and love, but so very willing to learn. Her strong yet tempered hands moved over his naked skin, hesitant fingers tracing around the ball of his shoulder. His skin was cool, yet not in a way that would squick her. It was nice.

“I’m so sorry about Giles,” he told her, his voice heavy with the disappointment of his failed control of Drusilla. “I never thought she would…”

“Shhh.” His sun covered his lip with a firm, determined finger, and once she had caught his eye, washed all memory of the previous events of the night from his mind, succumbed to the draw of a kiss.

Her lips were soft, cool but inflaming his ardour.

“Buffy,” he gasped, his cock already so hard he was in pain. “I can’t wait, can’t go so slow.”

Her nod of permission was hesitant, slightly frightened, but the end result was the same. She pushed apart from him to continue removing her top layer of clothing, leaving Angel hungry yet speechless as he waited for her.

This was the beginning of all his dreams; the culmination of his first moment of crush when he had been shown her by Whistler in LA. Buffy joined him on the bed and their lips met again, drawing out the innocence of the deed.

Angel buried his human face in her throat, contemplating the virginity that she was giving him, and surrendered to the joy of the moment. As he drew back, her green eyes never wavered in their trusting gaze while she watched his own disrobing. Angel lowered his body back to hers and captured her in a tender kiss.

Nothing had ever been so perfect.

Nothing so glorious as he pushed his way into her body, as he soaked up her goodness and felt his dead heart swell with perfect love.

And as he felt himself reach that wonderful moment, he released his energy into his love’s depths and snuggled in beside her, his arm curved over his brow as he settled back and fell asleep.

With the lowering of his eyelids, the magic faded into sleep and he was left with the mysterious reality of Dru wrapped naked around his body, the artificial heat he’d felt fading from his mind and closing in on the coolness that had always been against his flesh.

Beside him, a brunette lay with a frown marring her satisfied moment. One look at Angel beside her and she tumbled from his side.

She stood over the bed, looking down on her sire with eyes glittering with a directed madness.

“Daddy’s a wicked boy for leaving Princess all a quiver.” She pouted then began a slow exploration of her body, culminating in the release that had never been close under the attentions of the elder vampire.

Drusilla trembled with delicious aftershocks and returned to the bed to watch over her pretty picture.

“Sleep, my sweet. Princess will be waiting for your surprise.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“What happened?” Anya had kept her own counsel for thirty minutes, just sitting and watching the still form of Giles as he recuperated from his violent ordeal.

“Weren’t you here?” Spike’s voice came out on a self-recriminating croak.

“Only popped in when you were attacking Angel.”

Spike was startled at first at the short, yet informative sentences that Anya was aiming at him, so used to her left field opinions that were nothing if not bizarre. He surmised that perhaps the gravity of Giles lying so ill on his bed had shocked her into near silence.

“Silly git decided to babysit Dru. The poof forgot to tell him she does thrall, so she conned him into lettin’ her go and she took a chunk outta his neck. Now he’s all anaemic.” His smile was bittersweet.

“And Buffy?”

Spike raised pained eyes, cold in their blueness as he pinned her to the spot. She showed her demonhood admirably, not succumbing to his intimidation now that she could more than protect herself.

“What do you think? Bitch jumped in to save the poor hard done by Poof. Peaches gets more forgiveness than he bloody deserves.”

The slow fall of tears spoiled the effect of his harsh words. Again his heart was breaking. No matter which Buffy he tried to love—either in his future or this untouched and innocent to heartbreak Buffy of his past—she would never choose him.

Spike shook his head, his hands running in distracted roughness through his hair. The action served as some kind of settler, a miracle in itself as the agitation was set to zoom. Again Spike became aware of Anya’s quiet presence and wondered what she was doing here.

“Out with it, Demongirl. What are you doin’ here? Wouldn’t be makin’ house calls for the hell of it.”

His suspicious gaze was hard, piercing, and he felt a small sense of satisfaction when he saw her give an involuntary shiver, even though she’d likely be able to put him in the bloody ground now with her souped up demon powers.

Anya took a deep breath, patted down the skirt of her pretty floral dress, and deflated like an empty balloon.

“I was hoping you would take back the wish.”

Spike’s eyes were suddenly riveted to her mouth, hoping yet wondering if he really wanted to be sure she’d said what he thought she had.

“Why would I want to do that, luv?”

“Now that I’ve been human, I don’t feel right about some of the things people are wishing from me. There have been deaths, and some of them pointless.” She stopped with a nervous laugh. “I want to smash the amulet and be human again.”

“Simple as that, yeah? Why do you need me to take my wish back again?”

Anya looked at him as if he was the stupidest vampire undead.

“Don’t ‘spose anyone’s been askin’ about me?” he asked her hopefully, the real question implicit in his tone. Has Buffy been asking…?

“No. Sorry,” she rushed in when she noticed how crushed he was at the neglect. “Though to be fair we have had a few problems. An apocalypse to prevent.”

“Yeah?” This news perked him up and he waited for her to fill him in.

“Tara was shot and…”

“What the bloody hell?” He jumped to his feet, gameface surging forward as his protective instincts kicked in. “What do you mean Glinda was shot? Is she alright?”

The sadness shadowing Anya’s face was his answer, and he shook his head in agitated denial.

“The others? What about Buffy?” His voice was broken, tears cracking the steadiness.

“Oh she was shot, too.”

Again he was menacingly on his feet, his voice raising in terror. Not again, he couldn’t help screaming inside his head. He couldn’t take losing her again.

“Oh, she’s okay now. Willow saved her before she died again. But Willow went kinda crazy and tried to destroy the world. You should have seen her, all black hair and eyes, super scary. Knocked me out, nearly killed Giles. She did kill that Warren guy…he’s the one that shot Tara and Buffy…but Xander saved the day. Ironic, really, but he stopped the world from ending and now Giles has taken Willow to a coven in England get her some help in controlling her magic. Oh, and the Magic Box is being repaired after Willow almost completely destroyed it.”

Spike was stuck in place, not moving a muscle as the tale of horrors unfolded in the air around him. Anya sounded like she was recounting a rather fun stage show and he was appalled at her lack of empathy for the people she had been friends with for the past couple of years.

“An’ you want me to go back to that?” There was no doubting the incredulous tone to his voice.

At her vigorous nod he felt like smacking her. But as his furious amber fell onto the sleeping man on the bed, he began to remember all that he had achieved by being in this world, and he didn’t mean the money or the Gem that made him now invincible. He had made friends. These Scoobies trusted him, looked up to him. Or at least, they were on their way to believing in him.

So you’d think that…

“You just bloody well hold on there, pet. If I’ve been schmoozing and the likes here in the past, then how did everything go all arse over tit in the future. I think you’re pullin’ my leg.”

He never knew demons could blush.

“Oh, alright,” she mumbled in irritation. “So that’s one version of what was going to happen if you hadn’t made the wish. Look, you’re mucking things up for me by being here. You’re changing Xander and making things all different. I need you to go back before you change it all too much.”

He had too much to lose now. Sure, he might never have Buffy, could never beat the poof at anything to tell the truth. But if he went back, not only would he be going back to an apathetic, abusive Buffy, but all her friends would hate him again. They would want him out and would be threatening his life every other day until he left Sunnydale for good.

Whichever time he chose, there would always be Buffy. Young, in love with wanker Angel in this time Buffy, yet Spike friendly with her mates. Or bitch Buffy backed by the entire gang and armed with deadly stakes and crossbows. Each decision would include a Buffy that would never choose him, would come to hate the sight of him.

So, what would it matter? If demon girl wanted to be human again, if she wanted to be…the scream tore through his throat with a violence borne from knowledge.

“Oh God,” he shouted as he collapsed to his knees, his hands clawing at his neck.

“Oh fuck,” he swore as the tears poured forth down his face.

“What? What is it?” called Anya frantically, her eyes darting around the room in a desperate longing for answers.

Spike’s speech was momentarily crippled, his voice becoming hoarse from the wailing his demon felt it necessary to make. He repressed the truth as much as he could, but the fire that burned at his neck was undeniable, and as Spike raised a tear-soaked face to the ceiling, he had the answer to his dilemma.

His eyes found Giles’s as the weaker man tried to shoulder his way to sitting against the headboard of the bed. The question hung in the air, unspoken by Giles despite being shouted hysterically by Anya, and it was the watcher that received Spike’s tortured response.

“She did it,” he cried, very near literally.

“What has she done, Spike? I presume you mean Buffy?” Giles’s voice wobbled with his weakness.

Spike nodded, dumbfounded in his emotional acceptance.

“The silly bitch slept with the bastard. Hello fucking Angelus.”

His fear was immediately shared, and blue eyes clashed with green.

“So,” Giles ventured. “In light of this catastrophe, one wonders what your decision is to be in regards this wish?”

Spike lowered his eyes, ashamed yet scared.

“And don’t think we won’t be discussing this at a later date.”

Contrary to his fears, there was no censure in the Watcher’s voice and Spike met his eyes again, relief allowing a small smile to spread along his lips. It disappeared as he recalled his first go round with his grandsire, the consequences for this group of people by allowing his family to run rampant around the Hellmouth.

If he could do nothing else, he could make sure that the teacher that Rupert had his eye on would stay safe while she attempted to finish translating the spell that would re-instate Angel’s soul. Maybe this time without the curse, so at least Buffy could have the lump of her dreams rather than become emotionally retarded from being without her soul mate.

Spike directed his answer to Anya without looking at her, instead showing his respect and support of the man still sprawled beneath his bedsheets.

“The wish stands, luv. I’ve things to do here. Grant one other wish, pet, then smash the amulet.”

He felt rather than saw Anya’s dejected acceptance, then felt the need to watch her as he offered an olive branch.

“Let things unfold, yeah? Let that Cordelia bird make her wish and you’ll be human ‘ere again with the whelp, and maybe I can help makin’ things stick this time.” He offered her a wink and sighed in relief at her suddenly enthusiastic and happy smile.

“Of course, Spike. You’re a genius.” She darted forward and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

Spike stood stunned in the same spot as she demonstrated her exiting arm wave and disappeared to her own time.

Belatedly, “That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell you lot for years.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


He wasn’t sure what woke him. Whether it was the subtle movement on the bed beside him as she rolled away from his body. Or the sound of her voice as she hummed a very tuneful rendition of Greensleeves.

Or it could have been the pain that seared the inside of his chest, forcing him like a bullet from the bed and outside the apartment, tearing at his skin to counteract the pain, try and turn it in on itself while he tore it out and killed it.

It burned as much on the way out as it had when forced within.

The release was immense, the return to himself more profound than he would have ever expected. The leash was gone and it released a mountain of pent up anger, vengeance that he wanted to act on immediately. He wanted to tear this town apart, rip everything with a soul to shreds for no reason other than he wasn’t able to physically constrain his own and blow it apart.

As he came more to himself he felt his senses magnify, honing in on a woman—a hooker—as she approached him, a cigarette hanging from her lips. He pounced and within seconds claimed his first easy meal. Exhaling the second-hand smoke, he spied Dru in the door opening, her nightdress thin and transparent.

An evil smile consumed his face as he leered at her. Looking around the now empty alleyway, he gestured her to come forward.

“Come here, Childe. On your knees. Time to show Daddy how glad you are he’s back.”

Dru grinned as she fell to the hard ground, her hands seeking the hard length of his cock. No hesitation and her cold mouth engulfed him, deep-throating in the way she knew he would only accept, expecting the punishment that would undoubtedly come from not reading his mind when he required a change in action.

His body tensed as the release neared its quarter; spasming happily in her mouth as his cum flooded the recess. The first blow came as his limp dick slipped from between her lips. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back to the apartment’s bed and fucked her till the sun came up, spurred on by her laughing insanity each time she welcomed him back.

It was good to be home.

Chapter 13

Spike had never been afraid of the dark. Even when he was human and wandering around London in the barely lit streets wasn’t done—the lamps almost useless in illuminating the surroundings—he’d made a regular excursion outside to feel the coolness of the night. It fed his poetic soul, and inspired words he’d hardly suspected he knew.

After he was turned, the darkness fed him full stop. Gave him a playground the likes he’d never known. The words still flowed, but not to his soul. And instead of trying to capture the images on quality paper with quill and ink, he’d used his fists and blood, a pretty corpse his canvas. Instead of exploring for words of beauty, he’d trawled for ones of devastation.

As he wandered the night of Sunnydale, home of the most selfish Hellmouth he’d ever had the misfortune of living on, he felt all words desert him. Despite his decision to stay, to help fight and protect these Scoobies who were much more accepting of him than the original bunch, he was still Love’s Bitch, and the words he needed to fulfill his role in that area were suddenly completely wiped from his vocabulary.

He spied Buffy in a graveyard, and for the first time he thought hard about walking away. Leaving her to fight whatever demons she needed to gain the satisfaction that being with the poof—and releasing his alter-ego—would have left her with a need for. Angelus had only ever been interested in furthering his own pleasure. The thought that his bed-partner might deserve some kind of release in their little death was completely beyond the space his brain allowed.

But it hurt to watch her. Hurt to see the body that had so recently been touched by the great Poof himself, taking from Spike again the one thing that would complete his unlife. He felt so tired from always losing. His eyes felt sore from the tears that had squeezed the pain from his heart.

Watching her, wanting her, and knowing he had lost her was no sweet torture. He’d never felt whips and holy water that devastated him like this. None of Angelus’s wicked knives had cut him so deep.

All he’d done, all he had planned to do, and one attack against the King of Woe had catapulted Spike directly into the doghouse. Well, he was bloody fed up, and he wasn’t going to wallow in this depression, distancing himself from her.

He’d warned them about the curse.

She should have bloody known better, and whether she actually understood what it was she’d released, someone should put the silly chit in her place and point out the bleeding obvious.

Then get the hell out of the way of the steamroller effect of her devastated emotions, crippling her for bloody life—slamming up the barricades stronger than those at Fort Knox. Fuck that. What she needed was an enthusiastic belting. Tan her arse till she learned the lesson that Angelus was better caged.

Angelus.

Thoughts of the impending battle made Spike shiver. All the hurt and humiliation he’d been through the last time, and here was the prospect again. Homicidal rage welled within him lightning quick and before he knew it, his feet propelled him with speed to intercept the Slayer.

She looked up in surprise before greeting him with a happy smile. It dimmed abruptly as she was slashed with his frosty reception, the ugly curl of his lip indicative of his fury and the frozen expression in his eyes conveying a feeling of hate toward her that made her heart almost stop beating.

The coldness, the lack of affection for her held him still in front of her, his eyes watching her with an intent that brought terror to her blood. He reminded her of the one horrible meeting when he had predicted her death on Saturday, and Buffy found herself absently sifting through the days of the week to reassure herself that this was indeed a weekday.

“W-what…”

She got no further as his rage spilled forth and erupted from his lips.

“Don’t bloody make out that I should be alright with this. Must have been a two-minute skit if you’re out here seeking violence already. Washed up and ready to go. I shoulda known, no matter what I do, the old Forehead wins every bleeding time.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked furiously and Buffy felt her eyes drawn to it, hypnotised by the small sign of his temper so that she wouldn’t have to admit how stupid she was in not knowing the cause of this flaying.

“So, how was it?” he spat at her, and she finally caught the subtle tones buried within the attack. Hurt. Jealousy. Betrayal. And none of them provided Buffy with questions she could answer. Unless he thought…

Oh…

Buffy had been thinking about the scene in Giles’s house all night, fighting as many vamps as she could, focusing abnormally on the female ones in order to temper her frustrations. Guilt caused her a mass of confusion. As she worried over the damage to her burgeoning relationship with Spike, monumentally regretting her decision to protect and defend Angel against him, she had almost forgotten about Giles. Not forgotten completely, just relegated him as not an issue that needed confronting because as soulless as Spike was, she knew he wouldn’t let her Watcher die. Her faith in Spike—as bizarre and unnatural as it was—was unwavering. It was the stability of the steadily building lust and boyfriendy stuff she had been terrified of losing all night. Not her Watcher.

Though the world could definitely stand to lose some nutbaggy Dru. No apparent redemption in that quarter.

Buffy had seen the hurt and betrayal reflecting in Spike’s eyes when he’d walked away from her, leaving her downstairs to face Xander and the truth. But he’d been controlled, not like this. Not like he was going to haul off and bite her any second.

Maybe…

No! Buffy felt the cold seep through her clothing and encase her heart. Maybe something had happened, something she had believed was the safe event the whole night. What if Giles hadn’t made it and she’d run away rather than face the consequences of her actions? And now Spike was furious at her for being so self-involved. For leaving Giles dead in his bed without even a token goodbye.

“Spike? How…”

“How do I know?” His voice was incredulous as he raked her with his eyes, burning her from head to toe with the animosity barely contained. The promise, her gift of herself and her blood to him on her birthday now lay in ruins around his heart and he wondered if he would ever be able to offer himself in love again.

“Felt it, didn’ I!” He felt harsh, boiling hatred for his kin and this girl well within him and he was desperate to wreak vengeance. But the control failed to slip, and he felt himself bound within the rigid guidelines of being someone changed for the better. All in the name of love.

Okay, felt it? He was there with Giles, what was there to feel about it? Buffy’s confusion deepened as the events of the night seemed to quickly bleed out of control.

“I admit you’re a bloody fast one on your feet— gettin’ out of there—and a better decision you’ve never made, but hell, you disgust me.” His snarl sunk in deep, resounding in her head like a clang of doom.

“Oh,” whispered past Buffy’s lips as her body took in the edge to his voice, suffered the penetration of his words. He was disgusted by her, and the pain she felt at that nearly brought her to her knees. Tears gathered and she blinked rapidly to try and prevent their fall, needing some strength to not betray how much it devastated her to lose this with him.

How had it all come to mean so much? Not much, everything. His good feeling toward her had meant everything; she’d planned her life around him, wanted him to exist in her life with an edge of desperation that was almost frightening.

She’d made the decision, the one that would bind her to him forever—or at least until she died. She’d asked him to bite her and make love to her on her birthday, and instead of continuously fanning that flame, she’d been off sharing her night with her first major boyfriend. Even though Buffy had called the whole thing—whatever it was—off with Angel, she had indulged his need for a night out and defended him without even asking why Spike felt the need to attack him.

She’d made Spike her boyfriend, offered everything she was to him, trusted her life to his fangs and repaid him with unwavering support against him for her ex. So, yeah, she disgusted herself.

Then that solid wall of strength disintegrated and the tears tumbled from suddenly waterlogged lashes. It hurt so much; being discarded by a soulless vampire who had stolen her heart, even if it was thoroughly deserved. Breaking up with Angel had not been the wrenching destruction to her heart that this aching torment was. And again, her trauma over her colossal mistake with Spike eclipsed her concern over the tragedy that was possibly Giles.

“Okay,” she managed finally, her voice clogged with her tears, her face glistening in the moonlight. “I’m sorry, Spike. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Didn’ mean to…you bloody bitch,” he exploded, completely livid as he began to pace, his fury finally animated. He turned back abruptly, staring at her with such raw pain that Buffy felt helpless as she took a step back from him.

“How could you offer…ask me to…and then go off and boff…” He couldn’t continue, couldn’t say the words that would cripple his heart and make her deed rock solid in his reality. He never thought it possible, once falling in love with Buffy, that he could ever feel such seething hatred toward her again. But overwhelming strength began to tease his muscles, begging him to jump, to claw, and in unwavering support his demon surged to the fore.

In one desperate attempt to alleviate the violent impulses, Spike stopped and breathed deeply through his nose, taking in the scent of her sweat, the intoxication of her fear and the one he loved most of all, the very faint scent of vanilla from her last distant shower.

The mesh of scent tickled his synapses to discovery, but the journey to a conclusion was slow. When knowledge hit it left him floored. The shock widened his eyes, and he looked at her miserable face, her wobbly lip and the tears that still flowed in unending sorrow.

“Oh Buffy,” he surrendered, falling to his knees and shaking with the sudden deflation of his mood. He could feel the tremble of relief as his hands found his face.

He was wrong; not Buffy.

Angelus was back, but not because of Buffy. She hadn’t betrayed him, hadn’t used him as a warm up to pleasuring the Poof. So awfully wrong, almost pushing himself into another smashing confrontation that might have ended with the same violent joining as the last time he’d been angry with his future Buffy. He could have fought her, pushed her into a defence that would render her hopeless against his demon, raised her pulse so far that the only release she could have reached was through either staking him, or him staking her.

But, been there, done that. Old hat that happened to be the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Taunting future Buffy into his bed—or everywhere outside of it as the truth actually held—had not been his brightest move. And yet, it was the same action he’d been about to embark on with younger Buffy, simply because he’d believed she’d given herself to Angel. Spike knew that the fight got her hot, could smell it every time she raised her fists and struck something solid. Despite his belief in her recent activities, his demon had begun to prepare to goad her into a similar outcome. It was misdirected rage—if Angelus got it, then he wanted some, too. Particularly when his heart had filed her under ‘tease’.

But the truth came through his nostrils loud and clear as he took in more and more of her heavenly scent. There was not a whiff of sex near her and Spike kneeled as he castigated himself for being a paranoid wanker.

“Spike?” The Slayer’s voice was weak as she prodded a reaction from him. Blue eyes met miserable jade and Spike was instantly on his feet, tugging her into his arms and holding her safe as the sobs tore loose from her throat.

“Oh baby,” Spike murmured, the reassuring lilt in his tone calming her more than the steady pressure of his arms around her shaking body. Touch couldn’t be trusted; did the feeling ever change? No, it was the voice, the thing Spike had aimed at her to thrust his animosity in her face, to relay his hatred out bare.

But in combination, the tone and touch gave her a smidgeon of hope that maybe he hadn’t meant it. Maybe he didn’t want to leave her, that Giles was okay, and they had just wasted ten minutes together because of a giant misunderstanding.

As the emotions calmed within her and Buffy’s mind cleared, she determined that that was exactly what this was. As horrible as her judgement had been in siding with Angel over Drusilla’s deadly actions—albeit completely unknowingly—there was no way that Spike would tell her that he was disgusted with her. He’d be angry, sure. What new boyfriend wouldn’t have been by such a display of misguided loyalty? But disgust was so much stronger than what she was sure was going on.

His lips on her hair were more than soothing. It set the stamp on a healing that might have begun through awkward words and actions. But it set her heart beating back at the correct rhythm as she wound her arms around Spike’s back, slipping gently on the cold leather of his coat but holding him dear.

“What did I do, Spike? Tell me and I’ll make it better. I promise.” Buffy had thought the tears were finished with, but as the request to be told what her actions had cost her fell from her lips, she felt them teasing again at the back of her throat and continue the flow through ducts to her eyes.

“You didn’ do anything, sweetness. Was just me bollocksing everything up an’ jumpin’ to conclusions. Never could add up right.”

The smile in his voice caused her to heave a great sigh and a hiccup, relief pouring from her in great crashing waves. The comedown from the emotional tidal wave was momentous, and Buffy could only be grateful that she was cocooned within Spike’s strong embrace.

“I’m sorry I jumped in to protect Angel from you. It was reflex, and really, he deserved a good smack in the jaw.”

In all the horror of knowing Angelus was once again on the prowl, Spike had completely forgotten all about the earlier incident that had left Giles minus a lot of plasma and laid out on his bed.

“Oh bugger,” expelled Spike, gathering up enough courage to extend his senses and search for his sire and grand-sire in their immediate proximity. For the moment all was safe, and he jerked his head, indicating for Buffy to come along with him as he took a step back toward Rupert’s flat.

“Got a bit of a situation, pet. We’ll talk about it when we get to the Watcher’s.”

Buffy threw him an inquiring look but hesitantly took his hand, her eyes seeking his to confirm it was the right move. The gentle and encouraging smile she received bolstered her courage and she slipped her fingers from his and wound her arm around his waist, standing a little aloof until he pulled her in flush against his side.

“So, we’re good now? ‘Cause I don’t want to fight like that again. It was scary.”

She didn’t look at him as she spoke, still a lot unsure of herself and where she stood, not understanding anything of what had just happened but postponing revelations on faith.

Spike stopped walking to hold her away from himself and catch her eyes in an intense avowal of truth. The words tripped over themselves on the tip of his tongue, the need to profess his love so strong it took a Herculean effort to hold them back. Those words had done nothing but inflame in his future, rob him of essence every time they were uttered and not reciprocated. And despite Buffy’s all clear with the naked Angel fiasco, there was nothing yet that provided him with a precipice to balance on.

He was going to put them out there anyway when he balked, came up hard against a wall of insecurity that almost had him gasping.

“Nothin’ I want more right now than to get whatever this thing is between us right out in the open. Got bigger problems though, luv. Need to get back to the Watcher’s and sort out a plan of action.”

Buffy watched his face, tight as he tried to conceal his feelings. That little flash of something that made her heart pump faster was there, though, reassuring and calming her in a way she was happy to accept for now, suddenly hesitant to push the words that would set everything on a new level.

She was content to wait for the future weeks, mend what she had broken in her misguided attempts at protection, and then launch a full offensive into the love ranks. Reassure Spike and herself that what they had—that was developing out of any control—was something real, something genuine that made Buffy feel positive about her future for the first time since the Master left her drowning in a pool of water. Something Angel had never succeeded in doing.

They resumed their pace, rather quicker than a casual walk, and before she knew it they had made it back to the door of Giles’s apartment. It was there the hesitation gripped Buffy again, the memory of Xander’s nearly incoherent explanation of Giles’s brush with death and her own cowardly dash from the facts.

“Is…is he okay?”

There was fear blatant in her question, a need to know but a want to run and hide away from whatever reality waited in regards to her Watcher behind this door.

Spike paused in his answer. Oh, he knew the Watcher would be okay, the amount of blood drained from his body on the right side of catastrophe, but the potential loss that loomed in their new future stole all speech for a moment. The gypsy teacher’s life stood in the balance, and now that Rupert was bordering on being Spike’s friend—or at the very least was accepting enough of him to offer simple courtesies like room and board—Spike was determined that the death toll for this little group was going to be nil. Angelus would have to find his fun elsewhere because Spike was here to save the day.

Tucking Buffy under his arm, he opened the door while giving her a comforting squeeze. Buffy took a slow step over the threshold, her eyes falling with an uncomfortable focus on the stairs leading to the loft housing Giles and his bed.

“He’s good. Was sitting up and threatening me before I went out earlier. Jus’ a bit weak is all.”

Buffy let the news of Giles’s condition filter into her brain then lost herself to the sensuality of Spike’s voice. To her avoidy brain, Buffy was all decided that the bad had passed for the night, everything was once again alright, and she could get on with the fun of discovering the world of pleasure with Spike.

Right after she went out and staked that conniving ho Drusilla.

Spike led her up the stairs on more steady legs. Girl Buffy was secure in her world again, Spike hanging off her side like all good boyfriends should. Not once did it occur to her once they had appeared at the side of Giles’s bed that the show of mushy togetherness would be a new event or even a surprise to anyone.

The quick glance at their clasped hands brought her insecure shyness out to play, and instead of confronting Giles with happy, caring eyes, she lowered her head and studied the carpet while she inquired about his state of health and comfort. Offered her apologies for leaving him alone with a psycho ho bag and asked if there was anything she could do.

“It’s fine, Buffy,” he answered, a slight hint of amusement in a tone that calmed the reactions of the room. Buffy relaxed and finally looked at her Watcher, gasping at the pale composure that met her gaze.

“Oh Giles,” she called out as she slumped onto the bed beside him, engulfing him in a strong hug.

“Buffy, breathing,” he choked out and then collapsed back against his fluffed up pillows when she let him go, a subtle cough reminding her of her own strength better than words probably could have.

“So, Spike said there was a bigger problem. Er, a big problem,” she quickly covered, not really wanting to get into what else there would have been a problem with.

Giles looked at the vampire with a mix of curiosity and concern. The fear was so palpable even Buffy could feel it and she wondered what it was that Giles had to fear from Spike.

“I-I thought you said that Buffy…that Buffy caused…” And then he stalled, either not wanting or unable to voice the dilemma that now faced them with the return of Angelus. Not wanting to believe the true cause for the monster’s return.

“Yeah, well…kinda got that part wrong.” Spike took a turn staring at the floor, this time in something akin to bashfulness.

Buffy alternated watching Giles and then Spike, becoming more confused as the silence reigned.

“So what was it that Spike got wrong?” The Slayer’s voice had hardened, way past ready to find out what the big mystery was that had firstly caused Spike to jump on her and almost break her heart over a misunderstanding, and secondly prompted the little meeting of severe, worried faces aimed at her.

“Come on. Enough with the evasive and tell poor little Buffy what you both seem to think she did.”

“We thought you had…slept with the poof.” Despite his desire to not drag attention back to the earlier bitter confrontation, he found the words torn from his mouth through bitter impulse. It was a compulsion driven by a need to punish her, make a Buffy pay for the monumental mistake of taking Peaches to bed.

While the hurt from this Buffy was yet to be set in reality—cast in concrete—the Buffy he had known for years had made him pay for her mistakes with the ponce continuously. Had judged him by a faulty, inaccurate yardstick for the entirety of their acquaintance. Old hurts were hard to let go of.

When he finally raised his eyes from the riveting swirl in Rupert’s carpet, he encountered the frigid composure of the woman he professed to love. Past indiscretion dictated the cause of Angel’s loss of soul the first go round for Spike; to consider another cause of his Grandsire’s resurgence was totally unexpected.

Small moments with Dru hit him, her intent search of something as she looked deep within him during those first moments he had returned to this time. Moments he had shortened as much as possible through both a desire to limit her exposure to him and thus prevent her gaining too much insight of where he had come from, but also because he was desperate to spend every spare moment establishing something with Buffy.

Obviously one of those short moments had been enough.

“She used thrall?” The sound of Giles’s calm voice streaking through Spike’s frantic search for an answer halted him fast.

Spike’s lost stare lifted from Buffy’s arctic return and focused on the weakened man in the bed.

“Yeah, Rupes. Think she did.”

“Would someone like to fill in idiot Buffy on what the what is here? Cause right now? Crazy talk! Incomprehensible to those missing the majority of a clue.”

The two men shared a considered look, setting Buffy immediately on a path of defense.

“You know what? I’ve had enough. I broke up with Angel days ago. I’m sorry I stopped Spike from hitting him, but I was all Uninformed Girl, and right now, all the crossed eyes and moody silences are upping the wig factor. What the hell would make you think I slept with Angel? We did this talk ages ago. Happiness means no soul Angel. I’m not stupid…hello, no happy giving Buffy. Remember?”

She was met with silence, nothing in their expressions to either confirm or deny that they had even heard her. It gave her important seconds to think, to try and fit the puzzle together in a way that made more sense than the cryptic comments she’d received so far.

The underlying point was that they thought she’d slept with Angel. That meant that they thought Angel had gotten happy. Which by definition meant he could lose his soul. Which meant…oh crap!

“Angelus. You think I slept with Angel because he’s lost his soul.”

Neither of the men stirred, her conclusion late to their already resolved and enlightened stance.

In this new light, Buffy went over everything that had happened since seeing Spike earlier and being crushed by his attitude toward her. I felt it. At the time it had made as much sense as a pimple on a first date with the captain of the football team. With Angel being some kind of vampire family equivalent to a grandparent, Buffy suddenly didn’t want to know what other kinds of things Spike could sense or feel about his ‘family’ members. Or what they could tell about Spike.

“So, you haven’t seen him. Just sensed him. How do you know for sure?”

Spike looked at her as if her ignorance was way beyond believable.

“Taught your girl well on vampire lore, mate,” he said as he cast a dirty look at Giles. “Vampires share blood, Slayer, an’ the experience is mystical. It’s like a security device—so we can always find each other. The buzz kinda went out of it when Granpappy got landed with a conscience like a real boy, but the las…er, I mean, I just felt him come back. The signal is strong with immediate family members.”

Buffy decided that at this minute, knowing there were two strong, evil vamps out there, she didn’t really care to alter her lack of ignorance much. Too bad she knew ignorance made you dead.

“Okay, so I need to know about him. What will he do?” Buffy hardened her heart to the fact that the vampire she had thought was her soulmate such a short time ago was now an evil, probably vengeful killing machine.

“He’ll likely come straight for you,” Spike told her, his tone implying there was no question that that was exactly what Angel…Angelus would do. “He’ll be mad as hell you made him feel any humanity. He won’t try to kill you straight away. Our boy likes to play with his food,” he continued the lecture, completely missing the flinches of the two humans.

Though the topic was already as serious as a heart attack, the next clue Spike offered was in an awful and sombre tone, chilling the circulating blood in both Giles’ and Buffy’s veins.

“You need to warn the teacher.” Spike exchanged a look with the Watcher, more implied secrets bombarding Buffy with resultant irritation.

“Why?” Buffy barged in stubbornly. “Why does Ms. Calendar need to be in the know?”

Spike turned hard, determined darkness on her, his irises eclipsed completely by the pupils.

“She needs to know ‘cause she is the key to returning the bloody wanker’s soul. If you want him back, that is. He’ll know, and he’ll go for ‘er.”

Giles turned to him, his darting eyes frantic with sudden realisation.

“He’ll go for her?”

Spike didn’t confirm again, or deny. His mouth was set in a determined line, plans formulating behind his half-closed eyelids.

“She’d better move in here.” There was nothing to argue, though Giles offered a stunned gasp. “Gypsy girl needs to be safe, needs to never be alone and never be out after dark. No hanging out in school rooms while she’s tryin’ to finish translating the curse.”

“But—” Giles began but was turned on by a furious Spike.

“No bloody buts, Rupert. She’ll move in even if you have to sleep on the kitchen floor. We’ll find room for the bint. ‘S not safe for her to stay on ‘er own.”

With that first decision made, the room fell silent; plans of action already underway against the threat of a monster.

Chapter 14

The two men sat lonely in the living room, Giles taking the sofa as it was the best place for him if his weakness dictated he rest.

Phone calls had been placed to warn Buffy’s friends to stay indoors and to Ms. Calendar, strongly suggesting she pack and move in with Rupert for a time. Spike had even managed a call to the realtor to hurry along his sale, only to find out that the owner was more than happy with his occupation if he paid rent until the sale had been properly settled. So, there was no more need for the Watcher to get his knickers twisted about the lack of room, and Spike’s own place could well be a useful refuge for any of the Scoobies should they need it.

That left them with too much time to fill in before Buffy’s return. Giles lounged back on some pillows but watching Spike intently, completely wordless, waiting for the first sign of a crack in the determined silence. Spike sat irritably clinging to his secret, not wanting to reveal what had happened to these people in their future in relation to himself, but knowing that the little visit from Anya had stirred up too many questions for a curious bugger like Giles to ignore.

Still, he tried for stubborn. Lips clamped and eyes aimed firmly at the floor as he struggled against the scorching feel of Watcher eyes burning his intent. Knowing Giles, Spike hadn’t bothered holding any hope that he could keep this under wraps. He even felt relieved that the burden of it wouldn’t remain solely his. Problem was, he didn’t want Buffy to know, and he was sure that once Rupert had the full thing of it, he wouldn’t sit by and let his Slayer become overly close with a vampire. Particularly a soulless one.

Priorities had shifted now. No longer was this about keeping Buffy from becoming Angelus’s salvation and allowing himself to apply for the role of everlasting soulmate. If nothing else progressed between them, he had at least prevented her from becoming emotionally stunted by having the wanker be her first experience of love.

No, the priority now was to keep them all alive. He’d been crippled and useless the first go round. This time he was not only fully capable, fully functional as far as the fight was concerned, he was also motivated by love and devotion.

Not all of it was for Buffy. This trip to his past had enabled him to see things that had never been open to him before. His relationship with Giles was unlike any other he had had in his entire existence. As a human, he had been a joke to all he’d come into contact with: a foppish fool who was incapable of even getting a woman to notice him. A romantic idiot succumbing to the promise of walking in a world that was glowing and glistening, and dare he bloody say it, he still wanted effulgent. He’d wanted it so bad, craved Dru’s promise, and in Buffy it had come true. Only took a hundred and twenty odd years, but his Slayer existed in a glow that would never leave his heart.

Even the tentative camaraderie he’d established with Harris made him all thick in the throat with tears at the possibility of loss. He’d established so much, changed so much, and he thought for the better. But one word to any of them of the past four years of his own existence—still yet to be experienced by these not yet battle-weary soldiers of war—and he’d be packed up with the garbage and shoved to the side where he wouldn’t be seen or heard of again.

Which in itself wasn’t really a good plan, what with a vengeful master vampire roaming the city bent on revenge. He was already feeling the loss of Buffy from his everyday harder and more painfully than he had when she had discarded him in favour of death. It was all so tempting to deny it, be the evil self-serving bloodsucker Harris had always accused him of being and lie.

All it took was the raising of his head. Shades of blue clashed with hazel as Spike felt pulled back to the almost tragedy of earlier tonight. The Watcher still looked worn and lethargic, and far too pale as he lay hard against the pillows. Fatigue etched deep lines around his mouth and eyes and it made Spike worry. He wasn’t used to these injuries. Either a victim was dead, or relegated to something more fulfilling than food. Never before had he really been left to worry about the survival of a victim. He was used to the injured being creatures that could heal supernaturally fast. This continued weakness bothered him and made him question whether he had done the wrong thing by keeping him out of the hospital.

But postponing the inevitable was futile when Giles had him pinned with determinate interest. No matter how much he wanted to run, to lie about what was really going on here, the game had changed with his failure to keep Angelus at bay. He had only one small hope left then. He could tell the tale, promise to leave Buffy alone as well as offer his help in taking Angelus down, but maybe Giles wouldn’t be so hard and bitter as to rush right on and blurt the whole story to Buffy in a pique of irritation.

Was he too hopeful? Probably, but he had nothing left but hope. Not like he’d really gained Buffy’s heart. Oh, he knew the intention was there, that she felt something solid and powerful, but no words had been spoken, on either side. For that he was grateful, so very thankful he’d controlled himself earlier in the night and not spilled his heart forth for Buffy to stomp on when she’d heard of his journey and trampled the black tissue into dust.

“How about we start with who that woman was?”

When the voice finally broke through the silence, it startled Spike to an uncharacteristic jumpiness. With a resigned sigh, he gave in.

“Her name is Anya. She’s a vengeance demon.”

Despite the dejected posture and the glassiness to Spike’s eyes, Giles shivered at the evil implications of having a demon whose job it was to wreak vengeance in the name of those wronged so firmly and without invitation inside his house.

Yet she had sat beside him on his bed, a sad look in her eye as she worried about his state of health. How could he fear evil in someone who so obviously cared for him? Giles looked again at Spike. How could he indeed? This vampire, morose and conflicted, had been a welcome guest in his home now for weeks. Despite having no defences against the vampire if Spike should have felt the urge to go for his throat, Giles had no feelings of distrust toward him at all. Rather, Spike had saved his life. In his tired mind, Giles couldn’t help but remunerate the turn with patience and consideration. His world had indeed become a peculiar place.

“What business did she have here? With you?” Giles asked quietly, almost wishing he didn’t have to and could just pretend this cog had not been thrown into the works.

He felt that reluctance to know even more keenly as Spike struggled, the vampire’s expression pained and defeated. But Spike finally parted his lips, poised on the edge of revealing the truth of a situation that would be too far-fetched for consideration by anyone that wasn’t a Scooby.

“I never meant to do it,” he started on a defeated whisper. “Should have known to keep my bloody mouth closed, but we were talking, right? Both had our hearts shattered, both commiseratin’ like a couple of fools, and the words just popped out. Regrets, you know? An’ as sorry as I am now that it’s all about to hit the fan, I wouldn’t take it back. That’s why she popped in, asked me to take it back, but I’m stayin’ put. Know you’ll have problems with that, Rupes. But I’ve made a decision and it’s not up for discussion.”

Having taken so long to decide on what to say, Spike found that the words poured from his heart like a valediction. It was over; he knew it. But he wouldn’t go down leaving an impression that he’d done it for all the wrong reasons, even if he initially did. His wish might have been potentially disastrous, which would be a mite more fitting than the pleasure he’d had in getting to know this fresh, unscarred Buffy, but he could still help. Could still redirect the train wreck into a siding rather than let it wipe out the town with its devastation.

“A, vengeance demon, wreaks their vengeance how exactly? Have you done something terrible to Buffy and the rest of us?”

Spike marvelled at the calm inquiry, wondering if a shoe was about to drop much closer to his head than he might have been happy with. A subtle sniff of the air revealed no build-up of fear, no panicked desire to have Spike leave the flat by the fastest route possible—the dusty one. And it did nothing but compound his confusion.

“A wish. I made a stupid wish, half way drunk.” He raised his eyes to see if the Watcher was buying it and clenched his jaw at the obvious show of incredulity. “Alright, so I was more than a dozen sheets to the bleeding gale, but thought I was still pretty sensible, but she just kept plying me with the booze and whining over the Whelp, and I opened my big gob and shoved my feet down my throat.”

Giles couldn’t prevent the raised eyebrow at the creative imagery as the story unravelled.

“Made a wish, stupid mish-mash of words, wished I could do it all over again, do it different, an’ next thing I know is I’m back in the school with my second chance. An’ Buffy looking like the Angel she is.”
He finished by letting his weary head fall into his cupped hands, elbows propped on his thighs.

“Sometimes I completely forget you are a vampire.”

Spike’s head whipped up and Giles sucked in a surprised breath at the flow of tears the vampire had obviously been trying to conceal.

“Oh, Spike. You think I am going to condemn you, don’t you?” Giles felt his own throat become slightly thicker with a lump of sorrow and sympathy, but he pushed it on, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery before Buffy came barrelling back in with Jenny trailing behind her.

“You wished to do things over. So, er, how far in the future were you?”

Spike considered the man inclining further and further into his makeshift bed on the sofa as each minute ticked by. “You sure you’re up to this? Not a pretty bedtime story, and the more timely events for you aren’t so happy.”

But Giles didn’t even need to make a shot in the dark. Puzzle pieces suddenly dropped into place like they did after staring at them for days and getting nowhere fast. The actions of Spike, and the clues he had dropped along the way…

“Something happened to Jenny in your reality, didn’t it?”

Spike’s eyes became deadly in their cold determination.

“My reality is right now, Watcher. Nothing is goin’ to happen to your ladylove while I’m around. As long as you’re both sensible, and get a bloody move on with workin’ out that curse, we’ll all be fine.”

Giles nodded, finding that he couldn’t really stomach the possibility of what he was positive Spike was implying through his neglect of report.

“You said you were commiserating with this Anya, that you both had broken hearts? I take it you weren’t so successful in trying to form a relationship with Buffy in the future?”

The sadness in Spike’s eyes eclipsed any comment Giles thought to make regarding the inappropriateness of a vampire/slayer relationship. His current attitude had been to allow the match, seeing the endless possibilities in the actions Spike had undertaken in order to ensure Buffy’s extended future. He’d done more than allow it. In his heart he’d formed a small cheering section, joined he was sure by Willow and Xander. The brunette adolescent even more a member since his observation of Spike racing to Giles’s rescue.

“Buffy was a broken girl in my future. Torn out of heaven; couldn’t trust her friends, and wouldn’t trust a neutered, soulless demon. No matter how much I loved her. Angelus ruined her heart, took all she had to give. An’ you,” he finished in accusation, and Giles flinched with the unexpectedness of the attack. Not only was he surprised by the tone, but the action he was being accused of was unpalatable, despite the conviction of truth in Spike’s voice.

One thing clawed at his subconscious, wheedling its way to the fore, and as it rounded the final bend, Giles gasped. His heart felt a pang of pain he had stupidly hoped to postpone for many years to come after the experiences the previous year with the Master. But it was out there, whether intentional or not, Spike had left a revelation that he couldn’t leave untouched.

“Heaven?”

Just one word, and by the way the tears resurfaced in the vampires expressive eyes, Giles felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Spike gave him a single nod.

“Oh Lord.” Giles fell back the final distance, no energy able to hold him up any longer…not now he knew his Slayer died again.

“When?” He couldn’t wait for the answer. “And how did she come back? Was it another drowning?”

But the misery that aged the young appearance of the peroxided misfit was enough of a clue to make Giles shudder in delayed reaction.

“In about three years. Hell god gets the better of us and she has to sacrifice herself to save the world.” Despite the overwhelming grief that had rounded suddenly back upon him, Spike couldn’t help but smile his pride. To him, Buffy would always be one hell of a woman, and he wanted her to have that chance to mature. Wanted her to have chances full-stop.

“An’ how is she brought back? You’re little red witch was all behind that. Bint’s gettin’ dangerous. But your teacher should be able to slow her down, teach her the ropes and get her proper instruction maybe.”

The gasp from Giles was like a bullet in the silence, cracking with its impact.

“So that is why you are so determined she move in. Was it Angelus?”

Spike sighed, wanting to kick his own arse for not watching his words better. It was what had gotten him in this predicament in the first place.

“Yeah, mate. He’s a right wanker and buggers up all sorts of…look, it’s not productive to rehash all this. Just take it from me that the future is not a bunch of roses and be done with it. I’ll move out tomorrow, an’ I’ll stay away as best I can, but I’m not goin’ back. Can save lives an’ hearts this time, an’ I don’t just mean mine. Not goin’ to desert you lot with something like Angelus in the wings, jus’ waitin’ for the opportunity to eat you all alive.”

“Indeed. No point in worrying unnecessarily. You’ve already sufficiently changed things I would assume?”

The bark of laughter lacked humour and set Giles’s teeth on edge.

“Oh, I’ll say. Buffy didn’t have her heart torn apart by that vindictive bastard. An’ with a bit of luck, she won’t be too distraught about the situation and be able to kill him if the opportunity presents.”

Giles looked confused. “I thought the aim was to have him resouled?”

The contours of Spike’s face sharpened as he worked his jaw, anger and frustration opposing the commonsense that allowed a speck of affection for his grandsire, as well as the acknowledgment that the great lumbering git had a destiny to fulfill—was needed for the safety of more than just puppies and Christmas.

“The so-called aim is to prevent the wanker from killing you all. If your gypsy girl can’t translate the curse soon, and even better get rid of the bleeding loophole, then we’ve got to be prepared. Las’ time round some pretty heavy actions were needed. Your bird left behind the curse,” Spike ignored the sharp intake of breath. “Left Red to do the mojo to put the soul back in our dashing hero, but it wasn’ good for her. Too much magic way too soon, an’ she’s payin’ the price for it now.”

“I think I don’t want to know much more. I’m feeling rather ill. But, I assume that in this other life, you and I are not…”

“Not close, you lot can’t stand the sight of me. Happy to have me in a fight, to help protect you all when Buffy is dead, but any other time you’d all rather stake me than give me the time of day.”

It was said in an almost wounding bluntness that made Giles feel immediately ashamed.

“And Buffy?”

“Slayer hates my guts though I love her till the end of the world. Would die for her, and probably will one day. Certainly been tortured to protect her enough times. But I won’t take advantage, if that’s what you’re worryin’ about.”

“Actually, no. I find myself not worrying at all. Spike, the Giles and Scoobies you speak of are very different people. I cannot judge you on something I have not experienced. All you have shown us has been kindness and protective concern. I think you are truly a marvel for your species, and I would wish to discuss this with you another time. Particularly the neutered image you mentioned earlier. When this situation is dealt with, you can tell me more in depth about events as you’ve already experienced.”

The relief had Spike sagging in his chair.

Just one more thing needed to be sorted, though, and he berated himself for lacking the courage to dive in and attack it head on. Evidently his struggle was obvious to his quiet observer and Giles broached the topic instead.

“I have no intention of telling Buffy any of this now. I won’t interfere in what you are doing. You are welcome to stay here, though I acknowledge with Jenny, it could get a little crowded.”

The men shared a smile of understanding, and Spike added a chuckle at the picture of Giles actually sharing his very masculine space with a woman. Spike sent a silent wish that the Watcher might even find the opportunity to fit in a quality shag in between his multiple cups of tea.

“Right, so no spilling the beans to Buffy. An’ if she still wants to see me?” Shyness crept into his face at the last, eyes dropping to study nails with tiny flecks of black nail polish stubbornly sticking to the outer cuticle.

“I shan’t interfere. I’m rather hoping I will be otherwise occupied.”

Cocky grins bounced off each other as they sat back and relaxed, waiting finally for the Slayer to come back with her charge.

~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Without doubt, this had turned into the freakiest night on Buffy record. What had started out as a normal patrol with Angel had quickly progressed into one of the worst nights of her life. And that was saying something when it had to stand up against being killed by the Master. But how could she expect anything less when her life consisted of two possible suitors of the vampire persuasion? How many other teenagers went to bed each night agonising over which vampire to keep as her boyfriend?

Before Spike, the choice had seemed simple enough. Except, well, there was no choice. But the rules were pretty straightforward. Angel had a soul, so he was a good guy, despite being a bad guy for the first half of his existence. There was that little thing about his only having a soul in the first place because he picked on the wrong gypsy tribe, but he was making up for it. Really, there was no question that Angel was the better choice, he was all souled and had been helping her save the world for a whole, well, year and a half. And before that? For the hundred years he’d already had his soul? Rats. Alleyways and rats and no to the world saveage.

Which is where the comparison to Spike not only became very deep and muddied, but also a whole lot of complicated. Because he was the outlaw, the troublemaker that bucked all the rules so all you could do was discard all your assumptions about life, about right and wrong, and start restructuring your beliefs from scratch.

Spike may have kissed his way into her life, winning her with massive sex appeal while cashing on teenage hormonal curiosity, but he was so much more than that. Buffy melted every time she recognised an emotion in his eyes, every time she was the recipient of one of those hot looks. Sure, there was an amazing attraction between them that she couldn’t ignore, even if she had tried to. But there was something more meaningful there, something that treated them both with care as it carried them along a path toward each other. Something that paved the way for him to enter her heart and change her life so radically.

Spike was an evil demon; there was no argument there. He had no soul, no apparent moral compass to keep him on the straight and narrow. No obvious one, at least from what Buffy could see. Yet he was there, fighting with her, fighting to protect her.

And without struggling to make a choice at all, she fell in love with him.

The revelation was the first time she took the risk of admitting it to herself. The first time she allowed herself to recognise that it was possible to feel that way for something she shouldn’t. What they had, this attraction, this burning need Buffy felt to be with him, seemed way too normal. Angel had taught her that love was all with the angst and the mystery and the abnormality with the bumpies.

But Spike wasn’t like that. Most of the time, Buffy forgot that he was even a vampire. He rarely suited up, even in the most vicious fights, and certainly not from kissing her. She figured he had a tighter reign on his demon—either that or it was weaker in him and that was why he was so different.

But the night was way high on her wigged out scale. And Spike had featured strongly in all events. Evil, hurtful, scary events that made her fearful that, despite not really having that hard a decision of whether to belong to Spike or Angel, she’d almost lost the very thing she was anxious not to.

Tears threatened as Buffy replayed the bitter words, the stark fury and rage that had exploded from Spike the second he’d caught up to her. Having already built herself up to a high of self-castigation for making the mistake of supporting Angel against him, his attacking words had flayed her and left her fearful, so very terrified that he was about to punish her for the blunder by denying her of his presence in her life.

But it had all been a misunderstanding, which was good for her, but way bad for everyone in the long run. But the main point right now was that Spike was still her
...was Spike her boyfriend? The thought made her smile, so she sure hoped so. There was so much yet that she hadn’t experienced with Spike, so much she wanted to be taught, so much she wanted to say to him…

But now Angelus was on the loose and for some reason that was completely a mystery to her, Giles was frantically following Spike’s advice. Acting almost like he’d done this scene before. Which so wasn’t possible. And yet, without question he’d assumed the role of leader. Admittedly he knew the foe firsthand, and Giles was weaker than a newborn kitten, but still. Wasn’t she the Slayer?

The pout was childish, but after the emotional rollercoaster she’d ridden the whole night, she felt she should be forgiven for it in the let down. Still, the thing between she and Spike was settled for now…except for the fact that the idiot actually thought she’d left Giles’s to go sleep the sleep of the lusty soul depriving with Angel. Funny how that scenario, once imagined with a regularity that was embarrassing, now made her feel slightly ill.

Buffy felt herself on the edge of an inner rant of gigantic proportions, but was unable to indulge it as she quickly closed in on her destination. The apartment building stood still and large, and mostly dark bar from the light spilling from one tiny window and the open door of a small cream VW bug. The trunk of the car also was propped open and Buffy could see a suitcase and computer equipment—the dead giveaway in her book that this was Ms. Calendar’s car. She’d made it and no Angelus in sight. She only hoped there was some wood around so she didn’t jinx herself. Looking around she became aware of the pointy piece sticking into her back, and smiled as she took it out and gave it a repeated bunt with her knuckles. Nobody could accuse Buffy of bringing hell to her heels with the jinxyness. Thanks to her trusty stake she was all jinx free!

The signs of hurried packing was another thing to add to Buffy’s weird night. Okay, so they were all unsafe now that Angelus was on the rampage, or at least that was what Spike was implying. Buffy found it hard to believe, what with the example of Spike and the previous possession of a soul, that Angel’s transformation to Angelus wouldn’t be as evil and filled with terror as one might have first expected. So, wasn’t it a little extreme for Spike to get all demandy about Ms. Calendar becoming Giles’s newest houseguest? And Giles with all the agreeing?

Buffy shrugged and then jumped almost right out of her skin when a hand rested firmly against her shoulder. Instinct drove her and before she knew it she’d shoved her teacher against her car with a hand squeezing her neck. As soon as the recognition filtered through her brain, Buffy let go abruptly. She took a large step back and rushed in with her apologies.

“I am soo sorry. I was thinking…and well, you startled me.”

Jenny Calendar rubbed her neck before allowing a nervous smile to touch her lips.

“Completely my fault, Buffy. I was taking my life into my own hands by walking up behind you.”

They both sighed and almost simultaneously turned to scan the darkness of the night. When her gaze returned to the car and the dark haired gypsy woman, she noticed the light in the building behind was no longer shining.

"Ready, then?" Buffy prompted and they both got in the car.

"Has Angel been inside anyone else's house besides Rupert's?"

Buffy took a moment to think abut her friends, already knowing that her own house wasn’t safe and suddenly grateful her mom had gone out of town on yet another gallery inspired purchase trip.

"Pretty sure he never made it into Xander's place, but I'm not sure about Willow's. And mine is a definite danger zone."

Jenny was nodding, already cataloguing the ingredients she would need to protect the other houses. She had enough in her satchel to disinvite Angelus from Rupert's house, but not for any others for what was left of the night.

The car pulled to a stop out the front of Willow's house and Buffy dragged Ms. Calendar along with her to retrieve her friend. She knocked on the door to Willow's room, glad not for the first time of the private access to her friend, and sighed from a pent up fear that she hadn't even realised she was feeling.

Explanations were swift, and only made marginally more sense to Buffy than they did Willow. While the danger was revealed, Willow went about packing a change of clothes and a toothbrush and then locked up behind her before following them back to the car. Buffy paused at the door, the hairs suddenly prickling at the back of her neck. She knew without a doubt that Angelus was here, and he was watching. Well, good! She was glad he knew they were on to him, although perhaps he didn't know that. And gah! Could things just slow down a little?

With a shiver of apprehension, she shooed the other two in the car and encouraged Jenny to put her foot to the floor and turn the car toward Giles'. She didn't know about anyone else, but exhaustion was making her limbs lethargic and she was more than keen to get home to bed. And if that bed consisted of a set of arms to hold her and keep her safe, then she was so gonna be the happy girl tonight

. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy heard the telltale voices of the two men as she approached the door. The watcher and the vampire. It was a strange combination, but get Xander in there and she would have all three of her favourite men in the same room. But when she’d left, Giles had been looking frail as Spike led him to the sofa. She'd never seen her Watcher weak, never seen him so close to death, and as her only parental figure that truly knew what she was, his near loss was frightening to her.

Willow and Ms. Calendar waited behind her—arms full with various bits of a computer—as Buffy shouldered her way indoors. The night had just dragged on forever and her muscles were burning with the need to rest. Gaining entry they came to a stop as Giles weakly attempted to struggle to his feet and both Spike and Ms. Calendar rushed to push him back.

Talk was minimal, Buffy participating in none of it as she used a mash of tired head jerking and pointed stares to tell Spike to move it and drive them home. Somewhere behind her haze of exhaustion, she heard Spike and Willow offer goodnights, and Buffy couldn’t help but snipe internally about how so far, it had been the night from hell.

During the slow blink of her eye, the trio found themselves outside in the barely darkened sky and standing in front of a classic hunk of junk. Buffy hadn't experienced a ride in Spike's monstrosity that he so lovingly passed off as a car, but she was so tired right now she would have been happy to be driven home in a streetsweeper.

It was testament to the night so far, that as soon as Spike turned on the engine some repulsive mix of what she so did not call music came blaring from the speakers. It woke her up like a bucket of icy water wouldn’t have.

“What the hell do you have against my eardrums?” she screeched.

The incensed look she had going on turned her face a becoming shade of pink—and Spike loved it. With the night they’d all had, he felt it important to focus on the love, the things about her that were special. As he clicked the tape deck off, cutting his favourite song criminally short, he felt an overpowering urge to show every living cell on her body how bloody much he thought she was special.

The trip was short but once the rusting pile of Detroit scrap iron clattered to a stop in the driveway, everyone clambered out and released tremendous sighs of relief. Door shut, Willow shown to Joyce’s room, Buffy left Spike wandering around looking at pictures in the living room while she went to the bathroom. A shower was doing more than singing to her—rather it sounded like that bad screaming crap Spike called music. So, with a groan of satisfaction Buffy felt the pulsing needles of hot water massage her skin till she was almost completely lulled to sleep. It wasn’t until the water sprayed her cold that she shivered and rushed to turn it off, climbing out and putting on her robe.

It hadn’t been discussed where Spike was going to sleep, and Buffy felt a little disappointed that he hadn’t followed her upstairs, even if she was thinking naughty thoughts that she couldn’t possibly indulge in. The fact that she had gone so far already was pushed to the back of her mind. The point was, he hadn’t followed her up. He was obviously planning on standing guard for the night, watching over and protecting her from a possible attack from Angelus.

With sleepiness edging back in and a feeling of dejected unattractiveness, she made it back to her room. As she turned and closed the door behind her, she was seized from behind and pushed up against the vertical surface. Not hard, but the body flush against her, holding her in place, was strong and steady. Determined to play.

“You naked under there, pet?”

Buffy shuddered at the hot tone, the cold tongue tracing a line up the side of her throat. She could feel his hands teasing the tie of her robe in the small space between her body and the door. His lips closed around the patch of skin his tongue had bathed, and he sucked. His teeth nipped and he sucked, the pressure growing until she could feel the sweet sting of pain as her blood was pulled to the surface.

She forgot language as his explorative fingers found the cooled skin of her belly, the tie falling away and the robe pushed slightly open. He rubbed his fingertips in a line up and down, from breastbone to pubis, blowing softly on the wet spot of her neck. Goosepimples tore to the surface and she felt herself shake under his touch. The desire to feel him, look at him was so strong, but he held her with determination against the door, having too much fun with the teasing.

Buffy felt the lust fairy perch on her shoulder and guided her. It told her that by pushing her ass into his crotch she would feel the slide of wetness as it escaped her pussylips, desperate for some kind of resolution. She rejoiced in his growl, began moving her body against his hand as he resumed the repetitive stroking, encouraging the boundaries to both go lower and higher.

A weeping cry tore from her throat as a finger brushed the swell of her breast and the softness of her curls. She braced her hands against the door, then began to rub her ass against his erection, tears coming to her eyes as his roughened fingertips finally scraped over her eager nipple, faintly swiped over her clit.

“Spike,” she whimpered and at last he turned her around and slammed her back into the wood pannelling, bruising her lips with a fierce kiss that drove her out of her mind. His lips fell open, the softness her undoing as she searched for his tongue, sucking it into her mouth like she’d hungered for it for years. His taste was like a drug, so bitter from cigarettes that settled into a strong burn from alcohol. Separately they would make Buffy want to puke, but together it was a magical mix that convinced her she was a goddess, on the planet to do nothing but drink from him.

He was panting when he pulled away, watching as the blankness faded from Buffy’s eyes and she was able to comprehend that she was standing essentially naked in front of him. A soulless vampire that she was falling over a cliff in love for. Though she wanted to be shy, protect herself from his sight and the possible rejection if she wasn’t quite what he wanted, she made herself be courageous and do nothing. Say nothing. Hide nothing.

That he could be repulsed by any part of her was discarded almost immediately as her whole body flushed from his hungry gaze. His look of wonder elicited a response of preparation. Her nipples hardened, she gushed with wanting him in places new. She sucked in her belly to push out her breasts further, almost frantic now for his touch, for his mouth to take her in places he hadn’t yet explored. Breath rushed from her lungs as his warm tongue circled a nipple before his mouth sucked it inside.

“Buffy,” he hissed against the tautness of her bulging nub. Thought chased themselves around his brain, fears surfacing even now in this moment of bliss. Spike was terrified it would still be snatched from him, this skin never his to possess, to love and worship for the rest of their days. Paranoid that no matter what he did, she could never love him, would never want to join her life with his.

He buried his face against her flesh, licking the nipple and suckling like a newborn as tears welled in his eyes. It was urgent—the need to say the words, set himself in her favour forever more. The uncertainty was sending him mad as surely as the continual denials and fists of his future Buffy had done.

And only one question could settle it all, let him know his place, let him hold success or failure in his grip. The tears were held tight as he took a breath and kept his eyes squeezed shut, kept his face against her breast.

“Buffy,” he tried again, his voice hoarse with his fear of repetition. “Tell me you’re my girl.”

Chapter 15

“Tell me you’re my girl?”

Movement stilled as she took in the high those words gave her. The rush you got from knowing you were so important to someone that they were terrified of losing you. He wanted her, was afraid enough of her rejecting him to be nervous about the reality of their relationship. If Buffy was reading Spike right, he sounded so dejected about the possibility of her answer being in the affirmative, that he had hung his head against her breast in easy acceptance. Despite that confusion, however, anticipation was a curled fist against the curve of her belly.

Her lips parted to joyfully proclaim the right of him, to forever bind him to her, when a sharp, shocking slow clap breached the lustful romantic haze enveloping her heart. Spike’s head shot up from her breast with a start, he turned and allowed narrowed eyes to locate the intruder.

Buffy gasped on seeing Angel, her hands quickly going to retie the knot at her waist and shutting off the view.

“Angel, what are you doing here?” She held apology in her voice in a way that questioned her view on events, that she wasn’t comfortable with the private goings on that had been enacted behind closed doors and curtains. The brunette vampire had breached her boundaries and instead of righteous fury, she acted like a girlfriend caught being caressed by another man.

It didn’t go far in changing Spike’s view of his position in her life.

The grating clap had continued until she had spoken, and on hearing the quiet searching tones compelled from her throat, his lips took on the magnitude of a sneer, his eyes sharpened from recent death and pain. They glittered with pleasure, malice circling in a swirl of black hidden behind the depth of his expression.

But Spike saw it, and for the first time wondered what—or who—this incarnation of his grandsire would destroy. He had changed the playing field, and for the first time in his adventure Spike felt nervous about his lack of knowledge of where this situation could end up.

“Get out,” he commanded, voice held smartly in check so as not to reveal the bitter rage that was boiling just below his earlier plea. She hadn’t answered him; hadn’t beat him to the curb and rearranged the lines of his face either. But still the ambiguity of an entreaty gone without response took up most of his attention. Despite the presence of dark evil draped around her window frame.

“Now, William, don’t be rude to your family.” The cold smile of a killer flashed at him briefly before turning once again to the blonde whose bedroom he breached. “Ah, my little Buffy. And here I am thinking you’re my girl.”

The touch of hurt, the kicked puppy look so well utilised by soul and demon alike did it. Fooled her into acting without care to her safety or belief in the truths of Angelus. Before Spike could do anything to prevent it, she had run across the room and enveloped the darker vamp in a commiserating hug.

“I’m so sorry, Angel. I didn’t want to hurt you, but we are broken up.”

She’d pulled a little away, her neck still in easy reach of Angelus’s descending fangs, and Spike finally found the will to move his feet. At the same time, Angelus spoke.

“Oh Buff,” he drawled as his hand stroked tenderly down her warm cheek. “That’s why it won’t hurt me when I do this.” And he backhanded the same cheek, sending her spinning into her cupboard hard. With a thump she hit resistance to her flight and crumpled to a pile of terry-towelling on the floor.

The room was silent, waiting to see if she would rise and what would be her condition. It really only counted off into seconds when she lifted her head, her gaze blurred a little from a combination of shock and dizziness, but the steely glint of fight was not yet there, causing Spike to curse from within. The hurt wasn’t quite devastating, but he should have known that—no matter what he had saved her from—Buffy would always find a sliver of heart for the clod in front of them that would dictate her movements away from quick decisive conclusions.

“Angel?” she delayed, her voice cracking even now the revelation was old.

“Not bloody Angel, you daft bint. I bleeding well told you the poof had left the building.” Spike’s tone rivalled his grandsire’s in the hauntingly cold derision that formed his words, irritation at both the interruption and the dogged belief of Buffy’s to not believe the truth about one she had supposedly loved. Loved still, from where Spike was standing.

“Not Angel,” he confirmed with an amused lilt, the brooding inflection completely absent from his tone. He spoke now with eager delight, with knowledge and freedom that had been repressed for over a hundred years. If Spike had been less than a vampire, he’d have shivered.

“So, William! You still trying to get someone to be your girl?”

The barb hit its mark hard, leaving Spike drained first of fight then of hope, succumbing finally to the cloud of futility he had suspected he would always have to carry.

“Hey,” shouted Buffy, but she remained ignored, the two vampires trying to establish rank against each other while standing in the middle of a girly bedroom—complete with frills.

“It’ll never happen, boy.” Angelus, as always, jabbed where he knew it would hurt most. “You’ll always be second best. Get there last. Lose the girl. You’re a loser, Will. But thanks for handing Dru over. She’s a very smart girl for getting Daddy back.”

His laugh inspired cold shivers down her spine and was the final incentive Buffy needed in order to put her stubborn schoolgirl memory of Angel aside and accept his evil alter ego was possibly everything Spike had warned her about.

Spike.

He stood with his head bowed, defeat hunching his shoulders in a way that a century of promising kisses and vows of love would be working uphill to shift. Buffy’s eyes were drawn to the dejected posture of the vamp she loved, the sense of devotion deepening in her heart every stolen moment she had with him. To see him apparently beaten, resigned to an existence without her reassurance tore at her like nothing else. More than almost losing her Watcher to death. Much more than losing her first crush to a soulless demon.

The security of his heart was all that mattered to her now. Fighting was for another day.

Buffy had already gained her feet, had searched out a stake from her dresser that had fallen unnoticed to the floor when she had taken a headlong dive into the structure. Her hand clenched around the comfort of the deadly stick of wood as she took one small step to the entity suspended in her window.

“Did you come here for a reason, Angelus?”

Both sets of vampire eyes focused on her change, the new acceptance of his rightful personality. Within moments she had found a hard resolve that banished the weak schoolgirl and left evil nothing to recognise but the promise of the Slayer.

“Of course, darling. I came to play. Imagine my surprise to not only find you allowing my worthless childe to feel you up, but that you’ve been warned already of my return. Ruined all my fun.”

Buffy could feel the skin over her lips tighten at his pout, the urge to do damage surging through her veins like an express train crashing through fire. The livid snarl she felt more than heard from directly behind her confused her senses for only a moment, her inner Slayer being able to distinguish almost instantaneously the one she needed to protect and claim.

“Get out of here. You’ve no business with her, and I wouldn’t let you hurt her even if you had the right. No marks; you didn’t take her in any way. Guess you’re shit out of luck there, Ponce!”

Buffy could feel the tense coiling of muscles in the predator behind her, her back to a monster that could never do her harm, and she felt safer than she ever had with him by her side. He wanted to strike at the threat, push it to a crashing fall out of the window and from the roof.

Deep down she wanted to let him, but the niggling thought that this wasn’t time for a fight kept hitting at her till she took note and reeled in her impulse to violence. But the enemy was in her room and the biggest goal right now was to get him right the hell out. Having him curled around her window frame, smirking and making her skin crawl with every leery look and slur aimed toward Spike, was pretty decent motivation to remove him. As he threw even more not quite so subtle barbs at Spike, her dander was finally up to full throttle and she let the anger spill forth.

“You know what?” Buffy almost shouted, gaining the attention of both sets of demon eyes. Angelus looked confused by the unscheduled derailment, but had not time to think of the point because Buffy was determined to make sure everyone was safe. At this moment, it meant saving herself and Spike. “You interrupted one of those really important moments, and in the process you took ten minutes of my life that I won’t ever get back.”

His cocked eyebrow and amused smirk had her inner eye flash with fire-engine red, her fury pumping the power through her body like no other emotion was capable.

“But the thing that really bugs me?” The pause had him leaning forward slightly, waiting on the wisp of a girl with the power to dust him to smithereens. “You have really stupid hair.”

At his indignant gasp, Buffy raised her foot and planted it squarely in Angelus’s chest, the force of the kick sending him whizzing through the open air until he was pulled up short by the neighbour’s tree. Buffy’s euphoric smile—inspired by the resounding smack of his head against the bark and the handful of leaves that lodged in his perfectly styled hair—slipped into a disappointed pout that he didn’t hit any protruding branches and put them simply out of their misery. She could hear Angelus’s grunt from across the street and as he turned to glare at her and intimidate her with the flash of his fangs, she pointedly looked at the lightening sky and tapped with purpose at her bare wrist, indicating the ticking of time. With another growl—resigned to having to return to the torment another day—he left in a swish of coat and faded quickly into the disappearing night.

After one last look, Buffy swivelled on her heel to face Spike, feeling no sense of repulsion as he showed her the reality of his face. She did the one and only thing she would have been able to. She strutted toward him, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his lips to within a hairsbreadth from her own.

“I’m yours, Spike. Soon, I will be completely yours. But for now? Definitely your girl.”

And she kissed him, soft lips brushing against surprisingly soft demon ones, not even an inkling of fear.

Absolutely was she his girl. One swift kick in the shin wrought the required ouch for it to end. “And stop with the stupid questions,” she pouted, and squealed when he latched on and made that lip his own.

Spike was in Buffy’s room, with permission this time around, with her hands seeking out his goodly secrets. All he could do was smile at something that seemed the key to his change in circumstance. It was all changed forever now, irrevocably altered and this time—for the first time ever—it was in his favour.

Buffy was his girl.



~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Willow was curled up within the bed coverings, a stake held tightly in her fist. She had shot to alert when a scratching on the outside of her window made her teeth vibrate against her jaw. Only once had she let her eyes fall upon the inky darkness greeting the other side of the glass, and she gasped in elevated fear as the pale leering smile of Angel peered in at her. He waved with his fingers, obviously looked over her shaking form as she trembled against the sheets, and then left.

His disappearance didn’t sooth her nerves, though it gave her enough presence of mind to climb from the bed and gain her shoes—in case she would have to run for her life. With her back against the door, she soon became aware of sound across the hall. A loud bang and the clattering of smaller objects to the floor queued her in to the possibility that the newly soulless vamp hadn’t gotten his kicks from frightening her and then just moved on.

The hairs on the back of her neck fought to leave her skin as she heard the deep voice in the other room while it taunted and decimated her friends. It wasn’t the first time Willow had thought of Spike as her friend, but it was a new feeling to find faith in his efforts of protection. In his deep desire to keep them all safe.

She could almost feel his pain across another room and hall, knowing that the vampire had some serious issues in regards to his confidence and choices in love. Resigned to not sleeping for the rest of the night—not that much blackness still clung to the air—Willow sank to the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest, and kept one ear out for the signs that would indicate the Slayer hadn’t been diligent.

Willow was quickly finding her breathing to be on a rapid incline to hyperventilation, little bubbling screams pushing at her throat and backed by her very healthy lungs. Each nasty taunt by the vampire they had all trusted for so long brought miserable tears to her eyes. The shaking wouldn’t stop, and her rump was getting both cold and sore with her cowering on the floor.

Finally she heard Buffy fight back with some very obscure insults of her own, and the thud of what could only be a powerful blow to someone. The fact that no impact rocked the house implied that someone had just been fiercely and abruptly ejected from the building. Low murmuring of a soft voice clued her in to Angel gone byeage, and she hesitantly pushed her way to her feet.

When the silence seemed more comfortable rather than terrifying, Willow flung open her door and dived headlong across the hall. Turning the knob to Buffy’s door seemed no contest as she found herself within the room, almost falling at the super-couples feet in the sweetest of relief.

“Oh Buffy,” she breathed through her fear derived tears. “He just stared at me…through the window…” she sobbed, her face buried in the shoulder of her friend.

Buffy and Spike shared a look above the redhead, one meant to be answering questions and offering their own form of comfort. However, Spike saw little but history repeating, and possibly forcing those he cared about to brook an even more destructive path.

It was all akin to a typical Spike plan. Try as he might, they never bloody worked. Never made it to the happy conclusion he was going for. Sure, he was good at deviating from the path if the outline was all wonky—if he managed to see it in time—but the potential for disaster that he always optimistically avoided, seemed always to catch him by the chin.

But this time, it was different. His other plans had been motivated by evil. Had been designed to take down the Slayer and reward himself with glorious benefits. Looking back now, he could see his heart had never really been in it; had in fact been more of a try to be as evil and deserving for his dark princess as he could. This time, he needed things to be changed. Needed to prevent Buffy from the emotional pain that blocked off her heart. Needed to prevent the hurt that would taint this group of people—his family—from accepting him.

This time, he couldn’t fail.

And yet, it seemed like he was. Keeping Buffy away from his poofy sire hadn’t been enough. He’d covered many bases—and lets not forget he was thinking on the fly, thank you muchly—but the odds were stacked against him when he had no warning of his sudden trip back through time. The reality of a more open Buffy, a new shot at having her love him…was it any wonder he had forgotten to watch himself around Dru?

And he was paying for it now. The bone deep fear he held that, no matter what he did, or who he stopped, something big was going to go down now Angelus was on the loose, and Spike was going to lose it all yet again. After being so close. After holding it all in his hands and seeing the spark of love for him in her eyes. Angelus was going to take it all away from him, because that was inevitably what Angelus was all about.

The spread of heat from Buffy’s words, her lips sharing a declaration he thought impossible to ever hear or experience, was too short lived as Red came barrelling through the door. Her obviously distraught state might have taken away his opportunity to bask in Buffy’s gift, but it also put him on alert and reminded him how serious life for them all now was.

“Right, tomorrow the teacher needs to put a disinvite on the house. Don’t want anymore bloody surprises like that one. Has Peaches been in your place before, Red? If so, disinvite there, too. Bloody hell, disinvites all round I say. Get the bugger right out of all our hair.”

The thought of hair brought a smile to his lips, distracting him momentarily from the seriousness of the night.

“Bloody brilliant comeback there, pet. Ponce never could get that his hair would stand up just as well without half the gel he uses.”

Willow raised a hesitant hand. “A-a-actually, I think he uses mouse.”

Buffy and Spike both frowned at her but she shrugged them off. “He asked me to buy some for him once.”

Girly giggles greeted Spike’s irritated eye roll. “So the big brooding git uses mouse. Who bloody cares?” In the next second he could have cursed himself as the haunted look chased away the playfulness in her eyes, and the redhead collapsed again.

He sighed, irritated at his brevity, but knowing that the mood, once lost in these circumstances, could not be adequately retrieved. No matter how hard he might want it to.

“You lot get some shuteye. Keep the door open, jus’ incase. I’ll kip downstairs after it gets fully light and we know he can’t get back in. Shouldn’t be long now.”

He gave Buffy a quick kiss on the cheek, whispering his ‘thank you’ in her ear, turned and made his way out of the room. A hand on his stopped him and he was directed to lie beside her on the bed, no argument rising in his head as to why it would be better to leave her.

In silence, the two girls lay on the bed, arms entwined for comfort’s sake, and drifted toward a restless sleep, Spike falling fast behind them.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Giles could do nothing but watch as Jenny went about the business of keeping a formally welcome vampire from being an unwanted guest and killing them in their sleep. The night had already been long, and with his added weakness from being almost drained, he felt quite unable to even stay sitting up against his pillows while she finished the incantation that would keep Angelus on the outside.

“It’s just bloody marvelous what magic can achieve,” he beat out tiredly, almost succumbing to the now complete lack of strength in his body. He perked up a little at her indulgent smile, but quickly screwed up his nose when she swapped her handful of mini crosses for a glass of juice and the first of many iron tablets. He took the offering without word, however, not wanting to insult her when she made the most beautiful nurse he had ever seen.

The bitter mouthful of juice revived him somewhat and he was able to take small notice of the wrinkle of fear around her eyes and mouth, and couldn’t help but shudder around his suspected knowledge from Spike. The words were not spoken, but the implications of devastation to his world were intense.

“It is imperative that we neutralise this threat of Angelus. We cannot have him and his consort loose on the streets of Sunnydale. Together they are too dangerous for even Buffy to take on, though the presence of Spike is a welcome support…” He stopped abruptly as she placed a finger over his lips and rewarded him with a tentative smile.

“I brought all my files so that I can work on the curse. Given just a little bit of time, I’m sure I can translate it and make him Angel again…” She stopped at Giles’s snort of impatience.

“I am not so certain that it is worth your effort.”

“He is not…”

Jenny jumped to her feet as the voice at the now open door flooded her with dormant feelings of responsibility and loyalty. Giles was still too weak to do more than struggle to a seated position, his brows crossed as he sorted out the effect of the rude intrusion and entry to his home and the strange subservient position of Jenny.

“Who are you? And how dare you break into my home.” His voice offered flinty reminders to the presence of his alter ego, and he inwardly cursed his lack of blood that kept him to the fringes of what could be a dangerous fight for their lives.

Until he saw Jenny drift forward and offer a warm but apologetic hug to the man that had not come more than a step into the flat.

“The Elder woman has felt it. The signs were too sudden, but she has felt the curse be lifted. How could you let this happen?”

Jenny backed up a step. “This could not have been predicted. I don’t even know how it happened. But I can get the soul back, place it inside him again so that he will continue to burn. I just need some time…”

“Time? Time for someone else’s cherished daughter to fall at his feet?”

Her head fell, defeat stamped into every part of her that could establish feeling. Face drawn, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast…she was the picture of failure.

Until one memory sparked her to fight, to offer her beliefs and struggle for their implementation once again.

“I promise you. Angel still suffers. And he makes amends for his
evil. He even saved my life. The right thing to do is to return his soul.” Her voice was strong, determined in her ability to both renew her vow to her clan, and make Angel what he was.

“So you just forget that he destroyed the most beloved daughter
of your tribe?! That he killed every man, woman and child that touched
her life?! Vengeance demands that his pain be eternal as ours is! How could you let him experience a moment’s happiness? He must be stopped.”

“Then returning the curse would appear to suit us all, then, doesn’t it! You get your continued bloody vengeance and we get a warrior for good. Now, on your bike.” Giles had stumbled to his feet, hand gone white from the grip on the sofa back he held to keep himself upright.

His words had no impact and he watched as Jenny seemed lost in a world he had no knowledge of but which consisted of deep loyalty to a group that had condemned the world to the eventual release of a monster. They may have prettied him up with a shiny soul, but providing a get out of jail card pressed beyond the boundaries of responsible tactics.

“I'm sorry. I thought...” Jenny shook her head slowly, gently as the gravity of her place drifted to encompass her.

“You thought what?! You thought you are Jenny Calendar now?! You
are still Janna, of the Kalderash people! A Gypsy.”

“I know... Uncle. I know.”

“I think you do not know. You’re watching failed. You were unable to prevent the monster’s return though it was your job. Now I find you here, alone with a man.”

“But he is ill; he was attacked…”

“Enough.” The raised hand before her halted her justifications and her head bowed once again, offering her subservience in the face of clan disappointment. “You are finished here, Janna,” he offered, his voice shades warmer than before, favour making a showing where before he was fierce. “You must gather your things and return with me at once.”

Her dark eyes flashed at him, projecting her dislike of the order as she battled with her inherent upbringing to obey. The deep clearing of his throat finally drew attention and Giles smiled warmly at her before turning a frosty glare at her uncle.

“Ms. Calendar will not be going anywhere.” His voice was hard and belied any of the weakness suffered by his body. “She is our only hope of reinstating the cursed soul. I believe it is her desire to both return Angel to us as well as help fight Angelus—to prevent some of the bloodshed that will be inevitable should she leave as you suggest. We would be left without a suitable weapon to counteract the situation. It is not any of our fault that Angelus has returned. This could not have been predicted, as your elder woman has already pointed out to you.”

The fury that bloomed on the darker faced man could not be missed as he turned sharply to his niece.

“Is this what you want, Janna?”

Giles could see the shake of her hand as she raised it to brush away invisible strands of hair from her face.

“I think it is what I must do, Uncle. I owe it to our tribe to stop him hurting more, for taking away loved ones from other families.” Her voice held a heavy plea for permission, for understanding that Giles could already see would remain absent from the one she called family.

“You owe these others nothing. The evil one is no longer your concern. Remove yourself from this place and we shall return home at once.”

The shake intensified as she prepared to do battle for her beliefs, allowing her spine to straighten and raising her eyes to relay the seriousness of her words.

“I cannot leave, Uncle. I will stay and translate the curse.”

“Then I cast you out,” was his furious rejoinder, at once rendering her null and void of blood. “See how the muló will like your taste now. It will be bitter with the taste of the unclean.”

“Oh, now that’s a bit harsh…”

“Rupert, please, no,” whispered Jenny through a throat choking on her own tears.

“I accept marimé, but will continue to undertake my duty.” Her voice shuddered around the words as strands of hair became caught in her rapidly moistened cheeks, face pale yet accepting of the punishment.

“You are not one of us; you have no duty to perform. Align yourself with these others you are so fond of and hope the beast does not hunger for your blood too badly. Farewell…Jenny Calendar.”

He was gone as suddenly as he appeared, and as Giles shook his head in bewilderment over the events that had barely just taken place, he used his last remaining burst of energy to catch his dark angel of mercy as she crumbled with grief to the floor.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Angelus hobbled back to his apartment just in time to turn his back to the subtle kiss of the morning. Dru waited for him, hanging limply from chains he had hastily erected high above his bed. Her body bled onto the innocent sheets and he felt wonderful about the prospect of revelling in someone’s agony before he claimed rest.

Bruised eyelids parted as he came closer to her figure, completely naked and marked with red and black and purple. He’d done quite a job on his dark childe, reclaiming every part of her body that she had given over to their progeny in his absence.

The way she had tricked him, admittedly to return her favoured Daddy to her, had reeked of manipulation and initiative that he hadn’t wanted bred into his women. William had done that to her, had let her think she was able to take command and call certain shots. He was grateful to her—make no mistake about it—but to let her go unpunished just wasn’t in Angelus’s nature.

His nature was of the most wicked, the most evil, and it was a nature that had captured his childe from the second of her rising. He had no Darla to enjoy anymore, no William to take out his ready frustrations on—yet! For now, his most beautiful Dru was his plaything, and playing with her was very nice and satisfying beyond his wildest dreams. Admittedly, he’d been held by a leash for so long that tripping an old lady struggling across the street would do it for him, but he had several steps above that in a tethered Dru to his stone wall, dangling above his virgin sheets.

Unable to stand the delicious promise of her canvas any longer, he stripped bare and located his toys lying unencumbered on the bed, right beside Dru’s thigh.

“Daddy, I’ve been so good,” she murmured through broken lips, and his smile blossomed into one that was thoroughly pleased with his childe’s behaviour.

“That you have, Dru. Now we’ll make sure you’re even better. Shall I?” he asked while holding up a wicked looking knife, the blade sharpened enough to slice hairs, carve intricate messages in cheese.

He swirled the tip around her nipple, delighting in her whimper as blood dripped over the swell of her breast. He quickly captured the flow with his tongue, using his now protruding fangs to add new slices along with the knife. His other hand remained annoyingly free, so as to not render himself bored, he wrapped a fist around his cock and squeezed, moaning around the suction he had on her nipple.

“You’ve been so bad, Dru. Being good now doesn’t take away the fact that you made me think I was fucking the Slayer.”

Her tortured cry was music to his ears as he dribbled holy water down her abdomen. It flowed to her pussy, burning at the hairs and causing a steam to rise and envelop him in the stench of burning flesh. Quickly donning on a thin silicone glove, he fiercely shoved his fingers into her hole, bypassing his own pain by protecting himself against the liquid of purity.

He jerked his fingers and twisted while biting her breast, leaving torn fang impressions in her milky white skin.

“Not good enough, babe. Daddy wants his precious to scream.”

He grabbed the whip and swung with a passion that cut deep grooves, rejoicing in the memory of damage and hate, and evil. He laughed as she opened her mouth to scream, happiness flooding him and imbuing him with a power he hadn’t ever known as he shoved his cock deep down her throat. Her choking meant nothing as he pumped his length against her tongue, holding a fistful of hair as he rocked her back and forth.

Her silent screams caused a pulse against the thick cord of his cock. It was excruciating; it was bliss. As he blew with violence down her throat, he grinned with pure malice and collapsed spent back on the bed. He rested for several minutes, reminding himself how lucky he was that she determined to be bad this one time.

“Tell you what, baby. I’m gonna forgive this transgression, and let you go. You can spend the day showing Daddy how glad you are I’m back, and tonight we can find a new hideout. Little Scoobies should be too busy scrabbling for today, and I’m betting they’d rather try to replace my soul rather than dust me, so for now we should be safe.”

He climbed up Dru’s battered and abused body to release the catch on the chains. She flopped forward and he caught her before tossing her roughly to the sheets. He stretched as he lay down beside her, staring at the ceiling where the ring for the chains now stuck out, and waited for her to start moving over his body with her hands and tongue. His hands were crossed behind his head as delicious thoughts of killing those who had thought him caught flashed behind his eyes.

“Show me how good it is to be home.”

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