Chapter 4
Angelus rolled his eyes impatiently as he let his huge form flop down onto the bed. He didn’t understand how his grandchilde had put up with Drusilla’s constant presence for over a century. Even in her most lucid moments, she was hard to tolerate unless he was pounding her into the mattress.
In the past he had always been able to turn to Darla when Dru’s insane ramblings became too much for him. He would thrust Dru into the waiting arms of her timid poet to handle and crawl into the bed of his sire to romp away the daylight hours. He’d be damned if he’d let Spike look after Dru now though, not when he knew the pain that seeing him claim Dru back as his own would cause.
Another loud moan from the corner of the room broke Angelus’ inner monologue and he turned irritated brown eyes on the huddled form of Drusilla. She had pressed herself as far as she could into the corner of the room, shaking and sobbing and just about driving him out of his mind with irritation.
“Little sister has terrible confusion. Such terrible confusion! She follows the sunshine when she should follow the moon.” Dru flinched violently as her hands flew to claw at her hair and she doubled over to lie along the ground. “Ooh! She is covered in light, covered in it! She is glowing…effulgent! Mummy’s little sister is wrong, all wrong. I can’t abide by it! The pixies are mad at what we have done, my Angel. ‘No tea and cakes tonight. You have been a bad girl….a bad girl’ they tell me.”
Angelus growled violently as he watched Dru rolling around on the floor. Swiftly pulling himself to his feet he walked over to her and picked the sobbing vampire up by her hair and delivered a backhanded slap across her face that sent her flying to the floor.
“I am sick to death of your ramblings, woman! I don’t care about the pixies and the sunshine. I don’t care about anything except getting that insolent childe back and making her scream until she can’t help but beg for mercy!” Dru whimpered from her place against the wall but didn’t say anything else. He didn’t know—didn’t understand—and his unwillingness to listen would be his downfall.
***
“No.” Giles took a deep breath and tried in rein in his frustrations at his adamant Slayer. It was just the two of them in his apartment, while the rest of the Scoobies were at school and Joyce was out making some last minute preparations to ready her home for the arrival of her house guests who would be staying with her for the next week or more.
Giles closed his eyes briefly to refocus and forced himself to take the calm and factual approach to try and make Buffy listen to what he was saying.
“Buffy, I understand your reluctance. However, if you wish to learn anything about the powers you now possess then tests are going to be necessary. To my knowledge, nothing like this has ever occurred in Slayer history. I have nothing to go by, nothing to tell you. Everything that we find out is new.” He could tell by the determined set of her chin that he was getting nowhere with her.
“What, no vamp has ever tried to turn a Slayer before?” His nerves grated at the sarcastic tone of her voice.
“Of course they have! However, this has never been the outcome!” Buffy shot up out of her seat so she was standing toe to toe with him.
“You just said that you don’t know that for sure!” He gritted his teeth tightly and clenched his fists at her stubbornness. What on earth did she think he was going to try and do to her?
“What do you want me to do? Ring the council? Then what? They will send a team out here to either dispose of you as a possible threat or take you back to England to be studied like some bloody experiment!” She deflated slightly under his gaze and he realised this was going to be the only chance he got to convince her. He took a deep breath and continued in a softer tone. “Buffy, I am not going to do anything to purposely endanger you. I merely want to see if you can touch holy objects, or whether you are vulnerable to sunlight. I would never willingly try to hurt you, but we need to know your limits if we are to take Angelus down.”
Giles frowned slightly when he saw a single solitary tear fall from Buffy’s eyes and make its way down her cheek and past the fading bruises. Reaching out hesitantly, he touched her arm and pulled her to him, relieved when she collapsed into his embrace.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was muffled against the tweed of his jacket but he smiled slightly none-the-less.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I know what you’re going through must be difficult, but we’re your friends—your family—and you can trust us not to hurt you.” Buffy nodded meekly against his chest before pulling back.
“I know that. I do. It’s just…” She turned her head away from Giles’ expectant look. “What if I can’t go into the sunlight anymore? What if I can’t leave the house during the day to be with my friends? I’m only 17; I don’t want to spend my life alone in the shadows.”
Buffy let herself be pulled over to the couch and sat down by her Watcher. “That’s why we should do these tests, Buffy. For all we know the sun may have no effect on you…and, if it does we will deal. You’ll never be alone.”
“What happens when I live forever and you guys are all dead?” Giles’ placed a comforting hand on her knee and offered her a small smile.
“We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. Let’s just take things one step at a time.”
***
Xander Harris liked to think that he had seen a lot in the time he had known Buffy as a friend—vampires, werewolves, witches. Hell, most of the things he had been told were hiding in his closet or under the bed were real and living in Sunnydale. None of that, however, could have prepared him for the sight of Buffy standing in Giles’ courtyard that afternoon as he, Cordelia, Willow, and Oz made their way down to the Watcher’s apartment.
Her arms were spread wide as she twirled about in the light. She had a blissfully happy look on her face, one that he had never seen her wear before. That wasn’t what stopped him in his tracks though. He barely even moved an inch as his girlfriend crashed into him from behind.
“God, Xander, why don’t you--” Cordy’s sentence was cut off abruptly as her gaze followed his and landed on Buffy.
“Holy shit!” Xander quickly sent a knowing glance back to the werewolf before returning his focus to his best friend. He vaguely heard Willow gasp behind him and her mutter of ‘oh goodness’.
“Is she?”
“Uh-huh.” Xander turned his eyes on an extremely happy and oddly proud looking Giles as he watched his Slayer laugh and twirl about in the sun. “G-man, you do realize that she is glowing, don’t you? And I do mean in the literal sense.”
Both Slayer and Watcher turned to look at the frozen group standing on the steps. Buffy laughed happily and bounded over to them.
“Guys, check me out. I am officially 100% vitamin D receptive.” Xander gave her a nervous laugh as he made his way down the rest of the steps. The others close on his heels.
“You’re also kind of glowing,” Oz noted as he took his stunned girlfriend’s hand and led her down the rest of the steps.
“Yeah, why exactly is that?” Buffy shrugged at Xander’s question and danced backwards into the light again. “Giles?”
“I can only assume that it has something to do with the demon in her now. I can’t say I have ever seen or heard of anything quite like this. There was no mention in any of the texts of the demon used to create the first slayer glowing in direct light.”
“You gotta admit it’s pretty darn cool though.” Willow tore her eyes away from Buffy to smile at her boyfriend.
“Darn tootin’. She looks like some kind of angel,” Willow said, finally coming out of her daze. “I guess this means school’s a no go?”
“What?” Giles asked, turning towards the young red head “Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, perhaps we should get a move on, we need to make sure we can make it to Buffy’s house before dark, and we still need to perform the disinvite spells.”
***
Spike had to wait once more until Angelus was occupied before he could take his leave. His elder had arisen even more petulant than he had been upon Spike’s return the night before, and he could only assume it had something to do with the wails he had heard the last few hours before sundown, coming from the room Angelus and Dru shared.
The poncy bugger still had no idea how to calm his childe when she was in one of her moods. He never had. Only this time Angelus’ pride prevented him from blowing her off for Spike to deal with, which suited Spike just fine. Let the poof suffer.
***
Spike quickly slipped through the streets of Sunnydale heading first to the Watcher’s house, making sure he kept to the shadows. He could sense Angelus’ minions still out hunting the Slayer. Few had dared to come back empty-handed the night before, and those who did had been dusted as promised.
He chuckled slightly as he let his mind wandered back to the Slayer. What would happen when Angelus found out she wasn’t a vampire and that he had no claim to her as her sire? Spike’s own curiosity had been more than piqued as to what exactly the young blonde was. He had heard no heart beat coming from her the night before, but unfortunately that led him to no answers as to what demon she might be. He knew of only a few species, vampires included, that had no pulse. Unfortunately she fit the description of none of them.
He made a quick scout of the Watcher’s place, and upon finding it empty, he headed off once again in the direction of the Slayer’s home. Spike could smell the lingering mixture of vanilla and spices that told him the Slayer had been there only a few hours earlier, and he found himself unconsciously licking his lips as he made his way out of the apartment complex and towards Revello Drive.
***
Spike made his way around to the back of the Summers’ residence upon his arrival, knocking on the back door. He smiled as he heard all movement inside the house stop as the occupants attempted to identify just who it was. He smirked as he saw the Slayer appear at the back door and open it to him.
“Evenin’, pet.” Buffy arched an eyebrow at him and opened the door further.
“Come in, Spike.” He was about to accept her invitation and take a step through the doorway when suddenly several things happened simultaneously: One of Angelus’ minions jumped out at them from nowhere; Buffy morphed into that which was her demon nature; and Spike felt something carnal snap loose within him as he let out a deep growl.
His own features morphed involuntarily and he stumbled backwards slightly from the sudden sensory overload in the presence of Buffy’s demon. He watched through glazed eyes as she dusted the minion effortlessly and turned to look at him. Both were panting heavily despite their lack of need for the air that entered their lungs. Spike stared at her through hungry amber eyes as he took in the sight of her.
Spike thought that Buffy was beautiful in her transformation, and he felt all sense of control leave him as he slammed her roughly up against the side of the house, his mouth descending upon hers with a ferocious desperation that was born solely from his demon’s need to possess her.
The two were a mass of whimpers and small snarls of pleasure as they seemed to devour one another in desperation, unable to shake the features of their demons in their sudden fervent lust. Buffy’s arms wove their way around Spike’s neck as he pushed her more forcefully into the side of the house and the front of his body melded against hers.
“Sweet merciful Zeus!” The two tore apart from one another to look at the boy standing in the doorway with wide eyes as he took in the scene before him. Their demon features melted away and horror suddenly dawned over them as they pushed away from one another.
Buffy blushed a becoming shade of crimson as her eyes went wide before quickly turning her head away. Spike had a look of stunned confusion on his face.
“Sweet mother of mercy, I did not just walk in on that!” Xander turned around and walked back into the kitchen, leaving both the vampire and the Slayer standing alone on the back porch.
“I’m gonna go…inside,” Buffy said as she made her way towards the door before stopping and turning around quickly. “I, ah, don’t know what just happened, I think maybe we should…?” Spike nodded his head eagerly, not completely meeting her eyes.
“I’m right there with you, pet. Never happened,” Spike replied as he followed her into the house, shaking his head as he tried to decipher what had just come over him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A big thanks to all those who review for the previous chapters! Please keep reviewing! Also a big thanks to Andrea who beta'd this chapter for me! Enjoy guys!