Chapter twenty-one
Blood soaked through the fabric of her shirt, hastily tied to hide her bleeding breast from the eyes of her friends. She stood silent, determined yet shattered with tear streaks down dusty cheeks, her arms tugging Spike at the armpits—not quite caring that his hands scraped against rock—as Xander grabbed his feet and Willow sanctified the rear.
They escaped, but Buffy’s heart was left behind.
The lump of misery in her throat refused to dwindle, even once her vampire was secured in the place Jesse had been not much more than an hour previously, and then the pushy reassurances and sympathy from Xander and Willow became too much and she felt close to totally snapping.
“Can we just…not?” She looked up at them, her face bare of artifice but filled with horrified reality.
“B-but Buffy, I think we should stay. And talk. ‘Cause it’s been a really disturbing night and, well, Spike—” Willow bit her lip, brought to a sudden end by the distinct absence of words that could describe Spike at this point of their night.
And that was apparently all that was needed to push Buffy over the edge, her control snapping almost loud enough to scare the pants off them as she sobbed loudly and buried her distraught face in her hands. Willow’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes darting to the unconscious vampire whose name had cracked the slayer, and as one, her friends embraced her.
Her shoulders shook and, for the first time, Willow understood the pressure that Buffy had had to bear every single day since she’d been chosen. It was a lot to ask of a young girl—she knew she couldn’t have turned her back on all she knew to dedicate her nights to fighting the bad guys. Well, maybe if she was able to use her computer she could do it—but risking her life night after night? That was a bit much to expect of anyone, and yet they’d not asked a question over Buffy doing it.
“Look, I’m gonna go out on several limbs here but, what Spike did…” Xander’s pause extended so that Willow had given up on her held breath, worried that Xander would say something insensitive to the lovesick slayer.
Buffy’s face was a human puddle of human misery when she pushed away from Willow’s embrace and stared down the now silent boy. “What about it, Xan? Come on, you’ve seen me…intimately now—” The tears were now dripping steadily from her chin and her bottom lip wobbled pathetically. “I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this moment. Tell me about what Spike did?” she implored, her voice squeaky with pain and dread and crushing disappointment.
All three turned to the subject, and so each of their true feelings were hidden from the rest.
Xander hadn’t even flinched at the escalating hostility from Buffy, just rubbed the back of his neck and thought things through thoroughly in his head. “He’s a vampire, Buffy. He’s been tortured, tormented and, I’m guessing by the hinky glow in his cheeks, probably drained. It’s my completely uneducated and ignorant belief that the Spike we know wasn’t quite in the driving seat.”
“H-he attacked me.” Gone was the fiery slayer and in her place was a wounded Buffy, lost and confused on how to act now that her boyfriend had touched her in a way she would never have believed she could be. Not as a girl with superpowers.
Willow wrapped her arms around her friend and rubbed her arms gently. “Maybe we should try and feed him—give him the blood we kinda forgot to give Jesse?”
Buffy turned to her, her eyes glassy. “And what do I do then?” Self-assurance lost, confidence shattered and feeling betrayed, the Slayer had scattered her essence to the wind and Buffy was floundering in a sea of unchartered territory.
Willow tossed a quick glance at Xander but found no answers. She gulped back the lump of concern that made her want to cry right alongside Buffy. This change in the vampire they’d thought they knew was as shocking to her too, and she was finding it difficult to accept the likelihood of Xander’s observations as she was offering comfort to the girlfriend feeling vulnerable and lost.
“I-I don’t know, Buffy.”
And that highlighted the collected feeling. Nobody knew what to do, how to act, or really even where to look.
“We need Giles,” Xander decided, and he left the huddle to make a call.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Xander took a seat in the Summers’ living room and tried to control his shaking hands. He couldn’t even process the relief he felt to be this far away from Buffy. So many emotions were swirling around in his head that he felt screaming at the top of his lungs couldn’t even get him close to calm. Images shot through his head like staccato clicks: Buffy shirtless, Buffy’s breasts all beautiful and tan, Spike’s fangs embedded in the flesh around her nipple as the other breast was uncovered and free to his gaze. And then the feelings—his arm brushing against her skin as he tried to wrestle the big bad off his friend.
Friend. Sure. That’s why he was sitting here fantasising about her while she stood traumatised downstairs next to the guy who was her real boyfriend.
Somewhere way down deep inside—somewhere far deeper than Xander suspected he even went—he knew that this would devastate Spike when he was back in his right mind. Something told him that the guy just wasn’t the type to force himself on women and whatever that was that had happened—that attack that had bared and claimed Buffy’s breasts for her closest friends to see—was raw behaviour in it’s most primitive, and with vampires, that was really kind of out of his realm of understanding.
Buffy’s too apparently.
He felt the burn of jealousy in his gut and instead of giving in and wallowing in those erotic images of primal vampire and slayer nudity, Xander tried to be the bigger man. No matter how he felt about Buffy, the girl was in love with Spike. He’d seen it in her eyes when Jesse had started saying all those things. Which, now that he was thinking clearly, added to the possibilities of the sense-making.
And Jesse. God, he’d really made the biggest of bad calls in that situation and he wouldn’t be surprised that once Buffy was all okay with the vampire lovin’ she’d come and plant her shiny fashionable boots firmly in his rear.
A great shuddering sob rocked his body and Xander felt himself finally crumbling under the knowledge his best friend was dead. He might still be walking and talking, but the words and the strut proved beyond any doubt he might have clung to that the Jesse he’d grown up with was gone forever.
It wouldn’t help to wallow in the anger that maybe it might have been different if Spike had been there when Jesse had first opened his amber eyes—not that it wasn’t tempting. And there was no denying that if Xander hadn’t seen Spike’s completely thrashed state he might well have decided it was time to dust the vamp. But he had seen. The guy had been kidnapped by his own kind, brought to within an inch of dust at their unfeeling hands, and that went a long way to saying that Spike wasn’t part of their crowd any longer in Xander’s book of wisdom.
If he could face the truth, it was a relief. Before Jesse had been played with by this Darla chick and drained, he’d considered his relationship with Spike pretty near friendship. He’d held out hope that the horror of vampires as a reality wasn’t as doom and Darth Vader as Giles had made out. Sure, they were evil and ate people and so needed to be staked, but Spike had convinced him that there might be something else—something less disturbing in his life with a vampire that wanted to fight alongside them for good. All the freaky Hellmouth activity aside, Xander enjoyed Spike’s company and he didn’t like what this message was shoving at him. Why was this vamp different? He was soulless, yet he loved the Slayer. He was soulless, yet none of them had been nibbled on let alone been made dinner. Well, except for Buffy’s succulent breast—and who wouldn’t want that as an entrée?
Right, enough on that pity train, was time to jump off and make his way back home before it got right out of his control. Because it always had been in his control. Yeah, right. Xander rolled his eyes at his own idiotic confidence. He did not suit being Optimism Guy. And if it wasn’t for the very real girl now suffering from his mistake downstairs, he just might have chosen to make himself scarce.
Taking a deep fortifying breath, Xander stood and made his way to the phone. If Giles didn’t know how to clean up this mess then they were all screwed.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It stung.
Buffy bit her lip and stared at Spike, wondering what she’d do when he opened his eyes and looked at her accusingly—looked at her lustily. She’d swapped the childe for the father and at this moment, she was seeing Jesse in Spike when before she’d seen Spike in Jesse. She didn’t like that Spike now appeared to her as the lesser vampire, merely because she’d been the recipient of his attack.
She was trying to think of it like Xander explained. Through the compulsive shaking, she was trying to cling to the memory of her sweet boyfriend who could see her soul just by looking into her eyes. The boyfriend she could see held so much potential to be more than a vampire was supposed to be. But right now, all she was seeing was the vampire who had ripped her clothes and marked her breast with his fangs.
God, her friends had seen her breasts, and while that might have been acceptable for Willow, it was not something she’d ever wanted to share with Xander. You just didn’t go there with guy friends, and whatever it was that Spike thought he was doing, it so wasn’t okay. Not by a really long shot.
She felt like what had happened had been something monumentally private, and Buffy felt frustrated and also terrified that Willow wouldn’t just go upstairs and leave her in peace so she could sort through all this in her head. So she could be alone around Spike for a while to decide how to feel. How to deal.
She couldn’t stand the concern Willow aimed at her during quick corner eye glances, almost as if she was scared and didn’t want Buffy to know she was under observation. It was stifling and conflicted and did nothing to help Buffy feel settled in her own mind about what she should do in this situation. She needed her mom, though she knew that would rate high on the Big Old Mistakometre. She could see it now. ‘Mom, meet my vampire boyfriend. He was kidnapped, drained to within an inch of a dusty end, and when I rescued him with my mighty superpowers, he ripped my clothes off, bit me and more than likely would have forced me to have sex. Oh, and I love him.’ Yeah, that would go down swell.
Another series of shudders rocked through her body and Buffy felt the tears well up painfully in the back of her throat. It was taking everything she had to act as normal as possible, but having Willow there was making it harder than she would have thought possible.
“Will?” Her voice was low, weak, desperate. Her answer was a startled widening of green eyes. “Would you mind…can you go upstairs with Xander for a bit? I-I need to think.”
Willow stared at her like she’d lost her mind, and Buffy wondered at the bubbling hysteria surging through her body if perhaps she actually had. Still, the redhead slowly nodded her head and backed toward the stairs, her eyes switching from a resolute Buffy to a damaged Spike. Admitted defeat in each step, Willow lowered her eyes, turned, and ascended the stairs into the kitchen.
Buffy had never felt so relieved to have her friends gone.
She stood unmoving as she soaked up the silence. Arms hugging her torn shirt to her body, Buffy let the tears finally fall, blinking rapidly so as to never lose sight of the one who had inspired them. On rubbery legs, she stole closer, wanting so much to just hold the cool security of his hand. She gasped as she reached out and felt his flesh. Even here his knuckles were worn, torn, and Buffy felt tears for the destruction of his beauty along with his heart.
“Buffy?” The croaked voice barely resembled Spike, yet it was enough to seize her heart and hope for more than was reasonable. The ball of tears grew in her throat, the discomfort now painful as more overflowed from her eyes and slipped down damp cheeks.
“Spike?” But when she looked up, it wasn’t the sexy blue that tantalised her senses, it was the cold calculating gaze of an amber-flecked demon. Her hand was gripped hard as she tried to abruptly pull away and Buffy cursed herself for being sentimental in a situation that had no room for it.
His growl wasn’t hateful—what she saw in that demon stare was want, need—not a desire to rip out her throat and bathe in her blood. And yet, it chilled her to the bone. It warned her that she was not the one in control of this, that she’d allowed the girl in her too much time on the outside to ever be back in control of this. And as she was just reaching the decision to shout out for help, Spike almost ripped her arm out of the socket as he brought her down.
Buffy cracked her knee on the side of the cot and yet before the pain could register, Spike had her wholly beneath him, rubbing his cock ruthlessly against her inner thigh.
“Please stop.” She couldn’t force more than a saddened whisper, feeling the hard prodding cock and feeling terrified beyond measure. “Spike? Please stop.”
He ignored her, nuzzling hungrily at the flesh at her throat as he continued to stimulate his cock against the heat of her still clothed crotch. She felt his fingers prod at her heat at the same second his fangs ripped into her neck, and all she could do was sob as her small hands clung to the fabric spread tight over his back. While her blood flowed from her body and into his, she experienced for the first time a man’s trespass into her body. Spike’s fingers were uncharacteristically gentle as he poked first one finger and then two into her scorching passage. She didn’t want to release the moan building in her throat, but she was so weak, getting weaker and with a tiny jerk of her hips it came flowing out.
Just as the light swinging from the basement ceiling caught and blurred in her unfocused vision, the fingers slowly slid out and a hand was stroking her hair as the beast kissed at the two holes in her throat. They burned, as did the bite marks at her breast and the stretched muscles of her pussy. Something was trickling into her panties but Buffy felt beyond tired to even care what it meant.
Finally he lifted his head and all she could see was the blue of the sky, of the ocean, of the vamp that she loved. A finger traced the line of her newest set of tears and a matching one ran down his cheek.
And her heart broke.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The main reason I stopped writing/posting Disillusioned was because the fic started out so light and became incredibly dark. If you read this chapter you will see my reasoning. I have difficulty writing dark--I find it depressing and it takes a whole lot out of me, and so its next to impossible to sustain. This is also the reason why I stalled with What Place is This? and I think Elemental Slayer. So many people really loved Disillusioned and I am quite concerned about their reaction to the fic from here on out. I admit that only the bare bones of the tale remain in my memory so it could veer in different directions, but I do have a number of chapters written that I was too scared to post. I want to get on with writing spuffy so I've decided to throw caution to the wind and get these off my hard drive. Please, please be kind.
Warnings: This chapter is dark and has elements of non-con in it. I've ticked the 'rape' box but...well...I will leave it up to the reader.
Warnings: This chapter is dark and has elements of non-con in it. I've ticked the 'rape' box but...well...I will leave it up to the reader.
Chapter End Notes:
So, there you have it. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat wondering what you all think of this. I'm fully prepared for hatred to be the result but I hope I managed to keep some fans of the fic interested. Whichever your response, thank you for reading.