The first time had been an accident. Buffy’s approach to him was violent as ever. She rode him hard and rough. Pulling at him, scratching him. Hissing at him to fuck her, harder, faster, more. She’d hurt him just a little more that he’d expected, and.. he’d vamped. ..just for a moment, lost control and vamped, inside of her. He’d have wagered she would stake him on the spot for it, had he given it any thought.

He hadn’t though, had he? Given it any thought. Just jumped on the Buffy train and clung on, riding her for dear life. The very first time he’d been inside her was all it had taken. He knew then that no matter what he couldn’t give it up. And they’d descended into a kind of madness. A frenzy of fucking. The first time that first night it had been different. She’d been there, with him. The shock of entering her, his awe had been in her face too. He knew that, he’d clung to that. But as soon as that was over she’d unleashed her fury. Biting, scratching, punching him, taunting him calling him names. And still he was hard for her, desperate for her. Wanting to touch, dying to taste.

Hey evil here, he could get off on rough sex with the best of them. He matched her stride for stride as she set their brutal pace. But somewhere he was hoping she’d run out of steam and he could show her, show her how he felt, make love to her. He cringed, here he was, the master vamp, crawling to ‘make love’. Ewww!

And now he’d torn it, vamped. Her eyes when he did it. Oh god, terror and wait a minute..,was that lust?

--x—

‘Wh-what happened?’

‘I..lost control..it was just…’ he fought embarrassment then countered, ‘you’d been laying it on pretty thick Slayer. Demon after all, only so much I can take’

She frowned, ‘but..I mean’ crimson swept over her. He puzzled, he’d thought there’d be something wooden and pointy coming his way any second now. Instead she seemed…flushed? ‘I mean it felt…different…down there…’

Understanding dawned. His mouth curved wickedly. ‘Down there?’ he drawled, drawing out her squirming. It really was delicious, she was such a prude. ‘You mean down where my cock is in your cunt.’ He enunciated each word, savouring her blushes.

‘Well, yeah…’ he shrugged, ‘you know …right?’ Off her look of confusion he drew back, disbelieving, ‘I mean you must know… right?’ She still looked blank, though increasingly pissed at his incredulity. ‘You’re the bloody Slayer! Don’t you know anything about vampires?!?’

‘So tell me’

‘Well here’s not the only place we get bumpies’ He gestured to his forehead. ‘My whole body changes when I vamp, including this’. He took her hand and placed it on his cock ‘You didn’t know?’

She shook her head. He fell silent, thinking it was probably better she didn’t know why or what use he’d made of his vamped cock previously.

----x----

She’d tried to put it out of her mind but her mind wasn’t cooperating. It had felt..it had felt..oh god it had felt good when he vamped. Big, really, really big and, oooh something else. She shook her head trying to clear the thoughts away. It disturbed her. Well really all of it disturbed her, sleeping with Spike!? Well sleeping wasn’t the right word for it, sex: sex with spike. She was having sex with Spike and she couldn’t stop. And now she was thinking about how he’d felt inside her when he’d vamped and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. What was wrong with her??

Maybe it was just the thrill of it. Of something so perverse as doing it with the actual demon. She was sick. She felt the tears well up. Why was she doing this, betraying her calling? Her duty? She knew it was wrong, why couldn’t she stop? Why was she even thinking of crossing yet another line when she couldn’t even bring herself to think about the lines she had already crossed? She was ‘sleeping’..with Spike. Line crossed. He had no soul. Yet all she thought about some days was how long left until sunset, until she could go to him and make the world stop for a few hours. Other times, all she could think of was her shame. What if Giles found out, or...Angel? Or Willow and Xander? The disgust they would feel, the disappointment. Spike was an animal, worse than that, he was a monster.

But the sex, the release, letting go completely, letting the world go to hell as she climaxed again and again. Letting her emotions out as she raged and fought and scratched him, hurt him all over. She put it all on him and still he wanted more, wanted her. Bruising him with her thighs as she convulsed around him, no thought for anything but how her body felt, how good she felt. Her treacherous mind slid back to the feeling when he’d vamped.

----x----

The crypt door burst open. Buffy. ‘Hey love’ he looked up smiling.

‘Don’t call me that’

‘What is it, what happens when you vamp?’ she demanded.

He shook his head, she really wasn’t one for foreplay. ‘Look, I lost control a bit, it won’t happen again’ he tried to head the conversation off

She studied him, eyes steady, slayer eyes, sizing him up. ‘No there’s something you’re avoiding. Out with it’

‘Nothing, just thought you’d be pissed at being shagged by a demon. All those slayer instincts...’

‘Spike, tell me’

‘Thought you’d be running me through with a stake by now’

She grabbed him, slammed him into the wall ‘talk!’

‘You won’t like it’

Slam. ‘Talk.’

He huffed upright, straightening his shirt, leaning in towards her he played his final hand. ‘Sure you wouldn’t prefer to…’ he ran a suggestive hand lightly over her.

She cut her eyes up at him. ‘Spike I am enough of a Slayer to know when a demon is lying to me and you are avoiding something and I want to know what it is.’

He knew he was beaten. ‘Right, when I vamp my cock gets ridges on it’

‘I know that, but what is it for, there’s something about it you aren’t telling me and I want to know.’

He wheeled round spotting an advantage. ‘How do you know all of a sudden? Felt it did you?’ He leered, ‘it feel gooood?’

She slapped him.

He advanced, deadly, stepping right up close. ‘Tell me ‘luv’ how did my vamp cock make you feel? She recoiled flushing. Ashamed. ‘Made you hot didn’t it, made you horny?’

The aggression hung thick between them.

Then she came to, fight going out of her, ‘You can’t distract me like this Spike’, she said flatly. ‘It felt good but there’s something else about it, something you’re hiding and I need to know’.

He conceded with a tilt of his head. ‘Alright but let’s talk it through on the move and no stakes. You won’t like it.’

He told her as they walked through the night. About a victim’s orgasm would spike their blood making it more potent. How a human would orgasm helplessly if penetrated by a vamped out cock. ‘I don’t know how it works, just that it does, doesn’t matter if a person is scared to death or unwilling. It’s the ridges or maybe the secretions… or something... Anyway it makes them come’

‘And then you feed’

‘Then we feed’

‘How come I don’t know about this...’

He shrugged, ‘I guess it’s not so common, you need to know what you’re doing to feed like this, and it’s not like the victim survives so…’ his voice tailed off. The horror and disgust on her face was etched clear.

‘So not all vamps do this?’

‘No.’

She swallowed.'But you have,’ she said quietly.

‘Yes’, he said ‘I have’. She left him then.

----x-----

Alone that night, he’d wandered restlessly, looking for a fight to work his issues out on. She knew what he was, he’d never hidden it from her. He was evil - so why was he cringing about a feeding technique that should be a matter of pride. He’d revelled in his skill back then, taking a girl, her fear and terror intoxicating, spicing her blood by tearing into her and riding her. Her screams and sobs as the pleasure hit. It was an art, it took a master vampire to hunt like that and he’d provided it for Dru many times, proudly. Point of fact, just thinking about it gave him the tinglies. Before he’d been chipped he’d loved doing that.

So what was he now, the Slayer’s whipping boy? Times when she came to him, needy and angry, he’d think just this one more time. He’d do it once more and maybe what happened that first time would somehow happen again. He’d get under her skin, somehow weasel his way into her heart. How could he love her if she didn’t love him? Or maybe he’d just have this one last taste and get out of Sunnydale for good. Yet afterwards, as she ran out virtue fluttering he’d know he’d made no progress. He was still in way over his head and no end in sight.
Maybe he should vamp out inside her, drive her wild, end up with either him staked or her drained. Put an end to it.

--------------x-------------

Despite her revulsion she’d gone back. Needing to scratch the itch she’d turned up at his crypt. He opened the door before she got there. Sensing her, pulling her in and close.

‘Slayer, been waiting for you’

He pulled her hand down over his crotch letting her feel the outline of his burgeoning erection. She’d kissed him frantically them, rubbing against him like she couldn’t get enough sensation.

‘Oh kitten, slow down’, he breathed trying to soothe her with his hands.

‘Spike, Spike, I want..I want, want you’ His heart sang.

She was restless under him, needing more, wanting, keening.

‘More, more, Spike, I need more, please’. Bucking against him she stopped suddenly, completely still with him inside. Her eyes huge and dark.

‘…vamp inside me...please’

The shock froze him. ‘I want it, I want... more’.

‘Buffy, no.’

‘Please Spike, I need you to...’ tears gathered in her eyes ‘..I want you to...break me...’

‘Buffy, love’.

‘Don’t’, she gasped, ‘don’t call me that. Don’t call me love’.

Rage bloomed inside him. This was all she wanted him for. Well he’d let her have it and if he drained her during good bloody riddance! He’d vamped and allowed his demon free reign. Pounding into her, drawing screams as the ridges did their work inside. Buffy arching, clenching. gasping as he thrust in and out of her, in and out. He was dimly aware of orgasms crashing through her, he rode them one after another. The smell of her, all around him driving him crazy. He wanted, needed, his overwhelming desire was to bite her. Slayer blood. The monster in him was roaring for it, roaring for his release. But he fought it, rearing up to keep himself away from her neck even as he rode her fiercely. Grasping her hips as he pounded into her. With a final scream Buffy was wrung dry. Trembling with the last of his control Spike morphed back, still hard. He hadn’t thought himself capable of restraint like this.

Gently he carried them to the bed, laying her down and settling himself on top. In her sated state she allowed him to brush the hair off her face and kiss her tenderly. Gently kissing her face, eyes, nose, smiling against her skin as he continued thrusting. Wrapping her around him, gathering her warm, sweet body to him. Kissing her deeply and thrusting and thrusting: gently, rhythmically. He felt their breathing align, looking deep into her eyes as his release finally claimed him. He allowed the orgasm to wash through him, almost gentle, never once breaking his gaze. Laying himself bare as he poured his seed into her sated body. I love her, god, I love her so. He felt her quiver round him as she clasped him to her and kissed him back.

They lay entwined a long, long time. The quiet stillness of the night around them. He could sense for the first time that she was totally and completely satisfied. He couldn’t speak for fear of ruining the spell between them. Allowing her finally to turn into the crook of his arm and fall asleep.

Something had to be done. He knew it, even if she didn’t. It was like she was addicted to it. Wouldn’t talk about it, but wanted it just the same. Him, vamped, inside her. And he found he couldn’t refuse her. Each time they did it that way he’d promise himself was the last time. But if nothing else he couldn’t resist how sated she was after. How he could wrap her up and give her the love she refused otherwise, after. He’d tried being rougher generally, but found it didn’t hit the same spot. He’d tried to experiment a little. He’d never before bothered to figure out if it was the ridges or the secretions on his cock that caused that shattering reaction in humans. The helpless orgasms, he shuddered thinking about how she screamed and came and screamed and came. The experimenting was good; he’d rubbed his secretions on her sex and found her mindless with lust. But it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted all of it, wanted...vampcock.

Something needed to be done. Each time they did it, his demon broke free that little bit more. The call of her blood was tipping over the control he marshalled within himself. If they continued he knew it was just a matter of time and he’d bite. As for her, well he’d said it himself; every slayer has a death wish. Was she using him to speed towards hers? Laying herself open to him, fucking his beast. The last time he’d noticed her reckless arch back, baring her neck to his fangs – invitingly? He couldn’t tell at the time, too caught in the haze of lust to be sure. But, he knew he’d have to do something to get the situation under control.
She wouldn’t do it, so he’d have to. He leant back in his chair casting an eye at the telly that flicked images at his unseeing stare. There was one way to do it he could think of. But that was never going to happen. He couldn’t…didn’t want that. So what else then pillock? What else? There had to be a solution that didn’t rely on exercising self-control he knew he didn’t have.

The door burst open. Slayer!

---x---

Buffy...

She was all over him, running hands over his chest and shoulders. Kissing him with fierce desperation. He could smell her arousal. Her hands, such busy little hands, were making short work of his T. Her mouth on his chest, sucking, biting. There, oh god yes, there!

Buffy...

She kissed him to shut him up. Tongue sweeping over his lips, duelling with his. She was so raw. Her pants and gasps already quickening. Hand down at his fly, freeing him, fisting his hard length brazenly.

God...Buffy

He let his hands do a little exploring of their own. Getting to her skin, feeling her heat, her desire pulse out at him. He knew she’d ask, had known as soon as she’d burst into his crypt, eyes blazing with want. ‘Vamp for me’

'Buffy'

'Vamp'

'Buffy, it’s dangerous...'

I don’t care was written in her eyes. ‘I need. ..She stuttered ...'I want’ she kissed him with mounting desperation. He could see her decide to say it. Want you in me like that, want to feel your cock like that, feel the power, want to be out of my mind with how good it is. Best I’ve ever...'

He couldn’t hold back against her tide of need. Almost against his will he felt his face, his body, shift. And groaned as she licked her lips at the sight of him. Naked, his ridged cock in her hand. 'You’re so big like this she crooned. Want it in me. Want you' He groaned in surrender. Clawing at her jeans, ripping her panties off, scrabbling at her, in heat. He lifted her up in his arms to plunge into her. She gasped at the penetration, he was huge like this. He saw the manic desire in her, desire that had lost all caution, all bearing. Just pure animal need. Demon need.

He needed to set her down somewhere, get his face away from her neck. He scanned the room for somewhere to set her down so he could lean up on his arms, away from slayer skin, slayer blood, while they fucked. He felt his mouth water. He wanted to. He wanted to. He heard himself gasping and groaning with the effort not to rend and tear. Her arms wrapped around his head, pulling him closer, burying his face into her neck with those strong slim arms. He fought. Fought her, fought himself. Struggling like a maniac to get away. Ripping her from him.

‘What the bloody hell are you playing at?’

Her eyes were dark, stormy. She played offense: ‘...now you chose to go all white knight on me?’

‘I. Don’t. Want. To. Kill. You’.

‘You won’t, I just want’

He stared at her. Heat between them. Itching to close the distance and bury himself in her, all of him, cock, fangs, the lot. Right here, right now, end it.

‘Slayer, be still a moment and think. Stop pretending. I know and you know what we are doing here. You know what I am; you know what you are risking. Just think a moment.’

She wheeled away from him. Tears threatening. Grabbing clothes, fastening shoes with shaky fingers.

‘Love, stop, talk to me’.

‘I can’t’ she bit out, ‘I can’t’. And ran out into the darkness.

Something had to be done, and he was going to have to do it. And seeing as he couldn’t come up with any better ideas it was going to have to be the only idea that had come to mind so far. His jaw tightened. But there was no other way

----x---

Having made up his mind he spent the next days preparing. He needed stuff for the mojo. Stuff he doubted they stocked at The Magic Shop. And even if they did he wasn’t up to the questions. He knew what he needed, but there wasn’t time to build up an alibi for the supplies. Come up with an excuse that would wash with Red or Anyanka

A quick trip out of town got him the necessaries. Stuff to burn for the circle, stuff to sprinkle on the ground. Needed to make sure the illusion he created was controlled. He didn’t really like magic, tricksy stuff, but he could work it pretty well when he had need to. Time was he’d done this spell pretty regular. His mouth quirked at the memory of how he’d used this little safety mechanism with Dru. What would his unchipped-self have said if he’d known that one day all that would amount to practice for a spell to keep a Slayer safe?

He shrugged, affecting some of his customary nonchalance, love was a funny thing. But the tension in his core wouldn’t release.

---x---

He called her on the phone to set it up. We need to talk, somewhere public. So we don’t just rip our clothes off again. He added to himself. They’d met at the Espresso Pump. She was somewhere between sheepish and angry after their last exchange. He was marvelling that they were out for coffee.

‘Listen pet, I’ve come up with a solution.’

Her brow went quizzical

‘A way to keep you safe if you really want me vamped.’

‘I don’t want you Spike, vamped or unvamped’ she retorted hotly

‘Right’ he drawled, ‘so let’s say it’s for the next time you don’t want me. Just a little present from me to keep you safe’

She flounced in irritation. He took her arm.
‘Buffy, please listen to me. If you never want me again all it will do is keep me from harming you. And if there is another little slip up in your ‘not wanting me’ plan then we are gonna need some protection’

‘There will be no slip ups’

‘OK, let’s say this then. Do it to protect me. I nearly bit you the other night. I don’t want to, but I can’t be sure I won’t. I need this.’ He clenched his jaw, preparing to play his final card. ‘I need your help on this Buffy, cant to it alone, help me.’ The Big Bad in him quailed miserably.

She softened at that. ‘Ok. What's the deal’

‘It’s a spell’

‘No’

‘Listen it’s a spell to make my demon submit. It won’t affect you, just me. You need to be there so my demon knows who to submit to that’s all.’

It had taken a few more assurances but finally, agreement.

----x---
She’d turned up at his crypt to find he’d done some major rearranging on the lower level. He’d set up a low tomb, a bit like a podium and chains, expertly fixed to unmovable features, draped across it. To one side was an old and battered chest that he was rummaging through. The contents looked like she’d rather not know what they were. She felt her stomach clench. This was Spike. Chains and torture and god knows what else, and she was sleeping with him.

He seemed reluctant, fighting something. ‘Okay if I have to be all dominatrixy I’m out. No way am I wearing one of those freakazoid outfits.’

He smiled tightly, ‘pity’. He went straight to business. ‘Look, I need to be chained up there, I’ll show you how’. Gesturing to the tomb. ‘You light the candles and the incense; I’ve already done most of the prep work.’ He glanced up briefly, ‘I’ll need you to flog me.’

‘Spike!’

‘I need it to enter the illusion, you stay out of the circle, it won’t affect you. But there needs to be a bit of pain.’

‘I am NOT going to flog you.’

‘Look you’ve hit me plenty over the years, see it as just more of that.’

‘That's different’

‘Please Buffy; it’ll probably only take a few licks and then the magic will take over and you can just wait ‘til it’s done.’

Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What will it do?’

His face hardened. ‘It’ll take me back to something. ..You don’t need to know. It will remind me of something. Then my demon will know not to hurt you ok? Probably won’t even take long. ..’ He snorted. ‘Chain me up, a couple of licks and bobs your uncle’.

‘That simple huh?’

‘Let’s get started.’ He stood back and began to strip off his clothes.

It felt so awkward she got the giggles. They weren’t reciprocated. Something was really getting to him about all this. He instructed her on how to tie him up. ‘I need to be on all fours, facing that way. You need to get the chains tied just right. The whips and stuff are in the chest’.

Realisation hit her, ‘is that yours?’ She pointed to the chest. ‘Yours and Dru's. Eww!’

‘Leave it Slayer’. The muscle in his jaw was jumping; she could sense the tension in him. He tried to smile and relax. ‘Look Slayer, given your blushing eyes I wouldn’t recommend any looking through the chest. Right arsenal of sex toys that’.

‘OK I’m set, give me the potion and then close the circle like I said’. She came up to him with the small vial he’d given her. ‘You need to put it in my eyes.’

----x----

The whole thing seemed stupid, lame even. Naked vampire trussed up on a coffin in a magic circle. Except he was shaking almost, and they hadn’t even started yet. Whatever sick thing he was about to do she was sure she didn’t want to know. She saw the collection of whips and floggers on the top of the chest. God there were paddles and clamps and …. Goodness were those dildos and harnesses?!!…she shut the chest quickly advancing on spike with a whip and flogger in hand. He had said not to look, and she’d known they’d tortured each other. But to see it, all that stuff. Jesus!

In her befuddlement her foot strayed into the circle.

---x---

The scene before her changed, switching between the reality of Spike’s crypt and the illusion he was living. She saw him, thin, no, the word was emaciated. His body covered in bruises and tears. Blood everywhere, she could smell it rich and dark. Smell it like she’d never smelt anything before. Reality flooded back and she could see him small and pale, a little striped, but not…Then it was back...seeing him, smelling his blood. A giant cross-shaped burn marked the centre of his back. His hair a sandy brown, matted in blood. She knew somehow that he’d been here a long time, weeks. This…she’d done this...for a long time. Hurting him, beating him, burning him. Trying to fuck him into submission. She could see the blood smearing his buttocks and thighs. She’d done that, been doing that.

She shook her head in confusion, the scene cleared again. She saw Spike, lying helpless and naked, trembling. The illusion came back, dreamlike she looked at her hands. They were huge. Huge male hands, holding a whip and a flogger. She felt a vicious glee take her over as she raised the flogger, knowing it couldn’t be long now. The boy would submit...soon. He’d held out, surprised him even, but the moment was fast approaching and he was going to win. He rained down blows, ripping the skin, the boy was screaming now. Many, many weeks it had taken to force him to make any noise at all during the beatings. Now the screams came freely he thought with satisfaction, the final moment was coming any time now. He could hardly wait!

Buffy felt herself, male, big, powerful. She felt her...his?...vicious delight at what was going on. She felt her own horror dissolving as she inhabited this new form. Taking mastery over another was what he lived for. Breaking them totally, completely, how he loved it. One more thing she needed. She stepped over to the chest, finding the largest dildo and harness she strapped it on over her leather pants. Positioning herself behind the prone vampire she looked down, seeing her large male chest and abs. Her own huge cock ready to fuck the boy into submission. She stroked it as she whipped him. Feeling the incredible sensation as lust rose in her, stiffening the rod, tightening the balls. The body in front of him was almost at the point of no return. He lined himself up and thrust brutally into the torn hole. The boy screamed in pain. He whipped him steadily. Then stopped, adjusting himself to find the angle that would cause that final devastating reaction. Knew he was there when he felt the body stiffen in reaction. ‘So boyo’, he murmured, ‘you don’t want this you say? So why is it gonna make you spend?’ The boy was frantic in his chains, trying to wriggle away, ‘yes squirm for me boy, just makes it better’, he taunted. The boy held still. He could smell tears, he suppressed a smile, it was better when they cried during…He was already anticipating his satisfaction when he started to move. Rubbing against the boy's prostrate mercilessly. ‘Go on sweet Willy, come for me, come for your Sire’.

The boy arched, bucked, screaming ‘no! no! no!’ even as his cock started to spurt. Buffy felt herself inside the huge male body. Felt her mind screaming no in time with Spike. No she didn’t want to see this, she didn’t want to know this. She wanted to stop. But she couldn’t, instead she felt herself fucking him, felt his spasms clenching around her dick, felt her balls draw up as she pounded her own release into the broken abused body below her. Felt herself rear up, snarling, to bite her fangs into his shoulder, tearing his flesh from him. Howling in triumph.

He was hanging in the chains now, crying hoarsely, she could smell tears and snot alongside the blood now as she withdrew and strode around to the boys head. ‘Tell me Willy’ she demanded, ‘tell me who I am’.‘Sire’, the boy croaked. She forced the cock into his mouth, grabbing his hair, relishing the bruises on his face, the battered bleeding lips. ‘Take it all boyo, clean me up and remember your master around here’. Spikes eyes were dead, tears streaking his face as his mouth and throat worked to take the cock. She came to; spell breaking around her like glass. She was standing at Spike's head, shoving the dildo into his mouth. She felt vomit rise in her throat as spike gasped ‘Sire, Sire’, incoherent with remembered pain.

She tore the harness off, breaking it in her haste to get away, running into the night too shocked to cry.

---x---

Soon after bolting before she stopped, retching against a tombstone. Gasping and panting she sat trying to collect her thoughts to get some handle on what had just happened. She’d raped him, or no she hadn’t. But someone had. The images came flooding back. His poor abused body, so beaten, so bloody. Her delight in it, so savage. Or, not her delight, someone else’s. But she’d been him; she’d been the person beating Spike, breaking him, mastering him. Her thought turned to Spike. Oh god no, he was still there, she’d left him there.

She hurried back, found him lying in the chains. He was out of his mind, rambling, crying. ‘Spike. Spike!’ His eyes were empty, elsewhere. ‘Sire please sire, no more, please’, he was begging. Begging her…no, no begging him. Who ‘him’? Her mind whirled wildly to the only conclusion, lying there in front of her all along.

‘Angel?’

Something in him seemed to snap into the present. ‘Angelus’

He looked up, confusion on his face. ‘Buffy?’

‘Spike, what did you do? What was that? What happened?’

‘Easy pet’, he was trying to tough it out, fighting to stop the trembling that was making the chains shake. ‘It’s over now, was nothing, just need a rest now’

‘Spike, what was that? I saw...I..’ She looked around wildly, His face was smooth and clear of bruising. His back striped from the whip, she’d bitten him deep enough to draw blood but otherwise no real damage. Except, except, she saw the blood streaking his thighs. She’d done...she’d used...Spike...

He couldn’t meet her eyes. The shame flushing through him. She’d seen him, like that, seen what Angelus had done. He felt the tearing in his ass, oh god, she’d been in the illusion. He felt the bile rising, his lowest moment in 120 years layed out for her perusal. For her enactment. Bloody magic, he hated it, bloody him - always bolloxing it up. He was too done in, despair washed through him. He had nothing left, the last thing, the very last thing he’d ever wanted was for someone else to see what had happened that night. The night Angelus sired him. And now she knew.

He was sagging in the chains, weeping quietly. ‘Spike, Spike. Look at me’. Nothing. He was trying to curl up away from her, like a wounded animal. It all fell into place, he hadn’t wanted her to see, had he, wanted her outside the circle, outside the illusion. But why would anyone subject themselves to a full colour remake of that? Shame on you Buffy, she thought, she knew why. Because she’d kept pushing the envelope, kept pushing him when she knew it wasn’t safe, knew he couldn’t trust himself.

She undid the chains, Spike flopping on the tombstone. She should wash the blood off. But suddenly it seemed too impossibly intimate to touch him there. There were she’d raped him she thought bitterly. She picked him up. He seemed delirious, but too quiet for delirious. Like he’d left somehow. Tear streaked, beyond exhausted. All the sparkle, all the life she associated with him was gone. ‘Was he dead?’ she thought stupidly. Overwhelmed by the need to comfort him she dragged him to his bed. It’d be filthy after but she couldn’t leave him there on the cold stone. Bed it was and she went in with him holding him in her arms, trying to somehow warm life back into him.

------x-----

They’d stayed a long cold night like that. She didn’t really see him cry, he made no sound, but tears were somehow leaking from him, wetting her shoulder and the pillow. Where are you spike she wondered, are you here with me or are you still there. In the morning she’d gotten up to fetch him a mug of blood.

Antsy she’d cleared away the chains and chest, busied herself while he slept or lay there, she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t figure out how he got water, she wanted to get some to wash him. She was trying to stay practical, stay focused on what needed doing to ward off thoughts of what had happened between them. Had it even happened between them? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Once upon a time Angel had been her knight in shining armour. She knew he’d done bad things. He’d done them to her. But this was on a different level. Seeing this, feeling this was different. Seeing Spike as Angel’s victim, bad, bold cocky Spike weeping, begging. She had felt what it was to be Angelus. She could never forget now, never ever forget how Angel much had enjoyed what he’d done to Spike that night. It had been a real high point for him. She knew that without doubt.

‘You still here pet?’

He’d cracked an eye open. She rushed to him ‘Spike! I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Not your fault pet’ he started. ‘Hush now’

‘I raped you’

‘Wasn’t you pet’

‘But I did, I used...’ She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘dildo’ besides maybe it was a strap on what did she know?

‘I know’ he shushed. ‘Doesn’t matter, it was the spell’

‘But I did’

‘Yeah, you buggered me good girl, but it was Angelus did the raping’

‘It was Angel’

‘Yeah’

They’d talked then. Slowly, haltingly they talked things through. A strange normality settling itself over the nights’ events. She’d needed to know more about him and angel and how it had been and he’d told her some bits. How Angel had eventually sired him - to dominate him, like he dominated Dru. ‘Why you think I am the only vampire you ever met with two sires?’ She sensed the rest, his need to assert himself against Angel. The shame he felt about being mastered.

‘But I also....’ she started

‘It’s not the sex love. Have done plenty of that since’

‘You have?’

He shrugged ‘‘M bit of an omnivore that way I guess. Like it either way, men, women. It’s different, but it’s all pleasure.’

‘But last night I hurt you’

‘Have had it rough before’, he smiled at her blush. ‘I like it that way too, even with a man’

Her shock made him grin. ‘C’mon all that time with Angel and Darla, you don’t think it went every way you can think of?’

‘I - I hadn’t really thought. Angel never …’

He rolled his eyes, ‘the great poof was always a little conflicted about it but yeah we did...all those things’. He suddenly looked serious ‘but it’s different that to what you saw last night. That was Angel. ’ He swallowed it was hard to find his voice, ‘that was Angel....’ he didn’t know the words for it ‘...that wasn’t about sex, love, that was about power.’

He leaned forward to touch her face. ‘Didn’t want you seeing that love. I’m sorry…I thought it would make me safe, and it will, but I didn’t want you to know that about me.’

She felt the tears threatening, because she hadn’t really thought about him, about what she now knew about him. She’d been thinking about what she now knew about Angel. He read her unerringly: ‘I didn’t even want you knowing that about your big wanker boy.’ He sighed. ‘Just wanted to keep you safe.’

She felt like a traitor then, here in his bed. So close to him, feeling his need for her, his love. But not feeling it answered in herself

‘I need to go’ she murmured, ‘Dawn will be...’

‘Waiting yeah, better get back to the li'l Bit. ‘M ok love’

But she was gone